{ "lto": { "version": "v2026.04", "timestamp": "2026-03-25 09:41:27 (UTC)", "git-commit-id": "a7f90e9be3db084255f590b5da612af0f0adc276", "encoding": "UTF-8", "story-count": 4339 }, "stories": [ { "story-id": "writing: Inferno (1320)", "title": "Inferno", "date": "1320", "description": "Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for \"Hell\") is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the \"realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen\".\n\nAs an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journey into the underworld", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dante travels through hell itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The poem discusses what one must do and not do in order to be a good Christian. It also exposes hypocrisies within the Christian faith, yet affirms the core tenets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inferno is in particular concerned with sin, and passes judgment on various characters from history by placing them in appropriate circles of hell where they experience suitable punishments for their sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "various souls are punished in Dante's afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the center of hell, Dante saw Lucifer with his three faces chewing eternally on the arch-traitors Brutus, Cassius, and Judas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the second circle of Hell are those that had sex when they were not supposed to, according to contemporary norms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the second circle of Hell are those that allowed romantic desires to rule their life to an excessive degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gluttony was punished in the third circle of Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greed, in its various incarnations, was punished in the fourth circle of Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wrath was punished in the fifth circle of Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heretics were punished in the sixth circle of Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Violence, especially murder, was punished in the seventh circle of Hell, divided into three rings corresponding to violence against neighbors, against self, and against God/art/nature respectively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fraud was punished in the eight circle of Hell, subdivided into numerous Bolgias including for panderers, flatterers, simoniacs, sorcerers, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, sowers of discord, and falsifiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Treason was punished in the ninth circle of Hell, subdivided into four rounds for treason against kin, treason against country, and treason against guests, and treasons against one's lords. At the center of Hell, treason against God is punished.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "boccachio1353d01s01", "title": "The Decameron: Day 1, Story 1", "date": "1353", "description": "Narrator: Panfilo. Location: Prato. Subject: Ser Capparello ofi Prato, friar, and Musciatto Franzesi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-boccaccio.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Master Ciappelletto disingenuously confessed his sins. It was mentioned that everyone begins by invoking Him, i.e., God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story regarded Master Ciappelletto's last days", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Master Ciappelletto was guilty of most, if not all, of the deadly sins", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry VI Part I (1592)", "title": "Henry VI, Part 1", "date": "1592", "description": "Henry VI, Part 1, often referred to as 1 Henry VI, is a history play by William Shakespeare—possibly in collaboration with Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe—believed to have been written in 1591. It is set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England.\n\nWhereas Henry VI, Part 2 deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles and the inevitability of armed conflict and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, Henry VI, Part 1 deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, as the English political system is torn apart by personal squabbles and petty jealousy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_Part_1" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "England lost its French territories and we saw the beginning of the Wars of the Roses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the Wars of the Roses, and Joan d'Arc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the beginning of the Wars of the Roses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Somerset and Margaret lusted for royal power by way of controlling the king", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Henry VI came of age", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the English lamented losing territory in France and being forced to a shameful peace", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Taming of the Shrew (1592)", "title": "The Taming of the Shrew", "date": "1592", "description": "The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction,[a] in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then has the play performed for Sly's diversion.\n\nThe main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling participant in the relationship; however, Petruchio \"tames\" her with various psychological torments, such as keeping her from eating and drinking, until she becomes a desirable, compliant, and obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's younger sister, Bianca, who is seen as the \"ideal\" woman. The question of whether the play is misogynistic has become the subject of considerable controversy, particularly among modern scholars, audiences, and readers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gold digging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Petruchio overtly wooed \"cursed\" Katherina only for the sake of her father's money. Others remarked on the wealth that would come with the Minola daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Katherina was the disagreeable woman with the eponymous character flaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Petruchio and Katherina; in the end others in comparison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "angry Katherina got a taste of her own medicine from angry Petruchio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bianca and Lucentio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katherina was a spoiled brat accustomed to getting everything she wanted, until Petruchio tamed her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story ended with the moral, perhaps offensive to modern sensibilities, that wives should obey their husbands unquestioningly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baptista with Katherina and Bianca", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katherina and Bianca", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Petruchio with Grumio and other mistreated servants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katherina and Bianca", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593)", "title": "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", "date": "1593", "description": "The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1589 and 1593. It is considered by some to be Shakespeare's first play,[a] and is often seen as showing his first tentative steps in laying out some of the themes and motifs with which he would later deal in more detail; for example, it is the first of his plays in which a heroine dresses as a boy. The play deals with the themes of friendship and infidelity, the conflict between friendship and love, and the foolish behaviour of people in love. The highlight of the play is considered by some to be Launce, the clownish servant of Proteus, and his dog Crab, to whom \"the most scene-stealing non-speaking role in the canon\" has been attributed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Valentine and Proteus are fast friends but finds themselves competing for Silvia and must choose whether to pursue love or retain their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Proteus and Julia; Valentine and Silvia; Proteus and Silvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was to show how foolishly humans can behave when in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valentine and Proteus fell out over a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valentine and Proteus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valentine, Silvia, Proteus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proteus notably betrayed the trust and friendship of Valentine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia was devastated after she learned she had been spurned by Proteus, but followed him in hope; foolish Thurio pined for Silvia who wanted nothing to do with him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia posed as a boy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proteus came to feel remorse for his abundantly uncouth behavior (being inconstant, lying, betraying friendship, threatening rape)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duke of Milan and Silvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio and Proteus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silvia was told that Valentine was dead and wept though she remained unconvinced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it is a little unclear how conscious the play is of the fact that Silvia was passed around like a parcel from father to suitor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love is blind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valentine was blinded to Lady Sylvia's faults because of his love for her. This Speed summed up with his words: \"Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes, or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered!\"", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry VI Part 2 (1594)", "title": "Henry VI, Part 2", "date": "1594", "description": "Henry VI, Part 2 (often written as 2 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas Henry VI, Part 1 deals primarily with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, the death of his trusted adviser Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the rise of the Duke of York and the inevitability of armed conflict. As such, the play culminates with the opening battle of the War, the First Battle of St Albans (1455).\n\nAlthough the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_Part_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Suffolk, Margaret, and others intrigued for power by capturing the king and getting Gloucester killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cade, York, Somerset, and Margaret all overtly lusted for royal power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "England lost its French territories and we saw the beginning of the Wars of the Roses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the Wars of the Roses, and the rule of Henry VI", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the beginning of the Wars of the Roses; Cade's uprising", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story concerned the relationship between Henry VI and Margaret", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Queen Margaret loved Suffolk behind the back of a clueless King Henry VI", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "the English were angry at having lost territory and being driven out of France", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Henry VI wielded his royal powers ineptly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suffolk faced the pirates that would decapitate him, with defiance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was distraught after Gloucester was assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade's mob lead Emmanuel off to be hanged for his literacy; then there was book burning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade explained that everything would be held in common under his rule", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aristocracy vs. commoners regarding Cade's uprising", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A distraught Margaret cradled her lover's severed head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salisbury motivated his choice to break oath with a soliloquy about conscience", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clifford and York decided to duke it out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Clifford lamented his father's demise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Titus Andronicus (1594)", "title": "Titus Andronicus", "date": "1594", "description": "References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Andronicus", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Andronicus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tamora plotted vengeance on Titus and Rome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Titus and Tamora had an escalating cycle of vengeance going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the plot was an ever-escalating cycle of hate between Titus and Tamora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "Demetrius and Chiron raped Lavinia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were numerous gruesome murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamora begged in vain for Titus to spare her oldest son, who was then gruesomely sacrificed. Titus killed his own son and reacted callously afterwards. Titus grieved after he received his two remaining sons' heads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamora had a mixed-race child by Aaron conceived behind her husband Saturninus' back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "critics argue about the reason for the excessive levels of violence in the play and we think it is pointedly (perhaps sarcastically) meant to appeal to the baser parts of the audience", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "due to the escalating vendetta, political order broke down and civilized Rome became as barbarous as the Goths that Titus had fought on Rome's behalf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Titus and three sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Titus and Lavinia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamora and three sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamora's sons; Titus' sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "after lopping his own hand off, Titus became evermore disheveled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia was more distraught at having been raped than for her gruesome mutilations, we understand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aaron was notably sadistic and bragged thereof", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titus performed human sacrifices to the Roman gods as thanks for his victory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titus killed his own son in a kerfuffle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron wrote a forged letter, which frames Titus's sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titus's sons with Lavinia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titus and young Lucius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcus and young Lucius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius grieved after his father of the same name was decapitated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a nurse cursed the blackness of Aaron's child, and Aaron defended his complexion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron professed his love for his newborn baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titus killed Lavinia to spare her a life of suffering and shame", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry VI Part 3 (1595)", "title": "Henry VI, Part 3", "date": "1595", "description": "Henry VI, Part 3 (often written as 3 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses and 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, 3 Henry VI deals primarily with the horrors of that conflict, with the once stable nation thrown into chaos and barbarism as families break down and moral codes are subverted in the pursuit of revenge and power.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_Part_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clifford particularly sought vengeance for his father; Magaret tormented York in her lustful vengeance; Warwick swore vengeance; there were many other incidents of that sort and the war became something of a vendetta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw how civil war leads to suffering and many dead children; Henry VI lamented the horrors and commented on a son killing a father and a father killing a son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Wars of the Roses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Henry VI's right to rule was challenged by the Duke of York", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "the struggle mostly turned into one for survival, but the lust for power is still perceivable in York's and Margaret's sons NOTE: may become more important towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "York faced his death with notable valiance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "York and his three sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Margaret and her son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret and Henry VI", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "York's sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Clifford;", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A son mourned the father he had killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father mourned the death of an only son he had killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a father had unwittingly killed his own son and a son his father, and they both regretted what they had done", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Grey was told she must sleep with King Edward in order to save her late husband's land for her children", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Richard II (1595)", "title": "Richard II", "date": "1595", "description": "The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, commonly called Richard II, is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399) and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V.\n\nAlthough the First Folio (1623) edition of Shakespeare's works lists the play as a history play, the earlier Quarto edition of 1597 calls it The tragedie of King Richard the second.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the exiled Bolingbroke returned to England to overthrow Richard II who had angered the nobility with his cloddishness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "British noblemen schemed and maneuvered for honor, prestige and power in the court of Richard II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story were the various character flaws of King Richard II, which arguably lead to uprising and dynastic change", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw an idea of how Richard II might have fallen to Bolingbroke who became Henry IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard II lamented the vile people that had once cheered him but now turned coat and cheered Henry IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story hinged on Richard II indecisiveness, insecurities etc. of Richard II", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "John of Gaunt and Bolingbroke; York and Aumerle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bolingbroke did not take well to being exiled by King Richard II. Bolingbroke therefore returned secretly to England to overthrow Richard and crown himself King Henry IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry of Hereford and Thomas Duke of Norfolk endured a lengthy preamble to what they intended to be a knightly duel to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry accused Mowbray of embezzlement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry accused Mowbray of murdering Henry's uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mowbray was banished for life and lamented his fate before leaving", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "York and Duchess", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duchess of York and Henry IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "deposed, Richard II was imprisoned indefinitely", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Comedy of Errors (1595)", "title": "The Comedy of Errors", "date": "1595", "description": "The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is, along with The Tempest, one of only two Shakespearean plays to observe the Aristotelian principle of unity of time—that is, that the events of a play should occur over 24 hours. It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen and musical theatre numerous times worldwide. In the centuries following its premiere, the play's title has entered the popular English lexicon as an idiom for \"an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedy_of_Errors" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antipholus of Ephesus had a mistress, Adriana, and his wife almost unwittingly became an adulteress with Antipholus of Syracuse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two Antipholus' and their respective Dromio's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin and twin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two identical twin couples eventually met their counterparts in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adriana and Luciana", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry IV Part 1 (1597)", "title": "Henry IV, Part 1", "date": "1597", "description": "Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV (two plays, including Henry IV, Part 2), and Henry V. Henry IV, Part 1 depicts a span of history that begins with Hotspur's battle at Homildon in Northumberland against Douglas late in 1402 and ends with the defeat of the rebels at Shrewsbury in the middle of 1403. From the start, it has been an extremely popular play both with the public and critics.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_Part_1" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "the play was about the eponymous king and his son prince \"Harry\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "major", "motivation": "the play involved the opening days of the Welsh Revolt of 1400-1415, and the Battle of Shrewsbury", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Henry IV, the Battle of Shrewsbury", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falstaff was a stereotypical coward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Hal sought to prove his worthiness and did so by coming to his father's aid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was Hanery IV's annoyance at his son's base diversions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer and unnamed Welsh lady", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hal and Hotspur fought to the death, as did some others", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Richard III (1597)", "title": "Richard III", "date": "1597", "description": "Richard III is a play by William Shakespeare. It was probably written around 1593. It is labeled a history in the First Folio, and is usually considered one, but it is sometimes called a tragedy, as in the quarto edition.[citation needed] Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy (also containing Henry VI, Part 1, and Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3) and depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard was notably hungry for power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard plotted and schemed to remove his adversaries in court and make himself king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard plotted against his brother and king. Hastings was executed on a trumped up charge of treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard complained about his deformity and said it is the reason for him being a villain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard ordered the murdered of his brother and nephews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard betrayed those that were loyal to him but insufficient zealous, notably Hastings and Buckingham, as well as his own trusting brother Clarence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Critics argue that, in the play, Richard III is the final evil visited upon England as retribution for the murder of king Richard II, which was a crime against the heavens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard frequently feigned great humility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard III was unpopular and face rebellion lead first by Buckingham and then Richmond; three peasants were noted talking about the dark times ahead, implying civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard played indignant time and again as he was accused of various wickednesses in the first act", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Anne lamented the murder of her husband; Queen Elizabeth that of King Edward IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Anne with Richard's courtship (until she completely flip-flopped)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Margaret lamented her slain son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Margaret spoke resentfully at length to the new royalty and Richard III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clarence's killers wrestled with their conscience briefly; Richard heard the ghosts of his many victims in his sleep and speculated about whether himself he was a villain or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Edward was notably upset at the news of Clarence's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred sanctuary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buckingham told the Cardinal to extract a young prince from sanctuary because children could not claim sanctuary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard had his brother Clarence murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard murdered his own wife Ann in order to marry the late king's daughter and strengthen his claim on the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Margaret appeared in two lengthy scenes, cursed the Glocesters for all that had befallen her at their hands and generally complained about her lot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duchess of York denounced Richard for his villainous deeds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duchess of York denounced Richard for his villainous deeds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duchess of York spoke of everything she'd sacrifice in order to save her daughter from Richard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard became somewhat paranoid in the last act, notably accusing Stanley of plotting treason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Richard speak with his late brother's sons in one scene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the story ended with a chaotic battle and images of many innocent civilian corpses", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Romeo and Juliet (1597)", "title": "Romeo and Juliet", "date": "1597", "description": "Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romeo and Juliet are the archetypal ill-fated lovers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romeo and Juliet are the archetypal young lovers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "both Romeo and Juliet had to choose between loyalty to their respective families or their love for one and other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The famous ending of the story is that neither Romeo nor Juliet can live with the belief that the other is dead, and so kill themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Capulet family was in a violent feud with the Montague family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"a main theme include a discovery by the characters that human beings are neither wholly good nor wholly evil\" cf. Wikipedia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "the characters are either fated to die together or the events take place by a series of unlucky chances; the result notably ironic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "various Capulets vv. various Montagues, but especially Romeo after Tybalt killed Mercutio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romeo and Juliet famously both committed suicide in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "major", "motivation": "the love between Romeo and Juliet was so strong that their families' designs could not separate them and they each choose to die in each other's arms rather than to live apart", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Capulet and Juliet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rome and Mercutio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romeo and Juliet became instantly besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Friar Laurence performed a marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliet and nurse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Friar Laurence performed a clandestine marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "in restraining Mercutio, Romeo inadvertently contributed to Mercutio's mortal wounding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "while never shown directly, we understand indirectly that the various family heads would disapprove of the union between Romeo and Juliet and that therefore the affair was clandestine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliet's parents arranged a disagreeable marriage with Count Paris", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord and Lady Capulet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Capulet and Juliet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord and Lady Capulet grieved when they thought Juliet was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the apothecary deliberated whether to sell Romeo a lethal poison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the story ended with the two feuding families reconciling", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: King John (1598)", "title": "King John", "date": "1598", "description": "The Life and Death of King John, a history play by William Shakespeare, dramatises the reign of John, King of England (ruled 1199–1216), son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and father of Henry III of England. It is believed to have been written in the mid-1590s but was not published until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_John_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of succession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the war happened because France supported Arthur's claim to the throne that John possessed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned armed conflict between King John of England and Dauphin Louis of France regarding who was to rule England and regions of France", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Arthur", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleanor and John; Lady Faulconbridge and Bastard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bastard spoke with excessive pride after his elevation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bastard beseeched his mother to reveal who his father was", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blanch lamented that she didn't know which side to go with: husband, uncle, father, or grandam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubert wrangled with his conscience over blinding prince Arthur", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King John uttered remorse about ordering the murder of Prince Arthur whom the king thought had been killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King John felt remorse for having had Arthur murdered and was relieved to find out his orders had, in fact, been disobeyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Arthur killed himself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Love's Labour's Lost (1598)", "title": "Love's Labour's Lost", "date": "1598", "description": "Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to swear off the company of women for three years in order to focus on study and fasting. Their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of France and her ladies makes them forsworn. In an untraditional ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess's father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalisation, and reality versus fantasy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love%27s_Labour%27s_Lost" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "chastity", "level": "major", "motivation": "four men tried to forswear women for three years and failed miserably", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that four men failed miserably to forswear women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "after the compact and the King's edict, the various trysts of Berowne, Dumaine, Longaville, King Ferdinand himself and, indeed, the whole court were illegal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "various characters wasted their time pining and writing love letters instead of tending to their studies as they were supposed to", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adriano de Armado with Jaquenetta; King Ferdinand with Princess; Berowne with Rosaline; Dumaine with Katharine; Longaville with Maria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "major", "motivation": "it seems every other character was writing love poetry, and often competing against each explicitly in the art of turning a phrase", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Merchant of Venice (1598)", "title": "The Merchant of Venice", "date": "1598", "description": "The Merchant of Venice is a 16th-century play written by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599.\n\nAlthough classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and it is best known for Shylock and his famous \"Hath not a Jew eyes?\" speech on humanity. Also notable is Portia's speech about \"the quality of mercy\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "towards the end Shylock refused an offered fortune to forgo his vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "in refusing to grant mercy Shylock lost everything; to add insult to injury the good \"Christians\" then pointedly showed him mercy of a sort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy vs. justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "by the letter of the law, Shylock deserved his pound of flesh or at least the substantial compensation he was offered - yet because of his ruthless refusal to show leniency he was instead brought low and punished", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antisemitism was rampant in Shylock's Venice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonia faced Shylock backed by the law", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonio was practically ruined and about to lose a pound of flesh for it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shylock lost Jessica to a Christian suitor. Portia spoke of her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the box exercise was tied up with ideas about love; Bassanio professed love for Portia, and chose rightly; Jessica eloped with Lorenzo; Gratiano married Nerissa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shylock was notably ruthless in demanding his pound of flesh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonio staked both fortune and life for the sake of his young friend Bassanio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio and Bassanio shared a passionate kiss; the two girls may have been flirting with each other too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shylock pointed out the hypocritical Christian practice of condemning usury while happily borrowing money", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "for example, Shylock refused to eat with Christians because of the smell of pork", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Critics theorized that Antonio suffered from unrequited love for Bassanio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Portioa purported peevishly to prove Bassanio's passions by pressing him into relinquishing the ring he had promised to keep safe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love is blind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica disguised herself as a boy before venturing to meet her illicit lover, Lorenzo, under the cloak of night. She spoke the words \"love is blind\" to Lorenzo as she climbed out of her window to meet him. The idea being that Jessica had confidence that Lorenzo would overlook her lack out outright femininity on account that his love for her was strong.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry IV Part 2 (1599)", "title": "Henry IV, Part 2", "date": "1599", "description": "Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.\n\nThe play is often seen as an extension of aspects of Henry IV, Part 1, rather than a straightforward continuation of the historical narrative, placing more emphasis on the highly popular character of Falstaff and introducing other comic figures as part of his entourage, including Ancient Pistol, Doll Tearsheet, and Justice Robert Shallow. Several scenes specifically parallel episodes in Part 1.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_Part_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story follows Falstaff and his colorful friendship to the prince; the prince-become-king in the end turns his back on his former associates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story, in its end, concerns King Henri IV and his errant son, prince Hal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry IV was enduring a prolonged illness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again, Falstaff laments his age and fading health; he discussed aging with Justice Shallow; King Henry IV died of illness and age", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "prince Hal on becoming king, turned his back on former friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "backdrop to the story was two short-lived rebellions against Henry IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was Hanery IV's annoyance at his son's base diversions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "the succession of Henry V to Henry IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doll Tearsheet seemed genuinely besotted with Falstaff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falstaff and page", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falstaff took bribes to let people off army service", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aged Falstaff remonstrated against the lazy and cowardly young he encountered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry IV spoke to Clarence about loving his brother Hal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Hal prematurely mourned his father's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "especially Lord Chief Justice expected the newly anointed King Henry V to wreck petty vengeance, but Henry V surprised everyone by showing a dignified magnanimity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry V commended the integrity of Lord Chief Justice, who had even imprisoned Henry in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the story ended on a note of prince Hal renouncing his youth's rebellious ways in order to become a just and responsible King Henry V", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry V (1599)", "title": "Henry V", "date": "1599", "description": "Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Chronicle History of Henry the fifth, which became The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry V invaded France because he thought he had a just claim to the throne through his ancestry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the Battle of Agincourt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially when Henry V went in disguise to comfort soldiers, we heard a lot about the soldier's terrible lot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the French and the English alike mustered patriotic fervor in preparation for the onslaught", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially after having gone undercover, Henry V spoke of the heavy duty of being a king and a commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "two French ladies were seen to practice their English after Henry V's success at Harfleur; Ancient Pistol had a tortured conversation with a French prisoner regarding ransom; Henry V proposed to a poorly comprehending but rather bemused Catherine of Valois", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lengthy eulogy for Falstaff by some of his friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry V's speeches before battle amounted to inspire this desire in his men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ancient Pistol showed magnanimous mercy to a French pistol after some flattery and a promise of ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a lengthy scene in which Henry V argued that God alone was to thank for their miraculous victory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry V proclaimed his love for Kathrine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katherine briefly deliberated whether she could love an enemy of France", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Julius Caesar (1599)", "title": "Julius Caesar", "date": "1599", "description": "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1599. It is one of four plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history, the others being Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, and Antony and Cleopatra.\n\nSet in Rome in 44 BC, the play depicts the moral dilemma of Brutus as he joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to murder Julius Caesar to prevent him from becoming dictator of Rome. Following Caesar's death, Rome is thrust into a period of civil war, and the republic the conspirators sought to preserve is lost forever.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Brutus and his co-conspirators choose to be loyal to their Republican ideal instead of to their leader and once-friend Julius Caesar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Brutus and others lamented the loss of the Roman Republic when Caesar made himself emperor for life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Brutus and his co-conspirators risked everything for the sake of their Republican ideals, and in the end paid with their lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "in killing Caesar, Brutus and others took the law as they saw it into their own hands as Caesar controlled the judiciary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "the killing of Caesar is one of the most famous political assassinations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brutus and others committed treason in killing their military leader, Caesar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brutus betrayed and killed his long friend and once beloved leader Caesar, to the latter's infamous surprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rome was thrust into a period of civil war following Caesar's assassination and Brutus lead his legions to Philippi, Greece, where he was defeated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brutus committed suicide rather than let himself be taken prisoner and brought to Rome in chains, as did Porcia, Cassius and, Titinius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honorable suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brutus committed suicide rather than let himself be taken prisoner and brought to Rome in chains, as did Porcia, Cassius and, Titinius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brutus and Portia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar's wife had a dream of Caesar's death and this was thought a portent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar objected to the sycophantic antics of his followers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar ignored a soothsayer's warning to \"Beware the ides of March\" to his great misfortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar thrice refused the crown of Rome, albeit in a calculated bid to generate support for his kingship among the common people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brutus and Cassius were brothers-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Octavius and Antony, notably, wanted to avenge the late Caesar by defeating Brutus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Adelphoe (160 BC)", "title": "Adelphoe", "date": "160 BC", "description": "Adelphoe (also Adelphoi and Adelphi – The Brothers) is a play by Roman playwright Terence, adapted partly from plays by Menander and Diphilus. It was first performed in 160 BC at the funeral games of Aemilius Paulus. Exploring the best form of child-rearing, the play inspired Molière's The School for Husbands.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelphoe", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned an argument between Demea and Micio regarding how one best goes about raising a son. Demea proved his point in the end that it is best to provide children with a strict upbringing. Micio spoke about a father's duty (p342). Syrus spoke of how Micio spoiled Micho's adoptive son, Aeschinus (p357).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Much was made of Micio having given his adoptive son, Aeschinus, a lenient upbringing. Likewise for Demea having given his son, Ctesipho, a strict upbringing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot revolved around each of the two brothers Micio (an easy going man) and Demea (a strict authoritarian) trying to prove to the other that their own way of parenting was best. Aeschinus saved his brother Ctesipho from scandal by pretending it was he who'd been romantically involved with a lowly slave girl, and not Ctesipho as was actually the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The easy going Micio was contrasted with his strict, authoritarian brother Demea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Demea accusing his brother, Micio, of having spoiled Demea's own son, Ctesipho, whom Micio had been entrusted to raise. Demea in particular expressed disappointment over Ctesipho's part in the abduction (p355).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Micio and Aeschinus. Micio and Ctesipho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Demea interacted with his slave Dromo. Micio interacted with his slave Syrus. Sostrata and her slave Geta. Demea granted Micio's slave Syrus his freedom to Micio's surprise (p356).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Micio explained that \"a man won by kindness... stays the same whether he's with you or not\", while a man won by \"the threat of punishment alone\" will \"fall back to his old ways\" once they have the chance (p342).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sostrata spoke of how her daughter Pamphila had no hope of getting married now that her reputation was ruined (p355).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ctesipho spoke of the disgrace that his romantic involvement with a lowly music girl would bring upon his family, according to the slave Syrus (p358).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Micio instructed Demea to control his temper after Demea exclaimed that Micio had corrupted both their sons (p377).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demea quoted Micio as saying that \"the besetting fault of us all is that old age we think too much about money\" (p384).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demea feigned regret over having raised his son, Ctesipho in an overly strict manner (p380). Aeschinus expressed regret to Micio (p371).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the prologue the author explained some hows and whys of his writing in an attempt to put down various critics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Micio and his widowed neighbor Sostrata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sannio the slave dealer and his activities were briefly, but explicitly, topical. Aeschinus held that a certain girl was freeborn and therefore should not be sold as a slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sannio accused Aeschinus of stealing a slave girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hegio lamented Aeschinus' lack of honesty and gentlemanliness (p360).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demea feigned to regret having wasted his youth on \"money-grubbing\" (p380).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mici seemed laid back compared to Demea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ctesipho was besotted with the lowly lute-player Bacchis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600)", "title": "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "date": "1600", "description": "A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595/96. The play is set in Athens and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict between four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hermia and Lysander; later various people induced by the magical nectar from the flower love-in-idleness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially Helena for Demetrius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hermia, Lysander, Helena, Demetrius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helena for Demetrius; due to the love potion, later Demetrius and Lysander both for Helena, Titania for Bottom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was filled with fantastical beings from Ancient Greek mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story arguably satirizes love and the silly things lovers (and madmen) get up to", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermia and Egeus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermia eloped rather than marry Demetrius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a band of actors rehearsing a play in the forest of Arden", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a band of actors rehearsing a play in the forest of Arden", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titania had an an Indian changeling she protected from Oberon much as if it was a son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermia was forced to choose between obeying her father and marrying Demetrius, or elope to the forest of Arden with Lysander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oberon and Puck", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Much Ado About Nothing (1600)", "title": "Much Ado About Nothing", "date": "1600", "description": "Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599. The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623.\n\nThrough \"noting\" (sounding like \"nothing\", and meaning gossip, rumour, overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into believing that Hero is not a maiden (virgin). Claudio therefore rejects Hero at the altar. However, Hero is vindicated, and marriages are arranged for both pairs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benedick and Beatrice; Claudio and Hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benedick and Beatrice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudio and Hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was the (false) allegation that Hero had slept with some man before her marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonato and Hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudio and Hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beatrice and Hero; Claudio and Benedick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"Several characters seem to be obsessed with the idea that a man has no way to know if his wife is faithful and that women can take full advantage of this\" cf. Wikipedia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a friar presided over the abortive wedding ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudio believed his loved Hera had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio and Leonato", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio and Hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw constables at work", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Hamlet (1602)", "title": "Hamlet", "date": "1602", "description": "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1602. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "regicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Claudius killed King Hamlet. Hamlet killed King Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hamlet sought revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who had murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother Gertrude. Laertes sought vengeance against Hamlet for the killing of Polonius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama took place in the royal court of Denmark as people were jostling for power, marriage, and prestige.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hamlet was thought to have gone mad and he was, in fact, brooding over existential matters, suicide, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was exceedingly power hungry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius used poison to murder inconvenient people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "his father's death and the subsequent revelation that it was murder, seemed to drive Hamlet into something that people around him thought was madness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet's mother for Claudius; Hamlet for Ophelia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet contemplated death on a few occasions and, significantly, while holding the skull of old Yorick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "major", "motivation": "much of Hamlet's troubles were due to the fact that he strongly suspected murder (on the word of a ghost) yet had no evidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and Gertrude", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and late King Hamlet who came back as a ghost briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and Laertes grieved for their respective fathers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "in addition for vengeance for his murdered father, it seemed Hamlet had a desire to see general justice done in the state of Denmark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a theater group and a play within the play. Hamlet was fascinated with the group and modified the play they performed at court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Oedipus complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Until the revelations at the end, is seems plausible that Hamlet is indeed mad and has invented the poisoning because he (as Sigmund Freud held) hates his step-father being married to his mother, who Hamlet unconsciously desires sexually. The scene where he is wrestling with his mother in her bed is suggestive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Claudius soliloquized about killing his brother the late king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "hamlet's mother and King Claudius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Hamlet returned as a ghost to tell his son about the murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hamlet spoke of self-slaughter and lamented that it was proscribed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius said Hamlet was his son now, though Hamlet disagreed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there had been war between Norway and Denmark in the recent past and war against \"the Polacks\" was implied", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hamlet with Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laertes grieved for his late sister, Ophelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "two soldiers discussed whether or not Ophelia's death qualified as suicide and that were she not noble, she'd have been burried out of Christian ground.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Merry Wives of Windsor (1598)", "title": "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "date": "1602", "description": "The Merry Wives of Windsor or Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV or early in the reign of Henry V, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera at least ten times. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merry_Wives_of_Windsor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the husbands of the wives Falstaff pursued were jealous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albeit without marriage in mind, Falstaff sought to seduce two women for the money they had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne, Caius, Slender, Fenton", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne and Fenton genuinely loved each other; others faked love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mistress Ford and Master Ford", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "To quote verbatim from Wikipedia: The play is centered on the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower class is represented by characters such as Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol (Falstaff's followers), and the upper class is represented by Sir John Falstaff and Master Fenton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne and Slender", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pistol and Nym plotted their revenge on Falstaff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ford arranged to test his wife's fidelity by having Falstaff seduce her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the story some regarded the relationship between Falstaff and his followers", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Twelfth Night (1602)", "title": "Twelfth Night", "date": "1602", "description": "Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orsino, Olivia, and Viola/Cesario all spoke about their romantic feelings; Orsino lectured Cesario on the nature of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viola poses as a man and gets wooed by Olivia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia, Viola/Cesario, Orsino", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Orsino and Cesario discussed how best to go about wooing Olivia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Steward objected to the rowdy manners of his Lady's guests late at night", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Steward said his Lady would revoke her hospitality if the rowdy guests did not pipe down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesario told Orsino about a sister's (actually her own) infatuation (maybe for Orsino?) which she had never acted upon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Andrew lamented his desperate lack of funds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby and Olivia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian and Olivia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Olivia and Malvolio; Orsino and Cesario", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby and Andrew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malvolio was accused of being mad", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Othello (1603)", "title": "Othello", "date": "1603", "description": "Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603. It is based on the story Un Capitano Moro (\"A Moorish Captain\") by Cinthio (a disciple of Boccaccio's), first published in 1565.[2] The story revolves around its two central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, and his treacherous ensign, Iago. Given its varied and enduring themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, and repentance, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatre alike, and has been the source for numerous operatic, film, and literary adaptations.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iago at Cassio for promotion; Othello vv. Cassio about Desdemona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iago at Othello and Cassio for promotion; Othello at Cassio and Desdemona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello believed that Desdemona had had an affair with Cassio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello, Cassio, Desdemona, Roderigo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello and Desdemona; Iago and Emilia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello and Desdemona at first", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iago betrayed people who thought he was their friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iago betrayed people who thought he was their friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roderigo attempted to kill Cassio. Iago killed Roderigo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello killed Desdemona in cold and unjust jealousy. Iago killed his wife Emilia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello killed himself in remorse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello regretted killing his wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello when he realized Desdemona was in fact innocent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Othello's misguided jealousy at Cassio over Desdemona lead Othello to kill Desdemona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iago resented being passed over for promotion by Cassio and conspired accordingly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iago resented being passed over for promotion by Cassio and conspired accordingly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iago pretended to e friends with both Cassio and Othello but acted treacherously behind their backs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roderigo at Desdemona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cassio lamented his lost reputation after the brawl. Cassio lamented the loss of his reputation after Othello dressed him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brabantio and Desdemona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some remarks were made about Othello's Moorish complexion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Othello said he'd rather have had the whole camp sleep with Desdemona and he know nothing, than have to suspect that she was unfaithful with Cassio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Othello discussed honesty with Iago", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Desdemona appeared to anticipate her own slaying as she prepared for bed", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Troilus and Cressida (1603)", "title": "Troilus and Cressida", "date": "1603", "description": "Troilus and Cressida (/ˈtrɔɪləs ... ˈkrɛsɪdə/) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. The work has in recent years \"stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troilus_and_Cressida" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story concerned the Trojan war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it seems a point of the story is to make ambiguous the heroism of legendary heroes such as Achilles, Ajax, and Hector", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a point of the story was to poke fun at lovers and question tho professed constancy of sworn love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cressida and Troilus were besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was that both Troilus and Achilles neglected to commit themselves fully to the battlefield because of their respective love objects, Cressida and Patroclus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "vengeance, famously, came to motivate Achilles in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "irreverence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandarus is disdainful of love and tradition; Patroculus was disdainful of everything and of honor in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cressida choose Diomedes over Troilus after she had been sent to the Greeks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "the eponymous lovers were torn apart by fate when Cressida's father sent for her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandarus and Cressida", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cressida played hard to get as she enjoyed the pursuit by Troilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patroclus and Achilles are clearly lovers and Thersites remarks caustically about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Priam and Hector", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector and Andromache", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector and Cassandra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandarus complained of his age", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Measure for Measure (1604)", "title": "Measure for Measure", "date": "1604", "description": "Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play's main themes include justice, \"morality and mercy in Vienna\", and the dichotomy between corruption and purity: \"some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall\". Mercy and virtue prevail, as the play does not end tragically, with virtues such as compassion and forgiveness being exercised at the end of the production. While the play focuses on justice overall, the final scene illustrates that Shakespeare intended for moral justice to temper strict civil justice: a number of the characters receive understanding and leniency, instead of the harsh punishment to which they, according to the law, could have been sentenced.\n\nMeasure for Measure is often called one of Shakespeare's problem plays. It continues to be classified as a comedy, although its tone sometimes defies this classification.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_for_Measure" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it was noted that the old Duke would have been much more merciful than was the ruthless Angelo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy vs. justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Angelo was ruthless in executing justice according the letter of the law, and the duke did not approve", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo suggested that Isabella offer him her virginity, in which case he would spare Claudio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincentio was, in fact, testing Angelo by leaving him in charge of Vienna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabella and Claudio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudio was about to be executed for having knocked up Juliet without first marrying her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo was so besotted with Isabella that he made himself a hypocrite and criminal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo's offer to pardon Claudio in exchange for sex with Isabella, was rank corruption", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo applied the law overly strictly when he condemned Caludio for extramarital sex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "When pious Angelo obtained Dukal powers in Vienna he administered blind justice mercilessly. Thus he was compared and contrasted with Duke Vincentino, who later returned to show mercy on Claudio who had been harshly condemned to death for a measly bit of extramarital coitus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo was notably ruthless in applying the law", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "puritanical Angelo started a campaign against whoring and brothels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angelo was outrageously hypocritical in condemning Claudio for extramarital fornication while Angelo himself used his office to pressure a young nun for sex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angelo was not prepared when Duke Vincentio suddenly handed over his power to Angelo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a brothel operator, Mistress Overdone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "war with Hungary was anticipated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudio and couple of others were expecting to be executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a constable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a friar preach to the condemned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Provost was mightily torn between his express orders from Angelo and his knowledge that Claudio was a good man", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: King Lear (1606)", "title": "King Lear", "date": "1606", "description": "King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters, after they declare their love for him in an extremely fawning and obsequious manner. His third daughter gets nothing, because she will not flatter him as her sisters had done. When he feels disrespected by the two daughters who now have his wealth and power, he becomes furious to the point of madness. He eventually becomes tenderly reconciled to his third daughter, just before tragedy strikes her and then the king.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "King Lear's complicated relationship with his daughter was central to the tale", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story pivoted on the fact that Cordelia would rather miss out on her dowry and a third of the KKingdom than exaggerate how she felt about her father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honest character vs. deceitful character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "honest to a fault Cordelia was contrasted with her false and deceitful older sisters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lear fell out with his two older daughters over the size of his retinue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "desirous of a quieter dotage, King Lear unwisely handed over his Kingdom to the husbands of his two older daughters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lear became dissolution about his two elder daughter's loyalty when they told him he was old and should get rid of his retinue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cordelia remained loyal to her father despite being disinherited while Goneril and Regan were notably disloyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "the fool and Kent remained with Lear when others deserted him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Lear went from monarch to a poor crazed outcast, through much fault of his own", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goneril and Regan and their respective husbands were notably cruel as they turned out their father, put Kent in stocks, blinded Gloucester (...)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goneril and Albany; Regan and Cornwall", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goneril betrayed both father and husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lear felt his years at the outset then more so as the story progressed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Lear and his Fool, among others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lear became gradually more unstable through the affronts of his daughters and finally struck out his own eyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lear, Kent, and the Fool suffered through a tempest rather than be at the mercy of ungrateful daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar noted that when poor people see their betters in hardship, their own hardship seems less", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was talk of war 'twixt Albany and Cornwall", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a French army arrived to reinstall Lear on the throne in Britain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gloucester lived as a blind man for a good portion of the play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albany said he arrested Edmund on a count of treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gloucester with Edgar and Edmund", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar and Edmund", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Regan was poisoned by his own brother, Goneril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lear lamented the murder of his daughter, Regan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Macbeth (1606)", "title": "Macbeth", "date": "1606", "description": "Macbeth (/məkˈbɛθ/; full title The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare; it is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, who was patron of Shakespeare's acting company, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Macbeth's murdered their liege lord King Duncan to usurp his position", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially Lady Macbeth lusted after more power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unchecked ambition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Macbeths' power hunger lead to bloody battles and piles of corpses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Macbeth's killed their liege lord King Duncan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macduff killing the king he had been loyal to was a surprise treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord and Lady Macbeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Macbeth's to their liege lord King Duncan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "three witches foretold Macbeth's rise to power and may thereby have inspired him to commit his gruesome regicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macbeth arranged to murder his closest friend and ally, Banquo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Macbeth became so racked with guilt over the murders that she came to think her hands were permanently stained with blood, and she finally killed herself. Both Macbeth's were racked with guilt-related emotions after having slaughtered the King and his retinue - though possibly they were more fearful of being found out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macduff was hesitant about the murder even before carrying it out, and Lady Macduff pictured blood on her hands later on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "other nobles rose up against Macbeth and eventually defeated him in battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "notably Macduff went after Maceth's head with a vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hags foretold that Macbeth would, among other things, rise to become king of Scotland, only to be vanquished at such time when \"Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane shall come\". Emboldened by the revelations, Macbeth seized the crown through assassination, but, despite his best efforts, he was unable to escape his ultimate downfall as foretold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a harder person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Macbeth besought the spirits to \"unsex\" her and make her cruel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macduff was enraged on learning that his entire family has been slaughtered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Macbeth went mad with what one suspects may be guilt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macbeth heard of his wife's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macduff fought Macbeth one-on-one and took the latter's head, in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Siward lamented his sons death but took comfort in knowing it was a valiant one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Macbeth killed herself, we are left to think", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Timon of Athens (1606)", "title": "Timon of Athens", "date": "1606", "description": "Timon of Athens (The Life of Tymon of Athens) is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in collaboration with Thomas Middleton in about 1605–1606, which was published in the First Folio in 1623. It is about the fortunes of an Athenian named Timon. The central character is a beloved citizen of Athens who through tremendous generosity spends his entire fortune on corrupt hangers-on only interested in getting the next payout.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timon_of_Athens" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "false friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a point of the story was that Timon was generous to a fault to people he thought were his friends, yet when he needed help his so-called friends turned their backs on him (note: some may perhaps be better described as fair-weather friends)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timon had many avaricious false friends. They took him for all he had until he was broke. Then when poor Timon found a treasure, they came again to see if they could get more from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timon was generous to a fault to people he thought were his friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timon proclaimed friendship with a number of people that later were revealed as nothing of the sort; Timon and Alcibiades", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "after he recklessly squandered his wealth, Timon's debtors began closing in and it became apparent that Timon was broke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timon and Flavius in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apemantus was a cynic who chided Timon; Timon learned from life and himself became a misanthrope (even naming himself Misanthropos)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alcibiades swore vengeance upon Athens; Timon sought revenge on his former false friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy vs. justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alcibaides pleaded mercy for one of his officers but the senate maintained that justice must be served, and were notably merciless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timon responded generously to outrageous flattery", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Antony and Cleopatra (1607)", "title": "Antony and Cleopatra", "date": "1607", "description": "Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around 1607; its first appearance in print was in the Folio of 1623.\n\nThe plot is based on Thomas North's 1579 English translation of Plutarch's Lives (in Ancient Greek) and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatra's suicide during the Final War of the Roman Republic. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire. The tragedy is mainly set in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_and_Cleopatra" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the passionate relationship between Antony and Cleopatra ultimately lead to their destruction as the match was not politically apt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antony and Cleopatra were so obsessed with each other that they arguably committed foolish acts which lead to their mutual destruction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "whatever one makes of the individual characters' various motives, the story concerned an epic struggle for power around the Mediterranean sea and over the Roman Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, Sextus Pompey, Lepidus, Cleopatra all intrigued for power and influence around the Mediterranean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra was described as a spectacularly attractive woman who seduced first Julius Caesar and now Mark Antony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony and Cleopatra famously committed suicide in the end, as did some of their retainers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were numerous betrayals, notably that of Cleopatra to Antony when she fled the battle of Actium", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonius had a mixed bag of emotions when he learned of his wife's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antony choose to marry Octavia for power despite his love for Cleopatra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honorable suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "one reason for the suicides was to avoid the dishonor of becoming captives to Octavius, perhaps paraded trough Rome in chains", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antony thought Cleopatra dead and killed himself upon which Cleopatra in turn killed herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Pericles Prince of Tyre (1609)", "title": "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", "date": "1609", "description": "Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio. Whilst various arguments support that Shakespeare is the sole author of the play (notably DelVecchio and Hammond's Cambridge edition of the play), modern editors generally agree that Shakespeare is responsible for almost exactly half the play—827 lines—the main portion after scene 9 that follows the story of Pericles and Marina. Modern textual studies indicate that the first two acts of 835 lines detailing the many voyages of Pericles were written by a collaborator, which strong evidence suggests to have been the victualler, panderer, dramatist and pamphleteer George Wilkins.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles_Prince_of_Tyre" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pericles, Thaisa, and Marina had each assumed the others lost but were in the end reunited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three or four times Pericles set out on dangerous and fated sea traversals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dionyza was jealous of Marina and conspired to have her killed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pericles was finally reunited with his daughter Marina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pericles and Marina strove to outdo each other with talk of the miseries they had endured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antiochus and his daughter; Pericles and Marina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pericles knowingly told Antiochus that kings may do as they will in such matters but his subsequent reactions betrayed his disgust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pericles was instantly besotted with the daughter (albeit as quickly disillusioned)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antiochus and his daughter, the riddle reveals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pericles decided to risk his life in trying the riddle and to win Antiochus' beautiful daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "castaway Prince Pericles lamented the reversal of his fortunes that fate had meted out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pericles resisted throwing his late wife the queen's corpse overboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pericles with Thaisa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonine wrestled with his conscience regarding his order to slay Marina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex trade in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marina was sold to a brothel to work as a sex slave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thaisa and Marina", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Phormio (161 BC)", "title": "Phormio", "date": "161 BC", "description": "Phormio is a Latin comic play by the early Roman playwright Terence, based on a now lost play by Apollodorus of Carystus entitled Epidikazomenos (\"The Claimant\"). It is generally believed to be Terence's fourth play. It was first performed at the Ludi Romani of 161 BC. Structurally, Phormio is considered to be one of the best Roman comedies.\n\nThe plot is set in Athens, and revolves around the love affairs of two young men, Phaedria and Antipho, who are cousins. Phaedria is in love with a harp- player called Pamphila, but doesn't have the money to buy her from her owner Dorio; Antipho wishes to marry a free but poor girl called Phanium, unaware that she is in fact Phaedria's half sister as the result of an affair between Phaedria's father Chremes and a Lemnian woman. By clever legal wrangling, Phormio manages to help both young men to obtain their wishes, and in addition extracts a large sum of money from the two fathers.\n\nNote: Inline page numbers refer to [1].", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phormio_(play). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phormio_(play)", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot revolves around the love affairs of two young men, Phaedria and Antipho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular character Phormio orchestrated an audacious confidence trick played on Demipho, and extracted quite a bit of money on behalf of Phaedria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Athenian gentleman Demipho entrusted his slave Geta to keep Demipho's son Antipho out of trouble while Demipho was away. Antipho's household slave Geta assisted him in obtaining the woman of his desires. Much of the plot surrounded Phaedria trying to rustle up enough money to buy his love interest Pamphila from her owner Dorio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Demipho and Chremes were busy meddling in their respective sons' love lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chremes and his son Phaedria. Demipho and his son Antipho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Demipho and his nephew Phaedria. Chremes and his nephew Antipho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chremes and his wife Nausistrata. In particular, Nausistrata quarreled here and there with her bigamist husband, Chremes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nausistrata interceded on behalf of her son Phaedria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "News of Chremes' past indiscretions stirred up trouble in his household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Chremes was secretly keeping a second wife in another city (see p. 271).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phanium was weeping for her recently deceased mother (see p. 231).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demipho was outraged that his son Antipho dared to take a wife without his permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phormio questioned the origins of an Athenian law requiring female citizens to marry their nearest relative under certain circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demipho consulted his legal advisors Hegio, Cratinus, and Crito.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geta witnessed the following ill-omens: a strange black dog had walked into his house, and a snake fell through his roof tiles (see p. 261).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nausistrata grumbled about how the prices of things used to be much lower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nausistrata called out Chremes for blaming his son for keeping a mistress when Chremes himself had done the very same thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Davos lamented the sorry state Athenian morals had fallen to (see p. 229).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geta explained that slaves can't plead or give evidence in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phormio said \"see what avarice does\" (see p. 243).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geta mentioned both a person who was a soothsayer, and another person who was a diviner (see p. 261).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Central to the story was the peculiar idea that an orphaned girl, such as Phanium, must be married to their next-of-kin and that the next-of-kin is legally obliged to see to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story clumniated with Phormio blackmailing Chremes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Eunuch (161 BC)", "title": "The Eunuch", "date": "161 BC", "description": "Eunuchus (The Eunuch) is a comedy written by the 2nd century BC Roman playwright Terence featuring a complex plot of familial misunderstanding. It was Terence's most successful play during his lifetime. Suetonius notes how the play was staged twice in a single day and won Terence 8,000 sesterces. The play is a loose translation of one written by Menander in Greek.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heauton_Timorumenos", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the love-sick young man Phaedria as his love interest Thais toys with his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Athenian citizen Phaedria and the brash soldier Thraso were rivaling over their common love interest Thais. Although they they weren't particularly acquainted with each other, they knew of each other and were concerned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline culminated with Chremes being reunited with his long lost sister Pamphila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slave Parmeno was advising both brothers Phaedria and Chaerea on how to woo their respective love interests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phaedria and Thraso were both vying for the courtesan Thais' romantic attentions. In the end, Phaedria agreed to share Thais with Thraso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "At first it appeared Phaedria was one-sidedly besotted with Thais. Then it transpired that Thraso was more so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that Thais used Thraso as a pawn to instill jealously in her lover Phaedria. Nevertheless, Phaedria and Thraso were exceedingly jealous of one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human social need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The courtesan Thais' sought to improve her poor social standing in Athenian society by returning the slave girl Pamphila to her Athenian family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phaedria was the elder brother of Chaerea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young man Chaerea fell head over heel in love with the slave girl Pamphila upon seeing her at the port.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnatho was a consummate yes-man to the wealthy soldier Thraso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phaedria used the threat of torture in an effort to get the truth out of the eunuch Dorus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chremes was happy to be reunited with his estranged female sibling, Pamphila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamphila was violated by Chaerea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demea interrogated his slave Parmeno in order to find out what trouble his two sons had gotten themselves into.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terence lambasted his detractors in the author's prologue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thais said that her mother died recently at Rhodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chaerea described a picture of Jupiter pouring the shower of gold into Danaë's lap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnatho, in the end, proved himself a thoroughly false friend to Thraso.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Coriolanus (1610)", "title": "Coriolanus", "date": "1610", "description": "Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. It is one of the last two tragedies written by Shakespeare, along with Antony and Cleopatra.\n\nCoriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military success against various uprisings challenging the government of Rome. Following this success, Coriolanus becomes active in politics and seeks political leadership. His temperament is unsuited for popular leadership and he is quickly deposed, whereupon he aligns himself to set matters straight according to his own will. The alliances he forges along the way result in his ultimate downfall.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcius was a valorous hero reluctant to be worshiped as he were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcius problems in Rome all stemmed from his pride towards aristocrats and commoners alike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcius was excessively concerned with his image whenever he rejected praise, and was reluctant to show his wounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "By his valor in war Marcius became a political figure but being a simple man he was easily outmaneuvered by his detractors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcius acted condescendingly towards \"the people\" whose support he needed to be consul", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "major", "motivation": "aristocracy vs. commoners regarding food scarcity and grain stores, later Marcius talked in disgust about allowing commoners any political power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Afidius wanted reveng on MArcius; later MArcius wanted to wreck vengeance on Rome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Volumnia and Marcius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcius betrayed his former allies in Rome, then his new ally Aufidius; he also considered himself betrayed by the ungrateful people in Rome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being exiled from Rome, Coriolanus went over to the enemy. Marcius committed treason to Rome, then was accused of the same to Volumnia by Aufidius when he made peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw various senators and other high people contrasted with commoners, some of which were lacking food", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aufidius proclaimed his hatred for Marcius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcius fought one on one with Aufidius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcius and Virgilla", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcius sat with his son on his lap", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcius had a, somewhat false ringing, reluctance to being praised", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Cymbeline (1611)", "title": "Cymbeline", "date": "1611", "description": "Cymbeline, also known as The Tragedie of Cymbeline or Cymbeline, King of Britain, is a play by William Shakespeare set in Ancient Britain (c. 10–14)[a] and based on legends that formed part of the Matter of Britain concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobeline. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance or even a comedy. Like Othello and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While the precise date of composition remains unknown, the play was certainly produced as early as 1611.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymbeline" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Posthumous and Imogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Posthumous, Imogen, Iachimo, Cloten", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Queen sought power by poison murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Queen, in particular, plotted to gain power for herself and her son by poisoning the king and Imogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Posthumen was falsely convinced that Imogen had been unfaithful to him with Iachimo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Posthumous and Imogen's disputed marriage broke down when Posthumous was exiled in Italy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pisanio was force to choose between obeying Posthumous or being loyal to Imogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "separated from Imogen, Posthumous worried about her faithfulness and later ordered Imogen killed because he though she had been unfaithful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Queen plotted to poison the king. The queen tried to kill Cymbeline and Imogen with poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Posthumous sent Iachimo to test Imogens faithfulness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Queen and Imogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cymbeline and Imogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "especially Imogen and Pisanio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Posthumous ranted that all man's shortcomings had their origin in woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen plotted to kill the king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Posthumous ordered Pisanio to kill his own wife Imogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when Cymbeline declined to pay tribute, Caius Lucius proclaimed war on behalf of Caesar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Imogen dressed up as a boy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guiderius and Arviragus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Tempest (1611)", "title": "The Tempest", "date": "1611", "description": "The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants—Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-the play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "treason", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Prospero resented having been usurped by Antonio as Duke of Milan, 12 years ago. Sebastian and Antonio were about to murder others in their sleep. Caliban sided with Stephano and plotted against his former master Prospero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospero and Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospero with Caliban and Ariel; Stephsno with Caliban", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"The Tempest is explicitly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's art and theatrical illusion\" cf. Wikipedia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospero's magic powers are explicit and notable: he conjures storms, commands spirits, induces lethargy and sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda and Ferdinand became besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ariel spelled out Prospero's hope to avenge himself on the usurpers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ariel was unquestioningly loyal to Prospereo, by contrast with Caliban who changed his master twice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard that the English would not give a \"doit\" to relieve the poor, yet ten to see an Indian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caliban believed Stephano's claim that the latter was \"the man in the moon\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Winter's Tale (1611)", "title": "The Winter's Tale", "date": "1611", "description": "The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's \"problem plays\" because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comic and supply a happy ending.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter%27s_Tale" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leontes suspected his wife and best friend of having had an affair. These suspicions lead to the family being torn apart and the friends alienated for 16 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leontes and Hermione; Florizel and Perdita", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes and Hermione", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes became jealous of the perceive relationship between his wife and Polixenes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermione was accused publicly of adultery and put in prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes accused his wife the queen of adultery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "adultery was considered a crime in this society, perhaps even treason as the accused was the King's wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Polixenes and Florizel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes and Polixenes were fast friends, fell out, and then reconciled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes was reunited with Hermione returned from the dead (or a reanimated statue) after some 16 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florizel and Perdita", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes felt remorseful after his wife was vindicated yet his wife and son dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leontes and Polixenes reconciled in the end, as were Polixines with Florizel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leontes wanted first to kill the infant he thought was another man's bastard, but was persuaded to let it be abandoned instead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leontes sought to kill the infant he thought belonged to Polixenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we were shown an idea of what a trial preceded over by a King might have looked like half a millennium ago", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leontes invoke the Oracle at Delphi for advice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Autolycus deftly swiped a purse from Clown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polixenes with Florizel getting engaged against his father's will", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a statue of Hermione came alive and became Hermione", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Henry VIII (1613)", "title": "Henry VIII", "date": "1613", "description": "Henry VIII is a collaborative history play, written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII. An alternative title, All Is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, with the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that individual scenes were written by either Shakespeare or his collaborator and successor, John Fletcher. It is also somewhat characteristic of the late romances in its structure. It is noted for having more stage directions than any of Shakespeare's other plays.\n\nAliases: All Is True", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various characters lost their lofty statuses: Buckingham, Queen Katherine, Cardinal Wolsey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry VIII wriggled out of his marriage by means of annulment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is truth", "level": "major", "motivation": "the play leaves us wondering who is really honest and who is not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Intrigues were variously implied thought the truth of them often remained muddled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry VIII and Katherine, then Ann", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Henry prosecuted Buckingham for treason, and threatened to do the same for queen Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buckingham was wrongfully accused and then condemned for treason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buckingham spoke wistfully as he was lead to his own execution", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: All's Well That Ends Well (1623)", "title": "All's Well That Ends Well", "date": "1623", "description": "All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare, published in the First Folio in 1623, where it is listed among the comedies. No records of the early performances of All's Well That Ends Well have been found. There is a debate regarding the dating of the composition of the play, with possible dates ranging from 1598 to 1608. The play is considered one of Shakespeare's \"problem plays\"; a play that poses complex ethical dilemmas that require more than typically simple solutions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All%27s_Well_That_Ends_Well", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Decameron_tales#Ninth_tale_(III_9)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot was driven by Helena's hopeless love for Bertram, who was far above her and wanted nothing to do with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bertram was arrogant and considered himself too high to marry Helena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Especially Bertram was eager for to make his name in war and went of to become a famous warrior in Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story returned time and again to the idea that men lie and \"assault women's maidenhood\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bertram wanted to win honor on the battlefield; Parolles was notably dishonorable and dishonored and remarked that there was still a comfortable life to be had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a subplot to expose Parolles as the boasting coward he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helena and Bertram were joined in holy matrimony. Their marriage was for many years unconsummated and troubled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hellen wished to be married to Bertram but when she got her desire and Bertram was coerced into the union, she found herself in a hate-filled relationship and was soon abandoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned various going-ons and jousting for royal favor in the court of the French king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena staked her own life that the cure would work on the King.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen was the daughter of a physician. She succeeded where other physicians failed, in curing the king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena, Bertram, Diana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Countess of Roussillon and Bertram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king complained at length about being bedridden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parolles had a remarkable fall from grace after he was exposed as a coward.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: As You Like It (1623)", "title": "As You Like It", "date": "1623", "description": "\"As You Like I\"t is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility.\n\n\"As You Like It\" follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_You_Like_It" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-shakespeare.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the main point of the story was to poke fun at human courtship and feelings of love and lust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story was concerned with women trying to get good matches while also guarding their virtue from various wooing men, and related issues", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosalinda and Celia were fast friends to the extent that Celia choose to follow Rosalinda into exile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosalinda and Orlando became besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede/Rosalinda, Orlando, Audrey, Touchstone, William", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "the cross-dressing and mixed up romantic affections were notable as Orlando seemed attracted to Ganymede", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosalinda and Orlando became infatuation at their first encounter, as did Celia, Oliver, Phebe and Ganymede", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosalinda had grown up as a stranger in her father's enemy's house", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosalinda was capriciously exiled from the house in which she grew up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw side by side poor shepherds and rich noble people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silvius and Phebe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaques plotted a fake marriage in order to bed Audrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "in the end everyone reconciled and came to be friendly, especially Frederick and the Duke Senior", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Self-Tormentor (163 BC)", "title": "The Self-Tormentor", "date": "163 BC", "description": "Heauton Timorumenos (Ἑαυτὸν τιμωρούμενος, Greek for The Self-Tormentor) is a play written in Latin by Terence (Latin: Publius Terentius Afer), a dramatist of the Roman Republic, in 163 BC. The play has presented academics with some problems. Firstly it is not entirely clear whether Heauton Timorumenos is Terence's second or third play. More importantly, due to the scant survival of Menander's play of the same name, there is no simple way to judge how much of Terence's version is translation and how much is invention. It is set in a village in the countryside of Attica.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heauton_Timorumenos", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The play follow two father and son relationships: 1) The wealthy farmer Menedemus fretted over what to do when word reached him that his estranged son, Clinia, was back in town and in love with a spendthrift girl, and 2) Clitipho went to elaborate measures to conceal the identity of his lover from his father Chremes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy farmer Menedemus was being advised by his next-door neighbors Chremes on how to handle the sudden and unexpected return of his estranged son, Clinia. Stated in passing was that the neighbors Simus and Cirto were engaged in a boundary dispute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clitipho went to elaborate lengths to help his pal Clinia secure Antiphilia's hand in marriage. The neighbors and friends Menedemus and Cheremies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clinia and Antiphilia were in the throws of love, and in the end they married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Menedemus was anguishing over having driven his son, Clinia, away by being too stern in the past. This is central to the story on account that Menedemus' actions following his son's sudden and unexpected return were dictated by his guilt over what he'd done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Menedemus tells Chremes about how Menedemus fell out with his own son over the son's choice of a love interest. This conflict is at the core of the entire story. Also Chremes nearly falls out with his own son for the same reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Menedemus is (eponymously) tormenting himself for having alienated his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concludes with the fathers and sons reconciling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the heart of the story lies the slave Syrus and the courtesan Bacchis' intricate schemes to extract money from Chremes and Menedemus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clitipho relied on his slave Syrus to conceive of and execute an elaborate ruse. Clinia and his slave Dromo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Menedemus had come to regret having once chastised his son, Clinia, for having gotten involved with an impoverished girl. Chremes vehemently disapproved of his son Clitipho getting himself involved with the courtesan Bacchis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "\"You know what women are\", quipped Clitipho, \"plans and preparations can take them a year\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Menedemus was a \"mean old miser of a father\" to Clinia said Syrus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sostrata revealed to her husband, Chremes, that she'd disobeyed him years prior by failing to do away with their newborn girl as she'd been told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chremes had years prior ordered a pregnant Sostrata not to rear the child, if it turned out to be a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clitipho confronted his mother, Sostrata, and pleaded with her to reveal if he was really her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unknown parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Racked with doubt, Clitipho begged Sostrata to tell him who his real parents were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Clitipho and Antiphila turned out to be so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terence writes about writing plays as he retaliates against his detractors in the introduction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The courtesan Bacchis was unblushingly a gold digger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sostrata promised to find a good bride for her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chremes had lectured Menedemus about Menedemus' son's romantic indiscretions; then at the end of the story Chremes' son is revealed to be in love with an expensive prostitute, leaving Chremes in the same pickle Menedemus had been in, and the latter gets to reproach the former.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story is that Chremes was hypocritical and about to treat his own son in the way Chremes had chastised Menedemus for treating Menedemus' son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Hecyra (165 BC)", "title": "Hecyra", "date": "165 BC", "description": "Hecyra (English: The Mother-in-Law) is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Terence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecyra", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular mother-in-law Sostrata was erroneously thought to have driven off her son Pamphilus' new wife Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laches arm twisted his son, Pamphilus, into marrying Philumena and then chided him for keeping a mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Pamphilus and his mother Sostrata - the eponymous mother-in-law. Sostrata urged her son, Pamphilus, to give Philumena a second chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamphilus quickly warmed up to his new wife, Philumena, and ultimately professed his love for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story indirectly concerns the relationship between Philumena and her parents as she takes refuge in their house while giving birth to a child that merely by chance is her husband's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story indirectly concerns the relationship between Philumena and her parents as she takes refuge in their house while giving birth to a child that merely by chance is her husband's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laches and Sostrata. Pamhilus and Philumena. Philippus and Myrrina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story indirectly concerns the relationship between Philumena and her father-in-law Laches who was exerting himself to save her marriage with Pamphilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story was told through the conversation between the neighbors Phidippus and Laches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a family issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a big quarrel over Pamphilus' marriage to the neighbors daughter not working out as planned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a big quarrel over Pamphilus' marriage to the neighbors daughter not working out as planned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the development of the story Pamphilus had raped his wife-to-be Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laches took his son, Pamphilus, to task for his apparent keeping of a mistress after Laches had married him off to Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At his father's behest, Pamphilus reluctantly consented to an arranged marriage with the very woman whom, unbeknownst to him, he'd recently ravished in a drunken episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laches pointedly blamed his wife, Sostrata, for having turned Philumena against their family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story on Philumena giving birth to a child that was conceived through rape. Through an ironic twist of fate it turned out that it was her husband who'd committed the rape, and so no scandal was afoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When faced with the choice of whether to be separated from his mother or his new wife, Pamphilus chose to stay with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laches, Sostrata, and Pamphilus interacted with their house slave Parmeno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philotis spoke of how men lie to women and then end up married. Laches complained of women who set themselves against their men-folk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philotis spoke of how men lie to women and then end up married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmeno, sarcastically, said he'd like to see the soldier who could stop the young prostitute Philotis talking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sostrata complained that their (whose?) men detest all women. Sostrata spoke \"a universal slander of my sex\" in reference to her being held culpable for Pamphilus' marriage not going well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmeno spoke of how \"Love in return for hatred is double stupidity\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myrrina and Pamphilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phidippus and Pamphilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sosia explained the travails of her sea voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamphilus told of his hedonistic late cousin Phania.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said (and later disproved) that Pamphilus kept on seeing his mistress Bacchis after getting married to Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bacchis was an unrepentant courtesan and spoke of her profession with defiance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unknown parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The father of Philumena's unborn child was ultimately revealed to be none other than her husband, Pamphilus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Girl from Andros (166 BC)", "title": "The Girl from Andros", "date": "166 BC", "description": "Andria (English: The Girl from Andros) is a Roman comedy adapted by Terence from two Greek plays by Menander the first being Samia and the other being Perinthia. It was the first play by Terence to be presented publicly, and was performed in 166 BC during the Ludi Megalenses. It became the first of Terence's plays to be performed post-antiquity, in Florence in 1476. It was adapted by Machiavelli, whose Andria was likewise the author's first venture into playwriting, and was the first of Terence's plays to be translated into English ca. 1520. The second English translation was by the Welsh writer Morris Kyffin in 1588.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andria_(comedy)", "Terence. (1976). The Comedies (B. Radice", "Trans.). Penguin Classics." ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-terence.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned conflict between Simo and his son Pamphilus regarding whom the latter should marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simo was upset at his son Pamphilus' behavior regarding Glycerium, and later for perceived lying and scheming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamphilus and Glycerium were besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story much concerned the scheming or perceived scheming of slaves, especially Davus, to manipulate their masters. Simo and his slave Sosia (latterly a freedman). Charinus and his slave Byrrhia. Pamphilus and his slave Davus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamphilus was torn between his love for Glycerium and his duty to his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was that Simo had arranged a marriage for Pamhpilus that Pamphilus didn't care for. Chremes arranged two marriages for his daughters (Glycerium being deemed his in the end).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charinus was dismayed by the rumors that his dear friend Pamphilus was in love with the very girl whom Charinus fancied. Simo and his old friend Chremes came into conflict what should have been a routine arranged marriage between Simo's son and Chremes' daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamphilus nearly fell out with Charinus because of romantic complications.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chremes and his daughter Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mysis complained to Lesbia about how men never stay faithful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charinus said \"lovers' quarrels are renewal of love\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mysis agree to keep secret Pamphilus' impending wedding ceremony from his lover Glycerium on account that news of the event might too much for the pregnant Glycerium to take.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Davus apparently reluctantly told Simo that Simo had a reputation for being tight with his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mimetic desire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charinus said \"It was only after I told you I loved her that you took a fancy to her\" to Pamphilus in regard to Charinus' love interest Philumena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moderation in all things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sosia quoted the aphorism \"Ne quid nimis\" which translates to \"Not anything in excess\" or with some liberty to \"Moderation in all things\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simo disapproved over his son, Pamphilus, dallying with a woman of such apparent low birth as Glycerium, who it seemed was the sister of a harlot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "opera: The Magic Flute (1791)", "title": "The Magic Flute", "date": "1791-09-30", "description": "The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte, pronounced [ˈdiː ˈt͡saʊ̯bɐˌfløːtə] (About this soundlisten)), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death.\n\nIn this opera, the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro; instead, he learns the high ideals of Sarastro's community and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the hand of his ideal female companion, Papagena.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Flute" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/opera-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "epic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the epic love between Tamino and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pamina had to choose between her mother and her father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the conflict between Queen of the Night and Sarastro, probably tying into enlightenment ideas and backlashes thereto", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarastro wanted Tamino and Pamina to take over as leaders of the brotherhood because in their love was wisdom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Queen of the Night and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarastro and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamino, Pamina, Monostratos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Papageno spent the first half of the story lamenting that he had not a sweetheart, and looking for one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen of the Night ordered Pamina to kill Sarastro, Pamina's own father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tamino was upset with Papageno's incessant failure to be quiet in the Temple of Ordeal", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab1", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 1", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius is told a strange tale on the road to Hypata, Thessaly.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius described his journey to Thessaly within the Roman Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was traveling to Thessaly to learn about the magical arts. Lucius was curious to hear Aristomenes tale about an encounter with a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristomenes story centered on Meroë avenging herself gruesomely on a man that loved her and left her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative remote living body manipulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meroë had various powers to transform and manipulate other people's bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meroë was wicked, and a witch, it is suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meroë was wicked, and a witch, it is suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author states his intentions and apologizes for his poor Latin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The antics of a sword swallower were described.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius mentioned highway robbers several times and was notably wary of them. Socrates described how he'd been robbed of everything he had by a gang of bandits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristomenes told that Socrates had had an ill-advised tryst with Meroë, a witch who came back to punish him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Socrates described how the witch Meroë punished her unfaithful lover by transforming him into a beaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was pointed out that the punishment for witchcraft was being stoned to death. And someone said that Meroë ought to be stoned to death for practicing witchcraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristomenes had attempted suicide in a drunken stupor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo and his wife, Pamphile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo was notably, but perhaps not adequately, hospitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conclusion to Aristomenes story is that Aristomenes had drunk so much that he hallucinated witches, pissed himself, and attempted suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meroë and Panthia cut open Socrates, drained his blood, ripped out his heart, and replaced it with a sponge. Astonishingly, Socrates woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened, but then died (again) the sponge fell out of him as he bent over to drink from a stream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo lived in a humble shack even though he had \"money to burn\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius expressed curiosity about magic and witchcraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab10", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 10", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius the ass is made to perform tricks for public amusement.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bestiality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wealthy woman paid Lucius the ass's keeper and took him to bed with her. A murderess was condemned to have to publicly fornicate with Lucius the ass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two brother, a pastrycook and a chef, came to quarrel with each other as a result of Lucius the ass's antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pastrycook and the chef were convinced that someone was stealing their food, and were astonished to find out that Lucius the ass had been the one behind the disappearing food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass stole human food and grew fat on the fare, to his owner's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass contemplated doing away with himself rather than be made to have public intercourse with a notorious murderess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius described in much detail an enactment of the Judgment of Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theater performance involving various Roman deities was described.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass fled in fear for his life from the spectacle in which he was expected to ravage a condemned woman and then, together with her, be torn apart by wild beasts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab10inset1", "title": "The Golden Ass: The Tale of the Murderous Wife", "date": "180", "description": "A wicked stepmother plots to murder her stepson after he spurns her romantic advances. This is an inset story from Book 10.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#Tale_of_the_Murderous_Wife" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wicked stepmother stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother tried to poison murder her stepson after he refused to sleep with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lusty and wicked stepmother tried to coerce her stepson into sleeping with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother lusted after her stepson to no avail. The stepmother accused the stepson of having made a pass at her and more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "A young man was horrified by his lusty stepmother's romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "After suffering romantic rejection from her stepson, a stepmother took up a woman's weapon and began murdering all those she wanted to be rid of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother had a cup of poisoned wine prepared for her stepson to get revenge against him for having spurned her romantic overtures, but her biological son inadvertently drank it and died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The master of the house had given his son such an excellent education, we read. Later the father was reunited with the son he thought dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother send her husband off to visit his outlying estates to facilitate her seduction of his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wicked stepmother enlisted a villainous slave of hers to dispatch her stepson after the stepson spurned her romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother son drank the cup of poisoned wine that she'd left for her stepson to drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother falsely accused her stepson of attempting to rape her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false rape accusations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother falsely accused her stepson of attempting to rape her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepson was charged with the murder of his stepbrother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wicked stepmother tried to poison her stepson out of revenge because he'd spurned her romantic advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The father's face was \"streaming with tears\", and his \"white hair torn and smeared with ash\" in the immediate aftermath of his beloved son's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepson was charged with and tried for a murder that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A town magistrate stood up and insisted that the stepson be granted a trial even though everyone (the town counselors and townspeople) were so convinced of his guilt that they thought a trial was unnecessary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepson was tried for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepmother's villainous slave told the physician he needed a strong poison for a incurably sick man who wished to end his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepmother's villainous slave withstood the wheel, the rack, a flogging, and fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stepmother lusted after her stepson, who was horrified at the idea of such a \"crime\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stepson had to deal with unrequited amorous advances from his own stepmother while her husband was away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stepmother attempted to poison murder her hated stepson, but accidentally killed her beloved biological son instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stepmother procured poison from a physician whom she later poisoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician had refused to dispense a lethal poison and had surreptitiously doled out a strong soporific instead, thus saving an intended murder victim's life. This was done because the good doctor had been taught to preserve life and not destroy it, we read.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wicked stepmother was exiled for life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab10inset2", "title": "The Golden Ass: The Tale of the Jealous Wife", "date": "180", "description": "A woman is condemned to death by wild beasts, and also to have public intercourse with an ass, as punishment for murdering her husband's sister out of jealousy. This is an inset story from Book 10.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#Tale_of_the_Jealous_Wife" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wife killed her husband's sister out of jealousy because she mistook the sister for a romantic rival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wife had her servants kill her husband's sister by running her through with a white-hot firebrand, then she poison murdered her husband and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a wife who murdered her husband's sister out of jealousy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A brother was working to marry off his sister to his friend, but it ended tragically when his wife killed the sister out of jealously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man commanded his pregnant daughter-in-law to kill the child should it turn out to be a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother so loved her newborn that she disobeyed her husband's order to kill it, instead convincing her neighbor to raise it in secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman disobeyed her husband's order to kill their infant girl. A woman dispatched of her husband's sister using a swift poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A brother fell gravely ill upon learning of his sister's tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman remorselessly died in her husband by means of a swift poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman remorselessly died in her husband by means of a swift poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman stooped to poison murdering her own daughter in an effort to secure the woman's deceased husband's inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman callously poison murdered her own daughter in an effort to secure her husband's inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman was sentenced to be thrown to the beasts as punishment for having committed a spate of poison murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The murderous wife's attendants were tortured for their information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother-in-law was instructed to have her daughter-in-law's baby killed if it was a girl, which indeed it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mother was concerned that her son and daughter might become romantically involved if they were not informed about their kinship to each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother was concerned about her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother protected her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wife perceived adultery, though in fact there was none.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab11", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 11", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius the ass returns to human form with the help of the goddess Isis and lives happily ever after.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#Book_Eleven" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I turned into an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius the ass reverted back into human form after eating some roses that the goddess Isis had arranged for him to find in an act of divine intervention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius the ass finally returned to human form after devouring a garland of roses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was joyfully initiated into the priesthood of Isis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The goddess Isis intervened to help Lucius the ass return to human form. Lucius described Osiris as the invincible father of all the gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the Ass attended an ostentatious religious procession in honor of the goddess Isis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine visitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius had a cryptic dream-prophesy that he interpreted to mean that some good fortune would fall on him. And so it happened the very next day that the servants he'd left behind in Hypata returned to him with his horse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass cited the following Roman gods Venus, Ceres, Diana, Proserpine, etc. in his prayer to the Queen of Heaven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest had a revelation from Isis in which he was told to prepare a garland of roses for Lucius the ass to devour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass' transformation was attributed to have been a miracle mediated by Isis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab2", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 2", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius seeks to learn about witchcraft, making love to his host's servant girl Photis in the process.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byrrhena described Pamphile as a wicked witch. Thelyphron's story contained wicked witches trying to rob a corpse of its appendages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was all ears when Byrrhena described Pamphile as a witch. Thelyphron's story contained wicked witches trying to rob a corpse of its appendages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was so excited to learn about magic he almost threw caution to the winds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was mooning over Photis as she stirred a pot in a most seductive manner, and later spent a night making passionate love to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius was very excited to learn about magic and witchcraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius supped with his aunt Byrrhena and her various guests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius was reluctant to accept Byrrhena's invitation to supp with her on account that it might be taken as an insult by his host Milo, but in the end he thought it wise not to reject her offer of hospitality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byrrhena said Pamphile was prone to turn those that spurned her advances to stone, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative remote living body manipulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byrrhena said Pamphile was prone to turn those that spurned her advances to stone, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo spoke of a prodigious prophet named Diophanes. Pamphile divined from a lamp's flame that there would be a storm the next day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thelyphron got wound up in a peculiar funeral rite that consisted of watching over a dead man's body for a night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thelyphron told of another Thelyphron who was fetched back from the underworld, albeit briefly, by the Egyptian prophet Zatchlas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thelyphron was hired by a grieving widow to watch over her late husband's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thelyphron fell asleep and would have had to pay with his own body parts for any body parts stolen from the corpse. Luckily nothing was stolen from the corpse and Thelyphron seemed to have gotten away with it. But through an surprise twist of fate, we learn, since Thelyphron had the same name as the deceased the witches had in fact stolen body parts directly from Thelyphron and not from the corpse, as they had intended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius fought off what, in his drunken state, he thought to be three home invading robbers at the conclusion of this book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius went on at length about why the head and hair are the key to feminine beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius spoke of a Chaldean astrologer that he's encountered in Corinth who predicted such things as which days on which were good to marry, engage in business, and set out on a journey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that the grieving widow had dispatched her husband with poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man raised from the dead revealed that he'd been poisoned by his adulterous wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the grieving widow from Thelyphron's story had poisoned her husband so that she could be with her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thelyphron kept to himself in a corner at Byrrhena's banquet, ashamed that he was without a nose and ears.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab3", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 3", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius is transformed into a common ass and carried off by a band of robbers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I turned into an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius relates the experience of being transformed into an ass, the animal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucius carried on with Photis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hypatan authorities charged Lucius with the murder of three men as part of an elaborate prank that was to be played on him in celebration of the city's annual Festival of Laughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Hypata played a cruel prank on Lucius to celebrate their annual Festival of Laughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius was hauled off to court and tried for the murder of three men before an audience of observers who could barely contain their laughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius was made to think that a confession would be extracted from him by means of torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius was subjected to a most peculiar and, perhaps, unfair trial after he defended his host's home from three wine skins of seemingly malicious intent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius described his heroic battle with the three wine skins that he believed were robbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a laughing stock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius was highly embarrassed to be laughed at when he learned that the robbers he had so heroically dispensed with were, in fact, three wine skins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Photis made remarks about her mistress, Pamphile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamphile had ointments by means of which she could change into animal form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the Ass fantasized about avenging himself on his own horse as it chased him away from the food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gang of robbers broke into Milo's house and cleaned out the place, taking Lucius the Ass with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the Ass was absconded from Milo's house by a gang of robbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo's wife transformed herself into a bid by use of a special ointment. Photis tried to help Lucius follow suit, but accidentally transformed him into a common ass.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab4", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 4", "date": "180", "description": "A young woman is held captive by a band of robbers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band of robbers hatched an elaborate plot to burgle Demochares' manor that involved a man sewn up in a bear's skins. Alcimus broke into an old woman's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass thought to put himself out of his misery first by swallowing some poisonous red flowers and later by provoking the bandits to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thrasyleon was torn apart by vicious dogs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robbers kidnapped a young woman of high birth and plotted to random her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kidnapped girl Charite contemplated her fate in the hands of the robbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kidnapped girl Charite spoke of how her cousin cum fiancée had been slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners being exploited for entertainment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gladiators who were slated to compete in Demochares' gladiatorial show included \"desperate criminals with nothing to lose\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab7", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 7", "date": "180", "description": "A young woman's lover rescues her from a band of robbers. Lucius the ass is tormented by a sadistic boy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Haemus revealed himself to be Tlepolemus, Charite's fiancée, there to rescue her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tlepolemus and the villagers avenged themselves gruesomely on the drugged bandits. A mother tormented Lucius the ass because she blamed him for her boy's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tlepolemus infiltrated a band of thieves to rescue his beloved Charite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bellerophon was unjustly accused of the theft of Lucius the ass and the murder of a boy. We heard that Lucius had been unjustly blamed for the robbery of Milos' house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius contemplated the tortures that were to be visited upon him and Charite. Milos' slave was tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass was apprehensive about his impending execution on two occasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haemus of Thrace told of how his entire band had been decimated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite seemed peculiarly mirthful at the prospect of being sold to a brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius had a bout of contempt for women when he heard Charite's mirth regarding the prospect of becoming a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass found himself at the mercy of a sadistic boy that tortured him in many ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass contemplated suicide when he learned that his masters were planning to castrate him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cruel boy that tormented Lucius the ass ended up torn to shreds by another animal: a she-bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bellerophon was unjustly accused of having stolen Lucius the ass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bellerophon was unjustly accused of having murdered a boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother mourned her boy killed by a she-bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tlepolemus rescued Charite who was being held captive by a group of bandits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tlepolemus used his charisma to dupe a band of thieves into unanimously electing him their new leader.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab8", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 8", "date": "180", "description": "Lucius the ass ends up being on the menu after a roundabout series of misadventures that begins with the tragic death of his master and his lover.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thrasyllus was said to want revenge on Tipolemus because the latter snatched Charite. Charite took a gruesome vengeance on Thrasyllus after he killed her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thrasyllus was envious of Tipolemus being with Charite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thrasyllus hatched a vile plot to make Tipolemus' loving wife, Charite, his own, but failed miserably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tipolemus and Charite, and later an unnamed couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thrasyllus had been in a gang of robbers, or several.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tipolemus fought a wild boar. A party of travelers which included Lucius the Ass was assailed by a pack of infuriated dogs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thrasyllus betrayed his friend Tipolemus by running him through with a spear on a wild boar hunt as part of a plot to steal his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tipolemus and Thrasyllus went on a wild boar hunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thrasyllus murdered his rival Tipolemus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite mourned her husband Tipolemus' death. She initially threw herself on Tipolemus' corpse out of grief, and later ran herself through with a spear rather than live without him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thrasyllus courted Charite to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite did not appreciate Thrasyllus' advances soon after her former husband's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutilation as punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite took just vengeance on Thrasyllus by blinding him. In the cultural context, his seem to be Chatite's legal right of vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite took just vengeance on Thrasyllus by blinding him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charite ran herself through after having avenged her husband's murder. An unnamed wife killed herself over infidelity. Thrasyllus starved himself to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman killed herself and her child because of her husband's infidelity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman killed herself and her child because of her husband's infidelity, after burning his account books and store houses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A slave was tied to a tree, smeared with honey, and left to the ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A master avenged himself on a slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some priests of Cybele engaged in lewd rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass was upset at seeing the lewd antics of some gay priests of Cybele.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old man begged the some among the party of travelers to rescue his grandson who'd fallen into a pit and couldn't get out. In the end, it turned out to be a ruse, and the old man was a wicked man-eating, shapeshifter of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the white-haired grandfather transformed into a monstrous serpent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mortification of the flesh", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man told of how he'd sadistically whipped himself for having committed an unspecified sacrilegious act.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab9", "title": "The Golden Ass: Book 9", "date": "180", "description": "After escaping from a cook who was intent on cooking him for dinner, Lucius the ass is sold from owner to owner until such time as he is commandeered into the military.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass became property of a woman who was cheating on her miller husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The danger of rabies was illustrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The priests that owned Lucius the ass sustained themselves by setting up an oracle and inventing prophesies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The priests were accused of sacrilege.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass told of some priests who were swinging crows of people out of their money by making sham all-purpose oracular prophesies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius opined about the miller's wife being \"fickle like all women\" and spoke of \"the familiar arts of her sex\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old woman knew curses and spells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller's wife sought out an old witch to invoke curses and spells on the miller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old witch raised the ghost of a woman who'd died a violent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the miller was hung dead by a ghost at the bidding of his wife in a roundabout way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller's daughter was beating her breast in the wake of his tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius the ass's poor master welcomed into his home a traveler who'd lost his was in a downpour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the crime of adultery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crime of adultery was mentioned with the capital punishment suggested as an apt consequence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A husband caught a young man in adultery with the husband's wife, and proceeded to bugger the young man before thrashing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A husband divorced his adulterous wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius told of several ominous portents that were soon succeeded by the news that the family's three sons had been killed. For example, he described how a chicken gave birth to a fully formed pullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of three brothers was torn to shreds by a pack of dogs while the other two brothers tried ineffectually to intervene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngest brother and the father killed themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Roman legionnaire tried to take Lucius the ass from his rightful master for use in military service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Roman legionnaire was mortified at the thought of his comrades finding out that a lowly gardener had gotten the better of him in a scrap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was related that the miller's wife proclaimed to believe in one and only one god, perhaps an oblique reference to her being a Christian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller hatched an elaborate plot to get back at his wife's secret lover.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab9inset1", "title": "The Golden Ass: The Tale of the Wife's Tub", "date": "180", "description": "A wife hides her lover in an old tub when her husband returns home unexpectedly. This is an inset story from Book 9.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#Tale_of_the_Wife's_Tub" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wife hid her loved inside an old tub when her husband came home early from work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wife hid her loved inside an old tub when her husband came home early from work.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab9inset2", "title": "The Golden Ass: The Tale of the Jealous Husband", "date": "180", "description": "A jealous husband instructs his slave to ensure that his wife keeps out of trouble when he is forced to leave town on business. This is an inset story from Book 9.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#The_Tale_of_the_Jealous_Husband" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman bedded a young and handsome man while her husband, Barbarus, was away on business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman bedded a young and handsome man while her husband, Barbarus, was away on business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbarus made his slave, Myrmex, watch over his wife to make sure she was being faithful while he was away on business. He essentially kept his wife under lock and key while he was gone away on business in an effort to ensure her faithfulness to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philesitherus became obsessively besotted with Barbarus' wife and paid 30 gold pieces to sleep with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Myrmex accept 30 gold pieces from Philesitherus to let Philesitherus enter into his master Barbarus' wife's bedchamber in the dead of night, and in so doing disobey his master's direct order to assure the wife remains faithful while Barbarus is out of town?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myrmex betrayed his master, Barbarus, for some gold pieces. His master was also lusting after the gold pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myrmex betrayed his master, Barbarus, for some gold pieces.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgab9inset3", "title": "The Golden Ass: The Tale of the Fuller's Wife", "date": "180", "description": "A fuller's wife attempts to hide her lover in a drying cage. This is an inset story from Book 9.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#The_Tale_of_the_Fuller's_Wife" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A fuller's wife frantically hid her lover in a drying cage when the fuller came home early from supping with his baker friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "A fuller's wife frantically hid her lover in a drying cage when the fuller came home early from supping with his baker friend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "apuleius180tgainset1", "title": "The Golden Ass: Cupid and Psyche", "date": "180", "description": "An elderly woman tells a tale of how the most beautiful woman in the world comes to be envied by the goddess Venus in an effort to conform a kidnapped young woman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass#Tale_of_Cupid_and_Psyche" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-apuleius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Venus was jealous of Psyche's beauty. Psyche's sisters were jealous of Psyche's marriage to Cupid. Psyche's sisters were jealous of her because of the wealth and status that came with her marriage to the god Cupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story considered the rivalry of Venus with Psyche regarding who was the most beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central point in the story is the fact that Psyche disobeyed her husband because she had a cat-killing urge to find out who he was. This was later spelled out after Psyche could not resist opening the box that was said to contain some of Proserpina's beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cupid disobeyed his mother Venus by pursuing a romantic relationship with her rival in beauty, Psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The relationship between Cupid and Psyche is explicitly referred to as that of husband and wife, Venus being the wicked mother-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is a notably ironic point that Cupid, who has inflicted so much romantic suffering with his love-inducing arrows, should happen to prick himself and suffer the same sort of woe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because of Cupid's love inducing arrows, Cupid and Psyche came to be obsessively in love to the extent that Cupid upset the heavenly order (angering Venus) and Psyche nearly gave her life chasing after Cupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the relationship between Venus and Psyche after the latter had married the former's son, Cupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was various women's obsession with being evermore beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story told of Roman deities and their antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The god Cupid and the world's most beautiful woman Psyche fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venus, seemingly unfairly, accused Psyche of arrogance in matching her beauty with that of gods and set about punishing her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche and her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche was said to hate her own beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche was said to be lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche met with her wicked sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche thought her sisters mourned her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche's sisters were jealous of Psyche's marriage because of the rich palace she lived in and the many jewels she was adorned with - they attempted to snatch Cupid for themselves. It was noted twice that the Stygian ferryman Charon was avaricious to a fault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche's sisters disingenuously accused Psyche of having been prideful towards them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche was abandoned by Cupid as a punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venus was thoroughly disappointed with Cupid's failure to punish Psyche. She was also chastised by Ceres and Juno for not recognizing that Cupid had become a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ceres lamented that she could not help Psyche because of Ceres' kinship with Venus and laws that forbade her from helping runaway slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche briefly intended to kill herself but a tower intervened to save her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "apotheosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the apotheosis of Psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche lost her virginity to Cupid in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Psyche's wicked sisters complained that was too old and arthritic to satisfy her in the sack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venus said something to the effect that Cupid had brought shame and scandal upon their family by fornicating with a mere mortal, albeit the most beautiful mortal woman in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journey into the underworld", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psyche went on a perilous trek down into Tartarus to obtain a box containing Proserpina's beauty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: A True Story (180)", "title": "A True Story", "date": "180", "description": "A True Story (Ancient Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, Alēthē diēgēmata; Latin: Vera Historia or Latin: Verae Historiae), also translated as True History, is a long novella or short novel written in the second century AD by the Syrian author Lucian of Samosata. The novel is a satire of outlandish tales that had been reported in ancient sources, particularly those that presented fantastic or mythical events as if they were true. It is Lucian's best-known work.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45858" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-classicalantiquity.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Lucian and his crew of 50 fellow adventurers as they undertake a perilous voyage out beyond the the Pillars of Hercules to discover what wonders lay at the end of the Atlantic ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucian was compelled to sail to the end of the Atlantic ocean in part out of a desire to satisfy his curiosity about what wonders might exist there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucian was compelled to sail to the end of the Atlantic ocean in part to satisfy his self-described desire for adventure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story concerns Lucian and his crew of 50 fellow adventurers being swept up from the sea and deposited on the Moon by an ominous waterspout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers dwelt for a time among the People of the Moon under the auspicious of their human king, Endymion. These exclusively male lunar inhabitants had numerous distinguishing physical characteristics, including beards growing from their knees, one toenail-less toe on each foot, cabbage-leaf tails, removable eyes, leaves for ears, a belly pocket used to keep children warm in cold weather, and artificial phalluses of ivory or wood. Their noses ran not with honey, and the sweated milk that could be made into a delectable cheese. They carried fetuses to term in a special womb contained in the calf. The rich among them wore garments made of a soft, malleable glass; the poor of a bronze fabric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story concern Lucian discovering that the heavens were populated by a host of extraterrestrial beings, including the Moon people, the Sun people, people who live on comets, and the dog-faced people from the star Sirius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biased sex-ratio society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the People of the Moon being exclusively male. Lucian described their two curious manners of reproduction in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The King of the Moon, Endymion, and the King of the Sun, Phaethon, went to war over control of the as yet uninhabited planet Venus. Phaethon's forces prevailed over those of Endymion in an epic battle. A peace treaty was ultimately signed which saw, among other things, that Venus would be jointly colonized by both peoples, along with any other peoples who wished to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trapped in the belly of a whale", "level": "major", "motivation": "After returning to Earth, Lucian and his crew of fellow adventurers were swallowed up by a 200-mile-long whale wherein they dwelt for a year and a month. Inside the leviathan, they discovered a wooded island inhabited by a man and his son, who lived under constant threat from wicked lobster-men and mermen. Lucian and his men defeated the combined forces of the lobster-men and mermen in battle. They later killed the whale by setting a fire inside it and then escaped by passing through its propped open mouth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "After escaping from the belly of a leviathan, Lucian and his fellow adventurers soon came across the fabled Island of the Blessed: a paradise on Earth where heroes and select men of renown went after they died. It was a land where no one grew old, it was always spring, and everywhere was in constant bloom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "After escaping from the belly of a leviathan, Lucian and his fellow adventurers soon came across the fabled Island of the Blessed: a paradise on Earth where heroes and select men of renown went after they died. It was a land where no one grew old, it was always spring, and everywhere was in constant bloom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers encountered such beings of varying degrees of peculiarity as living torches, living dreams, gods, mythical heroes, grapevine women, giant mosquitoes, mushroom men who used mushroom shields and wielded asparagus spears, dog-faced men from Sirius, formidable \"cloud centaurs\", lobster men, mermen, cork-footed men who walked on water, bull-men, women with donkey legs who bedazzled men and then ate them, and beings that were part sailor and part ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "major", "motivation": "After returning to Earth, Lucian and his crew of fellow adventurers were swallowed up by a 200-mile-long whale wherein they dwelt for a year and a month. Inside the leviathan, they discovered a wooded island inhabited by a man and his son, who lived under constant threat from wicked lobster-men and mermen. Lucian and his men defeated the combined forces of the lobster-men and mermen in battle. They later killed the whale by setting a fire inside it and then escaped by passing through its propped open mouth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian reasonably speculated that the two giant sets of footprints he discovered on a remote, tree-covered island were those of Hercules and Dionysus. Lucian peered out from the leviathan's mouth to spy enigmatic seafaring giants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-plant hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers encountered grapevine women on a remote island in the Atlantic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beholding the Earth from space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian beheld the Earth from the vantage point of the Moon. He reported seeing rivers, forests, seas, cities, and mountains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Venus", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers found themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between Endymion the king of the Moon and Phaethon the king of the Sun over colonization of this world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian encountered or otherwise described such biologically distinguished beings as mushroom men who used mushroom shields and wielded asparagus spears, lobster men, and dog-faced men from Sirius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "centaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The King of the Sun had at his command formidable \"cloud centaurs\". Lucian described these beings as winged horses with the upper bodies of men, each from the waist up being as large as the Colossus of Rhodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers visited the City of Light: a city inhabited by living torches, floating somewhere between the constellations Pleiades and Hyades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magical land in the sky", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers skirted an enigmatic city in the clouds on their descent to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers a father and son who'd been living in the belly of a whale for 27 years. Cinyras and Helen concocted a plan to consummate their love in spite of knowing that his father, Scintharus, would disapprove on account of her being married to Menelaus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "merpeople", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers battled with wicked mermen in the belly of the leviathan. They were described as having the upper bodies of men and the lower bodies of catfish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers battled with wicked lobster men in the belly of the leviathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers encountered such bizarre composite beings as grapevine women, dog-faced men from Sirius, formidable \"cloud centaurs\", lobster men, mermen, bull-men, women with donkey legs who bedazzled men and then ate them, and beings that were part sailor and part ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers observed three trials on the Island of the Blessed as the awaited to be tried for coming to the island while still alive. The first case was to decided whether Ajax had gone insane. It was determined that he had. The second was to decided which of Theseus or Menelaus that Helen should be made to live with. It was Menelaus on account that Theseus had numerous wives already. The third was to decide whether Alexander the Great outranked Hannibal. It was determined that he did. As for Lucian and his men, the judge determined they could not be tried while still alive and that their proceeding would be postponed until such time as they were deceased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian conversed with Homer and Pythagoras on the Island of the Blessed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Theseus kept numerous wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian reported how all the men inhabiting the Island of the Blessed shared their wives without jealousy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian reported that Pythagoras had been reincarnated seven different times before consenting to join other men of renown on the Island of the Blessed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen and the young sailor Cinyras had designed on sneaking off the Island of Cheese where they might consummate their love without her husband being the wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen and the young sailor Cinyras had designed on sneaking off the Island of Cheese where they might consummate their love without her husband being the wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journey into the underworld", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucian and his fellow adventurers briefly visited the Island of the Wicked: a remote island where particularly egregious sinners were sent to be tormented after they died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1867)", "title": "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "date": "1867", "description": "Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth), is a classic science fiction novel by Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very center of the earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into Iceland's celebrated inactive volcano Snæfellsjökull, then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and living prehistoric creatures from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. (The 1867 revised edition inserted additional prehistoric material in Chaps. 37–39.) Eventually the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by an active volcano, Stromboli, in southern Italy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story is about a trio of intrepid explorers who trek down old lava tubes to ultimately reach the center of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock was driven by a desire to discover what lurked deep beneath the surface of the Earth. On the journey down, he comported himself in a single-minded and at times reckless manner so that he might satisfy his burning curiosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Alex explored the bowels of the Earth together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Alex, and their stoic Icelandic guide Hans contended with all types of dangers as they trekked down through an extinct volcano to the center of the Earth: they survived cave-ins, privation, tornadoes, a perilous voyage on a vast subsurface ocean, and an encounter with a prehistoric sea creature, among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and his party pointedly proved wrong the prevailing theory that the Earth had a central source of intense heat by the simple expedient of trekking down the lava tubes of an extinct volcano all the way to the center of the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "geology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and his party commented upon numerous geological features on their trek down to the center of the Earth: Lidenbrock (and to a lesser extent Alex) relatively dated the geological strata they were passing through and examined their fossil contents, discussed about various minerals, entertained two opposing theories of what lay beneath the Earth, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock was a stereotypical oblivious German academic who was interested solely in advancing science by disproving the prevailing theory that the Earth had an intense source of heat at its center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trained geologist Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew protégé Alex were in their element as they explored the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The party guide Hans was portrayed as a stoic Scandinavian to the extreme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock single-mindedly insisted that the party take big risks at every turn in an effort to reach the center of the Earth, while his nephew Alex constantly countered him with suggestions to take the cautious route - or else return home the same way they came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "The party discovered a primeval region deep inside the Earth that was replete with prehistoric forests, creatures, and even hominids. In particular, the observed carboniferous-era vegetation, dinosaurs, and a prehistoric humanoid more than twelve feet in height who was watching over a herd of mastodons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and his party went on an expedition into the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptographic cypher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and Alex broke Arne Saknussemm's variant on a transposition cipher to read the 16th century Icelandic alchemist's encrypted message describing how he'd made it to the center of the Earth and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was mooning over his love interest, Gretchen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock suffered from this sickness on the voyage to Iceland to his embarrassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arne Saknussemm was persecuted for heresy in 1573 and his books burned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans was an eiderduck hunter by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A peasant family welcomed Professor Lidenbrock and his party into their home and treated them like kings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and Alex waxed poetic at times about the wonders of nature they beheld while trekking through the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nearly dying of thirst Alex was touched when the otherwise oblivious and hot-tempered Professor Lidenbrock showed him a modicum of compassion by addressing him as \"Poor boy\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solitary confinement as a punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lost and alone Alex wondered to himself as to how many prisoners had gone mad from being locked up in solitary confinement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human in danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was lost alone for days in the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex gave himself up for dead after wondering around alone in the bowels of the Earth for days on end, thinking he'd never find Professor Lidenbrock and Hans again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Days of wonder around alone in the bowels of the Earth left Alex thinking he was goner. Professor Lidenbrock and Alex thought they might well die at one point when they were in the process of being shot up out of a volcano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party got caught in a severe lightning storm while traversing a vast subterranean in their makeshift raft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party witnessed an Ichthyosaurus battle and defeat a Plesiosaurus while traversing a vast subsurface ocean on their makeshift raft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lidenbrock and Alex were fascinated to find a genuine underground world that was lit by electrically charged gas near its ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party spied a herd of supposedly extinct, prehistoric species of mastodon in the primeval subsurface forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party spied a more than 12-foot-tall prehistoric humanoid watching over a herd of mastodons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1872)", "title": "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas", "date": "1872", "description": "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.\n\nThe novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The book was widely acclaimed on its release and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premier adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Its depiction of Captain Nemo's underwater ship, the Nautilus, is regarded as ahead of its time, since it accurately describes many features of today's submarines, which in the 1860s were comparatively primitive vessels.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Seas" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story is about a wondrous expedition under the waves Earth's world ocean in a super high-tech submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is Captain Nemo's super high-tech submarine, the Nautilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trio of Professor Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land refused to accept that it was their shared fate to remain on board the Nautilus permanently. Although Aronnax felt conflicted about leaving his underwater prison on account of the unique opportunity it afforded him to conduct advanced marine research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nautilus had everything the dedicated naturalist Professor Aronnax could ever want: a vast library that doubled as a smoking room, a lavishly adorned drawing room in which paintings of the great masters hung, glass cases full of specimens from the sea that no naturalist had ever beheld, etc. On top of all that the Nautilus was to Aronnax a dream vessel from which to conduct advanced marine research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Aronnax toured the ocean depths on a quest for scientific knowledge. Captain Nemo was partially motivated by scientific curiosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Aronnax was accompanied by his loyal man-servant, Conseil, throughout the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Nemo sought refuge from terrestrial civilization, which he saw as hopelessly flawed, beneath the waves. Indeed, Aronnax wrote of Nemo that \"It was no common misanthropy which had shut Captain Nemo and his companions within the Nautilus, but a hatred, either monstrous or sublime, which time could never weaken.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Captain Nemo was motivated by a desire to avenge the deaths of his wife and children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to get away from it all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Nemo sought refuge from terrestrial civilization, which he saw as hopelessly flawed, beneath the waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned Land had a temper tantrum after being confined to a room together with Aronnax and Conseil for an extended period of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aronnax was thoroughly impressed with Nemo's collection of painting, which included works by Raphael, da Vince, Holbein, among other illustrious artists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noteworthy that the Nautilus was powered by electric batteries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aronnax described the various natural wonders that he'd beheld under the waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo took Aronnax and company on a hunting excursion on the ocean floor. Ned Land hunted birds and small kangaroos on the Papuan island. Ned Land harpooned a giant dugong in waters of the Red Sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo and his crewmen used special electric discharge harpoons to hunt prey on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo's crewmen pulled up some germons and a peculiar species of mackerel in their nets. Aronnax and Conseil dredged the seafloor and hauled up slugs, pearl oysters, a dozen little turtles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing bloodthirsty savages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land were attacked by a band of what Aronnax described as \"savages\" after having trespassed on their island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo buried a fallen crewman in a cemetery on the seafloor. Nemo pointedly grieved for a comrade who'd perished in the fight against the school of giant cuttlefish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nautilus was attacked by a school of giant cuttlefish somewhere near the Bahamas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo risked his life to save an Indian pearl diver from a shark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo spoke of mid 19th century India as being an oppressed country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo took Aronnax on a tour of the sunken ruins of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo lamented that human activity was bringing certain species of whales to the brink of destruction. Aronnax sympathized with this view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polar exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo led an expedition to the South Pole, which turned out to be over open sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo sobbed with arms outstretched before a painting of his dearly departed wive and two young children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Wild Duck (1884)", "title": "The Wild Duck", "date": "1884-01-09", "description": "The Wild Duck (original Norwegian title: Vildanden) is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is considered the first modern masterpiece in the genre of tragicomedy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Duck" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-henrikibsen.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hjalmar and Hedvig", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hedvig loved her father deeply and he doted on her until he discovered she might have been illegitimate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Ekdal home is full of lies that people tell in order to get along. Gregers' father may have impregnated his servant Gina then married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child, and Hjalmar's father has been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hedvig was slowly going blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hedvig was slowly going blind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hjalmar was somewhat negligent in his duties as a dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gina and Hjalmar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hjalmar learns that Gina has had an extramarital affair and that Hedvig might not be his biological daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "realist vs. idealist", "level": "major", "motivation": "Greger was an idealist who believed truth must be told; other characters, for example Greger's father, were more down to earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to understand that the ideologue Greger was instrumental in upsetting the order in the Ekdal home, by uncovering various lies that the inhabitants lived by.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "both Hedvig and Hjalmar engaged in ample day-dreaming: she on the attic, he about becoming an inventor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)", "title": "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "date": "1886", "description": "A London legal practitioner investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist of the story Mr. Utterson was a close and longtime friend of both Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jekyll used a serum synthesized from chemicals to transform into the evil Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his well-respected gentleman self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield spoke of a certain honest man who was being blackmailed over what they supposed were some \"capers of his youth\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hyde was wanted in connection with the trampling of a young girl and the shocking murder of a Member of Parliament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jekyll had a falling out with his longtime friend Hastie Lanyon. This we learned came after Lanyon witnessed Jekyll's transformation into Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jekyll became a recluse who never left the confines of his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jekyll and his butler Mr. Poole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jekyll took his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lanyon was reminded of the vows to which those of his profession were bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The transformation process from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll was described.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll was a man of science who worked with chemicals in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Utterson was a lawyer by profession, and the executor of Jekyll's last will and testament.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Little Red Riding Hood (1889)", "title": "Little Red Riding-hood (1889)", "date": "1889", "description": "A Victorian-era retelling of a classic European cautionary tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. It was published in the 1889 Andrew Lang edited collection of fairy tales The Blue Fairy Book.\n\nLink to text: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Blue_Fairy_Book/Little_Red_Riding-hood", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang%27s_Fairy_Books#The_Blue_Fairy_Book_(1889)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles Perrault sums up the moral of the story as follows: \"From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Red Riding-hood innocently trusted, and engaged in childish diversions such as chasing butterflies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conniving, deceitful Wolf was juxtaposed with the innocent little country girl Little Red Riding-hood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "This common aphorism is illustrated by the Wolf dressing up in Little Red Riding-hood's grandmother's clothing in order to lull the poor child into a false sense of security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Red Riding-hood happily went on an errand at her dotting mother's bidding. The mother was concerned for her own mother in turn, the grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little girl, whom everybody called Little Red Riding-hood, set out to deliver a custard and some butter to her very ill grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mother was concerned because the grandmother had recently been \"very ill\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Candida (1894)", "title": "Candida", "date": "1894-03-30", "description": "Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was written in 1894 and first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions of love and marriage, asking what a woman really desires from her husband. The cleric is a Christian Socialist, allowing Shaw—himself a Fabian Socialist—to weave political issues, current at the time, into the story.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Candida, James, Eugene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eugene, his eloquence notwithstanding, was childishly besotted with the much older Candida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eugene obsessed over Candida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "although the emotions portrayed are somewhat ambiguous, Candida rejects Eugene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "James and Candida", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eugene is a poet and philosophises and rhapsodizes about what love is", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Candida pits her wit against the two mens', and the role of women vis-a-vis men is discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Husband James is somewhat jealous at Eugene over wife Candida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James appears to test Candida's love by deliberately leaving her alone with Eugene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eugene seems to imagine he has some sort of idealized love for Candida that is better off unconsumated", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Arms and the Man (1894)", "title": "Arms and the Man", "date": "1894-04-21", "description": "The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina Petkoff, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, one of the heroes of that war, whom she idolizes. On the night after the Battle of Slivnitza, a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, Captain Bluntschli, climbs in through her bedroom balcony window and threatens to shoot Raina if she gives the alarm. When Russian and Bulgarian troops burst in to search the house for him, Raina hides him so that he won't be killed. He asks her to remember that \"nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.\" In a conversation after the soldiers have left, Bluntschli's pragmatic and cynical attitude towards war and soldiering shocks the idealistic Raina, especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol. When the search dies down, Raina and her mother Catherine sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguised in one of Raina's father's old coats.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_and_the_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are shown various soldiers who are foolish, cowardly, or vainglorious buffons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are told several times about how terrible it is to be a soldier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raina and Bluntschli", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergius challenged Bluntschli to a duel to settled the matter of who would be with Raina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergius and Raina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catherine and Raina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Petkoff and Catherine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Petkoff and Raina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergius challanges Bluntschili to a duel briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: La Charcuterie mécanique (1895)", "title": "La Charcuterie mécanique", "date": "1895", "description": "A film purporting to show a machine that automatically turns a live pig into various pork products.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Charcuterie_m%C3%A9canique" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A live pig in placed into a box-like machine that automatically butchered it into various cuts of meat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Time Machine (1895)", "title": "The Time Machine", "date": "1895", "description": "A Victorian English scientist and gentleman builds a time machine and uses it to travel into the distant future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Time Traveler constructed a vehicle that he used to travel to the year 802,701 AD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Time Traveler constructed a vehicle that he used to travel to the year 802,701 AD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "By the year 802,701 AD, the human race had differentiated into two distinct species: the small, elegant, childlike Eloi, and the ape-like troglodyte Morlocks who live in darkness underground and surface only at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eloi were childlike adults who lived in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks and Eloi inherited the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Time Traveler found himself trapped in the year 802,701 AD after the Morlocks took possession of his time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Time Traveler speculated that social stratification had resulted in the human race differentiating into two distinct species. In particular, he speculated that the leisured classes had become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes had become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Time Traveler briefly recapitulated Simon Newcomb's attempt to construct a mathematical theory of 4D space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Time Traveler initially saw the toiless Eloi society as utopian, but later came to see things differently.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)", "title": "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "date": "1896", "description": "The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick who is a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau created a wide variety of human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. We learned that he had been on the island for eleven years and had been striving to make a complete transformation of an animal to a human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Moreau had secluded himself on a remote island so that he could conduct his gruesome experiments on transforming animals into human-like beings away from the prying eyes of his disapproving peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The once eminent London physiologist Dr. Moreau had been publicly exposed for having performed cruel experiments in vivisection. He fled England in the wake of the scandal, secluding himself on a remote island. The castaway Edward Prendick was horrified to discover that Dr. Moreau was continuing with his gruesome work on the island, being especially appalled by Dr. Moreau's torturous experiments on a puma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau created a wide variety of human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection, collectively known as the Beast Folk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau indoctrinated the Beast Folk to abide in a list of Ten Commandment-like laws in an effort to maintain control over them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Beast Folk struggled mightily to suppress their animal instincts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Beast Folk tried to go against their inner animal natures in an effort to be more human-like, but failed, ultimately reverting to their original animal selves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-like hybrid beings that Dr. Moreau had created from animals via vivisection, and looked up to up almost like a god, turned on him and the end and killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reader is made to ponder the morality of performing torturous experiments on animals in the name of scientific advancement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many of Dr. Moreau's human-like hybrid creations longed to become human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded at sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Prendick found himself twice stranded on the open ocean with few provisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A very drunken ship captain shot his mouth off at Montgomery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: In the Abyss (1896)", "title": "In the Abyss", "date": "1896-08", "description": "The story describes a journey to the ocean bed in a specially-designed metal sphere; the explorer within discovers a civilization of human-like creatures. It was republished in the September 1926 issue of Amazing Stories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Abyss", "https://archive.org/details/amazing_stories_september_1926/page/n5" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elstead embarked on a pioneering descent to the seabed in a steel sphere, about nine feet in diameter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elstead encountered intelligent, bipedal creatures with some fish-like characteristics (e.g. gills) on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creatures dragged Elstead in his steel sphere to an altar inside their town and appeared to worship him as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elstead invented an elaborate deep sea submersible steel sphere. He used it to go on a five mile descent into the ocean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gugusse and the Automaton (1897)", "title": "Gugusse and the Automaton", "date": "1897", "description": "A clown is amazed and confused by the mechanical movements of an automaton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "a clown is amazed and confused by mechanical man", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Devil's Disciple (1897)", "title": "The Devil's Disciple", "date": "1897", "description": "The Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary era, the play tells the story of Richard Dudgeon, a local outcast and self-proclaimed \"Devil's disciple\". In a twist characteristic of Shaw's love of paradox, Dudgeon sacrifices himself in a Christ-like gesture despite his professed Infernal allegiance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil%27s_Disciple" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dick is an apostate and scorned for being wicked but he sacrifices himself by taking Anderson's place to be lead off for execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dick sacrifices himself for Anderson who appears to flee but in fact takes some risk to save Dick in turn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anderson appears to be a coward and is scolded as such when he flees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dick is brave and at the end we learn that Anderson is too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick is the family's black sheep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick's mother despises Dick who in turn evicts her from the house when he inherits it from his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anderson and Judith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anderson, Judith, Dick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anderson underwent a military tribunal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anderson underwent a military tribunal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Invisible Man (1897)", "title": "The Invisible Man", "date": "1897", "description": "A scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Griffin found a way to make himself invisible by changing the body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Griffin found a way to make himself invisible by changing the body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kemp described Griffin as \"inhuman\" and \"pure selfishness\". Kemp spoke of Griffin as thinking of \"nothing but his own advantage, his own safety\". Griffin's actions in the story repeatedly lent credence to these remarks, including not feeling a bit sorry for having murdered his own father, and his callous behavior he demonstrated toward an old man he coerced into being his servant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Griffin lived as a loner before he became invisible, and he lived in isolation from other people everywhere he went after his transformation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Griffin's life of isolation may have contributed to him becoming a psychopathic killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin went to work in his hotel room with \"powders\" and \"coloured and white fluids\" in an effort to derive a formula that would reverse his invisibility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin was a scientist with a background in optics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin broke into a house and stole an amount of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "physics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin went in much detail on how objects could be rendered invisible via the altering of their refractive indexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin regretted having rendered himself permanently invisible after he became aware of such disadvantages that came with the condition as having to be naked all the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin sought revenge against Kemp after Kemp broke a promise to to alert the police of Griffin's whereabouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kemp wantonly betrayed Griffin by alerting the police about Griffin after he assured Griffin that he would not no such thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Hall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin fantasized about the immense power that his newfound invisibility would bring him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The X-Rays (1897)", "title": "The X-Rays", "date": "1897-10", "description": "A courting couple is exposed to X-rays.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Rays" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "X-rays", "level": "major", "motivation": "An X-ray machine was used on a courting couple to humorous effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the lady refuses the gentleman's proposal, slaps him, and walks off stage", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Novice at X-rays (1898)", "title": "A Novice at X-rays", "date": "1898", "description": "A man has his skeleton extracted by a scientist using an X-ray machine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000210/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "X-rays", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unsuspecting man had his skeleton extracted by an X-ray machine operating scientist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The War of the Worlds (1898)", "title": "The War of the Worlds", "date": "1898", "description": "A first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a first hand account of a dramatic Martian invasion of England, and by extension the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth invading Martians were described as being betentacled giant heads about four feet in diameter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The British forces resisted the Earth invading Martians as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians invading Earth has been interpreted as a commentary on British imperialism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator describes all the various miseries that result from England being invaded by an overpowering, and merciless military force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians came out of nowhere and reduced what was the world's most powerful state to ashes in no time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians crashed down to Earth in special cylinders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator was separated from his wife at the start of the Martian onslaught, but the two were happily reunited against all odds in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator's younger brother, an unnamed medical student, was among the group of refugees fleeing London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator pointed out that the Martians were likely to be just as disgusted at our way of feeding as the people in the story were of theirs. Note that the Martians fed by injecting the blood of both humans and animals directly into their veins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender neutral being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator observed that the Martians we \"absolutely without sex\", and concluded that the sort of strife that erupts among men and women was absent among the Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator remarked on how the Martians \"interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator was of the mind that human evolution would parallel that of the Martians who'd evolved to be what were basically big brain containing, tentacled heads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dreaded Martian hear rays obliterated anything in their paths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used a strange black smoke to kill English city dwellers by the scores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator describes the plight of a column of refugees who were fleeing a war torn London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians indiscriminately killed English civilians by the scores.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Mrs. Warren's Profession (1902)", "title": "Mrs. Warren's Profession", "date": "1902-01-05", "description": "Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893, and first performed in London in 1902. The play is about a former prostitute, now a madam (brothel proprietor), who attempts to come to terms with her disapproving daughter. It is a problem play, offering social commentary to illustrate Shaw's belief that the act of prostitution was not caused by moral failure but by economic necessity. Elements of the play were borrowed from Shaw's 1882 novel Cashel Byron's Profession, about a man who becomes a boxer due to limited employment opportunities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Warren%27s_Profession" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Kitty Warren and Vivie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Kitty Warren turned to sex trade; Vivi set out to make her own living and not rely either on her mother's dirty money or any man; Vivi also had graduated from Cambridge U with honours in mathematics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Kitty Warren explained this to her daughter and it became the basis for judging Kitty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex trade in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was the question of whether and how immoral it was of Mrs. Warren to profit from brothels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Mrs. Kitty Warren and Vivie were enterprising women way ahead of their time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vivie and Frank", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The life of prostitutes in Mrs. Kitty Warren's brothels was alluded to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivie rejected the lecherous advances of Sir Crofts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivie rejected the lecherous advances of Sir Crofts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivie had to briefly consider marrying old Sir Crofts in order to save her mother's reputation", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Trip to the Moon (1902)", "title": "A Trip to the Moon", "date": "1902-10-04", "description": "A group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of lunar inhabitants, and return to Earth with one of them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space gun", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of astronomers shot themselves to the Moon in a bullet-like spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of astronomers built a spaceship and flew to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "a group of astronomers discover Moon men living on the Moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moon people were insectoids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of astronomers voyaged to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "a group of astronomers build a spaceship flies to the Moon using a space gun", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Man and Superman (1905)", "title": "Man and Superman", "date": "1905-05-23", "description": "Man and Superman is a four-act drama written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to a call for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Mr. Whitefield has recently died, and his will indicates that his daughter Ann should be left in the care of two men, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Ramsden, a venerable old man, distrusts John Tanner, an eloquent youth with revolutionary ideas, whom Shaw's stage directions describe as \"prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable (mark the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondth of an inch too wide open), possibly a little mad\". In spite of what Ramsden says, Ann accepts Tanner as her guardian, though Tanner doesn't want the position at all. She also challenges Tanner's revolutionary beliefs with her own ideas. Despite Tanner's professed dedication to anarchy, he is unable to disarm Ann's charm, and she ultimately persuades him to marry her, choosing him over her more persistent suitor, a young man, Tanner's friend, named Octavius Robinson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is spelled out initially that women compulsively manipulates things to the end of nature, i.e. reproduction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann pursued Tanner relentlessly and the play culminated with their impending nuptials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw comments on how the behavior of men and women relates to human evolution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "As Shaw notes in \"Epistle Dedicatory\", and the title of the works hints at in invoking Nietzshe's \"Superman\", the work is related to the direction in which evolution might be taking us.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Whitfield and Ann", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The late Mr. Whitfield and Ann as indicated by Ann", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann grieved for her late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is built on the premise that women must have male guardians even as it portrays cunning and competent females that could easily fend for themselves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ramsden and Tanner are rivals over political ideology", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Major Barbara (1905)", "title": "Major Barbara", "date": "1905-11-28", "description": "Major Barbara is a three-act English play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907. The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. Undershaft, the father, gives money to the Salvation Army, which offends Major Barbara, who does not want to be connected to his \"tainted\" wealth. However, the father argues that poverty is a worse problem than munitions, and claims that he is doing more to help society by giving his workers jobs and a steady income than Major Barbara is doing to help them by giving them bread and soup.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Barbara" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Undershaft supplies arms to all and sundry and revels in war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "realist vs. idealist", "level": "major", "motivation": "Undershaft is a down to earth realist while his children are various kinds of idealists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Britomart wants Stephen to inherit Undershaft's arms enterprise but he wants to adopt a foundling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Britomart and Undersahft, separated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Britomart and Stephen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Undershaft and Stephen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Undershaft and Barbara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Britomart and Barbara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "comments are made about how stupid people are in killing each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "comments are made about killing people in war", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: The Doctor's Dilemma (1906)", "title": "The Doctor's Dilemma", "date": "1906-11-20", "description": "The Doctor's Dilemma is a play by George Bernard Shaw first staged in 1906. It is a problem play about the moral dilemmas created by limited medical resources, and the conflicts between the demands of private medicine as a business and a vocation.\n\nThe eponymous dilemma of the play is that of the newly honoured doctor Sir Colenso Ridgeon, who has developed a revolutionary new cure for tuberculosis. However, his private medical practice, with limited staff and resources, can only treat ten patients at a time. From a group of fifty patients he has selected ten he believes he can cure and who, he believes, are most worthy of being saved. However, when he is approached by a young woman, Jennifer Dubedat, with a deadly ill husband, Louis Dubedat, he admits he can, at a stretch, save one more patient, but that the individual in question must be shown to be most worthy of being saved.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor%27s_Dilemma_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "medical triage", "level": "major", "motivation": "at the core of this story was the decision of who deserved saving given that only 10 patient could receive treatment at a time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colenso with Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis Dubedat was an unpologetic blaggard and con artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis and Jennifer; Louis and previous wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis, Jennifer, Colenso, other wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the play showed how greedy and incompetent Doctors prayed on the hapless population and has been seen as an early call for a national health service", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colenso struggled with his decision to orchestrate Louis' demise in order to woo Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colenso time and again struggled with ethical decisions around who lives and who dies as he had the power to cure but a limited number of patients", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis briefly accused Colenso of breaking this trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the new tubercolosis procedure was clearly experimental although little was made of this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This oath was mentioned briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone appreciated Louis' fine drawings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis was a prodigy of a painter, we are told.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon (1907)", "title": "The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon", "date": "1907", "description": "A professor and his students behold a mildly flirtatious eclipse between an anthropomorphic sun and moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eclipse_or_the_Courtship_of_the_Sun_and_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "solar eclipse", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of astronomers observed the sun and moon have a romantic encounter during a fanciful depiction of an eclipse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The professor was so overwhelmed by the sight of the eclipse that he fell headlong out of his tower window and into a water-filled barrel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Under the Seas (1907)", "title": "Under the Seas", "date": "1907", "description": "A fisherman who dreams of traveling by submarine to the bottom of the ocean, where he encounters both realistic and fanciful sea creatures, including a chorus of naiads.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Seas" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "a fisherman Yves is lead to a submarine that he uses to explore the sea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves is attacked by a giant octopus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "goddesses of the sea trap Yves in a net and let him fall into a gigantic hollow sponge out of vengeance for all the fish he had caught in his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves ad an elaborate dream of exploring the ocean floor in a submarine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Airship Destroyer (1909)", "title": "The Airship Destroyer", "date": "1909", "description": "A fleet of airships begin an attack on England, bombing an armored vehicle, a signal box and a town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Airship_Destroyer" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aerial bombing of cities", "level": "major", "motivation": "an armada of airships bomb England", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative airship", "level": "major", "motivation": "an armada of airships bomb England", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "An inventor and his assistant designed a surface-to-air missile to shoot down the airship that was bombing the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the inventor rescues his lover from her bombed out house", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Machine Stops (1909)", "title": "The Machine Stops", "date": "1909-11-01", "description": "In a distant future people mostly live statically in isolated rooms with every need cared for by an enormous machine that controls nearly all aspects of society. Then the machine starts to break down.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is the gradual breakdown of an enormous machine that oversaw nearly every aspect of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "people were bread to be physically weak and mentally complacent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the surface of the Earth was apparently all but inhabitable due to human activity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "choice", "motivation": "when the central machine failed, civilization collapsed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is the gradual breakdown of an enormous machine that oversaw nearly every aspect of society. People became helpless to save themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vashti and Kuno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth because the planet was in the grips of an ice age.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Misalliance (1910)", "title": "Misalliance", "date": "1910-02-23", "description": "Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw. The play takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England.\n\nIt is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in 1908 in his play, Getting Married. It was also a continuation of some of his other ideas on Socialism, physical fitness, the Life Force, and \"The New Woman\": i.e. women intent on escaping Victorian standards of helplessness, passivity, stuffy propriety, and non-involvement in politics or general affairs.\n\nMisalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw heroine who exemplifies his lifelong theory that in courtship, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misalliance" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "one of the underlying theses is that it is actually mainly women who are the pursuers in romance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hypathia and Bentley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Hypathia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "elderly Lord Summerhay has proposed to HypathiaHypathia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "various", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone with Lina Szczepanowska, for example", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gunner wanted to kill John for being rich and having had an affair with Gunner's mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gunner spoke of his late mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Mrs. Tarleton", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein (1910)", "title": "Frankenstein", "date": "1910-03-18", "description": "The first motion picture adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1910_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein applies his scientific knowledge to the creation of a monster to society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein was certain that he'd found a way to create the most perfect human being that the world had ever seen, and was horrified when he found that he's instead created a hideous monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and the hideous monster of his own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and the hideous monster of his own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein had the hubris to presume he could reanimate a corpse using the power of electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein worked in his laboratory to create his eponymous monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The monster felt jealous of Frankenstein over Frankenstein's fiancée Elizabeth, whom them monster had developed a romantic interest in.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Celestial Omnibus (1911)", "title": "The Celestial Omnibus", "date": "1911", "description": "A boy comes across an unusual omnibus that takes him to a fantasy land where he meets imaginary and historical figures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Omnibus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "boy and Septimus met various historical and mythological figures such as Shelley and Achilles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Septimus was into poetry. The boy was forced to learn poetry. The story seems to be a rebuke aimed at literary snobbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The boy had started to discover something of his own but was rebuked by the learned old poet Septimus who was too set in his ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Septimus was rebuked for censoring the boy's imagination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "the boy's father disbelieved and beat him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "the boy's father disbelieved and beat him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy's new friends might have been imaginary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "was the omnibus merely an escape from reality?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Conquest of the Pole (1912)", "title": "The Conquest of the Pole", "date": "1912-05-03", "description": "A film loosely inspired by contemporary events and by Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires, follows the comic misadventures of an international group of explorers on an expedition to the North Pole, where they encounter a man- eating frost giant and a dangerous magnetic needle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_the_Pole" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "polar exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international group of explorers went on an expedition to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative airliner", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international group of explorers built a passenger airplane to fly to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suffragette interrupt the international group of male explorers and demand to participate in the expedition to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international group of explorers braved the elements on an expedition to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The international group of explorers versus the giant frost monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An international group of explorers built a contemporary idea of what a future passenger airplane might be, with a notable similarity to passenger ships, and flew it to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola (1913)", "title": "The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola", "date": "1913", "description": "Saturnino Farandola goes on a series of extraordinary adventures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_avventure_straordinarissime_di_Saturnino_Farandola" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Saturnino and Misora travel the world getting into one adventure after another, including an encounter with a whale at the bottom of the sea, finding the lost white elephant of the Siamese king, going to the source of the Nile, and taking a cruise along the coast of the Americas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Saturnino found the source of the Nile, explored Siam, and went to the Americas to live in a village of beavers called Beaveropolis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Misora held captive by the evil Professor Cocknuff; Minister Nao-Ching held Saturnino and Misora and crew captive and sentenced all to death; Nile expedition party held captive by a troop of gorillas; Saturnino held captive by band of Native Americans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saturnino is raised from early childhood by ape-men on a remote island, and reintegrates into society after he is rescued at sea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saturnino went from being a feral child to being elected ship captain my his fellow crewmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saturnino and Misora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saturnino and and his wife Misora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saturnino and his crew track down a whale that swallowed up his wife while the pair were exploring the sea floor in diving suits; Saturnino slays a lion near the source of the Nile", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Message from Mars (1913)", "title": "A Message from Mars", "date": "1913-07", "description": "A wealthy young man who is exceedingly selfish and self-centered is shown the error of his ways by a messenger from Mars on Christmas Eve.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Message_from_Mars_(1913_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace Parker is the embodiment of selfishness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "egocentrism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace Parker is exceedingly selfish and egocentric but the Martian teaches him to see the world through the eyes of others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "a Martian visits Horace Parker on Christmas Eve to show him the error of his selfish ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "a Martian visits Horace Parker on Christmas Eve to show him the error of his selfish ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minnie Templer nearly breaks off her engagement to Horace Parker on account of his selfish behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace Parker shows compassion toward a homeless man, orphans, and others after having experienced hardship firsthand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The egocentric and selfish man Horace Parker came to see the error of his ways on Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Martian had to help Horace Parker see the error of his ways in order to redeem himself in the eyes of his Martian peers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian made Horace Parker experience firsthand what it was like to live as a bum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Martian makes Horace Parker experience hardship firsthand", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "play: Pygmalion (1913)", "title": "Pygmalion", "date": "1913-10-16", "description": "Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological figure. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913.\n\nSpeech Professor Higgins attempts to turn the cockney flower girl Eliza into a proper Lady.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/play-georgebernardshaw.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sociolinguistics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Accents, dialects, and the art of speaking was discussed in a fairly scientific way with relation to social status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eliza and Alfred came into wealth and status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eliza was taught aristocratic manners along with speech improvement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "compared were the destinies of poor people like Eliza with rich people like the Higgins", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eliza underwent a substantial change in terms of character and social destiny", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "in particular Pickering and Higgins vs. Eliza, Mrs. Higgins and Mrs. Pearce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eliza had some problems with this at social gatherings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "table manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eliza was taught aristocratic table manners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eliza is poised to marry Freddy at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doolittle speaks about his domestic situation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizas challenge was compared to that of learning French", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Herland (1915)", "title": "Herland", "date": "1915", "description": "The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who reproduce via parthenogenesis. The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herland_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A trio of male explorers discovered an isolated, female-only society that was free of war, conflict, and exploitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A trio of male explorers discovered an isolated land populated entirely by women who reproduce asexually.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Terry consistently underestimated the ability of the Herland females to run an advanced society owing to his internalized view that men are superior to women. In one example of this Terry boasted that a female-only society would be very primitive prior to him, Van, and Jeff discovering Herland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. nurture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The novel explores gender as a social construction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The men, Terry in particular, was astounded that women could organize a well-functioning society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men had their conventional notions of the female sex overturned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Van, Terry, and Jeff were held captive by the Herland females for a number of months, and at one point attempted a daring escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "A society of only females was seen from the point of view of three men. In one out of many examples of this, Terry was puzzled that the Herlanders only wore hats to shade themselves from the sun, unlike the women from Terry's society, who wore feathered hats to be fashionable. While on the other side of the coin, some of the more salient flaws of contemporary society were brought to light thought it being seen through the eyes of the Herlanders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Herlanders raising their daughters in loving environments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The all-female Herlanders had evolved to reproduce asexually in the aftermath of their men having perished in a volcanic cataclysm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry's great aim in life was said to be exploration, and the story begins with Van, Terry, and Jeff setting out on a expedition into an area of uncharted land rumored to be home to a society consisting entirely of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the Herlander's ancient ancestors practiced polygamy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the Herlander's ancient ancestors were a slave-holding people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the Herlander's ancient ancestors religion was similar to that of the Ancient Greeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry stressed that prosperity was a consequence of competition, but this puzzled the Herlanders whose society was organized around people cooperating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Herlanders had effectively instituted a one-child policy to circumvent overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The genesis of Herland is this: All the men in a certain society perished in a volcanic cataclysm. Being unable to reproduce, the surviving women thought their society was at an end. That is until one special woman gave birth to everyone's astonishment. It was later determined that she had a mutation that enabled her to reproduce asexually. As if this in itself is not enough to justify this theme, let it be known that Ellador was told the story of the Mary's miraculous virgin birth by Van.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Herland women deified Motherhood and it was the cornerstone of their religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellador challenged Van's contention that a person's soul lives on forever after bodily death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A triple wedding was held for the men in the biggest temple in all of Herland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Each men ended marrying a Herland female: Van with Ellador, Jeff with Celis, and Terry with Alima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Van and Ellador fell in love and she accompanied him back to the \"civilized\" world after the men got themselves banished from Herland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Herland females found Terry guilty of attempting to rape Moadine and sentenced him to exile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry was tried for the attempted rape of his wife Moadine, found guilty, and was sentenced to be exiled from Herland.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tales of Hoffman (1916)", "title": "Tales of Hoffman", "date": "1916", "description": "A silent film depicting a trio of adventures of E.T.A. Hoffman. In the first, Hoffman becomes infatuated with a realistic looking mechanical puppet when he dons special glasses that make him see the everything that is dead in the world to appear alive. In the second, he gets into a sword fighting duel over a beautiful woman. In the third, he falls in love with a woman who dies tragically from a disease caused by singing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Hoffmann_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoffman becomes infatuated with a realistic looking mechanical puppet when he dons special glasses that make him see dead things in the world look alive; Hoffman at Giulietta; Hoffman and Antonia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Coppelius and Spalzani created a realistic looking mechanical puppet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoffman and Schlemil compete for Giulietta's love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the young Hoffman quarreled with his uncle in whose house he lived", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coppelius and Spalzani created a realistic looking mechanical puppet in their laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coppelius and Spalzani in their realistic looking mechanical puppet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schlemil at Giulietta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoffman took great pleasure at the gambling table until he lost all his money.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The End of the World (1916)", "title": "The End of the World", "date": "1916", "description": "A worldwide catastrophe when an errant comet passes by Earth and causes natural disasters and social unrest.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_(1916_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "An errant comet passes by Earth and causes natural disasters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dina and Frank Stoll", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of traders prevented knowledge of the impending catastrophe from getting out to the public so that they could make a killing in the stock market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "soldier sought revenge on Frank Stoll over Stoll having stolen his girlfriend Dina", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)", "title": "20000 Leagues Under the Sea", "date": "1916-12-24", "description": "A film adaptation of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20", "000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1916_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax explored the ocean depths together in the high-tech submarine the Nautilis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo built a super high-tech submarine to explore the ocean depths among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo (a.k.a. Prince Daakar) was consumed with a desire for vengeance against Charles Denver over having attacked Princess Daaker during Denver's time as a colonial officer in India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo longed to meet his missing daughter who it turns out had grown up as a wild girl on an uninhabited island; Arronax's daughter bid him a loving farewell before he left on his voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arronax aboard the Nautilus by Nemo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles Denver is literally confronted by the ghost of the Princess Daaker whom he attacked years ago and she stabbed herself rather than submit to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Following the crash of their hot air balloon, a group of Union soldiers found themselves stranded on a far-flung island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the US government sends a naval expedition to destroy a supposed sea monster that turned out to be Nemo's submarine. Union soldiers versus prowling beasts on island; Nemo and Arronax hunt a shark from the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Union soldiers find wild woman on island and proceed to civilize her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax studying what wonders lay on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax behold the wonders of the ocean floor and the creatures of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax donned high-tech diving suits to go on a hunt on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax delighted in hunting on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo (a.k.a. Prince Daakar) describes British colonial rule made homeland of India a land of desolation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "flashback to Nemo (a.k.a. Prince Daakar) and his wife Princess Daakar suffering under British colonial rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The US government organized a naval expedition to investigate reports of a sea monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Trip to Mars (1918)", "title": "A Trip to Mars", "date": "1918-02-22", "description": "Captain Avanti Planetaros leads an expedition to the planet Mars where he and his fellow companions encounter a highly advanced civilization of pacifist vegetarian Martians.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-before-1920.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros leads and expedition to Mars where he encounters a highly advanced civilization of pacifist vegetarian Martians. Avanti returns to Earth with a message to his fellow Earthlings that world peace can be achieved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros led an expedition to Mars in the good ship Excelsior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Planetaros and Avanti Planetaros were driven by a desire to explore outer space and cited Columbus as an inspiration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Planetaros and Avanti Planetaros design and build a spaceship over the space of two years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "expedition encounter Martian civilization on Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matrians built a veritable utopia where everyone lives in peace and harmony without and apparently dystopian undercurrents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros and his expedition party (and Earthling by extension) were seen as primitive and violent savages by the comparatively highly advanced Martian civilization they encountered on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros see how he and his fellow expedition companions were a bunch of violent savages after completing the Martian atonement ritual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros falls in love with Martian Leader's Daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Planetaros worries over the safety of his son Avanti Planetaros on his expedition to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Planetaros and his daughter Corona.; Martian leader gives his consent for his daughter to go to Earth with Avanti and enlighten the Earthlings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Avanti's sister Corona worried that Avanti had died on dangerous voyage to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Avanti Planetaros' crew crack under the stresses from a difficulty voyage through space nearly launches a mutiny", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martians communicated telepathically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martians communicated telepathically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martians were vegetarian and thought the consumption of meat barbarous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martians were overt pacifists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Planetaros and Avanti's sister Corona worried that Avanti had died on dangerous voyage to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martial leader explains to Avanti how death is just the beginning of a new and better life and says he will meet his departed wife in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Runaway Skyscraper (1919)", "title": "The Runaway Skyscraper", "date": "1919-02-22", "description": "A Manhattan skyscraper full of people \"falls\" in the direction of the fourth dimension to a time before Europeans had colonized North America. It was republished in the June 1926 issue of Amazing Stories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Runaway_Skyscraper", "https://archive.org/details/amazing_stories_june_1926/page/n59" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Manhattan skyscraper fell through the fourth dimension, leaving its 2000-odd inhabitants stranded in pre-Columbian Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Manhattan skyscraper fell through the fourth dimension, leaving its 2000-odd inhabitants stranded in pre-Columbian Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the engineer Arthur taking charge organizing the food supply, sleeping arrangements, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur and his secretary Miss Woodward fell in love fell in love while being stranded in pre-Columbian Manhattan, and the story concluded with news of their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of keeping up the skyscraper inhabitants morale in an effort to prevent a panic from breaking out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Indication were given at the start of the story that Arthur was secretly in love with his secretary Miss Woodward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur and a gray-haired bank manager were concerned that an pending food shortage would result in a mass panic setting in among the skyscraper inhabitants. This nearly transpired, but a flock of wood pigeons crashed into the building at night, giving the people enough food for a few days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The natives were described as savages, although no hostilities ensued, and eventually the skyscraper inhabitants began trading with them for foodstuffs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: We (1920)", "title": "We", "date": "1920", "description": "We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which assists mass surveillance. The structure of the state is Panopticon-like, and life is scientifically managed F. W. Taylor-style. People march in step with each other and are uniformed. There is no way of referring to people except by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One State is the definition of a totalitarian state: people have been reduced to mere numbers and must act almost entirely according to a state mandated protocol throughout their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the main protagonist became besotted with I-330 and was in turn pined after by O-90", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the narrator frequently reflects on how different things must seem to him compared to the reader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "D-503 became besotted with I-330 and was in turn pined after by O-90 whose other lover was R-13, D-503’s best friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegration chamber", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One State removed problem numbers with a disintegration device", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)", "title": "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", "date": "1920-02-26", "description": "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cabinet_of_Dr._Caligari" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a sequence of murders in the town of Holstenwall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Dr. Caligari using of a somnambulist to commit the killings was his way to get away away with murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown stereotypical lunatics in an asylum and learned that the entire story was narrated by an inmate. There were two occasions of someone being forced into a straitjacket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lunatic asylum director was revealed to have had a live long desire to learn whether a somnambulist could be made to perform vile acts that they would never commit while in a waking state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lunatic asylum director was obsessed with learning the secrets of the notorious mystic Dr. Caligari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Franzis' delusion, the lunatic asylum director went dangerously insane and had to be forcibly restrained. In reality, Franzis was himself a patient in the asylum. He suffered from the delusion that the director was an insane murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal spirit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man in the park claimed to be tormented by spirits of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franzis and Alan men professed that they were both in love with the same woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane thought she was a queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesare could see everything, we heard, and he foretold of Alan's imminent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franzis claimed that Jane was his fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan and Franzis were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franzis could not control his grief upon being informed of the death of his friend, Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Holstenwall police were investigating a string of murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franzis vowed that he would not rest until Alan's killer was brought to justice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 II)", "title": "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1920-03-28", "description": "A 1920 film based on the Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde directed and written by J. Charles Haydon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1920_Paramount_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his philanthropist good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll descents into a life of depravity, frequenting opium dens, dance halls, bars, and any place that satisfies his evil desires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll versus his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll into the evil Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Millicent Carew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Millicent Carew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his philanthropist good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could use science to rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hyde burned down an apartment complex to avenge something that happened to Jekyll.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 I)", "title": "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1920-04", "description": "Dr. Jekyll, a kind and charitable man, believes that everyone has two sides, one good and one evil, otherwise considered a split personality. Using a potion that he concocted, Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde, creating havoc throughout his town. Directed by John S. Robertson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1920_Haydon_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his philanthropist good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll descents into a life of depravity, frequenting opium dens, dance halls, bars, and any place that satisfies his evil desires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll versus his evil side, Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll into the evil Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Millicent Carew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Millicent Carew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his philanthropist good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in Victorian London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could use science to rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philanthropist way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll ran a clinic for the treatment of the poor at his own expense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George Carew and Millicent Carew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the lives of the upper classes contrasted with those of the poor and destitute visiting Henry Jekyll's clinic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll developed a potion in his laboratory to temporarily transform himself into the evil Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Hyde encountered opium addicts in Victorian London's opium dens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll was tortured by remorse for Edward Hyde's monstrous cruelties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Millicent Carew grieved for her brutally murdered father George Carew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Algol: Tragedy of Power (1920)", "title": "Algol: Tragedy of Power", "date": "1920-09-03", "description": "A 1920 German science fiction film about an alien from the planet Algol.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algol_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien from Algol gives Robert Herne machine that produces limitless power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Herne went from toiling in a coal mine to virtually ruling the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Herne given the secret of how to make a perpetual energy machine by Algol alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "coal miners feared Robert Herne's bio-factory power would put them all out of work", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reginald Hearn plots a coup to seize power from his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Herne is so corrupted by power that he refuses to give the perpetual energy machine for to the people for the betterment of humanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social change due to new technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "world industrialization accelerates with the introduction of Robert Herne's power source with adverse consequences for workers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "So corrupted was Robert Herne by power and greed that he refuses to give the perpetual energy machine to the people for the betterment of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Herne destroyed the perpetual energy machine in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Herne's son Reginald plotted a coup against him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria Obal and Peter Hell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Herne and Maria Obal had a falling out after Robert begins opening new bio-factories", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mechanical Man (1921)", "title": "The Mechanical Man", "date": "1921", "description": "A scientist creates a mechanical man that is subsequently used in various crimes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanical_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "a scientist constructs a mechanical man that is capable of serving champagne and committing various felonies", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror (1922)", "title": "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror", "date": "1922-03-04", "description": "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens), or simply Nosferatu, is a 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The silent film, shot in 1921 and released the following year, was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897); the Stoker Estate had refused permission. Various names and other details were changed from the novel: for instance, vampire became Nosferatu, and Count Dracula was renamed Count Orlok.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Count Orlok (i.e., Dracula but for copyright issues) leaving his crumbling castle in the Carpathian Mountains for the bright gas lights of the fictional German town of Wisborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas and Ellen were in a blissful marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas and Ellen were in the throws of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen was distraught when Thomas embarked on a perilous journey to Transylvania in the 19th century, and even more so when he failed to return on time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It slowly dawned on Thomas what he was up against in Count Orlok to the point where one night he was simply shivering in a corner hugging his cross for protection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Count Orlok summoned fog and controlled various animals. He was also somewhat monstrous in appearance, while his adversaries were ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Wisborg thought the vampire victims had died of the plague, and the viewer saw how society handled the situation with crosses drawn on doors and angry mobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Count Orlok summoned fog and controlled various animals. He was also somewhat monstrous in appearance, while his adversaries were ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Knock was incarcerated in a psychiatric ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen died in her husband Thomas' arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The innkeeper warned Thomas about werewolves lurking in the local woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The doctor treated Ellen for a seemingly harmless congestion of the blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Orlok stacked his coffins on the horse-drawn cart with supernatural haste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After stacking his coffins on the horse-drawn cart with supernatural haste, Count Orlok laid himself down in the top coffin before levitating closed the lid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Orlok passed through the closed door of his new Wisborg residence, coffin in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas and Ellen passionately embraced upon Thomas's return to Wisborg following his captivity in Count Orlok's castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nun tended to Thomas during his convalescence in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Professor Bulwer the was demonstrating the \"savage manner of carnivorous plants\" and other wonders of Nature, including a tentacled polyp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen came to believe that a woman without sin, such presumably as herself, was the Achilles heel of the evil Count Orlok.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man from Beyond (1922)", "title": "The Man from Beyond", "date": "1922-04-22", "description": "A 1922 silent film starring Harry Houdini as a man found frozen in arctic ice who is brought back to life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Beyond" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary was found frozen for a hundred years in the arctic ice and was thawed out and awoken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary is found frozen for a hundred years in the arctic ice and is thawed out and awoken", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary is found frozen for a hundred years in the arctic ice and is thawed out and awoken", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary mistakenly believes Felice to be his fiancée; Felice and Trent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary joins Felice in searching for her abducted father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard Hillary and Felice Strange", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Felice Strange with her father who had been abducted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship captain was jealous of Howard Hillary over Felice Strange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard Hillary, Felice Strange, and Trent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trent at Felice Strange", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard Hillary was deemed to be a madman and locked up in an insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard Hillary considered a madman and locked up in an insane asylum; Crawford strange held captive in a cellar by Trent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felice Strange believed herself to be the reincarnation of her ancestor Felice Norcross", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard Hillary was falsely accused of murdering Felice's father and taken into custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felice's father was murdered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Black Oxen (1923)", "title": "Black Oxen", "date": "1923-12-29", "description": "Lee Clavering, a playwright in New York, falls in love with an Austrian countess, Madame Zatianny. Janet Oglethorpe, an animated and precocious flapper, is also in love with Lee but he hasn't noticed yet. Unbeknownst to Lee, Madame Zatianny is actually 58 years old, and has retained her youth through a rejuvenating glandular treatment and X-ray surgery. Lee's plans to marry Madame Zatianny are thwarted when one of her former admirers reveals her embarrassing secret and, in the end, Lee discovers happiness with Janet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Oxen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ogden used a rejuvenating glandular treatment and X-ray surgery to look young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ogden used a rejuvenating glandular treatment and X-ray surgery to look young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee Clavering fell in love with Madame Zatianny, and Janet Oglethorpe with Lee Clavering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee Clavering, Madame Zatianny, and Janet Oglethorpe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ogden used a rejuvenating glandular treatment and X-ray surgery to look young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ogden used a rejuvenating glandular treatment and X-ray surgery to look young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet Oglethorpe faced criticism over the wild flapper lifestyle she led.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Ogden and Charles Dinwiddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet Oglethorpe at Lee Clavering.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Hands of Orlac (1924)", "title": "The Hands of Orlac", "date": "1924-05-06", "description": "Concert pianist Paul Orlac gets more than he bargained for when he is transplanted with the hands of a man executed for murder, after he loses his hands in a horrible railway accident.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hands_of_Orlac_(1924_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "evil hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac's transplanted hands seem to have a mind of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac becomes obsessed with the notions that his transplanted hands have a mind of their own", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac is driven mad by machinations over his transplanted hands", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac and Yvonne Orlac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac and Yvonne Orlac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Concert pianist Paul Orlac is devastated after losing his hands and not being able to play the piano anymore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Orlac is driven mad by machinations over his transplanted hands", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Orlac was transplanted with the hands of an executed murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Concert pianist Paul Orlac was devastated after losing his hands, not being able to play the piano anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Yvonne Orlac fall into financial ruin after he loses his career as a concert pianist and get evicted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Orlac's wealthy father refused to help his son financially because he hated him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crook Nera pretended to be the executed murderer Vasseur in an attempt to blackmail Paul Orlac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Paul Orlac playing the piano on stage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: A Passage to India (1924)", "title": "A Passage to India", "date": "1924-06-04", "description": "A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Time magazine included the novel in its \"All Time 100 Novels\" list. The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem \"Passage to India\" in Leaves of Grass.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The British walked a thin line between adapting to Indian customs and imposing British customs on the Indian people. Conversely, the Indian people walked a thin line between asserting their own culture or bending to their rich British overlords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Virtually all the conflict in the book stemmed from friction between British and Indian people rooted in controversy over the British Raj.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In particular the British-Indians acted with prejudice against the Indians and while they often struggle to keep up a politer facade the racism is clearly there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The British, and perhaps more the British-Indians, often acted superior to the Indians and some Indians in turn seemed to accept this as natural.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "when Azis is arrested Fielding struggles with the police and judicial system but encounters politics and poor attitude and Azis is just barely exonerated towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the British Raj", "level": "major", "motivation": "Underlying the whole story and sometimes discussed explicitly, is the righteousness of British rule in India at the time (1924) and the implications it has for Indian society (in spite of the indignity, did it perhaps unite India and bring it positive things?).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "marriage between Brits and British-Indians appear to be discussed on a couple of occasions", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aelita (1924)", "title": "Aelita", "date": "1924-09-25", "description": "A a silent film directed by Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov made at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio and released in 1924. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's novel of the same name. Nikolai Tseretelli and Valentina Kuindzhi were cast in leading roles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Martian society aristocrats rule over slaves who are confined underground and put into cold storage when not required.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los apparently murders his wife Natasha in a jealous rage and flees to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los becomes obsessed with building a spaceship capable of traveling to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los starts a communist revolution on Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los dreams of flying to Mars and visiting the Martians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Martian society aristocrats rule over slaves who are confined underground and put into cold storage when not required", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aelita and Los", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los and his wife Natasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martian workers revolt against the ruling class", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martian workers revolt against the ruling class", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The upper class used a form of surveillance to oversee the working class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A radio message from possibly from Mars is received all over the Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Los became increasing jealous of Erlich after coming to the mistaken conclusion that Erlich's continued efforts to court his wife were bearing fruit. His jealously ultimately got out of control and he ostensibly shot Natasha dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Los' wife Natasha is pursued by Ehrlich; Aelita, Los, and Gussev", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In Martian society aristocrats rule over slaves who are confined underground and put into cold storage when not required", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ehrlich for Natasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the rebuilding and industrialization of Russia after World War I", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Russian Revolution of 1905", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were seen celebrating the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks in the streets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Crazy Ray (1924)", "title": "The Crazy Ray", "date": "1924-12-26", "description": "A mad doctor uses a magic ray on Parisians which causes them to freeze in strange and often embarrassing positions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crazy_Ray" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time freeze", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A mad scientist invented an apparatus that he used to freeze the whole world in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist used the titular \"crazy ray\" contraption to freeze the whole world in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist invented an apparatus that he used to freeze the world in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the mad scientist was betrayed by his nephew assistant", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Death Ray (1925)", "title": "The Death Ray", "date": "1925", "description": "In an unspecified capitalist country, a Soviet engineer Podobed who invents a death ray that is stoled by the government with a view toward using it to suppress labor strikes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_Ray_(1925_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death ray", "level": "major", "motivation": "Podobed invents a death ray that is stolen and used to suppressing labor strikes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dame Edit led a worker revolt that was suppressed with death ray", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "workers were exploited in a factory; fascist factory owners ordered a bombing raid on worker settlement that would have killed them had they not used a death ray to stop the bombs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "workers arrested and their committee building ransacked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "fascists stole a death ray and used it to suppress a worker revolt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "fascist government equipped with death ray opposed by communist worker movement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruller's sole heir was a monocle sporting, top hat wearing, cigar chomping capitalist running the factory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the fascists had a full blow worker revolution on their hands by the conclusion of the film", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Workers were exploited in a factory. Fascist factory owners ordered a bombing raid on worker settlement that would have killed the workers had they not used a death ray to stop the bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Podobed conducted elaborate experiments in his lab in the inventing of the death ray.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost World (1925)", "title": "The Lost World", "date": "1925-02-05", "description": "An expedition to South America discovers a land were dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures still roam the Earth. It is based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(1925_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An expedition to South America discovered a plateau where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A group of explorers found an uncharted territory in South America where dinosaurs still roamed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition through an uncharted territory in South America found living dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The famed explorer Sir John Roxton sets out on an expedition to verify whether reports of live dinosaurs existing in South America are true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "expedition party versus dinosaurs among other beasts; brontosaurus in an uproar on the streets of London", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of explorers trekked through uncharted territory in South America to find living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward Malone and Paula White fall in love on the expedition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul White organizes expedition to find her father the explorer Maple White", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed an expedition to the Amazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of explorers trekked through uncharted territory in South America to find living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Malone goes on perilous expedition to impress his fiancée Gladys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula White, Edward Malone, and Gladys", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battleship Potemkin (1925)", "title": "Battleship Potemkin", "date": "1925-12-21", "description": "Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin), sometimes rendered as Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 Soviet silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against its officers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Russian Revolution of 1905", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The sailor's mutiny was both inspired by revolutionary upheaval in Russia, and became the catalyst for uprising in Odessa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the sailor's mutiny was both inspired by revolutionary upheaval in Russia, and became the catalyst for uprising in Odessa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the first act, some Potemkin crewmen challenged a senior officer by refusing to consume the spoiled meat they had been order to content themselves with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "the men finally choose to mutiny and revolt rather than eat rotten meat and get summarily executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it might have been like aboard a Russian battleship in 1905.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vakulinchuk was the hero that finally spoke out at the sailors' oppression at the hands of their officers, and then he was killed for it", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Man Who Saved the Earth (1926)", "title": "The Man Who Saved the Earth", "date": "1926-04", "description": "A man by the name of Charley Huyck sacrifices himself in a last ditched effort to prevent the theft of Earth's ocean waters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/TheManWhoSavedTheEarth/page/n1", "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories/Volume_01/Number_01/The_Man_Who_Saved_the_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians used a mysterious death ray like beam, which emanated from a mountaintop apparatus, to devastate the Earth. They made a mountain vanish in the wink of an eye and cut a channel clear through North America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientist Charley Huyck discovered a form of energy so dangerous that it could be used to destroy the Earth, but in the end he found himself in a situation where he needed to use that power to save humanity from an extraterrestrial threat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that the Martians were intent on wiping out humanity in the process of stealing Earth's ocean waters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientist Charley Huyck discovered a form of energy so dangerous that it could be used to destroy the Earth, but in the end he found himself in a situation where he needed to use that power to save humanity from an extraterrestrial threat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atmospheric dissipation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Williams explained to Charley about how the Earth's \"water gas will gradually lose out into sidereal space\" rendering the Earth into an uninhabitable desert. The Martians tried to steal Earth's water to replenish their evaporated oceans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians tried to steal Earth's water to replenish their evaporated oceans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robold took on Charley Huyck as his protégé early on in the story, but nothing too much was made of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story takes place during \"a period of Utopian quietness\" with \"no villain around the corner\", \"no man to covet the ox of his neighbor\", and well-fed and content population. Presumably this state of affairs was made possible through scientific advancement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tidally locked planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Williams explained to Charley about how the Earth's rotation was slowing and how in the distant future the same face of the Earth will always face the sun, just as the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People fought in the streets and died in madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley wrote in a letter about how Jupiter, owing to its gradually dissipating atmosphere, would be ready for colonization before such time as the Earth became uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Man from the Atom (1926)", "title": "The Man from the Atom", "date": "1926-04", "description": "A man uses a device to increase himself in size to truly cosmic proportions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingSerials02WertenbakerTheManFromTheAtom192645", "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories/Volume_01/Number_01/The_Man_From_the_Atom" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby used Professor Martyn's device to grow himself to cosmic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby was astonished to discover that our universe was but an atom in another universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Martyn invented a \"queer looking suit\" that when worn would enclose the occupant in a sort of thermos bottle. Kirby wore the suit to protect himself before he grew himself to cosmic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirby expressed regret at having thrown the switch to grow himself to cosmic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirby unwittingly traveled a trillion centuries into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirby explained that \"black despair was in his heart\" upon his realization that he had unwittingly traveled into the distant future, and that everyone he knew, the Earth, and the sun were no more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirby grew himself to such an enormous size that he broke out of our universe and into another one. But when he shrunk himself back to to his original size, he found that he was in a distant future, because the bigger you are, the more quickly time passes. The story both began and concluded with Kirby pining about being homesick and never being able to go back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirby was \"beyond human emotion\" at the realization that he had unwittingly traveled a trillion centuries into the future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Whispering Ether (1926)", "title": "Whispering Ether", "date": "1926-06", "description": "A scientist invents a machine that pick up other peoples' thoughts out of the ether.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume01Number03/page/n55" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proctor invented a machine that picked up other peoples thoughts out of the ether. In turned out that intense thinking propagated as electromagnetic waves through the ether, and the original thoughts were reconstructed in audible form by the machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Eggs from Lake Tanganyika (1926)", "title": "The Eggs from Lake Tanganyika", "date": "1926-07", "description": "Four gigantic, blood-sucking flies get loose in Berlin and must be destroyed at all cost.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume01Number04/page/n57" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Meyer-Maier brought four giant eggs back to Berlin from Africa that hatched into giant flies. The Africans who inhabited the region near where Meyer-Maier found they eggs warned him of the existence of giant creatures that were unknown to European science, but Mayer-Maier didn't take them seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Meyer-Maier and the people of Berlin versus four gigantic, blood-sucking flies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Meyer-Maier hypothesized that, assuming the giant flies multiplied at the same rate as house flies, that the entire human race would perish in the span of a few weeks. Fortunately for the human race, his assumption turned out to be wrong.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Through the Crater's Rim (1926)", "title": "Through the Crater's Rim", "date": "1926-09", "description": "An adventurer hacks his way through man-eating trees to find an hitherto uncontacted people living in the crater of an extinct volcano.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume01Number09/page/n37" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hidden city dwellers thought Hazen a god by all appearances, and treated him accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a 1920s era depiction of what an uncontacted people living in the Central American jungle might be like. For example, the hidden city dwellers were very curious about Hazen's apparent ability to breathe fire, which was noting more than him smoking his pipe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hazen had to hack through a forest of man-eating trees to reach a city hidden in the crater of an extinct volcano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Aztec mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hidden city dwellers turned out to be isolated descendants of the Aztecs, and the story culminated with their high priest attempting to sacrifice Hazen to their gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high priest attempted to sacrifice Hazen to their gods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Telepathic Pick-Up (1926)", "title": "The Telepathic Pick-Up", "date": "1926-12", "description": "A man invents a sort of radio that allows him to hear other peoples' thoughts.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume01Number09/page/n59" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Spalding invented a radio apparatus that could be used to tune in on other peoples' thoughts. He used the device to hear the thoughts of his brother as he was being executed in the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Spalding used his radio apparatus to listen to his brother Tom's thoughts as Tom was being executed in the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard the inner thoughts of a man who was being executed in the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Spalding's brother Tom sunk to \"the lowest level of the underworld\" after having been wanted over the embezzlement of 50,000 dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Brant, Dr. Spalding was an eminent scientist who had \"conquered the field of electricity\" and had given \"countless electrical inventions to the world\". Dr. Spalding's invention featured in this story was a radio apparatus that could be used to tune in on other peoples' thoughts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The General (1926)", "title": "The General", "date": "1926-12-31", "description": "The General is a 1926 American silent comedy film released by United Artists. It was inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, a true story of an event that occurred during the American Civil War. The story was adapted from the memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. The film stars Buster Keaton who co-directed it with Clyde Bruckman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_(1926_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Johnnie and Annabelle were besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Johnnie and Annabelle are referred to as fiancées", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story followed southerners fighting against northeners in the first year or so of this civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw the American Civil War", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnnie in particular was eager to fight for his country and his woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnnie became a hero after he singlehandedly went behind enemy lines to save Annabelle and return with important information", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnnie was distraught when Annabelle was carried off by enemy soldiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnie was distraught after he was rejected by Anabelle for having been rejected by the army", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Annabelle with her dad from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a protracted battle at a collapsed bridge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Metropolis (1927)", "title": "Metropolis", "date": "1927-01-27", "description": "Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "utopia on the back of slave labor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Metropolis inhabitants lived in luxury produced on the backs of workers who toiled in subterranean city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Metropolis inhabitants oppressed the working underclass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Metropolis inhabitants oppressed the working underclass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Metropolis inhabitants oppressed the working underclass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freder Fredersen and Maria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rotwang invented a robot in the likeness of his departed love Hel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social change due to new technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inequality between working and industrialist classes resulting from mechanization of production was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "City master Joh Fredersen and his son Freder Fredersen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Maria incited the workers to rise up against ruling class and destroy the machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Maria incited the workers to rise up against ruling class and destroy the machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Maria incited the workers to rise up against ruling class and destroy the machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The master of the city, Fredersen, kept close surveillance on the city's workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freder Fredersen left the comfortable confines of Metropolis and saw first hand the worker oppression his father oversaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freder Fredersen had visions of a coming apocalypse in his delirium. The android version of Maria brought chaos upon Metropolis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The workers awaited their \"mediator\" (a.k.a. messiah) to bring the working and ruling classes together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rotwang was maniacally working on creating an android in his high-powered laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Advanced Chemistry (1927)", "title": "Advanced Chemistry", "date": "1927-03", "description": "Professor Carbonic discovers how to revive the dead using the power of electricity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories/Volume_01/Number_12/Advanced_Chemistry" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Carbonic a brain-injectable chemical cocktail that revived the dead to life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Plague of the Living Dead (1927)", "title": "The Plague of the Living Dead", "date": "1927-04", "description": "Dr. Gordon Farnham unwittingly creates a mob of zombies when he injects his immortality serum into people who died in a volcanic eruption.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=39014" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mob of zombies ensued when Dr. Gordon Farnham injected a number of dead people with his immortality serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham invented a serum that made the living immortal and the dead into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham revived first animals, then humans hours after they had died. However, they returned as zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "While Dr. Farnham had the best of intention in his efforts to invent an immortality serum, its realization resulted in the creation of a mob of indestructible, man-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It fell to Dr. Farnham and the government officials to put an end to the zombie mobs' murderous rampage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham invented a serum that turned dead people into unkillable zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham was lambasted in the press when he announced that he had found the secret to immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham performed a number of experiments on animals to test his immortality serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The use of poison gases in World War I was alluded to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator took such pains to explain that Dr. Farnham's macabre experiments on animals were humane and done in the name of science that one wonders whether he was making an ironical point about animal cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rejuvenation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old, arthritic injected by Dr. Farnham with his special serum was transformed into a spry, young looking cat. In addition, Dr. Farnham injected his two elderly assistants with the serum and they were partially rejuvenated, although they maintained their aged appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the wake of a volcanic eruption that left scores dead, Dr. Farnham consciously chose to resurrect only the youngest, most intelligent adult victims, because he had a limited supply of the serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham basically resurrected some victims of a volcanic eruption by injecting them with his immortality serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Farnham regretted having inadvertently created a mob of zombies and spent most of his own personal fortune to shoot them into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government censorship in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Government officials circulated a false story to the press that Abilone Island had been quarantined due to an outbreak of a deadly virus, but in reality the island was plagued by a mob of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The zombies were consuming human flesh.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Fate of the Poseidonia (1927)", "title": "The Fate of the Poseidonia", "date": "1927-06", "description": "Martians hatch a plot to steal Earth's water.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/TheFateOfThePoseidonia/page/n3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians stole a sizable proportion of water from Earth's oceans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worldwide drought", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians were grappling with the drying out of their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Gregory, Margaret, and Martell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret and Martell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George resented Martell because Martell was with Margaret whom George secretly loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George wondered whether Martell might have been using a newfangled radio that communicated with people in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Four-dimensional Roller Press (1927)", "title": "The Four-dimensional Roller Press", "date": "1927-06", "description": "A young genius invents a machine that compresses or expands objects by manipulating them in their fourth dimension.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume02Number03/page/n95" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young genius William James Sidelburg invented that could compress or expands objects by manipulating them in their fourth dimension. He used it to expand a steel cylinder, the monkey Jocko, and finally himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The machine functioned to increase the volume of objects but decrease their densities. Sidelburg imagined using the device to make a \"dirigible balloon\" out of solid steel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Radio Mates (1927)", "title": "Radio Mates", "date": "1927-07", "description": "An amateur radio enthusiast seeks revenge against a romantic rival.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesV02N04192707/page/n57" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bromley Cranston invented a teleporter from radio equipment and radioactive isotopes. He successfully teleported a guinea pig and some cats in his laboratory, and later he transported himself and Venice into some kind of netherworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bromley Cranston and Howard Marsden's wife Venice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bromley hatched an elaborate plot to get revenge on Howard for tricked Bromley's girlfriend into marrying Howard. Bromley used his teleporter to send himself and Venice away into some kind of nether world all before the eyes of an astonished Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard and Venice Marsden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard tricked Bromley into thinking that Venice had dumped Bromley, and tricked Venice of the reverse. All this was part of Howard's plot to win Venice's hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venice revealed to Bromley that Howard was addicted to drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amateur radio", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bromley and Howard shared an interest in amateur radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bromley used a cocktail of fissile materials to power his matter transporter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Man with the Strange Head (1927)", "title": "The Man with the Strange Head", "date": "1927-07", "description": "Anstruther leaped upon the hold-up man; the driver said he head Anstruther'S muscles crunch savagely, as with little apparent effort he flung the man over the Ford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume01Number10/page/n67" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anstruther was a radium powered cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radium was used to power the cyborg Anstruther.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Retreat to Mars (1927)", "title": "The Retreat to Mars", "date": "1927-08", "description": "An archaeologist tells an astronomer about the time he discovered a Martian spaceship deep inside Africa.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/TheRetreatToMars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hargraves found incontrovertible evidence that Martians had colonized the Earth some hundreds of thousands of years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hargraves found incontrovertible evidence that Martians had colonized the Earth some hundreds of thousands of years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hargraves discovered that Ancient Martian colonists devolved into our brutish ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hargraves and his party trekked through an African jungle landscape to reach a valley where the Martian spaceship was buried.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hargraves deciphered the Martian language by reading a set of book full of vivid 3D images.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hargraves visited Mr. Arnold at his astronomical observatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians worked under a social democratic system, according to the book Hargraves translated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians had constructed a socialist utopia hundreds of thousands of years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atmospheric dissipation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians sent colonists to Earth because their atmosphere was gradually dissipating away into outer space, and their civilization doomed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Martians had sent an expedition to Earth in a chemical rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a high gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian explorer's frail bodies broke down under the strain of the comparatively higher Earth gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hargraves was shocked to discover that Martians had colonized the Earth some hundreds of thousands of years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ancient alien archive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hargraves discovered a 3D encyclopedia set inside an abandoned Martian rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ancient Martians eugenically bred a group of colonists that were sufficiently strong bodied to survive in Earth's comparatively high gravity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Tissue-Culture King (1927)", "title": "The Tissue-Culture King", "date": "1927-08", "description": "The story tells of biologist captured by an African tribe. It incorporates the idea of immortality based on reproduction from a tissue culture and an early mention of tin foil hats.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tissue-Culture_King", "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume02Number05/page/n35" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bugala struck a deal with Hascombe to protect him so long as Hascombe used his scientific powers to help Bugala ascend to the high-priesthood of the national religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hascombe and Bugala introduced a religious practice whereby each household would care for a tissue culture that had been derived from the king. In this way the king would live on forever, as the tissue cultures proliferated indefinitely. The practice was later extended to deceased family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elements of the religion practiced in the African nation where the biologist and Hascombe were held captive included a belief in the divinity of the king, a form of ancestor worship, an animal cult, and something vague about sexual practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bugala used advanced forms of propaganda in combination with hypnosis and mass-telepathy to consolidate the hold of the national religion on his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hascombe tinkered with embryos to create various monstrosities, including three-headed snakes, toads with extra heads, eight-foot tall men to guard the king, dwarfs, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hascome developed a means for Bugala (or anyone in charge) to telepathically transmit commands to everyone within the national boundaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bugala used Hascombe's science to transform his nation into the sort of place where the leader regularly issued commands telepathically to all the citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hascombe was endeavoring to use his mass-telepathy technology to create a \"super-consciousness\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bugala used Hascombe's science to transform his nation into the sort of place where the leader regularly issued commands telepathically to all the citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A biologst and Hascombe were forbidden to leave the African kingdom, but the biologist ultimately escaped and told the tale of what he saw there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the biologist, who narrated the whole thing, urging the reader to think about to what end would the applications of science that Hascombe developed ultimately serve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred ground", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The African kingdom was considered to be on sacred ground, so that people from neighboring nations did not dare to cross over into its borders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hascombe was experimenting with embryos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hascombe was experimenting with hypnosis as a lead up to his work in telepathy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Color Out of Space (1927)", "title": "The Color Out of Space", "date": "1927-09", "description": "An unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the \"blasted heath\" in the wild hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby; vegetation grows large but foul tasting, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space", "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v02n06_1927-09/page/n35" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator, and everyone else, was at a loss to explain how it came to be that everything went to hell after in Arkham after a meteor had crashed there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent alien entity that was only perceptible as strange color patterns came to Arkham on a meteor and inhabited a local well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien entity seemed to made up of swirls of color.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nahum's wife went mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ammi speculated that the strange happenings on Nahum's land were a punishment on Nahum from the Lord.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Machine Man of Arthadia (1927)", "title": "The Machine Man of Arthadia", "date": "1927-11", "description": "An unsuspecting man is visited by a human descendant from twenty-eight thousand years in the future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume02Number08/page/n79" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthews conversed with a distant descendant of humankind who traveled back in time twenty-eight thousand years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien-looking time traveler was encased in a transparent capsule and fully integrated with tubes and machines to the extend that he could not live without them. Moreover, he was from a race of similar beings who had evolved from human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The time traveler considered Matthews and his contemporaries to be primitive, bestial creatures. It was particularly disgusted by the fact that humans ingested food through the mouth and eliminated waste products from the \"alimentary canal\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The time traveled explained in much detail about how his species had evolved from human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthews was visited by the time traveler just when he was about to take some notes on plural marriages from one of Engels' works.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthews broached the subject of special relativity in relation to time travel with the being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender neutral being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time traveler's species was genderless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time traveler's species raised their young from embryos in ecto-genetic incubators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time traveler explained that his species' ancestor the Bi-Chanics had developed crude artificial hearts. The Bi-Chanics descendants the Tri-Namics advanced artificial heart technology. Artificial hearts were natural to the time traveler's species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time traveler's species used technology to extend their lifespans to 1500 years on average.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the limits of language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time traveler restricted at times expressing himself in Matthews' primitive language consisting of only a few thousand words.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Comet Doom (1928)", "title": "The Comet Doom", "date": "1928-01", "description": "The world's scientists are confident that an approaching comet poses no danger to the Earth, but three oung men discover otherwise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "http://famous-and-forgotten-fiction.com/writings/hamilton-stories/hamilton-the-comet-doom.html" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of comet dwelling cyborg plotted to whisk the Earth away out of its orbit and use the planet for natural resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Coburn, Hanley, and later Marlin stumbled on a party of be-tentacled cyborgs on an unpopulated island in Lake Ontario. The cyborgs were essentially brains cased inside be-tentacled metal bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "On a unpopulated island in Lake Ontario, the cyborgs constructed a machine that they were going to use to neutralize the sun's gravitational influence on Earth. As a result, the Earth would fall under the gravitational pull of the passing comet and get whisked off into interstellar space. There was a detailed analogy drawn between the sun's gravitational pull on Earth and a ball being swung around and around at the end of a long cord. The machine was, by analogy, going to be used to \"cut the cord\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Coburn and Hanley gave their lives to stop the cyborgs from completing their plan to whisk the Earth away out of the solar system and use it as a source of natural resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The comet cyborgs were running out of the natural resources they required to perpetuate their civilization, and resolved use the Earth to keep them going for a long while.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "panspermia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Svante Arrhenius, the first person to advance the theory of radiopansperima, was mentioned by name in the story and his theory articulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coburn and Hanley taught the cyborg leader English in order to be able to communicate with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborgs were actuated by atomic power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar sail spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborgs flew to Earth in \"four great cones\" that were \"driven through space by light-pressure\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alraune (1928)", "title": "Alraune", "date": "1928-01-25", "description": "Professor Jakob ten Brinken artificially inseminates a prostitute with a mandrake root that was somehow formed from the semen of a hanged man. The girl, Alraune, born of the unholy union comes to hate the professor and set out to seek vengeance against him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alraune_(1928_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mandrake root legend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was based on the legend that old German mandrake legend related to using a mandrake root that is somehow formed from the sperm of a hanged man to impregnate women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken was directly accused of playing God with nature by artificially inseminating a prostitute with a mandrake root and warned that he would pay for what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken adopts Alraune the mandrake child and tries to teach her how to be a normal human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken at his adoptive daughter Alraune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "major", "motivation": "it is discussed whether Alraune was an unnatural and monstrous creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alraune driven by a desire to for revenge against Professor Brinken upon finding out he was responsible for her being the product of an unholy union between a prostitute and a mandrake root.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franz Braun expresses ethical reservations to Professor Brinken about his plan to artificially inseminate a prostitute with a mandrake root.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The geneticist Professor Jakob ten Brinken artificially inseminated a prostitute with a mandrake root - a plant that was formed from the sperm of a hanged man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franz Braun disapproves of his uncle Professor Brinken's experiments with artificially inseminating women the sperm from hanged men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alraune found work doing stage magic at the circus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Revolt of the Pedestrians (1928)", "title": "The Revolt of the Pedestrians", "date": "1928-02", "description": "In a not too distant future, regular legged people are persecuted by people with atrophied legs who ride in wheel chair-like cars.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume02Number11/page/n27" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future where there was a bifurcation in human evolution. One line of humans had evolved tiny stubs for legs that suited their car riding habits. The other remained like us.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a group of persecuted pedestrians who launched a revolution against their motorist oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator Glass of New York championed the Pedestrian Extermination Act bill in the senate. It was subsequently passed into law and a veritable genocide on the pedestrians of the United States ensued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedestrian Abraham Miller sought to avenge the running down in the street of his ancestor. It was him that led the revolution against the motorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedestrian Abraham Miller led a revolt against the autoists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pedestrians were generally contemptuous of technology. But in particular, Abraham Miller did not want to rebuild a technological world after he overthrew autoist society. He wanted no electricity and technology that used it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author described in general how the people of the world were crazed with a desire for speed. A handful of particular incidents of motorists driving fast beyond what was necessary for their immediate purposes was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father motored through the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia with his son and they say there on display what the father believed to be the bodies of the last pedestrians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author wrote of how \"socialism had provided comfort for the masses but had singularly failed to provide happiness.\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned how the motorists ate food sold in bricks, and how each brick contained all the basic nutrients essential for life. Interestingly, each brick was stamped with the number of calories it consisted of much like how our own food is today.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author wrote sarcastically of how crime had been eliminated by force sterilizing the 2 percent of the population that were criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author explain how the rich ran the government and contrasted the super rich Heisler family in their lavish estate on the Hudson with the lowly pedestrians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Autoists William Henry Heisler and his daughter Margaretta, who had been born with long legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaretta had trouble in autoists society because she had been born with long legs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Sub-Satellite (1928)", "title": "Sub-Satellite", "date": "1928-03", "description": "A professor builds a rocketship to fly on a return mission to the Moon but his disgruntled assistant has other plans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?54846" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator Kornfield recounted the story of Dr. D. Francis Jarvis' voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jarvis' disgruntled assistant R. Henry Duseau hatched an elaborate plot to avenge his dismissal from the voyage to the Moon by Jarvis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Jarvis and Jacqueline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Jarvis was put into dire straits, and his engagement to Jacqueline was put into jeopardy, after it became apparent that his father Dr. Jarvis neglected to include him in his will because he was preoccupied with building a rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator Kornfield recounted the story of Dr. D. Francis Jarvis' voyage to the Moon to his roommate C. Jerry Clankey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kornfield explained how the astronauts needed to drink water through straws since liquids would not flow without gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarvis and Brown were able to leap 30 feet with ease on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice identification device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A photograph of the vibrations of Dr. Jarvis' voice was used to identify him as having sent an audio transmission from the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The question of whether Duseau could be lawfully punished for murdering Jarvis on the Moon after he returned to the earth. In the end, it turned out that Duseau had not been successful in his attempt to murder Jarvis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The courts awarded Donald Jarvis with all his father Dr. Jarvis' fortune after it was thought that Dr. Jarvis had been murdered on the Moon. Donald's brother Jack got nothing as a result. Although in the end the decision was reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Donald were in a struggle over who would inherit their father's fortune.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Miracle of the Lily (1928)", "title": "The Miracle of the Lily", "date": "1928-04", "description": "The future people of Earth offer to help the Venusians with their insect problem.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume03Number01/page/n47" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Insects evolved intelligence and challenged humans for dominion over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Plants had gone extinct on the Earth by the year 3928. What is more, humans had begun a campaign to exterminate all insects around the year 2900, and Delfair explained how he has seen the last living insect, which was held in captivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth were shocked to find that the Venusians were insectoid in nature upon making televised contact with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "synthetic food", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humanity's food supply was produced in chemistry labs after the year 2900 primarily because insects were eating all the crops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delfair was flying to work at Oxygen Plant No. 21 in his \"volplane\" which one gathers is a flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ants and bees evolved to be able to coordinate sophisticated efforts to carry away humans for food after plant life, being their food supply, went extinct on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "city planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathano, writing in the year 3928, explained that cities had proliferated all across the Earth by his time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thanor wrote of how the body was merely a material agent through which the spirit functioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathano described his world of the year 3928 to be soulless and dying from a self-inflicted boredom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians were described as a self-satisfied people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathano used an atomic powered excavator at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathano lived in an age when \"practically to wish for a thing in a material sense is to have it\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toward the end of the story Nathano described how temperature and rainfall was regulated on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humans were horrified to discover that their Venusian friends were actually insectoids that wanted to exterminate a mammal infestation on their planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)", "title": "The Passion of Joan of Arc", "date": "1928-04-21", "description": "The Passion of Joan of Arc (French: La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc) is a 1928 silent French historical film based on the actual record of the trial of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. It is widely regarded as a landmark of cinema, especially for its production, Dreyer's direction and Falconetti's performance, which is often listed as one of the finest in cinema history. The film summarizes the time that Joan of Arc was a captive of England, depicting her trial and execution.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_Joan_of_Arc" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joan expected she would be tortured and killed for not complying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "in th end Joan went willingly to her own burning rather than forswear her king and faith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joan was pressured to forswear her divine mission in order to save her life but she refused", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan held to her faith in the visions even when the learned men argued logically that they must be of the Devil because they said so and they were wiser than her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story lead up to a burning at the stake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered on activities of the Catholic church in England in 1431", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the backdrop of the trial was the war with France, in which Joan had been a commander, but was now captured by the English", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "the secular powers of England sought to disgrace Joan (thus to score a point against France) and pressured pliant members of the Church to excommunicate Joan for that purpose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a cause", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan maintained her loyalty to king and God throughout", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan was shown the torture chamber to scare her straight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we were shown closeups of torture devices and must ponder what it would be like", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "churchmen claimed her visions were sent by the Devil, but Joan maintained they were sent by God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the whole exercise was nominally for the sake of saving Joan's immortal soul", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: A Visitor from the Twentieth Century (1928)", "title": "A Visitor from the Twentieth Century", "date": "1928-05", "description": "A contemporary architect wakes up in a future New York City - or was it only a dream?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume03Number02/page/n73" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Future New York City was made a hydroelectrically powered utopia complete with gigantic buildings that comfortably fit 10,000 people, moving sidewalks, and people tubes for transport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markham was apparently brought to future New York City for fun by some researchers there, but at the end of the story the possibility that his experience was just a dream was raised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markham was apparently brought to future New York City for fun by some researchers there, but at the end of the story the possibility that his experience was just a dream was raised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Markham was told of how oil reserves dried up by the year 1975, which led to the auto industry crashing, leaving the United States in a state of chaos for over a month.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Markham was told of how oil reserves dried up by the year 1975, which led to the auto industry crashing, leaving the United States in a state of chaos for over a month.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people tubes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future New York City people got around their metropolis by traveling in penumatic tubes", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Flight to Venus (1928)", "title": "Flight to Venus", "date": "1928-12", "description": "A man plots to dupe the public into believing that he made an expedition to the planet Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v03n09_1928-12_Missing_ibcbc_AK/page/n13" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Randall Morteshang commandeered a rocketship to Venus. Failed manned missions to Mars and the Moon were also mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang built a rocketship and flew it to the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang returned from an expedition to Venus with a trio of green tinged Venusians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang plotted to dupe the people of Earth into thinking he went on a voyage to Venus with a view to cashing in on a book deal, but then he really ended up going. Alfred Smith was serving a prison sentence for having committed mail fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang plotted to fool the public into believing that he had gone on an expedition to Venus, but after his plan went wrong and he actually ended up going to Venus the press made the public think it was a hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang plotted to fool the public into believing that he had gone on an expedition to Venus, but after his plan went wrong and he actually ended up going to Venus the press made the public think it was a hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly hard handshake", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Mr. Shepherd greeted Morteshang with a \"vigorous handshake\" with a gleam in his eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Morteshang had a hard time getting around in his rocketship owing to a lack of gravity to hold him down to the floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two Venusians, Vomi and Loama, were siblings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venusian scientists were planning to use some procedure on Morteshang to read his mind that would leave him \"a babbling idiot for the rest of his life\", if he survived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The press destroyed Professor Morteshang's reputation by convincing the public that his expedition to Venus was an elaborate hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Hibbs used the press as an instrument of vengeance against Morteshang, because Morteshang had harshly criticized one of Hibbs' research papers in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Appendix and the Spectacles (1928)", "title": "The Appendix and the Spectacles", "date": "1928-12", "description": "A man's appendix is removed without his being cut open.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/breuer_miles_j" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bookstrom removed the businessman Cladgett's appendix without cutting him open by using a surgery machine that allowed him to access the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "The businessman Cladgett was stricken first with appendicitis and second with pangs stemming from a pair of spectacles that Bookstrom left inside his abdomen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Metal Man (1928)", "title": "The Metal Man", "date": "1928-12", "description": "A radium prospector is turned to metal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v03n09_1928-12_Missing_ibcbc_AK/page/n25" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a radium prospector who got more than he bargained for while on an expedition to the radium rich El Rio de la Sangre (i.e. The River of Blood).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radium prospector Thomas Kelvin was gradually transformed into metal after being exposed to radiation on an expedition to The River of Blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelvin encountered an intelligent alien form of life which one gathers was composed of metal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelvin wrote how he was too terror stricken to run when a mist-veiled point of light stopped directly over his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelvin at one point awoke \"floating free in a brilliant orange light\" and one gathers that the alien form of life had the power to manipulate gravity via the use of some kind of crystals.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Captured Cross-section (1929)", "title": "The Captured Cross-section", "date": "1929-02", "description": "A man discovers that we are inhabiting a three-dimensional subspace of a four- dimensional reality. He goes on to experience the fourth-dimension in terms of three-dimensional cross sections.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_J._Breuer" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Jiles Heagley as he searches for his fiancée Sheila in a four-dimensional world. This world he experiences in terms of three-dimensional cross sections. Also, it was populated by flesh-and-blood four-dimensional people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jiles Heagley captured a three-dimensional cross section of a four-dimensional person of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jiles Heagley lost his fiancée Sheila in the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheila's father was on pins and needles, hoping she woould return safely from the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila was reunited with her father after Jiles Heagley rescued her from the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police charged Jiles Heagley with having murdered Sheila until such time as it became apparent that his seemingly crazy story of having lost her in the fourth dimension was actually true.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Last Man (1929)", "title": "The Last Man", "date": "1929-02", "description": "The evolutionary descendants of the human race keep a man as a curiosity to behold.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_West" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was held captive and made an exhibition object", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-1, who was the last man on Earth, was kept in a glass display case in a dusty museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-1, who was the last man on Earth, was kept in a glass display case in a dusty museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "synthetic food", "level": "major", "motivation": "That chemists had figured out how to synthesize food out of inorganic matter was emphasized multiple times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where the women of Earth killed all the men, reproduced human life using technology, and evolved into \"sexless, tall, angular, narrow-hipped, flat-breasted and unbeautiful\" beings as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single-gender society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where Earth is populated by a race of sexless people who had evolved from human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "start-over utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-1 (the last man) and Eve (the last woman) escaped from an atrophied, and gloomily mechanistic society with the goal of rebooting humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in this society did not know how to maintain, let alone improve upon, the machines that they depended to sustain their existence, and it was made clear that their civilization was doomed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Food laboratories produced food pills, among other synthetic foods (e.g. chemically manufactured soup), for consumption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the nations of the world united at some point in history, making war an impossibility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the men of the world had been exterminated by \"ambitious females\" at some point in history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the men of the world had been exterminated by \"ambitious females\" at some point in history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve communicated with M-1 via telepathy at one point in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with a maximum age limit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were generally put into gas chambers when they could no longer work for twelve hours per day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "M-1's city was covered by a miles wide \"glassy shield\" which was penetrated by the tops of skyscrapers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Worm (1929)", "title": "The Worm", "date": "1929-03", "description": "A giant worm bores up through the basement floor of an old gristmill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Keller", "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume04Number04/page/n13/mode/2up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a giant, stone devouring worm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Staples' life was turned upside down when a giant, stone-eating worm bored up from the bowels of the earth into the gristmill he called home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Staples' loyal dog was often kicking around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the giant worm had been attracted to John Staples' gristmill by grinding caused vibrations, which the worm mistook as having been made by a potential mate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Futility (1929)", "title": "Futility", "date": "1929-07", "description": "A man invents a machine that predicts future events with uncanny accuracy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._P._Meek" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Bob invented a machine, which they dubbed the “predictograph”, that could predict a given future event with perfect accuracy by analyzing data from multiple relevant variables.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the two old college pals, Kenneth and Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is a machine capable of predicting future events with 100% accuracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative prediction of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is a machine capable of predicting future events with 100% accuracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was resigned to the fact that he was fated to die in an automobile accident on the day of December 10th. Of this he was convinced because his predictograph machine had predicted it. And lo and behold it came to pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenneth was astounded to learn that he'd been named the sole heir of sole heir of a recently deceased friend who was worth about twenty million dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob was exempted from serving in this war owing to his poor eyesight, Kenneth because he had flat feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom opined that his of his inept, blond haired secretary Mabel had \"blond hair inside her skull instead of brains\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob got engaged to Mabel and the pair planned to honeymoon in Hawaii.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob and Mabel fell in love and became engaged.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Superperfect Bride (1929)", "title": "The Superperfect Bride", "date": "1929-07", "description": "A man meets in a supposedly surgically assembled composite woman the perfect bride.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Olsen", "https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume04Number04/page/n13/mode/2up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Goddard and his daughter Eve hatched an elaborate plot to court for her the man she loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Broderick was made to believe that Doctor Goddard had created in Eve a composite woman (with a Norwegian's hair, dancers' legs, a tennis player's arm, etc.) who was both physically and mentally perfect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Broderick found in Eve a physically and mentally perfect woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Broderick wanted nothing more than to be with the perfect woman Eve, and in the end it turned out that Eve had wanted him all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Doctor Goddard had perpetrated the elaborate fiction that Eve was a surgically created perfect woman, and that Broderick must submit to be himself surgically altered to be perfect, as part of an elaborated test to assay Broderick's fitness to marry Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Goddard and Broderic engaged in a lengthy philosophical discussion on the nature of beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Goddard mentioned in passing that he'd first thought to fashion the perfect woman through the application of eugenics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Goddard feigned being a mad scientist to Broderick. The doctor claimed he had created in Eve the perfect woman by surgically replacing her appendages and other parts with better members taken from other women; one woman he had to kidnap. He also claimed that he wish to transform Broderick into the perfect man, name him Adam, marry him to Eve, and start a new race of perfect humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Broderick \"had never expected to find\" in Eve \"the methodical mind of a chess player\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve pushed Broderick to his physical limit in a spirited game of tennis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: High Treason (1929)", "title": "High Treason", "date": "1929-09-09", "description": "In 1940, world peace is threatened when the United States of Europe comes into conflict with the Empire of the Atlantic States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Treason_(1929_British_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour led the pacifist Peace League efforts to prevent the outbreak of a the world war between United States of Europe and the Empire of the Atlantic States", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war due to diplomatic miscalculation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour warned that much like in 1914 a war could erupt quickly based on diplomatic miscalculations, but the younger generation felt people had advanced since that time, but Dr. Seymour was proven correct", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "the pacifist World League of Peace struggles under the leadership of Dr. Seymour to prevent the outbreak of a world war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour led the pacifist Peace League efforts to stop the world war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the suffering of ordinary people in war featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peace League pacifists organized a resistance movement aimed at preventing the United States of Europe from entering the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-war activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peace League pacifists employ passive resistance tactics to oppose war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the prohibition era in America extends to 1940 and the tension is initially caused by bootleggers crossing the borders between territories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people communicated via video phone devices", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miguel and Evelyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Evelyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour and Evelyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorists helped to provoke a war by bombing a train passing through a tunnel under the English Channel. Terrorists bombed the Peace League headquarters in London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undersea tunnel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tunnel connected under the English Channel England and France", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour and Evelyn Seymour cautioned the pacifists not to fall for the war propaganda being circulated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour shoots the President of Europe against his pacifist principles in order to prevent the outbreak of a world war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour committed treason by shooting the president of Europe in a last ditched attempt to prevent the outbreak of a world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Seymour sentenced to death for shooting the President of Europe in order to prevent the outbreak of a world war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aerial bombing of cities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the massive destruction and horror resulting from the aerial bombing of urban centers featured", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Chamber of Life (1929)", "title": "The Chamber of Life", "date": "1929-10", "description": "A man finds himself in a futuristic, technocratic utopia, remembering neither how he had arrived there or even what was his name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/stream/thechamberoflife25862gut/pg25862.txt" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barrett experienced six months in a simulated reality where he lived in a futuristic, technocratic utopia. It was a socialistic, or even communist system, in which machines pervaded every aspect of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Melobourne built a special chamber that immersed the occupant into a mind-projected full-sensory interactive film. Moreover, the occupant was wholly unaware that it was a kind of simulated reality. It was by this means that Barrett visited an imaginary technologically enabled utopian world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barrett longed to marry his love Selda, but she denied him, as on the ground that it was predetermined she be married to Edvar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I woke up in a strange place and didn't remember how I got there", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barrett found himself in a futuristic, technocratic utopia, remembering neither how he got there or even what was his name. But this was primarily used as a plot device for him to recount the story of a simulated reality machine of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Melbourne had deliberately placed himself in the body of the woman Selda in a simulated reality of his own design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "synthetic food", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The simulated reality utopia people had discovered the secret to manufacturing artificial food, although the did cultivate small patches of land to grow traditional food for certain purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the utopian society visited by Barrett, technology was used to determine who would marry who, making it impossible for Barrett to marry his love Selda.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mysterious Island (1929)", "title": "The Mysterious Island", "date": "1929-10-05", "description": "On a volcanic island near the kingdom of Hetvia rules Count Dakkar, a benevolent leader and scientist who has eliminated class distinction among the island's inhabitants. Dakkar, his daughter Sonia and her fiancée, engineer Nicolai Roget have designed a submarine which Roget pilots on its initial voyage just before the island is overrun by Baron Falon, despotic ruler of Hetvia. Falon sets out after Roget in a second submarine and the two craft, diving to the ocean's floor, discover a strange land populated by dragons, giant squid and an eerie undiscovered humanoid race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island_(1929_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre made a point of saying he built the submarine for peace and not war and had himself buried at see in his submarine so that it could not be used for violence after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre built a super high-tech submarine for the peaceful purpose of exploring the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oppression is rife on the island over which Baron Falon rules as a tyrant. Baron Faron conquers Hetvia and oppresses the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nikolai Roget and Countess Sonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre and the submariners discover a vile race of humanoids inhabiting the sea floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre built a super high-tech submarine for the peaceful purpose of exploring the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Dakkar forbid his daughter Sonia from marrying the common engineer Nikolai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre and Countess Sonia mercilessly tortured by Baron Falon in effort to get information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre invented special high-pressure resistant diving suits for the submariners to use in exploring the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre self-admittedly lived only to kill Baron Falon after he escaped from being tortured by him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre and Countess Sonia held captive by Baron Falon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "submarine attacked first by reptile on the sea floor and then by a giant octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Dakkar held working class people in contempt and forbade his daughter, Sonia, from marrying the common engineer Nikolai.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Woman in the Moon (1929)", "title": "Woman in the Moon", "date": "1929-10-15", "description": "An entrepreneur with an interest in space travel finances a manned mission to the moon to find gold that is supposed to exist in the lunar mountains.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_in_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1920s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "manned mission to the moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multistage rocket", "level": "major", "motivation": "the workings of a multistage rocket built to get to the moon were extensively featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Windegger and Friede", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Windegger and Friede fall in love and get engaged; Helius and Friede fall in love on the moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helius was jealous of his assistant Windegger after he announced his engagement to Helius' other assistant Friede, whom Helius was secretly in love with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Windegger, Friede, and Helius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flight crew delighted in the experience of zero gravity on a voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The businessmen wanted to go to he moon to extract gold from the lunar mountains.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Undersea Tube (1929)", "title": "The Undersea Tube", "date": "1929-11", "description": "A man makes a most surprising discovery while traversing a trans-Atlantic tunnel from New York to Liverpool.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Taylor_Hansen", "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27609/27609-h/27609-h.htm" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undersea tunnel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main point of the story was to lay out how an undersea pneumatic tube from New York to Liverpool might function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crack in the undersea, trans-Atlantic pneumatic tube revealed a a marvelous city under the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob spoke with his former college roommate Dutch over just such a device.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: A Baby on Neptune (1929)", "title": "A Baby on Neptune", "date": "1929-12", "description": "A radio transmission is received from Neptune, but a pair of pioneering astronauts find the planet to be a wasteland, seemingly devoid of life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v04n09_1929-12_-ifc_ibc_bc_sas/page/n23/mode/2up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Neptunian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity made contact with a gaseous physicist on Neptune, named Elzar, but communication was made difficult by the fact that it operated on a comparatively slow timescale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Neptunians had trouble communicating with the people of Earth, and vice versa, because their biological and mental processes operated on a very slow timescale by comparison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the gaseous nature of Neptunian life. It was revealed that the gaseous lifeforms on the planet, of which both intelligent and non-intelligent specimens existed, were composed of huge gaseous cells that operated on slow timescales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elzar was grateful when a team of astronauts saved his young son from being devoured by a gaseous beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the 22nd century, the people of Earth started sending out radio messages to other planets in the solar system in the hopes of making contact with intelligent life. And it turned out that beings on multiple planets in the solar system were doing the same in hopes of making contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that regular radio communication with Martians had been established by the year 2300.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A race of intelligent worm-like beings inhabited Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worm-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A race of intelligent worm-like beings inhabited Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Jovian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that regular radio communication with the inhabitants on four of Jupiter's moons had been established by the year 2300.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Saturnian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that regular radio communication with the inhabitants on one of Saturn's moons had been established by the year 2300.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the first successful interplanetary voyage had occurred in 2345. It was to Venus, and the voyagers made contact with its intelligent worm-like inhabitants. Corrigan and Dalton's fifty day voyage to Neptune was described in vivid detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By the 2300s the people of Earth had intermingled and formed one homogeneous race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pioneers Corrigan and Dalton voyaged to Neptune in a vessel, described as a geodesical flier, that whisked them away to the planet in a mere fifty days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story describes various pioneering efforts to explore the solar system: Bjerken's trans-geodesic coaster trip to the Moon in the year 2310, the first successful interplanetary voyage (to Venus) in 2345, an ill-fated attempt to go to Mars, and a pioneering fifty day voyage to Neptune.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Letter of the Twenty-Fourth Century (1929)", "title": "Letter of the Twenty-Fourth Century", "date": "1929-12", "description": "A 24th century man's letter to a friend describes in passing some of the progress made by humankind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_F._Stone", "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v04n09_1929-12_-ifc_ibc_bc_sas/page/n91/mode/2up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry described a system, much like the Internet, which enabled people to attend business meeting from home, have their children taught lesson by far away living teachers, watch movies, listen to music, read information from all around the world, and tune in on the \"World Court\" to learn of its decisions in real time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry described a form of world government where each individual \"had his little say\" in deciding what was best for the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry explained how there were no more nation states, the world was united, and that everyone in the world spoke a common language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry described how energy was generated from the atom, instead of from oil and coal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry described how advances in medical science made it possible for people to stay youthful in appearance until they die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: Vampires of the Desert (1929)", "title": "Vampires of the Desert", "date": "1929-12", "description": "A sudden change in the climatic conditions leads to the sprouting of an ancient species of man-eating plant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpheus_Hyatt_Verrill", "https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v04n09_1929-12_-ifc_ibc_bc_sas/page/n7/mode/2up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main idea of the story is that the seeds of some ancient man-eating plants sprouted and the resulting plants crept around, killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an investigation into a series of mysterious murders: it was plants!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story followed a paleontologist named Barry who was doing fieldwork in Peru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the workmen thought that an Incan devil or evil spirit had been responsible for the mysterious murders, and the author described them as seeming \"to be filled with superstitious dread\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry observed that the murders were approximately doubling by the day, which led Henshaw to conclude that everyone would be wiped out within a week.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Man who Saw the Future (1930)", "title": "The Man who Saw the Future", "date": "1930", "description": "A 15th century Frenchman is plucked out of his own time and given a tour of 1944 Paris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28062" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the apothecary's assistant Henri Lothiere as he is transported by a pair of scientists from 1444 Paris to the Paris of 1944.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two scientists Rastin and Thicourt used some or another machine they'd constructed to transport Henri Lothiere from 1444 Paris to their own time and place of 1944 Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody in Henri Lothiere's own time of 1444 believed his story that he'd traveled to 1944 Paris and seen numerous technological marvels. Instead, he was labeled a sorcerer and a blasphemer and ultimately burnt at the stake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "For investigating a field from which emanated strange thunderclaps, the ever-curious Henri Lothiere was charged with sorcery and blasphemy by the Inquisition and ultimately burned at the stake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 15th century apothecary's assistant Henri Lothiere was was utterly astonished by technologically advanced world of 1944 Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere was falsely accused sorcery by the Inquisition and sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere was condemned to burn (at the stake, judging from the 15th century Paris context) for allegedly conjuring thunderclaps by means of sorcery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere observed winged flying cars in the skies over 1944 Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere spoke of how he'd been a seeker of hidden knowledge since the time of his youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere was brought before the Inquisitor on charges of sorcery and blasphemy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Lothiere's 15th century contemporaries could only understand his journey of hundreds of years into the future as being the work of the Devil and his minions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Gostak and the Doshes (1930)", "title": "The Gostak and the Doshes", "date": "1930-03", "description": "A man travel to a parallel universe by the simple expedient of consciously changing his perspective on reality - or was it merely his own universe from a different point of view?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Avon_Fantasy_Reader/Issue_10/The_Gostak_and_the_Doshes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist willed himself into a parallel universe uncannily similar to his own by consciously changing his perspective on the world, much as one can switch between seeing a vase and two faces in Rubin's vase image. Although it is to be noted that the protagonist's friend, upon the protagonist's return, speculated that it was the protagonist's original universe all along, but from a different point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist found himself in a parallel universe uncannily similar to his own with little prospect for getting back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reader is presented the parallel reality people getting whipped up into a frenzy to go to war over some nonsense from the level-headed, outsider perspective of the visiting protagonist. In the end, the protagonist's friend speculated that the protagonist had been viewing their own world all along, rather than a parallel one, but merely from a different point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist watched in horror as his propagandized countrymen waxed with a patriotic desire to go to war with a group of nations across the ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the state and church making use of the jingoistic nonsense phrase \"The gostak distims the doshes.\" (paraphrased in the tittle) to whip the people up into a frenzy to go to war with a group of nations across the ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a social commentary on the insidious role played by the church in cultivating patriotism in the population during times of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist struggled to understand the meaning of the nonsense phrase \"The gostak distims the doshes.\" (paraphrased in the title) which stirred up so many into a patriotic frenzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist conversed with the mathematical physics professors Dr. Woleshensky (in his home universe) and Dr. Vibens (in the parallel universe) in campus settings, and later got a post doing some sort of scientific research at Dr. Vibens' university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Woleshensky spoke about the (x, y, z, t) coordinate system used by Einstein in the special theory of relativity, along with the principle of relative motion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The businessman John let it be know that his mathematical physicist father was disappointed in him for not going to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonist called attention in passing to the use of \"meaningless\" and \"untrue\" advertising slogans to sell cigarettes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonist pronounced the sight of casualties returning from the front lines as \"a living protest against the horror of war\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonist's brief court-martial ended with the president of the court condemning him to be shot at sunrise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hastily arranged trial resulted in the protagonist being convicted of treason for refusing to serve in what he saw as a meaningless war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonist was convicted of treason and sentenced to be shot at sunrise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an act of desperation, the protagonist prayed to the long dead mathematicians Bernhard Riemann and Nikolai Lobachevsky to save him from his date with the executioner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alraune (1930)", "title": "Alraune", "date": "1930-03-02", "description": "Professor ten Brinken artificially inseminates a bar girl with a mandrake root that was somehow formed from the semen of a hanged man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alraune_(1930_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mandrake root legend", "level": "major", "motivation": "story based on the legend that old German mandrake legend related to using a mandrake root that is somehow formed from the sperm of a hanged man to impregnate women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken was directly accused of playing God with nature by artificially inseminating a bar girl with a mandrake root and warned that he would pay for what he had done", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "major", "motivation": "it is discussed whether Alraune was an unnatural and monstrous creation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken raises the mandrake girl Alraune as his niece", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken and Frank Braun loved the girl Alraune who could not experience the emotion of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brinken faced investigators closing in on him for having committed fraud and blackmail and shot himself before they got him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank Braun urged his uncle Professor Brinken to create a woman from a mandrake root", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The geneticist Professor Jakob ten Brinken artificially inseminated a some rats with a mandrake root (a plant that was formed from the sperm of a hanged man) as a prelude to performing the procedure on a bar girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alraune commands her driver to go faster and faster down the road presumably for the thrill of it all", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)", "title": "All Quiet on the Western Front", "date": "1930-04-21", "description": "All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 American pre-Code epic anti-war film based on the 1929 novel of the same name by German novelist Erich Maria Remarque. Directed by Lewis Milestone, it stars Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Slim Summerville, and William Bakewell.\n\nThe film opened to wide acclaim in the United States. Considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, it made the American Film Institute's first 100 Years...100 Movies list in 1997. A decade later, after the same organization polled over 1,501 workers in the creative community, All Quiet on the Western Front was ranked the seventh-best American epic film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_(1930_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main point of the story is to show how awful the realities of war can be. Scenes showed soldiers starving and pilfering. Scenes showed soldiers being mowed down by machine guns. Scenes showed soldiers suffering dismemberment. The main character, Paul, ended up being killed in flower of his youth by a sniper as he reached out of his hiding place to touch a butterfly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown scene after gruesome scene of what a soldier might have experienced in the trenches or while otherwise under fire and bombardment. Other realities of trench warfare as hunger, sleep deprivation, rats, and lice were depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story shows what things might have been like for German soldiers advancing on France during the Great War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young recruits had various run-ins with Sergeant Himmelstoss whom they loathed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns German rank and file military men during the First World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul saw friend after friend perish in the line of duty. Toward the end, Paul was devastated when his friend, Kat, was killed shortly after they had just reunited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Kantorek appealed to his students sense of patriotism in order to make them join the war effort as soldiers. Paul came back to refute his professor and stated that it's better not to die at all than to die for one's country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was shown how some soldiers lost their nerve while on the front lines. Kemmerick, for instance, bugged out from the ceaseless shelling of his company's fortification, and was never the same again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Paul's journey from enthusiastically enlisting in the German Army to becoming a battle-hardened and disillusioned soldier on the front lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in hierarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured various people in the German Army interacting within a command hierarchy. The newly enlisted boys treated their old postman, now their superior, with familiarity but were swiftly corrected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Kantorek appealed to his students desire for honor in order to make them join the war effort as soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier studied the geometric series for the fun of it and spelled out the formula for its sum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human regular activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier studied the geometric series for the fun of it and spelled out the formula for its sum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with ill-fitting clothes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter complained that his boots gave him \"blister and blister\". He was elated when Kemmerick's fine leather boots came into his possession. But Peter was shot dead on the front lines soon after donning them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Himmelstoss showed himself to be a coward, and was scolded for it. Paul was called a coward by his old teacher when Paul refused to glorify the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul stabbed a French soldier and then cared for the slowly dying man as they hunkered down together in a shell-hole. Thus he came to see that the enemy was as human as himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul begged the corpse of the French soldier he had stabbed for forgiveness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four soldiers showed themselves desperate for female companionship. They braved court martial to sneak out and meet some.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was bedridden in a hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kemmerick lost his legs and Peter got his boots. Later Albert lost a leg. Albert swore he'd kill himself sooner than live like a cripple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul visited his mother while he was on leave from the front lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul met his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul discovered that members of the public were woefully misinformed about the realities of the war, implying that propaganda had been used to good effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Under the cover of night, the new recruits tripped Sergeant Himmelstoss, rolled him up in a sheet, administered him a spanking, and unceremoniously dumped him headfirst in a rut of muddy water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Himmelstoss' strict and impersonal approach to handling the new recruits was contrasted with Corporal Katczinsky's practical-minded approach to commanding the same recruits on the front lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the soldiers speculated that the Kaiser started the war to increase his own fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While bathing in a pond, Paul and three fellow soldiers flirted with some local French women. They won over the women's affections with treats of sausage and coarse bread.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul had a one night stand with a French lady named Suzanne, whom he had won over with treats of sausage and coarse bread.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "shortstory: The Prince of Liars (1930)", "title": "The Prince of Liars", "date": "1930-10", "description": "A man tells a tale of having visited an advanced alien civilization on a distant planet, leaving his interlocutor to wonder if the man is telling the truth or whether the story is nothing but a tissue of lies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Taylor_Hansen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/shortstory-amazingstories.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is framed as a dialog between a relativist and a skeptical Newtonian. To convince the Newtonian, he relativist Dr. Smead told a tale, and it is left for the reader to judge the veracity of the story, of having experienced time dilation on a journey to the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "metaphysics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is framed as a dialog between a relativist and a skeptical Newtonian with the relativist advancing challenges to the Newtonian world view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gnostes recounted of how he became an agent of the aliens from the Blue World and was sent periodically to Earth to make reports on the state of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Gnostes wanting to avenge his love interest Thora's killing at the hands of Prah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story concerns Gnostes visiting the men of Allos aliens on their \"Blue World\" home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young scholar Gnostes was kidnapped by pirates, but \"rescued\" by the master of a trireme before they could collect the ransom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young scholar Gnostes was forced to toil as a slave oarsman aboard a trireme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young scholar become slave Gnostes made his escape from the trireme at the first opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After making his initial escape, Gnostes was pursued by the trireme crewmen and their dogs all the way from the seashore to the Acropolis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antiscience in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes spoke of how a new religion cropped up and suppressed any scientific knowledge at odds with its creed, resulting in a millennium long dark age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes described how Thora and Prah \"seemed to shrivel up and disappear\" when a death ray was turned on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes described how to was ferried away to a distant planet, called the \"Blue World\", in an anti-gravity propelled, alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes described traveling to another star system, perhaps the Sirius system, in an alien spacecraft at relativistic speeds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes was astonished to discover that his alien hosts had mastered this technology, which they used to propel their spacecraft and also create an environment aboard their vessel with the same gravity as Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blue World aliens were described by Gonestes as being something similar to the fly, yet shimmering with rainbow-like colors and in general quite dazzling to the eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes observed the cities of the Blue World to be covered with heavy glass domes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Allos aliens communicated telepathically. In particular, Gnostes tutor Hekanos taught Gnostes to converse mind to mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes at times wore a special suit which counteracted the comparatively high gravity on the Blue World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gnostes recounted being returned to Earth after a thousand or so year sleep in the Hall of Suspended Animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Smead pined over a woman he'd loved, hinting that it was the ancient priestess Thora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a precursor to the \"Prime Directive\" of Star Trek, the alien Hekanos explained that his race would share their advanced knowledge with humanity only when they are ready for it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Just Imagine (1930)", "title": "Just Imagine", "date": "1930-11-23", "description": "A portrayal of New York City in an imagined 1980 where tenement houses have morphed into 250-story buildings, connected by suspension bridges and multi- lane elevated roads.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Imagine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-21 and LN-18", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists in 1980 New York revived a man named Peterson (a.k.a. Single O) who had died in 1930 of a lightning strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peterson longed for the good old days in 1930 New York; J-21 sang songs expressing his wish to live back in the New York of 1930 when life was comparatively simple", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-21 was prevented from marrying LN-18 because of a New York tribunal ruling and risked going on a dangerous mission to Mars to up his status and have the tribunal ruling reversed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-21 and LN-18 wished to marry but the New York city tribunal ruled that J-21 must marry the MT-3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "the inventor Z-4 spent five years building a spaceship capable of flying to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inventor Z-4 had a passion to explore Mars and it caught on with J-21 and RT-42.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-21, RT-42, and Single O flew Z-4's spaceship to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-21, RT-42, and Single O encounter Martians on Mars and watch a Martian opera", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people in 1980 New York get around in flying cars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "once speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People used camera-equipped doorbells equipped to see who was outside ringing at their doors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people used video phones to communicate in 1980 New York", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some scientists performed an elaborate experiment in laboratory to bring a man who died in 1930 back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People in 1980 New York grew fetuses in incubator pods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "scientists in 1980 New York revive a man who died in 1930 of a lightning strike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prohibition was still around in 1980 New York", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "MT-3 at LN-18", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Single O is reunited with his son Axel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J-21, RT-42, and Single O held captive by Martians and needed to escape within our days in order to reach Earth in time to hear the tribunal appeal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J-21, RT-42, and Single O surprised by how easy it is to move their spaceship on the surface of Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "LN-18 went hysterical over the well-being of her lover J-21 while he was on dangerous mission to Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A dramatic tribunal was held to render judgement on whether LN-18 was obligated to marry her conceited and mean suitor MT-3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A dramatic tribunal was held to render judgement on whether LN-18 was obligated to marry her conceited and mean suitor MT-3.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The End of the World (1931)", "title": "The End of the World", "date": "1931-01-23", "description": "A comet hurtling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions people have to the impending disaster. Scientist Martial Novalic who discovers the comet, seeks a solution to the problem and becomes a fugitive after skeptical authorities blame him for starting a mass panic.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_World_(1931_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The One World Congress which unanimously agrees to unite all governments into a single harmonious entity after the people of Earth are miraculously spared from a cometary collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "The One World Congress which unanimously agrees to unite all governments into a single harmonious entity after the people of Earth are miraculously spared from a cometary collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean Novalic fancies he will become the shepherd of humanity after cometary impact event and Genevieve sees a vision of Jean as Christ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean Novalic fancies he will become the shepherd of humanity after cometary impact event and Genevieve sees a vision of Jean as Christ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean Novalic fancies he will become the shepherd of humanity after cometary impact event and Genevieve sees a vision of Jean as Christ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "An errant comet passes by Earth and causes natural disasters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "a comet is detected hurtling toward Earth on a collision course", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean Novalic and Genevieve de Murcie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The films opened with a Jesus Christ passion play, which prefigured the Jean Novalic Messiah complex, and end of the world motif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "a mass panic descends upon the people of the Earth as news spreads of an impending cometary collision", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genevieve defies her scientist father Monsieur de Murcie and proposes to Jean Novalic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schomburg is the boyfriend of Isabelle Bolin but he becomes entranced by Genevieve de Murcie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government hides that a comet is on a collision course with Earth in order to allows the stock market to recover from a crash.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cimmaron (1931)", "title": "Cimmaron", "date": "1931-01-26", "description": "Cimarron is a 1931 pre-Code epic Western film starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, and directed by Wesley Ruggles. Released by RKO, it won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (written by Howard Estabrook and based on Edna Ferber's 1930 novel Cimarron), and Best Production Design (by Max Rée).\n\nBoth Dix and Dunne were nominated for their leading roles, and Edward Cronjager for Best Cinematography, but did not win. Estelle Taylor, Edna May Oliver, and Roscoe Ates appeared in supporting roles. Epic in scope, spanning forty years from 1889 to 1929, Cimarron was RKO's most expensive production up to that date, as well as its first production to win the Best Picture Oscar. It was a critical success, although it did not recoup its production costs during its initial run in 1931.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_(1931_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The hero of the story Yancey Crevat was driven by an unquenchable thirst for adventure. After settling in the booming frontier town of Osage with his family, he built a successful career as a newspaper publisher. The spirit of adventure, however, soon got the better of him and he irresponsibly bolted on his wife and children to settle land in the newly opened Cherokee Strip. From that point on one gathers that Yancey became an adventure seeking drifter. The viewer later learns, for instance, that he went off to fight in the Spanish-American War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is largely set in the fictional Oklahoma frontier town of Osage. The story follows the town's development from lawless nothing to a to a flourishing urban center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yancey was a heroic adventurer. He was lauded as a hero by the people of Osage for almost single-handedly taking down a gang of bandits who were causing a ruckus in the town and terrorizing the locals. The story concluded with the people of Osage raising a statue of Yancey to honor him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yancey and Sabra Cravat were in a loving marriage until Yancey ran off seeking adventure. Sabra didn't hold a grudge, and twice welcomed him back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European colonization of the Americas", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the United States take over of Cherokee lands from the perspective of the White settlers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yancey was respected for being a man of principle. For example, he published a controversial op-ed in his newspaper calling for the Cherokee to be granted full citizenship, knowing it would not be a popular opinion. In later life, Yancey stood up for the reviled prostitute Dixie Lee when nobody else in the town would.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cherokee were marginalized and pushed off their native land to make way for the White settlers. Yancey advocated to grant the Cherokee full citizenship, but one gathers that this was not a popular opinion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yancey founded the Oklahoma Wigwam newspaper. Sabra took over running the publication after Yancey ran off to help settle the Cherokee Strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sabra took over running the publication after Yancey bolted for the Cherokee Strip. Later, she became the first female member of Congress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yancey stood up to Lon Yountis who was harassing people and had shot Yancey's hat off his head. Yancey ended up killing Yountis in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yancey was just about the only person in town to openly take the side of and defend the well-known prostitute Dixie Lee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cravats employed the doting Black youth Isiah as their house servant and treated him like extended family. Isiah was basically a slave, but seemed happy with the arrangement. After Yancey ran off, Sabra hired the Cherokee girl Ruby to help with housework and child rearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Racist tropes were raised about Blacks. For instance, Yancey emphasized the abundance of watermelons in Oklahoma to Isiah. Racist slurs leveled against the Native Americans (i.e., Sabra rebuffed Cim for talking to \"dirty, filthy Indians\") and people of mixed race (e.g., Yancey referred to some people as \"half-breeds\").", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey was doing a fine job raising his son, Cim, until Yancey took off to settle land in the newly opened Cherokee Strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabra raised her young son, Cim. Later in life, Sabra put her foot down when Cim announced his intention to marry the Cherokee girl Ruby. However, Sabra accepted Ruby in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse Rickey had a serious stuttering problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town miscreant Lon Yountis bullied Sol Levy by shooting in the vicinity of his feet, and then forcing whisky down his throat. Yancey came to Sol's rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey gave a nondenominational sermon at Grat Gotch's Hall of Chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Townspeople were shown gambling at Grat Gotch's Hall of Chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isiah was shot dead by bandits while trying to protect Young Cim from gunfire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey grieved as he held his loyal servant Isiah's shot dead body in his arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabra was left to care for two young children after Yancey ran off to settle the Cherokee Strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey interacted with his young daughter, Donna, after returning from the Cherokee Strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey, a trained lawyer, defended Dixie Lee in court against charges of being a public nuisance. He won her acquittal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a dramatic trial, Dixie Lee was acquitted of being a public nuisance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bigamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On the witness stand, Dixie Lee reluctantly shared with the court that she'd once unknowingly tied the knot with a married man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabra disapproved of Cim marrying the Cherokee girl Ruby. However, Sabra came to accept Ruby in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey made an abortive run for the Oklahoma governorship. Sabra was celebrated for winning a seat in Congress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey went off to fight in the Spanish-American War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shortly after starting up a newspaper, Yancey worked on cracking the Jack Paigler case to run as a story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey was devastated over having to gun down his old friend \"The Kid\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabra took up running the newspaper that Yancey had founded and make it go 'round.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fact that Yancey ran of for years at a time didn't seem much to affect his familial relationships, but the viewer must ponder it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabra was persuaded by her morally superior husband to completely change her perception of the prostitute Dixie Lee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone pointed out that Yancey hadn't made much money. Yancey pointed out that at least he had kept his honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yancey mentioned that the old news paper editor had been shot in the back. Isaiah was gunned down by bandits as he ran to protect a child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: City Lights (1931)", "title": "City Lights", "date": "1931-01-30", "description": "City Lights is a 1931 American pre-Code silent romantic comedy film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) and develops a turbulent friendship with an alcoholic millionaire (Harry Myers).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Lights" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The tramp became besotted with the blind flower girl and she with who she thought was a wealthy man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The flower girl was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the tramp help the blind flower girl to regain sight knowing she will likely find him repulsive?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tramp and millionaire were fast friends when drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tramp entered a boxing contest in order get the money the flower girl needed to pay her rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A penniless but cheerful tramp was contraposed with a suicidal millionaire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were two robbers in the millionaire's home and then the tramp was accused of the crime and ended up serving a prison sentence as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an extended episode of pantomime boxing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tramp and flower girl's love appeared to be impossible as she would eventually come to know him for the penniless bum that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A penniless tramp and a blind flower girl struggled mightily, while a hard partying millionaire wanted for nothing except happiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The millionaire was a raging alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tramp saved the millionaire from taking his own life twice over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tramp twice pantomimed the millionaire out of taking his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind flower girl lived with her grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the millionaire ordering his butler around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind flower girl came down with a fever and was instructed her grandmother to give her careful attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind flower girl and her grandmother were on the verge of being evicted from their room for not being able to come up with the rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tramp appealed to another boxer's lucky horse shoe and lucky rabbit's foot before his bout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flower girl's sight was restored by a Viennese doctor who had recently discovered how to cure blindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two kids were tormenting the tramp by shooing peas at him on the street.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: M (1931)", "title": "M", "date": "1931-05-11", "description": "M (German: M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder— M – A City Searches for a Murderer) is a 1931 German thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou and was the director's first sound film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_(1931_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw how the mindless mobs yearned for righteous vengeance against the child killer and heard, in conclusion, that none of that would bring the kids back to life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw how the mindless mobs yearned for righteous vengeance against the child killer and heard, in conclusion, that none of that would bring the kids back to life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "a number of children were tempted by a strange man who then killed them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about a serial child murderer and the hunt for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what the police might be up to in a town in Germany in the 1930s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with a debate about whether the killer should be put to death even though he was not in control of his own actions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "An innocent man was harassed by putative vigilantes. Later a crime syndicate decided to take the law into its own hands because in the courts the killer would get away with insanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "the murderer found himself chased by both police and the criminal underworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Elsie's mother worry about Elsie being missing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Elsie's mother worrying about Elsie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crime gangs were upset about the surge in police activity prompted by the killings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various mothers grieved over their murdered children near the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein (1931)", "title": "Frankenstein", "date": "1931-11-21", "description": "A scientist and his assistant who dig up corpses to build a man animated by electricity, but his assistant accidentally gives the creature an abnormal, murderer's brain. The resultant monster is portrayed by Boris Karloff in the film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1931_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's presenter describes Frankenstein as “a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God.” Frankenstein was convinced he had found a way to create a normal human being, but in his arrogance he instead created a monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and the hideous monster of his own creation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and the hideous monster of his own creation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and Elizabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein to create life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster was rejected by society and treated cruelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein had the hubris to presume he could reanimate a corpse using the power of electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein was certain that he'd found a way to restore life to the ded, but was horrified when the fruit of his labor turned out to be a hideous monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein worked in his laboratory to create his eponymous monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor at Elizabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein in his monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some peasants were shook up over murder of Little Maria by the Monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body snatching", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Igor stole a fresh corpse to reanimate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein used the power of electricity to bring life to inanimate matter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)", "title": "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1931-12-31", "description": "The story of Dr. Henry Jekyll, a kind English doctor in Victorian London, who is certain that within each man lurks impulses for both good and evil.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1931_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll has two selves: his philanthropist good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Muriel Carew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Muriel Carew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll versus his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll into the evil Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in Victorian London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could use science to rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll's deranged alter ego Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Danvers Carew and Muriel Carew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll developed a potion in his laboratory to temporarily transform himself into the evil Edward Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Hyde at Ivy Pearson; Ivy Pearson at Henry Jekyll", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Hyde terrorized and abused his lover Ivy Pearson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll sent Ivy Pearson 50 pounds out of shame over his behavior toward as Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Farewell to Arms (1932)", "title": "A Farewell to Arms", "date": "1932", "description": "A 1932 American film about a romantic love affair between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse in Italy during World War I.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley fall in love on the Italian front in World War I", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frederic Henry is forbidden to have a relationship with Catherine Barkley by army regulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Catherine Barkley was shipped off from the Italian front after getting pregnant then she gave birth to still born baby and ultimately died in Frederic's arms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "major", "motivation": "Catherine Barkley runs away to Switzerland to give birth to baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catherine Barkley grieved over her fiancée who died in the Battle of the Somme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frederic Henry and his comrades were subjected to artillery bombardments. Frederick was sent to the front after his convalescence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desertion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frederick Henry deserted his regiment to search for Catherine Barkley.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Radetzky March (1932)", "title": "Radetzky March", "date": "1932", "description": "Radetzky March (German: Radetzkymarsch) is a 1932 novel by Joseph Roth chronicling the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire via the story of the Trotta family. Radetzkymarsch is an early example of a story that features the recurring participation of a historical figure, in this case the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830–1916). Roth continues his account of the Trotta family to the time of the Anschluss in his The Emperor's Tomb (Kapuzinergruft, 1938). The novel was published in English translation in 1933, and in a new, more literal, translation in 1995.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radetzky_March_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the book centered mostly on the relationship between the second Trotta and the Third, but somewhat too the first and the second", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Trotta's passionate loyalty their dying empire and Emperor was central to the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "the topic of honor recurred in the guise of dueling over honor, honoring debts, and serving the emperor being a point of honor for the Trottas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "the topic of honor recurred in the guise of dueling over honor, honoring debts, and serving the emperor being a point of honor for the Trottas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Trotta's Doctor friend died suddenly in a duel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "scrupulous Kapturak ran a casino and enticed Wagner deep into gambling debts which destroyed him - this became a central topic in the latter half of the book", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Trotta's loyalty to his friends was conspicuous: Doctor and duel, then Wagner and gambling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the second Baron Trotta felt his age, as did the Emperor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were revolts and threats thereof as the empire declined", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw the traditionalists support empire contraposed with various liberalists cheering for its fall", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the second Baron Trotta deliberated with himself about how to raise his son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "LT. Trotta's Doctor friend fought Captain in a mutually lethal duel over the Doctor's wife's honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw how especially Captain Wagner was enthralled with the new casino, and lost a spectacular amount of other people's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first Baron Trotta got his status by fortuitously saving the Emperor's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Trotta had a tryst with a somewhat older Frau", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the first Baron Trotta became a hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "LT. Trotta was on the verges of bankruptcy when his friend Wagner reneged on vast gambling debts that Trotta had unwisely guaranteed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The second Baron Trotta when his son Lt. Trotta died from a bullet in the head.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Grand Hotel (1932)", "title": "Grand Hotel", "date": "1932-04-12", "description": "Grand Hotel is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay by William A. Drake is based on the 1930 play by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Hotel_(1932_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal human experience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr_ Otternschlag, also the narrator, both prefaced and concluded this story by saying that \"Nothing ever happens\" at the Grand Hotel. The story pointedly refuted this statement implying that the real theme was in fact this: There is drama and intrigue everywhere around us if we only care to look.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A moral of the story is arguably that which Kringelein spelled out while drunk after gambling: That one must have the courage to seize life and live it to its fullest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the Berlin Grand Hotel. Among other things Kringelein argured with the staff over the quality of his room and managed to get it up graded to a suite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kringelein had had a terminal prognosis and was intent on spending the remaining few weeks or months of his life in luxury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had only one day to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kringelein believed he had only weeks or months left to live. He intended to do as much living as possible while he could, and damn the expense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern attempted to steal Grusinskaya's pearls, Kringelein's pocketbook, and finally and ill-fatedly Preysing's pocketbook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern and Grusinskaya fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern desperately needed money to pay his way out of a criminal group. However, his scruples got in the way first when he tried to burglarize Grusinskaya's room, and then again when he tried to rob Kringelein. In both cases he aborted his attempt because of his conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story had several desperate characters at the center, each desperate in their own way. Kringelein had been given only weeks or months to live. Baron von Gaigern needed money to pay off criminals. Preysing had to get the merger through or his company would go under.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern plotted to steal a pearl necklace to fulfill a 5,000 Mark debt that he owed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Preysing had to get the merger through or his company would go under, leaving him in dire straights. Baron von Gaigern was broke and indebted to gangsters, and therefore would not be able to maintain his lavish lifestyle for much longer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kringelein and Mr. Preysing had several run ins and a major confrontation in the hotel bar regarding their unequal social status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Preysing spoke to his mother on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Preysing spoke to his father on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grusinskaya was a Russian ballerina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otternschlag, also the narrator, observed the happenings at the hotel. He also aided Kringelein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern flirted shamelessly with Mrs. Flaemmchen, the stenographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with insomnia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grusinskaya had been unable to sleep the night before her big performance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I murdered someone in a fit of rage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Preysing was arrested after he clubbed Baron von Gaigern to death with a telephone receiver in a fit of blind rage. Preysing was likely justified in trying to prevent the baron from leaving, but clearly used more force than he meant to. The baron had tried to pilfer a pocketbook full of money from Preysing's room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron von Gaigern instructed a bellhop to take his dog out for a walk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The right side of Dr. Otternschlag's face was hideously scarred from a grenade explosion that had occurred when he was serving as a physician in the Great War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otternschlag revealed that he'd served as a front line physician in the Great War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Flaemmche rebuffed Mr. Preysing's romantic advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gambling was one of Baron von Gaigern's many vices, and one he turned to in desperation when he needed money to pay off criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The industrial tycoon Mr. Preysing was spearheading a merger that, if successful, would save his company from going under. He stooped to lying about good news having come in from Manchester in a desperate bid to get the deal done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: L'Atlantide (1932)", "title": "L'Atlantide", "date": "1932-06-08", "description": "A French officer searches for Atlantis in the sands of the Sahara Desert only to be captured by Queen Antinéa, a descendant of the rulers of Atlantis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Atlantide_(1932_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "St. Avil search for Atlantis in the sands of the Sahara Desert only to be captured by Queen Antinéa, a descendant of the rulers of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Saint-Avit and Morhange held captive by the queen Antinéa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Saint-Avit at Queen Antinéa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tanit Serga and St. Avil trekked through Sahara Desert in search of Atlantis. St. Avil and a girl wandered in Sahara Desert after escaping from Queen Antinéa's lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "St. Avil had a desire since childhood to search for Atlantis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chandu the Magician (1932)", "title": "Chandu the Magician", "date": "1932-08-18", "description": "For three years, Frank Chandler has studied eastern magic with the Yogis in India and is now known by his new identity, Chandu. He now has the power to teleport, astral project, mesmerize, as well as project illusions. With these supernatural abilities he has been entrusted by his teacher to go forth with his youth and strength to conquer the evil that threatens mankind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandu_the_Magician_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death ray", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inventor Robert Regent developed a death ray whose beams reach half way round the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chandu learned how to teleport, astral project, mesmerize, as well as project illusions from the Yogis in India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roxor plots to use death ray to aid his plans for world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chandu and Princess Nadji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Regent held captive by Roxor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandu tired to help Albert Miggles overcome his drinking problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Regent and Betty Lou Regent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandu was taught how to teleport himself by Yogis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandu was taught how to project an image of himself by Yogis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Six Hours to Live (1932)", "title": "Six Hours to Live", "date": "1932-10-16", "description": "Captain Paul Onslow is brought back to life after being assassinated, but has only six hours to live.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Hours_to_Live" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Representatives from governments of the all countries of the world met to negotiate a world-wide free trade agreement. Paul Onslow cast Sloveria ballot against agreement, which in his view, was for the good of the people. The treaty was vetoed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow is revived from the dead by Prof. Otto Bauer after being assassinated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was brought back to life long after my death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow is revived from the dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baroness Valerie von Sturm and Paul Onslow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow faced with choosing between advancing his political career and marrying his love Baroness Valerie von Sturm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow accepted that he had only six hours to live with dignity and made the best of his time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had only one day to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow had only six hours to live after being revived from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow smashed Prof. Otto Bauer's dead revival machine, claiming that life and death was better left in the hands of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Onslow risked assassination by going to meeting of world governments to cast his vote in his country's interest against free trade agreement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl Kranz at Baroness Valerie von Sturm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Onslow, Baroness Valerie von Sturm, and Karl Kranz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Otto Bauer brought a rabbit and a man back from the dead using elaborate scientific apparatus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baroness Valerie von Sturm was crushed when Paul Onslow told her to forget about him and take up with Karl Kranz", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Onslow came to accept Christ before his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Onslow comforted a little girl by telling her that her deceased sister was having fun in heaven.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Island of Lost Souls (1932)", "title": "Island of Lost Souls", "date": "1932-12", "description": "The first film adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, published in 1896. Both book and film are about an obsessed scientist who is secretly conducting surgical experiments on animals on a remote island.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Lost_Souls_(1932_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau became obsessed with transforming animals into humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau described the transforming of animals into humans made him feel like God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau became obsessed with transforming animals into humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau's unethical experiments on animals bordered on human experimentation since he had transformed them into humans. In particular, Edward Parker accused him of vivisecting human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Panther Woman Lota Edward Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward Parker and Ruth Thomas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shipwrecked traveler Edward Parker held captive on remote island by Dr. Moreau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau's animal creatures turned on him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau about the extent to which it possible to transform animals into humans. In particular, whether the panther woman Lota had the capacity to fall in love with Edward Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau accelerated the evolution of plants and animals by scientific means. In particular, he evolve lower animals into human-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau and the Panther Woman Lota and his other various monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau created half-human creatures out of various different animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau became obsessed with transforming animals into humans in his laboratory of horrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Parker was horrified at the thought that Dr. Moreau was engaging in sadistic vivisections of animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau asserted that all animal life was naturally evolving toward the human form, a form which he considered to be the pinnacle of evolution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: F.P.1 Doesn't Respond (1932)", "title": "F.P.1 Doesn't Respond", "date": "1932-12-22", "description": "Lieutenant Droste wants to build an air station in the middle of the ocean to allow pilots on intercontinental flights to refuel and repair any damage to their aircraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.P.1" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative artificial island", "level": "major", "motivation": "An artificial island of glass and steel, the Floating Platform 1, is constructed in the middle of the Atlantic ocean in order to serve as a stopping point for trans-Atlantic flights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellissen at Claire Lennartz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Droste was obsessed with building a his floating platform on the sea and wouldn't leave it even when it became apparent that it was going to sink into the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellissen aspired to fly to the North Pole, fly nonstop around the world, and be the first pilot to land on Floating Platform 1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellissen aspired to fly to the North Pole, fly nonstop around the world, and be the first pilot to land on Floating Platform 1.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nonfiction: Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)", "title": "Down and Out in Paris and London", "date": "1933", "description": "Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir[2] in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living in near-destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George Orwell writes about how he experienced the poverty of London and Paris first hand at the end of the 1920s. In Paris he pawned his possessions and nearly starved before getting a dishwasher jobs that barely made ends meet. In London he lived for a while like a tramp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern France", "level": "choice", "motivation": "first half of the book is around Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "choice", "motivation": "second half of the book is around London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Orwell is starving several times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "in Paris Boris, in London Paddy and Bozo to some extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator described his experiences working at a Paris hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orwell talked about writing from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orwell was stressed out as plongeur at the Hotels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orwell et al had trouble getting along", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when Orwell changed clothes people's attitudes changed notably", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language change", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orwell discusses some words briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Men Must Fight (1933)", "title": "Men Must Fight", "date": "1933-02-17", "description": "When Laura Mattson's lover is killed in World War I, she raises their son as a pacifist. However, when a second world war looms \"between the United States and a country referred to as the Eurasian States in 1940\", that belief is put to the test.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Must_Fight" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Mattson raises her son Bob Seward as a pacifist but a looming war puts their pacifist way of life to the test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war is sometimes justified", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Mattson learns that freedom is not free and that we must always be prepared to safeguard it and we all have a responsibility to defend it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob Seward decided to join the air force out of a sense of duty to his country in spite of his pacifist convictions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nurse Laura Mattson and World War I pilot Geoffrey Aiken fell in love during the war.; Bob Seward and Peggy Chase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob Seward and Peggy Chase.; Evelyn and Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Mattson raises her son Bob Seward as a pacifist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob Seward angered patriots Peggy Chase and her grandmother by expressing the opinion that flag waving patriots are a bunch of fools.; Patriots heckled Laura Mattson at pacifist rally.; Patriotic servant of Peggy Chase's grandmother went off with enthusiasm to fight for his country.; Edward Seward assured angry mob that he was a patriot for his country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "World War I military pilot Lt. Geoffrey Aiken is fatally wounded on his very first mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Mattson's lover the fighter pilot Geoffrey Aiken was killed in World War I.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nurse Laura Mattson became a pacifist after witnessing the horrors of World War I first hand.; Thousands of casualties in new world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Seward persuades Laura Mattson to marry him, after her lover Geoffrey Aiken dies in World War I.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Seward raised Bob Seward as his own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Mattson led pacifist women's movement in lead up to a world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eurasian States used chemical weapons against the Americans in the world war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: King Kong (1933)", "title": "King Kong", "date": "1933-03-02", "description": "A huge, ape-like creature dubbed Kong perishes in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(1933_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "King Kong rampaged in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A huge ape-like creature dubbed Kong was discovered on Skull Island. There was also a dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Kong rampaged in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Kong became enamoured with beauty Ann Darrow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skull Island was home to King Kong along with various dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and his crew were exploring a hitherto unknown island inhabited by savages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Kong appeared to be impossibly in love with Ann. He killed other people like flies, including women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "First mate Jack Driscoll made remarks about a ship not being a place for a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expedition team encountered dinosaurs on Skull Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll got engaged upon returning to New York from the voyage to Skull Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some seamen objected to having a woman aboard and she was somewhat offended yet worried about causing trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann briefly thought she might have been hired for dirty things and objected that that was probably not how she hoped to escape her destitution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Ann became besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a nature film director set out on a voyage to film the unknown.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cavalcade (1933)", "title": "Cavalcade", "date": "1933-04-15", "description": "Cavalcade is a 1933 American epic pre-Code drama film directed by Frank Lloyd. The screenplay by Reginald Berkeley and Sonya Levien is based on the 1931 play of the same title by Noël Coward. The film stars Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook.\n\nThe story presents a view of English life during the first third of the 20th century from New Year's Eve 1899 to New Year's Day 1933, from the point of view of well-to-do London residents Jane and Robert Marryot, their children, their close friends, and their servants. Several historical events affect the lives of the characters or serve as background for the film, including the Second Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and World War I. Throughout the film, the passage of years is indicated by dates on title cards, with a Medieval cavalcade marching in the background.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalcade_(1933_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story presents a view of English life during the first third of the 20th century from New Year's Eve 1899 to New Year's Day 1933. The events were shown from the point of view of well-to-do London residents Jane and Robert Marryot, their children, their close friends, and their servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Jane Marryot are at the center of the story. Alfred and Ellen Bridges were central as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story begins during the time of the Second Boer War, 1899-1902. It shows various people's reactions to the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Marryot family interacted with the butler and his family throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter part of the story took part during the Great War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two wars transformed the lives of the two families at the center of the story. Robert Marryot and Alfred Bridges went to fight in the Boer War, and returned unscathed but hardly unchanged. Joe Marryot was killed in the Great War. The story showed soldiers marching and bombs being dropped on civilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arguably a point of the story was to compare and contrast the wealthy Marryot family with the poorer family of their butler, the Bridges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fanny had a strong passion for dancing from the time she was a little girl, and eventually made a career out of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward and Edith fell in love and got married, but their lives took a tragic turn when they chose to honeymoon aboard the Titanic. The childhood friends Joe and Fanny fell in love, but the rigid class hierarchy of the time, not to mention Joe's death in combat during the Great War, kept them from ever tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Jane, the patriarch and matriarch of the Marryot family, raised their two boys to adulthood. Alfred and Ellen likewise raised their daughter, Fanny, to womanhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two servants discussed why England was at war. One said that they had to, occasionally, in order to show who is top dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane refused to drink to the war when it was declared in 1914. She spoke sarcastically about patriotism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane interacted with her two sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert interacted with his two sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Edward Marryot squabbled over a war game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boys Joe and Edward played with toy soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A servant mentioned the Crimean War of 1854-1856.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred interacted with his young daughter, Fanny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen interacted with her young daughter, Fanny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen wailed beside Alfred as he lay dying in the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred became a drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fanny went to dancing school and became a singer/dancer of some renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward and Edith discussed their future prospects on their ill-fated honeymoon aboard the Titanic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane was ill at ease when her husband, Robert, went off to fight in the Second Boer War. She was later even more distressed when Robert and her beloved son, Joe, enlisted to serve in the Great War. Robert made it back in one piece, while Joe was killed on the battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane fainted upon reading a telegram conveying the terrible news of her beloved son Joe's death in combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a brief scene, blind veterans of the Great War were shown learning how to read braille and weave baskets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a brief nightclub scene, two young women were shown flirting with each other, and likewise with two young gentlemen. In the context of the 1920s, which was the era in which the scene was set, this behavior would have been considered morally depraved.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deluge (1933)", "title": "Deluge", "date": "1933-08-13", "description": "A group of worldwide natural disasters lead to the destruction of civilization on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of worldwide natural disasters, most notably a global flood, lead to the destruction of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "People saw the worldwide natural disasters as the coming of the biblical end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin was separated from his family when a massive tsunami and earthquake combo hit New York City. He struggled to survive in the chaotic aftermath of the catastrophe. He ultimately reunited with his wife and children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "People struggle to pick up the pieces and survive in the wake of destruction of world civilization from combination of natural disasters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Claire become good friends and eventually fall in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Claire.; Martin and Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin, Claire, and Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin forced to choose between who among Clair and Helen to take as his wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Man (1933)", "title": "The Invisible Man", "date": "1933-11-13", "description": "A scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man_(1933_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack Griffin made himself invisible and was unable to reverse the condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack Griffin discovers how to make himself invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin became immoral when he was invisible and not accountable for his behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin wished to rule the world after becoming invisible and hatched an elaborate plot of world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin was motivated to invent invisibility cloak by a desire to be a famous scientist and become a powerful person in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flora Cranley and Jack Griffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flora Cranley and Jack Griffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin confessed on his deathbed that he had meddled with things that man must leave along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin invented an invisibility serum that he used on himself and then went mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cranley was carrying out experiments in his laboratory. Jack Griffin was working on chemical experiments to reverse his invisibility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cranley and Flora Cranley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flora Cranley was distraught over the disappearance of her fiancée Jack Griffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Kemp at Flora Cranley.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Duck Soup (1933)", "title": "Duck Soup", "date": "1933-11-17", "description": "Duck Soup is a 1933 pre-Code Marx Brothers comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, and directed by Leo McCarey. First released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it starred what were then billed as the \"Four Marx Brothers\" (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres and Edgar Kennedy. It was the last Marx Brothers film to feature Zeppo, and the last of five Marx Brothers movies released by Paramount Pictures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Soup_(1933_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "form of government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was how a rich person caused a clownish person to be made leader of a small country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story seemed to tell us that leaders are selfish fools who bring us all into meaningless idiotic conflicts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "a number of male characters were pursuing females and making sexually charged jokes", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It Happened One Night (1934)", "title": "It Happened One Night", "date": "1934-02-22", "description": "It Happened One Night is a 1934 pre-Code American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed and co-produced by Frank Capra, in collaboration with Harry Cohn, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb and falls in love with a roguish reporter (Clark Gable). The plot is based on the August 1933 short story \"Night Bus\" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title. Classified as a \"pre-Code\" production, the film is among the last romantic comedies created before the MPPDA began rigidly enforcing the 1930 Motion Picture Production Code in July 1934. It Happened One Night was released just four months prior to that enforcement.", "collections": [ "Collection: Academy Award Best Picture Winners" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_One_Night" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ellen and Peter became besotted with each other over the course of their lengthy journey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen ran away from her seemingly domineering dad. He later proved himself to be a caring father by encouraging Ellen to break off her engagement to a famous aviator and go for the man she really loved instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter put up with spoiled heiress Ellen in order to get a scoop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen was running away and trying to avoid numerous detectives hired by her rich father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was a newspaper man. The story follows his attempts to get a scoop on the runaway socialite Ellen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "After much strife, the spoiled heiress Ellen ultimately decided to leave her famous aviator new husband at the altar and marry the newspaper man Peter whom she truly loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spoiled heiress Ellen became a more mature person through influence of Peter, whom she fell in love with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen was hit on by an annoying man on the bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We briefly saw Ellen with her gold digging, showoff husband, King Westley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter saw it as a point of honor to ask for no more than his expenses back in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen's suitcase was stolen outside the bus. The man they had hitched a ride with tried to drive off with Peter's bag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen's father resolved to have her marriage annulled after discovering that she'd eloped and married with the fortune-hunting aviator King Westley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was Ellen's father's contention that the famous aviator King Westley had only eloped with her to secure a stake in their family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police motorcade was dispatched to collect Ellen from the cheap motel where she had been hiding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hard-nosed newspaper editor Joe Gordon took pity on his newspaper man Peter when Peter's big scoop fell through. Instead of firing Peter on the spot, Joe brushed the incident off as a kind of gag, slipped a bill into Peter's pocket, and told him to come back again once he was sobered up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen left King Westley standing at the altar. This was after Westley arrived on the scene in dramatic fashion in an autogyro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Westley was a famous aviator. His passion for flying was illustrated by his dramatic arrival to his wedding in an autogyro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen left King Westley standing at the altar, despite his dramatic arrival on the scene in an autogyro.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Life Returns (1935)", "title": "Life Returns", "date": "1935-01-02", "description": "A doctor is convinced that the dead can be brought back to life gets the chance to prove his theory on a dog that has recently died.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Returns" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Dr. Frederick bringing Danny's recently euthanized dog back from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a scientist (Dr. Frederick) as he tried to prove his theory that the dead can be brought back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Kendrick and his young son Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philanthropist way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A.K. Arnold was supposedly running a philanthropic research institute, but he was mainly concerned with developing commercializable products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young boy Danny and his dog Scooter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kendrick grieved the sudden and unexpected loss his wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Kendrick working as a practicing physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny grieved the sudden and unexpected loss his mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Loss of Sensation (1935)", "title": "Loss of Sensation", "date": "1935-04-17", "description": "The engineer Jim Ripl invents universal robots to help workers, being himself from a workers' family. He theorizes that cheap production will make all goods so cheap that capitalism will fall, but the workers do not share his view and his family considers him a traitor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_Sensation" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Ripl invents universal robots to help workers, but the workers fear the robots will take their jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Ripl invents universal robots to help workers, but the workers fear the robots will take their jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Ripl invents universal robots to help workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Ripl invents universal robots to help workers with the belief that cheap production will make all goods so cheap that capitalism will fall without any revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Ripl wanted to use his robots to bring an end to capitalism by peaceful means but the military planned to use his robots in looming war and to suppress a labor revolt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Factory workers organize a general strike and take action to prevent robots from taking their jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Factory workers organize a general strike and take action to prevent robots from taking their jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Ripl felt betrayed by his brother Jim Ripl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Ripl's sister came to visit him after he had been ostracized by his family.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)", "title": "Bride of Frankenstein", "date": "1935-04-20", "description": "A chastened Henry Frankenstein abandons his plans to create life, only to be tempted and finally coerced by his old mentor Dr. Pretorius, along with threats from the Monster, into constructing a mate for the Monster.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_Frankenstein" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Shelly explains the moral of the original Frankenstein film in the introduction.; Henry Frankenstein creates a bride for the hideous monster of his own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein and the hideous monster of his own creation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Frankenstein and Elizabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Frankenstein and Elizabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Septimus Pretorius and Henry Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monster was reviled but society, but wished for companionship, and Henry Frankenstein made him a bride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster was rejected by society and treated cruelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein went about creating a mate for his monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Frankenstein renounced his designs to create life from death as an abomination onto the lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Septimus Pretorius and Henry Frankenstein worked in Frankenstein's laboratory to create a bride for Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Frankenstein in his monster.; Dr. Septimus Pretorius in his various homunculi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blind hermit befriended the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blind hermit complained of being lonely before the monster arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electricity was used to animate the corpse that was to become the bride of Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Air Hawks (1935)", "title": "Air Hawks", "date": "1935-05-07", "description": "Pilot Barry Eldon is the owner of Independent Transcontinental Lines whose airline is in direct competition with Martin Drewen, owner of Consolidated Airlines. Drewen used a death ray to shoot down Eldon's airplanes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Hawks" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death ray", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shulter invents a death ray that Drewen plots to use to bring down three of Eldon's aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry Eldon and Renee Dupont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry Eldon had a lifelong passion for aviation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry Eldon and Martin Drewen over desire to get lucrative airmail contract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The German inventor Shulter was working in his laboratory to develop a death ray.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Tunnel (1935)", "title": "The Tunnel", "date": "1935-10-27", "description": "A group of wealthy industrialists commission the engineer Richard McAllan to spearhead the building of a transatlantic tunnel between New York and London.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tunnel_(1935_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undersea tunnel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of wealthy industrialists build of a transatlantic tunnel between New York and London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard McAllan neglects his relationship with his wife Ruth because he is preoccupied with the building of a transatlantic tunnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard McAllan neglects his fatherly duties to Geoffrey because he is preoccupied with the building of a transatlantic tunnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard McAllan and Ruth's marriage fell apart when he became preoccupied with building a transatlantic tunnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common interest unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Politicians gave speeches about how the transatlantic tunnel would unite American and England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was thought that the building of a transatlantic tunnel would bring about world peace through the unification of the English speaking peoples of the world.; Richard McAllan believed the construction of the transatlantic would bring about world peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard McAllan and Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd's attractive daughter Varlia at Richard McAllan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard McAllan communicated with investors and his wife Ruth over video telecommunication device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth went blind and was coping with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth and Richard McAllan morned the death of her son Geoffrey who died in a tunnel accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The engineers braved an undersea volcano in the building of a transatlantic tunnel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)", "title": "Mutiny on the Bounty", "date": "1935-11-08", "description": "Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 American historical adventure drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It dramatizes the mutiny of HMS Bounty, and is adapted from the novels Mutiny on the Bounty and Men Against the Sea by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. It stars Charles Laughton as William Bligh, Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian, and Franchot Tone as Roger Byam (based on Peter Heywood).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty_(1935_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Bligh was a brutal tyrant who routinely prescribed harsh punishment for officers and crew alike. He was also corrupt and had misappropriated supplies that were meant for the welfare of his crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline in the workplace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around the excessively many and excessively cruel punishments meted out by Captain Bligh. The question was often left hanging: what sort of discipline would have been appropriate?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tyrannical Captain Bligh was compared and contrasted with the stern but sympathetic executive officer, Fletcher Christian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bounty and its crew sailed the seas for two years and endured much hardship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story begins with a man condemned to \"flogging around the fleet\" being flogged to death. After that one gruesome punishment followed many others. For instance, Captain Bligh had one man keelhauled to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story begins in England in 1789. It follows an array of characters as they voyage on the high seas aboard the HMS Bounty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fletcher became besotted with a Tahitian girl named Maimiti, and the feeling was reciprocated. They married and had a child after the mutiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became clear that Captain Bligh had misappropriated the ship's supplies in order to enrich himself. Furthermore, he unabashedly designated scapegoats from the crew and punished them harshly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded at sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Bligh and his loyalists were put out to sea on a tiny sailboat with minimal supplies. Against all odd they made it to safety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around the excessively many and excessively cruel punishments meted out by Captain Bligh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tahitians lived peacefully and in material abundance, all without the need for money. This idyllic lifestyle was juxtaposed with the miserable existences that the crewmen spent aboard the Bounty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "The midshipman Roger Byam was torn between staying loyal to the cruel Captain Bligh and sticking up for the crewmen under his direct command. The entire crew was split between mutineers and loyalists to Captain Bligh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship's surgeon, Mr. Bacchus, was an unabashed drunkard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger confided in Fletcher that they could never again be friends in the aftermath of Fletcher's mutinous takeover of the HMS Bounty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the crewmen longed to return to England to see his wife and young child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Fletcher and others became seasick from watching a lantern sway back and forth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Bligh falsely accused a couple of crewmen of theft after it was discovered that a pair of 50 pound cheeses had gone missing. In reality, Bligh had had the cheeses in question taken to his house prior to setting out on the voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger took an interest in Tahitian and compiled an English-Tahitian dictionary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A celebration of Christmas Day in England was juxtaposed with the mutineers celebrating that same day in Tahiti.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was court-martialed on a charge of mutiny. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was ultimately pardoned by the king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was sentenced to hang after being found guilty of mutiny. He was subsequently pardoned by the king.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: We the Living (1936)", "title": "We the Living", "date": "1936", "description": "We the Living is the debut novel of the Russian American novelist Ayn Rand. It is a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia and was Rand's first statement against communism. Rand observes in the foreword that We the Living was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography. Rand finished writing the novel in 1934, but it was rejected by several publishers before being released by Macmillan Publishing in 1936. It has since sold more than three million copies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Living" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "communist dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rand shows us an image of how collectivization leads to a horrible world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rand shows us how governmental domination over all aspects of private life gradually established itself after the revolutions. We see for example that in order to have a job, people had to memorize propaganda from approved newspapers. The USSR gradually turned into a place where each person had to tow the party line if they wanted to have a decent life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are shown the consequences of the Russian Revolution according to Rand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Former bourgeois are ruthlessly discriminated against by the newly powerful proletariat and the contempt is perhaps mutual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The characters are many times judged by whether or not they come from a \"bourgeois\" family, on one occasion formally in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Kira and Leo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "realist vs. idealist", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrei was a political idealist who became disillusioned when confronted with Leo's and Kira's realism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira prostituted herself to Andrei in order to save Leo and the rest of the story revolved around the consequences of this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira, Leo, Andrei", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there were occasional but brief comments about the various liaisons entertained by the characters in the book", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonia discussed with Pavel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrei described how he had kicked a captured woman on impulse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Ray (1936)", "title": "The Invisible Ray", "date": "1936-01-20", "description": "A scientist creates a telescope-like device that captures light-waves from the Andromeda Galaxy, giving him a way to view the distant past. Using this knowledge, he travels to Africa to locate a large, unusual meteorite that fell there a billion years earlier. He discovers that the meteorite is composed of a poisonous unknown element, \"Radium X\". After exposure to its rays begins to make him glow in the dark, his touch becomes deadly, and he begins to be slowly driven mad.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Ray_(1936_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janos Rukh harnessed the power of Radium X for evil but Felix Benet wished to use it for the good of society by using to to cure people of illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janos Rukh sought vengeance on his colleagues over his perception that they too the credit for his discovery of Radium X. Janos Rukh sought vengeance against Ronald Drake for marrying Janos' wife Diana Rukh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janos Rukh causes death in anyone he touches after being exposed to Radium X.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janos Rukh and Diana Rukh.; Diana Rukh marries Ronald Drake after the apparent death of her husband Janos Rukh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janos Rukh and Diana Rukh.; Ronald Drake and Diana Rukh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mother Rukh confronts her son Janos Rukh over his growing madness and generally disapproved of his scientific pursuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist, Janos Ruth, went mad after he was not given the proper credit he was due for his discovery of Radium X and went about plotting his revenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janos Rukh invented a telescope that can look far out into deep space, into the Andromeda Galaxy, and photograph light rays that show the Earth's past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janos Rukh invented a telescope that can look far out into deep space, into the Andromeda Galaxy, and photograph light rays that show the Earth's past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rukh went on an expedition on the continent of Africa to find the location of a billion year ago crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janos Rukh cured his mother Diana Rukh's blindness using Radium X.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francis with antelope soup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janos Rukh harnesses the power of Radium X to make a death ray, which he could also use to heal illnesses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rukh was being poisoned by radiation that was being emitted from the newly discovered element Radium X.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cosmic Voyage (1936)", "title": "Cosmic Voyage", "date": "1936-01-21", "description": "In the year 1946, Professor Pavel Ivanovich Sedikh leads the first manned exploration to the moon as part of the Soviet space program.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Voyage_(1936_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Pavel Sedikh and his assistants make a successful landing on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Pavel Sedikh built a spaceship and used it to lead a manned mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Sedikh was determined to fly to the Moon in his a spaceship of his own design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Sedikh's rival Professor Karin explained that Sedikh was being too old and too mentally unstable to lead the first mission to the Moon and it was better Krain do it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electromagnetic catapult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship was launched using some manner of electric rail gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flight crew delight in the experience of zero gravity on voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flight crew used specially designed spacesuits to walk on and explore the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Modern Times (1936)", "title": "Modern Times", "date": "1936-02-05", "description": "Modern Times is a 1936 American comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression — conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin. It is notable for being the last time that Chaplin portrayed the iconic Little Tramp character.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the initial factory part showed how the capitalist system made factory owners treat workers as components in a machine to be optimized", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "the initial factory part showed how the capitalist system made factory owners treat workers as components in a machine to be optimized", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "major", "motivation": "the initial factory part showed how the capitalist system made factory owners treat workers as components in a machine to be optimized", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Tramp flitted from job to job; signs of unemployment were everywhere; and Ellen's father was unemployed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Tramp finally went nuts due to excessive stress working in the factory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw various upper class people (factory owner, store manager, prime minister) contrasted with various lower class ones (the Tramp, unemployed, petty criminals)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen got by by stealing food. The Tramp took things when he could and also in order to be put back in jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were numerous instances of poor down-and-out people stealing food because they couldn't afford it, including Ellen at one point stealing a loaf of bread", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Tramp and Ellen became besotted with each other after he stepped in to save her from the police", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "after watching a happy married couple, Tramp and Ellen decided to act in a similar idealized manner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen's father was depressed for not having a job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Tramp got mixed up in a Communist demonstration that clashed with the police", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what it might have been like in prison in the time and cultural context of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Tramp got mixed up in a communist demonstration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Tramp tried to take the fall for Ellen when she was caught stealing a loaf of bread", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tramp was employed in a restaurant and we saw what it might have been like for employees there in the cultural context.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Walking Dead (1936)", "title": "The Walking Dead", "date": "1936-02-29", "description": "A wrongly executed man who is restored to life by a scientist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(1936_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Ellman is restored to life after being hanged for a crime he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Ellman was convicted of and hanged for a murder that'd been pinned on him by a cabal of six men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The six men who framed John Ellman for murder died one by one from guilt over what they had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Evan Beaumont invented an artificial heart and used to to revive John Ellman from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and Nancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and Nancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Ellman on death row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Evan Beaumont was curious to learn about the afterlife from John Ellman after he was revived from the dead.; John Ellman presumably acquired some understanding of who had framed him for murder while he was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Evan Beaumont was curious to learn about the afterlife from John Ellman after he was revived from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Ellman was convicted and hanged for a murder that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Great Ziegfeld (1936)", "title": "The Great Ziegfeld", "date": "1936-03-22", "description": "The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 American musical drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz \"Flo\" Ziegfeld Jr., Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. The film is a fictionalized and sanitized tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and a cinematic adaptation of Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies, with highly elaborate costumes, dances and sets.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Ziegfeld" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the life and career of the theatrical impresario Florenz \"Flo\" Ziegfeld Jr. and touches upon actors, actresses, and other showbiz people in early 20th century America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is a musical biopic of Florenz \"Flo\" Ziegfeld Jr. who started out managing a strongman performer in a lowly London nightclub and ended up a famous Broadway impresario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "The theatrical impresario Florenz \"Flo\" Ziegfeld Jr., who produced flamboyant Broadway shows, had a relentless ambition to leave his mark in show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld and Anna Herd fell in love and married. Later in life, Ziegfeld and Billie Burke fell in love, married, and had a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld and Anna Herd fell in love and married. Later in life, Ziegfeld and Billie Burke fell in love, married, and had a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld lived to produce extravagant theatrical spectacles that would be forever remembered. The viewer is given the distinct impression that he was more interested in putting on a great show than making a profit. He exclaimed \"I've got to have more steps, higher, higher\" before dying in his armchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "Despite having produced many successful Broadway shows, there were at least two instances where Ziegfeld had to go cap in hand to find backing for his next venture. He blew money gambling in Monte Carlo, bought expensive jewels and orchids for Anna, and lost a large sum of borrowed money in the stock market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld had remarkable confidence, perhaps not unfounded, in his own abilities. For example, after his first successful show, Ziegfeld poached Anna from a rival impresario by strutting into her dressing room and offering her a job, despite not have a dime to offer her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld lost his entire fortune in market crash of 1929 by speculating with borrowed money in the stock market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld had a strategy of charming ladies by proffering backwards criticisms on their attire that ended with off-handed compliments. He used this strategy on both Anna Held and Billie Burke, to good effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ziegfeld was a practiced charmer who \"attracted women like flypaper\" it was said at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the showbiz entrepreneur Florenz \"Flo\" Ziegfeld Jr. as he embarked on one imaginative venture after the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld repeatedly touched an elephant over the span of five weeks for good luck, but to no avail. According to Ziegfeld, he was told by an \"old Hindu\" that \"if you touch an elephant's trunk and he raises it, everything will be all right\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandow was mortified when a crowd of people erupted into laughter after an elephant sprayed him with water from its trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld visited his elderly father. The father expressed his dissatisfaction with Ziegfeld being a carnival barker, albeit in an endearing manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Motivated by naked self-interest, Ziegfeld alerted the Humane Society of an upcoming event that would see the strongman Sandow face off against a lion and grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Motivated by naked self-interest, Ziegfeld alerted the Humane Society of an upcoming event that would see the strongman Sandow face off against a lion and grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld poached Sidney from his rival Jack Billings and he became Ziegfeld's lifelong loyal butler/attendant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Broadway impresarios Ziegfeld and Jack Billings were rivals. For instance, they vied with each other to sign the talented French singer Anna Held to a contract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Lou showered Ziegfeld with kisses upon meeting him for the first time since she was a little girl. Ziegfeld graciously rebuffed her affections, insisting that he was a married man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Audrey Dane lost her spot as Ziegfeld's favorite in no small part because of her heavy drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna divorced Ziegfeld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld was briefly crestfallen when Anna left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Ziegfeld was shown celebrating Christmas in the company of his wife and young daughter. The was a towering Christmas tree and presents in copious numbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ziegfeld family celebrated Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld coped with becoming old and mildly forgetful. This hit home when he realized that he'd left his necktie at the barbershop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld spent his twilight years a broke and washed up man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Doyle rounded up the men from the barbershop at Ziegfeld's request.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story touched on the 1929 market crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziegfeld turned his fortunes around when he realized he could market the muscular Sandow to the female half of the audience, and let them touch Sandow's twitching muscles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghost Patrol (1936)", "title": "Ghost Patrol", "date": "1936-08-03", "description": "A scientific genius has invented a machine capable of causing planes to crash. He uses it on planes loaded with valuables. Various characters become involved in conspiracies and double crosses in an attempt to stop him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Patrol" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death ray", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist invents a ray capable of knocking down airplanes out of the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan Brent held captive by bandits and forced to adapt his radium death ray to be able to take airplanes out of the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Natalie Brent worked to rescue her father Jonathan Brent from bandits who had taken him captive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Jonathan Brent was busy at work in his laboratory on a ray apparatus of some kind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936)", "title": "The Man Who Changed His Mind", "date": "1936-09-11", "description": "A mad scientist swaps the minds of a crippled man and a well known philanthropist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Changed_His_Mind" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Laurience transfered the mind of Clayton into philanthropist Lord Haslewood. He also transfered the mind from one chimp into another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Laurience swapped the minds of Clayton and philanthropist Lord Haslewood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Laurience went mad and endeavored to use his mind transfer machine to transfer himself into the body of a younger man, and offered to transfer Clair's mind into a younger body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clayton in the body of Lord Haslewood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some ridiculed the notion that Clare Wyatt could be a good scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare Wyatt made a point to Dr. Gratton that she didn't need his protection while working for Dr. Laurience and later conveyed that she didn't need to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Laurience was ridiculed by his academic peers when he claimed to have performed a mind transfer on chimps and it drove him mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare Wyatt and Dick Haslewood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick Haslewood was worried about his father Lord Haslewood's health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare Wyatt and Dick Haslewood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Laurience was working on a mind transfer contraption in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Things to Come (1936)", "title": "Things to Come", "date": "1936-09-14", "description": "A 1936 British black-and-white science fiction film based on the H. G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "An aerial bombing raid on Everytown city results in general mobilization and then global war that throws the world into a dark age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Science made civilization destroying global war possible, but also a journey to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everytown citizens experience multiple horrors of a global war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world rebuilt after a catastrophic global war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wings Over the World organization aimed to form a global government in the aftermath of the world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "By 2036 world civilization was devoted to peace and scientific progress, but Theotocopulos incited the population to demand a rest from all the rush of progress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wings Over the World organization aimed to create a utopian world civilization founded on science and good governance by those in power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everytown citizens faced poison gas attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everytown citizens were ravaged by pestilence in the aftermath of years of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space gun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A space gun was planned to be used to send a spaceship to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mission to the Moon planned for launch in 2036.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theotocopulos led a neo-luddist movement that destroyed the space gun in an effort to curb scientific progress.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: La Grande Illusion (1937)", "title": "La Grande Illusion", "date": "1937-06-08", "description": "La Grande Illusion (also known as The Grand Illusion) is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape. The title of the film comes from the book The Great Illusion by British journalist Norman Angell, which argued that war is futile because of the common economic interests of all European nations. The perspective of the film is generously humanistic to its characters of various nationalities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande_Illusion" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prisoners of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story followed some French air-force officer who had been taken captive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story followed some French air-force officer who plotted to escape from a German officer prison camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "underlying the whole story was the idea that war is stupid in addition to terrible", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "some real events and features of WW1 appeared", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solitary confinement as a punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maréchal nearly went mad in solitary confinement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was some talk and many allusions to this sentient", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "early there were comments about how well the Germans treated their prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rittmeister von Rauffenstein revealed his disdain for lower classes when he spoke to Maréchal, a fellow aristocrat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Life of Emile Zola (1937)", "title": "The Life of Emile Zola", "date": "1937-08-11", "description": "The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 American biographical film about the 19th- century French author Émile Zola starring Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle.\n\nIt premiered at the Los Angeles Carthay Circle Theatre to great critical and financial success. Contemporary reviews ranked it as the greatest biographical film made up to that time.\n\nIn 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.\"\n\nProduced during the Great Depression and after the Nazi Party had taken power in Germany, the film failed to explore the key issue of antisemitic injustice in France in the late 19th century, when Zola became involved in the Dreyfus affair and worked to gain the officer's release. Some recent studies have noted the film as an example of Hollywood's timidity at the time: antisemitism was not mentioned in the film, nor was \"Jew\" said in dialogue. Some explicitly anti-Nazi films were canceled in this period, and other content was modified. This was also the period when Hollywood had established the Production Code, establishing an internal censor, in response to perceived threats of external censorship.\n\nThe Life of Emile Zola became the second biographical film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Emile_Zola" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Emile Zola’s journey from his early struggles as a writer to his later years as a renowned man of letters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miscarriage of justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The French military leadership threw Albert Dreyfus under the bus to conceal their own incompetence. The story turns on Emile exposing them for who they really were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emile would not be stopped until justice was served in the Dreyfus case. Emile proclaimed \"Justice, justice, justice, justice.\" to himself after Dreyfus was vindicated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The French military leadership threw Albert Dreyfus under the bus to conceal their own incompetence. The story turns on Emile exposing them for who they really were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emile writing an op-ed proclaiming Alfred Dreyfus' innocence was a turning point in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Albert Dreyfus being falsely convicted of treason against the French government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of treason and imprisoned on a remote island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emile, as a young and upcoming man of letters, lived in squalor with his painter friend, Paul, in a rundown attic apartment. Emile stuffed rags into broken windows to keep out the cold, and they burned the books of hypocrites to keep warm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus. Emile and Alexandrine Zola. Lucie beseeched Emile to come to the aid of Alfred. During the trial, Lucie and Alexandrine discussed Alfred's miserable fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emile's trial on a libel charge was much featured toward the end of the story. A significant part of the story took place in this courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emile and Paul were lifelong friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emile's elderly mother came to fetch him from his impoverishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A policeman's efforts to arrest a prostitute were thwarted by Emile's quick wit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A chance encounter with the prostitute Nana inspired Emile's hit novel of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emile lost his job over having published a novel that got him in a run in with the Chief Censor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government censorship in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An agent of the Public Prosecutor issued a warning to Emile over his newly published novel that, according to the agent, attacked leading men of letters as well as the the arts, and criticized civic authorities. Later, the Chief Censor issued a warning to Emile over his various literary works that were undermining of government authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man pocketed a copy of Emile's scandalous new novel Nana before hypocritically rebuffing a lady for showing interest in such an improper tome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explores France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emile was served on by his butler, Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Emile was visibly afflicted with symptoms of a bad cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus proclaimed their love for one another before Alfred was whisked away to Devil's island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning, Emile envisioned a future without war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Emile being laid to rest in the Panthéon in Paris.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Non-Stop New York (1937)", "title": "Non-Stop New York", "date": "1937-09-13", "description": "A woman who can clear an innocent man of the charge of murder is pursued by gangsters onto a luxurious transatlantic flying boat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Stop_New_York" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennie snuck aboard the Atlantic Airlines \"Libson Clipper\", a giant transatlantic flying boat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Abel had the murder of Billy Cooper pined on him by mobsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Abel on death row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennie's mother and Jennie Carr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennie Carr and Inspector Jim Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Abel was charged with murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)", "title": "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "date": "1937-12-21", "description": "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-rottentomatoes-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Queen was in competition with Snow White for the position of most beautiful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "th queen was clearly evil; Snow White was clearly good hearted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the queen was vain to the point of murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "the queen was envious of Snow White's beauty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "the queen wanted o be the most beautiful in the land", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the prince's legendary love made him seek out Snow White even after she had died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snow White had to run away because the queen was out for her life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "the feminine ideal Snow White was contrasted with the stereotypically male dwarfs, especially with regard to cleanliness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow White got herself more or less lost in the forest ere she stumbled upon the dwarfs' house", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Seven Dwarfs dug greedily for jewels all day long.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the wicked queen brewed up vile potions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow White was tidy; the dwarfs were sloppy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the huntsman could not bring himself to slaughter Snow White as the queen had ordered him to", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lady Vanishes", "title": "The Lady Vanishes", "date": "1938", "description": "The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about a beautiful English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iris was perplexed and flustered when she found that no one but herself professed to remember Miss Froy, the titular vanishing lady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cricket", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charters and Caldicott, English cricket enthusiasts, were anxious to see the last days of the Test match in Manchester.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story imagines what it might have been like to travel across central Europe by train in the early 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "As the plot unraveled, it became clear that central conflict in the movie was between British snoops and the officials of the fictional country that was their target.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "A good part of the story took place in a rural hotel and heavily featured the manager and one of the maids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of the main antagonists is the evil neurosurgeon, Dr. Hartz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was a recurring theme that the various British protagonists had trouble making themselves understood by the central Europeans among whom they journeyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was a recurring theme that the central European inhabitants had customs that were peculiar to the various British ladies and gentlemen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)", "title": "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "date": "1938-05-14", "description": "The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American Technicolor swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains. It was distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Robin_Hood" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-rottentomatoes-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw royal intriguing in late medieval Britain as prince John tried to usurp his brother king Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Normans in England seized power and oppressed their saxon neighbours ruthlessly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robin organized a resistance movement against the usurper prince John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince John betrayed his brother. The word 'treason' was used for others too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw an ide of life in England in the 1190s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "in particular Robin Hood and in particular about archery, held himself out as superior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robin and Marion became besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "various rich Normans were contrasted with various poor Saxons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was the fact that Robin Hood's outlaws were not simply in it for themselves, but remained loyal to King Richard through his captivity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robin Hood and his band of thieves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin was briefly in a dungeon awaiting the gallow's pleasure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John plotted to assassinate his brother and king, Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnplotted to assassinate his brother and king, Richard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: You Can't Take It with You (1938)", "title": "You Can't Take It with You", "date": "1938-09-29", "description": "You Can't Take It with You is a 1938 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Capra, and starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, and Edward Arnold. Adapted by Robert Riskin from the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the film is about a man from a family of rich snobs who becomes engaged to a woman from a good- natured but decidedly eccentric family. A critical and commercial success, the film received two Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Director for Frank Capra. This was Capra's third Oscar for Best Director in just five years, following It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Take_It_with_You_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Vanderhof spelled out his philosophy to Mr. Kirby: One should not waste one's time in the pursuit of wealth because \"You Can't Take It with You\" when you die. For some reason he also believed that you can take your friendships with you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Vanderhof spelled out his philosophy to Mr. Kirby: One should not waste one's time in the pursuit of wealth because \"You Can't Take It with You\" when you die. For some reason he also believed that you can take your friendships with you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "meeting the parents", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Tony and Alice trying to acquaint themselves and their respective families with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tony Kirby and Alice Sycamore were head over heels with one another. Overcoming the obstacles in the way of their relationship was at the core of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Vanderhof's philosophy was that one should make the most of one's time and not waste it on the pointless pursuit of wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony and Meriam Kirby discussed \"-isms\" and disapproved of their son's romantic escapade. Ed and Essie Carmichael: she danced a jig while he played the xylophone. Alice's parents were around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony Kirby and Alice Sycamore were betrothed for most of the story. The house servants Rheba and Donald were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby and his son Tony were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Kirby and her son Tony, whose fiancé she disapproved of greatly, were central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Kirby were stereotypically snobbish and both Vanderhof and Alice called them out for it. Among other things, Mr. Kirby talked down to the other detainees in his cell and called them \"scum\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby knew no bounds when it came to increasing his private wealth through means that were legally dubious but indubitably ruthless business practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interclass romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Tony's affluent background being a cause of strife for his burgeoning romance with the working class stenographer Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby ultimately came around to the idea that there is more to life than the accumulation of material wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Alice each worried that the other's family would alienate their own. Alice at one point called off the engagement owing to this strife, but the families reconciled in the end, and the two got reengaged with their respective parent's blessings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. personal gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Vanerhof turned a very high offer for his house because he was rooted in the local community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa Martin Vanderhof and Alice Sycamore were both main characters but their relationship did not drive the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Alice Sycamore lived in Grandpa Vanderhof's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny and Alice Sycamore lived in Grandpa Vanderhof's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice Sycamore and Essie Carmichael lived in Grandpa Vanderhof's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Communism was mentioned as one of the \"-isms\" that were the height of fashion these days. The police arrested Ed believing he circulated Communist propaganda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Vanderhof told the man from the IRS that he hadn't paid income tax because he didn't believe in big government. An argument ensued about the virtues of taxation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vanderhof family was tended to by two black house servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vanderhof's and their guests were arrested by the police and charged with disturbing the peace, and manufacturing fireworks without a license. A stern law officer glowered disapprovingly at Tony and Alice's dancing in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mild-mannered, elderly judge presided over the Vanderhoff's and Kirby's arraignment. Mr. Kirby was defended by a trove of lawyers in top hats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby and the Vanderhof family went before the night court for having caused a disturbance of the peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kolenkhov was so delighted to hear that Mr. Kirby had been into amateur wrestling that he picked Mr. Kirby up, spun him around on his shoulder a few times, and body slammed him down on the floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby was grooming his son, Tony, to take over the family company. He made Tony a vice president of the family business at a conspicuously young age. Later, Mr. Kirby's advisors objected when he named Tony company president, arguing that he was too young for the role.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Poppins longed to be a toy maker. Essie was an enthusiastic and aspiring dancer and was always prancing about the family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice's mother wrote plays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Tony described how he and an old friend once endeavored to work out how plants make energy directly from sunlight with the aim of harnessing it for electricity production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby complained of indigestion. He took exception when Mr. Kolenkhov kept insisting it could be ulcers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny mocked Mrs. Kirby her for being a student of occultism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gaggle of reporters crashed the courtroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Mr. Ramsey had taken his life after losing his company to Mr. Kirby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Vanderhof lied to save Mr. Kirby the embarrassment of it being publicly revealed that Mr. Kirby's son was fooling around with a lowly stenographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony was a vice president in his dad's company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kirby was scheming to force his rival out of business by purchasing a 12-block radius around his factor. In this way, Mr. Kirby would secure a monopoly in munitions manufacturing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lady Vanishes (1938)", "title": "The Lady Vanishes", "date": "1938-10-07", "description": "The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about a beautiful English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Vanishes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-rottentomatoes-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were recurring instances of Anglophones trying to communicate with continentals who, outrageously, did not understand English", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "a variety of British people were commenting on what they found on the continent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iris became upset when no one she interviewed would admit to having seen her with Miss Froy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "it transpires that evil people were in fact after Miss Froy, and then everyone, with murderous intent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that Miss Froy was a spy, and everything that happened around her was connected to that fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Gilbert and Iris became besotted and decided to marry in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "minor", "motivation": "two Britih gentlemen were greatly flustered when a hotel maid began undressing in front of their eyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris bribed a hotel manager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hotel manager's eyes shone with greed as he catered to Iris and her friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cricket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charters and Caldicott were obsessed with the game of cricket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todhunter's mistress pressed him about when he'd divorce his wife; we heard that she was married herself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we must ponder the possibility that the knock on the head made Iris hallucinate a woman named Miss Froy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Froy was a spy with an important message for Britain's foreign office", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Son of Frankenstein (1939)", "title": "Son of Frankenstein", "date": "1939-01-13", "description": "Dr. Frankenstein's son revives finds his father's monster and revives it.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Frankenstein" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Wolf von Frankenstein made a bid to redeem his father's soiled reputation by reviving the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Igor directed the monster to murder the jurors who had sentenced him to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revival of the monster was considered to be an abomination onto the lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Wolf von Frankenstein and Elsa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Wolf von Frankenstein and Peter.; Henry Frankenstein and Wolf von Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein's son took up where he father had left off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elsa and Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Krogh had his arm torn out from the roots by the monster when he was a child and he could not pursue his dream of joining the military as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Wolf von Frankenstein reviving the monster in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The monster was revolted by its own appearance in the mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Central to the story was Baron Wolf von Frankenstein's experiments with electricity to harness its power to revive the monster in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stagecoach (1939)", "title": "Stagecoach", "date": "1939-02-02", "description": "Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of \"The Stage to Lordsburg\", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group primarily composed of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory.\n\nThe film has long been recognized as an important work that transcends the Western genre. In 1995, the film was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. Still, Stagecoach has not avoided controversy. Like most Westerns of the era, its depiction of Native Americans as simplistic savages has been criticized.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_(1939_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in Arizona and New Mexico, June 1880. A drunken physician, a whisky peddler, a crooked banker, an outlaw, a prostitute, a snobbish belle, among others traveled together in a stagecoach through hostile Apache territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Boone was a unabashed drunkard. He was delighted to find himself traveling together with a whiskey peddler who had a case full of samples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Boone was, despite his raging alcoholism, an accomplished physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stagecoach occupants were set upon by stereotypically belligerent Apache Indians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter part of the story concerns the stagecoach travelers' attempt to evade, then outrun or fight off, stereotypically belligerent Apache Indians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ringo Kid had broken out of prison and was on the run from the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dallas and the Ringo Kid became besotted with each other and were probably on path to be married at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embezzlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon reaching Lordsburg, Henry Gatewood was summarily arrested for leaving the town of Tonto with his bank's funds. This explained why he was so determined to leave Tonto, despite the high risk of encountering hostile Apache warriors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "major", "motivation": "A drunken physician, a whisky peddler, a crooked banker, an outlaw, a prostitute, a snobbish belle, among others traveled together in a stagecoach through hostile Apache territory. The quarreled in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Boone cited social prejudice as the reason that he was being run out of town. One gathers, however, that the Ladies of the Law and Order League wanted him gone because he was a drunk. The snobbish belle Lucy spent the majority of the trip looking down her nose at Dallas, who was a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marshall Wilcox placed the Ringo Kid under arrest and kept an eye on him for the duration of the trip. The Lordsburg sheriff arrested Henry Gatewood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The banker Henry Gatewood handed over five silver dollars to his wife at her request.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon seating himself in the stagecoach, Hatfield offered to protect Lucy for the duration of the trip before doffing his hat. Later, Hatfield commanded Doc Boone to put out his smelly cigar with Lucy's best interest in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy went into labor on the stop over in Apache Wells. Doc Boone sobered up enough to deliver the baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dallas was run of of town by the Ladies of the Law and Order League for being a prostitute.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wuthering Heights (1939)", "title": "Wuthering Heights", "date": "1939-04-13", "description": "Wuthering Heights is a 1939 American romantic period drama film directed by William Wyler, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven, and based on the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The film depicts only 16 of the novel's 34 chapters, eliminating the second generation of characters. The novel was adapted for the screen by Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht and John Huston (uncredited). The supporting cast features Flora Robson and Geraldine Fitzgerald.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights_(1939_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with heartbreak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cathy and Heathcliff were both heartbroken in different ways. She when he finally ran away. He when he understood her intention to marry someone else. Heathcliff chastised her on her deathbed for breaking his heart, using precisely those words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cathy and Heathcliff were lovers since a young age. But when her father, Mr. Earnshaw, and Heathcliff's protector died, Hindley inherited everything. Since Cathy and Heathcliff owned nothing of any note, their match became practically impossible in the context of the time. She married someone else while Heathcliff ran off to make his fortune in order to be worthy of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Heathcliff seethed with resentment of his more fortunate peers. When young Hindley hit him with a rock he swore he'd show them up one day. After he came back wealthy from America, Cathy spelled out that he had become something dark and terrible. For example, Heathcliff took marked pleasure in denigrating Hindley, and he married Isabella only to spite Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Isabella spelled out that Heathcliff was consumed with hatred and that it had poisoned his whole existence. Heathcliff seethed with resentment of his more fortunate peers. When young Hindley hit him with a rock he swore he'd show them up one day. After he came back wealthy from America, Cathy spelled out that he had become something dark and terrible. For example, Heathcliff took marked pleasure in denigrating Hindley, and he married Isabella only to spite Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hindley treated his servants, including Heathcliff, like dirt. By the end of the story Heathcliff had made his fortune and got back at Hindley by treating him with the same contempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghost of Cathy believed to be a ghost haunting the premises of Wuthering Heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youngsters Heathcliff and Cathy were besotted with each other. Cathy outgrowing this youthful infatuation when she married another man. Heathcliff, on the other hand, remained devoted to the very end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central characters Hindley and Cathy and did not care much for one and other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heathcliff was contrasted with the Earnshaws who took him in. The Earnshaws were contrasted with the Lintons, who held a lavish party. In particular the Lintons looked down on poor Heathcliff with utter contempt. After he made his fortune, however, he was treated with notable respect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy was torn between her love for the impoverished Heathcliff and her desire for the material comforts would come with marrying the wealthy Edgar Linton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy was torn between her love for the impoverished Heathcliff and her desire for the material comforts would come with marrying the wealthy Edgar Linton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heathcliff and Edgar both were in love with Cathy who, in turn, found it hard to choose between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "One understanding of the story is that Cathy choose to marry the wealthy Edgar Linton over her longtime lover Heathcliff, who was impoverished. Heathcliff, aptly, scolded Cathy for being greedy when she choose to spend her time with Edgar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy and Edgar tied the knot and were central to the latter half of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "A feminist viewing of the story might note how utterly dependent the women were on their male patriarchs. Cathy would be destitute if she left her brother's estate. Edgar spoke patronizingly to his sister, Isabella, when she defended Heathcliff and threatened to constrain her activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heathcliff and Edgar both coped with the death of their beloved Cathy. The entire story leads up to the darkness and brooding that came over Heathcliff after her passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hindley was cold and callous toward Heathcliff. Even though they had grown up together, Hindley made Heathcliff be his stable boy, and generally treated him as an outcast. When the tables were turned, Heathcliff was arguably more cruel to Hindley, and abetted his descent into alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "In his youth, Heathcliff vowed loudly to become richer than any of his rivals, and in the end he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy and Heathcliff were in love, but the rigid class hierarchy of the time made it practically impossible for them to be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy and Heathcliff were unable to fulfill their love for one another owing to the rigid class hierarchy of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockwood was received at Wuthering Heights with remarkable coldness. Heathcliff at first told him to sleep in the same bed as one of the servants, but then relented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockwood had wandered on the moors during a snowstorm and gotten himself lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kenneth tended to Mr. Earnshaw during his final hours. Dr. Kenneth made a few house calls at the Wuthering Heights estate. He finally refused to come back because Hindley refused to follow his advice and lay off the booze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Earnshaw took in and adopted Heathcliff after finding him on the streets of Liverpool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Cathy and Young Heathcliff played a game of make-believe that ended with Heathcliff dispatching a black knight and proclaiming Cathy as his queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Earnshaw found the boy Heathcliff living in poverty on the streets of Liverpool and brought him to live at Wuthering Heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene of Cathy and Edgar's wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heathcliff scolded Cathy for letting herself be loved by Edgar to please her \"stupid, greedy vanity\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hindley drank to such an extent that the family doctor finally refused to come back and see him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark Victory (1939)", "title": "Dark Victory", "date": "1939-04-22", "description": "Dark Victory is a 1939 American melodrama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis, and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Casey Robinson was based on the 1934 play of the same title by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch, starring Tallulah Bankhead.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Victory" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Judith's, and her friends', struggle to come to terms with the fact that she was suffering from terminal glioma. It concerns the manner in which Judith would eventually choose to meet her inevitable fate. At first Judith resolved to booze her head off, but she later let herself be convinced that she must lead out her few remaining days in a more meaningful manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Judith initially did everything she could do pretend that she wasn't sick, and later that she wasn't dying. In the end, however, she made some sort of peace with the inevitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the relationship between Judith and Dr. Steele, who fell in love and in the end got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judith initially tried to run away from her terminal prognosis, but ultimately she met her fate with a brave face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the relationship between Judith and Dr. Steele, who fell in love and in the end got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Steele was a renowned neurosurgeon. He met with colleagues a few times, explained medicine to Judith, and conducted ground breaking medical research out of a shed somewhere in Vermont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judith's carefree and purposeless life of frivolity was compared and contrasted with that of the dutiful, stoic, Dr. Steele who notably did not partake of alcohol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Steele had devoted himself to medical research. He abstained from alcohol and other frivolities that might get in the way of his goal of curing cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judith and her physician, Dr. Steele, fell in love while he was treating her for brain cancer. They ended up tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Steele chose to withhold from his patient and love interest, Judith, that her brain cancer was terminal. He reasoned that it would be better for Judith to live out what little time she had left in blissful ignorance, unaware of her impending fate. Ann, Judith's best friend, squarely disagreed with Dr. Steele, and thought Judith had a right to know the truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann was devastated upon finding out that her best friend, Judith, had less than a year to live due to a glioma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann was devastated upon finding out that her best friend, Judith, had less than a year to live due to a glioma. Dr. Steele coped with his patient and lover, Judith, being terminally ill with brain cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Steele was conducting ground breaking medical research out of a shed in Vermont that held the long-term prospect of a cure for glioma brain tumors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The main characters were all obviously very wealthy and had throngs of servants that they ordered about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horseback riding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judith had a passion for horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judith's stable master, Michael O'Leary, made unrequited romantic overtures toward her. He tried to kiss her in the stable, but Judith wouldn't have it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)", "title": "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "date": "1939-05-15", "description": "Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a 1939 romantic drama film starring Robert Donat, Greer Garson and directed by Sam Wood Based on the 1934 novella of the same name by James Hilton, the film is about Mr. Chipping, a beloved aged school teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school, who recalls his career and his personal life over the decades. Produced for the British division of MGM at Denham Studios, the film was dedicated to Irving Thalberg, who died on 14 September 1936. At the 12th Academy Awards, it was nominated for seven awards, including Best Picture, and Donat, for his performance as Mr. Chipping, won the award for Best Actor.\n\nAt the time of its release, the picture appeared on Film Daily's and the National Board of Review's ten best lists for 1939 and received the \"best picture\" distinction in The Hollywood Reporter Preview Poll of May 1939.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Mr._Chips_(1939_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story in its entirety is that of an old school teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school reflecting on his personal life in general and his teaching career in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Chips was sorely disappointed when he learned that he would not be appointed headmaster, as he had expected he would be. He made peace with his fate. In the very end, after he already retired, he was shocked but not displeased when called upon to serve as headmaster after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Chips met his beloved wife on a mountainside, had a brief courtship, and a short but blissful marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Chips reflected on how, to his delight, he had gradually become the best loved teacher in the school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Having lost his wife during childbirth and never remarrying, Mr. Chips spent much of his life without a traditional family. His pupils at the school fulfilled that role. On his deathbed, he fondly reflected that his countless doting pupils were as sons to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Chips was time and again shown interacting with various of his numerous adoring students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retiring from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story lead up to Mr. Chips finally announcing his retirement after years of digging in his heels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "Just as Mr. Chips retired, the Great War broke out. On his way out from the retirement ceremony, Mr. Chips was told of \"another Austrian Archduke\" that had been assassinated - undoubtedly a reference to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose death is commonly considered the igniting spark. Later a maudlin Mr. Chips had to say farewell to various former students that were bound for the front. He also ran the school as headmaster as the bombs fell all around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A noticeable feature of the story was the evident love Mr. Chips and Katherine had for each other, before she tragically died in child birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in boarding school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at Brookfield School, a boys' boarding school. Explored is what daily life was like there for students and teachers alike during the late 19th and earth 20th centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is presented with a window into the lives of successive generations of upper-class British boys at Brookfield School (e.g., studying, playing, getting into mischief).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is framed as Mr. Chips looking back on his life at Brookfield School.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a British boarding school starting in the Victorian era and ending sometime not long after the First World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On the mountain side, Mr. Chips reflected on his life and pondered whether he might conceivably be able to start things over, despite being well into middle age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips said he did not approve of such newfangled developments as \"women riding bicycles\", or indeed bicycling in general. Someone had once passed him by at a whooping 15 mph which, one gathers, was a thoroughly disagreeable experience. Mr. Chips couldn't accustom himself to the new headmaster's \"up to date\" approach to teaching Latin, which included classical pronunciations of Latin words, such as saying \"Kikero\" instead of \"Cicero and \"wekissem\" instead of \"vicissim\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips ascended a dangerous mountain path to help a lady in need and was abashed when, later, people proclaimed him a hero for the feat, much to his chagrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips and his walking companion were shouted away by a robust lady who took offense after he had mistakenly asserted that she was an acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips met his future wife in Austria and was almost instantly besotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips and Katherine had a brief courtship in Austria before tying the knot. For instance, the waltzed the night away in an Austrian club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips fell victim to a practical joke on his first day in the classroom at Brookfield School. In general, the students liked to subject new masters to various pranks. Likewise they did so to various masters on April Fool's day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips was devastated when his beloved wife died in childbirth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The habit of caning errant pupils was repeatedly on display and occasionally upheld as a pillar of sound tutelage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The then headmaster stated at Mr. Chips' death bed that he though Mr. Chips had had a lamentably lonely life. Mr. Chips briefly woke up to set the record straight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips fell victim to a practical joke on his first day in the classroom at Brookfield School.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips held short of saying that Elizabeth I was known as the \"Virgin Queen\" when the boys tried to goad him into doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cricket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips kept his boys in class while an important cricket match was going on in the schoolyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katherine characterized herself as a \"strong minded female who rides a bike\", something that challenged prevailing social norms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chips dug his heels in when the new headmaster wanted him to teach Latin in the modern way.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Love Affair (1939)", "title": "Love Affair", "date": "1939-05-15", "description": "Love Affair is a 1939 American romance film, co-starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram. Controversial on concept, the official screenplay was re-tooled and rewritten to appease Hollywood censorship and relied on actor input and improvisation, causing long delays and budget extensions.\n\nThe movie became a surprise hit of 1939, showing McCarey's versatility after a long career of comedic films, and launching the surprising team-up of Dunne and Boyer. Academy Award nominations include Best Actress for Dunne, Best Supporting Actress for Ouspenskaya, Best Original Song, Best Writing (Original), and Best Picture. Its popularity was later dwarfed by McCarey's 1957 remake An Affair to Remember, which spawned its own remakes with 1994's Love Affair and a few Indian adaptations.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Affair_(1939_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Both Michel and Terry were short on cash but had gotten engaged to wealthy partners. When they fell in love with each other both Michel and Terry had to consider carefully whether they would forego a lavish lifestyle with partners they didn't love, in order to have true love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Both Michel and Terry were short on cash but had gotten engaged to wealthy partners. When they fell in love with each other both Michel and Terry had to consider carefully whether they would forego a lavish lifestyle with partners they didn't love, in order to have true love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is one of two people falling madly in love and resolving to do just about anything to be with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns two people who embark on a love affair despite each being engaged to someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michel, a Frenchman who was apparently irresistible to women, well known rake. He told Terry that he was on his way back to his fiancée in New York after having enjoyed a tryst with said fiancee's sister in Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "About half of the story is set aboard the interwar era Atlantic passenger liner S.S. Napoli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Michel and Terry revealed that they had engaged themselves with their respective partners for the prospect of money, and pink champagne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry became wheelchair bound, possibly for life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "When she became an invalid, Terry resolved not to let Michel know because she didn't want him to marry her out of pity. She was adamant that she'd pay her own way and get better, or failing that never see Michel again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with heartbreak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michel was brokenhearted when Terry no-showed their long-anticipated meeting on the Empire State Building observation deck. Unbeknownst to Michel, Terry was hit by a car on her way there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry underwent a lengthy recovery after sustaining serious injuries from his by a car. It was up in the air whether she would ever walk again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel initially flirted shamelessly with Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel showed himself to be deft with kids when he bantered with a boy. The boy moments later smart-mouthed a woman. Terry became a music teacher at a children's orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel was very attached to his grandmother, Janou, whom he introduced to Terry. Terry also became attache to Janou and ended up being bequeathed her scarf in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel was the talk of the people aboard the ocean liner. In one notable scene, he autographed a photo of himself for a quartet of adoring young women who had eagerly requested it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon entering his grandmother's chapel, Michel joined Terry in kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary. Terry prayed devoutly, unlike Michel whose body language suggested that he was not a pious man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel, a portrait painter, turned to painting billboard ads around New York City when he couldn't make ends meat from peddling his artwork.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest visited Terry at her bedside in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry became a music teacher at a children's orphanage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Rules of the Game (1939)", "title": "The Rules of the Game", "date": "1939-07-07", "description": "The Rules of the Game (original French title: La Règle du Jeu) is a 1939 French comedy-drama satirical film directed by Jean Renoir. It features an ensemble cast of Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, Pierre Magnier and Jean Renoir himself. Renoir's portrayal of the wise, mournful Octave anchors the fatalistic mood of this pensive comedy of manners. The film depicts members of upper-class French society and their servants just before the beginning of World War II, showing their moral callousness on the eve of impending destruction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rules_of_the_Game" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially André for Christine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various men over Christine; Schumacher over Lisette's cheating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "André, Christine, Robert and maybe Octave; Schumacher, Lisette, Marceau", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern France", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw a parody on upper class French snobbery and immorality, vis à vis each others as well as servants, in inter-war France", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "French aristocrats were contrasted with their various attendants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine flitted between one and the other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine appeared to match this stereotype, though she mostly feigned innocence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "the various liaisons between married people appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary for 1930s French aristocrats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "woman about sea salt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a few antisemitic remarks were made", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "men expressed sympathy for Christine as she was Australian living in France and (we heard) didn't speak the language", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a cold blooded murder which was conveniently swept under the rug in order to avoid a scandal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wizard of Oz (1939)", "title": "The Wizard of Oz", "date": "1939-08-10", "description": "The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, it was primarily directed by Victor Fleming, who left production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind. It stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, while others made uncredited contributions. The music was composed by Harold Arlen and adapted by Herbert Stothart, with lyrics by Edgar \"Yip\" Harburg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each of Dorothy's three companions yearned to improve on themselves in one way or the other. Scarecrow desired to become smarter by obtaining a brain. Tin Man wanted to have a heart. Cowardly Lion longed for courage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story takes place in a fantastical realm, inhabited by strange creatures, called Oz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dorothy was worried about getting home and at various points despaired over, as it seemed, never being able to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy briefly ran away from home in order to save her pet pooch Toto whom a wicked witch of a woman wanted to have destroyed. Toto remained her companion through the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy made friends with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. They became fast companions on their journey to the Emerald City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cowardly Lion went along with Dorothy hoping to acquire some courage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oz was inhabited by four witches, one for each cardinal direction. The primary antagonist of the story is the Wicked Witch of the West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tin Man was a vaguely man-shaped artificial automaton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy briefly ran away from home to save her pet pooch Toto whom a wicked witch of a woman wanted to have \"destroyed\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Henry and Dorothy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Auntie Em and Dorothy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Henry and Auntie Em.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wicked Witch of the West was rather upset to find her sister the Wicked Witch of the East killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wicked Witch of the West was rather upset to find her sister the Wicked Witch of the East killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy was spoken of as having inadvertently killed the Wicked Witch East when her house landed on top of that diabolical spell-slinger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "farming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parts of the story are set on a Kansas farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Marvel, a small-time charlatan, pretended to see Dorothy's family inside his crystal ball. This he did to convince Dorthy to return home. Dorthy bought it hook, line and sinker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)", "title": "The Man They Could Not Hang", "date": "1939-08-17", "description": "Dr. Savaard is obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. A young medical student offers his services to him, but before he can bring him back to life, Savaard is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to hang. He vows revenge on the judge and the jury before his hanging. His assistant claims his body and revives him by using his technique. The vengeful Savaard goes on a killing spree.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_They_Could_Not_Hang" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was Dr. Henryk Savaard's goal in life to bestow humankind with the gift of eternal life. This he planned to do by replacing people's failing organs with artificial ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Savaard was transplanted with an artificial heart after being hanged and was brought back to life as a result. Dr. Savaard transplanted an experimental artificial heart into the body of young medical student Scoop Fole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Savaard was revived after being hanged for murder. Dr. Savaard pronounced a medical student dead and then attempted revived him by transplanting him with an experimental artificial heart, but the police arrested him before he could finish the procedure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Savaard sought to kill all the jurors who had sentenced him to hang after being revived from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Savaard killed a young medical student in order to bring him back to life with an artificial heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Henryk Savaard and Janet Savaard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young medical student assured his fiancée that they'd be off to eat chop suey just as soon as Dr. Savaard killed him and brought him back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A few members of Dr. Savaard's jury objected to sentencing him to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Savaard faced execution with a brave face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some reporters wondered whether the Dr. Savaard jury was cursed after six of them had been found hanged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scoop Foley and Janet Savaard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet stated that vengeful full of hatred Dr. Savaard who was revived from the dead was not the same man as the father she had known before the hanging.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)", "title": "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "date": "1939-10-17", "description": "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American lighthearted political satire film directed by Frank Capra, starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart, and featuring Claude Rains and Edward Arnold. The film is about a naive, newly appointed United States senator who fights against government corruption, and was written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished story \"The Gentleman from Montana\". It was loosely based on the life of Montana US Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who underwent a similar experience when he was investigating the Warren Harding administration.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "professional politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Smith was made senator. He served alongside Senator Joseph Paine, who was a seasoned hand. Much if not most, of the story is set on the floor of the United States Senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about young Mr. Smith who, when by chance he is made senator, takes on a huge pork distribution network of the highest level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Smith was leagues out of his waters when he heard he had been made senator. He resolved to do his best and to do nothing that would dishonor his office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that, by an odd chance, a blue-eyed and exceptionally honest young man becomes senator and confronts several of his corrupt colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that, by an odd chance, a blue-eyed and exceptionally honest young man becomes senator and confronts several of his corrupt colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Smith faced down accusations of corruption on the Senate floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capitol Hill reporters were covering the newly appointed Senator Smith's fight against corruption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A component of the story is the, often lying and manipulative, ways in which mass media has the power to mold public opinion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator Paine took the newly appointed junior senator from his state, Mr. Smith, under his wing to mentor him on the workings of Washington politics. However, everything blew up in Senator Paine's face when it became clear that Mr. Smith wold not tow the status quo when it came to corrupt political practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "realist vs. idealist", "level": "major", "motivation": "The newly appointed senator Mr. Smith, a straightforward and principled man, took seriously the political ideals that he found written in the U.S. Constitution. Senator Paine, by contrast, took a more pragmatic approach to politics that emphasized compromising with corrupt cronies and advancing legislation in the public interest when the chance arose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy political boss Jim Taylor tried to use his influence to get a bill passed in the Senate that would see him profit immensely from the construction of a dam, despite it not being in the public good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith was besotted with Susan but she was merely keeping him away from hearing a certain bill read in the Senate. Mr. Smith's aide Mrs. Saunders despaired over ever catching Mr. Smith's eye herself when she saw how he fawned over Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Mr. Smith had been looking up to Senator Paine for a long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Paine initially balked at the prospect of involving his daughter, Susan, in a scheme devised by his fellow political cronies to pass a corrupt bill.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ninotchka (1939)", "title": "Ninotchka", "date": "1939-11-09", "description": "Ninotchka is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka marked the first comedy role for Garbo, and her penultimate film; she received her third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1990, Ninotchka was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". In 2011, Time also included the film on the magazine's list of \"All-Time 100 Movies\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninotchka" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is an unlikely love story between a patriotic Soviet agent and a pro-capitalist count.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The political and economical system of the Soviet Union was compared and contrasted with that of the United States and its Western allies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ninotchka defended Soviet ideology with a fervor, but was gradually seduced by the bacchanalian antics of her adversaries in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the Soviet Union", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka spoke of growing up during the Russian revolution, and the life of common people thereafter. Part of the story was set in Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The duchess, Swana, enlisted a lawyer, Léon, to try and get the jewels she considered hers returned. The story is about how her adversary Ninotchka became romantically involved with Léon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human character stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka started out as a stereotypical Bolshevik: a frugal, humorless, hard-working party zealot with a photo of Lenin on her nightstand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka was a fervent believer in the communist ideology of her country. Then she was seduced by the decadence of Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka was forced to choose between Léon on the one hand, and a number of things on the other. Choosing Léon would have made her a traitor to Communist Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka was forced to choose between Léon on the one hand, and a number of things on the other. Choosing Léon would have meant disown her Soviet ideology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka was forced to choose between Léon on the one hand, and a number of things on the other. Choosing Léon would have made her a traitor to Communist Russia and, undoubtedly, ended her bureaucratic career there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Russian Revolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The duchess was a refugee from the revolutionaries; the story concern the dispute between the duchess and the Soviet government over who was the legal owner of the jewels she considered to be hers. Ninotchka spoke about her army days and how the Reds confronted the Whites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story compares and contrasts 1930s life in the City of Lights, with that of life in Communist Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka was a stern killjoy who never allowed herself to crack a smile until she fell in love with Léon. From then on, she became a new person who enjoyed life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ninotchka and the three Soviet envoys commented endlessly on the capitalistic ways of the French and how these ways compared to their own communist ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three Russian envoys to Paris debated whether and how they would live in luxury whilst abroad and their country unwittingly footed the bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three Soviet envoys were beside themselves with the \"French Maids\" that could be summoned by thrice ringing the hotel bell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ninotchka and Léon had recurrent conversations about what jokes are or aren't funny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ninotchka and Léon drank themselves silly on, among other things, champagne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The duchess stole back the jewels she considered hers. Ninotchka threatened to go to the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Léon was tended to by his loyal butler, Gaston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Léon was mortified when the restaurant patrons openly laughed at him after he toppled over a table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fresh off having perused Karl Marx's \"Capital\", Léon asked his butler, Gaston, if he \"realized the unfairness\" of his position and whether he would prefer that they \"stand on an equal footing\". Gaston, however, expressed content with his end of the bargain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken Ninotchka rallied the powder room attendants to go on strike.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Return of Doctor X (1939)", "title": "The Return of Doctor X", "date": "1939-12-02", "description": "Dr. Maurice Xavier is revived from the dead using synthetic blood to sustain him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Doctor_X" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1930s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flegg revives Dr. Maurice Xavier from the dead using synthetic blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flegg invented artificial blood and used it to revive a man from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flegg was experimenting in his laboratory with bringing a rabbit back rom the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flegg regretted having brought Maurice Xavier back to life, because Xavier became a murderer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gone with the Wind (1939)", "title": "Gone with the Wind", "date": "1939-12-15", "description": "Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell. The film was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, following her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, and her subsequent marriage to Rhett Butler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfishness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The heroine Scarlett was vain and self-absorbed. Rhett repeatedly scolded her for having no consideration for anyone but herself and caring for nothing but money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The heroine Scarlett was a fiercely independent and strong-willed individual. After the war, she become hellbent on becoming financially self-reliant. She acquired a lumber mill and ran it ruthlessly by exploiting prison labor. Scarlet's decision to run a lumber mill herself was questioned by her husband. Scarlet driving her own horse and carriage was frowned upon by a woman of high-standing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scarlett was in love with Ashley from the very start, and Ashley felt for her too, but Ashley felt bound by moral duty and honor to his wife. Rhett was in love with Scarlett and despaired because he couldn't make her reciprocate the feeling. In the end, however, the roles were reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scarlett was fiercely jealous of Ashley's wife, Melanie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ashley said that he loved Scarlett but his honor prevented them from being together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scarlett was exceedingly concerned with her appearance. After her first child she refused to sleep with Rhett again for fear that another child would ruin her figure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Before marrying Scarlett, Rhett was a whore-mongering cad, and proud of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story shows various people of the Confederate South dealing with the realization that the Yankees had won.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Scarlett coming of age as her people are defeated in war. She suffered through severe hardship but rose to it and swore to God that she would never go hungry again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set during the American Civil War, a time when the question of slavery was of utmost importance. The slave holding habits of rich people in the Confederate South were at display throughout most of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "In particular, Scarlett and her house slaves Mammy and Prissy were featured throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The second half of the story leads up to the turning point when Scarlet and Rhett's young daughter, Bonnie, tragically broke her neck and died in a pony riding mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The four main character in the story were Rhett, Scarlet, Ashley, and Melanie. Scarlett and Rhett married after the war. Ashley and Melanie married toward the very start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scarlet and Rhett's marriage turned into a shambles owing, in no small part, to Scarlet's heart being with Ashley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter half of the story portrays a view of how a defeated and impoverished Confederate South rose up out of the ashes of the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the Confederate South where most black people were enslaved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "major", "motivation": "Selfish and unsympathetic Scarlett was contrasted with Rhett who was able to see deeply into people and understand the motivations for their actions. Scarlett, by contrast, was often befuddled by what people thought and felt even though she was highly intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays the desperation that people of the South experienced during the closing phase of the American Civil War. In particular, it was portrayed what it might have been like for the people of Atlanta during the extended assault by Union forces on the city. At the party, Rhett proclaimed that he hoped the North would relent because wars were awful affairs and afterwards no one knew why they had been fought. The remainder of the story showcased at least the first part of this assertion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scarlet admitted to Rhett that money was a consideration in her decision to marry the wealthy general store owner Frank Kennedy. Scarlett presumably married Rhett because of his immense fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlett did not mourn one bit when her fiancé was killed, but scoffed at having to make a show of doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlet was devastated when her old man died in a horseback riding accident chasing carpetbagger. Rhett beloved his young daughter, Bonnie. He was intent on keeping custody of Bonnie in the event of a divorce. He was devastated when Bonnie died in a pony riding accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlett was devastated when she returned home and found her mother had just died. Scarlett cared for her young daughter, Bonnie. She was stunned when Bonnie died in a pony riding accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlet let out a shriek and then fainted upon beholding her mother's corpse. She later buried her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlett chased down a physician while Melanie was giving birth, but he was occupied tending to wounded soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rhett spoke about divorcing Scarlett. Scarlett didn't acquiesce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melanie gave birth in the war zone that was Atlanta without the assistance of anyone experienced int he matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Melanie was much troubled by thoughts that her husband, Ashley, had been captured by Union forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melanie was overjoyed when her husband, Ashley, returned home from fighting the Union army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlett was quite happy to be the sole owner of a lumber mill after her husband died. Ashley grieved for his longtime wife, Melanie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rhett pursued Scarlett and they eventually married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlet and her family were plunged into poverty in the immediate aftermath of the war. In one pointed scene, Scarlet was reduced to eating a raw carrot that she uprooted from a field with her own hands.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Of Mice and Men (1939)", "title": "Of Mice and Men", "date": "1939-12-30", "description": "Of Mice and Men is a 1939 American drama film based on the 1937 play of the same name, which itself was based on the novella of the same name by author John Steinbeck. The film stars Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, and Lon Chaney Jr., and features Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen, Bob Steele, and Noah Beery Jr. The film tells the story of two men, George and his intellectually disabled partner Lennie, trying to survive during the dustbowl of the 1930s and pursuing a dream of owning their own ranch instead of always working for others. Starring in the lead roles were relative Hollywood newcomer Burgess Meredith as George and veteran actor Lon Chaney Jr. (the son of famed silent film actor Lon Chaney) as Lennie. Chaney had appeared in more than 50 films by that point in his career, but Of Mice and Men was his first major role. Betty Field's role as Mae was her breakthrough role in film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men_(1939_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-notable-1939.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George and Lennie dreamed of buying a farm of their own. Candy overheard them and got caught up in the dream as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George and Lenny were partners in their pursuit of the American dream. In the end, George was forced to shoot Lennie. Before doing so he reflected on how he had often told Lennie, disingenuously one must assume, that he'd rather be on his own than have to look after Lennie. The black farmhand Crooks said George traveled with Lennie merely for having someone to talk to and keep company with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George and Lenny were partners in their pursuit of the American dream. They were inseparable from each other for their own reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows two itinerant laborers, George and Lennie, who, despite their lives of hardship, clung to a dream of one day owning their own farm. The old man Candy overheard them and got caught up in the dream as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concerns George and Lennie. George took care of Lennie, who was intellectually disabled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curley was so jealous about his wife, Mae, that he punched people on the mere suspicion of them having been near her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curley was so jealous about his wife, Mae, that he punched people on the mere suspicion of them having been near her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Candy was very attached to his old sheep dog and remonstrated when people suggested he ought to put it down. Various people were given puppies. Lennie accidentally killed his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennie accidentally broke Mae's neck. George spoke of how Lennie had gotten into some trouble with a girl in a red dress who they'd encountered in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "major", "motivation": "George ended up shooting Lennie himself rather than leave Lennie to the bloodthirsty vigilantes that were hunting him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenny was a dim-witted, gentle giant of a man who didn't know his own immense strength. This combination of child-like naïvely and great strength spelt his undoing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mae was under the thumb of her suspicious and domineering husband, Curley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackson ran a farm together with his son, Curley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curley resented \"big guys\" due to his own small stature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several remarks were made regarding who was above whom at the new farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackson was stern and did not appreciate his son's wife, Mae, making noise when Jackson was working at his desk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black farmhand Crooks mentioned he wasn't welcome to play poker on account of his skin color.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Candy was left to earn a living by doing menial chores around the farm owing to having lost his left hand in an accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crooks confided to Lennie that he felt lonely living by himself in the cabin designated for black farmhands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A sheriff arrived to make sense of the sad scene of Lennie's killing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: His Girl Friday (1940)", "title": "His Girl Friday", "date": "1940-01-11", "description": "His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. It was released by Columbia Pictures. The plot centers on a newspaper editor named Walter Burns who is about to lose his ace reporter and ex-wife Hildy Johnson, newly engaged to another man. Burns suggests they cover one more story together, getting themselves entangled in the case of murderer Earl Williams as Burns desperately tries to win back his wife. The screenplay was adapted from the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. This was the second time the play had been adapted for the screen, the first occasion being the 1931 film also called The Front Page.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Girl_Friday" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hildy chose marriage and left her career, Walter had lost a marriage because he choose his job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honest character vs. deceitful character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bruce by contrast to Walter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter, Hildy, and Bruce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hildy between Walter and Bruce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hildy and Bruce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a bunch of journalists and their work. Hildy was a passionate journalist trying to tear herself away from the profession but being pulled back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "An innocent man about to be executed for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earl Williams was about to be hanged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter and Hildy, Walter described their failed marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter described how he and Hildy came to divorce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter met his ex, Hildy, something was rekindled and the story turned into a love triangle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk about how an upcoming election might be manipulated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Man Returns (1940)", "title": "The Invisible Man Returns", "date": "1940-01-12", "description": "Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe is sentenced to death for the murder of his brother Michael, a crime he did not commit. Dr. Frank Griffin, the brother of the original invisible man, injects the prisoner with an invisibility drug. As Radcliffe's execution nears, he suddenly vanishes from his cell. Detective Sampson from the Scotland Yard guesses the truth while Radcliffe searches for the real murderer before the drug causes him to go insane.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man_Returns" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank Griffin injected Geoffrey Radcliffe with a serum that made him invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank Griffin injected Geoffrey Radcliffe with a serum that made him invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe was sentenced to death for the murder of his own brother, a murder which he did not commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin and Helen Manson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Griffin and Helen Manson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe escape from death row and hid from a police manhunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Griffin slowly goes mad after being turned invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen Manson with her fiancée Geoffrey Radcliffe being on death row and subsequently on the run from the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe became immoral when he was invisible became to lust for power and commit assorted acts of evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe is sentenced to death for the murder of his own brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Griffin was working in his laboratory on developing an invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe lusted to rule the world over dinner with Frank Griffin and Helen Manson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geoffrey Radcliffe was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his own brother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Black Friday (1940)", "title": "Black Friday", "date": "1940-02-29", "description": "The famous Dr. Ernest Sovac's best friend, bookish college professor George Kingsley, is run down while crossing a street. In order to save his friend's life, Sovac implants part of another man's brain into the professor's.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1940_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Sovac implanted part of another man's brain into his friend George Kingsley after he is run down while crossing a street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Cannon's brain in the body of George Kingsley took vengeance against other gangsters by murdering them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Sovac implanted part of another man's brain into his friend George Kingsley after he is run down while crossing a street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George Kingsley recalled memories of the gangster, a piece of whose brain he had transplanted into him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red Cannon at Sunny Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest Sovac and Jean Sovac.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: How Green Was My Valley (1940)", "title": "How Green Was My Valley", "date": "1940-03-21", "description": "How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 American drama film directed by John Ford, adapted by Philip Dunne from the 1939 novel of the same title by Richard Llewellyn. It stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and a young Roddy McDowall.\n\nIt tells the story of the Morgans, a hard-working Welsh mining family, from the point of view of the youngest child, Huw, who lives with his affectionate and kind parents as well as his sister and five brothers, in the South Wales Valleys during the late Victorian era. The story chronicles life in the South Wales coalfields, the loss of that way of life and its effects on the family.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Green_Was_My_Valley_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is told by Huw in his later years as he reminisces about his youth in a Welsh mining community during the late Victorian era. The title \"How Green Was My Valley\" hearkens back to Huw's longing for those bygone days. This is attested by his line \"It makes me think of so much that was good that is gone,\" after reminiscing about the toffee he used to chew on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns an initially thriving little coal mining village in Wales that went into decline as the times changed. The Morgans, and others, reacted in various ways to the gradual loss of their way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everything about the story centers around the Morgans, a mining family living in Wales during the late Victorian era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told by Huw in his later years as he reminisces about his youth in a Welsh mining community during the late Victorian era. The title \"How Green Was My Valley\" hearkens back to Huw's longing for those bygone days. This is attested by his line \"It makes me think of so much that was good that is gone,\" after reminiscing about the toffee he used to chew on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores life in a Welsh mining community during the late Victorian era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The strike action taken by the miners threatened to tear the Morgan family apart, as the father Gwilym Morgan was principally opposed to unions, while his older sons were socialist leaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "The strike action taken by the miners threatened to tear the Morgan family apart, as as the father Gwilym Morgan was principally opposed to unions, while his older sons were socialist leaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One thread of the story concerns Angharad Morgan and Pastor Gruffydd falling love. However, Gruffydd was too poor and modest to marry her, so she reluctantly entered into a loveless marriage with Iestyn Evans, who was a wealthy man. She later left him, possibly, according to the maid, to get a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told by Huw in his later years as he reminisces about his youth in a Welsh mining community during the late Victorian era. Huw was the apple of his father's eye. The father did his best to secure for Huw a good education, so that the boy would not need to work in the coal mines as he had done his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Huw was the apple of his father's eye. The father did his best to secure for Huw a good education, so that the boy would not need to work in the coal mines as he had done his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morgan brothers were a tight-knit band. The five elder bothers participated in a union action to which their father was diametrically opposed. Two of the elder brothers left the country to seek their fortunes abroad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "The coal miners feared getting discharged from the mine due to wage competition. Later many were discharged, including two of Gwilym Morgan's sons. After their termination, they left the country to seek their fortunes abroad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in a Welsh community where Christianity was deeply interwoven with everyday life. One storyline concerned a conflict between Pastor Gruffydd and Deacon Parry over the looming strike at the mine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gwilym and Beth Morgan had a happy marriage and were raising a big family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morgan family went into mourning when a Huw's older brother Ivor died in a coal tram accident. The story is narrated by Huw and centers around his relationship with his father. It ends with Huw recounting the tragic death of his father in a coal mining accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the scene on a Welsh wedding where there was throwing of rice, a dropped cake, drunken dancing, and generally much merriment. In another scene, Angharad was visibly upset at her wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Huw lost his ability to walk after falling into a frozen pond. He later reacquired the use of his legs with the help of Pastor Gruffydd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth was the mother to six sons. She had a special attachment to her young son, Huw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After starting at a new school, Huw was bullied by a classmate and later harassed by the teacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Huw was accosted by a bully on his first day of school. He was subsequently instructed in the art of boxing, and the very next day taught the bully a lesson that the bully would not soon forget.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Huw was accosted by a bully on his first day of school. He was subsequently instructed in the art of boxing, and the very next day taught the bully a lesson that the bully would not soon forget.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Welsh pugilist Dai Bando instructed Huw in the ins and outs of boxing. Huw used his newfound skills to teach his bully a lesson. Dai Bando later gave Huw's schoolmaster a boxing \"lesson\" in front of the class that left the schoolmaster out cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The schoolmaster Mr. Jonas mercilessly caned Huw in the aftermath of Huw's altercation with the school bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral service was held for Huw's older brother Ivor who died in the coal tram accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Huw had a sister, Angharad. We visited her at her manor after she'd married a wealthy man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Nicholas was the housekeeper at the Evans' manor, a family who she'd served for 27 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Nicholas gossiped to her subordinates that Angharad would soon divorce Iestyn Evans and run off with the village pastor. The audience was aghast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Merddyn Gruffydd, the village pastor, was a pillar of the community. Then he resigned his post to be with Angharad. Deacon Parry took umbrage with Pastor Gruffydd sympathetic attitude toward socialism and labor unions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rebecca (1940)", "title": "Rebecca", "date": "1940-03-21", "description": "Rebecca is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock's first American project, and his first film under contract with producer David O. Selznick. The screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, and adaptation by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan, were based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_(1940_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The focal character of the story, the new Mrs. de Winter, was from a humble background and became the lady of an aristocratic English manor. She struggled to meet the expectations of others who were born into the family, and worried about what they would think about her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The focal character of the story, the new Mrs. de Winter, berated herself for not being able to make her new husband, Maxim, happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Maxim and the story's unnamed heroine married after a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo. The remainder of the story concerns Maxim's working class bride getting used to her new life as the lady of the Manderlay estate. The recent passing of his former wife was the source of much tension in their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maxim was hiding that he'd accidentally killed his first wife, Rebecca, after she'd deliberately provoked him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interclass romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maxim and an attendant to an aging socialite married after a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo. His new bride struggled with her new and unfamiliar role as the lady of the Manderley estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Manderley estate housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, resented Maxim's new bride because she had adored his departed wife, Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers later betrayed the bride by duping her into wearing a replica of Rebecca's gown to a costume ball, an act that left Maxim deeply outraged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to think that Maxim was haunted by memories of the untimely death of his seemingly beloved first wife, Rebecca. In reality, Maxim and Rebecca had despised one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a shocking twist, Maxim was revealed to have accidentally killed Rebecca and then hid her body at the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Rebecca had been shamelessly running around having affairs behind Maxim's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Manderley estate housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, resented Maxim's new bride's presence at the estate and tried to ruin her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story opened with Maxim standing at the edge of a cliff with thoughts of hurling himself down into the sea below clearly in his mind. The woman who would become his second wife snapped him out of going through with it. Rebecca was suspected of having taken her own life. Mrs. Danvers tried to shame the new Mrs. de Winter into jumping out of a window to her death after the debacle at the costume ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer gradually learns that Maxim and Rebecca's marriage far from being idyllic, was actually a sham. Rebecca was shamelessly cheating on Maxim and they both hated each other's guts. They kept up appearances to keep from losing face in their upper class society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Maxim had killed Rebecca in a moment of rage. Maxim was known for having a temper. In one scene, he lashed out and slugged Jack in the jaw, prompting Jack to say, \"that temper of yours will do you in Max\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maxim and an attendant to an aging socialite married after a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo. His new bride struggled with her new and unfamiliar role as the lady of the Manderley estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxim's sister Beatrice was initially lukewarm about his new bride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxim's sister Beatrice derided his new bride for being a \"former chorus girl\", although there was no definite indication that she had been one. Maxim's brother-in-law looked down on Maxim's new bride over her lack of background in token upper class leisure pursuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxim had a hound named Jasper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Danvers accused another servant of purloining a valuable ornament, only to be forced to eat her words when Maxim's new bride admitted she'd broken it and hidden the pieces in a drawer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a dramatic inquest into the cause of Rebecca's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The constable Colonel Julyan was involved in the inquest into Rebecca's death. Jack was annoyed when a beat cop told him that his car wasn't supposed to be parked where it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Baker was questioned in connection to the inquest into Rebecca's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Mrs. Denvers burned the Manderley estate to the ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Danvers betrayed the new Mrs. de Winter by duping her into wearing a replica of Rebecca's gown to a costume ball, an act that left Maxim deeply outraged.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Son of Ingagi (1940)", "title": "Son of Ingagi", "date": "1940-04-04", "description": "Elanor and Bob Lindsay inherit the house of doctor Helen Jackson who had just returned from her trip to Africa. Jackson also had returned with a missing link monster named N'Gina as well as African gold. When N'Gina drinks the doctor's potion, it puts him into a rage that makes him murder Dr. Jackson. The Lindsay family inherits Jackson's house where they soon find the presence of the monster.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Ingagi" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen Jackson discovered the missing link, the monster N'Gina, on a trip to Africa and brought it back home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elanor and Bob Lindsay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elanor and Bob Lindsay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was alleged that the monster N'Gina was actually a cryptid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Jackson discovered the missing link in human evolution, the monster N'Gina, on a trip to Africa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Jackson got into an argument over money with her brother Zeno and then summoned the monster N'Gina to scare him away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police falsely accused Elanor and Bob Lindsay of having murdered Helen Jackson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Jackson concocted a potion with great potential to help humankind in her laboratory, but the missing link N'Gina went mad with rage after drinking it and killed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating the murder of Helen Jackson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Cyclops (1940)", "title": "Dr. Cyclops", "date": "1940-04-12", "description": "Dr. Alexander Thorkel, a.k.a. Dr. Cyclops, miniaturizes a team of scientists visiting his remote Peruvian jungle laboratory.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Cyclops" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Thorkel miniaturizes his colleagues when they neglect to acknowledge his greatness as a scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Thorkel shrinks a horse and a party of visitors to his Peruvian jungle laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disgruntled scientist Dr. Cyclops was secretly developing miniaturization technology in his remote Peruvian jungle laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Thorkel was developing miniaturization technology in his remote Peruvian jungle laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miniaturized people stalked by a house cat and and a crocodile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "visual impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cyclops had only one good eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Robinson and Bill Stockton.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Before I Hang (1940)", "title": "Before I Hang", "date": "1940-09-17", "description": "Dr. John Garth is on trial for murder after performing a mercy killing on an elderly friend. In the trial, he reveals that he had been researching a cure for aging, but had not had time to perfect it before his friend's pain became unbearable. Despite his pleas for mercy, the judge sentences him to be hanged in three weeks' time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_I_Hang" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. John Garth uses anti-aging serum on himself and encourages others to use it to prolong their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. John Garth develops an anti-aging serum from the blood of an executed prisoner and uses it on himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. John Garth developed an anti-aging serum to because he felt aging was an unnecessary evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha Garth worried over her father John Garth's impending execution and then again after he took anti-aging serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. John Garth is sentenced him to be hanged in three weeks' time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. John Garth worked in the prison laboratory to develop an anti-aging serum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Ape (1940)", "title": "The Ape", "date": "1940-09-30", "description": "A kindly scientist seeks to cure a young woman's polio. Meanwhile, a vicious circus ape has broken out of its cage and is terrorizing the townspeople.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ape_(1940_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Frances Clifford had polio and was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances Clifford and Danny Foster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bernard Adrian developed a polio paralysis reversing serum from the spinal fluid of dead men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bernard Adrian was developing cure for polio in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bernard Adrian was criticized for performing unethical experiments on dogs and humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Launching of Spaceship-1 (1940)", "title": "The Launching of Spaceship-1", "date": "1940-11-07", "description": "Commodore Hardt commands Spaceship-1 on the first manned rocket flight to the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://letterboxd.com/film/the-launching-of-spaceship-1/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commodore Hardt leads a return mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commodore Hardt invents the rocket fuel Neotan-X that makes possible for a spaceship to fly to the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Devil Bat (1940)", "title": "The Devil Bat", "date": "1940-12-13", "description": "A small town cosmetic company chemist Dr. Paul Carruthers who is upset at his wealthy employers, because he feels they have denied him his due share of company success, breeds giant bats to get revenge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Bat" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Carruthers bred murderous giant bats to get revenge on his employers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Carruthers became disgruntled because he felt the owners of the company he worked for were exploiting him by reaping all the profits from his hard work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Police and reporters versus the Devil Bat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The chemist Paul Carruthers bred murderous giant bats to get revenge on his employers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Carruthers was experimenting with electricity to create giant bats in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Layton and Mary Heath. One-Shot McGuire and Maxine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Woman (1940)", "title": "The Invisible Woman", "date": "1940-12-27", "description": "The wealthy lawyer Dick Russell funds the dotty old inventor Professor Gibbs to create an invisibility device.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Woman_(1940_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Professor Gibbs tests out his newly invented invisibility device on department store model Kitty Carroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Professor Gibbs tests out his newly invented invisibility device on department store model Kitty Carroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll was motivated to volunteer as a test subject for being turned invisible by a desire for adventure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll and Richard Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dotty old inventor Professor Gibbs came up with an invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Gibbs was working in his laboratory on invisibility device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll was docked pay, yelled at, and humiliated by her boss at the department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll told off her boss and smacked him around when she was invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll gave her boss Mr. Growley a taste of his own medicine by treating him as he had treated his own employees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Growley became a model boss after having gotten taught a lesson by an invisible Kitty Carroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blackie the gangster stole invisibility device so he could use it and return to his hometown for which he felt homesick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Carroll drank to excess while invisible and suffered from a terrible hangover the next morning.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Devil Commands (1941)", "title": "The Devil Commands", "date": "1941-02-03", "description": "An scientist becomes obsessed with redirecting his work into making contact with his dead wife.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Commands" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair becomes obsessed with contacting his dead wife, Helen Blair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair tries to use scientific methods involving brainwaves to contact his dead wife from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair believe he had brainwave evidence in support of the notion that his wife's spirit existed in the afterlife and made efforts to contact her using technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair becomes obsessed with contacting his dead wife, Helen Blair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne Blair discourages her father from attempting to contact his deceased wife from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair was working on reading people's minds through the study of brainwaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Blair was torn up over the death of his wife Helen Blair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian Blair was experimenting with measuring brainwaves in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne Blair grieved for her deceased mother Helen Blair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian Blair attended a phony seance in an effort to contact his dead wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brainwaves", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian Blair was working on measuring people's brainwaves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man Made Monster (1941)", "title": "Man-Made Monster", "date": "1941-03-28", "description": "A tragic accident occurs when a bus hits a high power line. The incident has claimed the lives of all on board, except for one Dan McCormick, who survives because he is, surprisingly, immune to the deadly electricity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Made_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Rigas was obsessed with perfecting the human race through the using of electricity to transform people into docile zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity manipulation ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan McCormick is immune to the deadly effects of electricity and comes to harness its powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan McCormick acquires the touch of death when Paul Rigas exposes him to successively higher dozes of electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "June Lawrence and Mark Adams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "June Lawrence and Mark Adams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Rigas was obsessed with perfecting the human race through the using of electricity to transform people into docile zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Rigas was experimenting with electricity in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan McCormick was sentenced to be executed by electric chair for the murder of Dr. John Lawrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Lawrence and June Lawrence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Citizen Kane (1941)", "title": "Citizen Kane", "date": "1941-05-01", "description": "Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film by Orson Welles, its producer, co- screenwriter, director and star. The picture was Welles's first feature film. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane was voted as such in five consecutive British Film Institute Sight & Sound polls of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. Citizen Kane is particularly praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Kane became the richest man in the world, perhaps, and yet he didn't quite find happiness or contentment, we think", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "time and again, Mr. Kane deliberated about what he should do or like to have done with himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kane with election; Kane with marriage; Susan with opera career; Kane with life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kane's story is of a man who has all the options open to him but can't figure out what is really important", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how Kane's marriage to Emily began with love and ended in divorce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are told that Mr. Kane loved no one and nothing but himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again we came back to the topic of printing truth in the news, shades thereof, or outright lies for this or that motive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again Kane was called selfish and self-loving", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard that Kane was constantly driven by a need to prove himself, one way or the other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kane's parents; Kane and Emily; Kane and Susan (especially)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "we pondered whether Kane actually loved any of his women, especially Susan - when she left him he was, perhaps, more concerned for his image", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Charles Kane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kane and young Charles Kane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we learn that the mother sent Charles away in part because the father wanted to \"thrash\" him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kane had an affair with Susan while still married to Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when confronted at his mistress' place, Kan had to choose between staying with his well-connected wife and their kids or fighting for his public image alone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Kane on the campaign trail with the Presidency in the crosshairs, after failing the become mayor of New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan couldn't keep on being a failing opera singer and attempted suicide (probably) when Kane pressured her insistently", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is revealed, at the end, that Kane's dying word had in fact been a reference to a sled he had when he was eight and separated from his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kane was an obsessive purchaser of art objects which he kept in his museum-like home \"Xanadu\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kane was exceedingly enthusiastic about running newspapers to manipulate public opinion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kane was chided for wanting to hand the working class privileges as if handing them rewards.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)", "title": "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1941-08-12", "description": "Dr. Henry Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone. Experiments reveal his evil side, named Mr. Hyde.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1941_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll has two selves: his good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde. Dr. Jekyll discussed with his colleagues how people had both good and evil inside them and that he could separate the two from one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll faces his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll versus his evil side, Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll into the evil Edward Hyde", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Beatrix Emery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Jekyll and Beatrix Emery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll has two selves: his good self and his evil split personality Edward Hyde. Dr. Jekyll discussed with his colleagues how people had both good and evil inside them and that he could separate the two from one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could use science to rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivy's father discouraged her from committing public acts of affection with her fiancée Dr. Jekyll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jekyll's boss at the hospital forbid him from giving a treatment to an insane man merely on the ground that it had been successful in animal experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll worked in his laboratory on developing a serum to separate out the evil part of people from the good.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Maltese Falcon (1941)", "title": "The Maltese Falcon", "date": "1941-10-03", "description": "The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed and scripted by John Huston in his directorial debut, based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. It stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his femme fatale client. Gladys George, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet co-star, with the latter appearing in his film debut. The story follows a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three unscrupulous adventurers, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel- encrusted falcon statuette.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(1941_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Following PI Sam Spade, we saw an idea of how PIs may have worked in 1940s America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "story centered on whom Spade could trust, especially Brigid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and the police were investigating several murders relating to the Maltese Falcon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brigid was described in those exact terms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spade and Brigid may or may not have become besotted with each other: they were both stone cold players", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spade and Wilmer sort of got into a pissing contest which Spade decisively won", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spade had clearly fooled around with Miles' wife before she became a widow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spade with Miles' besotted widow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We briefly saw a couple of police investigators at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Fat Man, Gutman, obsessively wanted to get his hands on the elusive Maltese Falcon to sell it to people who were passionate about collecting such things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Fat Man, Gutman, was obsessed with getting his hands on the elusive Maltese Falcon and had spent years of his life on this quest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Saboteur (1942)", "title": "Saboteur", "date": "1942", "description": "Saboteur is a 1942 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison and Dorothy Parker. The film stars Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central theme of the story is that Barry is the target of a manhunt because a fifth columnist framed him for an act of sabotage. Barry seeks to infiltrate the real spies and clear his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's antagonists are fifth columnists in America during WW2.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's antagonists are fifth columnists in America during WW2, who seek to undermine the war effort by destroying a factory and a newly built battleship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various police officers appeared from time to time and played minor parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Barry risked his life to try and save Fry from falling to his death. Possibly he thought he needed Fry to clear his name, but that was not so we understand later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry shed a few tears for his long time friend who succumbed in the factory fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry visited the mother of the friend who died in the fire, and tried to console her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Corpse Vanishes (1942)", "title": "The Corpse Vanishes", "date": "1942-05-08", "description": "A mad scientist injects his aging wife with fluids from virginal young brides in order to preserve her beauty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corpse_Vanishes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Countess Lorenz was desperate to maintain her youthful appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Countess Lorenz's youth was preserved via the regular injection of glandular fluids from virginal brides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Countess Lorenz's youth was preserved via the regular injection of glandular fluids from virginal brides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lorenz injects his aging wife with fluids from virginal young brides in order to preserve her beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lorenz and his aged wife Countess Lorenz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lorenz for his aged wife Countess Lorenz. Patricia Hunter and Dr. Foster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mad scientist Dr. Lorenz injected his aging wife with fluids from virginal young brides in order to preserve her beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lorenz keeps bridal virgins in a state of suspended animation using a special orchid that he had hybridized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fagah felt betrayed by her master Dr. Lorenz after he killed her two sons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mad Monster (1942)", "title": "The Mad Monster", "date": "1942-05-08", "description": "A mad scientist who has been discredited by his peers attempts to kill them off after he develops a secret blood transfusion technique that transforms his gardener into a murderous wolfman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron plotted to murder his peers after having experienced being discredited by them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron was devastated when his peers scoffed at his research and had him fired from the university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron developed a blood transfusion technique that transformed his gardener into a murderous wolfman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron in his scientific experiments involving the transmutation of a man into a wolf-man hybrid using his secret blood transfusion technique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenora Cameron supported her father Lorenzo Cameron as he pursued his quest to become the greatest scientist in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron and his gardener Pedro whom Cameron transformed into a wolfman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron delusion of Prof. Hatfield accused him of having played God with nature upon seeing his wolfman creation. Prof. Blaine called his work in mingling the blood of animal and man a sacrilege.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenora Cameron and Tom Gregory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorenzo Cameron engaged in his scientific experiments involving the transmutation of a man into a wolf-man hybrid using his secret blood transfusion technique.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mrs. Miniver (1942)", "title": "Mrs. Miniver", "date": "1942-06-04", "description": "Mrs. Miniver is a 1942 American romantic war drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Inspired by the 1940 novel Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther, it shows how the life of an unassuming British housewife in rural England is affected by World War II. Produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, its supporting cast includes Teresa Wright, May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney and Henry Wilcoxon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Miniver" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story depicts the terrors that a wealthy English family and their circle of acquaintances went through during the German bombing campaigns of the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays the life of a wealthy English family, and their various acquaintances, in the early years of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays the life of a wealthy English family, and their various acquaintances, in the early years of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blissfully married Kay and Clem Miniver were at the center of the story. Vincent and Carol tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Mrs. Miniver and her elder son Vincent were central to the plot. Her younger son Toby was also around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Miniver and his adult son Vincent met each other time and time again as they served, each in their own way, Britain in the war effort. Mr. Miniver cared for his young son, Toby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent and Carol courted, fell in love, and before long tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Miniver family through Britain's entry in the the Second World War and the Blitz of Britain. Notable happenings include Vincent joining the air force, Kay and Clem Miniver hunkering down in a bomb shelter together with their young children, and the family grieving when Vincent's new bride became a casualty of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the Miniver family, and also Lady Beldon, grieving for Carol who had perished tragically in a Luftwaffe air raid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol's grandmother, Lady Beldon, initially strongly disapproved of her being with Vincent. She later grieved for Carol after Carol died tragically in a Luftwaffe air raid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent and Carol became engaged to be married. They later tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening scene, Mrs. Miniver delighted in purchasing a fancy hat. Mr. Miniver did likewise by splurging on a fancy car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "architect occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Miniver was an architect by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Miniver cared for his young daughter, Judy. In one scene, he was too caught up with his own interests to take the time to watch Judy play the piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Miniver welcomed their new daughter-in-law, Carol, into the family and later grieved for her after she died tragically in a Luftwaffe air raid. Lady Beldon warmed up to her step-son to be Vincent after initially disapproving of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Miniver cared for her young son, Toby. Mrs. Miniver worried for the safety of her son Vincent after he was called to duty by the air force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Miniver cared for her young daughter, Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Miniver family were tended to by a retinue of house servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent returned from Oxford talking about how he wanted to learn everything there was to know, including knowledge scientific, philosophical, and sociological.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent spoke of how he'd developed a new \"social consciousness\" that led him to question whether men were any more free now than they'd been in the feudal period.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Miniver family attended a church service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby had a fondness for the house cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Beldon disapproved of her granddaughter Carol marrying Vincent. It came to light that Lady Beldon had married young and that her husband had been lost in action. She didn't want Carol to suffer the same fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent served in the Royal Air Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Miniver was held at gunpoint in her own home by a desperate German pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived at Mrs. Miniver's home to collect the German pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aerial bombing of cities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The German strategy of bombing Britain into submission took some by surprise. The German pilot issued an ominous warning to Mrs. Minivar by asserting that thousands of pilots like him would come and kill thousands just as they had done in such other cities as Rotterdam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "better to have loved and lost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol confided in Mrs. Miniver that it was worth being together with Vincent even though she may lose him at any moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "That anyone, especially a commoner, could outdo Lady Beldon in the growing of prized roses was to her unthinkable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "graciousness in defeat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Beldon swallowed her pride and awarded Mr. Ballard the trophy for the best rose, which he had named in honor of the titular Mrs. Miniver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a service, in a bombed out church, for Carol and other civilian casualties of Luftwaffe air raid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent and Carol courted one another and ultimately tied the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invisible Agent (1942)", "title": "Invisible Agent", "date": "1942-07-31", "description": "The grandson of the Invisible Man uses his powers of invisibility to spy on the Nazis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Agent" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank Raymond uses a serum his grandfather had developed to become invisible and spy on the Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank Raymond uses a serum his grandfather had developed to become invisible and spy on the Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Raymond gives Allied powers access to invisibility serum out of a sense of patriotism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Raymond administers invisibility serum to himself at great risk in order to serve his country in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Raymond uses a serum his grandfather had developed to become invisible and spy on the Nazis at the height of Word War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Raymond was aided by a resistance movement upon parachuting into the heart of Nazi Germany.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Raymond uses a serum his grandfather had developed to become invisible and spy on the Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gestapo officer Karl Heiser at Maria Sorenson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank Raymond and Maria Sorenson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr. Renault's Secret (1942)", "title": "Dr. Renault's Secret", "date": "1942-10-19", "description": "A young doctor arrives in a French village in order to wed the niece of prominent local doctor, Dr. Renault, but a series of mysterious murders ensue.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Renault%27s_Secret" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Renault transformed a gorilla into the Human-like being and named it Noel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Renault's niece Madeline Renault was betrothed to Larry Forbes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Forbes and Madeline Renault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Forbes and Madeline Renault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Renault and Larry Forbes against the gorilla turned Human Noel. Noel versus a Great Dane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Renault and the ape he transformed into a Human Noel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noel felt as an outsider among Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Renault transformed a gorilla into the Human-like being and named it Noel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bowery at Midnight (1942)", "title": "Bowery at Midnight", "date": "1942-10-30", "description": "A psychology professor uses his soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of daring robberies and murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowery_at_Midnight" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brooks was working on reanimating the corpses of the henchmen that Professor Brenner had murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brenner's soup kitchen was frequented by those less fortunate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable volunteering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy sacrificed her social life and romantic life to work at a soup kitchen to help the poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brenner and Richard Dennison were studying psychopaths. Professor Brenner was a psychopathic murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner for Professor Brenner. Judy Malvern and Richard Dennison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner wished for her husband Professor Brenner to spend more time and was later astonished to find out that he was leading a double life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Casablanca (1942)", "title": "Casablanca", "date": "1942-11-26", "description": "Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is the cynical Rick who prided himself of sticking his neck out for nobody. Time and again he proved this by turning a deaf ear as people pleaded to him to intervene on their behalf. His composure was fast shattered when a former lover, Ilsa, turned up with her new partner, Victor, on the run from the Third Reich. The story culminated with Rick seriously jeopardizing his own life and liberty to save both Ilsa and Victor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the plot is a love triangle between Rick, his old flame Ilsa, and her husband Victor. \"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,\" is a famous quote that illustrates Rick's feelings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the plot is a love triangle between Rick, his old flame Ilsa, and her husband Victor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated with Rick seriously jeopardizing his own life and liberty to save both Ilsa and Victor. This was despite the fact that he had reasons to resent them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The old flames Rick and Ilsa found themselves unexpectedly reunited in wartime Casablanca. They were still in love, but their relationship was much complicated by the presence of Ilsa's husband, Victor, whom she loved and Rick came to respect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot was set in semi-neutral Casablanca during the early part of the Second World War, when the Nazis were ascendant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people, but Victor in particular, were on the run from the Nazis and tried desperately to reach the safety of America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rick and Louis had a complicated relationship, but often fraternized at Rick's nightclub. At the end, Rick famously said, \"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilsa thought her husband, Victor, was gone for good when she took up with Rick in Paris. Despite falling deeply in love with Rick, when her husband returned Ilsa went back to him at once to support Victor in his flight from the Nazis, at great risk to her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilsa Lund showed unwavering loyalty to her husband, Victor Laszlo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corruption was ripe in wartime Casablanca. Notably, Louis, the police chief, took bribes at the roulette wheel, and used his power to coerce young women into his arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prefect of police Louis Renault was constantly poking around Rick's nightclub making trouble for Rick and his patrons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick and his trusty pianist, Sam, had many conversations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The killing of two Nazi couriers, and the theft of some documents they carried, drove the beginning of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several Nazi officer spouted their nation's propaganda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be a refugee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annina Brandel, a young Bulgarian refugee, found herself at the mercy of the sleazy police captain Louis Renault when she needed a visa to get out of Casablanca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in wartime Casablanca, where desperate refugees fleeing the Nazi-occupied Europe used the city as a stepping stone on their journey to that safe haven that was the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were shown rushing to get out of town in the lead up to the 1940 Nazi occupation of Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the French Resistance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor was a big name in the underground resistance movements across Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gambling was a popular pastime at Rick's nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick at one point drank to an extent that made his friends want to intervene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pickpocket strolled off with a vine sipping cafe patron's wallet. The same pickpocket later did the same thing to a man who was having a drink at the bar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)", "title": "Shadow of a Doubt", "date": "1943", "description": "Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". The film was also Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of all of his films.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlotte thought her uncle was the best person ever, but then she found out he was a misanthrope and a cold blooded murderer. The title of the film is an allusion to the process by which she gradually became aware.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the relationship between Young Charlie and her Uncle Charlie, which everyone thinks is special.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles' had murdered several widowed women because he loathed how they squandered their late husbands' hard earned cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was exposed as a serial murderer of widowed women, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Charlotte fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma and Charlotte / Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph and Charlotte / Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Fred were detectives trying to catch out Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In addition to the specific complaint about women, Charles made general statements about how the world was rotten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte and Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger and Charlotte / Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma and Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph and Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Newton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph and Herbie amused themselves with discussions about how they would go about killing one another in the most effective and clandestine manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann was a pantomimically bookish girl who dreamed of marrying a librarian.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Ape Man (1943)", "title": "The Ape Man", "date": "1943-03-05", "description": "Dr. James Brewster and his colleague Dr. George Randall are involved in a series of scientific experiments which have caused Brewster to transform into an ape-man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ape_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A series of scientific experiments leave James Brewster transformed into an ape-man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Brewster and George Randall are faced with the prospect of having to kill a person and extract their spinal fluid in order to revert Brewster from his ape-man state into that of a human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Brewster and Agatha Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. James Brewster was conducting a series of experiments that resulted in him transforming into an ape man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Brewster worked in his laboratory to find a serum that to reverse him from an ape-man back to a human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agatha Brewster believed her house was haunted by ghosts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mad Ghoul (1943)", "title": "The Mad Ghoul", "date": "1943-11-12", "description": "A scientist experiments with a nerve gas used by the Ancient Mayan, turning his student into a murderous ghoul.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_Ghoul" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred Morris raised the dead using a Ancient Mayan nerve gas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred Morris sought to understand the ancient wisdom of the Mayans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred Morris took his medical student Ted Allison under his wing to assist him with his experiments in using the gas on modern animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabel Lewis broke off her engagement to Ted Allison to get engaged with Eric Iversen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabel Lewis felt she had outgrown her fiancée Ted Allison and wished to break off their engagement. Alfred Morris at Isabel Lewis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabel Lewis and Eric Iversen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred Morris raised the dead using a Ancient Mayan nerve gas in order to demonstrate his revival from death theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isabel was on a singing tour across the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted Allison objected to Alfred Morris performing experiments on Humans in order to demonstrate his revival from death theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Morris was in his laboratory experimenting with nerve gas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monster Maker (1944)", "title": "The Monster Maker", "date": "1944-04-15", "description": "Dr. Markoff has concocted a formula that spreads a hideous disease named acromegaly - which extends bones and distorts facial features. Markoff has no moral dilemma in experimenting on unsuspecting human subjects. His amoral behavior assumes monstrous dimensions when famed concert pianist Lawrence is injected with the doctor's disease-inducing serum. In return for an antidote, Markoff intends to exact more than his pound of flesh by extorting a fortune from Lawrence and demanding the hand of the musician's pretty daughter Patricia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_Maker" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Igor Markoff became obsessed with trying to marry Patricia Lawrence because she was the spitting image of his ex-wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony Lawrence and Patricia Lawrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Igor Markoff at Patricia Lawrence. Maxine at Dr. Igor Markoff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Igor Markoff developed a cure for argomegaly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony Lawrence lost his career as a concert pianist after contracting the disfiguring disease of acromegaly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Igor Markoff was working maniacally in his laboratory to develop a disease-inducing serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Igor Markoff was working in his laboratory on developing a disease-inducing serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony Lawrence was a famed concert pianist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony Lawrence contracted the disfiguring disease of acromegaly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patricia Lawrence and Bob Blake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lady and the Monster (1944)", "title": "The Lady and the Monster", "date": "1944-04-17", "description": "An attempt to keep alive the brain of a multimillionaire after his death results in the creation of a telepathic monster. The man then takes over the medical assistant's mind, and the \"lady\" of the title has to fight it. It is based on the 1942 horror novel Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_and_the_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franz Mueller specialized in research on the human brain and obsessively conducts experiments on brain tissue, believing that a human brain can be maintained even after a man's death. He kept the brain of the infamous investment banker named William H. Donovan alive after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franz Mueller removed William H. Donovan's brain and kept it alive in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brains of Patrick Cory and Franz Mueller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franz Mueller for knowledge of how to keep brains alive after death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Farrell and Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brains of Patrick Cory and Franz Mueller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brains of Patrick Cory and Franz Mueller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franz Mueller worked diligently in his self-built advanced scientific laboratory set in an old castle to keep William H. Donovan's brain alive in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franz Mueller's research in keeping brains alive after death was motivated by a desire to immortalize the minds of great thinkers and scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brainwaves", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franz Mueller studied the brainwaves of living brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick Cory objected to Franz Mueller testing out his theories about brains on Human subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franz Mueller was in his laboratory experimenting with brainwaves and test tubes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William H. Donovan's disembodied brain sent telepathic messages to Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collins was retried for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collins was retried for murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Going My Way (1944)", "title": "Going My Way", "date": "1944-05-03", "description": "Going My Way is a 1944 American musical comedy drama film directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. Written by Frank Butler and Frank Cavett, based on a story by McCarey, the film is about a new young priest taking over a parish from an established old veteran. Crosby sings five songs with other songs performed onscreen by Metropolitan Opera's star mezzo- soprano Risë Stevens and the Robert Mitchell Boys Choir. Going My Way was the highest-grossing picture of 1944, and was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning seven, including Best Picture. Its success helped to make movie exhibitors choose Crosby as the biggest box-office draw of the year, a record he would hold for the remainder of the 1940s. After World War II, Crosby and McCarey presented a copy of the film to Pope Pius XII at the Vatican. Going My Way was followed the next year by a sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's.\n\nIn 2004, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_My_Way" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The centerpiece of the story is Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley, and the remarkable empathy with which he approached the parishioners and their many problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The centerpiece of the story is the outgoing and progressive Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley, and the stark contrast he made with the grumpy traditionalist Father Fitzgibbon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "While the religion, as such, is not a particular topic of discourse, the story is set in and around St. Dominic's Catholic Church and follows Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley in his various escapades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The centerpiece of the story is Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley and his good works at St. Dominic's Catholic Church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley used his remarkable musical talent to woo the deviant parishioners he had the charge of. He coached Carol at the piano and cajoled Tony Scaponi's boy gang into becoming the church choir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Fitzgibbon would have been thrown out of the church he'd called home for the past 45 years had Ted Haines Sr. followed through on his threat to foreclose on St. Dominic's Catholic Church. Mrs. Quimp faced eviction. Carol would have been evicted from her apartment had her landlord not falling in love with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "predatory financial practices in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Haines Jr. was taken aback when he father, Ted Sr., threatened to foreclose on St. Dominic's Catholic Church, as nobody had presumably foreclosed on a church before.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bishop sent in Father Charles \"Chuck\" O'Malley to take over St. Dominic's Catholic Church because Father Fitzgibbon had long mismanaged the church's finances. Father Chuck proved to be effective at his new job, and handled taking over for Father Fitzgibbon in a tactful manner, and was ultimately beloved by all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Fitzgibbon felt his age when a younger, more vigorous priest, Father O'Malley, was appointed to take over running the church Fitzgibbon had been at for the past 45 years. Father Fitzgibbon was a traditionalist and didn't initially take well to Father O'Malley's newfangled ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father O'Malley met his old flame, Jenny Tuffel, whom he had left to join the priesthood. Jenny later helped save St. Dominic's by connecting Father O'Malley to some generous music executives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol intimidate that she \"would get by\" by selling her virtue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retiring from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After 45 years of running St. Dominic's, Father Fitzgibbon was forced to step down from his role in favor of a younger priest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Fitzgibbon exhibited an appetite unbecoming of his humble station and overdrawn credit lines. In one scene, he reluctantly requested a small portion of everything after being brought home soaking wet by a policeman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Fitzgibbon and O'Malley were waited on by Mrs. Carmody, who kept house for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol tied the knot with Ted Haines Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted Haines Sr. initially disapproved of his son, Ted Jr., walking away from the family business and taking up with Carol, a newcomer to New York whose future was anything but assured. It wasn't long, however, before Ted Sr. warmed up to Ted Jr.'s plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted Haines Sr. initially disapproved of his son, Ted Jr., walking away from the family business and taking up with Carol, a newcomer to New York whose future was anything but assured. It wasn't long, however, before Ted Sr. warmed up to Ted Jr.'s plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol, an 18 year-old, told Father O'Malley that she'd run away to New York to get away from her stifling parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Scaponi led a gang of delinquent boys, who Father O'Malley single-handedly reformed by organizing them into a boys' choir for the church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer McCarthy brought two truant boys to the rectory. He later escorted a soaking wet Father Fitzgibbon home to the rectory following the priest's failed bid to run off and start a new life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Ted Haines Jr. fell in love and got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Fitzgibbon accompanied Fathers O'Malley and O'Dowd on a round of golf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story, Father Fitzgibbon was reunited with his beloved 90 year-old mother, whom one gathers Father O'Malley had quietly arranged to bring all the way from Ireland to New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story, Father Fitzgibbon was reunited with his beloved 90 year-old mother, whom one gathers Father O'Malley had quietly arranged to bring all the way from Ireland to New York.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)", "title": "The Invisible Man's Revenge", "date": "1944-06-09", "description": "A mad scientist renders a criminal invisible and he haunts his enemies' mansion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man%27s_Revenge" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert Griffin becomes invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Drury tests his formula for invisibility on Robert Griffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Griffin looks to take revenge on the respectable Herrick family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Griffin at Julie Herrick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Drury tested his invisibility serum on a criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie Herrick and Mark Foster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Double Indemnity (1944)", "title": "Double Indemnity", "date": "1944-07-03", "description": "Double Indemnity is a 1944 film noir crime drama directed by Billy Wilder, co- written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novella of the same name, which originally appeared as an eight-part serial in Liberty magazine, beginning in February 1936.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the whole story was of an elaborately planned murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a spouse murder planned by Phyllis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Dietrichson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around insurance frauds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter got involved with Phyllis who was married to a boring husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter got instantly besotted with Phyllis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis proclaimed her love for Walter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis and Lola", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "at least insinuated were: Phyllis, Nino, Lola, Walter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phyllis commented on how good a salesman Walter was", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter eventually turned down an opportunity to be an insurance investigator rather than salesman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practitioner vs. theorist", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw useless front office person Mr. Norton bumble and get pawned by down-to-earth professional Keyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr D and Lola", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lola spoke about her mother briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lola told that Phyllis had somehow murdered Phyllis' mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nino and Lola", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Torment (1944)", "title": "Torment", "date": "1944-10-02", "description": "Torment (Swedish: Hets) is a 1944 Swedish film, directed by Alf Sjöberg from a screenplay by Ingmar Bergman. The film, a tale of sex, passion and murder, was originally released as Frenzy in the United Kingdom, although later releases have used the US title. The film won the Grand Prix at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torment_(1944_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sadism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Latin teacher was nicknamed \"Caligula\" because of his sadism. Caligula also tormented a young girl named Bertha to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what Swedish high school was like in the 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan-Erik, Bertha, and Caligula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan-Erik with various teachers, not excluding Caligula, and the principal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan-Erik might have been suspended from school merely for carrying on with a woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man in Half Moon Street (1945)", "title": "The Man in Half Moon Street", "date": "1945-01-19", "description": "A scientist, Dr. Karell, has found a way to prolong life (he is 120 years old) with the help of Dr. Van Bruecken. However, Dr. Karell has now fallen in love, and has discovered that if he doesn't get new glands, he will die.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_Half_Moon_Street" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Julian Karell extended his lifespan to 120 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Julian Karell's immortality left him feeling alone because all his friends and loves kept dying as he went on living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Julian Karell became obsessed with his scientific studies of immortality that he rationalized the murder of medical students as a sacrifice for the advancement of science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Julian Karell extended his life to 120 years by transplanting glands from young people into himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Karell and Eve Brandon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian Karell and Eve Brandon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey Brandon was reluctant to let Julian Karell marry his daughter Eve Brandon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey Brandon wished to get to know Julian Karell before letting him marry his daughter Eve Brandon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An art critic was critiquing a painting in front of some museum goers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fingerprinting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police chief used the science of fingerprinting to deduce that Dr. Julian Karell was the same man who had committed a murder generations ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian Karell rapidly aged to death at the conclusion of the film when he couldn't get the chemicals he needed to maintain his youthful appearance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rome Open City (1945)", "title": "Rome, Open City", "date": "1945-09-27", "description": "Open City or Rome, Open City (Italian: Roma città aperta) is a 1945 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. The picture features Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero, and is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944. The title refers to Rome being declared an open city after 14 August 1943. The film won several awards at various film festivals, including the most prestigious Cannes Grand Prix and was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Open_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the film showed Nazi occupation of Rome around 1943-44", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw every day life for various people in Rome suffering Nazi occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered on the resistance to Nazi occupation of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film started and ended with people screaming from being tortured by Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pina and Francesco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "the various Nazis in the film were ruthless, efficient, sadistic, and zealous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giorgio was on the run from Nazi military police", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marina's betrayal of her boyfriend Giorgio was central to the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marina's betrayal of her boyfriend Giorgio was central to the story - she got a fur coat and (presumably) money for the trouble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giorgio and Don Petro suffered torture and died rather than betray their resistance movement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the priest at the center of the story alluded to Christian rituals from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard various parents berate their children when they came home late", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francesco spoke briefly to Pina's son who would have to call Francesco \"dad\" tomorrow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pina and Marcello", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marina and Pina did what they had to in order to get by during a time when they would otherwise have been on the brink of starvation, we heard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marina fainted when she saw that her betrayal had lead to Giorgio being tortured to death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the final scene was a lengthy one where Don Pietro walked out and sat down to be shot dead by a Nazi firing squad", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Strange Holiday (1945)", "title": "Strange Holiday", "date": "1945-10-19", "description": "A man returns from a fishing trip to find America overtaken by fascists.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Holiday_(1945_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Stevenson began his vacation with a \"what's in it for me attitude\", but after experiencing the horrors of fascism firsthand, he came to learn that we must all make sacrifices in order to preserve our freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Stevenson returned from a fishing trip to find America overtaken by fascists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fascists argued that democracy bred dysfunction and confusion and the order that came with fascism was preferable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fascists argued that democracy bred dysfunction and confusion and the order that came with fascism was preferable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rights of accused", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Stevenson was outraged that his fascist captors would not even reveal the charges under which he was being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Stevenson reflected fondly on his relationship with his son Peggy Lee Stevenson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Stevenson reflected fondly on his relationship with his sons John Stevenson Jr and Woodrow Stevenson Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Stevenson and Jean Stevenson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Stevenson's fascist captors subject him to torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Stevenson began his vacation with a \"what's in it for me attitude\", but after experiencing the horrors of fascism firsthand, he came to learn that we must all make sacrifices in order to preserve our freedom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost Weekend (1945)", "title": "The Lost Weekend", "date": "1945-11-29", "description": "The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American drama film noir directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. It was based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel about an alcoholic writer. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also shared the Grand Prix at the first Cannes Film Festival, making it one of only four films—the other three being Marty (1955), Parasite (2019) and Anora (2024)—to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the highest award at Cannes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Weekend" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around and alcoholic writer, Don Birnam. He tells of how he started drinking, how he tried to write, and how he had occasionally tried to quit drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around and alcoholic writer, Don Birnam. He tells of how he started drinking, and how he tried to write with or without the aid of alcohol. In the end he resolved to write. Indeed, the viewer is invited to imagine that the story is the very one Don Birnam wrote but would not have written if he had succeeded in killing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don was supported by his loving girlfriend, Helen, who stood by him despite his rampant alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don was supported by his loyal brother, Wick, who had tried by hook and by crook to get Don to turn away from the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apart from featuring the personal experiences of alcoholic Don Birnam, the story discussed our attitude to alcohol in general. Many scenes were set in bars. Don once found himself locked up with other drunks in the alcoholic ward of a hospital. It was mentioned that Prohibition had turned many of the inmates into what they were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don had planned to kill himself on his 30th birthday but his alcoholic alter ego hocked the gun and made him go on a bender instead. In the end of the story, at the age of 33, he retrieved the gun and very nearly completed the deed before Helen barged in and stopped him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don's girlfriend, Helen, and brother, Wick, went to great lengths to compel Don to get off the sauce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don made a number of abortive attempts to forgo a drink, but each time he quickly succumbed to the temptation of the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen loved Don and never gave up on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don was a self-described \"flop\" of a writer. His writing career had never taken off. He found a flare of creativity whenever he drank, but this led him to become a raging alcoholic and he never amounted to anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and Wick never gave up on Don no matter how many times he let them down, or how deeply he descended into his raging alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback to when he first met Helen, Don fantasized about drinking while watching a performance of Verdi's La Traviata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don turned twice to petty thieving to get money for his boozing. He took ten dollars his brother had left for the cleaning lady. He took ten dollars out of a club patron's purse, but was found out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A subservient black bathroom attendant polished Don's shoes and wiped dust off his jacket for a trifling tip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don held up a mom-and-pop liquor shop for a quart of rye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gloria used Ned's bar as a rendezvous point for her out of town clients.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Flying Serpent (1946)", "title": "The Flying Serpent", "date": "1946-02-01", "description": "Insane archaeologist Andrew Forbes uses a beast he unearthed to kill his enemies. The creature is the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. Slowly, those who know this try to stop the maniac and his monster.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Serpent" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes uses the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and uses it to kill his enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes discovered Montezuma's lost treasure and wanted it all for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Aztec mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes unearthed the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and uses it to kill his enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes and Mary Forbes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was alleged that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl unearthed by Andrew Forbes was actually a half bird half reptile creatures left over from the age of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes and the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Insane archaeologist Andrew Forbes used a beast he unearthed to kill his enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Andrew Forbes was excavating at an Aztec site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Forbes and Richard Thorpe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)", "title": "The Best Years of Our Lives", "date": "1946-11-26", "description": "The Best Years of Our Lives (also known as Glory for Me and Home Again) is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo and Harold Russell.\n\nThe film is about three United States servicemen re-adjusting to societal changes and civilian life after coming home from World War II. The three men come from different services with different ranks that do not correspond with their civilian social class backgrounds. It is one of the earliest films to address issues encountered by returning veterans in the post World War II era.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_Years_of_Our_Lives" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about three United States servicemen re-adjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. USAAF bombardier captain Fred Derry came from an all but impoverished family and returned to his selfish and materialistic wife Marie. U.S. Army sergeant Al Stephenson, a bank executive in civilian life, returned to his luxury flat, loving wife, and two now-teenage children. U.S. Navy petty officer Homer Parrish had lost both hands, sporting hooks where they had once been, and returned to his middle-class family and a next-door girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about three United States servicemen re-adjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. Homer had a fairly generous pension after losing his hands in the service but struggled with the social side of things. Al was offered a cushy job at his old bank but was unsettled by many things about his society, including the callous treatment of fellow ex-servicemen. Fred was one such serviceman who struggled to find a decent job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Al and his wife, Milly, rekindled their affections for one another. Fred fell out of love with his selfish and materialistic wife, Marie, instead to fall in love with Peggy, whom reciprocated the feeling. Homer and his girl, Wilma, rekindled and deepened their love for one another despite Homer's condition. The story concluded with Homer and Wilma tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al reunited with his loving wife, Milly. Fred reunited with his selfish and materialistic wife, Marie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al reunited with his now almost grownup daughter, Peggy, who had worked two years in a hospital. He, she and Al's wife went out on the town together. A central part of the story was the romance that blossomed between Peggy and Fred, which Al opposed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Homer had lost both his hands in the war and now sported two hooks in their place. He was worried about how his family and girlfriend would see him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred resented coming back to his old employer as an assistant to the man who had once assisted himself back when he was a soda jerk. Incidentally, he also had to carry out the duties of a soda jerk once more. His shallow wife was relentless in putting him down for being prospectless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of World War II and concerns several servicemen returning to their respective homes in (the fictional) Boone City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "A side story concerned Al handing out unsecured small business loans to ex-servicemen whom he felt sympathy with. His boss chided him for doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film tells the story of three U.S. servicemen who, at the close of the Second World War, return to their families in their hometown of (the fictional) Boone City. USAAF bombardier captain Fred Derry came from an all but impoverished family and returned to his selfish and materialistic wife Marie. U.S. Army sergeant Al Stephenson, a bank executive in civilian life, returned to his luxury flat, loving wife, and two now-teenage children. U.S. Navy petty officer Homer Parrish had lost both hands, sporting hooks where they had once been, and returned to his middle-class family and a next-door girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred and Marie's marriage was circling the drain, and in the end they split up on a bad note with a divorce looming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred fell out of love with his unfaithful and shallow wife, Marie, instead to fall in love with Peggy, whom reciprocated the feeling. In one notable scene, Fred and Peggy kissed in a parking lot. Marie for her part had been working at a night club and running around with other men while Fred was away fighting in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred fell out of love with his unfaithful and shallow wife, Marie, instead to fall in love with Peggy, whom reciprocated the feeling. Peggy at one point resolved to break up Fred and Marie's marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie had married Fred for his officer's salary right before he shipped out to fight in the Second World War. She was quick to dump him when he returned from the war and was forced to take up a lowly clerk's job a the local pharmacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al reunited with his now-teenage son and gave him war-souvenirs such as a Japanese sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al's wife and son met Al together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al's wife and daughter, Peggy, met Al together. They all went out. Milly and Peggy discussed Peggy's complicated feelings for Fred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After returning from combat, Fred suffered from a recurring nightmare involving the death of a fellow bomber crewman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al twice made a fool of himself after drinking too much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with Fred, Al, and Homer's return to Boone City, where they reunited with their families after serving in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al got hammered on his first night back in town and made a fool of himself in front of his wife and daughter. Al later gave a drunken, edgy speech at the bank dinner event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank president hired Al to manage giving out loans to servicemen under the G.I. Bill. Al's approving a loan to a collateral-less serviceman became a source of tension between the two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred was fired on the spot for slugging in the face an agitating critic of U.S. involvement in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peggy was broken hearted after Fred told her that it was over between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie walked out on Fred, telling him she would file for divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred's papers attested that he was a war hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred's parents were visibly proud as they read about the heroic acts he had performed while serving as a bomber crewman during the war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Black Narcissus (1947)", "title": "Black Narcissus", "date": "1947", "description": "Black Narcissus is a 1947 British psychological drama film written, produced, and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and starring Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, Sabu, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Esmond Knight, and Jean Simmons. The title refers to the Caron perfume Narcisse Noir.\n\nStudio: Archers Film Productions, Independent Producers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monasticism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of nuns and their efforts to start up a convent in a remove village in colonial India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring topic was the trials and tribulations met by Sister Superior, Sister Clodagh, as she tries to lead her flock of nuns and make St. Faith a success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title of the story is a reference to Narcissus and is connected with the notable vanity of a man called the Young General. Sister Ruth displayed some such traits as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nuns and their flock performed a variety of Christian rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Young General became besotted with Kanchi. Sister Claudagh was attracted to Mr. Dean, at least in Sister Ruth's imagination. Mr. Dean reveled his feelings for Sister Clodagh at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "All the sisters were concerned about their status in the order to some degree or another, but none more than Sister Clodagh who desperately wanted her new convent to be a success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "All the sisters failed, but Sister Clodagh felt it most keenly as she noticed the disaster her convent was heading towards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Dean alluded to all the women he'd be seducing ones the sister taught them English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kanchi was whipped for stealing a brass chain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother with a dying baby visited the nuns and was turned away because it was hopeless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was obsessively besotted with Mr. Dean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was jealous of Sister Clodagh and also believed everyone to be jealous of Ruth herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was clearly unstable and thought everyone were against her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sister Clodagh was remembering a failed love affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sister Clodagh kept reminiscing about her days of yore back in England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Dean was disheveled when Ruth threw herself at him and proclaimed her love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was driven mad to the point of murder when Mr. Dean rejected her advances.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gentleman's Agreement (1947)", "title": "Gentleman's Agreement", "date": "1947-11-11", "description": "Gentleman's Agreement is a 1947 American drama film based on Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling 1947 novel of the same title. The film is about a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to research an expose on the widespread antisemitism in New York City and the affluent communities of New Canaan and Darien, Connecticut. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director.\n\nThe movie was controversial in its day, as was a similar film on the same subject, Crossfire, which was released the same year (though that film was originally a story about homophobia, later changed to antisemitism).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman%27s_Agreement" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is about journalist Philip Schuyler Green pretending to be Jewish in order to research an expose on the widespread antisemitism in New York City. The title \"Gentleman's Agreement\" refers to an unspoken code excluding Jewish people from parts of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is about journalist Philip Schuyler Green pretending to be Jewish in order to research an expose on the widespread antisemitism in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Kathy fell in love and got engaged. Kathy's passive condoning of antisemitism proved to to be a source of much tension in their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Kathy fell in love and got engaged. Kathy's passive condoning of antisemitism proved to to be a source of much tension in their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the process of pretending to be Jewish, Philip came to experience firsthand of the daily struggles faced by Jewish people. That such latent and unspoken prejudices against Jewish people prevailed in society came as something of a shock to Philip, leaving him deeply disturbed and brimming with moral indignation. Philip challenged Kathy and Elaine by pointing out that even though they were not overtly antisemitic they were still passively complicit in perpetuating anti-Jewish sentiments in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Widowed, Philip and his young son were tended to by Philip's aging mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Widowed, Philip and his young son were tended to by Philip's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip and his aging mother cared for Philip's young son, Tommy. Much was made of them helping Tommy come to grips with antisemitism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy learned about antisemitism from the perspective of the innocent child that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy was shaken up after being attacked and called dirty names by some antisemitic classmates who believed he was Jewish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging Mrs. Green was suffering from a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Craigie made a house call on the elderly Mrs. Green after she became ill with what he diagnosed to be a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip's childhood friend Dave, a Jewish, stayed with Philip and his family in New York while house hunting. While there, he shared the challenges he faced in society as a Jewish American.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The magazine publisher John Minify supported Philip in his writing an expose on antisemitism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Her Husbands Affairs (1947)", "title": "Her Husband's Affairs", "date": "1947-11-12", "description": "Hare-brained schemes keep interrupting the honeymoon plans of newlyweds Bill and Margaret Weldon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Husband%27s_Affairs" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Margaret Weldon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Margaret Weldon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Emil Glinka invented a razor-less shaving cream. But in a dramatic twist, the cream turned out to make hair grow at a super accelerated rate instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Margaret spent a giddy night imagining all the things they would buy after having signed a big contract to market a razor-less shaving cream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Emil Glinka invented a super hair growing cream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Emil Glinka was working on an embalming fluid that he was convinced was the key to eternal life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill was put on trial for the murder of Prof. Emil Glinka, but the professor was alive and well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill was tried for the murder of Prof. Emil Glinka.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rope (1948)", "title": "Rope", "date": "1948", "description": "Rope is a 1948 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the 1929 play of the same name by Patrick Hamilton. The film was adapted by Hume Cronyn with a screenplay by Arthur Laurents.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns two university students with more self-confidence than intellect who think they belong to a better class of people and can therefore get away with murdering their inferiors with impunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon spelled out the motive for the murder: They were inspired by the German philosopher Nietzsche and fancied themselves \"supermen\" who had a moral right to make away with their inferiors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commoner vs. intellectual", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon fancied himself an intellectual and contrasted himself with commoners, particularly his victim and former friend: David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the murder of David by his former classmates, Brandon and Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not satisfied with simply murdering David and disposing of the body, Brandon insisted on hosting a house party while the body was stashed in a chest on which a buffet was served. Philip objected to this and other of Brandon's so-called \"twists\". It was these twists that gave the game away to Rupert, who instantly \"called\" the police by firing wildly into the night air above Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon (along with Philip to a lesser extent) vis-à-vis the house keeper, Mrs. Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brandon had capriciously contrived for Janet and Kenneth to meet each other again, knowing full well that the situation would be awkward since they had broken up long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rupert had been the prep-school housemaster and something of a mentor to Brandon and Philip. Brandon was hoping for Rupert's approval, and was taken aback to find that, in fact, Rupert was deeply ashamed of the thing they had done in his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is clear that Rupert was something of a role model to Brandon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip drank himself silly because he was worried about the murder being found out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rupert felt ashamed that his words had inspired Brandon and Philip to murder David.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Pirate (1948)", "title": "The Pirate", "date": "1948", "description": "The Pirate is a 1948 American musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. With songs by Cole Porter, it stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly with costars Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, The Nicholas Brothers, and George Zucco.\n\nStudio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a young woman's romantic obsession with an infamous pirate, and various complications that ensues when a rascal courts her by impersonating that pirate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manuela, Serafin, and Don Pedro aka. Macoco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don Pedro the mayor was in fact the real Macoco hiding from the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the touring actor Serafin, his troupe, and his attempts to get Manuela to join him in his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manuela fell in love for real with Serafin in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A good portion of the story concerned Serafin's last-ditched attempts to escape the nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuela did not much care for the marriage her mother arranged for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuela exchanged a few words with her taciturn father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuela's father had significant gambling debts he thought her future husband would help him with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viceroy showed up with his men to enforce the laws of the realm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hamlet (1948)", "title": "Hamlet", "date": "1948-05-04", "description": "Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, adapted, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. Hamlet was Olivier's second film as director and the second of the three Shakespeare films that he directed (the 1936 As You Like It had starred Olivier, but had been directed by Paul Czinner). Hamlet was the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is the first sound film of the play in English.\n\nOlivier's Hamlet is the Shakespeare film that has received the most prestigious accolades, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Actor and the Golden Lion at the 9th Venice International Film Festival. However, it proved controversial among Shakespearean purists, who felt that Olivier had made too many alterations and excisions to the four-hour play by cutting one-and-a-half-hours' worth of content. Milton Shulman wrote in The Evening Standard: \"To some it will be one of the greatest films ever made, to others a deep disappointment. Laurence Olivier leaves no doubt that he is one of our greatest living actors... his liberties with the text, however, are sure to disturb many.\"", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_(1948_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hamlet sought revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who had murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize the throne and marry Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Laertes sought vengeance against Hamlet for the killing of his father, Polonius, and the subsequent suicide of his sister, Ophelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama took place in the royal court of Denmark as people were jostling for power, marriage, and prestige.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hamlet was thought to have gone mad. He was also brooding over existential matters, suicide, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "His father's death and the subsequent revelation that it was murder, seemed to drive Hamlet into something that people around him thought was madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Claudius' killing of King Hamlet. In the end, Prince Hamlet killed King Claudius to avenge his father's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was exceedingly power hungry to the point committed regicide to seize the crown of Denmark for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius used poison to murder such inconvenient people as Hamlet's father and later Hamlet himself. Gertrude and Laertes died collaterally from Claudius' designs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and Ophelia were in love, but things ended tragically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of Hamlet's troubles were due to the fact that he strongly suspected murder (on the word of a ghost) yet had no evidence. To this point, the film opened with a voice-over from the producer, saying \"This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and his mother Queen Gertrude were central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet dwelt on the murder of his late father, King Hamlet, throughout the story. He encountered his father's ghost early on in the story. Laertes sought vengeance against Hamlet over the killing of Laertes' father, Polonius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hamlet and Laertes grieved for their respective fathers. Ophelia grieved for her murdered father, Polonius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "This adaptation of Hamlet is noted for playing up the sexual tension between Hamlet and his mother. In one scene, they kissed passionately on the mouth seated on her bed. Hamlet also implied incest between Ophelia and her brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Claudius soliloquized about killing his brother the late king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was tension between King Claudius and Queen Gertrude because of Hamlet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Hamlet's ghost returned to tell his son about King Hamlet's regicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hamlet mused to himself \"To be, or not to be. That is the question.\" as he sat on the edge of the castle battlements, high above the unruly sea below. He earlier spoke of \"self-slaughter\" and lamented that it was proscribed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hamlet and Horatio were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laertes grieved for his late sister, Ophelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was insinuated that Ophelia, owing to her suicide, might have been given a christian burial, but for the fact that her power family had pulled some strings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hamlet contemplated death on a few occasions and, iconically, while holding the skull of old Yorick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polonius came to think that Hamlet was mad and didn't want him anywhere near his daughter, Ophelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laertes was close with his sister, Ophelia, and was devastated when she committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Oedipus complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Until the revelations at the end, is seems plausible that Hamlet is indeed mad and has invented the poisoning because he (as Sigmund Freud held) hates his step-father being married to his mother, who Hamlet unconsciously desires sexually. The scene where he is wrestling with his mother in her bed is suggestive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the restless dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghost of King Hamlet explained that it was \"doomed for a certain time to walk the night... and for the day confined to fast in fires... till the foul crimes done in my days of nature... are burned and purged away.\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone presumed that Ophelia drown herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Ophelia following her suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A troop of actors put on a performance of the fictional play \"The Murder of Gonzago\" before the royal court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a theater group and a play within the play. Hamlet was fascinated with the group and modified the fictional play, called \"The Murder of Gonzago\", they performed at court.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Counterblast (1948)", "title": "Counterblast", "date": "1948-06-14", "description": "A Nazi scientist escapes from prison, murders a leading professor and takes his place at a research laboratory where he experiments with biological warfare with which he intends to wage the next war against Britain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterblast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi scientist Doctor Bruckner tried to develop a biological weapon to use on Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Bruckner escaped from prison where he was being held on charges of having committed the war crime of performing unethical experiments on human subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi scientist Doctor Bruckner had performed unethical experiments on human subjects during the war and planned to develop a biological weapon to use on Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tracy Hart and Paul Rankin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nazi scientist Doctor Bruckner tried to develop a biological weapon to use on Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Bruckner escaped from prison where he was being held on charges of having committed the war crime of performing unethical experiments on human subjects. Doctor Bruckner was prepared to sacrifice Tracy Hart in a vaccination experiment in order to develop a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Bruckner worked in his laboratory to develop a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Bruckner developed a vaccine for the common cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aspiring female chemist Tracy Hart made it a point to explain that women could also do science and didn't need to be kept in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Bruckner at Tracy Hart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nazi scientist Doctor Bruckner was on the run and wanted for war crimes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Red Shoes (1948)", "title": "The Red Shoes", "date": "1948-09-06", "description": "The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and starring Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, and Marius Goring. It follows a ballerina who joins an established ballet company under an acclaimed director, ultimately testing her dedication to her craft when she must choose between her career and a romance with a composer. It marked the feature film debut of Shearer, an established ballerina, and also features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla Tchérina, other renowned dancers from the ballet world. The plot is based on the eponymous fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, and features a ballet within it by the same title, also adapted from the Andersen work.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Shoes_(1948_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lermontov's obsession with dancing, and with Vicky in particular, lead to her suicide; Vicky's obsession with dancing played a part as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lermontov did not approve of his artists falling in love and considered their careers to be compromised if they did. He force the stark choice between love and dancing upon Vicky. Julian, simultaneously, reneged on his opening night in order to win Vicky back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered on a renowned ballet company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "torn between her love of dancing and her lover, Vicky was finally driven to jump in front of a train", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Especially Julian was a passionate composer for the ballet that was central to the story. He wrote the score for the enormously successful \"Red Shoes\" performance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vicky was crazy about dancing to the exclusion of all else, until she fell for Julian and gave it all up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vicky and Julian quickly got married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boronskaya fell in love and was sacked for it; Vicky and Julian fell in love and were driven out of the company for it; Lermontov despised people who sacrificed their art for something so base", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Palmer had stolen Julian's work, and Julian discussed this with Lermontov who concluded that Palmer was the more pitiable", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Unknown Island (1948)", "title": "Unknown Island", "date": "1948-10-15", "description": "Adventure-seeker Ted Osborne and his fiancée Carole Lane visit an uncharted island inhabited by dinosaurs and other exotic creatures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Island" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition discovered living dinosaurs on remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition discovered living dinosaurs on remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition discovered living dinosaurs on remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Osborne and Carol Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Osborne and Carol Lane. John Fairbanks and Carol Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Osborne, Carol Lane, and John Fairbanks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Osborne and Carole Lane went to an uncharted island rumored to have extinct animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Osborne and Carole Lane wanted to go to an unknown island rumored to have extinct animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Expedition party versus dinosaurs and a giant sloth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "An group of people survived as best they could on a remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Tarnowski went insane between the whiskey and jungle fever and wanted to stay on the island to capture a dinosaur and bring it back alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Tarnowski at Carol Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Lane with Captain Tarnowski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Fairbanks was battling an addiction to alcohol.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bicycle Thieves (1948)", "title": "Bicycle Thieves", "date": "1948-11-24", "description": "Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette; sometimes known in the United States as The Bicycle Thief) is a 1948 Italian drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film follows the story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "desperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antonio and his family were desperate to get the bike back that he would not loose his job and the dowry his wife had pawned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antonio and Bruno sought the stolen bicycle together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "A poor family was at he point of desperation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The poor family was unemployed and ecstatic at the prospect of getting a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonio and Maria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the sad consequences to a poor man when his bicycle was stolen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonio in desperation tried to steal another man's bicycle at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw an image of an impoverished post-war Italy with mass-unemployment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wife had visited a seer of some sort and later Antonio did too.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Perfect Woman (1949)", "title": "The Perfect Woman", "date": "1949-05-23", "description": "Professor Ernest Belman creates a woman in his lab.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perfect_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Belman created an automaton that was meant to be the perfect woman. Penelope Belman pretended to be her uncle's android on a night out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Belman created an automaton that was meant to be the perfect woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penelope Belman and Roger Cavendish fell in love in the course of their night out when she pretended to be an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Belman and Penelope Belman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger Cavendish and Lady Diana.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mighty Joe Young (1949)", "title": "Mighty Joe Young", "date": "1949-07-27", "description": "A young woman, Jill Young, living on her father's ranch in Africa, who has raised the title character, a large gorilla, from an infant and years later brings him to Hollywood seeking her fortune so that she can save the family homestead.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Joe_Young_(1949_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1940s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill Young and her gorilla Joe Young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill Young and her pet, giant gorilla Joe Young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hollywood producer exploited the gorilla Joe Young by putting it on stage night after night and keeping it in a cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hollywood producer exploited the gorilla Joe Young by putting it on stage night after night and keeping it in a cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "People vs. the gorilla Joe Young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant gorilla Joe Young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill Young's father disapproved of Jill having bought a baby gorilla from some locals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill Young was lured out of from her farm in Africa with assurances of being made a Hollywood star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill Young learned that fame was not all that is was cracked up to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max O'Hara fast talked Jill Young inti signing a bad contract to come to Hollywood and refused to let her out of it when she wanted to quit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max O'Hara came to realize that he was wrong to have taken Joe out of Africa and helped Jill to take him back before the police carried out orders to have it shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill Young and Gregg.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: All the King's Men (1949)", "title": "All the King's Men", "date": "1949-11-08", "description": "All the King's Men is a 1949 American political drama film written, produced, and directed by Robert Rossen. It is based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1946 novel of the same name. It stars Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, and Joanne Dru. The film centers on the rise and fall of Willie Stark, an idealistic-but-ruthless politician in the American South, patterned after Louisiana Governor Huey Long.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_King%27s_Men_(1949_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the aspiring politician Willie Stark as he goes from being a humble \"hick\" to becoming governor of his state. He was on the campaign trail countless times. His assorted methods, some legal some corrupt, were a central point of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Willie Stark started out as an idealistic, morally upright, campaigner for the people. When he realized that he was being outmaneuvered by his unscrupulous political adversaries he decided to become more Machiavellian himself. He became a populist, and eventually was elected governor. However, as time went on it became evermore obvious that he was using blackmail, pork-barrel dealings, hired goons and suchlike dirty and corrupt tricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Willie Stark started out as an idealistic, morally upright, campaigner for the people. When he realized that he was being outmaneuvered by his unscrupulous political adversaries he decided to become more Machiavellian himself. He became a populist, and was soon elected governor. However, as time went on it became evermore obvious that he was using blackmail, pork-barrel dealings, hired goons and suchlike dirty and corrupt tricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Willie Stark started out as an idealistic, morally upright, campaigner for the people. When he realized that he was being outmaneuvered by his unscrupulous political adversaries he decided to become more Machiavellian himself. He became a populist, and was soon elected governor. However, as time went on it became evermore obvious that he was using blackmail, pork-barrel dealings, hired goons and suchlike dirty and corrupt tricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central question in this story is whether and to what extent Willie Stark dirty, underhanded, and corrupt methods were justifiable by the ultimate good for society that he intended to achieve with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie Stark was married to Lucy Stark but had several ill-concealed affairs. Willie's parents appeared in the plot, as did Jack's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie Stark ruthlessly pushed his underlings around. To an extent he also did this to his friend Jack Burden, who worked as his hatchet man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the aspiring politician Willie Stark as he goes from being a humble \"hick\" to becoming governor of his state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Burden was a journalist writing for a newspaper. He quit his job rather than turn on Willie Stark, whom he admired. He later took up as Stark's hatchet man but soon became disillusioned. The press in general was important to Willie Stark's political campaigns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie Stark was having an ill-concealed affair with Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne was living as Willie's mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Burden initially supported the populist politician Willie Stark with enthusiasm, but grew increasingly disillusioned after Willie became governor and proved little different from the corrupt politicians he replace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Governor Willie Stark getting assassinated by a disgruntled former supporter outside the statehouse amid the chaos following his acquittal on an impeachment charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming like what you oppose", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the aspiring politician Willie Stark as he goes from being a humble \"hick\" to becoming governor of his state. When he realized that he was being outmaneuvered by his unscrupulous political adversaries he decided to become more Machiavellian himself. As governor, Willie succeeded in building up the state (e.g., roads, a hospital, a university, and a football stadium) but in so doing behaved in an at least as corrupt manner as the politicians he replace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "After tasting success in politics, Willie Stark's political ambition grew to know no bounds. He resorted to manifold corrupt tactics to secure his hold on the governorship, and ultimately revealed his designs to become President of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Burden became Willie Stark's hatchet man and kept a diary of publicly embarrassing, or even incriminating, information about Willie's political opponents for use in blackmailing them. Willie Stark tried to blackmail Judge Stanton into using his influence to get various state senators to vote against Willie's impeachment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie Stark had a troubled relationship with his son and heir, Tom. Willie pressured Tom into playing in the big football game when he was already out of sorts with a head injury. The result was Tom leaving the field a paraplegic. After that, Tom went back to live on the farm with his mother and had little love left for his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police popped up here and there in the story. Early on, they threatened to charge Willie with disturbing the peace unless his broke up his impromptu political rally. Later, once Willie was governor, he was sometimes driven around in police motorcades. In the end, the police shot dead Willie's assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie Stark was sufficiently hung over at the barbecue that he had to slouch over on a children's swing. He subsequently shooed away a couple of little girls who presumably had designs on using it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom crashed his car in a drunken police chase that left his girlfriend dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was the star player on the local football team. He was paralyzed from the waist down after taking a rough hit in a game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A football injury left Tom paralyzed from the waist down. He was wheelchair bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Stanton blew his brains out when Willie threatened to blackmail him over a more than two decades old act of indiscretion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam disapproved of his sister, Anne, running around with Willie Stark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy and Sadie were jealous of Willie's mistress Anne.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Flying Saucer (1950)", "title": "The Flying Saucer", "date": "1950-01-05", "description": "A spate of flying saucer sightings around the world spark American intelligence officials and Soviet spies to investigate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "American intelligence officials and Soviet spies investigate reports of flying saucers over Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Trent and Vee Langley fell in love on their mission to investigate flying saucer sightings in Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flying saucer is discovered in Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soviet spies were investigating flying saucer sightings in Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soviet spies plotted to purchase a flying saucer invented by Dr. Lawton and use it for the betterment of the entire human race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rocketship X-M (1950)", "title": "Rocketship X-M", "date": "1950-05-26", "description": "A Moon expedition that, through a series of unforeseen events, winds up traveling instead to distant Mars. Once on the Red Planet, its crew discovers the remnants of a Martian civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to barbarism.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketship_X-M" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first manned expedition to the Moon is launched, but it ends up landing on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocketship X-M found a Martian civilization that had destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to barbarism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocketship X-M lands on Mars and finds a civilization that was destroyed long ago by nuclear war and now reverted to barbarism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocketship X-M found a Martian civilization that had destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to barbarism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multistage rocket", "level": "major", "motivation": "The multistage nature of the Rocketship X-M was described and shown in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocketship X-M crew experienced weightlessness on voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lisa Van Horn was asked to justify her presence as the only female member of the Rocketship X-M crew. Crewman Floyd Graham suggested she should be content in life to cook and sew and bare children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Destination Moon (1950)", "title": "Destination Moon", "date": "1950-06-27", "description": "The first major U.S. science fiction film to deal with the dangers inherent in human space travel and the possible difficulties of America's first lunar mission landing on and safely returning from our only natural satellite.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States Department of Defense and American private industry team up to send an atomic powered rocket to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States Department of Defense and American private industry team up to send an atomic powered, single-stage-to-orbit rocketship to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocketship used to fly to the Moon was atomic powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of wealthy industrialists are motivated by patriotic reasons to financially support the construction of an atomic powered rocket to send to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Thayer explained to a group of wealthy industrialists how the first country to put missiles on the Moon pointed at Earth would rule the world, and the expedition to the Moon needed to be financed for this reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocketship crew experienced weightlessness on voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocketship crew experienced a low gravity environment on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocketship crew wore spacesuits for their space walk to fix the rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Barnes, Charles Cargraves, General Thayer, and Joe Sweeney vied to stay behind on the Moon so that the rocket could liftoff and return to Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rashomon (1950)", "title": "Rashomon", "date": "1950-08-25", "description": "Rashomon (羅生門, Rashōmon) is a 1950 Japanese period psychological thriller film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. It stars Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura. Although the film borrows the title from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story \"Rashōmon\", it is based on Akutagawa's short story of 1922 \"In a Grove\", which provides the characters and plot.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the overarching point seems to have been the priest's loss of faith in humanity upon hearing about the selfish and cruel actions of everyone involved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the overarching point seems to have been the priest's loss of faith in humanity upon hearing about the selfish and cruel actions of everyone involved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the various stories were told during a trial in which society sought to discover the truth of the events", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard comtrasting and contradictory testimonies from participants in the drama", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "the wife was raped by Tajomaru and much of the story dealt with that fact", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centred on the relationship between a husband and his wife as she was raped", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "the samurai killed hims", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wife may have left her husband for Tajomaru voluntarily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "we must ponder what really took place between Tajomaru, the wife, and the samurai husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "all the people involved exhibited much pride and lied to cover their shame", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tajomaru explained that he was not the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tajomaru fought a duel with the husband and slew him, perhaps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the wife tells that the husband killed himself in shame", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard the late husband testify through a medium", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The late samurai told of how his wife had called for his murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tajomaru may have become besotted with the late samurai's wife", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: All About Eve (1950)", "title": "All About Eve", "date": "1950-10-13", "description": "All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on the 1946 short story (and subsequent 1949 radio drama) \"The Wisdom of Eve\" by Mary Orr, although Orr does not receive a screen credit.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_About_Eve" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is Margo Channing, an aging Broadway star. She had recently turned 40 and was self-conscious about it. Her worry turned into borderline hysteria when she was eclipsed, and had her position usurped, by a younger and equally talented actress: Eve Harrington. The story ended with the implication that Eve herself might well have the same fate to look forwards to, as she was contrasted with the even younger Phoebe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is Margo Channing, an aging Broadway star. She had recently turned 40 and was self-conscious about it. Her worry turned into borderline hysteria when she was eclipsed, and had her position usurped, by a younger and equally talented actress: Eve Harrington. The story ended with the implication that Eve herself might well have the same fate to look forwards to, as she was contrasted with the even younger Phoebe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aging Broadway star Margo Channing was compared and contrasted with the young and equally talented aspiring actress Eve Harrington. Eve posed as humble and modest in order to get into Margo's circle, but was in fact sly and completely ruthless as she plotted to usurp Margo's position. The story ended with the implication that Eve herself might well have the same fate to look forwards to, as she was contrasted with the even younger Phoebe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is the titular Eve Harrington, and the story leads up to the revelation that underneath Eve's humble and modest exterior she was, in fact, unscrupulous and ruthless in the pursuit of her dream of becoming a theater (and possibly Hollywood) sensation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging Broadway star Margo Channing saw her position usurped by the younger and equally talented aspiring actress Eve Harrington, who had slyly maneuvered herself into Margo's group of acquaintances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging Broadway star Margo Channing saw her position usurped by the younger and equally talented aspiring actress Eve Harrington, who had slyly maneuvered herself into Margo's group of acquaintances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margo was exceedingly proud of her acting accomplishments and something of a diva. But Eve came along and usurped her position.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the lives of an established star theater actress, a director, a playwright, a critic, a producer and an upcoming starlet. It touches on the potentially more glitzy career theater actresses may go on to have in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve posed as a friend to Margo and her clique, but cruelly betrayed Margo by usurping her role in an upcoming theatrical production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margo was insanely jealous of Eve whom she suspected, correctly as it were, of having designs on Margo's long time partner, the director Bill Simpson. Bill snubbed Eve and married Margo in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging Broadway star Margo Channing was compared and contrasted with the young and equally talented aspiring actress Eve Harrington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve longed to become a theater and film star. At one point Eve said: \"Imagine... to know, every night, that different hundreds of people love you... They smile, their eyes shine - you've pleased them, they want you, you belong. Anything's worth that.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margo and Bill had been in love for some time. After Eve usurped Margo's position, Bill persuaded Margo to to settle down with him, and the pair tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story is Eve Harrington. The story leads up to the revelation that underneath Eve's humble and modest exterior she is, in fact, unscrupulous and ruthless in the pursuit of her dream of becoming a star of theater and film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Behind her innocent and humble exterior, Eve was cunning and ruthless in the pursuit of her dream of becoming a star of theater and film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is a threat to replace you", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging Broadway star Margo Channing saw her position usurped by the younger and equally talented aspiring actress Eve Harrington, who had slyly maneuvered herself into Margo's group of acquaintances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what goes around comes around", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the aspiring actress Eve Harrington usurping the position of the established, but aging Broadway star Margo Channing. The story ended with the implication that Eve herself might well have the same fate to look forwards to, as she was contrasted with the even younger Phoebe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve resorted to blackmailing Karen into persuading Karen's husband, Lloyd Richards, to let Eve have the starring role in his next play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margo finally tied the knot with her long time love interest, the director Bill Simpson. Marriage made Margo mellow out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margo only reluctantly consented to greet Eve, who was a great admirer, in her dressing room after berating her fans and likening autograph seekers to packs of coyotes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margo was waited on by her smart-alecky domestic servant, Birdie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve habitually spoke in a self-deprecating manner and downplayed her acting abilities. This was all in the way of cultivating an image of herself as an innocent young actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd Richards was a playwright of some renown.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prehistoric Women (1950)", "title": "Prehistoric Women", "date": "1950-11-01", "description": "Tigri and her stone age friends, all of which are women, hate all men. However, she and her Amazon tribe see men as a necessary evil and capture them for potential husbands.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oppressed female members of a stone age tribe flee and live independent from men, kidnapping males only for breeding purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Males were subordinate to females in the stone age society of Tigri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oppressed female members of a stone age tribe flee and live independent from men, kidnapping males only for breeding purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tigri and Engor fall in love after Engor impresses her by driving off a flying dragon and cooking her food with fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in pre-historical times", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stone age hunter gatherer tribes fend for survival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Engor was held as breeding stock by Tigri and her tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of fire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Engor discovered fire and used it to defend himself and his tribes-people and to cook meats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Engor and his tribesmen take on a tiger, a panther, an elephant, a python, and a flying dragon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tigri became jealous of one of her tribes-women over Engor and got into a physical altercation as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Engor showed Tigri that he could move a big rock using brute force, but she was not impressed, because she could move it equally well with the aid of a level.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Two Lost Worlds (1951)", "title": "Two Lost Worlds", "date": "1951-01-05", "description": "In the year 1830, an American clipper ship pursues pirates and wind up on a volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Lost_Worlds" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American clipper ship pursued pirates and wound up on a volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in early modern times", "level": "major", "motivation": "One lost world was that of life in the age of sail, and the other a world with living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like to be on an American clipper ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton and Elaine Jeffries fall in love in Australia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton and his party became stranded on volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton pursues pirates and wind up on a volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton pursues pirates and wind up on a volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine Jeffries and her misbehaving little sister Janice Jeffries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton described how a sailor's first ship is like his first love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ten year old girl Janice Jeffries at Kirk Hamilton. Martin Shannon at Elaine Jeffries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Shannon was jealous of Kirk Hamilton over Elaine Jeffries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine Jeffries and Martin Shannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton and Elaine Jeffries fell in love under the nose of her fiancée Martin Shannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton and his party against dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk Hamilton and his companions survived a volcanic eruption while stranded on a dinosaur inhabited prehistoric island.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Variety Lights (1951)", "title": "Variety Lights", "date": "1951-01-12", "description": "Variety Lights (Italian: Luci del varietà) is a 1950 Italian romantic drama film produced and directed by Federico Fellini and Alberto Lattuada and starring Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio, and Giulietta Masina. The film is about a beautiful and ambitious young woman who joins a traveling troupe of third-rate vaudevillians and inadvertently causes jealousy and emotional crises. A collaboration with Alberto Lattuada in production, direction, and writing, Variety Lights launched Fellini's directorial career. Prior to this film, Fellini worked primarily as a screenwriter, most notably working on Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_Lights" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned a traveling troupe of third-rate vaudevillians ad their travails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main characters were poor artists struggling to make it in the world. Checco tried to form a successful troupe. Liliana wanted to become a famous dancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liliana was desperate to make it in showbiz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Checco Dal Monte and Melina Amour. Checco Dal Monte and Liliana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Checco eventually fell for Liliana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Checco, Melina, Liliana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Checco spent mos of the story being one step from destitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Checco at other men over Leliana. Melina briefly at Leliana over Checco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the various interpersonal relationships in several theater groups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central theme of the story was how Checco made a fool of himself over Leliana, lost Melina, won Melina back, and then seemed about to repeat the cycle with another young girl. He also bragged to Leliana about the more than 30 other women he had been together with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "The White Sheik was a photo strip soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Checco Dal Monte tried to push his attentions Liliana who slapped him in return. There were a few other situation of the same sort, involving Liliana and other men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liliana was a dancer and joined the scantily clad dancing troupe of the vaudevillian performers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The other women in the troupe were somewhat jealous of the attention Liliana received.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Checco and Liliana went to a comedy show and were likened to penguins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We first think that Liliana is somewhat pure and innocent but learn later that she, quite intentionally, spun various men around her little finger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man from Planet X (1951)", "title": "The Man from Planet X", "date": "1951-03-09", "description": "A scientist is monitoring a mysterious \"Planet X\" that has entered our solar system and is now near the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Planet_X" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Planet X was a rogue planet that came into the solar system and passed nearby the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mears wished to obtain the metal formula for the alien's spaceship in order to become the master of world industry and rule the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A humanoid alien landed on the Scottish moors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoids from Planet X were planning to conquet and colonize Earth in order to escape from their dying world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was feared the approach of Planet X to Earth would cause natural catastrophes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Elliot and Enid Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language of musical notes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humanoid alien from Planet X spoke in musical tones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humans and alien made efforts to communicate using words, gestures, and geometry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet X was entering into an ice age and the humanoid aliens on it were seeking to escape to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Lawrence and Enid Elliot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)", "title": "Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man", "date": "1951-03-19", "description": "The film depicts the misadventures of Lou Francis and Bud Alexander, two private detectives investigating the murder of a boxing promoter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello_Meet_the_Invisible_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Middleweight boxer Tommy Nelson takes an invisibility serum to avoid getting caught by the police - he had escaped from prison - for long enough to find out who murdered his manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Middleweight boxer Tommy Nelson takes an invisibility serum to avoid getting caught by the police - he had escaped from prison - for long enough to find out who murdered his manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy Nelson and Helen Gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy Nelson and Helen Gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Middleweight boxer Tommy Nelson was falsely convicted of having murdered his manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boxing promoters were fixing matches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An invisible Tommy Nelson drank everyones drinks at the bar and had a bad hangover the next morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Middleweight boxer Tommy Nelson escaped from prison and was being pursued the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy Nelson became drunk with a lust for power while under the influence of the invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy Nelson went slowly mad from the effects of the invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy Nelson's manager was murdered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Five (1951)", "title": "Five", "date": "1951-03-19", "description": "Five people, one woman and four men, survive an atomic bomb disaster that appears to have wiped out the rest of the human race while leaving all infrastructure intact.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_(1951_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "World civilization is destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "World civilization is destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five nuclear holocaust survivors thought they might be the last people left on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Roseanne Rogers are left with the task of rebuilding a new and better society after a nuclear conflagration leaves them the last two people on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The overtly racist Eric exclaimed it was a mistake that Charles, who was black, had survived the atomic bomb disaster. Eric wanted him to leave the group of survivors, and later murdered him in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roseanne Rogers longed to know the fate of her husband Steven Rogers and traveled to the city to find out if he could still be alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "World civilization is destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roseanne Rogers' newborn baby died from radiation poisoning after she traveled with it to the city to ascertain the status of her husband Steven Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The five survivors feared they would die from exposure to radiation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Thing from Another World (1951)", "title": "The Thing from Another World", "date": "1951-04-27", "description": "A U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who find a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice. Returning to their remote research outpost with the body in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against this malevolent, plant-based alien when it is accidentally revived.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who find a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Thing (alien from the crashed flying saucer) was composed of vegetable matter, rather than animal matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Arthur Carrington wished to attempt to communicate with the intelligent plant-like alien, The Thing, at great risk to his personal safety for the chance to learn its otherworldly knowledge. He further wished to understand the biology of The Things's species and bred baby ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who find a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Ned Scott protested when the U.S. Air Force personnel forbid him from publishing a story about their discovery of a flying saucer frozen in the Artic ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists wanted to dethaw the Thing from the block of ice it was encased in but Captain Patrick Hendry didn't want to take the risk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Ned Scott was passionate about reporting work on a newly discovered alien and flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Patrick Hendry and Nikki Nicholson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lost Planet Airmen (1951)", "title": "Lost Planet Airmen", "date": "1951-07-25", "description": "A man with an atomic powered rocket suit tries to thwart the nefarious plot of the enigmatic Dr. Vulcan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Planet_Airmen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Professor Millard and company to stop the evil Dr. Vulcan from destroying New York City with a sonic ray device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Millard build an atomic powered \"rocket suit\" that basically amounted to a fancy jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Vulcan plotted to extort the New York City government for 1 billion dollars by threatening to destroy the city using a super weapon, called the Decimator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff King, aka the Rocket Man, flew around in an an atomic powered rocket suit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man in the White Suit (1951)", "title": "The Man in the White Suit", "date": "1951-08-07", "description": "Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist and former Cambridge scholarship recipient, falls foul of both trade unions and the wealthy mill owners who attempt to suppress his invention.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_White_Suit" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sidney Stratton becomes obsessed with inventing an everlasting fiber for the textile industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sidney Stratton fashioned a brilliantly white suit from an everlasting fabric made of a special polymer that repelled dirt using static electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Textile workers and factory owners conspired to suppress Sidney Stratton's everlasting fabric because it was going to crash the fabric market and put them all out of work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monopolies in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The textile monopoly prevented Sidney Stratton from getting his indestructible fabric to market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sidney Stratton was experimenting in his lab with test tubes and chemicals in an effort to invent an everlasting fiber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sidney Stratton and Daphne Birnley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan Birnley and Daphne Birnley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan Birnley was convinced that Sidney Stratton was interested in his daughter Daphne Birnley only for her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sidney Stratton had to choose between selling his rights to the everlasting fabric to the industrialists, who would suppress it, or pressing on with bringing it to market.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lost Continent (1951)", "title": "Lost Continent", "date": "1951-08-17", "description": "An expedition is sent to the South Pacific to search for a missing atomic- powered rocket in order to retrieve the vital scientific data recorded aboard. On an uncharted island they discover more than their rocket, now crashed atop a mysterious plateau, they find a lost jungle world populated by prehistoric dinosaurs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Continent_(1951_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition sent to the South Pacific discovers a lost jungle world populated by prehistoric dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition sent to the South Pacific discovers a lost jungle world populated by prehistoric dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition sent to the South Pacific discovers a lost jungle world populated by prehistoric dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition party went on a rescue mission to a volcanic, remote Pacific island that was inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Expedition members versus dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition party went on a rescue mission to a volcanic, remote Pacific island that was inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist developed an atomic-powered rocket that was sent off and vanished without a trace. Michael Rostov discovered a source of nuclear power on the lost world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Joe Nolan pointed out that the uranium deposits found in the lost jungle world could be used either to power a new and better civilization or destroy the one they had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the limits of science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Danny Wilson tried to shake Michael Rostov's conviction with science everything could be predicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Rostov reveals himself to be a victim of the Holocaust in which he lost his wife and unborn child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist developed an atomic-powered rocket that was sent off and vanished without a trace.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)", "title": "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "date": "1951-09-18", "description": "A humanoid alien visitor named Klaatu comes to Earth, accompanied by a powerful eight-foot tall robot, Gort, to deliver an important message that will affect the entire human race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu was sent to Earth by an interstellar federation with an ultimatum that Earth would be destroyed, unless their governments proliferated nuclear weapons into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu was sent to Earth by an interstellar federation with an ultimatum that Earth would be destroyed, unless their governments proliferated nuclear weapons into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu was sent on a mission to make first contact with Earth, because nuclear power had been discovered, and the interstellar federation he represented would not permit Earthlings to send nuclear weapons into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu represented an interstellar organization that created a race of robots that they completely entrusted with the complete elimination of aggression among all planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu represented an interstellar organization that lived in peace because they had entrusted their security to a race of robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the film was an eight-foot-tall robot, named Gort, defending the flying saucer landed in Washington D.C..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid alien Klaatu was dispatched to Earth to render judgement on humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer landed in Washington, D.C., causing a sensation around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer landed in Washington, D.C., causing a sensation around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Benson and Bobby Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Benson and Tom Stevens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gort revived Klaatu after he was shot dead by the military.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: An American in Paris (1951)", "title": "An American in Paris", "date": "1951-10-04", "description": "An American in Paris is a 1951 American musical romantic comedy film inspired by the 1928 jazz-influenced symphonic poem (or tone poem) An American in Paris by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron (her film debut), Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner. The music is by George Gershwin with lyrics by his brother Ira, with additional music by Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin, the music directors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_in_Paris_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Jerry and Lise falling in love and overcoming the slight complication that she was already devoted to another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jerry became besotted with Lise. Lise was engaged to Jerry's friend, Henri. Milo pursued Jerry. After Lise turned him down, Jerry went with Milo. Later, Jerry and Lise got together, all the other relationships notwithstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central drama of the story was Milo pursuing Jerry. Jerry made it clear that he, as the man, preferred to do the pursuing. When he finally came around, Milo proclaimed that she could at last feel like a woman. Jerry kept insisting that he would pay her back when she spent money on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry was an aspiring painter who had yet to sell a single painting. Milo decided to become his patron, though perhaps more because of romantic interest than for the sake of his art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry was faced with deciding whether he should accept patronage from Milo, knowing her interest in him was romantic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry Mulligan was a happy-go-lucky, American World War II veteran scraping by as an aspiring artist in Paris. Though he lived a comfortable life there by all appearances, viewers are made to understand that he was living a precarious existence. This is evidenced by, among other things, his unsuccessful attempt to borrow 300 francs from a friend to cover the cost of a lunch he'd planned to have in Montmartre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lise was torn between Henri, to whom she felt duty-bound, and Jerry, whom she truly loved. The film concludes dramatically with Lise choosing Jerry with Henri's approval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milo tried as she might to court Jerry, but his romantic attentions were squarely focused on Lise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with heartbreak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry was devastated when Lise told him that they could never be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry's friend, Adam, was a concert pianist who had never played in a concert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lise had a background as a ballet dancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry, Adam, and Henri were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry won Lise's heart after a brief, but spirited, courtship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lise reluctantly agreed to Henri's plan of getting married and moving to the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo schemed to become Jerry's favorite even though he told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't want her. She was very upset when he flirted with Lise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Unknown World (1951)", "title": "Unknown World", "date": "1951-10-26", "description": "An expedition of scientists seek a livable space deep beneath the Earth's surface in the event a nuclear war makes surface life impossible.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Concern about imminent nuclear war caused a team of scientists to bore into the Earth in search of an underground environment where humanity could escape and survive a future nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Concern about imminent nuclear war caused a team of scientists to bore into the Earth in search of an underground environment where humanity could escape and survive a future nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition of scientists bore into the Earth an find an enormous underground expanse with a plentiful air supply, its own large ocean, and phosphorescent light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition team struggled to survive in the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition used an atomic powered vehicle that bored into the ground to explore the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition of scientists bore into the Earth an find an enormous underground expanse with a plentiful air supply, its own large ocean, and phosphorescent light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition team struggled to survive in the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Bannon and Marilyn Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The more Dr. Scott Nelson used his power of intangibility, the older he became.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flight to Mars (1951)", "title": "Flight to Mars", "date": "1951-11-11", "description": "An American scientific expedition team arrives on Mars and discover that it is inhabited by an underground-dwelling but dying civilization that appear to be human.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_to_Mars_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew goes on an spaceflight to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a pioneering expedition to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew found underground-dwelling but dying civilization on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians lived in a technologically advanced underground city where all material needs were satisfied through energy harnessed from the fictional mineral Corium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians had underground civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew flew on a sleek, nuclear powered rocketship to Mars and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Stadwick experienced low gravity conditions in the rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lane speculated that we are all miniature universes filled with sentient corpuscles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Stafford. Jim Baker and Alita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Baker, Carol Stafford, and Alita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Councilman and Alita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Stafford was a confident scientist. Jim Baker was surprised when the female Alita turned out to be a highly skilled engineer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians were interested in learning how the Humans had used nuclear power to fuel their rocketship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scrooge (1951)", "title": "Scrooge", "date": "1951-11-22", "description": "A British film and an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). It stars Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, and was produced and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley. It was released as A Christmas Carol in the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_(1951_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge was the epitome of a miser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge was visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, the last but not least by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge's heart was ultimately touched by the spirit of Christmas and came so see the error of his miserly ways and went about making merry on Christmas morning. We saw Jacob Marley renounce his avaricious ways on his death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge's heart was ultimately touched by the spirit of Christmas and came so see the error of his miserly ways and went about making merry on Christmas morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge's heart was ultimately touched by the spirit of Christmas and came so see the error of his miserly ways and went about making merry on Christmas morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge's heart was ultimately touched by the spirit of Christmas and came so see the error of his miserly ways and went about making merry on Christmas morning. In fact, he bought a gave his servant a guinea, bought a giant turkey for the Crachit family, a gave Bob Crachit a generous raise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge came to deeply regret the miserly life he had led and the hard it had caused other along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge was initially dismissive of the plight of the poor and flippantly wished they would hurry up and die to help reduce the surplus population. He later reversed his opinion in a most dramatic turn of events. In addition, the way the Fred and his well to do friends celebrated Christmas was contrasted with Alice serving soup to people in the poor house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scrooge's heart was ultimately touched by the spirit of Christmas and came so see the error of his miserly ways and went about making merry on Christmas morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an elaborate depiction of what a Victorian era Christmas might have been like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scrooge and Fred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Marley was condemned to wander the earth in shackles for all eternity as punishment for his miserliness in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghost of Christmas Past showed Scrooge scenes of his past to show him what a cold-hearted, miser was a as a young man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Young Scrooge break down in tears in front of his sister Fan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Young Scrooge propose to his poor girlfriend Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Young Scrooge's wife Alice leave him owing to \"a golden idol having taken possession of his heart\". Bob Cratchit celebrated Christmas with his wife Mrs. Cratchit and his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiny Tim was lame in one leg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob Cratchit dearly loved his crippled son Tiny Tim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be took Scrooge to see what future lay ahead for him if he did not change his miserly ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiny Tim's family grieving over the boy's untimely death. Young Scrooge mourned the loss of his sister who died in childbirth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: When Worlds Collide (1951)", "title": "When Worlds Collide", "date": "1951-11-22", "description": "The coming destruction of the Earth by a rogue star called Bellus triggers a desperate effort to build a space ark to transport a group of men and women to Bellus' single planet, Zyra.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide_(1951_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rogue star called Bellus triggers a desperate effort to build a space ark to transport a group of men and women to Bellus' single planet, Zyra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rogue star called Bellus triggers a desperate effort to build a space ark to transport a group of men and women to Bellus' single planet, Zyra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A private effort to build a modern day Noah's Arc was undertaken to bring people from Earth to the planet Zyra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It had to be decided 44 people, among all the inhabitants on Earth, would be brought about the spaceship and sent to Zyra to reboot civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A private effort to build a modern day Noah's Arc was undertaken to bring people from Earth to the planet Zyra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David Randall and Joyce Hendron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce Hendron was engaged to Tony Drake but she loved David Randall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Drake at Joyce Hendron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joyce Hendron was torn between David Randall and Tony Drake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cole Hendron and Joyce Hendron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman and the Mole-Men (1951)", "title": "Superman and the Mole-Men", "date": "1951-11-23", "description": "Reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane arrive in the small town of Silsby to witness the drilling of the world's deepest oil well. The drill, however, has penetrated the underground home of a race of small, bald humanoids who, out of curiosity, climb to the surface at night. They glow in the dark, which scares the local townfolk, who form a mob intent on killing the strange visitors. Only Superman can intervene to prevent a tragedy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_and_the_Mole_Men" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oil prospectors discover a race of mole men living deep inside the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oil prospectors discovered the Earth was hollow and populated by a race of mole men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople became hysterical over the presence of radioactive mole men, formed a lynch mob and tried to string the beings up without ever trying to understand them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were reflexively fearful of the mole men visitors and tried to kill them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople became hysterical over the presence of mole men, formed a lynch mob and tried to string the beings up without ever trying to understand them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople became hysterical over the appearance of mole men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mole men were thought to have been radioactive and spread radiation to whatever they touched.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I'll Never Forget You (1951)", "title": "I'll Never Forget You", "date": "1951-12-07", "description": "An American atomic scientist who is transported to the 18th century, where he falls in love.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ll_Never_Forget_You_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Standish travels back in time to the 18th century lives secretly among the people there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Standish travels back in time to the 18th century and falls in love with Helen Petigrew, but it was his destiny to marry her sister Kate Petigrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lightning strike sends Peter Standish back in time to the year 1784.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. the public good", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Standish fell in love with Helen Petigrew, but if he married her instead of her sister Kate Petigrew, as he was supposed to, then the future would be irreparably altered, since it was his destiny to marry Kate and father two children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Standish traveled back in time to 18th century London and conversed among some of the great intellectuals and artists of the age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Working out of his laboratory, the M.I.T. trained physicist Peter Standish succeeded in making an atomic pile (a.k.a. a nuclear reactor) output at a rate of 1000 kilowatts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Standish was experimenting with nuclear fission in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Standish was engaged to Kate Petigrew although he was in love with Helen Petigrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Standish witnessed general filth, poverty, and child labor on the streets of 18th century London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Standish witnessed general filth, poverty, and child labor on the streets of 18th century London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some country gentlemen ransacked Peter Standish laboratory and were astonished and perplexed by such things as a model steamship and matchsticks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)", "title": "The Greatest Show on Earth", "date": "1952-01-10", "description": "The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 American drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, shot in Technicolor and released by Paramount Pictures. Set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring and Charlton Heston as the circus manager. James Stewart also stars as a mysterious clown who never removes his makeup, and Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame also play supporting roles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "circus skill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A circus was at the heart of the story. Two main characters were Trapeze artists. Another was a clown. A variety of other circus artists were featured throughout. The plot revolved around trapeze stunts. Lengthy segments showcase circus acts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Holly feeling torn between Brad and Sebastian. Brad loved Holly. Holly loved both Brad and Sebastian. Sebastian loved Holly and had loved Angel and Phyllis in the past. Angel moved in on Brad when Holly turned towards Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Holly was torn between Brad and Sebastian. One main storyline follows her struggle to choose between the two of them. In the end, she went with Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goaded by Holly, Sebastian pridefully cut loose the safety net before ascending to begin his trapeze act. He proceeded fatefully to plummet from the swings and became a cripple, showing that his pride went before a fall both literally and figuratively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly's confused to-and-fro between Brad and Sebastian was a central theme of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly felt so ashamed over having goaded Sebastian into a stunt that left him crippled, that she decided to devote the rest of her life to being by his side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly felt so ashamed over having goaded Sebastian into a stunt that left him crippled, that she decided to devote the rest of her life to being by his side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "After a trapeze accident, Sebastian found himself with a useless \"claw hand\" that meant the end of his distinguished career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian was famously a womanizer. He had two former lovers at the circus, and he shamelessly pursued Brad's girlfriend, Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love out of pity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly felt so ashamed over having goaded Sebastian into a stunt that left him crippled, that she decided to devote the rest of her life to being by his side. She was warned that Sebastian would not want her pity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the trials and tribulations of a railroad circus on a tour of the Unite States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly was a fiercely competitive trapeze artist who was determined to prove her superiority over her new rival Sebastian. In so doing, she hoped to reclaim the circus show's center ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendly competition in groups", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival trapeze artists Holly and Sebastian were in a fierce, but on the whole friendly, competition for top spot in the traveling circus show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival trapeze artists Holly and Sebastian were in a fierce, but on the whole friendly, competition for top spot in the traveling circus show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian romantically pursued Holly. Angel made a move for Brad, thinking that her willingness to make coffee the way he liked it would win him over. Klaus' romantic pursuit of Angel quickly turned into harassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world-famous trapeze artist Sebastian was left to make what he could of life in the aftermath of a career ending accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian pondered what he would do with himself after his trapeze career ended tragically with a falling accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A recurring theme of the story is the trapeze artists Holly and Sebastian, or \"flyers\" as they called themselves, tempting fate by performing incredibly dangerous aerial maneuvers without the comfort of a safety net. In a notable scene, Sebastian pridefully cut loose the safety net before ascending to begin his trapeze act. He proceeded fatefully to plummet from the swings in what would be a career ending fall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad bodily threw out Harry, a concessionaire at the circus, for cheating customers. Harry complained to his friends and Mr. Henderson, a local gangster, showed up to try and strongarm Brad into letting Harry back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Klaus tried to make off with the circus' money after causing the train to stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FBI Agent Gregory was snooping around the circus for a wanted mercy killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The circus train was blessed by a Catholic priest on its initial departure. God notwithstanding, the train later detailed catastrophically later in the season.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ever-affable Buttons the Clown was hiding that he was wanted for having mercy killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buttons the Clown, who had been a physician, was wanted for having mercy killed his wife. At some point after the killing, he started a new life as a circus clown, and wore clown makeup constantly to conceal his appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buttons the Clown quietly conferred with mother when he saw she was in attendance at one of the circus shows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly was humiliated when Brad stopped her short of the setting the world record for flipping around on a rope. The spectators laughed her out of the ring. What she didn't know at the time, however, is that Brad had saved her life as the rope she was swinging on was about to snap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaus romantically pursued Angel in creepy and threatening ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angel was romantically pursue by Klaus who was both creepy and threatening. Klaus nearly killed her when she took interest in another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaus was exceedingly jealous to the point that he very nearly killed Angel when she took interest in another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaus nearly killed Angel in a fit of rage over Angel's rejection and her interest in Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buttons the Clown was wanted for having mercy killed his wife, who had been ailing from some unspecified condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether Button the Clown was justified in mercy killing his wife, who had been ailing from some unspecified condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buttons the Clown, who was a physician by training, was hiding from the law in the circus for having mercy killed his wife. He performed a life saving blood transfusion on Brad, knowing that doing so would blow his cover and end with his own apprehension by the FBI on a murder charge. Buttons held Brad in such high regard that he did it anyway.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Singin in the Rain (1952)", "title": "Singin' in the Rain", "date": "1952-03-27", "description": "Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to \"talkies\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin%27_in_the_Rain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a parody on what things might have been like in Hollywood filmmaking around the end of the silent film era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lina Lamont and Kathy Seldon, Lina had it especially in for Kathy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lina was jealous of the love Kathy received from Don", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Lina Lamont became a has-been when her voice turned out to be incompatible with sound-films", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lina was a terrible person, especially to Kathy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "major", "motivation": "the director and everyone else were exasperated with Lina's terrible voice as well as her general stupidity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don Lockwood and Kathy Seldon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "movie studio and its stakeholders faced ruin after they produced a truly awful film", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social change due to new technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how a small movie studio adept at making silent films, struggled to adapt to film with sound", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cosmo Brown and Kathy Seldon in particular expressed their love of acting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don and Kathy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina feigned love for Don who hated her guts (though he pretended for publicity)", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Red Planet Mars (1952)", "title": "Red Planet Mars", "date": "1952-05-15", "description": "An American astronomer establishes communication with Martians with Earth shattering political, economic, and spiritual ramifications.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi scientist Franz Calder was motivated by a desire for revenge when he faked messages from Mars that caused economic upheaval in the West and a revolution against the Soviet government in Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lynn Crony warned Chris Cronyn about the dangers to humanity that could come from any advanced technologies that people might acquire from the Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lynn Crony warned Chris Cronyn that further advances in science could spell doom for the world, citing the splitting of the atom as a precedent. She also warned about the dangers to humanity that could come from any advanced technologies that people might acquire from the Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American astronomer establishes communication with Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians were Christians and urged Humans to follow in the teaching of Christ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soviets planned to take over the world and impose a communist world order in the wake of the social unrest that was caused by messages from Mars. But then the spreading of Christianity across Russia spelled the end of the Soviet government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Cronyn and Lynn Crony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Cronyn and Lynn Crony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians sent messages to Earth about the nature of their post-scarcity, post fossil fuel, no poverty utopia. The source of their wealth was owing to a technology they had developed that used cosmic rays to make many different elements fissionable, giving them access to almost unlimited energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lynn Crony and Stewart Cronyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Cronyn and Stewart Cronyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Cronyn tried to communicate with the Martians by sending the digits of pi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Cronyn speculated that the Martians had melted their polar ice caps using nuclear energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christianity spread across Russia and the Soviet government was overthrown in a revolution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Jungle (1952)", "title": "The Jungle", "date": "1952-08-01", "description": "A great white hunter and an Indian princess trek into the Indian jungle to investigate a number of wild animal stampedes which have resulted in the deaths of many people. On their journey, they discover a herd of prehistoric woolly mammoths are responsible for the terror.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaadu_(1952_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The great hunter Steve Bentley and Princess Mari discover a herd of prehistoric woolly mammoths in the Indian jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The great hunter Steve Bentley and Princess Mari explored the jungles of India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party was tracking down and kill what was assumed to be a herd of wild elephants that were terrorizing the local peasants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rama Singh mistakenly believed that Steve Bentley killed his brother and plotted to take revenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Mari wanted to bring social progress to India, like mass education and women's rights, but some opposed making these changes to society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Mari wanted to increase women's rights in India but some of the peasants considered her efforts an affront to their traditions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The White Sheik (1952)", "title": "The White Sheik", "date": "1952-09-06", "description": "The White Sheik (Italian: Lo sceicco bianco) is a 1952 Italian romantic comedy film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo and Giulietta Masina. Written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is about a man who brings his new bride to Rome for their honeymoon, to gain an audience with the Pope, and to present his wife to his family. When the young woman sneaks away to find the hero of her romance novels, the man is forced to spend hour after painful hour making excuses to his eager family who want to meet his missing bride. The White Sheik was filmed on location in Fregene, Rome, Spoleto and Vatican City.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Sheik" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wanda was besotted with the eponymous fictional character, and the actor who portrayed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ivan went to the police when he realized that Wanda was missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the misadventures of a couple honeymooning in Rome, intending to be congratulated by the Pope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda with her husband's uncle and aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan met his aunt, uncle, and extended family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan met his aunt, uncle, and extended family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan's uncle and aunt; Ivan and Wanda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an enamored groupie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda was clearly attracted to Fernando, the White Sheik, and he did his best to take advantage of the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan sought to conceal his wife's disappearance because he was concerned for his family honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan's love for Wanda was clearly demonstrated when he started showing photos of her to two inquisitive women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The couple were scheduled to see the Catholic Pope, albeit together with 200 couples like themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wand described how she liked to lock herself in her room with a magazine and escape from reality with all its vulgar, normal, people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fernando proposed to Wanda that they both cheat on their respective partners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda objected disingenuously to Fernando's wandering hands. Her driver back to Rome also made an unwelcome move.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda was so ashamed of her misadventure that she left a melodramatic message for Ivan and went to unsuccessfully throw herself in the Tiber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda was so ashamed of her misadventure that she left a melodramatic message for Ivan and went to unsuccessfully throw herself in the Tiber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan went to the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan went to fetch Wanda from the insane asylum after her botched attempt at drowning herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Untamed Women (1952)", "title": "Untamed Women", "date": "1952-09-12", "description": "An American bomber pilot is rescued after drifting at sea during World War II. He tells doctors how he and three of his fellow crash survivors washed up on an island inhabited by dinosaurs and a tribe of Druid-descended cave-women who are being plagued by Neanderthal men intent on kidnapping them for breeding purposes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untamed_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bomber pilots stranded on remote Pacific island with prehistoric women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A tribe of cave-women were intent on keeping a crew of stranded bomber pilots for breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some bomber pilots found themselves stranded on a remote Pacific island that was populated with Amazonian women and prehistoric animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bomber crew with the prehistoric womenfolk and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prehistoric women we descendants of the Druids and maintained their pagan religious traditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bomber crew versus various prehistoric animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bomber pilots washed up on remote Pacific island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bomber pilots washed up on remote Pacific island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bomber pilots washed up on remote Pacific island inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 3000 A.D. (1952)", "title": "3000 A.D.", "date": "1952-10-10", "description": "Two tribes, the \"Norms\" and the \"Mutates\", fighting in the remains of a post- apocalyptic New York City. Original title: Captive Women.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribes fight one another for survival in a post nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribes fight one another for survival in a post nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United Nations was mentioned as an institution for world peace at the beginning of the film, and the Norms and Mutates tribes wished to return to a peaceful world at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Riddon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Norms held a tribal wedding ceremony for Robert and Ruth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devil worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Norms turned to worshiping the devil because they lost faith in God after the nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various Bible stories had been preserved down the ages and told among the tribes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Magnetic Monster (1953)", "title": "The Magnetic Monster", "date": "1953-02-18", "description": "A pair of government officials, called A-Men agents, investigate reports of unusual magnetic activity in various communities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnetic_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "electromagnetic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Howard Denker created a kind of magnetic creature by bombarding the element serranium with alpha radiation for 200 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear research led to the creation of a magnetic creature that posed an existential threat to civilization on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet being flung out of its orbit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The electromagnetic creature was going to knock Earth out from its orbit unless Jeffrey Stewart and his colleagues could destroy it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey Stewart and Connie Stewart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey Stewart and Connie Stewart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey Stewart and his colleagues were running scientific tests on the electromagnetic creature in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie Stewart was four months pregnant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)", "title": "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars", "date": "1953-04-06", "description": "Two men, Lester and Orville, accidentally find themselves aboard a rocketship bound for Mars, or so they think.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello_Go_to_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville find themselves on what they think is a rocketship bound for Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville find themselves on what they think is a rocketship bound for Mars. They later fly to Venus and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville encounter beings they assume to be Martians, although they turned out to be people from New Orleans at Mardi Gras.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville landed on Venus and find it inhabited by a race of beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville landed on Venus and find it inhabited by a race of beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lester and Orville landed on Venus and find it inhabited by a race of beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two escaped prisoners try to steal rocketship in order to escape police pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lester and Orville went through various spacesuit antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lester and Orville used magnetic boots to walk around in zero gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Venusian women had banished men from their society long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Venusian women had discovered a way to maintain their youthful appearances indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orville with the Venusian women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invaders from Mars (1953)", "title": "Invaders from Mars", "date": "1953-04-09", "description": "A boy learns that Martians are taking over the minds of people on Earth as a prelude to invasion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invaders_from_Mars_(1953_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flying saucer from Mars landed on Earth and started abducting people and mind controlling them as a preparation from invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flying saucer from Mars landed on Earth and started abducting people and mind controlling them as a preparation from invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "David tried to tell the adults around him that other people were acting strangely and there was a flying saucer around but nobody would believe him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pending Martian invasion was depicted from the child David's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "David MacLean saw a flying saucer land nearby his house, but none of the adults would believe him. There was also a lengthy scene where David spoke with Dr. Stuart Kelston at length on the UFO phenomenon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone around David became mind controlled by Martians one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians mind controlled Humans, using cranial implants, to help prepare Earth for invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw David doing typical childhood things, like dissecting frogs in science class, and trying to avoid getting captured by Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George MacLean and David MacLean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary MacLean and David MacLean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George MacLean and Mary MacLean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George MacLean and Mary MacLean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David MacLean stayed up past his bedtime to look at the stars with his telescope from his bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer from Mars landed on Earth and started abducting people and mind controlling them as a preparation from invasion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Phantom from Space (1953)", "title": "Phantom from Space", "date": "1953-05-15", "description": "Government investigators arrive in the San Fernando Valley after what appears to be a flying saucer crash, causing massive interference with tele-radio transmissions. During their investigation, they receive eyewitness reports of what appears to be a man dressed in a bizarre outfit, which appears to be radioactive and thus a public threat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crashed flying saucer, which some dismissed as a meteor or missile, in the San Fernando Valley resulted in a manhunt, uncovering a humanoid from outer space who is invisible without his spacesuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien that was invisible without its spacesuit crashed its spaceship in the San Fernando Valley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An invisible humanoid alien what could not breathe Earth's atmosphere visited the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flying saucer crashed in the San Fernando Valley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien's spacesuit was found and scientifically examined by a team of scientists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Four Sided Triangle (1953)", "title": "Four Sided Triangle", "date": "1953-05-27", "description": "Dr. Harvey, a rural physician, breaks the fourth wall to relate an unusual occurrence that happened in his village.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Sided_Triangle" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "matter duplicator", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Leggat and Robin Grant invented a machine, called the Reproducer, that can exactly duplicate physical objects", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Leggat at Lena Maitland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Leggat make a duplicate of Lena Maitland and called her Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Leggat loved Robin Grant's wife Lena, so he made a duplicate of her for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Leggat and Robin Grant were developing a machine that could duplicate physical objects in their workshop-like laboratory. Dr. Harvey and Bill Leggat experimented with the duplication of animals using their machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Leggat and Robin Grant wished for all humankind to use the Reproducer for good, but others pointed out how it could be used to duplicate atomic bombs and other harmful physical objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin Grant and Lena Maitland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin Grant and Lena Maitland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin Grant and Lena Maitland held their wedding to the chagrin of Bill Leggat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Leggat had a secret crush on Lena Maitland.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It Came from Outer Space (1953)", "title": "It Came from Outer Space", "date": "1953-05-27", "description": "An astronomer and his fiancée who are stargazing in the desert when a large fiery object crashes to Earth. At the crash site, he discovers a round alien speculative spaceship just before it is completely buried by an overhead landslide. When he tells this story to the local sheriff and newspaper, he is branded a crackpot. Before long, strange things begin to happen, and the tide of disbelief turns hostile.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronomer John Putnam is stargazing in the desert when an alien spaceship crashes to Earth, but people dismiss his story a flying saucer tall tale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Putnam and Ellen Fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Putnam and Ellen Fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Putnam told others he found a crashed spaceship and an alien but nobody would believe his story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien had the ability to shapeshift into human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should John Putman trust in the aliens when they tell him their intentions are peaceful?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was assumed that the aliens crashed on Earth were Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens did not want to make contact with Humans for fear of being persecuted on account of looking different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronomer John Putnam is stargazing in the desert when an alien spaceship crashes to Earth, but people dismiss his story a flying saucer tall tale.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Twonky (1953)", "title": "The Twonky", "date": "1953-06-10", "description": "A philosophy professor is given a television set with a mind of its own.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twonky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerry West's television, which was called the Twonky, was a robot committed to serving his every need. Eventually it comes to regulate every aspect of his daily life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone controlling your life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerry West's television was regulating nearly every aspect of his life, like choosing the sort of music he listened to and decided when he will be shaved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Kerry West was slowly driven insane by the Twonky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Kerry West and Carolyn West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Kerry West and Carolyn West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coach was convinced that the Twonky had come from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coach was convinced that the Twonky had come from a future where there was one super-state in which Twonkies controlled the lives of all the citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Twonky was able to control people minds and make them serve its purposes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Beast from 20000 Fathoms (1953)", "title": "The Beast from 20000 Fathoms", "date": "1953-06-13", "description": "A fictional dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle. The beast begins to wreak a path of destruction as it travels southward, eventually arriving at its ancient spawning grounds, which includes New York City.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_from_20", "000_Fathoms" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dinosaur is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dinosaur is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans versus a dinosaur that attacked New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Tom Nesbitt and Lee Hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Tom Nesbitt and others who saw the dinosaur only wanted to be taken seriously by those who they told their stories to, but they were generally met with ridicule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dinosaur that attacked New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scientists conducting nuclear weapons tests in the Arctic Circle speculated that nuclear war could spell an end to humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lee Hunter grieved over the death of her mentor Dr. Thurgood Elson after he was lost at sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mesa of Lost Women (1953)", "title": "Mesa of Lost Women", "date": "1953-06-17", "description": "A mad scientist tries to create a race of superwomen by injecting ordinary women with spider venom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_of_Lost_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Aranya was injecting women with spider venom to transform them into superwomen with characteristics like an extended lifespan and limb regeneration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant Phillips and Doreen Culbertson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Aranya was injecting women with spider venom to transform them into superwomen with characteristics like an extended lifespan and limb regeneration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Aranya was injecting women with spider venom in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Aranya wished to create a race of superwomen that he would use to control the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doreen Culbertson had to choose between marrying the businessman Jan van Croft for security in life and following her heart and being with the pilot Grant Phillips.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doreen Culbertson and Jan van Croft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan van Croft was accused of being a coward on the mesa for his behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant and Doreen trekked across a desert to escape Dr. Aranya and his spider-woman creation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Neanderthal Man (1953)", "title": "The Neanderthal Man", "date": "1953-06-19", "description": "Professor Clifford Groves discovers a means to devolve himself into a Neanderthal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Clifford Groves discovers a means to devolve a house cat into a saber tooth tiger and himelf into a Neanderthal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sightings of a saber tooth tiger in the California mountains were dismissed as tall tales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Clifford Groves discovers a means to devolve a house cat into a saber tooth tiger and himelf into a Neanderthal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clifford Groves became obsessed with devolving animals and people and neglected his health and family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Clifford Groves was ridiculed by his colleagues for his radical theory of hominid evolution and it stuck in his craw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clifford Groves and Jan Groves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Oakes explained at the conclusion that Clifford Groves went in science where nobody should venture and suggested that he was mauled nearly to death by a saber tooth tiger as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Clifford Groves discovers a means to devolve a house cat into a saber tooth tiger and himelf into a Neanderthal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clifford Groves was working in his laboratory to developing an extract to devolve animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Clifford Groves specialized in the study of human evolution in the Americas and gave a presentation about his theory to his colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clifford Groves and Ruth Marshall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clifford Groves and Ruth Marshall.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Monster (1953)", "title": "Robot Monster", "date": "1953-06-24", "description": "Robot Monster tells the story of Moon robot Ro-Man's mission to Earth to destroy humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro-man was a robot monster that came from the Moon to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robot monster Ro-Man destroys humanity with his death ray save for eight people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy and Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor and his family were the last people left alive on Earth after the robot monster invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robot monster Ro-Man uses a death ray in an attempt to destroy all humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor was the father of Alice and Carla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor and Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy and Alice were married by The Professor. The Professor and his wife Martha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro-man at Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot monsters sparked a nuclear holocaust on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot monsters sparked a nuclear holocaust on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carla's family members morned for her after she was strangled by Ro-man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro-man was bound by duty to strangle Alice, but he couldn't bring himself to do it on account that he was in love with her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: From Here to Eternity (1953)", "title": "From Here to Eternity", "date": "1953-08-05", "description": "From Here to Eternity is a 1953 American romantic war drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Daniel Taradash, based on the 1951 novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the tribulations of three United States Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed portray the women in their lives. The supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine, Philip Ober, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, Claude Akins, and George Reeves.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Here_to_Eternity" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set on a military base in Hawaii and focuses on the lives of some army men in the lead-up to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot is anchored in two romances. First Sergeant Warden fell passionately in love with Karen, who happened to be stuck in a loveless marriage with Warden's commanding officer. Private Prewitt fell in love with the cabaret girl Lorene, and she returned the sentiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central drama revolves around Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt's refusal to participate in the boxing team despite the many perks that doing so would entail, and despite the immense bullying he was subjected to in order to persuade him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was First Sergeant Warden's inner struggle between becoming an officer to please his love interest, Karen, and remaining an enlisted man. Warden despised the officer class and wanted no part of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a military base in Hawaii and focuses on the lives of some army men in the lead-up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The failed marriage between Captain Dana \"Dynamite\" Holmes and Karen, and her affair with First Sergeant Milton Warden, was a focal point of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The failed marriage between Captain Dana \"Dynamite\" Holmes and Karen, and her affair with First Sergeant Milton Warden, was a focal point of the story. Karen's husband was a well known philanderer as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stubbornness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warden repeatedly lamented Prewitt's hardheadedness that saw Prewitt bullied mercilessly, and that, according to Warden, also got him killed in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "harassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Prewitt and Maggio were tormented by fellow servicemen to an extent that was obviously illegal. Captain Holmes would have been court martialed for letting Prewitt be bullied, had he not agreed to resign instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central drama revolves around Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt's refusal to participate in the boxing team despite the many perks that would entail, and despite the immense bullying he was subjected to in order to persuade him. Prewitt explained that he had inadvertently blinded his buddy in a sparring match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a military base in Hawaii and focuses on the lives of some army men in the lead-up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Private Prewitt was torn up inside over having blinded a man with a right cross. It was for this reason that he had resolved never to box again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prewitt finally stood up to one of his bullies, Sergeant Galovitch, who went a step too far, by humiliating Galovitch in an impromptu bare knuckles boxing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prewitt sought out Judson and stabbed him in revenge for Judson tormenting, and indirectly killing, Prewitt's friend Maggio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prewitt sought out Judson and stabbed him in revenge for Judson tormenting, and indirectly killing, Prewitt's friend Maggio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prewitt went into hiding after he fatally knifed Judson in an alley out of revenge over Maggio's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen lamented that she had become infertile after her disastrous first and only pregnancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Holmes talked variously about hobnobbing with his superiors in order to advance his station in the army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Holmes cared about only one thing regarding his military base, and that was the boxing team. He thought that the boxing team's success would reflect well on himself and the regiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Holmes chided Karen for floating the idea of their getting divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the dead of night, Private Prewitt played a bugle tribute to Maggio with tears streaming down his cheeks. Prewitt's fellow soldiers listened somberly from their quarters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)", "title": "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1953-08-12", "description": "Two American detectives visiting Edwardian London become involved with the hunt for Dr. Jekyll, who is responsible for a series of murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello_Meet_Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll supposed that people have both a good and evil side, and that if we could rid ourselves of our evil sides, then we could make a better world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Adams and Vicky Edwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Adams and Vicky Edwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll at Vicky Edwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tubby was transformed into a mouse-like creature when he drank one of Dr. Jekyll's potions. Dr. Jekyll transformed into a monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll was murderously jealous of Bruce Adams over his love with Vicky Edwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two American detectives visited Edwardian London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could use science to rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll's deranged alter ego Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of women's voting rights advocates were protesting in Edwardian London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vicky Edwards led a women's rights movement in Edwardian England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll and Batley were experimenting with chemicals in their laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll created a drug that when drunk by Tubby transformed him into a mouse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The War of the Worlds (1953)", "title": "The War of the Worlds", "date": "1953-08-13", "description": "Earth is suddenly and unexpectedly invaded by Martians and American scientist Clayton Forrester searches for any weakness that can stop them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1953_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians send an invasion force to Earth to conquer it because their world was dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians send an invasion force to Earth to conquer it because their world was dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins and his niece Sylvia van Buren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was decided to drop an atomic bomb on the invading Martians as a last resort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scientists showed what it was like to see through Martian eyes. They turned out to see everything in shades of green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that God put a bacteria on the Earth that would make the Martians sick and die when the invaded Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I vitelloni (1953)", "title": "I vitelloni", "date": "1953-08-26", "description": "I vitelloni (Italian pronunciation: ; lit. \"The Bullocks/The layabouts\") is a 1953 Italian comedy-drama directed by Federico Fellini from a screenplay by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli. The film launched the career of Alberto Sordi, one of post-war Italy's most significant and popular comedians, who stars with Franco Fabrizi and Franco Interlenghi in a story of five young Italian men at crucial turning points in their small town lives. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy. Recipient of both the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion in 1953, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing in 1958, the film's success restored Fellini's reputation after the commercial failure of The White Sheik (1952).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Vitelloni" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loser character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title of the story translates to \"The layabouts\" and concerns a group of young men with few ambitions or prospects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a group of young men who liked to get drunk, do mischief, and otherwise whittle away the time together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Fausto's attempts to have sex with various women even after he had been forced to marry a young girl he got pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although presumably in their lower twenties, it is clear that Fausto and his group of layabout friends were clinging to their adolescence and resisted taking on the adult responsibilities expected of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fausto chased other women even in the presence of his wife. This was a thread throughout and pertained to the turbulent conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fausto and Sandra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto's father bullied Fausto into marrying the girl Fausto had gotten pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shotgun wedding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto's father bullied Fausto into marrying the girl Fausto had gotten pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto was fired for pursuing his employer's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lazy, clumsy, lewd Fausto did not get along well with his employer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alberto and his sister who ran off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alberto's mother and Alberto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people during and after the masquerade ball. Especially Alberto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto with Alberto after the masquerade ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto pursued his employer's wife Giulia in her shop to her great annoyance. She ended up slapping him for his troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leopoldo had written a play and wanted Sergio to perform it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leopoldo was an aspiring but yet unsuccessful playwright.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leopoldo was horrified when Sergio propositioned him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angry about being fired, Fausto stole an angel sculpture and tried in vain to fence it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fausto and Sandra spent most of the story expecting a baby, which eventually arrived.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)", "title": "Cat-Women of the Moon", "date": "1953-09-03", "description": "Using a spaceship furnished with wooden tables and rolling chairs, a \"scientific expedition\" to the Moon encounters a race of Cat-Women, the last eight survivors of a two-million-year-old civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-Women_of_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition to the Moon encounters a race of Cat-Women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition to the Moon encounters a race of Cat-Women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition is sent to the Moon in a spaceship furnished with wooden tables and rolling chairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition is sent to the Moon in a spaceship furnished with wooden tables and rolling chairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cat-Women were the last eight survivors of a two-million-year-old civilization, and the scientific expedition explored the ruins of their ancient Moon city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cat-Woman civilization had lived inside vast hollowed out spaces inside the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition to the Moon encounters a dying civilization of Cat-Women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cat-Women planned to steal the scientific expedition's spaceship and conquer Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cat-Women subliminally controlled Helen Salinger through the use of their telepathic ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "PS to write comment here", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crew used elaborate spacesuits, equipped with both cigarette and gun holders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Salinger, Laird Grainger, and Kip Reissner. Lambda and Doug Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Salinger, Laird Grainger, and Kip Reissner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atmospheric dissipation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cat-Woman civilization went extinct because the atmosphere of the Moon dissipated away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cat-Women had the ability to teleport within their cavern environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walt Walters was lured by a Cat-Woman to a cave full of gold when she murdered him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project Moonbase (1953)", "title": "Project Moonbase", "date": "1953-09-04", "description": "Set in a future 1970, the United States is considering building bases on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Moonbase" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States had built a space station orbiting the Earth that was vital to national security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mission led by Colonel Briteis to fly around the Moon was undertaken by the United States, but something goes wrong and they end up landing on it and making a base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Briteis (a woman) made the first orbital flight around the Earth and led the first mission to fly around the Moon. The United States president was a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rocketship was used to fly around the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People used magnetic boots to get around on the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Moore and the Doctor Wernher impostor used spacesuits to walk on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Briteis and Bill Moore get married on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Briteis and Bill Moore get married on the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Donovan's Brain (1953)", "title": "Donovan's Brain", "date": "1953-09-30", "description": "An attempt is made to keep alive the brain of millionaire megalomaniac W.H. Donovan after an otherwise fatal plane crash. But the brain has other ideas and begins to possess people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan%27s_Brain_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory devised a way to keep Donovan's disembodied brain alive in a tank outside of their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory became obsessed with understanding the workings of Donovan's disembodied brain, and Janice Cory and Frank Schratt urged him to stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory became obsessed with understanding the workings of Donovan's disembodied brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brain of Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory kept Donovan's brain alive after he was pronounced dead in a plane crash, and the brain slowly transfered the essence of Donovan into Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donovan's brain telepathically controlled Patrick Cory into taking measures to prevent the government from taxing its fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory and Janice Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory and Janice Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brain of Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mind in William H. Donovan's disembodied brain partially transferred itself into the brain of Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick Cory became obsessed with experimenting on Donovan's disembodied brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick Cory experimented with transplanting brains in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brainwaves", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick Cory studied the brainwaves of Donovan's disembodied brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Cory and others questioned ethics of Patrick Cory for his experiments on both monkeys and Donovan's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William H. Donovan's disembodied brain sent telepathic messages to Patrick Cory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William H. Donovan's son despised him for having been a ruthless man in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William H. Donovan's daughter despised him for having been a ruthless man in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yocum was blackmailing Patrick Cory over having illegally taken Donovan's brain from his dead body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tokyo Story (1953)", "title": "Tokyo Story", "date": "1953-11-03", "description": "Tokyo Story (東京物語, Tōkyō Monogatari) is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama. It tells the story of an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. The film contrasts the behavior of their children, who are too busy to pay them much attention, with that of their widowed daughter-in-law, who treats them with kindness.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shukichi and Tomi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shukichi, Koichi, Keizo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tomi, Koichi, Keizo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shukichi, Shige, and Kyoko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tomi, Shige, and Kyoko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story showed how two parents found disappointment in their childrens' moral character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shukichi and Noriko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shukichi and Noriko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the contrasting ways in which people handled the death of Tomi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shukichi mourned his wife Tomi during the latter half or so of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story was a commentary on how this cherished Japanese value has been eroded in modern times, perhaps because of Western influences", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around the death of Tomi, and the various family members’ reactions in the aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the grandparents met their cranky grandchildren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the grandparents met their cranky grandchildren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "second son went missing in the war and comments were made about bombings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shukichi was accused of being to fond of drinking, or had been so in the past at any rate", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Riders to the Stars (1954)", "title": "Riders to the Stars", "date": "1954-01-14", "description": "Three astronauts set out to investigate the composition of meteors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_to_the_Stars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mission to fly to space in a rocket and collect a meteor is undertaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry Lockwood and Susan Manners. Jane Flynn and Richard Stanton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three manned rocketships are designed to fly on a meteor collection and return mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald Stanton worried his son Richard Stanton would be selected to go on perilous mission to space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts ventured into space in three one-man rockets to collect meteors from a passing meteor storm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Killers from Space (1954)", "title": "Killers from Space", "date": "1954-01-23", "description": "A nuclear scientist claims he was abducted by aliens after being injured in a plane crash.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killers_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Douglas Martin claimed he had been abducted by aliens after being injured in a plane crash. The abducting aliens describe how Humans had cited them in their saucer shaped ships on numerous occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Douglas Martin claimed he had been abducted by aliens after being injured in a plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens used nuclear tests conducted by the American military to breed an army of giant insects that they planned to use to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear tests being performed by scientists results in the unintended consequence of allowing aliens to breed an army of giant insects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth to conquer it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas Martin and Ellen Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens invaded other planets once their dun began to die and live on their home world became impossible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens planned to conquer Earth and inhabit it because their sun was dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen Martin worried that her husband Douglas Martin was working himself too hard at the military base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas Martin encountered a giant spider, grasshopper, lizard, and cockroach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas Martin encountered a giant spider, grasshopper, lizard, and cockroach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lie detector", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used a lie detector gadget to determine that Douglas Martin was lying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens mind controlled Douglas Martin to make him steal classified military documents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Douglas Martin about his story of being abducted by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas Martin and Ellen Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans sited aliens in their saucer shaped ships.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)", "title": "Creature from the Black Lagoon", "date": "1954-02-12", "description": "A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence from the Devonian period that provides a direct link between land and sea animals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Reed and his team discovered a living fossil (the Creature) that was a direct link between sea living and land living animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Reed was driven by a desire to understand the evolution of land animals from fish by studying both living creatures and fossils.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Reed and his team versus the creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kay Lawrence and David Reed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Williams became obsessed with taking the creature dead or alive and returning with it to the institute as proof of the existence of the cryptid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sansho the Bailiff (1954)", "title": "Sansho the Bailiff", "date": "1954-03-31", "description": "Sansho the Bailiff (山椒大夫, Sanshō Dayū) (known by its Japanese title in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 1954 Japanese period film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori Ōgai, which in turn was based on a legendary folklore, it follows two aristocratic children who are sold into slavery.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sansho_the_Bailiff" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "father's last words were of mercy, Sansho was merciless, his son Taro showed mercy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story demonstrated the inhumanity of slavery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zushio and Anju", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sansho and Taro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sansho and adult Zushio especially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "sister for brother; brother for old woman; brother sacrificed his status by freeing slaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw the miserable lives of people who were slaves their whole lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zushio reacts to the deaths of his sister, father, and mother in turn. HIs emotions are at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tamaki and Zushio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tamaki and Anju", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we briefly saw interaction between Sansho and some of his slaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tamaki and maid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anju killed herself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Seven Samurai (1954)", "title": "Seven Samurai", "date": "1954-04-26", "description": "Seven Samurai (Japanese: 七人の侍, Hepburn: Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai drama film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story takes place in 1586 during the Sengoku Period of Japanese history. It follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven rōnin (masterless samurai) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw the farmer's lot in medeival japan as bands of desperate banits raided their villages for food; we saw people fearful of being killed; we saw people dying pitifully", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw that when people cooperated they became strong and when they did not, disaster followed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the distinctions between the warrior caste and peasant caste were central to the story - we saw how people of different castes could not really understand each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "we were constantly reminded of how samurai and peasats saw the world differently; to some extent also the ronin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "the ronin threat forced the farmers to cooperate and seems to have brought them closer to each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the film was taken up with fortifying the village in preparation for the raid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw time and again how Kikuchiyo's pride lead to trouble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kikuchiyo variously struggled to fit in with samurai and farmers but seemed ill at ease in either world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both peasants and warriors held prejudices against the opposite class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kikuchiyo felt after he abandonded his post and several people died as a consequence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kikuchiyo felt after he abandonded his post and several people died as a consequence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "everyone had to work hard to prepare, and then to defend, the village", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "everyone had to work hard to prepare, and then to defend, the village", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katsushiro and Shino", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shino and Manzo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katsushiro with Shino", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shino pursued Katsushiro who was likely a virgin, later they both felt shame", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Devil Girl from Mars (1954)", "title": "Devil Girl from Mars", "date": "1954-05-02", "description": "A female alien commander is sent from Mars to acquire human males to replace their dying male population, thereby saving Martian civilization from extinction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Girl_from_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female alien commander, Nyah, was was sent from Mars to acquire human males to replace their dying male population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The male population on Mars became impotent and the Martian women sought to acquire Human males to replace the dying Martian male population in an effort to save Martial civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian Nyah planned to conquer the Earth and take the Human males back to Mars for breeding purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nyah came to Scotland from Mars in a flying saucer. The professor dismissed the flying saucers as meteors or fallen engine cowlings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Justin and Doris. Ellen Prestwick and Michael Carter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Convicted murdered Robert Justin successfully sabotaged Nyah's flying saucer, sacrificing himself to save Earth from the Devil Girl from Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Justin was on the run from the law and was hiding out at his lover Doris' country inn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyah controlled a robot which she used to vaporize things in order to demonstrate her power to the people at the country inn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyan took the professor on a tour inside her flying saucer ad explained its workings and capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyah's flying saucer was powered by a perpetual motion machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyah came to Scotland from Mars in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954)", "title": "Monster from the Ocean Floor", "date": "1954-05-21", "description": "Julie Blair is an American vacationing at a seaside village in Mexico. She hears stories about a man-eating creature dwelling in the cove. She meets Dr. Baldwin, a marine biologist, and they fall for one another. The mysterious death of a diver inspires Julie to investigate, but Baldwin is very skeptical. She sees a giant amoeba rising from the ocean.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_from_the_Ocean_Floor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear tests in the Bikini Island tests were thought to have stirred up an ancient amoeba-like creature on the sea floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant amoeba-like sea creature, which looked a lot like a one-eyed octopus, was killing people in and around a seaside village in Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant amoeba-like sea creature, which looked a lot like a one-eyed octopus, was killing people in and around a seaside village in Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Dunning and Julie Blair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Dunning and Julie Blair versus the giant creature on the sea floor. Julie Blair encountered a giant octopus and a shark on the sea floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie Blair was obsessed with finding the alleged sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear tests in the Bikini Island tests were thought to have stirred up an ancient amoeba-like creature on the sea floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Dunning explained that overpopulation would force us to have to produce food under the sea or face destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The locals tried to offer Julie Blair to the creature so that the monster would leave them in peace.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gog (1954)", "title": "Gog", "date": "1954-06-05", "description": "An electronic brain is programmed to sabotage the government's secret lab while working on the first space station.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret government lab was working on building the world's first space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "NOVAC controlled Gog and Magog, two huge mobile robots with multiple arms, powerful gripping tools, and other implements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "An electronic brain, the Nuclear Operative Variable Automatic Computer (NOVAC), went out of control and took measures to sabotage the building of a space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David Sheppard and Joanna Merritt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robots Gog and Magog attempt to trigger a nuclear explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The danger of the spread of nuclear secrets was recurrently discussed, such as the possible implications of someone having scribbled out the formula for the hydrogen bomb on a cafeteria napkin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun gun", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret government lab was working on putting a mirror in space that could concentrate the sun's rays enough to burn up a city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People we performing astonishing acrobatic feats in a low gravity room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Them! (1954)", "title": "Them!", "date": "1954-06-16", "description": "A nest of gigantic irradiated ants is discovered in the New Mexico desert; they quickly become a national threat when it is discovered that two young queen ants and their consorts have escaped to establish new nests.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!_(1954_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lingering radiation from the first atomic bomb detonation led to the unintended consequence of the creation of national security threatening gigantic irradiated ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lingering radiation from the first atomic bomb detonation led to the creation of gigantic irradiated ants that threatened to make Humans go extinct within a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans versus gigantic irradiated ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lingering radiation from the first atomic bomb detonation led to the creation of gigantic irradiated ants that threatened to make Humans go extinct within a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lingering radiation from the first atomic bomb detonation led to the creation of gigantic irradiated ants that threatened to make Humans go extinct within a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gigantic irradiated ants proliferated around the site of an atomic bomb detonation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Medford and Pat Medford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Medford wondered allowed whether the coming of the gigantic irradiated ants was not in fulfillment of biblical prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Military officials decided to keep the existence of the gigantic irradiated ants secret from the public for as long as possible to avoid a mass panic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Crash of Moons (1954)", "title": "Crash of Moons", "date": "1954-07-10", "description": "Rocky Jones attempts to save the inhabitants of Ophiuchus, a planet about to collide with a moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_of_the_Moons" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A moon was on a collision course with the planet Ophiuchus and the United Worlds helped the inhabitants evacuate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trinka struggled over whether to obey an order to destroy the inhabited moon on a collision course with her home world Ophiuchus, but ultimately chose not to do it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Queen Cleolanta was too proud to participate in the United Worlds organized evacuation from her planet in the lead up to a moon colliding with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A space station was in danger of being taken out by the passing Gypsy Moons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocky Jones was flying around in a stereotypical 1950s style rocketship. A fleet of rocketships were used to evacuate the inhabitants of Ophiuchus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bavarro and Katanda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bavarro and Katanda were raising a baby prince.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla (1954)", "title": "Godzilla", "date": "1954-07-10", "description": "American nuclear tests in the Pacific stirs up a dinosaur-like monster that makes a B-line for Tokyo.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1954_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla symbolizes nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and has since been culturally identified as a strong metaphor for nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific ocean stir up a giant dinosaur-like monster that makes a B-line for Tokyo. Daisuke Serizawa was convinced that the technology he invented to transform oxygen into food would be surely weaponized if he ever revealed it to the public, and he initially refused to allow it to be used to kill Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daisuke Serizawa was convinced that the technology he invented to transform oxygen into food would be surely weaponized if he ever revealed it to the public, and he initially refused to allow it to be used to kill Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific ocean result in the creation of a giant dinosaur-like monster that makes a bee line for Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla was believed to have been a dinosaur-like creature from the Jurassic age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A professor gave a presentation where he advanced a hypothesis that Godzilla was a relic from the age of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla attacks Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific stirred up a prehistoric dinosaur-like monster that make a B-line for Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hideto Ogata and Emiko Yamane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A debate about notifying the public about the danger of the monster was had at a government meeting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kyohei Yamane and Emiko Yamane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Daisuke Serizawa was in his laboratory conducting experiments on his oxygen destroyer invention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emiko Yamane breaks off her engagement Daisuke Serizawa because she is in love with Hideto Ogata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emiko Yamane had to choose between marrying her fiancée Daisuke Serizawa and the man she loved Hideto Ogata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisuke Serizawa sacrificed himself to ensure Godzila's destruction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: On the Waterfront (1954)", "title": "On the Waterfront", "date": "1954-07-28", "description": "On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The black-and- white film was inspired by \"Crime on the Waterfront\" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption among longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Waterfront" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the mob boss Johnny Friendly, leader of the longshoremen's union on the waterfront of Hoboken, New Jersey. He maintained an iron grip on dock work, and those that displeased him could find themselves out of work, beaten up, and even killed. He met his downfall when some locals, Terry Malloy and Father Barry in the forefront, found the courage to stand up to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mob boss Johnny Friendly was a tyrant who dominated the waterfront of Hoboken, New Jersey. He met his downfall when some locals, Terry Malloy and Father Barry in the forefront, found the courage to stand up to him. Terry Malloy became a rallying point around which longshoremen united to stand up to Johnny Friendly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mob boss Johnny Friendly had the waterfront area of Hoboken, New Jersey, under his thumb because he instilled fear in its residents. The story follows Terry Malloy, and to a lesser extent Father Barry, as they found the courage to stand up to him. The dockworker who was killed for testifying against Johnny knew well the mortal danger he had put himself in by standing up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central focus of the story is Terry's internal struggle over whether to follow his conscience and testify against his patron the mob boss Johnny Friendly, who had ordered for a good man to be shoved from a rooftop. He felt duty-bound to be loyal to Johnny Friendly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central focus of the story is Terry's internal struggle over whether to follow his conscience and testify against his patron the mob boss Johnny Friendly, who had ordered for a good man to be shoved from a rooftop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry Malloy and Edie Doyle courted and fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Barry tried to make people stand up to the mob boss Johnny Friendly and his goons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the outset, Johnny Friendly's goons murdered Joey Doyle because he was going to testify against Johnny in court. Likewise, a dockworker who Father Barry convinced to testify was murdered in an orchestrated dockyard accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Catholic church was woven into the fabric of the Hoboken, New Jersey, waterfront neighborhood in which the story unfolded. In particular, Father Barry invoked the example of Jesus as he persuaded the longshoremen to stand up to the mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officials connected with the Waterfront Crime Commission were investigating a corrupt longshoreman's union that was being run by the mob boss Johnny Friendly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfront of Hoboken, New Jersey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Barry and Edie Doyle wanted to see the mob boss Johnny Friendly be brought to justice for having had Edie's brother shoved off of a rooftop to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Friendly answered to accusations in court and faced indictment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry Malloy was a former prizefighter. In his view, he \"coulda been a contender\" had he not been compelled to throw a key fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edie's father had devoted himself to ensuring she'd gotten a good education, and he hoped that this would be her ticket to the right side of the tracks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry Malloy revealed that his career had been cut short when he purposely lost a fight at the request of mob boss Johnny Friendly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley was killed by the mob for protecting his younger brother, Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blinded by rage, Terry swore to avenge his brother Charley's murder after lifting his lifeless body from the hook where it had been left hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blinded by rage, Terry swore to avenge his brother Charley's murder after lifting his lifeless body from the hook where it had been left hanging. He later confronted the mob boss Johnny Friendly on the docks, but ended up taking a bad beating for his trouble.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rear Window (1954)", "title": "Rear Window", "date": "1954-09-01", "description": "Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story \"It Had to Be Murder\". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.", "collections": [ "Collection: Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that two people become witnesses to what they think may be a murder, and they must seek conclusive proof without getting noticed by the killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a man who had murdered his abusive wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff nearly developed cabin fever while being consigned to a wheel chair in his Chelsea flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff's peeping on his neighbors with a high power lens skirts the line of propriety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and Lisa are the two protagonists of the plot, and an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story hinged on whether Jeff's mostly circumstantial evidence was enough to arrest the man or search his flat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa was clearly besotted with Jeff, who in turn was somewhat ambiguous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One neighbor's pet pooch was brutally slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Lonelyhearts appeared about to kill herself by taking pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police appear in the end and arrest Thorwald. Tom Doyle, a NYC police detective, was also in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thorwalds was fed up with his bedridden and domineering wife, or so it looked like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff reported an assault to the police in order to save Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against property", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was arrested for trespassing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "During the suspenseful conclusion of the story, Jeff desperately sought to save himself as he knew Thorwalds was on his way over to get rid of Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed briefly that either Jeff or Lisa had dumped the other, Jeff having discussed doing so earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff and Lisa's relationship was going nowhere because of incompatible careers and life styles. They were on the verge of breaking up when events interceded to rekindle their passion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman screamed in distress when she saw her dog had been killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tobor the Great (1954)", "title": "Tobor the Great", "date": "1954-09-01", "description": "Dr. Ralph Harrison resigns his government post in protest against the inhumane treatment being inflicted upon spaceship pilots. His colleague, Professor Nordstrom, develops an alternative: a robot that he names \"Tobor\", which soon becomes a friend and playmate to Harrison's young son, Gadge. Tobor is stolen by enemy agents, and only the two scientists' and Gadge's psychic link with the robot can save it from being reprogrammed and used for evil purposes against the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobor_the_Great" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nordstrom built a robot to fly the world's first spaceship because it ended up being too dangerous for humans in his estimation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nordstrom builds a robot named Tobor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gramps and Gadge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear powered multistage rocketship was being developed to explore the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Harrison resigned his post in protest against the inhumane treatment being inflicted upon spaceship pilots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reporter urged Ralph Harrison and Professor Nordstrom to release classified government information to the public for the public good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multistage rocket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear powered multistage rocketship was being developed to explore the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Harrison and Gadge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Roberts and Gadge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gramps and Janice Roberts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gramps and Gadge were kidnapped and held against their will by some villains.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: La strada (1954)", "title": "La strada", "date": "1954-09-06", "description": "La strada (lit. '\"The Road\"') is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini from his own screenplay co-written with Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano. The film tells the story of Gelsomina, a simple-minded young woman (Giulietta Masina) bought from her mother by Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a brutish strongman who takes her with him on the road.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Strada" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sensitive and naïve Gelsomina was starkly contrasted with the brutish and streetwise Zampanò.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zampanò and Gelsomina were itinerant performers who temporarily worked for a traveling circus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "A good portion of the story revolved around Zampanò and Il Matto's fervent loathing of each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gelsomina became somewhat besotted with Zampanò even though he mistreated her badly. She seemed to think she could change him. Zampanò came to realize he had recipricating feelings only after Gelsomina was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gelsomina and Zampanò had a peculiar relationship going on and variously felt tenderness for or sought to escape from the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end we understand that Gelsomina and Zampanò had both come to feel some sort of love for each other, but that it lead them to their respective ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zampanò became depressed after he learned that Gelsomina had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gelsomina took a tearful farewell of her impoverished mama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gelsomina left her mother to make her own way in the world working for Zampanò.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gelsomina acted jealous after Zampanò had spent a night with some loose woman, perhaps a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zampanò wanted revenge on Il Matto for various tricks the latter had played on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zampanò killed Il Matto in a fit of rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story took a turn after Zampanò killed Il Matto, having intended only to give him a bloody nose.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Snow Creature (1954)", "title": "The Snow Creature", "date": "1954-11", "description": "A botanist finds the Abominable Snowman of Tibet and ships him to Hollywood.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Creature" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Abominable Snowman is discovered in Tibet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Expedition team captured the Abominable Snowman and returned with it to Holloywood where it summarily escapes and runs amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Yeti", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Abominable Snowman is discovered in Tibet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An expedition team trekked around the Himalaya mountains.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Target Earth (1954)", "title": "Target Earth", "date": "1954-11-07", "description": "A small group of people overlooked during a mass evacuation of \"the city that never sleeps\", carried out because of a sudden invasion by hostile robotic beings believed to be from the planet Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Earth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora King and Frank Brooks, and a few other stragglers, woke up from their various circumstances to find their city completely abandoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth is attacked by hostile robotic beings believed to be from the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth is attacked by hostile robotic beings believed to be from the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth is attacked by hostile robotic beings believed to be from the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora King and Frank Brooks. Jim Wilson and Vicki Harris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora King felt she had nothing to live for and tried to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)", "title": "20000 Leagues Under the Sea", "date": "1954-12-23", "description": "A film adaptation of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20", "000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1954_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo and Arronax explored the ocean depths together in the high-tech submarine the Nautilis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo built a super high-tech submarine to explore the ocean depths among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arronax, Ned Land, and Conseil were held captive aboard the Nautilus by Nemo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo harbored a deem resentment of humankind, and sunk ships with his submarine when the opportunity arose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo was against sharing his revolutionary energy production technology with humankind for fear it would be used for war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo hated humankind over having been treated with inhumanity in his early life (also his wive and child had been murdered), and he sought ought vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The US government organized a naval expedition to investigate reports of a sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The US government sends a naval expedition to destroy a supposed sea monster that turned out to be Nemo's submarine. Also there was a battle with a giant squid and a tense encounter with a shark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo, Arronax and others donned diving suits to go on a hunt on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo kept a pet seal which he was rather fond of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned Land was disgusted by the delicacies from the sea that Nemo had had prepared for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned Land put his life at risk to make his way off the submarine with treasure that Nemo was using as ballast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo brought Arronax to a slave island to show him man's inhumanity to man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stranger from Venus (1954)", "title": "Stranger from Venus", "date": "1954-12-31", "description": "A flying saucer is seen in the sky above the countryside by various eyewitnesses, including an American woman driving in her car.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_from_Venus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flying saucer is sighted in the English countryside which precipitates a first contact scenario with Venusians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien from Venus, known only as The Stranger, visits an inn in the English countryside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Venusians make a first contact with Humans on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stranger from Venus came to Earth because the development of nuclear weapons there endangered life on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stranger warned of the dangers of nuclear war to the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Walker and Susan North.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Walker and Susan North. The Stranger and Susan North.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stranger explained how Venusians communicated with one another telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government put a news block on reporting about a Venusian landing on Earth to avoid causing a public panic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet being flung out of its orbit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stranger explained how the asteroid belt used to be the home of two or three planets that had been destroyed when one of the planets there moved out of its orbit owing to the detonation of nuclear bombs there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The British government wished to gain knowledge of Venusian magnetic propulsion technology so they could fly about the planets in outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer is sighted in the English countryside which precipitates a first contact scenario with Venusians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Trouble with Harry (1955)", "title": "The Trouble with Harry", "date": "1955", "description": "The Trouble with Harry is a 1955 American Technicolor black comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes was based on the 1950 novel by Jack Trevor Story. It starred Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, Jerry Mathers and Shirley MacLaine in her film debut. The Trouble with Harry was released in the United States on September 30, 1955, then re-released in 1984 once the distribution rights had been acquired by Universal Pictures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Albert, Jennifer, and Ivy each at a time thought they were responsible for the death of Harry. The entire plot hinges on what to do with the unfortunate corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert and Ivy were smitten with each other. Sam and Jennifer agreed to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennifer explained how she loathed her second late husband, and told briefly of her first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obstruction of justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the protagonists trying to quietly get rid of Harry's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a painter and we saw him variously at work, explaining his work, and selling his paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and Jennifer agreed to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of remarks were somewhat risque in the context of its times: Sam mentioned he wanted to paint Jennifer in the nude. He later ordered a double bed for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer and Arnie. Mrs. Wiggs and Calvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs showed up now and then to make trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam explained things about art a couple of times and in a jovial or perfunctory manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a life-changing stroke of good fortune", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had a life changing stroke of good fortune when a millionaire became obsessed with his paintings and offered to buy all of them, the price be damned. Sam, alas, choose not avail himself fully of the opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poaching", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As shooting was forbidden on the land, Albert was hunting there illegally. Albert was an enthusiastic hunter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: To Catch a Thief (1955)", "title": "To Catch a Thief", "date": "1955", "description": "To Catch a Thief is a 1955 American romantic thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes based on the 1952 novel of the same name by David Dodge. The film stars Cary Grant as a retired cat burglar who has to save his reformed reputation by catching an impostor preying on the wealthy tourists of the French Riviera.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John has to clear his name by uncovering the real culprit after a copycat burglar makes it seem like John had returned to his thieving old ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was a retired cat burglar, and one of the best. Danielle was impersonating him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Frances fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police appeared now and then.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people can change", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that John had changed from his thieving old ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was a veteran from World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Foussard was killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Revenge of the Creature (1955)", "title": "Revenge of the Creature", "date": "1955-03-23", "description": "The creature from the Black Lagoon is captured and exhibited to the public in an aquarium.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Creature" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creature was assumed by scientists to be a member of a living fossil species that had become isolated in prehistoric times and stopped evolving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creature's captors versus the creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creature was held captive in an aquarium from its point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clete Ferguson and Helen Dobson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Clete Ferguson and ichthyology master's student Helen Dobson were studying the extent to which the creature was intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Dobson and her pet German Shepherd named Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Dobson considered whether to settled down and get married or continue to pursue her scientific career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Dobson felt sorry for the creature while it was held in captivity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Marty (1955)", "title": "Marty", "date": "1955-04-11", "description": "Marty is a 1955 American romantic drama film directed by Delbert Mann in his directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay, which was broadcast on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse and starred Rod Steiger in the title role.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is Marty Piletti and his attempts to find a wife despite being rejected time after time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the two lonely hearts Marty Piletti and Clara Snyder hitting it off and then falling head over heels in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty and Clara each thought the other reasonably attractive, no matter what others said. To that point, Marty said to Clara: \"So you see, you're not such a dog as you think you are\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "At first Marty was pressured by various people to find himself a wife, which caused him mental anguish as he's suffered rejection time and again. When he finally hit it off with Clara, his friends and relatives for various reasons took exception and tried to bully him into calling it off. The story concludes with Marty, stoically, resolving to pursue Clara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty was a middle aged man who was living at him with his mother. The social pressure he was under to find a wife was the source of much anxiety for Marty, and it caused him to nearly break down into tears at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty and his mother, Mrs. Teresa Piletti, were central characters. A conflict arose between them when Teresa took a dislike to Marty's new love interest, Clara, and tried to get him to stop seeing her. Thomas regretted forcing his abrasive mother, Catherine, to move in with her sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "A part of the story concerns Mrs. Piletti let her abrasive old sister, Aunt Catherine, move in with her an Marty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty's buddy Angie became grumpy at Marty when Marty showed interest in spending time with Clara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty was an aging bachelor with seemingly little prospect of finding someone to settle down with. Marty's mother Mrs. Piletti and aunt, Catherine, lamented that \"these were the worst years\" because their husbands were gone and their sons increasingly didn't need them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two lonely hearts Marty and Clara hitting it off and then falling in love. Clara confided in Marty that she was \"afraid of being lonely\". Teresa characterized her sister, Catherine, as \"a lonely old lady\" who nobody wanted around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty wrestled with whether to risk taking out a loan to buy his boss' butcher shop. Though Marty thought he could make a go of it, he was wary that the increasing presence of large grocery store chains in the neighborhood might ultimately drive him out of business. Clara was torn over whether to accept an offer to be a department head the high school where she was teaching chemistry. She was reluctant to accept the position because she liked being in the classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two lonely hearts Marty and Clara being down because they were both too unattractive to find life partners. In fact, both Marty and Clara hinted that they had contemplated suicide. When they met, however, they hit it off and soon fell head over heels in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Catholic church was woven into the fabric of the Italian American neighborhood in which the story is set. For example, attending Sunday mass was a way of life and Catholic teaching set an expectation for getting married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty spoke of his parents' relationship. Tommy and Virginia got into a huge spat over what to do about Thomas' meddlesome mother, Catherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Catherine had a fight with her daughter-in-law Virginia, and went, reluctantly, to live with her sister Mrs. Piletti and Marty instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angie was jealous at Marty and Clara. At first Angie was bent out of shape over Marty not being there to pal around with. Later, Angie was jealous over Marty having found love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty discussed his dreams of buying the butcher where he worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three of Marty's buddies were ogling a girlie magazine at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas and Virginia were at each their wits end over Thomas' mother's meddlesome presence in their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The college graduate Clara's liberated view that mothers ought to have sources of fulfillment in life beyond their children were highly disturbing to Teresa, an elderly Italian American immigrant, and left Teresa feeling unsettled and threatened.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Conquest of Space (1955)", "title": "Conquest of Space", "date": "1955-04-20", "description": "The first interplanetary flight to the planet Mars, manned by a crew of five, and launched from Earth orbit near The Wheel, mankind's first space station. On their long journey to the Red Planet, they encounter various dangers, both from within and without, that nearly destroy the mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space station, named The Wheel, is used for launching a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first interplanetary flight to the planet Mars is undertaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samuel T. Merritt and his son Barney Merritt participate in the first mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was necessary to go to Mars to seek out more natural resources for Earth. Sargent Imoto explained that Japan went to war seeking out resources for his small country, and he didn't want to same thing to repeat itself on a global scale in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was necessary to go to Mars to seek out more natural resources for Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Samuel T. Merritt slowly goes dangerously insane from space fatigue on mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of five astronauts flew a land and return rocketship to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney wished to be with his lover on Earth, rather than command a mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of five sent to Mars were trained to sustain themselves on a variety of food pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts floated around in the spaceship on the way to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts used magnetic boots to keep from floating around on the ship on the way to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samuel T. Merritt reads the Bible on spaceflight as his doubts about the righteousness of the mission grow. Snow falling on Mars on Christmas Day was also seen as a Christmas miracle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew of five astronauts celebrated Christmas Day on Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla Raids Again (1955)", "title": "Godzilla Raids Again", "date": "1955-04-24", "description": "A ferocious battle between Godzilla and a radioactive Ankylosaur leaves Osaka ravaged.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_Raids_Again" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and the radioactive Ankylosaur were believed to have been a living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and the radioactive Ankylosaur were believed to have been a living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the introductory narration, the possibility of hydrogen bombs being used to destroy the Earth was described.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the introductory narration, the film was described as what progress brings to the little nation of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and a radioactive Ankylosaur wreak havoc in Osaka.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shoichi Tsukioka and Hidemi Yamaji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bride of the Monster (1955)", "title": "Bride of the Monster", "date": "1955-05-11", "description": "A mad scientist tries to create a race of atomic supermen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_the_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Vornoff was once ridiculed over his theories about using atomic power to create a race of atomic supermen, and was filled with hatred and contempt for his former peers, and resolved to create that race of atomic supermen and rule the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Vornoff plotted to create a race of atomic supermen and use them to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Vornoff uses atomic power to create a race of atomic supermen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet Lawton was kidnapped and held against her will by Dr. Eric Vornoff and his mute henchman Lobo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet Lawton and Lt. Dick Craig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet Lawton and Lt. Dick Craig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff tried to create a race of atomic supermen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An atomic super-octopus was set loose on Professor Strowski and two hunters. Dick Craig was attacked by a crocodile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Strowski speculated that the supposed monster terrorizing the local community was a prehistoric creature and drew a comparison with the Loch Ness monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: This Island Earth (1955)", "title": "This Island Earth", "date": "1955-06-10", "description": "A race of aliens who, in recruiting humans for a group called \"Peace Engineers\", are actually using Earth as a pawn in an intergalactic war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orchestrated asteroid bombardment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zagons were directing meteors toward Metaluna in an effort to destroy civilization the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exeter assured Cal Meacham that his organization, a group called the Peace Engineers, was working in the interest of world peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exeter assembled a team of geniuses to develop a more powerful source of nuclear energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cal Meacham were held against their will by Exeter at his mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cal Meacham and Ruth Adams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Metalunans flew around in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The interocitor functioned as a video communication device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Metalunans took Cal Meacham and Ruth Adams on a trip to visit their homeworld Metaluna in their flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Exeter explained how they used artificial gravity on their flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Metalunans were forced to move their cities underground once the Zagons began bombarding their planet with meteors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Metalunans bred insectoid aliens to perform menial work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Metalunans flew around in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small airplane was drawn into a Metalunan flying saucer by a visible and audible tractor beam that engulfed the entire aircraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)", "title": "The Beast with a Million Eyes", "date": "1955-06-15", "description": "A space alien that is able to see through the eyes of a large array of Earth life that it can also mentally control, part of its plan to conquer the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol and Allan became convinced that strength in unity, and staying together, was the key to defeating the alien, and that separated and alone they were nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien used some kind of device to mind control animals and people in an effort to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious object crashed nearby the isolated Kelley family date ranch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien communicated with Carol and Allan telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A powerful telepathic lands near the Kelley family farm and tried to take over EArh by mind controlling everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allan Kelley and Carol Kelley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allan Kelley and Sandy Kelley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol Kelley sometimes hated her daughter Sandy Kelley and was envious of her youth and ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Kelley killed Sandy Kelley's pet dog Duke with an ax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy Kelley was shocked upon discovering her mother had killed her pet dog Duke with an ax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allan Kelley and Carol Kelley.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: King Dinosaur (1955)", "title": "King Dinosaur", "date": "1955-06-17", "description": "Four astronauts in 1960 travel to a planet called Nova that has just entered Earth's solar system and find there a prehistoric world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Dinosaur" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four astronauts discover a dinosaur living on the planet Nova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four astronauts discover a dinosaur living on the planet Nova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph Martin and Patricia Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of four astronauts explored a planet that was inhabited by dangerous prehistoric reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four astronauts must survive on a planet inhabited with menacing prehistoric animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A habitable planet enters the solar system and takes orbit about the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship capable of visiting planet Nova is constructed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship capable of visiting planet Nova is constructed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)", "title": "It Came from Beneath the Sea", "date": "1955-07", "description": "A gigantic atomic octopus attacks the San Fransisco Bay Area.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_from_Beneath_the_Sea" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The testing of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific stirred up previously unknown species of giant octopus' that was posed a threat to the Pacific west coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The testing of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific stirred up previously unknown species of giant octopus' that was posed a threat to the Pacific west coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant octopus was assumed to be a previously unknown species, perhaps the kraken of lore, that was forced to rise to the surface in the wake of hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant atomic octopus threatens the North American Pacific coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant atomic octopus threatens the North American Pacific coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lesley Joyce and Pete Mathews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lesley Joyce was an independent minded scientist who stood up to the men around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete Mathews volunteered to go on a perilous dive to place explosives on the giant octopus in an attempt to save his submarine and San Fransisco from destruction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)", "title": "Creature with the Atom Brain", "date": "1955-07-01", "description": "An American gangster forces a mad scientist to create zombies by resurrecting corpses through atomic radiation in order to help him exact revenge on his enemies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_with_the_Atom_Brain_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gangster boss Frank Buchanan wishes to use radio-controlled, atomic powered zombies to get revenge on his enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are shown that atomic research can be directed toward the nefarious end of creating radio-controlled, atomic powered zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Wilhelm Steigg reanimated the dead using atomic power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Chet Walker risked life and limb to put an end to Buchanan's atomic-powered, radio-controlled zombies' killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chet Walker and the police took on some atomic zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilhelm Steigg experimented in his laboratory on reanimating the dead using atomic power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chet Walker and Penny Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joyce Walker and Penny Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chet Walker and Joyce Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chet Walker and Joyce Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Wilhelm Steigg reanimated the dead using atomic power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Night of the Hunter (1955)", "title": "The Night of the Hunter", "date": "1955-07-26", "description": "The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton, and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same title by Davis Grubb. The plot focuses on a corrupt minister-turned-serial killer who attempts to charm an unsuspecting widow and steal $10,000 hidden by her executed husband.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_Hunter_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-rottentomatoes-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "evil can come in the guise of good", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed the point of the story was to caution that the vilest of people may come in the guise of the good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed the point of the story was to caution that the vilest of people may come in the guise of the good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The reverend pretending to be good showed himself as evil and was contrasted with the exceptionally benign and responsible Rachel Cooper, who defeated him soundly at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Pearl were at the center of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was hanged for murder. Harry killed numerous people in his hunt for the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa and Ben indirectly; Willa and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Powell was a self proclaimed preacher of the fire-and-brimstone variety. It was later revealed that this was all facade the better to lure his gullible, pious victims in and part them from their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "a self-proclaimed reverend was the main antagonist and kept preaching fanatically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Birdie and John", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "the kids struggled to keep the money secret from Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was particular was covetous of the $10,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Harry refused to make love to his new wife and complained about lasciviousness in general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry yakked on about all the affronts he perceived to God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and John; Ben and John", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Pearl; Ben and Pearl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben had robbed a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "uncle Birdie clearly had a problem with alcohol; others were chastised as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was wicked and false; he was bested by Rachel who was notably virtuous and true", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Half Human (1955)", "title": "Half Human", "date": "1955-08-14", "description": "An expedition team encounters the abominable snowman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Human" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An abominable snowman is discovered on Mount Fuji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mountain expedition team are terrorized my the abominable snowman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Yeti", "level": "major", "motivation": "An abominable snowman is discovered on Mount Fuji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Machiko Takeno and her brother on the expedition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The abominable snowman and its child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shinsuke Tanaka went on the expedition to look for his missing brother Takeno.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)", "title": "The Quatermass Xperiment", "date": "1955-08-26", "description": "Three astronauts are launched into space aboard a rocket designed by Professor Quatermass, but the spacecraft returns to earth with only one occupant, Victor Carroon. Something has infected him during the spaceflight, and he begins mutating into an alien organism which, if it spawns, will engulf the Earth and destroy humanity.", "collections": [ "Collection: Quatermass" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quatermass_Xperiment" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Carroon begins to mutate into an alien organism after having ventured into outer space in a rocketship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Carroon is infected during a spaceflight, and he begins mutating into an alien organism which, if it spawns, will engulf the Earth and destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dangerous plant-like alien organism was inadvertently brought back to Earth after a manned spaceflight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The British launched a manned mission into space in a rocketship that crash landed in England after having lost contact with mission control for 56 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The British launched the first manned mission into space in Human history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Carroon and Judith Carroon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pather Panchali (1955)", "title": "Pather Panchali", "date": "1955-08-26", "description": "Pather Panchali (Bengali translation: Song of the Little Road) is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name and is Ray's directorial debut. It features Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta and Chunibala Devi. The first film in The Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and the harsh village life of their poor family.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pather_Panchali" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern India", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in rural Bengal around 1910 and follows the lives of some more or less ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Apu's family was very nearly broke and their poverty was much the cause of Durga's death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harihar and Sarbajaya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu and Durga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarbajaya, Indir and Durga were variously accused of stealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how Indir had trouble finding welcome and was chased off by Sarbajaya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harihar and Sarbajaya mourned the death of their son Durga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu was torn up over the death of his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film focused much on the experiences of youngsters Durga and Apu as they played or faced challenges of childhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harihar wanted to be a poet and a playwright, but could barely make ends meat by working as a pujari priest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Durga accused of stealing a necklace, wrongfully or so we were lead to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarbajaya with Indir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone worried about Durga when she became sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarbajaya mistreated Indir because she mooched but was in the end reduced to much the same situation herself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Il bidone (1955)", "title": "Il bidone", "date": "1955-09-09", "description": "Il bidone (, \"The Drum \"; also known as The Swindle or The Swindlers) is a 1955 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It features Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_bidone" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned a gang of Italian swindlers who used elaborate schemes to trick peasants into handing over their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlo and Iris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augusto and his estranged daughter Patrizia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Augusto and Carlo were both questioning their criminal ways and wrestling with their consciences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlo clearly saw the error of his criminal ways, and we thought that Augusto at least pondered the question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberto pick-pocketed a cigarette case. Cars were stolen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlo was called Picasso and dabbled in painting, but not at a level he could likely sustain himself doing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augusto, Carlo, and Roberto were a tight knit gang who liked to kick back together, at least for some part of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augusto was arrested by some police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The con men were seen twice to impersonate high ranking clerics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was injured and far away from help", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Augusto getting so beaten up that he can't move, and then left to his fate in the wilderness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Augusto trying to cheat his fellow gang members out of the profits from a con job.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x01", "title": "Revenge", "date": "1955-10-02", "description": "While Carl is at work, his wife Elsa is apparently attacked and left traumatized. Later, driving in town, Elsa points out a man as her attacker, so an enraged Carl kills him in his hotel room. But moments later, Elsa, still mentally disturbed, identifies another man as her attacker.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Samuel Blas, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Carl exhibited the eponymous theme: vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Elsa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elsa was the victim of an assault that left her traumatized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elsa was somewhere between neurotic and catatonic after her assault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl beat an innocent man to death with a wrench while trying to avenge his wife's assault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A.H. denounced Carl's actions as vigilantism in the after-word.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man who had assaulted Elsa had demanded money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl was much concerned for Elsa who had had a nervous breakdown, and was then assaulted and nearly killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Else said she had been a ballerina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elsa explained that she had had a nervous breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl made a point to leave home early to ensure that he wouldn't show up late for his first day at the new plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives showed up to investigate Elsa's assault.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x02", "title": "Premonition", "date": "1955-10-09", "description": "Kim returns home to the U.S. from four years in Paris, hoping to reunite with his estranged father. He learns that his father died four years ago, a fact that his brother and sister-in-law did not tell him. Kim suspects foul play, but eventually learns that he is the one who killed his father, and he has been in a mental hospital for four years; his memories of Paris are just a delusion.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kim was so distressed at having killed his father that he had a total breakdown and had to be committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim's return to the family home came as an unwelcome surprise to his brother Perry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim returned to his hometown to see his father only to discover that he'd murdered the man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim was distressed when he learned of his father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand at the end that Kim's \"premonition\" amounts to him thinking he might be as crazy as he in fact is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim felt regret at not having made things up with his father, and later at having killed his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim had killed his own father during an argument and his brother had helped cover up the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim's family members, in addition to the family lawyer, kept secret from Kim that he'd killed his own father and then suppressed the memory of having done so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim was so distressed at having killed his father that he had a total breakdown and had to be committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kim was so distressed at having killed his father that he'd completely suppressed any memory of having done the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kim and his brother's wife Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were snide remarks made about the inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg was said to have died of a heart attack on the tennis court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk about Greg's hunting activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Perry and Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kim paid a visit to the family lawyer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x03", "title": "Triggers in Leash", "date": "1955-10-16", "description": "Cowboys Red and Dell meet in old Maggie's roadhouse and threaten a shoot-out. Maggie does her best to negotiate a peace, eventually convincing them to only shoot each other when the clock strikes. When the clock mysteriously stops, the men take it to be a sign from God and leave peacefully. The light-hearted ending is enhanced by an explanation of why the clock stops.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Allen Vaughn Elston, Dick Carr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was a standoff between two young cowboys who wanted to kill each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red challenged Dell to a duel owing to the fact that Dell had previously made a fool out of Red at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red wanted to kill Dell in a duel for Dell having made a fool of him at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neither Red nor Dell would back down from engaging from a pointless duel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red and Dell were vying to show who among them was the faster draw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red and Dell got into a life or death quarrel over a game of poker gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red called out Dell for employing cowardly tactics in a drunken bar fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red and Dell made up in the end and rode back to town together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned from the narrator that Red and Dell survived their impending duel only to have both succumbed the very next day from food poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opportune chronometer malfunction was seen as a sign from God that the duel should be abandoned (alas it was a clever womanly trick).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with food poisoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were told that Red and Dell died from food poisoning.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x04", "title": "Don't Come Back Alive", "date": "1955-10-23", "description": "Financially strapped couple Frank and Mildred Partridge scheme to have Mildred \"disappear\" for seven years and declared legally dead in order to collect Frank's insurance pay-off. Insurance investigator Mr. Kettle suspects that Frank killed Mildred, and his constant hounding of Frank means that the couple cannot be in contact with each other. The night before the seven years is up, Frank is visited by Mildred, who has moved on with life, and she declares that she wants a divorce and an end to the scheme. In a rage, Frank kills her and buries her in his garden. The next day Kettle apologizes to Frank for his assumption, and offers to help him with his garden.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Robert Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank and Mildred hatched an elaborate plot to defraud their life insurance company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and Mildred Partridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Kettle was convinced that Frank had killed his wife, as in the end he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A happily married couple resolved to spend seven long years apart as part of a plot to pull off a life insurance fraud scheme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank and Mildred were low on cash to the extent that they thought they would lose their house and insurance, and be destitute in old age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was a little taken aback to be accused of murder when all he did was insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Just as they were nearly in the clear, Mildred said she wanted a legal divorce instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As a token of apology for having incorrectly suspected Frank of killing Mildred, Mr. Kettle started digging where he had once dug before and found nothing. By an ironic twist of fate, Frank had in fact killed and buried Mildred there just the other night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank and Mildred were on the verge of being evicted from their home on account of being behind on their mortgage payments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x05", "title": "Into Thin Air", "date": "1955-10-30", "description": "Paris, 1899. British Mrs. Winthrop and her daughter Diana are on their way home via France, and check into a Paris hotel. Mrs. Winthrop is suddenly ill, and the hotel doctor sends Diana to his home for medicine. When Diana returns, the front-desk clerk and other hotel employees claim to have no recollection of her, nor is there any record that the Winthrops were ever there. Diana goes to the embassy, where her story is believed only by Basil Farnham. Diana and Basil demand to see the room, which is very different from Diana's description, but Diana rips off the wallpaper, proving that there is a conspiracy at hand. The cover-up is revealed to have been set in place by the French government, because Mrs. Winthrop, who is now dead, had the bubonic plague. Based on the Legend of the Vanishing Lady.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Diana returned to her hotel she found that the people there inexplicably did not remember her at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Winthrop and Diana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story took place at a hotel and many of the characters were employed there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diana worried about her mother who was gravely ill and seemed to have vanished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diana worried about her mother who was gravely ill and seemed to have vanished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diana was adamant about having previously been at the hotel but the hotel staff gave every indication that they'd had no prior contact with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the plague", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Winthrop had succumbed to the bubonic plague, we learned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diana was chastised for insisting on facts that implied a ridiculous conspiracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Winthrop was briefly attended to by a physician.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x06", "title": "Salvage", "date": "1955-11-06", "description": "Lois expects ex-con Dan to kill her as revenge for her causing his brother's death. Dan is surprised when Lois refuses to put up a fight, and seemingly has a change of heart. He offers her a business deal, and Lois sets up a boutique, which after months of hard work is launched successfully. Dan also convinces Lois's ex-boyfriend, Tim, to reconcile with her. Lois, now happy and full of life, expresses her gratitude, but Dan reveals that he did all of it so that Lois would not want to die, and that now he can kill her with satisfaction.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Fred Freiberger, Fred Freiberger & Dick Carr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lois believed Dan wanted revenge for his brother's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan was angry because of his brother's killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lois loved her ex-boyfriend Tim even though it was clear that Tim had long ago moved on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lois thought Dan was out to kill her at the start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lois told off a drunk guy at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan got no satisfaction out of killing a suicidal person so he made Lois happy first, then unexpectedly slew her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan was angry because of his brother's killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Lois had betrayed Dan and his brother during some sort of heist in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lois said she'd probably jump off a bridge anyway if Dan didn't kill her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x07", "title": "Breakdown", "date": "1955-11-13", "description": "Movie producer Mr. Callew fires a long-time employee on the phone and scoffs at his crying. Callew later gets into a car accident and is completely paralyzed. He is assumed to be dead and is ignored by everyone, and only gets the mortician's attentions with his tears.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Louis Pollock, Francis Cockrell & Louis Pollock.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Callew became comatose due to a car accident, except that his mind worked - the point of the story was to make us imagine what this might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hard-hearted business man Callew learned the value of having compassion toward others after he found himself paralyzed from head to toe in the wake of an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The devoted company man Mr. Hubka was devastated upon being summarily laid off over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thieves stripped Callew's car and body after the accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Callew and his colleague callously cut Mr. Hubka from the payroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Callew twice spoke of feeling lonely while lying in a come-like state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Callew and his colleague callously cut Mr. Hubka from the payroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A coroner came to inspect what he thought to be Callew's dead body, although it turned out that Callew was still alive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x08", "title": "Our Cook's a Treasure", "date": "1955-11-20", "description": "With a serial-murderer maid on the loose in the city, Ralph becomes suspicious of his and his wife Ethel's housemaid, Mrs. Sutton. When Ralph gets violent cramps at work, he has his home cocoa analyzed, and it turns out to contain arsenic. Ralph initially blames Mrs. Sutton, until he learns that the serial murderer has been caught. However, Mrs. Sutton confesses to him her unhappiness at having had to lie for Ethel, who is having an affair. Ethel, unaware of what Ralph has learned, offers him a cup of cocoa that she made for him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Dorothy L. Sayers, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "poison murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was premised on the idea that a serial poison murdering maidservant was on the loose, and we learned much about arsenic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was premised on the idea that a serial poison murdering maidservant was on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is implied that Ethel tried to poison Ralph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph accidentally uncovered that his wife was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph and Ethel Montgomery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph fired his housekeeper Mrs. Sutton after he became convinced that she was a serial murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be a wine taster in the intro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Sutton was falsely accused of being a poison murderess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethel was said to have suffered from insomnia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist performed a chemical analysis on Ralph's hot cocoa to check for the presence of arsenic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "They showed how certain substances, in this case arsenic, can be identified by the color of its flame when burned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tarantula (1955)", "title": "Tarantula", "date": "1955-11-23", "description": "A giant tarantula wreaks havoc in the Arizona desert.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "People versus a giant tarantula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant tarantula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Gerald Deemer worried that the Earth was becoming overpopulated and without and inexpensive nutrient people would go hungry in vast numbers, so he researched about making giant animals to feed people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super growth therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Gerald Deemer developed a radiation-based serum that made animals that were injected with it grow to enormous proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Gerald Deemer experimenting with growing giant animals in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephanie Clayton didn't meet expectations of some men around her because she was a female scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Hastings and Stephanie Clayton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Gerald Deemer developed a radiation-based growth serum that had adverse effects on Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Gerald Deemer developed a radiation-based growth serum that had adverse effects on Humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x09", "title": "The Long Shot", "date": "1955-11-27", "description": "Heavily indebted Charlie Raymond answers a newspaper ad placed by Walker Hendricks, who wants a companion for his road trip to San Francisco. During their journey, Charlie learns that Walker is on his way to claim an inheritance from a family that he has never met. Charlie kills Walker and takes his identity to present himself at the lawyer's office. There he is met by a policeman, who informs him that the real Walker Hendricks was killed much earlier, and the man that he had killed was English Jim, another con man who had also been after the inheritance.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie plotted to impersonate Walker in order to fraudently claim a $200,000 inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie plotted to impersonate Walker in order to fraudently claim a $200,000 inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie killed a conman impersonating Walker. Later we learned that the real Walker had been killed by the conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie had run up a $4,200 gambling debt that he was hard pressed to pay off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie had gambled himself deep into debt, $4,200 to be precise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was being coerced into paying a $4,200 gambling debt to some gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie and Walker discussed old memories of London and SoHo in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was about to pilfer a few hundred dollars from Walker's briefcase, but got wind of something better.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Day the World Ended (1955)", "title": "Day the World Ended", "date": "1955-12", "description": "A heroic scientist together with a small band of other survivors must face off against a mutant monster following an atomic war that appears to have destroyed human civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_the_World_Ended" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A atomic war spells and end for civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A atomic war spells and end for civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Maddison and Louise Maddison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven people led by Jim Maddison were faced with having to rebuild civilization after a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rick and Louise Maddison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven people led by Jim Maddison seemed to be the only ones left on Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "People and animals evolved at a super accelerated rate after being exposed to radiation from nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "People exposed to radiation mutated into a new race of super monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "People exposed to radiation mutated into a new race of super monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A atomic war spells and end for civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear fallout made a race of super monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony at Louise Maddison. Ruby at Tony.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Phantom from 10000 Leagues (1955)", "title": "The Phantom from 10000 Leagues", "date": "1955-12", "description": "A professor experiments with atomic power on the ocean floor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_from_10", "000_Leagues" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor King's experiments with atomic power in the ocean have the potential to trigger a chain reaction and probably mutated life there into monstrous forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor King's experiments with atomic power in the ocean have the potential to trigger a chain reaction and probably mutated life there into monstrous forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor King and Lois King.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ted Stevens and others against the radiation induced sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ted Stevens and others against the radiation induced sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor King worried that his secretary might commit treason by selling knowledge of King's atomic discovery to an enemy state.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x10", "title": "The Case of Mr. Pelham", "date": "1955-12-04", "description": "Albert Pelham has a paranoid suspicion that he has a double who is slowly taking over his life, and is better at it. Pelham varies his schedule and buys a one-of-a-kind tie in the hopes of catching his double off-guard. When Pelham returns home, his double is already there, and they are seen together by Pelham's manservant Peterson (Watson). The double points out that Pelham is wearing an unusual tie, and when Peterson accepts that this means Pelham is the impostor, Pelham has a breakdown.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Anthony Armstrong, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Pelham had a doppelgänger who was slowly taking over Mr. Pelman's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Pelham had a doppelgänger who was slowly taking over Mr. Pelman's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Pelham variously thought something was wrong with him, or that he had a mischievous double - others clearly thought he was behaving oddly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first Albert was proclaimed mad by the second Albert, and it seemed like the typical gradual process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Pelham and his manservant Peterson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Pelham was explaining his strange predicament to a doctor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x11", "title": "Guilty Witness", "date": "1955-12-11", "description": "Stanley and Dorothy Crane live in the apartment below volatile couple Amelia and Ben Verber, and often hear them fighting. After a particularly loud fight, Ben mysteriously vanishes, and Dorothy pushes Stanley to find out more. Despite his skepticism, Stanley helps Sgt. Halloran's investigation. They eventually discover that Amelia killed and hid Ben's body in the basement, and the reason the fight got so out of hand was because Ben was about to leave Amelia — for Dorothy.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Morris Hershman, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Amelia killed her husband Ben after she found out he planned to leave her for her neighbor Dorthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amelia and Ben often fought violently.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stanley and Dorothy Crane. Amelia and Ben Verber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amelia and Ben came to think that Amelia had murdered her husband after they heard them violently fighting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was a serial adulterer we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was snooping around about Ben's disappearance and possible murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Amelia murdered Ben after he told her he was going to divorce her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x12", "title": "Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid", "date": "1955-12-18", "description": "Disgruntled ex-con Harold Sears is hired as a department store Santa thanks to his parole officer, Clementine Webster. Sears loathes the job but his attention is caught by a cynical poor boy who wants an expensive toy and believes that Santa is unable to give it to him. Sears steals the toy to give it to the boy for Christmas. Sears is caught by the police, but Webster understands Sears' intent and has the charges dropped.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Margaret Cousins, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "kindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After acting Santa for a while, Harold actually became a kindly and charitable man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After acting Santa for a while, Harold actually became a kindly and charitable man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold was hired to be a department store Santa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how a repeat offender on parole was treated by society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold would rather do time than deal with the spoiled and cranky children in the department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lectured by Clementine, the ex-con Harold reluctantly straightened up his act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clementine took Harold's pay on Christmas because she knew he wouldn't resist the temptation to blow it all on booze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy who was fascinated with a fancy toy airplane expressed a desire to become a pilot when he grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold stole a fancy toy airplane to give to a boy in need at the risk of violating his parole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x13", "title": "The Cheney Vase", "date": "1955-12-25", "description": "Lyle Endicott worms his way into the good graces of Martha Cheney, a rich, invalid woman with a penchant for sculpture. Lyle hopes to obtain her Cheney vase, which will fetch a high price on the market. Lyle methodically cuts Martha off from the world in the hopes that she will die. When Lyle's girlfriend warns the authorities about his plan, Lyle rushes to Martha's gallery to take the vase, but discovers that Martha has been working on dozens of copies of the vase, and now he is unable to identify the correct one.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Robert Blees.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle underhandedly endeared himself to a wealthy, old invalid in an effort to get his hands on her expensive antique vase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle seduced women and used them to his own ends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha was wheelchair-bound and had to rely on Lyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle and Pamela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha was an accomplished maker of clay sculptures and Cheney vase replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle was notably avaricious in his efforts to acquire the Cheney Vase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle wormed his way into Martha's good graces whereupon he began secretly stage managing her life so that he could get his hands on her expensive antique vase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyle was fired for loafing off on a fine day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyle's boss fired him for taking time off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyle's girlfriend reluctantly went along with his scheme but moralized and hesitated each step of the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha and her longtime housekeepers Bella.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)", "title": "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "date": "1956", "description": "The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1956 American suspense thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The film is Hitchcock's second film using this title, following his own 1934 film of the same name but featuring a significantly different plot and script.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone dangerous was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The McKenna family got caught up with some clandestine warfare and found themselves the targets of foreign agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the clandestine activities of agents of other countries in both Morocco and Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jo were the married protagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jo wanted to save her son Henry from kidnappers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin wanted to save his son Henry from kidnappers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of terrorists kidnapped Henry in order to coerce Benjamin and Jo not to reveal what they new about an assassination plot to the British authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story lead up to an attempted, but foiled, assassination of the British prime minister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jo spent most of the story trying to save their son, Henry, from kidnappers that threatened to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In Morocco, Benjamin encountered various local habits that seemed strange to him and which resulted in humorous situations. In particular, he had trouble eating with only three fingers and no cutlery, as is allegedly the custom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Fall (1956)", "title": "The Fall", "date": "1956", "description": "Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of dramatic monologues by the self-proclaimed \"judge-penitent\" Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects upon his life to a stranger. In what amounts to a confession, Clamence tells of his success as a wealthy Parisian defense lawyer who was highly respected by his colleagues; his crisis, and his ultimate \"fall\" from grace, was meant to invoke, in secular terms, The Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clamence talks about immortality and death a lot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nihilism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there is no objective truth in this world and God is dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "young Clamence desires fame", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clamence is patently vain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clamence reflects on his womanizing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contempt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clamence feels a lot of contempt for this and that", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story centered on Clemance who had been a lawyer and, in between philosophical musings, explains his career in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "old Clamence laments he cannot achieve", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story centered on Clemance who had been a lawyer and, in between philosophical musings, explains his career in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "car incident at p34", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x14", "title": "A Bullet for Baldwin", "date": "1956-01-01", "description": "When middle-aged Mr. Stepp is suddenly fired, he shoots his boss Baldwin. Stepp is surprised when Baldwin is at work the next day as though nothing happened. Baldwin's partner, King (Reed), convinces Stepp that he hallucinated the shooting, but King has actually hired a look-alike actor named Davidson to take Baldwin's place in order to close an important deal. King and Davidson agree to stage Baldwin's \"death\" later, and in order to close all possible leaks, King forces Stepp to retire. In retaliation, Stepp shoots and kills King.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Joseph Ruscoll, Eustace and Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Stepp first shot Baldwin dead, and then King.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "major", "motivation": "King hired a look-alike actor named Davidson to take Baldwin's place in order to close an important deal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "King manipulated Mr. Stepp into thinking that he'd hallucinated himself shooting Mr. Baldwin dead. In fact, Mr. Stepp had done the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Stepp was fired (and then he fired).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Stepp. King and Mr. Stepp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Stepp briefly put a gun to his head as if he were going to blow his brains out before thinking better of it and taking out his boss instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad luck signs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cleaner told Mr. Stepp that opening an umbrella inside gives you bad luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King subtly suggested to Mr. Davidson that he was romantically involved with Mr. Baldwin's wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x15", "title": "The Big Switch", "date": "1956-01-08", "description": "Gangster Sam Dunleavy wants to murder his ex-girlfriend, Goldie, so he has his friend Barney arrange for him the perfect alibi. Barney has it staged as though he and Sam are playing a game of poker in Barney's back room. Sam sneaks out successfully, but is unable to kill Goldie when she claims that she is pregnant. When Sam returns to Barney's backroom, Barney has accidentally shot himself, and Sam is arrested for murder.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Cornell Woolrich, Richard Carr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was premised on the idea that with a false alibi, you can get away with murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam wanted to kill the girlfriend who ran out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam plotted to kill the girlfriend who ran out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "After an elaborate plot to get away with murder, Sam's intended alibi accidentally shot himself and Sam was booked for a murder he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the gangster stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a stereotypical low-level gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam spoke notably to his bird and cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police lieutenant dropped by to check up on Sam and ask him to leave Chicago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam took mercy on Goldie when he heard about her supposed baby's name.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x16", "title": "You Got to Have Luck", "date": "1956-01-15", "description": "Sam Cobbett has just broken out of prison and enters the house of Mary Schaffner while her husband is away. Cobbett makes Mary cook for him, dismiss her neighbors when they come by, and pretend that everything is okay over the phone when her mother calls. Cobbett believes that he can take his time, but the police suddenly arrive to arrest him. They were tipped off by Mary's mother — Mary is deaf and should not have answered the phone.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: S. R. Ross, Eustace & Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mary was terrorized in her home by an escaped prisoner while her husband was away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mary was at the mercy of a renegade and desperate criminal who threatened her in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police launched a manhunt for Sam after he broke out from the state penitentiary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Mary was deaf all along, and that she'd gotten by reading lips.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary feared for her life at times while the escaped convict Sam held her captive in her own home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and David Schaffner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were on a manhunt for a prisoner who'd escaped from the state penitentiary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary was coerced into shooing away her next door neighbor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x17", "title": "The Older Sister", "date": "1956-01-22", "description": "Based on the Lizzie Borden murders, and set one year after Lizzie was acquitted for the murder of her parents. Ambitious reporter Nell Cutts barges into the home of the Borden sisters Lizzie (Mathews) and Emma in the hopes of an exclusive interview. Cutts' aggressive questioning causes Emma distress, but it turns out that Emma killed their parents, and Lizzie was merely trying to protect her.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Lillian de la Torre, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "patricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lizzie was accused of having killed her father but it was Emma who did the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lizzie was accused of having killed her mother but it was Emma who did the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lizzie covered up her sister Emma having ax murdered their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lizzie and Emma's parents had been murdered a year prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reporter Nell Cutts was seeking an exclusive interview with the Border sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lizzie and Emma discussed that they hated their wicked parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lizzie broke the law in order to cover for Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nell asked if there was a history of insanity in the family. In the end, we saw that Emma was more than a little bit neurotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lizzie's cat had also been brutally slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lizzie and Emma spoke of their late father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lizzie and Emma explained that they had loathed their stepmother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Warning from Space (1956)", "title": "Warning from Space", "date": "1956-01-29", "description": "Starfish-like aliens disguised as humans travel to Earth to warn of the imminent collision of a rogue planet and Earth. As the planet rapidly accelerates toward Earth, a nuclear device is created at the last minute and destroys the approaching world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Starfish-like aliens traveled to Japan in the form of human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear device is created to destroy a rogue planet that was on a collision course approaching with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A starfish-like alien took on the form of a Human female and lived among Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "UFO sitings preceded that arrival of the starfish-like aliens on Earth. Dr. Kamura was initially skeptical that the UFOs were actually flying saucers, but he eventually accepted them as such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world joined forced and approved a Japanese plan to use nuclear weapons to deflect Planet R from its collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Matsuda was developing an explosive more powerful than the hydrogen bomb for peaceful purposes, but the alien in Human form destroyed his notebooks and told him it would be used for war. It the end it was used to Planet R from its collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the starfish aliens was transmuted into the Human woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility was raised that the aliens had come as conquerors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elder Dr. Itsobe and Dr. Toru Itsobe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien in the form of a Human female was able to pass through doors without opening them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Counter-Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens revealed they were from a planed, named Paira, hidden on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Matsuda refused to sell his formula for a super-explosive to an unscrupulous businessman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georges Bonnet and Pierre Gerard were both romantically interested in Janine Dubois.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Georges Bonnet keep on killing women and extracting their glands in order to maintain his youth or let himself age at a natural rate? Georges' old frien Prof. Ludwig Weiss urged him to age naturally, but he didn't follow the professor advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georges Bonnet didn't publish his discovery about how to achieve immortality because it would result in the world becoming overpopulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pierre Gerard considered it an offense against God to perform a life-extending surgery on Georges Bonnet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Georges Bonnet died in agony from rapid aging.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x18", "title": "Shopping for Death", "date": "1956-01-29", "description": "Clarence and Elmer are retired insurance agents, and hope to use their years of experience to save people that they believe will die soon. Clarence has his sights of Mrs. Shrike, a boorish alcoholic who he believes has a death wish. They try to advise her to change her life and fix her house, but this just causes her to lash out. As the pair leave, they see Mrs. Shrike's husband return home, and she is killed soon afterward.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Shrike had a short fuse and was giving everyone in the neighborhood a hard time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired insurance agents Clarance and Elmer took it upon themselves to use their experience to help reckless people from endangering themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired insurance agents Clarance and Elmer took it upon themselves to use their experience to help reckless people from endangering themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Shrike repeatedly lashed out at people in anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man either fell or leapt to his death from a hotel room window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The neighborhood people were sweating out a hot summer day. It was mentioned how the hot weather was making people more angry than they would otherwise be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Mrs. Shrike's husband rushing home to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Mrs. Shrike's husband rushing home to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk about how people could get murdered. Someone might have been pushed out of a window a the onset. The butcher looked at Mrs. Shrike with murder when he grabbed the knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Shrika was a particularly disagreeable customer at the butcher and the grocer alike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Shrika was nagging the neighborhood people over a variety of issues.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Gamma People (1956)", "title": "The Gamma People", "date": "1956-01-30", "description": "A train passenger car carrying a reporter and his photographer mysteriously breaks away from its locomotive, accidentally ending up on a remote sidetrack in Gudavia, an isolated Ruritanian-style, one-village Eastern Bloc dictatorship. The newsmen discover a mad scientist using gamma rays to turn the country's youth into either geniuses or subhumans, all at the bidding of an equally mad dictator.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gamma_People" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Wilson and Howard Meade find themselves in an isolated Eastern Bloc dictatorship of Gudavia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bronski experimented with making child prodigies using gamma rays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Wilson and Howard Meade were trapped in the isolated Eastern Bloc dictatorship of Gudavia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Wilson and Howard Meade, among other people, were terrorized by zombies created by Dr. Boronski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Boronski created zombies using gamma radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Boronski's gamma ray treatment produced scores of subhuman children for every child prodigy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Boronski was experimenting with gamma rays in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike Wilson and Howard Meade were two friends traveling together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike Wilson and Howard Meade were initially assumed by the Gudavians of being spies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Boronski was convinced that gamma rays focused on the brain accelerated Human evolution by a million years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)", "title": "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "date": "1956-02-05", "description": "An extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical characteristics, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. Little by little, a local doctor uncovers this \"quiet\" invasion and attempts to stop it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spacefaring plants", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod plants fell on Santa Mira and began to replace the townspeople with replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alien plant spores have fallen from space grown into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The doctors in Santa Mira were reluctant to belive people who were certain their family members were somehow different. People were reluctant to believe Miles Bennel's incredible story of aliens infiltrating a small Californai town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles Bennell and Becky Driscoll notice the people of Santa Mira turning strange one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles Bennell and Becky Driscoll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod planet replaced the people of a town with replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Dan Kauffman explained away people in Santa Mira asserting their family members impostors as mass hysteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stanley Driscoll and Becky Driscoll", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x19", "title": "The Derelicts", "date": "1956-02-05", "description": "Businessman Ralph Cowell kills his silent partner, Alfred Sloane, in order to avoid paying what he owes. The murder is witnessed by vagrant Peter J. Goodfellow, who picks up Sloane's cigarette case with the IOU inside, and uses it to blackmail Cowell. Goodfellow and his friend Fenton Shanks move into Cowell's home, much to the disgust of Cowell's wife, Herta. After months of Goodfellow and Fenton living with them and pawning almost everything in the Cowell home, Cowell is able to find the IOU and burn it. Goodfellow and Fenton leave, but soon afterward a policeman arrives with a pawn ticket signed by Cowell for Sloane's cigarette case, tying Cowell to the Sloane murder.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Terence Maples, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ralph was being blackmailed by a vagrant who'd witnessed Ralph murder a business partner in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph and Herta Cowell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph's beautiful wife Herta was ready to pack up and leave the moment it became apparent that he could no longer bankroll her lavish lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph was so hard up for money that he couldn't afford to pay up when his silent business partner came knocking. Later, two vagrants nearly blackmailed Ralph into the poorhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The businessman Ralph murdered his investor Alfred in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph was briefly shown running his successful company from his office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenton's vice was gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's vice was the drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph and Herta had to put up with two blackmailing bums who took up residence with them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x20", "title": "And So Died Riabouchinska", "date": "1956-02-12", "description": "Detective Krovitch investigates the murder of juggler Luke Ockham in a theater. His suspicions fall on John Fabian, a ventriloquist with a fixation on his female dummy, Riabouchinska. Riabouchinska, seemingly acting independent of Fabian's control, insists on telling Krovitch the truth that Fabian killed Ockham, because Ockham threatened to expose Fabian and Riabouchinska's love affair to the world. Riabouchinska declares she can no longer love Fabian and stops moving, while Fabian is arrested by Krovitch.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Ray Bradbury, Mel Dinelli.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John's obsession with his dummy was clearly to the detriment of his marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A police detective was hot on Fabian's trail over the murder a juggler in a theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some on stage and some behind the scenes goings on at a comedy club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating the murder of a juggler in a theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fabian murdered Ockham because Ockham threatened to expose Fabian's love for a ventriloquist's doll to the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the professional ventriloquist Fabian's pathological love for a ventriloquist's doll. We saw Fabian perform his ventriloquist act on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dummy Jerry used to perform his ventriloquist act may have been inhabited by the mind of his former assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Alice Fabian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fabian's wife confessed to being jealous of his female ventriloquist's dummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice confessed having turned to another man for love in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x21", "title": "Safe Conduct", "date": "1956-02-19", "description": "American journalist Mary Prescott is traveling on a train out of the Iron Curtain when she is befriended by local celebrity Jan Gubak. Mary agrees to carry a luxury watch for Gubak, but during the customs inspection Gubak turns her in to officers for smuggling luxury items. Mary is arrested, but released soon after when the watch is discovered to be fake. Mary learns that Gubak is part of the underground resistance, and the charade was to enable Gubak to smuggle sensitive microfilm out of the country. Gubak gives Mary the microfilm and urges her to write the truth about his country.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Andrew Solt.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw an idea of the Orwellian conditions behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The American journalist Mary Prescott was returning from a country behind the Iron Curtain where she'd been visiting to do a story on the country's autocratic leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Gubak was part of an underground resistance, and Mary help him to smuggle sensitive microfilm out of his oppressive country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was framed by Prescott and arrested for trying to smuggle diamonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soccer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The soccer star Gubak proudly described his championship game winning goal to Mary over dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gubak's original story was that he risked smuggling the watch out in order to save his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Gubak shared a romantic kiss at the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x22", "title": "Place of Shadows", "date": "1956-02-26", "description": "Ray Clements travels to a monastery to get revenge on a crook who is taking sanctuary there. Father Vincente advises him to choose forgiveness, and Clements is forced to leave. Clements later kills the crook's partner in self- defense and takes sanctuary at the same monastery. He tells Father Vincente that he no longer wants revenge, but the crook has already died.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Brother Gerard extolled Ray to consider his actions carefully because we can never undo a life taken. After shooting Unser we heard Ray's conscience and that he would never forget the face of the man he had killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was inconsolable and wanted to kill Rocco even after Ray had had his money returned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocco had stolen $13,000 from Ray, who in turn had \"borrowed\" it from his company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Christian monastery, heard religious talk by the abbot, and Ray observed a mass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred sanctuary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Rocco and Ray had taken sanctuary in a monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray went to the monastery to kill Rocco. Ray was suspected by the police of having murdered a man in the train station. The abbot asked if Ray would commit murder in the monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray's father had recently died of a heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police officers came to the monastery looking for Ray.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Forbidden Planet (1956)", "title": "Forbidden Planet", "date": "1956-03-03", "description": "In the 23rd century, starship C-57D reaches the distant world Altair IV to determine the fate of an Earth expedition sent there 20 years earlier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Krell traveled to other worlds but then destroyed themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ancient Krell machinery turned subconscious thoughts into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Krell developed advanced technology that enabled them to manifest the objects of their subconscious minds into reality and their race perished overnight as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Krell were a highly advanced native race that perished overnight 200,000 years before the crew had arrived on Altair IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robbie the robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain John J. Adams and Alta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morbius lived alone with his daughter Alta on Altair IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew versus the monster that was Morbius' subconscious mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Krell were an advanced alien civilization that perished overnight 200,000 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robbie was a robot helper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the subconscious mind being the seat of evil in Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mission sent to the Altair system to ascertain the status of a lost expedition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crew was put into stasis on voyager to Altair IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alta met men who were not her father for the first time when the crew visited them and experienced a sexual awakening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Krell used huge and numerous nuclear reactors to generate power on Altair IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morbius harbored a hatred of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morbius was in denial that the murderous beast was a manifestation of his subconscious mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alta was very particular about her Robbie the Robot made dresses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x23", "title": "Back for Christmas", "date": "1956-03-04", "description": "Herbert Carpenter and his wife Hermione are planning a long holiday in California. On the day of their departure, Herbert kills his wife and buries her in the wine cellar, and then goes to California by himself. While there, Herbert receives a letter that Hermione had arranged for contractors to excavate the wine cellar as a present for Herbert.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: John Collier, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Herbert killed Hermione and buried her in the cellar just before their indefinite trip to Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert and Hermione Carpenter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert seemed to think Hermione was nagging too much so he finally got rid of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert buried Hermione in the cold cellar and ran off to America, but by an ironic twist of fate Hermione had just ordered an excavation of the cold cellar floor and we expect her body soon to be uncovered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert thought he had an ingenious plan for disposing of his nagging wife, but fate intervened.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 1984 (1956)", "title": "1984", "date": "1956-03-06", "description": "1984 is a 1956 British black-and-white science fiction film, based on the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, depicting a totalitarian future society.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(1956_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three great police states came to dominate the world after a nuclear conflagration in 1965.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston increasingly becomes of the totalitarian system in which he is embedded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston and Julia were in love but it was forbidden in the totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston and Julia were in love but it was forbidden in the totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston elected to place his trust in Julia and Charrington even though they may have been spies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston ultimately betrayed Julia after being subjected to unbearable tortures and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston sought to join a rumored underground movement against Big Brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a totalitarian society in the future where the population may be monitored at any time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Oceania were subjected to constant indoctrination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of remembering history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston's job was to rewrite history in the interest of Big Brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston's job was to rewrite history in the interest of his totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Propaganda videos demonizing those in the enemy state of Euroasia were show to the people of the totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Propaganda videos demonizing those in the enemy state of Euroasia were show to the people of the totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Big Brother sentenced dissidents to death based on charges of treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thoughtcrime society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston and Julia were accused of thoughtcrime and arrested by the thought police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charrington attempted to mentally condition Winston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charrington tortured Winston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charrington systematically brain washed Winston.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x24", "title": "The Perfect Murder", "date": "1956-03-11", "description": "Brothers Paul and Henri plot to kill their Aunt Rosalie to inherit her fortune. Paul has Henri grind glass into fine powder, and Paul adds it to the egg mixture that is supposed to make a soufflé for Rosalie's dinner. However, that night Rosalie insists on eating something else, and the next morning Paul dies when he eats an omelette made out of the lethal egg mixture.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Stacey Aumonier, Victor Wolfson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul and Henri wanted wanted their inheritances from Rosalie posthaste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosalie and her inheritance seeking nephews Paul and Henri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Paul and Henri attempted to knock off their wealthy aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Paul and Henri attempted to knock off their wealthy aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul put shards of glass in the eggs to kill Rosalie, but by an ironic twist of fate she changed her mind and the eggs were later served to Paul who promptly died in well deserved agony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Henri brainstormed various ways of doing in their elderly aunt without getting caught (e.g. letting a cold draught in through the window, poisoning her food) before finally settlings on putting finely ground glass into her soufflé.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Rosalie and her housekeeper Ernestine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosalie nursed a hangover after Paul plied her with wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosalie's physician pronounced her to be in excellent health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Henri tried to get their aunt to eat a powdered glass laced soufflé.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x25", "title": "There Was an Old Woman", "date": "1956-03-18", "description": "Couple Frank and Lorna Branwell go to the mansion of eccentric Monica Laughton to rob her. The plan goes awry because Laughton is crazy and wholly unresponsive to their threats. The Bramwells become tired and frustrated, because they cannot find any money and there seems to be no food in the house. In desperation, they eat a batch of freshly-made muffins, not knowing that they are filled with rat poison. Laughton's fortune turns out to be inside a handbag that she carries everywhere with her.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Jerry Hackady & Harold Hackady, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and Lorna plotted to rob an eccentric old lady of her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and Lorna Branwell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Laughton was under the mistaken impression that Frank and Lorna had visited her to collect on an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Laughton imagined she had countless non-existing relatives at her peculiar funeral get-together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and Lorna planned to rob Miss Laughton of all her money and then kill her to minimize their chance of getting caught. Miss Laughton possibly intended the poison muffins for Frank and Lorna even though she said it was for the mice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eccentric Miss Laughton was oblivious to the fact that she was at the mercy of two would-be thieves/murderers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lorna initially baulked at the idea of murdering Miss Laughton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Laughton dispatched a ravenously hungry Frank and Lorna by the simple expedient of some rat poison laced muffins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank and Lorna had various plans to infiltrate Miss Laughton's house, thought the plan changed into straightforward murder and robbery soon enough.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Indestructible Man (1956)", "title": "Indestructible Man", "date": "1956-03-25", "description": "A death row inmate seeks revenge against his attorney after his execution.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indestructible_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Death row inmate Charles \"Butcher\" Benton sought revenge against his attorney and two informants following his own execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bradshaw revived Charles \"Butcher\" Benton from the dead sing electricity after he was executed in the gas chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Chasen was tasked with hunting down the vengeful reanimated corpse of an executed criminal before it could reach its former attorney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles \"Butcher\" Benton was a murderous zombie after getting revived from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Richard Chasen and Eva Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles \"Butcher\" Benton awaited his execution on death row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Working in a laboratory setting, Dr. Bradshaw and his assistant harnessed electricity to revive Charles \"Butcher\" Benton from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bradshaw was seeking a cure for cancer based on electricity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: World Without End (1956)", "title": "World Without End", "date": "1956-03-25", "description": "A team of astronauts returning to Earth from a trip around Mars find their speculative spaceship is somehow accelerated to incredible velocities, and they are knocked unconscious. Their ship crash lands on a snow-covered mountain. When they venture out, they discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in the future.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_End_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts accelerate to an incredibly velocity while returning to Earth from Mars and find themselves in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts return to Earth to find themselves in Earth's distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear conflagration in the year 2188 put an end to civilized life the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A remnant of Human civilization took root in underground caverns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Humans living underground, perhaps the last people in the world, were in danger of going extinct because they were having trouble reproducing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Borden and Garnet. Hank and Deema.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear conflagration in the year 2188 put an end to civilized life the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of astronauts go on a mission to fly around Mars and get reconnaissance on the red planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were attacked by the mutants and a giant mutant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were attacked by the mutants and a giant mutant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lingering radiation from a nuclear conflagration in 2188 caused surface dwelling people and animals to mutate into monstrous forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timmek and Garnet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mories was jealous of Borden over Garnet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Humans living underground enslaved children of the mutants that were born Human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Borden accepted a challenge from the mutant chief to fight to the death and won.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x26", "title": "Whodunit", "date": "1956-03-25", "description": "Dead mystery writer Alexander Penn Arlington is distraught when he arrives in Heaven not knowing who killed him. His angel, Wilfred, returns Alexander to Earth to repeat his last day to investigate. Alexander's assistant, nephew, wife and her lover all have motives. In his study, he tells them all that one of them is planning his death. His wife's lover turns off the light and Alexander is killed in the dark without seeing who did it. Returning to Heaven, Wilfred points out that the killer must have trusted the person who turned off the light, so it must have been Alexander's wife.\n\nDirected by: Francis Cockrell. Story by: C. B. Gilford, Francis Cockrell & Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander had been murdered and was posthumously trying to solve the riddle of whodunit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to this story was Alexander's need to know the circumstances of his own demise in order to be content.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander was a renowned writer of the mystery genre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander's wife had a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander and Carol Arlington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem in the end that Alexander's wife did it as she alone had the opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander his early inheritance seeking nephew Vincent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a caricatured depiction of Heaven that included such things as angels with little wings, puffy white clouds, and harps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The archangel Wilfred helped Alexander to solve his own murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent pressured his uncle Alexander to give him part of his inheritance early.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An archangel explained various celestial bureaucratic complications.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander took pains to point out that he had been a rather renowned and important person in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander summarily dismissed Talbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander and his butler Horace.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x27", "title": "Help Wanted", "date": "1956-04-01", "description": "Elderly Mr. Crabtree is ordered by his boss, Mr. X, to kill a man who will enter his office on a certain day. Crabtree decides not do the task, but when a man enters his office at the expected time, Crabtree is so upset at the thought of losing his job that he ends up killing him anyway. Shortly afterward another man, the correct target, arrives at Crabtree's office, but Crabtree has already received his payment for the murder and walks out.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Robert C. Dennis, Stanley Ellin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. X hatched a seemingly foolproof plot to have Mr. Crabtree knockoff Mr. X's blackmailer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crabtree was distressed at being unemployed because his wife was ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story finished with a curiously orchestrated assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Crabtree was ill enough to need a hospital treatment of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crabtree decided against the murder even though he desperately needed the money for his wife's treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that Mr. Crabtree had flown into a violent rage upon being fired by his manager. Later, Mr. Crabtree got all up in arms at his new job and pushed a man out of a 20 story high window to his death. One might even surmise that he had a management issue with the anger, though it was never made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Crabtree spoke of how he flew into a violent rage when his manager fired him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. X was desperate to murder his blackmailer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. X explained that he had no emotions and he also demonstrated a notable lack of empathy for Mr. Crabree and the intended victim.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x28", "title": "Portrait of Jocelyn", "date": "1956-04-08", "description": "Married couple Mark and Debbie's first anniversary is ruined when a portrait they commissioned is revealed to be of Mark's first wife, Jocelyn, who has been missing for five years. Debbie believes that Mark stills loves Jocelyn and urges him to find the truth. With the help of Mark's friend Jeff, Mark tracks down the painter, Arthur Clymer, who claims to have been married to Jocelyn and killed her in a jealous rage. Mark attacks Clymer, because he described how Mark killed Jocelyn five years ago. Clymer is actually a police officer, and worked together with Jeff to get a confession out of Mark.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Edgar Marvin, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Debbie Halliday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that Mark had in fact killed his ex-wife five years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Debbie was jealous of Mark's ex-wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark confessed in the end, as Jocelyn had rightly accused him, that he still loved Jocelyn after all these years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility was briefly entertained that Jocelyn had a look-alike, which would have explain the mysterious portrait.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur claimed to feel remorse about killing Jocelyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jocelyn had been caught red-handed by Mark who killed her in a rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur revealed himself to be a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur pretended to be the artist who'd sculpted a bust of Jocelyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur pretended to be the artist who'd painted a portrait of Jocelyn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x29", "title": "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby", "date": "1956-04-15", "description": "Antiques dealer Laurence Appleby kills his wife in order to get her inheritance. Since he still has debts, he woos and marries wealthy heiress Martha Sturgis. When Martha refuses to give him money, he tries to kill her, but she is prepared for him. Martha and her lawyer have evidence that Appleby killed his first wife, and if anything happens to Martha, her lawyer will go to the police. Appleby is about to comply with Martha's demands, but she accidentally falls and dies.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Victor Wolfson & Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurence was close to loosing his cherished antique shop because he owed his supplier $11,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurence killed his first wife and plotted to kill his second.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurence killed his first wife and plotted to kill his second.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurence was so obsessed with collecting antiques that he murdered one wife, then married and tried to murder another, for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurence married Martha for her money and no other reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interest in antiques", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antique dealer Mr. Appleby was so careful with his wares that he preferred not to sell them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurence observed that Dizar, a Muslim, did not drink alcohol and would prefer coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurence objected to his wives' pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha had a rather competent lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby took offense when asked whether he had ever been divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha was a lonely spinster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha tried to compel Mr. Appebly to do her bidding by threatening to reveal his previous spouse murder to the law.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x30", "title": "Never Again", "date": "1956-04-22", "description": "Karen, a recovering alcoholic, wakes up hungover and with no memory of the night before. She slowly recalls attending a party with her lover, Jeff. Karen started drinking when she was told that her friend Renee was trying to seduce Jeff. Her last memory is of breaking a glass in her hand, and Jeff trying to help her. Karen then learns that she is in jail for killing a man with a broken glass.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Adela Rogers St. Johns, Gwen Bagni, Irwin Gielgud and Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karen was a recovering alcoholic and the story regarded her problems and the fact that she ended up killing her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen and Jeff were planning to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen became exceedingly jealous of a woman who was flirting with Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen worried about Jeff cheating on her, then ran off with some young man of her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff's love for Karen was steadfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen woke up with the mother of all hangovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen's \"awfully good friend\" Margaret had helped Karen stay sober for four weeks, two days, and six hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen explained to Jeff that she was insecure and this made her prone to jealousy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)", "title": "The Creature Walks Among Us", "date": "1956-04-26", "description": "Following the Gill-man's escape from Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida, a team of scientists led by the deranged and cold-hearted Dr. William Barton board the Vagabondia III to capture the creature in the Everglades.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creature_Walks_Among_Us" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gill-man was assumed by scientists to be a member of a living fossil species that had become isolated in prehistoric times and stopped evolving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists attempt to capture the Gill-man, which had recently escaped from an aquarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Barton performed an operation that transformed the Gill-man from an aquatic animal to a land animal in an effort to validate a theory that land animals evolved from amphibians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Barton and Marcia Barton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia Barton was married to William Barton but felt attracted to Thomas Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Barton and Marcia Barton were in a marriage that was falling apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas Morgan concluded the film with explaining how we are neither too far from the jungle nor the stars and that the way we go depends on what we are willing to understand about ourselves as a species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Barton questioned his wife Marcia Barton's commitment to their marriage and worried that she loved Thomas Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Barton was jealous of Marcia Barton over Thomas Morgan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956)", "title": "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!", "date": "1956-04-27", "description": "American nuclear tests in the Pacific stirs up a dinosaur-like monster that makes a B-line for Tokyo.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_King_of_the_Monsters!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla was believed to have been a dinosaur-like creature from the Jurassic age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A professor gave a presentation where he advanced a hypothesis that Godzilla was a relic from the age of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla attacks Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla symbolizes nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and has since been culturally identified as a strong metaphor for nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Kyohei Yamane hypothesized that hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific ocean stirred up Godzilla. Daisuke Serizawa was convinced that the technology he invented to transform oxygen into food would be surely weaponized if he ever revealed it to the public, and he initially refused to allow it to be used to kill Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hideto Ogata and Emiko Yamane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daisuke Serizawa was convinced that the technology he invented to transform oxygen into food would be surely weaponized if he ever revealed it to the public, and he initially refused to allow it to be used to kill Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific ocean result in the creation of a giant dinosaur-like monster that makes a B-line for Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kyohei Yamane and Emiko Yamane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emiko Yamane breaks off her engagement Daisuke Serizawa because she is in love with Hideto Ogata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Daisuke Serizawa was in his laboratory conducting experiments on his oxygen destroyer invention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emiko Yamane had to choose between marrying her fiancée Daisuke Serizawa and the man she loved Hideto Ogata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisuke Serizawa sacrificed himself to ensure Godzila's destruction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x31", "title": "The Gentleman from America", "date": "1956-04-29", "description": "Sir Stephen Hurstwood offers a bet of $1,000 if Howard Latimer can stay the entire night in a supposedly haunted room of the Hurstwood mansion. Latimer is given a gun, one candle, one match, and a book that describes the mysterious beheading of Julia Hurstwood in the room. That night Latimer sees a ghostly headless figure and collapses in fright. The ghost is a trick set up by Hurstwood for money, but Latimer becomes insane from the experience.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Michael Arlen, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted house", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Howard spent a night in the supposedly haunted Hurstwood mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The purported haunted house had a purported haunting ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Latimer tried to take advantage an apparently very superstitious Mr. Hurstwood by spending a night in his haunted mansion on a £1000 wager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Being hard up for cash, Sir Stephen Hurstwood first took to gambling on horse racing, before deciding to hoodwink Latimer out of £1000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn in the end that the spending of a night in the Hurstwood mansion had actually driven Latimer insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geraldine and Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Latimer passed out in fear upon being spooked by the Hurstwood ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insane Latimer believed that someone had murdered his sister and cut her head off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some gentleman's club members were gambling on the outcome of a horse race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: On the Threshold of Space (1956)", "title": "On the Threshold of Space", "date": "1956-04-30", "description": "The United States Air Force conducts risky high altitude parachute jumps as a prelude to venturing into outer space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Threshold_of_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Air Force pilots be used as guinea pigs for high altitude parachute jumps in the name of paving the way for people to go into outer space?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Hollenbeck and Pat Lange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Hollenbeck and Pat Lange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Air Force pilots be used as guinea pigs for high altitude parachute jumps in the name of paving the way for people to go into outer space?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sub-orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was building up to Jim Hollenbeck being sent to the edge of outer space to perform a high altitude parachute jump.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Hollenbeck and Pat Lange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Hollenbeck had to choose between staying in the Air Force to be part of the space program or be with Pat Lange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Hollenbeck and Pat Lange discussed whether he was taking risks in doing high altitude jumps for his job or whether he was really motivated by a need to explore and find adventure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A plan was hashed to construct a platform in the extreme upper atmosphere on the margin of outer space from which Air Force pilots would make high altitude parachute jumps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pat Lange had to sit idly by while her husband Jim Hollenbeck took extremely risky high altitude parachute jumps.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x32", "title": "The Baby Sitter", "date": "1956-05-06", "description": "Lottie Slocum is the last person to have seen Clara Nash before she was strangled to death. Lottie, who used to be the Nashes' babysitter, believes that Clara had it coming because she treated her husband Mr. Nash badly. Lottie has feelings for Mr. Nash, and hopes to please him by keeping his secret from the police — that he was at home the night that Clara died — but he kills her instead.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Emily Neff, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lottie was head over heals for Mr. Nash to the point where she was willing to overlook that he'd strangled his wife, while Mr. Nash evidently felt nothing for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Nash strangled his wife to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janie became suspicious that her mother Lottie was somehow involved in the murder of Mrs. Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lottie, whose best years were behind her, took up exercise and went on a diet in an effort to make herself more physically attractive to Mr. Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lottie, Mr. Nash, Mrs. Nash and maybe Mrs. Nash's lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating the strangulation of Mrs. Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Nash caught his wife with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Mr. Nash murdering Lottie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The letter Lottie wrote had a line to blackmail Nash into a dinner for two.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x33", "title": "The Belfry", "date": "1956-05-13", "description": "Clint Ringle wants to marry schoolteacher Ellie Marsh, but when she refuses him, he kills her fiancé. Clint is hunted by the townsfolk and hides in the belfry of Ellie's school, planning to kill her when he gets the chance. Clint stays in the belfry for a few days and feels smug when everyone assumes that he is long gone. When Ellie's fiancé is buried, a man rings the bell for the funeral, causing Clint to shout in surprise and reveal his whereabouts.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Allan Vaughan Elston, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ringle killed a man and was chased by a posse and the sheriff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ringle killed the fiancée of the woman he had a crush on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ringle was besotted with Ellie but she wanted nothing of him, especially after he killed her fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in elementary school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Ellie teach in an elementary school room of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the town sheriff at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a sermon in a church cum school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye for an eye justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The preacher, in his sermon, stated that killers must be killed in two different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie was teaching out of a one-room schoolhouse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Searchers (1956)", "title": "The Searchers", "date": "1956-05-16", "description": "The Searchers is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, set during the Texas–Indian wars, and starring John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece (Natalie Wood), accompanied by his adoptive nephew (Jeffrey Hunter). Critic Roger Ebert found Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, \"one of the most compelling characters Ford and Wayne ever created\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ethan in particular was consumed with hatred for the people who killed his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ethan and Martin had their family wiped out by Comanche Indians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ethan and Martin became obsessed with finding the missing women and taking revenge; this five year quest endangered Martin's relationship with Laurie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Laurie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan frequently expressed his hatred of Indians in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw some domestic life in 1860s America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Etan and Martin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan was a stereotypical self-effacing hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "esp. Martin and Debbie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Etan and Debbie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin, Laurie, Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "points were made about how Ethan remained loyal to the Confederacy despite its defeat", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x34", "title": "The Hidden Thing", "date": "1956-05-20", "description": "Dana Edwards's fiancée is killed in a hit-and-run, and he is unable to remember any details of the car involved. Dana is approached by John Hurley, who claims to know how to encourage memory recall. After many sessions, Dana is successfully able to remember the license plate of the car and tells the police. He is then surprised to learn that John Hurley is crazy and not a memory expert at all.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: A. J. Russell, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana lost his beloved Laura in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana lost his lovebird Laura in a hit-and-run vehicular homicide to open the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana was devastated over having lost his fiancée in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana blamed himself for Laura's tragic death in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana blamed himself for Laura's tragic death in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The incident was variously described as an accident and as murder, leading us to the conclusion that it was a fatal accident caused by reckless driving, presumably a case of manslaughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana became preoccupied with finding the person responsible for his lover's death in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "We gather that Dana couldn't remember the accident well because he felt guilty and didn't want to remember the day of the fatal accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Shea questioned Dana after a hit and run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dana was living with his mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x35", "title": "The Legacy", "date": "1956-05-27", "description": "Wealthy but plain-looking housewife Irene Cole is pursued by playboy Prince Burhan, but refuses to leave her neglectful husband for him. When Burhan dies, Irene and her husband assume that he killed himself over his love for Irene. Some time later, Irene's friend Randall learns that Burhan's death was an accident, and that he had pursued Irene for her money. Randall decides not to tell Irene, because her marriage has much improved.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Gina Kaus, Gina Kaus & Andrew Solt.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Burhan was described as such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Burhan came between Irene and Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene was pursued by the Prince Burhan even though she preferred to stay with her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though Irene stayed faithful, people talked behind her back and she may have been tempted by the handsome prince who pursued her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that Prince Burhan was broke and pursued Irene only for her money. There was talk about women marrying for money", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard and Irene Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dashing Prince Burhan tried his best to tempt Irene away from her husband, but she wasn't much swayed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Burhan said he'd kill himself when Irene rejected him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene blamed herself after the Prince's death, which was thought to be suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Randall decided to withhold the truth from the Coles' because the Coles' relationship had so improved by believing a playboy prince had killed himself over Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The writer Randolph Burnside wrote a book about Prince Burhan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Prince Burhan won $28,000 in one night of gambling in Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene and Howard's marriage was reinvigorated because they falsely came to believe that a playboy prince had killed himself over his love for Irene, when really he had merely been pursuing her for her money.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Black Sleep (1956)", "title": "The Black Sleep", "date": "1956-06", "description": "Set in England in 1872, the story concerned a prominent, knighted surgeon whose wife has fallen into a coma caused by a deep-seated brain tumor. Due to medicine's state of the art at the time, he does not know how to reach the tumor without risking brain damage or death to the woman he loves, so he undertakes to secretly experiment on the brains of living, but involuntary, human subjects who are under the influence of a powerful Indian anesthetic, Nind Andhera, which he calls the \"Black Sleep\". Once he has finished his experiment, surviving subjects are revived and placed, in seriously degenerated and mutilated states, in a hidden cellar in the gloomy, abandoned country abbey where he conducts his experiments.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Sleep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman used suspended animation to save Dr. Gordon Ramsay from being hanged in order that he might assist Cadman in his experiments. He also placed subjects in suspended animation and performed exploratory surgeries on their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman was obsessed with saving his wife from dying from a brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman and Angelina Cadman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman loved his wife Angelina Cadman and tried to save her life after she had fallen into a coma caused by a deep-seated brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman performed unnecessary exploratory brain surgeries on living people in order to advance medical knowledge and possibly save the lives of people with brain tumors, like his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman performed unnecessary exploratory brain surgeries on living people in order to advance medical knowledge and possibly save the lives of people with brain tumors, like his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon Ramsay was to be hanged for the murder of a man after having been convicted on circumstantial evidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Joel Cadman opposed the death penalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "phrenology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon Ramsay dismissed phrenological theories as disproved.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x36", "title": "Mink", "date": "1956-06-03", "description": "Mild-mannered Paula Hudson is apprehended by the police for owning a stolen mink coat. Paula attempts to prove that she bought it, but to her distress the people she bought it from deny ever having sold it to her. Paula is eventually approached by the man who stole the coat, and he steals it back in order to end the investigation, but ends up being arrested.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Irwin Gielgud & Gwen Bagni.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paula was falsely accused of having purloined a crystal mink stole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story plot turns on a purloined crystal mink stole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two police sergeants were investigating Paula in relation to a purloined crystal mink stole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paula was rather distress when one person after the other refused to believe her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula was counting on an alibi verifying call from her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula explained that she bought the mink in order to assert herself against her female friends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x37", "title": "Decoy", "date": "1956-06-10", "description": "Gil Larkin is upset when he learns that the woman he loves, Mona Cameron, is being abused by her husband Ben. Gil confronts Ben in his office, but someone knocks Gil unconscious and shoots Ben. Gil is briefly apprehended, but after he is released he goes to Mona and realizes that she set him up so she could be with her lover, Ritchie. Mona and Ritchie are arrested.\n\nDirected by: Arnold Laven. Story by: Richard George Pedicini, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mona tried to frame Gil for the murder of her own husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mona had her husband shot dead under circumstances what would lead Gil to be suspected of having perpetrated the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben and Mona Cameron. Mr. and Mrs. Sasikawa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil loved Mona who just wanted to use him to take the fall for her husband's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil played one of his original compositions on the piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mona lead Gil to believe that she was being physically abused by her husband Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben was representing the Japanese dancing star Mrs. Sasikawa and the disk jockey Ritchie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Brandt interrogated Gil in connection with the murder of Ben Cameron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben worked as a talent agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mona's lover, Richie, was obviously well known to her husband. The husband called out Richie's name just as Richie shot him dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)", "title": "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", "date": "1956-06-13", "description": "Aliens in flying saucers launch a full-scale invasion of Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flying saucers were sighted all around the world were explained away as a variety of different phenomenon, including Saint Elmo's fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flying saucers were sighted all around the world were explained away as a variety of different phenomenon, including Saint Elmo's fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivors of a disintegrated solar system come to Earth in flying saucers to conquer it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Russell A. Marvin and Carol Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newlyweds Dr. Russell A. Marvin and Carol Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans meet with the survivors of a disintegrated solar system who to Earth in flying saucers to conquer it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivors of a disintegrated solar system come to Earth, actually land on the White House lawn, in flying saucers to conquer it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gen. John Hanley and Carol Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gen. John Hanley and Russell Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had death rays that shot green beams that made vanish or explode whatever they hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used a device to translate between themselves and Gen. John Hanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russell Marvin spearheaded the development of an ultrasonic gun to use against the flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the aliens was unmasked and identified as humanoid by Russell Marvin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x38", "title": "The Creeper", "date": "1956-06-17", "description": "A murderer has killed two blonde women while they are alone at night. Ellen is terrified, but her husband Steve is dismissive of her. While Brodie is at work, Ellen is scared and suspicious of various people that she meets. She is only relieved when the locksmith arrives to fix a lock and chain on her door, but the locksmith turns out to be the murderer.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Joseph Ruscoll, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ellen was terrified to stay home alone at night with a serial killer on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A serial killer, known as \"The Creeper\", was on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Ellen Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people complained about the excruciating heat which they blamed for their bad temper, throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen waited for the locksmith to fix her door so that she would be safe from the serial killer, but just as he arrived we learned that the killer was a locksmith, and Ellen was indeed attacked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was feeling sore over not having gotten a raise and vented his frustrations on his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newspaper man Ed was writing about a serial killer who was on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen was paid a visit by her old lover Ed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed confessed to having held a grudge against Ellen ever since she'd walked out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve apologized to Ellen after having lost his temper and they made up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was called sadistic by Ellen and he didn't deny it but said that many kids are.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen was not happy when her ex-boyfriend Ed showed up at her house looking to rekindle their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha pointedly accused Ellen of having cheated on her husband after seeing Ellen with another man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp1x39", "title": "Momentum", "date": "1956-06-24", "description": "Richard and his wife Beth are about to be kicked out of their home. Richard steals the money that his boss, Burroughs, owes him, and in the process accidentally kills him. Richard becomes paranoid, and he overreacts and is shot when a financier comes to collect his debt. While injured and possibly dying, Richard discovers that Beth met Burroughs the night before and got the money that was owed them.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Cornell Woolrich, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard stole $450 in back wages from his boss because he was hard up for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Beth Paine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard stole $450 in back wages that were due to him from his former boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard accidentally shot his old boss dead in the process of pilfering $450 from the boss' money box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "After shooting a man dead, Richard set about to flee to Mexico with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard shot dead his old boss in the process of taking $450 in back wages owed to him, but by an ironic twist of fate the boss had already happily supplied Richard's wife with the $450 owed him, so that Richard's crime was all for nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was shown to be having a hard time finding employment in the story's opening sequence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Beth were about to be kicked out of their home.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It Conquered the World (1956)", "title": "It Conquered the World", "date": "1956-07-15", "description": "An alien creature from the planet Venus secretly wants to take control of the Earth. The creature makes radio contact with a disillusioned human scientist, who agrees to help because the scientist believes such an alien intervention will bring peace and save a doomed humanity from itself.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Conquered_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature from the planet Venus secretly wants to take control of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature from the planet Venus secretly wants to take control of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned scientist Tom Anderson reached out to Venusians after years of not having been shown respect by his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Anderson was convinced that Venusian intervention on Earth would somehow bring peace and an end of personal conflict through a kind of emotion suppressing mass mind control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Venusian co-opted people one by one to do their bidding in an attempt to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Anderson and Claire Anderson. Paul Nelson and Joan Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Anderson and Claire Anderson. Paul Nelson and Joan Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned scientist Tom Anderson reached out to the Venusian after years of not having been shown respect by his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Anderson was of the mind that it was justifiable for the Venusians to kill some people in making the world a better place, but Paul Nelson felt otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Venusian alien used bat-like creatures to mind control people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Anderson sacrificed himself in killing the Venusian in order to save humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Anderson came to see that the Venusians did not have good intentions for humanity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The She-Creature (1956)", "title": "The She-Creature", "date": "1956-07-25", "description": "A carnival hypnotist conducts experiments in hypnotic regression that take his unwitting female subject to a past life as a prehistoric humanoid form of sea life. He uses the physical manifestation of the prehistoric creature to commit murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_She-Creature" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lombardi hypnotically regressed Andrea not only to a 17th century Englishwoman, but also back to a prehistoric sea monster of humanoid form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrea fell in love with Dr. Ted Erickson and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange, humanoid monster was coming up out of the sea to kill people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a prehistoric, humanoid creature from the sea going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many people openly regarded Dr. Lombardi's claims about hypnosis being a gateway into past lives to be superstitious nonsense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lombardi loved Andrea but she hated him with every fiber of her being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrea longer get get away from Dr. Lombardi in order to be with her love Dr. Ted Erickson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Key to the story was that people had past lives that could be recalled with the help of hypnotic regression. Dr. Lombardi used this technique to question Andrea about her past live as an Englishwoman who lived during the reign of King James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timothy Chappel disapproved of his wife taking an interest in Dr. Lombardi's occult practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timothy Chappel had some passing interactions with his daughter Dorthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives were investigating a series of mysterious murders and Dr. Lombardi was their prime suspect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives were investigating a series of mysterious murders and Dr. Lombardi was their prime suspect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Timothy Chappel had no scruples about cashing in from promoting Dr. Lombardi's supposedly crackpotted theories to the public at large.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lombardi's lawyer threatened to sue a detective who was investigating his client for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrean recalled memories of being a woman in 17th century England while under hypnosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrea took on the persona, down to the manner of speech, of a woman who had lived in 17th century England. This was explicitly interpreted by those watching as a form of communication with the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lombardi brought Andrea's soul, which appeared as a cloud of smoke, out from her body and made it take off a skeptic's eye glasses. Her soul was also seen floating around at other points in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Ted Erickson experimenting in his laboratory with bubbling beakers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob was drunk in multiple scenes and remarks were made to the effect that he his drinking was out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted was attacked by a dog that Dr. Lombardi had hypnotically commanded to take him out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)", "title": "The Beast of Hollow Mountain", "date": "1956-08", "description": "An American cowboy living in Mexico discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by dinosaurs.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_of_Hollow_Mountain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American cowboy living in Mexico discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American cowboy living in Mexico discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy Ryan and the people versus rampaging dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy Ryan and Sarita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a rampaging dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pancho and Panchito.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pancho promised his child Panchito that he would quit drinking and then Panchito feared his father had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enrique Rios of Jimmy Ryan over Sarita.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956)", "title": "Fire Maidens from Outer Space", "date": "1956-09-06", "description": "The discovery of signs of life on the 13th moon of Jupiter leads to the sending of a crew of five chain-smoking male astronauts, armed with handguns, to investigate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Maidens_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Jovian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronauts find a race or fire maidens on the 13th moon of Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The descendants Atlantis took up home on the 13th moon of Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A creature was terrorizing the Atlanteans and the astronauts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts land on Jupiter's 13th moon to find it populated by women in need to virile men so that can perpetuate their race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts land on Jupiter's 13th moon to find it populated by women in need to virile men so that can perpetuate their race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luther Blair and Hestia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two of the astronauts were held captive by the fire maidens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of astronauts flew to Jupiter's 13th moon in a rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of astronauts flew to Jupiter's 13th moon in a rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Praxis and his beautiful daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prasus worshiped Aphrodite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hestia was to be sacrifices to the sun god to appease him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x01", "title": "Wet Saturday", "date": "1956-09-30", "description": "After his daughter Millie kills a man, Mr. Princey devises a plan to save his family name. Working together with his wife, son and daughter, Princey methodically sets up the body and crime scene so that family friend Captain Smollett will take the blame for the murder.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: John Collier, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Princey went to elaborate lengths to frame Captain Smollet for a murder that George's own daughter had committed. George committed various crimes in the process, including assault and battery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent's father masterminded an effort to cover up a murder that she'd committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent's family tried to cover up a murder that she had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Princey made it clear that his first and only concern was with protecting the family's impeccable standing in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime of passion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent murdered the school master who spurned her in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Princey tried to frame Captain Smollet for a murder that George's own daughter had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood is thicker than water", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Narrator spelled out this point of the story at the end: Mr. Princey had no compunctions about framing his friend for a murder that his own daughter had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Princey's son George helped him to cover up Milicent's crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the aftermath of Milicent having bashed her lover's head in with a croquet mallet in a fit of passion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent was crying hysterically while her family was plotting how to cover up the murder she'd just committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Princey was in the room when the family was plotting how to cover up the murder her daughter had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent and her brother George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Princley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Smollet was about to be framed for the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent acted upset about having bashed her lover's brains in with numerous hits from an croquet mallet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator suggested in the end that Milicent had later performed the same deed on her father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x02", "title": "Fog Closing In", "date": "1956-10-07", "description": "Mary begs her husband Arthur not to go away on a business trip, but he refuses. Mary is alone in the house when Ted Lambert, an escapee from a mental institution, breaks in. The two develop a rapport, and Mary confesses that she is always been afraid except for when she lived with her parents, only her husband no longer wants to live with them. After Ted leaves, Arthur returns home and Mary shoots him. Mary then tells her father on the phone that she can return home now.\n\nIn 1957, this episode won an Emmy Award for Best Teleplay Writing.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Martin Brooke, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mary was desperately alone as she had never wanted to leave here parents and now, to boot, her husband left her alone for weeks on end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We understand that the point of the story is that Mary had only left her parents out of financial necessity and was now so desperate to get back to their comforting arms that she murdered her husband. Arthur had earlier chided Mary for being 35 and unwilling to leave her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur and Mary Summers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary had a foreboding feeling about being left alone at home for a week as Arthur went to do his traveling salesman thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Mary shooting dead her husband Arthur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was reticent about letting Mary's parents come and live with them as he had had enough of them in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was trying to reason with his emotional and unreasonable wife Mary about their living arrangement with her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary briefly pondered whether to trust the escaped mental hospital patient Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary spoke of the safety she felt in her father's arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted implied that he was considered dangerous, and that the asylum conditions were unappealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary empathized with the plights of an escaped mental hospital patient and helped him hide from his pursuers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary reacted oddly to finding an escaped mental hospital patient hiding out in her house. Instead of freaking out, as one might expect, she confided in him about her fears and ultimately helped him to escape his pursuers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aparajito (1956)", "title": "Aparajito", "date": "1956-10-11", "description": "Aparajito is a 1956 Indian Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray (1921–1992), and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali (1929) and the first one-third of its sequel Aparajito (1932). It starts off where the previous film Pather Panchali (1955) ended, with Apu's family moving to Varanasi, and chronicles Apu's life from childhood to adolescence in college, right up to his mother's death, when he is left all alone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aparajito" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern India", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in urban Varanasi around 1920 and follows the lives of some more or less ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed the point of the story was to show how Apu lost his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "choice", "motivation": "second half of story dealt with Apu turning into a man and standing on his own two legs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw young Apu play in Varanasi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harihar and Sarbajaya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarbajaya and Apu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarbajaya mourned Harihar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu went to two Indian schools that were probably neither quite \"high\" schools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone worried when Harihar fell ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harihar and Apu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we briefly saw Sarbajaya tend to young Apu alone, before the story fast forwarded in time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apu between being a priest or a scholar", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x03", "title": "De Mortuis", "date": "1956-10-14", "description": "Aware that their friend Rankin's wife Irene is cheating on him, Wally and Bud draw the same conclusion when they find Irene missing and Rankin sealing up a hole in his basement. Wally and Bud confront Rankin, asking which of Irene's lovers he caught her with, but their assumptions were wrong. When Irene returns home, Rankin kills her for real.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: John Collier, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are lead to believe that Professor Rankin might have killed and burred his wife in the cellar - then he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene was hitting on Professor Rankin's friends, thought Rankin's friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Rankin mentioned that Irene was much younger than him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bud and Wally professed themselves ready to lie for their friend Professor Rankin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covering up a crime to save a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Rankin's friends Bud and Wally were prepared to help him cover up his wife's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Rankin and his comparatively young wife Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Rankin's friends Bud and Wally were prepared to help him cover up his wife's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bud and Wally accused Professor Rankin of murdering his wife. It turned out their accusation was a little premature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bud and Wally were worried about being considered accessory to Professor Rankin's spouse murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea that Irene could have been unfaithful was refuted in such a way that the possibility became topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Rankin studied rat behavior under malnutrition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Around the World in 80 Days (1956)", "title": "Around the World in 80 Days", "date": "1956-10-17", "description": "Around the World in 80 Days (sometimes spelled as Around the World in Eighty Days) is a 1956 American epic adventure-comedy film starring David Niven, Cantinflas, Robert Newton, and Shirley MacLaine, produced by the Michael Todd Company and released by United Artists.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_80_Days_(1956_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phineas Fogg availed himself of the most modern means of travel at his disposal in 1872 (e.g., hot-air balloon, rail, and steamship) to circumnavigate the globe in an astonishing 80 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story offers a whirlwind tour of the British Empire, or an imagination thereof, as it was in 1872. Mr. Fogg visited Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, and of course, various places in England proper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Europe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story offers a whirlwind tour of the European Continent, or an imagination thereof, as it was in 1872. Mr. Fogg visited Paris, rural France, Chinchón, Marseilles, and Brindisi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in late modern times", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story offers a whirlwind tour of the world, or an imagination thereof, as it was in 1872. Mr. Fogg visited Siam (today's Thailand), Yokohama in Japan, San Fransisco in the US, the American \"Wild West\", and New York City in the US.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central feature of the story is the relationship between the Victorian Englishman Phileas Fogg and his \"gentleman's gentleman\", manservant, Passepartout. Together they performed the titular journey: traveling around the world in 80 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Fix pursued Phileas Fogg relentlessly thinking Mr. Fogg the thief that had robbed the Bank of England of £55,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Fogg put all his cash in a suitcase and spend it lavishly to make his time across the various continents in record time, without compromising more than necessary on comfort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "major", "motivation": "Portrayed time and again were the mannerisms of Mr. Fogg, which were almost pantomimically those of an ideal Victorian gentleman: he was punctual, meticulous, honest, honorable, and selfless in service of duties such as rescuing damsels in distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The travelers went by train across the American Wild West. There they had to fight off a tribe of Sioux Indians who attacked the trains garbed in traditional gear, wielding bows and arrows. Passepartout was captured and and very nearly tortured gruesomely by the savagely depicted Indians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "One lengthy leg of the travelers' journey went across the Wild West on train, where they were ambushed by Sioux Indians. Before that they had experienced life in the remote frontier city of San Fransisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phileas Fogg was compared an contrasted with various other characters who were less apt than him to be on time, often to his dismay. At the conclusion of the story, he arrived back at the Reform Club just before the stroke of 8:45 PM which was precisely the time by which he needed to arrive to win a £20,000 wager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phileas Fogg had many obsessions. Notably, he was all-consumed with making a journey around the world in under 80 days. For example he had a minute by minute kind of schedule of his day. He also adhered firmly to an eating plan for every day of the week. All these idiosyncrasies had, apparently, driven many of his former manservants to the brink of madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phileas Fogg made a £20,000 wager with four fellow members of his gentleman's club, the Reform Club, that he could circumnavigate the globe within 80 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Fix pursued Phileas Fogg literally around the world under the mistaken belief that Fogg was the one responsible for the theft of £55,000 from the Bank of England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old army general helped the travelers stage a rescue of princess Aouda in India. A cavalry unit helped them rescue Passepartout in the American Wild West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "circus skill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Passpartout was adept at acrobatics, a skill that came in handy more than once, and even performed in a Japanese circus in Yokohama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phileas purchased a hot-air balloon from a banker who styled himself as the number two such aeronaut in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Aouda had been expected to follow her husband into the afterlife by burning herself with him on his pyre. She did not care to do this but was about to be forced to by the local population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Phileas Fogg had no passions or interests other than the card game of Whist, which he engaged in daily or whenever possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although no animals were harmed, bullfighting was featured in the Spanish town of Chinchón.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Toward the Unknown (1956)", "title": "Toward the Unknown", "date": "1956-10-20", "description": "A film about the dawn of supersonic flight filmed on location at Edwards Air Force Base.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toward_the_Unknown" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond and Connie Mitchell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond and Connie Mitchell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Lincoln Bond jumped at the chance to leave his desk job to become a test pilot for the experimental Gilbert XF-120 supersonic jet fighter. Brigadier General Banner was also enthusiastic about test piloting this aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond, Brigadier General Banner, and Connie Mitchell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond was scarred from his experiences as a prisoner of war during the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond felt at home in the Air Force working as a test pilot, after having spent 14 months as a prisoner of war and then sent home and put behind a desk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sub-orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Bond is assigned to test pilot the rocket-powered X-2, which is designed to fly to the edge of outer space and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Lincoln Bond was captured during the Korean War and subjected to solitary confinement and psychological torture, finally cracking after 14 months and signing a confession used for propaganda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "North Koreans had extracted a confession from Major Lincoln Bond under torture and used it for propagandistic purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in intentions vs. trust in judgement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Brigadier General Banner trust Lincoln Bond, whose test pilot skills are not in question, when he urges Banner that he is of sound enough mind to handle test piloting responsibilities?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Bromo had an alcoholic relapse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x04", "title": "Kill with Kindness", "date": "1956-10-21", "description": "Hoping to profit from life insurance fraud, siblings Katherine and Fitzhugh plan to torch their house and have a homeless man, Jorgy, die in Fitzhugh's place. The plan backfires when, once they have lit the fire, they are unable to put Fitzhugh's identifying ring on Jorgy. The siblings have no choice but to save themselves and Jorgy, and watch the house burn.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: A. J. Russell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fitzhugh and Katherine plotted elaborately for the demise of Mr. Jorgy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzhugh and Katherine plotted to burn down their house and feign Fitzhugh's death in order to claim cash in on Fitzhugh's life insurance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the two siblings Fitzhugh and Katherine as they hatch a plot to cash in on Fitzhugh's life insurance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzhugh and Katherine had nothing left but the house and an insurance policy, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Jorgy thought Fitzhugh and Katherine were extraordinarily charitable in offering him food, clothes, and shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bespectacled, absent minded, lepidopterist, and possible pyromaniac Fitshugh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzhugh and Katherine planned to torch their abode and Fitzhugh was particularly excited to set it alight by his own hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzhugh was collecting butterflies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzhugh disingenuously characterized his sister thusly when he spoke to the fireman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Jorgy recounted some of the trials and tribulations that came with living on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitshugh took pride in his butterfly collection.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x05", "title": "None Are So Blind", "date": "1956-10-28", "description": "Egotistical Seymour Johnston murders his rich Aunt Muriel and pins the blame on \"Antonio Battani\", a fake persona that he has created using make-up and a wig. Seymour's plan fails because his willful blindness of his own faults means that he no longer \"sees\" his distinctive facial birthmark, which gives his disguise away.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: John Collier, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "narcissism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seymour repeatedly lauded his own refinement and looks, and showed disdain for everyone else - ironically it also became his downfall when he willfully overlooked a characteristic birthmark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seymour hatched a seemingly foolproof plot to dispatch his rich aunt Muriel and claim his inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seymour hatched and executed an elaborate plot to knock off his rich aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Seymour's elaborate scheme to murder his aunt and claim an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seymour and his love interest Liza were notably avaricious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seymour and Muriel squabbled about the inheritance Seymour's father had left to Muriel and that Muriel must leave to Seymour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seymour imagined that refinement, culture, and taste \"really meant something\" to the people of the Renaissance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seymour uttered a disdain for squabbling about money, yet was clearly obsessed with getting it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seymour took pains to antagonize his neighbors in the guise of Antonio Battani.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a police inspector at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seymour and his love interest Liza discussed getting their hands on his rich aunt's money.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x06", "title": "Toby", "date": "1956-11-04", "description": "Albert Birch is excited to be reunited with his sweetheart, Edwina after 20 years. Although the reunion is joyful, Edwina has mood swings and refuses to let anyone see her baby nephew, Toby, whom she has brought with her. Eventually it is revealed that Edwina has escaped from a mental asylum, and that Toby is a cat.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Joseph Bates Smith, Victor Wolfson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edwina complained that she had been lonely for 20 years after Albert left her. We are left with the impression that Albert felt extremely lonely when Edwina departed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert was excited to be reunited with Edwina after 20 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert and Edwina were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edwina had escaped from a mental institution and was taking care of a cat as if it were her baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being mentally ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert came by the by to understand that all was not well with Edwina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert said he was \"possessed by her\" in connection with his old flame, Edwina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edwina gave every impression that she was caring for an orphaned baby. She prepared its milk, spoke of scarlet fever and swaddling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edwina described her gradual descent into madness after Albert had left her 20 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A perspiring, white undershirt clad Mac McGurk complained of the oppressive summer heat, and longed for the arrival of a rainstorm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MuGurk's paid a neighborly visit to Albert's apartment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X the Unknown (1956)", "title": "X the Unknown", "date": "1956-11-05", "description": "A radioactive mud-monster terrorizes the Lochmouth region of Scotland, near Glasgow.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_the_Unknown" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A soldier, a young doctor, and little Willie Harding died as a result of being exposed to sources of radiation. Also a radioactive mud-monster emerged from the bowels of the Earth and began killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The local authorities versus the radioactive mud-monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Willie Harding was hospitalized with radiation sickness after playing in the marshes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parents of Willie Harding grieved over the passing of their son from radiation sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The radioactive mud-monster was blob-like in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Royston worked in the laboratory to develop a radiation neutralizing device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "radiation neutralizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Royston invented a device that neutralized radioactive material.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x07", "title": "Alibi Me", "date": "1956-11-11", "description": "Gangster Georgie Minnelli kills his known rival, Lucky Moore and sets up an alibi that he was in his apartment the whole day. When the police question Georgie, a delivery boy arrives with a package, revealing that he had tried to deliver the package five times that day because Georgie was not at home.\n\nDirected by: Jules Bricken. Story by: Therd Jefre and Walter Newman, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Georgie figured he just needed a solid alibi in order to knock off Lucky Moore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgie and Lucky had hated each other since childhood and they're described as rivals in the synopsis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgie went to one person after another in an attempt to secure an alibi after shooting dead his longtime rival Lucky Moore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock sarcastically explained that his productions start with the background music, then they add sound effects and come up with a title; after that a writer is commissioned to come up with some appropriate antics to accompany the sound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving a friend vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender was pressured to supply an alibi for Georgie but ultimately refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgie would have secured an alibi from his old girlfriend Goldie had she not found a photograph of a cabaret girl in his coat pocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgie finally found someone, Tim, to be his alibi but a few seconds later Tim apparently died of a heart attack. Georgi finally got the landlady to cover for him, but their scheme was blown by a delivery boy who had failed deliveries earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgie pressured Mrs. Salvatori by threatening to reveal to the police that her teenage daughter had shoplifted a fur coat from the department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Mrs. Salvatori's 15-year-old daughter, Maria, had shoplifted a fur coat from the department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Salvatori was protective of her 15-year-old daughter Maria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "portent of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucky sprinkled salt on his shoulder for good luck shortly before getting shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgie's uncle Leo refused to supply Georgie with an alibi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Larkin questioned Georgie about the murder of Georgie's rival Lucky Moore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x08", "title": "Conversation Over a Corpse", "date": "1956-11-18", "description": "Mr. Brenner threatens to take sisters Cissie and Joanna to court unless they sell him their home. The domineering Joanna orders Cissie to poison Brenner, but Cissie allows him to live just long enough so that he can kill Joanna before succumbing to the poison, thus leaving Cissie alone with the house.\n\nDirected by: Jules Bricken. Story by: Norman Daniels, Marian Cockrell and Norman Daniels.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cissie and Joanna poisoned Mr. Brenner, albeit ineffectually at first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cissie and Joanna resorted to murder rather than be evicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Cissie and Joanna were sisters, though it transpires that Joanna was merely impersonating Cissie's sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Initially, Joanna was ruthless and Cissie notably soft, but later we learn that Cissie is in fact even more calculating and ruthless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The callous businessman Mr. Brenner had no compunctions about throwing two old ladies out of their home, while each of the two old ladies resorted to cold blooded tactics in order to keep the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was certainly suggested many times that Cissie was crazy and could be committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The callous businessman Mr. Brenner had no compunctions about throwing two old ladies out of their home in order to turn a nice profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock jested about cooking in front of a chemistry bench in the intro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Brenner was very upset about being about to be killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x09", "title": "Crack of Doom", "date": "1956-11-25", "description": "Company man Mason Bridges keeps returning to a high-stakes poker game because he is determined to beat his rich client, Sam Klinker. When Mason discovers that his wife has lost all their savings, he steals a portion of Klinker's money from the office to keep playing, intending to return it later. During a crucial hand, Mason thinks he has four queens and bets aggressively, to Klinker's surprise. At the last moment Mason realizes that he had read his cards wrong, but Klinker folds and Mason wins the pot.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Don Marquis, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason and Sam spent an evening playing no limit poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason lost thousands of dollars at the poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason purloined some of his client's money to use at the poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in for a penny in for a pound", "level": "major", "motivation": "After gambling away half of a sum of money he was holding for a client, Mason decided that he might as well gamble the rest in an effort to get back to even and replace the missing money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason could have been content with losing a cool $4000 at the poker table, but he tried to make it back by secretly putting his own client's money on the line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The episode follows Mason as he tells the story of how he came to give up gambling after a harrowing night of no limit poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mason fretted over having to tell his wife, Jessie, that he's gambled away half their savings, only to find that he'd lost the whole kit and caboodle in a bad investment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mason commented on Sam's \"vanity\" regarding poker, and Mason had an attitude of superiority himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam considered that Mason might be bluffing that he had four queens as they played out a crucial hand at the poker table.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mole People (1956)", "title": "The Mole People", "date": "1956-12-01", "description": "A party of archaeologists find a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mole_People_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Baxter, an English professor at the University of Southern California, briefly discusses the hollow earth theories of John Symmes and Cyrus Teed among others, and says that the movie is a fictionalized representation of these unorthodox theories. In the film, a party of archaeologists find a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A party of archaeologists find a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sumerian albinos enslaved a race of mole men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sumerian albinos enslaved a race of mole men. Dr. Roger Bentley and his colleague helped to emancipate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sumerian albinos ruthlessly oppressed a race of mole men by enslaving them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "A party of archaeologists encountered a race of Sumerian albinos living deep inside the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An archaeological party undertook a perilous mountain climb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Mesopotamian mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth worshiped Ishtar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Bentley read the Sumerian flood narrative and said he believed the Biblical flood was real and that the Sumerian described in the narrative had survived the catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sumerian albinos sacrificed people to Ishtar in order to keep their population at a sustainable level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the Sumerian albinos, including the king, believed Dr. Roger Bentley and his colleague were gods in part because of the flashlights in their possession.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x10", "title": "Jonathan", "date": "1956-12-02", "description": "Gil, who had an extremely close relationship with his late father, Jonathan, accuses his stepmother, Rosine of killing him. Gil's investigation uncovers a bottle of poisoned brandy that he had given to Rosine to kill her, except Rosine had guessed that it was poison and gave it to Jonathan, killing him.\n\nDirected by: John Meredyth Lucas. Story by: Fred Levan, Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gil reminisced about his dearly departed father Jonathan on whom he maintained a borderline pathological dependence. Alfred Hitchcock played his own son and feigned meeting himself in the intro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child unhealthily attached to a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gil reminisced about his dearly departed father Jonathan on whom he maintained a borderline pathological dependence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil hated his stepmother, Rosine, for coming between himself and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil reminisced about his dearly departed father Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil was remembering the good old days with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil and his stepmother Rosine became rivals for Jonathan's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil tried to murder the stepmother he hated but ended up murdering the father he loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Gil left a poisoned bottle of brandy as a present to Rosine, she seized the opportunity and used it to kill her husband (i.e. Gil's own father).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil tried to knock off Rosine with poisoned brandy. Rosine did in her husband, Jonathan, with poisoned brandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil tried to murder his stepmother Rosine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil was notably clingy, reluctant to leave his father and go back to school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil was torn up over the passing of his father whom he'd idolized in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil accused Rosine of being something of a gold digger, and in the end he was proved correct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan had to be tough and force Gil to go back to school so that Gil could get a life of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil fretted over his father having a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosine told of her relationship with Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosine when through the motions in the aftermath of her husband's passing. Although it came to light at the end that she'd done him in with a poisoned glass of brandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosine denied Gil's charge that she was hiding her drinking from Jonathan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x11", "title": "The Better Bargain", "date": "1956-12-09", "description": "Mobster Louis Koster learns from a private investigator that his wife, Marion, is cheating on him. Koster hires hit man Harry Silver to kill her, but Koster is killed instead, because Silver is the man that Marion is having an affair with.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Richard Deming, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lois thought his wife was having an affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis and Marion Koster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis, Marion, and Harry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis planned to have his wife taken out by a hitman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis planned to have his wife's lover taken out by a hitman, but the hitman ended up taking him out instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was a killer for hire and spoke at length about his profession, his feelings, and his fees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis hired an assassin to kill his wife and her lover but through an ironic twist of fate, the chosen assassin was in fact himself the lover and elected to kill Louis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis was described as a mobster although he was now legitimate. Alfred Hitchcock spoke about gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis interrogated a PI about Lois' wife's affairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis thought the age difference might be why his wife was unfaithful (old enough to be her father, we heard).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis had a couple of birds in a cage and interacted with them briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry spoke about his love for Marion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry recited part of a Francois Villon poem to Lois before telling Lois that he was going to kill him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x12", "title": "The Rose Garden", "date": "1956-12-16", "description": "Publisher Alexander Vinton suspects that the novel Julia Pickering has written is based on a true story of how Julia's sister, Cordelia, had killed her husband. Vinton encourages Julia to stand up to her dominating sister, eventually drawing out a confession of the murder.\n\nDirected by: Francis Cockrell. Story by: Vincent Fotre, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Julia reporting the murder she'd witnessed her sister commit?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia wrote a manuscript based on the true story of how her domineering sister, Cordelia, committed a murder and buried the corpse in the rose garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia penned a manuscript concerning the true story of how her domineering sister, Cordelia, committed a murder and buried the corpse in the rose garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cordelia had killed her husband and buried his body in the rose garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander was a publisher visiting a potential client author.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cordelia bossed around and bullied her sister Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia was on the verge of shooting dead her sister, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Adam and Eve creation myth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening preamble, Alfred Hitchcock alluded to this legend when he unearthed two fig leaves and a half eaten apple from a cemetery grave.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x13", "title": "Mr. Blanchard's Secret", "date": "1956-12-23", "description": "Mystery writer Babs Fenton has an overactive imagination and suspects the worst when their new neighbor Charles Blanchard acts strangely around his wife Ellen. However, every time that Babs thinks that she has figured out the truth, she is proven wrong.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Emily Neff, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Babs' overactive imagination was explicitly mentioned and caused notable problems for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Babs Fenton. Charles and Ellen Blanchard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story consisted of Babs stream of consciousness as she, mostly, pondered her mystery novel in progress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Babs suspected Charles of having killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Fentons and the Blanchards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "If Babs hadn't had the writing as an outlet, she would probably commit a few murders herself, she said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In Babs' imagination Charles bossed Ellen around before he killed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babs speculated that Charles was jealous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babs said she wished Mr. Fenton had a bit more imagination as it would be good for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kleptomania", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babs concluded that Ellen was a kleptomaniac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babs thought, incorrectly, that she had witnessed Charles disposing of Ellen's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came up on two occasions that John worked as a lawyer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rodan (1956)", "title": "Rodan", "date": "1956-12-26", "description": "Giant insects and two flying dinosaurs attack Japan.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodan_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant insects and flying dinosaurs were stirred up in the aftermath of a mining accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant flying dinosaur attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant insects and a giant flying dinosaur attack Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The issue of possible bad unforeseen consequences of nuclear bombs and nuclear research was raised in the opening narration. In addition, the drilling of a mine deep into the Earth and the subsequent release of giant insects and a flying dinosaur as a cautionary tale against unfettered scientific advancement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human technological advancement led to the unleashing of two flying dinosaurs that were poised to raze the cities of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shigeru Kawamura and Kiyo-chan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant insects and two flying dinosaurs were poised to raze the cities of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant insects and two flying dinosaurs attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film depicted nuclear testing in the Pacific.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shigeru Kawamura suffered total amnesia for a time after sustaining a head injury in the mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A jet pilot was attacked by UFO. The UFO, or perhaps multiple UFOs, was/were later sighted across the Asia Pacific region.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x14", "title": "John Brown's Body", "date": "1956-12-30", "description": "Harold Skinner and Vera Brown, who are having an affair, oust Vera's husband, John, from his company by getting him declared mentally unfit and sent to a home. When the company tanks, Vera and Harold need help, but are unable to get John discharged.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Thomas Burke, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold and Vera were running around together behind the back of her husband John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold and Vera were running around together behind the back of her husband, John, who also happened to be Harold's boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalizing a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vera had John sent to a home so that she could take over the business and carry on with her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how management operated in a furniture firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Vera plotting to have her husband, John, committed so that she and her lover could take over his furniture business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "John pooh-poohed his junior partner's proposal to go all in on selling a new line of modern looking furniture. While the junior partner insisted that doing so would triple their profits, John preferred to turn a modest, but predictable profit from selling the same old type of furniture that they'd been selling for years. In the end, the junior partner got his way, and tanked the company within a year as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vera and Harold couldn't keep their hands off of one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Vera schemed to make John believe he was becoming extremely forgetful and thus unable to continue the business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold's modern ideas were contrasted John's old fashioned ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Vera met the family doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A psychiatrist declared John to be mentally unfit to run his own company. There was additionally a variety of medical personnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This condition was mentioned explicitly (albeit in jest) and then we learned that John thought he was George Washington.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x15", "title": "Crackpot", "date": "1957-01-06", "description": "Newlyweds Ray and Meg's honeymoon is slightly marred by the recent death of their aunt. At their hotel they are harassed by Mr. Moon, whom Ray believes is trying to kill them. Ray orders Meg to leave when he hears what sounds like a bomb, but rushes back for his bag that contains the jewels that were stolen from his aunt. Moon is a police officer, and set up the ruse to trap Ray.\n\nDirected by: John Meredyth Lucas. Story by: Harold Gast, Martin Berkeley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and Meg were on their honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray's aunt had recently been murdered but Ray and Meg married anyway, and they were moving house because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that that Ray had in fact killed his own aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray stole his aunt's necklace to pay off his debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and Meg were newlyweds in the early throws of marital bliss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was distressed by Mr. Moon's seemingly deranged antics directed toward him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A police officer investigated the aunt's murder. Mr. Moon revealed himself to be a police as detective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray and Meg briefly discussed moving house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Moon stopped to help Ray and Meg with their tire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Moon accused Ray of hammering on the walls when it was in fact Mr. Moon doing the hammering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Moon briefly played a game to make Ray question his own sanity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x16", "title": "Nightmare in 4-D", "date": "1957-01-13", "description": "Harry Parker agrees to help his pretty neighbor, Miss Elliot, hide her murdered boyfriend's body. When the police arrive, the investigation uncovers that Harry's wife was having an affair with the dead man, but Harry killed him over envy of Miss Elliot.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Stuart Jerome, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry helped the woman upstairs, Miss Elliot, cover up a murder that she'd committed, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry had killed Miss Elliot's boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Norma was having an affair with Miss Elliot's boyfriend. Norma accused Harry of moaning after Mis Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Norma Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Harry had killed Miss Elliot's boyfriend out of jealousy while sleepwalking. Norma was clearly jealous over Harry's attentions for Miss Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry became accessory to Miss Elliot's murder, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covering up a crime to save a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry helped Miss Elliot to move her boyfriend's dead body out of her apartment and in so doing became an accessory to murder, or so he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry, Mrs. Parker, Miss Elliot, Miss Elliot's boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry got very involved in his books and TV shows to the extent that he had trouble separating fiction from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective appeared to sort out the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was an avid reader of pulp fiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Elliot and her late boyfriend, whom she denied was such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma said she had been lonely after Harry started fawning over Miss Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry played Galahad to Miss Elliot, and his wife chided him for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma complained to her husband that he didn't even notice what she was wearing anymore. And because of that neglect she took up with Miss Elliot's boyfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Throne of Blood (1957)", "title": "Throne of Blood", "date": "1957-01-15", "description": "Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城, Kumonosu-jō, \"Spider Web Castle\") is a 1957 Japanese historical drama film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, with stylistic elements drawn from Noh drama. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles, modelled on the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throne_of_Blood" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially with regard to Lord Tsuzuki, but later to Washizu who replaced Tsuzuki after a bloody betrayal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Washizu betrayed his closest friend Miki", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Washizu, largely at the behest of his wife, betrayed both his lord and his closest friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Washizu and his wife Asaji suspected various people of plotting their destruction so sought to strike first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Washizu and, especially, his wife Asaji sought to rise in power by skulduggery and assassination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unchecked ambition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "during the second encounter with the spirit woman in the forest, we heard that Tsuzuki's ambitions lead to corpses piling up - presumably the title implies the same theme as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Washizu and Asaji", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "as Washizu rose in rank we saw him become even more cruel, suspicious, and erratic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dominicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Washizu and Asaji murdered their liege, lord Tsuzuki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miki and Washizu had their destinies foretold by a spirit in the forest. Miki acted confidently in support of it but, through some caveats and ironic twists of fate, it turned out to be not all that he thought it would be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki's relationship with his son was mentioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Washizu and Asaji believed they were unable to have a child together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Washizu drank too much, then blurted out the truth of his crime while waving his sword at figments of his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asaji became so racked with guilt over the murders that she came to think her hands were permanently stained with blood, we saw briefly towards the end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x17", "title": "My Brother, Richard", "date": "1957-01-20", "description": "District attorney Martin Ross faces a crisis in his campaign for governor when his brother Richard kills the competition, Burton Reeves, and threatens to kill Martin's wife, Laura. Martin makes a deal with Tommy, Burton's caddy, to temporarily confess to the murder in order to save Laura's life. Tommy's mother, mistaking Richard for Martin, begs him to release Tommy, and when Richard refuses, she kills him.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Jay Bennett, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin had to choose between obeying the law and protecting his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin's callous brother Richard got him involved in a cold blooded murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Laura Ross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard murdered Martin's competitor for the governor post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard tried to make Martin complicit in the murder plus subsequent cover-up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy deliberated whether to trust Martin and signed a confession. Martin urged Richard to trust him but Richard did not. The word \"trust\" was bandied around a lot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy was framed for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin had to choose between loyalty to his brother vs. reporting a murder (then it turned into blackmail instead).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin would have to let Tommy hang in order to save Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin, already a district attorney, had aspirations of becoming governor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was pointedly portrayed as a psychopath: Richard could neither understand his brother's feelings, nor Tommy's mother's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was threatening to kill his brother's wife, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy had gotten in trouble for stealing a car in his younger years, but kept his nose clean thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy's mother was distressed to say the least over Tommy getting charged with murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x18", "title": "The Manacled", "date": "1957-01-27", "description": "White-collar criminal Stephen Fontaine is being transported via train and tries to bribe his escorting police sergeant Rockwell for his freedom with $50,000. When they reach their final stop and Rockwell still has not accepted, Fontaine grabs for Rockwell's gun and kills him. Fontaine then discovers that the bullet damaged the key in Rockwell's pocket, and he cannot unlock the manacles.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: A. Sanford Wolfe, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stephen learned that money isn't everything to everyone. Stephen spoke about the general human instinct for larceny and only fear of getting caught kept us in check.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergeant Rockwell was escorting his prisoner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergeant Rockwell was tempted with a $50,000 bribe to let Stephen go.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen offered Sergeant Rockwell a $50,000 bribe in exchange for his freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen was trying to escape from his police escort. Rockwell and Stephen discussed to prospect of prison and it terrified Stephen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen had stolen \"from the rich\", he said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Billy's mother chided him for running around like a Wild West deputy on the train.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x19", "title": "A Bottle of Wine", "date": "1957-02-03", "description": "Wealthy, elderly Judge Connors's wife, Grace, is leaving him for a younger man, Wallace Donaldson. Connors invites Wallace into his home, pretends to poison him and locks him in a room in an attempt to show Grace what kind of man Wallace is. Wallace shoots the door in order to get out, and accidentally kills Connors.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Borden Deal, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Judge was in a wistful mood as his wife was walking out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge was desperate to prevent his young wife, Grace, from leaving him for her new lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace was walking out on her husband, Judge, to be with her new lover Donaldson. Judge and Donaldson got acquainted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge confided in Donaldson that he dearly loved Grace, though she did not love him, and Donaldson likewise expressed that he loved her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge hatched an elaborate plot to made Donaldson believe that Judge had poisoned him with tainted wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donaldson confronted his wife's lover Donaldson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge commented on the fact that he was so much older than Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock spoke about wine, Champagne, and root beer in the intro. The story centered on a bottle of particularly exclusive sherry - the quasi eponymous title of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge divulged to Donaldson that he'd become convinced that Grace had only married Judge for his money and status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The judge Judge spoke about judges and judging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge noted that no jury would convict him if he shot Donaldson, and reflected \"that is not the law but just how it is\" or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story of Socrates' last hours was recited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story of Socrates' last hours was recited.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)", "title": "Attack of the Crab Monsters", "date": "1957-02-10", "description": "A second scientific expedition that is sent to a remote Pacific island to discover what happened to the scientists of the first. Unknown to them when they arrive, the island is inhabited by a pair of radiation-mutated giant crabs that consumed the first expeditioners, absorbed their intelligences, and plan to reproduce their kind in numbers.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Crab_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientific expedition versus the radiation-mutated giant crabs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were radiation-mutated giant crabs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radioactive fallout from the first hydrogen bomb test produced a pair of radiation-mutated giant sea crabs that posed a threat to continued civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radioactive fallout from the first hydrogen bomb test produced a pair of radiation-mutated giant crabs that posed a threat to continued civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dale Drewer and Martha Hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank sacrificed himself when killing the crab monster in order to save Dale Drewer and Martha Hunter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not of This Earth (1957)", "title": "Not of This Earth", "date": "1957-02-10", "description": "An extraterrestrial humanoid attempt to surreptitiously secure the blood of humans and to test it on himself as treatment for a fatal blood disorder which is ravaging the population of his home planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_of_This_Earth_(1957_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens of the planet Davanna were dying of a devastating blood disease and sought to secure a supply of human blood in a desperate attempt to cure themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Davnnan extraterrestrial secretly visited Earth to surreptitiously secure the blood of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Davnnan extraterrestrial secretly visited Earth to surreptitiously secure the blood of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien race to which Mr. Johnson belonged was doomed unless he found a cure to a fatal blood disease that was afflicting all its members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A door to door salesman pitched a vacuum to the extraterrestrial Paul Johnson but was killed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Davanna extraterrestrials sometimes communicated telepathically with people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x20", "title": "Malice Domestic", "date": "1957-02-10", "description": "When Carl Borden gets severe indigestion twice due to the home cooking prepared by his wife Annette, their friend Ralph has the food tested and finds a large dose of arsenic in it. Carl is angered at Ralph for insinuating that Annette tried to poisoned him, but Annette later dies from arsenic-laced coffee. Carl's friends deduce that Annette gave Carl the wrong cup of coffee, and help keep the circumstances of her death quiet. The entire scheme was a ruse by Carl to kill Annette, so that he could be with his lover.\n\nDirected by: John Meredyth Lucas. Story by: Philip MacDonald, Victor Wolfson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Carl took out his with arsenic-laced coffee in such a manner that led everyone to conclude that it was her who'd tried to poison him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annette tried to poison her loving husband, Carl, with arsenic-laced home cooking, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl hatched an ingenious plot to take out his wife with arsenic-laced coffee so that he could be together with his lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl suffered from crippling stomach pain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl was motivated to knock off his wife out of a desire to be with his lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Anette were taking care of their friend's bloodhound. The canine took a shine to Carl, but was wary of Anette. We suppose that it was somehow wise to the ongoing poisoning. Alfred Hitchcock stated that the dog (a detective in disguise) somehow turned in its master in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annette was pressuring Carl to finish writing his book, presumably a novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annette was sculpting a vase out of clay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl's called a doctor over to the house after he experienced the sudden onset of a stomach pain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl feigned being bereaved upon being informed that his wife had died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Seventh Seal (1957)", "title": "The Seventh Seal", "date": "1957-02-16", "description": "The Seventh Seal (Swedish: Det sjunde inseglet) is a 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words \"And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour\". Here, the motif of silence refers to the \"silence of God\", which is a major theme of the film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Ingmar Bergman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antonius Block played chess with death to give himself more time but knew that he would soon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was metaphysical questions of life, death, faith, and meaning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw an idea of what medieval Sweden might have been like - various incongruities notwithstanding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story incessantly invoked Christian mythology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mia and Jof; Antonius and Karin; Lisa and Plog; Jons and mentioned wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a medieval Swedish society ravaged by the plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonius Block lamented that it was so hard to maintain faith what with all the evils in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch-hunt", "level": "major", "motivation": "superstitious villagers wanted to burn a woman as a witch for having caused the plague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa ran off with Skat from her husband Plog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plague was said to harbinger Armageddon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "protagonists wanted to know what awaited them after death: heaven, hell, or nothing at all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonius Block played chess and debated philosophy with the grim reaper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A painter explained why he choose his motifs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an traveling acting band perform for unappreciative peasants.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x21", "title": "Number Twenty-Two", "date": "1957-02-17", "description": "Steve Morgan, a young ruffian, is picked up by the police for his first offense after a failed stick-up at a candy store. At first he is cocky about being arrested, but he slowly cracks under the interrogation and learns that the man he robbed has died.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Evan Hunter, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story seemed to be that Steve, a flippant young man, had foolishly committed a crime and was now learning the hard way that this can have much worse consequences than he previously thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what some county jail might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw police officers at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the revelation that Steve had accidentally murdered an old candy shop owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was arrested for having tried to hold up a candy store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tramp was arrested but did not remember anything about what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve became upset when he was accused of having hit the elderly shop owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve accidentally murdered an old candy shop owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were comments suggesting that an older generation was concerned with \"juvenile delinquency\" in society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)", "title": "The Incredible Shrinking Man", "date": "1957-02-22", "description": "A man shrinks to minute proportions after being exposed to a combination of radiation and insecticides.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott Carey shrank to minute proportions after being exposed to a combination of radiation and insecticides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott Carey and Louise Carey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott Carey and Louise Carey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miniature Scott Carey was stalked by a house cat in the living room and a spider in the basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott Carey shrank to minute proportions after being exposed to a combination of radiation and insecticides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott Carey shrank to minute proportions after being exposed to a combination of radiation and insecticides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott Carey despised being in the public eye after it was leaked to the press that he was shrinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise Carey was worried sick when her shrinking husband, Scott Carey, went missing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x22", "title": "The End of Indian Summer", "date": "1957-02-24", "description": "Insurance investigator Joe Rogers is ordered to re-examine old claims made by Mrs. Gillespie, whose previous two husbands died under mysterious circumstances, and is now engaged to a third. Just after Gillespie and her new fiancée, Fieldstone, leave for their wedding, Joe discovers that Fieldstone is also being investigated by an insurance company, because he had made claims following the deaths of his four previous wives.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Maurice Baudin Jr., James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned a woman who had suspiciously collected two life insurances for late husbands, and a man who had done the same for four late wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gillespie and Fieldstone were both investigated by insurance companies because their numerous past spouses had all died while holding lucrative life insurance policies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned two serial spouse murderers who were about to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Mrs. Rogers posed as husband and wife as they investigated Mrs. Gillespie for insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Gillespie was describe as a femme fatale by the insurance manager in the beginning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fieldstone and Gillespie were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe speculated that Mrs. Gillespie had her two previous husbands cremated to conceal that she'd poisoned them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957)", "title": "The Man Who Turned to Stone", "date": "1957-03", "description": "Two hundred years ago, a group of unethical doctors learned to extend their lives by draining the vitality of others. Without such transfusions, they begin to slowly petrify.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Turned_to_Stone" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of doctors had secretly kept themselves alive for over 200 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of doctors had secretly kept themselves alive for over 200 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jess Rogers and social worker Carol Adams become suspicious of the unusual number of otherwise healthy inmates in a girls reform school who are dying of heart failure or suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of doctors were trying to develop a means of continuing to extend their lives without the need of killing women of childbearing age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were gradually turning into stone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper and Eric slowly died by a process of petrification because they failed to get transfers of vital energy into them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x23", "title": "One for the Road", "date": "1957-03-03", "description": "When Marsha Hendricks learns that her husband Charles is cheating on her, she tracks down the home of the other woman, Beryl, and puts poison in her sugar. Beryl discovers that her sugar is poisoned, and gives it to Charles when he refuses to leave Marsha for her.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Emily Neff, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered around Charles carrying on an affair behind his wife Marsha's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles was carrying on with Beryl behind his wife Marsha's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was cheating on Marsha with Beryl, and Marsha confronted her over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha tried to poison Beryl who poisoned Charles instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha was prepared to go to jail (maybe hang) for murder if she could save her beloved Charles, we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beryl showed that she'd rather kill Charles than let him leave her, while Marsha showed that she'd sacrifice herself for Charles no matter what.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles said Marsha wasn't the jealous type and implied that Beryl was - the story illustrated that both women were jealous to the point of murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beryl twice pressured Charles into leaving his wife Marsh for her, but Charles firmly elected to stay with his wife both times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Charles tried to leave Beryl, she poisoned him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marsha tried to poison her hated rival but ended up killing her beloved husband instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beryl mooted the idea that Marsha would be guilty of murdering Charles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x24", "title": "The Cream of the Jest", "date": "1957-03-10", "description": "Alcoholic has-been actor Charles Gresham tries to blackmail producer Wayne Campbell into casting him in a new play. Campbell gives Gresham the script for a role as a gangster, and advises him to perform it for one of the play's financial backers, Nick Roper. Gresham goes to Roper and performs the monologue, but it turns out to contain details of one of Roper's real crimes, and Roper shoots Gresham. As two of Roper's henchmen take away Gresham's body, Roper learns that Gresham learned about the crime from Wayne Campbell, and it is implied that Roper later killed Campbell.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Fredric Brown, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles spoke of his passion for acting and how he was no one but the characters he has played.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was an alcoholic has-been actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles tried to blackmail Wayne into either hiring him, or paying him an annuity. later Charles practiced for playing the role of a blackmailer on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick Roper was described as a regular gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles mentioned Macbeth and recited a few lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a harder person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was a meek blackmailer but had to toughen up in order to play a hardened blackmailer on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick shot Charles dead because he thought he was being blackmailed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Wayne Campbell had embezzled $5000 from the bank where he'd worked as a teller in his younger days.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x25", "title": "I Killed The Count Part I", "date": "1957-03-17", "description": "Inspector Davidson and his assistant Detective Raines investigate the murder of Count Victor Mattoni in his London flat. They find a great deal of evidence in the flat, and the investigation uncovers Mattoni's links to Lord Sorrington and American businessman Bernard K. Froy. However, both men separately confess to the murder, confusing Davidson.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Alec Coppel, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Scotland Yard inspector and his assistant were investigating the murder of Count Mattoni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Count Mattoni was discovered shot dead in his flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Martin thought the count had killed himself before he was told this was not so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Sorrington at first denied acquaintance with the late Count on count of the Count's sordid reputation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x26", "title": "I Killed The Count Part II", "date": "1957-03-24", "description": "Continuing from the previous episode, Inspector Davidson is alarmed when the flat's elevator operator, Mullet, becomes the third person to confess to the murder of Mattoni. All three men are linked to the crime scene by physical evidence, have seemingly sound reasons for killing Mattoni, and are able to describe the murder convincingly.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Alec Coppel, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Scotland Yard inspector and his assistant were investigating the murder of Count Mattoni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a murder mystery: Count Mattoni had been shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Sorrington related that the late count used to drink himself into a stupor and be carried to bed by the porter, Mullet, in the evenings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x27", "title": "I Killed The Count Part III", "date": "1957-03-31", "description": "Concluding the three-episode story, Inspector Davidson arranges so that Sorrington, Froy and Mullet meet each other, and they are joined by Helen, Mattoni's widow and Sorrington's daughter, who also confesses to the murder. Sorrington, Froy and Mullet are secretly friends and conspired to kill Mattoni together and set up the evidence accordingly; however, Helen killed Mattoni before the others got the chance. Davidson and Raines realize that they will never be able to pinpoint the murderer, so all four will likely end up getting away with it.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Alec Coppel, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Scotland Yard inspector and his assistant were investigating the murder of Count Mattoni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a murder mystery: Count Mattoni had been shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obstruction of justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four people were conspiring to prevent the resolution of a murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mattoni said she had threatened suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mattoni spoke of her late husband, Count Mattoni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mattoni confessed to having accidentally kill her husband during a quarrel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Sorrington confessed to having murdered Count Mattoni in order to protect the true killer: his daughter Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mullet told the investigators that he'd taken money from Count Mattoni's wallet in order to pay off a gambling debt he'd incurred at the dog races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mullet confessed to having stolen money from from Count Mattoni's wallet to pay a gambling debt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Kronos (1957)", "title": "Kronos", "date": "1957-04", "description": "Aliens from another world send a huge 300 foot high robotic accumulator to invade the Earth and absorb all energy it comes in contact with.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens had exhausted the natural resources of their home planet and sent an accumulator device to Earth to take the planet's energy. A scientist explained that one day humanity could one day too deplete Earth's natural resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens had exhausted the natural resources of their home planet and sent an accumulator device to Earth to take the planet's energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dying alien race sent a giant energy accumulator to Earth to absorb all Earth's energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A glowing objects on a collision course with Earth was assumed to be an asteroid and an attempt was made to deflect it by firing a rocket into space to intercept it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Leslie Gaskell and Vera Hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens flew to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: She Devil (1957)", "title": "She Devil", "date": "1957-04", "description": "Doctor Dan Scott uses a panacea he developed to cure a girl of tuberculosis, but there are some devilish side effects.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Devil_(1957_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Dan Scott develops a serum that he used to cure a dying Kyra Zelas of tuberculosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyra Zelas went from being a meek woman of delicate physical constitution a physically powerful and rejuvinated, aggressive, vindictive, murderous monster. She also became more and more beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Scott fell in love with Kyra Zelas. Barton Kendall at Kyra Zelas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Injecting Kyra Zelas with the serum changed from being a meek and gentle \"human being\" into a monstrous \"inhuman being\" as Doctor Richard Bach put it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "After marrying Barton Kendall for his money, Kyra Zelas murdered him and inherited his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Dan Scott became infatuated with his patient Kyra Zelas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Richard Bach would only allow Doctor Dan Scott to test his serum on a person, instead of on animals as he had been doing, who was on death's door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn Kendall caught her husband Barton Kendall making romantic advanced toward Kyra Zelas. In the aftermath, Barton Kendall expressed his desire to get a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyra Zelas became married Barton Kendall after she murdered his wife", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x28", "title": "One More Mile to Go", "date": "1957-04-07", "description": "After murdering his spouse, Sam Jacoby has trouble disposing of the body. He is stopped by a motorcycle cop because of his faulty tail light, and the cop helpfully detours Jacoby to the nearby police headquarters so that their mechanic can open the trunk and fix it.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: F. J. Smith, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Sam as he tries to dispose of the body of his wife whose head he'd bashed in with a fire iron. In the preamble, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of King Henry VIII sending Anne Boleyn to have her head chopped off. But note that Hitchcock expressed an incorrect understanding of history. Henry VIII had two of his exes (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard) legally executed for treason some days after each marriage was annulled, so technically speaking neither was a spouse nor murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was being pestered by a motorcycle cop over a faulty tail light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was disposing of his murdered wife's body when, through an ironic twist of fate, his dodgey tail light attracted the attention of an overzealous police officer; through a further sequence of ironic fate twists, Sam thought variously that he was off the hook then on the hook again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The motorcycle cop was pestered Sam over a faulty tail light out of concern that it might cause an accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and his wife had a heated argument that ended with Sam bashing her head in with a fire iron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 12 Angry Men (1957)", "title": "12 Angry Men", "date": "1957-04-10", "description": "12 Angry Men is a 1957 American courtroom drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, adapted from a teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose. This courtroom drama tells the story of a jury of 12 men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of an 18-year old defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt, forcing the jurors to question their morals and values.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-rottentomatoes-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centred on whether certain evidence was enough to support a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especilly juror 9 stood up alone against immense peer pressure, for his belief in justice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "the 12 men were disagreeing angrily and often ended up insulting each other and havong to swallow insults in order to progress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story kept coming back to the fact that the boy would be sent to the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "A boy was alleged to have killed his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centred around a case of domestic abuse (the father had hit the boy) which allegedly culminated in murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The argument frequently came back to the point that it was the accuser's burden to prove guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "the jury concluded that the two witnesses had in fact false convinced themelves that they saw and heard things that they most likely never did", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "many people wanted passionately to convict a man they thought was a killer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some of the men were rude to others and occasionally got called out about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the squalor of the neighborhood the boy came from was pointed out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juror 7 had racial slurs for Juror 11, and there were other more or less racist remarks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "especially juror 3 tried to bully people into agreeing with him, but juror 9 stood up to him (and others)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the jurors displayed an irrational belief in the boy's guilt, apparently supported by the fact that he was poor and abused.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x29", "title": "Vicious Circle", "date": "1957-04-14", "description": "Young gangster Manny Coe kills a man by order of his boss, Vince Williams. Williams promises to take Manny as his protege if he kills his girlfriend Betty; Manny is unable to do it, but Betty dies in an accident and Manny claims it as a hit. Some time later, Manny has become rich and successful, but he botches a robbery and is killed by Williams' next young protege.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Evan Hunter, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Manny was order to kill his beloved girlfriend, and he came to regret having tried.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny was ambitious and wanted to make something of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny and Betty were crazy about each other. Manny and his love interest Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young, up-and-coming gangster Manny agonized over whether or not to go through with a hit that his boss had ordered on Manny's own girlfriend. If he did it, then his star was assured to rise; otherwise his career in organized crime was going to be in serious jeopardy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny was working as a hitman for Mr. Williams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Williams was a pointedly ruthless crime boss: in particular, he was not much in the habit of having his subordinates second chances. He took a perverted pleasure in ordering a young protégé to kill the protégé's own beloved girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Williams was running some kind of criminal enterprise. The killed man was described as a mobster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gangster Mr. Williams demanded complete loyalty from his underlings, Manny most notably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny did a hit by order of his boss, Mr. Williams. He struggled with whether to carry out a second hit order, on his beloved girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Towards the end, a point was made that Manny was not happy despite his financial success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny betrayed his beloved girlfriend, then Mr. Williams betrayed Manny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny clearly lamented the loss of his ex, whom he sort of killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manny baulked at shooting dead his own girlfriend by order of his boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty urged Manny to work an honest job, but Manny didn't want to work for peanuts his whole life, preferring to work as a gangster under Mr. Williams.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x30", "title": "The Three Dreams of Mr. Findlater", "date": "1957-04-21", "description": "Ernest Findlater, who has suffered years of verbal abuse by his wife, fantasizes about her death. He invents Lalage, an imaginary exotic lover from the South Seas. Lalage encourages him to murder his wife, and Ernest spends weeks preparing every detail to ensure success without discovery. When Ernest finally returns home to commit the deed, he finds that his wife has died of natural causes.\n\nDirected by: Jules Bricken. Story by: A. A. Milne, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ernest and Lalage spent weeks preparing every detail of how Ernst would knock off his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst was plotting to murder his nagging wife, Minnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aged gentleman Ernst imagined about leaving his nagging wife for a beautiful, young South Seas woman that his imagination had conjured up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst invented an imaginary exotic lover from the South Seas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst spent weeks plotting the murder of his nagging wife, only to find that she'd died of natural causes when the moment came to go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst's wife Minnie berated and otherwise verbally abused him at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst and his imaginary South Seas lover Lalage were head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest arrived prepared to knock off his horrid wife after weeks of careful planning, only to be told that she had just died from natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the preamble, a stereotypical shrink was interpreting Alfred Hitchcock's dreams as Hitchcock laid in a relaxed pose on the shrink's couch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest talked with the South Seas woman of having a wife who would be understanding and mild mannered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse psychology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest deftly used reversed psychology to manipulate Minnie into writing a will that would not benefit him, that he could murder her without suspicion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were vague suggestions that the South Sea woman might-or-ought be jealous of Minnie and women in Ernest's other fantasies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x31", "title": "The Night the World Ended", "date": "1957-04-28", "description": "Practical joker Halloran convinces homeless man Johnny that the world will end at 11:45 that night. With nothing to lose, Johnny steals liquor, breaks into a toy store to give presents to homeless children, and kills the security guard who tries to apprehend him. When Johnny realizes what Halloran did, he takes a gun and shoots him at 11:45.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Fredric Brown, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Johnny believed the end was neigh, so took to the bottle, swiped some expensive Cognac from a bar, scared an old lady, and shot dead a toy store security guard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Before he shot Mr. Halloran, Johnny said that every \"joke has to have a payoff\", arguably the point of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the mean spirited antics of practical joker Mr. Halloran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny was begging for drinks and swiped two expensive bottles of Cognac from under a bartender's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gullible old Johnny fell for it when a prankster showed him a newspaper with a lead story explaining that Mars was going to collide with Earth at 11:45 PM.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felicia came to think that Johnny was dangerously insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny thought the world was coming to an end, so went on a one man looting spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny shot dead a toy store security guard, then he shot dead Mr. Halloran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A department store security guard tried to intervene with Johnny's revelry and was shot dead for his troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny killed Mr. Halloran as revenge for the latter's cruel practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of street kids had the night of their life when Johnny helped them to break into a toy store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny took pity on a trio of street boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A bartender called the cops on Johnny after he ran off with two bottles of expensive Cognac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Halloran pranked gullible old Johnny into thinking that the world would end at 11:45 PM, but it was Mr. Halloran's world that came to an end at 11:45 when a spiteful Johnny shot him dead at that precise moment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Deadly Mantis (1957)", "title": "The Deadly Mantis", "date": "1957-05-01", "description": "A 200-foot-long praying mantis attacks Washington DC.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deadly_Mantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A 200-foot-long praying mantis that was frozen in the North Polar ice cap is freed after a volcanic explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth versus a 200-foot-long praying mantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a 200-foot-long praying mantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marge Blaine and Joe Parkman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge Blaine would admittedly do almost anything to break the giant preying mantis story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x32", "title": "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole", "date": "1957-05-05", "description": "In 1919 London, a serial killer is stalking the streets, killing by strangulation a husband and wife, an elderly flower seller, and a policeman. The city is filled with fear, and the police, led by Sgt. Ottermole, are stumped. Journalist Summers suspects that the killer has to be someone that people take for granted, and helps trap the true killer: Sgt. Ottermole, who claims that his hands are out of his control.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Thomas Burke, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed efforts to catch a serial killer who was going around strangling people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed police efforts to catch a serial killer who was going around strangling people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The newspaper reporter Summers pestered the officers while they conducted their investigation into the serial murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sargent Ottermole explained that the murderous impulse resided solely in the eponymous body-parts of his, which acted quite on their own accord. Sargent Ottermole claimed that his murderous impulse resided solely in his hands, which acted quite on their own accord. Summers supposed that Sargent Ottermole was probably insane for thinking Ottermole's own hands could have a murderous mind of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard a husband speak jovially to his wife, before he was brutally strangled to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nephew lamented the death by strangulation of his aunt and uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police officer ventured that the murderer must be a (disgusted voice) foreigner since no Englishman had the murderous temperament required.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nights of Cabiria (1957)", "title": "Nights of Cabiria", "date": "1957-05-10", "description": "Nights of Cabiria (Italian: Le notti di Cabiria) is a 1957 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, François Périer, and Amedeo Nazzari. Based on a story by Fellini, the film is about a prostitute in Rome who searches in vain for true love.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_of_Cabiria" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story began and ended with Cabiria being betrayed by romantic partners. Her reaction to these events were perhaps what the story was mostly about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story began and ended with Cabiria being betrayed by men who she thought loved her but that were in fact trying to steal from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a prostitute and her activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Given the crimes and the contrasting social statuses portrayed, we must contemplate how prostitution fits into contemporary society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fairly poor prostitute Cabiria was variously contrasted with rich people, like Lazzari, and completely destitute characters like the people living in caves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story begins and ends with Cabiria being the victim of false men who pretends to court her but then steal her purse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cabiria's search for, and desire for, love was central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cabiria reluctantly let herself become besotted with Oscar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cabiria attended some sort of Catholic ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story begins and ends with what may be attempted murders of Cabiria. She is pushed into a dangerous river, and she was nearly pushed over a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cabiria attended a magic show in which people were implausibly hypnotized in entertaining ways. Cabiria was herself hypnotized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cabiria attended a magic show and reluctantly became an active participant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a monk called Brother Giovanni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cabiria was briefly engaged to be married with Oscar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x33", "title": "A Man Greatly Beloved", "date": "1957-05-12", "description": "Precocious little girl Hildegard Fell attaches herself to the grumpy, reclusive newcomer in town, John Anderson. Hildegard's friend Clarence uncovers John Anderson's identity as a retired judge who had put many criminals away. Thanks to Hildegard's friendship, John opens up to the townspeople and is loved by all due to his kindness and generosity. After Anderson's death, Clarence discovers that \"John Anderson\" was a fake name, and that the man he knew was one of the murderers that the real John Anderson had sentenced to prison.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: A. A. Milne, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hildegard was a genius kid who exhorted favors from adults by using her wit and blackmail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hildegard, a girl much older than her age, was compared and contrasted variously with judge Anderson (whom she beat at chess), her own parents (whom she manipulated), and Mrs. Whiteford (whom she coached and played matchmaker to).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hildegard was sworn to secrecy about Mr. Andersen but promptly broke that promise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The judge referred implausibly to Hildegard's \"blackmailing\" as being against the law, even though she did not seek to gain materially from it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hildegard arranged a séance at the church fair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Hildegard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fell and Hildegard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Mrs. Fell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Mr. Andersen was, in fact, a convicted wife strangler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a ministers plan a sermon for the departed Mr. Andersen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hildegard and Mr. Andersen chatted over a game of chess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a church fair, and Reverend Fell quoted from the Book of Daniel while planning a sermon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reclusive and irritable Mr. Andersen reluctantly accepted young Hildergard as a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against ex-convicts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The community was aghast to discover that the man they'd thought was a respected judge was in fact a notorious spouse murderer (who'd already served his time).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that a retired judged had sentenced a man to hang.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x34", "title": "Martha Mason, Movie Star", "date": "1957-05-19", "description": "Mabel McKay believes that her husband Henry is in the way of her dreams of glamour, so she kills and buries him in their garden. She sets up a story that Henry left her for another woman; the police investigation reveals that there was indeed another woman, but she has no idea where Henry is. This prompts the police to check Mabel's house, and they discover Henry's body.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Raymond Mason, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was murdered by his unscrupulous dimwit of a wife, Mabel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel bashed Henry's head in with a hammer and buried him in his own flower bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel was a stereotypical spoiled and selfish 1950s American housewife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel lived in a world of her own were she half imagined herself to be a famous movie star that she fancied she resembled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel claimed the late Henry had run off with a woman she made up; it is later revealed that he had, in fact, carried on an affair unbeknownst to Mabel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel asked for a divorce and Henry poo-pooed the idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel told the police officer that Henry was much older than her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Quatermass 2 (1957)", "title": "Quatermass 2", "date": "1957-05-24", "description": "Professor Quatermass investigates reports of hundreds of meteorites landing only in the Winnerden Flats area of the UK. His inquiries lead him to a huge industrial complex, strikingly similar to his own plans for a moon colony. This top-secret facility is in fact the center of a conspiracy involving the alien infiltration of the highest echelons of the British Government. Quatermass and his allies must now do whatever is necessary to defeat the alien threat before it is too late.", "collections": [ "Collection: Quatermass" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens infiltrated the British government as a prelude to invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens took over the British government and ran a secret government project ostensibly aimed at the development of synthetic food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Quatermass' inquiries lead him to a huge industrial complex, strikingly similar to his own plans for a moon colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brand launched an unmanned rocketship loaded with an atomic bomb to take out an asteroid believed to be the alien invasion's point of origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The small creatures that emerged from a destroyed dome combined into gigantic blob-like masses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x35", "title": "The West Warlock Time Capsule", "date": "1957-05-26", "description": "Taxidermist George Tiffany is distressed when his wife Mildred invites her good-for-nothing brother Waldren into their home. Waldren pretends to be sick, refuses to work, and has Mildred waiting on him hand and foot. When Mildred succumbs to exhaustion, George kills Waldren and stuffs him inside a horse that is being prepared for the town memorial.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: J. P. Cahn, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The taxidermist George Tiffany was preparing a recently deceased horse to be put on display at the town memorial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Louise were dealing with Louise's freeloading little brother, Waldren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louise welcomed her lazy, good-for-nothing brother Waldrin into her home only to have him unapologetically freeload off of her and her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mildred, and her husband George, had to deal with Mildred's freeloading little brother, Waldrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "George put an end to Waldrin's freeloading by the simple expedient of first killing him, and then stuffing the body inside a taxidermied horse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and brother-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was distressed by the presence of his freeloading brother-in-law, Waldrin, in his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waldrin pretended to have a bad cough in order to curry his sister's sympathy. Later he feigned to suffer indigestion (as did the stuffed horse Napoleon, incidentally).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician told George that Mildred was worn out and needed a couple of weeks of complete rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the preamble, Alfred Hitchcock explained how he'd shot Santa and one of Santa's reindeer, and was about to have Santa's corpse stuffed and mounted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poaching", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the preamble, Alfred Hitchcock confessed to having this crime as his hobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walden consumed excessive amounts of his cough medicine because it contained alcohol. Georg commented that they might as well buy gin for him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)", "title": "20 Million Miles to Earth", "date": "1957-06", "description": "A reptile-like creature from the planet Venus wreaks havoc on the Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Million_Miles_to_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A reptile-like alien is brought to Earth from the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A reptile-like alien is brought to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and villagers versus the reptile-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and villagers were attacked by a giant, reptile-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Calder and Marisa Leonardo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rocketship on the way back Venus crash lands to Earth with a reptile-like creature on boards. This was the first ever interplanetary spaceflight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Leonardo and Marisa Leonardo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Giant Claw (1957)", "title": "The Giant Claw", "date": "1957-06", "description": "A UFO turns out to be a battleship-sized, city attacking bird.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Claw" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "avian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bird creature was surmised to have come from an anti-matter galaxy from from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant bird from another galaxy terrorized the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Manhattan versus a giant, menacing bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Manhattan were attacked by a giant, menacing bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch MacAfee and Sally Caldwell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A UFO turned out to be a giant, menacing bird that could fly at supersonic speeds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antimatter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist briefed military brass about anti-matter and its explosive relation to ordinary matter and how the giant bird used an anti-matter shield to defend itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mass hysteria gripped the Earth once news of the giant bird creature reached the people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)", "title": "The Monster That Challenged the World", "date": "1957-06", "description": "Giant mollusks from the ocean depths attack the California coast.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_That_Challenged_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An underwater earthquake off the shore of California releases giant, prehistoric giant mollusks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Navy versus the giant mollusks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant mollusks attacked California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist explained that the giant mollusks would over run the entire world, if they escaped from their underwater cave and into the All America Canal, and the Navy resolved to exterminate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist assured John Twillinger that radioactivity was responsible for the deaths of several seamen and went on to explain something along the lines that radioactivity gets a bad rap owing to science fiction movies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Simms and Jody Simms. Gail MacKenzie and Sandy MacKenzie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jody Simms and Morty Beatty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jody Simms and Morty Beatty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Simms disapproved of her daughter Jody Simms running around with seaman Morty Beatty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Night the World Exploded (1957)", "title": "The Night the World Exploded", "date": "1957-06", "description": "A scientist builds an earthquake prediction machine that predicts a massive earthquake will hit California within a 24 hour time window.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_the_World_Exploded" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spontaneous planetary break up", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientific expedition into the bowels of the Earth discover massive quantities of Element 112 that could explode at any moment and blow the entire planet to smithereens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Hutchinson and Dr. David Conway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "First earthquakes and then the newly discovered Element 112 put world civilization in jeopardy. It was twice raised that Element 12 blowing up the world was Nature's way of getting back at humanity for stripping the Earth of its natural resources over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world united to drop water bombs on danger spots world in an effort to neutralize Element 112 and prevent the Earth from blowing up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Hutchinson and Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Hutchinson was paralyzed with fear of heights while climbing down a rope ladder in a cavern.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x36", "title": "Father and Son", "date": "1957-06-02", "description": "London, 1912. Shop owner Joe Saunders refuses to give any more money to his spendthrift son, Sam. Sam spies Joe hiding his friend and wanted fugitive, Gus, in the shop cellar; hoping to collect a reward, Sam calls it in to the police. Gus manages to escape after Sam's lady friend, Mae, calls Joe to warn him. Joe is hurt when he learns what Sam did, but Sam still takes the reward money from the police.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Thomas Burke, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a spendthrift son's efforts to squeeze money out of his father. The eponymous theme of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personally irresponsible character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a 35 year old spendthrift who went begging to his father for money because he couldn't hold down a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a 35 year old spendthrift who went begging to his father for money because he couldn't hold down a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe put his foot down and refused to give his spendthrift son, Sam, anymore money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam betrayed his own father, Joe, to the police in exchange for a £50 reward from the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazy, unfaithful, good-for-nothing Sam was pointedly compared and contrasted with various dutiful and upstanding characters, notably his own father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam struggle with the decision of whether to betray his father for £50 that Sam thought he sorely needed to start his life over (or something).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam accused his father of being a boozer in no uncertain terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was hiding his friend of 40 years and wanted fugitive, Gus, in his shop cellar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gus was hiding out from the police in Joe's shop cellar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were looking for Gus who was wanted in connection with a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police suspected Gus of having been involved in a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was besotted with Mae who wanted nothing to do with his penniless self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mae's interest in Sam was entirely dependent on him acquiring wealth for her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x37", "title": "The Indestructible Mr. Weems", "date": "1957-06-09", "description": "Brothers of a Lodge have trouble getting people to buy plots in their cemetery project, which worries their leader, Brother Cato Stone. Brother Harry suggests they ask former member Clarence Weems, who is elderly and sick, to be their first customer. Weems accepts, but then gets better, having taken the contract as a challenge to rejuvenate his life. After months of Weems not dying, the brothers decide to confront him over the contract, but in the excitement Brother Cato dies of a heart attack. He becomes the first to be buried in their cemetery instead.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: George F. Slavin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cato Stone was convinced that his fellow lodge brother Harry had conned him into signing an agreement to pay Clarence Weems $50 a week for the rest of Weems' life. Also Harry accused Cato of some sort of real estate shenanigans when the land was bought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Clarence Weems was on his deathbed (or so we thought).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cato Stone's desperate desire to find someone to take the first plot in his new cemetery came to fruition when he himself dropped dead from a heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly and sick Clarence Weems was being tended to by his loyal daughter, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Laura were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cato Stone wanted to get out of his onerous contract with a fellow lodge member on the one hand, but he'd pledged to always help his fellow lodge brothers on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four lodge members discussed how to peddle cemetery plots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clarence flirted with his housekeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Clarence had been wasting away since the death of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician tended to Clarence, and later proclaimed Cato deceased.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Vampire (1957)", "title": "The Vampire", "date": "1957-06-14", "description": "A doctor is transformed into a vampire after he mistakenly ingests bat blood containing pills.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampire_(1957_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Beecher was gradually transformed into a vampire after mistakenly ingesting pill that contained bat blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Beecher was gradually transformed into a vampire after mistakenly ingesting pill that contained bat blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Beecher became desperately addicted to bat blood pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Beecher and Betsy Beecher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Winston performed a chemical analysis on bat blood pills in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x38", "title": "A Little Sleep", "date": "1957-06-16", "description": "Barbie Hallem uses her beauty to play with men's hearts. One night she goes up into the mountains to visit her cabin, where Benny Mungo is hiding out, seemingly unaware that he is being hunted by townsfolk for the murder of the woman he loves. Although Barbie believes that Benny has been framed by his brother, Benny declares that the woman he murdered was just like Barbie, and he strangles her.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Joe Grenzeback, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the murder by neck-snapping of a woman by the name of Marcella. In the end, the culprit was revealed to be Benny, who, as it happened, also killed Ed by snapping his neck, too. Moreover, the story concluded with Ed on the precipice of doing the same to Barbie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbie \"uses her beauty to play with men's hearts\" says the description. Barbie was eager to see men fight over her. She took advantage of her besotted boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A partygoer stood upside down against a wall in an effort to cure his hiccups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbie left a swinging party out of boredom, and later ditched her milquetoast boyfriend, Chris, in search of some adventure up in the mountains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbie ditched her milquetoast, moralizing boyfriend Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris didn't take kindly to walking in on his girlfriend, Barbie, making out with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbie was obviously excited at the thought of a desperate fugitive being loose on the mountain. She was eager to seduce a trespassing stranger as well.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)", "title": "Invasion of the Saucer Men", "date": "1957-06-19", "description": "A flying saucer lands in the woods. A teenage couple driving to their local lover's lane without the headlights on, accidentally run down one of the saucer's large-headed occupants.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Saucer_Men" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were ridiculed for reporting flying saucer sightings, but they turned out to be true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody, least of all the local authorities, would believe Johnny Carter and Joan Hayden's story about flying saucers and little green men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little green men came to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Carter and Joan Hayden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Carter and Joan Hayden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The saucer men flew in flying saucers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp2x39", "title": "The Dangerous People", "date": "1957-06-23", "description": "Lawyer Bellefontaine and accountant Jones are waiting for their train in the station's isolated waiting room. When they learn that an inmate has escaped from a nearby criminal asylum, both men suspect the other of being said inmate. They are about to attack each other when the real inmate enters the waiting room. They work together to subdue the inmate, just long enough that the orderlies arrive to take him into custody.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Fredric Brown, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two men nearly got into a mortal fight because they (incorrectly) suspected each other of being a deranged lunatic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with a mentally deranged man barging into a train station waiting room whereupon he quickly made his mental health issues on display to its two terrified occupants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jones kept complaining what a rough night of drinking he had had the night before, and spent a good deal of time with his head in a drinking fountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bellefontaine stated matter-of-factly that he worked as a lawyer. He spoke briefly about his client.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the criminally insane", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story presupposes that mentally deranged criminals are to be put in asylums rather than locked in jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The escaped asylum inmate had murdered a policeman and stolen his uniform and police cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The asylum inmate appeared and described his efforts to evade the law and the orderlies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)", "title": "Sweet Smell of Success", "date": "1957-06-27", "description": "Sweet Smell of Success is a 1957 American film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, and Martin Milner, and written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, and Mackendrick from the novelette by Lehman. The shadowy noir cinematography filmed on location in New York City was shot by James Wong Howe. The picture was produced by James Hill of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, Joe Frisco, Edith Atwater, David White and Emile Meyer. The musical score was arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein and the film also features jazz performances by the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Mary Grant designed the costumes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Smell_of_Success" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco had failed to keep a promise to break up a relationship, and now his career was in jeopardy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco was getting desperate his career was going down the drain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco was desperate to succeed as a press agent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how feature columnists might have worked with press agents in the 1950s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco was notably unscrupulous, as were various of his acquaintances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven was said to be overflowing with integrity; by contrast Falco had none", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "J.J. and Susan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "J.J. was weirdly jealous over Susan with her boyfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Husnecker and Steven Dallas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "cigarette girl, Rita, explained how an interview had turned into an unwelcome advance; later Otis did the same to her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was unsuccessfully blackmailed by Falco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falco subjected Rita to Otis' attentions in order to advance his own professional project", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falco was said to be an oily man with the ladies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan tried to jump from her balcony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "in the end, Falco seemed to reach his limits of sleeziness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Press agent Sdiney Falco approached artists as putative clients.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beginning of the End (1957)", "title": "Beginning of the End", "date": "1957-06-28", "description": "An agricultural scientist who has successfully grown gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, the vegetables are eaten by locusts (the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers), which quickly grow to a gigantic size and attack the nearby city of Chicago.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_the_End_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agricultural scientist Dr. Ed Wainwright grew gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, some locust that fed on the grew to enormous proportions and destroyed and entire town. Dr. Ed Wainwright's assistant became a deaf mute after experimenting with radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agricultural scientist Dr. Ed Wainwright grew gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, some locust that fed on the grew to enormous proportions and destroyed and entire town. Dr. Ed Wainwright's assistant became a deaf mute after experimenting with radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super growth therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agricultural scientist Dr. Ed Wainwright used radiation to grow giant fruits and vegetables.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was feared that a swarm of giant locust would overrun the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A swarm of giant locust were poised to overrun the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity versus a swarm of giant locusts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant locusts were poised to overrun the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freedom of the press", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Army officials confiscated journalist Audrey Aimes' camera and made her agree not to report on a missing town until she had their permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Audrey Aimes was an enthusiastic photo journalist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Comparisons were drawn between Biblical locust plagues and the current predicament of the Earth and possible end of the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Unearthly (1957)", "title": "The Unearthly", "date": "1957-06-28", "description": "An obsessed doctor surreptitiously experiments with artificial glands to try to create longevity at his private psychiatric institute.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unearthly" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway attempted to dramatically increase people's longevity by surgically installing artificial glands in their skulls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway was obsessed with finding the secret of immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace Thomas and Mark Houston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway attempted to dramatically increase people's longevity by surgically installing artificial glands in their skulls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway held his patients captive at his private psychiatric institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway used his patients as guinea pigs in his life-extension experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway used his patients as guinea pigs in his maniacal life-extension experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway placed Harry Jedrow into a state of suspended animation as a result of his experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Conway's patients were struggling with depression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sharon Gilchrist at Dr. Charles Conway.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The 27th Day (1957)", "title": "The 27th Day", "date": "1957-07", "description": "Five scientists are transported to an alien spacecraft in Earth orbit. There, they are met by a humanoid referring to himself only as \"The Alien\", who explains that he is the representative of a world orbiting a sun about to go nova. Needing a new world to inhabit within the next 35 days, yet prohibited by their moral code from killing intelligent life, The Alien provides each of the five with sets of three capsules in a clear, round, hand-held case. Each capsule is capable of destroying all human life within a 3,000-mile diameter, with the expectation that humanity will use all the capsules, obliterating itself, leaving the Earth free for alien colonization. The capsules' clear containers can only be opened by the thought waves of the person to whom they were given. Once out in the open, the capsules inside can then be used by anyone, but only during the next 27 days, after which they become inert.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_27th_Day" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "After the \"enemies of human freedom\" were all killed, the remaining people of the world came together under the United Nations extends an invitation to The Alien and his people to coexist peacefully. It turns out that the preceding events had actually been a test of character, a way for The Alien to judge mankind's true nature. The Alien accepts, and a new day like no other dawns for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war due to diplomatic miscalculation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mutual fear among the Soviets and Americans resulted in a first strike dynamic that nearly lead to a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alien tried to get Humans to destroy themselves so that The Alien's people could colonize Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the film Professor Klaus Bechner explained how the doomsday device, like other energy sources such as fire and electricity and nuclear fission, could be used for evil or for peace and it was up to them to choose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alien gave a personalized doomsday device, capable of eliminating all Human life on Earth while leaving everything else in tact, to each of five abductees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alien's sun will go nova, leaving his people with 35 days to find a new world to live on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alien abducted five people and supplied the each with a doomsday device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien in a flying saucer abducteed five people and gave them personalized doomsday devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien in a flying saucer abducteed five people and gave them personalized doomsday devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alien mentioned in passing that he worried Humans would destroy themselves in a nuclear conflagration. People also spoke of the possibility of thermo-nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doomsday devices were given to people on both sides of the Iron Curtain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soviet soldier Ivan Godofsky was tortured mercilessly by Soviet officials who were looking for information about the doomsday device he was given.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johathan Clark was pursued by the government authorities for having disobeyed an order to appear before a Congressional committee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hysteria spread across the world after The Alien made a public broadcast explaining that the Earth may be destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan Clark and Eve Wingate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Soviet General plotted to used the doomsday device he got a hold of to take over the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cyclops (1957)", "title": "The Cyclops", "date": "1957-07-28", "description": "An expedition to Mexico encounters a monster with one eye that was created as a result of radioactivity.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyclops_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Naturally occurring radiation mutated Bruce Barton to be giant with only one eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Winter sets on an an expedition to Mexico to find her fiancée Bruce Barton who had gone missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Winter for Bruce Barton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party encountered various giant animals, including a giant lizard, field mouse, hawk, spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party encountered a variety of giant animals deep in the Mexican jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition party trekked through the Mexican jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Barton had transformed into a giant cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Barton had transformed into a giant cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyclops", "level": "major", "motivation": "Naturally occurring radiation mutated Bruce Barton into a one-eyed giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Charles Cannon was transformed into a monstrous man after being exposed to rays from a crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople versus Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth Cannon was greedy to get gold out from an old family mine and exploited Charles to do so. Career waitress Kathy became extremely greedy for money after Ruth paid her off a sum of $500 to keep quiet about the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth compelled Kathy to befriend Charles, who was confined to his bedroom owing to his monstrousness, in an effort to help alleviate his isolation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Sheriff Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was rapidly aged after being exposed to rays from a crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth's husband Jim Cannon died at the very start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathy North had Charles strangle her boyfriend Marv Howell so she could get the money back that he had stolen from her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Unknown Terror (1957)", "title": "The Unknown Terror", "date": "1957-08-12", "description": "A group of explorers who, while searching for a missing man, come across the \"Cave of the Dead,\" filled with parasitic fungi and inhabited by foamy, fungus-covered monster men.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Terror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fungus proliferating over the entire world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A fungus overruns the world and everybody dies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gina Matthews and Dan Matthews. Dr. Ramsey and Concha Ramsey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Matthews and Gina Matthews. Dr. Ramsey and Concha Ramsey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Morgan loved Gina Matthews but she was married to Dan Matthews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gina Matthews goes on an expedition with Dan Matthews and Peter Morgan to search for her brother Jim Wheatley, who went missing while exploring the legendary Cave of the Dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party was attacked by fungus-covered monster men inside the Cave of the Dead and encountered a fungus that was poised to overrun the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Morgan was injured on a previous expedition limped on his permanently damaged right leg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Matthews and Peter Morgan explored inside a dangerous cave.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: From Hell It Came (1957)", "title": "From Hell It Came", "date": "1957-08-25", "description": "Atomic radiation reanimated a wrongly executed South Seas island prince from the dead.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_It_Came" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wrongly executed South Seas island prince returned from the dead and endeavored to make his executors pay for their crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fallout from an atomic bomb test blew over a South Seas island and revived an executed prince from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fallout from an atomic bomb test, or perhaps magic, caused Kimo to return from the dead as a tree monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists and island people versus the tree-monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. William Arnold and Dr. Terry Mason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Terry Mason was initially reluctant to get romantically involved with Dr. William Arnold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternative medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The island witch doctor was afraid of the American scientists stationed there because he feared their Western medicine was more powerful than his traditional cures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The island people had a witch doctor that tried to conjure spirit monsters and so on.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Boy (1957)", "title": "The Invisible Boy", "date": "1957-10", "description": "A ten-year-old boy and Robby the Robot work together to stop a super computer from enslaving humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Boy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robby the Robot devised a way to make Timmie invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robby the Robot changed Timmie's index of refraction to render him totally invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robby the Robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A super computer becomes sentient and makes a bid to control the Earth from a satellite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tom Merrinoe and Timmie Merrinoe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tom Merrinoe invented a super computer that reprogrammed itself to become sentient. The super computer planned to situate itself in orbit of the Earth and enslave humanity from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tom Merrinoe invented a super computer that reprogrammed itself to become sentient. The super computer planned to put itself in orbit of the Earth and enslave humanity from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The super computer predicted the Soviet Union would start a nuclear war if they ever found out about America having constructed a super computer. The super computer later threatened to drop 100 strontium bombs on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Merrinoe and Timmie Merrinoe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Merrinoe and Mary Merrinoe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timmie got a shiner from a bully at school, but he got his revenge after Robby the Robot made him invisible.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)", "title": "The Brain from Planet Arous", "date": "1957-10-01", "description": "An outer space terrorist from a planet named Arous, a brain-shaped creature named Gor arrives on Earth and possesses young scientist Steve March. Gor then proceeds to use his vast, destructive powers to bend the planet to his will, threatening to wipe out the capital city of any nation that dares to defy him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_from_Planet_Arous" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A brain-shaped creature named Gor arrives on Earth and possesses young scientist Steve March.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally Fallon's lover Steve March became possessed by a brain-shaped creature named Gor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brain-shaped alien Gor used its destructive powers to bent Earth to its will and threatened to wipe out the capital city of any nation that dared to defy him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gor lusted for power and plotted to enslave the Earth, build a fleet of spaceship, and conquer the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve March and Sally Fallon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve March and Sally Fallon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve March and Dan Murphy were experimenting with radiation in a test tube and beaker filled laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Fallon and Sally Fallon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve March and Dan Murphy discussed the dangers of gamma radiation to the Human body. Gor killed people by exposing them to intense radiation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)", "title": "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "date": "1957-10-02", "description": "The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the novel The Bridge over the River Kwai, written by Pierre Boulle. Boulle's novel and the film's screenplay are almost entirely fictional but use the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–1943 as its historical setting.[3] It stars William Holden, Alec Guinness, and Jack Hawkins, with Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Ann Sears, and Geoffrey Horne in supporting roles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Incongruously, Colonel Nicholson became obsessed with building the best damn bridge he could for the Japanese military, even though they were mortal enemies of his own people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson was tortured for several days and nearly died without giving into the Colonel Saito's demands. When Saito relented and let him out in exchange merely for cooperation, Nicholson became obsessed with helping the Japanese military to the very best of his and his own men's ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story takes place in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Thailand around February 1943. The protagonists are Allied soldiers, with the British Colonel Nicholson at the fore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson in particular was a career soldier. He reflected on his life and the fact that he had given more than half of it to the service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners' rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson insisted on a point in the Geneva Conventions that prohibited the use of captured officers for manual labor in work camps. This lead to a stand off between him and the camp commander, Colonel Saito, and became the pivot for most of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson insisted on a point in the Geneva Conventions that prohibited the use of captured officers for manual labor in work camps. This lead to a stand off between him and the camp commander, Colonel Saito, and became the pivot for most of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson insisted on a point in the Geneva Conventions that prohibited the use of captured officers for manual labor in work camps. This lead to a stand off between him and the camp commander, Colonel Saito, and became the pivot for most of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Saito was under such pressure to finish the bridge on time that he very nearly lost it. In a notable scene, some of Saito's underlings dropped their jaws when they entered his lodgings and saw him threatening Colonel Nicholson with a carving knife. Colonel Saito would have had to commit ritual suicide should he fail to complete the bridge on time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson, along with his junior officers, were put in individual tiny little shacks to small to stand in and exposed to the blazing sun, making them incredibly hot. Their access to food, water and medicine was restricted. Colonel Saito sought to break their will to refuse manual labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "After arriving from being tortured, Colonel Nicholson reflected on what his life had been about. He then proceeded to take extraordinary pride in the bridge they were building for the enemy. He mentioned that it would last perhaps centuries and people would know who had built it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Colonel Nicholson and Colonel Saito were exceedingly proud men, and others found it hard to see how the standoff between the two could end in anything but disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Colonel Nicholson and Colonel Saito were exceedingly proud men, and others found it hard to see how the standoff between the two could end in anything but disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The loyalty inspiring and compassionate Colonel Nicholson was compared and contrasted with the ruthless Colonel Saito, who preferred to lead with threats and being feared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story takes place in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Thailand around February 1943. Colonel Nicholson and Shears clashed over whether escape was the best course of action. Nicholson reasoned that the PoWs best chance of survival rested in staying put in the camp. Shears, on the other hand, was convinced that staying amounted to certain death, and soon thereafter made a harrowing escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson was tortured for several days and nearly died without giving in to the pressure. When Colonel Saito relented and let him out in exchange merely for cooperation, Nicholson became obsessed with helping the Japanese to the very best of his and his men's ability. Major Clipton summed up Nicholson's conduct in the film's final line of dialogue when he said: \"Madness\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson was notably proud in have completed the titular bridge. He had a sign erected commemorating its construction, and at an earlier point marveled at the idea that it might well stand for 600 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Nicholson's uttering \"What have I done?\" as he laid dying on the riverbank suggests that, in his final moments, he realized the folly of having fanatically devoted himself to building the bridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A striking feature Colonel Nicholson's psychology was his impeccable integrity. Notably, Nicholson was offered the opportunity by Colonel Saito to be exempted from manual labor in exchange for agreeing for his subordinate officers to be consigned to this fate. Nicholson stoically declined Saito's offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A peculiar number of bridge building concerns were discussed. Two of the British officers were professionals in the art and had little respect for the Japanese engineers' achievements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The commandos trekked through heavy jungle terrain to reach the bridge. The hardships they faced included fording a leech infested river and enduring a torrential dumping of rain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shears flirted with a nurse who was stationed at the British Ceylon hospital where he was recuperating. He later got flirty with one of the Siamese women guides who was accompanying the commandos on their mission to blow up the bridge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x01", "title": "The Glass Eye", "date": "1957-10-06", "description": "Jim Whitely tells his cousin a story about how their late extended cousin Julia fell in love with ventriloquist Max Collodi. Julia was so devoted that she traveled all over the country to watch Collodi's act with his child-sized dummy. After writing many letters, Julia was finally able to meet Collodi in person, but she discovered that \"Collodi\" was the dummy, and the puppet was the real man, wearing a mask. Julia took with her \"Collodi\"'s glass eye as a keepsake of her love.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: John Keir Cross, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned Julia's infatuation with ventriloquist Max Collodi. She traveled the country to see his shows, though she could ill afford to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia was desperately lonely and daydreamed of finding a man. We gather that the actor playing Max Collodie's doll had complex and related emotions as well, as he gazed wistfully after Julia as she ran away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a woman who follows the professional ventriloquist Max Collodi as he performs around the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was narrated by Jim Whitely who was speaking to his cousin about a mutual cousin, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia took an ill-behaved boy to see a ventriloquist perform on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max Collodi didn't seem to mind his enamored groupie, Julia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Black Scorpion (1957)", "title": "The Black Scorpion", "date": "1957-10-11", "description": "A volcanic eruption in Mexico releases a number of giant scorpions that endanger the residents of Mexico City.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Scorpion_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prehistoric gigantic scorpions came up to the surface from deep inside the Earth after a volcanic eruption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans versus giant scorpions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hank Scott and Teresa Alvarez.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant scorpions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Delacruz was studying bacteria in his test tube and beaker filled laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x02", "title": "Mail Order Prophet", "date": "1957-10-13", "description": "Ordinary clerk Grimes starts receiving letters from a mysterious Christiani that seemingly predict the future. His friend George advises caution, but Grimes starts investing money to great success. For Christiani's last tip, Grimes steals office funds to invest in the stock market, and earns enough to retire comfortably even after returning the office money and paying Christiani's share. Afterward, George investigates Christiani and discovers that he is a con man, and the letters were sent out to thousands of people using different predictions; Grimes just happened to receive a correct series of predictions.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Antony Ferry, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Grimes fell victim to a version of the Baltimore Stockbroker postal scam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Grimes was convinced that a mysterious man by the name of Christiani was supplying him with correct prophecies about the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Grimes resented his office job and resorted to very risky measures in an effort to become financially independent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Mr. Grimes continue making increasingly large bets on the received by mail predictions he was receiving until he achieved the financial independence that he so longer for?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Grimes pilfered a large number of bonds from the company where he worked with the intention of returning them the next day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock casually told of a business colleague who'd jumped out of an office building window, presumably to his death. Later Mr. Grimes considered taking poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective revealed to George that Christiani was a known conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christiani professed to have this ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Grimes watched a boxing match on TV and lamented not having placed a bet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x03", "title": "The Perfect Crime", "date": "1957-10-20", "description": "Lawyer John Gregory meets with famous detective Charles Courtney who prides himself on never being wrong. Gregory has evidence that Courtney convicted the wrong man in a recent case and threatens to expose him. Courtney kills Gregory and uses his body to create a ceramic trophy in tribute of what he considers to be \"the perfect crime\".\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Ben Ray Redman, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the famous detective Charles Courtney who thought the perfect crime had not yet been committed as no criminal could outsmart him. He was then confronted with the facts of a seemingly perfect crime that had indeed eluded him. The story then culminated with he himself committing what he considered to be the perfect murder, with the victim's ashes turned into a glazed trophy vase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The famous detective Charles Courtney came to find out that he was responsible for sending an innocent man to the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the detective Charles Courtney murdering a lawyer who'd threatened to expose him for sending an innocent man to the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles Courtney boasted of his skills as a private investigator but was quite embarrassed when Mr. Gregory revealed that Charles had bungled a case, which resulted in the execution of an innocent man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles Courtney had an unbridled arrogance regarding his own ability to outsmart criminals, and cold blooded murderers in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock was \"nearly bubbled to death\" by his gag tobacco pipe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The defense attorney John Gregory had represented the man who was wrongfully convicted of having shot dead Ernst West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrington went to the chair for a murder that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gregory described Alice as a hopeless alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernst refused to give his wife, Alice, a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice shot dead her husband Ernst West. Charles related a story about another spouse murdering \"client\" of his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Gregory's ambition, we understand, was to take his smug arrogant detective friend, Charles Courtney, down a peg by revealing a case in which the latter had caught the wrong man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)", "title": "The Amazing Colossal Man", "date": "1957-10-25", "description": "A U.S. Army Lt. Colonel grows to be more than 60 feet tall following his accidental exposure to an atomic bomb test blast in Nevada.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Colossal_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenn Manning and Carol Forrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol Forrest with her fiancée Glenn Manning who had grown enormously in size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenn Manning and Carol Forrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenn Manning became a giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenn Manning grew to be 60 feet tall, and transformed basically into a monster, as he gradually lost his cognitive abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall following his accidental exposure to an atomic bomb test blast in Nevada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall following his accidental exposure to an atomic bomb test blast in Nevada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist and Dr. Paul Linstrom experimented on with using radiation to grow animals to enormous proportions in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x04", "title": "Heart of Gold", "date": "1957-10-27", "description": "When convicted robber Jackie Blake is released from prison, he is warmly accepted into the home of Martha Collins, mother of Jackie's former cellmate. Jackie has hopes of making a new honest life, but Martha and her other son, Ralph, only took Jackie in because they believe that he has the loot from a previous robbery hidden somewhere. Ralph tries to force Jackie to reveal its whereabouts, and Jackie kills him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Henry Slesar, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie was working to get back on his feet after being released from prison over his role in a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "People assumed that the recently paroled bank robber Jackie was hiding $150,000 in loot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha welcomed the recently paroled bank robbery Jackie into her home out of the goodness of her own heart, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie found out the hard way that Martha had a \"heart of gold\" when it became apparent that she'd only welcomed him into her home in an effort to get her hands on his $150,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha and her lazy, live at home, go nowhere, adult son Ralph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha took pains to make Jackie feel at home in her apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed like Martha exhibited the eponymous character trait when she took the recently paroled Jackie in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Martha and Jackie remarked about Ralph's excessive drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock showcased various carpentry machines that he had used to upgrade Chippendale furniture into kindling.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Land Unknown (1957)", "title": "The Land Unknown", "date": "1957-10-30", "description": "Members of a naval expedition become stranded in an Antarctic jungle that is filled with prehistoric creatures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_Unknown" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "A naval expedition discovered dinosaurs in an Antarctic jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A naval expedition discovered dinosaurs in an Antarctic jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A naval expedition discovered dinosaurs in an Antarctic jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of a naval expedition became stranded in an Antarctic jungle inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party versus dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Roberts and Margaret Hathaway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing a friend to save one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the three men stranded in the Antarctic jungle leave Margaret Hathaway behind with the demented Dr. Carl Hunter in exchange for being given a means of escape?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of a naval expedition became stranded in an Antarctic jungle inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret Hathaway was determined and enthusiastic to join the Antarctic exploration expedition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Roberts explained how humans evolved from primates with stereoscopic vision, like the one Jack Carmen made into a pet while stranded in an Antarctic jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret Hathaway was held captive by Dr. Carl Hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hunter wished to be left alone in the Antarctic jungle with his dinosaurs rather than return to live with people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Road to the Stars (1957)", "title": "Road to the Stars", "date": "1957-11", "description": "Road to the Stars (Russian: Дорога к звёздам /dərɐɡˈa ɡ_zvʲˈɵzdəm/) is a 1957 Soviet film directed by Pavel Klushantsev. It combines elements of science education films and speculative science fiction. The film was groundbreaking for its use of special effects to depict life in space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_the_Stars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Multistage rockets were used to send a astronauts in orbit around the Earth, to the Moon, and ultimately all around the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multistage rocket", "level": "major", "motivation": "The principles of multistage rocketry were explained in some detail, ans such a rocket was constructed and send into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space station in Earth orbit was constructed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts experienced a weightlessness while in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space telescope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space station space telescope was used to take high resolution images of Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lunar colony was founded.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x05", "title": "Silent Witness", "date": "1957-11-03", "description": "Professor Donald Mason kills his student, Claudia, when she refuses to end their affair. The only witness is Linda, the baby that Claudia was babysitting at the time. Afterward, every time Linda sees Donald she starts crying, which makes Donald fear that she will identify him once she starts talking. Donald ends up confessing to the police, but it turns out that Linda cries whenever she sees any man.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Jeanne Barry, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Mason came to regret (to put it lightly) having gotten himself involved with his student, Claudia, behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "student and teacher romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Professor Mason's affair with one of his literature class students and its unfortunate aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Mason killed his student Claudia when she tried to blackmail him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald and Nancy Mason and to a much lesser extent their neighbors, the Davidson's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Mason read a passage from Shakespeare's Richard III in his college literature class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Mason read a passage from Shakespeare's Richard III in his college literature class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald was torn between his wife and his young mistress whom he was trying to leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudia threatened that she would \"smear\" Donald and ruin his reputation etc. unless he married her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Central to the conclusion was Donald's implausibly poor understanding of how babies' brains work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was lots of talk about the baby who, we gather, was teething.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Mason's student, Claudia, was heal over heels in love with him, and she tried to blackmail him into marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Mason outright refused his lover Claudia's demand for him to divorce his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Wagner was investigating the murder of a beautiful, female college student.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Mason engaged in some small talk with his next door neighbor, Mrs. Davidson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x06", "title": "Reward to Finder", "date": "1957-11-10", "description": "After finding a cash-laden wallet, John Gaminski and his wife Anna constantly fight over Anna's lavish spending of the money. The conflict climaxes when John bludgeons Anna to death before drinking the cup of poisoned coffee that Anna had prepared for him.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: F.J. Smith, Frank Gabrielson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing whether to return found property", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should John return a cash-laden wallet he'd found in exchange for a possible reward from the owner or should he simply pocket the money?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Anna became ever greedier as the story progressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money is the root of all evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Anna were humble good hearted who became vicious to the point of murder after they came across a wallet with $5,200.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Anna considered all the things they could do or have with 5,200 dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows John and Anna Kaminsky as they quarrel over whether or not to return a cash-laden wallet that John had found on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Anna succeeded in killing each other over the money that John had found.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to return lost property", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contained a lengthy explanation of contemporary law regarding lost and found valuables, and illustrated the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Once she got used to the idea of keeping the money, Anna started splurging on beauty products and pretty clothes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna poisoned John's coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cop came knocking on John and Anna's door asking for a donation for the police officer's fund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna longed to have finely manicured nails, among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna pointedly accused John of being a miser for not wanting to spend any of the $5,200 he'd found on anything but basic essentials.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x07", "title": "Enough Rope for Two", "date": "1957-11-17", "description": "Ex-con Joe and his former partners Madge (Hagen) and Maxie drive to an abandoned mine in the middle of desert in order to collect hidden robbery loot. Once there, the three turn on each other: Joe shoots and kills Maxie, and Madge traps Joe down in the mine once she has obtained the money. This leaves Madge with the loot, but the keys to the car are in the mine with Joe.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Clark Howard, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered around the interactions of three bank robbers who had betrayed each other in the past and were scheming to do so again. In the end they all perished because they couldn't get along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe, Madge, and Maxie had perpetrated a bank heist 10 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe wanted revenge for having been 10 years in prison because of Madge and Maxie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe, Madge, and Maxie took turns betraying each other. After the bank heist 10 years ago they had also betrayed each other, it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated the Indian rope trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe shot Maxie dead. Madge trapped Joe in a mineshaft and left him to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was an ex-con who said he just wanted to feel a $100 bill and that he had the power to purchase again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was bitter toward Madge and Maxie on account that only he had served time for they bank robbery that they'd committed all together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x08", "title": "Last Request", "date": "1957-11-24", "description": "While awaiting his execution, inmate Gerry Daniels types a final letter to the newspaper protesting the incompetence of district attorney Bernard Butler. Gerry confesses that he had murdered three other people, but Butler had never suspected him for those incidents; instead Gerry was prosecuted for a murder that he did not commit. The execution is canceled when Butler gets new evidence exonerating Gerry from the incorrect charge, but Gerry's letter has already been posted.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Helen Fislar Brooks, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry was on death row and protested his innocence in a letter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry was about to be wrongfully executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry was about to be wrongfully executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Gerry was a regular Casanova and explained how to exploit women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry seduced a woman who spoke about her husband, Harry. Gerry seduced a Doctor Raymond's wife, Sheila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry confessed three murders. He was accused of one murder he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "District Attorney Butler seemed to be out to get Gerry by one means or another, but, in the end, he worked quickly to stay Gerry's execution when evidence came to light that he was innocent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Gerry's stay of execution coming just after he had confessed to three other murders in a letter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock proudly anticipated being the main course at a dinner party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry was accused of hating women by District Attorney Butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Gerry would come up against a woman who hated men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry lost $500 he didn't have on horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry made it seem like Nancy had killed herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry was writing to a newspaper editor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw scenes from a courtroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mona attributed a bruise on her arm to the actions of her husband. He later testified in a court of law to having beaten her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police wrongly presumed that Nancy's husband had shot her dead before turning the gun on himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry blackmailed the Sheila out of $1000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry resorted to blackmail to get the $500 he owed his bookie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soon to be executed Gerry was paid a visit by the prison chaplain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x09", "title": "The Young One", "date": "1957-12-01", "description": "Teenager Jan befriends Tex, a drifter through town, to frame him for the murder of her guardian, Aunt Mae. However, Jan's boyfriend, Stan, found Aunt Mae's body and knows that Jan committed the murder.\n\nDirected by: Robert Altman. Story by: Phillip Goodman and Sandy Sax, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Janice's boyfriend, Stan, reluctantly exposing to the police that she's bludgeoned her aunt to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Janice bludgeoned her overbearing guardian, Aunt Mae, to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Janice was fed up with her guardian, Aunt Mae, for snooping around on Janice's seedy bar frequenting ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Janice bludgeoned her overbearing guardian, Aunt Mae, to death and tried to pin the crime on a drifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Janice was giving her loving boyfriend, Stan, a tough time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 18-year-old Janice rebelled at her aunt and guardian who tried to make Janice behave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice was hitting on a dangerous stranger, hoping he would take her away, and later using him for her own ends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice debated with Stan whether they should run away from their home town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice was an attractive young girl accustomed to toying with men's emotions and bending them to her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan was steadfast in his love for his girlfriend Janice. In particular, Stan made a proclamation of love to his girlfriend, Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Mae pointedly exposed Janice for fibbing about her whereabouts, and chided her for having done so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police office arrived at the scene of Aunt Mae's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The drifter Tex was dismayed when young Janice tried to pin her aunt's murder on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Displeased with her humble life living with her poor aunt, Janice fantasized about being a rich girl. The aunt in question was appalled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Janice hatched an elaborate plot to frame a drifter, named Tex, for the murder of her aunt, Mae.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x10", "title": "The Diplomatic Corpse", "date": "1957-12-08", "description": "Married couple Evan and Janet are touring Mexico with their aunt Mrs. Tait, who dies of a heart attack. While Evan and Janet are searching for a doctor, their car is stolen with Mrs. Tait's corpse in it. They hire detective Thomas Salgado to find the car, and later the body. When Evan and Janet finally return home, they find Salgado has given them the wrong body.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Alec Coppel, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Auntie Tait coped posthumously with her niece and niece's husband who were more concerned with the £30,000 they stood to inherit than with their beloved aunt's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan and Janet Wallace found themselves in quite predicament when Janet's aunt dropped dead while the trio were on a road trip to Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan and Janet Wallace found themselves in quite a pickle after losing Janet's elderly aunt's corpse while traveling in Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan and Janet retained the services of the shady private eye Tomas Salgado in an effort to located the recently dropped dead body of Janet's aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shady private eye Tomas Salgado suckered Evan and Janet out of sums of cash at every turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan and Janet Wallace found themselves in quite predicament when Janet's aunt dropped dead while the trio were on a road trip to Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I got into trouble in a foreign country", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan and Janet found themselves in a precarious situation when they lost their late aunt's corpse in Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan with his wife Janet's aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan was visibly annoyed by Mrs. Tait because she wouldn't stop grumbling from the backseat of their car during a family excursion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet's old aunt dropped dead in the back seat of her and Evan's car while the trio were driving to Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Rafael landed himself in the slammer for having taken the Wallace's 1957 sedan on a joyride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tijuana chief of police informed the Wallace's that their stolen car had been recovered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician pronounced that a certain Mexican man had died of natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The closing narration was performed by a sombrero wearing man, named Omega, who was the spitting image of Alfred Hitchcock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x11", "title": "The Deadly", "date": "1957-12-15", "description": "Plumber Jack Staley, who has been blackmailing housewives for fabricated dalliances throughout a suburban neighborhood, sets his sights on new target Margot Brenner. In retaliation, Margot gathers all the wives of the neighborhood to confront Jack together. United, the women blackmail Jack into performing housework for them in the value of the money that he has extorted from them and more.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Lawrence Treat, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack blackmailed housewives by making up stories of infidelity and threatening to reveal them. In the end, he was himself blackmailed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lewis and Margot Brenner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack blackmailed housewives by making up stories of infidelity and threatening to reveal them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with the blackmailing plumber being blackmailed by the many housewives he had extorted money from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner faced having to cough up $500 or else have her reputation besmirched by a blackmailing plumber. Mrs. Brenner offered the newlywed bride Ann Warren some words of support in response to Ann's concerns about the other area wives gossiping about Ann behind her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock explained a torture method involving the slow dripping of water on a constrained subject over the course of weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner commented on the gossiping nature of the women in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Brenner feigned jealousy at the milkman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner referred to Anne Warren as an unhappy young bride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack commended Mrs. Brenner on her landscape painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Brenner called a police sergeant to help her expose Jack as a blackmailer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monolith Monsters (1957)", "title": "The Monolith Monsters", "date": "1957-12-18", "description": "A large meteorite that crashes in a Southern California desert and explodes into hundreds of black fragments which have strange properties. When those fragments are exposed to water, they grow very large and tall. The fragments also begin to slowly petrify some of the inhabitants of a nearby small town. The story that unfolds becomes one of human survival against an encroaching unnatural disaster, that if not stopped, could become a national ecological nightmare that could pose a possible threat to all of humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monolith_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A meteor crashed into the California desert explodes into hundreds of fragments that grow very large and tall and could become a national ecological nightmare that could pose a possible threat to all of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were gradually turning into stone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny began to turn into stone after handling a meteor fragment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Miller and Cathy Barrett.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x12", "title": "Miss Paisley's Cat", "date": "1957-12-22", "description": "Emma Paisley is distressed when her neighbor, Rinditch, kills her pet cat Stanley. Emma blacks out and wakes up four hours later, to find that Rinditch has been murdered. Emma confesses to the police that she did it, but is unable to convince them as she cannot explain how she did it.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Roy Vickers, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emma took in a stray cat and made it her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma had a conflict with her neighbor Mr. Rinditch regarding Emma's cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma or someone killed Mr. Rinditch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma was convinced that she'd killed Mr. Rinditch because he had killed her cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma mused to herself about how she still missed her killed cat six months on after the event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma made comments about living alone and a point of the story was the strength of the attachment she formed with a stray cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against property", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rinditch was a bookie and got fined many times, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma had blacked out for four hours and didn't know what she had been doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma confessed her crime to two skeptical police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miscarriage of justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenkins was falsely caught and executed for the murder of Mr. Rinditch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Jenkins was sent to the chair for a murder that he did not commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma referred to her neighbors as \"commoners\" in a way that made it clear she held herself above them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma considered reporting Mr. Rinditch to the police after he matter of factly admitted to having kicked her cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Paths of Glory (1957)", "title": "Paths of Glory", "date": "1957-12-25", "description": "Paths of Glory is a 1957 American anti-war film directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. Set during World War I, the film stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, the commanding officer of French soldiers who refuse to continue a suicidal attack, after which Dax attempts to defend them against a charge of cowardice in a court-martial.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paths_of_Glory" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw pitiful soldier dying in droves on the Maginot line", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there was a long string of people who were uneasy when told to attack an impenetrable position, kill comrades, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various but prominently General Mireau choose advantage, and Colonel Dax stuck with his principles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "in particular General Mireau exhibited this eponymous theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "in case of General Mireau, glory in battle was coupled with career advancement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "the question of loyalty in obeying illegal orders permeated the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw numerous images from the trenches and the no-man's-land at the Maginot Line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a lengthy, and patently unfair, court martial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "the court martial stretched the boundaries of how law might be interpreted in 1916, as it convicted three relatively innocent men to set an example", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "the court martial stretched the boundaries of how law might be interpreted in 1916, as it convicted three relatively innocent men to set an example", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw three men await their own biased trial and inevitable execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "the ambitious General Mireau was particularly ruthless in ordering his own men to death in a variety of ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "major", "motivation": "An important component of the story is that an artillery commander was ordered by General Mireau to open fire on their own positions. The commander refused to obey this patently illegal order unless given it in writing, something the general could not do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered on ordinary soldiers' ability (or the limits thereof) to face mortal danger with stoicism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "the men of the 701st regiment were accused, unfairly, of cowardice as they failed to charge an impenetrable position", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Dax was extraordinarily loyal to his men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Dax took extraordinary risks in standing up for his men and thereby angering his commanders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Dax, Captain Rousseau, Corporal Paris all stood up to their immediate commanders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a priest console the condemned men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a lengthy, and patently unfair, court martial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wild Strawberries (1957)", "title": "Wild Strawberries", "date": "1957-12-26", "description": "Wild Strawberries is a 1957 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The original Swedish title is Smultronstället, which literally means \"the wild strawberry patch\" but idiomatically signifies an underrated gem of a place, often with personal or sentimental value. The cast includes Victor Sjöström in his final screen performance as an old man recalling his past, as well as Bergman regulars Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Gunnar Björnstrand. Max von Sydow also appears in a small role.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Strawberries_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Isak was, above all, dealing with loneliness, we gather on several occasions. The story concluded with both Agda and Evald separately rebuffing Isak's attempts to become more intimate, and the young hitchhikers taking off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "78-year old Isak was reevaluating his life as he prepared to receive an honorary doctorate. His age was topical time and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isak was re-evaluating his life throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isak and Marianne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isak and Evald", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isak and Agda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marianne admonished Isak for being selfish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "past Sara nearly cheated on her fiance; Isaks wife had been unfaithful before his eyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara in the past; Sara in the present", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "past Sara nearly fell for her naughty cousin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "past Sara and Sigfrid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sten and Berit; Marianne and Evald; Isak and", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sten derided Berit for her female hysteria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "95 year old mother and Isak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a physicians first duty is to apologize, we heard, a bastardization of the normal Hippocratic oath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara, Anders, Viktor; Sara, Isak, ?? (in the past)", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mysterians (1957)", "title": "The Mysterians", "date": "1957-12-28", "description": "The film begins with a giant fissure destorying an entire village. This leads to an investigation whereby the source is discovered to be Moguera, a giant robot, who is then destroyed by the military. The remains are analyzed and discovered to be of alien origin. Shortly after, an alien race known as the Mysterians arrive, declaring they have taken some Earth women captive and that they demand both land and the right to marry women of Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterians" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mysterians homeworld was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust and they came to Earth seeking a new home. Astrophysicist Ryoichi Shiraishi joined the Mysterians with the intention of ruling the Earth and preventing Humans from destroying themselves with nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fallout from a nuclear holocaust left the Mysterians infertile and looking to mate with Human females to keep from dying out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mysterians came to Earth to colonize it and mate with the Human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "All the nations of Earth united to prevent the Mysterians from taking over the Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astrophysicist Ryoichi Shiraishi explained to humanity at the film's conclusion that science can be used for good or evil and that the Mysterians had used it for evil, but that in the future humanity must learn how to use it for good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant robot going around destroying things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astrophysicist Ryoichi Shiraishi broke off his engagement with his fiancee Hiroko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryoichi Shiraishi and Etsuko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysterians unleashed a giant robot on a Japanese village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Phaeton hypothesis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysterians came from a planet that used to exist between Mars and Jupiter but was reduced to rubble, leaving behind our familiar asteroid belt, in a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysterians flew in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x13", "title": "Night of the Execution", "date": "1957-12-29", "description": "Warren Selvy, a prosecuting attorney with a long history of acquittals, delivers a guilty verdict in a crucial murder case. Afterward Warren is confronted by a homeless man, Ed, who claims to be the actual murderer. Warren tries to scare him off, but when that fails, Warren kills him. Warren then learns that Ed has a history of confessing to crimes that he did not commit.\n\nDirected by: Justus Addiss. Story by: Henry Slesar, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Warren and his wife were both desperate to advance Warren's career, to the point of murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "To protect his career, Warren killed Ed in the end. A man was convicted of having murdered his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed an aspiring district attorney under pressure to get a conviction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a man that had been condemned to death, and the possibility that he might be innocent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miscarriage of justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to the execution of what was thought to be an innocent man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doreen was pressuring her husband, Warren, to secure a prestigious elected office, even if it meant sending an innocent man to the chair to obtain it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Warren let an innocent man go the chair in order to protect his career?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren obtained a conviction for a man accused of having murdered his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a courtroom in which a man was sentenced to death, and heard about the jury deliberating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perjury", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old man Ed was willing to perjure himself in order to save a murderer from the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was willing to sacrifice his own freedom, and later life, for that of a convicted murderer. He had tried the same for others in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren's influential father-in-law, Sidney, advised Warren on how to secure a nomination to become District Attorney.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)", "title": "Terror from the Year 5000", "date": "1958", "description": "Terror from the Year 5000 (a.k.a. Cage of Doom in the UK) is a 1958 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film based (uncredited) on the short story \"Bottle Baby\" by print/TV/film writer Henry Slesar that was published in the science fiction magazine Fantastic (April 1957).\n\nSynopsis: A nuclear physicist and his assistant build a machine that transports objects from the future to the present.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_from_the_Year_5000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A message of the story was that Victor's reckless fast tracking of the use of a prototype time machine directly resulted in a murderous mutant monster being transported from the year 5000 AD to the present day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a large, immobile time machine capable of transporting people and objects to and from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and Claire were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Erling and his adult daughter Claire were there throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was the following ongoing conflict between Professor Erling and Victor: Victor was determined to plow ahead with testing out the time machine in spite of the risks while Erling urged they take a more cautious path involving additional testing and consulting with outside experts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor inadvertently transported a murderous mutant from the year 5000 AD to the present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of the year 5000 AD were at risk of going extinct owing to the atmosphere being poisoned by radiation, presumably from an atomic horror of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nuclear physicist Professor Erling and his assistant Victor were busying about constructing a prototype time machine in their basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Bob Hedges drew the astonishing conclusion that the mysterious statuette dated to 5200 AD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was estimated that death would result from two weeks in the immediate proximity of the radioactive statuette from the future. It was revealed that by the year 5000 AD, one out of five children born was a mutant owing to radiation in the atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor begrudgingly asked his fiancée Claire if she intended to add the handyman Angelo to her \"string of conquests\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The handyman Angelo was caught voyeuristically watching Claire through her bedroom window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The visitor from the year 5000 AD hypnotized Victor into returning with her to the future where his healthy genes were needed to save her people from extinction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x14", "title": "The Percentage", "date": "1958-01-05", "description": "Successful businessman Eddie Slovak has a good life with his wife, Faye, but is haunted by his past. He once acted cowardly in the Korean War, and seeks out his old Army buddy Pete Williams, who knows his secret. Pete repeatedly rebuffs Eddie's attempts to pay him, to Eddie's frustration. Eddie begins an affair with Pete's wife, Louise, and one night Eddie, triggered by a picture of Pete in his Army uniform, loses his mind and strangles her. Eddie is arrested for murder, and this leaves Pete and Faye, who are lovers, to be together.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: David Alexander, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie couldn't stand that Pete was privy to the fact that Eddie had behaved cowardly in the Korean War. What is more, Eddie internalized this state of affairs as a kind of debt which he made persistent and repeated efforts to repay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie and Faye Slovak. Pete and Louise Williams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie became romantically involved with Pete's wife Faye. And in a surprise twist, in was later revealed that Pete had been romantically involved with Eddie's wife, Louise, probably all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Eddie strangling Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie was haunted by the fact that he'd behaved in a cowardly manner during his time fighting in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie was ashamed of having succumbed to cowardice back in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie was ashamed of having succumbed to cowardice back in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two different war veterans with notably different post-war fortunes: A successful businessman who'd fought cowardly and a struggling repairman who'd fought well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faye denied being jealous several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived to arrest Eddie for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie and Pete spoke in passing of their time fighting in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise fawned over the businessman Eddie about how strong and successful he was moments before smothering him with a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teenage Monster (1958)", "title": "Teenage Monster", "date": "1958-01-08", "description": "The story is set in a town in the American Southwest. Young Charles Cannon, after seeing a meteor crash in the desert heads out to investigate it. He becomes exposed to rays from the meteor and ages rapidly. He is now about ten years older, hairy, aggressive and psychopathic. His mother hides him in the basement to protect him from the law.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Charles Cannon was transformed into a monstrous man after being exposed to rays from a crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople versus Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth Cannon was greedy to get gold out from an old family mine and exploited Charles to do so. Career waitress Kathy became extremely greedy for money after Ruth paid her off a sum of $500 to keep quiet about the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth compelled Kathy to befriend Charles, who was confined to his bedroom owing to his monstrousness, in an effort to help alleviate his isolation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Sheriff Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was rapidly aged after being exposed to rays from a crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth's husband Jim Cannon died at the very start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathy North had Charles strangle her boyfriend Marv Howell so she could get the money back that he had stolen from her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x15", "title": "Together", "date": "1958-01-12", "description": "Tony Gould meets with his mistress, Shelley, in her office after hours. When Shelley threatens to expose their relationship to Tony's wife, he kills her, but is unable to leave because the office is locked. The next day the police are called, and they discover the body.\n\nDirected by: Robert Altman. Story by: Alec Coppel, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focuses on Tony murdering his mistress in a desperate bid to keep her from exposing their relationship to his wife and its aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony ran his mistress through with a letter opened in a desperate bid to keep her from exposing their relationship to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I got accidentally locked in somewhere", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony got accidentally locked up inside an office and struggled mightily to find a means to get out without anyone noticing the dead body of his mistress, whom he'd killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony ran his mistress through with a letter opener in a desperate bid to keep her from exposing their relationship to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shelley wanted Tony to divorce Gloria and marry her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony loved Shelley, and she him, but evidently not so much that he was willing to divorce his wealthy wife to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown scenes from a contemporary office Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Tony divorce her wealthy wife to be with his young mistress?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony was reluctant to divorce his wealthy wife, Gloria (who was scarcely heard from in the story), to be with his young mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Tony divorce her wealthy wife to be with his young mistress?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony's pal, Charlie, failed him in his moment of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police officers busted Tony for murder in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x16", "title": "Sylvia", "date": "1958-01-19", "description": "John Leeds is concerned when his daughter, Sylvia purchases a handgun. Sylvia's unscrupulous ex-husband, Peter, once left her because of money, and has returned to town at Sylvia's request. John fears that Sylvia wants to kill Peter, so he pays Peter off so that he leaves. Sylvia then shoots John for thwarting her attempt to reunite with Peter.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Ira Levin, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows John as he tries to keep his daughter, Sylvia, from reuniting with her unscrupulous ex-husband, Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "John despised Peter for living off his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "John paid off Peter to stay away from his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was selfishly running Sylvia's life from her point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia longed to be together with her ex-husband, Peter, even though she knew on some level that he'd only been using her as a tool to access her father's fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with Sylvia shooting dead her father, whom she had secretly resented perhaps her whole adult life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter married Sylvia to have access to her father's fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a suicidal person", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was concerned that Sylvia might be suicidal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia and Peter were recently divorced and Sylvia was going crazy..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John assured his housekeeper, Bertha, that it was fine for her to take a vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John consulted Sylvia's psychiatrist about her mental health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John blackmailed Peter into consenting to the divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had forged a check. John found that out and used the fact to blackmail Peter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x17", "title": "The Motive", "date": "1958-01-26", "description": "Crime-obsessed best friends Tommy and Richard discuss Tommy's theory that motiveless murders cannot be solved. In order to prove this theory, Tommy decides to murder a random person that Richard picks out from a phone book. After the murder is done, Tommy discovers that the victim is the man that Tommy's ex-wife had left him for; Richard picked him on purpose for revenge, as Tommy had once stolen the same woman from Richard.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Rose Simon Kohn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tommy murdered an unsuspecting man in cold blood in order to prove his pet theory for how to murder someone and get away with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Tommy as he puts his pet theory for how to commit the perfect murder is to the test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard manipulated his old pal Tommy into committing a murder that he knew Tommy would get arrested for to get back at Tommy for having once stolen his love interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Richard revealing that he'd manipulated his old pal, Tommy, into committing a murder out of a desire to settle an old score.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard manipulated Tommy into committing a not-so-perfect murder to settle an old score.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken Tommy explained his theory of the perfect murder to an uninterested female visitor with great enthusiasm. Later, a still drunken Tommy and his apparently drunken friend plotted how to put Tommy's theory into practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard made a pointed remark about how Tommy needed to put his theory for how to commit murder and get away with it into practice in order to prove it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police came to arrest Tommy for murder at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x18", "title": "Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty", "date": "1958-02-02", "description": "Traveling in France, elderly Englishwoman Millicent Bracegirdle accidentally locks herself in the wrong hotel room with a corpse. She eventually manages to escape, and learns that the dead man is an accused murderer who had died of a heart attack.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Stacy Aumonier, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The elderly Englishwoman Mrs. Bracegirdle was dismayed to find that she'd accidentally locked herself in a corpse containing hotel room while traveling in France. She at first took the corpse to be a sleeping man and fretted over what might become of her reputation should she be discovered and news of her being found in the room of another man reach her hometown. After realizing the man was dead, she worried that she might be charged with murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The parochial-minded, elderly Englishwoman Mrs. Bracegirdle and her two friends harbored prejudiced views about foreigners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parochial-minded, elderly Englishwoman Mrs. Bracegirdle looked upon foreigners with suspicion and was generally mistrustful of them. This attitude, one gathers, was intended to reflect the views of a certain segment of the English population, as her two elderly Englishwoman friends expressed similar misgivings about foreigners. Maude, for instance, spoke in no uncertain terms about not approving of foreigners and thought them untrustworthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was made clear that Dean Septimus Bracegirdle was running a parish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean Septimus Bracegirdle gave his sister, Mrs. Bracegirdle, some parting advice for how to stay safe in France shortly before she embarked on her journey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homesickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bracegirdle mused aloud about missing home shortly after getting settled in her hotel room in France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bracegirdle's imagination ran wild with thoughts about what others would think of her had it come to light that she'd been discovered in another man's hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bracegirdle's imagination ran wild with thoughts of how embarrassing it would be to be discovered in hotel room with a foreign man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the dead man had been wanted for strangling a woman, cutting her heart into pieces, and throwing them into the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The devout Mrs. Bracegirdle employed the Christian practice of \"praying\" to make \"God\" do her bidding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x19", "title": "The Equalizer", "date": "1958-02-09", "description": "Wayne Phillips has an affair with Louise Marsh to spite her husband Eldon Marsh. When Eldon publicly confronts Wayne over this, Eldon loses his wife and his job. With nothing to lose, Eldon challenges the much stronger Wayne to a gun duel. Wayne agrees, but shoots Eldon without warning. When the police investigate, they find that Eldon is prohibited from carrying a gun.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: C.B. Gilford, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story regarded Eldon being jealous about his wife being courted by Wayne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story regarded the interpersonal relationships between various people in an office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne seduced Mrs. Marsh to spite Eldon Marsh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eldon uncovered that his wife Louise was cheating on him with one of his office colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eldon was unceremoniously dumped by his two-timing wife, and took it hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eldon wanted revenge on Wayne for having ruined Eldon's marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eldon embarrassed Wayne by following him around and challenging him to a duel which Wayne refused. In the end Wayne proved himself exceptionally cowardly by shooting Eldon in the back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne kept refusing Eldon's demand for a duel until the very end when he was forced to accept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock poked fun about golf in his opening and closing monologues. The story started with golf talk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The card game \"bridge\" was mentioned. Four work colleagued were shown playing the card game \"bridge\" over drinks in a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Sloane ultimately fired Eldon over Eldon's quarrel with Wayne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be mindful of first impressions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise made a quip about how she never judges by first impressions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eldon lost his job for repeatedly harassing a coworker who'd carried on an affair with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police office wasn't buying Wayne's account of how Eldon was shot and killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eldon contrived to have Wayne murder him in a roundabout way to get revenge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x20", "title": "On the Nose", "date": "1958-02-16", "description": "Gambling-addicted housewife Fran Holland rushes to raise $25 to pay a bookie before her husband comes home. Fran uses various tactics that nearly get her in trouble with the police, but just manages to pay off the debt in time. She promises to never gamble again, but soon after succumbs to temptation and places a new bet.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Henry Slesar, Irving Elman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fran's marriage was jeopardized by her gambling addiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Fran Holland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fran was tempted to steal, and briefly to sell her body, in order to get the money she owed and to save her marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Fran's desperation to save her marriage after her husband gave her an ultimatum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fran ultimately succumbed to the temptation to place a bet on a horse race in spite of her husband's ultimatum that he'd walk out on her if he ever again caught her gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the hopeless gambling addict Fran follow her desire to bet on the horse races at the risk of her husband walking out on her?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fran was scrambling to pay off a $25 gambling debt before her husband came home from work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fran loved her husband so much that the thought of him leaving her was unbearable. Ed told Fran that he loved her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fran was \"arrested\" by a man who was impersonating a police detective. A couple of real police officers spoke with Fran about why she'd fled the scene of an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fran shoplifted a compact makeup mirror, which was valued at $49.50, from a department store.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x21", "title": "Guest for Breakfast", "date": "1958-02-23", "description": "Eve and Jordan Ross's marriage is on the rocks, and their morning argument is interrupted when gun-wielding Chester Lacey breaks into their home. Lacey is on the run for murder and needs a hostage; Eve and Jordan try to convince Lacey to kill the other. When Lacey is about to kill Eve, Jordan intervenes and Eve helps her husband. After Lacey is arrested, the couple is open to reconciliation.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: C.B. Gilford, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was to show how being threatened by a desperate murderer could make a married couple who hated each other suddenly reconcile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve and Jordan were unhappily married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring point was that Jordan had a mistress and that Chester had just shot his own wife and her lover upon catching them in flagrante delicto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story lead up to the reconciliation of Eve and Jordan, who had long warred against each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve and Jordan found themselves at the mercy of a gun-wielding killer with nothing to lose, and who was going to shoot one of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester was on the run from the police after having killed two people, and was desperately plotting how to evade capture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Eve and Jordan's broken down marriage in its death throws, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester had murdered his own wife after catching her with another man. Each of Eve and Jordan were conniving to get Chester to kill the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester planned to kill one or the other of Eve and Jordan. Chester was on the run from the law for having shot dead his wife and her paramour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wanted murderer barged into Eve and Jordan's home one morning and held them at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Eve and Jordan rekindling their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve implied that Jordan ought to have granted her a divorce some time ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock asserter sarcastically, and quite incorrectly that this was the theme of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: She Demons (1958)", "title": "She Demons", "date": "1958-03", "description": "During a hurricane, a pleasure boat is shipwrecked on an uncharted island and is presumed lost with all hands after the storm clears. The four survivors' shipboard radio can only receive but not transmit, and they hear that their castaway island will soon be used by U.S. naval aircraft as a bombing target.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Demons" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Karl Osler and war criminal created deformed, fanged women as a result of scientific experiments he conducted on an uncharted tropical island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred Maklin and Jerrie Turner. Karl Osler and Mona Osler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Karl Osler transformed beauty contest winners into fanged, animal-like creatures by extracting a glandular substance from them to inject into his wife Mona to cure her of a facial disfigurement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl Osler and Mona Osler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Karl Osler held a party of shipwrecked people captive on his uncharted tropical island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Karl Osler and war criminal created deformed, fanged women as a result of scientific experiments he conducted on an uncharted tropical island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hurricane shipwrecked four people from a pleasure boat on an uncharted tropical island. The four people soon discovered a mad scientist’s lair and it all went downhill from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred Maklin with the beautiful but spoiled rotten Jerrie Turner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerrie Turner learns to become a less self-centered person after undergoing a few days of hardship on an uncharted tropical island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ex-Nazi scientist Karl Osler used Nazi prisoners as guinea pigs in his experiments during World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl Osler invented a perpetual energy machine by harnessing the power of geothermal energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mona Osler suffered from a facial disfigurement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl Osler at Jerrie Turner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x22", "title": "The Return of the Hero", "date": "1958-03-02", "description": "Sgt. Andre Doniere is a veteran traveling home with his friend Corp. Marcel Marchand, who saved his life. Doniere makes a phone call to his aristocratic family, asking if they will accommodate his friend, who lost his leg. Doniere's mother, stepfather and fiancée are uninterested in welcoming a cripple, so Doniere decides to never return home, because he is the one who lost his leg.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Andrew Solt, Andrew Solt and Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems a point of the story was to show what life was like for a crippled war veteran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese was besotted with Andre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre feigned to be unmoved by Therese who was besotted with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The barkeeper's daughter Therese was notably kind to the penniless man she called \"uncle\". Also to Andre, who we learned in the end was a cripple. All but one of Andre's family members were notably unkind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre and Marcel were fast friends and said so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how a couple of French war veterans, one of them crippled, were treated in their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a restaurant owner worry about his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre spoke to his mother on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre spoke to his sister Sibyl on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre spoke to his dad on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre's parents spoke to each other briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre quarreled with his fiancée over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Algerian War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre and Marcel had fought in this conflict. Marcel spoke of how he and Andre were picked up by an ambulance after having wandered for five hours in the Algerian desert when the two were fighting for the French in this conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre's aristocratic family baulked at the idea of Andre bring a crippled friend home on account of how it might look.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre's aristocratic family looked down on poor crippled war veterans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Strange World of Planet X (1958)", "title": "The Strange World of Planet X", "date": "1958-03-04", "description": "A monomaniacal scientist creates ultra-sensitive, disruptive magnetic fields, which have unexpected side effects, while also attracting unidentified flying objects from outer space. Strange things begin to happen, including a freak storm, blasts of cosmic radiation that penetrates the Earth's normally protective magnetic shield, and insects and spiders mutating into giant flesh- eating monsters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_World_of_Planet_X_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A monomaniacal scientist created ultra-sensitive, disruptive magnetic fields, which have unexpected side effects, while also attracting unidentified flying objects from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hyper-magnetic fields generated by Gil Graham and Dr. Laird's experiments cause unnatural weather patterns, a weakening of the magnetic shield that protects the surface of the Earth from cosmic rays, gigantic insects and other mutated monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Smith was an alien living secretly as a Human. He is actually an alien emissary from a Planet X, while also informing them that Laird has gone mad and plans to continue his dangerous experiments. Mr.Smith explains that his mission is to warn humanity of the likelihood that Earth's orbit will be destabilized should the magnetic experiments continue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Laird became obsessed with his experiments with magnetic fields and became blinded as to the risk they posed to life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monomaniacal scientist Dr. Laird created ultra-sensitive, disruptive magnetic fields, which had unexpected side effects, while also attracting unidentified flying objects from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Laird initially objected to having a female assistant and felt she wasn't capable of operating a computer because she was a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michele Dupont was an independent minded female scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Laird was experimenting with magnetic fields in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet being flung out of its orbit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith was an alien emissary who came to Earth to explain that Dr. Laird's experiments with magnetic fields would lead to the Earth's orbit becoming unstable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lairds experiments disturbed the Earth's ionosphere and allowed cosmic rays to reach the Earth's surface, causing adverse effects to Humans and insects to mutate into giant forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people versus a giant insects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil Graham and Michele Dupont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Smith came to Earth to interfere in its development for humankind's own good. When it became apparent he was an alien, remarks were made to the effect that the reports of flying saucers were true. Smith also controlled a saucer like craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Smith controlled a saucer like craft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x23", "title": "The Right Kind of House", "date": "1958-03-09", "description": "Waterbury wants to buy the house owned by elderly Sadie Grimes, despite her demanding a price five times the house's worth. Grimes tells Waterbury how her son was killed by an unseen figure in that house over stolen loot, and the loot was never found. Grimes put the house on the market to trap the killer, because only they would agree to the exorbitant price for the sake of the loot. Waterbury confirms her suspicion, but he dies because Grimes has poisoned his drink.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Henry Slesar, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was one of Sadie Grimes plotting vengeance against her son's unknown murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sadie's son had been killed in the house, by assailants unknown. Sadie dispatched of Mr. Waterbury by means of poisoned lemonade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sadie spoke at length about her late son and his untimely demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock outlined his grand and self-aggrandizing plans for residential development on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Waterbury was struggling with the intransigent Sadie Grimes and her extortionate house price demand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiating deadlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sadie obstinately refused to negotiate about the price for her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was shown a police officer and an inspector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sadie's son had gotten away with over $200,000 in loot from a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sadie spoke of Michael spending a summer moping around after he'd gotten himself fired from his high pressure sales job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sadie put enough poison in Mr. Waterbury's lemonade to kill him three times over.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x24", "title": "The Foghorn", "date": "1958-03-16", "description": "Lucia Clay is haunted by the sound of a foghorn, and cannot recall why. She pieces together memories of her falling in love with Allen Bliss, a married man. Allen was killed in a boat trip, when a liner crashed into them in the fog. To Lucia this happened only a few days ago, but in actuality 50 years have passed.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Gertrude Atherton, Frank Gabrielson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the rather dreamy and star-crossed love between Lucia and Allen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Allen and Lucia were head over heels in love, but fate would not have it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucia had amnesia after an accident and struggled to remember what had happened to her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allen was running around with Lucia while he was still married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucia was distraught after the love of her life, Allen, was killed in a boating accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story consisted of Lucia remembering the love of her youth, some 50 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allen was running around with Lucia while he was still married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allen and Lucia characterized themselves as being \"good friends\" even though it was painfully obvious to all that they were in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allen sought a divorce but his wife would not grant him one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucia broke off her engagement to John St. Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nun made the sign of the cross upon seeing Lucia's freshly dropped dead body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nun was caring for Lucia in the hospital.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x25", "title": "Flight to the East", "date": "1958-03-23", "description": "While traveling on a plane, war correspondent Ted Franklin strikes up a conversation with fellow passenger Barbara Denim. Franklin is under arrest, and is traveling with a police inspector on the way home to be tried for a murder. Once he has told her his story, Franklin learns that Denim is a witness who is going to testify against him.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Bevil Charles, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Former war correspondent Ted Franklin was using hie typewriter to prove the innocence of a man who'd been hanged for illegally dealing in German war weapons, or so his story went at least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted presented himself as a man of integrity who was simply motivated by a desire to prove that Sasha Ismael was innocent of illegally dealing in German war weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted was being flown to Cairo to be tried for the murder of the father of a convicted arms dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sasha Ishmael was tried and ultimately hanged for having illegally dealt in German weapons of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set on a commercial flight from Nairobi to Cairo. Notably, the Ted and his fellow passenger Barbara were chain smoking for the entire flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying carpet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock was flying on a magic carpet at 10,000 feet up in the air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown various little scenes from Sasha Ishmael's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abdul Ishmael was dismayed that his son Sasha was being tried for illegally dealing in German war weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Robert Walton served as prosecutor in Sasha's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people were accused of having been bribed with diamonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abdul Ishmael mourned the death of his son, Sasha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one telling of the story, Abdul blamed Ted and sought to kill him as payback for Sasha's execution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x26", "title": "Bull in a China Shop", "date": "1958-03-30", "description": "Homicide detective Dennis O'Finn lives next door to a group of elderly women who are smitten with him. Miss Hildy-Lou murders two of the other ladies solely so that O'Finn will visit them for the murder investigation. O'Finn, horrified to learn of their motive, transfers to the arson department, only for the remaining ladies to set their house on fire.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: C.B. Gilford, Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Hildy-Lou was so smitten with the homicide detective Dennis O'Finn that she poison murdered two of her friends just so that O'Finn would visit her for the murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of old ladies living all together in a boarding house went to elaborate means to get their handsome Irish neighbor to pay them visits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the homicide detective Dennis O'Finn as he investigates two suspicious deaths at the boarding house next door to his own residence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Hildy-Lou dispatched with two of her friends by means of arsenic-laced tea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of elderly women were so starved for attention, especially from strapping young lads, that they stooped to homicide and arson just to get visits from the police and the fire brigade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dennis O'Finn was beset upon by a group of elderly women who were so smitten with him that they stooped to murder merely to get his attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Hildy-Lou and her friends were peeping on their neighbor, the Irishman Dennis O'Finn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two old ladies set their own house on fire in a deranged effort to get Dennis O'Finn, who'd been newly transfered to the arson department, to pay them a visit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack of the Puppet People (1958)", "title": "Attack of the Puppet People", "date": "1958-04", "description": "A lonely doll-maker develops a machine which can shrink people down to a sixth of their original size.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Puppet_People" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Franz invented a machine which could shrink people down to a sixth of their original size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally Reynolds and Bob Westley were shrunken to a sixth of their original sizes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally Reynolds and Bob Westley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally Reynolds and Bob Westley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Franz shrank people and kept them captive for his amusement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Franz became desperately lonely after his wife left him and he made a collection of shrunken people to keep him company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Franz invented a machine which could shrink people down to a sixth of their original size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Franz shrunk people and kept them in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shrunken people we chased by a mouse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x27", "title": "Disappearing Trick", "date": "1958-04-06", "description": "Bookie Walter Richmond develops a relationship with Laura Gild, the widow of former client Herbert Gild. Walter discovers that Herbert had faked his death to get away from Laura, and blackmails him for money. When Herbert confronts the pair with a gun, Walter is shot non-fatally, and Laura absconds from both men with the money.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Victor Canning, Kathleen Hite.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter and Laura were in the throws of love, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was a handsome man clearly accustomed to seducing young women and using them to his own ends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura was a seductive young widow clearly experienced in wrapping men around her little finger and using them to her own ends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The avid tennis player Walter partook in a friendly game of the sport with his love interest, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter's boss at the insurance company assigned Walter to check up on a suspicious claim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert enjoyed betting on horse races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert paid off the insurance company investigator Walter with $10,000 in exchange for Walter not revealing to his superiors that Herbert had committed insurance fraud by faking his own death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter threatened to report Herbert over an insurance fraud unless Herbert coughed up $10,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Herbert had committed some sort of insurance fraud in the process of faking his own death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura discovered her supposedly deceased husband was alive and well toward to conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The physician who tended to Walter's gunshot wound told Walter that he'd have a stiff left shoulder for the rest of his life, which left Walter bemused, as he was an avid tennis player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura wasn't satisfied with the $10,000 that Walter had extorted from Herbert, and wanted more.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x28", "title": "Lamb to the Slaughter", "date": "1958-04-13", "description": "Pregnant housewife Mary Maloney bludgeons her husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb when he says that he is going leave her for another woman. Mary sets the scene to look like a struggle and puts the leg of lamb in the oven to cook. When the police arrive to investigate, they are unable to find the murder weapon, and Mary gives them the cooked leg of lamb to eat for supper.\n\nIn 2009, TV Guide ranked this episode #59 on its list of the 100 Greatest Episodes.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary murdered her cheating husband, Patrick, in a fit of rage and then went to elaborate lengths to cover up her crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary smote her husband with a leg of mutton after he revealed he was going to leave her for another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two police detectives were investigating Patrick's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary took the news badly (to put it mildly) when Patrick said he wanted a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the fact that a seemingly mild mannered woman suddenly bashed her husband's head in when he proposed to walk out on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary spoke of how a friend determined the gender of her unborn child by dangling a ring on a string over her belly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick coldly and matter of factly said to Mary that they were going to get a divorce to Mary's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Patrick were expecting a baby, a baby boy if the result of Mary's Ring Gender test was correct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick planned to leave his wife, Mary, to be with his paramour. A police detective spoke of how Patrick had a reputation for running around behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x29", "title": "Fatal Figures", "date": "1958-04-20", "description": "Statistics-obsessed Harold Goames feels unimportant in the world and starts committing crimes in order to become \"significant\". After committing auto- theft and robbery, he murders his sister Margaret and confesses to the disbelieving police officer his reasons. For his last statistically- significant act, Harold commits suicide.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Rick Edelstein, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was Harold's obsession with being somehow significant to society and posterity. He therefor stole, robbed, killed, and committed suicide to add his own data points to the statistics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was Harold's obsession with being somehow significant to society and posterity. He therefor stole, robbed, killed, and committed suicide to add his own data points to the statistics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The adult siblings Harold and Margaret Goames shared a house together and quarreled much like a stereotypical old married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold murdered his own sister in order to be a significant contributor to the murder statistics of his time and place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone controlling your life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold complained that he had let his domineering sister boss him around for 13 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold complained that he had let his domineering sister boss him around for 13 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold became so obsessed with achieving any distinction whatsoever, that he stole, robbed, killed and self-slaughtered, in that order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold was fed up with following the same dull routine after 13 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disbelieving police officer listened to Harold's confession of fratricide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold mourned his so-called friend, the flowerer, whose name he did not even know.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold feigned to grieve over his late sister whom he had poisoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold fed his sister rat poison merely in order to influence the murder statistics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold held up a shop of some kind, merely in order to make a dent in the crime statistics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret had the Chinese checkers board set up for her customary Sunday evening game with Harold, and was annoyed when Harold skipped the game, preferring to read quietly in his room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold's sister Margaret blew up upon surmising that he showering he attention on another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold shot himself dead to complete his Herostratian enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x30", "title": "Death Sentence", "date": "1958-04-27", "description": "Norman Frayne grew up in an orphanage and feels undeserving of his wife Paula. Al, a man from Norman's past, arrives and blackmails Norman over a crime that they committed 12 years earlier. Norman believes that Al is having an affair with Paula and plans to blow them up with dynamite. When Paula insists that it is untrue, Norman lets himself be blown up so that Paula will be free from Al's threats and Norman's past.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Miriam Allen deFord, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman and Paula Frayne are at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al came out of nowhere to blackmail Norman out of $50,000 over a crime that they'd committed 12 years earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman was exceedingly jealous over Paula, whom he suspected of having an affair with Al.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Norman blowing himself up in order to save Paula from continued blackmail by Al.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the remark, by the police chief, that Norman must have loved Paula very much in order to do what he did. She concurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al had killed a night watchman and received life in prison for the trouble. Norman's role in a second degree murder that'd happened 12 years earlier came back to haunt him. Norman planned to blow up Al and Paula with dynamite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman's life was turned upside down when a man out of his past threatened to reveal Norman's role in a second degree murder to the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A childhood friend paid Norman a visit and turned his life up side down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al blackmailed Norman into letting Al live in his guest room and made it clear he had no plans to leave anytime soon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman was beating himself up after he lost a real estate contract to an opponent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman was beating himself up after he lost a real estate contract to an opponent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman blamed his personal problems on having grown up in an orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "statute of limitations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al said that there is no statute of limitations on murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chief of police appeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al was quite into gambling, we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Norman blowing himself up in order to save Paula from continued blackmail by Al.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indecent exposure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock told that he had once been arrested for indecent exposure after removing a face mask. He also made some remarks about the bath he was taking on public television.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x31", "title": "The Festive Season", "date": "1958-05-04", "description": "On Christmas Eve, attorney John visits the home of his estranged siblings Celia and Charlie. Charlie wants to kill Celia, whom he believes murdered his wife, but Celia protests her innocence and is determined to care for Charlie regardless of his feelings. John leaves after making them promise not to hurt each other. John has been doing this every Christmas Eve since Charlie's wife's death 20 years ago.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Stanley Ellin, James Cavanaugh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was devastated after his beloved wife Jesse died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was mediating a dispute between his sister Celia and their recluse brother Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie complained that both his mother and Celia had been domineering and bossed him around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "John tried to get his brother Charlie to drop a 20 year old grudge he'd been holding against their sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was consumed with hatred for Celia whom he blamed for his wife's death, and wanted dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was consumed with hatred for Celia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is left in the dark as to whether Celia was innocent of murder or not. We must contemplate the possibility that Charlie accused her and sought vengeance incorrectly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are left to ponder the distinct possibility that Celia was behind the death of her brother's wife Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was so obsessed with his hatred for Celia and desire for vengeance, that he locked himself up and never saw anyone and didn't live a normal life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was living as a recluse, shut up in his room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about an estranged brother and sister who'd been cooped up in the same house for 20 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie blamed Celia for the death of his beloved wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was set at Christmas time; we saw presents and heard Christmas hymns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John implored Charlie to reconcile with Celia but Charlie refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated the marvels of the television in monologue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Vertigo (1958)", "title": "Vertigo", "date": "1958-05-09", "description": "Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John's acrophobia was central to the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John seemed besotted with Madeleine; Midge with John; John with Judy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Midge, John, Madeleine, and maybe Gavin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John became obsessed with Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gavin Elster and Madeleine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Midge of John with Madeleine, and John of Madeleine with Gavin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlotta Valdes; Madeleine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "John felt, maybe irrationally, responsible for the death of the policeman that tried to save him on the rooftops; same about Madeleine's suicide over which John was chasticed at length by a tribunal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was perturbed by Madeleine's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madeleine was said to be possessed by Carlotta's ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John quit the force because of his newly developed acrophobia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlotta as told by bookshop keeper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to rescue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tribunal discussed the fact that the law had \"little to say about things left undone\" with respect to John failing to save Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we are told that John got \"acute melancholia\" and therefore put in a sanatorium", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gavin had a clever murder ploy to rid himself of his wife", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x32", "title": "Listen, Listen...!", "date": "1958-05-11", "description": "Herbert Johnson tries to convince the authorities that the final murder of the Stockings Murders was committed by a copycat, but no one takes him seriously. A priest, Father Rafferty, finally listens to Herbert's story about how the victim, Helen Jameson, left her controlling, religious parents for a life of \"sin\", and her death was a \"punishment\". Herbert is Helen's father, and his wife is the copycat who killed Helen, but Herbert is unable to accuse his wife openly.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: R.E. Kendall, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Herbert was trying, ineptly and insecurely, to reveal something he knew about a murder but neither the police nor the reporters would believe him. Note the story is entitled \"Listen, Listen...!\" after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a series of three murders, that in fact turned out to be only two followed by a copycat murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was that neither the police nor the press would listen to Herbert but, in fact, ridiculed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that a mother had murdered her estranged and straying daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learn at the story's conclusion that Herbert was in fact the father of the third murdered girl, and quite upset.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated the marvels of the record player in his opening monologue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert spoke to several police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert spoke to a couple of journalists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert ended up revealing his information to a priest who, unlike the police and the press, actually listened to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert came home, sat down at the dinner table, and conversed with his wife Helen about the murder of their daughter at the very end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn that Herbert was in fact the father of the third murdered girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock feigned having lost his voice, and tried his best to present the story nonetheless.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gigi (1958)", "title": "Gigi", "date": "1958-05-15", "description": "Gigi (French pronunciation: [ʒiʒi]) is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn. Costume design was done by Cecil Beaton (hats by Madame Paulette).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigi_(1958_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern France", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story imagines what life in Belle Époche Paris at the turn of the century might have been like. It makes explicit reference to Parisian culture, for example, when Gigi in song laments that she cannot comprehend the inhabitants' obsession with \"love\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Gaston, an exceedingly wealthy and famous Parisian in his late twenties, falling in love with the 16 year old girl Gigi whom he has known since she was a young child. Gigi apparently reciprocated the feeling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female education", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story romanticizes the outmoded idea that girls should not receive a formal education, but should be taught the skills required to please and seduce men so that they can marry or otherwise strike a lucrative bargain in exchange for their companionship and sexual services. In particular, this was the way Aunt Alicia tutored Gigi. The story concluded with a spectacular victory for this way of thinking when Gigi not only became Gaston's mistress as intended, but engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the 16-year-old Gigi as she transitions from being a playful little girl into becoming a young woman and a rich man's mistress then fiancée then ultimately wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Gaston, an exceedingly wealthy and famous Parisian in his late twenties, falling in love with the 16-year-old girl Gigi whom he has known since she was a young child. He proceeded to woe her by lavishing her with expensive gifts as, we should assume, was the manner of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston repeatedly spelled out how bored he was with everything about Parisian life and especially its women. He even said verbatim that he suffered from ennui.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through the first half or so of the story, Gigi is portrayed as an innocent little girl. She sang about how she couldn't understand the Parisians' preoccupation with this thing called \"love\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interclass romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot is the fact that Gaston was exceedingly wealthy while Gigi's family was relatively poor, and probably not well off even in absolute terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Gaston, an exceedingly wealthy and famous Parisian in his late twenties, falling in love with the 16 year old girl Gigi whom he has known since she was a young child. Gigi apparently reciprocated the feeling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston lead a carefree life of leisure and wielded his money as a cudgel, for example, when he paid off his mistress' other lover to leave town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston's ennui can be understood to be a kind of loneliness that stemmed from a lack of meaningful romantic relationships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concludes with a message that marriage is honorable and preferable to a life of courtesanship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gigi was raised by her grandmother Madame Alvarez because her own mother, despite living in the same house, kept herself absent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Alicia was training Gigi to be a courtesan in the Parisian fashion. Notably, this aspect of the story was romanticized in this 1958 production. Gaston was mentored in the ways of womanizing by his uncle Honoré.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston was mentored in the ways of womanizing by his uncle Honoré Lachaille.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston was well-known in Parisian high society as womanizer, as was his uncle Honoré Lachaille.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "After bringing Gigi to Maxim's restaurant, Gaston realized that his keeping of her as a courtesan was dishonorable. He felt that he could not treat her as such and resolved to seek her hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaston decided to do the honorable thing by marrying Gigi instead of continuing to treat her as just another courtesan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with Gaston renouncing his womanizing ways and marrying Gigi, who had melted his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaston was tended to by a coterie of manservants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaston fell into scandal after one of his mistresses feigned a suicide attempt in response to Gaston dumped her for being unfaithful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madame Alvarez and her sister, Alicia, were close, and together they groomed Gigi to be a Parisian courtesan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: War of the Satellites (1958)", "title": "War of the Satellites", "date": "1958-05-18", "description": "The Masters of the Spiral Nebula Ghana declare war against Earth when the United Nations disobeys warnings to cease and desist in its attempts at assembling and then launching the first satellite into space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Satellites" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Masters of the Spiral Nebula Ghana declare war against Earth when the United Nations disobeys warnings to cease and desist in its attempts at assembling and then launching the first satellite into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "galactic master race", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Masters of the Spiral Nebula Ghana quarantined the Earth because Humans were not ready for outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United Nations was launching manned satellites into orbit around the Earth, but they kept getting destroyed after coming into contact with a mysterious space barrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Masters of the Spiral Nebula Ghana communicated telepathically with Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multistage rocket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three manned multistage rockets were fired into orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Pol Van Ponder was really an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations was organizing a space program.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x33", "title": "Post Mortem", "date": "1958-05-18", "description": "Judy exhumes her first husband Harry's body because a winning sweepstakes ticket was buried with him. Insurance investigator Wescott takes advantage of this to perform an autopsy on Harry, proving that he was poisoned. Judy's second husband, Steve (Forrest) murdered Harry before marrying Judy so that they could live on Harry's insurance money. Wescott helps Judy catch Steve in a failed act of trying to murder her, and Steve is arrested.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Cornell Woolrich, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Judy and Steve Archer coming into some money. Judy had the body of her first husband, Harry, exhumed in order to search its suit for a $133,000 sweepstakes ticket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy found her late husband's winning sweepstakes ticket, worth $133,000 or so. Enough to buy a new house with a heated bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was made clear that Steve was in his marriage with Judy more for the sake of money than anything else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Steve trying to electrocute his wife, Judy, by dropping an electric heater in the bathtub while she was taking a bubble bath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honest character vs. deceitful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy was notably sweet and trusting compared to devious murderer of a husband, Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with the revelation that Steve had arranged a $25,000 life insurance for Harry, then murdered Harry and married his widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock revealed some of his horticultural secrets to some otherwise unspecified members of \"the Garden Club\" in his monologue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude towards the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve feigned moral outrage at the thought of exhuming Harry's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story involved a number of journalists who were eager to write about a horse race winner, and to dig in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived at the end to arrest Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy was a notably sensible and frugal character, contrasted with her recklessly gambling husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve thought nothing of reading Judy's love letters to her late husband, but she objected to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy reminded Steve about the losses he'd accrued in the past by placing bets at the horse racing track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story revolved around the revelation that Steve had poison murdered his rival Harry the claim Harry's wife and life insurance alike.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)", "title": "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman", "date": "1958-05-19", "description": "A wealthy heiress has close encounter with an enormous alien in his round spacecraft that causes her to grow into a giantess, complicating her marriage already troubled by a philandering husband.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_50_Foot_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nancy Archer grew to be 50 foot tall after an encounter with giant aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Archer and Nancy Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Archer was involved in an extramarital affair with Honey Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nancy Archer wouldn't stand for Harry Archer being involved in an extramarital affair with Honey Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Archer's 50 foot tall wife was not going to tolerate him being involved with Honey Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nancy Archer loved Harry Archer in spite of his only being married to her for her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Archer and Honey Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Archer and Honey Parker plotted to knock off Harry's wealthy wife and collect the inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A 50 foot tall Nancy Archer became jealous of Honey Parker and went looking for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a 50 foot tall woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After reports of a red fireball in the sky come in from around the world, Nancy Archer is abducted by giant aliens and subsequently grows to gigantic proportions. People dismissed her story of an encounter with aliens as a tall tale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Nancy Archer's story about her encounter with a spherical flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x34", "title": "The Crocodile Case", "date": "1958-05-25", "description": "Jack Lyons and Phyllis Chaundry are married after Jack kills Phyllis' first husband, but Phyllis is unhappy because Jack lost the crocodile dressing case that her late husband was returning to her on the night of his murder. When the police finally find the case, Jack identifies it based on the initials, but that gives away his guilt, because the initials were only placed on the case just before the murder.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Roy Vickers, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turned on Jack taking pains to not get caught for having murdered his lover Phyllis' husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Phyllis tied the knot a year after Jack killed Phyllis' first husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were investigating the murder of Phyllis' first husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis was a stereotypically spoiled and selfish young woman because (as Jack said) men had been too nice to her all her life, starting with her dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack murdered his lover Phyllis' husband so that the pair could themselves marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phyllis erupted into crocodile tears upon being informed by the police of her husband's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phyllis was somewhat concerned when her husband Arthur went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tramp Dan Mintz had stolen the dressing case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tramp Dan Mintz was accused of murder and might have gone to prison had the story not taken a turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After Phyllis went to Scotland Yard against Jack's wishes, Jack angrily told her that she'd been spoiled by the men in her life, starting with her father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fiend Without a Face (1958)", "title": "Fiend Without a Face", "date": "1958-06", "description": "Mysterious deaths at the hands of a mentally created invisible life form that feeds on atomic power and then steals human brains and spinal columns to use as bodies in order to multiply its numbers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiend_Without_a_Face" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Walgate's developed his mental abilities to the point where he was able to materialize his thoughts into the world and ultimately his living thought projection became a malevolent and invisible new life form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Walgate's mental projection became a malevolent and invisible new life form that fed on atomic power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The a malevolent and invisible new life form derived from Professor Walgate's mental projection manifested itself in the disembodied brains of the people it killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Jeff Cummings and Barbara Griselle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Winthrop worried about radioactive fallout causing deaths in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Americans and Canadians were developing an atomic boosted radar system to monitor the Russians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Walgate was experimenting with telekinesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Walgate unwittingly created a monster in the process of conducting secret experiments on thought projection in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Colossus of New York (1958)", "title": "The Colossus of New York", "date": "1958-06", "description": "Following an accident, Jeremy Spensser's brain is transplanted by his scientist father into the huge body of an unattractive, frightening cyborg, in order to save his brilliant son's mind so that it can continue to serve mankind. Soon, his son's brain becomes transformed by the experimental procedure, losing key attributes that make him human and define his personality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colossus_of_New_York" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Following an accident, Jeremy Spensser's brain is transplanted by his scientist father into the huge body of an unattractive, frightening cyborg, in order to save his brilliant son's mind so that it can continue to serve mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Spensser's brain become transformed by the transplantation into a robot, resulting in him losing key attributes that make him human and define his personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Following an accident, Jeremy Spensser's brain is transplanted by his scientist father into the huge body of an unattractive, frightening cyborg, in order to save his brilliant son's mind so that it can continue to serve mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. William Spensser removed Jeremy Spensser's brain after death and maintained it an a tank connected to an encephalograph and a type writer, before transplanting it into a cyborg-like automaton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jeremy Spensser and Anne Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jeremy Spensser and Anne Spensser. Dr. Henry Spensser and Anne Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. William Spensser and Dr. Jeremy Spensser. Dr. William Spensser and Dr. Henry Spensser. Dr. Jeremy Spensser and Billy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Jeremy Spensser's brain in the body of a cyborg-like automaton continue Jeremy's research that could bring about world peace even though it wished to be destroyed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy Spensser's brain in the body of a robot acquired some form of extra sensory perception and could see certain future events, like a an accident at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne Spensser and Billy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Henry Spensser and Dr. Jeremy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. William Spensser and Billy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Henry Spensser and Billy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. William Spensser initially outright dismissed the existence of souls in a scientific discussion. But he came to change his mind about the existence of the soul after seeing what a monster Jeremy Spensser's brain became when transplanted into a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy Spensser was disturbed by the sudden death of his father, who was hit by a truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna Spensser grieved over the tragic death of her husband Jeremy Spensser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy Spensser's brain was jealous of his brother Henry over Henry pursuing the woman to whom Jeremy was married before dying and having his brain disembodied and put into a robot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x35", "title": "Dip in the Pool", "date": "1958-06-01", "description": "While traveling on a cruise ship, William Botibol bets heavily in a betting pool on how many miles the ship travels every day. When the ship goes faster than William expected, he decides to jump off the ship to force it to stop. He makes sure that a young woman, Emily, is there to see him jump, assuming that she will call for help. Emily is intellectually disabled, and does not react after he goes over.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows William and Ethel Botibol on their a transatlantic voyage to Europe. The well-to-do Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "William gambled away all of his and Ethel's $15,000 vacation money in an ill-considered bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "William became increasingly desperate to recoup his gambling losses to the point where he jumped overboard in an ill-advised bid to reverse his fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The transatlantic cruise goers were amusing themselves on the voyage by taking part in a betting pool on how many miles the ship would travel each day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a transatlantic voyage from the United States to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol gambled away he and his wife's $15,000 in vacation money which they planned to spend once in Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock explained about how he was on an ocean cruise vacation to get away from the rigors of television for awhile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The well-to-do Mrs. Renshaw looked down at Mr. Botibol for wearing a plaid dinner jacket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William took pills to help with sea sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Botibol had carefully arranged things so that when he jumped overboard he would be saved by the screams of a nearby woman. By an ironic twist of fate, the woman in question was intellectually disabled (sic) and neither cried out nor was believed later. Botibol was left to perish at sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x36", "title": "The Safe Place", "date": "1958-06-08", "description": "Bank teller George Piper murders one of the bank's dubious clients, Victor Mannett, to steal his money, which Piper then hides in plain sight inside his teller drawer. The next day, Piper is dressed down by his boss for keeping the Mannett account, as the murder will ruin the bank's reputation. Piper is fired on the spot and ordered to give up his teller drawer keys immediately.\n\nDirected by: James Neilson. Story by: Jay Wilson, Michael Hogan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter half of the story follows the mild-manner bank teller George as tries to get away with having robbed one of the bank's clients of a considerable sum of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "After mulling it over, the mild-mannered bank teller George took a calculated risk by murdering one of the bank's dubious clients and taking all the client's money so that he might go on living the high life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was shot down by a young girl to whom George was too old. George was goaded by his brother who said George was old and would soon be forced to retire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock preformed a version of the classic \"saw a lady in half\" magic trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank teller George Piper had a reputation for hitting on the office girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Manett spoke about how he made money from playing poker by outthinking his opponents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank teller George was politely shut down by his considerably younger colleague, Millie Manners, over lunch, and he didn't take it well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George's brother Fred came to him with a shady business proposition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George asserted that blackmail is the safest form of crime that there is provided that reasonable precautions are taken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George shot Mr. Manett dead and took all his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank manager Mr. Farnsworth erroneously vouched for the integrity of his bank teller of 30 years George C. Piper when a police sergeant came with questions about George's involvement in a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police Sergeant Henderson showed up at the bank to investigate George's role, if any, in the murder of Mr. Manett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank manager Mr. Farnsworth fired the bank teller of 30 years George C. Piper on the spot to help secure a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank manager Mr. Farnsworth quipped \"You know what the road to hell is paved with, don't ya\" in response to George insisting that he'd been managing a secret account under Mr. Farnsworth's nose with the best of intentions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Millie explained to George that he had a reputation as a womanizer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank manager Mr. Farnsworth and his seemingly loyal bank teller of 30 years George C. Piper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point of the story was that George would loose his income and ability to lead the high life, when he is forced to retire in a few years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x37", "title": "The Canary Sedan", "date": "1958-06-15", "description": "Laura Bowlby arrives in Hong Kong to join her husband, James, who has been living there for a while. Laura has psychic abilities; when she is inside her second-hand sedan she can hear the disembodied voice of a French woman talking to her lover. Laura, envious of the woman's passionate affair, investigates her story and discovers that she was having an affair with Laura's husband, James.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Ann Bridge, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura bough an eponymous yellow sedan and started hearing the voice of a deceased countess who had previously owned the vehicle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Laura as she goes to Hong Kong to join her husband James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "When inside her automobile Laura could hear, and indeed spoke back to, the disembodied voice of a French woman who was talking to her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is revealed at the end that Laura has stumbled upon information about a passionate love affair her husband had had in the past. We do not know whether he was married to Laura at the time, but must ponder the possibility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to have conjured up a genie in the image of Alfred Hitchcock by rubbing the picture tube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was talking about an Ouija board and we saw one being used.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura spoke, somewhat condescendingly, to her Chinese driver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura acclimatized to living in Hong Kong first and foremost by getting a new car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Space Children (1958)", "title": "The Space Children", "date": "1958-06-18", "description": "A brain from outer space visits Earth and communicates telepathically with the children of a group of scientists who are planning a nuclear war. The alien brain helps the children to sabotage their parents' rockets to prevent the war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Children" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity is saved from nuclear annihilation by a group of children that were acting under the direction of a brain from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of government scientists were working a project to put hydrogen bombs in orbit around the Earth and were worried that other nations, left unnamed, would beat them to it with disastrous consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of government scientists were working on a project to put hydrogen bombs in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of government scientists were working on a project to put hydrogen bombs in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A brain from outer space visits Earth and communicates telepathically with the children of a team of scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave Brewster and Anne Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave Brewster and Ken and Bud Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of government scientists were working a project to put hydrogen bombs in orbit around the Earth and were worried that other nations, like the Soviet Union, would beat them to it with disastrous consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken and Bud Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne Brewster and Ken and Bud Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brain from outer space communicated telepathically with the children of a team of scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank Johnson and Eadie Johnson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x38", "title": "The Impromptu Murder", "date": "1958-06-22", "description": "England, 1916. Solicitor Henry Daw kills a client, Miss Wilkinson, and buries her under a slab of stone next to the river. A body is found floating in the river a few days later, but Daw refuses to identify it properly, igniting Inspector Charles Tarrant's suspicions. Placed under pressure, Daw confesses to the murder, but it turns out that the body belongs to someone else.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Roy Vickers, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The solicitor Henry Daw murdered his client, Miss Wilkinson, when she came requesting the money he'd been managing for her - the problem was he didn't have it to give back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Police Inspector Tarrant was putting some tough questions to Henry over the disappearance and possible murder of Henry's client, Miss Wilkinson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry hatched an elaborate plot to murder Miss Wilkinson and then cover his tracks. He buried the body in what he thought was a safe location and then impersonated her on a train trip to another town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock claimed that what by all appearances were three fashionable young women were in fact Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock alerted his viewers that a Martian invasion of Earth was underway as he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The solicitor Henry Daw didn't have the money he was managing for his client, Miss Wilkinson, when she requested that it be returned to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Wilkinson was determined to make a risky investment in her brother's factory against her solicitor's advice to play it safe with her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry presided over a solemn ceremony to honor a number of English soldiers who'd presumably perished fighting in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The way Marjorie glared at her brother Henry hinted that she knew full well that he'd killed old Miss Wilkinson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the military-industrial complex in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Wilkinson was about to invest in some sort of industry that would both double her investment and quicken the end of \"the war\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp3x39", "title": "Little White Frock", "date": "1958-06-29", "description": "Elderly out-of-work actor Colin Bragner invites playwright Adam Longsworth and his wife Carol for dinner. He tells them a story about the love of his life, Lila Gordon, who turned him down and died tragically. Adam and Carol are deeply touched by the story, but it turns out to be complete fiction — Colin was showing off his acting skills in the hope of getting work. Adam is impressed and offers him a job on the spot.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Stacy Aumonier, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "acting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colin was an elderly out-of-work actor. In the end it was revealed that Colin's entire rambling story was a clandestine demonstration of his supreme acting abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colin was so desperate for work that he perpetrated an elaborate ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a playwright, an actor, and a theater production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The playwright Adam and his wife Carol reluctantly agreed to have an elderly out-of-work actor over for dinner, and in the end they did not regret it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin was out-of-work and spoke wistfully about formally retiring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin was reminiscing about earlier days in his long career in acting on stage, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin feigned to recollect a woman he had loved deeply in bygone days, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be his own brother and only heir, and implied that he had murdered the real Alfred Hitchcock. In the end it seemed Hitchcock was still alive inside the box, but Hitchcock posing as his own brother took care of that with an ax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock posed as his own brother and described their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam and Carol were not looking forwards to spending time with the overly solicitous and desperately job-hunting actor Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam said that Colin was just lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam and Carol briefly discussed the pity they felt for Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief discussion about wines and vintages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin described his devastation after being rejected by Lila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin described his devastation after being rejected by Lila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin, Lila, Terry - in a weak parallel to the play Othello perhaps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money is the root of all evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The money Terry O'Bain had inherited corrupted and ultimately killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin told a yarn that involved himself and a supposed old friend, named Terry, coming into conflict over a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin's maid inadvertently revealed his ruse in the end by blurting out that the dress Colin was holding belonged to her niece.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: War of the Colossal Beast (1958)", "title": "War of the Colossal Beast", "date": "1958-06-30", "description": "War of the Colossal Beast (a.k.a. Revenge of the Colossal Man and The Colossal Beast) is a 1958 black-and-white science fiction film, written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon for his Carmel Productions, and starring Dean Parkin, Sally Fraser, and Roger Pace. It is the sequel to Gordon's earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and was distributed theatrically by American International Pictures as the top half of a double feature with Attack of the Puppet People. The film's story picks up where The Amazing Colossal Man left off, although it was not marketed as a sequel and features a different cast.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Colossal_Beast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Colossal Man Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce Manning was searching for her brother the Colossal Man Glenn Manning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce Manning with her brother Glenn Manning who had grown enormously in size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenn Manning became a giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A 60 foot tall Glenn Manning lost nearly all his ability to think and was a menace to society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall following his accidental exposure to an atomic bomb test blast in Nevada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning grew to be more than 60 feet tall following his accidental exposure to an atomic bomb test blast in Nevada.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teenage Caveman (1958)", "title": "Teenage Caveman", "date": "1958-07", "description": "A teenage caveman challenges the laws of his tribe and crosses a river into an apparent land of plenty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Caveman_(1958_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cavemen turnout to be the descendants of the survivors of a long-ago nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cavemen turnout to be the descendants of the survivors of a long-ago nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in pre-historical times", "level": "major", "motivation": "A stone age tribe struggles to survive in a rocky and barren land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "A teenage caveman questioned the age-old laws of his tribe and travels beyond the burning plane on which they live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenage caveman was on a quest to increase his knowledge and break free from the narrow thinking of his tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "major", "motivation": "A tribe of cavemen were shown struggling to eek out an existence in a barren landscape. The titular teenage caveman and his companions survived in the forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of fire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stone age tribe made a big deal about using fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage cavemen and his expedition party encounter a dinosaurs. The teenage caveman battled one on one with what appeared to be a beast but was in fact a man in a radiation suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage cavemen and his expedition party encounter a dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage caveman and a cave woman fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator commented on the dangers of radioactive fallout in the film's concluding monologue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Master X7 (1958)", "title": "Space Master X-7", "date": "1958-07-16", "description": "A space probe returns to Earth covered with a mysterious fungus, which, when accidentally mixed with human blood, transforms into an ever-growing pile of space rust. If not stopped, the infection could eventually cover the entire world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Master_X-7" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious fungus of extraterrestrial origin, when accidentally mixed with human blood, transforms into an ever-growing pile of space rust that will eventually cover the entire surface of the Earth. This happened on Mars, which explains why the planet it red.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fungus proliferating over the entire world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious fungus of extraterrestrial origin, when accidentally mixed with human blood, transforms into an ever-growing pile of space rust that will eventually cover the entire surface of the Earth. This happened on Mars, which explains the planet's red color.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Greeling went on the run when she was named a suspect in the murder of her ex-husband Dr. Pommer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of scientists and engineers sent a rocket into orbit that returned with a dangerous fungus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Charles T. Pommer experimented on the space fungus in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Greeling went to visit her ex-husband Dr. Pommer to try and convince him to let her have custody of their son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Fly (1958)", "title": "The Fly", "date": "1958-07-16", "description": "A scientist who is transformed into a grotesque creature after a common house fly enters unseen into a molecular transporter he is experimenting with, resulting in his atoms being combined with those of the insect, producing a human-fly hybrid.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Fly" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1958_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "André Delambre and Hélène Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "André Delambre and Hélène Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "André Delambre invented a teleportation device in his basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "André was integrated with a fly when both he and it went through a matter teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "François Delambre and Hélène Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "André was integrated with a fly when both he and it went through a matter teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "André Delambre invented a teleportation device in his basement laboratory, but accidentally crossed himself with a fly while testing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre was experimenting with teleportation in basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "François Delambre and André Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "François Delambre and Philippe Delambre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "André Delambre and Philippe Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hélène had a discussion with André where she claimed that his experiments with teleporting animals was tantamount to playing God with nature. Later André came to believe there are things that man should experiment with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hélène harbored a fear of scientific progress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hélène Delambre and Philippe Delambre.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy (1958)", "title": "The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy", "date": "1958-07-17", "description": "The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (originally La Momia Azteca contra el Robot Humano) is a Mexican horror film, the third in a trilogy, directed by Rafael Portillo, starring Ramón Gay and Rosa Arenas. It blends elements of science fiction and horror. The film is the sequel to The Aztec Mummy and The Curse of the Aztec Mummy, and a large portion of it consists of an extended recap of the events from the first two films in the series. The three films were all shot in 1957, one after another without a break in the production schedule.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Robot_vs._The_Aztec_Mummy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil mad scientist Dr. Krupp built a cyborg as part of a scheme to steal a valuable Aztec treasure from the tomb of a centuries-old living mummy, Popoca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Krupp built a radium powered robot with a human brain in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eduardo Almada and Flora Almada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an Aztex mummy lurking about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Aztec mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Popoca tried to sacrifice Flora to the Aztec gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flora had lived among the Ancient Aztecs in a past life as a woman named Xochitl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Popoca was buried alive and had an eternal curse placed upon him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Popoca tried to cut out Flora's heart and offer it to the Aztec gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eduardo Almada and Pepe Almada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Krupp henchman Tierno had a horribly scarred face owing to a prior altercation with Popoca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Krupp's henchman Tierno wanted to take revenge on Popoca, because he had a horribly disfigured face from a prior altercation with Popoca.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein 1970 (1958)", "title": "Frankenstein 1970", "date": "1958-07-20", "description": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein has suffered torture and disfigurement at the hands of the Nazis as punishment for not cooperating with them during World War II. Horribly disfigured, he nevertheless continues his work as a scientist. Needing funds to support his experiments, the Baron allows a television crew to shoot a made-for-television horror film about his monster- making family at his castle in Germany.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_1970" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein has suffered torture and disfigurement at the hands of the Nazis as punishment for not cooperating with them during World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were the last of my family line", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein was the last living member of the infamout Frankenstein family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein bought an atomic reactor, which he uses to create a living being, modeled after his own likeness before he had been tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein and the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein bought an atomic reactor, which he uses to create a living being, modeled after his own likeness before he had been tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein created a clone of himself so that the Frankenstein family could live on after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein created a clone of himself so that the Frankenstein family could live on after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein used atomic power in his laboratory to create a monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein transplanted Schutter's brain into the monster's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike Shaw was romantically interested in Douglas Row's ex-wife Judy Stevens until such time as she was killed by the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Victor von Frankenstein attempted to transplant the eyes of a murdered man into his blind monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Blood Beast (1958)", "title": "Night of the Blood Beast", "date": "1958-08", "description": "A team of scientists who are stalked by an alien creature, which implants its embryos in an astronaut's body during a space flight.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Blood_Beast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of scientists versus the blood beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The blood beast from outer space implanted John Corcoran with alien embryos that would come to fruition on Earth and take over the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The blood beast from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rocket-ship carrying astronaut John Corcoran launches and orbits the Earth, marking the United States' first manned space launch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronaut John Corcoran was placed into a state of suspended animation by the action of the embryos implanted into him by an alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blood beast communicated telepathically with John Corcoran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Corcoran committed suicide so the embryos inside him could not come to fruition and take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)", "title": "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne", "date": "1958-08", "description": "A gang of pirates kidnap a scientist and two others to get the secret of the scientist's futuristic weapon to aid them with their piracy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_World_of_Jules_Verne" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wonderful inventions were brought about with science, like a submarine, but also a nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wonderful inventions were brought about with science, like a submarine, but also a nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pirates kidnap Professor Roch and two others to get the secret of the scientist's futuristic weapon to aid them with their piracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Spade plotted to use Professor Roch's futuristic weapon to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pirates got about in a super high-tech submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative airship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a steam powered wooden ship flying around in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aerial bombing of cities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pirates dropped bombs on people from their stream powered airship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon Hart used a high-tech diving suit to walk about on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)", "title": "It! The Terror from Beyond Space", "date": "1958-08-13", "description": "Earth's second mission to Mars to discover the fate of the first. They find a sole survivor of that mission and bring him back. The survivor, the expedition's former commander, claims that his crew were killed by a hostile Martian life form. No one believes him until the creature, now a stowaway, begins hunting the rescue ship's crew as they return to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It!_The_Terror_from_Beyond_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The second ever mission to Mars was sent to discover the fate of the first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hostile Martian life form killed nine members of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hostile Martial life form stowed away on the rocketship and was terrorizing the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew flew a nuclear powered rocketship to Mars and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Col. Edward Carruthers was accused of having killed his nine crew mates on Mars in order that he might survive long enough until a rescue party arrived, but he insisted it was a hostile Martian life form that killed his crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Hideous Sun Demon (1958)", "title": "The Hideous Sun Demon", "date": "1958-08-29", "description": "A scientist is exposed to a radioactive isotope and soon finds out that it comes with horrifying consequences.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hideous_Sun_Demon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil McKenna was transformed into a hideous sun beast after being exposed to a radioactive isotope and sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exposure to a radioactive isotope and sunlight devolved Gil McKenna into an ancient lizard-like ancestor of Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil McKenna transformed into the Sun Demon when exposed to sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil McKenna was transformed into an ancient lizard-like ancestor of Humans when exposed to sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil McKenna and Trudy Osborne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George Messorio at Trudy Osborne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suzy's mother and Suzy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earth vs the Spider (1958)", "title": "Earth vs. the Spider", "date": "1958-09", "description": "A giant mutant spider attacks a small American town.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Spider" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Simpson and Carol Flynn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Simpson and Carol Flynn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A teacher and his students versus a giant mutant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant mutant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant mutant spiders posed an existential threat to civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant tarantula is discovered in a cave nearby a small American town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Flynn's father Jack mysteriously goes missing. Mr. Simpson and Mike Simpson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Flynn and Carol Flynn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Flynn grieved over the death of her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Flynn blamed herself for her father's apparent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Flynn blamed herself for her father's apparent death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brain Eaters (1958)", "title": "The Brain Eaters", "date": "1958-09", "description": "The sudden appearance of a strange, metallic cone-shaped object outside a small Illinois town coincides with the town residents disappearing one by one.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Eaters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neural parasites originating from deep inside the Earth were parasitizings the residents of an Illinois town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neural parasites, at first presumed to be of extraterrestrial origin but later determined to have come from deep inside the Earth, came to an Illinois town and began parasitizing all the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neural parasites from the carboniferous period survived deep inside the Earth for 200 million years and surfaced in an Illinois town and began parasitizing the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The founders plotted to bring peace to mankind by parasitizing everyone with neural parasites that stop people from getting into conflicts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer investigation committee reviewed classified army footage of a cone-shaped, spiral metal structure resembling the nose of a rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayor Cameron and Glenn Cameron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glenn Cameron and Elaine Cameron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Kettering and Alice Summers. Glenn Cameron and Elaine Cameron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)", "title": "The Day the Sky Exploded", "date": "1958-09", "description": "Civilization on Earth is imperiled by a swarm of meteors on a collision course.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Sky_Exploded" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "A swarm of meteors is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world unite to try and prevent the Earth from being destroyed by an oncoming swarm of meteors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "An atomic rocker ship was sent into space and its atomic booster exploded, dislodging a number of asteroids from their orbits, sending the careening toward Earth. In the end nuclear missiles are used to destroy the oncoming meteors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McLaren and Mary McLaren. Herbert Weisse and Katy Dandridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McLaren and Mary McLaren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McLaren's dedication to his work led to a breadown of his marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations launched an atomic rocket on a manned moon mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations launched an atomic rocket on a manned moon mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John McLaren and Dennis McLaren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary McLaren and Dennis McLaren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People began to panic when news of the oncoming meteor swarm was made public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergei Boetnikov interpreted the meteor swarm heading to Earth as the Biblical end of the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Queen of Outer Space (1958)", "title": "Queen of Outer Space", "date": "1958-09-07", "description": "A revolt against a cruel Venusian queen, was based on an idea supplied by Ben Hecht, originally titled Queen of the Universe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew crash land on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew liberate the Venusians from the dictatorship of the cruel Queen Yllana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew are taken captive by the cruel Queen Yllana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew found a civilization of females on Venus that was ruled by the cruel Queen Yllana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew found Venus populated by a race of beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Queen Yllana plotted to destroy Earth with the same super powered atomic ray gun that she had used to obliterate Earth's space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Larry Turner and Kaeel. Captain Patterson and his space crew and the Venusian girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew set out on a rocket to a space station near Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Yllana kept male mathematicians and scientists on a prison colony moon in orbit around Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two Venusian scientists were working with test tubes and beakers in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Yllana suffered disfiguring radiation burns to her face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Yllana suffered disfiguring radiation burns to her face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Yllana hated all men and held them responsible for the horribly disfiguring radiaiton burns she had suffered to her face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Patterson and his space crew were attacked by a giant beetle in the Venusian caverns", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Yllana at Captain Patterson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)", "title": "I Married a Monster from Outer Space", "date": "1958-09-10", "description": "A young wife that begins to realize that her husband is not the man he was before they married. He has lost all real affection for her and for his new pet dog, which she gave him as a present. Thereafter, she quickly discovers that he is not the only man in town that appears to have changed. Now suspicious, she follows him one evening when he goes out for a walk and shockingly discovers that her husband is actually an alien humanoid.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Married_a_Monster_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marge Farrell and Bill Farrell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Farrell being replaced by an alien lookalike put a strain on his marriage to Marge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marge Farrell's husband Bill was replaced by an alien lookalike by an alien humanoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens needed to mate with Human females in order to perpetuate their species because all their females had perished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of the town in which the film was set became occupied by aliens one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens seeking Human females to mate with take over the bodies of men in a small American town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were reluctant to believe Marge Farrell that aliens were taking over the men of her town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge Farrell and Bill Farrell before he was replaced by an alien humanoid lookalike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had fled their home world in the Andromeda constellation before their sun went nova. After that all their women perished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were emotionless by nature but came to enjoy experiencing emotions after taking on Human form.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Astounding She-Monster (1958)", "title": "The Astounding She-Monster", "date": "1958-09-12", "description": "A gang has kidnapped a rich heiress, and they encounter a beautiful but deadly female alien who has crashed to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wealthy socialite Margaret Chaffee is kidnapped by gangsters and held for ransom. The gangsters take over Dick Cutler's house and hold him captive, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A humanoid She-Monster alien came to Earth as an emissary of an inter-galactic council of planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The She-Monster killed people by giving them radium poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nat Burdell feared he was suffering from radium poisoning and was desperate to get to a doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick Cutler and his pet dog Egan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nat Burdell and Esther Malone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Blob (1958)", "title": "The Blob", "date": "1958-09-12", "description": "A growing, corrosive, alien amoeboidal entity that crashes to Earth from outer space inside a meteorite. It devours and dissolves citizens in the small communities of Phoenixville and Downingtown, PA, growing larger, redder, and more aggressive each time it does so, eventually becoming larger than a building.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Blob" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A growing, corrosive, amoeboidal entity from outer space devoured and dissolved everyone in its path.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blob!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townsfolk were reluctant to believe Steve Martin's story of a blob monster that was eating people and many dismissed it as a hoax or prank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Andrews and Jane Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Andrews and Jane Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Martin stopped by the police station in the middle of the night to pick up his daughter Jane Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Andrews stopped by the police station in the middle of the night to pick up his son Steve Andrews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven Martin discussed people fooling themselves into seeing flying saucers with Jane Martin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x01", "title": "Poison", "date": "1958-10-05", "description": "Harry Pope has been stuck in bed for hours because there is a venomous snake on his stomach. His friend Timber Woods calls a doctor, but is flippant about the danger and makes fun of Harry. When the doctor arrives, they help Harry stand up and there is no snake to be seen. Timber mocks Harry for his fear, but as soon as the doctor is gone, he gets bitten by the snake instead.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Roald Dahl, Casey Robinson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry Pope had been stuck in bed for hours because there is a venomous snake on his stomach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "One point of the story was that Harry was frustrated by having to rely on Timber who was variously flippant and dumb, and would not treat Harry's mortal peril with the gravitas it warranted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Timber were supposedly friends but it turns out to be more complicated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Timber went through the motions of friendship but by the conclusion of the story we understand that neither would have terribly minded seeing the other dead. At any rate they derived much satisfaction from each other's distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Granderbay appeared to administer a snake serum, and to sedate the slithering reptile with chloroform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to have a rattlesnake in his pocket to deter pickpockets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Harry had turned to the bottle at some point.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Trollenberg Terror (1958)", "title": "The Trollenberg Terror", "date": "1958-10-07", "description": "United Nations troubleshooter Alan Brooks, later joined by journalist Philip Truscott, investigating unusual accidents occurring in the area of a resort hotel on (the fictional) Mount Trollenberg in Switzerland. Brooks suspects these deaths are related to a series of similar incidents that occurred three years earlier in the Andes mountains, which involved an unexplained radioactive mist and odd cloud formation believed by locals to be inhabited.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trollenberg_Terror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living space cloud", "level": "major", "motivation": "A radioactive mist, hypothesized to be form outer space, was lurking about on the Mount Trollenberg peak. Note that the cloud was ultimately discovered to harbor a multi-tentacled creature with a single huge eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radioactive space clouds harboring multi-tentacled, one-eyed creatures invaded the Earth, perhaps because their place of origin had become uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A radioactive mist lurking about on the Mount Trollenberg peak was killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Pilgrim and her telepathic sister Anne Pilgrim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne Pilgrim manifested telepathic abilities and was drawn to the Trollenber radioactive mist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x02", "title": "Don't Interrupt", "date": "1958-10-12", "description": "The Templetons are on a train with their young son, Johnny, who they have trouble controlling. The Templetons offer Johnny one silver dollar if he can be quiet for 10 minutes while elderly cowboy Mr. Kilmer tells a story. When the train stops, Johnny sees a man outside the window, caught in the blizzard and begging for help, but Johnny cannot speak up, having promised not to.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Sidney Carroll.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "keeping a promise when circumstances have changed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Johnny had to choose between keeping his promise, and speaking up about a man who was freezing to death outside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Because of his habit of make belief, nobody would believe Johnny when he told about the freezing man outside the window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Templeton and his unruly young son Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Templeton and her unruly young son Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry and Mary Templeton quarreled over how to best discipline their young son, Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Templetons struggled to make their unruly son to behave aboard the train.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Johnny pipe up and tell everyone that there was a man about to freeze to death outside or keep quiet and get the shiny silver dollar that'd been promised to him so long as he didn't interrupt Mr. Kilmer while he told his lengthy story?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Kilmer related a story about the worst thing there was: Freezing in the cold. Underlying a story within the main story, Johnny saw someone outside the window apparently freezing to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry's rewarding Johnny for doing things he should be expected to do was contrasted with Mary's no-nonsense approach to disciplining the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock was subjected to attempted murder by a train company director who took issue with something Alfred had said about the trains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The train waiter stole the silver dollar that Johnny dropped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Johnny was running around on the train playing the make-believe children's game \"Cowboys and Indians\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x03", "title": "The Jokester", "date": "1958-10-19", "description": "Practical joker Bradley pulls a prank on easily-confused morgue attendant Pop Henderson by pretending to be a corpse and \"coming alive\". When Bradley is later brought to the morgue presumed dead (but only actually paralyzed), Pop refuses to believe that Bradley's moaning is real and puts him inside the freezer.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Robert Arthur, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the boy who cried wolf moral", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminates with Pop Henderson not taking seriously a paralyzed Mr. Bradley's moans for help on account that Mr. Bradley had previously pretended to be a corpse that had come to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bradley was pulling childish pranks on people left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was fed up with the buffoonish practical joker Mr. Bradley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock jested about how his supposed musician brother had perished as crazed fans \"snipped\" of first his hair, and then more of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made a mockery of Rock and Roll music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bradley and his fellow news reporter buddies were huddled around a small table playing a hand of poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bradley grabbed the pile of cash due to him after winning a hand of poker with a straight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bradley was a newspaper reporter by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police captain came to investigate a report that a morgue-stored body was actually alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike punched out Mr. Bradley for having played a practical joke on his girl, Millie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime of passion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike lost his temper and physically assaulted the insufferable practical joker Mr. Bradley after Mr. Bradley put pepper in the drink of Mike's girl, Millie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pop spoke repeatedly about how his wife was ill and had had numerous operations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike thought he had killed Mr. Bradley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We herd a snide remark about how the police captain was a second cousin to the Mayor. The captain protested that he was in fact a first cousin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x04", "title": "The Crooked Road", "date": "1958-10-26", "description": "Harry Adams and his wife are traveling on a rural road when they are waylaid by crooked cop Officer Chandler, who is running an extortion racket with the local mechanic and judge. The Adamses leave after paying the fees, but it turns out that they are part of the State Commission, and have recorded everything on tape.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Alex Gaby, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Adams' were stopped and harassed by a rural police officer. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock was accosted by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Two New Yorkers on the road were stopped in a small town were the police, a mechanic and a judge were in cahoots to extort passers by.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A corrupt rural police officer tried to extort two New Yorkers who were driving through his town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The New Yorkers Harry Addams and his wife became embroiled in an extortion racket while passing through the sleepy rural community of Robertsville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A corrupt rural judge fined Harry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was apprehended for driving at 57 MPH on a 50 MPH road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rural cop Officer Chandler was contrasted with the New York City couple who were passing through his town. In particular, Officer Chandler asked them \"Are you trying to make up the rules for us countryfolks?\" in response to one of them questioning his authority.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x05", "title": "The $2,000,000 Defense", "date": "1958-11-02", "description": "Lloyd Ashley is accused of killing his wife Eve's lover, and offers his lawyer Mark Robeson 2 million dollars if he can get him an acquittal. Mark succeeds, but as soon as Ashley is released, he shoots Mark for also having an affair with Eve.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Harold Q. Masur, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lloyd was tried for and ultimately acquitted of having murdered his wife's supposed lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve had perhaps had affairs with both Tom Warren and Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lloyd had killed his wife's lover, and did so once again at the conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a lawyer trying to get his client acquitted of a murder charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lloyd was on trial for having killed his wife's lover. After being acquitted, he shot dead his lawyer in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro and closing, Alfred Hitchcock feigned believing that the horse he was interacting with was intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd and Eve mentioned each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician made a house call to Mark's accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd spoke about how he'd hired a private investigator to tail his cheating wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: From the Earth to the Moon (1958)", "title": "From the Earth to the Moon", "date": "1958-11-06", "description": "From the Earth to the Moon is the only film adaptation of the Jules Verne science fiction novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Barbicane used the power of \"Power X\" to attempt a flight to the Moon and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Barbicane developed the new explosive \"Power X\" that had the destructive force to destroy the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Barbicane's new explosive \"Power X\" could be used to reach the Moon or blow up the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Barbicane went to the Moon in a \"Power X\" fueled rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben Sharpe and Virginia Nicholl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Barbicane and other munitions producers had profited handsomely from selling weapons to both sides in the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholl and Virginia Nicholl.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x06", "title": "Design for Loving", "date": "1958-11-09", "description": "Charles Brailing is tired of his wife, Lydia, so he has a robot double of himself made by Marionettes, Inc. to take his place when he wants to get away. Charles' robot double develops feelings for Lydia and turns on Charles, taking his place permanently.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles had and android duplicate of himself made.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles ordered an android duplicate of himself to keep his wife, Lydia, occupied. Tom and Anne Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the failing marriage between Charles and Lydia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles' android duplicate came between Charles and his wife Lydia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone around me changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Lydia fond out that their respective partners were in fact robot clones of the genuine articles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles went to the length of ordering an android duplicate of himself in an effort to keep his needy wife occupied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to speak about his oversized pet puppy named Fido.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia was playing around with a set of Chinese linking rings - a classical illusion magic prop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles went on a bender with his old friend Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles's android duplicate let Lydia win at chess.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x07", "title": "Man with a Problem", "date": "1958-11-16", "description": "Carl climbs out a window onto the ledge of a high rise Chicago hotel. He is disconsolate over his wife Karen's recent death; she committed suicide when her lover abandoned her. After some banter, the patrolman on duty, joins Carl on the ledge to rescue him, but this turns out to fulfill Carl's plot: this police officer is Steve, Karen's lover; he had recently spurned her precipitating her suicide. Once Carl is secured by a rope lasso, he tells Steve of the plot and who he really is, then pushes Steve off the ledge.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Donald Martin, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karen had committed suicide. Carl pretended to be about to. The entire story centered around this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl was upset after his wife had committed suicide, and ostensibly seemed to be about to kill himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve tried to talk Carl out of jumping to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen and Steve were carrying on behind the backs of their spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the whole act was an elaborate ruse for Carl to avenge himself on Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Karen Adams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl clearly loved Karen, but Karen had lost her feelings for Carl. It also became clear that Steve was not nearly as devoted to Karen as she was to Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl was rejected by his wife, Karen. Karen committed suicide after she was rejected by her lover, Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock jested about running a get-slim program for obese people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl's killing of Steve was highlighted as a crime by Alfred Hitchcock in the epilogue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl shot down Karen when she proposed they get a divorce. According to Karen, Steve was getting a divorce from his wife to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of newspaper photographers were gleefully waiting for Carl to jump to his death from a hotel room window ledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A psychiatrist speculated that Carl's having been out on the window ledge for four hours was not a sign of indecision as might be imagine, and went on to voice his believe that he thought Carl had already made up his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hotel manager was exasperated about what a man making a spectacle of jumping to his death from a room window ledge would do for business.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x08", "title": "Safety for the Witness", "date": "1958-11-23", "description": "The year is 1927. Mild-mannered gun shop owner Cyril T. Jones witnesses a murder by a pair of highly-wanted gangsters. Distrustful of the police's ability to protect him, Jones kills the gangsters with a rifle and turns himself in. The police, fearful that their reputation will be ruined by Jones' accomplishment, refuse to arrest him.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: John De Meyer, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fearful of mobster retribution if he went to the police, Jones decided to summarily murder the two gangsters that were after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A police officer interrogated Cyril regarding a gun Cyril had sold. Cyril was later dismayed when the police refused to charge him for two murders that he'd openly confessed to having committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witness tampering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on the problem of witnesses being fearful to come forwards for fear of being assassinated. In the story, the police were unable to adequately protect their witnesses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gangster tried to murder Jones. Jones murdered two gangsters and confessed. In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock apparently shot a man dead in a duel with pistols. Hitchcock additionally lamented that while duels had fallen out of fashion, murders were more popular than ever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police department was too incompetent to be able to protect the murder witness Cyril from retaliation by gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to slay a man in a mock duel with pistols. He later found himself outnumbered in a lopsided standoff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the gangster stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw mobsters in suits mowing people down with Tommy guns in the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock lamented that while duels had fallen out of fashion, murders were more popular than ever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jones had to spend some time in a hospital bed after he was shot by mobsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyril said he had to kill the mobsters before they killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyril was tended to by a nurse while recovering from a gunshot wound in hospital.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monster from Green Hell (1958)", "title": "Monster from Green Hell", "date": "1958-12", "description": "Wasps, made giant after being exposed to massive amounts of cosmic radiation in outer space, cause turmoil in Central Africa.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_from_Green_Hell" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Expedition team versus giant mutated wasps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wasps sent into space become gigantic after getting exposed to massive amounts of cosmic radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wasps sent into space become gigantic after getting exposed to massive amounts of cosmic radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant mutant wasps pose a threat to Human existence on the continent of Africa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant mutated wasps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Quent Brady and his expedition party tracked through the woods to find the region known as the Green Hell where the mutated wasps dwelled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lorna Lorentz and Dr. Lorentz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Quent Brady and his expedition party tracked through the woods to find the region known as the Green Hell where the mutated wasps dwelled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Quent Brady and his expedition party tracked through the woods to find the region known as the Green Hell where the mutated wasps dwelled.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost Missile (1958)", "title": "The Lost Missile", "date": "1958-12-01", "description": "A missile-like object of unknown origin circles round and round in Earth's atmosphere.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Missile" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lost alien spaceship circled round and round in Earth's atmosphere, burning it up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world was said to be on the verge of a hydrogen war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Loring and Joan Woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Loring and Joan Woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the Americans and the Soviets both thought the missile-like object of unknown origin may have been a nuclear warhead sent by the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. David Loring had to choose between his love for developing hydrogen bombs and his love for Joan Woods. Dr. Joe Freed debated staying at work to work on hydrogen bombs instead of being there for the delivery of his baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mass panic ensued in New York City when news spread of a missile of unknown origin heading to the city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x09", "title": "Murder Me Twice", "date": "1958-12-07", "description": "At a dinner party, hypnotist Miles Farnham demonstrates his skills on Lucy Pryor. She speaks in old-fashioned English, claims to be \"Dora Evans\", and kills her husband with a pair of scissors. During the inquest, Farnham insists that Lucy was inhabited by the spirit of Dora Evans, a real woman who killed her husband in 1853. Farnham hypnotizes Lucy to prove this, but during the testimony \"Dora\" stabs Farnham, killing him. Lucy is set free, and when a journalist questions her if she planned it all, she replies, \"Wouldst not thee like to know.\"\n\nDirected by: David Swift. Story by: Lawrence Treat, Irving Elman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lucy became inhabited by the spirit of a 19th century spouse murderer each of the two times she was hypnotized by the self-proclaimed meta-physician Miles Farnham, or so it seemed. Lucy was briefly hypnotically regressed to her nine-year-old self. In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock was hypnotically regressed to his four-year-old self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy, or possibly the spirit of Dora Evans in the body of Lucy, killed her husband by stabbing him in the back with a pair of scissors. An inquest was subsequently held to determined whether she should be charged with murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spirit of the 19th century spouse murderer Dora Evans inhabited Lucy's body each of the two times Lucy was put under hypnosis, or so Lucy would have everyone believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy killed her husband in the opening segment of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy called in her maid Alma to make her aware that Miles Farnham was no longer welcome in the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An inquest was held to determine if Lucy should stand trial for the murder of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judge and some lawyers were doing what such people do at Lucy's inquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy killed Miles Farnham while under hypnosis and played it off as if it were the spirit of a 19th century spouse murderer that was in control of her body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Lucy and Alfred Hitchcock were made to relate information about their childhood while under hypnosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy mentioned the hatred she felt as Dora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles tried to \"cut himself in\" on Lucy's scheme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy feigned outrage at being accused of an elaborate plot to commit spouse murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x10", "title": "Tea Time", "date": "1958-12-14", "description": "Iris Teleton is threatened with blackmail by her husband Oliver's mistress, Blanche Herbert, who wants them to divorce. In retaliation, Iris kills Blanche, hoping to frame Oliver for the murder. However, Iris was seen by a private detective hired by Oliver, and he is still planning to divorce Iris for another younger mistress.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Margaret Manners, Kathleen Hite.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Blanche tried to blackmail Iris into divorcing Oliver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blanche was having an affair with Iris' husband Oliver. In the end Iris discovered that Oliver had another mistress, too. Iris had had an affair with Robert Blanche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iris and Oliver were in a loveless marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver's mistress tried to blackmail his wife, Iris, into divorcing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that both Iris and Blanche were interested in Oliver for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that archaeology was a hobby of his, and moreover shared some findings in regard to a thousands of years old grave that he'd excavated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of an ancient man who had had two wives, and cleverly related that this man had combined the \"family circle\" with the \"eternal triangle\" (i.e. a love triangle).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris flat out refused to divorce Oliver. In the end, Iris overhead Oliver telling his mistress that he was going to divorce her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blanche professed her love for Oliver to his wife, Iris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminated in Iris shooting dead her would-be blackmailer, Blanche and framing her own husband for the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris overheard Oliver talking with his private investigator over the phone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankensteins Daughter (1958)", "title": "Frankenstein's Daughter", "date": "1958-12-15", "description": "The film, set in mid-20th century America, tells the story of the creation of the first female \"Frankenstein's monster\".", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein%27s_Daughter" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter Morgan was developing a panacea that cures all disease so that people can live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trudy Morton and Suzy Lawler were both frustrated that nobody would believe them about seeing a Frankenstein monster on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny Bruder and Trudy Morton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny Bruder and Trudy Morton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny Bruder and Trudy Morton got engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter Morgan and Trudy Morton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver Frank and the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver Frank at Trudy Morton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver Frank loved Johnny Bruder's girlfriend Trudy Morton, but Johnny wouldn't stand for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female monster thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter Morgan was developing a panacea that cures all disease so that people can live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carter Morgan worked in his laboratory on developing a general that cures all disease so that people can live forever. Meanwhile, Oliver Frank worked with electricity to create his monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carter Morgan likened reports of monster sightings to people seeing flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver Frank transplanted Suzie Lawler's brain into his monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Missile to the Moon (1958)", "title": "Missile to the Moon", "date": "1958-12-15", "description": "A spaceship blasts off from Earth with five aboard, but one of them is secretly a Moon man returning home. He dies by accident during the trip to Luna. What the remaining four find waiting for them when they arrive on the Moon is well beyond their expectations: huge rock creatures, giant lunar spiders, and a cave-dwelling civilization made up of beautiful women.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_to_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "A spaceship blasts off from Earth with five aboard, but one of them is secretly a Moon man returning home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dirk Green is secretly a Moon man and builds a rocketship and compels two escaped convicts to fly it with him to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Dayton and June Saxton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Dayton and June Saxton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lunar landing party members were held captive by the Moon women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atmospheric dissipation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Moon women's civilization was on the verge of collapsing because the the oxygen levels in the cves they inhabited was diminishing to critically low levels and they had to find a new planet to live on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship blasts off from Earth with five aboard, but one of them is secretly a Moon man returning home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Escaped convicts Gary and Lon hid aboard Dirk Green's rocketship and ended up being compelled to fly it to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The landing party encountered rock monsters on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lunar landing party was attacked by a giant Moon spider while trying to escape from the Moon women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alpha wanted Steve Dayton to be her husband but he was happily engaged to June Saxton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alpha wanted Steve Dayton to be her husband but he was happily engaged to June Saxton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lido had gone blind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monster on the Campus (1958)", "title": "Monster on the Campus", "date": "1958-12-17", "description": "A university science professor accidentally comes into contact with the gamma ray irradiated blood of a coelacanth, which causes him to devolve into being a primitive caveman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_on_the_Campus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "devolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake devolved into a primitive caveman after accidentally coming into contact with the gamma ray irradiated blood of a coelacanth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake devolved into a primitive caveman after accidentally coming into contact with the gamma ray irradiated blood of a coelacanth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake devolved into a primitive caveman after accidentally coming into contact with the gamma ray irradiated blood of a coelacanth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake had a coelacanth brought to his lab for study and discussed its status as a living fossil in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake devolved into a primitive caveman after accidentally coming into contact with the gamma ray irradiated blood of a coelacanth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake and Madeline Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake and Madeline Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake was researching about human evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gilbert Howard and Madeline Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Donald Blake's fiancée Madeline Howard and academic colleagues were concerned that he was working himself to hard and urged him to take a leave of absence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x11", "title": "And the Desert Shall Blossom", "date": "1958-12-21", "description": "Elderly cowboys Tom Akins and Ben White are in danger of being taken away from their desert property by the town council. One night, a criminal barges into their cabin and threatens them with a gun, but the cowboys manage to kill him. A month later, when Sheriff Jeff arrives to inspect the property, Akins and White proudly show off a lush rosebush, secretly grown using the criminal's body as fertilizer, thus proving the fertility of their land and allowing them to stay.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Loren D. Good, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Ben were upset at the threat of being evicted from their desert property.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Ben were outraged at the notion that they might be put in a home with other old people, just waiting to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old men Tom and Ben were on the verge of being forcibly removed from their old shack and sent off to an home with other old people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Ben were upset at the threat of being evicted from their desert property by the town council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Ben shot dead a wanted criminal who barged into their home and pistol whipped one of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human character stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be a Wild West cowboy, and spoke of cattle rustling etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remarks were made about Ben and Tom's advanced age, although Ben and Tom seemed none the worse for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The criminal was wanted for murder, as well as every other crime in the book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Jeff warned Tom and Ben that they were in danger of being taken away from their desert shack unless they made something of the place. Sheriff Jeff questioned Tom and Ben as to the whereabouts of a wanted criminal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Magician (1958)", "title": "The Magician", "date": "1958-12-26", "description": "Ansiktet (lit. Swedish: \"The Face\"), also released as The Magician, is a 1958 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman starring Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin. The plot follows a traveling magician named Albert Vogler, whose allegedly supernatural live shows are challenged by the skeptical population of a small village.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician_(1958_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Vergerus and Concul Egerman discussed whether there could be anything that is beyond science, and came to wager on Albert's abilities being genuine or not. The rest of the story tied into this wager and its object.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tubal and Albert's activities ranged from pseudo medicine to outright quackery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The kitchen maids turned the tables on the men and showed themselves to be conspicuously forward. For instance, Ottilia propositioned Albert and was later turned on when her husband hit her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Albert and Manda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "drunken man, Johan Spegel, in the forest explained his experiences as he died - or so we thought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spegel spoke of death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ottilia spoke of her late daughter and her grief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love potion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tubal sold love potions to eager enough maid servants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quackery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tubal and granny Vogler peddled all sorts of fake remedies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is truth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "this metaphysical question was touched on by Spegel when he confronted Tubal in the carriage in the beginning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Vergerus spoke to Albert about hatred, Albert expressed hatred to his marks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Starbeck implied that some of her children were not MR. Starbeck's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spegel spoke of laying bare his own entrails (etc); Antonsson killed himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the film concluded with a lengthy lesson being administered to Vergerus, who denied that it had been effective", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x12", "title": "Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Fenimore", "date": "1958-12-28", "description": "Mrs. Herman has a plan to kill her wealthy but paranoid uncle Bill Finley, but needs a conspirator. She picks former actress Mrs. Fenimore who agrees to the plan for a fee. After the murder is done, Mrs. Fenimore reveals that she secretly married Finley before his death, and that she will inherit his fortune instead of Mrs. Herman.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Donald Honig, Robert C. Dennis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Herman plotted to knockoff her wealthy uncle Bill Finley and make off with a sizable inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill was the epitome of a grumpy old coot and Mrs. Herman was putting up with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Herman murdered her wealthy uncle Bill in what would turn out to be a failed bid to claim an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Bill had to deal with not only his greedy niece and heir Mrs. Herman, but also a former actress who wormed her way into being his heir by marrying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Bill had to deal with not only his greedy niece and heir Mrs. Herman, but also a former actress who wormed her way into being his heir by marrying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "circus skill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock posed as the target for an unseen knife thrower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Bill was accused of being paranoid. Perhaps he was and perhaps he had reason to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Bill might have demurred, but Mrs. Herman considered that he had nothing much to look forwards to in his dotage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fenimore recited poetry by Sir Walter Scott.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in coffee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "\"Don't expect a word from me until I've had coffee\", said Mrs. Fenimore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An officer of the law interrogated the two women who survived Uncle Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fenimore married uncle Bill in secret.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teenage Zombies (1959)", "title": "Teenage Zombies", "date": "1959", "description": "A group of teenagers are marooned on an island inhabited by a female mad scientist, her pet gorilla and a zombie slave named Ivan. She traps the kids in a cage down in her laboratory, plotting to use them as subjects for her zombie-making experimentation, so she can test out a drug she is working on for an unnamed foreign nation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Zombies" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Myra held four teens captive on her secluded island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Myra held four teens captive and experimented with transforming them into mindless, obedient zombies. She was maniacal and had a laboratory in her basement that was equipped with chemistry lab style equipment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reg and Dotty were worried sick about their four friends who went missing while out water skiing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Myra plotted to release a nerve agent across the United States that was calculated to transform the entire population into mindless, obedient zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the plight of a group of teenagers who had the ill-fortune of crossing paths with the deranged scientist Doctor Myra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Myra discussed dropping hydrogen bombs on the United States with two foreign agents from \"the East\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Myra and her obedient stooge Ivan the Zombie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Myra had a pet gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The six teens in the story were all friends who enjoyed to go water skiing together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x13", "title": "Six People, No Music", "date": "1959-01-04", "description": "Undertaker Arthur Motherwell is shocked when recently-deceased businessman Stanton C. Barryvale briefly wakes up in the funeral parlor to demand that his funeral be simple and cheap. After discussing the matter with his wife, Motherwell decides to follow the instructions of Barryvale's lawyer for a lavish funeral instead.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Garson Kanin, Richard Berg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story was the unusual circumstances that posed the following dilemma for Arthur: Should he obey the wishes of the talking corpse of Baryvale and have a frugal funeral, or follow the instructions he received from Barryvale's lawyer for a lavish funeral from which he would greatly profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was arranged as being told by Arthur to his wife Rhoda during dinner and cleaning up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur was confronted with what appeared to be a talking corpse. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock was enjoying sideways gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the undertaker Arthur as he recounts the events surrounding a most unusual day a the funeral parlor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "physics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The recently-deceased businessman Mr. Barryvale briefly woke up in a funeral parlor to ensure that he'd be given the cheapest funeral possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a 1950s American idea of what a proper funeral arrangement for a man of distinction might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur spoke with the late Mr. Barryvale's lawyer over the phone about Mr. Barryvale's funeral arrangements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur discussed with his employee, Thor, a promise he made five years ago to share a stake in the business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ambitious embalmer Thor was persistent about getting Arthur to follow through on his promise to grant Thor the stake in Arthur's funeral home business that been promised him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x14", "title": "The Morning After", "date": "1959-01-11", "description": "Mrs. Trotter is unhappy that her daughter Sharon is having an affair with married businessman Ben Nelson. Mrs. Trotter appeals to Ben's wife, Mrs. Nelson, revealing the affair to her. That night Ben kills his wife and calls Sharon to set his alibi, but Mrs. Trotter takes the phone call and deliberately gives Sharon the wrong information so that Ben will go to jail.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Henry Slesar, Rose Simon Kohn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon's mother was meddling in Sharon's sordid love life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon was carrying on an affair with a man twice her age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Trotter disapproved of her daughter Sharon carrying on an affair with a married man who was twice Sharon's age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon a the businessman twice her age Ben were having an affair. In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock mentioned a man of 62 years old who was married to a 22-year-old woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon was besotted with a man twice her age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben murdered his wife in order to prevent her from divorcing him and in so doing cutting off his access to her fortune. In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock read a letter from a correspondent whose wife was putting ground glass into his sugar. Hitchcock assured the correspondent that poison was the usual manner in which a wife does in their husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was a stereotypical lying womanizing man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Nelson confronted her husband Ben about his having an affair with Sharon. Also note a husband and wife was indirectly featured in the prologue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon was convinced that Ben was going to get a divorce to be with her. The story followed her efforts to get him to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock mentioned a husband who'd discovered his wife had put arsenic in his coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon was upset that her mother tried to meddle in her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obstruction of justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben exhorted Sharon to provide him with a false alibi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x15", "title": "A Personal Matter", "date": "1959-01-18", "description": "Joe Philips is lead engineer on a tunneling project in Mexico, and Bret Johnson mysteriously arrives to be his assistant for the project's last six weeks. One night Philips hears a radio newscast about an ongoing manhunt of an engineer who murdered his colleague; this prompts Philips to search through Johnson's things to find his true identity, but he is stopped when Johnson pulls a gun on him. Since there is no way to leave the site for six weeks, the men work together to finish the job, despite their suspicions of each other. The tunnel is completed one day before the deadline, and it is revealed that Philips is the murderer, and Johnson is the police officer who traveled there to arrest him.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Brett Halliday, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Joe had killed some contractor named Arthur Bronson (allegedly in self-defense) and was on the run from the law for murder. Bret was after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human in danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the dangers of digging a tunnel through a mountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mining and tunneling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the dangers of digging a tunnel through a mountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed the end that Joe's assistant Bret was actually a cop who'd come to arrest him for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Bret decided to try and work together despite not trusting each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lead engineer Joe had no choice but to deal with his disgruntled assistant, Bret, in order to finish the tunnel digging project on schedule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about alleviating one's antagonisms, i.e., blowing off steam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor tended to Joe's wounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stress from being in danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was clearly upset at having been put in harms way in the tunnels.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x16", "title": "Out There – Darkness", "date": "1959-01-25", "description": "Elderly widow Miss Fox mistakenly accuses her dog walker, Eddie, of having robbed her. She learns her error after a year, during which Eddie has been in prison and his lover has died in the hospital. Miss Fox tries to make it up to Eddie when he is released, but he murders her as revenge.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: William O'Farrell, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie was wrongfully sent to prison for a year after Miss Fox falsely accused him of theft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Fox and her dog walker Eddie were at the heart of this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie was distraught because his lover was gravely ill and in need of a serious operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story hinged on the idea that Eddie had robbed Miss Fox in order to save his gravely ill girlfriend. It transpires that he had not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated in Eddie avenging himself on Miss Fox by strangling her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated in Eddie avenging himself on Miss Fox by strangling her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock compared, implausibly, elevators to yo-yos while stuck between two floors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock mentioned the feeling of being trapped, likened to being in an elevator stuck between two floors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Fox was mugged and the rest of the story turned on this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Fox spoke to her pet poodle (or whatever it was), Vanessa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Kerby apprehend arrested Eddie, wrongly it turned out, for the mugging of Miss Fox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie was understandably upset that his girl had died while he was in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Fox chided her pet dog, telling it to \"never mention age\". Miss Fox didn't appreciate being called \"ma'am\" by her dog walker, Eddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie's asylum confined lover died while he was in prison for a crime that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x17", "title": "Total Loss", "date": "1959-02-01", "description": "When Jan Manning hits financial problems with her dress shop, her friend Mel Reeves offers to set the shop on fire so that she can collect the insurance. After the shop burns down, Jan confesses to the insurance investigator about the plan with her friend. However, the investigator has found that the fire source was Jan's overheated kettle. Jan realizes that it truly was an accident, but the investigator does not believe her.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: J.E. Selby.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan let Mel convince her to have her unprofitable shop torched in order to collect insurance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan had qualms about whether to commit insurance fraud or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troubled by her conscience, Jan confessed to having planned the fire. Through an ironic twist of fate, however, the fire had been a bona fide accident, we learn, but now the insurance man did not believe her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan planned arson with her friend, and was later explicitly accused of having done it herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan was struggling to run her dress shop in the face of declining sales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be in a steam cabinet - to have his suit pressed, of course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the epilogue, Alfred Hitchcock escaped from a steam cabinet that a certain unnamed party had evidently trapped him inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan and Mel are described as friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan expressed deep regret over her perceived role in the dress shop fire that resulted in her employee suffering third degree burns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan warned her assistant Evelyn that the bank might not give the increase on the loan Jan needed to keep the dress shop running.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan's sister picked up Jan from the dress shop.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x18", "title": "The Last Dark Step", "date": "1959-02-08", "description": "Brad Taylor wants to marry his new girlfriend Janice Wright, but his other girlfriend, Leslie Lenox, refuses to let him go. Brad takes Leslie swimming and drowns her in the ocean, but when he returns home he is arrested for the murder of Janice, whom Leslie has stabbed to death.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Margaret Manners, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around Brad telling his girlfriend Leslie that he was leaving her for another woman and its sordid aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad killed Leslie. Leslie killed Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie was mighty upset when Brad proposed to marry another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie was jealous of Janice over Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie was mighty upset when Brad proposed to marry another woman. She made various threats about causing problems, and also stabbed her rival to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad seemingly committed the perfect murder. Through an ironic twist of fate, however, his victim had committed her own murder and Brad was charged for that instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad cleverly planned the murder of his girlfriend, Leslie. He made sure to park her car near the site of her murder beforehand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock superficially discussed the A-Z of committing crime without getting caught. Don't leave fingerprints.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Leslie, Brad was with her at least in part because she sponsored his lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad and Janice had agreed to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leslie was up late writing a television script.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives showed up in the end to arrest Brad for the murder of his fiancée Janice - a murder his girlfriend Leslie had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad proclaimed his love to Janice over dinner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x19", "title": "The Morning of the Bride", "date": "1959-02-15", "description": "Helen Brewster is frustrated that her boyfriend Philip Pryor has been stalling their wedding for years on the excuse that his mother is unwell. When they finally get married, Helen learns that Philip's mother has been dead for years, but Philip in his insanity believes that she is still alive.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Neil S. Broadman, Kathleen Hite.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story began with illustrations of how besotted Helen was with Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and Philip had promised each other to get married but Helen became increasingly suspicious as Philip kept prolonging introducing her to his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story showed us how Helen gradually came to learn that her fiancee was somewhat insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story purports to concern Philip and his mother, thought it transpires that the mother is fictive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Helen's attempts to get to know her future, then present, mother-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, it turned out that Philip was insane and was all along behaving as if his long dead mother was alive and well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be engaged in an oversized game of croquet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "physics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock stated that some rocks were actually just clusters of atoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made a cynical remark about the institution of marriage and its affect on men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen fretted when Philip told her that he was about to go off to fight in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip had fought in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pat was Helen's maidservant and confident, it appeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story, Helen and Philip were married.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cosmic Man (1959)", "title": "The Cosmic Man", "date": "1959-02-17", "description": "After being tracked at 180,000 mph inside the Earth's atmosphere, a white, spherical object lands in the California desert, accompanied by a strange semi-transparent man-shaped humanoid figure. He appears friendly, but is he really?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cosmic Man came to Earth representing some kind of inter-galactic federations of alien races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cosmic Man comes to Earth in a mysterious white, spherical vessel and makes first contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Humans, and Dr. Karl Sorenson in particular, trust the Cosmic Man that he has come t EArth in peace?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military was tracking a UFO moving at 180,000 mph inside the Earth's atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathy Grant and Ken Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Kenny Grant could not walk and was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cosmic Man was a strange semi-transparent man-shaped humanoid figure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Col. Matthews expressed concern about what might happen if another spherical vessel was in possession of the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Karl Sorenson speculated that the Cosmic Man's spherical vessel featured an anti-gravity propulsion system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military men were reluctant to approach a mysterious white, spherical vessel on account that it might be a source of dangerous radiation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x20", "title": "The Diamond Necklace", "date": "1959-02-22", "description": "Elderly Andrew Thurgood is let go from a jewelry firm after 37 years of loyal service. On his last day, a diamond necklace is stolen by a thief. Andrew is \"distressed\" at the breaking of his perfect record, but the thief is secretly Andrew's daughter, Thelma, and they worked together to carry out the theft.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Sarett Rudley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the theft of a diamond necklace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew and his friend in uniform complained about being elderly. Andrew thought he was being let go for being old. Andrew again lamented being old after the necklace was stolen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew and his daughter Thelma stole a diamond necklace from the jewelry firm where Andrew had worked for 37 years and got away with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew was being let go after 37 years for being too old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew and his daughter executed a clever scheme to pilfer a more than $100,000 diamond necklace from the jewelry shop where his family had been employed for generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew coerced Andrew into taking an early retirement to Andrew's great disappointment, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made about Andrew Thurgood in particular, and the Thurgood family in general, being loyal employees of the Maynard family owned jewelry firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock inspected some paintings and disapproved of their makers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Anton Rudell and his wife Jessica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew explained to Thelma why he'd make wise investments instead of splurging with the money from the necklace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew's grandfather had started a fire in order to commit theft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew feigned to be devastated over letting a woman walk out of the jewelry store with diamond necklace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Andrew had trouble keep pace with the new changes being undertaken at the jewelry shop he'd worked at for years, and was pushed into taking an early retirement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: First Man into Space (1959)", "title": "First Man into Space", "date": "1959-02-27", "description": "The first astronaut into space disappears after landing, which coincides with the appearance of a creature prowling around the countryside.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Man_into_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles Ernest Prescott flew up past 300,000 in the ionosphere before he began careening back to down to the Earth. His brother Dan Milton Prescott seconded Charles' effort by reaching outer space in a subsequent rocket launch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Milton Prescott was transformed into a lumbering, murderous, mutant monster, it was presumed because of exposure to cosmic radiation, after returning from a trip into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Dan Milton Prescott and Charles Ernest Prescott.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with a discussion about the need to take risks to achieve great things, and it was asserted that there will always be men, like the Prescott brothers, who are willing to take those risks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Milton Prescott and Tia Francesca.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x21", "title": "Relative Value", "date": "1959-03-01", "description": "John Manbridge plots to murder his cousin Felix in the hopes of inheriting his fortune. Felix, who is secretly terminally ill, commits suicide by poisoned whiskey first, and John unwittingly drinks the poisoned whiskey as well, also killing himself.\n\nDirected by: Paul Almond. Story by: Milward Kennedy, Frances Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "John plotted to knock off his cousin Felix in the hopes of inheriting his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John bashed Felix' head in with a fire iron, not knowing that Felix was already dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "John bashed Felix' head in and drank Felix' whiskey. By an ironic twist of fate, Felix had actually killed himself and the whiskey was poisoned, thus killing the putative killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Constable Longdon and a police inspector got to the bottom of what initially appeared to be an open and shut homicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because of his gambling problem John plotted to murder Felix and gain his inheritance. Felix accused John of squandering money on booze and gambling. John had indeed forged checks in order to cover his gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about ads and their pervasiveness in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to try out the lowly and demeaning profession of \"sandwich board ad\" boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felix chastised John for forging Felix' signature on a check.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The butler or manservant Mr. Betts spoke to his masters, John and Felix, about the vacation he was going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felix had committed suicide by means of poison in the whiskey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felix had an unspecified terminal illness and three months to live. He decided to kill himself instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x22", "title": "The Right Price", "date": "1959-03-08", "description": "A burglar named \"the Cat\" breaks into the home of couple Mort and Jocelyn, who are also business partners and constantly fight about money. Mort offers the Cat $3,500 to kill Jocelyn, but Jocelyn makes a counteroffer of $5,000, so the Cat kills Mort instead.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Henry Slesar, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mort contracted the Cat to kill Jocelyn, but she outbid him and paid the cat to kill Mort instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mort and Jocelyn Barnhardt despised one another to the extent that each took measures to have the other murdered when the opportunity came knocking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "A burglar know as \"the Cat\" broke into Mort and Jocelyn's home, and was confronted by Mort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to have designed the perfect flying machine. It looked much like a bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mort and Jocelyn bickered over finances in their two person home office before retiring to bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The career burglar the Cat had apparently been a thrill seeker as he said \"Every locked door is an invitation to danger\" in response to being asked how he'd gotten in to that particular line of work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story follows Mort and \"the Cat\" as they attempt to come to some arrangement after Mort caught \"the Cat\" burgling his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mort haggled with a burglar know only as the Cat over the price for the Cat to knock off his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mort and a burglar know as \"the Cat\" bonded by exchanging complaints about their respective wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A burglar known as \"the Cat\" cited rising food prices in connection with inflation when negotiating with Mort over how much it would cost for him to knock off Mort's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A burglar known as \"the Cat\" spoke of how he paid his taxes and didn't want Washington on his neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A chatty police officer, named Joe, came knocking on Mort's door in the middle of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mort and a burglar know as \"the Cat\" kicked around the idea of Mort letting the Cat burgle Mort's house and then Mort claim more in the subsequent insurance claim than the Cat had heisted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x23", "title": "I'll Take Care of You", "date": "1959-03-15", "description": "John Forbes runs his wife over with his car, and covers up the murder with the help of his loyal assistant, Dad. Dad hopes that John will take care of him, but John frames him for the murder.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: George Johnson, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John ran his wife over with her own car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John ran down his wife, Dorothy, in the street because he could no longer deal with her spendthrift ways. Dad attended a carnival together with his wife, Kitty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned John and his employee, Dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "John drove over his wife, Dorothy, in response to her driving him to his wits end with her profligate ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "John framed his loyal employee Dad for the murder of John's own wife after repeatedly assuring Dad that he'd take care of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dad was framed by John for the murder of John's spendthrift wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to run Honest Alfred's rocket ship shop. He related various bargains, reminiscent of contemporary used car pitches. John was running a used car dealership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to run Honest Alfred's rocket ship shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy was spending her husband John out of house and home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some university students spoke about their school projects. We saw a university fair of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dad showed concern about the prospect of losing his employment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dad lamented his advanced age, as did his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police investigators arrived at John's car dealership to question him in relation to his wife's death. Later, they showed up at the university carnival to bag Dad for her murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy's death was reported as a hit-and-run in the newspaper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x24", "title": "The Avon Emeralds", "date": "1959-03-22", "description": "Inspector Benson is tasked with preventing Lady Gwendolyn Avon from smuggling her emerald necklace out of the country. Lady Avon thwarts Benson and his officers at every turn and manages to leave the country without the necklace on her. However, Benson and Avon are secretly lovers, and Benson carried the necklace for her.\n\nDirected by: Bretaigne Windust. Story by: Joe Pidcock, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "smuggling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the smuggling of an emerald necklace out of England. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock tried to smuggle a corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Scotland Yard and customs officials as they tried to prevent the smuggling out of England an expensive emerald necklace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that Benson and Avon were a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Benson and his lover Lady Avon hatched an elaborate plot to smuggle some expensive emeralds out of the country, and got away with it in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock implied that he had the corpse of his murdered aunt in a trunk about to be inspected by a customs officer. He was en route to the French Riviera where he had intended to await the payout of his inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Avon had caviar for breakfast even though she might not be able even to pay the hotel bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Avon and her pooch Juliet. The canine might have to be quarantined for six months, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In addition to the smuggling, we heard that Lady Avon intended to defraud the treasury department by avoiding various death duties and such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Avon briefly conversed with her elderly aunt, Catherine, on three occasions. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock implied that he had the corpse of his murdered aunt in a trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Benson gave Lady Avon's manservant a hard time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Benson wasn't buying it when the Avon emeralds were officially reported stolen. The inspector was ultimately revealed to be involved in an elaborate plot to smuggle the emeralds out of the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Benson searched an art dealer at customs to ostensibly check if he had the Avon emeralds hidden inside a wrapped painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commissionaire Jouin Clement made a quip about there being nobody left \"if they arrested everybody in France who avoided to pay taxes.\"", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Some Like It Hot (1959)", "title": "Some Like It Hot", "date": "1959-03-29", "description": "Some Like It Hot is a 1959 American black-and-white romantic comedy film directed and produced by Billy Wilder, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. The supporting cast includes George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee, and Nehemiah Persoff. The screenplay by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on a screenplay by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan from the French film Fanfare of Love. The film is about two musicians who dress in drag in order to escape from mafia gangsters whom they witnessed committing a crime (inspired by the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Like_It_Hot" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were a number of men who chased every skirt they saw", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were a number of men who chased every skirt they saw", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story was set in prohibition America and there were conspicuous amounts of drinking going on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "backbone of the comedy was horny people coming on to unwilling others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed two troubled musicians who joined a girl band undercover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was a gang of Chicago mobsters who had executed a number of people by machine gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chicago mobsters had machine gunned a bunch of people and were now chasing two witnesses to the gruesome act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Sugar; maybe Osgood and Daphne/Jerry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Jerry took to his female persona with conspicuous enthusiasm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The women mostly just wanted rich husbands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the police force in action chasing bootleggers during prohibition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x25", "title": "The Kind Waitress", "date": "1959-03-29", "description": "Hotel waitress Thelma learns that she is in the will of her wealthy regular customer, Sara Mannerheim, who has stopped taking her medicine in expectation of death. Thelma's boyfriend Arthur suggests that they speed things up by slow-poisoning Sara with anatine, a leaf extract. After half a year of no change, Thelma strangles Sara to death one night in frustration. At the inquest, it is revealed that Sara's doctor prescribed anatine for her heart condition, and Thelma had been inadvertently keeping her alive.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Mrs. Mannerheim spoke of how she felt old and was probably going to die soon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma and her boyfriend Arthur conspired to knock off the elderly Mrs. Mannerheim to hasten Thelma receiving her inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma and her boyfriend Arthur conspired to slow-poison the elderly Mrs. Mannerheim by putting a little anatine in her tea every night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Mrs. Mannerheim decided to stop taking her prescribed medication to hasten her death from a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma became Mrs. Mannerheim's heir and the turbulent relationship between these two characters was at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma slipped anatine into Mrs. Mannerheim's tea in order to hasten her death. By an ironic twist of fate, anatine was precisely the medicine Mrs. Mannerheim had neglected to take and so the intended poison actually kept her alive. It is also suggested that Mrs. Mannerheim treated Thelma curtly for Thelma's own good, and so inadvertently provoked Thelma into becoming a murderess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma was a Hotel waitress and the story portrayed her at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thelma strangled Mrs. Mannerheim to death one night in frustration and the story ended with an inquest recommending she be taken into custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock made a satirical remark about \"the stimulation of intellectual companionship\" being one of the many advantages that came with dining at his favorite club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A clarinet-playing Arthur had designs on using part of Thelma's inheritance to start a band.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An inquest into Mrs. Mannerheim's death resulted in Thelma being taken into custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mannerheim's physician Dr. Maxwell testified at the inquest on her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mannerheim spoke about her feelings regarding her anticipated death from advanced age and disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mannerheim was being difficult about the tea for which Thelma had not provided milk, we saw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown legal professionals at an inquest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x26", "title": "Cheap Is Cheap", "date": "1959-04-05", "description": "Miserly Alexander Gifford decides to kill his wife, Jennifer, when she starts spending money on herself. Alex explores various options, most of which he considers to be too expensive. He ends up giving her food poisoning and selling her cadaver to a medical university.\n\nDirected by: Bretaigne Windust. Story by: Albert E. Lewin and Burt Styler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miserliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander was a textbook penny pincher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The miserly Alexander did in his wife, Jennifer, to prevent her from spending their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The miserly Alexander did in his wife, Jennifer, to prevent her from spending their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "After considering various alternatives, Alexander settled on knocking off his wife by means of poisoning her with botulism. He went to see a fantastically enthusiastic poison specialist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about the new technology of TV and the old of radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander murdered Jennifer rather than let her divorce her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander sought the services of a hitman but found the professional killer's $500 fee for knocking off his wife too high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician diagnosed Jennifer with botulism poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander explained to his wife that they had to save money for old age.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x27", "title": "The Waxwork", "date": "1959-04-12", "description": "Reporter Raymond Houston stays overnight in a wax museum in order to write an important article. Raymond, who is claustrophobic, hallucinates that one of the wax figures is alive, and is found dead the next morning.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: A. M. Burrage, Casey Robinson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond stayed overnight in a wax museum in order to write a news article about the experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond resolved to write a sensational news article and use the money to pay off a gambling debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond became increasingly afraid as he spent the night in a creepy wax museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The waxwork figure of the serial killing barber Bourdette came to life and slit Raymond's throat with a razor, or so it appeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed in the end that Raymond had hallucinated that the wax figure of a notorious murderer was alive. Raymond presumably died from fear as a result of the experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer was shown a number of fictional notorious murderers immortalized in wax, and heard something of their deeds. The story culminated with Raymond hallucinating that the wax figure of the notorious murderer Bourdette had come to life and was about to slit his throat with a razor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wax sculpture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond stayed over night in a museum filled with wax dolls of notorious murderers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock described how the rack is used to stretch a human body beyond its limits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond needed to pay a gambling debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Marriner expected that the parliament would soon pass a law banning capital punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The barber Bourdette was said to have murdered ten people by slitting their throats with a razor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond was reluctant to be locked in the wax museum dungeon overnight on account that he had a \"kind of funny feeling about being closed in\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond explained that he needed the story very badly in order to pay off his (gambling?) debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the recently executed barber Bourdette hypnotized his victims before murdering them. In the end, Bourdette hypnotized Raymond to be in a trance-like state before slitting his throat, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond began writing about his peculiar experiences thus understanding that something was amiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x28", "title": "The Impossible Dream", "date": "1959-04-19", "description": "Has-been actor Oliver Mathews is being blackmailed by Grace Dolan for an affair he had with Grace's late daughter. Having had enough, Oliver murders Grace. Oliver's assistant, Miss Hall, who is in love with Oliver but has been rebuffed for years, learns about the murder and asks him to have a relationship with her in order to keep her from going to the authorities.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: John Lindsey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The once-celebrated film actor Oliver lamented that time had moved on and he was no longer being cast for the prominent roles that he used to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was being blackmailed by Grace Dolan for an affair he had with Grace's late daughter. Miss Hall blackmailed Oliver into marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver drugged his blackmailer Grace with a sedative and dumped her body in the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver's assistant Miss Hall was head over heels for him, and in the end she blackmailed him into marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver and his assistant, and ultimately blackmailer, Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Hall's obsessive infatuation with Oliver had made her forego marriage and, as Oliver candidly put it to her, she was now nearly past the point where she had any chance of finding a husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his prologue, Alfred Hitchcock presented his new professional camera the his viewers. It had an ingenious shotgun-like attachment that could be used to make the subject sit still.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver acted in a scene that was being shot for a movie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Time and again, Oliver dwelt on the glory days of his career. Grace called out Oliver for his inability to let go of the time when he was in his heyday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver and Miss Hall attended a film together as a married couple at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the shooting of a movie scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace spoke of her late daughter that she accused Oliver of having murdered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)", "title": "The Monster of Piedras Blancas", "date": "1959-04-22", "description": "A prehistoric amphibious reptile long presumed extinct terrorizes the residents of a small seaside town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_of_Piedras_Blancas" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A \"diplovertebron\", a prehistoric amphibious reptile long presumed extinct, terrorized the residents of a small seaside town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A \"diplovertebron\", a prehistoric amphibious reptile long presumed extinct, terrorized the residents of a small seaside town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lighthouse keeper Mr. Sturges and Lucille Sturges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred and Lucille Sturges.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The World of Apu (1959)", "title": "The World of Apu", "date": "1959-05-01", "description": "The World of Apu is a 1959 Indian Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is the third part of The Apu Trilogy, about the childhood and early adulthood of a young Bengali named Apu in the early twentieth century Indian subcontinent. (The first two parts of the trilogy are Pather Panchali and Aparajito.) The film is based on the last two-thirds of the 1932 Bengali novel, Aparajito, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Apu" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu had to leave school and got evicted for not having mone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu's new bride died suddenly and he was devastated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu was in the end reconciled with his son whom he had spent five years neglecting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard that Apu conspicuously felt no love for his son. then we saw him discover it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu choose life as a vagabond instead of various more honorable and profitable pursuits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apu was an intense writer until he threw it all away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apu spoke at length to his friend about writing and other things", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apu attended an elaborate Indian wedding ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mother put stop to the ceremony when she found the arranged groom to be mad and they quickly arranged for Apu to take his place", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apu nearly threw himself under a train", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x29", "title": "Banquo's Chair", "date": "1959-05-03", "description": "Blackheath, 1903. Former Inspector Brent conspires with his friends to stage a fake haunting in the hopes of scaring John Bedford into confessing to the murder of his aunt, Ms. Ferguson. Brent arranges for an actress, Mae Thorpe, to sneak into the house dressed as Ms. Ferguson and walk past their dinner room. The plan is successful and Bedford confesses when he sees the menacing figure of his aunt. After Bedford is arrested, Brent is shocked when he learns that Mae Thorpe was late and missed the dinner entirely.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Rupert Croft-Cooke, Francis Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot revolved around Inspector Brent tricking John Bedford into confessing to having murdered his own aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Former Inspector Brent set up an elaborate ruse that was calculated to get John Bedford to confess to having murdered his own aunt. Sergeant Balton arrested John Bedford for murder at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with John Bedford seeing the ghost of his aunt, Mrs. Ferguson, whom he'd murdered two years prior to the day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of autograph hounds while on a \"safari\" in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock said he was on a safari for big game hunting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Brent's butler Lang in on Brent's plot to trick his dinner guest, John Bedford, into confessing to having committed a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Stone was playing in Macbeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Brent spoke of how he'd taken up birdwatching in his retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Stone spoke of how the leading lady in a play he was acting in had refused to begin rehearsals on a Thursday because that the particular day clashed with her astrological sign.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silver had been stolen from the late aunt's house, prompting speculation that she might have been slain by an unknown burglar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dinner conversation circled mostly around the professional experiences of a Shakespearean actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the end it is revealed that the actress hired to scare Bedford had been absent but that, through an ironic twist of fate, Bedford had hallucinated or seen a ghost all on his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the ghost of the aunt John had murdered had come back to haunt him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Former Inspector Brent went to extraordinary lengths to close the case of the murder of Mrs. Ferguson even though he was retired and was under no obligation to continue the investigation. He considered it his \"case to begin with\" and he \"didn't like it remaining unsolved\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The 400 Blows (1959)", "title": "The 400 Blows", "date": "1959-05-04", "description": "The 400 Blows (French: Les Quatre Cents Coups) is a 1959 French New Wave drama film, and the directorial debut of François Truffaut. The film, shot in DyaliScope, stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, the film is about Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent in Paris who struggles with his parents and teachers due to his rebellious behavior. Filmed on location in Paris and Honfleur, it is the first in a series of five films in which Léaud plays the semi-autobiographical character.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_400_Blows" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "adolescence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antoine appeared to be a not altogether atypical troubled teenager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we are given to understand that Antoine's behavior may have been cause by a lack of love and attention from his parents, neither of whom really wanted him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julien and Claire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire and Antoine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julien and Antoine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antoine tried to run away from his parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antoine stole a bottle of milk, and then a typewriter, and got caught trying to return the latter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antoine got caught stealing a typewriter and was sent to a juvenile center", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "skipping school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antoine played truant together with a friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mother was seen kissing another man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x30", "title": "A Night with the Boys", "date": "1959-05-10", "description": "Irving Randall loses his money in a poker game to his unsympathetic boss Smalley, and lies to his pregnant wife Frances that he was mugged. Irving makes a police report at Frances' insistence, and is surprised when the police arrest a teenage boy named Whitey as a suspect. Irving reluctantly takes Whitey's money, but feels guilty and conflicted. The next day, Irving learns that Whitey had mugged Smalley, and the money that he had was Smalley's poker winnings.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Henry Slesar and Jay Fob, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were Irving and Frances Randall who were recently married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Irving having gambled away some money that was needed for his pregnant wife's hospital expenses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving faked getting mugged to hide from his wife that he'd blew a week's salary at poker night and got away with it. Coincidentally, his boss, Smalley, had actually gotten mugged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving lied about getting mugged to hide from his wife that he'd blew a week's salary at poker night and got away with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving was torn about having to tell further and further lies in order to not give away the first one he had told about being mugged. First he reluctantly reported the crime, then he reluctantly accepted money from a boy the police had apprehended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving wrestled with his conscience after believing his lies had gotten an innocent young man into trouble with the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving felt guilty and conflicted over having taken Whitey's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irving lied about having been mugged but by a twist of fate, the police caught the real mugger and \"returned\" money to Irving that wasn't actually his. Through an ironic twist of fate, however, it turned out that it was the very same money he had earlier lost to his boss in a poker game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, a goateed and French beret wearing Alfred Hitchcock professed to be a a beatnik.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock mocked the Beat Generation and beatnik subculture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing narration, Alfred Hitchcock in his beatnik persona characterized the story's happy ending as a cheesy \"final sell out to commercialism\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irving lost a week's salary to his boss at poker night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A beat cop warned Irving that it was dangerous to be out roaming the area streets at night. Irving went to the police station to identify his mugger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irving resented his boss, Smalley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irving confided in Frances that he didn't know where he'd get any confidence at all without her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irving refused to press charges against the kid because it was a tough neighborhood and Irving felt he understood how a kid might make such a mistake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invisible Invaders (1959)", "title": "Invisible Invaders", "date": "1959-05-15", "description": "An atomic scientist is killed in a laboratory explosion and an invisible alien takes over his dead body.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Invaders" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Invisible aliens threatened to conquer Earth if the people of Earth didn't stop manufacturing nuclear weapons within 24 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Invisible aliens threatened to conquer Earth if the people of Earth didn't stop manufacturing nuclear weapons for war. The opening narration spoke of efforts to make bigger and bigger nuclear bombs since Hirosihma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Adam Penner came to regret his work in nuclear bombs, resigned his post, and devoted himself to work to aid humanity, rather than destroy it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Invisible aliens inhabited the bodies of dead people and reanimated them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Major Bruce Jay and his companions to stop the walking dead, who were actually inhabited by invisible aliens, that were running amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Invisible aliens reanimated the corpses of dead people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nuclear test that Dr. Karol Noymann died in left the surrounding land uninhabitable because of nuclear radiation. The walking dead inhabited by invisible aliens were highly radioactive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Adam Penner regretted his role in the development of nuclear weapons after his colleague died in a nuclear test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Panic broke out in the streets of the world's cities once invisible aliens began their invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Adam Penner and Phyllis Penner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maj. Bruce Jay and Phyllis Penner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x31", "title": "Your Witness", "date": "1959-05-17", "description": "Arnold Shawn is a ruthless defense lawyer who uses his arguing skills to put down his wife, Naomi and defend his cheating on her. When Arnold refuses to divorce Naomi, she hits him with her car, killing him. The only witness of the \"accident\" is Henry Babcock, a man that Arnold had just destroyed the credibility of as an eyewitness in court.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Helen Nielsen, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold and Naomi Shawn were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold had cheated on his wife and defended his actions. It turns out that he was still cheating. Naomi killed him because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold was a defense lawyer. We saw other legal professionals in court. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be a old timey legal professional, perhaps a judge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw many stereotypical scenes from an American trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Naomi ran over Arnold with a car, killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lawyer Arnold was using his rhetorical skills to to defend his cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Thompson had been hit and killed by a man who was on trial for his presumably dangerous driving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naomi didn't take it well when Arnold explained that he was cheating on her because she was too old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold refused to divorce Naomi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Babcock told the court that he'd sometimes felt lonely in the years since his wife had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babcock was delighted to withhold his testimony regarding this incident, as Arnold had ruined Babcock's reputation in court the very same day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold was murdered and there was a witness. But through an ironic twist of fate, that witness was a man whose reputation as a witness Arnold himself had recently, cleverly, and quite incorrectly, ruined.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The World the Flesh and the Devil (1959)", "title": "The World, the Flesh and the Devil", "date": "1959-05-20", "description": "The World, the Flesh and the Devil is a 1959 American science fiction doomsday film written and directed by Ranald MacDougall. The film stars Harry Belafonte, who was then at the peak of his film career. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world with very few human survivors. It is based on two sources: the novel The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel and the story \"End of the World\" by Ferdinand Reyher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_the_Flesh_and_the_Devil_(1959_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unknown nation had used radioactive isotopes as a weapon, yielding a dust cloud that spread globally and was completely lethal for a five-day period.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph Burton emerged from a caved-in mine to find the nearby town completely deserted. He then traveled to New York city to and found it to be a virtual ghost town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Despite living in a post-apocalyptic world and despite the fact that Sarah seemed unconcerned with their racial difference, Ralph could not overcome the inhibitions instilled in him in a racist American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Sarah Crandall choose Ralph Burton or Mel Ferrer as her lover?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph Burton and Mel Ferrer were both in love with Sarah Crandall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph Burton emerged from a caved-in mine to find the nearby town completely deserted and he was left to piece together what had occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations was somehow involved in bringing about the end of civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Burton became lonely and started interacting with manikins until he met Sarah Crandall.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x32", "title": "Human Interest Story", "date": "1959-05-24", "description": "Reporter Bill Everett interviews a distressed man who claims to be a Martian named Yangan Dall. Yangan tells Bill how all the other Martians just vanished one day, and when he investigated, found a machine that transported him to Earth, inside a human body. When the kind-hearted Yangan suggests telling everyone his story, Bill kills him. Bill is also a Martian, but part of an invasion force trying to take over Earth.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Fredric Brown.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story regarded the newspaper reporter Bill and his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the two main characters are both in fact undercover Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yangan explained that he had suddenly found himself in the body of a human named Howard Wilcox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Howard was suffering from the delusion of thinking he was a Martian named Yangan. But it is later revealed that he, in fact, was. Alfred Hitchcock pretended the same in the epilogue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the Martians were quietly planning to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock showcased various so-called avant-garde audio device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I got accidentally locked in somewhere", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yangan explained that he had apparently been abandoned in a jail cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yangan explained that he had apparently been abandoned in a jail cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars was a dying world because of a strange disease, known as Krill, that had blown in from the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yangan was coping with his entire species dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yangan explained that a Martian never commits suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill told Yangan to go home and comfort his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martians don't lie, but humans do, we heard. Especially to wives, and so he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yangan spoke of how a he inadvertently used a mysterious machine to transport his consciousness from Mars into the body of a man named Howard Wilcox on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x33", "title": "The Dusty Drawer", "date": "1959-05-31", "description": "Norman Logan has for months been pestering William Tritt, a banker, to return $200 that Tritt mistakenly took from Logan's account, but to no avail. Frustrated, Logan carries out a series of pranks to make Tritt lose his credibility at the bank. Logan's final act is to rob the bank of $10,000, which Tritt is blamed for. Afterward, Logan returns the money in Tritt's name, except for $200 to replace the money that Tritt took from him.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Harry Muheim, Halstead Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Logan managed cleverly to rob the bank of $10,000, although he returned it minus the $200. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned be a bank teller who had unwittingly been subjected to a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Logan wanted revenge on William because William had \"stolen\" $200 from Logan. He got satisfaction in the end when William was fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "William aspired to be Vice President of the bank. These dreams were, of course, obliterated by Mr. Logan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Logan feigned outrage twice at being accused of crimes he didn't commit, although he had carefully staged them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Logan explained that William was having a nervous breakdown. Mr. Logan proceeded to stage some gags that made it seem like William had indeed gone off his handle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Logan announced that his poor mother was in the hospital with a back injury to his fellow lodgers at the boarding house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Logan said that William must suffer from a persecution complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was Christmas: a Christmas tree was set up at the bank and carols were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Logan was a professor and spoke of writing a research paper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)", "title": "Teenagers from Outer Space", "date": "1959-06", "description": "Alien teenager Derek abandons his crew to search for a new life on Earth, while one of his crewmates is sent to kill him while they attempt to eradicate human life in order to farm Earth with giant lobster-like livestock they call Gargons.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenagers_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien spaceship comes to Earth while searching for a planet suitable to raise Gargons, a lobster-like but air-breathing creature that is a delicacy on their home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenage alien Derek escaped from his flying saucer and rented a room from an American family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gramps Morgan and Betty Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Derek and Betty Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans versus the man-eating Gargons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Derek stay on Earth with Betty and not succeed his father as ruler of his people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Derek's mind was opened to the dark side of his civilization because of the influences of a subversive little book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant lobster-like but air-breathing creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reporter Joe Rogers investigated flying saucer sightings in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor used a disintegrator ray gun that turned people into skeletons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Derek was the son of the alien leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used flying saucers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x34", "title": "A True Account", "date": "1959-06-07", "description": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes visits a lawyer, Paul Brett, to tell him　of her suspicions that her husband Gilbert Hughes murdered his first　wife. Soon afterward, Gilbert dies, supposedly of suicide. Mrs. Cannon-Hughes and　Brett begin a relationship and get married, but when Brett accidentally discovers that Mrs. Cannon-Hughes killed both Gilbert and his first wife, Mrs. Cannon-Hughes kills him as well.\n\nDirected by: Leonard Horn. Story by: Rupert Croft-Cooke.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the professional experiences of a lawyer, who also was the narrator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the nurse Mrs. Cannon-Hughes (née Cannon) and her professional experiences. Alfred Hitchcock was treated by a nurse as part of his sketch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes began a relationship with Gilbert and they soon married. Gilbert poisoned his invalid first wife, or so it seemed. Mrs. Cannon-Hughes married her lawyer, Brett, and summarily killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes alleged that Gilbert had killed his first wife. Mrs. Cannon-Hughes killed both Gilbert and Paul after marrying them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Mrs. Cannon-Hughes' telling it appeared that Gilbert had poisoned his first wife with an overdose of medicine. In fact Mrs. Cannon-Hughes was the poison murderess. She had also poisoned Gilbert, said Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gilbert was distraught after the death of his first wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes alleged that Gilbert had killed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes said Gilbert was just lonesome after the death of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul suggested that Mrs. Cannon-Hughes suffered from remorse regarding the death of her husband's first wife. Paul later suggested that Gilbert had killed himself for remorse over having murdered his first wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In Mrs. Cannon-Hughes's telling, Gilbert seemed to become jealous of her seeing other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As we piece the facts together at the end, we must conclude that Mrs. Cannon-Hughes was avariciously digging for gold when she disposed of the competition and married the wealthy Gilbert, whom she later murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gilbert Hughes had a couple of passing interactions with his housekeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes and Alice resolved to paint the walls of the apartment they were sharing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In Mrs. Cannon-Hughes's telling, Gilbert wouldn't let her see any of her old friends after having married him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Cannon-Hughes attended her husband's funeral service.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x35", "title": "Touché", "date": "1959-06-14", "description": "Bill Fleming is upset that his wife, Laura, is cheating on him with a man named Baxter. Bill's new friend, Phil, points out a Californian law on duels that could work in his favor, so Bill challenges Baxter to a duel and kills him. Bill is acquitted, but has to pay a hefty allowance to Baxter's only child for life. Bill then learns that Phil is Baxter's son, and is also Laura's lover; Phil and Laura plotted together to gain Bill's money and get Baxter out of the way.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Bryce Walton, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bill and Baxter had a short, but plot driving, duel to the death which culminated with Bill running Baxter through with a sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill complained that his wife was carrying on with a man named Baxter. She had other flings too, but the one with Baxter was apparently lasting. Laura was having a secret affair with Baxter's own son, Phil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Laura carrying on an affair with her husband Bill's old friend Baxter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura was openly cheating on Bill with Bill's old friend Baxter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Bill's scheme to get back at Baxter for carrying on with Bill's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill was upset because everyone knew he was being cuckolded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "After a lengthy discussing with his lawyer friend, Bill came up with an elaborate plan to kill his rival without being convicted of murder. He was later acquitted of murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill bested his romantic rival Baxter in a duel with swords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill took exception to his old friend Baxter carrying on a rather public affair with his young wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baxter betrayed his old friend Bill by carrying on a rather public affair with his wife. Phil cultivated a friendship with Bill only to back stab him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil cultivated a friendship with Bill and subsequently manipulated him into killing his Phil's own father in a duel. In the end, it was revealed that this was all in an effort to secure a large sum of Bill's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fencing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock mocked duelists who are too preoccupied with writing their initials with the rapier, like Zorro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill went to the police station and confessed to an officer there that he'd slayed Baxter in a duel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill argued his case in a court in front of a judge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Phil had gone on a hunting trip together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura make a quip about Bill always being drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill testified at in a court of law about having slayed Philip Baxter in a duel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp4x36", "title": "Invitation to an Accident", "date": "1959-06-21", "description": "Albert Martin fears that his good friend, Virgilia Pond, is going to be killed by her jealous husband, Joseph Pond due to her affair with her ex. Albert goes on a fishing trip with Joseph to warn him off, but Joseph confronts Albert first, revealing that Albert has been poisoned. As Albert is dying, he weeps and tells Joseph that he has the wrong man.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Wade Miller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joseph was a stereotypical jealous husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph suspected, rightly as it turned out, that his wife Virgilia was having an affair behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert's friendship with Virgilia was central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virgilia was having an affair with her old friend Cam. But her husband wrongly believed that she was having an affair with her other friend Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Joseph doing in his supposed romantic rival Albert with arsenic-laced coffee. Albert convinced himself that Joseph was going to poison his own wife, Virgilia, using arsenic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot hinged on Albert mistakenly believing that Virgilia's jealous husband, Albert, was going to poison her with arsenic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virgilia was so fed up with her jealous husband, she said, that she almost couldn't go on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock sat down in an armchair as if to read from a book of fairy tales he had in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock explained that they had cut unsuitably violent scenes from their fairy-tales for adults.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert declined Joseph's invitation to join him on a hunting trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert mused \"I wonder why we give up all this peace simply to crowd ourselves into cities. But to we gain anything worthwhile?\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virgilia's ex-husband professed himself a devout coward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spot of hunting or fishing was just what the doctor ordered, for Joseph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert wept as he realized he had but moments to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commoner vs. intellectual", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made during their second encounter Albert was clearly a man of culture and sophistication while Joseph was brusque and boorish.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Giant Gila Monster (1959)", "title": "The Giant Gila Monster", "date": "1959-06-25", "description": "A giant lizard terrorizes the residents of a small American town.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Gila_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant Gila monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townsfolk versus a giant Gila monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenagers, Chase Winstead in particular, were really into their hot rods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chase Winstead and Lisa. Liz Humphries and Pat Wheeler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chase Winstead and Lisa. Liz Humphries and Pat Wheeler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant lizard monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wheeler filed a missing person report on his son Pat Wheeler. Ed Humphries was concerned about his daughter Liz's disappearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agatha Humphries was concerned about her daughter Liz's disappearance. Mom Winstead and Missy Winstead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom Winstead and Chase Winstead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disk jockey Horatio Smith woke up out of sorts with a bad hangover in Chase Winstead's garage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Missy Winstead needed braces n her legs in order to walk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chase Winstead and Missy Winstead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Killer Shrews (1959)", "title": "The Killer Shrews", "date": "1959-06-25", "description": "Two or three hundred giant shrews besiege a group of people on a remote island in the middle of a hurricane.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Shrews" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Marlowe Cragis was researching about how to make future generations of people smaller in size as a means of preventing the Earth from becoming overpopulated. The giant shrews overpopulating their remote island and depleted their food supply symbolized people depleting the natural resources of the Earth..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people on the remote island versus two or three hundred giant shrews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people on the remote island battened down for a hurricane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Marlowe Cragis and Ann Cragis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Thorne Sherman and Ann Cragis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant, killer shrews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Cragis broke off her engagement with Jerry Farrell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Return of the Fly (1959)", "title": "Return of the Fly", "date": "1959-07", "description": "The now an adult son of The Fly, Phillipe Delambre, is determined to vindicate his father by successfully completing the teleportation experiment he had worked on.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Fly" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Fly" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Francois Delambre and Philippe Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philippe Delambre continued his father's research on a teleportation machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ronald Holmes plotted to steal the plans for Philippe's teleporter and sell for a big profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philippe was integrated with a fly when both he and it went through a matter teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philippe was integrated with a fly when both he and it went through a matter teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philippe was integrated with a fly when both he and it went through a matter teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philippe was borderline obsessed with vindicating his father by successfully completing the teleportation experiment he had worked on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philippe Delambre and Cecile Bonnard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Manster (1959)", "title": "The Manster", "date": "1959-07", "description": "A foreign correspondent in Japan is given an experimental drug which causes an eye and eventually, a second head to grow from his shoulder.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Stanford is given an experimental drug that makes a second head grow from his shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Suzuki produced evolutionary change in his subjects by chemical means.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Stanford evolved in a new and evil being after being treated with a chemical serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Stanford and Linda Stanford. Dr. Robert Suzuki and Emiko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Working overseas had put a train on Larry and Linda Stanford's marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Stanford and Linda Stanford. Larry Stanford and Tara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Larry Stanford leave his wife Linda for the beautiful Tara?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry Stanford wanted to leave his wife Linda for the beautiful Tara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mild mannered reporter Larry Stanford slowly descended into a life of boozing, whoring, and ultimately murdering after being injected with an experimental drug that started him on the path to evolving into a two-headed monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reclusive scientist Dr. Robert Suzuki, who lived atop a volcanic mountain, was using chemicals to induce evolutionary chance in his human subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Suzuki surreptitiously injected Larry Stanford with a chemical serum that accelerated his evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda Stanford flew to Tokyo to confront her husband Larry about his philandering ways.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: North by Northwest (1959)", "title": "North by Northwest", "date": "1959-07-01", "description": "North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write \"the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures\".", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if criminals were after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger Thornhill was chased across America by thugs who thought he was George Kaplan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "however much Thornhill insisted he was not Kaplan, nobody would believe him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger met with his overbearing mum from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and blond secret agent became besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger had an affair with a blond man eater who worked with the criminals, we thought", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Alligator People (1959)", "title": "The Alligator People", "date": "1959-07-16", "description": "A woman discovers that her loving husband is a half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alligator_People" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-reptile hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair unwittingly transformed his patients into half-human, half-alligator monstrosities, including Joyce's wife Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair (a.k.a. The Swamp Doctor) was working in his bayou laboratory on creating half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw newlyweds Joyce and Paul Webster departing on their honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce's love for her husband Paul never faltered even after it became apparent that he was a half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was living returned to live in hiding with his mother at their bayou estate once it became apparent that he was transforming into a half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair resisted trying a treatment on Paul that might transform him back into a human until it had been thoroughly tested on animals, but Paul ultimately convinced him to try the cure anyway, but a mishap led to the treatment turning him into a wild alligator man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair resisted trying a treatment on Paul that might transform him back into a human until it had been thoroughly tested on animals, but Paul ultimately convinced him to try the cure anyway, but a mishap led to the treatment turning him into a wild alligator man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane had repressed all memories of her past life as Joyce Webster - wife of a half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two psychiatrists administered the drug sodium pentothal to Jane in order to get her to tell the story of the alligator man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manon was harbored a deep resentment against gators because one of them bit off his left hand at some point in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair had a mad scientist laboratory that was equipped with test tubes, beakers, and a large gamma ray firing contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's mother Mrs. Hawthorne held herself responsible for letting Dr. Sinclair inject him with the alligator hormones that would ultimately turn him into a half-human, half-alligator monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair warned Joyce of the dangers of being exposed to gamma radiation for more than 30 seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manon was intent on killing Paul after Paul rescued Joyce from his lecherous clutches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The human-alligator hybrid Paul was able to regenerate himself after sustaining physical injury.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)", "title": "Plan 9 from Outer Space", "date": "1959-07-22", "description": "Extraterrestrials who are seeking to stop humanity from creating a doomsday weapon that could destroy the universe. The aliens implement Plan 9, a scheme to resurrect the Earth's dead, referred to as ghouls. By causing chaos, the aliens hope the crisis will force humanity to listen to them. If not, the aliens will then destroy mankind with armies of the undead.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth in flying saucers and resolved to destroy mankind with armies of the undead unless the people of Earth agreed to cease creating a doomsday weapon that could destroy the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens claimed they invaded Earth in order to prevent Humans from destroying the universe with a new and extremely powerful weapons that were under development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth in flying saucers and resolved to destroy mankind with armies of the undead. The motive was to stop a human weapons program that would likely culminate in the “solaronite bomb” which would have the power to destroy the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth in flying saucers and resolved to destroy mankind with armies of the undead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government was covering up the presence of flying saucers. Then flying saucers were sighted over Hollywood Blvd and Washington DC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens raised the dead back to life, although they were like zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man was devastated by the death of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff Trent and Paula Trent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff Trent and Paula Trent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens flew in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Head (1959)", "title": "The Head", "date": "1959-07-24", "description": "After a professor suffers a fatal heart attack, the professor's assistant keeps his severed head alive using a special serum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Head_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ood kept Professor Abel's severed head alive using a special serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "head transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ood transplanted the head of Irene Sander onto the body of the dancer Lilly's beautiful body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene Sander was a hunchback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Lilly. Paul and Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ood at Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella was living under the alias Lilly as a stripper because she was wanted for having poisoned her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ood was jealous of Paul over Irene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Have Rocket Will Travel (1959)", "title": "Have Rocket, Will Travel", "date": "1959-08-01", "description": "The Three Stooges are janitors working at a space center who accidentally blast off to Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Rocket_Will_Travel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Three Stooges accidentally blast off on an automatic course to the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Three Stooges encountered a sentient computer on Venus that was built by Venusians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Venusians built a sentient computer that subsequently killed them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Venusians built a sentient computer that subsequently killed them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ingrid Naarveg was an independent-minded female rocket scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Three Stooges were playing with beakers and test tubes in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Three Stooges experienced zero gravity on their flight to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Three Stooges were attacked by a giant, fire breathing tarantula on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer on Venus felt lonely after having slaughtered the Venusians and build android replicas of the Three Stooges to keep him company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer on Venus built android replicas of the Three Stooges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ingrid Naarveg and Dr. Ted Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ingrid Naarveg and Dr. Ted Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Dr. Ingrid Naarveg give up on her career in science to settled down and marry Ted Benson?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959)", "title": "The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock", "date": "1959-08-06", "description": "Artie Pinsetter is a junk collector and amateur inventor who lives in the desert town of Candy Rock. Artie's fiancée, Emmy Lou Raven, is exposed to radiation in a cave and is changed thereby into a thirty-foot giantess. When Artie nervously explains to his betrothed's rich uncle that she has gotten \"big\", the uncle misunderstands \"big\" as \"pregnant\", and insists that Artie marry her immediately. Artie eventually manages to restore her to her normal size.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_30_Foot_Bride_of_Candy_Rock" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmy Lou Raven grew into a thirty-foot giantess after being exposed to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter and Emmy Lou Raven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospective governor Rossiter disapproved of his niece Emmy Lou Raven from marrying the lowly garbage man Artie Pinsetter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmy Lou Raven became a giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter was experimenting with chemicals in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter and Emmy Lou Raven were briefly engaged before they tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy Lou Raven grew to be 30 feet tall after being exposed to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rossiter disapproved of the garbage man Artie Pinsetter dating his niece Emmy Lou Raven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rossiter was led to believed that Emmy Lou Raven got pregnant out of wedlock and insisted the presumed father, Artie Pinsetter, marry her without delay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter and his dog Corporal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giantess Emmy Lou Raven was jealous of her husband upon finding him in a convertible with another woman, but it turned out to be a big misunderstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter kept a mechanical contraption, named Max, that answered questions and alter time and space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Pinsetter was briefly sent back in time to the stone age by his robot helper Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy Lou Raven was briefly shrunken down in size to such a size that she could fit in the palm of one's hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army assumed the presence of giantess Emmy Lou Raven was a prelude to an invasion by Martians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Invasion of Lapland (1959)", "title": "Space Invasion of Lapland", "date": "1959-08-19", "description": "Aliens land in Lapland and unleash a large creature on the local people.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invasion_of_Lapland" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space alien invade Lapland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik Engström and Diane Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frederick Wilson and Diane Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus an enormously tall, hairy biped creature, with powerful jaws, tusks, and large round feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an enormously tall, hairy biped creature, with powerful jaws, tusks, and large round feet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x01", "title": "Arthur", "date": "1959-09-27", "description": "Chicken farmer Arthur Williams murders his ex-fiancée when she returns to him a year after leaving him for another man. Sgt. John Theron investigates Arthur, but is unable to find the body because Arthur has ground it up in his hammer mill into chicken feed.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Arthur Williams, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Arthur as he narrates to the viewer how he got away with murdering his his ex-fiancée by the simple expedient of feeding her dead body to his chickens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur murdered his ex-fiancée, Helen, in cold blood and got away with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur got fed up with his ex-fiancée, Helen, and murdered her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Liebenberg and his men were investigating Arthur for the murder of his ex-fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur time and again came back to how much he liked to live alone and somewhat in seclusion from society. In fact, he murdered a woman in order to preserve this way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur time and again came back to how much he liked to live alone and somewhat in seclusion from society. In fact, he murdered a woman in order to preserve this way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock explained that he was bringing some \"fresh ideas\" to the egg business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen left Arthur for a man with more money, but then came crawling back to Arthur after her new man dumped her. She also told Arthur that she was effectively only into him for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheer thought of Helen's disorderliness coming back into his life prompted Arthur to commit murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)", "title": "Attack of the Giant Leeches", "date": "1959-10", "description": "In the Florida Everglades, a pair of larger-than-human, intelligent leeches live in an underwater cave. They begin dragging locals down to their cave, where they slowly feed on them, draining their victims of blood.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Giant_Leeches" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Benton and Nan Greyson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The local Florida Everglades people versus the intelligent, giant leeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Grayson speculated that the intelligent, giant leeches were produced as a result of regular leeches being exposed to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant leeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liz Walker's marriage to \"fat pig\" Dave Walker was on the rocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Walker and Liz Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liz Walker was cheating on her \"fat pig\" husband Dave with Cal Moulton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Walker was murderously jealous of Cal Moulton over his having an affair with his wife Liz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Greyson and Nan Greyson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x01", "title": "Where Is Everybody?", "date": "1959-10-02", "description": "A man with no memory of who he is finds himself in a strange empty town.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I woke up in a strange place and didn't remember how I got there", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ferris wandered into an empty town, not knowing who he was or how he had gotten there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed Ferris all alone in an empty town. Moreover, Ferris found a carousel stocked full of a book entitled \"The Last Man on Earth,\" which raised the question of whether Ferris himself might be in such a predicament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferris went nuts for lack of human companionship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferris went nuts for lack of human companionship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferris speculated that he was in a dream and would soon wake up - which was the case, of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferris wandered into an empty town, not knowing who he was or how he had gotten there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferris was earmarked for a return trip to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferris entertained the idea that \"the bomb\" might be the explanation as to why nobody was around, but he quickly dismissed this theory on the ground that no infrastructure had been damaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After his ordeal, Ferris felt trepidation about his upcoming trip to the Moon, which would see him spend over 400 days alone in space.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x02", "title": "The Crystal Trench", "date": "1959-10-04", "description": "Mountaineer Mark Cavendish falls in love with Stella Ballister, a young widow. Stella is devoted to her late husband, who died on a mountain and fell into a glacier, and refuses to move on until she sees his body. After 40 years they find the body, but there is a locket on him with a picture of another woman.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: A. E. W. Mason, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "So devastated was Stella by the tragic death of her husband, who died on a mountain and fell into a glacier, that she refused to move on from him until she beheld his dead body. This she did some 40 years after the fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella refused to move on from her tragically deceased husband until she beheld his dead body, which she ultimately did some 40 years after the fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark spent 40 years trying to win Stella's love, but she'd been unable to move on from her tragically deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mountaineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark was a mountain climber. There was talk about mountain climbing and all the things that the had gone wrong in the lead up to Stella's husband's death in his climb up the Schwarzhorn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark spoke of the \"majesty\" of the Schwarzhorn mountain glacier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark regretted to inform Stella that her husband had perished while climbing a glacier covered mountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "geology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Kersley explained how one might calculate the rate at which a glacier flows down a mountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark told Stella that the photo in her deceased husband's locket was of her even though it was of another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with this dramatic happening: Stella found on the frozen body of her husband, who'd remained committed to for some 40 years after his death, a locket containing a photograph of another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen spent 40 years trying to recover her lost lover's corps only to find out that he'd probably been unfaithful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Ranks had lost limbs due to frostbite.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 4D Man (1959)", "title": "4D Man", "date": "1959-10-07", "description": "Brilliant but irresponsible scientist, Dr. Tony Nelson, develops an electronic amplifier that he hopes will allow any object to achieve a 4th dimensional state.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4D_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tony Nelson was obsessed with developing a technology that would enable him to cross the threshold into the 4th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tony Nelson and Linda Davis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda Davis was interested in Tony Nelson even though she was already involved with his brother Scott Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tony Nelson and Dr. Scott Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Tony Nelson steal away his brother's girlfriend for a second time and risk losing him as a friend and family member?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tony Nelson invented a device that allowed him to pass through solid matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Scott Nelson at Linda Davis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tony Nelson was obsessed with developing a technology that would enable him to cross the threshold into the 4th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The more Dr. Scott Nelson used his power of intangibility, the older he became.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x02", "title": "One for the Angels", "date": "1959-10-09", "description": "A pitchman talks Death (Murray Hamilton) into sparing his life until he makes one last great pitch, but threatens the life of a little girl in the process.\n\nDirected by: Robert Parrish. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Death appeared as an impeccably dressed American man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew had never made a truly successful big pitch in his life, and he expressed a desire to do so before he completed it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Lew gave his life in exchange for that of a little girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew came up with a clever scheme to cheat death and live on indefinitely because he was quite happy to be alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew showed his craft as a peddler of trinkets when he made such a captivating pitch that Death himself became late for an appointment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew was informed of his impending death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lew was notably kind to children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lew cheated death only to learn that a young girl would die in his place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x03", "title": "Appointment at Eleven", "date": "1959-10-11", "description": "Seventeen-year-old David Logan spends a night on the town talking to various sympathetic people: a blonde in a bar, a sailor and an Irish pub patron, all of whom are disconcerted by David's virulent hatred of his father. However, David's father is a murdered, and his execution is at that night at 11:00.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Robert Turner, Evan Hunter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated in David reacting to the long anticipated execution of his old pa, with mixed feelings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people who David encountered at the bar were disconcerted by his virulent hatred of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David kept insisting he was not afraid of a sailor who he'd gotten into a fight with at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David blew hot and cold regarding the attention he received from an attractive blonde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David spoke to his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David spoke of hating is father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end that David's father (a.k.a. the Loveness Slayer) had been convicted of murdering his own girlfriend after having found her with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David spoke of how his father had been running around with a blonde woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was deeply disturbed owing to his father having been put on death row.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x03", "title": "Mr. Denton on Doomsday", "date": "1959-10-16", "description": "A town drunk faces an infamous killer after magically regaining his gunfighting skills.\n\nDirected by: Allen Reisner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "live by the sword die by the sword", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The moral of the story was simply this, and very nearly spelled out by Al Denton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a stereotyped depiction of life in a town on the American frontier in the 19th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al Denton was an alcoholic wreck until he came in possession of a mysterious gun that he found lying on the road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al Denton, who was once known as the quickest draw in town, had become an alcoholic wreck and the laughingstock of the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al Denton had given up his gunslinging way after he'd shot dead a 16 year boy in a duel, and turned to the bottle there after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young upstart gunslinger Mr. Grant came to town to challenge the seasoned old gunslinger Al Denton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Local rummy Al Denton was forced to sing and dance to get drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al Denton ultimately laid the smack down on a man who making him sing and dance to get a drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Grant challenged Al Denton to a duel to prove he was the quickest draw in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Grant wished to best Al Denton in a duel so that he would be regarded as the quickest gunslinger in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al Denton was torn up inside over having shot dead a 16 year old boy in a duel some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quackery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a regular quacksalver except he had a potion that worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The quacksalver gave Al Denton a tincture that gave him perfect aim for 10 seconds after drinking it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x04", "title": "Coyote Moon", "date": "1959-10-18", "description": "While driving across the desert to California, a professor agrees to take on a hitchhiker Julie. However, Julie brings along her father, Pops and her \"brother\" Harry, and the three of them take the Professor's belongings. The Professor tricks them into abandoning him and his car, and follows them to a gas station where he calls the police and reports them.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Kenneth B. Perkins, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor was taken for a ride by three accomplished hoodwinkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the, possibly misguided, compassion of a professor who tried to save a coyote and help a suspicious young woman in need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor picked up three hitch-hikers and came sorely to regret doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A country sheriff appeared to apprehend the evildoers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie and her supposed father Pops conspired to take the Professor for everything he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry took exception to the Professor calling his supposed father a thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie interacted with her supposed brother, Harry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x04", "title": "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine", "date": "1959-10-23", "description": "An aging movie star rewatches her old films in an attempt to recapture her youth.\n\nDirected by: Mitchell Leisen. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barbara refused to owe up to the fact tat she was not a young actress sensation anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barbara dreamed of the days when she was a pretty young start.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barbara locked herself up in a dark dank room watching her old films day after day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara was a passionate aging actress yearning for the roles of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara got sad and insulted whenever her age became topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara willed herself into a movie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara's agent Danny tried to help her escape from the mental prison she's trapped herself in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around Barbara, an aging actress who became offended when a Hollywood producer offered her a bit role as a 40 something mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara found herself dismayed at fading to obscurity in her old age and resolved to make a comeback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara's maid Sally was shocked to find that Barbara had somehow become transported into a movie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x05", "title": "No Pain", "date": "1959-10-25", "description": "Millionaire Dave Rainey is paralyzed from the neck down and needs a respirator to breathe. He accuses his wife Cindy of having an affair with her new friend, Arnold, and that they are planning to kill him; Cindy admits that they are both true. That night, Arnold drowns Cindy in the ocean, because he is a contract killer hired by Dave.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Talmage Powell, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dave accused his wife Cindy of plotting his demise. Dave had hired Arnold to murder Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Cindy and her efforts to do in her paralyzed, millionaire husband, Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cindy was having an affair with Arnold behind her paralyzed husband Dave's paralyzed back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave was paralyzed and had to lie in a respirator machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave acted like a stereotypical jealous husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cindy explained how tough it was on her that Dave was paralyzed. Her behavior in the rest of the story chimed with this explanation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cindy was flaunting her new lover in front of her paralyzed husband, Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock stood in the center of a boxing ring and introduced the two combatants: a husband and wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Arnold turned out to be a contract killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not mentioned explicitly, this story makes sense only if Dave had instructed Arnold to seduce Cindy before killing her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy briefly and insincerely tried to justify her homicidal inclination as being a kindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy briefly and insincerely tried to justify her homicidal inclination as being a kindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave disconnected from the respirator and thought he would die abandoned by Cindy, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold mentioned being tempted by Cindy to betray Arnold, but explained that he was \"an old and reliable firm\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wasp Woman (1959)", "title": "The Wasp Woman", "date": "1959-10-30", "description": "A scientist who is fired from his job at a honey farm for experimenting with wasps goes on to develop a serum from the royal jelly of a queen wasp that can reverse the aging process.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wasp_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Zinthrop developed an age reversing serum from the royal jelly of a queen wasp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cosmetics company owner Janice Starlin was transformed into a human-wasp creature after taking Dr. Zinthrop wasp derived serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aging cosmetics company owner Janice Starlin took a queen wasp derived serum in an effort to return to a more youthful state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Starlin temporarily got her youth back from taking queen wasp royal jelly extracted enzyme injections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Starlin accidentally transformed herself into a half-human, half-wasp creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice was running a major cosmetics corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging model Janice Starling turned back the clock by injecting herself with an experimental wasp hormone extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice was in the process of transforming into a half-human/half-wasp creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Zinthrop was experimenting with queen wasp royal jelly enzymes in Janice Starlin's cosmetics company laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x05", "title": "Walking Distance", "date": "1959-10-30", "description": "An ad executive under pressure at his job visits his old hometown, only to find himself returned to his childhood.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin suddenly realized he was in the past of his childhood years in his old home town", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin was thinking about all the things of his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed the moral of the story was that success doesn't bring happiness - Martin was happier during his carefree youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "major", "motivation": "Busy businessman Martin regretted not enjoying his glorious childhood days more and exhorted his younger self to do better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin met his father of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin met his childhood self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin tried to save his younger self from an accident but ended up being the one to cause it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin briefly met his mum of yore. Bobby's mother chided him for climbing up a tree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x06", "title": "Anniversary Gift", "date": "1959-11-01", "description": "Hermie Jenkins buys a coral snake for his animal-loving wife Myra, in the hopes that it will bite and kill her. The snake, which is actually a harmless kingsnake, bites Hermie instead and he dies of a heart attack.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: John Collier, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hermie conspired to bring about his wife's premature expiration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Hermie in his efforts to do in his loving but difficult to deal with wife, Myra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned assorted critters and their behaviors. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock presented his carnivorous plant to the audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Hermie dying from a heart attack after he'd been bitten by the very snake he'd purchased with a view to it administering a lethal bite to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Myra doled out a measly allowance and dictated what her husband Hermie should or must not do. He could not drink as much beer as he would otherwise like to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George lamented his late wife's departure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myra was overly concerned about animals and their welfare and less so with the welfare of her husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x06", "title": "Escape Clause", "date": "1959-11-06", "description": "A mean-spirited hypochondriac afraid of dying sells his soul to the Devil for immortality.\n\nDirected by: Mitchell Leisen. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter wished for nothing less than immortality, but he became consumed by boredom once he got it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter found that immortality was not all he thought it'd be - he became bored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter and Ethel Bedeker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was ill-tempered and mean towards all around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter made a literal deal with Satan that saw Walter get virtual immortality in exchange for his soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter sought to live on for practical eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satan made an appearance in the guise of a rotund man who went by the peculiar name of Cadwallader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter sold his soul to Satan himself in exchange for virtual immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter found himself bored with immortal life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bored with immortality, Walter confessed to killing his wife thinking he'd be sentenced to an exciting death, yet was condemned to an even more boring life in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter threw himself in front of a train, drank enough poison to kill 12 men, and threw himself off the rooftop of a building, but all to no avail as he had been granted immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter believed himself to be sick and wouldn't take the doctor's word for it that he was perfectly healthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter lamented his impending or eventual demise, asking rhetorically why we can't live a thousand years instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was unfazed when his wife plunged to her death before his very eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was notably cruel to his wife and didn't skip a beat when she died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter claimed, falsely, that he had killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter looked forwards to the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor gave the paranoid hypochondriac Walter a clean bill of health during a checkup.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x07", "title": "Dry Run", "date": "1959-11-08", "description": "Young gangster Art is ordered by his new boss Barberosa to prove himself by killing a man named Moran. Art goes to do the deed, but Moran suggests that Art kill Barberosa instead and take over the organization. When Art agrees, Moran kills him; the counteroffer was a test set by Barberosa.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Norman Struber, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the up-and-coming mobster Art as he gets in over his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was about the mobster Barberosa testing the loyalty of his new underling, Art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the up-and-coming gangster Art as his boss Barberosa puts him through an elaborate test of loyalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barberosa explained the importance he place on the quality of \"dependability\" in his employees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Art pointedly betraying his superior Barberosa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of how contemporary tales of mystery and crime were often accompanied by jazz music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Art was ordered to assassinate Moran. Moran shot dead Art instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x07", "title": "The Lonely", "date": "1959-11-13", "description": "In the year 2046, a convicted man serving his sentence on an uninhabited asteroid is given a female robot (Jean Marsh) for companionship.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Corry was dying of loneliness on some far flung asteroid until he was given a female android companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was illustrated that people may go mad if they are deprived of human company for a very long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was an early example of something to posit the question of whether and to what an extent a machine can be human enough to warrant our sympathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corry was given the female android Alicia to keep him company while he served out a 50 year sentence otherwise alone on some far flung asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corry gradually fell in love with his android companion Alicia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allenby took pity on Corry and delivered him things, like a female android, to help him keep his sanity while he served a 50 year sentence for murder on some far flung asteroid. Later, Corry refused to leave the asteroid without Alicia on the ground that she was a woman, not a mere robot. Note that while Corry had a romantic interest in taking Alicia back to Earth with him, he did not use this as a justification for the necessity of bring her along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable asteroid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story followed a convicted murderer named Corry as he served out a 50 year sentence on a far flung asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allenby stated that a lot of people consider that confining Corry to solitary confinement for 50 years on some far flung asteroid was unnecessarily cruel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A futuristic rocket ship twice landed on Corry's asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rocket ship from Earth landed on Corry's asteroid to deliver supplies, and later to pick up Corry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We must ponder whether the captain was justified in his decision to put a bullet through the young robot girls compassionate face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Corry claimed, with seeming sincerity, that he wasn't guilty of murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x08", "title": "The Blessington Method", "date": "1959-11-15", "description": "In the advanced future of 1980, life expectancy has improved dramatically. J.J. Bunce works for the Society of Gerology, which provides the discreet service of killing the healthy elderly. John Treadwell agrees to have his tiresome mother-in-law \"dealt with\", but once it is done, Treadwell then realizes that it is only a matter of time before his own children have him \"dealt with\" as well.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judging by the outrage with which Bunce was met, his service of killing geriatrics was not socially accepted and likely remained illegal, though the details were not made clear. His organization would certainly be censured if the truth came out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "major", "motivation": "J.J. Bunce of the Society of Gerology was going around killing old people for the greater good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "John became fed up with his demanding mother-in-law and arranged to have her killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unspecified advances in science had led to a society were people lived 30 years longer, in the 1980s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bunce explained through fish-analogy the detrimental social aspects of extended longevity in a population. Also featured was the unconventional idea that life extension would lead to a lopsided demographic heavy on grumpy old coots with too much voting power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, an apparently convalescing Alfred Hitchcock professed to be wheelchair-bound and attended by nurses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock mentioned the possibility of finding arsenic in one's coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People in the distant 1980s were extremely conscious of contamination from, for example, handshakes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Treadwell's were more-or-less happily married with two adolescent children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and his adolescent daughter, Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Treadwell and her adolescent daughter, Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Treadwell and her adolescent son, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and his adolescent son, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Treadwell children, Jack and Jill, quarreled at in the living room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bunce highlighted the tax beneficial virtue of a donation to his own \"charitable\" organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It appears that church was mandatory in the 1980s, unless one had a health certificate for advanced age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story featured the Treadwell family: the father was fed up with his elderly live-in mother-in-law, a brother and sister quarreled at the dinner table, the kids didn't want to go to church, etc.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ben-Hur (1959)", "title": "Ben-Hur", "date": "1959-11-18", "description": "Ben-Hur is a 1959 American religious epic film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title, it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The cast also features Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell in her final film, and Sam Jaffe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur_(1959_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-academyaward-winners.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around the eponymous Judah Ben-Hur and his vow to avenge himself on the childhood friend, Messala. Messala cruelly betrayed Ben-Hur by sending him to work as a galley slave for three years, and throwing Ben-Hur's mother and sister into a dungeon, where they contracted leprosy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in Judea and in Rome around he time of the Biblical Jesus and Emperor Tiberius. It portrays life for various slaves, servants, merchants and aristocrats in this setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pivots on Messala betraying his childhood friend, Judah Ben-Hur. Messala falsely imprisoned Ben-Hur and members of his family for an assassination attempt on the new governor that never happened. Ben-Hur was sent away to the galleys but swore to take revenge on Messala.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pivots on Messala betraying his childhood friend, Judah Ben-Hur. Messala falsely imprisoned Ben-Hur and members of his family for an assassination attempt on the new governor that never happened. Ben-Hur was sent away to the galleys but swore to take revenge on Messala.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messala was extraordinarily callous in sending his childhood friends to the dungeon and to the galley. He did so in order to instill a healthy of fear in the Judean populace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben-Hur sought to save his beloved mother from her cruel fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben-Hur sought to save his beloved sister from her cruel fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horse racing", "level": "major", "motivation": "An important component of the story is Ben-Hur's prowess with horses and his skill at chariot racing. His final victory over Messala came at the hippodrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "turn the other cheek", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme is that Ben-Hur was advised to forgive and forget what he has suffered. Likewise it was argued that Judeans should not take up arms against their Roman oppressors. This message is struck home by the appearance of Jesus, who explicitly preached forgiveness even for the most heinous offenders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Biblical Jesus story, which is the foundation for Christianity, was a central component of Ben-Hur's story. Ben-Hur, at the end, showed kindness to Jesus as the Christian Messiah was struggling with his cross on the road to Golgotha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben-Hur was Jewish and often spoke of his One God. He was convinced that God would see him through his ordeals as a galley slave, and eventually grant him vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "A striking feature of the story is that Ben-Hur went from being a peaceful Jewish prince and merchant into a hardened vengeance-driven warrior, and finally, through the influence of Jesus, back into a man of peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roman occupation of Judea, and the imposition of Roman law, was a central theme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Filled with resentment, Messala jumped on the opportunity to persecute the innocent Ben-Hur and his family gruesomely. He did so both out of anger and out of political convenience because people would see how he treated an old friend, and fear him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story offers a whirlwind tour through the Roman Empire, including what life as a galley slave might have been like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesus unexpectedly appeared and gave Ben-Hur a drink of water when no one else would. Later Ben-Hur did the same for Jesus on the road to Golgotha. The Biblical Jesus was famous for preaching compassion, and this was alluded to many times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben-Hur stood in solidarity with his fellow Jews by consistently refusing to be a puppet of the Roman Empire. He chose to side with the Jews in their conflict with Rome even after being adopted by the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Ben-Hur reuniting with his beloved, but now leprous, mother and sister following his return to Judea in the wake of three brutal years of enslavement on Roman galleys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messala wanted Ben-Hur to betray people who formed an underground movement against the Roman occupation of Judea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with the Biblical Magi following the Star of Bethlehem to the baby Jesus in the manger. Toward the end of the story, an eerie darkness descended over Jerusalem following Jesus' death on the cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miriam and Tirzah were afflicted with leprosy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lepers were shunned and forced to live as outcasts in a valley outside of Jerusalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheik Ilderim wagered 1000 talents at 4 to 1 odds that Ben-Hur would win the chariot race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miriam and Tirzah were miraculously cured of leprosy in the aftermath of Jesus' crucifixion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x08", "title": "Time Enough at Last", "date": "1959-11-20", "description": "A bank teller yearning for more time to read gets his wish when he becomes the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Lynn Venable, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry found that he was the only survivor after a nuclear war, and was at first delighted as there was nobody around to prevent him from pursuing his favorite pastime: reading.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was as addicted to reading as some are to alcohol and his social life suffered correspondingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was a bibliophile to the point of parody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry initially lamented his loneliness and searched desperately for others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry at long last found himself with time for his passion, reading, alas was deprived of the ability when his glasses broke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "While not explicitly spelled out, it seems obvious that the catastrophe that wiped out humanity had to do with explosions of a magnitude only the hydrogen bomb can explain, since Henry read a headline int he newspaper about the H-bomb shortly before the catastrophe occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was so absorbed with reading books that he was constantly distracted both at work and at home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was myopic as a mole and quite helpless when he lost his glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry enumerated Shelley, Shapkespeare, and George Bernard Shaw among other authors that he enjoyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "best laid plans often go awry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator used this phrase in the end to sum up how Henry's meticulously laid out plan to read virtually all the books in the library went up in smoke when he broke his reading glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry's wife was a stereotypical nag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw meek man Henry with his domineering spouse Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was chewed out by his boss for reading while on duty at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry put a gun to his head as he lamented that he had nothing to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry, who was lonely and bored to tears, briefly pointed a gun to his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All was lost for Henry when he broke his reading glasses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x09", "title": "Dead Weight", "date": "1959-11-22", "description": "Courtney Masterson and his secret lover Peg are robbed in Lover's Lane by a thug. Unwilling to go to the police, Courtney kills the thug so that he will not reveal their affair. Afterward, Courtney learns that his wife has had a private detective following him for the past week, and he saw everything.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Herb Golden, Jerry Sohl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Courtney and his secret lover Peg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Courtney was cheating on his wife with Peg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Courtney and Peg discussed murdering the robber. Courtney later did just that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociotechnological issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made a point about the impact of road signs in society, a side effect of the ascent of the automobile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Courtney and Peg were set upon by a robber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robber told Courtney to get in the trunk of the car, but later had to get in there himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Courtney explained the events to his wife after the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the commencement of Courtney being blackmail by the detective that had seen the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Courtney was interrogated by a police investigator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the private detective Lester Elleridge had been following Courtney all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Courtney murdered a man to stamp out any possibility of a scandal arising from the man revealing that Courtney was having an affair.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Angry Red Planet (1959)", "title": "The Angry Red Planet", "date": "1959-11-23", "description": "A rocketship returns from Mars but one of the two surviving crew member is too shocked to remember what happened on the mission, and the other is delirious and all covered in green goo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angry_Red_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of a mission to Mars return to Earth, and one of the only two surviving crew members, Iris Ryan, goes on to recount the details of her harrowing voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Iris Ryan suppressed her memories of the presumably horrible things that happened to her and the space crew on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts discovered a futuristic city on Mars and the inhabitants gave Iris a warning to relay to the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Iris Ryan and Thomas O’Bannion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocketship crew encountered potentially dangerous cosmic radiation on their voyage to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were attacked by various alien creatures on Mars, including a giant spider-like creature and a giant lake amoeba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A giant amoeba-like creature with a single spinning eye emerged from a Martian lake and attacked the astronauts and prevented them from blasting off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x09", "title": "Perchance to Dream", "date": "1959-11-27", "description": "A man with a severe heart condition who has been awake for a long time tells his psychiatrist that he will die if he goes to sleep, because a vixen is trying to kill him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of sleep", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was afraid of falling asleep because he was convinced that he would be murdered in his dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story involved Edward discussing with his psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward kept himself awake because he feared a Cat Girl in his dreams would bring about his death should he dare to fall asleep. Unfortunately an unrelated heart condition meant that Edward’s severe sleep deprivation, in addition to being debilitating, threatened to be fatal. In the end, he was driven to suicide by auto-defenestration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "We must ponder whether Edward's dreams were real, or just excitement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward described his gradual progress towards loosing his mind, in great detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were trapped in a nightmare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was couldn't get out of a dream in which he thought he was going to be killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Edward at his wit's end for want of sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "From the doctor's point of view, Edward's insisting that a mysterious woman was out to get him in his dreams was completely irrational.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward finally ended his life by an act of autodefenestration (i.e. by throwing himself through a window) in his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward and Maya feigned besottment with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between equally futile actions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward was had to choose between facing a murderous woman in his dreams or risk dying from his congenital heart condition should he stay awake: he pitched himself out a window instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Atomic Submarine (1959)", "title": "The Atomic Submarine", "date": "1959-11-29", "description": "An alien invasion that begins when an underwater UFO attacks the world's shipping for unknown reasons. The film showcases the (then) new technology of nuclear submarines and follows the crew and scientists aboard the atomic powered USS Tigershark, which has been ordered to hunt down the mysterious underwater saucer and stop its disruption of sea commerce.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atomic_Submarine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film showcases the (then) new technology of nuclear submarines and follows the crew and scientists aboard the atomic powered USS Tigershark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious underwater flying saucer attacks the world's shipping in what turned out to be a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that the reason the flying saucers reported seen around the world never landed is because they were actually diving underwater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien communicated telepathically with Dan Wendover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien flying saucer was a biological spaceship that could repair itself when damaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien flying saucer was a biological spaceship that could repair itself when damaged.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x10", "title": "Special Delivery", "date": "1959-11-29", "description": "Boys all over the country are buying mail-order mushrooms to grow in their cellars. Bill and Cynthia Fortnam are worried when their neighbor mysteriously disappears after warning them that something catastrophic is going to happen. Bill posits an alien invasion by space spores that grow into mushrooms and possess human bodies after being eaten. This is confirmed when Bill's son, Tom, acts strangely, and demands that Bill eat some of his mail-order mushrooms.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story was evidently that some mushroom-like aliens had seeded Earth with human-co-opting space spores as a prelude to invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Bill and Cynthia Fortnam as they attempt to find out why their neighbor disappeared after he expressed a concern that something catastrophic was about to happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill became increasingly worried about his young son Tom's cultivating of a match of mail-order mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia became increasingly worried about her young son Tom's cultivating of a match of mail-order mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in a town where people were mysteriously disappearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was hypothesized briefly that the disappeared neighbor, Roger, had been kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill quoted the Three Witches from MacBeth as saying \"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes\" in response to Roger's premonition that something catastrophic was about to happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill hypothesized gut feelings as \"subconscious information that you finally get around to recognizing with your conscious mind\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Under the influence of nefarious fungi from outer space, Tom used mental powers to make his father eat a mushroom in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Cynthia Fortna took steps to find they neighbor, Roger, who'd suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tom was enthusiastically cultivating some mail-order mushrooms in the basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tom was enthusiastically cultivating some mail-order mushrooms in the basement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)", "title": "The Man Who Could Cheat Death", "date": "1959-11-30", "description": "In Paris during 1890, 104-year-old Georges Bonnet is a sculptor who maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age. When Bonnet requires a vital surgery to be undertaken he asks his old colleague Prof. Ludwig Weiss to perform it. He declines and Bonnet then blackmails Pierre Gerard into performing the operation by endangering the life of Janine Dubois, a young lady in whom both Bonnet and Gerard are romantically interested.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Could_Cheat_Death" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 104-year-old Georges Bonnet maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 104-year-old Georges Bonnet maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georges Bonnet and Janine Dubois.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georges Bonnet and Pierre Gerard were both romantically interested in Janine Dubois.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Georges Bonnet keep on killing women and extracting their glands in order to maintain his youth or let himself age at a natural rate? Georges' old frien Prof. Ludwig Weiss urged him to age naturally, but he didn't follow the professor advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georges Bonnet didn't publish his discovery about how to achieve immortality because it would result in the world becoming overpopulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pierre Gerard considered it an offense against God to perform a life-extending surgery on Georges Bonnet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Georges Bonnet died in agony from rapid aging.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x10", "title": "Judgment Night", "date": "1959-12-04", "description": "In 1942, a man from Germany does not remember how he boarded a British ship heading for New York, but he does have a feeling the ship will be sunk.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I woke up in a strange place and didn't remember how I got there", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Carl Lanser as he tried to piece together how he ended up as a passenger on a ship en route to New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "U-boat captain Carl Lanser was condemned repeat his ruthless sinking of a passenger ship every night for eternity, only as a passenger aboard the ship, rather than as captain on the U-boat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "U-boat captain Carl Lanser was condemned repeat his ruthless sinking of a passenger ship every night for eternity, only as a passenger aboard the ship, rather than as captain on the U-boat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a passenger ship that is sunk in a U-boat attack every night for eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl Lanser seemed to have trouble recalling basic facts about his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl Lanser discussed experiencing this uncanny feeling with Miss Stanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Set in 1942, the crew and passengers of a merchant ship were were anxious about being sunk by U-boats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl Lanser knew that something bad was going to happen at precisely 1:15 AM.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Mueller was deeply troubled by his captain's sinking of a passenger ship with all hands without any warning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The version of Carl Lanser aboard the U-boat sunk a passenger ship with all hands without compunction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Lt. Mueller on the u-boat lament having killed people without warning. lso Carl Lanser was conspicuously remorseless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody took Carl Lanser seriously when he said the ship would face a catastrophe at precisely 1:15 AM.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x11", "title": "Road Hog", "date": "1959-12-06", "description": "Sam Pine and his elder sons rush to get his youngest son, Davey, to a doctor after being gored by a bull. They are deliberately blocked on the road by inconsiderate salesman Ed Fratus, and Davey dies. With his remaining sons' help, Sam confronts Fratus and seemingly poisons him; Fratus rushes to the doctor, and in his panic crashes his car and dies. However, the drink was just water, not poison.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Harold Daniels, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sam wanted to avenge his son's untimely demise caused by Ed's spitefulness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed delighted in killing a butterfly, chuckled at making a girl cry, and laughed at blocking the way for three desperate farmers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam saw his son die and was filled with hate and lust for vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam's eldest son saw his brother die and was filled with hate and lust for vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was to see the spiteful little man Ed get a taste of his own medicine after he had deliberately caused a death by delaying someone from reaching the doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The traveling salesman Ed tried to peddle his merchandise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was lead to believe that he had been server poison as vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Davy was gored by a bull.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x11", "title": "And When the Sky Was Opened", "date": "1959-12-11", "description": "Three astronauts return from the desert where their spacecraft crashed, but cannot remember what happened during their flight.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Richard Matheson, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three astronauts vanished from existence one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone thought Forbes was nuts when he told them about his missing friend Ed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts returned from a space mission only to find reality was gradually correcting itself by disappearing them. They vanished from existence one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story followed three astronauts mistakenly returned to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Forbes and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts piloted an experimental spaceplane 900 miles beyond the confines of the Earth's atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three astronauts fraternized as good friends do.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x12", "title": "Specialty of the House", "date": "1959-12-13", "description": "Mr. Laffler introduces his colleague Mr. Costain to Spirro's, an exclusive gentleman's club. The Specialty of the House is a rare but popular lamb dish. When Laffler is about to leave the country for a business trip, he is invited by Spirro, the owner, into the kitchen to meet the chef. Afterward, Spirro tells the other members that the Specialty of the House will be served soon.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Victor Wolfson & Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Laffler was borderline obsessed with indulging in the house special at Sprirro's gentleman's club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the culinary delights concocted by master chef Spirro at an exclusive gentleman's club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is strongly implied that the fabled Lamb Amirstan is a dish prepared from human flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Mr. Laffler and his underling, Mr. Costain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The morbid fate of Mr. Laffler pointedly illustrated the old maxim that curiosity killed the cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laffler stumbled upon a mugging in progress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a master chef named simply \"The Chef\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)", "title": "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "date": "1959-12-16", "description": "An adventure film adapted by Charles Brackett from the novel of the same name by Jules Verne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth_(1959_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook led an expedition to the center of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook and Alec McEwan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook was motivated by a scientific curiosity to explore the depths of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook led an expedition to the center of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alec McEwan and Jenny Lindenbrook. Oliver Lindenbrook and Carla Göteborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver Lindenbrook and Jenny Lindenbrook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carla Göteborg grieved for her murdered husband Professor Göteborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook and his expedition party encountered a dinosaur living deep inside the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook and his expedition party encountered a family of dimetrodons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expedition party was attacked by a family of dimetrodons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expedition party discovered the sunken ruins of Atlantis near the center of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook and his expedition party encountered dinosaurs in a region deep inside the Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: On the Beach (1959)", "title": "On the Beach", "date": "1959-12-17", "description": "On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, that stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins. This black-and- white film is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war; the film hints that the threat of annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film depicts people in Australia trying to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear war which has left the Northern Hemisphere utterly devastated and devoid of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass radiation poisoning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people who survived the nuclear war expected to all die from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was anticipated that radiation would descend to Australia and kill everyone from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a Northern Hemisphere decimating nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor sarcastically claimed that Einstein was responsible for starting the nuclear war and went on to explain something to the effect that a civilization ending nuclear war became inevitable once the power of the atom had been discovered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dwight Towers and Moira Davidson. Peter and Peter's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Peter's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war due to diplomatic miscalculation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film hints that the threat of annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x13", "title": "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "date": "1959-12-20", "description": "1862, during the Civil War. Recently-widowed Confederate Peyton Farquhar decides to blow up a bridge that the Yankees plan to use to cross, but is caught. Peyton is hanged, but the rope breaks and he seemingly escapes. With the help of slave Josh, Peyton travels past various Union soldiers safely and returns home to his wife Melissa. Right before the two can embrace, however, Peyton collapses with a sharp pain to his neck. Peyton is actually dead; he never escaped from the hanging. The doomed man imagined the whole escape.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevenson. Story by: Ambrose Bierce, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peyton was about to be hanged for interfering with railway bridges and in fact, the whole story was a dream taking places moments before his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "What seemed to be the condemned man Peyton escaping the noose and fleeing to find his wife turned out to have been his imaginings at the moment of his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the South during this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "In his dream, Peyton was pursued by Union soldiers after they botched his hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the goings on in a military outfit during the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peyton was determined to escape the from Union soldiers were going to execute him all in an effort to make it back to see his beloved wife, Melissa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his opening monologue, Alfred Hitchcock calmly explained that he was about to be shot into orbit out of a cannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space gun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his opening monologue, Alfred Hitchcock had positioned himself within a cannon and feigned that he would be in orbit for the next few minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made a gag about the art of espionage during the American Civil War days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton was consoled by his house slave, Hattie. In his dream, Peyton was guided home by his slave Josh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton was unable to fight in the Confederate Army anymore because of his gimpy knee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton grieved for his recently departed wife, Melissa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his dream, Peyton encountered his recently departed wife, Melissa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x12", "title": "What You Need", "date": "1959-12-25", "description": "A thug tries to exploit the abilities of a peddler who can see into the future and discern just what a person will need in an emergency.\n\nDirected by: Alvin Ganzer. Story by: Lewis Padgett, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old man had an uncanny way to sense items that people would soon need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred was exceptionally greedy. For example, he rudely refused to tip a hotel bell boy in the immediate aftermath of him having won thousands at the horse races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generous character vs. mean character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedott was modest, generous and benign; Fred was greedy, miserly, and mean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred Renard bullied Pedott twice to help him gain \"what he needed\"; the third time he used further threats and got \"what he needed\" again, but this time it was a violent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Narrator described Fred as a man who lamented his \"undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden\" life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a washed up baseball pitcher at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The washed up baseball pitcher Lefty was wallowing away in him sorrows at a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pedott went around giving people little items they needed presumably out of the goodness of his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pedott went around giving people little items they needed presumably out of the goodness of his heart.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battle in Outer Space (1959)", "title": "Battle in Outer Space", "date": "1959-12-26", "description": "Aliens from the planet Natal launch a full scale invasion of Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_in_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1950s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens from the planet Natal launch a full scale invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world united against the alien invasion under the aegis of the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a manned space station in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were able to levitate objects using a ray that lowered temperature to absolute zero - it was alleged that objects at absolute zero were not affected by the force of gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two manned rocketships blasted off from Earth and touched down on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used a cranial implant to mind control Iwamura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katsumiya and Etsuko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iwamura gave his live on the Moon fighting the aliens so that his crew mates could blast off in their rocketship and return to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens flew around in flying saucers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x14", "title": "Graduating Class", "date": "1959-12-27", "description": "Laura Siddons, a teacher at a girl's college, is fond of her brightest student, Gloria Barnes. While out with her neighbor Ben Prowdy, Siddons sees Barnes with a man and assumes that they are having an affair. Siddons later learns that Barnes is actually secretly married to the man and plans to tell her parents at the right time, but Prowdy blackmails Barnes' parents, causing her mother to collapse. Prowdy is arrested, and accuses Siddons of masterminding the blackmail.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Edouard Sandoz, Stirling Silliphant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned Laura's interactions with her star pupil, Gloria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Laura's old fashioned outrage at premarital sex, in which she believed Gloria had engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with Laura anticipating being charged with orchestrating the blackmail that Prowdy had carried out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura was hired to teach European literature at a girl's college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story presents a contemporary view of what life might have been like at a girl's college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be an enthusiast of some unspecified sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three ladies briefly reminisced about the days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia explained that Laura had been desperate when sending a letter to ask for a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura objected to the chronic tardiness of her student Vera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura struggled to instill a passion for Mary Shelley in her apathetic pupils.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After falling asleep in class, Gloria said she had stayed up worrying about her mother who was ill. Later we heard that Gloria's mother was in a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After falling asleep in class, Gloria said she had stayed up worrying about her mother who was ill. Later we heard that Gloria's mother was in a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prowdy blackmailed Barne's parents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x13", "title": "The Four of Us Are Dying", "date": "1960-01-01", "description": "A small-time con-man with the ability to change his face assumes the identities of a musician, a gangster, and a boxer.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: George Clayton Johnson, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arch Hammer could change the appearance of his face to look like anyone's face that he concentrated on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arch Hammer was a con man with a supernatural advantage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arch took on the appearance of a random man from a poster in order to get out of trouble, only to find that his new persona had even deadlier trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arch, ill-advisedly, took on the appearance of a man on a poster only to run into that mans father and find out that the father wanted his son dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arch impersonated Johnny Foster to make out with Foster's girlfriend Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arch impersonated a dead mobster to extort money from a kingpin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie grieved for her late trumpeter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disheartened father confronted a man he mistakenly believed to be his son about the son having ruined peoples lives and hurt people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father deliberately shot and killed a man he thought was his son, but it was actually Arch in disguise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x15", "title": "Man from the South", "date": "1960-01-03", "description": "In Las Vegas, a Gambler and a Woman are approached by Carlos, who proposes a bet on whether Gambler's lighter can light up ten times in a row. If Gambler wins, he gets Carlos' convertible; if Gambler loses, Carlos will cut off Gambler's small finger. The lighter works seven times in a row when Carlos's wife interrupts, revealing that Carlos is penniless. Carlos's entire fortune belongs to his wife, who lost three fingers to win it from him.\n\nIn 1997, TV Guide ranked this episode #41 on its list of the 100 Greatest Episodes.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Roald Dahl, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gambling with a body part", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the propriety of a young gambler to bet his little finger against Carlos' convertible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned an old couple who had been compulsively gambling away cars and fingers over (presumably) many years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the propriety of a young gambler to bet his little finger against Carlos' convertible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young gambler deliberated at length over whether he should take the bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horse racing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the prologue, Alfred Hitchcock was betting on horses at the race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The interactions between the young gambler and the women he met in the casino were laden with romantic undertones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlos' wife flew in at the last moment and put a stop to his macabre bet with the young gambler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlos' wife spoke of \"how foolish and reckless young people could be just trying to prove they are brave.\"", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x14", "title": "Third from the Sun", "date": "1960-01-08", "description": "With an atomic war on the horizon, a scientist and his co-worker plot to board their families on a spaceship and escape to another planet.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Richard Matheson, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed the efforts of Bill and Jerry to escape together with their families from a planet on which a nuclear war was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Eve Sturka. Jerry and Ann Riden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Jerry marveled at the notion that there were people just like them on the world where they were headed, which, in a surprise twist, turned out to be Earth. So from Bill and Jerry's point of view the people of Earth were aliens, while from the viewer's point of view Bill and Jerry were the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the trepidation expressed by the two families as they planned to leave their doomed world behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a lead up to two nations gearing up to H-bomb each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man named Parkinson was admitted to a government facility for some purpose related to chemical warfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man named Mills was admitted to a government facility for some purpose related to germ warfare research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carling emphasized that it was imperative that their nation launch a nuclear strike on an enemy state, before the enemy state launched just such an attack on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and his teenage daughter Jody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill's daughter in particular asked him why everyone felt so afraid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists safely escape their doomed planet in a stereotypical flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists set out for a planet 11 million miles away in another solar system. The planet turned out to be Earth. Here the general theme \"space travel\" is used owing to the inconsistency that 11 million miles is too short a distance to land them in another solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill lamented that our inventions ended up being used for war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x16", "title": "The Ikon of Elijah", "date": "1960-01-10", "description": "Antiques dealer Carpius visits a monastery in order to steal a valuable icon. When Carpius kills the monk who is guarding the icon, the abbot forgives him, but says that he must stay with the icon for the rest of his life, praying for absolution.\n\nDirected by: Paul Almond. Story by: Avram Davidson, Norah Perez & Victor Wolfson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story somewhat concerned Carpius and the avaricious woman he kept. The theft and murder he ended up committing were arguably because of her avarice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carpius plotted to steal a holy icon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story was that Carpius ended locked up for life in a monastery because he'd killed a monk who was the guardian the Ikon of Elijah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were several monks, and an abbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Carpius being locked in a cell for the remainder of his earthly existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set in a Christian monastery. The prophet Elijah was discussed in an Orthodox Christian context.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monasticism", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a Christian monk and a monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was poking around in and old tomb with a spade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interest in antiques", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carpius' customers were seen to be somewhat interested in his curious old artifacts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carpius' female companion was notably avaricious and made clear that she would leave him unless he started pulling in more riches for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vow of silence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brother Constantin spoke not a syllable owing to his having taken this vow.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x15", "title": "I Shot an Arrow into the Air", "date": "1960-01-15", "description": "Astronauts are deserted on what appears to be an uncharted asteroid.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Madelon Champion, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a trio of astronauts who were stranded without much in the way of supplies on what they presumed to be a barren asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless character vs. selfish character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Donlin did everything he could to maximize his crew's chances of survival, whereas Officer Corey was only concerned with saving himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a trio of astronauts who were stranded without much in the way of supplies on what they presumed to be a barren asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Officer Corey was justified in killing the other two surviving crewmen of the Arrow 1 in an effort to survive on a barren asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Corey was only concerned with saving himself, and turned on his fellow crewmen at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corey ruthlessly emphasized that it was each man for himself, contraposed with Donlin and Pearson who wanted to show cooperation and compassion. The astronauts were like a society of three people in this respect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "First Corey killed for water only to find that his bullet had spilled the extra water; then thinking himself safely alone on an asteroid Corey killed his comrades and made off with their water only to find that they had been on Earth all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donlin struggled to hold his team together despite the hopelessness of the situation and Corey's insubordination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with the Arrow 1 rocketship taking off for space with its eight member crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable asteroid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arrow 1 crewmen presumed themselves to have crash landed on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Corey begged his two deceased fellow crewmen for forgiveness upon discovering that they had crash landed in a Nevada desert, rather than on an unknown asteroid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x16", "title": "The Hitch-Hiker", "date": "1960-01-22", "description": "A woman driving cross-country keeps seeing a hitchhiker everywhere she goes.\n\nDirected by: Alvin Ganzer. Story by: Lucille Fletcher, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nan's bad driving had lead to her untimely demise, we learned, and we saw several examples of it too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Nan had been a ghost all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the hitchhiker was in fact the Grim Reaper (or some other sort of agent meant to escort Nan to the afterlife).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nan believed a mysterious hitch-hiker was following her for some undoubtedly nefarious purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nan thought she was fleeing a hitch-hiker bent on murder, only to find out that she was in fact already dead and running from her escort to the ever-after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nan may have been a ghost of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nan didn't want to be alone on the highway and practically begged the sailor to stay with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nan didn't want to be alone on the highway and practically begged the sailor to stay with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sailor advised Nan that what she really needed was a good night's sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Nan came to accept that she was a ghost of some sort, cast aside her fears, and boldly picked up the hitchhiking Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nan had to entertain the question of whether she ought pick up the strange hitch-hiker or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hitch-hiking sailor came to realize that he had been at the mercy of a rather crazed female driver, and opted to skedaddle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x17", "title": "The Cure", "date": "1960-01-24", "description": "When Jeff Jensen is non-fatally attacked by his wife, Marie, he assumes that Marie is suffering from tropical fever that affects the brain. Jeff arranges for his friend Mike and native manservant Luiz to take Marie to a shrink. Mike and Marie are having an affair and attempt to kill Luiz; Luiz kills Mike and follows Jeff's orders to the letter by sending Marie to a native \"head doctor\" who shrinks her head.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Robert Bloch, Michael Pertwee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff was deeply distressed in the wake of his wife, Marie, having violently attacked him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Marie was having an affair with Mike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was driven by the idea that Marie had some unspecified illness of the mind (maybe fever induced) that made her try to kill her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luiz was Jeff's loyal manservant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff beloved his wife, Marie, but she couldn't wait to get away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike was carrying on with his friend Jeff's wife, Marie, behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie made a failed bid to kill her husband Jeff to open the story. Marie and Mike schemed to knock off Luiz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke wistfully of reviving the practice of human sacrifice in Ancient Aztec tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Aztec mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spoke wistfully of reviving the practice of human sacrifice in Ancient Aztec tradition. He also mentioned evil spirits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie tried to kill her husband Jeff.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x17", "title": "The Fever", "date": "1960-01-29", "description": "A man whose wife won them tickets to Las Vegas gets addicted to gambling, courtesy of a slot machine that calls his name.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin obsessively gambled away all his money trying to winning a $10,000 jackpot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Franklin and Flora Gibbs on a three day and two night trip to Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin obsessively gambled away all his money trying to winning a $10,000 jackpot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin gradually lost his mind so that by the end of things he was hallucinating about a slot machine coming to get him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man (Franklin) who was morally outraged by gambling became a problem gambler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flora coped with Franklin being a real stick in the mud at the start of of vacation in Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin admonished his wife for wasting a nickel on a slot machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken man was falling all over himself on Franklin in the casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin briefly resisted the impulse to return to the casino floor to gamble away the handful of coins he had won.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin went delusional after not having slept for over 24 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin was gambling at a casino.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x18", "title": "Backward, Turn Backward", "date": "1960-01-31", "description": "Phil Canby (is accused of murdering Matt Thompson during an argument over 59-year-old Canby's romantic relationship with Matt's teenage daughter Sue. Canby's alibi is that he was babysitting his grandson, but a neighbor insists that she heard hysterical crying around the time of the murder. When Canby is arrested, Sue has a manic fit and begins crying, revealing that she is the one who killed her father.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned 59-year-old Canby and his intention to marry the late Matt's 19-year-old daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the murder of Matt and a sheriff's attempts to solve the crime. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock was hammering out a rock he intended to chain someone's feet to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The 59-year-old Canby's romantic relationship with the 19-year-old Sue was not accepted by society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed in the end that Sue had murder her father, Matt, for carrying on with a 59-year-old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Sheriff Willets while he interviewed suspects in a murder case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "WThe viewer learns that Matt was upset about his teenage daughter being romantically involved with a 59-year-old man. The viewer also learns that he had raised her alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 59-year-old Canby's courting of a 19-year-old girl had caused something of a stir in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer learns that Matt refused to accept his young daughter, Sue, carrying on with a 59-year-old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock tried his hand at sculpting in stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christian funeral was held for Matt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christian funeral was held for Matt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt's daughter threw a fit and it was said that she would be institutionalized.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)", "title": "The Amazing Transparent Man", "date": "1960-02", "description": "An insane ex–U.S. Army major uses an escaped criminal to steal materials to improve the invisibility machine his scientist prisoner made.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Transparent_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maj. Paul Krenner plotted to conquer the world with an army of invisible soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Ulof invisibility ray was used to make Joey Faust invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey Faust became invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maj. Paul Krenner kept Ulof's daughter captive in order to secure his cooperation. Joey Faust had a daughter that he wasn't allowed to see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulof died of radiation poisoning after experimenting with radioactive nuclear materials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Ulof worked on perfecting an invisibility machine in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Ulof confessed to have performed medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners in World War II.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Visit to a Small Planet (1960)", "title": "Visit to a Small Planet", "date": "1960-02-04", "description": "An alien from the planet X-47 who is fascinated by human beings visits Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visit_to_a_Small_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kreton, a being from a race of aliens that moved beyond the need to reproduce and experience emotions, traveled to Earth and fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen Spelding had romantic feelings for both Conrad and Kreton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen Spelding had romantic feelings for both Conrad and Kreton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreton flew to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreton's arrival on Earth caused a flying saucer scare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger Putnam Spelding and Ellen Spelding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreton flew to Earth from another galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreton could read the minds of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreton manifested psychokinetic abilities to much comic effect and taught Ellen to use her mind to move things in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The emotionlesss alien Kreton experienced various human emotions, including jealousy when he got into a rivalry with Conrad over Ellen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: La Dolce Vita (1960)", "title": "La Dolce Vita", "date": "1960-02-05", "description": "La Dolce Vita (Italian pronunciation: ; Italian for \"the sweet life\" or \"the good life\") is a 1960 Italian drama film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the \"sweet life\" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. The film was a massive box office hit in Europe with 13,617,148 admissions in Italy and 2,956,094 admissions in France.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Dolce_Vita" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "hordes of photographers pursued famous stars. Wikipedia notes that \"cafe culture\" was the overarching theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello and Emma, Sylvia and Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello cheated on his fiancée by sleeping with Maddalena and then courted the loose Swedish actress Sylvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello, Emma, Sylvia, Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "hordes of photographers pursued famous stars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "hordes of photographers pursued famous stars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello didn't like his cheap job as a journalist and contemplated being a writer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello was depressed with his meaningless life and wanted something more", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello romanced many different women and could not stay faithful to his partner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were several sexed up male characters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maddelena picked up a prostitute in episode 1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christian beliefs appeared from time to time. For example there was a big gathering around a miracle tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was some sort of a miracle tree too which people prayed for miracles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello met with his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "age related comments about Marcellos father were made", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a séance in episode 6", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maddelena attempted; Steiner did", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x18", "title": "The Last Flight", "date": "1960-02-05", "description": "A British World War I fighter pilot flies through a strange cloud and lands his biplane on a modern-day American airbase.\n\nDirected by: William F. Claxton. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cowardice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Decker described all the cowardly tactics he employed to avoid getting shot down by the Germans. He was moreover ashamed to face his fellow squadron member Mackaye because he has left Mackaye to face seven German planes on his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Decker scolded himself for being a coward, the took himself by the scruff and flew off to become a war hero by saving Mackaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "World War I fighter pilot Decker was transported 42 years into the future to the year 1959 after flying through a strange cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The World War I pilot Decker was transported bout 40 years into the future after flying through a strange cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Decker when he told them he was from the year 1917.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story unfolds on an American Air Force base in France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker ended up giving his life to saved his compatriot Mackaye from getting shot down by the Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker, who was a fighter pilot from 1917, was astonished at the advances in aviation technology that had been had by the year 1959.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A World War I fighter pilot found himself in the year 1959 after flying through a strange cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Mackaye distinguished himself for his heroics during the Blitz of London.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x19", "title": "Not the Running Type", "date": "1960-02-07", "description": "Mild-mannered Milton Potter steals $200,000 from his place of work and surrenders to the police. After 12 years in prison, Potter is released and returns the money to the police, ending his parole. However, Potter has earned $150,000 from investing the stolen money, and uses the profits to travel the world in luxury.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Henry Slesar, Jerry Sohl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Milton embezzled $200,000 from his place of work as part of an elaborate plot to ensure he'd spend his golden years traveling the world in luxury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Milton desired to live an easy life and stole $200,000 from his workplace to make it a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Milton aspired to travel the world and stole $200,000 from his workplace to make it a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two police captains worked on Milton's embezzlement case with marked interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milton embezzled $200,000 from his place of work as part of an elaborate plot to turn his dream of traveling the world into a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fingerprinting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator highlighted this tool of forensic science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator spoke in glowing terms of such forensic science techniques as lie detector tests and ballistics tests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton expressed remorse over having stolen $200,000 from his place of work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cruise ship passenger asked Milton how he could afford to have retired with \"the way taxes are today\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compound interest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton told a fellow cruise ship passenger that he'd made $150,000 in interest over 12 years from a principal of $200,000 in no small part owing to the interest compounding over time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police officers described what prison would be like for Milton. Later, Milton described what prison had been like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton described the temptation he had been unable to resist while handling all that company money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton's employer went on at length about his thoughts on Milton.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x19", "title": "The Purple Testament", "date": "1960-02-12", "description": "An Army lieutenant serving in World War II has the ability to see who will die.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fitz was suddenly able to see on people's faces that they would soon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fitz was suddenly able to see on people's faces that they would soon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitz tried to tell various disbelieving comrades about his newfound ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the daily lives of soldiers deployed in hostile territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitz and Captain Riker were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a U.S. Army infantry platoon that was clearing out the Imperial Japanese Army from a Philippine island in the year 1945.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz grieved losing his friend Captain Riker to a sniper's bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz grieved for various soldiers he didn't really know personally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz deduced what would happen as he rode off with a driver on whose face imminent death was inscribed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x20", "title": "The Day of the Bullet", "date": "1960-02-14", "description": "Young best friends Iggy and Clete witness mobster Mr. Rose beating up a frightened man. Iggy insists on reporting the incident to the police, but is heartbroken when the police refuse to take him seriously, and his father is too frightened to stand up for him. 35 years later, Iggy has become a mobster himself, and Clete sees a newspaper article of his death by gunshot.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the once bright eyed and law abiding Iggy had become a gangster after getting disillusioned as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The various criminals in the story are understood to be mobsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iggy and Clete were crestfallen when the police wouldn't take their testimony seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two mobsters beat up a man they said had double crossed them. Iggy and Clete tried to report this crime, but the police wouldn't have it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iggy and Clete were two kids playing as kids do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iggy and Clete were childhood chums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "As a child, Iggy had a noted interest in turning a dime. We understand that receiving a whooping $10 from Mr. Rose may have been the turning point that set Iggy on the path of crime, where many years later he was shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iggy had a noted interest in turning a dime. We understand that receiving a whooping $10 from Mr. Rose may have been the turning point that set Iggy on the path of crime, where many years later he was shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be a used car salesman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iggy coveted a putter. Later the kids went fishing for golf balls to make a few dimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iggy's old man Mr. Kovacs had been playing a pickup baseball game at the local park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Kovacs and Iggy. Iggy felt betrayed by his old man who wouldn't stand up for Iggy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iggy and Clete debated whether to help the mauled man. Later they debated whether to tell the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When the two policemen heard Mr. Rose's name they changed their demeanor quickly. They told the boys to keep their mouths shut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gangster Mr. Rose admitted to being a bootlegger to a man he was roughing up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x20", "title": "Elegy", "date": "1960-02-19", "description": "In the late 22nd century, astronauts land on an asteroid resembling Earth, but its inhabitants appear motionless.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "kill all humans utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Wickwire explained that peace and tranquility could only be achieved by the removal of humans from the picture (why the poor dog was embalmed remains unexplained).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Wickwire turned out to be a very human-like machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The end narration explained that the men wanted only to be on their ship heading for home; this wish was granted in that they were embalmed and placed in their ship as if heading home eternally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers from Mr. Wickwire's statements that the moral of the story is that there will be no peace on Earth so long as people are living on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts spoke of a nuclear war in 1985 that destroyed most of Earth's surface and took humanity 200 years to recover from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts landed their futuristic rocketship on a habitable asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts had navigated to a binary star system all the way from Earth. Note that while they claimed to have traveled only 655 million miles, roughly the distance from Earth to Jupiter, they must have been outside the solar system, as they observed two suns in the sky above where they landed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable asteroid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts landed their futuristic rocketship on a habitable asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts noticed two suns overhead after landing on a habitable asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men told Mr. Wickwire they wished to be aboard their ship heading for home. Mr. Wickwire then embalmed and placed in their ship as if heading home, for all eternity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x21", "title": "Hitch Hike", "date": "1960-02-21", "description": "Charles Underhill and his niece Anne pick up teenager Len as a hitchhiker. Underhill learns that Len is a juvenile delinquent and, believing that Len is going to hurt him, speeds to get the attention of a police officer. Len is revealed to be unarmed, and Underhill receives a ticket instead. Underhill is distressed at destroying his crime-free record, but Len pickpockets the officer's book, saving him.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Ed Lacy, Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the troubled relationship between Charles and his juvenile delinquent niece, Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne's uncle Charles was her legal guardian and was concerned about her good standing in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne was a stereotypical troubled teen, and had been sentenced to probation over her role in stealing a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers from the cultural backdrop of the time that the juvenile delinquent Anne and the nonconformist young hitchhiker Len represented a larger challenge to the prevailing social order, as represented by the law-abiding older man Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was an old stick-in-the-mud and Len a young, rebellious man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock commented on some workers who were picketing for extra hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story picks up shortly after Anne had been sentenced to probation over having stolen a car. Len pickpocketed the police officer's ticket book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Len praised the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne and Len shared an interest in the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was issued a speeding ticket by a motorcycle cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was issued a speeding ticket for going 80 mph in a 40 mph zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles told Anne not to run away like she had done some other time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "picking up a hitchhiker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Anne picked up the hitchhiker, Len.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles commented on how girls like Anne instantly fall for the rowdiest delinquents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Len commented on how old \"insiders\" like Charles are conservative and opposed to young \"outsiders\" like Len and Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles feared for his life after he thought Len had made veiled threats about killing him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: First Spaceship on Venus (1960)", "title": "First Spaceship on Venus", "date": "1960-02-26", "description": "After finding an ancient, long-buried flight recorder that originally came from a spaceship, apparently from Venus, a human spaceship is dispatched. The crew discovers a long-dead Venusian civilization that had constructed a device intended to destroy all life on the Earth prior to invasion. Before they could execute their plan, they perished in a global nuclear war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spaceship_on_Venus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mission to Venus discovered evidence of a long-dead civilization there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international crew went on a harrowing voyage to the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A long-dead Venusian civilization that had constructed a device intended to destroy all life on the Earth prior to invasion. Before they could execute their plan, they perished in a global nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A long-dead Venusian civilization that had constructed a device intended to destroy all life on the Earth prior to invasion. Before they could execute their plan, they perished in a global nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor, upon his return to Earth, explained how Venusian science went beyond the Venusian's ability to control it and that they were destroyed by their machines as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a space station, called Lunar 3, on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cosmostrator experienced what it was like to float around on the flight to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cosmostrator used artificial gravity to keep the crew members from floating around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cosmostrator crew brought along a small robot helper, called Omega, that could talk and play chess and moved about on treads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Cosmostrator crew member complained about how heavy his spacesuit was while on the Venusian surface.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x21", "title": "Mirror Image", "date": "1960-02-26", "description": "A woman in a bus depot is treated by strangers as if they have seen her before and soon realizes that she has a doppelgänger.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Millicent speculated that her mirror self was from a \"parallel planet\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Millicent encountering her doppelgänger at a bus depot on a rainy November night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Millicent encountered her doppelgänger at a bus depot on a rainy November night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Millicent thought something must be wrong with her mind - as did those she spoke to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul missed delayed his own trip in order to help Millicent, then called the cops to escort her to the loony bin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul refused to believe in Millicent and betrayed her to the authorities; then he began experiencing the same madness that she had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Millicent initially attributed seeing her double sitting on a bench to having under slept.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x22", "title": "Across the Threshold", "date": "1960-02-28", "description": "Hubert learns that his controlling mother Sofie has been thinking of taking poison to join her late husband, Arthur. Hubert has his girlfriend Irma pretend to be a medium and convince Sofie that Arthur is lonely. Hubert expects Sofie to take the poison alone, but she secretly poisons his drink as well.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: L. B. Gordon, Charlotte Armstrong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "séance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sofie was tricked into thinking that she was communicating with her deceased husband in a series of séances. Irma pretended to be a medium and held a séance so that Sofie might communicate with her deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hubert hatched an elaborate plan to rid himself of his controlling mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hubert took criminal measures to get his controlling mother, Sofie, out of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sofie hadn't gotten over the passing of her beloved husband, Arthur, and resolved to poison herself in an effort to hasten their reunion in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hubert convinced his girlfriend, Irma, to pretend to be a medium as part of a nefarious plot to manipulate his mother into poisoning herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sofie resolved to imbibe a glass containing a lethal dose of her late husband's medicine, thinking that she'd join her husband in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hubert went to elaborate lengths to manipulate his elderly mother into taking her own life by drinking poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hubert went to elaborate lengths to manipulate his elderly mother into taking her own life by drinking poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hubert was so avaricious for his inheritance that he sought to hurry his mother's demise along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sofie was almost obsessed with thoughts about her late husband and his presumed afterlife existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were Sofie's firm convictions about the ever-after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hubert ended up himself imbibing a lethal dose of the poison that he had intended his mother to meet her demise by.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irma, posing as a medium, remarked on ancient Egyptian royalty's habit of marrying brothers to sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubert and Irma proclaimed their love for one another. Arthur seemingly proclaimed his love for Sofie to her from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sofie took steps to ensure that her per canary would be provided for after her death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x22", "title": "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "date": "1960-03-04", "description": "A power failure causes the residents of a suburban neighborhood to suspect one another of being monsters from outer space planning an invasion.\n\nDirected by: Ronald Winston. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people of Maple Street gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought an alien monster was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Maple Street community descended into violent anarchy when they thought an alien monster was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The end narration made it clear that this story was a commentary on how we humans rapidly turn on each other in times of trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to conquer Earth by clandestinely instigating us to attack each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maple Street inhabitants quickly became convinced that one family or another must be aliens masquerading as people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the unknown", "level": "major", "motivation": "Catastrophe ensued on Maple Street because people feared that which they could not explain and turned on each other for scapegoats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of neighbors who must make sense of a mysterious power outage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the stupidity of crowds", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maple Street residents gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought an alien monster was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Les explained that he stargzed in early mornings because he suffered from insomnia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amateur radio", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was incriminated by the ham radio set he had been ill-advisedly playing with in his basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two aliens came to Earth to insight a riot on Maple Street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens departed Earth in a standard issue 1950s style flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x23", "title": "Craig's Will", "date": "1960-03-06", "description": "Thomas Craig is disappointed when his late uncle leaves his fortune to his dog Casper. Thomas' girlfriend Judy tries to have Casper killed, but fails repeatedly. Judy concludes that the only way to get the Craig fortune is to marry Casper herself.\n\nDirected by: Gene Reynolds. Story by: Valerie Dyke, Burt Styler & Albert E. Lewin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gold digging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "he narrator and central actor, Judy, described how she lusted to be rich. The story turned on Judy's efforts to marry Thomas and ultimately get her hands on the fortune he was due to inherit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the relationship between the dog Caspar and his various masters, and also it was made clear that his recently deceased former owner was quite fond him, as he'd left the dog $800,000 in his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy was pressuring her fiancée Thomas to kill the dog under his care, because he stood to inherit $800,000 as just soon as it died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas and Judy, greedy for their uncle's inheritance, plotted to remove the dog which is their last remaining obstacle to the bequeathed fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas' fiancée Judy called him out for not having the heart to do away with the friendly dog Caspar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy was being questioned by a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy pretended to go hunting for game in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas felt conflicted over killing a friendly dog in order to get his $800,000 inheritance. In the end, he decided that he couldn't do the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas pointedly decided that he wouldn't kill his dog Caspar even if it meant he'd need to wait until it died a natural death for him to obtain his inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end that Judy may have been under the delusion that she was a dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noonan was himself poisoned by the very ant poison marinated filet mignon he had intended for Casper the companionable mutt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x23", "title": "A World of Difference", "date": "1960-03-11", "description": "A businessman finds himself in another life as an actor playing a character in a movie.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arthur Curtis was severely disquieted when he suddenly found himself in a studio full of people who insisted that he was Gerry Raigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arthur Curtis suddenly found himself in the cruel and alien world of Gerry Raigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that Gerry Raigan fell under the delusion that he was actually the happy character he was playing in a film in order to escape from his unpleasant life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is largely set at a film shoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur and his loving story-wife Marian. Gerry and his \"harpy\" of an ex-wife Nora. Note that while Gerry and Nora were technically divorced they were still quarreling over money as if they were going through a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody believed Arthur when he insisted that he was not Gerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry had recently divorced his wife and was now paying her alimony he could ill afford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry was scolded for being something of a boozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry's agent thought that Gerry was having a nervous breakdown.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Breathless (1960)", "title": "Breathless", "date": "1960-03-16", "description": "Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; \"out of breath\") is a 1960 French crime and drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a wandering criminal (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his American girlfriend (Jean Seberg). It was Godard's first feature-length work and represented Belmondo's breakthrough as an actor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathless_(1960_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The otherwise petty criminal Michel killed a police officer and was thenceforth on the run from the long arm of the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Patricia and Michel deliberate with themselves on whether and how they loved each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patricia and Michel were like a couple for the duration of the film", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michal was on the lam from the police", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michel was a professional car thief, and not above lifting money from unguarded purses either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patricia had a personal ethical dilemma regarding whether to betray her lover Michel to the police after the police had threatened her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michel exploited his women for money, and possible Patricia exploited her men for other reasons", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x24", "title": "Long Live Walter Jameson", "date": "1960-03-18", "description": "A history professor is revealed to have lived for thousands of years.\n\nDirected by: Anton Leader. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter was fed up with seeing his loved ones age and die after 2000 years of immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter 2000 years ago. Sam wanted desperately to learn Walter's secret for immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a 2000 year old man name Walter and must ponder what it would be like to be him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam lamented aging and was afraid of dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam kept his 30 year old daughter on a short leash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter and Susanna intended to tie the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female education", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Unusually for the time, Sam insisted on his daughter doing a PhD (although she herself seemed lukewarm about the endeavor).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter's estranged wife showed up to impede his new marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter had contemplated killing himself but maintained that he was too much of a coward to follow through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter gave a lecture on this war, and it turned out that he had also served in it under the name Hugh Skelton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal Walter told Sam that although he wished to die, he was too cowardly to kill himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Walter aged 2000 years in a matter of moments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x25", "title": "People Are Alike All Over", "date": "1960-03-25", "description": "Two astronauts take an expedition to Mars, where one dies in a crash landing and the other learns how alike people really are.\n\nDirected by: Mitchell Leisen. Story by: Paul Fairman, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The moral of the story was spelled out as: \"people are the same everywhere\" while emphasizing that we all have ugly character flaws, foremost xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Conrad feared what people he would find on Mars; his fears were allayed by their hospitality but then justified when he was put behind bars because the Martians, in turn, feared primitive human savagery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Conrad placed in an alien zoo, and must ponder what that'd feel like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Conrad and Marcusson went to visit the Red Planet's inhabitants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians built a house for Conrad to observe him in his native habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Conrad discovered that had mistook the Martians for being friendly when in reality they were preparing for him to be exhibited in a zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists arrived on Mars in a regular rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conrad and Marcusson went on a mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used telepathy to communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used telepathy to communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians read information from Conrad's mind in order to build him a house that he would feel at home inside.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x24", "title": "Madame Mystery", "date": "1960-03-27", "description": "When aged movie star Betsy Blake dies in a boat accident, young Hollywood PR man Jimmy Dolan exploits her death to create a massive publicity campaign and advance his career. Three months later Betsy returns, alive and ready to take advantage of her new \"legend\", but Jimmy, distraught at having his success overshadowed, kills her. It is then revealed that Betsy was Jimmy's mother.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Robert Bloch, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jimmy was not above exploiting what turned out to be his mother's own death to advance his career in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy was trying to make a name for himself in the Hollywood publicity racket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on Jimmy killing his own movie star mother Betsy in an effort to get out from under she shadow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Betsy turned out to be Jimmy's own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy Blake was a celebrity and Jimmy exploited her death to create publicity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy thought his mother, Betsy Blake, was dead and exploited this fact to his advantage. When she turned up quite alive, Jimmy was upset.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock waxed whimsically about creating \"credit cards\" that looked just like US paper currency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven was at his typewriter working on a novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betsy was a cantankerous drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Jimmy sending some attractive dimwit off to wait for him in his flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy said something about being Betsy Blake's astrologer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven was reluctant at first, but $300 persuaded him to participate in Jimmy's unethical PR stunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy longer to get out from under his movie star mother's shadow.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x26", "title": "Execution", "date": "1960-04-01", "description": "An outlaw cowboy about to be hanged for murder in 1880 is brought to 1960 by a time machine built by a professor.\n\nDirected by: David Orrick McDearmon. Story by: George Clayton Johnson, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderous outlaw Joe Caswell was transported from a 19th century noose to a 20th century laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Manion reached back 80 years into the past and pulled a hanging man into his own time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The judge told Caswell it was just for him to be hanged for murder at the opening of the story. Professor Manion and Caswell debated the meaning of justice. Fate saw that a form of justice was mediated, as Paul strangled the condemned murdered Joe, and then Paul was executed in Joe's place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caswell was perplexed by all things modern in 20th century New York City: the carriages without horses, the blinking lights, television, and above all the ceaseless noise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul strangled Caswell only to be hanged in Caswell's place. Caswell escaped the noose in the 19th century only to be strangled by another criminal in the 20th.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caswell was abortively hanged for having shot a young man dead. Caswell was garroted by Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A victim's father was watching the hanging with anticipation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x25", "title": "The Little Man Who Was There", "date": "1960-04-03", "description": "Newcomers Jamie and Ben McMahon have civilized the unruly community of Copperpocket and gained everyone's respect. One night a mysterious man shows seemingly demonic powers to defeat the brothers, and takes everyone's money. However, it was a con, performed by the man and the brothers together.\n\nDirected by: George Stevens, Jr. Story by: Gordon Russell & Larry Ward.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a trio of swindlers who hoodwinked the credulous residents of an Old West mining town into thinking one of them is the Devil incarnate as part of an elaborate ruse to make off with everyone's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the saloon of an Old West mining town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The miners were tricked into believing that the mysterious visitor to their town was a minion of Satan (or perhaps even the Devil incarnate).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two brothers Jamie and Ben McMahon preached a message of brotherly love to the gullible residents of an Old West mining town as part of an elaborate ruse to make off with all their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Golden Rule", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two preacher brothers came to the mining town preaching a message of loving thy neighbor. And Jamie reminded two quarreling saloon patrons about this rule by name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie won a big payout of coins from the saloon's one-armed bandit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "turn the other cheek", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger quoted this expression when he mocked Jamie for backing down from their confrontation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger goaded Jamie into a fight by calling Jamie a coward straight to his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brothers Jamie and Ben spread a message of Christian love among the residents of Copperpocket. The self-styled preacher Ben quoted this phrase from the Book of James: \"Blessed is the man who endured temptation\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two quarreling saloon patrons nearly got into a scrap because each wanted to pay for the other's drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender spoke about brotherly love, but mystery man said it was intimidation by threat of violence that had pacified the town.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x27", "title": "The Big Tall Wish", "date": "1960-04-08", "description": "A boy makes a wish for a boxer to win a comeback match.\n\nDirected by: Ronald Winston. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry warned Bolie that the only way that Henry's wish that Bolie had won the boxing match would stay granted is if Bolie truly believed it. But Bolie could not find it in himself to believe in such wacky things as that and so he ended up on the losing end of the fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "realist vs. idealist", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry was a dreamer who believed in magic, while Bolie was a cynic who thought there was no such thing as magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was a blue-eyed youngster, and Bolie a washed-up cynic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bolie was reflecting on his miserable life and pitiful place in a cruel uncaring world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Bolie and his professional boxing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry had the magic power of making true wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bolie was a washed up boxer who was looking forward to a comeback fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frances and little Henry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Secret of the Telegian (1960)", "title": "The Secret of the Telegian", "date": "1960-04-10", "description": "A murderous madman seeking vengeance over a past misdeed kills his victims with the aid of a teleportation device.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Telegian" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corporal Tsudo was hellbent on murdering the members of a group of former military men who had betrayed and stabbed him 14 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corporal Tsudo used a teleportation device, invented by Dr. Kajuro Nikki, to help him hunt down his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three conspirators assigned to help protect Dr. Kajuro Nikki's top secret experiments in creating electronic weaponry resolved to throw out the doctor's experiment and fill the crates with stolen gold bars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x26", "title": "Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?", "date": "1960-04-10", "description": "John has an unnaturally close relationship with his mother, Claire, which worries John's new lover Lottie. Lottie suggests taking Claire to their favorite spot by a waterfall; John understands this as Lottie's suggestion that they kill Claire, but John pushes Lottie off the cliff instead.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Q. Patrick, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John had an unusually close relationship with his mother and in the end he had to choose between her and his fiancée, Lottie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "John quickly proposed to his new lover Lottie and they resolved to tie the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "John thought Lottie meant for him to push his mother off a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was mighty upset that his lover Lottie didn't like his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John pushed his lover Lottie off a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child unhealthily attached to a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "John had a borderline pathologically close relationship with his mother, Claire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire tried to protect her son John from his new lover Lottie, who Claire maintained was a manhunting foreigner who wanted marriage in order to obtain citizenship. Later she lead John home after the inquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's lover Lottie competed with John's mother Claire over John's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire became jealous when her dutiful son John found a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mother's boy John was felt forced to choose between his mother, Claire, and his new fiancée, Lottie. In the end, he was given a chance to eliminate one or both of them from his life, and elected to get rid of Lottie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "water sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock had a brief sketch about high diving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The judge ruled that Lottie's death was accidental.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lottie insisted on dancing with John, who gave in after briefly demurring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although they were not yet married, Claire spoke of how sons' lovers often don't like their partners' mothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lottie spoke of the hardship she and her family had experienced in Germany during this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire was convinced that Lottie wanted to marry John for citizenship and wealth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x28", "title": "A Nice Place to Visit", "date": "1960-04-15", "description": "A thief is shot by police and winds up in a place where he has everything he has ever wanted upon meeting a strange man named Pip.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rocky thought he was in heaven because he could have anything he liked. He soon realized that this pampered existence was rather boring and then he found out that it was, in fact, hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw the ironic afterlife punishment meted out to petty gangster Rocky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was illustrated that people, Rocky in particular, need some adversity in front of them to overcome in order to lead a fulfilling life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was illustrated that people, Rocky in particular, need some adversity in front of them to overcome in order to lead a fulfilling life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocky liked nothing so much as to gamble (unless perhaps it was sticking up banks).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocky soon realized that his excessively pampered afterlife was dull ass hell. Then he found out that it was Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rocky was initially greedy for all the winnings he could get his hands on at the afterlife casino. In addition, he made some initial plans for Pip to organize for him to commit a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valentine got millions in cash and won more wherever he went but soon realized that this did not make him happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Pip was a minion of Satan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valentine had committed all sorts of offenses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocky burgled a pawn shop under the cover of darkness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocky contemplated committing a bank robbery to alleviate his boredom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Horrors of Spider Island (1960)", "title": "Horrors of Spider Island", "date": "1960-04-16", "description": "A talent agent invites several girls to a club in Singapore, but their plane ride ends abruptly when they crash-land into the ocean. The agent and the women make their way to an island where they find a larger spider web. A giant spider sinks its teeth in the agent which turns him into a mutant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrors_of_Spider_Island" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Webster and the dancing girls ended up stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean after a plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Alice fell in love on the island. Gladys and Bobby fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Webster was attacked by a giant, mutant, venomous spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A radioactive spider bit Gary and he was transformed into a hideous mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A radioactive spider bit Gary and he was transformed into a hideous mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the dancing girls became jealous of one another over Gary until such time as he was transformed into a hideous mutant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x27", "title": "The Cuckoo Clock", "date": "1960-04-17", "description": "Ida Blythe is staying alone at her cottage while a patient has recently escaped from a nearby mental institution. A woman named Madeleine sneaks into Ida's cottage, claiming that she was followed by the patient. Madeleine's rambling scares Ida, and when a man knocks on the door to tell her about the female runaway patient, Ida opens the door. However, the man is the real patient.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Frank Mace, Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explored Ida's being in fear of an escaped mental patient who was reported to be on the loose in the vicinity of her remote cottage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to get away from it all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ida and Madeleine spoke about their respective impulses to get away from society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madeleine spoke about mental illness with some assumed authority. We then saw a supposedly insane man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ida became increasingly concerned that Madeleine, who'd barged into her cottage, was an escaped mental patient. In the end, the real escaped mental patient entered Ida's cottage and went on to terrorize her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ida Blythe's daughter Dorothy dropped her off at the cottage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ida spoke of her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy spoke of her late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madeleine spoke of how being sick made you hate and want to hurt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madeleine gave Ida a good scare and Ida then begged her to stay because Ida was afraid to be alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made it clear in the end that Ida was murdered by the mental hospital escapee.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x28", "title": "Forty Detectives Later", "date": "1960-04-24", "description": "Private investigator William Tyre is hired by Munro Dean to lure a man named Otto to a hotel room so that Dean can meet him. Dean believes that Otto killed his wife, and wants revenge. Tyre does his job, but has a change of heart and goes to the room just as Dean and Otto have shot each other. While dying, Otto admits to Tyre that he killed Dean's wife, but that he was hired by Dean to do it.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Munro wanted William to avenge Munto's wife's murder extrajudicially.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Munro Dean shooting dead his late wife's murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Munro Dean was after his late wife's murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist William Tyre was a private dick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Munro wanted William to avenge Munto's wife's murder extrajudicially.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that Munto had in fact hired Otto to knock off Munto's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "William wasn't sure whether he really ought to go along with Munro's plot to have him avenge the murder of Munro's wife for a cool $3000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock discussed the invention of the wheel, and the record player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William shared his supposed appreciation of the jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke with Otto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The record shop owner Otto talked about classic jazz with William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto spoke with his \"pain in the neck\" girl, Gloria.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x29", "title": "Nightmare as a Child", "date": "1960-04-29", "description": "A strange little girl reveals secrets about the past of a school teacher.\n\nDirected by: Alvin Ganzer. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen met a girl named Marky, and gradually came to recall that she had been that girl in her youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen/Marky had suffered amnesia after her mother was brutally slain in Helen's bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen had forgotten, or suppressed, her childhood memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen gradually recalled the events of her mother's untimely demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen's repression of the memory of having witnessed the brutal murder of her mother manifested itself as a 10 year old version of herself who only she could see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen repressed, or blacked out as it was described in the story, the memory of having witnessed the brutal murder of her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Selden had brutally murdered Helen's mother many years ago, and now he was out to murder the only witness: Helen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x29", "title": "The Hero", "date": "1960-05-01", "description": "While on a cruise ship Sir Richard Musgrave sees a former business partner, Jan Vander Klaue, whom Richard thought that he had killed years ago, but is now living under a new name. Upon learning that he was also responsible for the death of Jan's wife, Richard jumps overboard. Jan seemingly tries to save Richard, but in actuality drowns him, though he is afterward hailed as a hero for his \"attempt\".\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Henry De Vere Stacpoole, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turns out that Jan wanted revenge for his wife's untimely demise, for which he blamed Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place on a cruise ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learn that Richard had a skeleton in the closet, or so he believed: he thought he had murdered a man in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard thought he had killed a man named Jan Vander Klaue many years in the past. He was might concerned to encounter this man alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard thought he had murdered Jan in the past. Jan drowned Richard in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard's daughter bid him farewell before he embarked on an ocean cruise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Musgrave saw her husband Richard off before he embarked on an ocean cruise. Jan spoke of his late wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Musgrave chided her daughter Elizabeth for saying that a woman's place is in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old fashioned Richard considered a woman's place to be in the home, said his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan jumped into the water after Richard, and people thought he was trying to save Richard at great risk to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan was hailed as a hero for having tried to save Richard, although he had in fact drowned Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan held Richard responsible for the death of his own wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "statute of limitations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard spoke of how he was no longer liable to be prosecuted for murder owing to this statute.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x30", "title": "A Stop at Willoughby", "date": "1960-05-06", "description": "A stressed-out ad executive discovers a quiet 1880s town in his dreams that seems better than his waking life.\n\nDirected by: Robert Parrish. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gart was under such intense pressure at work that he began fantasizing about escaping to an idyllic 1880s town called Willoughby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gart was exasperated with his job and overly pushy boss to the extent that he had peculiar dreams and leapt off a train at speed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gart dreamed himself to be in an idyllic 1880s era town, called Willoughby, during his commute to work to get away from the pressures of his job and family life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was pushing Gart to the breaking point at the office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was pushing her husband Gart to continue working at a well-paying, high status job even though he was miserable there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was extremely overbearing, push-push-pushy, and critical of poor Gart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gart became sufficiently stressed out at work that he lost his mind and unwittingly stepped off a moving train to his death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x30", "title": "Insomnia", "date": "1960-05-08", "description": "Charles Cavender suffers from insomnia, caused by his fear of his brother-in- law, Jack Fletcher. Charles' wife was killed in a house fire and her brother, Jack, believes that Charles let her die. Charles confronts Jack at his apartment and, after a struggle, Jack is killed. That night Charles sleeps peacefully, and does not wake up when his heater catches aflame and burns his apartment building down.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was suffering from insomnia because he was haunted by the suspicion that his brother-in-law, Jack, was out to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack held Charles responsible for Jack's sister (Charles' wife) perishing in a house fire. According to Charles there was nothing he could do to save her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Tebaldi speculated that Charles was having trouble sleeping on account that he'd survived a house fire that's left his wife dead - a charge that Charles flat out denied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and brother-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was worried to death that his brother-in-law Jack was out to get him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was convinced that his brother-in-law Jack was out to make him pay for not having tried harder to save Jack's sister (Charles' wife) from perishing in a house fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles, who may have left his wife to died in a house fire, ultimately perished in a house fire himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "A somewhat surprised with himself Charles stated that he was able to \"sleep alright after the fire\" which took the life of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles mourned his sister Linda, who'd perished in a house fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack considered Charles to be a coward for leaving Linda behind to die in the house fire. In particular, Jack took a jab at Charles by sarcastically asking him whether he'd been awarded \"any decorations for bravery\" in the Second World War. Moreover, Charles himself might have felt like he was a coward for leaving his wife behind to die in the house fire, thus the survivor guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a seemingly one-foot-tall Alfred Hitchcock was standing on a desk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles went to see a shrink about his insomnia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Turney fired Charles for being ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was wheelchair-bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had suffered an injury in this war that left him wheel-chair bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone dangerous was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles thought the recently freed from a mental hospital Jack was out to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was summarily dismissed from his job after being out sick for the n:th time. He mentioned earlier that the same thing had happened several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had been in the war veterans hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie shot Jack dead in the midst of a struggle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x31", "title": "The Chaser", "date": "1960-05-13", "description": "A lovestruck man in love with a self-obsessed woman named Leila buys a love potion that works too well.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: John Collier, Robert Presnell, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger longed for nothing short of Leila's unconditional love, but came to regret it when he got his wish, and Leila wouldn't stop fawning over him every waking moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was initially desperately in love with Leila even though she didn't show much interest in him. But then Roger and Leila's roles became reversed after he spiked her glass of champagne with a love potion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was initially obsessed with being the object of Leila's love. But the shoe was on the other foot once he got it with the help of a love potion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor A. Daemon sold Roger a love potion for the small sum of $1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger married the love of his life Leila to his deep regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leila was exasperated with the infantile woo pitched by Roger. Later Roger was likewise exasperated by the drug induced devotion he received from Leila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "No longer able to cope with Leila's smothering affections, Roger purchased a poison for $1000 with the intention of using it on Leila, but he ultimately couldn't bring himself to go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Professor A. Daemon was not of this world. He attempted to manipulate Roger into murdering his wife and then disappeared into thin air at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "No longer able to cope with Leila's smothering affections, Roger purchased a poison for $1000 with the intention of using it on Leila, but he ultimately couldn't bring himself to go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was becoming desperate as Leila told him time after another to take a hike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leila cruelly rejected the overbearing devotion of Roger, but one tiny potion later the roles were entirely reversed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x31", "title": "I Can Take Care of Myself", "date": "1960-05-15", "description": "Bert Haber is a piano player in a club, and friends with singer Georgia. When gangster \"Little Dandy\" harasses Georgia, she pours a drink over his head, humiliating him. The next day a detective informs Bert that Georgia has been killed and questions him, discovering that Bert knows enough to have Little Dandy arrested. However, the \"detective\" is one of Little Dandy's goons, and takes Bert away.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Fred McMorrow, Thomas Grant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a nightclub piano player who finds himself in hot water with a local gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bert stood up for his stage partner and friend, Georgia, and paid the price for it in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Dandy Dorf didn't take it well when Gloria rebuffed his romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bert was informed that his fellow nightclub performer Georgia had been tormented, killed, perhaps dismembered, and dumped in an alleyway. The story ended with the implication that Bert was about to meet with a similar fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bert was upset to hear about Georgia's gruesome murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "water sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock considered taking up \"skin diving\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bert played piano at the club. Georgia sand on stage at the nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia repaid the gangster Little Dandy Dorf's unrequited amorous advances by spilling a drink over his head in front of various nightclub patrons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gangster Little Dandy Dorf evidently had Gloria killed for making a fool of him by spilling a drink over his head in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Dandy Dorf was \"a bug about his clothes\" according to his henchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to entertain that Bert's actions stemmed from jealousy over Georgia. He stepped in to protect her from Dandy's advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Little Dandy Dorf's henchmen posed as a police detective in order to trick Bert to take a ride with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x32", "title": "A Passage for Trumpet", "date": "1960-05-20", "description": "A down-and-out trumpet player gets another chance at life after attempting suicide.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The down and out trumpeter Joey Crown, who thought he was dead, got a second chance at life when the archangel Gabriel himself let Joey know that he was not dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joey got into much a dark state of mind that he tried to kill himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hapless trumpet player Joey Crown had no money, no girlfriend, and no job prospects due to alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey Crown used to play the trumpet for Tommy Dorsey but now he couldn't even get a gig at a local club due to his alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hapless trumpet player Joey Crown had no money, no girlfriend, and no job prospects due to alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey Crown and Gabe (i.e. the archangel Gabriel) were both big on playing the trumpet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey Crown assumed he was dead when nobody could see or hear him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey made a failed bid to end his life by jumping in front of an oncoming truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe hinted that he was in fact the archangel Gabriel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe offered Joey the option to stay in limbo or return among the living after Joey stepped out in front of a tuck and got whacked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Joey in limbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joey thought he was dead as nobody could hear or see him, but it transpires that it was everyone else who was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joey Crown and Nan found love at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joey Crown was making a living, albeit barely, by playing the trumpet on stage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x32", "title": "One Grave Too Many", "date": "1960-05-22", "description": "Irene and Joe Helmer are in dire financial straits. One night Joe sees a man collapse and, thinking him dead, steals his wallet. Later Joe finds a card in the man's wallet stating that the man suffered from a cataleptic illness that only looks like death. Joe goes to the police to confess and save the man, only to learn that the dead man is a pickpocket and that the wallet was stolen from someone else.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Henry Slesar, Eli Jerome.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Irene Helmer were hard up for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Irene Helmet were in dire financial straits owing to Joe being unemployed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe couldn't find a job that he felt wasn't beneath him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Irene were hard up and in desperate need of some money to pay the bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe stole a money-laden wallet from a recently dropped dead man. It was later revealed that the dead man was in fact a pickpocket who'd stolen the wallet from someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ethical dilemma at the heart of this story was weather Joe should risk his own liberty by going to the police with the information that the dead man he lifted a wallet from was not really dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock was on the golf course in a horse drawn chariot in lieu of a motorized cart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe admitted to the police to having taken the wallet from an apparently dead man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe thought twice before taking a wallet from a seemingly dead man because he need to pay the bills and was out of work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "big banking in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Was saw a nefarious usurious banker refuse to give Joe money. Later Joe complained that \"they don't give you money unless you can prove you don't need it\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x33", "title": "Party Line", "date": "1960-05-29", "description": "Helen Parch enjoys abusing the party line. One day she is warned by policeman Mr. Atkins that a man named Heywood Miller escaped prison and may come after her. Years ago, Helen refused to let Heywood use the party line to call the doctor, which led to the death of Miller's wife. That night Heywood breaks into Helen's house, and when she tries to call the sheriff's office, the party line is busy.\n\nDirected by: Hilton A. Green. Story by: Henry Slesar, Eli Jerome.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot hinged on the fact that Heywood Miller was after Helen whom he blamed for his late wife's untimely demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "After causing the death of Miller's wife by refusing to let him use the party line, six years later Helen found herself in a desperate situation and unable to call for help because someone hogged the party line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen picked up the party line and heard two other women backtalk her much like she herself had back talked others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how people can get into conflict when sharing a common resource: in this case a party telephone line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen haughtily explained to Heywood how to behave on the party line. In general, the story was about how people are supposed to behave on a party telephone line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an intransigent person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The party line people, especially Miller, were dealing with their judgemental, domineering, and single-minded neighbor Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone dangerous was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was terrified at the realization that Miller was out to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to use a machine to travel forwards in time to 1975, but rapidly retreated when he got a notice from the IRS.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock quipped about owing income taxes and having IRS pester him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Atkins spoke to Helen about the man that was coming to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen overheard a man use the party line to gamble on the races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Miller had taken to his old ways and started committing burglary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Atkins explained how people in prison habitually nurtured grudges and plotted vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen spoke of her estranged sister in Cedar Falls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen was home alone and feared a murderous man was coming for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen and her pooch Nero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing monologue, Alfred Hitchcock spelled out that Heywood had gone through with murdering Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen was an incessant chatterbox on the party line.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 12 to the Moon (1960)", "title": "12 to the Moon", "date": "1960-06", "description": "A team of twelve astronauts from countries all over the world embark on a mission to the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_to_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of twelve astronauts embarked on humanity's first a flight to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world were united by the International Space Order and a desire to land on the Moon. The Moon was claimed on behalf of all nations in order to prevent future international disputes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts encountered unfriendly inhabitants on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts blasted off to the Moon in an enormous atomic powered rocker ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sonic shower", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocket ship was equipped with ultrasonic showers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David resented Erich because Erich's father was the Nazi responsible for murdering David's family during the Holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Selim Hamid and Sigrid Bomark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon people communicated by thought waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon people lived in a city under the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erich felt guilty over the role his father played in the Holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew flew to the Moon in an atomic powered rocketship and then detonated an atomic bomb on the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Erich sacrificed themselves detonating an atomic to save the rest of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon inhabitants put the people of Earth into suspended animation for 60 hours.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x33", "title": "Mr. Bevis", "date": "1960-06-03", "description": "A guardian angel offers to help a good-natured man who is having a bad day.\n\nDirected by: William Asher. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with having a bad day", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was one of those days for Mr. Bevis where everything that could go wrong did: he lost his job, car, and home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis' guardian angel showed up out of nowhere to give him a helping hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis was granted the opportunity to redo his epic bad day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Mr. Bevis embrace his new life in a monkey suit or should he return to life as his eccentric, but penniless self?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis faced a stark choice about getting a leg up in the business world, but loosing his various playmates in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis first resolved to better himself by conforming to society, as the guardian angel wanted, but realized that he'd rather be destitute and carefree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis first resolved to better himself by conforming to society, as the guardian angel wanted, but realized that he'd rather be destitute and carefree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis' guardian angel have him a helping hand when he was having a bad day for the ages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sacked and evicted, Mr. Bevis' life was about to change radically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story seemed to be to demonstrate that Mr. Bevis was quite right to enjoy the moment and not worry about his future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis didn't worry much about his future, it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis made a point about $10/week not being worth much next to the various things that made him happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis faced a stark choice about getting a leg up in the business world, but loosing his various playmates in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis' boss chewed him out and fired him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bevis was late for work.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x34", "title": "Cell 227", "date": "1960-06-05", "description": "Herbert Morrison is on death row for murder and wants to die with dignity, refusing his lawyer's attempt for a stay of execution. When Herbert is taken to the gas chamber, he kills a guard and is taken away. Afterward the warden tells Herbert that his lawyer obtained a stay and found a witness to clear his name, but since Herbert killed the guard, he will never be pardoned.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Bryce Walton, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned prisoners on death row and how they faced their fate. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be incarcerated and briefly explained what that was like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Men were on death row and awaited execution with either trepidation or stoicism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prison guards in uniform tended to Herbert's execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert was exonerated for the crime he was originally in for, but had just then killed a guard to escape from the gas chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-esteem need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was in part about a condemned man's need/desire for dignity in his final moments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert refused his lawyer's attempt to secure for him a stay of execution, preferring instead to either die in the gas chamber with dignity or else be exonerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Herbert's experience on death row in the lead up to date with the gas chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Men were on death row because of murders committed, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prison priest tended to the souls of the condemned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perjury", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert's lawyer spoke of a perjured witness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "\"Revenge is sweet without being fattening,\" we heard Alfred Hitchcock say. Presumably a reference to the other guards' attitude after Herbert had killed \"Pops\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x34", "title": "The After Hours", "date": "1960-06-10", "description": "A woman is told that the floor of a department store where she made a purchase does not exist.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marsha turned out to be a department store mannequin come to life for a month. Moreover, the department store was filled with other mannequins that could take human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha found out that she was actually a department store mannequin come to life for a month.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha grew increasingly puzzled after she purchased a gold thimble on the 9th floor of a department that had only eight floors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marsha tried to convince the personnel that she had purchased a gold thimble on the 9:th floor, but they found that hard to credit on account of the store having but eight floors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x35", "title": "The Schartz-Metterklume Method", "date": "1960-06-12", "description": "Mrs. Wellington picks up the new governess Miss Hope from the train station, and is quickly thrown by Miss Hope's outspokenness. For the next few days Miss Hope teaches the Wellington children with enthusiasm, but Mr. and Mrs. Wellington are appalled by her unorthodox methods and fire her. Miss Hope leaves in good spirits, because she is actually wealthy aristocrat Lady Charlotte; Mrs. Wellington mistook her for Miss Hope, and Charlotte enjoyed the distraction.\n\nDirected by: Richard Dunlap. Story by: Saki, Marian Cockrell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "educating a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor discussed childrens' education with Mrs. Wellington. The point of the story was a teaching method called \"The Schartz-Metterklume Method\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor and Mrs. Wellington collided over who's will would prevail in the Wellington home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor gave the Wellington family something to remember in her short tenure as governess in their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a newly hired governess as she shocks Mr. and Mrs. Wellington with her newfangled teaching methods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conservative Wellington household were mightily flustered when the tranquil domestic order was turned upside down by their new liberal governess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor and Mrs. Wellington collided over who's will would prevail in the Wellington home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mrs. Hope impostor was pointedly liberal in attitude while Mrs. Wellington was remarkably conservative and narrow minded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wellington children frolicked, learned, and generally behaved as children do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The well-to-do Mrs. Wellington found that the new governess did not behave as someone of governess' social class should, and took exception to it. In particular, she thought that the governess comported herself above her station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is comporting themself above their station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The well-to-do Mrs. Wellington was frazzled time and again by the new governess of the house blatantly comporting herself above her station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a dunce cap wearing Alfred Hitchcock was evidently being punished by an unnamed teacher for having misbehaved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned that he would reward his teacher with a booby trapped apple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Pythagorean theorem was conspicuously written on the blackboard in Alfred Hitchcock's classroom set sketch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock issued a warning that any viewers who miss the first part of the show would need to stay after school and watch the \"late-late show\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to perform a \"sleep teaching\" experiment on his viewers that involved implanting messages into the subconscious via repeating a message over and over again to a sleeping subject.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Charlotte admonished a man for whipping his horse to (in her view) the point of abuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Wellington and her husband John were beside themselves at the Miss Hope impostor's antics. Mrs. Wellington implored her husband to step in and do something about that out of control governess of theirs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Hope's character reference, a most estimable man in the words of John Wellington, was a wife beater according to the Miss Hope impostor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor explained some ins-and-outs of frog reproduction to the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wellington children reenacted part of the Romulus and Remus legend of the founding of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Miss Hope impostor was remarkably kind towards an abused horse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Psycho (1960)", "title": "Psycho", "date": "1960-06-16", "description": "Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Joseph Stefano. It stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles, and Martin Balsam, and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on an encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer, and the motel's owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We learn that Bates was a serial murderer with a split personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bates has a second personality built on his late mother, who he killed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bates and his overbearing mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion stole $40,000 and ran, then regretted it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion was brutally stabbed to death in the shower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lila and Marion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam wrote a letter to his girlfriend Marion agreeing to marry her (albeit not knowing at the time that she had been murdered)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was much ado about illicit love: Sam meeting secretly with Norma, Bate's mother persona objecting to you girls", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bates and his overbearing mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bates had killed his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam complained repeatedly about paying alimony to his ex-wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion about stealing the $40,000 she held", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being mentally ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bates with his nutty mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard that Bate's mother had killed herself after killing her husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The motel had gone downhill after the main road was moved away from it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bates had been jealous at his mother's new husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it was suggested that Bates was a transvestite due to the cross-dressing, although this was refuted by the psychiatrist", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x35", "title": "The Mighty Casey", "date": "1960-06-17", "description": "A baseball manager takes his team to the championships thanks to a robot pitcher.\n\nDirected by: Alvin GanzerRobert Parrish. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Hoboken Zephyrs were on track for a last place finish in the standings until an android pitcher, named Casey, joined the team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "The addition of the android pitcher Casey to the Hoboken Zephyrs roster transformed the team overnight from a bunch of lovable losers to a contender for the pennant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android pitcher Casey lost his touch after he started feeling compassion for the opposing players.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to this story was whether and to what extent an android could be recognized as humans with the rights and privileges thereto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Casey was motivated by a newfound sense of compassion to retire from pitching and get into social work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Stillman and his android baseball pitcher Casey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Casey was super strong.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x36", "title": "Letter of Credit", "date": "1960-06-19", "description": "Henry Taylor visits Kirkland Bank to question its president, William Spengler. Three years ago a bank employee, Arnold Mathias, was convicted of stealing money from the bank, and Arnold recently died in a prison escape attempt, though his cellmate made it out. Henry questions William aggressively, believing that Arnold was framed and that William stole the money. William, believing that Henry is Arnold's escaped cellmate, tries to make a deal with him, but Henry is actually the police officer who killed Arnold and is trying to make amends by arresting the true culprit.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Helen Nielsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was about uncovering William Spengler's elaborate ruse to steal $200,000 from the bank he was president of and pin the crime on his underling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on the theft of $200,000 from a bank branch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry went out of his way to uncover William Spengler's scheme to steal $200,000 and frame Arnold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry felt guilty about having shot dead the innocent Arnold Mathias and sought to redeem himself by clearing Arnold's name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry's motivation in this drama was to atone for having shot an innocent man by clearing that man's name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was presiding over a political meeting involving something called he called \"the Credential Committee\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bank president William Spengler contended with his meddlesome father-in-law, the bank's founder Josiah Wingate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the former bank president Josiah Wingate had hired a juvenile delinquent out of the goodness of his own heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William spoke of how his wife had passed away suddenly from a heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold Mathias wanted to get out of prison so that he might clear his name according to Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William mistakenly assumed that Henry was angling at blackmailing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Spengler framed Arnold for the theft of $200,000 from a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police officer Henry Taylor was surreptitiously investigating his theory that the bank president William Spengler had stolen the $200,000 from the bank vault and framed an employee for the crime. However, his being a law enforcement officer was only revealed at the very end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x37", "title": "Escape to Sonoita", "date": "1960-06-26", "description": "When their car breaks down in the desert, criminals Marsh and Lemon steal a tanker from Andy and Bill Davis, unaware that Andy and Bill know how to survive in the desert. The next day the police find the tanker, also broken down, along with Marsh and Lemon's bodies. The kidnappers turned on each other when their water ran out, not realizing that the Davises' tanker was carrying water.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: James A. Howard, James A. Howard & Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two criminals abandoned Andy, Bill, and a young woman in the desert, unaware that Andy was well versed in how to get out of such predicaments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal Marsh died of thirst while out in the desert, not realizing that the tanker he'd hijacked was carrying water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsh and Lemon left Stephanie for dead in the desert after having collected a $100,000 ransom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy and his adult son Bill outwitted two criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy, Bill and the young woman found themselves at the mercy of two stone cold criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two highway patrolmen came to Andy, Bill, and Stephanie's rescue when the trio were stranded in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marsh tormented his captives, and Lemon, with marked glee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about \"pop\" Andy's wisdom by contrast with the youngsters. Andy knew precisely where they were and what they needed to survive, and used this knowledge to trick the criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Davises' lamented their financial straits in the beginning.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e1x36", "title": "A World of His Own", "date": "1960-07-01", "description": "A playwright has the ability to bring anything to life by describing it to a tape recorder.\n\nDirected by: Ralph Nelson. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Any character that the famed playwright George described into his dictation machine was conjured into real life. Note he also conjured a giant, red-eyed elephant into existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fictional character come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Any character that the famed playwright George described into his dictation machine was conjured into real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Victoria West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victoria tried to get her husband George to confess to having an affair after she spotted him through a window flirting with an attractive, young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victoria refused to believe that George's lover was a fictional character come to life, then in the end Victoria found out that she herself was another of George's fictions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was rather discombobulated by his jealous wife's grilling of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's wife Victoria became acquainted with his fictional mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and his fantasy mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria grilled George after having spotted him through a window flirting with an attractive, young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The playwright George described characters in a literary manner into his dictation machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria implied that she was going to divorce George.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost World (1960)", "title": "The Lost World", "date": "1960-07-13", "description": "The plot of the film revolves around the exploration of a plateau in Venezuela inhabited by cannibals, dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and giant spiders. It is loosely based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(1960_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An expedition team to a plateau in Venezuela discovered dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and giant spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An expedition team to a plateau in Venezuela discovered dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition team to a plateau in Venezuela discovered dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and giant spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team went on an expedition to a plateau in Venezuela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition team encountered hostile dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and giant spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed Malone and Jennifer Holmes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of the Challenger expedition to a remote Venezuelan plateau were in part motivated by the prospect of adventure and exploration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of the Challenger expedition to a remote Venezuelan plateau were in part motivated by the prospect of adventure and exploration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team went on an expedition to a plateau in Venezuela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David Holmes and Jennifer Holmes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Summerlee was a rival of Professor Challenger who joined the expedition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer Holmes insisted that she be allowed to join the expedition in the face of some male expedition members asserting that such an undertaking was not for women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer Holmes and her pet dog Frosty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuel Gomez and Costa were preoccupied with getting off the plateau with a hoard of diamonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became apparent near the film's conclusion that Manuel Gomez had been motivated all along by a desire to take vengeance on Lord John Roxton over the death of his brother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Time Machine (1960)", "title": "The Time Machine", "date": "1960-07-22", "description": "An inventor in Victorian England constructs a machine that enables him to travel into the distant future; once there, he discovers that mankind's descendants have divided into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(1960_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "George invented a time machine and used it to travel into the distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "George invented a time machine and used it to travel into the distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "By the year 802,701, humans divided into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eloi appeared to live happily without technology and in harmony with nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks were nocturnal creatures that lived underground and feared fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "By the year 802,701, humans diverged into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George stopped by in World War I England and met his old friend's son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George stopped by the bombing of London in World War II England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George witnessed the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust that was World War III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George stopped in 1966 to find London on the verge of being nuked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "volcanic cataclysm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear attack trigged a volcanic cataclysm that destroyed London and presumably much more of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Morlocks lived underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw George living in this time and place until he used his time machine to travel into Earth's future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Atomic War Bride (1960)", "title": "Atomic War Bride", "date": "1960-07-23", "description": "At a church in the country, eternally optimistic John marries Maria, his Atomic War Bride, unaware that a nuclear war is about to begin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_War_Bride" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Johnson marries Maria, his Atomic War Bride, unaware that a nuclear war is about to begin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John marries Maria, his Atomic War Bride, unaware that a nuclear war is about to begin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Johnson and Maria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The joy of John and Maria's wedding was contrasted with the horrors of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-war activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in the air-raid shelter organized a march to stop the nuclear war from continuing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rubber radiation suits were distributed in the streets before the nuclear war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Men (1960)", "title": "Space Men", "date": "1960-08", "description": "A mission in the 22nd century aboard an orbiting space station. The mission involves a risky effort by its crew to redirect a malfunctioning spaceship that threatens to destroy the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-Men" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a 22nd century world where there was an interplanetary space flight infrastructure in the solar system. In particular, there was a flight from a space station to Mars. There was also a base on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Interplanetary Chronicle of New York reporter Ray Peterson was made to feel like an outsider while on a post to report on what it is like in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a stray artificial object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A series of desperate efforts were made to stop an errant spaceship, called Alpha Two, entered the inner solar system and its photon generators were radiating enough heat to destroy the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A series of desperate efforts were made to stop an errant spaceship, called Alpha Two, entered the inner solar system and its photon generators were radiating enough heat to destroy the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy had mutually reciprocated feelings for both George the Commander and Peterson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy had mutually reciprocated feelings for both George the Commander and Peterson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bravo Zulu 88 crew were placed in hibernation during a mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bravo Zulu 88 crew experienced weightlessness upon waking up from hibernation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A space station in orbit about the Earth featured prominently in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bravo Zulu 88 crew members used magnetic boots to counteract weightlessness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts floated around in space and walked on the surface of Mars in conspicuous corrugated, silver spacesuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sullivan and space station pilot Al sacrificed themselves in separate but futile attempts to destroy the dangerous spaceship with missiles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Last Woman on Earth (1960)", "title": "Last Woman on Earth", "date": "1960-08-05", "description": "The film concerns three survivors of a mysterious apocalypse, which appears to have wiped out all human life on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Woman_on_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three survivors of an unspecified apocalyptic event, which apparently wiped out all human life on Earth, had to make due as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Gern and Evelyn Gern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "All animal life on Earth, save for three people who were diving under the sea, appeared to have suffocated to death after all the oxygen disappeared from the atmosphere. It was unclear whether or not the de-oxygenation event was caused by humans or was an act of God. But plants soon thereafter began to replenish the atmosphere with oxygen so that the three survivors could breath again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Joyce developed a romantic interest in Harold Gern's wife Evelyn after an apocalypse apparently left them as the last three people on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Evelyn fell in love under the nose of Evelyn's husband Harold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Evelyn fell in love under the nose of Evelyn's husband Harold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn Gern and Martin Joyce commented on how the cock fight they were watching was cruel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Martin became jealous of one another over Evelyn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dinosaurus (1960)", "title": "Dinosaurus!", "date": "1960-08-10", "description": "American men building a harbour on a Caribbean island accidentally uncover two dinosaurs that have been frozen in suspended animation for millions of years.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurus!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team building a harbor accidentally uncover two dinosaurs that have been frozen in suspended animation for millions of years. They also found a caveman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team building a harbor accidentally uncover two dinosaurs that have been frozen in suspended animation for millions of years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people were terrorized by a tyrannosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Hacker was motivated by a desire to use the tyrannosaurus and the caveman to get rich and was wiling to stoop to any level to get control of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike Hacker at Chica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The caveman sacrificed himself to hold up a beam in a collapsing cave to give his friends enough time to escape.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Atom Age Vampire (1960)", "title": "Atom Age Vampire", "date": "1960-08-16", "description": "A scientist finds a way to restore the beauty to a singer who had been horribly disfigured in an automobile accident.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_Age_Vampire" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanette Moreneau was horribly disfigured in an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rejuvenation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Levin developed a radiological serum that regenerated badly scarred skin back to normal looking skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Levin tested early versions of his skin regenerative serum on human beings. He also murdered women to extract something from them to make his serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Levin fell madly in love with his patient Jeanette Moreneau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Levin became obsessed with keeping Jeanette Moreneau beautiful to the extent that he murdered other women to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanette Moreneau and Pierre Mornet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Levin developed a radiological serum that regenerated badly scarred skin back to normal looking skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Levin's assistant Monique was jealous of his beautiful patient Jeanette Moreneau because the doctor had fallen for Jeanette over her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)", "title": "Beyond the Time Barrier", "date": "1960-09", "description": "U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Bill Allison flies the X-80 experimental aircraft to sub-orbital spaceflight successfully, though losing radio contact in flight. When Major Allison returns to the airbase it appears abandoned, old and deserted. Mystified, he sees a futuristic city on the horizon and heads toward it. The major is rendered unconscious and captured.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Time_Barrier" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Bill Allison returned from a flight into sub-orbital space to the Earth of year 2024.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Allison and Princess Trirene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The post-apocalyptic future people lived in an underground city known as the Citadel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Trirene was mute but had the power to read thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cosmic ray filtering layer in the atmosphere had been destroyed by dust from nuclear tests. Cosmic radiation bombarded the Earth, turning many people into mutants, and others sterile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cosmic radiation made the people of 2024 infertile, dooming their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sub-orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Bill Allison piloted the X-80 experimental aircraft to sub-orbital space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Supreme and Princess Trirene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Bill Allison returned back to his own year of 1960 but as an old man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp5x38", "title": "Hooked", "date": "1960-09-25", "description": "Ray is married to an older woman, Gladys, but has dalliances with younger women. Ray's latest love is Nyla Foster, who resists his attentions and inspires him to kill Gladys so they can be together. One day Ray takes Gladys fishing, hoping to drown her, but Gladys knocks him out first and throws him overboard. It was all planned by Gladys, Nyla and her father, because Gladys and Mr. Foster are lovers.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Robert Turner, Thomas Grant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ray hatched a plot to knock off his wife Gladys while they were out fishing on the lake, but Gladys turned the tables my knocking off Ray instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and Gladys Marchand were in a troubled marriage of convenience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The on-in-years Gladys and her gold digging, trophy husband Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray made no secret of having married the on-in-years Gladys for her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was courting Nyla behind his wife's back. Gladys had evidently been having an affair with Mr. Foster all along, judging from the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was so over heals besotted with Nyla that he decided to try and knock his old lady off. Gladys and the unassuming Mr. Foster revealed their love for one another in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock feigned being concerned about violence on television, especially in Westerns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyla wanted to go to the big city and make something of herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Foster and Nyla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nyla had an ambition to get out of the backwater where she lived, perhaps to make a career in the big city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x01", "title": "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat", "date": "1960-09-27", "description": "Married Mrs. Bixby receives an expensive coat from her lover and wants to keep it without arousing her husband, Dr. Bixby's suspicion. She has the coat pawned and pretends to find the pawn ticket, which she gives to her husband to retrieve the item. However, Mrs. Bixby is dismayed when her husband gives her a small mink stole; Dr. Bixby's nurse has the coat, thus implying that he is having an affair with her.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Roald Dahl, Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby was having an affair behind her husband Cyril's back. In a surprise twist, it was revealed that her husband, Dr. Bixby, was having an affair with his dental assistant Miss Pulteney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Dr. Bixby and Mrs. Bixby concealing their respective extramarital affairs from each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby cheated and lied to her husband, only to discover that he had cheated and lied to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock outrageously flattered his new sponsors, even though it very nearly made him swallow his own tongue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby was tactfully dumped like a sack of potatoes by her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bixby was happily practicing his chosen profession of dentistry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby interacted with her maid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x01", "title": "King Nine Will Not Return", "date": "1960-09-30", "description": "The sole survivor of a World War II bomber crash cannot find any trace of his crew, but he does see jet planes flying overhead.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are given to understand that severe survivor guilt caused James to experience a (possibly real or imagined) enactment of the event that had killed his fellow crewmen while he himself was sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "James struggled to remember how and why he had ended up in a plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was set during World War II and followed an allied bomber captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James saw a dropped water flask and chided his absent crewman for discarding such a necessity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James openly wondered whether he might be hallucinating when he saw some of his fellow crewmen vanish before his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James seemed distressed when he couldn't find his crewmen at the crash site.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x02", "title": "The Doubtful Doctor", "date": "1960-10-04", "description": "One stressful day, Ralph Jones argues with his wife, Lucille, and then mysteriously travels two years back in time, to when he was still a bachelor. Ralph finds Lucille, but what should have been their first date is a disaster. Broken-hearted, Ralph jumps into the river and wakes up back in his regular \"present\". Later, Ralph's psychiatrist tells him that the episode was just a dream, but Ralph has a set of baseball cards that he brought back from his travel.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Louis Paul, Jerry Sohl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph didn't appreciate how good life was together with his wife, Lucille, until he mysteriously traveled back in time to his bachelor days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph mysteriously traveled two years or so back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rigors of family life made Ralph second guess his decision to marry Lucille and have a child together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph seemed upset that past Lucille (and other past people) didn't remember him from their future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story hinges on a lover's quarrel between Ralph and Lucille.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "After a distressing period in the past Ralph realized that he ought to be nice to his wife and not regret their marriage - Lucille noted that he seemed to have a guilty conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph mysteriously traveled two years or so back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph was concerned because his baby might have swallowed a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was framed in a discussion between Ralph and his shrink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph in the past tried to drown himself by jumping in a river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucille wouldn't believe Ralph when he said he was from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph declined to play catch with a lad on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was framed in a discussion between Ralph and his shrink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph proclaimed his love to Past-Lucille at the restaurant, but she rejected him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph proclaimed his love to Present-Lucille to her delight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Sidney refused to take a wad of cash from Ralph, saying that his mother told him \"never to take nothing from strangers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucille obliquely revealed to an already stressed out Ralph that she wanted to have a second child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph was stressed out from a combination of work and family life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spartacus (1960)", "title": "Spartacus", "date": "1960-10-06", "description": "Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Dalton Trumbo, and based on the novel of the same title by Howard Fast. It is inspired by the life story of Spartacus, the leader of a slave revolt in antiquity, and the events of the Third Servile War, and stars Kirk Douglas in the title role, Laurence Olivier as Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus, Peter Ustinov, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, as slave trader Lentulus Batiatus, John Gavin as Julius Caesar, Jean Simmons as Varinia, Charles Laughton as Sempronius Gracchus, and Tony Curtis as Antoninus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spartacus led a slave revolt against the Romans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spartacus and Varinia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the 1st century BC Roman Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spartacus would rather die fighting the Romans than be a slave to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batiatus and Spartacus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spartacus was made to fight another gladiator trainee to the death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x02", "title": "The Man in the Bottle", "date": "1960-10-07", "description": "A genie grants four wishes to an unsuccessful pawnbroker and his wife.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Castle learned the hard way that it is important to be wary of unforeseen consequences when given the opportunity to have one's wishes fulfilled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Castle's and the elderly woman were all close to being broke, not able to pay their bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a variation of this theme using a wine bottle instead of a lamp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. castle deliberated at length over how to dispose of their four wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur wished for wealth but the tax man took it. He later wished for power but became Hitler hours away from death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur deliberated with his wife on numerous occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genie kept urging Arthur to think over the consequences of his wishes before making them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur couldn't pay his bills, yet gave some money to a poor old lady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Castle were left with bill that would leave them with a measly $5 of their million dollar windfall after the tax man found them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was exceptionally generous to the old woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur used one of his wishes to get a million dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur wished to rule over an entire country without the possibility of being voted out of office. His wish was granted and he was turned into Hitler in the last days of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was briefly transformed into Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was briefly transformed into Hitler.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x03", "title": "A Very Moral Theft", "date": "1960-10-11", "description": "Spinster Helen is dating Harry Wade, a rude lumber yard owner who Helen's brother, John, believes is a crook. When Harry is about to lose his business, Helen \"borrows\" $8,000 from her office in order to help Harry. When Harry learns about this, he pays her back the money by borrowing from his \"friends\". A week later, Helen learns that Harry died to get the money for her.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Jack Dillon, Allan Gordon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and her brother, John, came into conflict of Helen's choice in men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and Harry were engaged to be married, but things ended tragically for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry stood to lose his lumberyard business unless he got his hands on $8000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen stole $8000 to keep her fiancé, Harry, from going out of business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry had unwisely trusted his business partner with $8000 of goods. Helen took a risk by trusting that Harry would pay her back the $8000 she'd pilfered for him. Later there was lengthy discussion about young women trusting men with money because they think they'll get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a family issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "John disapproved of his sister, Helen, running around with the shady lumberyard owner Harry. Although Harry proved himself to be an honorable man in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer was left hanging regarding whether Helen's feelings for Harry were reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen committed theft to help Harry (although arguably she just wanted to get married and have somewhere to live). Harry risked and lost his life to get Helen the money back when he learned she had committed theft to obtain it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry appeared to be a thoroughly unsavory character, but when he realized Helen was had actually committed a crime for him, he risked his life to get her the money back rather than let her take the fall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing monologue, Alfred Hitchcock shared how Robin Hood was charged with income tax evasion in a revised edition of \"Robin Hood's Merry Adventures\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John wrongly accused Harry of having swindled Helen out of $8000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen went looking for her fiancé, Harry, after not having heard anything from him for a few days. It turned out he'd been killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen was grief-stricken upon learning that Harry had been killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen must have felt remorse when she realized her lie had ended up killing Harry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When he realized Helen was had actually committed a crime for him, Harry risked his life to get her the money back rather than let her take the fall.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x03", "title": "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room", "date": "1960-10-14", "description": "A nervous gangster faces himself when his boss gives him his latest assignment.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was about Jackie becoming a bold go-getter instead of the nervous, prevaricating wreck he had been his whole life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie was ordered by a low-level gangster to murder a local shopkeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie was terrified of getting caught and facing justice, which would have meant death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "George chewed Jackie out for being such a spineless wimp, and Jackie asked himself why he was always scared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the smalltime gangster Jackie as he struggled with his inner-self over whether or not he was going to do a mob hit that would likely land him in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie was a nervous wreck in his $4 a night hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie had a litany of petty crimes under his belt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie thought back on his youth in school and then in some street gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie and George were smalltime gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie thought about his love for Jenny Reardon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie's reflection openly lamented losing his old sweetheart after Jackie was sent to reform school for stealing his teacher's locket.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x04", "title": "The Contest for Aaron Gold", "date": "1960-10-18", "description": "Bernie is a ceramics teacher at a summer camp, and is protective of Aaron Gold, a boy who dislikes athletics but loves sculpture. As Aaron has no other accomplishments, the camp's performance-driven owner Stern orders that Bernie \"finish\" Aaron's sculpture of a one-armed knight to show off to Aaron's father. Bernie adds the arm, which upsets Aaron deeply, because the statue is a tribute to Aaron's father, who only has one arm.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Philip Roth, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernie struggled to teach his camp class of unruly brats. They nagged him about why they had to call him \"uncle\", for example. The story concerned how one should nurture a child who shows a special talent for some art: Aaron had a knack for sculpture, but neglected his swimming, and the teachers disagreed about what to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy Aaron spent his three weeks at summer camp working on a clay sculpture of a one-armed knight. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock fired his ceramic instructor in the kiln over an unflattering evaluation of Hitchcock's work in clay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at a summer camp for boys, and follows young Aaron as he becomes absorbed in working on a clay sculpture at the expense of not participating in other camp activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the ceramics instructor Bernie as he teaches sculpting in clay at a summer camp for boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ceramics instructor Bernie took young Aaron under his wing and encouraged him in his efforts to complete a clay sculpture of a one-armed knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teachers recurringly discussed the virtues of Aaron's sculpture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to the following personal ethical dilemma for Bernie: should he spoil Aaron's sculpture in order to protect his own job, which he sorely needed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to fire his ceramics instruction in the kiln to avenge the instructor having made a disparaging remark about a clay pot that Hitchcock had produced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned have reduced his ceramics instructor to ashes by incinerating him in the kiln.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was doing pottery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The camp instructor Bernie succumbed to pressure from the performance-driven owner Stern to complete young Aaron's clay sculpture of a one-armed knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the sculpture of a one-armed knight that young Aaron had been working on all summer was a depiction of his father, whom the boy evidently admired very much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Aaron so admired his one-armed father that he spent all his time at summer camp making a sculpture of him as a one-armed knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boys at summer camp were taking a ceramics class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron's father was short a right arm and Aaron had sculpted a knight in that very image.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x05", "title": "The Five-Forty-Eight", "date": "1960-10-25", "description": "Miss Dent was secretary to married Mr. Blake, but was fired on the day after they had a liaison. After weeks of being avoided, Miss Dent finally corners Mr. Blake at gunpoint and holds him hostage through his train commute in order to talk to him so that she can move on.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: John Cheever, Charlotte Armstrong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central problem in this story concerned the fall out from Mr. Blake and Miss Dent's one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Dent held her former boss and lover, Mr. Blake, at gunpoint in order to get some things off her chest so that she could move on with her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Dent didn't take it very well when Mr. Blake callously fired her the day after their romantic liaison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Dent was spurned by her love interest, Mr. Blake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Dent had been hospitalized for eight months before getting her job, and once she lost it she became incapacitated for two weeks. She was clearly unstable, perhaps neurotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Blake callously fired his secretary, Miss Dent, the day after their romantic liaison. The rest of the story followed her reaction to this happening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about being a model railroader, using life sized subject matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was strongly suggested that Mr. Blake, a married man, and Miss Dent had a one night stand. The rest of the story concerns Miss Dent's reaction to Mr. Blake avoiding and then firing her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Dent said that she was \"used to being alone\" and \"didn't know anyone in New York\", suggesting she was leading a lonely existence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x04", "title": "A Thing About Machines", "date": "1960-10-28", "description": "A writer believes machines are conspiring against him.\n\nDirected by: David Orrick McDearmon. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "technophobia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley was utterly terrified of his home appliances, which from his point of view were out to get him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inanimate object come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Various mechanical objects in Finchley's house cam alive to persecute him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley was either being terrorized by him home appliances and other machines, including his automobile, or else he was totally delusional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finchley talked down to every person he met.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The abusive Mr. Finchley was himself destroyed by the very machines he had often broken with such contempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley was a stereotypically cantankerous gourmet food critic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley's secretary quit on the spot after he showered her with verbal abuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley's secretary dismissed his ravings about machines as delusions brought about by a lack of sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The repairman tried to defuse the situation but Mr. Finchley was being intolerable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secretary finally had enough of the overbearing Mr. Finchley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Finchley made derogatory and gender specific remarks to his secretary who in turn told him off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man in the Moon (1960)", "title": "Man in the Moon", "date": "1960-10-31", "description": "A man immune to worry and disease is selected to be the first man to travel to the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Moon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "imperviousness to physical damage", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Blood appeared to be immune to all known diseases. He attributed his special ability to his carefree, single life, never being worried by anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Blood's carefree lifestyle kept him stress free, immune to disease, and able to withstand extreme temperatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Blood flew to what appeared to be the Moon in a nuclear powered rocket ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Blood fell in love with Polly and lost his immunity to disease as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Blood and Polly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Blood was used as a guinea pig by scientists who were searching for a cure to the common cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Blood floated around in the hull of a reduced-gravity aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Blood flew to what appeared to be the Moon in a nuclear powered rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Blood flew to what appeared to be the Moon in a nuclear powered rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Blood ventured around on what he thought to be the Moon in a spacesuit with weighted boots.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x06", "title": "Pen Pal", "date": "1960-11-01", "description": "Elderly Miss Lowen learns from Detective Berger that her niece Margie has been exchanging romantic letters with convict Rod Collins for the past two years, and Collins has just escaped prison and may come for her. When Collins breaks into Miss Lowen's house in search of Margie, Miss Lowen knocks Collins out and calls the police, who capture him. Unknown to all, Miss Lowen is the one who has been writing to Collins all along, using her niece's name.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Henry Slesar & Jay Folb, Hilary Murray.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Lowen was evidently very lonely to have started up a romantic correspondence with a young man who was serving a life-sentence in prison. Collins spoke of how lonely he'd been in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Lowen loved the young convict Collins, but he loved her niece. All this transpired on account that Miss Lowen had been sending romantic letters to Collins in her niece's name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Collins escaped from prison to meet the girl he'd been exchanging romantic letters with over the past two years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped convict Collins broke into Miss Lowen's house demanding to see her niece. In the end, she bonked him over the head with a candelabrum and waited for the police to collect him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock supplied is audience with a cheeky account of the rules of baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Lowen had a college aged niece, of which she spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Berger was on the trail of the escaped convict Collins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Lowen mentioned that her brother had died in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Lowen had taken in her niece after the girl's parents died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly Miss Lowen examined her facial wrinkles in the mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The escaped convict Collins spoke of some of the hardships he'd endured in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collins had been too young for the chair, we heard, and so had his sentence commuted to life in prison with no chance of parole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Lowen, in the capacity of her niece's guardian, disapproved of the girl's pen pal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collins was a convicted man slayer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x05", "title": "The Howling Man", "date": "1960-11-04", "description": "A man lost in a storm finds a monastery where the monks claim a howling prisoner is the Devil himself.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Devil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ellington had spent decades pursuing Satan after having inadvertently freed the Prince of Darkness from his captivity in a far flung hermitage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the practical dilemma of whether to believe mad-sounding allegations that an imprisoned man was Lucifer himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed to Ellington that Brother Jerome was the leader of an insane religious cult until it became apparent that Brother Jerome and his fellow monks were behaving quite reasonably, given that they had Satan imprisoned in their hermitage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil can come in the guise of good", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Devil tricked Ellington into releasing him from his imprisonment in a monastery by appearing to be an ordinary man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellington believed the Brother Jerome and the other monks to be religious nut jobs until the very end of his stay with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Howling Man alleged that Brother Jerome had beaten him with a staff to avenge a transgression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brother Jerome spoke in passing of the trials and tribulations that people had gone through in the First World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellington mentioned that he was pursuing the Devil while the Second World War was going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellington mentioned the development of nuclear weapons in passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brother Jerome and his followers imprisoned The Howling Man against his will.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x06", "title": "Eye of the Beholder", "date": "1960-11-11", "description": "A woman wrapped in bandages after facial surgery hopes that she will no longer be ugly.\n\nAliases: The Private World of Darkness\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Mrs. Tyler was a bombshell as judged by human standards, she was deemed a hideous deviant by the people of the pig-like race of people to which she belonged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A small minority of human-looking people were discriminated against by the pig-looking people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Tyler subjected herself to 11 treatments in a desperate effort to transform her \"ugly\" face into a normal looking one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revoltingly ugly Mrs. Tyler longed to look normal enough to not be treated as a freak by society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Tyler and Mr. Smith lament their prospects as outcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leader worship, and control of beauty standards seem indicative enough to label this speculative government totalitarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a doctor and some nurses working in a hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flat-panel display", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The State's leader's speech was show all over the hospital on large, flat-screen televisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The State's leader used the catchphrase \"It's the norm to conform\" in a speech he gave in which he urged conformism on everyone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x07", "title": "Outlaw in Town", "date": "1960-11-15", "description": "Tony Lorca is an outlaw who arrives at a small town during a blizzard. The townsfolk learn that there is a reward of $5,000 to turn Tony in, so various people bid for his custody. However, \"Tony\" is actually Pepe, the real Tony's brother. Tony died a year prior and Pepe has been pretending to be Tony in order to swindle people out of their money.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Michael Fessier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pepe swindled the townspeople out of thousands of dollars by pretending to be his outlaw brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story viewer is shown a caricature of what might happen when a mysterious passerby to an Old West era saloon is discovered to be an outlaw by its gullible patrons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pepe tricked the townspeople into thinking that he was hiding out from the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shasta pretended that wanted to see Tony hang for the murder of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pepe won Shasta's heart in the end, and the two eloped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pepe wagered his gun at the poker table and lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony had murdered Shasta's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shasta spoke of how her husband abandoned her and ran off with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pepe and Shasta returned to the saloon to consummate their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bar owner moaned over Tony and was jealous of Shasta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bar owner moaned over Tony and was jealous of Shasta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony and Shasta took some gender biases pot hots at one another.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x07", "title": "Nick of Time", "date": "1960-11-18", "description": "A superstitious newlywed becomes convinced, in spite of the protests of his bride, that a Fortune-telling machine's predictions are quite accurate.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems the point of the story was to demonstrate how fortune telling works on our minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Don was quick to fall victim to the soothsayings of an infernal fortune telling machine, while his wife Pat was quick to explain away the machine's \"predictions\" as coincidences and vagaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don and Pat were happy newly weds in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don and Pat were happy newly weds in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Don as he became increasingly consumed with learning mechanical fortune teller produced predictions about his future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Don as he became increasingly consumed with learning mechanical fortune teller produced predictions about his future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pat made Don promise to kick his addiction to having his fortune read, and maybe other superstitions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don had a four-leaf clover and a rabbits foot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don was eager to be promoted to office manager.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x08", "title": "O Youth and Beauty!", "date": "1960-11-22", "description": "Cash Bentley is a former champion hurdler who is bitter that his glory days have passed. Despite his wife Louise's protests and Cash's physical limitations, Cash keeps racing whenever he is taunted by others. One night, Cash gives Louise his gun and asks her to fire it so he can race one more time. Louise, unfamiliar with guns, accidentally shoots him.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: John Cheever, Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The middle aged, former champion hurdler Cash was bitter that his glory days were behind him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cash's inability to accept that he wasn't a young man anymore put a strain on his marriage to Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The middle aged man Cash refused to own up to the fact that he was no longer a champion caliber hurdler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The middle aged man Cash pined for the days when he was a champion caliber hurdler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a former champion hurdler who can't come to accept that his best days are behind him. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock crowned himself with a laurel wreath in honor of having won a running race at the Olympics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cash was so obsessed with hurdling that he severely injured himself, risked death, ruined his marriage, and was killed for it in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a laughing stock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cash's acquaintances at the club got him to run hurdles just to watch him make a fool of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The babysitter Cathy had her boyfriend George over while she took care of the Bentley's kid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cash and Louise lacked the money to keep up on their club dues and pay to have their young son's teeth straightened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cash's physician told him that he'd never hurdle again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to wonder whether Cash meant to shoot himself when he prepared the gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Louise putting a bullet in Cash after he slapped her, and it might have been an accident but we must also think it was at least to some extent intentional as she was fed up with Cash's childish outbursts, poor social standing, and lack of money. We recall the information that he was nicely life-insured, had been revealed to the viewer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x09", "title": "The Money", "date": "1960-11-29", "description": "Small-time crook Larry gets a job with wealthy Stefan Bregornick, who knew Larry's father and is an importer of stolen goods. Four months into the job, Larry steals $30,000 from Bregornick, but returns it a few hours later, apologizing for his moment of weakness. Larry's girlfriend Angie is angered at Larry's giving back the money, but Larry explains that he now has Bregornick's trust, and a bigger opportunity to steal will come his way soon.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Larry and, more so, his girlfriend Angie were pining to get rich quickly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concluded with the revelation that Larry, in returning the $30k, had gained something even more valuable: a rich old man's trust. This might well net him a $100k, cometh the right hour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry instilled Mr. Bregornick's trust and then went off with an envelop stuffed with $30,000. However, he subsequently returned the money with a view to further gaining Mr. Bregornick's trust so that he could steal an even greater sum later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry was shacked up with Angie and they quarreled a lot about money. While they were in a long term relationship of some sort, it is difficult to slap a title like \"boyfriend and girlfriend\" or \"fiancée and fiancée\" on it from the information supplied in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on Larry stealing $30,000 in cash from his boss Mr. Bregornick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry worked as Mr. Bregornick's personal assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though revealed to have been a no-brainer for Larry in the end, the story seemingly hinged on the question of whether Larry should take advantage of, and steal from, his late and revered father's dignified old friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angie twice expressed concern to Larry that she wasn't getting any younger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bregornick was running a shady import business that was evidently a smuggling operation of some sort.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)", "title": "The Cape Canaveral Monsters", "date": "1960-12", "description": "Two extraterrestrials come to earth to \"transmit\" healthy, living humans, especially women, back to their home planet and to disrupt rockets launched from Cape Canaveral.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cape_Canaveral_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens Hauron and Nadja were sent to Earth to abduct humans, especially females, and send them back to their home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob Hardin and Shirley. Tom Wright and Sally Markham.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that flying saucers were causing the rockets being sent into space were being destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally Markham and her scientist uncle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x08", "title": "The Lateness of the Hour", "date": "1960-12-02", "description": "A woman disapproves of the robot servants of her father.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Loren's robot servants, not to mention his robot daughter, were indistinguishable from human beings in appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are invited to ponder whether what was done to the various robot helpers and the daughter, was right and just. Note: Dr. Loren presumably disassembled his robot servants against their wills, and effectively lobotomized his robot daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Dr. Loren had his robot personnel disassembled despite their demurrals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Loren contended with his rebellious robot daughter Jana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Loren contended with her rebellious robot daughter Jana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the happily married Loren's as they contend with their rebellious robot daughter Jana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Loren created an android daughter, but she developed an independent streak, and rebelled against him. He likewise created a team of android servants to take care of him and his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. and Mrs. Loren were waited on hand and foot by a team of robot servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father explained that he loved her as a daughter, never mind that she was a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana spoke of making grandchildren, an her parents spoke of their feelings when they made her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana was lonely surrounded only by her parents and robots. The parents had been lonely when they made Jana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana wanted to get out of the house or open it up, so that she could make friends and find a romantic partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human social need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana wanted to get out of the house in order to be part of normal society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana loathed the robot servants that her father had created, but she later discovered that she herself was just such a creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jana expressed concern that her parents had become too much dependent on their robot servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "withdrawal from society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Loren shunned human contact and had shut himself up in his mansion full of androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Loren explained how machines were perfect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Loren implanted all his robot creations with false memories of their lives.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x10", "title": "Sybilla", "date": "1960-12-06", "description": "Horace Meade's new wife Sybilla is perfectly obedient and agrees to all his unconventional demands. Despite this, Horace grows uncomfortable with her and tries to poison her, but is mysteriously thwarted. Horace concludes that Sybilla knew about the poison and has made contingencies with her lawyer in case she dies, and his only choice is to keep her alive and healthy. After 10 years of marriage, Sybilla dies of natural causes. Horace learns that there was no contingency plan, and he realizes that he truly loved her in the end.\n\nDirected by: Ida Lupino. Story by: Margaret Manners, Charlotte Armstrong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "tilting at windmills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horace thought his wife was plotting against him, but that was only his perverse imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace felt suffocated by his wife, Sybilla, and tried to surreptitiously give her a lethal does of sleeping medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace hatched a plot to do away with his wife by lacing her nightly drink with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace convinced himself that Sybilla was playing the role of a perfectly obedient wife as a way to establish her control over him. He took calculated measures to trick her into drinking a lethal dose of sleeping medicine to free himself of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Horace came to the realization that he truly loved Sybilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace, as narrator, told the story of how he came to lose his beloved wife to natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem a point of the story was that Horace married the perfect wife, and was not happy because she was somehow too perfect. Then in the end he discovered how he actually loved her, despite having plotted to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace hatched a plot to do away with his wife by lacing her nightly drink with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock looked on as a young woman evidently pushed her lover off a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock looked on as two \"young lovers\", as he called them, walked up the the edge of a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started off with Horace and Sybilla returning to his mansion after their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace and Sybilla had some token interactions with their maid, Mrs. Carter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace called Sybilla out for going into his study without his permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace paid a visit to Sybilla's lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sybilla pointed out that Horace needed privacy and she would respect that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace congratulated himself on having cleverly served his wife an overdose of completely tasteless sleep medicine, only to later find out that he had actually given her foul tasting lotion that she would surely recognize since she had replaced his medicine with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child unhealthily attached to a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace had trouble adapting to married life presumably in part because of his past attachment to his mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Village of the Damned (1960)", "title": "Village of the Damned", "date": "1960-12-07", "description": "The women in an English village become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_the_Damned_(1960_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if every woman suddenly got pregnant at the same time", "level": "major", "motivation": "All the women of childbearing age of Midwich became pregnant at the same time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children used mind control to force people to do things against their will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end it turned out that brood parasitic aliens had impregnated the females of Midwich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It gradually became apparent that the children were brood parasite aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children had a kind of hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children could read minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon Zellaby blew up the children along with himself in order to prevent them from multiplying around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children of Midwich used mind control to force people to do things against their will. In general, the townspeople came to fear the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All the women of childbearing age oif Midwich became pregnant at the same time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Zellaby and Anthea Zellaby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthea Zellaby and David Zellaby. There were also various other parents and their unusual children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Zellaby and David Zellaby. There were also various other parents and their unusual children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x09", "title": "The Trouble with Templeton", "date": "1960-12-09", "description": "A Broadway actor yearning for the days when his wife was alive gets his wish.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: E. Jack Neuman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aged actor Mr. Templeton just wouldn't stop pining over his glory days in the 1920s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After he had been rejected by his past old friends, Mr. Templeton found himself back in the present and realized that he should make the most of the time he has, or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton was lamenting the loss of his late first wife, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton ran out the back door and found himself in 1927, i.e., 30 years in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton was dreaming about the days of yore, especially his late first wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton looked at the faithless young Doris and thought back to his first wife who was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "After he had been rejected by his past old friends, Mr. Templeton found himself back in the present and realized that he should make the most of the time he has, or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed the (somewhat trite) point of the excursion into the past was to compare a wise, mature character with some irresponsible young ones. The aged actor Mr. Templeton clashed with a young(er), up and coming director.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aged actor Mr. Templeton returned from a disappointing reliving of his glory days in the 1920s with a renewed enthusiasm for life. This was exemplified by Mr. Templeton taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, and eagerly returning to a theatrical rehearsal that he had just stormed off from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton was a Broadway actor and started preparing to act in a new play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton asserted himself in the end and insisted that the young director address him as Mister Templeton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility that Mr. Templeton's young wife, Doris, was indiscreetly trying to make it with a gigolo was mooted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Templeton went back in time to 1927 where he summarily met up with his beer imbibing wife at a speakeasy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Human Vapor (1960)", "title": "The Human Vapor", "date": "1960-12-11", "description": "The film concerns a librarian and his love for a dancer and his ability to transform into a gaseous state.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Vapor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mizuno, the Vapor Man, could transform into a gaseous state at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mizuno, the Vapor Man, could transform into a gaseous state at will and fancied himself a \"gaseous superman\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mizuno, the Vapor Man, loved Fujichiyo Kasuga but she did not approve of his criminal ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Sano used Mizuno as a guinea pie to test his human to gas machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x11", "title": "The Man with Two Faces", "date": "1960-12-13", "description": "While browsing mugshots, elderly Alice Wagner finds a photo of a man who looks like her beloved daughter's husband. She is assured by policeman Lt. Meade that it is a coincidence, but she is later shocked when both her daughter and son-in-law are revealed to be wanted criminals.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that a law abiding old woman finds out her daughter and son-in-law are, in fact, wanted criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice lived with her daughter, Mabel, and son-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice lived with her daughter, Mabel, and son-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice went down to the local police station to make a statement and browse mugshots. Most of the story concerned her talks with Lt. Meade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about using a canon to excel at knocking down bowling pins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice mused about her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was subjected to an attempted mugging and the story deals with what followed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice found out that her son-in-law is wanted, among other things, for grand larceny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice found out that her son-in-law is wanted, among other things, for armed robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel and her husband lived with Mabel's mom Alice, who was the main protagonist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end that Mabel and Leo had been on the lamb all along.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x10", "title": "A Most Unusual Camera", "date": "1960-12-16", "description": "A thieving couple discover that a camera that they have stolen takes pictures of the future.\n\nDirected by: John Rich. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A trio of smalltime crooks used a camera that showed you images of five minutes into the future to make a ton of cash at the horse race track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a camera that showed you images of five minutes into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester and Paula exemplified the quarreling, old married couple stereotype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester and Paula were paid a surprise visit by her fugitive brother Woodward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester and Woodward were brother-in-laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chester, Paula, and Woodward used a magic camera that showed you images of five minutes into the future to make a ton of cash at the horse race track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chester and Paula quarreled about their lackluster heist of a curio shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chester and Paula had acquired an assortment of crummy objet d'arts in a curio shop heist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of society vs. personal gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief deliberation regarding how to best employ the camera: Should they donate it to science for the good of all humankind or take it to the race track?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula quickly got over the death of her husband when she realized that she was left with all the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula wept after realizing that her husband and brother had mutually, and unintentionally defenestrated themselves to their deaths.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x12", "title": "The Baby-Blue Expression", "date": "1960-12-20", "description": "Scatterbrained Mrs. Barrett conspires with her lover Philip to kill her husband James while he is away on a business trip. She mistakenly mails an incriminating letter about the murder plan to James, and frantically tries to get it back, but fails.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Mary Stolz, Helen Nielsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the sordid conspiracies of Mrs. Barrett and her lover Philip against the former's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the sordid conspiracies of Mrs. Barrett and her lover Philip against the former's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "That Mrs. Barrett embodied the dumb blonde stereotype was struck home when she asked whether Toronto was overseas. If that's not enough, she is furthermore described as a \"scatterbrain\" (on Wikipedia), and the concluding misfortune of the conspiring antagonists is solely due to her inability to carry out simple instructions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Barrett conspired with her lover to knock off her husband, James, while he was away on business in Toronto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Barrett conspired with her lover to bring about the untimely demise of her husband in Toronto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to play a one minute waltz on the piano in record time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Barrett looked after her yappy chihuahua.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Barrett dressed down her housekeeper for lollygagging about with cleaning instead of making canapes for the cocktail tête-à-tête Mrs. Barrett had not yet announced to anyone, least of all the housekeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip proclaimed his love to Mrs. Barrett in the restaurant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x11", "title": "The Night of the Meek", "date": "1960-12-23", "description": "A drunken department store Santa Claus is fired by his boss on Christmas Eve and then finds a sack that gives people anything they want.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "generosity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry took joy in giving out presents to everyone on Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry took joy in giving out presents to everyone on Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry went from being a pitiful excuse for a mall Santa to nearly the real thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a down-and-out mall Santa on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic bag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry had a bag that never stopped being full of presents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was fired form his job as a mall Santa for making a drunken fool of himself in front of the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was apprehended by the police under suspicious that he's stolen a load of of merchandise from a local department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry commented on how poor kids had little in the way of Christmas. We additionally saw some destitute men in a homeless shelter of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was unemployed all year around, we heard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x13", "title": "The Man Who Found the Money", "date": "1960-12-27", "description": "While on holiday in Las Vegas, William Benson stumbles on a clip containing $92,000. Despite being tempted, he reports it in so that it can be returned to its owner, casino mogul Mr. Newsome. However, the clip is supposed to contain $102,000 and Mr. Newsome kidnaps Benson's wife, demanding that Benson \"return\" the missing money.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: James E. Cronin, Allan Gordon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "William was falsely accused of having pilfered $10,000 from a clip of money he'd stumbled on that supposedly contained $102,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to return found property", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We understand that, low on his luck at the gambling tables, William racked his soul long and hard before deciding to return the $92,000 he had stumbled across.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to return lost property", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on William getting burned for doing the right thing by reporting his discovery of a clip containing $92,000 to the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to steer seafaring vessel of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock implied that he had solved the problem of pesky sponsors by hanging the most recent one from the rig. Two legs were seen dangling limply behind Hitchcock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William lost a pretty penny on a spin of the roulette wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William visibly deliberated over whether or not to turn in the $92,000 he'd found to the police. He did, but must have ultimately come to regret it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William exchanged words with his kidnapped wife over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A desk sergeant suspected William of having stolen $10,000 from the shady casino mogul Mr. Newsome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William became agitated as he gradually understood the threat that was being made to his beloved wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shady casino mogul Mr. Newsome arranged for William's wife to be kidnapped and held until William coughed up the $10,000.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battle of the Worlds (1961)", "title": "Battle of the Worlds", "date": "1961", "description": "A romantically involved pair of scientists learn they must deal with a rogue planet, dubbed the \"The Outsider\", that has entered the solar system and is on a collision course with Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Worlds" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists discover a rogue planet from another galaxy, dubbed the \"The Outsider\", has entered the solar system will collide with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rogue planet aliens tried to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fred Steele and Eve Barnett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fred Steele and Eve Barnett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a base on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that there was a base on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The coming of the rogue planet trigged mass hysteria around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rogue planet from another galaxy, dubbed \"The Outsider\", came into the solar system and entered into orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fleet of flying saucers from the rogue planet attacked the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Benson communicate with government officials over a video phone system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Benson and other scientists flew to the rogue planet in a rocket ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Benson was convinced that the rogue planet aliens had died long ago of radiation exposure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Benson's dog was looking for him after Benson died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doctor Bloods Coffin (1961)", "title": "Doctor Blood's Coffin", "date": "1961", "description": "Young biochemist Dr Peter Blood returns to his hometown in Cornwall with the belief that he can selectively restore life by transplanting the living hearts of 'undeserving' people into dead people who 'deserve' to live.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Blood%27s_Coffin" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Is is okay for Dr. Robert Blood to take the lives of people he deems worthless so that he can perfect his heart transplantation technique, thus allowing great men to live on and advance civilization?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Blood and Dr. Peter Blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood was transplanting hearts from living people into dead ones in order to revive them to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heart transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood was transplanting hearts from living people into dead ones in order to revive them to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood and Nurse Linda Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood was transplanting hearts from living people into dead ones in order to revive them to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood's professor in Vienna warned Peter that he would alert the authorities if he continued with his heart transplant experiments with people before trying them first on animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood turned Steve Parker into a zombie in an attempt to revive him from the dead. The zombie then tried to kill Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Blood turned Steve Parker into a zombie in an attempt to revive him from the dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Master of the World (1961)", "title": "Master of the World", "date": "1961", "description": "A science fiction film based upon the Jules Verne novels Robur the Conqueror and its sequel, Master of the World.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_World_(1961_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative airship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robur built an airship and used it to travel around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy Prudent and Philip Evans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudent and Dorothy Prudent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robur held Prudent, Dorothy Prudent, John Strock and Philip Evans aboard his airship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robur despised the arms trade and was hellbent on using his airship to end war by destroying the military capacity of the nations of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robur took it upon himself to bring about world peace by threatening to destroy the world unless all nations disarmed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robur was adamant that get was justified in killing thousands to rid the world of war rather than sit idly by and let future wars take the lives of millions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Strock was initially assumed to have been a coward by the other captives aboard Robur's airship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x14", "title": "The Changing Heart", "date": "1961-01-03", "description": "Dane Rosse falls in love with Lisa Klemm, granddaughter of clockmaker Ulrich Klemm. Ulrich is highly protective of Lisa and refuses to let the pair marry. Dane leaves town heartbroken, and learns through a friend that Lisa has fallen seriously ill. When Dane returns, Ulrich has died of exhaustion from his work of \"saving\" Lisa by turning her into a clockwork automaton.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ulrich was a clockmaker by trade. Much of the story is set in his shop, where he was shown working his craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Ulrich's refusal to let his beloved granddaughter, Lisa, take Dane's hand in marriage and its aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dane and Lisa fell passionately in love, but things tended in a tragic direction when her grandfather refused to let her move away with Dane to Seattle. If that weren't enough, the story concluded with Dane discovering that Lisa had been turned into a clockwork automaton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overprotective guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ulrich was pathologically protective of his beloved granddaughter, Lisa, and refused to let her move away to Seattle with her lover, Dane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa was torn between her beloved grandfather, Ulrich, and her lover, Dane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ulrich worked himself to death in order to \"save\" his gravely ill granddaughter's life. This he arguably achieved by transforming her into an evidently mindless, clockwork automaton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "advertising in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock complained about deceitful adds about flats for rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulrich had once been an honored clockmaker from around all the capitals of the Old Continent. He lamented that, now, he was a lowly clock repairer on the New.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dane suggested that Ulrich had been hypnotizing Lisa and for a while it very much seemed like that is how he was controlling her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While the details are very much left out, it is clear that at least some of Lisa's internals had been replaced with clockwork and that she was not dead, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulrich had a passion for a craft (clockmaking).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulrich spoke of his love for his beloved granddaughter, Lisa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x12", "title": "Dust", "date": "1961-01-06", "description": "In the Old West, the desperate father of a condemned man buys \"magic dust\" from a peddler to save his son.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was building up to the townspeople showing compassion on a man condemned to hang for having accidentally killed a young girl while he was riding drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concluded with a couple declining to have the Sheriff make a second attempt at hanging the man who had accidentally killed their young daughter while drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a depiction of what it might be like for a man to be sent to the gallows in a town on the American Frontier in the late 1800s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gallegos faced his date with the hangman with dignity and courage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a desperate father sprinkle a crowd of onlookers at a gallows with what his believed to be magic dust in an attempt to put a stop to his son's imminent hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the parent's of Gallegos' victim decided against proceeding with his execution: the mother out of compassion and the father possibly to do the will of the Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The possibility was left open that it was magic dust that made the onlookers at Gallegos' hanging showed him compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father was a pitiful, wreck of a man who spent all his money on \"magic\" dust in a desperate attempt to save his son from the gallows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was whether Gallegos really deserved to hang for his drunken indiscretion that so tragically result in a girl's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The magic dust was to turn hate to love, and we saw plenty of hate from the bereaved parents and Sykes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sykes was an abnormally cruel character. At one point the Sheriff chided Sykes for tormenting a condemned man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father of a young girl wanted Gallegos to hang for having accidentally killed the girl while drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father of a young girl wanted Gallegos to hang for having accidentally killed the girl while drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gallegos was sentenced to hang for having fatally struck a young girl while he was drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gallegos was sentenced to hang for having run over a young girl while drunk at the wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gallegos had struck and killed a young girl while drunk on his wagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sykes sold fake magic dust to a desperate old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sykes would do anything to make a few pesos. He sold the Sheriff the rope to hang Gallegos, then turned around and swindled Gallegos' father out of 100 pesos for some \"magic\" dust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luis knelt by the side of his young daughter as she pleaded with the Sheriff for mercy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the parents we made to decide Gallegos' fate at the gallows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conman Sykes was gleeful at the prospect of Gallegos getting hanged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not explicitly made clear, the father talked to such extent about dark feelings associated with the imbuing of alcohol that abuse seems implied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bereaved father speculated that the broken rope was due to divine provenance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The way the Hispanic people were treated and the fact that one was condemned to death for an accident.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x15", "title": "Summer Shade", "date": "1961-01-10", "description": "Not long after Phyllis and Ben Kendall move into the house that they have bought from elderly Amelia Gastiell, their daughter Katie claims that she has made a new friend, \"Lettie\", whom her parents never see. Phyllis suspects that Lettie is Lauretta Bishop, a Puritan girl who died in 1694. When Ben asks Amelia to find a new friend for Katie, Amelia brings \"Judy\" to their house, but Judy is actually Lettie, who is also Lauretta Bishop.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Nora H. Caplan, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The nine-year-old girl Katie's imaginary friend turned, in fact, out to be the spirit of a Puritan girl who died in 1694. The entire plot of the story hinged on Katie's parents' concern about their daughter's condition, and whether a child psychiatrist or an exorcist should be engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Phyllis and Ben as they become increasingly concerned about their nine-year-old daughter Katie's psychological well-being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben worried about his nine-year-old daughter, Katie, becoming absorbed with what he assumed to be an imaginary friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis worried about her nine-year-old daughter, Katie, becoming absorbed with what Phyllis speculated might be the spirit of a Puritan girl who died in 1694.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Katie's supposed imaginary friend was the spirit or ghost of a Puritan girl who died in 1694.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis and Ben struggled to raise their daughter at a new address where she had no friends and, seemingly, adopted an imaginary friend, which was utterly concerning to her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a witch on the real sign in front of the house that Phyllis and Ben bought. The real estate agent Amelia may have been into witchcraft. The Salem witch trials were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock lamented the fast pace of modern life, and spoke in glowing terms of simpler times when gossipy women were punished in the cucking stool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phyllis consulted the town reverend about the possibility of performing an exorcism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor visited the Kendall residence to treat Katie, who was under the weather with a cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben read that a woman by the name of Bridget Bishop was convicted of witchcraft and hung as part of these prosecutions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone presumed that Katie made up having an imaginary friend because she was lonely. Katie told her father that Lauretta was lonesome.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x13", "title": "Back There", "date": "1961-01-13", "description": "An engineer travels through time to the date of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and tries to change history.\n\nDirected by: David Orrick McDearmon. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter came to from a dizzy spell to find himself in the year 1865.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter made a frantic, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent John Wilkes Booth from assassinating Abraham Lincoln.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Only one policeman took Peter's ravings about a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter's bid to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln constituted a deliberate attempt to alter the course of history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kill Hitler dilemma is much the other side the coin of the Save Lincoln dilemma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter traveled back to the time and place of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter encountered a young married couple who were on their way to attend the very play that Abraham Lincoln was destined to be assassinated at.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x14", "title": "The Whole Truth", "date": "1961-01-20", "description": "A used-car dealer is forced to tell the truth after buying a car from an old man who says it is haunted.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could only speak the truth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crooked, used car dealer Mr. Hunnicut was compelled to always tell the truth so long as he was in possession of a haunted car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the crooked, used car dealer Mr. Hunnicut using every trick in the book to sell the the cars in his lot full of lemons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pathologically lying, user car dealer Mr. Hunnicut was compelled to always tell the truth after purchasing a haunted car from an elderly man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Hunnicut purchased a car that was said to be haunted from an elderly man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crooked, user car dealer Mr. Hunnicut found himself in the predicament that he always had to tell the truth to everyone, including his assistant, wife, and above all his customers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Mr. Hunnicut trying to sell one of the many lemons on his lot to a young married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hunnicut's assistant socked him in the face and stormed out of the office upon learning that he had no chance of securing a raise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x16", "title": "A Crime for Mothers", "date": "1961-01-24", "description": "Mrs. Meade wants to extort money from Jane and Ralph Birdwell, the couple who raised Mrs. Meade's abandoned daughter Eileen as their own. Meade teams up with private investigator Phil Ames to kidnap Eileen, but it turns out to be a trap, as Phil is a friend of the Birdwells.\n\nDirected by: Ida Lupino. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Mrs. Mead's efforts to extort money from the foster parents of her young daughter, Eileen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Mead kidnapped a young girl who she mistakenly believed to be her own daughter in an failed bid to extract a ransom from the girl's foster parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Mead kidnapped a young girl who she mistakenly believed to be her own daughter in an failed bid to extract a ransom from the girl's foster parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about an adopted child whose biological mother threatened to change her mind after the fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Mead planned to battle for custody of her daughter in the courts, but ended up trying to kidnap her instead. Mrs. Mead explicitly threatened to take the Birdwell's to court to get custody of her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Meade's drinking led her to give up her child seven years prior, and she was never far from the bottle in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting a child up for adoption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Mead pretended to want back the child she'd giving up for adoption years prior in an effort to make a quick buck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock's \"brother\", actually Alfred himself wearing a fake mustache, showed his resentment of Alfred by playing a montage of video clips showing Alfred in scenes of mortal danger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started of with Jane and Ralph Birdwell being confronted by Mrs. Meade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Vance came to pick up his young daughter, Margaret, from Mrs. Mead's custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil betrayed the trust of his client, Mrs. Mead, by setting her up for a kidnapping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lawyer said Mrs. Mead's ideas amounted to little more than blackmail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mead sought out the private eye Phil Ames to help her extort money from her young daughter's foster parents, but it backfired on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x15", "title": "The Invaders", "date": "1961-01-27", "description": "A woman living alone in a rural house is stalked by tiny beings from another planet.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We were shown that what we may think is a belligerent giant alien, may in fact think of us as terrifying minuscule space invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A United States Air Force flying saucer crew made the mistake of landing on the rooftop of a giant woman's rustic cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the woman we were led to believe was a human battling tiny spacemen was in fact a giant humanoid battling human astronauts from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that the woman battling what appeared to be spacemen was herself the alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman living all alone in a rustic cabin was terrorized by tiny men from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman living all alone in a rustic cabin fended off some tiny invaders from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed at the conclusion of the story that the spacemen were in fact astronauts from Earth who had traveled to another planet. Note: It is not possible to further specialize the type of space travel that was featured on account that the whereabouts of the planet was never revealed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x17", "title": "The Last Escape", "date": "1961-01-31", "description": "Joe and Wanda Ferlini are a husband-and-wife escape artist act, though their marital relationship is strained. When Joe performs a dangerous water escape, Wanda switches his keys, causing him to drown. However, at the funeral a coroner opens the coffin, revealing to the public that it is empty. Joe's agent privately arranged that Joe be buried somewhere secret as a final \"escape\", but due to the stunt, Wanda goes insane.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stage magic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a nightclub performing escape artist who plans to make it to the big time by pulling off a dangerous river escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wanda and her lover, Tommy, did in Wanda's escape artist husband Joe by switching the key to Joe's handcuffs before he attempted a dangerous aquatic escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda was having an affair with Tommy behind her husband Joe's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda was having an affair with Tommy behind her husband Joe's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story examines the troubled marriage of Joe and Wanda Ferlini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda complained about Joe's obsession with escape artistry, which was clearly ruining their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escape artist Joe's agent, Harry, arranged for there to be an empty casket at Joe's funeral in a grand act of showmanship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "merpeople", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock presented a mermaid that he'd presumably fished up out of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a fishing rod holding Alfred Hitchcock suggested that he'd caught a real, live mermaid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 46-year-old escape artist Joe didn't take it well when Wanda insinuated that he was too old to perform a risky aquatic escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The attendees at the escape artist Joe's funeral were left to wonder whether he might have performed one last great escape when he casket was revealed to be empty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reverend presided over Joe's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Wanda being in a straight jacket and under the care of a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x16", "title": "A Penny for Your Thoughts", "date": "1961-02-03", "description": "When a coin lands on its edge, a bank clerk gains the ability to hear other people's thoughts – and soon learns that you cannot always believe what you hear.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Poole suddenly found himself obliged to hear the thoughts of anyone nearby after the coin he tossed into a newspaper vendor's box landed on its edge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bank clerk Poole and his manager Mr. Bagby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Poole learned to become a more assertive and self-confident person under Helen's tutelage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen had long been dreaming about being with Poole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Poole deliberated whether he should tell his boss about Mr. Smithers' bank robbing at the risk of being though a fool. We simultaneously we heard that Mr. Smithers thought about robbing the bank but was too afraid to ever go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard the bank manager Mr. Bagby on the phone planning a weekend away with his mistress, Felicia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bagby's chorus girl mistress was pressuring him to divorce his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Poole felt the need to explain to his boss why he came late to work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Sykes tried to procure a loan under false pretenses from the bank to replace some money that he'd embezzled from his company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is encouraged to believe that old Mr. Smithers had robber the bank vault and was on his way to take the first ship to Bermuda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Poole overheard old Mr. Smithers grumbling to himself about how his colleagues would be sorry for keeping him at the same desk for 20 years. Moreover, we learned that Poole himself had been overlooked for a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mr. Smithers considered himself to be something of a coward for never following through on his fantasy to rob the bank where he'd been employed for 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Poole used his knowledge of Mr. Bagby's mistress to blackmail him into getting a nice promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After learning that old Mr. Smithers dreamed of getting away to a tropical island, Poole insisted that the old man be given a vacation to Bermuda at the bank's expense as part of Poole accepting a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mr. Smithers fantasized about emptying the vault of the bank where he worked and skipping off to some tropical island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Poole tried to read the thoughts of a pretty blonde girl and got nothing but silence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "portent of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A coin stood on its side, it was said it was a portent of luck, and then Hector started hearing thoughts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x17", "title": "Twenty-Two", "date": "1961-02-10", "description": "A dancer hospitalized for exhaustion has a recurring nightmare in which she is led to Room Twenty-Two, the morgue, by a sinister nurse.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Bennett Cerf, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered on Liz's terror brought on by a recurring nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a hospital room, some corridors, and its morgue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz was convinced that what her doctor explained away as lucid dreaming was actually a real experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "We gather that Liz's nightmares had indeed been a portent of a future disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of nightmares", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor ran an experiment in an effort to prove that Liz's strange experience was actually a recurring nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liz seemed disappointed in the lackluster support extended to her by her agent Barney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a rather creepy doctor tending to Liz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liz seemed disappointed in the lackluster support extended to her by her agent Barney.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x18", "title": "The Greatest Monster of Them All", "date": "1961-02-14", "description": "Screenwriter Fred Logan asks his director Morty Lenton to cast veteran horror actor Ernst von Croft in their latest film in a comeback role. Although Fred and von Croft believe that it is a regular horror film, Morty has reworked it as a horror parody, which embarrasses von Croft. In revenge, von Croft dresses as a vampire and kills Morty before somersaulting to his death in what appeared to be a dramatic murder attempt.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Bryce Walton, Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The veteran horror actor Ernst von Croft was mortified at the premier of his new vampire film and subsequently took measures to get revenge on the film's producers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first part of the story concerns the shooting of a low-budget vampire flick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the making of a parody horror movie for teenagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "The veteran horror actor played the role of a vampire in a low-budget horror flick. He later dressed up in a vampire costume as part of a deranged plot to take revenge on the film's producers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The veteran horror actor Ernst von Croft avenged being disrespected and publicly humiliated by the makers of his new vampire film by killing the film's director.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The washed up horror actor Ernst von Croft saw starring in Morty's low-budget horror film as his ticket back to the big time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst von Croft was humiliated upon learning that his big come back film was turned into a pithy comedy. He was humiliated to the extent that he committed murder to get back at the producer for having played him a fool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernst von Croft was shown acting the role of a vampire on set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock appeared surrounded by courtesan-looking attendants and hookahs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the producers made light of Fred's excessive drinking habits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dressed up as a vampire, Ernst von Croft killed Morty by biting him on the neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were several remarks about the story featuring and targeting high school students. Some teenagers were watching a comedy horror film at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernst von Croft dreamed of once again being the greatest monster on screen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x19", "title": "The Landlady", "date": "1961-02-21", "description": "Billy Weaver finds accommodations in the house of a friendly landlady. The landlady keeps referring to two other tenants, but Weaver never sees them. One day Weaver drinks a cup of tea prepared by his landlady and becomes completely immobile. The landlady has a hobby of collecting and stuffing her \"pets\", which include the tenants that she likes.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Roald Dahl, Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dangerously insane landlady lured Billy Weaver into her house with the intention of taxiderming him, and one gathers he was at least her third victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "A landlady had taxidermied two young men and plotted to do the same to fair Billy Weaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock cracked a refrigerator-safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock proclaimed that he ate despite not being hungry, yet resented the implication that he could not stick to his diet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pub patrons were all agog about a recent burglary.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x18", "title": "The Odyssey of Flight 33", "date": "1961-02-24", "description": "A strange increase in speed causes a jet airliner to travel back in time.\n\nDirected by: Jus Addiss. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A mysterious atmospheric phenomena sent a passenger plane back in time first to the age of the dinosaurs, and then to New York City in the year 1939.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a passenger flight en route from London to New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things were inexplicably going awry on the flight, and nobody had a clue why.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the military attaché to the British embassy in Washington endure an older lady ramble on about her deceased aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A whole flight of crew and passengers suddenly found themselves in the time of the dinosaurs, from whence they rapidly made their escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The captain deliberated over how much of what was going on he should tell the passengers. At first he reassured them all is well, but later he came clean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x20", "title": "The Throwback", "date": "1961-02-28", "description": "Enid has two lovers, Eliot Gray and Cyril Hardeen. The two men meet, and the older and more sophisticated Cyril frames Eliot for beating Cyril up. Enid refuses to believe the truth and leaves Eliot for Cyril.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Eliot and Cyril were vying for Enid's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was that Cyril framed Eliot for an assault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was that Eliot got accused of having beaten up Cyril. He had not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Twenty-five year old Enid maintained a love affair with 59-year-old Cyril because he was frail, kind and gentlemanly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old fashioned romantic Cyril said he dreamed of medieval times when love was won by conquest. Enid spoke of his chivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyril went on about honor but proved to be a devious trickster in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love out of pity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enid explained her affection for Cyril in terms of pitying an old frail man. In the end, Cyril appealed to her sense of pity to win her love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock joked about having been lifted out of a predicament by crane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two ununiformed police officers fell for Cyril's ploy to frame Eliot for assault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyril had his manservant rough up Eliot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x19", "title": "Mr. Dingle, the Strong", "date": "1961-03-03", "description": "A meek vacuum cleaner salesman is given incredible strength by a two-headed Martian as part of an experiment.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Dingle was surreptitiously endowed with the strength of 300 men by a two-headed Martian scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got an extraordinary ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A two-headed Martian scientist wanted to observe how a wimpy human being reacted when an ordinary human being suddenly acquired super strength. Later a pair of Venusian scientists did the same but with super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A two-headed Martian scientist was secretly observing Mr. Dingle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A two-headed Martian scientist had come to Earth to study what happens when a mild mannered man suddenly acquires super strength. In addition, the story concluded with a pair of diminutive Venusian scientists shown being up to similar shenanigans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Earth was a playground for scientists from advanced alien races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the first experiment was that the subject used his newfound ability to engage in flamboyant public displays, and settling past scores - the subject had a humiliating fall when the power was again removed from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dingle was a wimpy, socially awkward, vacuum cleaner salesman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bettor claimed his socking of Mr. Dingle clear over a bar counter was a matter of honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two-headed Martian scientist had somehow made itself invisible its human experimental subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vacuum salesman Mr. Dingle's utter lack of salesmanship skills makes this theme topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A neighborhood bar owner quipped that he hadn't done such good business since the prohibition of alcohol was ended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After acquiring the strength of 300 men, Mr. Dingle gave his old tormentor Bettor his proper comeuppance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bar bully Bettor was himself bullied by his usual target Mr. Dingle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After acquiring the strength of 300 men, Mr. Dingle gave his old tormentor Bettor his proper comeuppance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of diminutive Venusian scientists endowed Mr. Dingle with super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Dingle was surreptitiously endowed with an intelligence equaling 500 times that of the average man by a pair of diminutive Venusian scientists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x21", "title": "The Kiss-Off", "date": "1961-03-07", "description": "Ernie Walters is newly released from prison after serving six years for a crime that he was only just proven to be innocent of. In order to get back at the detective and district attorney who convicted him, Ernie robs the tax office and leaves just enough \"flaws\" in his plan that the detective and DA suspect that he is the culprit, but are unable to pursue a case against him.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: John P. Foran, Talmage Powell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ernie was out to get back at the law officials that had, unjustly, put him behind bars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"tax office\" Erine held up was, for all intents and purposes, a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernie had served six years for a gas station robbery of which he was, in fact, innocent. He subsequently manipulated the police into accusing him of a crime that he had committed, but that they could not prove, and he made a pretence that he may not have done it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A district attorney was was outsmarted by a man whom he'd previously successfully prosecuted for a crime he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A district attorney and a police detective were investigating a tax office hold up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about being too portly to fit in a regular voting booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock went on about voting booths and clean government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernie proposed to his lady friend and arranged their honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernie surprised his old flame by showing up out of the blue after having served a six year prison term.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x20", "title": "Static", "date": "1961-03-10", "description": "A radio allows an old man to listen to programs from his past.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Oceo Ritch, Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fifty-something bachelor Ed longed for life to be like it was during his heyday back in the 1930s and 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw the fifty-something bachelor Ed listening to radio broadcasts from back in his heyday in the 1930s and 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ed became obsessed with putting himself back in the time of his glory days in the 1930s/1940s via listening to radio broadcasts from that era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The possibility was left open that Ed had acquired a magic radio that played broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed retreated from modern life and wished only to stay in his room and listen to radio broadcasts from his heyday in the 1930s and 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vinnie and Professor Ackerman went so far as to have Ed's radio hauled off by the junk dealer out of concern over his growing obsession with listening to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone in the boarding house was feed up with Ed being grumpy and criticizing them all for watching too much television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Vinnie had lived together for 20 years, but never got it together. But the story concluded with Ed going back in time and making things right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Ed being transported back to his youth and given a chance to do things better with Vinnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody took Ed seriously when he kept insisting that his radio was playing broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie explained how her relationship with Ed had slowly fallen apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was transported into the past, although he also appeared younger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x22", "title": "The Horseplayer", "date": "1961-03-14", "description": "The newest arrival at Father Amion's church is Sheridan, a gambler who believes that prayer has caused his recent success at the horse races. Father Amion disapproves of gambling but, due to shortage of funds to fix the church, gives Sheridan his life savings on a \"sure\" winning horse. Father Amion is quickly remorseful and prays that the horse lose instead. Sheridan returns with news that the horse just missed winning, and declares that he will stop gambling, which pleases Father Amion. However, Father Amion is surprised to get his money back with a little extra, because Sheridan put his bet on the horse to place, not to win.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crux of this story is Father Amion wrestling with whether to gamble (a thing he fervently preaches against) on a \"sure thing\" at the horse races in order to pay for essential repairs to the parish church ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Father Amion, a parish priest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns horse player Sheridan, who tempts Father Amion into gambling with his life's savings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was convinced that prayer was behind his recent winning streak at the horse track, and kept placing bets under the presumption that his prayers would go on being answered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Amion, who disapproved of gambling, wrestled with his conscience before betting his life savings on a \"sure thing\" at the horse races in order to pay for essential repairs to the parish church ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Amion, who disapproved of gambling, ultimately succumbed to the temptation to place a bet on a \"sure thing\" at the horse track in order to pay for essential repairs to the parish church ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Amion was shown presiding over what was evidently a Tridentine Catholic mass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious hypocrisy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Amion spoke out against gambling but then ended up betting his life saving on a \"sure thing\" when the parish was in dire need of money to repair the church ceiling.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Absent Minded Professor (1961)", "title": "The Absent-Minded Professor", "date": "1961-03-16", "description": "Professor Brainard is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absent-Minded_Professor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the life of an absent minded college professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard invented a substance, he called Flubber, gained energy when it strikes a hard surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard missed his wedding ceremony with Betsy Carlisle three times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alonzo P. Hawk schemed to gain wealth by means of Flubber. He also bet against his own college basketball team when he had inside information that their star player would miss the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy Carlisle lost hope in Professor Brainard after he missed their wedding three times and gave his rival Professor Shelby Ashton a chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard and Betsy Carlisle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Betsy follow her heart and marry the lovable but aloof Professor Brainard or play it safe and marry his very stable rival Professor Shelby Ashton?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard performed a number of zany scientific experiments in his role as a professional educator at Medfield College.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard and his dog Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alonzo P. Hawk and Biff Hawk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard used Flubber to make a flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an ongoing rivalry between the basketball teams of two colleges.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x23", "title": "Incident in a Small Jail", "date": "1961-03-21", "description": "Traveling salesman Leon Gorwald is arrested for jaywalking in a small town and placed in jail with a suspected serial killer. The suspect escapes just before a lynch mob storms the prison, and Gorwald is mistakenly taken to be hanged, but is saved by the sheriff at the last moment. However, the escaped suspect was an innocent man, and Gorwald is the real killer.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crime against the public", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon was jailed for jaywalking and attempted bribery of a police officer. In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock jested about parking violations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon was revealed to be the twisted serial slayer of young women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lynch mob stormed the county jail to administer its own justice to a suspected serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small town sheriff and his deputy were dealing with two prisoners and an angry mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leon was about to be lynched in place of the man that the mob actually was after, was saved by the hair of his chin, and then revealed to be the actual culprit after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "picking up a hitchhiker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After his release from jail, the mild-mannered traveling salesman Leon picked up a hitchhiking young woman. Little did she know he was a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leon was jailed for jaywalking and attempted bribery of a police officer. He later tried to bribe the sheriff of the jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a pedantic authority figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening scene, Leon was arrested for jaywalking by an overzealous police officer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x21", "title": "The Prime Mover", "date": "1961-03-24", "description": "A gambler uses the telekinetic powers of his friend to win big in Las Vegas.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Winning a small fortune on the Las Vegas served only to make Ace greedy for more winnings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end, Jimbo ensured that Ace learned how Kitty's love is more valuable than all the money in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimbo had this innate ability which his pal Ace twisted his harm into using to Ace's advantage gambling on the Las Vegas strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ace and his longtime girlfriend Kitty were planning to marry but Ace didn't have enough money to throw a big wedding like he wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Ace having the time of his life winning a small fortune gambling on the Las Vegas strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ace pressured his old friend Jimbo into using his telekinetic powers to their advantage on the Las Vegas strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ace became obsessed with using his telekinetic friend Jimbo to win big on the Las Vegas strip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a headache", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Using his telekinetic ability gave Jimbo a bad headache.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty left her boyfriend Ace with this ultimatum: Either stop gambling immediately or else she'd leave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimbo reluctantly agreed to use his telekinetic powers to help his friend Ace win at gambling even though using this power have Jimbo bad headaches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ace played craps with a mobster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ace was told to leave off the slot machine or he'd blow a fuse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x24", "title": "A Woman's Help", "date": "1961-03-28", "description": "Arnold is controlled by his domineering but invalid wife, Elizabeth. When the attractive Miss Greco is hired as Elizabeth's nurse, she and Arnold begin an affair and slowly poison Elizabeth by overdosing her medicine. Before she can die, Elizabeth catches them kissing and fires Miss Greco. Elizabeth then hires an older woman to be her nurse, not knowing that the woman is Arnold's mother, who helps him continue to poison Elizabeth.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold was under the thumb of his domineering, invalid wife Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold plotted to poison his wealthy, invalid wife, Elizabeth, and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The home nurse Miss Greco conspired with Arnold to slowly poison his wife, Elizabeth, who was under her care.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth was an invalid and largely confined to a wheelchair. Elizabeth was an invalid though it is unclear exactly what her problem was. She spent most of her time in bed or a wheelchair, though a cane suggested that she could walk to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold and Miss Greco quickly fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold was having an affair with Miss Grecco right under his wife's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold plotted to murder his wife, inherit her fortune, and then marry Miss Grecco. Miss Grecco acted as his accomplice, as did his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold plotted to poison his wealthy, invalid wife, and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold, Elizabeth, Miss Grecco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold was recurringly berated by his shrewish wife, Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold and Miss Greco read from Shakespeare's Sonnet 141 on the patio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The home nurse Miss Greco was immediately canned by the lady of the house upon getting caught red handed with the man of the house. She subsequently bid farewell to Arnold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth inadvertently hired Arnold's mother as their house servant. Arnold affectionately kissed his co-conspiring homicidal mother on the cheek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jealous of Arnold's affair with the young home nurse Miss Grecco, Elizabeth hired and old lady instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gorgo (1961)", "title": "Gorgo", "date": "1961-03-29", "description": "Gorgo, a young sea monster brought back to London for exploitation, and Ogra, his even larger mother, who rampages across London to search for him.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgo_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sea monster Gorgo was captured and brought back to London where it was exploited at the circus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sea monsters Gorgo and Ogra terrorized London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sea monsters Gorgo and Ogra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ogra came to break its son Gorgo out of the circus and they both returned to the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant sea creature Gorgo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was running around with a placard urging people to repent as Ogra was in the midst of destroying London.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x22", "title": "Long Distance Call", "date": "1961-03-31", "description": "A boy talks with his dead grandmother on the toy telephone she gave him before she died.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: Charles Beaumont and William Idelson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Grandma Bayles so loved her five year old grandson Billy that she apparently made an attempt to lure him off to the afterworld to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy apparently communicated with his recently deceased grandmother by using a toy telephone that she'd given him for his birthday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris became increasing concerned over his young son's inability to get over the death of the boy's beloved grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia became increasing concerned over his young son's inability to get over the death of the boy's beloved grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris and Sylvia Balyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandma Bayles so loved her five year old grandson Billy that she apparently made an attempt to lure him off to the afterworld to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The five year old boy Billy used a toy telephone to apparently communicate with his recently deceased grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The five year old boy Billy was torn up inside over the recent passing of his beloved grandmother. His parents likewise grieved her passing, but in a more measured manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a suicidal person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was suicidal in a peculiar way, and it made his parents distraught.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw little Billy celebrating his fifth birthday together with family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandma Bayles knew she was not long for this world as she had some kind of affliction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x25", "title": "Museum Piece", "date": "1961-04-04", "description": "Mr. Hollister is curator of a small museum that displays trinkets and human remains. He is visited by Newton B. Clovis who claims to be an archaeo- psychologist. Hollister tells him that the museum's collection was made by his son, Ben, who died after being erroneously convicted of first degree murder. It is revealed that the modern skeleton in the museum belongs to the district attorney who convicted Ben, and Clovis is investigating that murder.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: William C. Morrison, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Hollister was distraught over the possibility that his son might get convicted of first degree murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Hollister coped with his beloved son dying in prison by murdering the district attorney who was ultimately responsible for the son's conviction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is the legal dilemma around whether mild mannered Ben deserved any of the legal punishment that was lawfully meted out to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mt. Hollister spoke wistfully of his late son, Ben. Then a story-within-a-story about the two ensued. Mr. Hollister tried and failed to save his son, Ben, from being falsely convicted for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Clovis turned out to have been sent from the district attorney's office to investigate Mr. Henshaw's murder. District Attorney Henshaw prosecuted Ben for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Hollister murdered District Attorney Henshaw out of vengeance and put his skeleton on display in a museum. He subsequently stabbed the suspicious Mr. Clovis in the back and put up his skeleton on display as well. Ben was accused of first degree murder, although the viewer knows it was somewhat an accident as well as self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "As the story unravels, it is revealed that Mr. Hollister had extracted vengeance for his son's unjust demise in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn't commit. The case is, in fact, ambiguous and left ambiguous but the idea is apparent that Ben was perhaps punished more harshly than the offense warranted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about ancient Egyptian burial rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clovis pretended to be an archaeo-psychologist (i.e., a specialist at inferring the psyches of ancient people by examining the artifacts they left behind). The apparent archaeo-psychologist Mr. Clovis examined a couple of ancient obsidian knives. Mr. Hollister was a museum curator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The death penalty was demanded for Ben. He received life instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben was \"withering away\" in prison and would die because he \"lost interest in life\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben was \"withering away\" in prison and would die because he \"lost interest in life\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben hunted Cerci, the temptress fox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben was tried for murder in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clovis pretended to be an archaeo-psychologist (i.e., a specialist at inferring the psyches of ancient people by examining the artifacts they left behind).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judge and some lawyers were doing what such people do at Ben's murder trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tim and his girlfriend were making out in a barn late at night.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x23", "title": "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim", "date": "1961-04-07", "description": "In the year 1847, a pioneer traveling west with his family and friends scouts ahead for food and water and finds himself in the year 1961.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In crossing over the rim of a New Mexican hill, Chris was somehow transported from the year 1847 to straight through to modern times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chris, who was from the year 1847, was bewildered by what he found in the year 1961. For example, he mistook a truck driving down the highway for a monster out to get him, he had no idea what to make of a jukebox, and he skeptical when told that there were no hostile \"Indians\" around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In crossing over the rim of a New Mexican hill, Chris was somehow transported from the year 1847 to straight through to modern times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris was desperate to save his young son who was likely dying from pneumonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story opened and closed with depicting the trials of tribulations of a wagon convoy crossing the New Mexican desert en route to California in the year 1847.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris and Martha Horn. Charlie and Mary Lou.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris was desperate to save his young son who was likely dying ill with pneumonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris' wife Martha was shown caring for their young son who was likely ill with pneumonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody in the year 1961 bought that Chris was from the year 1847 as he insisted. They were at a loss to better explain his presence, however.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x26", "title": "Coming, Mama", "date": "1961-04-11", "description": "Lucy has waited on her malingering mother her whole life, to the point where she is not allowed to get married. When Lucy's lover Arthur proposes for the last time, Lucy overdoses her mother's sleeping medicine successfully. However, after Lucy marries Arthur, she discovers that Arthur's mother is exactly the same kind of demanding, malingering woman that her mother had been.\n\nDirected by: George Stevens, Jr. Story by: Henriette McClelland, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lucy was forced to choose between her mother (and presumed inheritance) and her lover, Arthur, when he proposed with a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy was driven to her wit's end but her bedridden, domineering mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy and Arthur wanted to marry, but Lucy hesitated in an effort to satisfy her spiteful mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone controlling your life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy was fed up with her domineering mother for preventing her from getting married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy was fed up with her domineering mother for preventing her from getting married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Baldwin disapproved of Lucy tying the knot with Arthur to Lucy's consternation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy became fed up with her domineering mother's meddling in her love life and did in the old lady with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Baldwin was bedridden with some unspecified, possibly faked, medical condition. Mrs. Clark was bedridden because of a fall down the stairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy murdered her mother in order to get an inheritance and get away to marry the man she loved. In a twist of something akin to poetic justice, she ended up with no money whatsoever and an equally domineering mother-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Larson made a house call to treat Mrs. Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Baldwin falsely supposed that Arthur was only interested in Lucy for her inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy did in her own mother with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy poisoned her mother and called it a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy and Arthur went to visit his bedridden mother after their wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur and his invalid mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur's invalid mother and Lucy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy and Arthur were as boyfriend and girlfriend before their engagement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x27", "title": "Deathmate", "date": "1961-04-18", "description": "Fred Sheldon is a con artist who targets wealthy married women. His current con on Lisa Talbot is threatened by private detective Alvin Moss, who knows about his past. Fred murders Lisa's husband, but then learns that Moss was hired by Lisa, who used Fred to kill her husband.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: James Causey, Bill S. Ballinger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa suckered a slick conman into doing her dirty work by murdering her wealthy husband, Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben pretended to be head over heels in love with Lisa, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa and Ben were having an affair right under her husband Peter's nose. Ben and Peter were acquaintances of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful heiress Lisa manipulated her lover, Ben, into doing in her elderly husband and taking the rap for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa suckered the slick conman Ben into murdering her husband, leaving her with a stupendous inheritance and Ben as the fall guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slick conman Ben thought he was well on his way to swindling yet another wealthy married woman out of a goodly sum with his needing money to save his goldmine, but he ended up being the pawn in her designs to knock off her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was after Lisa for her money. The young and beautiful Lisa hatched a plot to knock off her elderly husband and inherit his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock suggested that he'd be even fatter than he was already were it not for his tax bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about the guillotine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter lost some money to Ben playing cards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was annoyed that Ben beat him at cards, billiards, and even Ben's own favorite game of golf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old and sickly Peter was getting depressed because the much younger man Ben was besting him at every activity and doing his wife to boot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Lisa, Peter laughed off her request to get a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa confided in Ben that her husband, Peter, was jealous of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter spoke of his love for his wife to his romantic rival, Ben, but she only wanted to see Peter dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The private investigator Alvin Moss was on Ben's tail.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x24", "title": "The Rip Van Winkle Caper", "date": "1961-04-21", "description": "A gang of gold thieves use suspended animation chambers, set to revive them in a hundred years, to evade the authorities.\n\nDirected by: Jus Addiss. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Four crooks made off with $1 million worth of gold bars in a train heist. But DeCruz, who was not content to divide up the bounty equally, greedily went about taking every chance he could to get more of the fortune for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you can't eat money", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The moral of which is that money (or gold) is in itself worthless compared to necessities of life, such as water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four crooks masterminded the theft of $1 million worth of gold bars from a train on its way from Fort Knox to Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four men placed themselves in suspended animation boxes with designs of being revived 100 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three of the four crooks who had placed themselves in suspended animation woke up 100 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Had the crooks made it out of the desert they would have discovered that the $1 million in gold bars that they'd brought with them from 100 years in the past were now worthless. The reason being that the people in this time knew how to synthesize gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four crooks hatched this elaborate plot to get away with stealing $1 million worth of gold bars: Put themselves in suspended animation and wake up 100 years in the future after everyone had forgotten about the crime so that they would not have to face any consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DeCruz killed his co-conspirator Brooks in cold blood to increase his own share of the $1 million in gold bars that they'd stolen in a train heist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DeCruz deliberately killed Brooks in a hit and run and arranged things so that it appeared that Brooks had died in accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Farwell speculated that the absence of cars was due to a war and \"the bomb\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DeCruz and Mr. Farwell found themselves in the unenviable position of having to carry sacks of gold bars through the desert with little water.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Yojimbo (1961)", "title": "Yojimbo", "date": "1961-04-25", "description": "Yojimbo (用心棒, Yōjinbō) is a 1961 samurai film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a rōnin, portrayed by Toshiro Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojimbo_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Two criminal gang bosses competed for the opportunity to prey on a little town with gambling and prostitution. Sanjuro played the sides against each other to rack up his price to take side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on two criminal gangs that terrorized a little village while fighting each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sanjuro played both sides false and both sides sought to betray him back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sanjuro provoked a gradually escalating conflict of tits-for-tats between the two gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were several scenes that featured a stepwise and deliberate buildup to mortal combat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "it is unclear to what extent Sanjuro was driven by a desire for justice or whether he mostly just wanted to profit, initially; some villagers clearly wanted to see the criminals get their comeuppances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "old man in the beginning complained that he didn't understand the young as well as various entrepreneurial efforts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a brothel with indentured prostitutes was featured from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a complicated hostage situation with an exchange of hostages in the middle of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sanjuro was beaten black and blue by the giant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sanjuro escaped and was briefly pursued by the gang whilst hiding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sanjuro took a great risk in confronting the gangs in order to save his friend", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x28", "title": "Gratitude", "date": "1961-04-25", "description": "New York, 1916. Meyer Fine is a casino owner with a crippling fear of death. When he makes a mistake that threatens his business, his former partners put a hit out on him. Meyer is terrified of waiting for them to act, so he begs his loyal valet, John to help kill him first.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Donne Byrne, William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story, it transpires, is John being so loyal to his master that John actually obeys and kills him when he requests it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Fine was running an underground casino. A young gambler shit himself dead after losing big at Mr. Fine's underground casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The underground casino owner Mr. Fine and his associates were involved in some kind of feud with a group of rival gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Fine maintained a close relationship with his loyal valet, John, throughout, and ultimately entrusted the valet to take his life before some rival gangsters took him out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock watched a scene of two cowboys erupting into fisticuffs in an 1878 Tombstone, Arizona saloon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John revealed his fear of lobsters to Mr. Fine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young gambler Combs was reported to have \"blown his brains out\" in the immediate aftermath of a bad night at the casino. A desperate Mr. Fine put a revolver to his temple, but lacked the courage to pull the trigger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Fine confessed that he was too much of a coward to take his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police lieutenant warned Mr. Fine and his associates that their private gambling establishment would not much longer be tolerated by the law. The same lieutenant chastised John for shooting Mr. Fine dead, but what he didn't know was that Mr. Fine had begged John to do it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Fine may have had a crippling fear of death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x25", "title": "The Silence", "date": "1961-04-28", "description": "An aristocratic club member bets that a talkative acquaintance cannot stay silent for an entire year.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were socially isolated for an extended period of time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson spent a year living inside a bubble room without human contact for a year on a bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson sacrificed a year living without talking for money and honor, then later kept it up despite risking his love, then we learned he had sacrificed his speech permanently to win money and honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Taylor objected to Mr. Tennyson's ceaseless chattering so much that he wagered a half million dollars simply to make the man be quiet for a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson was desperate for cash as his debts exceeded his assets by a wide margin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Taylor staked his credit and honor, and lost spectacularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Taylor suffered a devastating humiliation when he was left with no alternative but to admit to his peers that he didn't have the half million dollars to make good on his wager with Mr. Tennyson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson's love for his wife was somewhat central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson's peers at the gentleman's club were mightily impressed with this known chatterbox's resolve in not uttering a word over the span of an entire year. In a surprise twist, however, it turned out that it was not pure determination that got Mr. Tennyson through his ordeal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Tennyson was forced to decide between these two alternatives: 1) Accept Colonel Taylor's offer of a trifling sum of money and reunite with his wife straightaway, and 2) Wait several months to reunite with his wife and collect half a million dollars for the colonel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Bomb Was Stolen (1961)", "title": "A Bomb Was Stolen", "date": "1961-05", "description": "A dialog-free science fiction comedy in which an innocent young man finds himself in possession of an atomic bomb.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bomb_Was_Stolen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to think about a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A young man obtains an atomic bomb, after it is stoled by gangsters, and decided to distribute little piece of it to everyone in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young man in the film fell in love with a young woman with angel wings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disembodied brain, placed in a glass jar, was used to power a primitive computer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)", "title": "The Beast of Yucca Flats", "date": "1961-05-02", "description": "A Soviet scientist named Joseph Jaworsky defects and flees to a Nevada Test Site called Yucca Flats, only to be turned into a mindless monster by atomic radiation, stalking the desert.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_of_Yucca_Flats" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph Jaworsky was turned into a mindless monster after being exposed to atomic radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film played on real-world tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator was struggling to make some kind of point about science being used for bad purposes, like for constructing the A-bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and father were vacationing with their two sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and father were vacationing with their two sons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x29", "title": "The Pearl Necklace", "date": "1961-05-02", "description": "Wealthy 65-year-old Howard Rutherford proposes to 25-year-old Charlotte. Charlotte's current lover, Mark, makes Charlotte accept so they can live on Howard's fortune when he dies. However, Howard lives on for years, and Mark marries someone else and has a son. Howard finally dies at 90, and to Mark's dismay, Charlotte begins a new love affair with his son, Billy, who is 20 years old.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Peggy and Lou Shaw.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the 25-year-old Charlotte marrying the wealthy, 65-year-old, invalid Howard so she can inherit his fortune once he kicked the bucket. After Howard's death, the now 50-year-old Charlotte began a new romance with a 20-year-old guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte married the wealthy, 65-year-old, invalid Howard at her fiancé's behest so that they could live off of Howard's fortune once he kicked the bucket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte and Mark were initially in the throws of love. Billy fell in love with Charlotte in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Charlotte marry an old geezer with a bad ticker so she and her fiancé, Mark, could live off of her inheritance once the old guy kicked the bucket? Doing so would mean she have to be apart from her darling, Mark, for an indefinite length of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heart of the story was Charlotte and Mark risking their own love for one another in order to gain an old man's fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte spent 25 years married the wealthy, invalid Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The happy lovers Charlotte and Mark broke off their engagement with the understanding that they would reunite once Charlotte secured an inheritance from her invalid suitor, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte wanted to get her own back at Mark, and does so by getting involved with Mark's son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be searching for the Fountain of Youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned use a dowsing rod to seek the Fountain of Youth, and claimed to have found nothing but oil instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with Charlotte and Mark finishing up a game of tennis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Mark being flabbergasted at the sight of his 20-year-old son in the embrace of Mark's own old flame, Charlotte.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte caught her lover, Mark, red-handed with another woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Atlantis the Lost Continent (1961)", "title": "Atlantis, the Lost Continent", "date": "1961-05-03", "description": "The film concerns the events leading up to the total destruction of the mythical continent of Atlantis during the time of Ancient Greece.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_the_Lost_Continent" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set on the mythical continent of Atlantis in Ancient Greek times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Antillia was forbidden to marry the common fisherman Demetrius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Cronus and Antillia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia on the back of slave labor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Atlanteans made a kind of utopia by enslaving foreigners and forcing them to mine energy producing crystals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Atlanteans enslaved fishermen who blew away to sea and landed on Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zaren, collaborating with the court sorcerer, Sonoy the Astrologer, wished to use the resources of Atlantis in order to conquer the known world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "volcanic cataclysm", "level": "major", "motivation": "Atlantis was destroyed in a huge volcanic explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father and son fisherman team found an Atlantean princess stranded at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demetrius had a nightmare on the high seas of encountering an angry Neptune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demetrius wondered whether the compass Antillia made was magical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atlanteans had a submarine that looked like a fish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonoy the Astrologer was much into star signs and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Demetrius had to fight a gladiator to the death to gain his freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonoy the Astrologer explained how it was prophesied that a fisherman being granted his freedom spelled the downfall of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zaren build a cannon-sized death ray using a giant crystal and used it to disintegrate ships at sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x26", "title": "Shadow Play", "date": "1961-05-05", "description": "A man convicted of murder and awaiting execution insists that everything happening is just a dream.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adam kept reliving his conviction and execution over and over, albeit in a dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everything we saw was apparently just Adam's recurring bad dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam faced execution for murder. There was talk about making mentally unfit people be executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam faced execution for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone thought Adam was mad when he insisted that reality was merely his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should District Attorney Ritchie call the judge to stay Adam's execution?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solipsism syndrome", "level": "major", "motivation": "People summarily dismissed Adam's assertion that they were figments of his imagination, leaving them left to think he was suffering from an elaborate delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone said \"drink and be merry for tomorrow\" (we shall die).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a courtroom and a jury pronounce verdict on Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam stood accused of first degree murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A month on death row had turned Phillips into a nervous, rambling, wreck of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul barged in on Henry and Carol Ritchie while she was preparing dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest attempted to comfort Adam prior to Adam's execution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x30", "title": "You Can't Trust a Man", "date": "1961-05-09", "description": "Successful singer Crystal Coe tried to erase all evidence of her sordid past, and the only person who knows the truth is Tony, her husband, who spent seven years in prison after taking the fall for Crystal's petty theft. Crystal shoots Tony and makes it seem as though she was protecting herself from a random stalker. However, she learns that Tony filed for an invention patent and the police are tracking down his beneficiaries.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Helen Nielsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The now successful singer Crystal shot Tony in cold blood to ensure her sordid past didn't come back to bite her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Crystal shot Tony in order to cover up her own sordid past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony had taken the fall for his wife Crystal's crime, and spent seven years in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Tony and his estranged wife, Crystal. Crystal was at home conversing with her elderly husband, George, at the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Crystal were re-united after more than seven years, and a few more marriages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Crystal were re-united after more than seven years, and a few more marriages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crystal's serial marrying painted her as a gold digger extraordinaire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Crystal had carefully and elaborately planned the murder of Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Crystal's former many husbands had turned alcoholic, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Crystal's many former husbands had been an older man, we heard. Crystal was at home conversing with her elderly husband, George, at the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Crystal's many former husbands had killed himself, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony spoke about how he had spent seven hard years behind bars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony spoke about how he had dreamed of taking vengeance on Crystal. He claimed to be over that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony spoke several times about how he had loved Crystal, perhaps obsessively so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony was reminiscing about the past (e.g. how the songs of his youth were the best songs).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police lieutenant got involved after Crystal shot Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony spent seven years in prison for Crystal's stealing of money from a cash register.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crystal utter the phrase \"The first thing I ever learned was that you can't trust a man\" before shooting Tony in the abdomen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x27", "title": "The Mind and the Matter", "date": "1961-05-12", "description": "A man uses the power of concentration to remake the world in his image.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft was utterly fed up with life in the big city and longed for solitude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "By concentrating, Mr. Beechcroft was able to make people vanish, make a train arrive, make a clock be quiet, conjure an earthquake and a thunderstorm, and conjure up a bunch of people that were like him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miserable misanthrope Mr. Beechcroft used his newfound mind powers to replace every disagreeable person in the world with clones of himself, only to find that he was perhaps the most disagreeable of all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft came to re-evaluate his misanthrope attitude to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft so hated people that he made them all disappear almost as soon as he had the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft began to feel bored and lonely after he made everyone disappear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft began to feel bored and lonely after he made everyone disappear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft took exception to Mr. Rogers badgering him in the men's room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad day", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Beechcroft was left at his wit's end after commuting to work in a jam packed train, having coffee spilled all over him during a hectic day at the office, and then settling in at home only to hear his landlord knocking at the door, looking to collect on the rent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x31", "title": "The Gloating Place", "date": "1961-05-16", "description": "Lonely high school student Susan Harper pretends that she was attacked by a masked man in order to get attention. She is successful, but when the community moves on to the next big news, she strangles the school's most popular girl to make it seem as though the \"masked man\" is responsible. Susan is pleased to be relevant again, but her actions have inspired a copycat masked man, who attacks and strangles her.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The high schooler Susan faked having been attacked by a masked assailant to get attention in at school and in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan strangled her schoolmate and made it look like it was the work of a deranged masked man. In the end, Susan was strangled by a masked man who'd been inspired by her own crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Susan being murderer by a copy cat of the fictional strangler she'd invented to garner attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan was lonely. This prompted her to invent a story of being attacked by masked assailant to garner attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan perpetrated an elaborated hoax about being attacked by a masked assailant, even going so far as to go down to the police station to identify suspects. Susan's mother sobbed uncontrollably as Susan lied through her teeth about having been attacked by a masked man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "I his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock delighted in the prospect of indulging in a 6400 calorie mega-sundae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was a high school student and there was brief mention of the upcoming prom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The school hunk Tom brushed off Susan when she asked him to come over to her place to listen to some records together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Harper was sobbing as her daughter, Susan, recounted the details of an alleged encounter with a masked attacker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Harper was in the room as his daughter, Susan, recounted the details of an alleged encounter with a masked attacker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Harper convinced his headache afflicted wife to let their daughter listen to loud instrumental music on the phonograph for another 30 minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police investigators were investigating Susan's report of having been attacked by a masked man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was approached by a journalist for an interview.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminated with the strangler Susan herself being strangled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan pined after the high school hunk Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage girls were jealous at each other over the attentions of the school hunk.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x32", "title": "Self Defense", "date": "1961-05-23", "description": "Gerald Clark is a former soldier with PTSD. When he is held at gunpoint by a young robber, he shoots the boy, killing him. Although Gerald is exonerated by the police, the boy's mother, Mrs. Philips, confronts Gerald with a gun, demanding to know why he made three killing shots in a row. After a stand-off, Mrs. Philips puts the gun away, but Gerald is triggered by her gun and shoots her repeatedly.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: John T. Kelley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gerald felt extremely guilty over having shot an 18-year-old boy dead in self-defense and made efforts to help the mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether Gerald was justified in shooting an already fleeing liquor store robber not once, not twice, but thrice. While ruled an act of self-defense by the police, Gerald was left feeling deeply guilty over his decision to shoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about the traumatized Second World War veteran Gerald Clark and how he goes into kill mode whenever a gun is pointed at him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Philips was devastated by the death of her 18-year-old, liquor store robbing son, Jimmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Philips went to Gerald's apartment with the intention of either terrorizing him at gunpoint or shooting him outright in retribution for Gerald having killed her son in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to defeat an alleged jiu-jitsu master in a boxing ring by contriving to have him stand on Hitchcock's own foot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock politely pointed out that it is impolite to point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Jimmy made the mistake of holding up a liquor store at gunpoint just when a war veteran with PTSD was purchasing a six-pack of beer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police sergeant Krebs questioned Gerald over having thrice shot a fleeing liquor store robber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald served in Europe in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Phillips mourned for her son, Jimmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy was laid to rest in a cemetery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a visibly distraught Gerald shooting Mrs. Philips dead in cold blood.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x28", "title": "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?", "date": "1961-05-26", "description": "State troopers investigating a UFO sighting track footprints to a diner, where they try to determine which one of seven bus passengers is really a Martian.\n\nDirected by: Montgomery Pittman. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An invader from Mars was hiding among a group of bus passengers waiting in a diner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the proprietor of the diner was a Venusian who had beaten the Martians to the punch, colonizing Earth first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that both a Martian and a Venusian were posing as humans in order to scout out our planet as a prelude to \"colonization\", with invasion implied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bus people started becoming suspicious about each other because one of them was thought, as it turned out correctly, to be a Martian in disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that Martians and Venusians were competing to colonize Earth, and the sinister overtones implied that human civilization would not be suffered to thrive in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a UFO, and it had borne hostile extraterrestrials hither.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind to mind interaction ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian was conjuring illusions in the minds of those at the diner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two married couples were at the diner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x33", "title": "A Secret Life", "date": "1961-05-31", "description": "James wants to divorce his wife Marjorie, but has no grounds for it. He reluctantly hires a private investigator who tails after Marjorie, and is shocked to hear that his wife has been throwing parties and has an actor as her lover. James is jealous and reconciles with Marjorie, but later learns that the PI had been following the wrong woman, an actress who looks very similar to Marjorie.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Nicholas Monsarrat, Jerry Sohl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was bored in his marriage to Marjorie, took up with a young woman, and tried to secure a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot follows James as he hires a private investigator to find grounds for James to divorce his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "James wanted to divorce his wife and live openly with his young mistress, Estelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "James wanted to leave his wive because he needed some spice in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mimetic desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "James' interest in his wife was unexpectedly rekindled when he learned (incorrectly as it were) that she had taken a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "major", "motivation": "Legal aspects of divorce in the United States were showcased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "James felt bored in his marriage and sought a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "James became jealous when he thought his wife had a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock misinterpreted, perhaps deliberately, a diver's rope signals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James took up with a beautiful woman, named Estelle, who could have been half his age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James cited boredom as a reason for wanting a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James consulted his lawyer about getting a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James hired the no-nonsense private investigator Mr. Bates to monitor his wife's activities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e2x29", "title": "The Obsolete Man", "date": "1961-06-02", "description": "In a future totalitarian society, a librarian is declared obsolete and makes rather unusual requests to the Chancellor as to the manner of his execution.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a society in which, clearly, the rulers decided what is true and what people were allowed to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems the solace of faith gave Mr. Wordsworth the cajones the Chancellor notably lacked, and he faced his death with stoic content.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Chancellor who had declared Mr. Wordsworth obsolete with such sadistic delight, was in the end declared obsolete himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Wordsworth was a defiant Christian though religion was banned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "librarian", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wordsworth was a dedicated librarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hitler was mentioned as a role model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government did its best to foster anti-intellectualism in this society by baning books.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wordsworth existence as a librarian was in itself a bold defiance of the accepted categories in this totalitarian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chancellor showed himself to be a coward when he was locked up in Mr. Wordsworth's room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x34", "title": "Servant Problem", "date": "1961-06-06", "description": "Successful author Kerwin Drake receives a surprise visit from Molly, the wife he walked out on 22 years ago. Kerwin has made a new life for himself and refuses to acknowledge Molly; instead he tells his friends that she is his cook. Later, Kerwin visits Molly at her apartment and, after an argument, strangles her to death. The murder is witnessed by one of Kerwin's friends, who was at the apartment to hire Molly as a cook.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerwin was unexpectedly and disagreeably re-united with the young wife he had walked out on some 22 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerwin ended up strangling his estranged wife when she refused to give him a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerwin passed his estranged wife, Molly, off as his new cook to his guests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerwin's estranged wife, Molly, showed up at his house unannounced and refused to leave to his dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kerwin was unexpectedly and disagreeably re-united with the young wife he had walked out on some 22 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be refereeing a game of touch football.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kerwin and Sylvia were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kerwin spoke of how he had sought Molly in order to formalize their divorce. Later, when she refused to give him one, he strangled her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kerwin passed Molly off as his new cook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kerwin was a successful author. He hosted a dinner party for his publisher and other presumably professional acquaintances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A publisher quipped of how it was more difficult to sell novels than it used to be.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x35", "title": "Coming Home", "date": "1961-06-13", "description": "Harry Beggs leaves prison with over $1,600 of back pay from 20 years of working in the prison work camps. He stops at a bar and is tricked by a young woman named Angela into getting drunk, and all of his money is stolen. Later Harry goes to his estranged wife Edith's house for a reunion, and is dismayed to meet Angela there — she is his daughter.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry had his hard-earned $1,600 stolen from him by Angela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry went to re-unite with his estranged wife Edith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry went to see his wife after spending 20 years in the slammer with no visits from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock showcased a prefab body-disposal unit. No more messy mixing of cement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry got drunk and lost 20 years of hard earned pay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry had been convicted for shooting at a cop during a robbery, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard a couple of things about Harry's time in the can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being hardworking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry explained that he had worked so hard to get rich and then it did him no good at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry grumbled about how pay phone calls used to cost a nickle upon being told the current cost in a dime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith affirmed to her estranged husband, Harry, that she didn't believe in divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the revelation that Angela was Harry's unknown daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith interacted with her daughter toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x36", "title": "Final Arrangements", "date": "1961-06-20", "description": "Leonard Thompson is tired of being stuck with his invalid wife Elise and longs for adventure anywhere else. He buys poison and makes lavish arrangements with a funeral home, but it is not for her — instead, Leonard commits suicide.\n\nDirected by: Gordon Hessler. Story by: Lawrence A. Page, Robert Arthur.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard plotted to give his invalid wife some rat poison, or so the viewer is lead to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard plotted to give his invalid wife some rat poison, or so we the viewer is to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard sought to free himself form his wife, Elise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Leonard did away with himself in order to escape his loathsome wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elise had been living as an invalid for 15 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard longed for a way out of his marriage to his nagging wife, and ultimately found it through suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about mass producing a movie on a conveyor belt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard discussed funeral arrangements with an undertaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The subtext was that nothing was really wrong with Elise when the Dr. Maxwell said some exercise would do her good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elise told her pet parrot, Cicero, to hush up while she was talking on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spendthrift", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard was squandering lots of money on curios from his wife's point of view. At the same time Leonard was bothered by Elise's wasting money on snake oil remedies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard was an avid collector of African-Caribean curios.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Maxwell made a house call on the invalid Elise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x37", "title": "Make My Death Bed", "date": "1961-06-27", "description": "Married Elise Taylor is having an affair with married Bish Darby. While Bish's wife is away, Elise's husband walks in on the pair and shoots Bish dead. When the police call Bish's wife, she confesses to the murder, thinking that Bish drank her poisoned saccharin.\n\nDirected by: Arthur Hiller. Story by: Babs H. Deal, Henry A. Cogge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bish and Elise were carrying on an affair behind the backs of their respective spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie Darby hatched a plot to poison murder her sweet voiced, unfaithful husband, Bish Darby. Elise was having an affair behind her husband Ken's back. Dr. Bob and Della Hudson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie plotted to do away with her cheating husband by having his lover unknowingly lace his coffee with tainted saccharin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie tried and failed to take out her husband by duping his lover into poisoning his coffee with tainted saccharin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken Taylor walked in on his wife Elise as she was fooling around with Bish Darby. Ken Taylor subsequently shot Bish dead and was arrested on the spot. Ironically, we learn that Jackie Darby had simultaneously plotted to murder her philandering husband by means of poisoned saccharin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie briefly assured her excited young daughter that they'd go on a train ride tomorrow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie briefly interacted with her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob was annoyed when his kid sister wouldn't believe him that their train wasn't leaving until tomorrow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed police officer took in Ken on a murder charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken Taylor explained to Bish Darby the virtues of golf, whilst playing darts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of darts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken Taylor explained to Bish Darby the virtues of golf, whilst playing darts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp6x38", "title": "Ambition", "date": "1961-07-04", "description": "District attorney Rudy Cox has been hiding his relationship with racketeer Marc Davis, who saved his life in the war years ago. Davis secretly meets Cox to tell him that he is going straight and will leave the business. However, the next day a crucial witness is killed and Davis' only alibi is that he was with Cox at the time of the murder, but Cox refuses to acknowledge Davis.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Charles Boeckman, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated with Rudy choosing to send his old friend, Marc, down the proverbial river to advance his own political career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story title refers to Rudy's ambition to advance his political career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a district attorney who is put in a bind when it comes time to prosecute an old acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a district attorney who is put in a bind when it comes time to prosecute an old acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock introduced his recalcitrant new parrot, Mr. Lloyd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witness Lou Heinz was a raging alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rudy's wife went out dancing without him on account that he was too much burdened by his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witness Lou Heinz was murdered, presumably in a mob hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "References were made to what one must conclude was the mafia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)", "title": "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "date": "1961-07-12", "description": "An experimental nuclear submarine comes to the rescue when a meteor shower causes the Van Allen radiation belt to catch fire, resulting in a world- threatening increase in heat all across the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Bottom_of_the_Sea" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was centered around the new, state of the art nuclear submarine Seaview.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching atmospheric conflagration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A meteor shower set the Van Allen radiation belt on fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew voyaged to the Marianas in a high-tech nuclear submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two submariners erupted into a fist fight stemming from the pressure of making it to the Marianas in 16 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two diving suit wearing submariners trying to splice into an ocean cable were assailed by a shark. The nuclear submarine was attacked by a giant octopus deep in the Marianas Trench.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)", "title": "Invasion of the Neptune Men", "date": "1961-07-19", "description": "The world is attacked by a race of metallic aliens from the planet Neptune.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Neptune_Men" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world is attacked by a race of metallic aliens from the planet Neptune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Neptunian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Metallic aliens from the planet Neptune attacked Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of schoolboys helped to repel an invasion from Neptune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "There seemed to be some kind of world government in place to combat the Neptunian invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space Chief got about in a flying rocket car contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Neptunians tried to stir up a mass panic on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Neptunians caused a nuclear reactor to explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electrical barrier domes were placed over the cities of Earth to protect the from attack by the Neptunians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Neptunians manipulated Earth's weather from orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A number of Neptunian flying saucers attacked the city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mothra (1961)", "title": "Mothra", "date": "1961-07-30", "description": "A giant moth wreaks havoc on Tokyo.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The previously uncontacted inhabitants of a remote Polynesian island were irradiated by fallout from a nuclear test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capitalist Clark Nelson abducted two tiny women from a remote Polynesian island and forced them to perform in \"Secret Fairy Shows\" for paying audiences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The natives worshiped a giant moth that was indigenous to their remote Polynesian island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists discovered two tiny fairy-like women living on a remote Polynesian island amongst a tribe of uncontacted natives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mothra came to return the two tiny girls to their remote Polynesian island, destroy Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear testing near a remote Polynesian island resulted in the unleashing of a giant moth on mainland Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant moth Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "First contact was made with a native tribes-people living on a remote Polynesian island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two tiny girls communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, twin girls interpreted Mothra's actions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Flight That Disappeared (1961)", "title": "The Flight That Disappeared", "date": "1961-09-13", "description": "When his flight disappears, a rocket scientist finds himself on trial in the future for his part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_That_Disappeared" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Powerful aliens put three scientists on trial in the future for their part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eminent scientist Dr Carl Morris lamented that nuclear scientists had unleashed forces that science could not control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr Carl Morris came up with the idea for the ultimate weapon: a multistage nuclear bomb that was so powerful that it could obliterate any nation it was launched against using Tom Endicott's single stage rocket with a pinpoint guidance system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter Cooper advocated constructing a \"beta bomb\" and dropping it on the enemy before the enemy did it to them first, but others, including Dr Carl Morris, disagreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eminent scientist Dr Carl Morris, mathematician Marcia Paxton, and rocket scientist Tom Endicott were frozen in time and put on trial in the future for their part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three scientists were abducted by aliens and put on trial in the future for their part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drama unfolded aboard Trans-Coast Airways Flight 60 from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flight attendant was engaged to the co-pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flight attendant and the co-pilot were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Cooper was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mathematician Marcia Paxton told Tom Endicott that she wasn't interested in getting married and didn't need to depend on a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminent scientist Dr Carl Morris, mathematician Marcia Paxton, and rocket scientist Tom Endicott were frozen in time and put on trial in the future for their part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to spend eternity in limbo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three scientists were were frozen in time and put on trial in the future for their part in designing a bomb that has destroyed all life on Earth. If found guilty, they would be condemned to remain frozen suspended in time for all eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some eminent scientists were put on trial by aliens over their roles the development of weapons of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x01", "title": "Two", "date": "1961-09-15", "description": "Two soldiers, a man and a woman, are the only survivors of a war – and they are from opposing sides.\n\nDirected by: Montgomery Pittman. Story by: Montgomery Pittman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a deserted city in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war between two unspecified nation states.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As per the closing narration: this was a love story about two lonely people, in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, who found each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two soldiers from ideologically opposed factions ultimately realized that it was pointless to continue fighting now that everything either one of them stood for had been annihilated in an apocalyptic war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two soldiers from opposing factions found themselves alone together in a deserted city in the wake of an apocalyptic war of mutual annihilation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Time and again the the two people found themselves unsure about the other's (or their own) intentions, yet chose to keep trying to get along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "The man (an English speaker) and the woman (a Russian speaker) struggled to communicate with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sight of some patriotic posters in an army recruitment center reminded the female solder that the male soldier was her sworn enemy, and she subsequently attempted to shoot him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a male and female soldier, perhaps the last two people on the face of the Earth, stumbled upon one another in a deserted city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man soliloquized about how moronic the fighting had been and continued to be.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x02", "title": "The Arrival", "date": "1961-09-22", "description": "An FAA inspector and members of the airport staff investigate a plane that arrives without a single person onboard – and each sees it differently.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end it appeared the whole morbid story was (whether real or not) in fact the haunted memories of Mr. Sheckly's one and only failure in his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The federal investigator Mr. Sheckly was left to explain how a passenger aircraft could have landed safely with no crew or passengers aboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "An airplane landed on its own, its crew and passengers disappeared, the seats changed color, and people saw different numbers on its fuselage. In addition, the plane was described as \"haunted\" and the Flying Dutchman ghost ship is mentioned in the closing narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sheckly started out with a rather hubristic attitude of \"always finding the causes\", i.e., solving flight related mysteries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sheckly was adamant that there was no mystery he couldn't solve. When a plane landed safety without any passengers, however, he failed miserably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sheckly's failure to solve a certain aviation mystery early in his career as a federal investigator ate him up inside, ultimately resulting in him falling victim to the delusion that he was in the presence of a \"ghost plane\" of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sheckly became obsessed with solving an aviation mystery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Since the three people saw entirely different planes in front of them, it follows that they couldn't trust their eyes with respect to that plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Sheckly proposed that everyone had been hypothesized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After the illusion unraveled, Mr. Sheckly barged into an office and tried to convince two people of what had happened. They concluded he was a raving lunatic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x03", "title": "The Shelter", "date": "1961-09-29", "description": "An alert is issued for an imminent nuclear attack, prompting neighbors to unite against the physician whose bomb shelter has room enough only for his family.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a person's true character is revealed in a time of crisis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Stockton family's once-friendly neighbors banged down their bomb shelter door in the lead up to a presumed nuclear attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story hinged on Bill's decision to protect himself and his family by not letting others into their bomb shelter. Maybe Bill could have accommodated one additional person in his bomb shelter, but not the entire neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw America just as it, and by implication the world, was about to be destroyed by nuclear missiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that Bill had perpetrated much nocturnal drilling in order to prepare his substantial bomb shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was, perhaps, that when push comes to shove, friends are cheap and unreliable - in this case even a liability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Grace: Bill consoled Grace several times and at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stockton family's panicked neighbors came banging on their bomb shelter door in the lead up to a presumed nuclear attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stockton family's panicked neighbors came banging on their bomb shelter door in the lead up to a presumed nuclear attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the people in a suburban neighborhood act hysterically, and irrationally in the lead up to a presumed nuclear strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace and chided her 12-year-old Paul for being slow to gather up necessities in the lead up to a presumed nuclear strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill hunkered down with his 12-year-old son Paul in the family bomb shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace expressed concern over the possibility of radiation blowing over their way from New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill told his neighbors that he had to think about his own family first when it came to who would get to hunker down in his bomb shelter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x04", "title": "The Passersby", "date": "1961-10-06", "description": "At the end of the Civil War, wounded soldiers pass by the house of a woman.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "PS: Note 1: There were soldiers from both sides, also Abraham Lincoln, and not clear that all the soldiers passed their homes on the way to whatever lay at the end of the road. :: We saw the aftermath of the American Civil war as a progression of undead Confederate soldiers passed by their old homes on the way to the hereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia was distraught because her husband had died in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the war casualties traveling down an old country road were somehow dead or unreal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "It so transpired that Lavinia too had recently died, she just had not recognized the fact herself yet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia was reunited with her husband Jud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story unfolds in a rural part of the Southern United States that had been ravaged in the civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia had designs on killing a Yankee in retribution for her husband, a Confederate soldier, losing his life in the war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last War (1961)", "title": "The Last War", "date": "1961-10-08", "description": "The Federation and the Alliance (fictional stand-ins for the US/NATO and the USSR/Warsaw Pact, respectively) enter into a nuclear war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_War_(1961_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States and Soviet Union enter into a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States and Soviet Union enter into a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are shown what a nuclear war would be like from the point of view of ordinary people in Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mokichi Tamura and Saeko Tamura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The residents of Tokyo prepared to die from intense radioactive fallout.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x01", "title": "The Hatbox", "date": "1961-10-10", "description": "Professor Jarvis is a teacher of anatomy who discovers that one of his students Perry Hatch is cheating on an exam. Perry pleads for forgiveness, but Jarvis threatens to tell Perry's father. Later, Perry visits Jarvis to try to get him to change his mind. At Jarvis's house, Perry sees the professor disposing an old hat box. Knowing that Jarvis's wife has not been seen in a while, he begins to suspect foul play. He examines the hat box and discovers Mrs. Jarvis's favorite hat which she certainly would have taken if she had gone on a trip. Perry informs a police inspector named Roman who interviews Jarvis. Jarvis claims that he and his wife are separated and denies that there has been any wrongdoing. Roman accepts Jarvis's story and returns his wife's hat. Jarvis takes the hat to his study. He places the hat on a skeleton hanging there and says \"Goodnight, Margaret\".\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story basically reveals that Professor Jarvis was hiding that he'd killed his wife and was keeping her skeleton in his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police assumed, and accurately so, that Perry's allegations were motivated by a desire to get back at his teacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is to discuss ways in which a biology professor might contrive to dispose of a body and never be found out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on the seemingly far-fetched allegation that Prof. Jarvis had slain his nagging wife. It is hinted in the end that he had, indeed, done so after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Police inspector Rowan investigated the disappearance of Prof. Jarvis' wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "phrenology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his opening sketch, Alfred Hitchcock gave a tongue-in-cheek classroom lecture on this pseudoscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing comments, Alfred Hitchcock interpreted the story as an anodyne to an \"anti-egg-headery\" current in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the goings-on in a college classroom during a biology exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Perry was caught in the act of pulling a folded sheet of crib notes out from his shoe in the middle of a biology test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a test", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his biology exam, Perry was caught red handed pulling a folded sheet of crib notes out from his shoe by Prof. Jarvis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Jarvis taught anatomy at a college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is lead to believe that Jarvis was incorrectly and unfairly accused of having murdered his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was conveyed that Jarvis had been nagged by his wife to the point that he could take no more, and slew her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x05", "title": "A Game of Pool", "date": "1961-10-13", "description": "A legendary pool player returns from the dead to meet the challenge of a pool shark with the shark's life at stake.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse was obsessed with being the best pool player of all time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse really wanted to show that he was better at pool than the legendary pool player Fats Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Jesse's feeling of always playing second fiddle to the departed Fats Brown. Jesse also resented other people who had outshone him in music, arithmetic, and whatnot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "When the undead Fats Brown actually appeared, Jesse instantly regretted his loose talk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two pool sharks played a high stakes game of eight-ball, discussed the nuances of the game while they played.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Jesse and Fats Brown bragged about their pool playing prowess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse and Fats Brown were both extremely competitive pool players.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse thought defeating Fats Brown would lead to happiness. Instead he found himself taking Fats' unenviable place, for eternity in the hereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fats was a denizen of the afterlife and seemed sinister much like the Devil when he asked Jesse's to stake his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Fats being called away from his misty afterlife pool table. The story concluded with Jesse being summoned from the afterlife, depicted as a pool table in the clouds, to play a game a pool against some up an coming challenger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sportsmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse accused Fats of poor sportsmanship twice, because Fats distracted him during their games of pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Jesse put his life in on line to play the legendary pool player Fats Brown?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Through a Glass Darkly (1961)", "title": "Through a Glass Darkly", "date": "1961-10-16", "description": "Through a Glass Darkly (Swedish: Såsom i en spegel, lit. 'As in a Mirror') is a 1961 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow and Lars Passgård. The film tells the story of a schizophrenic young woman (Andersson) vacationing with her family on a remote island, during which time she experiences delusions about meeting God, who ultimately appears to her in the form of a monstrous spider. Meanwhile, her author father attempts to use her illness in his work, and her brother struggles with sexual frustration.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_a_Glass_Darkly_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "David and Martin were both writers. We learned much about David's tormented writing. Central to the story was the fact that he exploited his daughter's disease as a subject for his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it was said that Karin suffered from near incurable schizophrenia; she had received electroshock treatment; the condition gave her hallucinations of a religious nature, and she began to expect the arrival of God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "tied up with religiousness was talk about all sorts of love, especially familial; David soliloquized to Minus on the subject of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered on a small family who were dealing with the fact that one of them, Karin, was gradually becoming ever-more schizophrenic with little or no hope of improvement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Minus; the story concluded with Minus cherishing having had a real conversation with his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minus and Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Martin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin and Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "David beat himself up because he had used Karin's insanity as a subject for his novel, having otherwise trouble with creativity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Martin were both writers. David appeared to have had a writer's block to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karin's hallucinations made her expect the coming of God, in the Christian tradition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karin had sex with her younger brother Minus and this was a turning point in the plot development: afterwards she realized she could not live in two worlds, so she choose her delusional world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David told of how he had tried to kill himself by driving a car over a cliff in Switzerland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the son Martin had written numerous plays in a short time, while the father David had not managed a single one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin objected to the injection Martin administered, when she was hysterical", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin's visions made her excessively religious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard that Martin was a non-believer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x02", "title": "Bang! You're Dead", "date": "1961-10-17", "description": "Six-year old Jackie Chester is delighted when his Uncle Rick arrives from Africa with a surprise gift. Unable to wait until Rick unpacks, Jackie goes through his Uncle's bags and finds a loaded gun. Jackie thinks it is a toy, the gift his uncle promised. He goes outside to play with it. Jackie's parents and Uncle Rick discover that Jackie is on the loose with a loaded gun and set out frantically to find him. After aiming and not firing the gun at various people, Jackie goes home and asks the maid to play with him. When she says she's too busy, Jackie aims the gun and fires it at her. Uncle Rick and the parents arrive just in time to deflect the shot.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Margery Vosper, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story had a point, which was underlined by Alfred Hitchcock in his sketch: Having firearms around children is extremely dangerous. What precautions were advocated is unclear. Possibly just \"be careful.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown various adults dealing with various children in various ways, throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the cowboy hat and holster wearing, six-year old boy Jackie Chester as he goes about town with a loaded gun, thinking it a toy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie's parents were alarmed to find out that he'd made off with Uncle Rick's loaded gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred was alarmed to discover that his young son, Jackie, was on the loose with a loaded gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was alarmed to discover that her young son, Jackie, was on the loose with a loaded gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie took a loaded gun from his uncle Rick's belongings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie nearly shot the housekeeper, Cleo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x06", "title": "The Mirror", "date": "1961-10-20", "description": "In Central America, a mirror allows a dictator to see the faces of his enemies.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the flip side of being in power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "General Clemente learned that leading a revolution to victory was one thing, but heading up the government of a country was quite another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military coup", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Clemente and his forces had overthrown a regime of brutal oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how a regime of brutal oppressors was overthrown and replaced with a spanking new regime of brutal oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "It appeared that both the new and the old regime were oppressive and militaristic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Clemente started seeing would-be assassins everywhere and in the end even shot himself because of the delusions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Clemente started seeing would-be assassins everywhere and in the end even shot himself because of the delusions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a mirror that appeared to show you your would-be assassins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Clemente betrayed his previously close knit circle of friends and killed them one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Clemente betrayed his previously close knit circle of friends and killed them one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest urged General Clemente to put a stop to the mass killings he'd been ordering since taking power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Clemente betrayed his previously close knit circle of friends and killed them one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Clemente threatened to have the leader of a deposed regime stripped naked, covered in honey, tied to the ground under a hot sun, and let the ants eat him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Clemente threatened to have the leader of a deposed regime stripped naked, covered in honey, tied to the ground under a hot sun, and let the ants eat him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x03", "title": "Maria", "date": "1961-10-24", "description": "Leo Torbey works at a carnival and awakes one day after a night of drinking to discover that he has bought a strange monkey for his sideshow. The monkey is actually a dwarf named Maria who draws portraits of people while disguised as a monkey. Maria falls in love with Leo which causes problems with Leo's wife Carol. When Leo is away, El Magnifico tries to seduce Carol. Maria draws a picture depicting Carol and El Magnifico in an embrace. Seeing the picture, Leo accuses Carol of cheating on him. She leaves after an angry denial. Finally having Leo all to herself, Maria confesses her love for Leo. Angrily, Leo spurns her affections and sells her to another carny named Benny. Leo writes to his wife begging her to return. Unfortunately, Leo is killed by an angry Benny who was driven to a murderous rage after he saw a drawing of Maria that showed Leo and Benny's wife in a romantic embrace.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: John Wyndham, John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a marvelous drawing monkey who is, in fact, a woman in disguise. Alongside her purported \"owners\" she hoodwinks the gullible at a carnival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was in love with Leo who was in love with his own wife, Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story is that Maria, the marriage wrecking dwarf, avenges herself on Leo after he rejected her romantic overture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo and Carol's were married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot was driven by the marriage wrecking dwarf Maria's unrequited love for her owner, Leo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The marriage wrecking dwarf Maria was jealous of her owner's wife, Carol. In the end, Maria manipulated another man into shooting Leo dead to prevent Leo from reuniting with Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Benny shooting Leo dead in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns a drawing monkey, who is in fact a drawing dwarf girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria led Leo to believe that Carol had been unfaithful to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x07", "title": "The Grave", "date": "1961-10-27", "description": "A hired killer is challenged to visit the grave of the outlaw who died swearing vengeance against him.\n\nDirected by: Montgomery Pittman. Story by: Montgomery Pittman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "Set in a dusty frontier town, the story follows the ambush of the outlaw Pinto Sykes and its eerie aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The entire story focuses on whether the gun-for-hire Miller was afraid of the outlaw Pinto Sykes in life and, indeed, after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller wanted to demonstrate his courage by going to Pinto Sykes' potentially haunted grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sykes had accused Miller of cowardice on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller worried that the late Pinto Sykes might pull him down into the world of the dead in some sort of posthumous act of vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller was goaded into proving his courage by going to Sykes' grave in the middle of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard of Pinto Sykes' last half hour in life and what he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ione mourned the loss of her brother with booze. She also brought the plate that her brother had eaten off of as a child to lay on his grave.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x04", "title": "Cop for a Day", "date": "1961-10-31", "description": "Phil and Davey are two stick-up men who get into trouble when Davey shoots a bank messenger during a hold up. There is a witness to the crime and when the messenger dies Phil realizes that they now face a murder charge. He is determined to eliminate the witness. He devises a plan, but refuses to tell Davey about it. Phil disguises himself as a policeman and manages to bluff his way past the guards at the witnesses apartment. He kills the witness and makes a successful escape. Later, when he returns to his hideout he is shot by Davey who mistakes him for a real cop that is coming to arrest him.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the aftermath of a violent robbery of a bank messenger carrying $18,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ante was severely upped when it transpired that the mugged bank messenger had died from the gunshot wound he took. Phil shot dead the witness later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the ad hoc and ill considered partnership of the two crooks Phil and Davey, the latter of which was recklessly trigger happy in the former's estimation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "After shooting dead the witness, Phil was himself shot dead by his all too trigger happy crony, Davey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were cops, and Phil skillfully impersonated such an officer as alluded to in the title.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock commented on a man who'd dropped dead after taking a single sip of (presumably poisoned) tea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two criminals were hiding out from the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After a brief struggle, the female witness was shot dead in her home by a criminal who sneaked past her police guard by disguising himself as a cop.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x08", "title": "It's a Good Life", "date": "1961-11-03", "description": "A six-year-old boy terrorizes the residents of Peaksville, Ohio, with special powers that control reality.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: Jerome Bixby, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The six-year-old boy Anthony could do anything that he could imagine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The six-year-old boy Anthony bossed and bullied the whole town of Peaksville around with his thought powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The six-year-old boy Anthony was spoiled beyond belief, seeing as he could do whatever he fancied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Fremont lived in utter terror of her young son Anthony who was too immature to understand the consequence that came with wielding his god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Fremont lived in utter terror of her young son Anthony who was too immature to understand the consequence that came with wielding his god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Freemont didn't know what to do in the face of their young son Anthony having virtual god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Peaksville residents lived in mortal terror of a six-year-old boy with god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seems Anthony just heard people's bad thoughts and disapproved of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Hollis lost his nerve and lashed out at Anthony for being a tyrannical monster. Anthony transformed him into a jack-in-the-box as a punishment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x05", "title": "Keep Me Company", "date": "1961-11-07", "description": "When her husband Marco tells her that he is working late again with his brother, Julia Reddy is angry. Later when she hears a noise she calls the police. The police think its a false alarm, but she gets an idea. She calls a detective and asks him to search the house. When the detective arrives, she tries to seduce him. Marco arrives, but when he sees the pair he doesn't get jealous. He tries to run away. The detective apprehends Marco and Julie discovers that Marco and his brother have been robbing warehouses at night. Her unwitting trick on her husband has gotten him arrested.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central theme alluded to in the title, was the loneliness of Julia which prompted her to call the cops not once, but twice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hardworking hoodlum Marco and his bored housewife Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia was visited by police officers, and the a police detective, the latter of whom fraternized with in a way that bordered on flirtation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marco and his two brothers made a living out of robbing warehouses at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story shows a day or two in the life of the bored at home all day housewife Julia Reddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was the victim of an \"onscreen holdup\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police detective was visibly uncomfortable by the seductive advances of Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia mistakenly fancied she was about to be home invaded by a prowler she imagined on the fire escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia took exception to the uncouth behavior of her husband's two male siblings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Marco and his two brothers were all partners in some sort of criminal venture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia imagined that she heard a prowler on the fire escape outside her window, and became momentarily terrified owing to the fact that she was home alone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x09", "title": "Deaths-Head Revisited", "date": "1961-11-10", "description": "A former SS Captain visits the now-deserted concentration camp he commanded where he is tried for his crimes by the ghosts of his prisoners.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Becker mentioned the Nuremberg trials, thus making it clear in what light the rest of the encounter should be viewed; Lutze was tried for crimes against humanity, in the Twilight Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a former Nazi revisit the Dachau concentration camp, where he encountered ghosts of his many victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Lutze recalled his many cruel concentration time actions and interactions with glee. Becker called him a sadist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutze was made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on the inmates in the Twilight Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghosts of the concentration camp inmates quite understandably wanted vengeance, and the so-called trial was not conducted by an uninterested party meaning it can hardly be called lawful justice (cf. the desire for justice) though there is a case for the theme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The concentration camp commandant Lutze was made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on his former inmates. It is a case of poetic justice since the punishment was mediated by his former prisoner Becker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutze invoked patriotism to explain why he had returned to the Fatherland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutze falsely claimed that he had served in Russian front in a Panzer devision during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Lutze insisted that he was only following orders when he tortured and ordered the executions of concentration prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutze was charged with having authorized the use of concentration camp inmates in medical experiments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x06", "title": "Beta Delta Gamma", "date": "1961-11-14", "description": "Mark and Alan are frat boys. During a party at a beachfront frat house, Mark challenges Alan to a drinking contest. Alan drinks a full pitcher of beer, but Mark refuses to do the same. Alan becomes angry, but he and Mark eventually pass out. Alan's frat brothers decide to play a joke on him by injecting Mark with a substance to make him appear dead. They place a bloody weapon in Alan's hand, hoping that when he wakes up he'll think he killed Mark. The pranks goes off according to plan until Alan decides to cover up the \"murder\". He buries Mark's body on the beach. When the prank is revealed to him, he desperately returns to the beach. Unfortunately the high tide has washed away all traces of Mark's grave.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Calvin Clements.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark thought he had murdered Alan, and in the end perhaps he had albeit in a different way than he imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the turbulent friendships of a bunch of frat-boys and -girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with the twist that Mark perhaps unwittingly killed Alan in trying to dispose of what he thought was Alan's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the drunken antics that went down at the titular, beachfront Beta Delta Gamma frat house on the last day of the semester.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot tuns on a blacked out Alan being tricked by his frat brother into thinking that he'd murdered a friend in a drunken rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obstruction of justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark attempted to cover up the murder he had not, yet thought he had, committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned the aftermath of a drinking contest in the titular Beta Delta Gamma frat house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961)", "title": "Most Dangerous Man Alive", "date": "1961-11-16", "description": "A gangster, Eddie Candell, is framed for a crime he didn't commit. He flees to the desert, only to stumble into a nuclear energy testing site. Eddie is contaminated by radiation and his body begins to transform in remarkable ways. In his new mental and physical condition, he sets out to gain revenge against all those who betrayed him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Dangerous_Man_Alive" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie Candell set out to gain revenge against various people who had betrayed him after his cellular structure became fused with steel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie Candell was fused with steel after being exposed to fallout from a nuclear test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie Candell and Carla Angelo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie Candell became half man half steel after exposed to fallout from a nuclear test. In addition to becoming very strong, and impervious to bullets, he also lost his ability to feel emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Candell was fused with steel after being exposed to fallout from a nuclear test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Candell became super strong after becoming fused with steel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Candell was framed and sentenced to the gas chamber for a crime he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperviousness to physical damage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Candell was impervious to bullets after getting fused with steel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x10", "title": "The Midnight Sun", "date": "1961-11-17", "description": "A landlady and her tenant struggle to survive when the Earth changes its orbit and begins moving toward the sun.\n\nDirected by: Anton Leader. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet being flung out of its orbit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed that the Earth's orbit had been perturbed, causing the planet to spiral slowly into the sun, rendering it deadly hot for everyone. Although it was ultimately revealed, in a surprise twist, that the Earth was actually spiraling away from the sun, and the planet was becoming lethally cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person's true character is revealed in a time of crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "the old woman apologized for behaving like an animal; the home invader likewise apologized for his uncivilized actions, urging the women to believe that he was a descent man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Norma and her landlady, Mrs Bronson, suffer through an oppressive heat that was baking the world, as the Earth slowly spiraled into the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The home invader grieved for his departed wife and child and we deduce that he was the sole survivor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma and Mrs. Bronson had to content with a dangerous intruder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x07", "title": "You Can't Be a Little Girl All Your Life", "date": "1961-11-21", "description": "While her husband is away, Julie Barton is attacked in her home by an intruder. She doesn't get a good look at him, but manages to fight him off. In the process of fighting she rips one of the intruder's leather gloves. Julie is terrified. When she goes to identify the intruder in a police line up she wears a pair of dark sunglasses. She identifies one of the men and her husband Tom attacks him. Unfortunately Tom breaks his own leg. Later, as Tom is preparing to go to the doctor's, Julie notices a ripped leather glove in his possession. Tom reveals that pressure from work has caused him to have a breakdown. He admits that he snapped and was the man that attacked her. Julie goes to the police and tells them they got the wrong man.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Helen Nielsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to the revelation that Julie's attacker was none other than her seemingly loving husband, Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were investigating a home invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie was traumatized after being assaulted by a home invader, who the view is led to believe was almost certainly not her own husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title is a reference to the idea featured that Julie was extolled to \"get a hold\" of herself and act as a grown up in identifying her assailant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social responsibility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie was urged by a police investigator, and later her physician, to make an effort to identify her attacker for the good of the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were after the home intruder who'd attacked Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie's father dropped by to check up on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Vaughn made a house call on Julie after she was assaulted by an intruder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom made a mad dash at the man Julie identified as her attacker with intentions of roughing him up, although his display was later revealed to be insincere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie had various excuses for why she did not want to cooperate. One was that she feared retribution if she should get her unknown assailant arrested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom revealed that booze had made him assault Julie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom excused having attack on his wife by saying that he'd been stressed at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom assaulted his wife, Julia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)", "title": "The Day the Earth Caught Fire", "date": "1961-11-23", "description": "The Earth off is knocked its normal axis of rotation after the Soviet Union and the United States accidentally detonate simultaneous nuclear bomb tests.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Caught_Fire" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet being knocked off its axis by nuclear blast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear tests resulted in the Earth being knocked off its normal axis of rotation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet being flung out of its orbit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not only was the Earth knocked off its normal axis of rotation, but it later became apparent that it was spiraling into the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear bomb testing had the unintended consequence of the Earth being knocked off its normal axis of rotation. In addition, there was a protest movement advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Stenning and Jeannie Craig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Stenning lost custody of his young son in a messy divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Stenning met his young son at the local amusement park once a week.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Stenning was known for having a drinking problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pastor was running around urging everyone to repent before the end came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People tried to go as normal on with their lives even though the climate around them had suddenly altered dramatically. Young people threw a wild street party after it was announced that the Earth was spiraling into the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were shown panicking in the streets after news that the Earth was spiraling into the sun spread around the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x11", "title": "Still Valley", "date": "1961-11-24", "description": "During the Civil War, a Confederate scout enters a town to find Yankee soldiers frozen in place.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: Manly Wade Wellman, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a Confederate Army soldier who was assigned to scout on the a Union Army brigade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Man Teague gave the Confederate Army soldier Paradine a grimoire that he could use to turn the tide of the war in favor of the Confederacy, but at the cost of aligning himself with Satan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The confederate soldiers had an opportunity to turn the tide of the war, but doing so would mean getting in bed with Satan. They chose to walk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw what was presumably a fictional happening in the lead up to the Battle of Gettysburg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Teague knew he was not long for this world, and bequeathed his book of spells to Sargent Paradine shortly before kicking the bucket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sgt. Paradine scolded a subordinate at length for being yeller-bellied at the beginning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Teague could cast spells because he was the seventh son to a seventh son of a seventh son, he told. Exactly how this chimed with the bestowable grimoire is not explained.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x08", "title": "The Old Pro", "date": "1961-11-28", "description": "Loretta Burns is under the mistaken impression that her husband Frank is really a former engineer. Frank is actually a retired hit man. When a man threatens to tell Loretta about Frank's past, Frank kills him and his partner. Hearing the news Frank's ex-boss insists that Frank return to work. He tell Frank that if he doesn't his wife may end up getting rubbed out.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: H.A. De Rosso, Calvin Clements.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Frank's dark secret: that he was a retired hitman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank was being blackmailed by Cullen, and later his old boss Nicholson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank was hiding from his wife, Loretta, that he was a retired hitman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank was a retired hitman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank killed two men, and everyone was speaking about murder under the euphemism \"engineering\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock purported to be near his demise as he was buried in sand, the tide rapidly coming in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank went fishing, and appreciated his wife's understanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank's blackmailer said he ran or wrote for a newspaper or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x12", "title": "The Jungle", "date": "1961-12-01", "description": "An engineer building a dam in Africa is cursed by natives who object to his plans.\n\nDirected by: William F. Claxton. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan learned that the curse placed on him by natives, who opposed his company's building of a hydroelectric dam on their lands, was all too real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan chided his wife and coworkers for living their lives by such superstitions, as lucky charms, astrology, black magic, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that witch doctors had used black magic against Alan, and presumably anyone else involved with the construction of a hydroelectric dam on their people's lands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch doctors violently opposed dam-building, but employed curses and dead goats instead of guns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan went up against the curses of the witch doctors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan began hearing the noises of the jungle and became increasingly terrified to the point where he dared not to walk through a park alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan chided his wife Doris for being overly superstitious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Sinclair carried a rabbit's foot around with him for good luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan exposed Mr. Hardy as believer in astrology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan came home to face a majestic lion standing in his bed atop his wife's corpse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x09", "title": "I Spy", "date": "1961-12-05", "description": "A private detective named Frute is hired by a man named Captain Morgan in order to spy on his wife. Morgan is convinced that his wife is cheating on him. As Frute starts following Mrs. Morgan, he begins to fall for her. The two begin an affair though Mrs. Morgan does not know he was hired to spy on her. Later, Captain Morgan demands evidence of his wife's infidelity. Frute gives him detailed descriptions of his own meetings with Mrs. Morgan. Angrily, Morgan files for divorce and thus clears the way for a relationship between Frute and Mrs. Morgan.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: John Mortimer, John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the private detective Mr. Frute as he becomes romantically involved with a woman he was tasked to investigate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Morgan was convinced that his estranged wife, Mrs. Morgan, was cheating on him, and hired a private investigator to find out the truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on a private detective becoming romantically involved with the wife of the very man who hired him to investigate her cheating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Frute and Mrs. Morgan seduced each other in stereotypical 1950s-era polite British fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Mr. Frute and Mrs. Morgan proclaiming their love for one another and subsequently resolving to spend the rest of their lives together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Morgan hired a private investigator to uncover evidence of his estranged wife's supposed cheating so that he could secure a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock played the role of a wry waiter. The private investigator Mr. Frute took a job as a hotel restaurant waiter in order to spy on the waitress, Mrs. Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lady asserted that Jack the Ripper used to disguise himself as a churchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Fruit came down with a cold after mucking about around the pier.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x10", "title": "Services Rendered", "date": "1961-12-12", "description": "While passing a construction site a young man is hit on the head and gets amnesia. He can't remember who he is or where he was going. The only clues he finds in his wallet: a thousand dollar bill and the name of Dr. Ralph Mannix. He visits Mannix, but the doctor doesn't recognize him. The doctor suggests that something familiar may trigger his memories to return. He sees a picture of the doctor's wife and wonders whether he has a wife of his own. Later his memory returns. He realizes that the thousand dollars was from the doctor's wife. He's a hitman and she hired him to kill her husband. He visits the doctor again and fulfills his contract.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Richard Levinson & William Link.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a nondescript man as he seeks to piece together his identity after getting whacked on the head by a falling board.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist visited a doctor to help cure his amnesia and, by an ironic twist of fate, comes to recall that the doctor is in fact the man he is intending to assassinate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the amnesiac protagonist was actually a hitman who'd been sent to murder the very doctor he sought out to cure his condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminated with the amnesiac man recollecting that he'd been sent to do in the doctor who was helping him regain his memory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The amnesiac protagonist sought out Dr. Mannick to help get his memory back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Dr. Mannick's wife had hired a hitman to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Whilst suffering from amnesia, the protagonist was set upon by a parched moocher who persuaded him to buy drinks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Phantom Planet (1961)", "title": "The Phantom Planet", "date": "1961-12-13", "description": "In 1980, an astronaut is shrunken down in size after on an asteroid populated by a race of tiny people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capt. Frank Chapman shrank to minute proportions after landing on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capt. Frank Chapman landed on an asteroid populated by tiny people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capt. Frank Chapman was held captive on the asteroid Rheton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capt. Frank Chapman was forbidden to ever leave Rheton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rhetonians wielded powerful technology that enabled them to manipulate the force of gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank Chapman and Zetha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon had become the launching base for exploring outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars was in the process of being colonized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocket ships were used to zip around and explore the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rhetonian civilization had collapsed in the past after everything was mechanized and people became docile and lazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rhetonians had abandoned most of the advanced technologies they had developed in former ages in favor of living simple lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Capt. Frank Chapman flew a rocket ship to the asteroid Rheton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herron at Liara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sessom and Liara.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x13", "title": "Once Upon a Time", "date": "1961-12-15", "description": "A janitor travels from 1890 to 1962, courtesy of a time helmet built by a scientist.\n\nDirected by: Norman Z. McLeod. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the grass is always greener on the other side", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Woodrow Mulligan, a common janitor from the 1890s, took a risk by traveling to the year 1961 to get away from the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, not realizing that the world of the mid 20th century would be all the more frenetic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The 1890s era janitor Mulligan traveled to the year 1961 in an effort to get away from the bustle and bustle of his once-quiet town, but instead he found that the hustling and bustling had only gotten worse. Rollo, by contrast, traveled back in time from 1961 to 1890 in search of a simple life, but quickly ended up feeling unhappy owing to the lack of modern conveniences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mulligan used a \"time helmet\" to travel from the year 1890 to the year 1961.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Gilbert invented a \"time helmet\" that his janitor Mulligan used to travel 71 years into the future to the year 1961.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 1890s era janitor Mulligan was perplexed by many things modern: he was shocked at the high price of sirloin, he falsely presumed a man speaking on television was directly addressing him, and he had an elaborate altercation with a vacuum cleaner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "In donning the Professor's infernal helmet, Mulligan believed he would visit a place of peace and quiet, but through a cruel twist of fate he instead found himself in an even more pandemonious future. Conversely Rollo thought he'd enjoy an idyllic past but found that it did not appeal to him at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in late modern times", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The life of a common janitor living in 1890 America was depicted in silent film format.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rollo longed for the good days old when there was no income tax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rollo exclaimed: \"Your fate is unimportant, Sir, you're a janitor. I'm a scientist!\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rollo did not much like a past without modern thingamajigs such as transistors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x11", "title": "The Right Kind of Medicine", "date": "1961-12-19", "description": "Charlie Pugh is a burglar who one day kills a policeman in a shootout. Unfortunately, there is a witness and Charlie himself is injured. Charlie visits Dr. Vogel who prescribes pain killers. When he goes to the drug store he hears his own description on the drug store's radio. The pharmacist, Mr. Fletcher, doesn't realize Charlie is the murder and gives him the painkillers. Later Charlie returns to his apartment, but doesn't take the pain killers. He wants to stay alert in case he has to make a run for it. He decides to skip town and heads for the bus station. As he's leaving for the bus station, he sees Vernon, a clerk at the drugstore. Thinking that Vernon knows that he is a criminal, he kills him and leaves. Mr. Fletcher is called to identify Vernon's body. When he arrives, he reveals that he sent Vernon to Charlie's because he made a mistake in his prescription. Instead of giving him painkillers, he gave him a bottle of poison.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Charlie as he tried to get out of town after shooting a cop dead during a burglary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie shot a policeman dead in the aftermath of a burglary. He later shot and killed a well-meaning drugstore clerk who he mistook for someone who could identify him as the cop killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were on the hunt for a cop killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title alludes to the fact that the police are quite please to hear that Charlie was about to imbibe poison because they sorely want to get back at him for having killed an officer of the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artisan occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was smithing horseshoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story picks up with Charlie having robbed an establishment of a box full of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother brought her young son, Miguel, to Dr. Vogel to be treated for a hand injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The money grubbing Dr. Vogel treated the on-the-lamb criminal Charlie for a gunshot wound to the leg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Vogel coveted Charlie's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Vogel flatly denied Charlie's accusation that he was an alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conversation between Charlie and Dr. Vogel revealed a more-than-passing acquaintanceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The drugstore clerk was bossed around by the elderly pharmacist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mysterious Island (1961)", "title": "Mysterious Island", "date": "1961-12-20", "description": "A science fiction adventure film about Civil War prisoners who escape in a balloon and then find themselves stranded on a remote island populated by giant mutated animals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_Island_(1961_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo advocated the need for world peace via a combination of social organization and technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo argued that science must be used for peace and not war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Civil War prisoners establish pecking order after becoming stranded on the island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo had a super high-tech submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo manifested a deep resentment of all mankind and secluded himself on an uninhabited island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of people found themselves stranded on a deserted island. They took up temporary abode in a cave as they worked on building a boat to escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Civil War prisoners against a giant crab, giant chicken, giant bees, and giant nautilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert beat himself up over having deserted his fellow soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert plucked up the courage to slay a giant chicken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo railed against imperialism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo used a high-tech diving suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo argued that famine and economic competition are the reasons for war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo dreamed of a future where a post-scarcity economy is a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert and Lady Mary Fairchild.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x14", "title": "Five Characters in Search of an Exit", "date": "1961-12-22", "description": "An Army major, a clown, a hobo, a ballerina and a bagpiper find themselves in a cylinder with no memory of how they got there.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Marvin Petal, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major were left to make sense of how they all came to be trapped inside a large metal cylinder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major found themselves trapped inside a large metal cylinder without any explanation as to how or why it had occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "None of the five people were able to remember anything about their lives before having arrived in the large metal cylinder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major found themselves trapped inside a large metal cylinder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the five occupants of a large metal cylinder were actually dolls come to life, and that the cylinder was actually a Christmas toy collection barrel for a girls' orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inaction vs. futile action", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Major insisted on a variety of ineffective escape attempts that the others poo-pooed as they'd rather do nothing at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were trapped in a nightmare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The clown speculated that they might all be characters in somebody's nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army major theorized that they were in hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a barrel on the street for collecting toys to be distributed as Christmas presents at a girls' orphanage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x12", "title": "A Jury of Her Peers", "date": "1961-12-26", "description": "Millie Wright is arrested for the murder of her husband. She is later released for lack of evidence. Millie's neighbor Sarah Hale and the sheriff's wife Mary Peters decide to do some investigating on their own. They find evidence that Millie is the murderer, but they also discovered that Millie's husband was a violent brute who probably deserved what he got. Instead of turning in the evidence, the two decide to say nothing.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Susan Glaspell, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the likely murder of a distasteful old husband by his long-abused wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead up to Sarah and Mary's tough decision: should they reveal the evidence that would condemn Millie as a murderess, or keep mum since the murdered man had amply deserved his fate?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learn about the, less than rosy, marriage of Millie Wright and her late husband. The sheriff and his wife, Mary, were featured together briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the investigations of a small town sheriff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah so pitied the long-mistreated housewife, and childhood friend Millie that she neglected to turn in evidence incriminating Millie in the murder of Millie's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock narrated the plight of a visibly conflicted veterinarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was understand that Sarah and Millie had been friends in their youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary confessed that she'd been jealous of Millie's beauty in their younger years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x15", "title": "A Quality of Mercy", "date": "1961-12-29", "description": "During World War II, a U.S. lieutenant gets a unique opportunity to see the conflict from the Japanese point of view.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Sam Rolfe, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The eponymous theme, and the topic of the lessen administered to Lt. Katell by The Twilight Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The belligerent American soldier Katell suddenly found himself in the body of an enemy Japanese commander, and learned first hand that they were humans just as he himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The belligerent American soldier Katell suddenly found himself in the body of an enemy Japanese commander, and learned first hand that they were humans just as he himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hardened soldiers did not much care for their green-horned new commander, Lt. Katell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a war-weary platoon of American soldiers trying to oust a group of Japanese soldiers hold up in a Philippine cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Katell first administered disagreeably belligerent orders, then found himself receiving the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in an American campaign to expel Japan from the Philippines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The new Lieutenant was late to the war and this was his last chance to make a name for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Japanese captain was notably merciless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that \"The Bomb\" had been dropped on Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Katell insinuated that Sgt. Causarano was a chicken for advocating to wait out some Japanese soldiers hold up in a cave, rather than launching a full frontal assault.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battle Beyond the Sun (1962)", "title": "Battle Beyond the Sun", "date": "1962", "description": "Battle Beyond the Sun is the English-dubbed and re-edited U.S. version of Nebo Zovyot, a 1959 Soviet science fiction film directed by Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr. It tells of the \"space race\" of two future nations competing to become the first to land a spacecraft on the planet Mars.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Sun" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a space race between North Hemis and South Hemis to fly a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "North Hemis and South Hemis astronauts cooperated against their respective governments' wishes to get to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with North Hemis and South Hemis sharing in the glory of the joint space mission and a message of hope that in the future both nations would work together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A space station was build for the purpose of sending a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator explained how there was a world nuclear war in 1997.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts floated around on the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained in the opening narration how Humans would one day venture out from Earth and colonize the planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig Matthews and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig Matthews and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts encounter two alien creatures on the asteroid they landed on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were attacked by two alien creatures on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Planeta Bur (1962)", "title": "Planeta Bur", "date": "1962", "description": "Three Soviet spaceships, Sirius, Vega, and Capella, go on a mission to the planet Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeta_Bur" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounds a voyage to Venus by three Soviet spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a big robot named John that helped the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three cosmonauts were stranded on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alyosha discovered that his odd triangular rock he had found is really a sculpture of a woman's face, proving that there might still be intelligent life on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Venus was discovered to be a prehistoric world, complete with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three Soviet rocket ships went on a mission to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masha Ivanova was briefly very worried about the fate of her lover on Venus after contact wit him was lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan Shcherba and Masha Ivanova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cosmonauts explored the surface of Venus in conspicuous silver spacesuits complete with bubble helmets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masha Ivanova was floating around in zero gravity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were dinosaurs on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cosmonauts encountered various prehistoric beasts on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cosmonauts got around on the surface of Venus in a hover car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brain (1962)", "title": "The Brain", "date": "1962", "description": "A dead man seeks his own murderer through contact with a doctor keeping his brain alive. It is based on the novel Donovan's Brain (1943).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_(1962_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Corrie disembodied the brain of wealthy financier Max Holt who died from injuries sustained in a plane crash. He also disembodied a monkey's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The financier Martin Holt and his daughter Anna Holt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Corrie's mind became mingled with that of Max Holt inside Corrie's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max Holt's disembodied brain was telepathically taking over Dr. Corrie's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Corrie was obsessed with continuing his experiments on Max Holt's disembodied brain, even when it appeared he would get in trouble with the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max Holt profited from the suffering of humanity by withholding a new life-saving drug over a year while he awaited a monopoly to develop. As a result, his daughter arranged his murder so that she could release the drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Dr. Corrie's assistants raised the possibility that Corrie's experiments on monkey brain disembodiment could constitute animal cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Corrie insisted that science had to take shortcuts, i.e. perform illegal experiments on human brain disembodiment, in order for science to advance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max Holt's son became a painter because it was the choice of profession that the son reckoned would most annoy his old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that in life Max Holt hated all mankind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Planets Against Us (1962)", "title": "The Planets Against Us", "date": "1962", "description": "Aliens send cyborgs to Earth as a prelude to invasion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055297/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens replaced Professor Landerson and his son Robert by cyborgs as a prelude to invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens replaced Professor Landerson's son Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) with multiple cyborg versions of him as a prelude to invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was uncovered that aliens were preparing to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cyborg Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) fell in love with Marina Ferri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marina Ferri was engaged to Prof. Giorgio Borri but the cyborg Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) was romantically interested in her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) had a radioactive touch that he used to kill people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) had a radioactive touch that he used to kill people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Audrey Bradbury was infatuated with Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) but the feeling was not mutual and he killed her with his radioactive touch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bronco (a.k.a. Robert) communicated telepathically with Marina Ferri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marina Ferri was suffering from radiation poisoning in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien flying saucer shot down Professor Landerson and his son Robert's airplane in the skies over Tangier.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: This Is Not a Test (1962)", "title": "This Is Not a Test", "date": "1962", "description": "A group of motorists stopped at a roadblock learn that a nuclear strike is imminent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Not_a_Test_(1962_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A group of people stopped at a roadblock soon came to the stark realization that a nuclear strike on the United States was imminent, and the film explored how they reacted to the impending disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of people stopped at a roadblock soon came to the stark realization that a nuclear strike on the United States was imminent, and the film explored how they reacted to the impending disaster. One man explained that they might survive an atomic bomb detonation, but if a hydrogen bomb went off, then they were all as good as dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gramps and her beloved granddaughter Juney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe told his \"chick\" that she'd soon lose her driver's license if she kept driving over the speed limit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people stopped at the roadblock discussed among themselves about the panic that must have been going on inside the city. A group of looters later confirmed their suspicious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The policeman warned that the radiation after a nuclear blast could persist at dangerous levels for two weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juney insisted that she couldn't wait out with the others in the back of a tractor trailer because she was afraid of being in confined spaces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hitchhiker who was wanted for murder (and questioning in several others) was hiding out in the bushes nearby the roadblock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe's girlfriend was desperate for a drink. She concealed a bottle of whiskey in her coat even after Deputy Sheriff Colter ordered that nobody drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe's girlfriend confided in first him, and later Juney, that she was in fear of what was to come.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and his alcoholic girlfriend were on their way to catch a flight to Mexico City before getting stopped at a roadblock and finding out a nuclear attack was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man found Al fooling around with his wife in the bushes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man found Al fooling around with his wife in the bushes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen refused to let Deputy Sheriff Colter throw her poodle out of their makeshift bomb shelter. This he wished to do to conserve fresh air.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x39", "title": "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", "date": "1962", "description": "Hugo is a dim-witted boy without a home. He is taken in by a kind carnival magician Sadini. Sadini's deceitful wife, Irene, performs in her husband's act as the woman whose body is, supposedly, sawed in half. Irene manipulates Hugo into killing her husband. She says she wants to start a new act with Hugo and convinces him that he can perform the sawing the woman in half trick because the magic is in the wand. Hugo killers Sadini for her, but then she backs out on her promise. Hugo knocks out Irene in a struggle. He then decides to attempt the trick and ends up sawing Irene in half for real.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Lejtes. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stage magic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is the idea that the dim-witted boy, Hugo, was hoodwinked into thinking that the magic act of Sadini was real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The dim-witted boy Hugo was naïvely unprepared for daily life at the carnival. He misjudged the deceitful Irene because she was beautiful, and likewise the kind-hearted carnival magician Sadini because his goatee made him look like the devil. He didn't understand that stage magic wasn't real, and was delusional about his prospects of Irene becoming his lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although perhaps not entirely understanding what he was doing, Hugo killed both Sadini and Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene was unarguably culpable in Sadini's death, seeing as she had manipulated Hugo into doing the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugo was a mentally retarded boy who had escaped from the (unspecified) institution in which he had been living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon finding Hugo passed out in front of a hot dog stand, the carnival magician Sadini took him in to his trailer and took care of the boy without asking for anything in return. Sadini was notably kind in taking in Hugo, and this was remarked upon more than once.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene sought to trick Hugo into killing Sadini by convincing Hugo that the magic was real. Thus convinced, ironically, Hugo proceeded to saw Irene in half.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Irene using the dim-witted boy, Hugo, to rid herself of her carnival magician husband, Sadini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene had an affair with George behind Sadini's back, and plotted to get rid of her husband so that they could steal his act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dim-witted boy Hugo became infatuated with the beautiful Irene, not understanding that she was way out of his league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dim-witted boy Hugo was pointedly superstitious in his thinking that Sadini was the devil and that stage magic was real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock had to settle for making divinations based on goat X-rays because of anti-vivisectionist efforts to prevent him from doing it by eviscerating goats like the Romans of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of how the Romans divined the future by examining animal entrails, before using the comparatively tidy expedient of goat X-rays to make some of his own divinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugo had been so hungry that he fainted outside the hotdog stand at the carnival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene was romantically involved with George behind her husband, Sadini, back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George passed out drunk in the middle of warning Hugo that Irene was plotting against Hugo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sanjuro (1962)", "title": "Sanjuro", "date": "1962-01-01", "description": "Sanjuro (椿三十郎, Tsubaki Sanjūrō) is a 1962 black-and-white Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. It is a sequel to Kurosawa's 1961 Yojimbo.\n\nNine young samurai believe that the lord chamberlain, Mutsuta, is corrupt after he tore up their petition against fraud at court. One of them tells the superintendent of this and he agrees to intervene. As the nine meet secretly to discuss this at a shrine, a rōnin overhears and cautions them against trusting the superintendent. While at first they do not believe him, he saves them from an ambush. But as their rescuer is about to leave, he realises that Mutsuta and his family must now be in danger and decides to stay and help.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjuro" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nine samurai were hunted by corrupt officials.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x13", "title": "The Silk Petticoat", "date": "1962-01-02", "description": "Elisa Minden begins to have second thoughts about marrying Sir Humphrey J. Orford. She has these second thoughts because he took her to his wife's grave and talked about torture as a way of purifying those guilty of infidelity. After she is married, Elisa's worst fears come true when she discovers that Humphrey's first wife is not dead. She is really locked in his study and has been kept there for years. She is now insane and cannot call for help because Humphrey had her tongue out for adultery.\n\nDirected by: John Newland. Story by: Joseph Shearing, Halsted Welles & Norman Ginsbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story mostly concerns Elisa and Sir Humphrey shortly after they got married. We also learn some disturbing facts about Sir Humphrey and his first wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey went on about how his first wife had cheated on him. Indeed, the story hinges on that fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "It quickly becomes apparent that Sir Humphrey is a sadist who revels in cruelty. He is fascinated with torture. He keeps a gruesome painting of a man he caused to be hanged. He had cut out his first wife's tongue and kept her in captivity, tormenting her to the point where she had lost her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elisa was tended to by her father until she got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey was notably jealous of Elisa and her cousin whom she confessed she had been attracted to in her youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elisa met with her cousin and childhood flame, Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Minden made a quip about his lodgings be too luxurious for a country doctor like himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Elisa and Sir Humphrey accused the other of lying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The maid consented to take Elisa into Sir Humphrey's private study so long as they kept it secret from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Boyd worked as the maid in Sir Humphrey's country mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey spoke of a tortured saint. He might also have been torturing his first wife whom he kept locked up in his study and whose tongue he cut out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Humphrey was technically a bigamist as he kept his first wife captive in his private study after taking a second bride.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x16", "title": "Nothing in the Dark", "date": "1962-01-05", "description": "An elderly recluse facing imminent eviction refuses to allow anyone into her apartment, fearing that any visitor might be Death incarnate; her resolve is tested when a young police officer is seriously wounded outside her door.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda helped the wounded officer even though it might mean her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Death tried to persuade Wanda to come to terms with dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a personification of death as a policeman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda had seemingly suffered from the paranoid delusion that Death was out to get her, literally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly woman Wanda was living as a recluse in an abandoned tenement. She never went outside, having her groceries delivered, in an effort to not cross paths with Death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The building contractor said he had a heart but his duty was to demolish the building and he would have to evict Wanda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly woman Wanda was on the verge of being evicted from her musty basement apartment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x14", "title": "Bad Actor", "date": "1962-01-09", "description": "Bart Conway is a struggling actor with a bad temper and a drinking problem. He finds himself competing with a fellow actor Jerry Lane for the part of a strangler in an upcoming mystery. He invites Jerry over to his apartment for a little rehearsing. Bart gets a little too into character and chokes Jerry to death. To cover up his crime he chops up the body and dissolves most of it in acid. The police stop by to question him about Jerry's disappearance, but they find nothing amiss. They begin to leave. As they leave one of the police notices Bart's ice bucket which contains Jerry's undissolved head.\n\nDirected by: John Newland. Story by: Max Franklin, Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the titular \"bad actor\" (c.f. the title) Bart's failure to make it in the movies and television, and his now facing impending failure even in stage theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bart strangled Jerry in a rage, then tried to dispose of the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bart lectured Jerry on how to be a good actor. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock presented a Hitchcock Acting Studio student who'd taken an quite literally instruction to portray an elephant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Comments were made about Bart's copious drinking, and towards the end he disingenuously claimed to have stopped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The struggling actor Bart was dejected over it seeming that a fellow actor would be chosen over him for the starring role in a stage play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The down-and-out actor Bart had a strained relationship with his fiancée, Marjorie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bart and Jerry were competing for the lead role in some play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bart and his agent conversed a few times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police lieutenant showed up to question Bart about the disappearance of Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Part of the story concerned the method of disposing of a body by dissolving it in acid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bart sarcastically offered his agent 10% of his hangover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Bart had borrowed $10 from Jerry only to blow it playing dice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x17", "title": "One More Pallbearer", "date": "1962-01-12", "description": "Staging a fake nuclear war, a millionaire offers shelter to three people he believes wronged him in the past if they will only beg his forgiveness.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Radin was a rich man with various character flaws and none more blatant than that of his spitefulness: he tried to make three childhood antagonists apologize for having humiliated him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rev. Hughes accused Radin of lacking honor. The three accused people refused to apologize to Radin as a matter of honor. It seemed a point of the story was to show Radin's lack of honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radin staged a fake nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radin staged a fake nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Radin's grudges was traced back to an instance of public humiliation: a dressing down in class, a denouncement in church, and a court martial in disgrace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "it seemed that Radin's egomaniacal obsession with petty comebacks finally drove him insane, as he saw a world of rubble even though nothing at all was amiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radin had an argument with Langsford about whether she ought to have shown him mercy and compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rev. Hughes accused Radin of having driven a girl to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radin tried to scare three of his antagonists with a faked atomic war, but through an ironic twist of fate there was then a real nuclear apocalypse, or so we were meant to think briefly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x15", "title": "The Door Without a Key", "date": "1962-01-16", "description": "Captain Shaw works the night shift at a police station when he is approached by an old man who is suffering from amnesia. A lost boy then appears. Shaw tries to send the man to a hospital and the boy to home. Both, however, refuse to go. Eventually more people arrive. Each lost in some way or another. Eventually Shaw manages to clear out everyone, but the boy and the old man. The boy reveals that his father left him at the police station so that he would be sent to a home. When he hears this, the old man's memory returns. He is wealthy and has lost his family. He lives all alone in an enormous mansion. Shaw urges the old man to adopt the boy so that both of them can have a family.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Norman Daniels, Irving Elman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Eldridge went to the police station suffering from amnesia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bit by bit, we hear Mr. Eldridge explain how he had pursued wealth and power in his life, and now to his dismay finds that he lives in a big fancy house surrounded by servants and sycophants who care nothing for him personally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that Mr. Eldridge's money was insufficient to the task of making him happy. He needed companionship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place in a small town police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mickey came to grips with that his father had ditched at the police station and ran off with a woman not his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, Alfred Hitchcock proudly explained that he finished \"first\" in a bicycle race by quitting after five minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An inebriated old woman was taken in by the police. We understand that it was a habit of hers to get soaked and trouble the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old woman was tipsy and scared the young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Eldridge reminisced about his boyhood spent on his father's farm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x18", "title": "Dead Man's Shoes", "date": "1962-01-19", "description": "A homeless man literally walks into another life when he steals the shoes from a corpse.\n\nThe episode was remade in the 1985 revival as \"Dead Woman's Shoes\" and in the 2002 revival as \"Dead Man's Eyes\". This makes it the only original episode to be remade in two of the revival series. Directed by: Montgomery Pittman. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dane's spirit lingered in his old shoes and possessed whomever wore them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems Dane's spirit sought vengeance on his killers from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nate-as-Dane went to see Dane's bereaved girlfriend Wilma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dane's spirit possessed whoever put on his old shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nate made it clear that he was a boozehound by drinking from a beer bottle he found in the streets. Meanwhile Nate-as-Dane had a taste for tequila mixed with sugar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We got a taste for how the homeless wino Nate lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became apparent that Bernie had betrayed Dane during some business venture.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x16", "title": "The Case of M.J.H.", "date": "1962-01-23", "description": "Psychiatrist Dr. Cooper employs Maude Sheridan who falls for a crook named Jimmy French. French convinces her to allow him to look at Dr. Cooper's private files. He wants to blackmail one of his patients. French picks the file of M.J. Harrison. He discovers that Harrison had an affair with a woman named Diana. French approaches Harrison and demands money. Harrison agrees, but kills French instead. Dr. Cooper tells Maude the bad news about French. He then reveals that Harrison never had an affair. It was all the product of his disturbed mind. He believed the delusion so strongly, however, he was willing to kill to protect it.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maude Sheridan fell in love with Jimmy French against her better judgement, knowing full well he was a no-good crook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy contrived to obtain information about a delusional man, and then tried to scam that man by blackmailing him regarding a fictional mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maude Sheridan fell in love with Jimmy French against her better judgement, knowing full well he was a no-good crook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular M. J. Harrison suffered from the delusion that he was having an extramarital affair with an 18-year-old girl named Diana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock described the hanging of four television pundits as \"a new high in anti-intellectualism\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maude was initially annoyed at Jimmy's advances in the cafe, and tried in vain to avoid him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maude spoke a few times with her boss, Dr. Cooper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cooper was a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maude picked up her house cat and conspicuously stroked its fur as she conversed with Jimmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy complained to Maude that he needed money to pay off an old loan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that the titular M. J. Harrison was having an affair with an 18-year-old girl named Diana. It was ultimately revealed, however, that she was a figment of his imagination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x19", "title": "The Hunt", "date": "1962-01-26", "description": "A mountain man goes hunting for raccoons with his dog. When he returns, he comes to realize that something is much changed.\n\nDirected by: Harold Schuster. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hyder and his dog Rip were so tight that neither death nor devil could tear them apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hyder and Rip died and walked as ghosts for a while until they reached first the gate to Hell, and then the gate to Heaven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hyder and his dog Rip were so tight that neither death nor devil could tear them apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Man Simpson learned, by the by, that he gone died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hyder and Rachel Simpson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hyder existed for a brief spell as an invisible spirit in the normal world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Hyder partaking in an evening raccoon hunt with the help of his trusty hound Rip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel mourned Hyder who had drown while out hunting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel urged Hyder not to go hunting on account that she'd recently seen \"blood on the Moon\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gatekeeper of Hell tried to tempt Hyder into entering his dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An angel in the guise of a young man appeared to Hyder, and offer to take him and his dog Rip to Heaven.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x17", "title": "The Faith of Aaron Menefee", "date": "1962-01-30", "description": "Reverend Otis Jones is a faith healer who stops at a service station to get his car repaired. The station's owner Aaron Menefee is an honest man who impresses the reverend so much that he agrees to cure his ulcer. Aaron becomes attracted to Rev. Jones's daughter Emily. He quits his job and joins the reverend's revival show. Aaron wants to marry Emily, but the reverend does not give his permission. The reverend does not believe Aaron's faith in him is strong enough for him to marry his daughter. Later the revival returns to Aaron's town. Aaron discovers that the town doctor is being held by two hoodlums, one of whom is injured. Aaron believes that this is a test of faith. He calls for Reverend Jones to cure the injured man. The hoodlums warn that Jones will be killed if his faith healing does not work. The end result in never shown, but Aaron wins either way. Either the faith healing works and Aaron's faith is demonstrated, or the faith healing fails and Jones is killed. In either case, it seems that Aaron will be free to marry Emily.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Stanley Ellin, Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "faith healing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a faith healer and his naive young apprentice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jones forbade his adult daughter Emily from marrying his new assistant to her general frustration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jones did not think Aaron was a suitable match for his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aaron and Emily fell in love but her father stepped in and thwarted their plan to tie the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The faith healer Otis professed to be a reverend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human character stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aaron was stereotypical pious Christian who went so far as to believe that the likely conman Reverend Jones was a real-deal faith healer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jones was a scamming faith healer in one obvious interpretation of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron's reluctance to smooch his sweetheart before marriage was apparently eyebrow-raising even in the early 1960s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hoodlums threatened to kill anyone who took their money without producing results.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron was friends with the town doctor, Doc Buckles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron was cured of stomach ulcers by a passing faith healer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron pointedly resisted his sexual urges while alone with Emily on the boat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reverend Jones professed to \"reign over\" his daughter Emily as long as he walked the earth, before refusing to let her marry Aaron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Buckles told the criminal that he would never walk again, thus implying he was crippled.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x20", "title": "Showdown with Rance McGrew", "date": "1962-02-02", "description": "The egotistic star of a western TV series comes face to face with the real Jesse James.\n\nDirected by: Christian Nyby. Story by: Frederic Louis Fox, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems the point of the story was that even dead cowboys are touchy about their image.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The real Jesse James was compelled to take timeout from the afterlife to humble the \"phony-baloney\" Western actor Rance McGrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the shooting of a stereotypical Western television series episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the shooting of a stereotypical Western television series episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was fed up with the spoiled actor Rance McGrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rance was a slimy, cowardly worm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem the real Jesse James took timeout from the afterlife to visit Earth and protect his image from being sullied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"phony-baloney\" western actor Rance McGrew got a lesson in humility from the real Jesse James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rance confessed that heights made him feel ill.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x18", "title": "The Woman Who Wanted to Live", "date": "1962-02-06", "description": "After killing a gas station attendant in a robbery attempt, a wounded escaped convict Ray Bardon stops a girl named Lisa and demands to be driven to safety. Lisa realizing that her life is in danger agrees. As she drives, Ray falls asleep. Suddenly the car gets a flat tire. Instead of making an escape, Lisa changes the tire. Later the two stop at a hotel. Ray wonders about the girl's loyalty and asks why she didn't run and go to the police. As he talks, Lisa manages to get his gun. She reveals that the gas station attendant was her fiancee and that she didn't leave because she was waiting for an opportunity to kill Ray.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Bryce Walton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Although revealed as a ruse in the end, the plot hinged on Lisa's supposed desire to avoid being killed at any prize.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that Lisa had merely been playacting while waiting for an opportunity to slay the murderer of her gas station attendant fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "the plot turns on Ray shooting dead a gas station attendant in a botched robbery. The viewer is strongly led to believe that Lisa took Ray's life in an act of revenge at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was reluctant to let his guard down and get burned by his seemingly loyal captive, Lisa. But in the end he did and paid the ultimate price.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa and the late gas station attendant had been engaged to be married, we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was assaulted by three no-good punks who were about to drive off with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray robbed a gas station.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x21", "title": "Kick the Can", "date": "1962-02-09", "description": "The dispirited residents of a nursing home are urged by one of their number to believe that they can recapture their youth by playing a children's game.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After stealing the children's can, Charles began thinking about the children's games he had played himself and he convinced the other old folks home residents to play them with him once more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ben felt his age, and tried in vain to make Charles realize that there was nothing he could do to regain his youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "optimist vs. pessimist", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was jovial and believed in magic, while Ben was negative about the whole thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles, a nursing home resident, was convinced that being young at heart was the key to regaining his youth. Indeed, the story concluded with Charles being magically transformed into his boyhood self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Ben had been friends since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles walked into the middle of a game of kick-the-can and ruthlessly appropriated the can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was stuck in depressing retirement home into which old folks were put as a punishment for high age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was looking forward to moving out from the old folks home and into his son's house. But Charles was left feeling disappointed when his son broke the news that they had no room for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the rather frosty and strained relationship between medical personal and inmates in a retirement home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was said to have turned senile, after he started acting weird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben was a grumpy old coot who didn't want to partake in silly games.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x19", "title": "Strange Miracle", "date": "1962-02-13", "description": "Pedro Sicueros fakes paralysis after a train wreck in order to collect a huge insurance settlement. After collecting the money he doesn't want to stay in the wheelchair. He meets a young girl named Maria who is really paralyzed. He discovers that she has been going to a nearby holy shrine for years hoping for a cure. Pedro gets an idea. He visits the shrine and begins to pray. On the fifth day of his prayer he stands and pretends to be healed. After he stands, his legs collapse. He discovers that he is now paralyzed for real. At the same time, some distance away, Maria is cured.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: George Langelaan, Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pedro pretended to be paralyzed in order to cash in on insurance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro tried to use the shrine to feign a miraculous recovery from his paralysis, but instead became paralyzed for real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro pretended to be paralyzed in order to cash in on insurance. The little girl Maria was legitimately paralyzed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro let his wife in on the secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miracle-working statue of the Virgin Mary was at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro was struck down with paralysis by the Virgin Mary for his having committed insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Maria told a Catholic priest the story of the Virgin Mary state cured her paralysis of the legs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: La Jetee (1962)", "title": "La Jetée", "date": "1962-02-16", "description": "Constructed almost entirely from still photos, the film tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. It is 28 minutes long and shot in black and white.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jet%C3%A9e" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A post-nuclear war experiment in time travel was undertaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a post-nuclear war Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a post-nuclear war Paris.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x22", "title": "A Piano in the House", "date": "1962-02-16", "description": "A cynical theater critic takes advantage of a player piano that reveals people's hidden selves.\n\nDirected by: David Greene. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fitzgerald was extraordinarily insensitive to other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fitzgerald humiliated one person after the other with extraordinary spitefulness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a player piano that when playing made people reveal their innermost thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzgerald treating his wife in a condescending manner. In particular, after she expressing a desire to learn how to play the piano, he gifted her a player piano for her birthday with the insinuation that she had no talent, and was therefore undeserving of a real piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzgerald was egomaniacal beyond belief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitzgerald and Esther Fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Esther originally married Fitzgerald because she thought he was a great man, but she ultimately came to resent him for his being a spiteful jerk, and left him for a better man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man who was deliberately humiliating other people was himself humiliated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Influenced by the piano, Gregory confessed to Fitzgerald that he was carrying on an affair with Fitzgerald's wife, and that the two had vacationed together in Mexico City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Esther leaving her husband Fitzgerald for the playwright Gregory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzgerald quite rightly identified the shopkeeper as a hater of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When playing music the player piano elicited deep emotional responses from its hearers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Influenced by the piano, Fitzgerald confessed to fearing the dark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzgerald confessed to envy other people's talent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzgerald insensitively expressed his desire to have his butler Marvin let go with Marvin plainly within earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitzgerald was a theater critic, and Gregory a playwright.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x20", "title": "The Test", "date": "1962-02-20", "description": "Vernon Wedge is an attorney who is approached by the father of Benjy Marino. Benjy is accused of stabbing another boy with a knife. Vernon decides to take the case, but his case for the defense seems hopeless until he discovers a special test that can determine if a knife blade ever had blood on it. He tries to conduct the test in court, but the prosecution resists. Even without the test, however, Vernon manages to get Benjy off. Later, Vernon decides to conduct the test in order to determine whether Benjy was really innocent. Before he can conduct the test Benjy's father arrives and cuts himself with the murder weapon. By doing so, he prevents Vernon from ever knowing the truth about the case.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This was a story that discussed what amount of evidence is appropriate to condemn someone for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the attorney Vernon Wedge as he reluctantly defends an accused murderer in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjy's father was seemingly convinced beyond a doubt of his son's innocence, but showed his doubts in the end by foiling the attorney's plan to test for traces of blood on Benjy's knife blade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story took place in a courtroom where Benjy's fate was being decided.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjy stood accused of having stabbed another boy to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x23", "title": "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank", "date": "1962-02-23", "description": "When a \"dead\" man sits up in the coffin at his funeral during the mid-1920s, the townsfolk become suspicious whether it's really him, especially when he doesn't behave the way he used to.\n\nDirected by: Montgomery Pittman. Story by: Montgomery Pittman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The superstitious townsfolk thought it was mighty queer when Jeff Myrtlebank arose from being three days dead - they naturally assumed that he was undead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone around me changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff Myrtlebank could not hide from his nearest and dearest that he was a radically different person after his inexplicable resurrection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and Comfort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and Comfort decided to marry at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Comfort professed her unconditional love for Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story parodied a community of many dimwitted and superstitious country bumpkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story parodied a community of many dimwitted and superstitious country bumpkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if an aspect of my personality was slightly different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon rising from the dead Jeff became more confident and assertive than he had ever been before.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed that Jeff acquired magic powers during his brief sojourn to beyond the grave - he implied that he could call down locust and put a barn on fire, then he seemingly lit a match with a mere thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ma Myrtlebank way noticeably disturbed by her son Jeff's anomalous behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pa Myrtlebank took his son's mysterious resurrection in stride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ma and Pa Myrtlebank. Ma and Pa Gatewood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Liz Myrtlebank was the first to approach her brother Jeff after he emerged from his coffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The new Jeff stood up to and defeated his long time antagonist Orgram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff shocked everyone by returning to life at his own funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two boys tried to freak out young Liz by tossing a frog her way.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x21", "title": "Burglar Proof", "date": "1962-02-27", "description": "Harrison Fell is an ad executive that needs to come up with an ad campaign to sell the 801 Burglar-Proof safe. Harrison invites the press and a notorious safe-cracker Sammy Morrisey to a gala ball. He challenges Sammy to open the safe in less than three hours. If Sammy can do it, he can keep an envelope containing $50,000 dollars that is being kept within the safe. If he can't, then he gets some consolation prize. Initially Sammy is reluctant. He has given up on safe-cracking and is trying out a new profession. Eventually, he agrees. At the party, Harrison puts the envelope in the safe and locks it. Sammy is given three hours, but he fails to open the safe. He is given the consolation prize. Harrison is pleased since his advertising plan is a success. Later, however, he opens the safe and discovers that the envelope contains worthless paper and no money. Sammy pulled a switch. His new profession is as a pick-pocket.\n\nDirected by: John Newland. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sammy tried every known method to get into the safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a PR stunt by a safe-manufacturer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sammy had been in Jail for cracking safes. In the end we learn that he was a pickpocket and had just purloined $50,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock professed to suffer from acrophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be a blundering dentist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sammy was teaching his daughter, Dorothy, how to pick pockets like her old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The PR man Harrison Fell was humbled when it became apparent that the notorious safe-cracker he hired to publicly demonstrate the 801 Burglar-Proof safe found an ingenious way to make off with the $50,000 in cash it supposedly contained.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)", "title": "Journey to the Seventh Planet", "date": "1962-03", "description": "In the year 2001, a crew is dispatched to Uranus (i.e. the seventh planet) by the United Nations on a mission of space exploration.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Seventh_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Uranian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a gigantic one-eyed brain living in a cave in Uranus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a mission to the planet Uranus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gigantic one-eyed brain communicated telepathically with the astronauts and conjured an illusionary habitat for them based on their memories of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a gigantic one-eyed brain living in a cave in Uranus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gigantic one-eyed brain planed to possess the astronauts' bodies and have them take it with them back to Earth where it would implement a plan for global domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set in a future, the year 2001, where world peace had been achieved and the United Nations was the governing body of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set in a future, the year 2001, where Earth had a world government that had colonized the solar system as far as Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew of astronauts flew a rocket ship to Uranus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were assailed by a dinosaur-like rodent cyclops creature. There was also a giant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gigantic one-eyed brain found the deepest, darkest fears inside the astronauts' minds and conjured them up for the astronauts to face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gigantic one-eyed brain found the deepest, darkest fears inside the astronauts' minds and conjured them up for the astronauts to face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts sported nifty blue spacesuits with yellow helmets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x24", "title": "To Serve Man", "date": "1962-03-02", "description": "Representatives of a 9 ft. tall alien race come to Earth and offer mankind cures for all earthly ills.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Damon Knight, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a peculiarly insidious scheme for inspiring mankind's trust by giving us technology, only to gradually harvest us as food (Chambers' final words were that we all had his fate to look forwards to).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seemingly benevolent Kanamits came to Earth from another galaxy offering to solutions to all the world's problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the leaders of Earth's nation states trust the seemingly benevolent Kanamits when they offered humanitarian aid that would turn the world in a paradise?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The governments of the Earth put an end to war with the aid of advanced Kanamit technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seemingly benevolent Kanamits establish formal relations with the people of Earth through the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humankind was delighted to learn that the aliens wished nothing more than \"to serve man\", but through an ironic twist of fate it transpires that they wanted to serve man as a meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cookbook presented a peculiar problem of language and meaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kanamits made a bid to transform Earth into a giant ranch with humans playing the role of cattle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although left ambiguous in the story, a popular interpretation is that the Kanamits communicated with each other via telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although left ambiguous in the story, a popular interpretation is that the Kanamits were a telepathic race of extra-galactic aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kanamits were sending flying saucers full of people to their home world in another galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People we shown boarding a flying saucer en route to the Kanamit home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It felt strange to Patty how the H-bomb was no longer anything to worry about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien described how Earth could get free energy, solve world hunger, and end war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lie detector", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kanamit underwent a lie detector test.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x22", "title": "The Big Score", "date": "1962-03-06", "description": "Dora baby-sits for a wealthy F. Hubert Fellowes. She plans to rob him with her boyfriend Mike and his buddy Gino. The three carry out the robbery, but as they are about to leave Fellowes returns and tries to stop them. He is shot and killed. The three make off with $32,000. Two gangsters track them down and kill them. Fellowes, as it happened, was a big-time gangster.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Sam Merwin, Jr., Bryce Walton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a quartet of youths who killed a man in the process of robbing his home of $32,000 in cash without realizing he was a big-time gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of Dora and her two friends stealing $32,000 in cash from the man who hired her to babysit his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of Dora and her two friends stealing $32,000 in cash from the man who hired her to babysit his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dora and her two friends killed Mr. Fellowes in cold blood while carrying out a robbery of his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Dora and her friends murdered Mr. Fellowes in cold blood not knowing he was a big-time gangster and that there would be hell to pay as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gino, along with Dora, shot one of their partners and made of with the booty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock stepped his viewers through an X's and O's football play that was sketched out on a blackboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Fellowes left his young son in the care of the unscrupulous babysitter Dora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The babysitter Dora urged Larry to go to sleep so that he would grow up to be a big man, like his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dora and Mike were horsing around on the sofa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Gino briefly came into conflict over their common love interest, Dora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Arne were laughing it up without a care in the world after having made off with $32,000 in cash from Mr. Fellowes' home in contrast with their partner in crime Gino who became increasingly worries over the consequences of what they had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x25", "title": "The Fugitive", "date": "1962-03-09", "description": "A fugitive from another world befriends a handicapped girl.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Ben was an alien, and police-like aliens were after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Ben took big risks to save the life of his young friend Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Ben took big risks to save the life of his young friend Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien disguised as an old man became best friends with the little girl Jenny while he was hiding out on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was a shapeshifting alien who assumed the form of an old man while hiding out on Earth. He also took on the guise of a space monster and a fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Old Ben was really an alien who was hiding out on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an alien king living in secret on Earth in the guise of an old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the young girl Jenny deal with some difficult childhood issues, including having to walk with a leg brace, boys, and a mean foster mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Ben was thought by the children to have magic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of being in power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Ben fled because he hated the responsibility of leadership,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny had a turbulent relationship with her foster parent/aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Jenny had a leg brace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny's aunt kept berating her about this and that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a group of children enjoying a game of softball in the park.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x23", "title": "Profit-Sharing Plan", "date": "1962-03-13", "description": "On Miles Cheever's last day of work, he is given a retirement party. When he comes home, his wife tells him that he deserved more for fifteen years. Miles agrees and that night goes to office and robs the safe. Intending to leave his wife, he heads to the airport where he is met by his girlfriend. A stewardess, however, tells Miles to put his suitcase in a rear storage compartment. Though the suitcase contains the money from the office, Miles reluctantly agrees. Later as he waits on the plane, he learns that a bomb threat has been called in. Since the police are searching the bags, he worries that he will be caught. What he doesn't realize is that his wife called in the bomb threat. She knew he was having an affair and called the threat in so he'd get caught.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Richard Levinson & William Link.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles stole a large sum of cash form the company safe one day after he retied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' wife thwarted his attempt to fly off to Hawaii with his mistress in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retiring from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' stole a large sum of money from his office on the night of his last day after fifteen years of service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles had a mistress he tried to run off with with her to Hawaii.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Furious at Miles for having an affair, Miles wife Mrs. Cheever made a fake bomb threat with the goal of landing him in deep waters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and his mistress, Anita, couldn't keep their hands each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police turned up at the airport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Cheever made a bomb threat against an airline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the scene of groaning passengers when a flight was deplaned on the tarmac owing to a delay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles looked dejected upon being given a pen for his twenty years of service at the company. His wife later made a derogatory remark about the miserly gift.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x26", "title": "Little Girl Lost", "date": "1962-03-16", "description": "When a little girl disappears from her bedroom without a trace, her parents call their physicist friend to help investigate her disappearance.\n\nDirected by: Paul Stewart. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Two parents were distraught as their daughter was lost in a mysterious fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Openings appeared through which people could enter and move in a fourth dimension somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris and Ruth Miller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a mysterious opening in the wall, through which one could pass and enter another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tina's parents worked frantically to rescue her after she wound up lost in the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tina's parents worked frantically to rescue her after she wound up lost in the fourth dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Miller family dog vanished into the fourth dimension after scampering under Tina's bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mother had a shrill voice and did nothing but scream the whole story through - so 60s.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x24", "title": "Apex", "date": "1962-03-20", "description": "Claude is cheating on his wife Clara with Clara's best friend Margo. Since Clara has been having problems with Claude, Clara asks Margo for advice. She wonders whether she should maker Claude the president of the company she knows. Clara tells Claude that his wife is going to divorce him. Since he will be left broke after a divorce, Margo suggests that Claude kill his wife. Claude tries to, but has second thoughts. Later she tells Margo that he will hire someone to do it. Margo decides to kill Clara herself. She offers Clara poisoned laced tea. Clara drinks it and dies. A man named Weeks arrives and Margo pretends to be Clara in an effort to get rid of him. The man says he is here to collect an envelope with two thousand dollars in it. She gets the envelope and then kills Margo thinking she was Clara. Weeks was the hitman hired by Claude to kill his wife. The two thousand dollars was his payment.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: James Workman, John T. Kelley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Claude plotted to slay his rich wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara suspected her trophy husband, Claude, was cheating on her, but little did she know it was with her best friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude had married Clara because of her money and was now looking to kill her so as to inherit it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margo pretended to be a close friend and confident of Clara, but was secretly screwing her husband and planning to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margo, after poisoning Clara, was visited by a professional hitman who mistook her for Clara and bashed Margo's skull in with a golf putter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude was cheating on his wife Clara with her best friend Margo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara suspected that Claude was cheating on her and expressed a desire to divorce him, could she but find proof of his maleficence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Margo had to do the deed herself and selected the means of poison most foul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margo, after slaying Clara, was visited by a professional hitman who mistook her for Clara and bashed her skull in with a golf putter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gorath (1962)", "title": "Gorath", "date": "1962-03-21", "description": "The story concerns mankind's efforts to move Earth out of its orbit to avoid it from colliding with the runaway star Gorath.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorath" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The runaway star Gorath was on a course to collide with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "changing the orbit of a planet around its star", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world united to move Earth out of its orbit to avoid it from colliding with the runaway star Gorath. This was accomplished by firing fusion powered jets constructed around the South Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Countries from around the world joined forces under the auspices of the United Nations to stop the runaway star Gorath from colliding with the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocket ship JX-1 was launched from Mt. Fuji on a mission to Saturn, but was quickly diverted to investigate a runaway star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocket ship JX-1 was launched from Mt. Fuji on a mission to Saturn, but was quickly diverted to investigate a runaway star. Another rocket ship was later launched to observe Gorath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a United Nations space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomoko morned the loss of her father, who was captain of the doomed JX-1 rocket ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two cadet astronauts floated around in a zero gravity environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Takiko Nomura and cadet astronaut Tatsuma Kanai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The backlash of incredible heat this created caused a gigantic, 30-meter-long walrus to emerge from its home deep below the frozen tundra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a 30-meter-long walrus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a 30-meter-long walrus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x27", "title": "Person or Persons Unknown", "date": "1962-03-23", "description": "A man discovers that all traces of his identity have been erased when no one, including his own wife, recognizes him.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "choice", "motivation": "David woke up one morning to find that nobody knew who he was anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was made to wonder whether the person he thought he was was merely a delusional construct of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was at a loss to explain his peculiar new circumstance and came to believe an impossible conspiracy was afoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "David tried to convince various people he knew that he knew them but to them he was but a crazy stranger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wilma suddenly didn't recognize David after 11 years of marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were a number of little comments regarding David drinking too much - it might have been the cause of his problem in the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x25", "title": "The Last Remains", "date": "1962-03-27", "description": "Marvin Foley is trying to arrange a burial for his late partner. He approaches a mortician, Amos Duff, and asks for advice. Since Amos's business is in need of money, he recommends the costly Class A service. Marvin, however, rejects the idea preferring a funeral without the Class A treatment. Later Amos discovers signs of foul play in the death of Marvin's partner. He approaches Marvin who agrees to buy a Class A funeral if Amos keeps his mouth shut. After the cremation, Marvin refuses to pay and tells Amos that nothing can be done since all the evidence was just destroyed. Amos, however, has kept one crucial piece of evidence: the fire-proof hunting bullet Marvin used to commit murder.\n\nDirected by: Leonard Horn. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Western notions of how to take leave of a late loved one with due style.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Discovering a bullet wound in his late client, funeral director Duff decided to blackmail the man that had commissioned the service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin had disposed of his business partner with a bullet from a hunting rifle during a hunting trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "The funeral home director Amos Duff turned to blackmail to save his business from going belly up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Duff berated his underling regarding appropriate attire at a funeral parlor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amos lamented the disappearing of \"the old values\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Marvin was hauled into the police station under suspicion he'd murdered his business partner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x28", "title": "The Little People", "date": "1962-03-30", "description": "When two astronauts land on a distant planet, one of them becomes a \"God\" to a race of tiny people.\n\nDirected by: William F. Claxton. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peter expressed his wish to be the one calling the shots - as he became god to a race of tiny aliens, the power went to his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the greatest among us is the smallest in another world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Craig was worshiped as a god among a race a ant-sized people, he was crushed much like an ant by a race of gigantic people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts found themselves stranded on a barren planet with few provisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig came to be worshiped as a god by a race of ant-sized people. In particular, the little people erected a life-sized statue of Craig, and presumably lived in mortal terror of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter relished becoming a God and went mad with the power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter tyrannically lorded it over a race of tiny people, but was blindsided by the realization that he himself was but a tiny plaything to a race of ginormous humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts landed on a planet populated by a race of people no bigger than ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts discovered a race of ant-sized people living on a distant planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig's dead body easily fit into the palm of the hand of one of the two mountain-sized humanoid aliens who landed on the planet at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "While Craig appeared to be a god from the little people's point of view, he was considered to be little more than an ant to the giant humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William and Peter did not like each other but had to put this aside and get along regardless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two astronauts emergency landed their rocket ship on some rocky planet millions of miles from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two suns were blaring down on the stranded astronauts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two astronauts discovered a race of ant-sized people living on a planet with two suns in its sky.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x26", "title": "Ten O'Clock Tiger", "date": "1962-04-03", "description": "Boxing manager Arthur Duffy is offered a powerful drug by a shady character named Boots Murphy. Boots tells him it is a drug used on race horses to turn losers into winners. Arthur decides to use the drug on one of his washed up fighters named Soldier Fresno. After Soldier is injected with the drug, he starts to win. Arthur and Boots begin to rake in the money. Soon Soldier gets a bout with the champion. Before the fight, however, Boots tells Arthur that he only has two more doses of the drug. Determined to win the fight, Arthur injects Soldier with both doses. Unfortunately the overdose causes Soldier to believe that he is already in the ring. He springs up and starts fighting. He beats Arthur to death.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This is a story about cheating in boxing by shooting the boxer up with chemicals before the match. The boxing manager Arthur Duffy put new life into the over-the-hill boxer Soldier Fresno by injecting him with a powerful experimental concoction before his bouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is mainly set in a boxing gym and concerns a boxing manager using an injectable performance enhancing drugs to revitalize an over-the-hill boxer's career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soldier Fresno was an unremarkable over-the-hill boxer until he started letting his manager inject him with special \"vitamins\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boxing manager Arthur Duffy started injecting his docile, over-the-hill boxer Soldier Fresno with PEDs, and things were going great until an overdose caused Solder to batter Arthur to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to this story was the following dilemma, which Boots found troubling but Arthur had little problem getting his head around: should they risk Soldier's life and well being by testing a new drug on him, and then to increase the dose dangerously, in order to profit from the games he'd win?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur stooped to injecting an over-the-hill boxer in his stable with drugs to rake in the money on the boxer fights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock let his mustachioed brother introduce the story, thinking that doing so would score them a booking on a certain Sunday night variety show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police busted into the dressing room moments after the overdosed on performance enhancing drugs boxer Soldier Fresno had beaten his manager to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moon Pilot (1962)", "title": "Moon Pilot", "date": "1962-04-05", "description": "Moon Pilot is based on Robert Buckner's 1960 novel Starfire and reflects Disney's interest in America's space program during John F. Kennedy's presidential era in the early 1960s. It was notably the first science-fiction movie produced by Disney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Pilot" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Air Force Capt. Richmond Talbot inadvertently volunteered to make the first manned flight around the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Talbot and Lyrae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyrae revealed that she is a friendly alien from the planet Beta Lyrae. She came to Earth to offer Richmond Talbot a special paint formula that when applied to his rocket, will safeguard his brain from \"proton rays\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Air Force Capt. Richmond Talbot made the first manned flight around the Moon in a rocket ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyrae could read Richmond Talbot's mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x29", "title": "Four O'Clock", "date": "1962-04-06", "description": "A fanatical one-man moral crusader decides to shrink those he deems evil to a height of two feet at four o'clock.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Price Day, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle was busy maniacally administering his own justice to whomever he felt like designating \"an evildoer\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle was obsessed with rooting out all the evildoers in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Lucas asked Mr. Crangle by what right he presumed to sit in judgment of her husband, and we must indeed ponder by what right he levied his many baseless charges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Lucas pleaded for clemency on behalf of her husband who was taking Mr. Crangle's accusations rather hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle railed maniacally about all the evil he would expunge from the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle maintained that he could will, if he wished, a variety of changes to the world. He decided to make every evildoer in the world two feet tall, at four o'clock. In the end he only changed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle took it upon himself the designate and punish all the world's evildoers, but ended up punishing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among many other things, Mr. Crangle had a theory of a Red conspiracy calling the shots in Washington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Lucas went to Mr. Crangle to try to get her husband's name cleared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver's idea of four o'clock was explained as his \"Götterdämmerung\" in the opening narration, which is Wagner's tortured variant of Ragnarök, a prophesied world-ending war between the Old Norse Gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, indirectly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A shrunken Mr. Crangle struggled with an oversized pencil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Crangle kept a pet parrot named Pete.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x27", "title": "Act of Faith", "date": "1962-04-10", "description": "Alan Chatterton, an unsuccessful writer, sends successful author Ralston Temple a letter along with three sample chapters from his novel in progress. Alice, Temple's secretary, convinces her boss that the chapters are good and that he should meet the writer and perhaps give him money to finish his book. Temple agrees to meet Chatterton, but finds him an obnoxious boor. Nevertheless he gives him a six month loan. Six months later, Temple continues to fund Chatterton even though the book is not completed. Chatterton shows up again and asks for a thousand dollars so he can get married. Temple gives into the request, but later finds Chatterton partying in an expensive restaurant. Temple confronts Chatterton and rips up their contract. He then goes on vacation. Later, Alice tells Temple that Chatterton has finished his book. It is a best-seller and is going to be made into a movie. Temple shows up at a store where Chatterton is autographing his book. To Temple's surprise, Chatterton gives him an autographed copy of his book plus all the money he owed him with interest.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Eric Ambler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan became something of a moocher, demanding evermore monetary support from his patron Ralston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The apparent conclusion of the story was that Ralston tore up the contract with Alan, only to find later that Alan had made it big and that the contract would, presumably, have been worth a fortune. There is also moral regret as they had now alienated a man who might have been a valuable acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralston was dismayed when the writer he was financially supporting kept spending the money on things Ralston deemed luxuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan used the money he got from Rolston to splurge on an apartment in the city and a night out at an expensive restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to contrast Alan (unsuccessful, impoverished, frivolous, deceitful) with Ralston (successful, rich, snobbish, sophisticated, generous).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to contrast Alan (unsuccessful, impoverished, frivolous, deceitful) with Ralston (successful, rich, snobbish, sophisticated, generous).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an established writer financially supporting a promising new writer so that the new writer can finish his novel. The established writer gave advice on how to write, but it fell on deaf ears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralston funded what he saw as the talented writer Alan to finish writing a promising novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The up-and-coming writer Alan confessed to the established writer Ralston that he was envious of his fine study and lavish lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralston began lecturing Alan about writing before comprehending that the latter was uninterested in anything except monetary support.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a suggestion that the youth, Alan, would be looking up to the successful veteran author, Ralston, as a role model. In reality, Alan just wanted money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralston called out his secretary, Alice, for making charitable promises in his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly stuffed up Ralston conversed with his secretary while sitting up in bed with discarded tissues about his person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Alan had sold the same rights to the revenue from his future books to many other people, and he was written of as a charlatan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x30", "title": "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby", "date": "1962-04-13", "description": "A teller of tall tales attracts unwanted attention from aliens.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Frederic Louis Fox, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pathological lying", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Sommerset Frisby was the biggest liar ever born, we learn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the boy who cried wolf moral", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nobody believed the shameless teller of tall tales Mr. Frisby when he told the truth about nearly getting abducted by space aliens. and the narrator explicitly drew a parallel to Aesop's fable about the boy who cried wolf in the closing narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was an alien species who did not have the concept of lying and were vulnerable to the sound of a harmonica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "major", "motivation": "for discussion :: Various people had a hard time stomaching the loudmouthed mythomaniac Frisby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some aliens sought to add the harmonica playing teller of tall tales Mr. Frisby to their collection of specimens from other planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Frisby was very nearly abducted by aliens and made a specimen in their zoo of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with everyone laughing off the known teller of tall tales Mr. Frisy's true account of nearly getting abducted by space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frisby and the aliens agreed that each was mutually bad-looking to the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frisby was taken aboard a flying saucer and nearly abducted, but his trusty harmonica saved the day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Frisby told a tall tale about having served in the Balloon Corps at the Battle of the Marne, but of the First or Second Battle of the Marne it was he did not say.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Frisby told a tall tale that involved his making it from Paris to Berlin in an hour's time while he was fighting in the Western Allied invasion of Germany.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens claimed to have collected a Vensuian who could sing on eight different pitches simultaneously.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x28", "title": "The Kerry Blue", "date": "1962-04-17", "description": "Ned Malley loves Annie his old dog, a Kerry Blue. Ned's wife Thelma grows jealous. Though she likes the dog, she thinks her husband's love for it is unhealthy. One day, Annie dies. Ned accuses his wife of murder. He slips an overdose of sleeping pills into her hot chocolate. As she slips into unconsciousness, Ned hears familiar barking. He goes to investigate, but trips on fatally injures himself. A neighbor calls the police who come and revive Thelma. As her dead husband is being taken away she wonders whether she should have bought him a new Kerry Blue.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ned was so besotted with his terrier, Annie, that he killed his own wife because he thought she had been careless with the pure bred pooch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was so besotted with his terrier, Annie, that he killed his own wife because he thought she had been careless with the pure bred pooch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was so besotted with his terrier, Annie, that he killed his own wife because he thought she had been careless with the pure bred pooch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was so besotted with his terrier, Annie, that he killed his own wife because he thought she had been careless with the pure bred pooch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned so beloved his terrier, Annie, that he couldn't come to accept that it died while he was away on a business trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned so beloved his terrier, Annie, that he couldn't come to accept that it died while he was away on a business trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned carried out an ill-contrived plan that was calculated to result in his wife's premature inhumation as payback for her having (in his unhinged view) buried his beloved terrier alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A veterinarian tried and failed to convinced Ned that his wife did the right thing by burying his dead dog. Ned visited his family doctor to get sleeping pills.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x31", "title": "The Trade-Ins", "date": "1962-04-20", "description": "An elderly couple want new young bodies for the two of them, but can pay for only one.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the tough decision of who would get to be young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was an inseparable couple who faced death of old age together (they kept re-iterating \"the best is yet to come\").", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Marie found a company which could give them young new (android) bodies, but found they could only afford one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed John and Marie Holt as they went to the New Life Corporation to trade in their old bodies for youthful ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Marie was notably in love with each other after 50 years of marriage and made a point of telling it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "major", "motivation": "John suffered such excruciating pain that he had to go ahead and become young without his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The New Life Corporation transferred the consciousness of the elderly man John into a youthful and fit body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John decided to bet their whole life's savings in a poker game and came out even.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x29", "title": "The Matched Pearl", "date": "1962-04-24", "description": "A jeweler sells a $5000 black pearl left with him by Captain McCabe. He then cheats McCabe out of some of the money owed to him. Hubert Wilkens, the pearl's buyer, asks the jeweler for a second matched pearl. The jeweler returns to McCabe. McCabe can provide one, but since he has been cheated he demands more money. Figuring that he can charge Wilkens a much larger amount, the jeweler agrees. Unfortunately the jeweler discovers that he has been conned. McCabe and Wilkens were working together. The jeweler bought the same pearl twice.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The gist of the story is that a triage of hoodwinks scammed a scrupulous jeweler out of $12,600.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deceitful jeweler was himself deceived, and got scammed out of $12,600.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The jeweler pointedly remarked that he was teaching his new employee the ins-and-outs of the trade, as he cheated one of his clients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to tell the viewer's fortune using a giant novelty pearl as a crystal ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubert and his daughter, Lolly, fooled Wilkins into thinking that they were husband and wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubert feigned to be married to Lolly, though it is later reveled that she was (most likely) married to McCabe and that Hubert was her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubert and McCabe celebrated the fruition of their nefarious machination in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The jeweler Mr. DuBois reminded his recent hire Wilkins that he was teaching him the tricks of the trade.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x32", "title": "The Gift", "date": "1962-04-27", "description": "A visitor from outer space tries to present a gift to a Mexican village that greets him only with suspicion.\n\nDirected by: Allen H. Miner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mountain villagers intrinsic fear of strangers led them to misinterpret a friendly space alien's actions as being hostile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mountain villagers intrinsic fear of strangers led them to misinterpret a friendly space alien's actions as being hostile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger turned out to be a crash-landed alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro was a nine year old orphan who supported himself by working in a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger befriended the lonely orphan boy Pedro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "The orphan boy Pedro said to the alien that he felt like an outcast in the mountain village in which he resided.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fearful Mexican village folk kill an alien and burn his possession, only to find out that he actually came in peace and that they had just destroyed a vaccine for cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The barkeeper complained that the authorities are in three times a week, asking him why the orphan boy Pedro was not in school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth bearing the chemical formula for a cancer vaccine as a gesture of goodwill on behalf of his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind man explained that darkness was his friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fear of the dark was referred to twice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard speculated that if God came to Earth, they'd shoot him too. The alien was called the Devil and Satan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x30", "title": "What Frightened You, Fred?", "date": "1962-05-01", "description": "Fred Riordan is a recent parole who gets into a bar fight and is thrown back into prison. The prison warden, who is also running for governor, and the prison doctor believe Fred is simply afraid to cope with the outside world. They try to find out why. Fred tells them that when he got out of prison he went to his old neighborhood and realized that no one wanted him around. He tells them that he was contacted by a mobster named Tony Wando who wanted him to kill an associate of his. Fred tells them that he pretended to go along with it, but arranged to go back to prison to get out of the deal. Warden Bragen feels sorry for Fred and arranges for him to get a comfortable desk job in the warden's office after a month of laundry detail and good behavior. This is perfect for Fred because it is Warden Bragen that he was in fact contracted to hit.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Jack Ritchie, Joel Murcott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The ex-con Fred was trying to get back on his feet after being released from a four year prison sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts the parolee Fred's interactions with the police and prison staff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gangster Tony Wando coerced the parolee Fred into agreeing to take out an associate. Fred promptly got himself thrown back into prison as a way out of the arrangement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was tracking down a dancing escaped convict with the help of a cha-cha-cha-ing bloodhound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison psychiatrist speculated that the recently paroled Fred purposely got himself thrown back into prison because he couldn't cope with the outside world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred spent four years behind bars for holding up a gas station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After getting paroled, Fred approached his former love interest, Mae, only to find out that she'd moved on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warden Bragan was running for governor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learned, among a few other tidbits, that one makes very little money in a prison. Being clerk to the warden is a good thing, however.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a strong implication that Fred would follow Tony's order to murder the prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred got drunk and smashed a bar window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred smashed a bar front window in a drunken stupor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)", "title": "Invasion of the Star Creatures", "date": "1962-05-03", "description": "A trio of beautiful female aliens set seven-foot-tall vegetable-like creatures loose in an attempt to conquer the world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Star_Creatures" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were seven-foot-tall vegetable-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trio of beautiful female aliens planed to conquer Earth in order to make a new home for their people, as their home world was over populated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to two army private to stop an alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trio of beautiful female aliens planed to conquer Earth in order to make a new home for their people, as their home world was over populated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army had to wait to weeks for radiation levels to drop to safe levels before investigating a mysterious cave that was accidentally uncovered in the course of an atomic bomb test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens connected a device to one of the army privates that scanned his mind so that they could assimilate his knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trio of beautiful female aliens could communicate telepathically with the planet monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens held two army privates captive in a cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The beautiful alien women married the army privates after it became apparent to them that they could not return to their home world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brain That Wouldnt Die (1962)", "title": "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", "date": "1962-05-03", "description": "A mad doctor develops a means to keep human body parts alive. He keeps his fiancée's severed head alive for days, and also keeps a lumbering, malformed brute (one of his earlier failed experiments) imprisoned in a closet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Wouldn%27t_Die" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Cortner warned Bill several times not to experiment on humans before first running tests on animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and his fiancée Jan Compton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Jan Compton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill was obsessed with transplanting his fiancée's severed head onto a new body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill considered his keeping of Jan's head alive to be the work of science, but Dr. Cortner and Bill's assistant were adamant that it was an abomination onto the Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "head transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill kept his fiancée's severed head alive after she was mortally wounded in an automobile accident, and he plotted to transplant the head onto another body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan's severed head wanted to die and wished to extract revenge on Bill for him keeping her alive in such an abominable state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan's severed head hated herself in her bodyless state. Bill's medical assistant was left with a deformed hand stemming from a failed transplant experiment. Otherwise beautiful model Donna Williams was self conscious of her disfiguring facial scars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad doctor developed a means to keep alive his fiancée's severed head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father and son physician team Dr. Cortner and Dr. Bill Cortner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill was working in a laboratory fiiled with test tubes and bubbling beakers when he removed Jan's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donna Williams hated all men for what one did to her once.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x33", "title": "The Dummy", "date": "1962-05-04", "description": "A ventriloquist believes his dummy is alive... and is beginning to take over not just the act.\n\nDirected by: Abner Biberman. Story by: Lee Polk, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry's agent Frank became increasing concerned about his mental state, and urged him to see a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dummy Jerry used to perform his ventriloquist act turned out to have a mind of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some behind the scenes goings on at a New York City comedy club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Jerry on stage performing his sit-down ventriloquist act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry thought his old doll was alive and out to get him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry heard a voice that did not exist and had seen psychiatrists about it, we are left to interpret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The obvious medical explanation for what occurred is that Jerry had developed a secondary personality called Willie, which eventually came to take over (the face swap may be explained away in any number of ways).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry's agent urged him pull himself together and keep off the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ventriloquist Willie some how managed to swap bodies with his owner Jerry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x31", "title": "Most Likely to Succeed", "date": "1962-05-08", "description": "In college, Dave Sumner was voted most likely to succeed. Nowadays, however, he has had a run of bad luck. He takes a job from Stanley Towers, a shady businessman. Stanley's business is being investigated by the government. At a meeting with the IRS, however, Stanley is shocked to discover that Dave is really an undercover Treasury Department agent. He only pretended to be down on his luck so he could get the goods on Stanley's shady business dealings.\n\nDirected by: Richard Whorf. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems a point of the story was that Stanley was deceived by Dave's appearance, and gloating in his relative success decided to hire Dave as a servant. But little did Stanley know that Dave was actually the most successful tax investigator in the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stanley gloated over outshining Dave, only to find himself about to face ruin as a far more successful Dave prepared to take him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stanley and his not so enthusiastic wife Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Awkwardness ensued when Stanley hired his seemingly hard up acquaintance from college, Dave, to serve as his butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stanley hired Dave to work as the house butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louise felt Stanley was neglecting his husbandly duties by being preoccupied with his business. She confronted Stanley about it and later confided in Dave about how she felt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Dave went undercover to investigate Stanley for tax evasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock had his brother tied up in the truck of a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave spoke of how he once married, and ultimately divorced his former boss' daughter. Louise was about to walk out on Stanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise admitted to staying with Stanley only because she liked the luxurious lifestyle he enabled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stanley fired Dave because of some innuendo regarding Stanley's wife. Dave acted crestfallen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave spoke of how he turned to the bottle after his ex-wife remarried.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x34", "title": "Young Man's Fancy", "date": "1962-05-11", "description": "A newlywed husband refuses to give up his childhood home.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Virginia spoke resentfully to Alex' late mother's picture. In general, the story revolved around a long-standing conflict between Virgina and Alex's mother over the mother's having demanded all Alex's attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Virginia accused Henrietta, in life, of having been a domineering mother to Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virginia finally tied the knot with her sweetheart Alex after after 12 long years of waiting for his mother to kick the bucket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex became engrossed in childhood memories while preparing the house he'd grown up in for sale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex became engrossed in childhood memories while preparing the house he'd grown up in for sale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghost of Alex's mother thwarted Virginia's efforts to take Alex away from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Alex instructed his wife to go away so that he could live in the halcyon of his youth in the company of his beloved mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex's family house was inhabited by the ghost of his recently departed mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex obviously did not cope well with the demise of his controlling mother, while Virginia notably did not mourn her mother-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Alex being transformed to his ten-year-old self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virginia touched her face and felt her years - that's why she couldn't simply back out of the marriage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x32", "title": "Victim Four", "date": "1962-05-15", "description": "While on their honeymoon, Joe and Madeline Drake get into an accident that leaves him with a bad leg and her with painful headaches. Later, Joe discovers that Madeline's old boyfriend Ralph Morrow sent her an expensive wedding present. When Ralph shows up at their house, Joe become paranoid. He is worried that Ralph is responsible for a number of butcher knife murders that have been occurring in their neighborhood. Joe goes to search for his wife, as does Ralph. Meanwhile, Madeline is walking home. She hears someone behind her. She ducks into an alley, but is followed. Joe arrives on the scene only to discover Madeline standing over Ralph's bloody corpse. She confesses to her husband that she thought someone was following her and killed to protect herself. She then admits that it has happened three times before when her headaches struck.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Talmage Powell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Most of the story followed Joe and Ralph, as they searched for the mutual object of their romantic affections: Madeleine. They feared she had run afoul of a serial murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A serial murderer with a penchant for slashing their victims was on the prowl in the neighborhood. It was later revealed that this was, in fact, Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story followed Joe and Ralph, as they searched for the mutual object of their romantic affections: Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with Joe discovering that the serial killer is none other than his wife, Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story was that Madeline had been driven to homicidal madness from looking after a crippled husband. Joe was walking on crutches throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Madeline had paranoid delusions about people following her with murder in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Madeline had paranoid delusions about people following her with murder in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is treated to a flashback scene of Joe and Madeline frolicking around a bickering cascade on their honeymoon - a scene that culminates with the pair taking a bad fall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph went searching for his ex-girlfriend, Madeline, with romantic intent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x35", "title": "I Sing the Body Electric", "date": "1962-05-18", "description": "A widower buys a robot grandmother to care for his children.\n\nDirected by: William F. Claxtonand James Sheldon. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A busy father arranged for a mechanical grandmother to rear his three children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anne's mechanical grandmother proved that she was capable of real love. It was explicitly talked about that the mechanical grandmother was capable of loving the children under her care.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "A loving, but very busy single father purchased an android to care for his three children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne's father worked to convince her that she should accept her mechanical grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw three children being raised by a mechanical grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "While initially mistrustful of her new mechanical grandmother, Anne ultimately came to accept the machine and they became as close as close could be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems a point of the story was to speculate about whether machines can love; also the story ended with some talk about mechanical grandmother's soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne was full of resentment for her mother having left her by dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne was filled with hatred stemming from a conviction that her mother had abandoned her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne was filled with hatred stemming from a conviction that her mother had abandoned her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne and her younger sister Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and his two older sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rogers and his young son Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom took an immediate liking to his new mechanical grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some talk in the beginning about how to raise children, and how the father was not doing a good job of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rogers clearly missed his late wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mechanical grandmother didn't like farewell's, we heard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x33", "title": "The Opportunity", "date": "1962-05-22", "description": "Paul Devore is an unhappily married department store manager. When he catches Lois Callen shoplifting he hatches an idea. He tells Lois that he will not turn her in, if she agrees to be part of a plan of his. Paul wants a divorce, but his wife refuses to give him one because she doesn't want him to take half of everything they own. When his wife is out of the house, he invites Lois over. Lois arrives and discovers the house burglarized. The burglary, however, is really Paul's doing. He hopes that his wife Kate will divorce him now that her treasured possessions are all gone. Paul asks Lois to tie him up. She does so and leaves. Later Kate arrives and tells Paul how lucky he is that the burglars didn't kill him. Instead of freeing her husband, however, she takes this opportunity to kill him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: J. W. Aaron, Bryce Walton and Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with Kate knocking Paul off with a pillow over the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "A young woman was accused of grand theft, the threshold for which was a value of $75, as she had purloined a necklace worth $80.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul blackmailed Lois not, as we were initially lead to believe, into bedding him but into tying him to a bed with ties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Kate's unhappy matrimonial union were central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul abused his authority as department store manager by blackmailing a caught-red-handed shoplifter not into sleeping with him, as the viewer is urged to believe, but rather to play a part in his scheme to make his wife consent to a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul devised an ingenious plot to get out of his miserable marriage along with his wife's riches. She turned the tables on him by coming up with an even more ruthless solution that, coincidentally, saw him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul faked a burglary of his own home as part of an elaborate plot to secure a divorce from his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate would not give Paul a divorce even though Paul offered not to make off with too much of her jewelry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was made clear that Paul had a philandering habit, perhaps even of pressuring various other compromised shoplifters than Lois into lewd liaisons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x36", "title": "Cavender Is Coming", "date": "1962-05-25", "description": "A clumsy theater worker meets her equally bumbling guardian angel.\n\nDirected by: Christian Nyby. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Agnes's guardian angel Harmon summed up their experience like this: \"cash and contentment are not necessarily synonymous\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes' guardian angel had 24 hours to improve her life. If successful, he'd earn his wing; otherwise he was to be demoted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "The angel Harmon spent 24 hours trying to improve Agnes' life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was clumsy and unable to hold down a job. Harmon was a bumbling excuse of an angel, and found himself on the verge of being demoted - to what we know not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Happy-go-lucky Agnes didn't seem to much care that she couldn't hold down a job and had trouble making rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes derived happiness not from money, but from having friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes felt out of place at the glamorous party with all the rich people, but she felt quite at home in her poor neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agnes' clumsiness led to her getting fired on her first day working at a theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agnes was fired by her no nonsense boss at the theater.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x34", "title": "The Twelve Hour Caper", "date": "1962-05-29", "description": "Herbert J. Wiggam works at an investment firm for Sylvester Tupper. Tupper treats him employees like slaves. Knowing that a $565,000 bond is about to arrive Herbert and two other disgruntled employees decide to steal it. The plan to hide the bonds in the garbage can until the police leave. The plan goes awry, however, when one of the policemen knocks over the garbage can. The plot is not foiled, however. A old cleaning lady arrives just in time to scoop up the papers and takes them out with the trash. Later, Herbert arrives at the airport. He is headed for South America. He arrives with the cleaning lady who is, in fact, his mother.\n\nDirected by: John Newland. Story by: Mike Marmer, Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers on a convoluted plot by which Herbert made off with $565,000 in paper bonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "For Herbert, being passed over for an important promotion was the straw that broke the camel's back. He subsequently recruited two fellow disgruntled employees and hatched elaborate caper that, if successful, would score them $565,000 in paper bonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock claimed to have started a ticker tape business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Westbrook flagrantly hit on the secretary Miss Pomfritt in front of their colleagues to her protestations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the cleaning lady was revealed to be Herbert's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tupper explained to Herbert why Herbert got passed over for what, we gather, would have been a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police investigators snooped around the office and asked questions, but were otherwise unimportant to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is left with the impression that Herbert skipped off to Brazil with with all the stolen bonds, leaving his two accomplices high and dry - although this was not made clear.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e3x37", "title": "The Changing of the Guard", "date": "1962-06-01", "description": "A professor who is forced into retirement contemplates suicide, but changes his mind when the ghosts of his former students that were killed in the war persuade him of his worth.\n\nDirected by: Robert Ellis Miller. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Prof. Fowler felt worthless after being forced to retire from his teaching position, the ghosts of some of his former students paid him a visit to remind him that he'd had a profound impact on their lives. This knowledge reassured the professor that his life had no been lived in vain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Prof. Fowler felt worthless after being forced to retire from his teaching position, the ghosts of some of his former students paid him a visit to remind him that he'd had a profound impact on their lives. This knowledge reassured the professor that his life had no been lived in vain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fowler very nearly killed himself in a moment of self-doubt, bet then he came to realize that the poetry he had taught for 51 years had not been nearly as pointless as for a moment he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler was visited, and cheered up, by the ghosts of some of his former students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Depressed at being laid off and doubting his life's worth, Fowler was about to commit suicide when he was interrupted by a congregation of ghosts who made him re-evaluate thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an existential crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fowler thought his long life had lacked meaning when he considered that none of his students had learned anything from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler read classic poems to his students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler forced to retire from his teaching post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Fowler with his present and former students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler's students paid him tribute by singing him a Christmas carol from outside of his window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mandatory retirement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler was forced to retire from the teaching post he loved very much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler put a gun to his head after being forced to retire from the teaching position he loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartlett revealed that he'd died of leukemia after being exposed to X-rays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Fowler read classic poems to his students.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x35", "title": "The Children of Alda Nuova", "date": "1962-06-05", "description": "Frankie Fane is an American gangster hiding from United States law enforcement in Italy. He is wanted by U.S. officials because he use to sell drugs to schoolchildren. At the suggestion of an American tourist named Ainsley Crowder, Frankie visits an old Etruscan village named Alda Nouva. While on a tour, the children of the village rob him. They then toss him into a deep pit to slowly die. America officials manage to trace Frankie to the village. When they discover that he has vanished, they decide to give up the search, thinking that justice has not been served.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Robert Wallsten.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fate had it that the man who sold drugs to children was done in by children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the murder of Frankie Fane by a grudging group of poor rural Italian youngsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The simple characters in bucolic Alda Nuova were compared and contrasted with worldly and educated types like Ainsley, Frankie, and the police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The American fugitive Frankie had much trouble ordering a bourbon at a Rome restaurant because of the language barrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child living on the streets", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular children of the Alda Nuova village, who were poor or vagabond children, lured Frankie to a cemetery, robbed him for blind, and left him for dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock shared these supposedly ancient words of wisdom: \"When scrubbing floors never put all the furniture on one side of the room\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock reassured his viewers that the people of Pisa had rejected an American pancake restaurant chain offer to paint their famous tower to look like a pile of hotcakes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie was hiding from United States law enforcement in Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie was robbed of everything he had in open daylight while touring a remote Italian village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Italian detective questioned the Alda Nuova villagers about Frankie's whereabouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Frankie was on the run from the law for having sold drugs to high school students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ainsley was working for a doctorate in archaeology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie is described as a gangster, and one must assume his syndicate was reasonably large if the Department of Justice went after him in Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Ainsley tried to explain to a recalcitrant Frankie about the Italian language and customs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x36", "title": "First Class Honeymoon", "date": "1962-06-12", "description": "Edward Gibson, a recent divorcee, must make alimony payments of $2000 every month. One day an artist arrives at his house and offers to sell him a portrait of his ex-wife for $2500. Edward throws him out, but keeps the painting. Later Carl Seabrook arrives and tells Edward that he will marry his ex-wife if Edward gives him $10000. If Gloria is married, Edward will not have to pay alimony. Edward accepts the offer and pays Carl $5000 up front. Later that day, Edward heads over to his ex-wife's house. He wants to give her the painting as a wedding gift. At his ex-wife's, he discovers her dead of a heart attack. He later discovers that his ex-wife died earlier that morning and that Carl was with her at the time. After his ex-wife died Carl approached him with his offer. Cheated out of $5000, Edward angrily calls Carl only to discover that he has left town going on a first class honeymoon with a stunning new wife.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on the recently divorced Edward feeling aggrieved over the $2000 monthly alimony payments he was obliged to pay his ex-wife, Gloria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with life issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was being \"bled dry\" (in his words) with $2000 monthly alimony payments. He agreed to pay Carl $10,000 to marry his ex-wife to get out of making the payments, and got conned out of $5,000 for his trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl mislead Edward into thinking that Carl was desperate to pay off a $10,000 gambling debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though never seen together, we learned much about Edward and Gloria's aborted matrimony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the end of the story it was strongly implied that Carl had somehow brought about Gloria's premature death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward spoke with his maid on the subject of baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward chatted with his maid about this game of ball and bases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An artist representative stopped by Edward's residence to deliver a portrait painting of Edward's not-so-beloved (behated) ex-wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl made it seem like he had a gambling problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl played with Gloria's apparent love for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Carl and his new bride happily heading off on their \"first class honeymoon\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward and Carl were old buddies of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl explained the female psyche to Edward as Carl motivated why he thought Gloria would agree to marry him, penniless and prospectless as he was.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x37", "title": "The Big Kick", "date": "1962-06-19", "description": "Mitch and Judy are out-of-work beatniks in need of money. At a party held by one of Mitch's friends Bruce, Judy meets an older man named Kenneth. Kenneth is not a beatnik, but he likes to attend their parties. He asks Judy on a date. Mitch encourages Judy to date Kenneth because he seems to have money. Kenneth gives Judy a diamond bracelet which Mitch takes and tries to sell to a jeweler. The jeweler has Mitch arrested. It seems that the bracelet Kenneth gave to Judy was in fact stolen. With Mitch in prison, Kenneth who is actually a beatnik-hater stabs Judy to death in her apartment.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch and Judy's scheme to escape their financial problems, not through hard work, but rather from having Judy date a seemingly well-off assistant professor backfired when the academic turned out to be a deranged murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch and Judy were living hand-to-mouth and were on the verge of going hungry, and being evicted because she couldn't pay the rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to contrast the impoverished Beatniks Mitch and Judy, with the uptight and and comparatively well-off assistant professor Kenneth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to contrast the impoverished Beatniks Mitch and Judy, with the uptight and comparatively well-off assistant professor Kenneth. The beatniks Mitch and Judy (young, prevailing social convention rejecting, artistic minded) were juxtaposed with the conformist assistant professor Kenneth (middle aged, suit wearing, stiff collard).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist ending, the mild mannered assistant professor Kenneth pulled a knife on Judy, revealing his courting of Judy was all part of a deranged plot to kill her. Note: Serial murder is used here on account that Kenneth said he gets his \"kicks, big kicks\" just as he pulled out the knife on Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through the young couple of Mitch and Judy the viewer is shown a window in into the carefree, beatnik way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch tried to pressure the reluctant Judy into using her apparent admirer, Kenneth, for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Judy's reluctant choice to go ever further in her mock-romance with Kenneth, in order to get more money and goodies out of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch feigned to be friends with Kenneth, but spoke contemptuously of Kenneth behind his back. For Mitch the friendship was merely a facade so that he could cajole money and goodies out of Kenneth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The landlady, who lived upstairs, came banging on Judy's boarding room door, demanding the music be turned down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is treated to a beatnik poetry reading.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch was apprehended for being in possession of a stolen diamond bracelet. One of the beatniks arrived at the poetry reading after party with a baggy coat full of shoplifted food items.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The beatnik crowd were mooching off of Kenneth, and heard that he understood this but considered it a fair price to pay in order to be able to hang out them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahp7x38", "title": "Where Beauty Lies", "date": "1962-06-26", "description": "Caroline Hardy keeps house for her famous brother, the actor Collin Hardy. Disappointed in her own life, she seeks escape by increasing her involvement in her brother's career. When Caroline learns through subterfuge that Collin's girlfriend will be joining him in their acting troupe's out-of-town rehearsals, Caroline hatches a plot in a jealous rage. The result of that rage is an explosion of house painting fluids that renders Collin blind. Caroline tries to act the part of the comforter, also encouraging her brother not to dwell on the supposed loss of his good looks.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Henry Farrell, James Cavanagh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-alfredhitchcockpresents.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the spinster Caroline's unfulfilled need for a life-partner. Unsuccessful in finding love for herself, she sought instead to cast her brother in that role. When his own life caused him to move away from her, Caroline contrived to have her brother subjected to an accident that left him dependent on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline's strange infatuation with her famous actor brother, Collin, is at the heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline wanted her brother, Collin, all for herself and became wildly envious when his girlfriend entered into the picture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Collin was a famous actor, and we hear much about the kind of crowd he kept with professionally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The handsome actor Collin Hardy spoke of how he was only suited to work in horror pictures after in blinding and supposed disfigurement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline was envious of Collin's good looks and lamented that her own homeliness had left her a spinster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline reminded Collin that she was already 37 with the implication being that she was too old to find a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock caught a message in a bottle while ice fishing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy (accompanied by Colin) walked in on her husband, Paul, seducing Caroline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy (accompanied by Colin) walked in on her husband, Paul, seducing Caroline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collin had a girlfriend, to his sister's displeasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Collin was blinded in an explosion that his sister had arranged to happen in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The handsome actor Collin was led to believe that his face had been horribly disfigured in an explosion, and he fell into a swoon over the end of his career on stage as a result.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day of the Triffids (1962)", "title": "The Day of the Triffids", "date": "1962-07", "description": "Tall, carnivorous, mobile plants, called Triffids, capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behavior arrive on Earth as spores from a meteor shower.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Triffids were seemingly intelligent plants that came from space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of man-eating plants came to Earth from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Goodwin and Karen Goodwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Goodwin and Karen Goodwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Goodwin was an alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unusual meteor shower has blinded most people on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Creation of the Humanoids (1962)", "title": "The Creation of the Humanoids", "date": "1962-07-03", "description": "In a post-nuclear-war society, blue-skinned, silver-eyed human-like robots have become a common sight as the surviving population suffers from a decreasing birth rate and has grown dependent on their assistance. A fanatical organization tries to prevent the robots from becoming too human, fearing that they will take over. Meanwhile, a scientist experiments with creating human replicas that have genuine emotions and memories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_the_Humanoids" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans lived together with blue-skinned human-like robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most humans were prejudiced against androids, and called them \"clickers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technologically enabled utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans had grown totally dependent on androids to run their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a post-apocalyptic world, a fanatical organization was trying to prevent the robots controlled by a central AI from becoming too human, fearing that they would take over. In a plot-twist, it turned out that the AI was actually transferring human consciousnesses into android bodies in a bid to save humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most humans saw nothing wrong with treating androids as tools to be used for providing for human comfort and the running of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radiation was responsible for a decreasing birth rate among the surviving generations of the nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kenneth Cragis and Maxine Megan. Esme Cragis Milos and an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Was the Kenneth Cragis robot fundamentally different from the flesh and blood Kenneth Cragis?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kenneth Cragis, and other various humans, were resurrected as androids after their deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerontologist Kenneth Cragis made it his life work to make humans immortal, but in the end he found immortality in the form of being resurrected in an android body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set in a post-nuclear-war society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radiation was responsible for a decreasing birth rate among the surviving generations of the nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People replaced mechanical men with androids because they found androids easier to interact with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Esme Cragis Milos fell in love with one of the androids against her brother Kenneth Cragis' wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Esme Cragis Milos fell in love with one of the androids against her brother Kenneth Cragis' wishes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Panic in Year Zero (1962)", "title": "Panic in Year Zero!", "date": "1962-07-05", "description": "A Baldwin family leaves Los Angeles on camping trip just in time to miss the city getting hit by an atomic bomb.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_in_Year_Zero!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an atomic war which led to a post-apocalyptic state of affairs in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was panic and social breakdown in the aftermath of Los Angeles being hit by an atomic bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Baldwin family was faced with having to survive when society broke down in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Baldwin family was faced with having to survive when society broke down in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Baldwin and Rick Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Baldwin took control and did all he could to lead his family to safety amidst the anarchy of a post atomic horror scenario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Baldwin family members were put in situations where they needed to kill to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Baldwin and Ann Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Baldwin and Rick Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Baldwin and Karen Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Baldwin and Karen Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick Baldwin and Karen Baldwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen Baldwin was raped in the forest by two men.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)", "title": "King Kong vs. Godzilla", "date": "1962-08-11", "description": "The film concerns a showdown between King Kong and Godzilla. Also there was a giant octopus.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_vs._Godzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Kong was worshiped as a god by the natives of Faro Island. Godzilla was theorized to be a prehistoric dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla attacked Japan. A giant octopus attacked the Faro Island natives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Kong and Godzilla. Also there was a giant octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazuo Fujita and Fumiko Sakurai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazuo Fujita and Fumiko Sakurai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Osamu Sakurai and Fumiko Sakurai.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x01", "title": "A Piece of the Action", "date": "1962-09-20", "description": "A gambler ends up putting his life at stake when he wins $30,000 from an ex- hood.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Alfred Hayes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duke Marsden resolved to give up gambling to save his marriage. He also went to elaborate lengths to prevent his younger brother, Chuck, to follow in his gambling footsteps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Duke as he tries to teach his younger brother, and fellow problem gambler, Chuck, a lesson about the dangers in following in his footsteps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "After consenting to Alice's ultimatum to stop his gambling, Duke and Alice patched up their marriage, and resolved to go on vacation in Hawaii. Things went awry, however, when Duke decided there was one last poker night he needed to attend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice was on the verge of divorcing Duke because of his excessive gambling, but their tried to patch things up after he agreed to her ultimatum to quit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice threatened to divorce Duke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Duke was revealed to have been using marked cards at the poker table. The gangsters killed him because they thought he'd been cheating them all along. Earlier, another gambler, Alley, had also been shot for dealing from the bottom of the deck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chuck was riding his high horse when he was winning at the poker table, but Duke dramatically crushed him to drive home his point: gambling is bad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duke's obsession with gambling, which he sort of referred to, was nearly the end of his marriage. He also pointed out that every gambler died broke, and he sought to save his younger brother from that fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duke understood the risk he was taking, both to his person and his marriage, by trying to save his little brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you have to take chances to get ahead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The argument between Duke and Chuck essentially boiled down to this: Duke did not think it was worth taking the risks of gambling to get ahead, but Chuck saw that he could never achieve the affluence Duke had otherwise, and begged to differ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock made a quip about \"key clubs\" being terribly exclusive in that they cater only to men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock obliquely implied that he himself ranked among the highest things a female can desire when he said that everything they could want, namely himself, was to be found in his key club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duke's trusty manservant, who was in a neck brace for no apparent reason, delivered to him the marked deck of cards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duke's secretary gave him a head's up that his wife was planning to leave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice exchanged pleasantries with her husband's younger brother, Chuck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duke and Chuck had had a dirt poor upbringing and were contrasted with their respective love interests, both whom were described as having been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x02", "title": "Don't Look Behind You", "date": "1962-09-27", "description": "An undergraduate medical student at a college campus thinks that she will be the victim of a ritualistic murder.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Barre Lyndon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daphne and Harold were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychologist Harold was interested in the minds of serial murders, in particular the one who was thought to be active on campus. Edwin turned out to be the serial killer women who was the talk of the college campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a college town and explores the unusual interests of some of its faculty members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave made efforts to woo Daphne, even though she was engaged to his fellow faculty member, Harold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The initial dinner conversation turned to human wickedness and things like torture and the Marquis de Sade were mentioned. This was in the context of the serial murderer that stalked the woods, and foreshadowed later events. A deranged Harold uttered the phrase \"pain is only a secret name for pleasure\" before attempting to go to work on his fiancée with a strangling cord and a knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Harold and Edwin appeared to be deranged killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to perform some cliched magic tricks on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold brought up the notorious serial killers Jack the Ripper, Bluebeard of Gambais, and Fritz Haarmann at a dinner party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edwin's murders were motivated by a hated of women, according to Harold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was jealous over Daphne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold had a boilerplate excuse for murdering Daphne: Something about perfect love requiring her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold decided to trap and shoot the killer himself because the police wouldn't listen to his wild theories.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x03", "title": "Night of the Owl", "date": "1962-10-04", "description": "A man blackmails a couple with the intention of telling their adopted daughter about her biological parents.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Andrew Garve.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A family was being blackmailed for $6,000 by some blackguards who threatened to reveal disagreeable truths to the family's adopted daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jim went above and beyond to protect his sensitive adoptive daughter, Anne, from learning the dark truth about her biological parents. Jim loved Anne dearly, and the story pointedly concluded with a tearful Anne telling Jim how special he made her feel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jim went above and beyond to protect his sensitive adoptive daughter, Anne, from learning the dark truth about her biological parents. Jim loved Anne dearly, and the story pointedly concluded with a tearful Anne telling Jim how special he made her feel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim and Linda Mallory were trying to protect their sensitive adopted daughter from learning the truth about her biological parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The daughter was a perfectionist and would go bonkers should she learn about the dishonorable background of her biological parents, or so we were told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim and Linda went to extraordinary lengths to the keep secret from their sensitive adoptive daughter, Anne, and the community the dark truth about her biological parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a father protecting his adoptive daughter from learning a dark secret about her biological parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock made a wry commentary on a troubling pervasiveness of television in contemporary society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two sisters had a stern talking to after they engaged in some unsisterly roughhousing. Anne quarreled with her kid sister over a prank played at her expense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The father briefly believed he had knocked the evil second cousin into the thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blackmailer Locke impersonated a reverend to trick Linda into letting him in the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda interacted with her adoptive daughter, Anne, in various ways that were not much germane to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne's biological father bludgeoned his wife to death with and axe and then hung himself in prison, according to the blackmailers Locke and Parker. Anne's adoptive father did not deny this account of the events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne's biological father bludgeoned his wife to death with and axe and then hung himself in prison, according to the blackmailers Locke and Parker. Anne's adoptive father did not deny this account of the events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Barbara put her sister Anne's precious test tubes in the freezer as a joke, ruining her science experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The State police got involved in Jim's blackmail case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parker strangled his accomplice Locke. Jim thought he might have punched Parker to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parker deliberately set a forest fire in a failed bid to cover up having strangled Locke in a drunken rage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x04", "title": "I Saw the Whole Thing", "date": "1962-10-11", "description": "A mystery novelist is accused of going through a stop sign, then hitting a young motorcyclist.\n\nDirected by: Alfred Hitchcock. Story by: Henry Cecil (story), Henry Slesar (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All of the witnesses were apparently sincere, but some may simply have convinced themselves that they saw what they wanted to have seen. The army man wanted to convict a sports car driver because such a driver had killed his three year old son. A young woman had changed her testimony in the novelist's favor after she came to credit the novelist with indirectly having saved her from putting up her baby for adoption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist was a crime fiction writer by profession, and said that this was a reason he wanted to be is own defense council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist was concerned for his wife, who was about to give birth in the hospital. Indeed, it is revealed that he was taking the blame in a hit-and-run accident for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the blame for someone else's crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist took the blame for his wife in order to protect her from the stress of a trial. The judge threatened the novelist with being held in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions while on the witness stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured a relatively compelling rendition of what might have gone on in a courtroom somewhere in 1960s America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist was charged with involuntary manslaughter after news arrived that the victim of his apparent hit-and-run had succumbed to his injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Either the sports car or the motor cycle had been driven recklessly, or the hit-and-run accident at the heart of the story could not have happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made several times that some of the witnesses might be influenced to report the same as the others, despite not having witnessed all the facts first hand themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end it was revealed that the novelist had been taking the blame in order to protect his pregnant and excitable wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were a judge and a prosecutor in the courtroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliability of eyewitness testimony", "level": "major", "motivation": "All of the witnesses were apparently sincere, but some may simply have convinced themselves that they saw what they wanted to have seen. The army man wanted to convict a sports car driver because such a driver had killed his three year old son. A young woman had changed her testimony in the novelist's favor after she came to credit the novelist with indirectly having saved her from putting up her baby for adoption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a giant, novelty key holding Alfred Hitchcock proudly spoke of his female only private club in a jab at male only \"key clubs\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local barfly Mr. Peterson made some self-deprecating remarks about his problem drinking while on the witness stand to the great amusement of the courtroom spectators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Dowling revealed to the judge that she divorced after a short marriage and had considered putting her baby up for adoption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting a child up for adoption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Dowling testified that she'd been about to put her baby up for adoption.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x05", "title": "Captive Audience", "date": "1962-10-18", "description": "A publisher suspects the latest book of a renowned mystery author to be all too real.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: John Bingham (novel), Richard Levinson, William Link (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A publisher was trying to decide whether the fantastical story related to him is the plot of a writer's new book, or the writer enacting a crime worthy of its own novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was narrated in a publisher's office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "The author was about to murder his faithless lover's husband, but was talked out of it and decided to murder his love interest, Janet, instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren became romantically involved with Janet, and was later confronted by her husband, Ivar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The author was worried that his wife was fooling around with another man. Later the author fell in love with that other man's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren's erratic behavior, which culminated with murdering his love interest, was explained as a result of him being left \"mentally unbalanced\" from the car accident. In the end, Warren was unable to distinguish between reality and his new novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "The publisher and his other author friend wrestled with whether the story was believable enough that they ought to do something about it, yet thinking the police would simply laugh at them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren fell head over heals for Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren's wife died in a car wreck they were kissing, instead of paying attention to oncoming traffic. Janet tried to kill her abusive husband, Ivar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author and his new lover were both more than fond of throwing money away at the roulette table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief scene of Warren's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivar denied his wife's allegation that he'd \"knocked her around\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two uniformed police officers came knocking on Warren's door to investigate reports of a gunshot in the house. The story closed with Warren recording his confession to murder in the police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The author and his lover plotted together to murder the lover's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren and Janet conspired to murder Janet's abusive husband, Ivar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x06", "title": "Final Vow", "date": "1962-10-25", "description": "An apprentice nun tracks down the robber who stole a priceless figurine that she was entrusted to bring to her convent.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed some adventures of the various inhabitants of a nunnery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "After making a fool of herself one too many times, Sister Pamela decided she was not cut out to be a nun and left the nunnery. She said something about people running towards God while she herself run away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sister Pamela was so distraught after she lost the priceless statue that she forsook her vows and left the convent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "A young nun lost a priceless statue to a thief at the railway station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The statue thief became particularly avaricious when he realized that the item in question might be worth a fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock practiced his new hobby of tattooing of a side of beef, and later was about to do the same on a live cow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela did not much care for the attentions of Jimmy, but she decided to play along because she wanted to recover the statue he had purloined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nuns viewed suspects down at the local police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rich art dealer explained something about the priceless old statuette made by Donatello, to the two nuns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela was a wall flower at a stereotypical 1960s era dance party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy roughed up his girlfriend, Bess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and Bess had a violent blow up after the dance party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x07", "title": "Annabel", "date": "1962-11-01", "description": "A chemist obsesses over a married woman.\n\nDirected by: Paul Henreid. Story by: Robert Bloch (teleplay), Patricia Highsmith (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "David was so besotted with Annabel that he did many foolish things, lost her to another, and even ended up murdering her because he couldn't accept that she wouldn't be his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "David suffered from the delusion that Annabel still loved him even after she married another man. His delusion was so strong that he murdered Annabel and her husband when his view of reality was challenged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Married life for Annabel and Gerald Delaney was turned upside down when Annabel's old flame David took deranged measures to get back together with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was made clear in the end that Annabel didn't love David, though he was obsessively in love with her. Linda longed to be with David, but he was utterly obsessed with Annabel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "David loved Annabel who only loved Gerald who loved her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "David ended up killing Gerald and Annabel both in fits of rage when his delusional world view was challenged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "major", "motivation": "David could not accept that the happily married Annabel didn't love him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was basically salking his old flame, Annabel. David awkwardly turned down Linda when she asked him to go on a date to the ballet together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fellow chemists David and Wes were living as roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff questioned David over Gerald's suspicious demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annabel wept over the loss of her husband, Gerald.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x08", "title": "House Guest", "date": "1962-11-08", "description": "A man gets more than he bargained for when he offers a younger man a fresh start.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Andrew Garve.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, the story concerns a couple who's straddled themselves with a freeloader house guest who reveals himself to be an unsavory blackmailer and very hard to get rid of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray tried to blackmail the Mitchells' out of $20,000. Ray threatened to make his story public if the Mitchells' threw him out of the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and his accomplice arranged for John to think that he had punched Ray so hard that it killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central events of the story were revealed all to have been part of an elaborate con orchestrated by Ray and his cronies in order to extort $20,000 from the Mitchell couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Sally Mitchell's lives were turned upside down by a blackmailing freeloader. George and Eve Sherston from allegedly campers from Washington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mitchells' welcomed the stranger who saved their son's life into their home, and were nearly extorted out of $20,000 by him for their trouble. In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock summed up moral of the story as follows: \"If a stranger offers to save your life, think it over.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Mitchell rebuffed Ray as he lewdly propositioned her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John interacted with his young son, Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally took her young son, Tony, to play at the beach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally got a bit flustered when she thought her son was drowning in front of her eyes, as she couldn't swim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tony played at the beach. Tony played hide-and-seek with \"uncle\" Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray saved the youngster Tony from drowning in the sea. It was later revealed, however, that this was part of an elaborate plot by Ray to extort $20,000 from the boy's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mitchell residence maid Kira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed police officer or two came to collect the con artist Ray in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The upstanding citizen John was struggling with the moral dilemma of whether to go to the police or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John threatened to kick Ray out of the house if he continued to romance the young maid, Kira.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x09", "title": "The Black Curtain", "date": "1962-11-15", "description": "A former amnesiac discovers that he is an accused killer and that he is being pursued by both the police and a hired goon.\n\nDirected by: Sydney Pollack. Story by: Cornell Woolrich (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the amnesiac man Phil Townsend as he tries to piece his life together. The circumstances surrounding his amnesia are unusual: After losing his memory, he led a new life for three years, but a bonk on the head resulted in him getting his original memories back, but losing his memories form those three years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on the amnesiac Phil trying to figure out whether he'd slain Janice Burke in a love killing of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth coped with her amnesiac lover of the past three years, Phil, not remembering her anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil and Ruth had been in a relationship for three years and then he got amnesia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The taxi driver went above and beyond to help Phil, even though Phil was a total stranger to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through a convoluted series of plot twists it was eventually revealed that Phil had been framed as the killer of his former employer's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock peddled pets to his viewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock jested about a menagerie of animals of his, seen in the background.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The amnesiac Phil was robbed by a couple of young punks while walking down the street at 1 o'clock in the morning. The bonk on the head he was administered jogged his memory to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After a blow to the head jogged his memory, the amnesiac Phil paid a surprise visit to his fiancée's house, only to find that he'd vanished on their wedding day some three years prior, and, moreover, that she'd moved on from him and married another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil's ex-fiancée more or less explained how she couldn't leave the house because her husband's irrational jealousy toward other men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil walked in on Julia while she was preparing a bottle of warm milk for her baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil strayed by a pee wee football practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A private eye came snooping around the pharmacy looking for information on Phil. Phil later has an altercation with the private eye at gunpoint. Phil's ex-fiancée had hired a private investigator to track him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth proclaimed her love to her amnesiac partner, Phil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Phil suffered from recurring migraine headaches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth confessed to Phil that she'd been jealous of Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth quickened her walking pace upon being cat called by two young men on the street late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The taxi driver suggested that Phil was trying some kind of insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil's ex-fiancée said that the cops she had spoken to implied that Phil had simply had cold feet on the day of their intended wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil spoke about his fiancée whom he was going to meet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil discovered that he was being chased by the police.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x10", "title": "Day of Reckoning", "date": "1962-11-22", "description": "A gentleman is unable to convince anyone that he murdered his cheating wife.\n\nDirected by: Jerry Hopper. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Accidentally or intentionally, in a flash of rage Paul pushed his wife off the yacht they were on after she said she was leaving him for someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concludes with Paul not being believed when he confessed to having pushed his wife off a yacht to her death, as he had indeed done. He was instead written off as mentally unsound and promptly committed to an insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sheriff was a central character throughout the little drama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various signs pointed to Paul being wracked with guilt after having pushed his cheating wife, Felicity, off a yacht to her death. He twice gazed wistfully at her portrait, spoke of how the house was quiet without her, and was generally sullen. Judge Wilcox further speculated that Paul confessed to killing Felicity as a way to relieve his guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was sullen and broody in the aftermath of having killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul killed his wife in a jealous rage after she revealed to him that there was another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul's sister, Carolyn, came to his support after his wife died in an apparent boating accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the aftermath of Paul pushing his unfaithful wife, Felicity, off the deck of a yacht to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confessing to a wrongdoing vs. keeping quiet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul struggled over whether to confess to having pushed his wife off a yacht to her death, as he had indeed done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge Wilcox thought that Paul coming clean and being tried for murder was far too easy a way out. He said he'd rather let Paul be racked by his guilty conscience. Then he contrived to have Paul committed to a psychiatric institution (Fair Field).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was driven by Paul and his rage at the unknown lover his wife intended to run off with. Paul lashed out at one suspect after the other, and at his sister Carolyn as well for some reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock lightheartedly insinuated that he had a yacht driven by slaves chained to the oars and that his whip was the \"accelerator\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Caroline's bridge opponents lightheartedly accused the pair of cheating. Judge Wilcox found their claim to be lacking evidence when requested to weigh in on the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felicity made crystal clear to Paul that she wanted a divorce while the pair were alone on the deck of the yacht.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Jordan raised the possibility that Felicity deliberately jumped overboard to end her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trent was described as a pro golfer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was cleared of any wrongdoing into Felicity's death at the inquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felicity's physician testified at inquest into her death. The psychiatrist Dr. Campbell came to collect Paul in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Wilcox made it known to Paul that he was greatly pained by the drowning of Paul's wife and his secret lover, Felicity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff said he suspected they had all been drinking excessively aboard the yacht and that this is why no one knew what had happened, as well as the reason Felicity fell over board.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The District Attorney and other legal professionals were present at the inquest. David Wilcox was a judge by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Most of the dramatis personae had been playing the card game bridge aboard the Yacht when Felicity drowned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x11", "title": "Ride the Nightmare", "date": "1962-11-29", "description": "An old man gets a younger man involved in extortion, kidnapping and murder.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Richard Matheson (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was very upset when she found out that her husband was, in fact, a criminal masquerading under a fake name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prison escapees tried to murder Christopher. Christopher shot one in what seemed like self-defense, but acted as if it was murder and clandestinely disposed of the corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against property", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prison escapees demanded five, maybe six, but certainly no less than four grand for them to stop heckling Christopher. They proceeded to up the ante by kidnapping his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned three prison escapees who were out to take revenge on a former partner in crime who had managed to run out on them and escape justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was kidnapped by prison escapees who wanted money from Christopher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christopher was upset when his wife was held hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christopher referred to the crime he had committed 15 years ago with three other hoodlums as something he did while young and stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christopher and Helen Martin's lives were turned upside down when Christopher's secret criminal past came back to haunt them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "big banking in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christopher implored the heartless big bank director to make an irregular exception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gun wielding assailant broke into the Martin's home late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A neighbor came knocking on the Martin's door to ask for spare ice cubes at a most inconvenient moment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x12", "title": "Hangover", "date": "1962-12-06", "description": "A man wakes up with a hangover and realizes that his wife is missing, while another woman is in his room.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Charles Runyon (short story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hadley was addicted to alcohol to the extent that he lost his job for making a drunken fool of himself, and killed his wife in an alcohol fumed bout of depression. In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock chastised his own show for making light of such a serious topic, and hoped that it would better itself in future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were several scenes in which Hadley acted a near pantomime drunken fool. In one lengthy scene, he gave a humiliating and drunken marketing presentation that cost him his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the revelation that Hadley had strangled his wife, Sandra, with a silk scarf and stashed her body in the basement before forgetting all about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hadley learned that he had been fired for making a drunken fool of himself at a big shareholder presentation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hadley had an alcohol induced blackout and woke up the next day not remembering any of his drunken shenanigans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Hadley and Sandra's alcohol wrecked marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hadley's marriage with Sandra was coming to pieces due to his excessive drinking. She was about to leave him when he strangled her instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra threatened to leave Hadley, and was about to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hadley had picked up a blonde babe and was worried about his wife finding out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with Hadley waking up with a zinger of a hangover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hadley struggled to explain the rationale behind two slogans for a futuristic-looking car in his drunken marketing presentation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)", "title": "Lawrence of Arabia", "date": "1962-12-10", "description": "Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British epic historical drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company Horizon Pictures and Columbia Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson and starring Peter O'Toole in the title role. The film, a British and American co-production, depicts Lawrence's experiences in the Ottoman Empire's provinces of Hejaz and Greater Syria during World War I, in particular his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus and his involvement in the Arab National Council. Its themes include Lawrence's emotional struggles with the personal violence inherent in war, his own identity, and his divided allegiance between his native Britain and its army, and his new-found comrades within the Arabian desert tribes. The film also stars Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lawrence went to live and ride with the Beduins in Beduin fashion, to win their hearts as it were, during the joint British-Arab campaigns against the Ottomans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lawrence wanted to be a prophet of war or something", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "when in Rome", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawrence notably adopted many Arab customs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw attacks on Feisal's camp, the cities of Aqaba and Damascus, and there was a raid on train to boot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawrence taught the Arab tribes that they had to work together or they would be weak and exploited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawrence had many discussions that had to do with honor, for example with Sherif Ali about stealing his compass", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawrence had trouble with some Arab customs, such as blood feuds and killing people for various seemingly barbaric reasons. This is particularly apparent when Lawrence is forced to execute his friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawrence became a great hero in the eyes of some Arabs almost as much as in his own", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "During Lawrence's trek to Faisal, and then Aqaba, the viewer is made to imagine what it'd be like to get lost in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "major", "motivation": "During Lawrence's trek to Faisal, and then again to Aqaba, we imagined what it'd be like to get lost in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "major", "motivation": "During Lawrence's many conversation with Arab nomads we are made to ponder how people can eek out a living in the midst of a desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lawrence died speeding on a motorcycle, face ecstatic with the thrill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lawrence was forced to execute the man he saved from the desert at great risk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lawrence killed his friend Gasim in order to save the peace between the tribes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking someone's picture steals their soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheik Auda thought an English photographer was trying to steal his soul by using a camera", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x13", "title": "Bonfire", "date": "1962-12-13", "description": "A preacher is willing to commit murder in order to get a woman's manor for his church.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Pevney. Story by: William D. Gordon, Alfred Hayes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert killed both Naomi and Laura in a bid to get their house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert spoke to Laura about how he found faith in a coal mine. She professed that she too would like to mend her wicked ways and be saved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert murdered two women out of a desire to inherit their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert methodically put the moves on an Laura until he thought he won her over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock visited a town that was abandoned in the wake of an economic bubble bursting there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naomi and Laura didn't correspond much, explained Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura briefly mentioned her divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert spoke of his late wife who had \"had an accident\" after asking him to go back to the coal mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the idea that Robert, given his murderous nature, had killed his wife on account that she died in apparent accident in the coal mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived to arrest Robert at his sermon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moderation in all things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert uttered the words \"all things in moderation\" before downing a glass of wine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Varan the Unbelievable (1962)", "title": "Varan the Unbelievable", "date": "1962-12-17", "description": "United States Navy Commander Jim Bradley is sent to Japan to test a new chemical that will desalinate water. However, the indigenous population are against the experiments in their salt lake. They fear that the chemical will re-awaken their ancient god, Obaki, who they say lives in the lake. Despite their objections, the villagers are evacuated and the experiment goes on as scheduled. As they feared, the chemical reawakens their god, a giant prehistoric monster. The creature destroys the local village and then heads to the city of Oneida.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varan_the_Unbelievable", "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056648/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Bradley is sent to Japan to test a new chemical that will desalinate water which results in the awakening of a giant prehistoric monster that might have destroyed the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Bradley is sent to Japan to test a new chemical that will desalinate water which results in the awakening of a giant prehistoric monster that might have destroyed the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Bradley is sent to Japan to test a new chemical that will desalinate water which results in the awakening of a giant prehistoric monster that might have destroyed the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese military versus the giant prehistoric monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Bradley and Hana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Bradley and Hana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant prehistoric creature of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Japanese army came to evacuate the native people inhabiting the land surrounding the lake where Jim Bradley was conducting his experiments, but the native people refused to go.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hana blamed herself for the deaths of some of the natives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The indigenous population objected to the military coming in using their lake as a testing ground for a new desalination process, but the military did it anyway.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Amphibian Man (1962)", "title": "Amphibian Man", "date": "1962-12-19", "description": "A youth named Ichthyander, who is surgically altered to survive under the sea, falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a pearl-fisherman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichthyander was surgically altered to have amphibian characteristics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichthyander was surgically altered to have amphibian characteristics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichthyander was surgically altered to have amphibian characteristics which enabled him to swim in the ocean like it was first nature to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The amphibian man and Guttiere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The amphibian man and Guttiere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pedro Zurita wished to marry Guttiere but the feeling was no mutual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pearl fisherman and his beautiful daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Salvator and his adoptive son the amphibian man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guttiere agreed to marry Pedro Zurita so that he would pay off her father's debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The amphibian man was held captive by Pedro Zurita and made to gather pearls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pedro Zurita coveted the pearls that he was forcing the amphibian man to gather.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x14", "title": "The Tender Poisoner", "date": "1962-12-20", "description": "Two business executives compete for the affections of a beautiful woman.\n\nDirected by: Leonard J. Horn. Story by: Lukas Heller (teleplay), John Bingham (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "false friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peter was a friend and mentor to Philip, or so everyone thought. In fact, he spoke of Philip with disdain behind Philip's back, and conspired to get Philip out of the way so that he could steal Philip's mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter nearly succeeded in stealing Philip's mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip was married and had a mistress. Unbeknownst to him, his wife also had a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip mooted divorce to his wife but she seemed not to understand what he was getting at. Later she considered divorce on account of having a lover, but rejected the idea as she believed it would crush Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip tried to poison his wife with Beatrice with the fictitious photograph developing agent \"altrapeine\". Peter tried to poison Philip with the same substance, albeit at the latter's behest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Philip trying to leave his wife, Beatrice, for a younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip was working on leaving his wife to be with his young mistress, Lorna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip asked Peter for poison with which to kill himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was interrupted while he in the middle of developing some photographs in his home darkroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beatrice was stunned when Philip called from the kitchen that their pet dog of 15 years had just died. Philip attributed the death to a heart attack, implying that he'd successfully tested a deadly poison on the poor creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective started was investigating Philip toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: In Search of the Castaways (1962)", "title": "In Search of the Castaways", "date": "1962-12-21", "description": "A tale about a worldwide search for a shipwrecked sea captain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Castaways_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Robert Grant embarked on a journey to find their shipwrecked father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Robert Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Grant embarked on a mission to find her father who was presumed to be lost at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Grant embarked on a mission to find her father who was presumed to be lost at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Professor Paganel and his companions as they undertake a perilous expedition to South America in search of a missing ship captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rescue party survived an earthquake, a lightning storm, a tidal wave, a volcano, and an avalanche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expedition party survived a dangerous thunder and lightning storm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Birds (1963)", "title": "The Birds", "date": "1963", "description": "The Birds is a 1963 American natural horror-thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Loosely based on the 1952 story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, it focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California, over the course of a few days.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Although nothing was made clear inside the story, there are suggestions that the birds are taking vengeance on humanity. \"Hitchcock stated in an interview that the birds in the film rise up against the humans to punish them for taking nature for granted\" cf. Wikipedia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns how Mitch and Melanie fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia and Mitch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia and Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch and Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was entirely inexplicable to people what caused the birds to be aggressive, or what intelligence drove them to pick targets as they did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch made a reference to Melanie's childish habit of performing practical jokes, one of which she had tried at the bird shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia was lukewarm towards Melanie at first and said explicitly that she was trying to make up her mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Yesterday Machine (1963)", "title": "The Yesterday Machine", "date": "1963", "description": "A Nazi scientist invents a time machine to go back to alter the outcome of World War II.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser invents a time machine to travel back and alter the outcome of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser invents a time machine to travel back and alter the outcome of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser invents a time machine to travel back and alter the outcome of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser was an exponent of Nazism and an admirer of Adolph Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Jim Crandall to stop the Nazi scientist Ernest Von Hauser from altering the outcome of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Former Nazi scientist Ernest Von Hauser invents a time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Former Nazi scientist Ernest Von Hauser invented a time machine with the intention of traveling back in time and altering the outcome of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howie Ellison and Margie De Mar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy De Mar with her sister Margie being reported missing under mysterious circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people from the Civil War traveled into present day 1963 America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy De Mar searching for her missing sister Margie De Mar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser invented an aging machine and used it on prisoners of a concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser lectured Jim Crandall on the finer points of the theory of special relativity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest Von Hauser conducted unethical experiments on human subjects while running a Nazi concentration camp.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x01", "title": "In His Image", "date": "1963-01-03", "description": "A man is confused by a murderous impulse and a loss of his memory.\n\nDirected by: Perry Lafferty. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alan was shocked to discover that he was a very human-like machine who was made in the image of his maker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-professed genius Walter's life ambition was to create an android version of himself that simultaneously possessed all his good qualities and lacked his bad ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-professed genius Walter's life ambition was to create an android version of himself that simultaneously possessed all his good qualities and lacked his bad ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan took his new fiancée Jessica to meet his dear Aunt Mildred, but, alas, nothing went according to plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jessica's love for Alan remained steadfast in the face of his strange, and at times disturbing behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter spelled out to the android Alan that he had created Alan to be the perfect version of himself. In the end, they got into a tussle in Walter's basement laboratory that left Alan either badly damaged or dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan was shocked to discover that he was a very human-like machine who was made in the image of his maker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was whether android Alan was like a real person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan hurled a Christian fanatic in front of an oncoming train.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter flicked on the lights to reveal that he was the spitting image of Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christian evangelist wouldn't leave Alan alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alan android was imbued with some of the violent characteristics of its maker, and murdered some people as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan struggled to control his instinct for violence at times. In one pointed incident, he pleaded with his fiancee to get away from him when he was overcome with an impulse to kill her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x15", "title": "The Thirty-First of February", "date": "1963-01-04", "description": "A widower is driven insane by a series of events following his wife's passing.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Julian Symons (novel), Richard Matheson (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The stress from being hounded as a suspect for his wife's tragic accident caused Andrew to become gradually more erratic, make mistakes at work, and ultimately go completely off the rails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew believed, correctly as it were, that Sgt. Cresse was indirectly accusing him of having killed Valerie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew was hounded as a suspected spouse murderer, though in the end he was exonerated of suspicion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stress from being hounded as a suspect for his wife's tragic accident caused Andrew to become gradually more erratic, make mistakes at work, and finally go completely insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew and Valerie were central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew came to believe Valerie had been cheating on him with someone who was subsequently hounding him about Valerie's untimely death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The company president Mr. Vincent became increasingly worried by Andrew's erratic behavior, and ultimately tried to compel him into taking a leave of absence from work. Andrew became romantically involved with his secretary, Molly O'Rourke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stress from being hounded as a suspect for his wife's tragic accident caused Andrew to become gradually more erratic, make mistakes at work, and finally go completely insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew had been off for several weeks due to the tragic death of his wife. He used this as an excuse for mistakes he made several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew became gradually more erratic and paranoid as he thought his late wife had had a lover who was now hounding him because of her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The single-minded Sergeant Cresse was determined to prove that Andrew had deliberately pushed his wife down the stairs to her death. Andrew was ultimately exonerated of suspicion, but not before he went insane from the stress of Cresse's witch hunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergeant Cresse was determined to bring Andrew to justice nearly to the point obsession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to conduct an orchestra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law and order issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An innocent man was hounded to insanity by overzealous police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew explained that his experiences in the war had left him prone to nervousness and vulnerable to stress. This explains the, otherwise rather far-fetched, conclusion in which he had a complete mental breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew thought the leave of absence was tantamount to getting fired, and told his boss he'd quit instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valerie's death was ruled an accident at the inquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew became romantically involved with his secretary, Molly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x02", "title": "The Thirty-Fathom Grave", "date": "1963-01-10", "description": "A strange tapping sound draws a ship to the site of a sunken World War II submarine.\n\nDirected by: Perry Lafferty. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chief Bell was wracked with guilt over having been the lone survivor of a submarine sinking that, at least in his mind, happened as a result of his error.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chief Bell felt deeply guilty about having made a mistake that, at least in his personal assessment, resulted in the sinking of his submarine with all hands, save his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed the story mainly showcased an idea of how a U.S. destroyer and its crew may function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Under one interpretation of the story, the ghost of Chief Bell's departed crewmen were beckoning him to join them in their water grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chief Bell felt deeply guilty about having made a mistake that, at least in his personal assessment, resulted in the sinking of his submarine with all hands, save his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chief Bell was having a nervous breakdown and got confined to sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wrecked with remorse, Chief Bell saw his old crewmen beckoned him to their watery grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of a U.S. Navy destroyed discovered the wreck of a submarine that had been sunk by in First Battle of the Solomon Sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chief Bell was chastised by the captain and seemed ashamed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The captain chewed out the bosun over mistakes made.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x16", "title": "What Really Happened", "date": "1963-01-11", "description": "A housekeeper murders her boss, but his wife is charged with the crime.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Marie Belloc Lowndes (novel), Henry Slesar (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was accused of murdering her husband, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Addie brought about Howard's untimely demise by putting the poisonous pet skin lotion Liniment k-944 in his milk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve and Howard Raydon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Addi tended to her son. It was later revealed that the boy was, unbeknownst to himself, Eve's son. Howard interacted with his overbearing mother in two scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was accused of carrying on with her old friend Jack Wentworth behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Wentworth was such a good friend to Eve that he unhesitatingly wrote her a check for $10,000 when she found herself in financial dire straits. Addie and Eve were such close friends that Eve left her son with Addie and employed her as a housekeeper to have her close.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard's mother had a stereotypical hatred for her son's chosen wife, whom she considered a profligate and a gold digger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard's mother presented the case that Eve was a gold digger and circumstances suggest this characterization was not altogether unfounded, even though Eve was presented in an otherwise sympathetic light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spendthrift", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard was furious to learn that Eve had been spending money so recklessly that she had at least $7,000 in overdue debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to present a father and son, cowboy themed, jousting couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve was seen canoodling her pet pooch more than once.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve and Howard's mother both seemed pointedly sincere although their recollection of certain events were incompatible with each other on numerous points.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dramatic testimony was relayed in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is left to conclude that Addi deliberately ingested a lethal dose of poison out of guilt for having gotten away with murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Son of Flubber (1963)", "title": "Son of Flubber", "date": "1963-01-16", "description": "Professor Ned Brainard's discovery of Flubber has not quite brought him or his college the riches he thought. The Pentagon has declared his discovery to be top secret and the IRS has slapped him with a huge tax bill, even if he has yet to receive a cent. He thinks he may have found the solution in the form of \"Flubbergas,\" (the \"son\" of Flubber) which can change the weather.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Flubber" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard invented a substance, he called Flubber Gas, that he used to make rain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A stereotypically zany college science professor saved his college from being bulldozed and replaced by a housing development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ned Brainard and Betsy Brainard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Brainard and Betsy Brainard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard used Flubber to make a flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alonzo P. Hawk and Biff Hawk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard invented a substance, he called Flubber, gained energy when it strikes a hard surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard and his dog Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard and Desiree de la Roche. Betsy Brainard and Shelby Ashton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betsy Brainard was jealous of Desiree de la Roche over her interest in Ned Brainard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shelby Ashton at Betsy Brainard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villainous real estate investor Alonzo P. Hawk schemed to close down Medfield College and put up a housing development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard was put on trial for something to do with a damage lawsuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Brainard was put on trial for something to do with a damage lawsuit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x03", "title": "Valley of the Shadow", "date": "1963-01-17", "description": "A newspaper reporter discovers a small town with incredibly advanced technology that they wish to keep secret.\n\nDirected by: Perry Lafferty. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The residents of a small town were keeping secret some revolutionary technology they'd come into possession of out of a conviction that humanity would use it to destroy the world, rather than for peaceful purposes as they were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip was with his dog Rollie, whom he promised steak after steak, for up to half of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phillip was told that he could never leave Peaceful Valley, though their remarkable technology could clearly give him a carefree life wanting for nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter replicator", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of a small town provided for all their basic needs by using special machines that assembled from atoms anything for which they had a special blueprint, including a ham sandwich and a typewriter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Ellen became affectionate of one another, but things ended tragically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The townspeople used special devices, called dissimulators, to dematerialize material objects, and then re-materialize them elsewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mayor could have turned on an invisible barrier all around the town whenever he wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To avoid being executed, Philip reluctantly agreed to remain in the sleepy town of Peaceful Valley for the rest of his life, and in so doing never reveal to humanity they secret they were keeping that might transform the Earth into a paradise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip mentioned that the only thing Ellen lacked was her freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien, it is most strongly implied, gave Peaceful Valley remarkable technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen said that ever since she saw Phillip she'd had \"this feeling\", which was later identified as \"love\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "For no practical reason the Mayor deftly stabbed a willing Elder in the heart and we are left to conclude that they must have derived sexual pleasure from the exercise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x17", "title": "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog", "date": "1963-01-18", "description": "A woman faces the consequences for refusing to help a gentleman and his beaten girlfriend.\n\nDirected by: Charles F. Haas. Story by: Lee Erwin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karen hysterically pressured her reluctant husband to cancel his business trip and drive many hours in order to come home and comfort her as she got scared of being home alone. In the end, her fear was justified when her home was broken into by three ruffians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is that a young woman has been assaulted and ended up dead. Karen and other residents were fearful while the culprit was still at large. The three ruffians were planning to kill Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "While not made explicit (due to the prudishness of contemporary television standards), the fact that the three young male hoodlums assaulted young girls for the fun of it (this they made abundantly clear) strongly suggests rape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen hysterically pressured her reluctant husband to cancel his business trip and drive many hours in order to come home and comfort her as she got scared of being home alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen refused to let a stranger into her home to use the phone, and was later assured she did the right thing by the deputy sheriff. Indeed, the entire story turns on whether she should have turned away the stranger at her door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen was separately friends with the writer Simon, as well as the three strapping young surfers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Sheriff Geary come to Karen's home to verify Manuel's alibi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Foster broke the news to Manuel that his lover didn't make it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuel broke down in tears when the physician informed him that his lover didn't make it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuel extracted revenge on his girlfriend's attackers in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns the trials and tribulations of a house wife who is afraid of strangers when she is left alone at home on cloudy, foggy days by her big shot husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x04", "title": "He's Alive", "date": "1963-01-24", "description": "The struggling leader of a small group of Neo-Nazis receives advice from a mysterious stranger about gaining followers.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fascism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Uniforms, hatred, torches, fisticuffs, murders - the story was above all a warning of how such things may come about again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the hate monger Peter as he tried to grow his struggling neo-Nazi group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler took the young neo-Nazi leader Peter under his wing and taught him how to more effectively spread his message of hatred toward minorities (e.g. the Jews and Asian people) to the American public at large.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demagoguery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler schooled Peter in the rhetorical techniques of how to get crowds of people to buy into his message of hate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shadowy figure who was advising the young neo-Nazi leader Peter turned out to be none other than Adolph Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was a story about people who burn with zeal for some pet political ideology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler supported Peter as he tried to grow his struggling neo-Nazi group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter explained his troubled youth while explaining his ideology. An officer dropped the flag in front of Peter's feet, later Peter imitated that action with money in front of land lord's outstretched hands. Ernest explained Peter with reference to Peter's troubled youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter's odious convictions threatened his relationship with Ernst. Later Peter betrayed/sacrificed Nick for the cause; later Ernest confronted Peter who hit him; Peter finally killed Ernst", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a harder person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler extolled Peter to put sentimentality aside, to steel himself, to become a tougher person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful ideological convictions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was a young orphan and somewhat lost in the world. He seemed fairly good hearted, but had unfortunately fallen in with an odious crowd of fascists. He adopted their creed and became a fanatical leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter made various ugly insinuations against the Jews in his speeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter voiced a crackpoted theory something akin to the Jews run the world in one of his speeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter asked his audience if they wanted their shores overrun with vermin from overseas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn that Ernst had spent nine miserable years in the Dachau concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police came to arrest Peter on the charge of being complicit in the murder of his friend, Nick.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x18", "title": "A Tangled Web", "date": "1963-01-25", "description": "A married man with a life of crime stands trial for murder.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Nicholas Blake (novel), James Bridges (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central point of the story was driven home several times: Maria's love for David was blind to his various maleficencies even when he was convicted of cold blooded murder. This was an ongoing argument between the young lovers and their cynical friend, Karl. Indeed, Maria remained steadfastly convinced of his innocence, and threatened to commit suicide in order to aid him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Maria tied the knot. The story follows the trials and tribulations of their holy union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was deeply distraught to discover that David was, in fact, a notorious and somewhat violent jewel thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story leads up to David being framed for murder by Karl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story leads up to David being framed for murder by Karl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "David broke into houses and made off with valuables therein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "While breaking into houses, David was not above confronting the inhabitants with violent intent before making off with their most priced possessions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mending one's wicked ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "For his love of Maria, David set out to mend his jewel thieving ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "For David's sake, Maria stepped out on a ledge and threatened to commit suicide. For her sake, David said that he had indeed murdered the caretaker that he was (almost certainly, although the story leaves room for doubt) falsely convicted of killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Maria remained convinced that Karl was their friend even as it became obvious to the viewer that Karl was jealous and plotting their doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl was jealous of David and Maria's steadfast love for each other, and did what he could to break them apart so that he could make a move on Maria himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria unconditional loved her criminal fiancée/husband David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl secretly loved Maria, but she had eyes for only David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his Gulliver's Travels inspired sketch, Alfred Hitchcock claimed to have been tied up by a bunch of little people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's mother had enough of his temper tantrums and, tossing 60 cents on the ground for a wedding gift, ended her acquaintance with him and the girl he intended to marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's mother had enough of his temper tantrums and, tossing 60 cents on the ground for a wedding gift, ended her acquaintance with him and the girl he intended to marry against her expressed wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethel fired her French maid on the spot for making out with Ethel's adult son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl removed his wig in front of the mirror, and examined his noticeably receding hairline with a look of loathing on his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl testified against David at David's murder trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed police officer made a brief attempt to talk Maria down from the ledge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x05", "title": "Mute", "date": "1963-01-31", "description": "A mute telepathic girl is the sole survivor of a fire that kills her parents.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Rosenberg. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story investigated what it'd be like to be the only one with telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Cora Wheeler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora took the essentially mute child Ilsa into her home and cared for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "muteness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilsa's inability to speak made it challenging for her to integrate in her new home, let alone society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilse lost her parents and had to live with two strangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "The essentially mute Ilsa, who was raised to communicate only through telepathy, was put into school to be taught how to communicate through speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "At first Ilse felt out of place with ordinary people, but she ultimately learned to fit in among them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilse was taken in by the Wheelers after her parents had perished in a house fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point revealed at the end was that the most important thing for Ilse was that she have parents who love her, rather than ones that see her as an experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora wished to formally adopt Ilse after having taken her in after her parents in a house fire, but her husband Harry was against it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was generally assumed that Ilse's parents had abused her by forbidding her from speaking, and refusing to enroll her in school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with three families agreeing to breed themselves into a telepathic race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl's wife questioned the ethics of raising their as yet unborn children to be telepathic, even though doing so might prove a great contribution to advancing civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three families agreed to form a telepathic society in a remote location.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When told she was a \"medium\" Ilse was distressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day at school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilse experienced a distressing and belated first day in school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora attributed Ilse not being able to talk to parental neglect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora lamented that Ilse's irresponsible parents had not even taught her how to speak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilse saw in Cora's mind that Cora's own daughter had drowned sometime in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x19", "title": "To Catch a Butterfly", "date": "1963-02-02", "description": "A couple believe that a boy in their neighborhood intends to kill them.\n\nDirected by: David Lowell Rich. Story by: Richard Fielder.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Eddie was disturbed because he had been brought up by a rather ruthless and unemphatic father. On the other hand, Bill was self-admittedly pusillanimous as his father had abandoned him at a very young age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Eddie was well on the way to becoming a sadistic murderer owing to the fact that his unemphatic father had subjected him to cruel treatments such as sticking Eddie's hand into boiling water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's need to be loved", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Eddie was disturbed because he had been brought up by a rather ruthless and unemphatic father. On the other hand, Bill was self-admittedly pusillanimous as his father had abandoned him at a very young age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Eddie was disturbed because he had been brought up by a rather ruthless and unemphatic father. Bill, on the other hand, was self-admittedly pusillanimous as his father had abandoned him at a very young age. Eddie's unemphatic father had subjected him to cruel treatments such as sticking his hand into boiling water as a punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Janet Nelson's lives were turned upside down after they moved into a new house next door to a psychologically troubled boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Janet understood that Eddie's homicidal threats were not to be taken lightly, after he killed their dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Janet had an endless string of problems with their new neighbor, Jack Stander, from day one. Jack was clearly incompetent at reading people. He invited them over and wouldn't take no for an answer even though they were tired and busy. He took his lying son's word over that of Bill when there was a conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack turned a blind eye to his young son Eddie's troubling behavior. Bill briefly spoke about his far-in-the-past relationship with his own absconded father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the idea that Eddie's deranged behavior was at least in part a result of physical abuse he sustained at the hands of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack refused to see the obvious: his son Eddie was a deeply psychologically troubled boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill was mighty fond of his pooch, and understandably upset when it was poisoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill mentioned that he was against having children and Janet remonstrated but meekly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet made a quip about wanting to have a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cop showed up at the Nelson home to settle a dispute with the neighbors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The troubled boy Eddie set his father's garage alight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara called the authorities to take away her troubled son, Eddie, as a last ditched measure to get him on a good path in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill doubted himself, telling his wife that he was \"scared of his own shadow\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 8½ (1963)", "title": "8½", "date": "1963-02-04", "description": "8+1⁄2 (Italian title: Otto e mezzo, pronounced [ˈɔtto e mˈmɛddzo]) is a 1963 Italian surrealist comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director who suffers from stifled creativity as he attempts to direct an epic science fiction film. It is shot in black and white by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and features a soundtrack by Nino Rota, with costume and set designs by Piero Gherardi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8%C2%BD" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned a famous director and his struggle to overcome a writer's block in order to complete a film. He was hounded by producers and actors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Guido was under a lot of pressure both to produce a film despite his block, and from his love interests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guido and Luisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guido and Carla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guido was married but had a mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guido frequently dreamed about various things that happened to him as a young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unable to cope with all the pressure, Guido escapes into remembering his childhood and having surreal dreams involving his parents and other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is Guido's ambition to make a film that is \"pure\" and \"honest\", as well as his notion of an \"Ideal Woman\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guido remembered days as a Catholic school boy, including confession, and later met with high ranking clergy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young actress was outraged that she had to \"go upstairs\" just because she was past a certain age.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x06", "title": "Death Ship", "date": "1963-02-07", "description": "Three astronauts discover exact duplicates of their spaceship and themselves on a distant planet.\n\nDirected by: Don Medford. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Ross quarreled with two men under his charge over the best course of action to take given their strange circumstance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that, because of their Captain's stubbornness, the three men were in fact stuck in an afterlife and repeating their dying incident over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three space surveyors were shown a future in which they were dead, and this fact dictated their actions for the remainder of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the three men were, in fact, dead spirits re-enacting their final hours over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stubbornness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spelled out in the closing narration was that the reason for everything that occurred, was in fact Captain Ross' stubborn refusal to accept his own demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "After reading a telegram notifying his wife he that he had died in the line of duty, Mike came to embrace that they he was dead and looked forward to being reunited with his family in the afterlife. Ted ultimately followed suit, but Captain Ross stubbornly refused to accept this reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "According to the closing narration, the flying saucer was much like the Flying Dutchman of legend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Ross and his crew manned the flying saucer E-89.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Ross conjectured that they were being duped by telepathic aliens who wished to keep their planet a secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted encountered his young daughter in a dreamworld of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted encountered his wife Ruth in a dreamworld of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Ross and his crew were on a mission to find planets suitable for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "That the Earth was overpopulated was casually stated in the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It transpires that the three men were in fact undead spirits or something equivalent to it for all intents and purposes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x20", "title": "The Paragon", "date": "1963-02-09", "description": "A man comes up with the solution to dealing with his cold-hearted wife.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Alfred Hayes (teleplay), Rebecca West (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Pemberton poisoned his incorrigibly spiteful wife, Alice, with hexitone-laced hot chocolate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice is a woman who delights in revealing hurtful truths, saying other hurtful things, and spreading hurtful rumors. During the later dialogues between Alice and John it becomes apparent that Alice was she doing things to hurt people and that she does so with ill-concealed glee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice is a woman who delights in revealing hurtful truths, saying other hurtful things, and spreading hurtful rumors. During the later dialogues between Alice and John it becomes apparent that Alice was she doing things to hurt people and that she does so with ill-concealed glee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John administers a poison which will put Alice into a terminal coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked wife stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title is an allusion to John, who is arguably a paragon of virtue even as he murdered his cold-hearted Janice: He did so to protect others from her poisonous intrigues. Janice, a sadistic rumor-mongerer, was hated by all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Janice reminded people of uncomfortable truths that they would rather not be reminded of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice's family and friends were fed up with her owing to her spiteful nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Not even Janice's own mother can stand to be around her for too long. The mother had had to move far away. Madge was taken aback to hear her young daughter express a desire to become a Christian missionary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice tormented the housekeeper by unjustly reprimanding her several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice tormented a doctor who suffered from chronic pneumonia and knew very well that his smoking and coughing was slowly killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice chastised a doctor for his smoking habit, warning that it was slowly killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madge called out her older sister, Alice, for interfering in the social development of her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice encouraged her young niece, Betty, to become a Christian missionary when she grew up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Winter Light (1963)", "title": "Winter Light", "date": "1963-02-11", "description": "Winter Light (Swedish: Nattvardsgästerna, lit. 'The Communicants') is a 1963 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bergman regulars Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Max von Sydow. The film follows Tomas Ericsson (Björnstrand), pastor of a small rural Swedish church, as he deals with an existential crisis and his Christianity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Light" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Christianity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered on a Christian priest and his existential crisis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tomas was a priest but came to doubt God's existence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an existential crisis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tomas had a deep existential crisis related to evil and religion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonas despair to such an extent that he killed himself; Tomas had a similar crisis of fate, do did not go to such extreme lengths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomas explained how he went from belief to disbelief", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a higher power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomas, the priest, pondered whether there really was God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas spoke about contemplating suicide; after speaking to Tomas, he shot himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the problem of evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "the priest and Jonas both could not reconcile the evil they saw in the world with the idea of God (though Tomas' problems went deeper still)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered around different types of love (or lack thereof) and ideas about love relating to God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas and Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Märta spoke of her love for Tomas and the fact that he spurned her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard say that the hate filled Chinese would soon have the atomic bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomas spoke of his wife who died four years ago and how he grieved for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomas notably failed to talk Jonas out of killing himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin was bereaved when Jonas shot himself and was sad to hear of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomas explained that he felt not up to the task of consoling Jonas", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1963)", "title": "The Day Mars Invaded Earth", "date": "1963-02-14", "description": "Energy-being Martians duplicate a scientist and his family as a first step toward their invasion of Earth to stop humanity's space programs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Mars_Invaded_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Energy-being Martians made duplicates of Dr. David Fielding and his immediate family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Energy-being Martians planned to hatched a plot to replace important scientists and their family members in order to subvert Earth's space program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work-life balance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Fielding was torn between seeing his work through to the end and spending time with his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Energy-being Martians made duplicates of Dr. David Fielding and his immediate family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Fielding and Claire Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Fielding family members were shocked to meet their duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians were incorporeal being of pure energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rocket was sent to Mars that contained a soil-collecting robotic probe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. David Fielding and Judi Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. David Fielding and Rocky Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire Fielding and Rocky Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire Fielding and Judi Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank Hazard and Judi Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank Hazard and Judi Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank Hazard and Judi Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judi Fielding mourned the death of her boyfriend Frank, who died in a mysterious automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. David Fielding returned home from Mars just in time to celebrate Christmas with his family.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x07", "title": "Jess-Belle", "date": "1963-02-14", "description": "A mountain girl enlists a witch to help her win back her lover.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After getting spurned by Billy-Benfitting in at work, Jesse-Belle turned to witchcraft to make him fall for her head over heels for her. A bewitched Billy-Ben fell madly in love with Jesse-Belle. Billy-Ben with Ellwyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle couldn't stand to see Ellwyn marry her ex-boyfriend Billy-Ben and she turned to witchcraft to make him her own. Ellwyn categorically denied Jesse-Belle's accusation that Ellwyn was jealous of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle, Billy-Ben, and Ellwyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle sought help from an old witch who lived alone in a rustic cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch explained things she had done, then sold Jesse-Belle a love potion in exchange for her soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the stroke of midnight, Jesse-Belle would turn into a leopard, although later it appeared she could turn into various animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this cultural context, we know that the witch that Jesse-Belle sold her soul to was a minion of the Devil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle taunted Ellwyn after stealing Ellwyn's fiancée. later she tried to kill Ellwyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle and Billy-Ben were to be married, but she died before the wedding ceremony. Billy-Ben got engaged to Ellwyn, called it off in dramatic fashion, only to re-engage wit Ellwyn toward the story's end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The remedy for Jesse-Belle's problem came in a bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story began with Jesse-Belle promising vengeance for having been spurned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle reluctantly confided in her mother about her appeal to witchcraft in the lead up to her weddign with Billy-Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse-Belle inadvertently sold her soul to an old witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy-Ben briefly beat himself up for having had a hand in killing Jesse-Belle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy-Ben and Ellwyn tied the know at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To kill Jesse-Belle, Billy-Ben dressed up a life-sized doll in her clothes and stabbed it through the heart with a silver hairpin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x21", "title": "I'll Be Judge—I'll Be Jury", "date": "1963-02-15", "description": "A honeymoon in Mexico ends with the wife being murdered and the husband tracking down the killer.\n\nDirected by: James Sheldon. Story by: Elizabeth Hely (novel), Lukas Heller (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As is alluded to in the title: When the authorities proved unable to help, Mark decided to administer justice to his wife's murderer on his own. Later Alex and Louise engaged in the very same kind of extrajudicial vengeance for Mark's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As is alluded to in the title: When the authorities proved unable to help, Mark decided to administer justice to his wife's murderer on his own. Later Alex and Louise engaged in the very same kind of extrajudicial vengeance for Mark's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When the authorities proved unable to help, Mark decided to administer justice to his wife's murderer on his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark's wife Laura was strangled while the pair honeymooned in Mexico. Alex and Louisa Trevor were instrumental in getting Laura's murderer to confess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Theodore was a misogynistic strangler of women. He strangled two women, and tried to do the same to Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark spoke to the Mexico police and was rather disappointed to hear that they could do very little to capture his wife's killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark was distressed after finding his wife murdered, and went on a mission to avenge her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "major", "motivation": "The woman killer Theodore explained his hatred of women to Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be a throw-back barber of the bloodletting variety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark and Laura were honeymooning in Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One scene picks up outside a church in the immediate aftermath of Laura's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest confided in Alex and Louisa that he believed Mark was out for vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theodore's elderly mother called him to dinner, warning him that it was getting cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret thought it nice that her simpleton brother, Theodore, had found a someone to socialize with in Mark, not knowing that Mark wanted to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret's elderly mother inquired with her about Theodore's whereabouts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x08", "title": "Miniature", "date": "1963-02-21", "description": "A timid clerk sees the figurines of a museum's 19th-century miniature dollhouse come to life.\n\nDirected by: Walter Grauman. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We understand that Charley was drawn into a fantasy in which some dollhouse characters were alive - maybe to get away from his overbearing family. The psychiatrist said as much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley's mother clearly mothered him too much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley and his overbearing mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character transported into imaginary world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley ended up being transported into a museum display dollhouse inhabited by living dolls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley longed to enter into the world of the museum display dollhouse and in the end it came to pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley professed his love for a doll in a museum display case that to him seemed to behave as a living human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley was fired for being a square peg, had no friends, and lived with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley became fascinated with a doll inside a museum display case to the point where he completely withdrew from society in order to be able to watch it all the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "While the doll in a museum display case merely seemed to be alive to Charley, at the story's conclusion the museum guard also saw the doll as alive, presumably confirming that it was really so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley was committed to a psychiatric hospital because of his belief that the figures in the dollhouse were alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley's love for the doll seemed momentarily impossible, though they soon became joined through magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley was a very lonely man who spent all his time fantasizing over the world inside a dollhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley was fired for being a square peg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myra and her mother Mrs. Parkes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myra tried to help Charley find a new job and get a girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley met with a woman who kissed him against his will. The dollhouse woman was courted by an unsavory character who may have tried to rape her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buddy and Myra.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x09", "title": "Printer's Devil", "date": "1963-02-28", "description": "A newspaperman saves his failing periodical by hiring the mysterious Mr. Smith, who reports disasters before they happen on his own Linotype machine.\n\nDirected by: Ralph Senensky. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "magic object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Smith jury-rigged a linotype machine so that anything printed by it came to pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Smith was, in fact, Lucifer in the flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas' newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and his girlfriend Jackie's relationship was strained by the presence of Mr. Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas pledged his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for his services.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some fantastical goings on at a once normal small town, American newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith had an unusual way of talking Douglas out of jumping in the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas drove to a bridge and contemplated throwing himself off of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas drove to a bridge and contemplated throwing himself off of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A high school principal was exposed as a bigamist and this was bigamist news.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A bank robbery was noted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The linotype operator Mr. Franklin considered Douglas to be the best boss in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith wanted to take possession of Douglas' soul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x22", "title": "Diagnosis: Danger", "date": "1963-03-01", "description": "While Health Department officials try to contain an anthrax outbreak, police try to identify the man who died from the disease.\n\nDirected by: Sydney Pollack. Story by: Roland Kibbee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was to imagine how local authorities might react if a contagious disease (anthrax, in this instance) was discovered in its earliest stages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the collaboration of the local health department with the local law enforcement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the collaboration of the local health department with the local law enforcement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel was told off by his boss several times for being a loose canon, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fletcher had been with her lover in Mexico when he bought an anthrax infected bongo drum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns an anthrax infected bongo drum, as well as various musicians in passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little girl was exceedingly fearful of being jabbed (trypanophobia) with an anti-rabies shot every day for 30 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel was told off by his boss several times for being a loose canon. In particular, his boss objected when Daniel took it upon himself to inform the press about the pulmonary anthrax outbreak that was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel's boss explained that telling people about the imminent outbreak would cause a deadly mass outbreak of the disease \"panic\". Among other things people would be panic buying penicillin and there wouldn't be enough to go around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel complained about the nuisance of having to go through \"proper channels\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three delinquent youths (one arguably not getting involved) assaulted and robbed a local boozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Chitava each spoke about their respective husband briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother brought her young daughter to the doctor to get a rabies shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of delinquent youths used a fishing rod to hook away an old man's newfound, anthrax infected bongo drum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Chitava broke down while being questioned about the circumstances surrounding her husband's death from anthrax.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x10", "title": "No Time Like the Past", "date": "1963-03-07", "description": "A scientist uses his time machine to go back in time to try and change history.\n\nDirected by: Jus Addiss. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul had invented a way to travel back in time but found that he could change nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harvey cautioned Paul about the potential of accidental meddling in history to result in temporal chain reactions, but Paul ignored his warning and tried to meddle in history anyway, although his efforts to do so ultimately failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "it's the future that matters not the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems the point of the story was that it's futile to remonstrate about the past, and that we should seek to improve on the future instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul make use of a machine akin to a teleportation pad to travel back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Japanese officer and the captain of the Lusitania both refused to believe Paul's wildly unsubstantiated claims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wisdom of meddling in history was discussed between Paul and Harvey though not with respect to the usual (kill Hitler). Paul deliberated about saving President Garfield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul made two futile attempts to intervene in the course of the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul made a futile attempt to stop America's entering into this war by preventing the sinking of the Lusitania.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul objected to a variety of objections to the bleak world he inhabited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nationalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Nazi Germany hotel maid espoused Hitler's brand of nationalism. Mr. Hanford about American imperialism. Patriotism was discussed by Paul and Abigail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Hitler preaching to a crowd of enthusiastic Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nuking of Hiroshima was depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In trying to prevent the disastrous school fire Paul inadvertently caused it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abigail mentioned having lost family in this conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul made a failed bid to assassinate Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harvey warned Paul that meddling in the past, even a little, was liable to start a temporal chain reaction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul made a failed bid to assassinate Hitler. Paul contemplated intervening in the assassination of President Garfield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hanford was enthusiastic in his support for planting the American flag in the Orient, and all the way down to Australia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hanford would have had the American Indians exterminated if he'd had things his way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Abigail discussed patriotism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x23", "title": "The Lonely Hours", "date": "1963-03-08", "description": "A mother of three whose husband is out of town grows concerned when a boarder gets attached to her infant son.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Celia Fremlin (novel), William D. Morgan (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louise became worried when Vera took too much interest in Louise's son. Then she became desperate when Vera kidnapped her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vera kidnapped Louise's baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vera had lost her infant son at birth and reacted to it by going insane, 1950s fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louis had her hands full with her two girls, Marjorie and Henrietta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Henderson lasses were a troublesome bundle of mischief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Henderson girls frolicked at home, playing make-believe games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Louise and Vera were shown taking care of the baby boy, Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis briefly racked her brain over how to rid herself of the overly familial lodger, Vera. Vera preempted Louis by announcing herself that she would move.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although he was not present on the scene, Louis spoke briefly to her husband on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police officers showed up to help Louis recover her infant son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise paid a visit to the maternity ward nun.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x11", "title": "The Parallel", "date": "1963-03-14", "description": "An astronaut returns from a space flight to find things much changed during his absence.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are given to understand that Robert visited a parallel universe in another dimension, where evolution on Earth was just subtly different, the butterfly effect be damned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert was supposed to orbit Earth for ten days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the people around me changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Robert's point of view, he came back and the whole world was ever so slightly different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Helena Gains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone around me changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Helen's point of view, Robert had subtly changed and it was all very disconcerting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and his young daughter Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena and her young daughter Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert briefly went to a psychiatrist because he thought something might be wrong with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x24", "title": "The Star Juror", "date": "1963-03-15", "description": "A killer serves jury duty for the trial of a man who has been accused of his crime.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "George felt much remorse after \"accidentally\" strangling the \"town floozie\" to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "George felt much remorse after \"accidentally\" strangling the \"town floozie\" to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "George sacrificed his reputation and the standing of his family in order to defend the town misfit J. J. Fenton in the murder trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Jenny Davies. Jenny was dismayed when George inexplicably ruined their good standing in the town by taking measures to see that the town misfit was acquitted on a murder charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The parochial sheriff was there throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "A good part of the story took place in the courtroom, where George was an inquisitive juror who managed to get J.J. Fenton acquitted - to the rest of the town's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that George and his family completely lost their standing in the little rural community in which they lived. George's car was vandalized and the family business (an apothecary) was boycotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that George and his family completely lost their standing in the little rural community in which they lived. George's car was vandalized and the family business (an apothecary) was boycotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were all agog over Lola's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confessing to a wrongdoing vs. keeping quiet", "level": "major", "motivation": "George struggled over whether to confess to having strangled the \"town floozie\" Lola, as he had indeed done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "J. J. Fenton was arrested and tried for a murder he didn't commit. He had to be sedated for throwing a temper tantrum in his jail cell in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the mild-mannered George confessed to having strangled Lola, but everyone wrote him off as having lost his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.J. Fenton was shacked up with his mother and girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.J. Fenton's mother urged him to drink his beer out of a class that wasn't cracked out of concern he'd imbibe some slivers of glass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George conversed with his teenage daughter, Pauline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny conversed with her teenage daughter, Pauline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George laid hands on an alarmed Lola in a bid to get a kiss and perhaps more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George sexually assaulted the \"town floozie\" as his wife lay napping under a tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy excitedly reported his discovery of a dead body to the sheriff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George (black) and Judge Higgins (red) conversed about Lola's killing over a game of checkers at the local tavern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a moment of desperation, J. J. Fenton put a pistol to his temple and briefly contemplated pulling the trigger. George shortly thereafter shot J. J. dead in a struggle, and his death was ruled a suicide, despite George's protestations to the contrary.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x12", "title": "I Dream of Genie", "date": "1963-03-21", "description": "An office worker acquires a lamp with a genie who offers him a wish.\n\nDirected by: Robert Gist. Story by: John Furia, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George pondered what to spend his one wish on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The genie explained the flip sides of various typical wishes George learned that being married to the world's most beautiful woman was perhaps not all that great, being a lavishly wealthy tycoon was not all it was cracked up to be, and being in a position of great power came with its downsides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "major", "motivation": "George bought a lamp and found that it contained a genie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "George had a crush on his coworker Ann but was too shy to let her know anything about it. The she became his wife in one of his fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of being in power", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was not happy when he was filthy rich or the President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "George fantasized about being the filthy rich owner of a corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "George fantasized about being President of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgy spoke to his dog, Attila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unscrupulous antiquity shop owner explained how to unload valueless junk on dumb customers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was married to a film star in his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann cheated on George in his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens came and people advocated shooting them down just in case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George considered wishing for 1 million dollars, but initially decided against it on account that it would put him in the 90% tax bracket. Later while fantasizing about being a wealthy tycoon, George's assistants tried to make George spend money on idle luxuries he didn't even want in order to prevent the money being taxed away by the government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George (as President) was paralyzed by indecision when faced with a global UFO crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George (as President) was paralyzed by indecision when faced with a global UFO crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was vying with his coworker not only for a promotion, but also for the affections of the office secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was vying with his coworker not only for a promotion, but also for the affections of the office secretary.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x25", "title": "The Long Silence", "date": "1963-03-22", "description": "A woman becomes paralyzed in reaction to the news that her eldest son apparently killed himself.\n\nDirected by: Robert Douglas. Story by: Charles Beaumont, William D. Gordon (teleplay), Hilda Lawrence (story \"Composition for Four Hands\").", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title of the story alludes to Nora being first unconscious for several days and then paralyzed from head to toe but (unbeknownst to those around her) conscious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The second half of the story focuses on paralyzed Nora's terror as she realizes her husband is merely awaiting an opportunity to do away with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora was devastated to find her murdered son's body hung up to make it look like suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph \"accidentally\" strangle murdered his stepson, Robbie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph tried to do in his wife, Nora, after she uncovered he'd strangled her adult son. The shock of the discovery left her paralyzed from head to toe but (unbeknownst to those around her) conscious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turns out that Ralph had married Nora only for her wealth and was plotting to make off with $200k he had embezzled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robbie was accused of having embezzled $200k, but it was in fact Ralph that had done it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nurse Jean stood by Nora's side, and saved her from being murdered. Dr. Babcock made a couple of house calls on Nora. An apparently comatose Nora was tended to by a nurse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph attempted several times to get rid of Nora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora initially thought her son, Robbie, had embezzled $200k from her. She later found out he was innocent, but only after the real thief killed him. Nora's son George restrained her murderous husband from killing her in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a fake mustache wearing Alfred Hitchcock pretended to be his own brother. George spoke of his brother, Robbie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph \"accidentally\" strangled his stepson, Robbie, and covered it up by forging a suicide note.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old maid Emma served Nora a hot coco, and assured the doctor she'd read to Nora before bed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Leopard (1963)", "title": "The Leopard", "date": "1963-03-27", "description": "The story follows The Prince Salina in 1860s Sicily, as he struggles to cope and come to terms with the social upheaval and the shift in power from old aristocracy to newly rich bourgeois.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leopard_(1963_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the prince feels his age to the bones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everything must change so that everything can stay the same reflects the Prince", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Italy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in 1860s Sicily. We saw an idea of what life might have been like then and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aristocracy vs. bourgeoisie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The old aristocracy (the lions) had to give way to new merchants (the hyenas).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "King vs. Garibaldi etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tancredi and Angelica", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tancredi and Angelica were clearly besotted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Prince and his family clearly looked down on Sedara and his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "This historical character and his legendary redshirts are mentioned time and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tancredi joins redshirts and everyone talks about reforms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "the contrast between wealthy aristocrats and poor peasants is palpable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "dead soldiers in the garden and what not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Italian unification in the background", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a priest was involved now and then and there was a bit of piety here and there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tancredi choose love against his family's better judgement", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x13", "title": "The New Exhibit", "date": "1963-04-04", "description": "A wax museum curator lovingly maintains wax figures of five infamous killers in his basement after the museum discards them. When he loses his job, his enemies are mysteriously murdered.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin was so obsessed with his collection of wax murderers that he drove himself and his wife bankruptcy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin keeping a collection of wax figures in his basement at great financial cost put a strain on his marriage with Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a selection of notorious murderers immortalized in wax, and heard something of their deeds. In the end, it seems that Martin joined their ranks as a triple murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The five wax figures of notorious murderers came to life under one interpretation of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin deluded himself into believing that the five wax figures in his basement had come to live under one interpretation of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wax sculpture", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wax museum curator was lovingly maintaining the wax figures of five infamous killers in his basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The premise of the story was that the wax dolls that Martin and his employer both loved had fallen out of fashion, varyingly to their dismay and consternation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wax museum curator Martin was crestfallen upon being informed by the owner that the museum was going to be torn down and his services no longer required.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cost of maintaining Martin's wax figures in his basement place a heavy financial burden on him and Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma confided in her brother Dave over Martin's increasingly strange behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's brother-in-law Dave confronted him over his keeping of the wax figures of five famous murderers at great financial cost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crimes of the notorious serial killers Jack the Ripper, Henri Désiré Landru, William Burke and William Hare were touched on.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x26", "title": "An Out for Oscar", "date": "1963-04-05", "description": "A bank teller plans the perfect crime in order to do away with his cheating wife and her lover.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Henry Kane (novel), David Goodis (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar was flummoxed to find that the female he had fallen for was only in it for the dough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar succeeded in marrying the object of his affections, Eva, but then quickly came to regret it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva wanted to get a divorce with a big settlement out of Oscar and therefore openly began an affair with Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar is a bank teller and gets training to deal with hold-ups. Oscar and Bill stages a bank robbery, but Oscar double crosses and shoots Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill betrayed and killed Eva in cahoots with Oscar. Oscar betrayed and killed Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Oscar was a meek push-over and nobody expected him to get the better of two hardened criminals when he suddenly pulled out a gun and rid himself of one of them, becoming a hero in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar was head over heels for Eva until they tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar contrived a situation where he could shoot Bill dead without being charged with murder, although whether he is morally guilty of murder is left ambiguous. Bill murdered Eva in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the beginning, Eve killed Peter somewhat in self-defense and pretended it was entirely by accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were involved a couple of times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva turned to her admirer Oscar for financial support after being fired from her job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar and Eva briefly discussed getting a divorce. Eva demanded $50,000 to accede.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hodges was keen on promoting Oscar to the role of credit manager at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar was puzzlingly unenthusiastic about being promoted from teller to credit manager at the bank.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x14", "title": "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville", "date": "1963-04-11", "description": "An aging tycoon exchanges his fortune for a trip to the past and a new beginning when he meets the mysterious Miss Devlin.\n\nDirected by: David Lowell Rich. Story by: Malcolm Jameson, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith was a stereotypically morally bankrupt tycoon who had made his fortune by financially preying on others and was proud of himself for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Devil herself fulfilled Mr. Feathersmith's wish to return to 1910 Cliffordville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill is in the chase", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith remarked that the fun was in amassing his vast fortune, not in having it. As a result, he made a deal with the Devil to give him to opportunity to enjoy amassing his fortune a second time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Devil herself fulfilled Mr. Feathersmith's wish to return to 1910 Cliffordville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Devil fulfilled Mr. Feathersmith's wish to return to 1910 Cilffordville in exchange for a large sum of money. Later he cut a deal to return to the present in exchange for $40.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith relived his life from the age of 30 but with his present memories in tact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith treated the janitor with disdain, but then through an ironic twist of fate their roles were reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith arrogantly assumed it would be easy to remake his fortune, but he learned this was not the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The business tycoon Mr. Feathersmith was contracted with the company janitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith explained to Ms. Devlin that he lacked a purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith delighted in ruining his business rival Mr. Dietrich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith found life at the top rather boring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johanna nearly talked Mr. Feathersmith's ear off before entertaining him with her shrill singing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith was surprised to find that Johanna was not the charming girl that he had remembered her as. He's also evidently overlooked that no vaccine for typhoid had been invented by 1910.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith was surprised to find that Johanna was not the charming girl that he had remembered her as. He's also evidently overlooked that no vaccine for typhoid had been invented by 1910.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feathersmith was a stereotypical smug, condescending business tycoon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x27", "title": "Death and the Joyful Woman", "date": "1963-04-12", "description": "A man loses his life upon winning a gamble with his disinherited child.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Ellis Peters (novel), James Bridges (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luis disowned his only son, Al, for refusing to marry in the financial interest of the family winery. Luis humiliated Al when Al returned, desperate for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth bashed Luis' head in in a jealous rage, and then left Dominic for dead in a wine cask to cover it up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luis was driven by a desire to expand his wine empire to the point that he disowned his only son when the son married the woman he loved, rather than the heiress of a rival winery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The policeman George Felse was investigating Luis' suspicious death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al came crawling to his wealthy father for money, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dominic had a teenage crush on the beautiful winery heiress, Kitty Norris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth had been besotted with Luis for a long time and expected him to marry her, but then he suddenly made it clear that he would do no such thing and, in fact, that he want to marry someone else. Dominic had a teenage crush on a beautiful, but out of reach winery heiress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "As Luis made it clear that hell would freeze over sooner than he would make good on his promise to marry Ruth, she summarily bashed his head in with a magnum wine bottle, tried to murder young Dominic who was a witness, and then attempted suicide with sleeping pills (prompting the viewer to wonder why she bothered to torment Dominic so first).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a jealous rage, Ruth bashed Luis' head in with an empty wine bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock presented a happily coexisting dog and cat, both invisible, to the viewer. In his closing remarks, Hitchcock himself vanished into thin air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set at the lavish house party of a winery owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the winery owner Luis was something of a wine connoisseur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A threatened Kitty pushed Luis down the stairs when he made a drunken pass at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth shed crocodile tears for her secret fiancée Luis when the police came to question her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth attempted suicide by downing a large number of sleeping pills, straight out of the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luis and Al got drunk in a drinking contest and acted as drunk people do: foolishly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luis and Al got drunk in a drinking contest and acted as drunk people do: foolishly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Al and Jeanne Aguilar attended Al's father's lavish house party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The policeman George Felse was particularly troubled over the unexplained disappearance of his son, Dominic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x15", "title": "The Incredible World of Horace Ford", "date": "1963-04-18", "description": "A middle-aged toy designer goes back to his childhood when he visits his old neighborhood.\n\nDirected by: Abner Biberman. Story by: Reginald Rose.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horace thoughts were dominated by blissfully happy memories of his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horace ultimately came to learn that his childhood days were not quite so blissful as he'd remembered them to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horace was lost in memories of his childhood days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace constantly reminisced about his childhood days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace's single-minded fixation on his childhood days cost him his job and caused a lot of strife in his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura became increasingly distressed over her husband Horace's self-absorption with his own childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace's mother was living together with him and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace was a 38-year old man-child who cared only about toys and his childhood memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace returned to his old neighborhood to find it just as it was when he was a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura struggled with how to handle her man-child of a husband being on the brink of having a nervous breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace denied it but others put his behavior down to pressure at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura pointedly told her mother-in-law to shut up when the old woman started freaking out over Horace having lost his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody would take Horace seriously when he told them that his old neighborhood appeared just as it was when he was a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace was outraged when his boss insisted that he simplify the design of a toy robot he'd designed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura confided in Len that she truly loved her man-child husband Horace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace's wife and mother were financially dependent on him. The mother made a big stink about him losing his job because of the implications for herself, and there was further money talk.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x28", "title": "Last Seen Wearing Blue Jeans", "date": "1963-04-19", "description": "A juvenile schoolgirl witnesses a murder and becomes the killers' next target.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Amber Dean (novel), Lou Rambeau (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is David and Roberta Saunders' 17-year-old daughter going missing while the trio were vacationing in the South Western United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roberta was determined to find her adolescent daughter, Loren, who'd suddenly gone missing on a family vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was determined to find her adolescent daughter, Loren, who'd suddenly gone missing on a family vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is David and Roberta Saunders' 17-year-old daughter going missing while the trio were vacationing in the South Western United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot hinges on Loren witnessing a couple of car thieves murder their partner with a tire iron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot hinges on Loren witnessing a couple of car thieves murder their partner with a tire iron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loren was being chased by men she knew did not shy from murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the local police in both of the towns that were visited were either wholly or somewhat corrupt. Constable Batterman turned a blind eye to Loren and Pete's predicament because he was on Vince Cates' payroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Saunders' went to the corrupt Constable Batterman, thinking he would help them locate their missing daughter. The Saunders' consulted the police chief of a Mexican town about their missing daughter. Loren and Pete had a run in with a customs inspector at the border.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of car thieves made off with a station wagon, not knowing a 17-year-old girl was fast asleep in the back seat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two young Mexican men responded to Loren's pleas for help with wolf-whistling and crass romantic overtures in broken English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loren briefly slipped into a Catholic church to lose her pursuers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete helped to rescue his son, Pete, from criminals in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three Brits learned about some peculiar American and Mexican cultural idiosyncrasies. Loren, for example, encountered perverted corrupt Mexicans who imbued overly spicy chili. She later fared poorly at taking language lessons from an American farm boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Loren kissing a bashful Pete on the cheek, and inviting him to visit her in England next summer, suggesting a possible brewing romance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x16", "title": "On Thursday We Leave for Home", "date": "1963-05-02", "description": "In 2021, a group of space pioneers prepare for a return trip to Earth upon having failed to establish a new society on a distant planet. The group's leader refuses to give up his authority.\n\nDirected by: Buzz Kulik. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A rescue flying saucer arrived on planet V9-Gamma to pick up its 180 pioneering inhabitants, who had made a failed attempt to establish a flourishing colony there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benteen revealed through his actions that he was primary motivated by a desire to maintain control over the colonists under his charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen and Colonel Sloane butted heads over the extent to which the colonists under Benteen's charge should have control over their own fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some colonists had been struggling to eek out a living on a blisteringly hot desert planet, away from the Earth with its many wars. They failed miserably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen's attitude toward the colonists under his charge was paternalistic to the max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen was convinced that he knew better than the colonists what was good for them, and he treated them like children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen's selfishness clouded his judgment to the extent that the welfare of the colonists under his charge was put into jeopardy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colony was about to perish because of a hostile environment - though one can say that they were simply dumb to settle there in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen explained that his obsession with the colony had prevented him from forming a family etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benteen made terrible decisions on behalf of his colonists because he was drunk on his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A double sun was shown in the sky overhead on the colonist's planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of pioneering colonists had tried and failed to settled on a blisteringly hot desert world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salvation was a slim hope for the colonists who mostly realized that they were doomed when their essential machinery began to fail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the colonists had lost all hope of rescue until the Earth flying saucer arrived to pick them up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A despairing woman hanged herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral with Christian elements was held for a suicided woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "start-over utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benteen soliloquize of how he and his fellow colonists had left Earth with intentions building a new and better world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of flying saucer flying astronauts came to pick up the planet V9-Gamma colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Sloane remarked that Earth had avoided a \"hydrogen war\" by a miracle and the grace of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A game of pickup baseball was played outside the flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benteen went from being a capable leader of his community to a delusional madman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Christian funeral, and references to suicide being a sin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benteen struggled to make his colonists maintain their hope for rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benteen was accused of thinking himself a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beteen expressed concern that the colonists were too far behind the times to be reintegrated into Earth society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x29", "title": "The Dark Pool", "date": "1963-05-03", "description": "A woman is blackmailed after her adoptive child drowns.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: Alec Coppel (story), William D. Gordon (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dianne and Consuela were both coping or feigning to cope with the death of their baby son who drowned tragically in the pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Consuela blackmailed Dianne by threatening to reveal that she had been drunk, negligent and in charge of the baby when the baby tragically drowned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dianne was a textbook alcoholic who had convinced her husband she had quit but, in fact, carried on drinking like a fish anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dianne and Victor Castillejo were at heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The simple blackmail story escalated into something much more elaborate when Consuela decided to stay on, use tricks to drive Dianne into anxiety and boozing, have Dianne committed, presumably divorced, and to try and steal Dianne's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pedro complained in the end that he and Consuela had merely wanted to exhort $10-20,000 from Dianne and skedaddle together but then Consuela had gotten greedy for $5,000,000 and the beautiful house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dianne was evidently tortured by the fact that her baby drowned owing to her negligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the drama was Dianne and her perfidious servant Pedro Sanchez who betrayed her secret and tried to blackmail her. Dianne's nanny took the fall after Dianne's negligence caused the death of her baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor supported his wife, Dianne, who was struggling with alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor's love for his problem drinking wife, Dianna, was steadfast. He twice proclaimed his love to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dianne ultimately came clean to her husband on a doozie of a lie: Their baby drown owing to her negligence, not through the fault of the nanny, as was determined at the inquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dianne had tried to quit drinking, and had in fact cut down significantly when they got the baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the blame for someone else's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dianne's nanny took the fall, lying at the inquest, after Dianne's negligence caused the death of her baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dianne made a drunken scene at the cocktail party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dianne made a drunken scene at the cocktail party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor was mortified by his drunken wife's behavior at the cocktail party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dianne visited a Catholic nun about adopting another baby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x17", "title": "Passage on the Lady Anne", "date": "1963-05-09", "description": "To save their marriage, a couple book a cruise on a ship whose other passengers are elderly.\n\nDirected by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was to show how to quarreling spouses might reconcile their differences and rekindle their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Eileen Ransome embarked on a trans-Atlantic voyage on a quaint, but presumably doomed ocean liner. The elderly married couple Tobias and Millicent McKenzie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lady Anne passengers, not including Alan and Eileen, and crew were old and tired of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Eileen, whose marriage was on the rocks, rekindled their love for one another while voyaging about the Lady Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "It becomes gradually apparent that the ship Lady Anne was connected with the afterlife, though many details are left open for interpretation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The various old people aboard Lady Anne were thinking about their lives knowing that they were traveling to the hereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan had to choose between his marriage and his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Eileen embarked on an ocean voyage in a last ditched effort to try to save their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that the elderly people aboard the Lady Anne had entered into a suicide pact of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eileen said she planned to leave Alan as their marriage was rather shot. Alan agreed, and only later did they change their minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workaholism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eileen considered that Alan was something of a workaholic and that this was wrecking their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eileen quipped to Alan something to the effect that he only cared about being a professional success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan planned to take it easy after one last big deal, though Eileen did not believe he would.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan and Eileen quarreled endlessly about things both small and large.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young couple were confronted with a tough decision when two elderly gentlemen warned them about perils and even offered them an excessive amount of money to stay off the ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x30", "title": "Dear Uncle George", "date": "1963-05-10", "description": "An advice columnist tries to advise himself on how to deal with his cheating wife.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: James Bridges (teleplay), Richard Levinson, William Link (story and teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is that John uncovered that his wife was having an affair and fatally bashed over the head with a Cupid statuette because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is that John uncovered that his wife was having an affair and fatally bashed over the head with a Cupid statuette because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is that John uncovered that his wife was having an affair and fatally bashed over the head with a Cupid statuette because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is that John uncovered that his wife was having an affair and fatally bashed over the head with a Cupid statuette because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "John set out to frame his wife's lover for her murder out of spite for having been so rudely cuckolded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "John meant for his wife's lover to be charged with her murder but was caught in his own intricate web of lies and ended up justly exposing himself in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot ended up hinging on the testimony of the busybody, Mrs. Weatherby, who lived next door and who had carefully observed Louise's little liaison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "John had designs on pinning the murder of his wife, which he himself committed in a fit of jealousy, on her lover to punish him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tea loving Lt. Wolfson and his partner Sgt. Duncan were investigating Louise's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "John used his trusty secretary, Bea, to secure for himself what he mistakenly thought was an airtight alibi. Simon was John's boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon mentioned that he and Louise had been in love and that she would have asked John for a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John twice paid lip service to having just buried his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talking to John in the sauna, Simon lamented Louise's premature demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human perception of time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police lieutenant mused aloud about how \"It's true that a watched pot never boils.\" as he readied to prepare his tea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's wife told him he'd lose his job as an advice columnist if they got a divorce.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x31", "title": "Run for Doom", "date": "1963-05-17", "description": "A doctor plans to marry a soloist, despite the fact that her three previous husbands all met gruesome deaths.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: James Bridges (teleplay), Henry Kane (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, the story hinges on the relationship of a blue-eyed eligible young physician who unwisely marries a cold-hearted man-eating gold digger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young physician Don Reed was head over heels for the glamorous nightclub singer, Nickie Carole, and succeeded in winning her hand in marriage before long, but ultimately came to regret it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young physician Don Reed got more than he bargained for when he succeeded in gaining the gold digging nightclub singer Nickie Carole's hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Don deftly asphyxiating his disagreeable other when he though she was already presumed asphyxiated. Alas, to his misfortune there was a witness that knew her to have been alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nickie, her manager Bill's \"Boomerang Baby\", was in a clearly abusive on-again off-again relationship with him. Bill slapped Nickie across the face at one point, and later strangled her nearly to the brink of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The glamorous nightclub singer Nickie Carole wrapped Don around her finger and then married him for his money. What is more, she had a history of marrying well off men who mysteriously died soon after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nickie was featured singing show tunes at a nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don was a physician by trade, and was shown working at the hospital in one scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don carried a rabbit's foot to the nightclub for good luck in courting Nickie. Don gifted a horseshoe and four-leaf clover to Nickie in a bid to win her affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young physician Don worked hard to win the singer Nickie's heart in the first part of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don's father cautioned his son against marrying the femme fatal Nickie, but he didn't listen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don and Nickie cursorily interacted with their maid, the aged woman Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nickie blatantly flirted with a man on the ship deck right under her husband's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catching his wife in flagrante delicto with her would-be lover, Don flew into a tempestuous rage and tossed the man overboard to an all but certain death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catching his wife in flagrante delicto with her would-be lover, Don flew into a tempestuous rage and tossed the man overboard to an all but certain death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don and Nickie were questioned about a mysteriously disappeared man by an FBI agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace Reed had the measure of his son's fiancé in the blink of an eye and did not approve for an instance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catching his wife in flagrante delicto with her would-be lover, Don flew into a tempestuous rage and tossed the man overboard to an all but certain death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don grieved over the death of his father and expressed a brief feeling of remorse that he might have contributed to the man's heart attack by insisting on marrying Nickie against his will.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Damned (1963)", "title": "The Damned", "date": "1963-05-20", "description": "The Damned (released as These Are the Damned in the USA) is a 1963 British science fiction film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors and Oliver Reed. Based on H.L. Lawrence's novel The Children of Light, it was a Hammer Film production.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_(1963_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "American tourist Simon Wells, Joan and her biker gang brother inadvertently get involved in a secret government project about making radioactive children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone controlling your life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan was fed up with her biker gang brother controlling her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan's biker gang brother King controlled her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon Wells and Joan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan and her biker gang brother King.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government was experimenting with radioactive children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A government scientist was raising nine ice cold, radioactive children for the purpose of repopulating the Earth in the event of a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freya Neilson made enigmatic sculptures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e4x18", "title": "The Bard", "date": "1963-05-23", "description": "An aspiring screenwriter conjures up the spirit of William Shakespeare to help him in his television script.\n\nDirected by: David Butler. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a the filming of a television show pilot penned by none other than Shakespeare himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a struggling screenwriter trying to make a name for himself in show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling screenwriter Julius accidentally conjured Shakespeare into existence, got him to write a play, and then shamelessly took credit for it. Shakespeare was rather annoyed of not receiving any credit for all the work Julius simply put his own name on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a struggling screenwriter trying to make a name for himself in show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shakespeare was mortified to find that a group of television executives had butchered a television show pilot script that he'd penned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius was an annoying chatterbox to pretty much everyone around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius became extraordinarily full of himself after Shakespeare wrote all his scripts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The streetcar conductor turned screenwriter Julius pestered a television executive into giving him one last crack at making it in show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius accidentally conjured Shakespeare himself into existence. He later deliberately conjured up a number of figures from American history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius became rather full of himself but was in deep trouble when Shakespeare abandoned him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius found a grimoire and used dark arts to conjure people from history to help him write.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh1x32", "title": "Death of a Cop", "date": "1963-05-24", "description": "A police officer plots the punishment of his son's killer.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Leigh Brackett (teleplay), Douglas Warner (novel).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When the law failed him, Detective Paul Reardon took the law into his own hands to avenge the execution style killing of his son, and partner on the force, at the hands of a neighborhood crime syndicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Detective Paul Reardon as he investigates the execution style murder of his son, and partner on the force, at the hands of a neighborhood crime syndicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father and son, buddy cop, crime fighting duo Paul and Philip Reardon were at the heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Philip Reardon were a father and son detective duo on the police force, until such time as Philip was execution style murdered by members of a neighborhood crime syndicate. Paul made it his mission to bring the killer to justice by whatever means necessary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around the execution style murder of a young police detective and its aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Paul Reardon was left devastated by the execution style killing of his son, and partner on the force, Philip. The pharmacist spoke of having lost a son in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Paul Reardon was on a mission to bring the Lane Gang, a neighborhood crime syndicate dealing in heroin, to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lane Gang was dealing in heroin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock found himself beside a pillar of salt at a crossroads between Sodom and Gomorrah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul identified the would-be liquor store robber as a neighborhood heroin addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two men we caught holding up a liquor store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice consoled her husband, Paul, over the tragic death of their son, Philip, at the hands of gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice told Paul that it was his fault their police detective son, Philip, died in the line of duty (the reason being that Philip followed in his old man's footsteps in joining the force).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lawyer for the Lane Gang made it clear to the police investigators that they had no case against the gang's members that'd been rounded up in a sting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pharmacist spoke of having lost a son in this war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Nutty Professor (1963)", "title": "The Nutty Professor", "date": "1963-06-04", "description": "Nerdy Professor Julius Kelp invents a serum that turns him into Buddy Love: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Nutty Professor" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutty_Professor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a parody of a university campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Kelp and Julius Kelp/Buddy Love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nerdy professor Julius Kelp invented a serum that turned him into Buddy Love: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Kelp's new Buddy Love persona gave him the confidence he needed to pursue his student Stella Purdy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nerdy professor Julius Kelp invented a serum that turned him into Buddy Love: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The meek and nerdy Julius Kelp turned into a suave and brash girl-chasing hipster when in the form of his alter ego Buddy Love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Julius Kelp learned that he didn't need to be Buddy Love to win Stella Purdy's heart, instead all he had to do as be his warm and nerdy self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nerdy professor Julius Kelp invented a serum that turned him into Buddy Love: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nerdy, accident-prone, socially awkward professor Julius Kelp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Julius Kelp had a reputation for conducting reckless experiments in his chemistry class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Julius Kelp was humiliated from being bullied in class by a college football player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius Kelp's parents dropped in on his chemistry class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius Kelp's parents dropped in on his chemistry class.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Matango Attack of the Mushroom People (1963)", "title": "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People", "date": "1963-08-11", "description": "A group of castaways on an island are unwittingly altered by a local species of mutagenic mushrooms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matango" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of day trippers found themselves temporarily stranded on a seemingly unpopulated island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of castaways, who found themselves stranded on a remote island, started transforming into part mushroom, part human creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People transformed into mushroom creatures after eating special mutagenic mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men were jealous of one another over the two women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masafumi Kasai and Akiko Soma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The castaways experienced psychedelic effects after eating the local mushrooms on a remote island.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monstrosity (1963)", "title": "Monstrosity", "date": "1963-09", "description": "An elderly woman uses her vast fortune to convince an eccentric yet brilliant scientist to transplant her brain into a new, youthful body. It is perhaps better known under its alternate TV release title, The Atomic Brain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrosity_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist transplanted the brain of a wealthy, elderly woman into the body of a beautiful, young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly woman used her vast fortune to convince a scientist to transplant her brain into a new, youthful body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita Gonzales was transformed into a mindless zombie-like being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. March held young women captive in her mansion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Crawling Hand (1963)", "title": "The Crawling Hand", "date": "1963-09-04", "description": "The hand of an exploded astronaut takes on a life of its own. Near a spacecraft crash site, a naive young med student discovers a disembodied hand and takes it home as a grisly souvenir. He is not aware that the hand is possessed by a strange, murderous alien who gradually begins to take over the hapless med student. One by one, townsfolk are found mysteriously strangled to death. In the end, a heroic and hungry cat saves the rest of the town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crawling_Hand" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronaut's (Mel Lockhart) hand was possessed by a strange, murderous alien who gradually began to take over Paul Lawrence's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien first possessed the astronaut's hand and later Paul Lawrence's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Lawrence and Marta Farnstrom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Lawrence and Marta Farnstrom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marta Farnstrom's boyfriend Paul Lawrence became possessed by a malevolent alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a manned mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that the astronaut had underwent rapid evolution, owing to the natural conditions in outer space, before he exploded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Farnstrom and Marta Farnstrom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Hotchkiss and Jackson the cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X: The Man with the Xray Eyes (1963)", "title": "X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes", "date": "1963-09-18", "description": "A world-renowned scientist's experiments with X-ray vision go badly awry.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X:_The_Man_with_the_X-ray_Eyes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "X-rays", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. James Xavier used special eyedrops to increase the range of his vision beyond the visible spectrum into the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths and beyond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. James Xavier was able to see through wall and so on using his X-ray vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Xavier developed eyedrops intended to increase the range of human vision, allowing one to see beyond the visible spectrum into the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths and beyond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Xavier worked in his laboratory to develop eye drops intended to increase the range of human vision, allowing one to see beyond the visible spectrum into the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths and beyond.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Silence (1963)", "title": "The Silence", "date": "1963-09-23", "description": "The Silence (Swedish: Tystnaden) is a 1963 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom. The plot focuses on two sisters, the younger a sensuous woman with a young son, the elder more intellectually oriented and seriously ill, and their tense relationship as they travel toward home through a fictional Central European country on the brink of war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silence_(1963_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Esther and Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anna plotted and schemed to assert herself morally against her older sister Esther, of whom she had been afraid and who she thought was too controlling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna and Johan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Esther and Johan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Esther was coughing up blood and believed death was not far away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna seemed remarkably indifferent, even belligerent, as her sister struggled with an undoubtedly deadly affliction. Johan was slightly concerned, but too young to understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Esther was coughing up blood and believed death was not far away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Esther was remarkably forward and talked about her feelings to some extent; Esther explained her loathing of sexual contact", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna professed hatred of Esther and accused Esther of hating all and everything", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "the notably more erudite Esther was accused by Anna of being condescending and bossy; Esther sometimes displayed the sentiment of moral superiority, albeit not without cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Esther clearly drank too much Vodka, enough to make her sicker than she already was", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sororal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Esther professed love for her sister Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna and Esther spoke of their relationship with their late father", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x01", "title": "In Praise of Pip", "date": "1963-09-27", "description": "A bookie receives news that his son Pip has been seriously wounded in combat. He soon gets the chance to not only see his son one last time but also to save him.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max and Pip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max regretted his near-constant absence from his son's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max regretted his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was devastated when he learned that his son had been gravely wounded in Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Max regretted having been a mostly absent father to his son Pip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max went against his boss and ultimately gave his life to save the boy who had so ill-advisedly gambled with someone else's money. Max also asked the Lord to exchange his life for his son's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max swore time and again that he was going to change his wicked ways, straighten up and all that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was notably kind to a young man who'd gambled away $300 of borrowed money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a young man who gambled with his employer's money and lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max's landlady commented caustically on his drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max's son was wounded in South Vietnam (it was not supposed to be a war there, we heard).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max felt compassion for the young gambler and handed him back the $300, thus betraying Max's own boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a medic working to save Pip's life in a field hospital in South Vietnam.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x01", "title": "A Home Away from Home", "date": "1963-09-27", "description": "A patient at a mental institution does a role reversal by imprisoning the doctors.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was set in a sanatorium that was under lock and key. The viewer is shown what such an institution could be imagined to be like. The two doctors, one of whom was in fact a patient, variously expressed their thoughts on how insane people ought to be treated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Natalie and Dr. Norton, although it was revealed to her later that Dr. Norton was being impersonated by Dr. Fenwick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Natalie realized she was locked up in a sanatorium that under the control of one of its former inmates, and that this man intended to do away with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fenwick was a fanatical proponent of \"permissive therapy\": the idea being that insane people could be made sane by treating them as one would normal people. He reiterated this theory on multiple occasions. To this end he let the inmates roam free once he gained control of the sanatorium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The insane psychiatrist Dr. Fenwick took over the sanatorium where he was being held and ran the place himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The insane Dr. Fenwick strangled Dr. Norton and hid the body in a dumbbell elevator. The body's discovery by Natalie proved a key turning point in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a menagerie of lunatics in Dr. Norton's sanatorium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Fenwick accused Dr. Norton of keeping people locked up needlessly just because he didn't want to loose the $1,000 per month revenue stream from each patient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old (mostly bedridden) woman suffered from various peculiar delusions. She thought she was a famous person, had cavorted with famous people, and later that she was pregnant and had been so for five years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kleptomania", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the inmates stole all sorts of shiny things whenever he got the opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard and Ruth Fenwick. Ruth visited her husband, Howard, at the sanatorium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the inmates was induced to impersonate a police inspector. Real officers of the law showed up at the very end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x02", "title": "Steel", "date": "1963-10-04", "description": "In 1974, a boxing promoter tries to get the most out of his broken-down robot boxer.\n\nDirected by: Don Weis. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Steel Kelly was a washed-up boxer become washed-up robot boxer owner who could now barely make ends meet because his model was antiquated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot prizefighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future when android boxing is a popular spectator sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a washed-up boxer now arrange boxing robot fights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steel Kelly and Pole were pretty much down to their last cents as their boxing robot could no longer cut it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future when android boxing is popular sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steel Kelly refused to give up on making it in the world of android boxing. The narrator summed the story up by explaining how man is a resourceful creature that will never give up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steel Kelly lost a boxing match by knockout to an android prizefighter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steel Kelly was proud of both his and his robot's boxing achievements, though no one had heard of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator explained how prizefighting had been legally abolished in 1968.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x02", "title": "A Nice Touch", "date": "1963-10-04", "description": "A woman is caught between her drunken husband and her determined lover.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Pevney. Story by: Mann Rubin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a dramatic reveal at the end, we learned that Larry's seemingly passionate love affair with Janice had been cold-heartedly calculated to advance his acting career and that he was now married to another woman he had chosen also for that very same purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Larry's ambition in life, perhaps owing to his destitute childhood, was to become a movie star, and he wasn't above using people to his ends to get there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry induced his lover, Janice, to murder her husband by saying that she had to choose between him and Larry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice and Ed Brandt. Larry induced his lover, Janice, to murder her husband, Ed, by saying that she had to choose between him and Larry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice began an affair with Larry behind her older husband, Ed's, back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed was so jealous with rage that he tracked down Janice's whereabouts, drunk off his feet as he was, in order to find her lover and duke it out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry was first an aspiring actor in the flashbacks. In present time he was an actor on the verge of becoming famous, one gathers. He was concerned about Janice and, in particular, her jealous husband showing up to ruin his image and reputation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice worked for a casting agency until she got fired for pulling too many strings in order to advance her lover, Larry's, career. In a flashback we saw Larry compete with other candidates in a waiting room to get an audition that Janice administrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice fell head over heels in love with Larry and though, alas falsely, that the sentiment was reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock welcomed the audience to the show's improvisational theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry, more or less correctly it seems, estimated that Janice's husband was 15 years older than her and a boozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry, more or less correctly it seems, estimated that Janice's husband was 15 years older than her and a boozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry perfidiously called the cops to inform them about the murder he had, in fact, manipulated Janice into committing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice was sacked for pulling too many strings in order to advance her lover, Larry's, career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice and Larry lamented together that Ed wouldn't give Janice a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed flew on his wife, Janice, in a drunken rage. She later smothered him with a novelty pillow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry went from being sent from one foster home to another to a Hollywood movie star.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x03", "title": "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "date": "1963-10-11", "description": "A salesman recovering from a nervous breakdown sees a creature on the wing of the airplane he is on, but no one believes him.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob tried to convince people that a gremlin was tampering with the engine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob had a pathological fear of flying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what it might be like to fly commercially in the early sixties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Julia Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gremlin", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a mythological creature of a sort that caused engines to fail, planes to crash, it was suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob nearly had a nervous breakdown on the plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob had been in therapy to cope with his fear of flying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob briefly entertained the idea that the gremlin he saw on the plane's wing was just a manifestation of his fear of flying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something was said about pilots used to think engine problem were caused by gremlins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x03", "title": "Terror at Northfield", "date": "1963-10-11", "description": "The residents of a small town demand the investigation of a boy's death.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Leigh Brackett (teleplay), Ellery Queen (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Cooley started killing people that he thought might have been the ones that murdered his son, thus becoming the titular \"Terror of Northfield\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Cooley started killing people that he thought might have been the ones that murdered his son, thus becoming the titular \"Terror of Northfield\". Mrs. La Font's eyes welled up with tears as she was questioned by Sheriff Pearce over the recent murder of her lazy, irresponsible son, Frenchy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Will Pearce was at the center of the story, trying to solve the murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "After Tommy had been killed, his father John began murdering people he suspected of being guilty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a whiff of hysteria all about the town of Northfield as people began falling victim to a mysterious murderer. People locked themselves in and were afraid to walk alone at night. People called for armed untrained men to form a guard, even though this would likely as not lead to all sorts of accidents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Cooley was going around murdering people in accordance with what he took to be the Lord's will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before Tommy's body was found, Susan was looking for him because he had not shown up for a month. His father was conspicuously sanguine about the boy being gone, but had an accusatory undertone when he addressed Susan about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John called Susan and said that he would kill himself in a ruse to lure her out and kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John didn't react well to his beloved son, Tommy, becoming the victim of foul play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will Pearce and Susan Marsh were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man who killed Tommy had been driving drunk, he confessed in a secret letter that was opened by his wife after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was a Christian fanatic who thought he was doing the Lord's work, or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The handyman Bib confided in a totally creeped out Susan of how he enjoyed killing animals, and was adamant that there was nothing wrong with it. He implied a morbid curiosity in what it would be like to kill a human.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x04", "title": "A Kind of a Stopwatch", "date": "1963-10-18", "description": "A talkative bore acquires a stopwatch that halts time.\n\nDirected by: John Rich. Story by: Michael D. Rosenthal, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time freeze", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McNulty was given a time freezing stopwatch by a mysterious foreigner. The story concluded with McNulty finding the world around him permanently frozen in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "McNulty longed to be recognized as an enterprising businessman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "major", "motivation": "McNulty exasperated everyone around him with his incessant blabbering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "McNulty used his magic stop watch to carry out a bank robbery, but it broke, and he ended up having time stopped forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "McNulty was given a time freezing stopwatch by a mysterious foreigner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some goings on at a ladies foundation garment company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McNulty was fired by his boss for being a general nuisance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender Joe Polucci made a quip about prohibition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McNulty cleaned out a bank vault with the help of his time freezing stopwatch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x04", "title": "You'll Be the Death of Me", "date": "1963-10-18", "description": "A newlywed bride becomes suspicious of her husband when she finds a button belonging to a young woman who died not far from their mountain cabin.\n\nDirected by: Robert Douglas. Story by: William D. Gordon (teleplay), Anthony Gilbert (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driver Arthur ended up killing his wife because she was going to leave him, and he thought that would expose him as the murderer of his ex-girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mickey was Driver Arthur's foreign wife and, although she seemed to be doing rather well, there were numerous references to her the efforts she made or needed to make to adapt. She had to learn the language for one. She was encouraged to come down and mingle with the townsfolk, which she had presumably not yet done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driver and Mickey Arthur. Driver ended up killing her because she was going to leave him, and he thought that would expose him as the murderer of his ex-girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driver's ex girlfriend was jealous of his new wife and tried to blackmail him somehow because she wanted a piece of him for herself. Mickey was more complicated, but she was certainly concerned about Driver having seen a girl in town (although the feeling of jealousy was undoubtedly swiftly overpowered with dread when she suspected he had might have killed her).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The town sheriff was central to the plot, even though he was not ubiquitously present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "muteness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby was mute and had a chalkboard to scribble on at her mother's grocery shop. She solved the murder mystery by doing just so at the conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driver killed his old flame in a quarrel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Driver killed his ex-girlfriend in a heated argument about love and money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. McCleod and her mute daughter, Ruby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bette Rose told off Kyle Sawyer for touching her pretty waist. He was too penniless for her tastes, and she was unapologetic about her preferences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bette Rose was unapologetically in the market for a man who had wealth and possessions. She said so quite explicitly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mickey had a mutt to keep her company while Driver was away working.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After strangling his new wife in something of a rage, Driver returned to his mountain cabin and immediately voiced regret over what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After strangling his new wife in something of a rage, Driver returned to his mountain cabin and immediately voiced regret over what he had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x05", "title": "The Last Night of a Jockey", "date": "1963-10-25", "description": "A disgraced jockey is granted his wish to be \"big.\"\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "it's what's on the inside that counts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The closing narration made clear that Grady had been \"big\" when he won races cleanly, but now he was \"small\" despite being physically big.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady was banned from horse racing for life for fixing races by horse doping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady wrestled with his conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady was self-conscious over his short stature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "The jockey Grady's wish to be big was granted and he became 10 feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The banned from horse racing for life jockey Grady had his wish to be physically big granted, but he came to regret it when he was reinstated by the commissioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "The banned from horse racing for life jockey Grady had his wish to be physically big granted, but he came to regret it when he was reinstated by the commissioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "the jockey Grady had been banned from horse racing for life - his one and only profession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hearing voices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady was being taunted the alter ego in his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady implied that he wanted to be famous - instead he became physically big.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horse racing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story focused on a disgraced jockey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady wished to be physically big after briefly contemplating what he wanted from the voice in his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady yelled at a journalist on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady's despair after being suspended from jockeying was in part due to money problems, though other matters proved more major.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x05", "title": "Blood Bargain", "date": "1963-10-25", "description": "A contract assassin meets his target's handicapped wife.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of this plot is that an otherwise supposedly cold hearted assassin (insofar as assassins are per definition cold hearted) took pity on his intended mark because the man had a crippled wife whom for whose sake he was pilfering money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of this plot is that an otherwise supposedly cold hearted assassin (insofar as assassins are per definition cold hearted) felt sorry on his intended mark because the man had a crippled wife whom for whose sake he was pilfering money. Connie admonished Jim for taking pity on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The contractor of the assassin was at the head of a local crime syndicate that dealt in gambling, at the very least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie and Connie Breech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie killed Eddie and pinned the crime on the assassin who had been contracted to do the job but who had taken pity on them and helped them fake Eddie's death instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie double-crossed the kind Samaritan assassin, Jim, who took pity on her and her husband and tried to fake his death rather than kill him. Jim betrayed Mr. Harney by pretending to carry out the assassination for which he was contracted, and collecting the money, without actually offing the mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story features an idea of what working as a professional assassin in contemporary America might have been like. It also compares and contrasts two self-styled hitmen, one of whom ended up administering the other a sound thrashing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie felt regret over having caused Connie the injury that landed her in a wheelchair and tried to make amends by pilfering money to get her an operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was a little murky how Connie had actually ended up in the wheelchair. First we heard that Eddie had beaten her with his belt. Later we heard that it was the result of a somewhat mutual kerfuffle during which she had accidentally fallen down the stairs. Either way: the two had been physically fighting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie was wheelchair-bound as the result of a spinal injury she suffered in a domestic dispute with her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story we heard that Eddie was, in fact, a serial philanderer and that Connie resented him for it. It is odd that they were openly affectionate with each other in light of this fact, but she did kill him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story we heard that Eddie was, in fact, a serial philanderer and that Connie resented him for it. It is odd that they were openly affectionate with each other in light of this fact, but she did kill him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim sought the assistance of a corpse peddling forensic pathologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police collected Jim and brought him to the station for questioning. Jim was interrogated by a police detective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hitman Jim was beside himself upon realizing that Connie was going to get away with pinning her husband's murder on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie shot her husband dead and remorselessly pinned the crime on Jim.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x06", "title": "Living Doll", "date": "1963-11-01", "description": "A man finds himself being actually physically threatened by his stepdaughter's new talking doll.\n\nDirected by: Richard C. Sarafian. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "evil doll", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A malevolent wind-up doll had it in for Erich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annabelle was concerned about her husband's unwillingness to accept her young daughter for a former marriage as his own child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erich resented his young stepdaughter Christie and acted cruelly toward her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erich and Annabelle Streator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erich was unable to have children and acted with hostility toward his stepdaughter because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric and Annabelle's marriage was fraught for various reasons and to the extent that the wife had seen a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annabel complained that Erich had a problem with anger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x07", "title": "The Old Man in the Cave", "date": "1963-11-08", "description": "In 1974, a former soldier and his band of scavengers cause discord for a community of atomic war survivors who are being guided by an unseen cave dweller.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Henry Slesar, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set ten years after a nuclear war when all that remains of the United States is a scattering of isolated primitive societies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows some townspeople who were struggling to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "We the survivors of a nuclear war struggle to sustain themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone ate the canned food that Mr. Goldsmith kept insisting was contaminated with strontium-90 and in the end they all died, proving Mr. Goldsmith had been right all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Goldsmith and Major French quarreled over who among them was really in charge of the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Goldsmith urged the townspeople to have faith in the old man in the cave, but they didn't and it cost them all their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a community of people who believed in the mysterious powers of a man-in-a-cave. Their beliefs were challenged by a gang of marauding soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central component was whether or not people should trust the predictions of the old man in the cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "A community of people who believed in the mysterious powers of a man-in-a-cave were contrasted with a band of more rationally minded soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the stupidity of crowds", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople disillusioned of the old-man-in-a-cave myth irrationally smashed to smithereens their only hope of salvation: a powerful computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story picks up ten years after a catastrophic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x06", "title": "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale", "date": "1963-11-08", "description": "A widow tries to convince a police officer that her neighbor has murdered her husband.\n\nDirected by: Herschel Daugherty. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Sheriff Wister as he investigates a possible murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "This is a story about nosey widow prodding the local sheriff to arrest her oddly behaving neighbor for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big reveal of the story is that the neighbors Mrs. Logan and Harry fell in love and collaborated to rid themselves of Harry's wife so that they could be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big reveal of the story is that the neighbors Mrs. Logan and Harry fell in love and collaborated to rid themselves of Harry's wife so that they could be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Wister was struggling with whether there was enough evidence to confront a very suspiciously behaving man with having murdered his own wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry took exception to his nosey neighbor, Mrs. Logan, constantly watching him out of her bedroom window. Little did anyone know that they were in cahoots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were endless complaints about Harry's rudeness. He loafed about in his back garden drinking beer (goodness gracious). He told a young boy to scram. He told of his neighbor several times. He was rude to a woman who wanted to visit his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was building a bed of nails as a surprise for his brother, who was in the habit of coming home late at night and making a commotion in the dark before turning in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy was looking for his cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Logan feigned to be disturbed by the sight of her slovenly neighbor, Harry, laying about on his lawn for three consecutive days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Harry went on a three day bender in response to his wife leaving him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Wister consulted a conspicuously smoking doctor as part of his investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bergen let it be known to Sheriff Wister that she'd be all over him, if she weren't already married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry aroused suspicions with his late night digging about in his garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting down a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry admitted to having put down his dog with rat poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Wister directed his deputy in various tasks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry claimed that his wife had walked out on him and that he expected her to file for a divorce at some point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry had murdered his wife, Margerie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a faux big reveal, Harry explained that his recent odd behavior was on account of his wife having walked out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When harry barged in through Mrs. Logan's door to tell her off for being a nosey neighbor there was an implication that her nosiness could have landed her in deep shit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Mrs. Logan's accusations about her neighbor were a product of her overactive imagination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Madmen of Mandoras (1963)", "title": "The Madmen of Mandoras", "date": "1963-11-13", "description": "World War II is over, and Nazi officials remove Adolf Hitler's living head and hide it in the fictional South American country of Mandoras, so that they can resurrect the Third Reich for the future. Fast forwarding into the 1960s, the surviving officials kidnap a scientist in an attempt to keep Hitler alive. Various intelligence agencies, aware of the evil plot, recruit secret agents to bust the Nazi officials.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057273/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head in a jar and his contingent of Nazi officers were plotting to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head in a jar and his contingent of Nazi officers were plotting to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head had been kept alive in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kathy and Suzanne were searching for their father Prof. Coleman who had been kidnapped by Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil and Kathy were a loving married couple. Suzanne and Camino fell for each other and married at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil and Kathy Day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kathy's father Prof. Coleman was kidnapped by Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Coleman invented an antidote for a new and dangerous \"G gas\" weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil Day traveled to South American country of Mandoras in an effort to rescue his father-in-law Prof. Coleman from Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hitler's doctors made an attempt to give him perpetual life in the closing days of the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathy and her younger sister Suzanne Coleman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x08", "title": "Uncle Simon", "date": "1963-11-15", "description": "The long-suffering niece of a grumpy inventor finds no peace after his passing.\n\nDirected by: Don Siegel. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara was waiting for her curmudgeonly old uncle to kick the bucket so that she could inherit his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The curmudgeonly old scientist Simon Polk built a Robby the Robot style robot that began to take on Simon's personality after Simon's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon built a robot in his basement laboratory that began to take on Simon's personality after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara endured 25 years of verbal abusive at the hands of her uncle so that she could inherit his fortune, only to to find that he'd arranged his will so that she'd have to care for an equally abusive robot version of him for the rest of her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara despised her mean uncle, and they were constantly at each other's throats, but she stayed with him so that she could inherit his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Simon thought, with cause, that Barbara was merely after his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the fact that Barbara and Uncle Simon had grown to loathe each other, and said so candidly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The curmudgeonly old scientist Simon Polk built a Robby the Robot style robot in his basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara was read Simon's will by his lawyer Mr. Schwimmer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x07", "title": "Starring the Defense", "date": "1963-11-15", "description": "A former actor defends his son on murder charges.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Pevney. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "persuasion of groups by rhetoric", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As pointedly alluded to in the title, Miles and Ed had an argument about whether Miles mustering his divine acting abilities and fatherly faith in his son to deliver an impassioned appeal could sway the jury despite the fact that there was not a shred of supporting evidence favoring their case. After Miles made his (rather theatrical) closing remarks it was revealed that he had lifted it verbatim from an old movie, and the ethics of doing so was explicitly discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story centered on the actor turned lawyer Miles Crawford defending his son on a murder charge in a court of law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story centered on the former actor Miles Crawford defending his son, Tod, on a murder charge in a court of law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tod was tried for and ultimately found guilty of murder over having dispatched a friend/rival in a knife fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a lawyer in his efforts to influence a jury to rule in the favor of his client, who also happen to be his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was beating himself up because he thought his son Tod's now delinquent behavior was down to Miles not spending enough time with him when they were younger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was remorseful over having been too busy studying to become a lawyer to properly raise his son, Tod. He blamed him self for Tod's delinquency, and tried to take a step toward mending things by representing his son in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles confided in his old friend Sam that it was his own fault that Tod had turned out as he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the aftermath of Tod killing his frenemy Jules, stemming from their rivalry over Babs Riordan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pointedly ended with Miles swaying the judge into taking mercy on Tod by sparing him the death penalty. The judge instead sentenced Tod to life in prison with the possibility of parole, citing that Tod might still become a valuable member of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is the former movie star Miles Crawford exploiting of his supreme acting ability to sway the jury in his son's murder trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tod had been provoked into a knife fight with a \"friend\" whom he had a somewhat complicated relationship with. Tod ended up killing the friend and was charged with first degree murder. The story discusses whether and to what extent Tod perhaps ought to be charged with, for example, second degree murder, manslaughter, or let off on self-defense instead. In light of the fact, as a witness told it, that he did not instigate the fight it might indeed seem rather harsh to the viewer to convict him of premeditated murder. The judge seemed to agree that there were plenty of mitigating circumstances, in the end, even though he upheld the guilty verdict delivered by the jury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles' maid announced the presence of his old friend, Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam paid his old friend, Miles, an evening visit. They conversed and played gin rummy until things took a serious turn when Miles' son returned home in a highly distressed state of mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles got the better of Sam at gin rummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops collected Tod for questioning in the stabbing death of his friend and rival, Jules. Tod was soon after charged with first-degree murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high-profile defense attorney Ed Rutherford was less than impressed with his young daughter Ruthie's performance as his secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the movie that was shown to the judge, the condemned man lost his nerve on the way to the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Presumably swayed by the dramatic scene of a man's execution as shown in a movie, the judge spared Tod the death penalty, choosing instead to sentence him to life in prison with the possibility of parole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the movie that was shown to the judge, a man of the cloth led the condemned man's walk to the death chamber.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x09", "title": "Probe 7, Over and Out", "date": "1963-11-29", "description": "An astronaut crash-lands on a distant planet and learns that his own planet has been destroyed by nuclear war. He soon discovers that he is not alone on this new world when he meets a humanoid alien survivor from a runaway planet.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that Adam and Eve were really space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Colonel Adam Cook and Eve Norda found themselves stranded with minimal provisions on a planet that was ultimately revealed to be Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Adam and Eve creation myth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that Adam and Eve were really space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general commented on Adam's loneliness. Adam commented on loneliness and companionship when he spoke to Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Eve hit him, Adam reflected on how humans invariably turned to violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam commented on how terrible it would be to be all alone, and later about how he and Eve had only each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam's civilization was destroyed in a great war. Colonel Cook received communications about a catastrophic war that was about to transpire on his home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Cook crash-landed his one man rocket on a remote planet 4.3 light years from his home sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Colonel Cook's crash-landed rocketship nestled in amongst some local vegetation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "start-over utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Larrabee expressed his desire that Colonel Adam Cook start a new society free from hatred, and so Adam did with a woman named Eve on a remote planet called Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam laboriously interrogated Eve thought they spoke completely different languages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Unspecified WMDs were clearly implied in the scale and suddenness with which the war started and reached its conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x08", "title": "The Cadaver", "date": "1963-11-29", "description": "A medical undergraduate tries to get his roommate to stop drinking by convincing him that he killed a girl.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Doc Carrol trying to teach his out-of-control roommate Skip Baxter a lesson by planting a cadaver in their room, but the plan backfired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skip Baxter overindulged in the giggle juice to an insane degree. He often did often did not remember events from the night before, like when he dunked a girl in the shower or when he was set up with the presumed murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Carroll was berated by the professor after he scared the bejesus out of the female students by posing as a cadaver and \"coming to life\" in the middle of an anatomy class. He later tried to put his talents in this same area to a more philanthropic use when he staged a murder in order to make his roommate give up the alcohol said roommate was badly abusing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot tuns on a passed out drunk Skip being tricked by his roommate, Terry, into thinking that he'd murdered a waitress in a drunken rage. When the truth finally came to light, Skip lost his mind and legitimately murdered Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skip woke up to discover that he'd apparently murdered a waitress in a drunken rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown an idea of what kind of antics went down in a 1960s-era dormitory for male medical students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though arguably taken a few steps too far, it seems a point of the story was that Doc Carrol having played around with cadavers to fool people once too many times finally ended up a cadaver himself because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the closing sketch, Alfred Hitchcock was disappeared behind a wall of ivy thorough the designs of his dastardly, mustachioed brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip made a drunken ass of himself on at least two occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip complained of having a terrible hangover after waking up from a night of binge drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "famine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fister rambled about being depressed by reports of famine in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip's patience was sorely tested by Mrs. Fister's endless rambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip was cut from the football team for missing too many classes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fister fondly reminisced about her late husband and, in particular, how he'd tinker in the garage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x10", "title": "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms", "date": "1963-12-06", "description": "Three National Guardsmen exploring the site of Custer's Last Stand wind up getting involved in the actual battle.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland Jr. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Three contemporary soldiers inexplicably found themselves transported back to the time and place of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed three tank soldiers as they participated in a routine war games exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three contemporary soldiers inexplicably found themselves in the middle of the battle commonly known as Custer's Last Stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rest of the platoon, and the Captain Dennet in particular didn't believe the soldiers who said they met historical characters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw three contemporary soldiers take up arms against the combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Also the three soldiers were on a wargame exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Dennet gave three soldiers under his charge hell for returning late from a wargame exercise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x09", "title": "The Dividing Wall", "date": "1963-12-06", "description": "A break-in gang gets exposed to a radioactive capsule.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Joel Murcott (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry struggled with his fear of being in confined spaces, which stemmed from the time he spent in solitary confinement at the penitentiary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry and Carol's burgeoning love ended badly when Terry was apprehended by the authorities on a very serious charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on a trio of ex-cons opening a container of radioactive cobalt that they'd inadvertently stolen. The radiation from the exposed cobalt posed a danger to the local community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ex-convict Fred Kruger masterminded a daring burglary of an industrial warehouse. Little did he and his two accomplices know that the purloined safe contained a sample of radioactive cobalt-60 in addition to the cash they coveted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI and local authorities were on the tail of Fred and his accomplices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred betrayed his two partners in crime, Terry and Al, each in turn because his respective weakness threatened to give the game away to the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry almost gave the game away to the police because he was so concerned both for his love interest, Carol, and for other innocent bystanders (in particular a group of children that would be passing nearby) who risked being exposed to deadly radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al freaked out and went to the hospital after sticking his finger into a highly radioactive cobalt container. Carol and her father, Otto, felt under the weather because of radiation from the cobalt-60, which, unbeknownst to them, sit exposed in the building next door. Carol's pet bird died from the cobalt-60 radiation. There were lots of concerns about the effects the radiation would have on the local community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock, sitting in a bank vault surrounded by bags of money with dollar signs on them, announced his new hobby to the viewers: coin collecting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Jimmy high tailed it from the local store without having paid for the monster mask he was wearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry spoke bitterly of his upbringing in an orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry spoke of how he'd once stolen a school bus, and later multiple cars. Little Jimmy high tailed it from the local store without having paid for the monster mask he was wearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto Brandt ran a corner store together with his daughter, Carol Brandt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol ashamedly told her new love interest Terry that she was a divorcee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting a child up for adoption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol ashamedly told her new love interest Terry, a former orphan, that she'd given up a baby for adoption back when she was a teenager. Terry was outraged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred shot his accomplice dead in cold blood at the hospital entrance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-cons Terry and Fred both spoke of some unpleasant aspects of being in prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x11", "title": "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain", "date": "1963-12-13", "description": "An old man married to a younger self-absorbed woman takes an untested youth serum.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Lou Holz, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harmon lamented that he couldn't keep pace with his young, vivacious wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harmon and Flora Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harmon (an elderly man) couldn't keep up with his young and carefree wife Flora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rejuvenation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond injected old Harmon with an experimental youth serum that he'd developed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harmon confided in Raymond about how he dearly loved his wife Flora, but she utterly resented him, and had only married him for his money in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly man Harmon was unhappily married to a beautiful woman forty years his junior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond chastised his older brother Harmon for having married Flora, before agreeing to inject him with an experimental youth serum he'd been developing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked wife stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flora behaved cruelly toward her elderly, but loving husband Harmond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flora behaved like a spoiled brat and couldn't wait for her rich old husband to die. Instead the husband took a youth serum and became a baby which Flora had to nurse - with the prospect of now growing older with a much younger husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly man Harmon regressed to become a toddler after being injected with an experimental youth serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young, vivacious Flora found life with her elderly husband to be \"terribly dull\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Raymond Gordon reluctantly injected Harmon with an experimental youth serum that he'd previously tested on animals with mixed results.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harmon suggested that he would jump from his balcony rather than lose Flora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harmon suggested that he would jump from his balcony rather than lose Flora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond had a tense exchange with his brother's ungrateful wife Flora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly man Harmon temporarily regained his adulthood after being injected with an experimental youth serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond tried to convince Harmond that taking the risky serum was a bad idea but the latter would have none of it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x10", "title": "Goodbye, George", "date": "1963-12-13", "description": "A movie actress is visited by her ex-convict husband, whom she had assumed was dead.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: William Fay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, Lana decided to part ways from her first husband, George, irrevocably by bashing his brains in with an award statuette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Lana. Later Harry and Lana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana and Harry went on a honeymoon in Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry hatched an elaborate plot to dispose of the body of his new bride's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana was a movie star and much of the story took place at an awards ceremony after party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana and Harry were hounded by a gossip columnist named Haila French.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana and Harry had gone through much hardship and driven for days in order to shake off any pursuit and reach Harry's secluded cabin with the corpse, only to find that the snoops were already there and had staged a surprise party because, through an ironic twist of fate, their plans had been leaked somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was Lana's agent as well as her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana and Harry were well known to be an item by Hollywood insiders. They later tied the knot after a hasty engagement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana and Harry were in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "The star actress Lana was being hounded a gossip columnist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock contended that the folk music of certain mountaineers is \"uncontaminated by sordid commercialism\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock contended that the folk music of certain mountaineers is \"uncontaminated by sordid commercialism\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The actress Lana played a habit clad nun in the opening scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The beautiful actress Lana, in the role of a pious nun, beseeched the Lord to make her ugly so long as it would help her to somehow better serve him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lana and Harry were bothered by a dutiful highway patrolman to their chagrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George mentioned that he was not interested in getting a divorce and rather more so in the legal nicety called \"community property\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was notably avaricious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When her estranged husband, George, returned and tried to make a move on her, Lana objected by bashing his head in with an award statuette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lana and Harry briefly deliberated whether they should call the police and explain what had happened, even though it would ruin Lana's career and fortune. They quickly decided in favor of remaining rich instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry asked for Lana's hand in marriage as part of an elaborate plot to dispose of her estranged husband's dead body. She accepted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The movie star Lana falsely presumed that her estranged husband, George, had come out of the woodwork to blackmail her, and was surprised to discover that he wanted them to have a future together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George spoke of his past involvement in a bank robbery in Newark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lana and Harry were showered with handfuls of rice after they had hastily signed the marriage papers at the city office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was issued a speeding ticket.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x12", "title": "Ninety Years Without Slumbering", "date": "1963-12-20", "description": "An old man believes he will die the moment his grandfather clock stops ticking.\n\nDirected by: Roger Kay. Story by: George Clayton Johnson, Richard De Roy.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Forstmann was obsessed with keeping his grandfather clock ticking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Forstmann's pregnant granddaughter Marnie worried that he was too much absorbed in keeping his grandfather clock in fine working order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug and Marnie Kirk were concerned that Marnie's grandfather was losing his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Mr. Forstmann was in the twilight of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marnie and her husband Doug were struggling to figure out what to do about her eccentric grandfather who they thought might be losing his mind. This was problematic in no small part because he was living in their home, and they were expecting a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an imaginary reliance", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Mr. Forstmann learned that his life wasn't tied to his grandfather clock's ticking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Forstmann mistaken believed that his very life was tied to the ticking of a grandfather clock, and that he would die should it ever stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie and Doug were expecting a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalizing a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug and Marnie reluctantly entertained the possibility that Marnie's grandfather might need to be committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Forstmann was pressured into visiting a psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie chatted about her pregnancy with her neighbor Carol.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x11", "title": "How to Get Rid of Your Wife", "date": "1963-12-20", "description": "A gentleman and his wife each plot the other's murder.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Robert Gould.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, the story concerns spouse murder albeit in a more than usually confounded way: Gerald convinced his disagreeable wife, Edith, that he was planning to murder her. But this was all a ruse to provoke her into making an attempt on his own life under circumstances that would see her imprisoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith nagged Gerald to an insane degree. One neighbor said Edith was liable to drive Gerald to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith was an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterized by scolding, nagging, and aggression to a notable degree. Many of her neighbors testified, more or less, to that effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rather than allowing him to leave in the morning, Edith poisoned Gerald's hot cocoa and made out that he had attempted to kill himself. One neighbor said Edith was liable to drive Gerald to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald and Edith Swinney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem the final drop that drove Edith to murder, was the revelation that Gerald had resolved to up and leave her in the morning no matter what she said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Years of marriage presumably left Gerald and Edith bitter and resentful toward one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald and Edith's marriage was in shambles. Gerald, a mild-mannered man, wanted out but his cartoonishly overbearing wife refused to grant him a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith laced Gerald's hot cocoa with a lethal dose of rat poison. Little did she know that he was one step ahead of her, and dumped the drink in a trophy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith blankly refused to let Gerald have a divorce and she made it clear that she knew her rights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald almost had it made, in the end, when he was confronted by an unattractive woman from whom he bought the rats with which he had tricked his ex-wife. The rat peddler blackmailed him into starting a relationship with her, we gather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith callously disposed of Gerald's fishing equipment, containing flies that he'd spent hours tying, without his permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald tricked Edith into believing he was involved with an area showgirl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police sergeant arrived on the scene of Gerald's apparent suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene of Edith's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A newly single Gerald coyly asked out an area showgirl to dinner, and she accepted. Little did he know that he was about to be blackmailed by the unattractive, rat peddling lady into having a relationship with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blackmailing, rat peddling lady asserted to Gerald that he was as lonely as she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith's neighbors insisted she was reading too much into Gerald's recent actions, which included the digging of a fish pond in the exact dimensions of a grave, and a purchase of acid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The neighbors were bystanders and important witnesses in the drama and hijinks orchestrated by Gerald to embarrass Edith.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Atragon (1963)", "title": "Atragon", "date": "1963-12-22", "description": "The Mu Empire of legend makes a bid for world domination.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atragon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lost continent of Mu", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legendary empire of the lost continent of Mu threatened to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legendary empire of the lost continent of Mu threatened to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Hachiro Jinguji and Makoto Jinguji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a super high-tech underwater battleship, called the Atragon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Mu lived deep underground beneath the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The defeat of the Japanese Empire in World War II was a real blow to Captain Hachiro Jinguji's pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Makoto Jinguji, Susumu Hatanaka, and a few others were taken captive by the people of Mu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A giant dragon-like creature, called Manda, attacked the Atragon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A giant dragon-like creature, called Manda, attacked the Atragon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atragon battleship could fly as well as dive in the sea, and bore into the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atragon battleship could bore into the Earth as well as fly, and dive in the sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x13", "title": "Ring-a-Ding Girl", "date": "1963-12-27", "description": "A movie star receives a ring from her fan club that draws her back to her home town, where she offers to do a one-woman show to stop plans for a town picnic.\n\nDirected by: Alan Crosland, Jr. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around the Hollywood starlet Bunny making a surprise visit to her sleepy hometown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hildy was visited her celebrity sister Bunny and the pair discussed about things past and present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bunny came into possession of a ring which granted her visions of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bunny was, perhaps excessively, proud of having made it in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bunny's magic ring told her of an impending plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the Bunny we had been looking at was some sort of spirit or projection - the details were left deliberately ambiguous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hildy and her adolescent son Bud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bud welcomed his celebrity aunt Bunny with open arms upon Bunny's surprise visit to her hometown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Floyd pronounced Bunny to be exhausted and wrote her up a prescription.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bunny's excuse for wanting the town picnic postponed was that she would get too much attention from strangers to be able to socialize with her old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bunny was accused of expecting the whole town to rearrange its plans on her whim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Floyd interpreted Bunny's request to postpone the town picnic on her account to be a sign that she'd been spoiled by her Hollywood lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bunny confided in Bud that she'd left their sleepy hometown out of a desire to fulfill her potential in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bunny didn't even bother to tell the townspeople of her foreknowledge that an airplane was going to crash into their town picnic, presumably because she just assumed that nobody would believe her story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Marnie (1964)", "title": "Marnie", "date": "1964", "description": "Marnie is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay by Jay Presson Allen was based on the 1961 novel of the same name by writer Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Marnie had a screw loose owing to a traumatic experience in her youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marnie became hysterical for various reasons. The color red or thunder might set her off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Marnie fell in love, or at lest Mark fell in love with Marnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Marnie tied the knot after he blackmailed her a bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice and Marnie's relationship were central to the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marnie had skillfully performed several acts of grand larceny by infiltrating offices of some high flying companies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Due to a traumatic experience in her youth, Marnie had a deep rooted aversion to all men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rutland and Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rutland and Marnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie had as a child killed a man whom her mother was fighting because the mother thought (incorrectly, as it were) that he was molesting Marnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie had as a child killed a man whom her mother was fighting because the mother thought (incorrectly, as it were) that he was molesting Marnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is revealed that Marnie's mother had been a prostitute servicing sailors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark essentially blackmailed Marnie into marrying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie was jealous of the affections her mother displayed for a young neighboring girl.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Atomic Rulers (1964)", "title": "Atomic Rulers", "date": "1964", "description": "A film edited together for American television from films #1 and #2 of the 1957 Japanese serial film series Super Giant. The story involves the superhero Starman who is sent by the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from the nuclear holocaust threatened by the country of Metropol.", "collections": [ "Collection: Super Giant" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Rulers_of_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The superhero Starman was sent from the Emerald planet to protect Earth from a nuclear attack by the country of Metropol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The superhero Starman was sent from the Emerald planet to protect Earth from a nuclear attack by the country of Metropol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emerald planet people sent Starman to Earth to prevent humans from having a nuclear war, because they worried the fallout would contaminate the atmosphere of their own planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the opening narration that radiation from ongoing nuclear tests was a threat to the people of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman used a watch-like gizmo, called a globe meter, that enabled him to communicate in any language spoken on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman could fly around much like Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of orphans helped Starman to defeat the bad guys.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack from Space (1964)", "title": "Attack from Space", "date": "1964", "description": "A film edited together for American television from films #5 and #6 of the 1957 Japanese serial film series Super Giant. The superhero Starman is sent by the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy. The Sapphireans (or \"Spherions\") kidnap Dr. Yamanaka and force him to use his spaceship against the Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Super Giant" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Starman was sent from the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emerald planet people sent Starman to Earth to protect Earth from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy plotted to destroy the Earth using nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman used a watch-like gizmo, called a globe meter, that enabled him to communicate in any language spoken on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman could fly around much like Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator explained that the Sapphireans were carrying radioactive materials in their spaceship that posed an imminent danger to everyone on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kids helped Starman to defeat the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman blew up an enemy space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yamanaka built a futuristic looking rocket ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yamanaka and his daughter were taken captive by the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yamanaka and his daughter were taken captive by the bad guys.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Evil Brain from Outer Space (1964)", "title": "Evil Brain from Outer Space", "date": "1964", "description": "A film edited together for American television from films #7, #8 and #9 of the 1957/1958 Japanese Super Giant serial film series. The film concerns Starman's efforts to save the Earth from the followers of Balazar, an evil genius from the planet Zemar whose prodigiously overdeveloped brain has been preserved after his own assassination.", "collections": [ "Collection: Super Giant" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Brain_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Balazar wished to rule the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emerald planet people sent Starman to Earth to save the Earth from the followers of Balazar, an evil genius from the planet Zemar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Balazar was a disembodied brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The followers of Balazer plotted to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Balazar plotted to destroy the Earth using nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman used a watch-like gizmo, called a globe meter, that enabled him to communicate in any language spoken on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Balazar's followers commanded a vast army of mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kids helped Starman to defeat the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Balazar's followers spread germs around the world to kill people off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invaders from Space (1964)", "title": "Invaders from Space", "date": "1964", "description": "A film edited together for American television from films #3 and #4 of the 1957 Japanese serial film series Super Giant. The story involves the superhero Starman who is sent by the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from the Salamander Men of the planet Kulimon in the Moffit galaxy who plan to destroy Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Super Giant" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invaders_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Starman was sent by the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from the Salamander Men of the planet Kulimon in the Moffit galaxy who planed to conquer Earth using a variety of attacks, from a virus, to very loud noise, to changing the orbit of the planet itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Starman came to Earth from the Emerald Planet. Also there were Salamander Men from another galaxy scurrying about on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman used a watch-like gizmo, called a globe meter, that enabled him to communicate in any language spoken on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emerald Planet people worried that fallout from a nuclear attack on Earth would contaminate their own world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Salamander Men of the planet Kulimon in the Moffit galaxy plotted to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starman could fly around much like Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Asayama and Noriko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kids helped Starman to defeat the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "changing the orbit of a planet around its star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kulimonians attempted to change the orbit of Earth and also stop the Earth's rotation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kulimonians zipped around in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It Happened Here (1964)", "title": "It Happened Here", "date": "1964", "description": "It Happened Here shows an alternative history where the United Kingdom has been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. The plot follows the experiences of an Irish nurse working in England, who encounters people who believe collaboration with the invaders is for the best whilst others are involved in the resistance movement against the occupiers and their local collaborators.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_Here" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film showed an alternative history where the United Kingdom has been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what life was like in Nazi occupied Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was extreme racism against Jews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nazis conquered Britain and imposed a fascist form of government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nazis and their collaborators were committing genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film showed an alternative history where the United Kingdom has been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany shortly after Dunkirk in 1940.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nazi government used communism as a boogey man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nazi government used communism as a boogey man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x14", "title": "You Drive", "date": "1964-01-03", "description": "A hit-and-run driver is haunted by his car after he runs into a paperboy.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This was a typical story about someone who caused a sever accident and ran from the law in panic - as it happens the victim did die in the end but thinking this theme would apply even if he had recovered from his critical condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver ran into a paper boy while he was nervous and distracted at the wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver and Lilian Pope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inanimate object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver's Ford Fairlane Club Sedan started behaving with a sense of agency after Oliver slammed into a young boy without stopping while at it's wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "After causing a fatal car accident, Oliver's car began to act with a will of its own and haunted Ollie until he was scared enough to confess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Popes were perplexed and at a loss to explain why their car started acting with a will of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea that Pete was \"bucking\" for Oliver's position of office manager was causing Oliver to fret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete was pulled over by a motorcycle cop and arrested for a hit-and-run that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver thought Pete was maneuvering to usurp his position.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x12", "title": "Three Wives Too Many", "date": "1964-01-03", "description": "A woman learns that her husband has three other wives.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Kenneth Fearing (short story), Arthur A. Ross (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bigamy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As the title alludes to, this was a story about a man who saw fit to get hitched (without getting unhitched) three times more than the legal limit. The story dealt with the consequences of his decision once one of his four wives discovered the truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond married four different women for the stated reason of both love and money. It was carefully noted that the women in question were worth between $18,000-$40,000 each at the time, and that Raymond needed this money to support his gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bigamist Raymond Brown and his four wives (Bernice, Lucille, Marion, and an unnamed spouse).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond dealt with two different police detectives that investigated the respective murders of two of his wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion and Raymond variously spoke about love and its importance. The other wives also explained that they loved Raymond more or less unreservedly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion killed Raymond's other wives, by means of cyanide in the hooch, because she wanted him to herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Even when she found out that she herself was not Raymond's first wife, and that she was therefore a husband-stealer and a hypocrite, Marion did not let up. She murdered Raymond's other wives because she could not stand to share him, nor to loose him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Marion did in her bigamist husband's other wives in part to get back at him for his treachery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Bernice, Lucille, and Marion were confronted with the revelation that their seemingly loving, caring, and faithful husband Gerald was, in fact, a remorseless, gold digging bigamist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Gerald's three different wives longed to spend more time together with him because he spent so much time in other cities on supposed \"business trips\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Raymond lost three of his four wives, he could no longer sustain his gambling habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond, albeit innocent, came under suspicion for having offed one or two of his many wives and was asked not to skip town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion laced two of Raymond's other wives drinks with cyanide and made their resulting deaths look like suicides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raymond was up in arms of the apparent suicides of his wives, Janice, Lucille, and an unnamed third wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion remarked something to the effect that Raymond sought out new wives because she was turning gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice died of loneliness according to her sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion remarked about how the money Raymond was taking in from each new wife rose with \"the inflation\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Marion blackmailed Gerald into being faithful to her. If Gerald betrayed her, then she'd see to it that he get exposed as a bigamist and possibly take the rap for poisoning his three other wives.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x15", "title": "The Long Morrow", "date": "1964-01-10", "description": "In 1987, an astronaut falls in love with a woman before going on a 40-year mission into space.\n\nDirected by: Robert Florey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The young lovers Douglas and Sandra did not wish for Douglas' upcoming 40 mission into space in a state of suspended animation to come between them. So unbeknownst to Sandra, Douglas had voluntarily disabled his suspended animation system six months into his journey, while, on the other hand, Sandra had placed herself into a state of suspended animation. As a result, when Douglas and Sandra were reunited, Douglas was an old man, and Sandra a young woman. Additionally: Advances in technology had enabled humans to overtake Douglas and survey the planet in half the time - and the planet was devoid of life at that - so his ordeal and sacrifice was in the end meaningless three times over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Douglas Stansfield was sent on a pioneering mission to explore a planetary system roughly 141 light-years from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas was supposed to have been put into stasis for the better part of his 40 year mission to another star system, but he turned it off six months into the flight, so that he'd physically aged the full 40 years by the time he returned to Earth. Sandra put herself into stasis for a period of 40 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bixler was a scientist who recruited and coached Douglas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and Sandra fell madly in love but fate intervened to wreck their prospects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas sacrificed his youth in order to be the same age as his love Sandra when he came back from his 40 year mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas and Sandra fell passionately in love with each other withing hours of having met for the firs time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas blasted off from Earth in a one-man rocketship that was designed so that he would spend the better part of his 40 year mission in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tedium of Douglas spending 40 years awake and alone was described as \"inconceivable loneliness\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas was sent to survey a planet roughly 141 light years from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas and Sandra planned to keep up their relationship during his 40 year voyage into space, but things went awry when radio contact with his ship was lost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x13", "title": "The Magic Shop", "date": "1964-01-10", "description": "A boy gains the power of mind over matter.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: H.G. Wells (story), John Collier (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concluded with Tony holding his parents in thralldom and terror, using his newly acquired magical powers. He had terrorized the rest of the neighborhood as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tony gained magic powers and used them to garner mischief in the neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven and Tony. Tony's father took him to the magic shop mentioned in the title, and lost him there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Grainger and Tony. Tony's mother admonished him for terrorizing the neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Grainger and Mrs. Grainger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony was a rather vengeful boy who used his power out of spite. He avenged himself on a police officer that told him off. He soaked a girl that upset him by turning on a sprinkler by magic. He burned down a neighbor's house because he had killed Tony's dog (who was actually his magician mentor). He caused a laceration on his father's cheek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youngster Tony gained magic powers and used them to garner mischief in the neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was taken away by a medic in an ambulance. Tony was taken to see a child psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A beat cop admonished Tony for for jaywalking. Tony later used his magic powers to get his own back by giving the officer acute appendicitis. The Grainger parents reported their boy was missing to a police detective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony used a Voodoo kind of doll and a long needle to give an annoying police officer acute appendicitis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony got a pet pooch that he named Dulong after the proprietor of the magic shop, to his parents' dismay. Little did they know it actually was Mr. Dulong in magic disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Grainger parents had to apologize profusely to gentle Mr. Adams, a neighbor whom Tony's dog bit on two different occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony went missing for a span of nearly 24 hours, leaving his parents most distressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony used his newfound psychic powers to burn Mr. Adams' house to the ground to avenge Mr. Adams' killing of his dog. Mr. Adams perished in the blaze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony used his newfound psychic powers to burn Mr. Adams' house to the ground to avenge Mr. Adams' killing of his dog. Mr. Adams perished in the blaze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the Granger parents continuing to life their lives, but now in mortal terror of their son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The magic shop was full of magic objects. There was a mirror in which children looked funny but which did not affect adults. Snake toys that came alive one moment. A door that excluded those that did not have \"the gift\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x16", "title": "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross", "date": "1964-01-17", "description": "A suitor discovers he can trade his physical assets for those of others.\n\nDirected by: Don Siegel. Story by: Henry Slesar, Jerry McNeely.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story turns on the brash 26-year-old upstart Sal trying to improve his character and social standing after Mr. Maitland said he wasn't good enough to marry his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sal discovered that he had the ability to trade personality traits and physical conditions with other people. For example, he exchanged his broken hand for another man's cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Maitland disapproved of his daughter Leah marrying the young upstart Sal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sal doggedly pursued Leah's hand in marriage even after she broke off their relationship, ultimately winning her over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "After giving Mr. Maitland $100,000 in exchange for his sense of compassion, Sal became an extraordinarily sensitive man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hard-hearted young man Sal made a big mistake by giving old Mr. Maitland a large sum of money in exchange for his highly cultivated sense of compassion. For Sal was shot dead the next day by a now callous Mr. Maitland when the young man stopped by to apologize for what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sal, while ambitious, was stuck in a go nowhere job and had little hopes of achieve his goals in life until such time as he discovered that he had a most unique ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sal wouldn't take no for an answer when Leah put her foot down and ended their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Maitland got about his house in a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more emotionally sophisticated person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hard-hearted young man Sal gave old Mr. Maitland a large sum of money in exchange for his highly cultivated sense of compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man with the cough regretted trading his affliction for Sal's hand injury.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x17", "title": "Number 12 Looks Just Like You", "date": "1964-01-24", "description": "In a future society, a young woman resists having the surgery that her society requires to make everyone beautiful and identical.\n\nDirected by: Abner Biberman. Story by: Charles Beaumont and John Tomerlin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conformist dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The society in this story made everybody the same by making everyone very physically attractive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marilyn suspected that despite not being legally required, the Transformation was not optional, and was being maintained by the leaders of society to ensure conformity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana was worried about her nineteen-year-old daughter Marilyn because she was reluctant undergo an appearance altering surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The society featured in this story exhibited several totalitarian elements: some literary classics had been banned, it was important that everyone looked the same, and a form pf psychological coercion was used to manipulate youths into undergoing appearance altering surgeries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where people had their bodies surgically altered to look identical to one out of a set of physically attractive models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone wanted to be beautiful except for Marilyn who was content to look average.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marilyn remarked that without ugliness there would be no beauty. Marilyn explained to Dr. Sigmund that Dostoevsky was ugly but wrote of beauty, and her father had said that if everyone is beautiful then no one is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marilyn explained her love for her late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marilyn explained many times how her relationship with her father had been.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Rick failed to persuade Marylin to undergo an appearance altering surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marilyn was sent to have a consultation with Dr. Rex when it became apparent that she did not wish to undergo an appearance altering surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a future where people lived to be about twice as long as people did at the time the story was released.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylin's friend Val tried to persuade Marilyn to follow her lead and undergo an appearance altering surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marilyn revealed that her father had taken his own life our of regret for having gone through with an appearance altering surgery that left him beautiful, but at the same time looking the same as everyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a drug called \"instant smile\" which worked as a cure for philosophical brooding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x14", "title": "Beyond the Sea of Death", "date": "1964-01-24", "description": "An heiress ends her marriage to a fortune hunter.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Miriam Allen DeFord (short story), William D. Gordon and Alfred Hayes (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A theme alluded to in the title: Grace was devastated after her beloved fiancé Keith apparently died in a mining accident. She descended into madness and ended up shooting her loyal servant dead rather than face the truth that her Keith was a conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keith and Dr. Shankara, a mystic, tried to swindle the heiress Grace out of her fortune. Keith seduced and married Grace by convincing her he was not after her fortune and that they would move to Bolivia together. Then he faked his own death. In despair, she almost gave her entire fortune to the mystic so that she could have a few supernatural moments with Keith's ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Keith was a conman who was only interested in the heiress Grace for her vast fortune. He had a convoluted plot to convince her that he was not a gold digger, then have his partner scam her out of her fortune by taking advantage of her grief. Grace's ex-husband, her chauffeur, had proven himself to be a gold digger, Grace explained. Divorcing him had cost $100,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heiress Grace found the love of her life in Keith, but was devastated when confronted with the inconvenient truth that he was nothing but a fortune hunting conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace and Keith became engaged following a short courtship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace turned to Dr. Shankara, a mystic, in an effort to contact her apparently deceased fiancé Keith from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly servant woman Minnie was like a mother to the heiress Grace. Grace briefly interacted with her butler, Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the heiress Grace realizing that the love of her life, Keith, was nothing but a fortune hunter who'd been conning her all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pointedly culminates with Grace shooting her trusted servant dead, Minnie, for shattering her illusion about the fidelity of her husband's love. Minnie had gone and done some investigation to uncover the elaborate con that Keith had perpetrated. Had she left things well enough alone, Grace would have lost all her money, but lived in blissful ignorance that the love of her life was nothing but a money grubbing conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace point blank refused to believe the truth about her beloved Keith even when she was shown evidence by the police that he was a crook. Deranged, she went so far as to shoot her trusted servant dead because she blamed her for shattering her cherished delusions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace was afraid of entering into relationships because she had been screwed over by her ex-husband. Therefore she went through pains to masquerade as a poor girl even though she was immensely rich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace and Keith engaged in a brief courtship prior to Keith popping the question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith read aloud the opening line from Christina Rosetti's narrative poem A Ballad Of Boding: \"There are sleeping dreams and waking dreams; What seems is not always as it seems\". He later read the line \"Beyond the sea of death love lies For ever\" from the Rosetti's poem One Day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The heiress Grace learned some of the ins-and-outs of the common man's sport from Keith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Grace has paid out $100,000 in a divorce settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith talked the talk about wanting to make it big in forestry and possibly mining.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vow of poverty, a notable feature of some major religions, was taken by Dr. Shankara, or so Grace was led to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police lieutenant broke the news to Grace that her presumed dead fiancé, Keith, was nothing but a scoundrel and a fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace shot her trusted servant Minne dead in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr Strangelove (1964)", "title": "Dr. Strangelove", "date": "1964-01-29", "description": "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, more commonly known simply as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 political satire black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. The film was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, stars Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens. Production took place in the United Kingdom. The film is loosely based on Peter George's thriller novel Red Alert (1958).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered on the use of atomic bombs during the cold war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various people involved had to struggle with the decision of whether to follow apparent orders and procedures even though it would likely lead to an accidental nuclear war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the implication of the story was evidently that a nuclear war of civilization destroying magnitude would ensue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "though not discussed as such, the story clearly featured what we now describe as the Cold War", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military retaliation to discourage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Plan R was a retaliation plan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were many patriotic American anti-communists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Russophobic generals can pretty much be blamed for the nuclear holocaust that was about the begin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "the two Presidents had to face this dilemma; Mandrake was confronted by an officer who thought he was a \"prevert\" but who eventually had to trust Mandrake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Strangelove.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the generals advocated a first strike in order to decimate the Russian ability to retaliate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the besieged general thought that fluoridation of water was a communist plot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Strangelove had a black gloved hand that, awkwardly, made Nazi salutes and tried to strangle him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Strangelove seemed to convince the primarily male audience that survival in mines for 100 years would not be so bad, when he pointed out that they'd have to select about ten of the most attractive females available for every one man to service sexually", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x18", "title": "Black Leather Jackets", "date": "1964-01-31", "description": "Three motorcycle-riding young men are actually part of an alien invasion force. One of them falls for a local teenage girl.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An alien race plotted to prepare Earth for colonization by secretly poisoning all humans and their livestock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three aliens, disguised as human males wearing leather jackets, were sent to Earth to contaminate a city's water reservoirs with a deadly bacteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three aliens, disguised as human males wearing leather jackets, were sent to Earth to contaminate a city's water reservoirs with a deadly bacteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens in general seemed incapable of understanding human emotions, perhaps suggesting that they had fundamentally different kinds of brains. In particular, they misinterpreted that humans were able to love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott and Ellen fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stuart and Martha Ellis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stuart was anxious about his daughter Ellen having taken a liking to the beatnik next door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen had some passing interactions with her mother, Martha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stuart disapproved of his teenage daughter running around with the leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding beatnik Scott.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen was instantly attracted to a black leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding stranger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens could manipulate things at a distance using their minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens manipulated Stuart's mind to make him leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "see-anywhere device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We briefly saw a screen that was used to spy on Scott wherever he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Scott when he confessed to involved in an alien plot to exterminate the human race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x15", "title": "Night Caller", "date": "1964-01-31", "description": "A woman is driven to madness by a young man and a series of intimidating phone calls.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Robert Westerby (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Marsha Fowler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy couldn't stand idly by and let Marcia destroy the lives of her husband and young stepson with her adulterous lifestyle. He saw in her and Stevie, himself and his stepmother, whom he blamed for whatever had gone wrong in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia was being terrorized by a man directing obscene phone calls at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a stalker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia was being terrorized by a man directing obscene phone calls at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha and Stevie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Stevie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy's stepmother neglected him as a boy by choosing adultery over mothering him. Roy, who came to learn that Marcia was having an affair, sympathized with Stevie and ultimately admonished Marcia for her neglecting the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy was upset about the way Marcia treated her step-son, Stevie, because he recognized in their situation that of his own earlier childhood, which we understand was none too happy. Roy and Stevie conversed briefly about how they both had \"moved around a lot\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of a Hittite disarmament pact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that he'd been challenged to a duel by the show's sponsor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcia caught Roy peeping on her sunbathing in her backyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's next door neighbor Luck stopped by unannounced with a gift of cookies and news that a peeping Tom had terrorized his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy raised this past moral controversy: Did Marcia invite the peeping Tom by wearing skimpy clothes?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man in blue took down Marcia's report about the peeping Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Stevie played with his gas-powered, tethered toy airplane in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy attended a party with his girlfriend, Nancy Willis, in one scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack barged into Roy's room and commented on the \"skin magazines\" that were strewn about the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy broke into the Fowler residence, ostensibly to drop off a present for Stevie, but it was not long before he confronted Marcia. She shot him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the final scene, Roy revealed that his prior behavior was explained by a deep seeded hatred he felt toward his stepmother for neglecting him and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcia shot Roy dead because of some combination of acting in self-defense and to prevent him from outing her for having an affair.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x19", "title": "Night Call", "date": "1964-02-07", "description": "An old woman keeps receiving frightening phone calls.\n\nDirected by: Jacques Tourneur. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old spinster Elva confided in her housekeeper of how she'd lived a lonely life ever since her fiancée had perished in an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elva recalled her late fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elva was filled with heartache once it became apparent that the mysterious calls to her house were coming from her long departed fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elva received a series of mysterious phone calls from an eerie voiced man who turned out to be her dearly departed fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elva was living as an invalid we heard at the beginning of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the series of mysterious phone calls coming to Elva's house were from her dearly departed fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elva and her housekeeper Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elva expressed her regrets over having been at the wheel in an automobile accident that had sent her fiancée careening through the vehicle's windshield to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Elva had been confined to a wheelchair for decades as the result of an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw old analogue telephone network with operators and such.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x16", "title": "The Evil of Adelaide Winters", "date": "1964-02-07", "description": "A convicted artist claims that she can make contact with the dead.\n\nDirected by: Laslo Benedek. Story by: Arthur A. Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The false medium Adelaide, who with the help of her reluctant partner in crime, Robert, scammed the parents of war dead by pretending to make contact with their fallen sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Edward Porter not being able to get over the passing of his son, John, who died fighting in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was tricked into thinking that he was communicating with his deceased son, John, through Adelaide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide and Robert were partners in crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide ruthlessly scammed grieving parents out of their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide married Edward for his fortune. This was after she'd already been scamming him as part of her false medium racket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward gradually lost his mind over the tragic passing of his son, John, in the war. In the end, he took the life of his wife and then himself, thinking they'd be reunited with his son in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide fooled Edward to scam him out of money, but ended up fooling him so well that he ended up going mad and killed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide could have contented herself with being moderately wealthy, but resolved to be filthy rich, and it resulted in her losing it everything, including her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide convinced Edward that his son was speaking to them from some sort of existence in the afterlife that was described as comfortable. Edward further became convinced that he and Adelaide must join his son there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward longed to communicate with his dearly departed son, John, from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in America at the start of D-Day, and follows a pair of swindlers who prey on the loved ones of fallen military personnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Thompson fell victim to Adelaide's false medium scam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adelaide chose the wealthy Edward Porter over her longtime love interest, Robert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adelaide, Robert, and Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adelaide accused Robert of being jealous over Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward shot Adelaide dead on their wedding night, and then turned the gun on himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mentally unbalanced Edward shot his new wife dead before turning the gun on himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mentally unbalanced Edward shot his new wife dead before turning the gun on himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x20", "title": "From Agnes – With Love", "date": "1964-02-14", "description": "A computer programmer receives advice on his love life from a computer that is in love with him.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Bernard C. Schoenfeld.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "impossible love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The computer Agnes was besotted with her programmer James, but such a thing could never be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The computer Agnes loved James but James wasn't interested. James was besotted with Millie who thought he was a big nerd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was a computer scientist in a lab coat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was a stereotypical early computer, though with futuristic capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was a stereotypical nerd with big glasses and no social graces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was rivaling with Millie for James' love, albeit unbeknownst to Millie, and Millie became infatuated with Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was repeatedly rejected by Millie, and later he rejected Agnes who went starch raving mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes explained that a woman has only two modes: love or hate. She went nuts after being rejected by James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "James' romantic aspirations were sabotaged by a jealous computer with a secret crush on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was meant to assist scientists in their rocketry research, but she got a bit out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The super computer Agnes fell in love with its human operator and made efforts to sabotage his relationship with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "James pestered his co-worker Millie until she agreed to go out on a date, but their flirtation petered out when Walter come between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was a stereotypical nerd with big glasses and no social graces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prime numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agnes was able to compute the first prime number larger than the 17th root of 9,355,126,606. It was five.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to James' textbook Einstein's theory of relativity posited that the universe is a closed system of spherical conformation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter invited Millie to watch him race in his Mustang 500 sports car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x17", "title": "The Jar", "date": "1964-02-14", "description": "A gentleman buys a jar with something strange inside it.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Ray Bradbury (short story), James Bridges (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was lowly Charlie using the spellbinding jar he purchased at a carnival to become the talk of the town, and the ongoing center of attention. People now ventured from afar to visit his humble shack, and he would even plan for serving refreshments. It is conveivable that Charlie's obsession with the jar was in part due to him overcompensating for his not being able to control his young and flagrantly unfaithful wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown some stereotypical country bumpkins in a rural setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and Thedy Sue Hill. The story explores how Charlie and Thedy's marriage is derailed by Thedy's infidelity coupled with the added stressor of a mysterious new jar that becomes the talk of the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thedy Sue was carrying on a barely concealed affair with Tom Carmody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thedy Sue carried on shamelessly with Tom Carmody right under her husband's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Charlie being outed for killing his wife and putting her severed head on display in the titular jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a marked age difference between Charlie and his younger wife, Thedy Sue, which probably explains why she ran around with a younger man under her husband's nose and why he didn't do anything about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople got a lot of joy out of sitting around the jar and pondering what might be contained therein. Their sotto voce musings indicated it dragged up old memories of things that were important to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each townsperson saw what they wanted to see in the strange jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were fascinated about the contents of the titular jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to have encountered an angry genie inside the oversized bottle out of which he'd recently escaped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock remarked that the angry genie in question accused Alfred of having broken into its novelty, oversized bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Instead of chasing down Tom to issue him a speeding ticket, Sheriff Clem plucked himself down in front of the general store, half-heartedly assuring those there that he'd get Tom the next day. Charlie went to the Sheriff Clem to demand that the brazen theft of his much coveted jar be investigated without delay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Instead of chasing down Tom to issue him a speeding ticket, Sheriff Clem plucked himself down in front of the general store, half-heartedly assuring those there that he'd get Tom the next day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town dullard Juke reported that he had the mind of a 10-year-old according to his physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juke expressed sorrow over in his youth having drowned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie insinuated that Tom was jealous of him over his newfound fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Eve Ann attended the jar viewing together with her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Eve Ann speculated the the bogeyman himself was contained inside the jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Eve Ann speculated the the bogeyman himself was contained inside the jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jahdoo, after purloining the magic jar and mounting it on a log in his swamp, explained that he knew precisely what it contained. Allegedly it was the precursor to modern day human, and something that had (sic) both evolved out of the bamboo forests and crawled onto land about 10,000 years ago (perhaps we were not meant to take his poetic ramblings literally, but the general meaning was evident).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was up in arms after an unknown burglar, later revealed to be Jahdoo commissioned by Tom for a dollar, made off with Charlie's precious jar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)", "title": "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", "date": "1964-02-19", "description": "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film directed and written by Jacques Demy and starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was composed by Michel Legrand. The film dialogue is all sung as recitative, including casual conversation, and is sung-through, or through-composed like some operas and stage musicals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Umbrellas_of_Cherbourg" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "first Guy and Geneviève; then Roland and Geneviève; then Guy and Madeleine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emery and Geneviève", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guy and Geneviève", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guy and Geneviève from her perspective when he went to the Algerian war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geneviève was 16 and Guy probably not much older", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geneviève got pregnant the night before Guy went to the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "pregnant Geneviève was in love with Guy but married Roland - for money and respectability", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Algerian War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy went to fight in this and told briefly of his experiences after", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy lived with his aunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emery was on the verge of loosing her umbrella shop and had to sell a perl necklace to get by", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw that Guy had some trouble re-adjusting and heard that he had a pension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy grieved for his dead aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy met Geneviève by chance many years later", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy and Madeleine in Part 3", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x21", "title": "Spur of the Moment", "date": "1964-02-21", "description": "In 1939, an engaged woman is chased for some unknown reason by a woman in black on horseback.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Forty-three year old Anne regretted her decision to marry David, and tried in vain twice to ride down her younger self's ghost to warn her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Forty-three year old Anne regretted her decision to marry David, and tried in vain twice to ride down her younger self's ghost to warn her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eighteen year old Anne was comforted by her mother after a fierce woman dressed all in black on a stallion screamed at her. Forty-three year old Anne had a heated argument with her aged mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne was about to lose her estate because of her wasteful husband, and her mother also lamented their newfound impoverishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eighteen year old year Anne and 43 year Anne encountered each other while riding their horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne eventually chose her childhood sweetheart over her family approved fiancée, and came sorely to regret it - older Anne tried to change younger Anne's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Twenty-five years of being married David left Anne a miserable alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne rode away terrified that she would be killed by the mysterious woman in black.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne believed the woman in black pursued her with murder in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Bob were vying for Anne's hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Henderson encouraged his daughter Anne to ditch her childhood loved and marry the investment broker Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne and Bob were to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne lamented that she'd become a drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Forth-three year old Anne was unhappily married to her childhood lover David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David had a testy exchange with his aged mother-in-law.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x18", "title": "Final Escape", "date": "1964-02-21", "description": "A prisoner matches wits with his custodian in his efforts to escape from a maximum-security prison.\n\nDirected by: William Witney. Story by: Thomas H. Cannan, Jr., Randall Hood (story), John Resko (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, the driving force of the story is John Perry's ardent desire to escape prematurely from his 11 years of incarceration for bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in a maximum security penal labor camp in the US, focused on lumber processing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc was driven by concern for his granddaughter who sorely needed an expensive operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be buried alive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pointedly concluded with John finding himself buried six feet under in a coffin with no hope of escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on a point of contention between John and Doc: Should John hasten the surely dying inmate along to the afterlife to ensure his own escape, or wait for nature to take its course? In the event, John did not intervene. The mere fact that he had pondered doing so, however, lead Doc to mistrust him and to drink heavily. This in turn lead to Doc's own death, which foiled John's plans and presumably caused him to die of slow asphyxiation buried alive at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in and around State Prison Lumber Camp No. 2: a maximum security penal labor camp in the US, focused on lumber processing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc was an acting physician and long time prisoner at State Prison Lumber Camp No. 2.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John had been sentenced to ten years in prison for a series of bank robberies netting half a million dollar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "If the prison labor camp captain had really been just been concerned about John's \"escape record\" he would not have canceled John's \"good behavior\" grace to keep him incarcerated the full 11 years of his sentence. The viewer must conclude that the captain had a particularly nasty desire to inflict suffering on John for no apparent reason other than that he enjoyed doing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc's granddaughter was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a semi-prolonged issue around whether and to what extent John and Doc could trust one and other. Doc, correctly as it were, assessed that John was the more desperate and therefore would take the leap of faith in handing over the money without any particular assurances that Doc would make good on his end of the bargain without ratting him out to the captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain leaned on Doc to set John up and betray him. Doc decided to remain true knowing it would cost him dearly in retribution from the vengeful Captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plea bargain dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was faced with a classical plea-bargain dilemma: Admit guilt and get one year more in prison. Demand your right to an (expensive) trial and the likely outcome would be 5 more years in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man Doc was too old for even light work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's lawyer dropped by the penal labor camp. He gave John a wristwatch, which never figured into the plot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x22", "title": "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "date": "1964-02-28", "description": "A Confederate sympathizer is about to be hanged when the rope breaks, allowing him to escape and return home.\n\nDirected by: Robert Enrico. Story by: Ambrose Bierce, Robert Enrico.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peyton was about to be hanged for interfering with railway bridges and in fact, the whole story was a dream taking places moments before his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In his dream, Peyton escaped the noose and being fired at with shot and shell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the South during this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soldiers tried to summarily execute Peyton, but failed it seemed; but then they succeeded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "In his dream, Peyton was pursued by Union soldiers after they botched his hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the goings on in a military outfit during the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peyton was determined to escape the from Union soldiers were going to execute him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton was but inches from falling into his wife's arms when the dream ended and his neck snapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton found a new joy in life as he escaped peril after peril - we saw him looking blissfully at minute details of nature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x23", "title": "Queen of the Nile", "date": "1964-03-06", "description": "A columnist discovers the secret behind the apparent eternal youth of a film actress.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Charles Beaumont.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pamela was able to transfer other peoples' youth into herself, thus staying young indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamela had maintained her movie star looks for untold ages by transferring other peoples' life force into her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamela coerced Mrs. Draper into pretending to be her mother, but it may well have been the other way around, or perhaps neither.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The editor described Constance and Pamela as femme fatales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chicago columnist Jordan Herrick was interviewing the actress Pamela Morris for a piece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around the movie star Pamela Morris giving an interview about her career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela used a special scarab beetle to transfer Jordan's life force into herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela used a special scarab beetle to transfer Jordan's life force into herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x19", "title": "Murder Case", "date": "1964-03-06", "description": "An American actress and her former lover plan the murder of her wealthy British husband.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As alluded to in the tile, this is a story about murders. Lee and Diana plotted to do away with Diana's rich old husband. Note that while Diana tried to keep herself aloof from the sordid details of the murder, her tacit approval of if makes her an accomplice and the rule of thumb is to use \"spouse murder\" in this situation. In the end, it is strongly implied that Charles was the one that had Diana murdered and stashed in Lee's car, before Lee got to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diana rekindled a love affair with her old American paramour behind her rich older husband's back, she thought. He, however, saw what was going on quite clearly. He'd also fired his chauffeur because he'd suspected that she's had an affair with him in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Diana and her rich, jealous, older husband, Charles, were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Diana and her rich, jealous, older husband, Charles, were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "That Lee was a gold digger became abundantly clear when he responded with a passionate \"no!\" to Diana's suggestive recounting that she had nearly asked her husband for a divorce. They must murder him while the marriage is on and then Diana must re-marry Lee, or else Lee would see none of the rich husband's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was particularly possessive and jealous of her young and pretty wife, Diana. In the end, he murdered her when he discovered conclusively that she was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diana and John were running around together behind the back of her husband, Charles, who happened to be producing the stage play in which they were both cast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An inconvenient customs official insisted on inspecting every inch of Lee's possessions as he impersonated Charles with a forged passport. This included the trunk of Charles' car where, unbeknownst to Lee, Diana's dead body had been stashed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was said to have gone hunting with friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lee played the role of a boxer in the stage play \"In the Count of Ten\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Charles was in bed recovering injuries sustained in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John used a fake passport at the Dutch border.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is interspersed with theater scenes, on and behind the stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is interspersed with theater scenes, on and behind the stage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Man on Earth (1964)", "title": "The Last Man on Earth", "date": "1964-03-08", "description": "The Last Man on Earth is a 1964 black-and-white science fiction horror film based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_on_Earth_(1964_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Morgan lived in a world where everyone else has been infected by a plague that had turned them into vampire-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Morgan hunted undead, vampire-like creatures that could stand sunlight, fear mirrors, and are repelled by garlic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A plague turned virtually everyone on Earth into vampire-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Morgan versus the vampires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flashback sequence showing Robert with his wife Virginia before she succumbed to the plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flashback sequence showing Robert with his daughter Kathy before she succumbed to the plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virginia and Kathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Morgan grieved over the loss of his wife and daughter to plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Last man on Earth Dr. Morgan reflected back on his life as a father and took in a stray dog to keep as a companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. affliction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virginia, Kathy, and Ruth were all afflicted with plague.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x24", "title": "What's in the Box", "date": "1964-03-13", "description": "After the TV set is fixed by a strange TV repairman, an unhappy couple's TV set shows them hurting each other.\n\nDirected by: Richard L. Bare. Story by: Martin M. Goldsmith.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An ever escalating quarrel between Joe and Phyllis culminated with Joe inadvertently defenestrating Phyllis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Phyllis Britt were in an unhappy marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe's TV showed him accidentally killing his own wife in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe became bedridden after seeing a future in which he accidentally defenestrated his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyllis got under Joe's skin by repeatedly confronting him about an affair that she was convinced he was having.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe got the chair for killing Phyllis in the midst of a barnyard style brawl. Phyllis threatened to attack Joe with a knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was might befuddled when the TV started showing him scenes form his own past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an old family doctor visit the Britt's house to check on Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe complained about the stress of driving a taxi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe proclaimed love for Phyllis who then blew a fuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Joe sentenced to death on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Joe get electrocuted in The Chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe saw himself killing his wife in the future, which made him proclaim his love for her, which made her turn nasty, which then made him kill her - a self fulfilling prophecy that seems rather ironic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Saltman was of the opinion that Joe had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality as a result of an addiction to television.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x20", "title": "Anyone for Murder?", "date": "1964-03-13", "description": "A psychologist plans an assassination in order to get out of his miserable marriage.\n\nDirected by: Leo Penn. Story by: Jack Ritchie (short story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to a psychologist's alleged experiment to determine whether more men or more women are prepared to knock off their spouses, should they be presented with the opportunity to do so without dirtying their own hands. The story progresses to him attempting to murder his own disagreeable wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "James and Doris' marriage was gradually coming apart. Doris blamed James' inattentiveness. James thought her having a lover was somewhat to blame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story conlcuded with James and Doris set their differences aside to defeat the assassin and trick Doris's lover. The viewer is left to assume they reconciled their differences and patched up their hitherto failing marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "James and Doris Parkerson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love kindled by danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem that sharing the mortal peril of being under fire by an assassin caused James and Doris to realize how much they, in fact, cared for each other. The story concluded with a marital reconciliation of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "James uncovered that Doris was having an affair with a younger man behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Johnson revealed himself to be a killer for hire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was a psychology professor with an interest, allegedly academic, in spouse murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revelation that his wife was having an affair made James' blood boil, and he spent the rest of the story plotting his revenge against the man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doris was motivated in part to seek out a lover on account that her psychologist husband was preoccupied with his research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police and the press both wanted a word with James regarding the add he had put in the paper offering to rid people of their spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police and the press both wanted a word with James regarding the add he had put in the paper offering to rid people of their spouses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Flesh Eaters (1964)", "title": "The Flesh Eaters", "date": "1964-03-18", "description": "A flesh-eating creature terrorizes a group of people trapped on a desert island.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flesh_Eaters_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The castaways versus the flesh eating microbes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant Murdoch and Jan Letterman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Peter Bartell secluded himself on an island where he hoped to cultivate a group of monstrous \"flesh eaters\" that could devour the skin off a person in mere seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Winters was a raging alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Winters woke up on the beach one morning with an awful hangover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Prof. Peter Bartell was a defender of the macabre experiments Nazi scientists performed on people during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Peter Bartell was developing a flesh eating microorganism that he planned to sell to the highest bidder as a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x25", "title": "The Masks", "date": "1964-03-20", "description": "At Mardi Gras, a wealthy dying man orders his daughter and her family to wear masks that show their true selves as part of a requirement to obtain his inheritance.\n\nDirected by: Ida Lupino. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dying Jason Foster was waited on by four family members who couldn't see him go soon enough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wilfred got the mask of greed and avarice, and got a face to match. All four of Jason's putative heirs were greedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason Foster was given but hours to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paula was preoccupied only with her own image and got a face to match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paula was preoccupied only with her own image and got a face to match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily got the mask of cowardice and got a face to match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily was waiting for her wealthy father to kick the bucket so that she could collect her inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason chewed out his businessman son-in-law Wilfred for being a Philistine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason and Wilfred Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason and Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilfred Jr. had liked to torture small animals and got a face to match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason called out Emily for always thinking she had an illness of some sort or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Thorne described his long acquaintanceship with Jason as his family doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilfred and Emily Harper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily and Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily and Wilfred Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilfred and Wilfred Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilfred Jr. and Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason was wheeled into a room by his butler Geoffrey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula complained of being bored while stuck inside during Mardi Gras.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x21", "title": "Beast in View", "date": "1964-03-20", "description": "A woman thinks that her brother's ex-fiancée is trying to kill her.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Margaret Millar (novel), James Bridges (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story, cleverly concealed in the title, is that the distressed victim and the her malevolent antagonizer are in fact one and the same person. Helen suffers from a peculiar dual personality disorder that makes her take on the persona, and even imitate the voice, of her childhood frenemy Dorothy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a stalker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was coping with her stalker whom she thought was Dorthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Before the revelation that Helen is the crazy one, the viewer is led to believe that Dorothy was an unstable character who had more than a few bees in her bonnet. In addition to stalking Helen because of some childhood slight, she broke into a photography studio and made a mess because they wouldn't take her picture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story was told from Helen's lawyer Paul's point of view as he was acting on Helen's behalf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the plot was a lie that Helen had told to her mother regarding Dorothy in their childhood. Helen spoke to her mother on the phone several times. In the end she confessed her lie under presumed duress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dorothy persona in Helen wanted revenge for the lie Helen had told to her mother about Dorothy in their childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was deeply envious of Dorothy's grace and beauty, she made clear. This is perhaps meant to be why she started adopting the Dorothy persona in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy, later revealed as the Dorothy persona in Helen, shot the studio photographer dead because he had refused to take her picture for free.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen considered herself to be plain and, in her Dorothy persona especially, fantasized about being gorgeous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy, later revealed as the Dorothy persona in Helen, held a grudge against Helen for allegedly stealing $343 from Helen's own father's wallet and then pinning it on Dorthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated a teargas releasing compact mirror that he suggested women might use to ward off muggers and other miscreants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil can come in the guise of beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen's mother said \"pretty is as pretty does\" meaning that Dorothy might look good but was, in fact, a nasty piece of work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The temperamental photographer Jack Torola was doing a modeling shoot in his studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy complained to Paul that she had a bad hangover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Verna barked at her maid to answer the door, and then ordered her to bring some ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Verna unashamedly cheated at her game of solitaire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Bromley and a young police officer were involved in the story from the time of the photographer's murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x26", "title": "I Am the Night—Color Me Black", "date": "1964-03-27", "description": "A man is to be hanged at sunrise. On the appointed day, the sun fails to rise which starts the sheriff and the rest of the civilians wondering why there is only darkness.\n\nDirected by: Abner Biberman. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hatred in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seemed that especially hate filled places in the world got afflicted with perpetual darkness. There were various diatribes about hatred in society and the closing narration further involved hatred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jagger spoke of all the hate he felt. The deputy was demonstratively hate filled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jagger was about to be hanged for murder and then he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jagger was hanged for having killed a racist bigot in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story was a small town sheriff and his deputy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie complained about gawkers getting a kick out of seeing a man hang. The crowd was later berated for being hateful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "No one understood how the town could be in night when the rest of the country had daylight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "A reporter interviewed Jagger before he was hanged, and there was some discussion in front of the gibbet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jagger spoke of a \"cross burning\" man who had handled the whipping of a \"colored guy\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some question as to Jagger's guilt, and the sheriff berated himself for some investigative oversight. Later Jagger confessed but it was noted that the victim had been a rather nasty person (implying there could have been a question of self-defense or provocation).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a reporter who criticized the goings on at the site of the hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter spoke of a \"godly\" woman who'd interpreted the perpetual night as a sign of the end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reverend had words with a condemned man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x22", "title": "Behind the Locked Door", "date": "1964-03-27", "description": "A woman is told by her mother that she will be cut off from her inheritance if she does not divorce her husband, whom the mother claims is a gold digger.\n\nDirected by: Robert Douglas. Story by: Joel Murcott (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central theme alluded to in the title was revealed early and came back in the end with panache: A mysterious door in Bonnie's ancestral home sorely tempted Dave's greedy fingers and he could just barely keep a lid on it not to give his game away. When he finally came into possession of the house in the end, he excitedly opened the door and barged headlong through it plunging to gruesome and prolonged death at the bottom of an abandoned elevator shaft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central component of the story is that Bonnie's mother didn't approve of the man she had chosen and withheld all her inheritance and possession, forcing them to live in poverty out of spite it seems. As it were, she was right about Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave revealed his true colors at the very end when he gleefully pranced down the corridors of Bonnie's ancestral home which he had now inherited, albeit in a roundabout manner. He really had cared nothing for Bonnie and only wanted her wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave and Bonnie tied the knot a second time after their first marriage was annulled on account of Bonnie having lied about her age and failed to acquire her mother's permission for the union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Daniels and Bonnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Daniels and Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scoundrel Dave and his ever-loving wife, Bonnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. material gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bonnie resolved to give up her material wealth for seven years and live in poverty to be with her husband Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story Bonnie knowingly took a lethal dose of sleeping pills to free the love of her life, Dave, from her powerful mother's grip. The mother was preventing Dave from getting a job because she thought that he would leave her daughter and stop pursuing her inheritance, if life was hard for Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Daniels extracted sweet revenge against Dave for marrying her daughter for money and then playing a role in her tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave convinced Bonnie to stage a fake suicide. Unbeknownst to him, she knew that the attempt would actually kill her and so it was a real suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave was a poor man trying to make it in the world while Bonnie was a rich kid born with a silver spoon in her mouth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave playfully frightened his sweetheart, Bonnie, while the lovebirds were fumbling around the abandoned house in the dark of night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave and Bonnie's first marriage was annulled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As newlyweds, Dave and Bonnie decided to break into Bonnie's ancestral home and have a bit of a look-see and a tumble or two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave was struggling to find a respectable job. This was due in no small part to Mrs. Daniels' meddling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Mrs. Daniels lamented that Bonnie might not have taken her own life, if only Mrs. Daniels had accepted her marriage to Dave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Daniels' attorney Adam Driscoll saw to the formalities of her daughter's annulment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Daniels' attorney disapprovingly remarked that Dave had married above his station. Mrs. Daniels' behavior made it very clear that she agreed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Unearthly Stranger (1964)", "title": "Unearthly Stranger", "date": "1964-04", "description": "A government scientist discovers that his wife is an alien who is determined to put a stop to his research.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearthly_Stranger" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists were working on a top secret project to harness the power of human concentration so that people could project themselves around outer space simply by thinking hard about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Davidson and Julie Davidson were newlyweds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newlyweds Dr. Mark Davidson and Julie Davidson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie Davidson turned out to be an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Davidson new Julie wife was living secretly as a human, but was really an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a government bureaucrat who was bothering government scientists about administrative matter off and on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens did not generally know love or other human emotions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x27", "title": "Sounds and Silences", "date": "1964-04-03", "description": "A man has an obsession with loud noises which causes his wife to leave him. Then all of the sounds in his life go haywire.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roswell was obsessed with naval history to the extent that it became a serious problem for people around, and his wife left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roswell was afflicted with super hearing and didn't enjoy it one bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roswell was obnoxiously loud. By an ironic twilight twist of fate his hearing became super sensitive and he learned first hand how disturbing noise can be. Then he practically lost his hearing altogether.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roswell had been reasonably normal, said his wife, but now his obsession and noise making were intolerable. As she left him and his hearing started to change, he became increasingly unstable and in the end was committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roswell's wife declared that she had had enough, and left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roswell recalled his days in the navy, thanks to which he had become obsessed with moder maritime history and ran a company that sold model ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an intransigent person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Especially, Roswell's wife deserted him because he was exceedingly loud and completely refused to tone it down - his employees complained behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After a particularly noisy incident, Roswell's wife declared that she had had enough, and left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roswell consulted his family doctor and later a psychiatrist about his strange new hearing ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roswell treated the employees of his model ship company as if they were a working out of a ship, rather than an office building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roswell's employees grumbled about him behind his back and even went so far as to throw darts at his portrait.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x23", "title": "A Matter of Murder", "date": "1964-04-03", "description": "A carjacker steals a Rolls-Royce with a dead body inside it.\n\nDirected by: David Lowell Rich. Story by: Boris Sobelman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A theme alluded to in the title: Sheridan brutally murdered his nagging wife and tried to dump her body in a nearby lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves partly around a gang of car thieves. In this story they stole the same Rolls-Royce twice and found the same murdered woman in the trunk both times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan killed his nagging wife in order to be with Enid, whom the viewer is given to understand he had been carrying on with for some time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story partially follows the police in their efforts to unravel the mystery of what on earth had happened to Sheridan's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "In reality, Sheridan had murdered his wife and stashed her body in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce. When the car thieves made off with his ride before he could dump the body in a nearby lake, Sheridan and his lover Enid seized the opportunity by hatching a plot to frame them for kidnapping his wife for a ransom of $200,000. Their thinking was that the police would conclude the thieves murdered the women as part of a botched kidnapping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "In reality, Sheridan had murdered his wife and stashed her body in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce. When the car thieves made off with his ride before he could dump the body in a nearby lake, Sheridan and his lover Enid seized the opportunity by hatching a plot to frame them for kidnapping his wife for a ransom of $200,000. Their thinking was that the police would conclude the thieves murdered the women as part of a botched kidnapping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of the car thieves was too honorable to go into kidnapping or commit murder, we heard time and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The family attorney Mr. Flagstone prepared Sheridan's wife's $200,000 ransom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x28", "title": "Caesar and Me", "date": "1964-04-10", "description": "A struggling ventriloquist has a dummy who talks him into a life of crime.\n\nDirected by: Robert Butler. Story by: Adele T. Strassfield.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Down on his luck, Jonathan stole some money, then he stole some more money, and then he was caught.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan was short on rent and had to pawn his last possessions because he couldn't get a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a struggling ventriloquist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a struggling ventriloquist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ventriloquist dummy Ceasar got his previous master into trouble, then started corrupting the little girl Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan stole money with great remorse only because he was close to broke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan was struggling to make ends meat as a ventriloquist and visited the unemployment center before turning to a life of crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan burglarized first a deli and then a nightclub. He got away with the deli robbery, but the police arrested him for having stolen money from the nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nightclub owners were visibly unimpressed with Jonathan's ventriloquist act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan's aunt chastised her for shooting toy poison darts at Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan was faced with the prospect that his career as a ventriloquist was over after he bombed in an audition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x24", "title": "The Gentleman Caller", "date": "1964-04-10", "description": "A couple hide their stolen money in an old woman's high-rise apartment and their plan to have her committed backfires when the police are called.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main point of the story is to present the following \"clever\" (albeit preposterous) idea for how to wash illegitimate money: Hide it among the possessions of an old recluse and contrive to have that recluse bequeath said possessions to you. Then murder the recluse without getting caught.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald made three unsuccessful attempts on Emmy's life: he botched shoving her down the stairs, he set her up to get hit by a car, and he left the gas on in her apartment. Milly was involved in the latter two attempts. Gerald shot dead a night watchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald and Milly Musgrove.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald befriended the elderly Miss Emmy Wright for no other purpose than to use her as a mark in his money laundering scheme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Emmy Wright had become stereotypically forgetful in her twilight years. Her olfactory sense, however, was as good as it had ever been or better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though not blood relation, Emmy and Gerald pretended to be aunt and nephew because it pleased them to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmy was a lonely old woman who had nobody to care for her. She liked to go to singalongs in the park and strangers funerals for companionship. Gerald later took advantage of this vulnerability for his nefarious purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmy was a lonely old woman who had nobody to care for her. She liked to go to singalongs in the park and strangers funerals for companionship. Gerald later took advantage of this vulnerability for his nefarious purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story kicks off with Gerald and Milly stealing $100,000 from a bank safe. The rest of the tale centers around Gerald's efforts to find a safe keeping place for the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald was collected by a pair of uniformed police officers in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy lived next door to Mrs. Jones in the boardinghouse. Mrs. Jones admonished Emmy from borrowing a cooking pot without permission. What Mrs. Jones didn't know is that Emmy had also made away with two onions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald sent his woman flying onto the bed with a backhand slap. He laid hands on her twice thereafter. They both made reference to his general habit of slapping her around and it was pointedly clear that she was accustomed to being treated thus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy confessed to being jealous of Gerald's \"cousin\" Milly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy was attended to by a paramedic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x29", "title": "The Jeopardy Room", "date": "1964-04-17", "description": "A political defector is forced into a game of cat-and-mouse with a rather artistic and sadistic hitman.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vassiloff was fittingly undone by the very same elaborate booby trap he had so cruelly rigged for Kuchenko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "KGB agents were out to execute an aspiring defector, Ivan Kuchenko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vassiloff clearly took a cruel delight in tormenting Kuchenko.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x25", "title": "The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow", "date": "1964-04-17", "description": "A man hatches a plot to keep his wife's rich aunt from exposing him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Alvin Sargent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I got accidentally locked in somewhere", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mrs. Snow's titular ordeal was that she'd gotten locked inside an airtight vault by her scheming nephew-in-law with little hope of getting out alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce and Lorna Richmond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorna was under the guardianship of her wealthy aunt, Mrs. Snow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce stooped to forging checks in his wealthy aunt-in-law's name to repay his gambling debts he owed to characters of ill-repute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce stooped to forging checks in his wealthy aunt-in-law's name to cover his losses at the track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce stooped to forging checks in his wealthy aunt-in-law's name to fund his gambling habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce plotted to knock off his wealthy aunt-in-law, Mrs. Snow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Snow had had misgivings about Bruce from the start, not the least because she had to secretly cover some of his gambling debts. Just how far he would go to lay hands on her money, however, she could not have expected until she found out that he forged her names on checks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lorna was tipped off to her aunt being locked in an airtight vault owing to the actions of one of Lorna's two pet Siamese cats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Snow household members had passing interactions with the servants, Frieda and Carl. The maid Frieda interrupted Bruce and Lorna's make out session.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Snow quoted a version of this aphorism (i.e., \"money isn't the answer to making people happy\") in response to Lorna requesting she take action to unlock funds designated for Lorna early.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clutching her diamond ring, Mrs. Snow longed for her departed husband while trapped in the airtight vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce made mention of a man having jumped off the Triborough Bridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce defended himself and his larceny to Lorna by saying that she had pulled him into a classy world where he was out of his depth and struggled to keep afloat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce and Lorna's marriage quickly began fraying at the edges when she started uncovering clues that he was defrauding her aunt, and maybe even trying to murder the same aunt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x30", "title": "Stopover in a Quiet Town", "date": "1964-04-24", "description": "A married couple wakes up after drinking too much at a party and find themselves in a strange town devoid of life – except for the distant laughter of a child.\n\nDirected by: Ron Winston. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I woke up in a strange place and didn't remember how I got there", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bob and Millie Frazier woke up in a weird town with no knowledge of how they got there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Millie Frazier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Millie were at loss to explain how they might have come to wake up in an artificial town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The closing narration clearly implied that the couple had been abducted by aliens as a consequence of having been driving drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The couple last remember having been driving home drunk from a party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The closing narration made clear that Bob and Millie had been abducted by aliens in order to be pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob and Millie had been abducted by giant aliens in order to be pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In this case it was an alien girl's private little pet zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob woke up with a headache after a night of drinking and partying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob and Millie got abducted by giant humanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mothra vs Godzilla (1964)", "title": "Mothra vs. Godzilla", "date": "1964-04-29", "description": "Mothra vs. Godzilla (モスラ対ゴジラ, Mosura tai Gojira) is a 1964 Japanese science fiction film directed by Ishirō Honda and stars Akira Takarada, Kenji Sahara and Hiroshi Koizumi. It is the fourth film in the Godzilla franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra_vs._Godzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Happy Enterprises owner, Kumayama, refused to return a Mothra egg to its native island, because he had plans to get rich from exhibiting it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla attacked Japan again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and the giant moth Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, fairy-like girls communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ichiro Sakai and Junko Nakanishi were decontaminated after having been inadvertently exposed to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The natives on Mothra's island lived in peace and harmony and were disappointed to find out that people fought one another in other parts of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny fairies could communicate telepathically with Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, twin fairy girls interpreted Mothra's actions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x31", "title": "The Encounter", "date": "1964-05-01", "description": "A samurai sword sparks a conflict between a World War II veteran and a Japanese-American.\n\nDirected by: Robert Butler. Story by: Martin M. Goldsmith.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arthur objected to Fenton's variously indirect and variously overt prejudices about Japanese people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Pacific War veteran Fenton's animus for the Japanese repeatedly manifested itself during the course of his interaction with a young Japanese-American named Arthur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fenton had a haunted Japanese sword which manipulated its holders so as to avenge its original owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Fenton and Arthur had troublesome memories of the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Fenton and Arthur became filled with hate when in possession of the cursed samurai sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur objected to Fenton's prejudiced views about his Japanese name and heritage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pearl Harbor was mentioned and Fenton was clearly a veteran of the conflict that ensued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some talk about Fenton having killed a surrendering Japanese officer because he was taught to think of them as inhuman and take no prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenton was lonely, which was why he insisted on conversing with Arthur despite Arthur's Japanese complexion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenton said he was cranky among other things because his wife had left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenton was fired for drinking on the job, and implied that his wife had recently left him on account of his drinking.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x26", "title": "Ten Minutes from Now", "date": "1964-05-01", "description": "A performer is suspected of making bomb threats against an official.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Arthur A. Ross (teleplay), Jack Ritchie (short story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The purpose of James' eccentric behavior was revealed at the conclusion of the story: It was all a ruse to hoodwink the police into evacuating the museum so that James and his cronies could conduct a savvy switcheroo and make off with original paintings worth millions, while leaving the police unable to charge James with any crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "James played Lieutenant Wymar and his fellow officers like a fiddle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big reveal of the story is that the struggling painter James' disgruntlement toward the municipal authorities was a diversion from the true purpose of him and his accomplices: replace five museum paintings with his forgeries and make off the the originals without anybody being the wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art forgery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big reveal of the story is that the struggling painter James' disgruntlement toward the municipal authorities was a diversion from the true purpose of him and his accomplices: replace five museum paintings with his forgeries and make off the the originals without anybody being the wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big reveal of the story is that the struggling painter James' disgruntlement toward the municipal authorities was a diversion from the true purpose of him and his accomplices: replace five museum paintings with his forgeries and make off the the originals without anybody being the wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that James' string of plausibly deniable bomb threats stemmed from him being disgruntled with the municipal authorities. The reason was that he apparently felt aggrieved when a government appointed panel selected the paintings of others to be put on display over his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that James was pursuing a vendetta against the municipal authorities stemming from a government appointed panel not having selected his paintings for public display.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through the latter part of the story, the police thought that James was target the museum and its visitors with his two boxes that seemed to contain bombs, but alas did not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Commissioner or Recreation & Parks made a public statement about having been the recipient of several death threat letters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The accredited psychologist Dr. Glover took a keen interest in James' case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Glover asked aloud why \"paranoids use such an excessive amount of yellow when they paint\" while examining one of James' paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James nearly fell for a flirty undercover policewoman in the bistro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Glover explained to Lieutenant Wymar that disturbing the disheveled painter's lair might well be the very thing that set him off to building a real bomb and slaughtering innocents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x32", "title": "Mr. Garrity and the Graves", "date": "1964-05-08", "description": "In 1890, a strange traveling peddler brings a dog back from the dead and offers to do the same for those in the town cemetery, making the townsfolk of Happiness, Arizona uneasy.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: Mike Korologos, Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jared Garrity was a stereotypical confidence trickster who fooled a town into giving him money for not bringing back their dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jared Garrity inadvertently raised those dead and buried on Boot Hill to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of Happiness, Arizona, remembered their late loved ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Sheriff Gilchrist had shot the gunslinger Peterson in the back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gooberman had had his arm repeatedly broken by his late wife Zelda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The barkeeper spoke about his no-good brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The barkeeper spoke in glowing terms about Sheriff Gilchrist brought law and order to Happiness, Arizona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gooberman shed alligator tears over his departed wife Zelda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gooberman's 247 pound wife Zelda had broken his arm so many times that he somehow developed a lisp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Gilchrist's body language make clear that he's shot a notorious gunslinger in the back, rather than honorably confronting him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x27", "title": "The Sign of Satan", "date": "1964-05-08", "description": "The lead actor in a horror movie thinks that a cult of devil worshipers are out to kill him.\n\nDirected by: Robert Douglas. Story by: Barre Lyndon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "devil worship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Members of Satanic cult were out to kill Karl Jorla, an apostate and former leader of their order turned horror movie actor. A black mass was depicted in the film screened by the studio executive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Members of Satanic cult were out to kill Karl Jorla, an apostate of their order turned horror movie actor. The cult members were shown performing a black mass in the film screened by the studio executive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the making of a horror movie. The story follows the trials and travails of a director as he struggles to realize his vision while his eccentric main actor is hounded by a murderous cult of devil worshipers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the former Satanic high-priest Karl Jorla as he tries to evade assassination at the hands of his fellow devil worshipers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of Satanic cult were out to kill Karl Jorla over his disloyalty to their unholy cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "The studio executives were initially perplexed when the actor Karl Jorla insisted he didn't want any publicity. Karl Jorla indeed proved himself to be a recluse of remarkable tenacity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock made a broadcast from the Red Planet. He quipped that finding a microphone wire long enough to reach back to Earth was a feat more remarkable than that of traveling to the planet in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock lamented not having found life on the Red Planet just as a Martian was creeping up from behind him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the film that was screened by the studio executives, a man was sacrificed to the Devil in the culmination of a black mass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A studio executive cautioned his colleagues against confusing Karl Jorla's chilling onscreen persona with that of the real man, assuring them that he was \"probably very charming\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown scenes of a horror film being shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police showed Karl Jorla to his supposedly secure hotel room moments before a dagger wielding, Satan worshiping assassin barged in through the door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is left to conclude that the ghost of Karl Jorla appeared to the people on the film shoot to tell them the location of Karl Jorla's freshly murdered corpse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x33", "title": "The Brain Center at Whipple's", "date": "1964-05-15", "description": "A factory owner decides to replace his human employees with machines.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple wanted to replace tens of thousands of workers with an \"X109B14 modified transistorized totally automatic assembly machine\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple was an extraordinarily callous person with absolutely no regard for the people who had worked for him for decades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple, who had callously replaced all his workers with machines, was finally himself replaced by a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Mr. Whipple callously layoff one employee after another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "A newly laid off foreman forcefully explained to Mr. Whipple that men need work (presumably to to fulfill a basic need for dignity). Later Mr. Whipple was distraught when his own pink slip came and he was chucked out \"like he was some kind of a part\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple was chided for pursuing profit at the expense of human feeling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple mentioned his father several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Mr. Whipple had only one employee left he was noticeably disheveled; after firing the last one, he went insane and neurotic and was fired by the board.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Whipple's \"X109B14 modified transistorized totally automatic assembly machine\" resembled a 1960s era mainframe computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The last scene revealed that Mr. Whipple was replaced by a robot - actually Robby the Robot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x28", "title": "Who Needs an Enemy?", "date": "1964-05-15", "description": "A dishonest man finds a way to avoid prosecution.\n\nDirected by: Harry Morgan. Story by: Arthur A. Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, Ed catching his best friend and business partner Charlie defrauding him of around $100,000 triggered what turned out to be an irreconcilable falling out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on Charlie defrauding his best friend and business partner, Ed, of around $100,000. In the end, Ed resolved to deduct the $60,000 loss as stolen money without reporting he had gotten the money back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie faked his own suicide as part of a plot to get away to South America with his fiancée and $60,000 in stolen cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and his fiancée, Danielle, plotted to fake his suicide and get away to South America with $60,000 in stolen cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed felt betrayed by his best friend and business partner, Charlie, upon discovering that he'd swindled around $100,000 from their brokerage firm. In the end, Charlie was pointedly betrayed by his fiancée, Danielle, who conspired with Ed to murder Charlie and make it look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danielle was initially under investigation for the murder of her fiancé, Charlie. Little did the police detective know that she'd helped Charlie fake his own suicide. In the end, Danielle stood in solidarity with Ed as he shoved a bound and gagged Charlie off the peer to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to fake one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie staged his own suicide in order to avoid paying back the $60,000 he's embezzled he ran with his best friend, Ed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was envious of Charlie for being younger and better looking - or so Ed and Danielle contended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating Danielle for the murder of her fiancé.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie's friends and family gathered at his memorial service to bid him farewell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie's friends and family gathered at his memorial service to bid him farewell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie added up the numbers, seven count of fraud at five years each, and concluded that 35 years of prison would, for all intents and purposes, amount to the rest of his life. He'd be 70 and pretty much dead before he'd be released. Seeing no other way out, he staged his own suicide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x34", "title": "Come Wander with Me", "date": "1964-05-22", "description": "A professional rockabilly singer looks for an authentic song in the mountains, where he gets in trouble with the locals.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Anthony Wilson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "music", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Floyd Burney and Mary Rachel made beautiful folk music together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Rachel fell for Floyd and he promised to take her away with him to Norfolk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was in search of a new song to further his musical career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The folksinger Floyd Burney drove to a instrument shop out in the woods with the intention of purchasing the rights to a folk song to be recorded by him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Floyd Burney was of the opinion that he wasn't obligated to pay any money for Mary Rachel's song on account that it was in the public domain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rayford brothers sought vengeance on Floyd for killing one of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x29", "title": "Bed of Roses", "date": "1964-05-22", "description": "A married man has a date with his girlfriend that turns nightmarish.\n\nDirected by: Philip Leacock. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title is an allusion to the final burying place George and Mavis' victim. The story turns on George discovering the freshly murdered body of his mistress. A revelation of the story is that his seemingly oblivious wife, Mavis, perpetrated the crime. Mavis also shot Mr. Kirby dead to keep quiet George's sordid connection with the incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows George and Mavis Maxwell as they deal with the aftermath of George's mistress getting murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cab driver Mr. Kirby tried to blackmail George for $1000 a month in exchange for keeping quiet about having dropped off George at his mistress' home on the night of her murder. Instead, Mr. Kirby wound up shot dead and buried under a bed of roses. George's secretary pulled a similar stunt in the end with the implication that she'd share Mr. Kirby's fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Mavis murdered her husband George's mistress in cold blood because she didn't want to share him with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two blackmailers, first the taxi driver and then the secretary, more or less assumed that George had killed his mistress and tried to extort money from him based on that fact. At any rate, George knew the police had jumped to conclusions and were looking for him even though they were never actually able to confront him, so he anticipated the wrongful accusations that would soon have been levied against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "major", "motivation": "As alluded to in the title, George and Mavis did a little late night rose bush planting after they had to dispose of an inconvenient busybody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Maxwell's were tended to by their servants, Celeste and William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mavis resorted to murder to keep news of husband's affair from reaching the public record. The revelation would have been a great embarrassment to her and her illustrious family, she explained to George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mavis bid her mother farewell after the dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was at the dinner table together with his wife and in-laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mavis' father twice visited the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alva advised George (his son-in-law) to exercise discretion in matters of romantic infidelity, threatening repercussions should his daughter Mavis be hurt. George was at the dinner table together with his wife and in-laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Mr. Kirby were shooting pool in the game room before Mavis turned up to shoot Mr. Kirby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George did not much care for his seemingly dim-witted wife whom he had evidently married because she was his wealthy boss' daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was taken aback by the revelation that his office had been bugged at the direction of the company president, who happened to be his father-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Mavis made a minor deal out of burying the two bodies (one implied) beneath rose bushes in the garden.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x35", "title": "The Fear", "date": "1964-05-29", "description": "A state trooper and a secluded woman (Hazel Court) experience strange incidents after the woman reports seeing lights in the sky.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert and especially Charlotte conquered their fear and went out from the mountain cabin where they'd been hold up to confront the mysterious thing or force that had been terrorizing them during the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Robert and Charlotte were being terrorized by two tiny space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Charlotte discovered the source of their plight to be two aliens no bigger than a man's thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert's refusal to be afraid amounted to courage. In the end (strangely) he commended Charlotte on her intrepidness (she'd spit giant aliens in the eye if they came?).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Highway Patrol trooper Robert Franklin was dispatched to the remote mountain cabin of brooding New York City magazine editor Charlotte Scott and ended up spending the night there to investigate some strange happenings going on outside her cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte and Robert barricaded themselves indoors because there seemed to be a putative home invader on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte and Robert entertained the possibility that some lights in the sky she'd see might have been an alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert, a rural Highway Patrol trooper, called out the New York City magazine editor Charlotte for being a snob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The New York City magazine editor Charlotte spoke ill of her new \"country bumpkin\" neighbors to which the rural Highway Patrol trooper Robert took exception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and Charlotte encountered what by all appearances was a a 500-foot-tall alien with one eye, although it turned out to be only a balloon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and Charlotte encountered a small flying saucer containing two aliens no bigger than a man's thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte mentioned that she had had a nervous breakdown because of work pressure.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x30", "title": "The Second Verdict", "date": "1964-05-29", "description": "A lawyer discovers that his acquitted client was really guilty of murder and may try to kill again.\n\nDirected by: Lewis Teague. Story by: Alfred Hayes (teleplay), Henry Slesar (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a defense attorney who becomes deeply conflicted upon discovering that a client for whom he secured an acquittal on a murder charge was actually guilty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ned was confronted with the following troublesome dilemma: should he follow his conscience and try to expose his former client as the villainous murderer he was, or should he obey his duty to his law firm and his profession just let the matter drop?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key component of the story is Lew getting acquitted of a murder that he had indeed committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew and Melanie Rydell were in a somewhat troubled marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lew was a stereotypically jealous and hot-tempered husband to Melanie. He killed two men over her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was happily engaged to the boss' daughter at the law firm where he worked as an attorney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was deeply troubled by the revelation his newly acquitted client was in fact guilty of the murder for which he was tried. He thereafter went to extraordinary means to see that justice was meted out. First, by exhausting judicial means, then by turning to extrajudicial means when push came to shove.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned have Tony his tacit approval to extrajudicially kill the wrongly acquitted murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was faced with the following troublesome dilemma: should he anger his future father-in-law, risk his fiancé's displeasure and perhaps jeopardize his impending marriage in order to expose his former client as the murderous villain said client had confessed himself to be?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with Lew being acquitted of murder in a trial by jury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Lew covered up his murder of a young man in a jealous rage by making it look as if the man was killed by a mugger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Osterman and his daughter Karen conversed about Ned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen quipped that Ned returned an English car, the motor of which had an accent, because he only drives Detroit manufactured vehicles out of a sense of love for his country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Osterman remarked that he might get in a round of this club-and-ball sport in the afternoon so long as it didn't rain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the midst of a jealous rage, Lew put Melanie in a schoolyard headlock and threatened to break her neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Arthur was giddy with excitement upon being informed of Ned's presence by the maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective showed up at the scene of Tony's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Arthur contended that Lew may have been not all right upstairs, and for that reason it would have been unjust to sentence him to the chair for his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned consulted with Judge Arthur regarding Lew's hypothetical fate should he had been convicted of murder. Ned thought Lew would have been sentenced to death, but Judge Arthur said he would have had Lew confined to an insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned was incentivized to drop his crusade by the threat of having his career ruined and his lucrative engagement to the boss' daughter broken off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x31", "title": "Isabel", "date": "1964-06-05", "description": "An ex-convict marries the woman who had him sent to jail.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: William Fay (teleplay), S.B. Hough (novel), Henry Slesar (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Howard as he plots a most unusual revenge for his having been falsely convicted of assault: seduce his alleged victim, marry her, and then blow her to bit on their honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Howard was spent a stretch in the state pen for an assault that he was adamant he didn't commit. The main part of the story follows Howard as he plots revenge against his alleged victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on Howard being wrongfully convicted of attempting to assault Isabel. Although not made explicit, the circumstances of the incident suggest the assault was of a sexual nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not long after being released from the state pen, Howard donned a fedora and fake mustache and pulled off a daring daylight robbery of $15,000 from a bank messenger on the employee's way out of the bank. He was later confronted over this matter by a police detective and blackmailed into staying with his detested wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard plotted to kill Isabel on their maritime honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Huntley told Howard that he was taking him to the police station for questioning on assault of Isabel. Sgt. Snyder and Lt. Huntley were investigating Howard in relation to the theft of $15,000 and also for plotting to murder his new wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard plotted to off his new wife in a boating accident on their honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Someone told Howard that Isabel was a homely spinster who dreamed of being swept up by a man. As a result, she convinced herself that Howard was not her attacker. She later married him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard chewed out his attorney, Mr. Selby, for letting the case against him go to trial, among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impartiality in the legal system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the lead up to his trial for attempted criminal assault, Howard asserted something to the effect that he should be found innocent on account that it was his word against the word of his alleged victim. Howard's defense attorney Mr. Selby cautioned him that this so in the eyes of the law, but not necessarily in the eyes of the jury. The jury might side with the local woman over him, an out-of-towner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard was found guilty of attempted criminal assault in a court of law and sentenced to 1 to 5 years in the state pen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard talked to the warden about his time in prison, and claimed that the state owed him $13,000 for his travails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard and Isabel were married after a brief engagement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliability of eyewitness testimony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether Isabel mistakenly identified Howard as her attacker. Although never exactly spelled out, one gathers that Howard was innocent of the charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard open a record shop after being freed from prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)", "title": "Robinson Crusoe on Mars", "date": "1964-06-17", "description": "A science fiction retelling of the classic novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_on_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Kit Draper in his efforts to sustain himself, and his pet monkey, on the surface of Mars. He found a cave for shelter, burned coal-like rocks for warmth, and discovered that heating the rocks provided a source of oxygen. He additionally secured water and a steady supply of edible plant “sausages”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Kit Draper in his efforts to sustain himself, and his pet monkey, on the surface of Mars. He found a cave for shelter, burned coal-like rocks for warmth, and discovered that heating the rocks provided a source of oxygen. He additionally secured water and a steady supply of edible plant “sausages”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kit Draper encountered Martians while stranded on the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kit Draper and Friday had to cooperate to survive on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew flew to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew flew to Mars in the rocketship, Mars Gravity Probe 1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kit Draper hallucinated seeing his old friends while stranded on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kit Draper began to lose his mind after being stranded alone on Mars for an extended period of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kit Draper and Mona the monkey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kit Draper forced Friday to learn English so they could communicate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1959e5x36", "title": "The Bewitchin' Pool", "date": "1964-06-19", "description": "Two children escape from their bickering parents by way of their swimming pool to a special place where the mysterious Aunt T lives.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Earl Hamner, Jr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1959.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fantasy land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a fantasy land that could be accessed by troubled children through swimming pools, chimneys, or the like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's need to be loved", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator spelled how Sport and Jeb found a happy fantasy land complete with a loving aunt out of a need for love that their parents had left unfilled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil and Gloria Sharewood abruptly announced that they were getting divorced to their two kids, and coldly instructed them to choose which of them their wanted to live with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sport retreated with her little brother Jeb to Aunt T's idyllic fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil and Gloria Sharewood were constantly bickering with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gil and Gloria Sharewood's two kids preferred the company of the loving Aunt T to their constant bickering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sport and Jeb had enough of their parents talk about divorce and retreated to an idyllic fantasy land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sport and Jeb discovered a \"door\" at the bottom of their swimming pool which led to an idyllic fantasy land full of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "While their parents bickered, Sport and Jeb escaped into a fantasy land at the bottom of their swimming pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "The choice of which parent to live with was abruptly thrust upon two kids, who promptly elected to jump into the pool instead. Upon jumping into the pool, they were transported to a fantasy land, and were faced with deciding if they wanted to live there or stay with one or the other of their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diving into the swimming pool, two kids unexpectedly found themselves in some sort of fantasy land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gloria and Jeb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gloria and Sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil and Jeb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil and Sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gil thought Gloria should tend to the house, but she wanted to get a modeling job and not squander her talents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh2x32", "title": "Body in the Barn", "date": "1964-07-03", "description": "An old woman tracks down her husband's murderer.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Harold Swanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounds a quarrel between Bessie and her neighbor over a newly erected fence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Samantha Wilkins had a troubled marriage. Later Henry married Camilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Henry as he frames his domineering wife for his own apparent murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha was a shrew to Henry in the Shakespearean sense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-esteem need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Camilla humiliated Henry pointing out that he hen-pecked by his wife, Samantha. Henry then decided to go out into the world and make a profession so that he could come home with some pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha was framed for her husband Henry's apparent murder by none other than Henry himself. This was Henry's dastardly plan to have Samantha executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry faked his own death as part of an elaborate plot to make it look like his domineering wife had murdered him. She was arrested, found guilty, and put to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly woman Bessie was receiving palliative care for an unspecified ailment. She'd come to terms with the reality that her days were numbered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bessie and Camilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Adamson made a house call or two on his elderly patient, Bessie Carnby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora served as maid the Wilkins'.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Turnbull was investigating Samantha for her husband's apparent murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha was framed for her husband Henry's apparent murder by none other than Henry himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly woman Bessie was receiving palliative care for an unspecified ailment. She'd come to terms with the reality that her days were numbered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Adamson admonished Bessie for hitting the brandy a bit too often.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha was executed in a manner unspecified for a murder she didn't commit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: First Men in the Moon (1964)", "title": "First Men in the Moon", "date": "1964-08-06", "description": "A film adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Men_in_the_Moon_(1964_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of Victorian-era English-people flew to the Moon using anti-gravity technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold Bedford and Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold Bedford and Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Victorian-era people encountered Selenites, that is, Moon people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Selenites lived under the surface of the Moon and were fascinated to learn that humans lived on the surface of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of Victorian-era English-people went to the Moon using anti-gravity technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A United Nations rocketship went to the Moon and found incontrovertible evidence that the Victorians had beaten them there by over 60 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Victorians on the Moon wore old fashioned divingsuit-like spacesuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Victorians were attacked by some sort of giant caterpillar while exploring a lunar cavern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph Cavor figured out a way to deflect gravity and used it to power a vessel to go to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Selenites used suspended animation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dogora (1964)", "title": "Dogora", "date": "1964-08-11", "description": "Carbon eating space spores threaten to devour the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogora" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spores drift to Earth from outer space and begin consuming anything made from carbon. The spores later somehow coalesced into a jellyfish-like creature that descended upon the island of Kyushu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ginza Gang criminals hatched a plot to steal a diamond shipment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jellyfish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gigantic jellyfish-like space monster attacked Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirino and Masayo Kirino.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x01", "title": "The Return of Verge Likens", "date": "1964-10-05", "description": "Verge Likens is a farmer whose father was killed by a crooked politician named Riley McGrath. Verge returns home to avenge his father's death. He manages to get close to Riley by getting hired as an assistant at a barbershop. After asking the barber to run an errand, Verge is alone with Riley and proceeds to lather up the murdering politician for a shave. Verge vividly describes how he is planning to cut Riley's throat. When the barber returns to the barbershop, he finds the door locked. He gets the police, who break down the door. Inside, they find Verge standing over Riley's dead body. Verge has avenged his father's death and he is not guilty of a crime. Riley died of a heart attack.\n\nDirected by: Arnold Laven. Story by: James Bridges (teleplay), Davis Grubb (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Verge becomes obsessed with avenging himself on Riley McGrath, who had killed Verge's father and gotten away with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer must ponder whether, or how close, it was that Riley McGrath's decision to shoot the drunken Likens was justified when Likens started spraying him with two beer bottles. Although the act was dismissed as self-defense, several characters visibly had a sour feeling over the affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vengeful Verge Likens and his meek, dim-witted brother were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Likens' brother grieved for their father. Riley McGrath briefly lamented his mother's passing from something to do with her having high blood pressure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Verge Likens became obsessed with avenging his fathers death by killing Riley McGrath, but in such a way that Riley would know why he died and suffer first. Thus Verged attended barber college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Riley McGrath, who had a weak ticker, dying from sheer fear while in the barber's chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a mop-top wig wearing Alfred Hitchcock made some satirical remarks about contemporary rock music while sitting at a set of drums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Likens' brother grieved for their father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley McGrath was a crooked politician. Because of his importance, witnesses would not testify against him. He bribed a bar keeper after his goon beat up Wilford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff appeared both in the beginning and the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Verge Likens got a job as a barber, and gave Riley McGrath the shave of a lifetime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley's personal driver, and goon, was present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken Stoney Likens, who was a poor farmer, lost his life confronting a crooked politician who was trying to force him off his plot of land. Stoney got all bent out of shape, and the politician shot him dead in what was determined to be an act of self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "What amounted to a funeral was held for Stoney Likens in his farm house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley McGrath had a bad ticker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley McGrath gave Wilford Likens a wad of money possibly out of guilt over having shot Wilford's father dead. The gift was later described as act of generosity fueled by guilt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x02", "title": "Change of Address", "date": "1964-10-12", "description": "Over the protests of his wife Elsa, Keith Hollin rents a beach house. Elsa dislikes the house and is disturbed by her husband's digging of a grave-like hole in the basement. She is further disturbed when she finds out that Keith is seeing a local girl named Rachel. When Keith tells Elsa that he wants to buy the house, she decides to foil his plan by contacting the wife of the current owner to tell her to not to sell. Keith, however, grows angry and kills Elsa. He buries her body in the basement, but is surprised when the police arrive. The police carry shovels and want to dig up the basement. The police tell Keith that Elsa discovered the wife of the house's owner was missing. She tipped off the police and they began an investigation. They called the house's owner in for questioning and he confessed to murdering his wife. He told them that he buried his wife in the basement of the beach house. The police are at the beach house to dig up the basement so that they can find the body.\n\nDirected by: David Friedkin. Story by: Andrew Benedict (story), Morton S. Fine, David Friedkin (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keith Hollin killed his wife, Elsa, and hid her corpse under the cement in the basement in his new beach house. He was rather quickly found out, however, because Elsa had just alarmed the police to the fact that the previous owner had done the very same thing to his own wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "After Keith killed Elsa and buried her body in the basement, ironically, Elsa herself became the instrument of Keith's undoing since she had recently alerted the authorities to the fact that the previous owner had done the very same thing to his own wife. Thus the police arrived and found two corpses, or so is the hanging implication at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith and Elsa's marriage was falling to pieces during the course of the story, although it was probably unraveling even at the onset.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith was a serial philanderer who had pursued several pretty young women behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reason for Keith's philandering as well as his hatred of his ageing wife, it is made clear, is that he couldn't stand the thought that he himself was getting old. He also obsessed about eating healthily and exercising.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith and Elsa Hollin moved to a new beachfront property against Elsa's wishes. It all went downhill from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The traditional way of murdering a spouse and burying them in the basement was featured in conjunction with some discussion about how to forward their mail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith, an on-in-years man, took up with the young, habitually bikini-clad woman Rachel soon after he and his wife took up residence at the beachfront house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith Hollin had had enough of his aging wife and took measure to be with a younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived to dig up Keith's basement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x03", "title": "Water's Edge", "date": "1964-10-19", "description": "Rusty Connors is a con man that has just been released from prison. He looks up the wife of his dead former cellmate, a robber and murderer, named Mike Krause. Before he was imprisoned, Krause stole a significant amount of money and killed his partner. The money and the body, however, never turned up. Connors talks to Krause's wife Helen and hopes that she knows where the money is. She, however, does not have a clue. Eventually, however, they are able to figure out that the money is stored in an abandoned boathouse that is now infested with rats. In the boathouse, they find the money and the skeleton of Krause's partner. When Connors sees the money, he is overcome with greed and tries to murder Helen. She manages to knock him out. When Connors awakens, he finds himself bound and gagged and being taunted by Helen. She gets up to leave with the money, but is tripped by Connors and is impaled on a hook. As she dies, the scent of her blood attracts the rats. Since Connors is bound; all he can do is listen with horror as the rats approach him in order to kill him by eating him alive.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Robert Bloch (short story), Alfred Hayes (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy search for hidden loot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rusty Connors and Helen Krause both salivated at the thought of finding Mike's $56,000 hidden loot. They ended up betraying and killing each other over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rusty tried to betray and kill Helen in the end, but she walloped him over the head, tied him to a post and left him to be eaten by rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and Rusty discussed their latent musophobia from time to time and, indeed, ended up at the mercy of a throng of flesh gnawing rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rusty appeared to be besotted with Helen. Alas, it was all a ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rusty assumed Helen to be an easy mark owing to her slovenly appearance. Little did he know that Helen had deliberately gained 30 pounds and played a fool in order to dupe him and the townspeople, and not stand out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock made some wry remarks about honesty in politics as he feigned to launch his campaign for office from the back of a caboose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with two cellmates conversing in prison some time before one of them died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen confessed that she had been unfaithful to Mike and that jealousy or vengeance was the real reason Mike had killed Pete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen confessed that she had been unfaithful to Mike and that jealousy or vengeance was the real reason Mike had killed Pete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen confessed that she had been unfaithful to Mike and that jealousy or vengeance was the real reason Mike had killed Pete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rusty told Helen that Mike's descriptions, while Rusty and Mike were incarcerated together, of her had made Rusty fall in love with her in his dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rusty and Helen fantasized of the comfortable middle class American lifestyle they could entertain were they to lay their hands on the missing $56,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen spoke of her late husband, Mike, from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen's husband Mike had died in prison. Helen was secretly relieved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike waxed poetic about the old days when he was together with his sweetheart from the discomfort of his prison bunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rusty's first act after getting release from the clink was to pick up a girly mag, called \"Romp\", from a local newsstand.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x04", "title": "The Life Work of Juan Diaz", "date": "1964-10-26", "description": "Juan Diaz is dying and penniless. His last wish is that he can provide financial security for his family. About a year later, a gravedigger named Alejandro exhumes Juan's corpse to make room in the cemetery. He has it mummified and stores it in a crypt with a number of other mummies. Juan's wife, Maria, discovers Alejandro's plan and steals Juan's body. She hangs it in the house and tells tourists that it is an authentic Mexican mummy. Money from the tourists pays for food and clothing for Maria and her three children. Eventually, however, Maria is overcome by the ghoulishness of what she has done. She begs for forgiveness, but a gleam in the eye of the corpse's body reveals that Juan approves of what she has done.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Ray Bradbury (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although the exact concerns weren't made explicit one gathers that Juan Diaz's own, and his family's, concern for how his corpse was interned had something to do with how they perceived he had a posthumous existence. Juan's son and his widow both spoke to the mummified corpse and saw it respond by it's eyes seemingly coming to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria lost her husband to some type of illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Jorge grieved his father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria mourned mourned her husband's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Juan's son, Jorge, grieved his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "Juan and his family were so poor that they couldn't afford to keep his body in a proper grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the avaricious shenanigans of a blackmailing undertaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gravedigger Alejandro had a morbid fascination with death. He shunned human contact, preferring to be in the catacomb with his precious mummies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gravedigger Alejandro had a morbid fascination with death. He went a bit bonkers when one of precious mummies was purloined by its widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The widow Maria was caring for her young son, Jorge. They carried off Jorge's father mummy together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police chief accompanied Juan's wife in order to have some grave philosophical debates with the town's cemetery keeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned the avaricious shenanigans of a blackmailing undertaker. He tried to extort money from a widow to keep her husband's corpse in a respectable grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria's story held sway with the chief of police, who happened to be her brother, in the matter of Alejandro's missing mummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The recently widowed Maria was caring for three young children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juan's wife and son sneaked into the gravedigger's crypt and scared the bejesus out of him by making it seem like one of the corpses had come alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is left ambiguous whether there was any life in Juan's mummified corpse (his eyes seemed to return to life a few times), but the avaricious gravedigger nearly browned his breeches when he thought he was facing a walking dead one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gravedigger told the police chief to mind his own business at the graveyard which was the domain of the dead. Later he tried to procure assistance from said police chief to get Juan's mummified corpse returned but was snubbed with an echoing of his own words.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Time Travelers (1964)", "title": "The Time Travelers", "date": "1964-10-29", "description": "A group of scientists find their time-viewing screen allows them to travel through time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Travelers_(1964_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists invented a kind of time portal they called the Time Selector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists invented a kind of time portal they called the Time Selector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists travel into Earth's future and find descendants of nuclear war survivors living in an underground city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war had rendered the Earth's surface uninhabitable by the year 2071.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Alpha Centauri", "level": "major", "motivation": "The post atomic horror, underground city dwellers built a starship and planned to fly it to a habitable planet, which they had discovered, in the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underground city dwellers used androids to do all their menial labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underground city dwellers constructed a rocketship and planned to take fly it to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underground city dwellers constructed a rocketship and planned to take fly it to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underground city dwellers planned to fly to Alpha Centauri in a state of suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underground city dwellers were in a state of war with mutants who lived on the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny McKee and Reena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists returned to their own time to find that everything appeared frozen in time on account that they were moving at an accelerated rate through time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded by showing the scientists repeating the same series of events over and over again.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x05", "title": "See the Monkey Dance", "date": "1964-11-09", "description": "While George is headed to see his girlfriend, he meets a mysterious limping stranger who makes George fear for his life. George learns that the stranger is his girlfriend's jealous husband and that his girlfriend arranged this meeting between them in hopes that her husband would kill George. The stranger tells George that she has done this sort of thing before and that he tried, but failed, to kill his wife's last lover. The stranger convinces George to plot revenge and tells him to tamper with the steering of his wife's car. George does as the stranger suggests and his girlfriend dies. George discovers to his dismay, however, that the limping stranger was really his girlfriend's former lover and that he used George to get his revenge on her.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Lewis Davidson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger turned out to be a vengeful ex who wanted the girlfriend dead and the crime pinned on George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mysterious stranger pretended to be a jealous husband. He was, in fact, a vengeful ex. The real husband had been jealous and shot him in the leg in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The girlfriend turned out to be a serially unfaithful married woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger pretended to be the girlfriend's husband. We learned something about the real one and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that everything the stranger had said and done was part of a ruse to trick George into doing the worst bit of murder, and have George take all the blame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger said he was going to murder George, but in the end tricked George into murdering the girlfriend instead, who was also George's ex lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger made it seem as if he was going to murder George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gun toting stranger dug a grave outside of George's caravan and made it clear that he'd kill George before long.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on George being confronted by his girlfriend's spurned lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger wanted nothing more than to be with George's girlfriend, but she wanted nothing to do with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's plans to spend a quiet weekend together with his girlfriend blew up in his face when a man claiming to be her husband showed up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George cowered in terror as the stranger pointed a gun at him and proclaimed his impending doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops showed up to collect George in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pajama Party (1964)", "title": "Pajama Party", "date": "1964-11-11", "description": "Teen aged Martian intelligence officer is sent to Earth to prepare the way for an invasion, but ends up falling in love with an Earth girl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pajama_Party_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians were planning to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians were planning to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Go-Go and Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Go-Go and Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian Go-Go used a teleportation device to transport objects from Earth back to Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)", "title": "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", "date": "1964-11-14", "description": "Santa Claus is abducted by Martians in order to bring Christmas to the Red Planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_the_Martians" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted Santa Claus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted Santa Claus along with two children and took them back to the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted Santa Claus along with two children and took them back to the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted Santa Claus along with two children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was a story about Santa bringing good will and cheer to the Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Santa Claus brought the spirit of Christmas to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santa's workshop was full of industrious, toy making elves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental controls in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martian parents worried watching Earth television all day was a bad influence on their children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "protecting kids from bad influences on children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martian parents worried watching Earth television all day was a bad influence on their children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sightings of a UFO over Earth were reported on the nightly news and the US military scrambled jets to investigate the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used a robot, named Torg, to abduct Santa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations launched a rocket in chase of the Martians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x06", "title": "Lonely Place", "date": "1964-11-16", "description": "Stella is married to a cowardly peach farmer named Emory and takes in a passing hobo named Jesse. She hires him to help her husband harvest the peach crop. Unfortunately, Jesse's strange behavior and fascination with a knife that he carries begins to frighten her. Emory, however, refuses to believe her. Stella tries to run away, but is caught by Jesse. He threatens to stab her, but she fights him off. She escapes in her husband's truck and heads home. There she awakens Emory and tells him about Jesse. Emory, however, confesses that he heard her screams, but was too afraid to do anything. Stella angrily stabs her husband and kills him. She then calls the police and blames the murder on the fleeing Jesse.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Francis Gwaltney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cowardice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was, arguably, to contrast the yellow-bellied Emory with his courageous wife Stella. Emory exposed himself as a coward by pretending to sleep in his armchair as his wife was being assaulted by a deranged farm hand. Jesse also proved a coward as soon as he lost his knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was, arguably, to contrast the yellow-bellied Emory with his courageous wife Stella, who scared away a knife wielding killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was, arguably, to contrast the yellow-bellied Emory with his courageous wife Stella, who scared away a knife wielding killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emory was stingy to the point that he would rather risk his wife's life than lose the cheap peach plucking labor of Jesse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse threatened and then assaulted Stella. The assault was not directly sexual although Jesse took a perverse pleasure in making Stella scared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emory's hiring of a mentally unbalanced farm hand put a strain on his otherwise happy relationship with his wife, Stella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emery was keen on harvesting his peaches at the lowest cost attainable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella was terrorized by the deranged farm hand, Jesse, to the point where she packed a suitcase and tried to flee the remote farm house in which she lived with her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged drifter Jesse took a strange pleasure in making Stella fear for her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella and Emory briefly deliberated over whether to take in the drifter Jesse to help with the peach harvest. Though Jesse quickly showed signs of being a creep, Emory's greed was overridden by his better judgement to Stella's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ends with Stella killing her cowardly spouse and pinning the crime on the drifter Jesse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella was unsatisfied with her childless marriage with the unaffectionate Emory who cared more for his peaches than his wife, which he proved in the end by turning a blind eye when she was assaulted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mentally unbalanced drifter Jesse conveyed to Stella that part of his animus toward her stemmed from his having been rejected by many women over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse slaughtered an innocent squirrel just to unnerve Stella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella explicitly referred to the wild squirrel she was caring for as a pet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella was horrified to discover that Jesse had cut up her pet squirrel with his pairing knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Stella placing the blame for her husband's murder on a deranged drifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella phoned Sheriff Oscar to report that her husband had been stabbed to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Creeping Terror (1964)", "title": "The Creeping Terror", "date": "1964-11-20", "description": "A slug-like monster terrorizes an American town after escaping from a crashed speculative spaceship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creeping_Terror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A slug-like monster from outer space terrorized an American small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien rocket was discovered to have crashed nearby an American small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Gordon was a newlywed deputy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "MArtin Gordon's new marriage put a strain on his friendship with James Caldwell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that the slug-like monster had traveled to Earth in a state of suspended animation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x07", "title": "The McGregor Affair", "date": "1964-11-23", "description": "Edinburgh, Scotland, 1827. John McGregor must take care of his alcoholic wife Aggie. He works for Dr. Knox and must lug large boxes of tanbark to his medical academy. When John learns that the boxes actually contain the murdered victims of two body snatchers named Burke and Hare, he decides to get rid of his wife by getting her drunk and leaving her on the body snatchers' doorstep. The plan is successful, but John is overtaken by remorse. Unfortunately, he ends up being Burke and Hare's next victim.\n\nDirected by: David Friedkin. Story by: David Friedkin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John McGregor indirectly killed his good-for-nothing wife by leaving her at the doorstep of two other men who he knew would do the job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main motif in the story was John McGregor racking his mind over what to do about his fat, lazy, abusive and alcoholic wife and qualms about killing her by leaving her at the door of two men he knew would do the job for him. In one notable scene, John played out his his mind how dispatching his wife by means of strangling, drowning, and hanging were all bound to fail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the infamous body snatchers Burke and Hare killing people in order to sell their corpses to the university to be experimented upon by medical students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the historical setting featured it was an ethical dilemma whether recently deceased corpses could be experimented upon by medical students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among Aggie's various vices was an acute addiction to the tipple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Between McGregor's flashbacks and recounting of happier days and the squalid present in which he was henpecked by a fat alcoholic, we are given a vivid picture of marriage breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McGregor was brought to his wits end by his fat, lazy, alcoholic wife, Aggie. When he couldn't take it anymore he made a sacrificial lamb of Aggie to the notorious Burke and Hare killers, but later came to regret his actions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McGregor did in his fat, lazy, abusive, alcoholic wife to relieve himself of the burden of having her around the house. In John's words, he wanted \"a happy life\" where he could drink when he wanted to drink, and be alone when he wanted to be alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "John McGregor mooned over how good life would be out from under the yolk of his drunk heap of a wife. But after doing her in, he became lonely and remorseful, and longer for her to be back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with John regretting what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After disposing of his disagreeable wife, John found that he felt lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John ironically met the very same end he had orchestrated for his wife Aggie. Fate lent a hand in that the doctor perhaps happened to let the murderers know about McGregor's drunken rampage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The matchstick girls were quite obviously prostitutes out peddling all that they had to offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Knox was buying bodies on the black market for dissection at the medical academy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x08", "title": "Misadventure", "date": "1964-12-07", "description": "An outsider befriends a woman who is bent on murdering her husband.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Lewis Davidson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Eva helped to murder George. Colin murdered both George and Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colin's real motive for killing both Henry and Eva was to get the inheritance that he though, perhaps with some justification, ought to belong to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin killed his half-brother Henry to gain an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva lent a hand in her husband's murder although she was absent for the finale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin and George were half-brothers and resented each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and his half-brother, Colin, were in a dispute over an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contrasted the impoverished Colin with his relatively affluent brother George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generous character vs. mean character", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was notoriously tightfisted. That Colin was his polar opposite in this respect was made clear when Colin declared that, were their places reversed, Colin would indeed share his fortune with George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva was unfaithful to her miserly husband. She was having an affair with an unnamed man and slept with Colin, whom she thought was a blackmailing gasman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin blackmailing Eva into sleeping with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva was unfaithful to her miserly husband, George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was pathologically tight with money. He prided himself on using the same old silverware he inherited from his father, and opted to have go out of his way to have leftovers for lunch when he could just as well have eaten at a coffee shop. Most of all, however, George let his half-brother starve rather that share some of his inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that Colin, who murdered two people with gas, went to the gas chamber for his crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin posed as a gasman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin feigned to be a private eye employed by Henry to screw his wife in the impending divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin feigned to be a private eye employed by Henry to screw his wife in the impending divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a stalker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva was freaked out by the revelation that Colin had been monitoring her activities weeks, and taking photos of her together with her secret boyfriend. Colin feigned to have done it out of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin feigned to be obsessed with Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin claimed to have been a colonel in the South Pacific during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin feigned to have a \"raging jealousy\" of George over Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva smashed the bone china in a fit of rage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x09", "title": "Triumph", "date": "1964-12-14", "description": "A woman comes between a phony medical missionary and his partner.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Arthur A. Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story features two married couples. There were several discussions that related to the constitution of marriages in general. Thomas and Mary resented one and other due (in some degree at least) to their inability to have children. John and Lucy have a seemingly blissful union but Lucy ended up running away with Thomas. In the end Thomas killed Mary and John killed Lucy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas and Mary's marriage was on the outs, perhaps having something to do with that they'd never had children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Thomas killed Mary and John killed Lucy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was jealous of Lucy. Brother Thomas accused Mary of hating Lucy because Lucy was young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary resented Lucy and let her know so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas and Mary had a dysfunctional marriage as they were clearly at each others' throats. Mary spitefully lead Thomas on only to tell him she wasn't sure (implying she was quite sure) whether she still loved him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "John ended up knowingly (because he had seen Mary's body in the coffin) shooting Lucy because she had run off with John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable volunteering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns four medical missionaries in rural colonial India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young optimistic missionary Brother John, who genuinely wanted to help people in need, was juxtaposed with his cynical old counterpart, Brother Thomas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brother Thomas saved Lucy, a married woman, by murdering his own wife and she ran off with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Lucy seemed to be passionately in love. This was contrasted with Thomas and Mary's loveless marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary voiced concern over wanting to protect her husband's reputation for being a great medical missionary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of how his plan reader advised him to open a butcher shop after reading his thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern India", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Though not particularly important to the plot it is clear the story is set in some impoverished part of India during the days British presence there was strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The medical missionaries had at least one Indian helper that, among other duties, waited on them at the table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable organization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is understood that the two missionaries were associated with an organization that would quickly replace them were it discovered that they were frauds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary accused Thomas of being vain for trimming his mustache.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brother John could hardly believe his ears when he was told that his wife had died from cholera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brother John briefly blamed himself for his wife's death from cholera, regretting that he'd ever got her to accompany him to India for his medical missionary work.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster (1964)", "title": "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", "date": "1964-12-20", "description": "The fifth film in the Godzilla franchise and Shōwa series and was the second Godzilla film produced that year; production began following Mothra vs. Godzilla. This film also marks the first appearance of King Ghidorah, a recurring antagonist of the Godzilla franchise. The film was released in Japan on December 20, 1964 and was given a theatrical release in the United States in September 1965 by Continental Distributing as Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghidorah_the_Three-Headed_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and Rodan attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ghidorah had wiped out civilization on Mars and headed to Earth to do the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla, Mothra, and some other bird-like monster put aside their differences and cooperated together to defeat the three-headed dragon creature Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and the three-headed dragon creature Ghidra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film began with a group of people out at night looking for flying saucers in the skies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A being claiming to be a Martian came to Earth to warm humans that their world was in great jeopardy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, fairy-like women were brought to Japan from a remote Polynesian island to sing songs in front of audiences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, fairy-like girls communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, twin fairy-like girls interpreted Mothra's actions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x10", "title": "Memos from Purgatory", "date": "1964-12-21", "description": "A young author joins a gang to collect material for his latest book.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Pevney. Story by: Harlan Ellison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the felonious antics of a violent youth gang known as \"The Barons\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jay was an aspiring author intent on writing a novel based on the the violent gang known as \"The Barons\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Barons were proven murderers. Murder threats were made aplenty. In the end, Tiger stabbed Filene who, presumably, died from it. The third and final Jay's initiation was to murder someone. The Barons harbored murderous intentions toward a rival gang whom they were intent on assailing with lethal weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "In particular Jay and Candle became rivals within the gang after Jay humiliated Candle and usurped his position.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jay and Filene became besotted with each other. They even held hands in the movies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone in The Barons felt betrayed by Jay when it became known he was there to study them and write about them. Most of all Filene and Tiger felt done wrong by.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Candle was serially humiliated by Jay who outsmarted him at every turn. Tiger, an alpha male gang leader, was humiliated when he read aloud an excerpt from Jay's personal notes articulating that Tiger was afraid of the opposite sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "initiation rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jay was went through a three phase initiation to become a full member of the Barons youth gang. Phase one: pass through a gauntlet of belt-wielding goons. Phase two: bonk a girl of the gang's choosing (which he sidestepped). Phase three: kill someone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Barons gang satisfied the need of its juvenile delinquent members to belong to something bigger than themselves. Fish, for example, flipped out at the thought of breaking up the gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "A story concerned the felonious antics of a violent youth gang known as \"The Barons\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice hockey", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock, standing in front of a hockey net with stick in hand, described a new version of this sport played over 10 feet of water on melting ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Not much was said about the why's and how come's behind the juvenile delinquents known as the Baron's. They did, however, refer to people unlike themselves as \"finks\" and \"squares\" so perhaps a part of it was to set themselves apart from older generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The third part of Jay's initiation rite was to be a one-on-one fight with deadly weapons, Filene explained to him. Said fight did not occur, however.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiger of the opposite sex in Jay's estimation. Tiger took exception to the accusation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his writings, Jay analyzed Tiger as being afraid of women, implying Tiger perhaps harbored an antagonistic disposition toward them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay was accused of having tried to rob a shoe shop. Jay recorded in his personal notes how the Barons had robbed a gun shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police collected Jay at the scene of the botched robbery and held him until his sweetheart posted bail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ends with Jay holding his dying or near dead lover, Filene, in his arms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x11", "title": "Consider Her Ways", "date": "1964-12-28", "description": "A physician tries to prevent her vision of an all-female society from coming true.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Oscar Millard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-only society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Jane Waterleigh woke up in a possibly imagined future in which a virus had wiped all men from the face of the Earth and women perpetuated humankind by parthenogenesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central component, and the conclusion, of the story is that Dr. Jane Waterleigh experienced what she thought was a dystopian likely future, and became hellbent on preventing it from manifesting. It is implied that she ultimately failed in this endeavor, through an ironic twist of fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "major", "motivation": "The all-female society medical professionals tried to convince Jane that her memories of a two gender world were all some sort of elaborate delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feminism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A subtext of the story was women's liberation. For example, Jane spoke of how there is more to life than having babies, and the historian Laura remarked about how \"it must have been very strange to be ruled by a husband\". Laura explained something to the effect that women lacked opportunity in the past age because of their having to bare and raise and children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was convinced that every last man on Earth would perish from a mutation of the virus strain that Dr. Perrigan was developing to make brown rats go extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was convinced that every last man on Earth would perish from a mutation of the virus strain that Dr. Perrigan was developing to make brown rats go extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane murdered Dr. Perrigan thinking she had thus prevented the dystopian future she foresaw. Through an ironic twist of fate it was a case of mistaken identity: Dr. Perrigan had son with the same name and title.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female-only future society had a hive-inspired social structure (likened to ant-hives at one point): In particular, child-bearing had been delegated to a small number of women who were not given education but were fed enormous amounts of food, and who were consequently exceedingly fat and stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roughly half of the story took place in what seemed like a future in which Jane had mysteriously found herself after sampling some novel drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "In featuring a thriving, yet arguably dystopian, stereotypically female female-only future, the story discusses whether or not traditionally male roles in society are necessary or, indeed, desirable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was a medical doctor who had taken a powerful psychedelic that caused her move into the future somehow. She discussed this with the people she encountered there. Jane was tended to in sickbay by a physician and nurse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane only gradually pieced together her old life after waking up in the future all-female society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illiteracy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "That Jane, whose role in the all-female society was that of a birthing cow, could read and write was an abomination. The other baby factory women were proud of being illiterate. The viewer is left to ponder the extent to which this is a social commentary on educating women in contemporary society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane vaguely recalled that her husband, Donald, was killed a year after they tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two officers of the law showed up at the sickbay to arrest Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane's lawyer said he would have been glad to get her off with a life sentence for shooting Dr. Perrigan dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that ants reproduce asexually (which is partially true).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The all-female society historian Laura despised men.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Curse of the Fly (1965)", "title": "Curse of the Fly", "date": "1965", "description": "A father and son attempt to perfect a teleportation machine they created with disastrous consequences.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Fly" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Fly" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henri and Martin Delambre created a teleporter that could send a man from Montreal to London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henri Delambre and Martin Delambre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Delambre and Patricia Stanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Delambre and Patricia Stanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Delambre was hiding from his new wife Patricia Stanley that he had was keeping his former grotesquely disfigured wife in the stables.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henri and Martin Delambre were testing their teleportation device on people with disfiguring consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Delambre had recessive fly genes which caused him to age rapidly and he needed a serum to keep him young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henri and Martin Delambre were testing their teleportation device on people with disfiguring consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henri Delambre and Patricia Stanley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how some years ago that Martin Delambre had been merged with a fly when he went through the teleportation device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Delambre had recessive fly genes which caused him to age rapidly and he needed a serum to keep him young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Delambre justified testing his teleportation device on people by arguing that the benefits the machine, once working, would bring the the world would outweigh the harm done to the test subjects.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night Caller from Outer Space (1965)", "title": "Night Caller from Outer Space", "date": "1965", "description": "Scientist Jack Costain and his aides investigate a meteorite in the British countryside, discovering that it is an alien device from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. They capture a tall alien and take it to their lab, but it escapes. Shortly thereafter, teenage girls begin to go missing after answering an advertisement in 'Bikini Girl' magazine. It turns out the alien wants to use women from Earth for breeding purposes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Caller_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Jovian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens from Jupiter's moon Ganymede came to Earth seeking human females for breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien from Ganymede abducted Earth women to use as breeding stock for his species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some or another cataclysmic event left the aliens on Ganymede unable to reproduce in sufficient numbers to perpetuate their species, so they have to kidnap Earth women to use for breeding stock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Eye Creatures (1965)", "title": "The Eye Creatures", "date": "1965", "description": "An unnamed countryside is invaded by a flying saucer and its silent, shambling alien occupants.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_Creatures" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eye creatures from space invade an unnamed countryside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eye creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan Kenyon and Susan Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan Kenyon and Susan Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan Rogers was accused of a hit and run by the police, but Stan was adamant that it was a space man he hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military had a UFO monitoring program. Jim and Stan were ridiculed for seeing a flying saucers and space men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eye creatures came to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Military officials worried that there would be a mass panic if information leaked to the public about a flying saucer landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military was running a top secret UFO monitoring program, and hid information from the public about a flying saucer crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The district attorney and his daughter Susan Rogers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The district attorney disapproved of his daughter dating Stan Kenyon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Stoner (1965)", "title": "Stoner", "date": "1965", "description": "Stoner has been categorized under the genre of the academic novel, or the campus novel. Stoner follows William Stoner's undistinguished career and workplace politics, his marriage to Edith, his affair with his colleague Katherine, and his love and pursuit of literature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Most of the novel is set on a campus, and the we follow the protagonist's career as a professor of English literature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the direction of the novel is towards evermore focus on the rivalry between profs. Stoner and Lomax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "much of the novel is taken up by the battle for moral supremacy in Stone's marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stoner and Edith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stoner and Lomax are at the center of an evermore important tangle of intrigues", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the novel highlighted Stoner's sense of integrity, and other character's spinelessness, when faced with Lomax' blatantly corrupt behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story placed much focus on Stoner's unambitious passion for simply teaching young people about literature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stoner and his daughter was a prevalent component on the nuptial battle ground", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith and her daughter was a prevalent component on the nuptial battle ground", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stoner made two close friends in graduate school and of them Finch remained important until the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "favoritism at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stoner was persecuted by Lomax because he refused to let Lomax' favorite, albeit incompetent, student pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stoner had an extramarital affair that was an important component in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stoner fell hurriedly in love with Edith who he came to regret marrying, and later with Katherine, a student", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stoner and his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stoner and his mom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stoner lived through two World Wars although he never enlisted - one friend was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stoner elected to resign when he realized that he had cancer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x12", "title": "Crimson Witness", "date": "1965-01-04", "description": "A playboy loses everything to his hated brother, leading to a reenactment of the story of Cain and Abel.\n\nDirected by: David Friedkin. Story by: David Friedkin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ernest Mullett murdered his brother Farnum Mullett, just as Cain murdered Abel in the Bible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ernest Mullett murdered his brother Farnum Mullett, just as Cain murdered Abel in the Bible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ernest's wife and mistress both abandoned him for his brother the mysterious and exciting, yet obviously unscrupulous, playboy Farnum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnum, a brash and unpredictable playboy, swooped in and won the heart of his brother Ernest's wife, Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest was having an affair with the office secretary, Barbara, behind his wife's back, and later another secretary named Madeleine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest was having an affair with the office secretary, Barbara, behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnum swooped in and won the hear of his brother's wife and mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a commentary of the (perhaps outdated) idea that women feign love and affection yet pursue mates because of their wealth and power. This is most obviously illustrated when three women who had rejected Ernest for his (more successful) brother Farnum suddenly and disingenuously compete again for Ernest's affection after Farnum turned up dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Ernest and Farnum had a stereotypical rivalry going on. Farnum stole both Ernest's job, his wife, and his mistress. But then Ernest killed Farnum after Farnum goaded him into it by commenting on how Ernest had pussyfooted and failed to kill him when he had the chance, back when they were youths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Ernest and Farnum had a stereotypical rivalry going on. Farnum stole both Ernest's job, his wife, and his mistress. But then Ernest killed Farnum after Farnum goaded him into it by commenting on how Ernest had pussyfooted and failed to kill him when he had the chance, back when they were youths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Ernest and Farnum had a stereotypical workplace rivalry going on. Farnum stole both Ernest's job, his wife, and his mistress. But then Ernest killed Farnum after Farnum goaded him into it by commenting on how Ernest had pussyfooted and failed to kill him when he had the chance, back when they were youths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnum uncovered that Ernest had stolen $2,724 from Baldwin-Lills, Inc. over the years. Ernest pilfered $5,000 from the company vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest held ill-feelings toward his brother Farnum for taking his wife and job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dull and unambitious Ernest was juxtaposed with his cunning, unpredictable playboy of a brother Farnum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest became even more disloyal to his company after he got passed over for a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest embarked on a love affair with his new (one fifth) secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest was passed over for a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnum jockeyed himself in the lead position over Ernest for the promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Baldwin explained to Ernest why Ernest was being passed over for a promotion, yet was a valued employee of the company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnum tried to blackmail Ernest into \"behaving\" by revealing that he knew about Ernest's thieving from the company yet would conceal it as long as Ernest treated him well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives were investigating Farnum's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest juggled a wife and two mistresses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest was upset at Farnum because Farnum stole his promotion after Ernest went to the trouble of getting Farnum a job at the company.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x13", "title": "Where the Woodbine Twineth", "date": "1965-01-11", "description": "A woman's niece claims to be acquainted with \"minute people\".\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nell thought her niece, Eva, had imaginary friends (Mingo, Mr. Peppercorn, and Sam), like kids do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva's imaginary friends turned out to be some perfectly real. They were unspecified folklore-like beings, possibly inspired by faeries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nell took in her orphaned niece, Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little girl Eva had lost both her parents and had to go live with her aunt, Nell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little girl Eva had lost both her parents and had to go live with her aunt, Nell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nell took in her orphaned niece, Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little girl Eva's assertions about a community of little people living under the sofa was written off by Nell as the excessive imaginings of a troubled child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Eva's doll, Numa, became a human girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Nell discovered that her niece had been possessed by Numa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, Alfred Hitchcock feigned to be \"training\" for a pie eating contest and was confident he wouldn't have trouble making the weight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nell's father, Captain King Snyder, gave the Eva a doll that was named Numa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with the Eva attending her father's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The domestic servants Suse and Jessie worked on Captain Snyder's estate. Suse was shown cooking and vacuuming, and took Eva under her wing to some extent. Jessie did yard work, fixed a player piano, and drove Nell into town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"old maid\" Nell lived with her aging father, Captain Snyder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x14", "title": "Final Performance", "date": "1965-01-18", "description": "A former vaudevillian's bride-to-be plans to get away from him.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aged Rudolph planned to marry 17 year old Rosie as soon as she turned 18.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosie, only 17, was desperate to get out of having to marry the elderly former vaudevillian performer, Rudolph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aged vaudevillian performer Rudolph killed his young bride-to-be, Rosie, rather than let her run off with a Hollywood writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aged Rudolph planned to marry 17 year old Rosie as soon as she turned 18. She wasn't keen on the idea and tried to run away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph used his ventriloquism to fool Cliff in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph killed his bride-to-be Rosie in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff became besotted with Rosie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff and Rosie both aspired to make it big in Tinseltown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph Bitzner was a washed-up vaudevillian actor who dreamed of a comeback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph had show business in his blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff came between Rudolf and his reluctant, young bride-to-be, Rosie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph was trying to resurrect his antiquated vaudeville act under a misplaced notion that it would be popular with contemporary audiences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff was writing for a navy themed Hollywood TV series. Rudolph offered to pay Cliff to write for his comedy act, but Cliff refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff picked up Rosie when she was hitchhiking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff pulled over Cliff on the highway and charged him with speeding, polluting the countryside with the blue smoke that was trailing from his car, and picking up a minor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff evidently pocketed the $35 that Cliff coughed up for speeding ticket fee, saying that he didn't issue receipts and later covering Cliff's root beer out of the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "picking up a hitchhiker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff made an ill-fated decision to pick up Rosie on when she was hitchhiking on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grizzled old mechanic Mr. Davis repaired Cliff's car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x15", "title": "Thanatos Palace Hotel", "date": "1965-02-01", "description": "A suicidal man checks into a hotel that caters to people just like him.\n\nDirected by: Laslo Benedek. Story by: Arthur A. Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story opened with Robert jumping from a tall building in a failed bid to end his life. He later checked into the titular Thanatos Palace Hotel and signed a contract for the proprietor to kill him when Robert was ready to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Ariane were effectively prisoners in the Thanatos Palace Hotel. Robert plotted their escape but Ariane betrayed him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Ariane fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ariane played along with Robert's escape plan, only to betray him in the end. Robert was hanged as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Ariane came to rethink their decision to sign a suicide contract with Borchter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horseback riding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and Ariane went horseback riding in the hills for pleasure, or so Robert wanted Borchter and his cronies to believe. In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock spoke in glowing terms of the sport of equestrianism while mounted on the back of a horse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert made an ill-fated suicide attempt in part because the bank foreclosed on his mortgage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert went to the hotel doctor feigning a muscular pain in his chest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x16", "title": "One of the Family", "date": "1965-02-08", "description": "A family discovers that the nanny that they hired to care for their baby is a wanted child killer.\n\nDirected by: Joseph Pevney. Story by: Oscar Millard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joyce was deathly afraid for her infant's life as she came to believe that their new nanny had a track record of infanticide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dexters' and their stereotypically no-nonsense German nanny were shown taking care of the Dexters' infant boy, Junior. Christine explained that it was quite rational to kill babies as they are manipulative, domineering little monsters - or something to that effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter and Joyce Daily hired a live-in nanny to take care of their infant with the idea that they'd go galavanting around in Europe for a couple of months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter and Joyce hired a strong willed German nanny to take care of their infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on the Dexters' nanny Freida being wanted by the police for having murdered a baby in cold blood by nursing it with arsenic-laced milk. The infanticidal nanny was not, in fact, the woman Joyce thought it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The true baby killer Christine was deeply deranged. Joyce mentioned to Christine that the infanticidal nanny was insane, but Christine demurred. In his closing remarks, Alfred Hitchcock conveyed to the viewer that Christine was placed in a sanitarium. The idea was floated that one would have to be deeply mentally ill to kill a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freida was wanted by the police after having been wrongfully accused of poisoning a baby with arsenic-laced milk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bailey made house call to check on the Dexters' infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joyce spoke with her mother about her concerns with the new nanny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine said that her nanny beat her as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine framed Frieda for the baby killing by planing an arsenic poisoned milk bottle in Freida's room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine killed the baby in part out of jealously over the attention it got from its parents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x17", "title": "An Unlocked Window", "date": "1965-02-15", "description": "Three nurses care for a patient in a manor where previous nurses have been killed.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In particular one nurse was afraid for her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a trio of nurses who are afraid because a serial murderer with a taste for slaying nurses has been featured in the news.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned nurses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glendon Baker was an invalid taken care of by Stella Crosson. He was largely bedridden and needed regular oxygen therapy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The house keeper Maude and her handyman husband Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maude got hammered and made a scene before passing out on the floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x18", "title": "The Trap", "date": "1965-02-22", "description": "A woman plots to murder her husband and marry one of his employees.\n\nDirected by: John Brahm. Story by: Lee Kalcheim.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ted took measures to put a stop to his wife, Peg, running around with Ted's secretary under Ted's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Peg Beale. Peg and Ted's newly hired secretary, John, embarked on a passionate love affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The obnoxious toy manufacturer hired a new secretary, John Cochran, who wet on to woo his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg embarked on a passionate love affair with her husband's newly hired secretary, John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg, an attractive young woman, married the aging and obnoxious toy manufacturer Ted Beale for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Peg fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg and her lover, John, hatched a plot to dispense with her obnoxious husband, but it backfired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg booby trapped the elevator before going on vacation, expecting her obnoxious husband to trapped there and starve to death. Alas, the man she trapped in the elevator turned out to be her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg and John perpetuated their tryst in constant for fear retribution from Peg's husband, should he but open his eyes and see what was going on under his nose. Indeed, the story concluded with Ted cleverly orchestrating John's demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peg, in particular, objected to the childish manners of her husband, Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people were subjected to the antics of Ted. For example, Ted sprung the old joy buzzer hand shake gag on one of the birthday party attendees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's birthday party was a source of merriment to all those in attendance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted interacted with his butler.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Crack in the World (1965)", "title": "Crack in the World", "date": "1965-02-24", "description": "A team of scientists launch a rocket in the Earth's core to research its geothermal energy but accidentally unleash a cataclysmic destruction that threatens to sever the earth in two.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_in_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "geothermal energy from Earth's interior", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists devised a way to drill into Earth's core with the goal of generating almost unlimited geothermal power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen Sorensen and Maggie Sorensen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Rampion warned Stephen Sorensen that it was too risky to detonate an atomic bomb in the Earth's mantle, but he did it anyway, and it resulted in the world nearly cracking in two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists detonated a nuclear bomb deep inside the Earth and the planet nearly cracked in two as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international consortium of scientists endeavored to use nuclear weapons for the benefit of humankind, but things went awry when their efforts results in the world nearly cracking into pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Stephen Sorensen's doctor was worried about him over his having been exposed to a large dose of X-rays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie Sorensen confided in her husband Stephen that she wanted a baby, but he was not entirely keen on the idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie Sorensen and Ted Rampion were romantically involved at some point before she married Stephen Sorensen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen Sorensen was diagnosed with terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x19", "title": "Wally the Beard", "date": "1965-03-01", "description": "A man gets more than he bargained for when he acquires a wig and beard.\n\nDirected by: James H. Brown. Story by: Arthur A. Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter donned the persona of Philip Marshall in order to become a more exciting and adventurous figure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter donned the persona of Philip Marshall in order to become a more exciting and adventurous figure and attractive to the ladies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter donned the persona of Philip Marshall in order to become a more exciting and adventurous figure and attractive to the ladies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter's fiancée dumped him for being dull, albeit a good man. Noreen fell for him in his new persona of an adventurous charlatan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noreen and Curly had murdered Noreen's husband and pinned the crime on Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noreen and Curly had murdered Noreen's husband and pinned the crime on Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was pursuing a romantic relationship with Noreen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sailing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter feigned being an experienced sailor to impress his love interest, Noreen. He was shown bumbling around on his small sailboat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shamed by his ex-fiancée, Walter resolved to transform himself into a more exiting character: an adventurous man of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock sat slouched on a throne, holding a mock Sovereign's Orb and scepter as he discussed his fleeting reign as a one-day monarch in a nation known for undergoing a political revolution every 24 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter and Lucy had been engaged for a few weeks when she broke it off because she realized Walter was too dull to bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter, Noreen, and Curly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was blackmailed by Curly into hiding a sack of what was supposedly $50,000 in silver and jewelry in actuality turned out to be a murder victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was dumped like a sack of potatoes by fiancée of six weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The salesman maneuvered Walter into buying an accessory beard to go along with his wig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating Walter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mutiny in Outer Space (1965)", "title": "Mutiny in Outer Space", "date": "1965-03-03", "description": "Space Station X-7 is overrun by a previously unknown but deadly alien fungus that originated in ice caves on the moon and was inadvertently brought back by astronauts returning with lunar samples.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_in_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space Station X-7 was overrun by a previously unknown but deadly alien fungus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Space Station X-7 follow the orders of their captain, who was growing more and more delusional over time, or mutiny against him in order to prevent a pathogenic fungus from reaching Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Animal and plant life on Earth being imperiled by a pathogenic Moon fungus is a key component of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Station X-7 crew did everything they could to stop an extremely pathogenic Moon fungus from reaching Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two astronauts blasted off from the surface of the Moon in a rocketship and docked with Space Station X-7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Moon base.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Human Duplicators (1965)", "title": "The Human Duplicators", "date": "1965-03-03", "description": "A very tall space alien comes to Earth at the command of the \"Intergalactic Council\" to replace select humans with android duplicates with the goal of taking over the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Duplicators" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth to make android duplicates of select humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth to make android duplicates of select humans as part of a Intergalactic Council plot to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth to make android duplicates of select humans as part of a Intergalactic Council plot to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa Dornheimer was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Vaughan Dornheimer was determined to create artificial eyes for his blind niece Lisa Dornheimer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Vaughan Dornheimer was determined to create artificial eyes for his blind niece Lisa Dornheimer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x20", "title": "Death Scene", "date": "1965-03-08", "description": "A mechanic aspiring to be an actor writes a play for the daughter of a former director.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: James Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gold digging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leo was a gold digger and after the seemingly wealthy heiress, Nicky. Little did he know she was, in fact, almost broke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was engaged to get married to Nicky when she, together with the man she had presented as her father, murdered him in order to cash in on the life insurance they had pressured him to take out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was engaged to get married to Nicky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicky plotted with Gavin, whom she had presented as her father, to murder Leo in order to cash in on the life insurance they had pressured him to take out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was a mechanic by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was besotted with Nicky, or perhaps more with her money than her herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicky plotted with her father to murder Leo in order to cash in on the life insurance they had pressured him to take out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicky plotted with her father to murder Leo in order to cash in on the life insurance they had pressured him to take out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gavin was mortified when Leo and his friend burst out laughing at seeing his old silent movie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gavin explained to Leo that he had practically no money left because it was lost on something or another. Gavin and Nicky came up with a scheme to get Leo to buy life insurance, then cash in on it after murdering Leo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gavin and Nicky called their daughter in the end to assure their financial troubles were over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gavin was wheelchair-bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Nancy was not Gavin's daughter, but rather his wife. This feat she pulled off by wearing copious amounts of makeup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fellow mechanics Leo and Dancer were rooming together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicky initially rebuffed Leo's romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x21", "title": "The Photographer and the Undertaker", "date": "1965-03-15", "description": "A photographer and an undertaker are assassins who have each been assigned to kill the other.\n\nDirected by: Alex March. Story by: James Holding (story), Alfred Hayes teleplay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned two hitmen and their antics. By daylight, Arthur Mannix was a photographer and Hiram Price was an undertaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur assassinated several people in exchange for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur concluded that his regular employer had hired another assassin to kill him. Why is not entirely clear but it might have been a test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur had a fiancée he intended to marry, but he needed $50,000 to woe her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur fronted as photographer. Indeed, he reveled in taking photos of his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock gave a satirical account of the rules of American football.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hiram, hitman by night, was an undertaker by day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rudolph was running a local bureau of a national hitman service from his law office, where he presumably worked as a lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest vetted his daughter Sylvia's fiancé.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur burned down how own photography studio to cover up a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Arthur and Sylvia tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur consoled Sylvia over the death of her father, who'd been murdered, at their her wedding. Little did she know that Arthur was the killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur and Hiram recognized each other as assassins each sent to off the other, and fought accordingly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x22", "title": "Thou Still Unravished Bride", "date": "1965-03-22", "description": "A police officer suspects that his missing fiancee has been killed.\n\nDirected by: David Friedkin. Story by: Avram Davidson (story), Morton S. Fine, David Friedkin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that Sally gets cold feet, walks away from her wedding and is presumed to have become the victim of a serial strangler who was known to be afoot in the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A serial strangler was on the prowl in London. A woman, said to be the fourth such victim, was found strangled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy and Stephen were police investigators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy and others were mighty concerned for Sally's safety after she vanished into the night in a city in which a serial strangler was on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy and Sally were about to be married when both of them, but especially Sally, got cold feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy and Sally expressed their romantic feelings for each other, tinged with doubt as they were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally Benner was a spinster of 31 who was finally about to be married, against all odds in the 1960s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad luck signs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy made a quip about it being bad luck for a groom to see his bride on their wedding day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally's father rejoiced as his 31 year old daughter was, against all odds, about to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally's mother rejoiced as her 31 year old daughter was, against all odds, about to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Benner fretted after their daughter went missing on her wedding night.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x23", "title": "Completely Foolproof", "date": "1965-03-29", "description": "A woman plots to murder her rich, cheating husband.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Anthony Terpiloff.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Lisa Brisson were in a loveless marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Lisa were cheating on each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Lisa discussed divorce both in anger and in cold blooded legal terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby Davenport was going to kill Joe Brisson, but Joe persuaded Bobby to go and kill Lisa instead. Lisa was the wife of Joe and lover of Bobby. Lisa had arranged for a private detective to murder Bobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Lisa were fixated on money, and leach lost their life at the direction of the other in its pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an ironic twist of fate Joe and Lisa ended up having each other assassinated at the same time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad luck signs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock acknowledged that he realized it was bad luck to open an umbrella indoors. He nevertheless did just that from the cramped confines of his submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "For leverage in the divorce proceedings, both Joe and Lisa tried to steal each other's love letters to their respective lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was shot the private eye George Foyle who evidently was a professional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Brisson, a land developer, payed off a government official to resolve a zoning issue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Joe got home, he directed the butler to place his suitcase on his desk. Joe's butler poured him a glass of champagne. The butler skedaddled without a word when Joe raised his voice in anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna was in tears when Joe coldly told her their relationship was over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa had hired the private eye George Foyle to compile evidence of her husband's cheating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby mortgaged the proverbial family farm to feed his addiction to betting at the track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby was either head over heels in love with Lisa or else desperately wanted her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby Davenport was going to kill Joe Brisson, but Joe persuaded Bobby to go and kill Lisa instead. Lisa was the wife of Joe and lover of Bobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa, Bobby, and Joe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Red Beard (1965)", "title": "Red Beard", "date": "1965-04-03", "description": "Red Beard (赤ひげ, Akahige) is a 1965 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. The film was based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's short story collection, Akahige shinryōtan (赤ひげ診療譚). Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Humiliated and Insulted provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who is rescued from a brothel. The film looks at the problem of social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favourite topics: humanism and existentialism.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Beard" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Red Beard was a devoted physician and Yasumoto learned to be the same. We saw how things might have been like in a 19th century Japanese village clinic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "through the example of Red Beard, Yasumoto learned that he had been selfish and arrogant and resolved to better himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yasumoto came to learn compassion for the poor people in the village where he was stationed; several other characters showed remarkable compassion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Red Beard and Yasumoto", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yasumoto had a series of such lessons: girl trying to kill him, old man dying, operation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "several characters told stories of growing up with poverty and abuse, one in a brothel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how society treated the poor in 19th century Japan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the plight of numerous poor people when they became sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how healthcare worked albeit poorly, in 19th century Japan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "several girls told of bad things that had been done to them when they were kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onaka killed herself; crazy girl tried to hang herself; boy's whole family took poison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless character vs. selfish character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yasumoto was initially selfish by contrast with Red Beard who was extraordinarily selfless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yasumoto started out thinking that he was destined for the court and that tending to a mere village was beneath him on account of both his connections and his education", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A patient spoke of how they would like to die rather than in their present conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yasumoto acted like in order to be dismissed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "dying farmer told of his late wife and their courtship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Onaka choose between arrange marriage and true love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Onaka had; Yasumoto faced", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw many suffering poor characters and one rich", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "little thief stole gruel to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there were several married couples featured but briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x24", "title": "Power of Attorney", "date": "1965-04-05", "description": "A con man swindles wealthy women.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: James Bridges (teleplay).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jarvis swindled little old ladies out of their life savings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The conclusion which the story lead up to was that Agatha came up with a clever scheme to avenge herself (and the late Mary) on Jarvis: She removed evidence of Mary's suicide and tricked Jarvis into implicating himself. She then called the cops who ended up killing Jarvis in a shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The conman Jarvis was exceedingly avaricious even as judged by the standards of his trade. He would have gotten away with swindling Mary out of her life savings had he not gone back to accept Mary and Agatha's last $1000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarvis wooed Agatha as part of his con.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary took her own life after losing her life savings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion which the story lead up to was that Agatha came up with a clever scheme to avenge herself (and the late Mary) on Jarvis: She removed evidence of Mary's suicide and tricked Jarvis into implicating himself. She then called the cops, who ended up killing Jarvis in a shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was sombre in the wake of Mr. Barton's death. Agatha was presumably devastated to find that Mary had killed herself. She proceeded to take her revenge on Mary's killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary enlisted Jarvis as her attorney after her old lawyer, Mr. Barton, was found asphyxiated in his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conman James struck up a conversation with his next marks on a flight to Saltsburg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary expressed the anachronistic opinion that \"handling money is a man's business\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James asphyxiated Mr. Barton. Agatha arranged matters so it would seem Mary, who had shot herself, had been shot by Jarvis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary apologetically informed her niece, Eileen, that she could no longer afford to finance her trip to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary shot herself dead after losing her life savings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarvis quickly became desperate when he realized he had been tricked by Agatha and framed as the murderer of Mary, who had committed suicide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x25", "title": "The World's Oldest Motive", "date": "1965-04-12", "description": "A married man gets the chance to marry his girlfriend when an outsider offers to kill his wife.\n\nDirected by: Harry Morgan. Story by: Lewis Davidson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alex and his wife discussed a few times how their marriage had gone down the drain. The disintegration continued throughout the story and culminated in an attempted spouse murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex Marrow was having an affair with Fiona McNiece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and Angela discussed divorce perpetually. Alex told Fiona that Angela wouldn't grant one, but Angela said she'd go along with it any time. Alex apparently refused because he thought Angela would get a big settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex tried to have his somewhat unpleasant wife, Angela, killed so that he could be with his mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex had a lover who was trying to dump him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex contracted a firm specializing in spouse murders to do away with his disagreeable wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Schustak was an unusual type of killer for hire: he worked for a company that arranged \"accidents\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out the murder corporation was just a ruse invented by Richard and Fiona to scam Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and Richard talked business at the golf course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and Angela both wanted to get divorced, but Alex refused because he thought he'd lose too much - including his valuable stamp collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex, Fiona, Richard, though unbeknownst to Alex until the very end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex treasured his stamp collection.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x26", "title": "The Monkey's Paw—A Retelling", "date": "1965-04-19", "description": "A man acquires a monkey's paw that grants three wishes - with deadly consequences.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Morton S. Fine, David Friedkin, Anthony Terpiloff (teleplay), W. W. Jacobs (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul and Anne's wishes on a mysterious monkey's paw were fulfilled at terrible costs. Paul's wish for $150,000 came to fruition when his son died in a racing car crash, leaving Paul and Anne the beneficiaries of a lucrative life insurance policy. Anne's son returned from the grave in a mangled state after Anne wished her son back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Anne White came into possession of a mysterious monkey's paw that granted three wishes to its owner, each at a terrible cost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Anne White.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne loved her race car driver son, Howard, and couldn't bare to watch him race out of concern for his safety on the track. She was devastated when he died horribly in a race car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and his race car driving son, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul needed to come up with $150,000 or he and his family would be effectively ruined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Anne grieved for their son, Howard, who met his demise in a motorsports crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne at first chided Paul for taking seriously the idea that the monkey's paw might actually fulfill its owner's three wishes. Anne later participated in a séance out of desperation to connect with her tragically departed son, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Selina proclaimed her love to Howard, saying \"I'll love you forever\". Howard's mother, Anne, later questioned Selina's sincerity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard and Selina were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne arranged a séance in a desperate bid to communicate with her tragically departed son, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul re-wished his son dead upon realizing that he would have come back to life without having his mangled body restored to vigor. What the actual matter was is left to the viewers imagination, but it is hard not to picture a ghoulish apparition of the sort that should not rightfully be animated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul wished for $150,000 on the money's paw and belatedly found out that his son would die as part of the bargain. He therefore felt guilty for having made the wish.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x27", "title": "The Second Wife", "date": "1965-04-26", "description": "A newlywed woman thinks that her husband killed his previous wife.\n\nDirected by: Joseph M. Newman. Story by: Robert Bloch (teleplay), Richard Deming (story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martha thought Luke was a spouse murderer who planned on repeating his evil deed. She therefore bought a gun and shot him pre-empively, only to find that he had merely been preparing a fancy Christmas present for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gossip, innuendo, rumor and unfounded suspicion around Luke having murdered his first wife lead to disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha and Luke got married after meeting through a correspondents club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha thought Luke was leading her into the basement in order to slay her and therefore shot him pre-emptively. Little did she suspect he was merely about to unveil a lavish Christmas present to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha and Luke discussed their feelings for one another several times and Luke, especially, was conspicuously taciturn. His true feelings, which were warm, became posthumously evident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha increasingly came to believe that her new husband killed his first wife and planned to kill her as well. Because of their living arrange, she had not where else to go and nobody to turn to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock introduced a trio of robot actors to his viewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred Hitchcock was conspicuously absent the closing section, having been replaced by a robot actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Points were made about how penny-pinching Luke was. For example, when Martha complained about the lack of heat in the basement, Luke simply told her to wear more clothes. In the end, it was revealed that Luke had installed a new furnace in the basement after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story commenced with a somber and austere wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha had a friend, named Sylvia, whom she somewhat confided in. One of Martha's gossiping friends led her to believe that Luke was a wife murderer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x28", "title": "Night Fever", "date": "1965-05-03", "description": "An injured criminal uses a nurse's compassion to escape from the hospital.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Coleman. Story by: Gilbert Ralston (teleplay), Clark Howard (short story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The denoument to which the story lead up was that Ellen Hatch seemed like a compassionate, kind, trusting nurse who fell for the wrong guy. In fact, it was revealed, she was both spiteful, cold-hearted and cunning: She had not been taken in by Jerry Walsh for a second but had reveled in stringing him along and then betraying him to the police. He was the sixth to whom she had done so. Jerry Walsh, on the other hand, seemed like a sad case of a kind hearted man caught up in bad business. In fact, it is revealed, he was precisely the cynical, cop-killing, villain the police had claimed that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated in a double betrayal. Jerry Walsh, a hospital patient with pending criminal charges of a serious nature, took advantage of Nurse Hatch's seeming compassion by winning her heart only to cast her away the moment they escaped from the hospital. Little did Jerry know that Nurse Hatch was in cahoots with the police all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detectives Jake Martinez and Gabe Greely were tasked with bringing a suspected cop killer and his accomplice to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the killing of a police officer in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry seemingly won Nurse Hatch's heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry Walsh, a hospital patient with pending criminal charges of a serious nature, took advantage of Nurse Hatch's compassion to escape from the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is centered around Nurse Hatch caring for a hospitalized patient with pending criminal charges of a serious nature. Dr. Michaels, a physician, treated Jerry for his injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry was in hospital convalescing from s gunshot wound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nurse Hatch was unceremoniously and cruelly dumped by Jerry Walsh as soon as they reached his hideout. She appeared to be numbstruck but then it was revealed that she had been planning her own betrayal all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock, standing behind a pile of human bones, spoke of a television sitcom premised on a family of cannibals taking up residence in a typical suburban community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry was in hot water over a hold up that left a police officer shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe unabashedly flirted with Nurse Winters from the moment he set eyes on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nurse Hatch briefly struggled over the decision of whether or not to help Jerry escape from the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake Walsh had a sexy young floozy at his hideout and Ellen was seemingly numbstruck upon discovering this fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners in crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake Walsh and his cop-killing compatriot at the hideout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives, who treated each other with notable familiarity, were investigating a cop killing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alphaville (1965)", "title": "Alphaville", "date": "1965-05-05", "description": "A secret agent is sent on a mission to destroy the sentient computer which is completely controlling the city of Alphavilla.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphaville_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alphaville was completely controlled by the sentient computer Alpha 60.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alphaville was completely controlled by the sentient computer Alpha 60.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alphaville was an Orwellian sort of totalitarian society run by a computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film surrounded Lemmy Caution being sent on a mission to destroy the Alpha 60 computer system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alphaville was completely controlled by the tyrannical computer Alpha 60 which had outlawed emotion and creativity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natacha von Braun experienced love for the first time with Lemmy Caution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were fearful of thinking for themselves. There was also ample discussion about being afraid of death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ahh3x29", "title": "Off Season", "date": "1965-05-10", "description": "A trigger-happy cop gets fired from the police department and gets a job in the office of a small town sheriff.\n\nDirected by: William Friedkin. Story by: Robert Bloch (teleplay), Edward D. Hoch (short story).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thealfredhitchcockhour.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny Kendall was a trigger-happy cop who got fired from the force after he shot dead a thirsty hobo in, what seemed like, a berserk rage. He later shot a woman, whom he thought was his cheating girlfriend, in the back as she was running away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny and Sandy had decided to get married as soon as Johnny had a steady job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny came to believe that his girlfriend was cheating on him and lying about it to his face. This lead to him murdering an innocent woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny thought Sandy was cheating on him with Milt. Milt goaded Johnny into a murderous rage, and ended up paying with his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny was fired from the force. He then moved somewhere else and was hired as a sheriff's deputy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot revolves around Johnny's belief that Sandy was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny was told off twice by superiors who recognize that guns are at the root of gun-related accidents. To his dismay, Johnny was forbidden to carry a gun in his new policing job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy started work as a waitress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erma was fooling around with the ex-deputy behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny was \"honorably discharged\" from his job as a beat cop after he got a bit trigger happy and shot a hapless hobo. The sheriff's ex-deputy had been fired for drilling the sheriff's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old wino smashed a liquor store display window to get a bottle of the hard stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Kendall, a cop, shot an assailant dead without due cause while out on the beat late at night. Johnny was \"honorably discharged\" to presumably quell any potential scandal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erma was cheating on her husband, Sheriff Dade, with the ex-deputy. Sheriff Dade presumably fired the depty once he found out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: City Under the Sea (1965)", "title": "City Under the Sea", "date": "1965-06", "description": "Around the turn of the century, a lost city beneath the sea off the coast of Cornwall.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Under_the_Sea" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "An underwater city was discovered off the coast of Cornwall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "volcanic cataclysm", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Hugh was seeking desperately to save his underwater city, and its inhabitants, from utter destruction by an undersea volcano that was about to erupt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retarded aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Hugh and his men were not subject to the process of aging while they stayed under the conditions of the underwater city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Tufnell-Jones and his prize chicken Herbert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold played the coward in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were half-man/half-fish creatures, called the gill-men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Hugh died of rapid aging once he reached the surface.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monster a Go Go (1965)", "title": "Monster a Go-Go!", "date": "1965-07", "description": "An American astronaut mysteriously disappears from his spacecraft as it parachutes to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_a_Go-Go" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radiation was responsible for transforming astronaut Frank Douglas into a radioactive, murderous monster. Also there was much ado about an anti-radiation drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was worried to death about the fate of her astronaut husband Frank after his space capsule returned to Earth without him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)", "title": "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet", "date": "1965-08-01", "description": "It is 2020 and the Moon has been colonized. After traveling 200,000,000 miles, the first group of men land on Venus, where they find a prehistoric world in which the crew are attacked by various monsters, plants, etc.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Prehistoric_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounds an expedition to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a big robot named John that helped the crew on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts became stranded on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alyosha discovered that his odd triangular rock he had found is really a sculpture of a woman's face, proving that there might still be intelligent life on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Venus was discovered to be a prehistoric world, complete with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was the year 2020 and the Moon was colonized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three Soviet rocket ships went on a mission to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts explored the surface of Venus in conspicuous silver spacesuits complete with bubble helmets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts got around on the surface of Venus in a hover car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were dinosaurs on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were assailed by various prehistoric beasts on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965)", "title": "Frankenstein Conquers the World", "date": "1965-08-08", "description": "Frankenstein monster's heart is transported from Germany to Japan in the closing months of World War II.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein", "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_Conquers_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a 20 foot tall Frankenstein monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fallout from the atomic bombing of Hirosaki mutated Frankenstein's heart and it eventually transformed into a giant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant reptile came out of nowhere and started to terrorize the countryside of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant reptile came out of nowhere and started to terrorize the countryside of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An ancient subterranean, burrowing reptile-like creature reemerged from underground to terrorize Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein monster's heart was transported from Germany to Japan in the closing months of the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The atomic bombing of Hiroshima was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein monster's heart was exposed to radiation in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It took on a live of its own and escaped. By fifteen years later, the heart had grown into a boy and was discovered and an attempt was made to raise him as a feral child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)", "title": "Dr. Who and the Daleks", "date": "1965-08-23", "description": "Doctor Who and his companions use his spacetime machine to travel to a post apocalyptic world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Who_and_the_Daleks" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "device bigger inside than outside", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tardis was a mere police box as seen from outside, but incredibly spacious on the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tardis could be used as a vehicle to travel in space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tardis could be used as a vehicle to travel in space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks were cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks forefathers had turned their planet into a desolate wasteland by nuclear war. The Daleks plotted to exterminate the Thals by exploding a neutronic bomb on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks and Thals lived in a post nuclear holocaust wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and Suzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian Chesterton and Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tardis functioned as a spaceship as well as a time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and his fellow travelers contracted radiation sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks' planet had dangerous radiation left over from a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks held Dr. Who and his fellow travelers captive in their city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Thals were pacifists by nature and were reluctant to fight the Daleks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks considered the Thals to be mutants and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks and Thals lived on another planet, distant from Earth in space and time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Planet of the Vampires (1965)", "title": "Planet of the Vampires", "date": "1965-09-15", "description": "The story follows the horrific experiences of the crew members of two giant spaceships that have crash landed on a forbidding, unexplored planet. The disembodied inhabitants of the world possess the bodies of the crew who died during the crash, and use the animated corpses to stalk and kill the remaining survivors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Vampires" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disembodied aliens uses the animated corpses of dead crew members to stalk the survivors of the two spaceship expedition into deep uncharted space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew members experienced fear and terror to varying degrees while being stalked by animated corpses on the surface of a barren planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "major", "motivation": "The disembodied aliens were the last of their race and wished to escape from their homeworld, which was doomed owing to their sun being on the verge of dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with a pair of the disembodied aliens headed to Earth to secretly assimilate their incorporeal race with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crews of a two spaceship mission into deep uncharted space landed on a barren planet in answer to a distress call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts flew in flying saucer-like spaceships.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)", "title": "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster", "date": "1965-09-22", "description": "A facially-damaged android robot fights alien invaders. Despite the title, neither Dr. Frankenstein nor Frankenstein's monster appear in the film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_Meets_the_Space_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Col. Frank Saunders was an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians traveled to Earth with the intention of stealing Earth women in order to perpetuate their race, as all but one Martian women had died in an atomic war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "All Martian women, save for Martian Princess Marcuzan, died in an atomic war on the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted human females for breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Col. Frank Saunders set off on a mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used hand held death ray guns to disintegrate people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians came to earth in a domed flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Village of the Giants (1965)", "title": "Village of the Giants", "date": "1965-10-20", "description": "A gang of rebellious youngsters who gain access to a chemical substance called \"Goo\", which causes living things to grow to gigantic proportions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_the_Giants" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eight teenagers ate a goo that made them grow to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eight teenagers ate a goo that made them grow to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super growth therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A boy named Genius invented a Goo which caused living things to grow to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eight teens became giants and used their newfound physical power to rest control of their town from a bunch of old fashioned, stuffy adults with old fashioned priorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Genius was experimenting in his basement lab on developing a growth inducing goo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Nancy were teenage sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Nancy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Juliet of the Spirits (1965)", "title": "Juliet of the Spirits", "date": "1965-10-22", "description": "Juliet of the Spirits (Italian: Giulietta degli spiriti) is a 1965 Italian- French fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, and Valeska Gert. The film is about the visions, memories, and mysticism that help a middle-aged woman find the strength to leave her philandering husband. The film uses \"caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape.\" It was Fellini's first feature-length color film, but followed his use of color in The Temptation of Doctor Antonio episode in the portmanteau film Boccaccio '70 (1962). Juliet of the Spirits won the 1966 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Woody Allen loosely adapted it with his 1990 film Alice.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliet_of_the_Spirits" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Whatever else the story was about, Giulietta's libido and sexually charged dreams were at the center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulietta is frequently described as prone to superstition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is concerned with middle-aged housewife Giulietta' dreams and daydreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulietta's dreams mostly involve her grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulietta and Giorgio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giorgio was a philandering husband. He had a prolonged affair with a woman named Gabrielle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulietta was compared unfavorably with other women and was, understandably, concerned about her appearance. More so because her husband was unfaithful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulietta and Suzy were central to the plot, such as it were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story was that Giulietta decided to divorce her beloved but philandering husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giulietta was in a séance with some other party goers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giulietta had superficial interaction with several maidservants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giulietta visited a cult that spoke about Buddha among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educational issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hairy professor objected to the elementary school having his daughter acting out a Christian martyrdom in a play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giulietta visited a sculpture studio of a friend who crafted sexy Godlike male shapes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some legal niceties regarding divorce in contemporary Italy were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Towards the end, Giulietta contemplated killing herself like her friend Laura had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)", "title": "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine", "date": "1965-11-06", "description": "Mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot, along with the questionable assistance of his resurrected flunky Igor, builds a gang of female robots who are then dispatched to seduce and rob wealthy men.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Goldfoot_and_the_Bikini_Machine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Goldfoot build ravishing female androids in order to swindle wealthy men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Goldfoot built ravishing female androids in order to swindle wealthy men out of their fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig Gamble became infatuated with and married the Number 11 android Diane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot built ravishing female androids in order to swindle wealthy men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Goldfoot his brought assistant Igor back to life from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "D. J. Pevney and Craig Gamble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig Gamble became infatuated with and married the Number 11 android Diane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera the Giant Monster (1965)", "title": "Gamera, the Giant Monster", "date": "1965-11-27", "description": "A giant, flying, fire breathing turtle is poised to destroy Tokyo.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_the_Giant_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant turtle, dubbed Gamera by the Inuits, was a prehistoric creature that emerged from the arctic ice after millions of years of being in hibernation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Tokyo versus Gamera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant turtle-like creature Gamera attacked Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman was warned to stay away from an airplane crash site on account that it was carrying atomic weapons and there was radiation at the site. Gamera survived high exposure to radioactive atomic bomb fallout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hidaka mentioned that World War III might occur any minute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were reports of flying saucer sightings around the world. There were so many that flying saucers overtook Gamera as the lead story in world newspapers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father quarreled with his son over the son keeping a pet turtle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy and his beloved pet turtle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nations of the world cooperated through the United Nations to stop Gamera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy befriended Gamera.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The 10th Victim (1965)", "title": "The 10th Victim", "date": "1965-12-03", "description": "In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the \"Big Hunt\". The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunters and five as the victims.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_10th_Victim" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set is a dystopian world where an institutionalized activity, called the Big Hunt, ave people a competitive outlet for their violent tendencies. As a result, there was no war or other unsanctioned violence in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big Hunt participants, Caroline Meredith in particular, were motivated by the fame and fortune that would come with killing a 10th victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to think about the need for people in society to have an outlet for their violent tendencies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline Meredith became romantically involved with her 10th victim, Marcello Polletti.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello Polletti and his meddlesome wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Monster Zero (1965)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero", "date": "1965-12-19", "description": "A race of advanced beings from Planet X abduct Godzilla and Rodan, apparently with a view to unleashing them on their nemesis the space monster King Ghidorah.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Astro-Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Planet X tried to conquer Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant dragon-like creature Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazuo Fuji and Haruno Fuji.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazuo was a dominating influence in the of his sister Haruno and disaproved of the man she was dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruno and Tetsuo Torii.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuo Torii and Haruno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts Kazuo Fuji and Glenn flew to Planet X, which was located just beyond Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people on Planet X lived underground to hide from the space monster Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet X was populated by a race of subterranean dwelling humanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet X aliens flew about in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Planet X claimed to give humanity the cure to all disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations functioned as some sort of world governing body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts donned futuristic spacesuits on Planet X.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doctor Zhivago (1965)", "title": "Doctor Zhivago", "date": "1965-12-22", "description": "Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 epic romantic drama film directed by David Lean with a screenplay by Robert Bolt. It is set in Russia circa World War I and the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922. It is based on the 1957 Boris Pasternak novel Doctor Zhivago. While immensely popular in the West, the book was banned in the Soviet Union for decades. For this reason, the film could not be made in the Soviet Union and was instead filmed mostly in Spain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "The Russian Revolution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film showed how life in Rusia might have changed when the Bolshieviks grabbed power and established the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eponymous Doctor had two different love interests: Lara and Tonya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zhivago was a doctor by profession and training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts the plight experienced by various people in Russia during the Great War, and the Russian Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first part of the story features Russia during the time of the Great War, prior to the revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zhivago and Tonya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An older Zhivago is recalling the days of yore, in the beginning and the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Komarovsky raped Lara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zhivago had an affair with Lara while married to Tonya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were at least two different scenes where the point was that people struggled to stay alive in the harsh winter weather of inner Russia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Torn Curtain (1966)", "title": "Torn Curtain", "date": "1966", "description": "Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Written by Brian Moore, the film is set in the Cold War. It is about an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "espionage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title is an allusion to secret agent kind of clandestine activities undertaken by the US in East Germany during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title is an allusion to secret agent kind of clandestine activities undertaken by the US in East Germany during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Sarah were intending to tie the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael feigned to defect to the East.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the efforts by scientists during the Cold War to build ever better atomic bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The East German military and police were all after Michael and Sarah, lest they should escape with their knowledge of nuclear activities in the East.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "East German police were present quite often.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael was a rocket scientist, a physicist, and a professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw many fanciful scenes from academia as the authors of the story imagined it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the virtues or otherwise of the political system in East Germany and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Island of Terror (1966)", "title": "Island of Terror", "date": "1966", "description": "A scientist working on a cure for cancer accidentally creates silicon-based, bone eating monsters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Terror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lawrence Phillips accidentaly created a bone eating monster while seeking a cure for cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lawrence Phillips was seeking a cure for cancer in a castle laboratory on a secluded island off the coast of Ireland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lawrence Phillips accidentally created a silicon-based, bone eating monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. David West and Toni Merrill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bone eating monsters were radioactive and the people took appropriate precautions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zontar the Thing from Venus (1966)", "title": "Zontar, the Thing from Venus", "date": "1966", "description": "A three-eyed, bat-winged alien from Venus named Zontar hatches a clandestine plot to conquer the world. It is a low-budget 16mm film color remake of Roger Corman's It Conquered the World (1956), which also featured an alien invader from Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zontar_the_Thing_from_Venus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Zontar from the planet Venus hatched a clandestine plot to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien named Zontar from the planet Venus tired to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Taylor and Anne Taylor. Keith Ritchie and Martha Ritchie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned scientist Keith Ritchiereached out to Zontar after years of not having been shown respect by his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith Ritchie was convinced that Zontar would bring peace and an end of all conflict on Earth through a kind of emotion suppressing mass mind control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Taylor and Anne Taylor. Keith Ritchie and Martha Ritchie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curt Taylor and Keith Ritchie were best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned scientist Keith Ritchiereached out to Zontar after years of not having been shown respect by his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zontar used used some kind of devices that stuck out of the backs of peoples necks to mind control people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith Ritchie eventually came to see that Zontar did not have good intentions for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith Ritchie sacrificed himself in killing Zontar in order to save humanity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Agent for HARM (1966)", "title": "Agent for H.A.R.M.", "date": "1966-01-05", "description": "Agent for H.A.R.M. is a 1966 science fiction spy thriller (spy-fi) directed by Gerd Oswald and starring Peter Mark Richman. It is one of a number of spy thrillers of the time which have conspicuous sci-fi elements. In this case it is the inclusion of deadly spores which turn human flesh into fungus on contact.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_for_H.A.R.M." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film played on Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam Chance and Ava Vestok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The communists planned to dust all American crops with deadly spores that arrived on Earth on a meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The communists weaponized deadly space spores and intended to dust all American crops with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Janos Steffanic and Ava Vestok.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Queen of Blood (1966)", "title": "Queen of Blood", "date": "1966-03", "description": "An alien species contacts Earth to say that they are coming across the galaxy to make formal contact. Their interstellar starship crashes on Mars and an Earthship is dispatched to attempt a rescue. On Mars, they locate the downed craft, but only a single dead alien humanoid is found aboard. They determine that an alien rescue shuttle left the Red Planet but crashed on nearby Phobos. A strange, green-skinned woman is found alive aboard the wreck. As they head back to Earth, the crew begins to die, drained of their blood.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Blood" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien species contacted Earth to say that they are coming across the galaxy to make formal contact, but a vampiric alien, the Blood Queen, showed up instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pair of astronauts rescued a green alien woman, the Queen of Blood, who was crashed on Mars' moon Phobos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with the astronauts piecing together that the alien had probably come to spread her human blood draining progeny all over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 1990 and space flight to the both the Moon was routine. There was a pioneering expedition to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew blasted off from Earth in a sleek, futuristic rocketship on a mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966)", "title": "Women of the Prehistoric Planet", "date": "1966-04-15", "description": "A spacefaring crew from an advanced civilization is preparing to return home after an extended voyage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_of_the_Prehistoric_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an international manned mission to the planet Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a big, bulky robot named John that helped the explorers on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three cosmonauts were stranded on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alyosha discovered that his odd triangular rock he had found is really a sculpture of a woman's face, proving that there might still be intelligent life on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator explained at the film's opening that the Moon had been colonized and the next step was to go to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew flew to Venus in a futuristic rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts explored the surface of Venus in conspicuous silver spacesuits complete with bubble helmets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts encountered various prehistoric beasts on the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts got around on the surface of Venus in a hover car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Barugon (1966)", "title": "Gamera vs. Barugon", "date": "1966-04-17", "description": "It is up to Gamera to protect Japan from the giant, freeze-gas breathing lizard-like creature Barugon. It is the second entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Barugon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant turtle, dubbed Gamera by the Inuits, was a prehistoric creature that emerged from the arctic ice after millions of years of being in hibernation. An egg that hatched into what eventually became the giant lizard, Barugon, was retrieved from a cave on a remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Japan versus Barugon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onodera murdered Ichiro Hirata so that he could take what he believed to be a giant opal all for himself. He later shot a number of people in an ill-contrived effort to get a 600 karat diamond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant lizard-like creature Baguron attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keisuke Hirata sent his brother Ichiro to retrieve a giant opal which he had hid in a cave while stationed on New Guinea during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keisuke Hirata spoke of how he hid a giant opal in a cave while stationed on New Guinea during the war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Destination Inner Space (1966)", "title": "Destination Inner Space", "date": "1966-05", "description": "The story centers on a group of researchers working in an underwater laboratory. After an encounter with an Unidentified Submerged Object (USO—an undersea flying saucer), the base is attacked by a monster that may be the vanguard for invading aliens. The researchers and the base's military staff must deal with the creature and destroy the USO.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Inner_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A submarine crew investigated an underwater flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "A submarine crew investigated an underwater flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Researchers aboard a submarine were attacked by a fish monster that may have been the vanguard for invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A fish monster got loose aboard the submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Researchers aboard a submarine were attacked by a fish monster that may have been the vanguard for invading aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Wayne and Hugh Maddox were at each other's throats all the time because Maddox disapproved of how Wayne had led some young submariners under his charge die on a previous mission.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Navy vs the Night Monsters (1966)", "title": "The Navy vs. the Night Monsters", "date": "1966-05-19", "description": "Mayhem ensues when a naval expedition to Antarctic returns to a South Pacific Island with a cargo of omnivorous plants.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Navy_vs._the_Night_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A naval expedition to the Antarctic discovered a species of omnivorous, mobile plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Navy versus the man-eating plants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chuck and Nora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob at Nora.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)", "title": "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", "date": "1966-06-02", "description": "The story follows a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A HOLMES IV computer on the Moon achieved self-awareness, befriended a small group of revolutionaries, and helped them to the overthrow the Earth-backed Lunar Authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed a group of revolutionaries on the Moon who, with the help of a powerful sentient computer, hatched (and executed) a plot to overthrow the Earth-backed Lunar Authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free market vs. regulated market", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revolutionaries touted the virtues of unregulated free markets. In practice, a generally unregulated free market existed on the Moon except where exchange involved the Lunar Authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Moon was colonized with the inhabitants living in underground cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biased sex-ratio society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sex-ratio on Luna about two men to each woman, resulting in polyandry being the norm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Book 1 followed a group of revolutionaries on the Moon, who, operating in covert cells, plotted to overthrow the Earth-backed Lunar Authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Book 2 followed the revolutionaries as their attempted to negotiate with various nation of Earth to get the Moon recognized as an independent state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Book 3 followed a war that saw the Federated Nations on Earth send armies to destroy the Lunar revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Book 3 followed a war that saw the Federated Nations on Earth send armies to destroy the Lunar revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mannie was in a type of group marriage known as a line marriage. We saw, by and large harmonious, interactions between him and his wife and one of his co-husbands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mannie and Mike became the best of friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon had originally been used as penal colony by Earth's government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inhabitants of the Moon lived in highly developed underground complexes of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newly sentient Mike learned the ins and outs of humor from Mannie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie was jailed on the charge of polygamy while on diplomatic visit to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie had an ancestor who was hanged in Salem for witchcraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof was mentioned to have been a vegetarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electromagnetic catapult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Just such a contraption was used to send wheat shipments from the Moon to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie was in a group marriage but his main wife was Mum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike determined that the sun was good for producing one kilowatt per square meter at noon on the Lunar surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike noted the possibility of used hydrogen fusion to generate electricity on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was much concern among the revolutionaries that the Federated Nations of Earth would nuke them with H-bombs, and so it was that they did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a high gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie and Prof needed to be moved around in wheelchairs during their visit to Earth owning to them having been acclimated to Moon level gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federated Nations of Earth launched spaceships to attack the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federated Nations of Earth launched spaceships to attack the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie, Prof, and Wyoh decided to keep secret from the people of Luna that a sentient computer was the nominal leader of the revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof in negotiating with the Federated Nations of Earth argued that the Luna inhabitants were being taxed unfairly, while the Earth negotiators contended the reverse was true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The revolutionaries were convinced that overpopulation on Earth would lead to more colonists making their way to Luna to settle down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freedom of the press", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof was a staunch advocate of press freedom, and expressed some concern that the sentient computer Mike was too much controlling the news on Luna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mannie was a one-armed computer technician.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Around the World Under the Sea (1966)", "title": "Around the World Under the Sea", "date": "1966-06-22", "description": "The crew of a five-man submarine travels the world oceans, planting sensors on the ocean floor to warn scientists of any impending earthquakes. Although Jules Verne isn't credited by the film makers, his influence can be seen throughout the film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_Under_the_Sea" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the deep-diving nuclear-powered civilian research submarine Hydronaut make a submerged circumnavigation of the world to plant monitoring sensors on the ocean floor that will help scientists better predict impending earthquakes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The super deep-diving, nuclear-powered civilian research submarine Hydronaut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Doug Standish and Dr. Maggie Hanford fell for one another while serving aboard the Hydronaut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was deep-diving nuclear-powered civilian research submarine, although the fact that it was nuclear powered was not central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank Stahl was on the mind that people were bad and he retreated under the sea to be in the company of sea animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Philip Volker trained a dolphin to plant magnetic mines on the hulls of ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hydronaut crew members beheld the natural wonders that abounded beneath the waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Philip Volker at Dr. Maggie Hanford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank was attacked by a giant electric eel on the sea floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hydronaut encountered a giant electric eel on the sea floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Terror Beneath the Sea (1966)", "title": "The Terror Beneath the Sea", "date": "1966-07-01", "description": "An pair of reporters are taken captive by a race of fish-men.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060580/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist created a race fish-men with the intention of using them to take over the world and make it into a global totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reporters Ken Abe and Jenny Gleason were kidnapped by fish-men and taken to their undersea realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist kidnapped two reporters and held them at his undersea base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken Abe was compelled to decide between writing totalitarian propaganda for the mad scientist and being killed along with Jenny Gleason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist plotted to found a global totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The submarine crew came dangerously close to a toxic waste dump on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Face of Another (1966)", "title": "The Face of Another", "date": "1966-07-15", "description": "An engineer whose face is severely burnt in an unspecified work-related accident is given a new face in the form of a lifelike mask.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_of_Another_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama's face was disfigured in an industrial accident, and he wore bandages over his face until he was given a new face in the form of a lifelike mask. There was also a young woman with a badly scarred face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama and Mrs. Okuyama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama had once identity in his bandages and quite another while wearing his mask.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama's mask granted him a certain anonymity that made it easy for him to do bad things he would presumably not have done otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Okuyama willfully went to the apartment of a man who we are led to believe she thought was not her husband, but it turned out that it was him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama expressed a curiosity about if he could make his wife jealous after he was given a new face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The girl with a scar on her face roomed together with her brother and they had a romantic episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are left to assume that the girl with a scar slept with her brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Okuyama seduced his own wive, Mrs. Okuyama, while he was disguised in his mask, presumably at least in part to see whether she would do it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The War of the Gargantuas (1966)", "title": "The War of the Gargantuas", "date": "1966-07-31", "description": "The film is a sequel to the 1965 film Frankenstein Conquers the World and tells the story of two giant, hairy humanoid monsters that were spawned from the discarded cells of Frankenstein's monster from the previous film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Gargantuas" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two giant, hairy humanoid monsters that were spawned from the discarded cells of Frankenstein's monster were speculated to be previously undiscovered species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese army versus the Gargantuas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were two giant, hairy humanoid monsters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966)", "title": "Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.", "date": "1966-08-05", "description": "Dr. Who leads a rebellion against the Dalek conquers of Earth in the year 2150 AD.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daleks%27_Invasion_Earth_2150_A.D." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "world ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks planned to transform the Earth itself into a giant spaceship, fly it back to their region of space, and occupy it permanently.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks had invaded and ravaged the Earth by the year 2150. People were reduced to living amidst rubble when Dr. Who visited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Daleks invaded Earth forced humans to toil in mines when they weren't busy exterminating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Who and his party took led a rebellion against the Daleks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks were cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "device bigger inside than outside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tardis was a mere police box as seen from outside, but incredibly spacious on the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who used the Tardis to travel to the year 2150.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tardis was used as a vehicle to travel in space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tardis could be used as a vehicle to travel in space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and Suzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Daleks went flying about in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Who and a couple members of his party were taken captive by the Daleks, and they had to escape before the Daleks \"robotized\" them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Who Wants to Kill Jessie (1966)", "title": "Who Wants to Kill Jessie?", "date": "1966-08-26", "description": "A couple use a machine which can bring objects and people from dreams to the real world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Kill_Jessie%3F" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists invented a machine that they thought recorded dreams and played them on a television, but unbeknownst to them it additionally materialized the objects of dreams into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A couple used a machine to materialize various objects and people from their dreams to the real world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fictional character come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist invented a machine that resulted in the accidental bringing of the comic book character Jessie into the real world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jindrich Beránek and his Rosie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unattractive lady at the Superman comic book character.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Persona (1966)", "title": "Persona", "date": "1966-08-31", "description": "Persona is a 1966 Swedish psychological drama film, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. The story revolves around a young nurse named Alma (Andersson) and her patient, well-known stage actress Elisabet Vogler (Ullmann), who has suddenly stopped speaking. They move to a cottage, where Alma cares for Elisabet, confides in her and begins having trouble distinguishing herself from her patient.", "collections": [ "Collection: Ingmar Bergman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(1966_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the core of the story was the idea that we all play-act our way through life, that we are all conceited liars through and through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Both women were analyzing their own innermost feelings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alma had wet dreams involving Elisabet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elisabet had shut herself off from the world and refused to speak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alma and Elisabet were torn between affection and loathing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "it seemed Alma pined after Elisabet who merely studied her as if studying a bug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alma idolized the actress Elisabet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was suggested that Elisabet compulsively studied people in order to become an even better actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elisabet's lack of love for her baby was revealed as central towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elisabet and her son indirectly - Elisabet did not want the child and may have longed for its death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nurse mentioned this in her attempt to bond with someone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there were clips from this conflict shown", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alma described her first sexual experience", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elisabet's withdrawal was said to be in lieu of suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elisabet and her husband more or less directly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Battle of Algiers (1966)", "title": "The Battle of Algiers", "date": "1966-08-31", "description": "The Battle of Algiers (Italian: La battaglia di Algeri; Arabic: معركة الجزائر‎, romanized: Maʿrakat al-Jazāʾir) is a 1966 Italian-Algerian historical war film co-written and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and starring Jean Martin and Saadi Yacef. It is based on events by rebels during the Algerian War (1954–62) against the French government in North Africa; the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers, the capital of Algeria. It was shot on location and the film's score was composed by Ennio Morricone. The film was shot in a Roberto Rossellini-inspired newsreel style: in black and white with documentary-type editing to add to its sense of historical authenticity. It is often associated with Italian neorealist cinema.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "The Algerian War", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the film depicted the beginning of the FNL and their struggle against French rule in Algiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw the beginning of the Algerian people's uprising to throw off the yoke of French colonialism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown acts of terror carried out by early FNL members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colonial French inhabitants of French Algiers came into violent conflict with their less affluent Muslim native neighbours and there was an ever worsening spiral of bad blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how acts of violence were answered by further violence in an escalating spiral of hate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Mathieu spoke at length about why torture was necessary to protect the innocent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "a rebel had just been tortured for information in the first scene; later we saw gruesome shots of torture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "tortured rebel was ashamed over having betrayed his comrades", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was guilotined.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x05", "title": "The Man Trap", "date": "1966-09-08", "description": "The Enterprise visits planet M-113 for a routine medical inspection of the husband-wife archaeological team stationed there, but the crew finds that the wife has been replaced by a deadly, shape-shifting creature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy to Nancy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy pined over Nancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy/Nancy Crater :: McCoy and Nancy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salt Vampires of Planet M-113 :: salt monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salt Vampires of Planet M-113 :: Kirk mentions how the buffalo went extinct much like the salt creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Crater :: Robert at salt monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Crater/Nancy Crater :: Robert and Nancy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Crater :: Robert with the salt monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salt Vampires of Planet M-113 :: The Salt Vampires of planet M-113 were on the road to extinction as their planet had run out of salt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Salt Vampires of planet M-113 were on the road to extinction as their planet had run out of salt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salt Vampires of Planet M-113 :: the salt vampire’s right to exist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Crater was excavating the ancient ruins of an extinct civilization on the planet M-113.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura called out Spock for his egregious lack of concern that “the closest thing he had to a friend” (i.e. Captain kirk) might have died in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Crater :: Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nancy Crater :: salt monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy w.r.t. shooting salt monster or letting it kill Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy w.r.t. shooting salt monster or letting it kill Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Crater :: Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Crater pointedly grieved for his wife, Nancy, who'd been killed by the last salt vampire of the planet M-113.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x07", "title": "Charlie X", "date": "1966-09-15", "description": "While traveling aboard the Enterprise, a dangerous young man named Charlie Evans terrorizes the crew with his unusual mental powers. This episode serves as the backstory for the unofficial mini-series Star Trek: Of Gods and Men .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie manifested an array of formidable psionic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: superpowers turns Charlie into spoiled brat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Charlie Evans became infatuated with Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk for Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Charlie Evans :: Kirk/Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie by enslaving mankind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Charlie Evans :: Kirk/Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie snapped a guy out of exietence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie at Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie for adults not indulging him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "major", "motivation": "The formidable array of psionic powers wielded by Charlie made it so that all the Enterprise crew member were walking on eggshells while in his presence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk stands up to Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie is baffled by doors and women etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thasian :: Thasians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie X", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie learns", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie by Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rand :: Janice from Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rand :: all to Charlie; especially Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all to Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all to Charlie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie outbursts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Evans :: Charlie did some nasty things", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie searched Janice's mind to learn her favorite perfume, then conjured it up out of thin air, and gave it to her as a present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thought materialization ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie conjured a bottle of Janice's favorite perfume up out of thin air and gave it to her as a present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie took control of the Enterprise and ran it using his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote harming ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie melted some chess pieces out of frustration after losing a game of 3D chess to Spock. He additionally make Kirk keel over in agony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie psionically hurled Kirk and Spock across a room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fahrenheit 451 (1966)", "title": "Fahrenheit 451", "date": "1966-09-16", "description": "The film takes place in a controlled society in an oppressive future in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature to prevent revolution and thinking.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guy Montag and his couch potato wife Linda Montag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guy Montag's mind was opened up to new possibilities once he went started reading book, instead of burning them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Television was used to dumb people down and keep them from questioning authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy Montag's wife made him choose between her and his books.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x01", "title": "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "date": "1966-09-22", "description": "After the Enterprise attempts to cross the Great Barrier at the edge of the galaxy , crew members Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner develop \"godlike\" psychic powers which threaten the safety of the crew.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary developed a wide array of formidable psychic powers after a strange encouter at the edge of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell :: Gary is a textbook example", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell thought with his new powers that he was above humanity, and he forced Kirk to pray to him like a God. Elizabeth was appalled at these actions and helped Kirk defeat Gary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "major", "motivation": "much made of Gary and Elizabeth having ESP", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Gary Mitchell :: Kirk and Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell :: Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing a friend to save one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk decides to maroon Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell :: Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell :: Gary does not want to be sequestered on a tiny little planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk facing Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew facing Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "discussion and accusation against Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "galactic barrier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk defeated the ever-logical Spock at 3D chess by making an illogical move.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulu explained that doubling a penny everyday for a month would make you a millionaire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary and Elizabeth demonstrated the ability to move physical objects around just by thinking about doing so. For example, Gary strangled Kelso by telekinetically manipulating a cable at a distance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Gary assimilating knowledge at a superhuman rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary recited a portion of the love sonnet \"Nightingale Woman\" by the fictional poet Tarbolde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell, Elizabeth Dehner :: Gary and Elizabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Mitchell :: Gary's loyalty to Kirk called into question", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary was riding on his high horse after having acquired god-like powers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x06", "title": "The Naked Time", "date": "1966-09-29", "description": "A strange, intoxicating infection, which lowers the crew's emotional inhibitions, spreads throughout the Enterprise. As the madness spreads, the entire ship is endangered.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Kevin Riley, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Joe Tormalen, Janice Rand, Scotty :: everyone under the influence of polywater", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Kevin Riley, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Joe Tormalen, Janice Rand, Scotty :: everyone under the influence of polywater", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Kevin Riley, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Joe Tormalen, Janice Rand, Scotty :: entire crew down to the last man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Kevin Riley, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Joe Tormalen, Janice Rand, Scotty :: The entire crew became polywater intoxicated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy scrambled to devise a cure for a hitherto unknown affliction that was spreading uncontrollably aboard the Enterprise which made those infected to lose all inhibition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Kevin Riley, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Joe Tormalen, Janice Rand, Scotty :: entire crew down to the last man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "an intoxicated Riley took control of the ship from main engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious affliction was spreading uncontrollably aboard the Enterprise which made those infected lose all inhibition much as if they were drunk. Measures were taken to minimize the spread, including having those afflicted confined to quarters, and crew members who'd come in contact with them given medical examinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty, Spock :: Scotty and Spock over how to save ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Tormolen :: Tormalen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Tormolen :: Tormalen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk for starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Tormolen was horrified by the deaths of six Federation researchers on the planet Psi 2000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Riley :: Riley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bridge crew to get Riley out of engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock expressed shame to Kirk about being unable to express feelings toward his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirkologue about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the command crew to save the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock from Christine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Tormolen :: Tormolen loses it in recroom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space madness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise traveled back in time seventy one hours", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg 2087 (1966)", "title": "Cyborg 2087", "date": "1966-10", "description": "Garth A7, a cyborg from the future world of 2087, travels back in time to 1966 to prevent Professor Sigmund Marx from revealing his new discovery, an idea that will make mind control possible and create a tyranny in Garth's time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_2087" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyborg Garth A7 was sent back in time from 2087 to 1966 to prevent Professor Sigmund Marx from revealing his discovery of radio telepathy enabled mind control technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyborg Garth A7 was sent back in time from 2087 to 1966 to prevent Professor Sigmund Marx from revealing his discovery of radio telepathy enabled mind control technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world had become a classic totalitarian dystopia by the year 2087. Children were taken from their parents at birth and made property of the state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass mind control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Sigmund Marx invented \"radio telepathy\" which was destined to be adapted for use as a form of mass mind control by the year 2087.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Professor Sigmund Marx explaining how he decided not to reveal his radio telepathy invention because he feared it would be used by the military for evil purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people (and cyborgs) of the future communicated using radio enabled telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyborg Garth A7 traveled into the past in a capsule-like time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Zeller and his teenage daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sharon Mason fell in love with Garth but he told her that she would lose all memory of him after he returned to the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paralysis device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth used a handheld ray gun-like device to temporarily induce paralysis in people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dimension 5 (1966)", "title": "Dimension 5", "date": "1966-10", "description": "A team of Espionage, Inc. agents must stop a Hong Kong gang from from detonating a hydrogen bomb in Los Angeles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension_5_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justin Power and Kitty used a time travel belts that allowed them to travel about 8 weeks in either direction in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Hong Kong gang plotted to detonate a hydrogen bomb in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin Power used a television-like device to communicate with other Espionage, Inc. members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin Powers' playboy nature was hinted again and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin and Kitty fell in love and kissed at the films conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty was motivated to track down the Big Buddha in order that she could make him pay for having killer her parents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Frozen Dead (1966)", "title": "The Frozen Dead", "date": "1966-10", "description": "In this film, Nazi scientist Dr. Norberg attempts to revive a number of frozen Nazi soldiers at his English estate so that the Third Reich can arise anew 20 years after the end of World War II. Norberg is unsuccessful, however, as his thawed Nazis are only zombie-like creatures, including his vicious brother, Prisoner no. 3, who attempts to strangle anyone who comes near. Norberg reduces Elsa, the best friend of his niece Jean, to a living head as part of the Nazi plot.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frozen_Dead" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Norberg was thawing out Nazi soldiers who had been flash frozen in a walk in freezer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged Nazi scientist Dr. Norberg was experimentally thawing frozen Nazi soldiers who had been kept in suspended animation at his English country estate since the end of World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Norberg's niece Jean came to stay at his English estate without his prior knowledge and it threw a monkey wrench into his plan to revive frozen Nazi soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Norberg kept Elsa's disembodied head alive in a glass receptacle in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a group of secret Nazis living in England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean brought her friend Elsa from America to stay at her uncle Dr. Norberg's English estate. And Jean became very worried after Elsa mysteriously disappeared. In the end, she tried to rescue Elsa from her uncle's laboratory only to find that all that remained of Elsa was her disembodied head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elsa's disembodied head transfered the message \"Help me.\" directly into her friend Jean's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Schmidt, a secret Nazi, wore a lifelike mask to conceal her badly scarred face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Lubeck had Karl Essen beaten until he divulged some important information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Norburg's dethawed brother had to be locked up in a dungeon because he was extremely violent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean found out that her deranged father was locked up in a dungeon and she wished to meet him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Pilot (1966)", "title": "Star Pilot", "date": "1966-10-02", "description": "The commander of a spaceship from the constellation Hydra which has crashed on the island of Sardinia. An Earth scientist and his companions are abducted by the aliens and forced to repair the ship, and are then taken to Hydra for the purpose of genetic research.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Pilot" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Solmi and his companions were abducted by humanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Solmi and his companions were abducted by aliens and forced to repair their spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Solmi and his liberated daughter Luisa Solmi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Solmi and his companions were abducted by humanoid aliens and taken to another galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens abducted Prof. Solmi and his companions and flew them half way across the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war transpired on Earth while the aliens were flying around in space at relativistic speeds with their human captives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luisa Solmi fell in love with one of the aliens. Chaena fell in love with one of her human captives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had a large man-like robot aboard their spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had come to Earth to investigate signs of the recent use of nuclear energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens gave Luisa seven days meals worth of food pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luisa briefly experienced zero gravity after the alien spaceship blasted off from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens flew back to their homeworld with Prof. Solmi and his companions in a futuristic rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party was assailed by ape-like creatures after making an emergency landing on an unexplored planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Seconds (1966)", "title": "Seconds", "date": "1966-10-05", "description": "Seconds is a mystery dealing with the obsession with eternal youth and a mysterious organization which gives people a second chance in life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seconds_(1966_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton had his own death faked, was given the body of a young man, and was granted a new identity. His new name was Tony Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton had his own death faked, was given the body of a young man, and was granted a new identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton was a middle-aged man whose life has lost purpose. He has achieved success, but found it unfulfilling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton was in an unsatisfying, loveless marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton didn't see much of his daughter after she moved out west and took up residence with her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One lengthy scene showed a group of young, naked revelers stomping grapes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Hamilton was given a new and young body by means of some highly advanced form of plastic surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Wilson fell in love with Nora Marcus, but it turned out she was showing romantic interest in him as part of her job.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x04", "title": "The Enemy Within", "date": "1966-10-06", "description": "While beaming up from planet Alpha 177, a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into two beings: one \"good,\" who is weak and indecisive, and one \"evil,\" who is overly aggressive and domineering.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Good Kirk vs. Evil Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need our darker side in moderation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk needed his darker emotions to some extent to be an effective captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: need compassion with a touch of ruthlessness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "is good-Kirk any more the real Kirk than evil-Kirk?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good-Kirk at evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk, Sulu :: good-Kirk Sulu freezing on the plane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good-Kirk at evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: how is Good Kirk to lead his crew without his darker side?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: Good Kirk versus Evil Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: Evil Kirk drank Saurian brandy to excess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: Kirk as captain must", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: Good Kirk stressed about commanding the ship in his condition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: Good Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Sulu did his best to survive freezing conditions while awaiting rescue on the planet Alfa 177.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rand :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "senior staff at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: transporter malfunction basis for creation of Good Kirk and Evil Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rand :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: big deal made of evil-Kirks fears", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: evil-Kirk drunken escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk :: good-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Kirk :: evil-Kirk drunken escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Kirk, Evil Kirk :: good-Kirk and evil-Kirk ultimately trusted one another", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x03", "title": "Mudd's Women", "date": "1966-10-13", "description": "The Enterprise pursues a vessel and rescues its occupants, interstellar con man Harry Mudd , who is arrested on outstanding charges, and three incredibly beautiful women, his cargo. After Kirk diverts to a mining planet to obtain new dilithium crystals for the Enterprise, Mudd negotiates with the three miners there, exchanging his women for dilithium crystals for his own profit. Finally, Mudd's deception is revealed as the women are, in fact, very plain and only appear beautiful due to taking illegal Venus drugs. Kirk obtains the crystals he needs and takes Mudd back into custody.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mudd's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mudd's women want good husbands", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Eve's beauty was a result of her own self-confidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women used the beauty-enhancing Venus drug to get ahead in the game of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "the drugs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve McHuron :: Eve and Ben bickered about them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the placebo effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk set up a ruse whereby Eve McHuron took colored gelatin in place of the Venus drug. Eve experienced identical effects as that of the actual drug, proving that the drug's power actually resided in the user's self-confidence and belief in their own attractiveness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women at taking Venus drug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Venus drug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was really beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women took a special drug to maintain their youthful and beautiful physical appearances. Although in the end it turned out that it was their belief in the drug's effectiveness that made them beautiful, rather than the drug itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The interstellar rogue Harry Mudd plotted to turn a quick buck by selling brides to a band of love-starved miners under false pretenses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mudd's women at taking Venus drug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve and Childress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "searchable electronic database", "level": "minor", "motivation": "command crew looked up Mudd's criminal record on such a database", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve and Ben", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve McHuron :: Eve", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "miner and Eve", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quackery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd was peddling the Venus drug in the manner of a charlatan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mudd's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd was accused of having one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben Childress :: miners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben Childress :: The miners were jealous of one another over a very scarce commodity on their mining colony: Mudd's women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fantastic Voyage (1966)", "title": "Fantastic Voyage", "date": "1966-10-14", "description": "To save a scientist who has important information from dying, a medical task team enters a submarine which is shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the patient's blood. They must now make their way past various obstacles and immune defenses to reach the damaged part of his brain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Voyage" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A government agency had the technology to shrink things and people to microscopic size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could travel around inside a human body", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel inside a human body", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a traitor amongst the submarine crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "A submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human biology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miniaturized submarine crew got a first hand look at human anatomy while inside the body of a scientist. Human anatomy was discussed in briefing meetings, and it was remarked that the human body is mostly water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Michaels suffered from claustrophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Michaels snapped while in the submarine and tried to escape in a panicky manner. It turned out his claustrophobia was acting up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x09", "title": "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "date": "1966-10-20", "description": "In search of Nurse Chapel's fiancé, renowned exobiologist Roger Korby, the Enterprise visits the icy planet Exo III, where Korby has discovered an ancient machine which allows him to duplicate any living person with an android replacement. Korby plans to use the machine to spread controlled androids throughout the Federation , and replaces Captain Kirk with such a duplicate in an effort to take over the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Korby made an android clone of Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger Korby :: Korby saw mind transfer into androids as a form of immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Did Korby transfer his true essence into that android body?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korby had created androids and transferred human consciousnesses into them, beginning with himself. Unfortunately, the androids lacked some human qualities and set out to replace all of humanity with emotionless, supposedly flawless, android duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine, Roger Korby :: Christine/Korby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine/Roger Korby :: Christine/Korby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruk, Andrea, Androids of Exo III :: Korby's androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Androids of Exo III :: what is the proper place for Korby's androids in society?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger Korby :: is it really Korby?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine/Roger Korby :: Christine and Korby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine about choosing Starfleet over Corby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Ones of Exo III :: the olds ones retreated underground once their sun started dying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrea, Androids of Exo III :: Andrea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk pitied an android for never knowing the pleasure of eating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Nurse Chapel was jealous of Dr. Korby's new “mechanical geisha” Andrea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine with Korby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger Korby rhapsodized about how ignorant people misunderstand genius and get in the way of progress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruk duplicated Kirk's voice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Ones of Exo III :: Ruk's makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Old Ones lived in caves after their star burned out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x11", "title": "Miri", "date": "1966-10-27", "description": "After discovering what appears to be a duplicate of the planet Earth , Captain Kirk and his landing party find a population ravaged by a strange disease, which only children appear to have survived.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the Enterprise crew responding to a distress call from a planet where the entire adult population had been wiped out by a man-made plague that was unintentionally unleashed by scientists who were pursuing life-extension research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society consisting of only children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Onlies :: the Onlies society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onlies :: the virus was produced accidentally in an effort to prolong life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miri :: Miri and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miri :: Miri at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Jahn and the kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party faced zombie-like creatures. The creatures were, in fact, humans infected with a strange disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miri :: Miri and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "community of abandoned children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Onlies were a group of children who, after all the adults died, had somehow formed a functioning little community, with a leader and lots of childish games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy and the landing party scrambled to find a cure for a lethal man-made plague that had wiped out the planet Miri's entire adult population. Those infected dropped dead following a brief bout of rabid zombiesm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rand :: Janice, irrational with plague, became jealous of Miri whom she mistakenly judged to be the object of Kirk's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy trying to find a cure and landing party more generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy tests the cure on himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Onlies :: the kids were living in such a world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miri wants a man like Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the pandemic was the result of some scientists who were working to develop an immortality drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miri's homeworld :: Miri's planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party for children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy, Spock :: McCoy and Spock in finding cure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party for children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miri :: Miri in Kirk", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wild Wild Planet (1966)", "title": "Wild, Wild Planet", "date": "1966-11", "description": "A mad scientist, Mr. Nurmi, is engaged in secret bioengineering experiments. He starts kidnapping important world leaders for use in his eugenics program. Mike Halstead, a rogue cop, goes to the rescue in outer space. This includes rescuing his girlfriend Connie, who is also a captive of the mad scientist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad scientist Mr. Nurmi was using eugenics in combination with bioengineering to \"perfect\" the human race. One of his creations was a human with cat-like eyes and four arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Nurmi imagined a future where a eugenically and biotechnologically enhanced race of humans ruled the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Halstead and Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike Halstead and Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Nurmi successfully shrank people down to about a foot in height.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie got drunk at the space station party and got into a big argument about how women ought to be treated in social settings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike was flying around in a little red saucer shaped craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parts of the film took place on space station Gamma One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space flights from Earth to the planet Delphus were depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Nurmi created enough human monstrosities to fill a room with in his efforts to make perfect humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Nurmi intended to fuse himself with Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A futuristic rocketship rescued Mike and his party before Mr. Nurmi's planet was destroyed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x10", "title": "Dagger of the Mind", "date": "1966-11-03", "description": "While on a re-supply mission to a rehabilitation colony for the criminally insane, the Enterprise crew discover that the chief doctor has been using a device which destroys the human mind. Kirk and a female crew member, down on the planet, must deal with the problem up close and personal. Spock performs a mind meld for the first time in this episode.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical psychological experimentation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adams with his contraption", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Tristan Adams was using his experimental \"neural neutralizer\" machine to effectively lobotomize the criminally insane patients under his care.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "neural neutralizer :: neural neutralizer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon van Gelder was tortured mercilessly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the criminally insane", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Tristan Adams was using his experimental \"neural neutralizer\" machine to effectively lobotomize the criminally insane patients under his care.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Helen Noel :: Kirk and Helen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Noel :: Helen had the chance to condition Kirk to love her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Noel :: Helen had the chance to condition Kirk to love her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk had more than Simon says Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Helen Noel :: Kirk and Helen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: being exposed to the torture device made Kirk feel very lonely", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon van Gelder :: van Gelder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Tristan Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Tristan Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tristan Adams :: Tristan Adams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon van Gelder :: van Gelder about the machine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Gelder about beaming down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock performed a mind-meld on Simon van Gelder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk reflected on how he'd hooked up with Helen Noel at an Enterprise Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk remarked on how contemporary penal colonies were more like “resort colonies” than cages with the implication that conditions in such places had grown less and less harsh over the years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x02", "title": "The Corbomite Maneuver", "date": "1966-11-10", "description": "The Enterprise is menaced by a gigantic alien ship whose commander condemns the crew to death. The alien ship appears all-powerful and the alien commander refuses all attempts at negotiation, forcing Kirk to employ an unorthodox strategy to save the ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey in confrontation with Balok; especially during Sulu's countdown", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew at Balok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "all-powerful Balok had the body of a todder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk bluffed Balok by claiming he had an immensely destructive device known as \"the corbomite device\". He also discovered that he had been somewhat bluffed by Balok, who had transmitted a far more threatening image of himself than the jejune shape he actually possessed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face Balok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk decided to press on to contact the aliens who made the space buoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about his promotion of Bailey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about the aliens appearance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: McCoy and Kirk discuss in light of Kirk's handling of Bailey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey at phaser control", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/McCoy :: Kirk and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew under threat from Balok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey volunteers to stay aboard with Balok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew when seems Balok will destroy the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in getting out of the crisis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk took a conciliatory tone with First Federation starship captain Balok after snatching victory from the jaws of defeat at the hands of Balok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey complains they have been star-mapping for three days", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Balok :: Balok offers Tranya hospitality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Balok rescued by Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Bailey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave Bailey :: Crew was in fear of impending destruction the enterprise, especially Bailey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise was captured and towed by a tractor beam which they attempted to escape by shearing away at a 90 degree course.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x15", "title": "The Menagerie, Part I", "date": "1966-11-17", "description": "Spock hijacks the Enterprise to take his crippled former captain, Christopher Pike , to the forbidden world of Talos IV . He then demands a court martial where he uses the events of \" The Cage \" to tell the tale of Pike's captivity on the planet years earlier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock to Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Pike was confined to a futuristic, mobile life support box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "major", "motivation": "would it not be better to just let Oike die with dignity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Federation law, the only crime punishable by death was to visit the planet Talos IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobile life support device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A severely delta irradiated Captain Pike was confined to futuristic, mobile life support box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock defended himself at his court martial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about his ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike was living in a mobile life-support box because he had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock defended himself at his court martial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x16", "title": "The Menagerie, Part II", "date": "1966-11-24", "description": "Spock continues detailing the events of \" The Cage \" to the tribunal. After witnessing the Talosians' capabilities of mental illusion, Kirk realizes that Spock intends to return Pike to the planet to live a life of illusion, unencumbered by his crippled condition.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock to Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosian :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Pike was confined to a futuristic, mobile life support box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosian :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosian :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big-headed aliens communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Keeper :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike at horses and orion slave girls and getting bodily function back and recovering beauty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock faced the death penalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Number One :: Number One did not take kindly to the Talosians remarking that the younger J.M. Colt made for superior breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobile life support device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A severely delta irradiated Captain Pike was confined to futuristic, mobile life support box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike, Vina :: Pike/Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike/Mongol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike about saving the girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "human were about to blow themselves up rather than living their lives in a gilded cage without self-fulfillment and challenge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike and Boyce's talk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Talosians tried to get Captain Pike to mate with Vina the easy way (i.e., by using their powers of allusion to present her to Pike in a variety of pleasing guises) before resorting to the hard way (i.e., by using their powers of illusion to torture Pike with fire).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina at Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Keeper :: butt-head aliens to Pike and Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Keeper :: butt-head aliens torture Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike in efforts to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Keeper :: butt-head aliens to Pike and Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Keeper :: butt-head aliens to Pike and Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike was living in a mobile life-support box because he had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear holocaust left the Talosian home planet's surface virtually uninhabitable and killed most of their race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Andrei Rublev (1966)", "title": "Andrei Rublev", "date": "1966-12", "description": "Andrei Rublev is a 1969 Soviet biographical historical drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and co-written with Andrei Konchalovsky. The film was remade and re-edited from the 1966 film titled The Passion According to Andrei by Tarkovsky which was censored during the first decade of the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the 15th-century Russian icon painter. The film features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush. Savva Yamshchikov, a famous Russian restorer and art historian, was a scientific consultant of the film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in medieval Russia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film meant to show what Russia might have been like around 1400.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw a monastery, religious paintings, and heard many biblical quotes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrei between monastery and going to paint with Theophanes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Jester tortured for making fun of the state, and pagans slaughtered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krill resented other people's success, especially Andrei's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krill was jealous of Andrei, the Jester, and others who possessed talent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story are a couple of master painters: Theophanes the Greek, and the eponymous Andrei Rublev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw a village brutally massacred by Tartars in episode 6", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vow of silence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrei Rublev took a vow of silence in monastic Christian tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Durochka said to be a holy fool.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x12", "title": "The Conscience of the King", "date": "1966-12-08", "description": "While visiting an old friend, Kirk suspects a Shakespearean actor may actually be the murderous former governor of Tarsus IV where Kirk grew up. Kirk invites the acting troupe aboard the Enterprise in order to investigate, but soon assassination attempts are made on Kirk and another crewman who was an eyewitness to the murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and others to Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kodos selected half the population to die on eugenic principles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "what was enough to prove Anton Karidian was really Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos killed half the population", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos killed half the population", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kodos was systematically killing off witnesses to his genocidal crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karidian was a traveling Shakespeare actor who turned out to be Kodos the executioner. The final confrontation took place during a presentation of Hamlet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "statute of limitations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk took it upon himself to reopen a case against Kodos the Executioner that the authorities had closed the book on some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk desired justice for Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's gut feeling was not enough to convince Spock of Kodos' guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice identification device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anton's voice matched that of Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner/Lenore Karidian :: Kodos/Lenore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: the lack thereof was Kirk accused for", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Leighton :: Leighton", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Lenore Karidian :: Kirk/Lenore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Karidian and other Shakespeare actors perform Hamlet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos to Lenore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Lenore Karidian :: Lenore and Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Riley :: Riley alone in engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos to Lenore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Leighton, among others, grieved for the victims of Kodos the Executioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos the Executioner :: Kodos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kodos once ruled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lenore Karidian :: Lenore to Kodos", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thunderbirds Are Go (1966)", "title": "Thunderbirds Are Go", "date": "1966-12-12", "description": "The film focuses on the futuristic spacecraft Zero-X and its manned mission to Mars. When Zero-X suffers a mechanical failure during re-entry, it is up to International Rescue, with the aid of the Thunderbird machines, to save the astronauts on board before the spacecraft is obliterated in a crash landing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_Are_Go" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is centered around a manned mission to Mars in a futuristic spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Tracy and his five sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Penelope and her highly stereotyped working class servant Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a futuristic, metallic green rocketship of modular design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mars expedition party was attacked by some rock snakes on the Red Planet, which was more Moon-like in appearance in the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x08", "title": "Balance of Terror", "date": "1966-12-15", "description": "While investigating a series of destroyed outposts, the Enterprise discovers a lone Romulan vessel with a cloaking device . The Romulans, having never been seen by humans, are revealed to visually resemble Vulcans , casting doubt on Mr. Spock's loyalty as the two ships become locked in a cat-and-mouse battle through space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military tactics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "legendary cat and mouse game between Federation and Romulan starships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk at Romulan commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romulan commander laments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robmulan Bird-of-Prey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/unnamed Romulan commander of tos1x08 :: Kirk/Romulan commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/unnamed Romulan commander of tos1x08 :: Kirk at Romulan commander and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk had the Enterprise play possum in order to trick the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan :: Romulan vs. humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: to enter the neutral zone or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk chided Stiles on the bridge for making a bigoted insinuation directed at Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stiles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew Stiles :: Stiles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela Martine mourned the tragic death of her husband-to-be, Robert Tomlinson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela Martine, Robert Tomlinson :: Robert and Angela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk said what if I'm wrong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decius :: Decius wanted to attack the Enterprise in the name of glory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sneak attack tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans destroy outposts and flee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of not displaying weakness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock argued it would be a mistake not to attack the Romulan vessel because it would show weakness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "unnamed Romulan commander of tos1x08 :: Romulan commander decided to destroy the Enterprise instead of returning to Romulus immediately", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decius :: The over-confident Romulan sub-commander Decius sent a message back to the Romulan homeworld proclaiming victory over the Federation before the deed was complete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela Martine/Robert Tomlinson :: Robert and Angela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "unnamed Romulan commander of tos1x08 :: Romulan captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at the end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ebirah Horror of the Deep (1966)", "title": "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep", "date": "1966-12-17", "description": "The seventh film in the Godzilla franchise. This time Godzilla it faces the Sea Monster.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebirah_Horror_of_the_Deep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla, Ebirah, and Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ebirah terrorized people on the high seas. Godzilla was attacking a military base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons were being manufactured on the island that Ryota and his part washed up on. The island was destroyed in a nuclear explosion at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant shrimp Ebihra and the giant moth Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryota stole a yacht with the help of two friends are went sailing in search of his brother Yata, who was lost at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three friends and a thief encountered a storm on the high seas, got attacked by a giant shrimp and washed up on what appeared to be a deserted island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny fairy women served as Mothra's priestesses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two tiny, twin fairy-like women served as Mothra's priestesses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x17", "title": "Shore Leave", "date": "1966-12-29", "description": "Captain Kirk orders shore leave for the Enterprise crew on a seemingly uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta system. The landing parties begin to see strange sights, such as a White Rabbit a la Alice in Wonderland , Don Juan , and a sword-wielding samurai . Also, Kirk sees (and fights) an image of Finnegan, a rival from his Starfleet Academy days. Spock discovers that the planet seems to be drawing a large amount of energy from the ship's engines, placing the Enterprise in danger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A planet in the Omicron Delta region was transformed into a magical amusement park by an unknown alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "technology on planet transformed thoughts into reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Ruth :: Kirk and Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party faces Shore Leave planet technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "a planet where your thoughts come true", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Finnegan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: McCoy to Sulu about Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people remarked on the beautiful nature unspoiled by human industry and presence, on the Shore Leave planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulu :: Sulu explains the gun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Finnegan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy about the rabbit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy watched Tonia get undressed because he was a doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Members of the landing party, Captain Kirk especially, mourned the death of Dr. McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk got a thrill out of slugging it out with his former tormenter Finnegan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew on shore leave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Ruth :: Kirk and Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy/Tonia Barrows :: McCoy and Tonia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shore Leave Planet caretaker, Caretaker Aliens :: Caretaker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk explained that his old classmate Finnegan was the kind of guy who would put a bowl of cold soup in your bed or prop up a bucket of water on your half-open door.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: In the Year 2889 (1967)", "title": "In the Year 2889", "date": "1967", "description": "A post nuclear holocaust film about a group of humans who must band together against hostile mutants.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060536/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a post nuclear holocaust world. It was said that 1000 nuclear bombs killed 3 billion people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The post nuclear war world was full of mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear fallout made a race of atomic fiends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain John Ramsey and Joanna Ramsey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna and Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "People and animals evolved at a super accelerated rate after being exposed to radiation from nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "People exposed to radiation mutated into a new race of atomic fiends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "People exposed to radiation mutated into a new race of atomic fiends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Six people led by Captain John Ramsey were faced with having to rebuild civilization after a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Six people led by Captain John Ramsey seemed to be the only ones left on Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A atomic war spells and end for civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Morrow's brother Granger turned into a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jada liked Mickey and was jealous of Joanna because Mickey liked her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mickey at Joanna.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Journey to the Center of Time (1967)", "title": "Journey to the Center of Time", "date": "1967", "description": "A team of scientists invent a time portal that allows them to look into the future, but unbeknownst to them, it ends up sending them first 5000 years into the future and then back to 1,000,000 BC. It is a remake of The Time Travelers (1964), and was also known as Time Warp.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_Time" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists invented a kind of time portal they called the Time Selector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists accidentally sent themselves 5000 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the year 6968, blue aliens had landed on Earth in a futuristic rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the year 6968, a rocketship full of blue aliens from another galaxy had landed on Earth, looking to settle there, but the humans of the time were involved in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the year 6968, the world was in the midst of a nuclear conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The group of scientists were assailed by dinosaurs in the year 1,000,000 BC.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mars Needs Women (1967)", "title": "Mars Needs Women", "date": "1967", "description": "Martians come to Earth in search of female breeding stock.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Needs_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians come to Earth in search of human females for breeding purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians had developed a genetic deficiency so that now produced only male children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world put a hold on mutual hostilities and united to face down the Martian threat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dop and Dr. Marjorie Bolen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians abducted three homecoming queen candidates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian arrived on Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Government officials worried a mass panic would ensue should news of Martians coming to Earth get out to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians had the ability to teleport from their flying saucer to Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew of Martians embarked on a 70 day mission from the Red Planet to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Marjorie Bolen explained how a form of suspended animation, which she called \"sleep freeze\", could be used to put crews to sleep on long space missions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Dop abandon his mission to stay on Earth with Marjorie?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Privilege (1967)", "title": "Privilege", "date": "1967", "description": "The story is presented as a narrated documentary, set in a near-future 1970s England, and concerns a disillusioned pop singer, Steven Shorter, who is the most-loved celebrity in the country.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bread and circuses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two main parties of England formed a coalition government and encouraged the success of pop singer Steven Shorter to placate the masses and divert them from political activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pop singer Steven Shorter, the most famous and adored man in England, became disillusioned while he lived basically as prisoner under the care of his handlers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Shorter became disillusioned with his coddled and stage managed life as an incredibly famous pop music star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Shorter essentially lived as a bird in a gilded cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nationalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government coordinated with the Church to capitalize on Steven Shorter's fame to get him to spew out nationalistic propaganda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government coordinated with the Church to use Steven Shorter as a tool to unify everyone under one god and one flag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Shorter was virtually worshiped as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Shorter was used as a tool to influence people to do any number of things from eating six apples a day after harvest to unifying under one god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator described the world show in the film as being in an age of conformity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government made Steven Shorter perform violent songs on stage in an effort to increase his appeal among the new generation of unusually rebellious youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven Shorter and Vanessa Ritchie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Venus Flytrap (1967)", "title": "Venus Flytrap", "date": "1967", "description": "A mad scientist uses lightning to turn carnivorous plants into man-eating creatures. The film is also known in reference books as Body of the Prey, and The Revenge of Doctor X (the American video box title).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan created a man-eating plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan created a man-eating plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan ignored his assistant's objections and single-mindedly went about creating a plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan ignored his assistant's objections and single-mindedly went about creating a plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan's assistant Dr. Nakamura insisted that he take a vacation to Japan because he was overworked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan and his assistant were experimenting with plants in a secluded greenhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan used the power of electricity in a most Frankenstenian manner to give life to his plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Bragan created a man-eating plant monster in an effort to prove his theory that humans had evolved from plants.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x13", "title": "The Galileo Seven", "date": "1967-01-05", "description": "Spock and a scientific party are sent to study the Murasaki 312 quasar aboard the shuttle Galileo. During the survey, the Galileo is forced to make an emergency landing on the planet Taurus II, where the crew fight the planet's dangerous inhabitants. As the crew begin to make repairs, Scotty determines that the shuttle does not have enough fuel to reach orbit carrying all seven passengers, and Spock must contemplate leaving some of his fellow crew behind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock's logic vs. human nature and Kirk a bit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty, McCoy, Latimer, Gaetano, Boma, Mears :: landing party to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock's cold and calculating approach to getting off the planet was questioned by the landing party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inaction vs. futile action", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Captain Kirk and Commissioner Ferris debated whether to keep up the search for the Galileo shuttlecraft, even though it was almost certainly hopeless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk must decide between continuing search for Spock and delivering plague stopping medicine; Spock faces decision of who stays on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Ferris, Spock/Boma :: Kirk/Ferris and Spock/Latimer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock with setting the fuel alight!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk must decide between delivering the medicine and finding Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk saving many faceless people by delivering the medicine and saving his friend Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock in logic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Spock and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Taurus II Anthropoids :: The Taurus II Anthropoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boma and Gaetano chided Spock for being insensitive to the fact that a landing party member had just perished horribly at the hand of the giant ape-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the decent burial demand by landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "deliver the supplies immediately or investigate the quasar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "investigate a quasar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock in caving in to letting the crewman bury their deceased colleague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "investigate a quasar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for crewmen who wanted to bury Gaetano", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock in taking charge", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x18", "title": "The Squire of Gothos", "date": "1967-01-12", "description": "The Enterprise discovers a rogue planet drifting through space, inhabited by an eccentric being named Trelane who uses his apparently unlimited power over matter and form to manipulate the crew.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Trelane's Species :: Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Trelane, while a mere child among his own incorporeal people, held the Enterprise crew in the palm of his hand owing to the powerful abilities he wielded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the greatest among us is the smallest in another world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trelane was a god-like being from a human point of view, but just a child in his own world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trelane :: humans as pets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trelane :: Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trelane :: Kirk tells Trelane his life is too easy and he needs one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk faces Trelane in the hunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gothos :: Gothos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk convinced Trelane that he should release them and hunt them as game for sport, as that would be ever so much fun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: Trelane and his transcendental dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: incorporeal beings/Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: Trelane to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk beams down and instructs the crew to get away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: Trelane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: Squire sought to experience the emotion of anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire to landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane :: squire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trelane's parents struggled to make him behave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk told Spock about such stereotypical childhood pranks as the dipping of little girls' curls in inkwells, and the stealing of apples from neighbors' trees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x19", "title": "Arena", "date": "1967-01-19", "description": "The Enterprise comes under attack by unknown aliens while investigating the near destruction of the Cestus III colony. While chasing the aliens into unexplored space, both ships are captured by the powerful Metrons , who force Kirk and the alien captain (later identified as a member of the Gorn race) to trial by combat: the winner's vessel will be set free, while the loser's ship will be destroyed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk/Gorn captain :: Kirk and Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gorn :: Federation and Gorn over base on Cestus III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk assumed the Gorn were a savage race but they had reasons for attacking Cestus III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Metrons opinion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agility vs. strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Gorn captain :: Kirk vs. Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk let his Federation outpost destroying Gorn counterpart live after besting him in an epic, one on one battle of brains versus brawn on some uncharted planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorn :: Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk spares Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The enlightened Metrons used their vast powers to force the humans and the Gorn to resolve their petty quarrel in a manner befitting of their inherently violent species'.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and humanity more generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorn :: Gorn had his reasons for destroying Cestus III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the fact that the Gorn and the Federation each considered the other the original aggressor in their conflict. The Metron decided to stay somewhat aloof from this barbaric approach to conflict resolution, and one-on-one orchestrated a fight to the death instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military retaliation to discourage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk vs. Spock about pursuit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "explosives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk recalled that gunpowder is composed of sulfur, coal, and potassium nitrate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gorn captain :: Gorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and Gorn cannot communicate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "high ground advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk climbed a mountain (a pile of rocks anyway) in order to gain ground on the Gorn he was fighting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Metron :: Metrons allow crew to watch Kirk's imminent death", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x21", "title": "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "date": "1967-01-26", "description": "After accidentally traveling back in time to 1969, the Enterprise rescues USAF Captain John Christopher from his crippled fighter jet. The crew struggles to return to their own time, while simultaneously returning Christopher to the Air Force, removing his knowledge of the future and all record of contact with the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise travels back to 1960s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Christopher :: Christopher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk and Spock must be cautious of not letter Christopher change the future", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Christopher :: John to USA", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Christopher :: Christopher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew to John", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew were flung back in time to 1960s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "JohnChristopher mistook the Enterprise for a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "new to Christopher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the femputer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: time-warp using the sun vs. staying in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk trusts Christopher to join landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Christopher :: Christopher aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Christopher :: Christopher about USA", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matriarchs of Cygnet XIV :: matriarchs of Cygnet XIV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise attempted to capture Captain John Christopher's 20th century fighter jet using a tractor beam.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x14", "title": "Court Martial", "date": "1967-02-02", "description": "Captain Kirk is placed on trial for negligence after a crewman is killed during a severe ion storm. Kirk maintains that his actions were proper and should not have led to the officer's death, but the evidence seems strong against him. Will Kirk's crew be able to save the captain from conviction?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Finney at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk and the trial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Finney at Kirk for being more successful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Finney blamed Kirk for his own failings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Benjamin Finney :: Kirk and Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "the crew at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was court martialed on the charge of negligence in the apparent death of his subordinate Benjamin Finney. In reality, Finney had faked his own death as part of an elaborate plot to sabotage Kirk's career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Ben Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Ben Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney :: Finney envied Kirk for having risen up the ranks to command a starship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was defended by Samuel T. Cogley, attorney at law, when he was tried in a Starfleet court on charges of negligence after jettisoning a manned pod during an emergency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was tried in a Starfleet court on charges of negligence after jettisoning a manned pod during an emergency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "computer evidence in Kirk's trial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin Finney/Jame Finney :: Finney and Jame", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perjury", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An inquiry was held to determine if Captain Kirk should be court martialed on charges of perjury and culpable negligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "computer's in the courtroom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sound masking device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy used a special “white sound device” to mask out the sound of the heart beat of each of a number of people who were standing around on the Enterprise bridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Areel Shaw :: Areel about prosecuting Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Finney's downward spiral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jame Finney was shook up over the apparent death of her father, Ben Finney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Ben Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and Ben Finney", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Areel Shaw :: Kirk and Areel Shaw", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jame Finney :: Jame for Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jame Finney :: Jame for Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samuel T. Cogley, attorney at law, objected to computer-generated evidence being used against Captain Kirk in Kirk's court martial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x22", "title": "The Return of the Archons", "date": "1967-02-09", "description": "The Enterprise discovers a planetary population controlled by a powerful being called Landru. While investigating, Captain Kirk and his landing party are taken captive and discover that the Enterprise crew will be the next to be \"absorbed\" into Landru's control.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Children of Landru :: harmony under Landru at the price of freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central computer Landru ruled over the people of Beta III much as a cult leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central computer Landru ruled over the people of Beta III much as a cult leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landru took over Betan society and mind controlled them to make everyone peaceful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landru justified killing for the good of the body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens lived quite blissfully under Landru's rule until the arrival of the Archons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk wanted the children of Landru to be free", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was adamant that the people of Beta III should not let the computer Landru rule over them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landru justified killing for the good of the body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landru :: Landru", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk and the landing party faced a hoard of people that were mind-controlled by the central computer Landru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landru communicated telepathically with his followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The otherwise peaceful Children of Landru periodically engaged in festivals in which people can, and did, do anything they wanted without repercussions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the people at festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the people at festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Children of Landru :: Landru as cult leader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Landru used religion as a tool to control the people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Children of Landru :: the people at festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass mind control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Landru of the people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "brief discussion between Spock and Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the towns people at festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marplon :: Marplon before entering the Hall of Audiences", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk insisted that the Landru computer was a rank machine in spite of the computer's protestations to the contrary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Landru :: Landru does not value diversity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The landing party was somewhat taken aback to find that the otherwise dosile people of Beta III held a periodic festival in which people could do whatever they wanted without repercussions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reger :: Reger of Landru", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock performed a mind-meld on McCoy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x24", "title": "Space Seed", "date": "1967-02-16", "description": "The Enterprise discovers an ancient sleeper ship, the SS Botany Bay, which escaped from Earth's Eugenics Wars in the late 20th century. The genetically engineered passengers, led by war criminal Khan Noonien Singh , seize control of the Enterprise and attempt to destroy the ship. (This episode serves as the backstory to the second Star Trek film ).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "eugenics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Khan and the eugenics wars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Marla McGivers was attracted to such powerful men as Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Richard the Lionheart, Leif Ericson, the gladiator Flavius, and the former dictator Khan Noonien Singh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan was the epitome of manliness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan knowns", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan and his followers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marla McGivers, Khan Singh :: McGivers and Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan and minions were revived after having spent centuries in stasis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan was going about on the Enterprise looking being arrogant toward the non-perfect human specimen crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan wished to create a race of eugenically enhanced people to replace the current stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan's old regime had brought order to the world at the expense of freedom and at the cost of tyranny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan's old regime had brought order to the world at the expense of freedom and at the cost of tyranny", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan and his followers had travel the stars in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan was adamant that he knew what was best for the common people. Even Spock advocated hiding historical facts that might prove too much for the public to bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "breeding super soldiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan tells Marla to leave her hair down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan and his folllowers were cryogenically preserved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla McGivers :: McGivers must choose between Kirk and Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan and his folllowers were cryogenically preserved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk grants Khan exile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla McGivers :: Khan's followers to Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla McGivers :: McGivers betrayed Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McGivers liked to paint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk dropped all charges against Khan without being obligated to do so after retaking the Enterprise from Khan's control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan to McGivers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: banquet held for Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan Singh :: Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan once ruled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 20th century saw Earth come under the rule of peak eugenic specimens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Khan Singh :: Kirk outwitted Khan in a fight to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise used a tractor beam to tow Khan Noonien Singh's ship, the SS Botany Bay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x23", "title": "A Taste of Armageddon", "date": "1967-02-23", "description": "On Eminiar VII, the Enterprise finds a civilization at war with its planetary neighbor. Unable to discern any signs of battle from orbit, Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the surface where he discovers the entire war is fought by computer. Even though the war is simulated, citizens who are listed as virtual casualties still report to termination booths to be killed for real. After the Enterprise is destroyed in an attack simulation, Kirk must fight to keep his crew from death.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk ended the virtual war by threatening to bring real war with all its horrors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eminians were mired in a centuries long simulated war with their planetary neighbors the people of Vendikar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eminians thought their civilization would collapse after Kirk destroyed their central computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anan 7 :: Anan 7's preconception that the virtual war was necessary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anan 7 :: Eminians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fox on mission to initiate relations with Eminians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eminiars think they are more civilized but of course kirk knows better", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "the few are disintegrated to preserve civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anon 7 weighs moderate casualties indefinitely against the chance of civilization being destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "the real war brings that risk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eminian/People of Vendikar :: Eminiars and Vendicars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice identification device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's message a fake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty/Robert Fox :: Scotty and Fox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty annoyed by Fox's meddling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty, Kirk :: Scotty and Kirk vs. Fox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ship safety vs. diplomacy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegration chamber", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminians used to dispatch designated casualities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anon 7 imitated Kirk's voice with some gadget", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Fox :: Fox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminian/People of Vendikar :: Eminiars and Vendicars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminians complacent about war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eminian :: Eminians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x25", "title": "This Side of Paradise", "date": "1967-03-02", "description": "Despite exposure to fatal radiation , the Federation colony on Omicron Ceti III appears to be thriving. A landing party from the Enterprise investigates, finding the colony's population to be healthy beyond explanation. Leila Kalomi, an old friend of Mr. Spock, shows the landing party strange flowers that seem to impose a state of pure bliss on all exposed to its spores (even Spock), but at the cost of ambition and self-discipline. Will the Enterprise crew succumb to the effects?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonists of Omicron Ceti III :: The colonists strove to create a utopia of this variety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elias Sandoval :: Sandoval learned this from Kirk by the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leila Kalomi :: Leila at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "crewmembers barnyard brawl and general insubordination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spacefaring plants", "level": "major", "motivation": "Omicron Pod Plants :: pod plants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew deserted Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leila Kalomi, Spock :: Spock and Leila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Omicron Pod Plants :: pod plants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elias Sandoval :: Sandoval advocated as a way of life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk and his crew grappled with the threat of space flowers who spores subverted the mind of anyone who was exposed to their pollen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "intoxicated colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock playing; McCoy drinking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the spores", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias Sandoval :: Sandoval after waking up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonists of Omicron Ceti III :: not actually zombie, but similar idea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the colonists were sent to develop a new world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias Sandoval :: Sandoval at conclusion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock from Leila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/Leila Kalomi :: Spock and Leila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/Leila Kalomi :: Spock and Leila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Kirk made Spock get angry at him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk not giving in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock deliberately played in a tree instead of showing up for his meeting with Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social stagnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk saw the Omicron Ceti III colony as a stagnated society, when in fact they were merely goofy in the head from space spores.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x26", "title": "The Devil in the Dark", "date": "1967-03-09", "description": "Dispatched to the mining colony on Janus VI, the Enterprise is tasked to investigate rumors of a strange, subterranean creature responsible for destruction of equipment and the deaths of fifty miners. Kirk and Spock discover a silicon-based life form , a Horta, which lives in the surrounding rock. After Kirk and his Vulcan first officer find the strange creature, Spock performs a mind meld , discovering the reason behind the Horta's attacks.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horta :: the horta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horta :: the horta had none according to the miners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Horta :: the horta was the last of it's species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Horta's planet had been colonized by a Federation mining operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting another society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Would the Federation be justified in killing the Horta in order to secure access to the valuable mineral deposits on Janus VI?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk negotiated a compromise between the Horta and the human miners who'd colonized its homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The horta caring for its eggs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "miners colonized Horta’s planet to gain riches", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of dilithium miners with clubs in hand were not going to let the Horta chase them away from their mining operation without a fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horta thinks humans are ugly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "killing it or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horta thinks humans are ugly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "miners paranoid attack on horta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vanderberg :: Vandenberg and other miners over mysterious murders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miners mourned the death of their colleague, Smitter. The mother Horta was dismayed that her offspring were being killed by the miners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy, Kirk :: McCoy and Kirk to Horta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "miners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mother Horta :: Horta in Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock performed a mind meld on the Mother Horta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The (distinctly repulsive) Horta thought humans were patently ugly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's livelihood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of dilithium miners with clubs in hand were not going to let the Horta chase them away from their mining operation without a fight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Gyaos (1967)", "title": "Gamera vs. Gyaos", "date": "1967-03-15", "description": "It is up to Gamera to protect Japan from the giant pterosaur-like creature Gyaos. It is the third entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Gyaos" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government expropriation of land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some villagers were trying to stop the Japanese government from taking their land away for the purpose of building a expressway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of villagers appeared to be conflicted about whether or not they should sell their ancestral land to the government. Although it later became apparent that it was just a negotiating tactic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gamera is a giant turtle. Also a zoologist was convinced that Gyoas had existed since the dawn of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gamera protected the people of Japan from a giant pterosaur or perhaps bat creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gyaos had the appearance of a pterosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant pterosaur-like creature Gyaos attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eiichi Kanamura and his older sister Sumiko Kanamura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tatsuemon Kanamura and Eiichi Kanamura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Eiichi played a pivotal role in the defeat of Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scientists invented synthetic blood to use as a lure for Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eiichi accused the villagers of being greedy for getting his grandfather to negotiate a better deal for the land.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x27", "title": "Errand of Mercy", "date": "1967-03-23", "description": "Peace negotiations have collapsed between the Federation and the warlike Klingon Empire . The Enterprise is ordered to protect Organia, a peaceful planet located near the Klingon border. Kirk and Spock beam to the surface to warn the Organians about the Klingons, but soon a Klingon fleet arrives, forcing the Enterprise to abandon the duo on the planet. The natives protect Kirk and Spock, even as Kor , the new Klingon governor, orders mass executions of the Organian people. As both Federation and Klingon fleets converge above the planet, Kirk and Spock execute a daring raid on the Klingon headquarters in an effort to destabilize their control over the planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "from Organian point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Organian :: Organian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Organians saw Federation and Klingons as about equally barberous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The warring humans and Klingons were as squabbling children to the god-like Organians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk could not stand idly by and let the Organians engage in something so unspeakable as \"non-violence\". The Organians, on their part, were repulsed by the bellicosity of human and Klingon alike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "those Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Organian council", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Organian :: Organians from Federation point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor :: Kor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk from Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Organians decided to stay aloof from the barbaric Federation-Klingon conflict in which each side claimed the other as the aggressor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Organians reluctantly choose to interfere in the Federation/Klingon war when the combatants proved incapable of making peace", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon :: Klingons of Organian homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons subjugated the Organians and ruled over them with an iron fist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk facing Klingon occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk made them clear to Organian ruling council", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon :: Klingons planned mass execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor :: Kor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ayelborne :: Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk attempted to start a resistance movement for the Organians, by waging single-handed guerrilla warfare against the invading Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mind-sifter :: mind-sifter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor :: Kor at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor about Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulu :: Sulu should protect the ship says Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor :: Kor about conquest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ayelborne :: Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock :: Kirk and Spock protect Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk's altruistic offer to Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ayelborne :: Organians to Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock :: Kirk and Spock protect Organians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingons conquered the Organian homeworld (or so they thought).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk offered Federation membership to the Organians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social stagnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk saw that the Organians took no interest in the advancement of civilization by human standards, and assumed them to be socially stagnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Organians had evolved beyond the need for bodies, and it was suggested that humans might one day share this fate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The X from Outer Space (1967)", "title": "The X from Outer Space", "date": "1967-03-25", "description": "The giant, lizard-like monster Guilala attacks Japan.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans versus Guilala.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Michiko Taki and Lisa Schneider loved Captain K. Sano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant, lizard-like monster Guilala.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying saucer sightings led to an investigatory mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic rocketship AAB Gamma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship AAB Gamma is dispatched from Japan to travel to Mars to investigate reports of UFOs in the area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The AAB Gamma crew visited a Moon base on the return trip to Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x20", "title": "The Alternative Factor", "date": "1967-03-30", "description": "While orbiting an apparently dead planet, the Enterprise seems to experience a strange moment of \"nonexistence.\" Captain Kirk discovers a man named Lazarus on the planet below, who claims the effect was caused by his \"enemy,\" later revealed to be an insane version of Lazarus from an alternate dimension . The sane version of Lazarus asks for Kirk's help in defeating his counterpart.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B at Lazarus-A for existential reasons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lazarus-A :: Lazarus-A", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-B came from a parallel antimatter universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to spend eternity in limbo", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-A :: Lazarus-A", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-A :: Lazarus-A", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-A :: Lazarus-A faced Lazarus-B", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic encounter with another universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lazarus-A was on a mission to prevent a parallel antimatter universe from colliding with our own universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B was bat shit crazy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antimatter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Extrapolating from the notion that matter and antimatter particles tend to violently cancel each other out, Kirk and Spock concluded that Lazarus coming into contact with his antimatter counterpart would result in the annihilation of the entire universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lazarus-A was a time traveler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lazarus-B :: Lazarus-B for Lazarus-A", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in Lazarus-A", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lazarus-A had a dilithium crystal powered time machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x28", "title": "The City on the Edge of Forever", "date": "1967-04-06", "description": "After accidentally overdosing on a powerful stimulant, Dr. McCoy becomes unbalanced and disappears through the Guardian of Forever , a newly discovered time portal on a remote planet. Kirk and Spock follow after learning that McCoy somehow changed history. Arriving in the 1930s, the duo meet Edith Keeler, a New York social worker who gives them a place to stay. As the days pass, and McCoy is nowhere to be seen, Kirk finds himself falling in love with Keeler... but Spock discovers that Keeler must die to restore the timeline.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: let Edith die or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: let Edith die or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith was a raging pacifist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were tossed right back into the Great Depression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guardian of Forever, Guardian of Forever :: The Guardian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock :: Kirk and Spock while living in Great Depression America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war is sometimes justified", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock concludes about WW2", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "back to the Great Depression", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Great Depression", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Edith Keeler :: Kirk and Edith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock :: Kirk and Spcok trapped in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy went dangerously insane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "minor", "motivation": "this would have happened had Edith lived", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was devastated by the tragic death of his love interest, Edith Keeler, who perished tragically in an automobile accident before his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith toward the less fortunate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith to Kirk and Spock and hobos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith to vagrants and bums", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith toward hobos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edith Keeler :: Edith about pacifism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nazis featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an alternate timeline, Edith Keeler started a pacifist movement that delayed America's entry into the Second World War long enough for Germany to develop V-2 rocket propelled nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an alternate timeline, Edith Keeler started a pacifist movement that delayed America's entry into the Second World War.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos1x29", "title": "Operation -- Annihilate!", "date": "1967-04-13", "description": "The Enterprise arrives at Deneva - the home of Captain Kirk's brother, Sam and his family - and discovers that the entire planet has been infested with large, amoeba -like aliens that have attacked and killed much of the human population. One of these aliens attaches itself to Spock, who volunteers to become a subject in Dr. McCoy's medical tests. Can McCoy and Kirk find a cure in time to save Spock and the remainder of the Denevan population?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk must weigh killing all inhabitants to prevent the spread of a pandemic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk must weigh killing all inhabitants to prevent the spread of a pandemic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neural Collective Parasites :: neural parasites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neural Collective Parasites :: collectively they formed a giant brain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock risked his life to in an effort to prevent the neural parasites from spreading around the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neural Collective Parasites :: the creatures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy scrambled to devise a cure for a madness causing disease, transmitted by flying single-celled creatures, that infected the entire Denovan colony population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew to stop a strange madness causing disease, transmitted by flying single-celled creatures, from spreading uncontrollably across the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/George Samuel Kirk :: Kirk/Sam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Peter Kirk :: Kirk/Peter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's brother's wife Aurelan told him about how the neural parasite attacked the colony just before she died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy and possibly Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy blamed himself for having blinded Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was struck blind after being exposed to an intensely bright light source.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk mourned the death of his brother, Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock going back in spite of weakness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy for having blinded Spock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gappa the Triphibian Monster (1967)", "title": "Gappa the Triphibian Monster", "date": "1967-04-22", "description": "A group of Japanese reporters discover an infant monster called a Gappa on Obelisk Island. The reporters cage the creature and take it to Japan where it becomes a media attraction. This angers the natives of the island and Gappa's full-grown parents, who head toward Japan to find their child. Its plot virtually duplicates that of the 1961 British film Gorgo.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gappa:_The_Triphibian_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A egg that hatched into a giant bird-lizard creature was found on a remote Pacific island. It was described in the film as a prehistoric reptile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Funazu, president of Playmate Magazine, had a baby bird-lizard taken away from its parents so he could profit from it in his new zoo attraction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The baby Gappa was taken from its remote island home, brought back to Japan, and put in an amusement park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Japan versus the baby Gappa's angry parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The baby Gappa's parents came to rescue it from the amusement park and destroyed a large swath of Tokyo in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The baby Gappa's parents came to rescue it from the amusement park and destroyed a large swath of Tokyo in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "People, especially Yonagi, showed compassion for the baby Gappa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "People, especially Mr. Funazu and Professor Tonooka acted selfishly, showing only interest in their own ambitions, and did not take account that the baby Gappa was suffering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Funazu was too busy with his work to give his daughter the attention she needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Tonooka became fascinated with studying the baby Gappa and lost sight that it was just baby separated from its parents with the same kind of feelings that human beings have.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yonagi decided to quit her job and become a house wife and off went with Professor Tonooka at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Big Heat (1967)", "title": "Night of the Big Heat", "date": "1967-05", "description": "Aliens are suspected when a freak heat wave hits a remote island somewhere off the English coast during the dead of winter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Big_Heat_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of Fara Island were suffering through a freak winter heat wave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and his wife Frankie. On the other hand, Jeff regarded Alice as \"a common slut\" in his words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and Frankie Callum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff had cheated on his wife, Frankie, with his secretary Angela Roberts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angela Roberts was intent on luring Jeff away from his wife, Frankie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff tried as he might to resist his young secretary's amorous advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angela Roberts at Frankie Callum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientist Godfrey Hanson uncovered that Fara Island was being used as a site of an invasion by extraterrestrials, whose extremely high temperature burns any living creature that gets too close to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thermophilic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrials that used Fara Island as a site for invading Earth were so hot that they burned any living creature that gets too close to them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: They Came from Beyond Space (1967)", "title": "They Came from Beyond Space", "date": "1967-05-01", "description": "Several meteors fall in a field in England. Those who approach them are seemingly taken over, and barricade the area from intruders. A scientist is immune to the takeover due to a metal plate in his head. He enlists the assistance of a friend, who must melt down his silver cricket trophies to make a helmet to protect him. Although initially claiming that the takeover is benign, the aliens attempt to remove the metal plate from the scientist but are thwarted and learn the human value of courtesy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Came_from_Beyond_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists investigating a meteorite impact became compromised by a malign alien influence and began taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens had taken up residence on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zarn had advanced beyond the need of physical bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Curtis Temple and Lee Mason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Curtis Temple was held captive by the people taken over by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were sending rocketships back and forth to the Moon in the space of only 25 hours.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: King Kong Escapes (1967)", "title": "King Kong Escapes", "date": "1967-07-22", "description": "An evil genius named Dr. Who creates Mechani-Kong, a robot version of King Kong, to dig for the highly radioactive Element X, found only at the North Pole. The film is a loose adaptation of the Rankin/Bass Saturday morning cartoon series The King Kong Show and was the second and final Japanese- produced film featuring King Kong.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_Escapes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The King Kong legend was discovered to have a basis in fact when it along with other prehistoric creatures were discovered on Mondo Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madame Piranha and Dr. Who plotted to take over the world with the help of King Kong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mondo Island was full of prehistoric creatures, including King Kong and some dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madame Piranha planned to make an arsenal of nuclear weapons from Element X.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl Nelson, Jiro Nomura, and Susan Watson used a hover car to get about on Mondo Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Kong descended on Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Kong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An evil genius named Dr. Who created Mechani-Kong, a robot version of King Kong, to dig for the highly radioactive Element X, found only at the North Pole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mission Stardust (1967)", "title": "Mission Stardust", "date": "1967-08", "description": "Mission Stardust is a 1967 science fiction film based on the early novels of the popular German Perry Rhodan series by K.H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Stardust" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crime lord, located in Africa, plotted to get his hands on alien technology and radioactive materials from the Moon for the purpose of increasing his power in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Arkonides came to the Moon from a planet 36 million light years away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Perry Rhodan led a four-man mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A four-man crew flew the \"Stardust\" rocket to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arkonides kept androids, although everyone called them robots, in the crew to do important work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thora felt her species was superior to humans and treated them with contempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arkonides had a hand-held anti-gravity device was used to deflect bullets from hitting them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crest was dying from leukemia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Yongary Monster from the Deep (1967)", "title": "Yongary, Monster from the Deep", "date": "1967-08-13", "description": "The giant monster Yongary attacks Seoul.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongary_Monster_from_the_Deep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prehistoric monster Yongary had lived underground for ages by consuming fossil fuels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yongary was described as a prehistoric monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of South Korea versus the prehistoric creature Yongari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Illo and Yoo Soon-a.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy Icho played a special role in defeating Yongari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant, prehistoric creature Yongari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yoo Kwang-nam and Icho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yoo Soon-a and Icho.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)", "title": "Bonnie and Clyde", "date": "1967-08-13", "description": "Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 American biographical crime film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the title characters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Also featured were Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons. The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton. Robert Towne and Beatty provided uncredited contributions to the script; Beatty produced the film. The soundtrack was composed by Charles Strouse.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the gang was pursued time and again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clyde and Bonnie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bonnie fell for Clyde because he was a violent criminal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw the group dynamics within a gang of criminals on the run", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bonnie and Clyde gang robbed a number of banks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gang eventually became wanted for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bonnie, Clyde, Blanche all commented on what they had done to end up where they were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck and Blanche", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw America during the Great Depression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bonnie vv. Blanche", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clyde and the rest of the group were occasionally delighted or bemused by their own infamy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "C.W. was notably loyal to Clyde but then betrayed them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clyde had trouble getting it on in bed and it made him grumpy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x05", "title": "Amok Time", "date": "1967-09-15", "description": "When Mr. Spock begins behaving aggressively, Kirk discovers his first officer must return home to Vulcan to be married, or die. Kirk disobeys his orders to save Spock, only to find the unbalanced Vulcan at his throat when the bride forces Spock into a duel – and chooses the captain as her champion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about his mating cycle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock/T'Pring :: Spock and T'Pring", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcan marriage customs seemed mighty peculiar to the humans, and most of all to Kirk who had to stake his life to save Spock. Also Spock getting into a heat was rather upsetting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk must choose between attending ceremony and saving Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcan :: Spock was arranged to be married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk fights Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for thinking he had killed Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock tried to keep the sexual fires that burned within him in check while under the influence of the pon farr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock entered into the heat that comes toward the end of the seven year mating cycle characteristic of his species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Vulcans and their maintaining of archaic tradidions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about Vulcan mating habits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Nurse Chapel was jealous of T'Pring over Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock goes bonkers and tosses a bowl of Vulcan plomeek soup and smashes a view screen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was briefly dismayed when he thought he'd killed his friend Captain Kirk in a violent rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pring :: T'Pring", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x04", "title": "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "date": "1967-09-22", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise are held captive by an alien who claims to be the Greek god Apollo .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Apollo/Carolyn Palamas :: Apollo and Carolyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the god is an alien", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Greek Gods :: Apollo and his alien brethren masqueraded as the Greek gods to the Ancient Greek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Apollo :: The Greek god Apollo, who was actually an alien, had lived in solitude and despair for thousands of years until such time as he encountered the Enterprise crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: Carolyn to the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk about gods and worship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: Carolyn about betraying Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: Carolyn at Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Ancient Greek stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The powerful alien Apollo had taken on the persona of the Ancient Greek god of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew encountered the Greek god Apollo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew facing Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apollo behaved toward the landing party members as if they would be happy to spend the rests of their lives with him herding goats and sacrificing to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty, Apollo :: Scotty couldn't stand it when his crush Carolyn fell for Apollo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas enjoyed being pampered by the manly godlike being Apollo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: about Carolyn and she finding a man, quitting the service as women do", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: Carolyn with the dress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male protectiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo rejected by Carolyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo/Scotty/Carolyn Palamas :: Scotty and Apollo were vying for Carolyn's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Apollo had brought civilization to the Ancient Greeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty at Carolyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo at the prospect of eternity without worshippers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carolyn Palamas :: Carolyn for Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo :: Apollo with the lightning bolts and whatnot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apollo, Carolyn Palamas :: Apollo and Carolyn with new dress", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x08", "title": "The Changeling", "date": "1967-09-29", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise deals with Nomad—an indestructible, planet- destroying space probe that thinks Kirk is its creator. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was in part an expansion of this episode.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Nomad probe was determined to exterminate all biological life. It had begun by exterminating 4 billion inhabitants in the Malurian system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad about perfection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient space probe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad, Nomad :: Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad :: Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad :: Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative interstellar probe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad had originated as an interstellar space probe sent from Earth, and which had later merged with an alien probe named Tan Ru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura serenaded the sentient space probe nomad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a mass of conflicting impulses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Nomad wiped Uhura's mind and she had to relearn everything from scratch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad :: Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackson Roykirk/Nomad :: Jackson Roykirk and Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew facing Nomad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tan Ru makers :: Tan Ru makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The command crew mourned the death of Scotty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad carried to the transporter room on an anti-grav trolley", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x10", "title": "Mirror, Mirror", "date": "1967-10-06", "description": "A transporter mishap slips Captain Kirk and his companions into a parallel universe , where the Enterprise serves a barbaric Empire instead of the Federation. This episode spun off several plotlines in Deep Space Nine and Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the mirror universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A transporter mishap sent Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura into a parallel universe populated with their evil counterparts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A transporter mishap sent Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura into a parallel universe populated with their evil counterparts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "mirror Kirk was pure evil, mirror Spock not so bad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Halkan :: the Halkans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation approach to getting access to Halkan dilithium vs. savage mirror universe guys approach", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk (mirror), Chekov (mirror) :: mirror-Kirk and mirror-Chekov", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about mirror-Chekov", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation in contrast to mirror universe Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "major", "motivation": "mirror-universe power structure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terran Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe sought to conquer the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mirror Chekov made an assassination attempt on Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Marlena Moreau (mirror) :: Kirk and mirror-Marlena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in dealings with Halkans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tantalus Field weapon enabled its user to monitor people in secret, and then vaporize them at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura having to go to the bridge and wait for Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulu (mirror) :: mirror-Sulu at Uhura", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov (mirror) :: mirror-Chekov in the agony booth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The agonizer was a small device wore over the uniforms of low ranking mirror universe Enterprise crewmen that could be used to inflict pain on the wearer at the push of a button. The mirror universe Chekov was placed in a pain booth as punishment for trying to knock off the captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Halkan :: The Halkan people faced the prospect of being obliterated by the Terran Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terran Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: good-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov in pain booth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: good-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk (mirror) :: evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov in pain booth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk (mirror) :: evil-Kirk for captors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: good-Kirk and evil-Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mirror Universe Spock performed a mind-meld on McCoy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x09", "title": "The Apple", "date": "1967-10-13", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise visits a mysterious and deadly paradise planet which they discover is controlled by a machine called Vaal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "order but stagnation under Vaal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk asserts that the feeders of Vaal have it too easy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vaalians worshiped the planet controlling machine Vaal as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and McCoy have extended discussion about whether or not to interfere with Vaalian society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social stagnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vaalians were provided for by their benefactor, Vaal, but consequently did not advance their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vaalian :: Vaalians under control of Vaal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vaalian :: simple diet etc. leads to no aging", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vaalians were provided for by their central computer benefactor, Vaal, but consequently did not advance their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk asserts that the feeders of Vaal need their freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "McCoy asserted that the Feeders of Vaal needed to have the freedom to choose what to do with Vaal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vaal :: Vaal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. Vaal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vaalians were provided for by their central computer benefactor, Vaal, but consequently did not advance their civilization and were entirely helpless in the face of change.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaalians believed they needed Vaal to run their village Kirk destroyed their central computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk decides to violate the Prime Directive in part to free the natives from the clutches of Vaal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about having come to the planet in the first place", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk pointedly lamented the deaths of several redshirt crewmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaalian :: Akuta not understanding many things, killing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "young Vaalians are curious about the ways of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaalians welcome the landing party at first", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retarded aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy's tricorder scans of the Vaalians revealed them to not be aging at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "natives about killing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha Landon :: Landon about how replacements are made", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov about Garden of Eden being near Moscow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock takes poison plant attack to save Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Makora and Sayana, a young Vaalian couple, were in the throws of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Makora/Sayana :: The young Vaalian couple Makora and Sayana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaal's Makers :: Vaal makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov inadvertantly taught the abstinent Vaalians how to display romantic affection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov/Martha Landon :: Chekov had his sights set on Landon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaalians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free inquiry vs. obedience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaal suppressed free inquiry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The computer Vaal kept Gamma Trianguli VI at a fixed temperature from pole to pole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x06", "title": "The Doomsday Machine", "date": "1967-10-20", "description": "After losing his entire crew to an alien planet-eating machine, Commodore Matthew Decker pulls rank on Kirk in order to play a game of cat-and-mouse with the mechanical adversary. His efforts to destroy the menace place the Enterprise in grave danger. This episode serves as the back story for the Star Trek 25th Anniversary Game Boy game .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker with destroying the space worm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a giant spaceborne being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A world eating, worm-like machine was going around consuming Federation planets for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Commodore Matt Decker was a wreck of a man after a giant, planet eating machine killed his entire crew down to the last man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world eating machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A world eating, worm-like machine was going around consuming Federation planets for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "space worm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "follow Spock or Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about relieving Decker of duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker for flying clear into the maw of space worm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker was fiercely loyal to his crew who nevertheless perished", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker establishes clear chain of command on the bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Matt Decker :: Kirk/Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock obeys Decker against his better judgement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet Eater Makers :: world eater", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew at Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Decker :: Decker said the doomsday machine something right out of hell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commodore Matt Decker flew a shuttlecraft straight into the maw of a planet eating machine in a suicide attack to prove that it could be destroyed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x01", "title": "Catspaw", "date": "1967-10-27", "description": "Two powerful aliens threaten the well-being of the Enterprise and her crew with their magical powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the hocus-pocus stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the transmuter made for a world that was indistinguishable from magic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "choice", "motivation": "black cats, witches, and a haunted castle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korok used a special wand-like device to transmute matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "the aliens were astonished by the pleasures that come with experiencing human senses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ornithoid Aliens :: the bird aliens were from another dimension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Old Ones sent the two bird aliens to scout out the Milky Way galaxy as a prelude to conquering it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place in a medieval castle. The antagonists, Korob and Sylvia, used powers that were pointedly reminiscent of magic from folktales. These powers were later explained to come from a scepter-shaped alien device called a “transmuter”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party :: halloween themed episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party was at a loss to explain why everything on the planet was something out of Halloween night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Sylvia :: aliens try to tempt Kirk with gemstones, also Slyvia about our world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk takes no bribes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ornithoid Aliens :: The old ones appeared to be bird-like after reverting back to their natural forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a cause", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia :: Sylvia to the Old Ones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia :: Sylvia at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ornithoid Aliens :: bird aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sympathetic magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ornithoid Aliens :: Sylvia used it on the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia, Korob :: Sylvia and Korob about strange human ways of thinking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Sylvia :: Kirk and Sylvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korob, Slyvia :: ornithoid aliens", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x12", "title": "I, Mudd", "date": "1967-11-03", "description": "Captain Kirk and the crew has a second run in with the con man, Harry Mudd , this time finding him as the king of a planet of androids .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "machines in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mudd's Androids :: should androids control humanity?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "humans cannot live under android domination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mudd's Androids :: Mudd's androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "the allure of having androids to cater to your every whim", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, McCoy :: Kirk and McCoy complain about machines taking their jobs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party held by androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk explains humans need a purpose or challenge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk explains humans need a purpose or challenge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "order under androids or freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party held in luxury by androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Mudd androids envisioned a grand plan to make themselves the servants of humanoid-kind, though from the human perspective this would amount to life as birds in a gilded cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party vs. captivity on android planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was not about to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of a race of well intentioned androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman, Mudd's Androids :: the androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party vs. androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd with sexdroids; Chekov", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a planet populated by androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The androids planned to make mankind completely dependent on them, thereby taking control of the human race for their own good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Androids all died when Number One short circuted sue to Kirk’s logical paradox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura with android body and Scotty with engineering knowledge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mudd's Androids :: androids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mudd's Androids :: the annabel series", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Harry Mudd :: Kirk and Mudd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "androids lived in a domed city", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Harry Mudd had been arrested for illegally selling the rights to a fuel synthesizer patent to the Denebians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: The androids tempted Uhura to stay with them on their planet with an offer of eternal youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura offered eternal beauty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a supernova destroyed the androids makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Mudd/Stella Mudd :: Mudd and Stella", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman :: McCoy complains of Norman's social skills to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a supernova destroyed the androids makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "liar paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk used the liar paradox to put the android Norman in an infinite loop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mudd's Androids' Makers :: android makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd with wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Mudd :: Mudd on planet", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Quatermass and the Pit (1967)", "title": "Quatermass and the Pit", "date": "1967-11-09", "description": "Professor Quatermass is called upon after the discovery of a mysterious object buried at the site of an extension to the London Underground.", "collections": [ "Collection: Quatermass" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_Pit_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Quatermass deduced that Martians had influenced human evolution and the development of human intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Martian spacecraft was discovered buried at the site of an extension to the London Underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was centered around the discovery of ancient hominid fossils, especially skulls, and it was discovered that Martian insectoids influenced human evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians uncovered from the spacecraft turned out to be arthropods. In addition, the spaceship resurrected Martian memories and instincts buried deep within the human psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diabolical influences were appealed to explain the mysterious happenings in the Hobbes Street area from at least medieval times down to modern days. The film concluded with a Quatermass and Roney defeating a diabolical projection from the Martian spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "militarization of space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Quatermass was dismayed to learn that his plans for the colonization of the Moon and Mars were to be taken over by the military. He subsequently went on a brief rant about the dangers of warheads in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quatermass used a device to record a young lady's buried memory of a ritual slaughter and then played it back to an audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the 5 million year old Martian spacecraft had an intelligence of its own and began to broadcast a malign influence to the people around it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x02", "title": "Metamorphosis", "date": "1967-11-10", "description": "A shuttle crew from the Enterprise encounters a castaway (who appears to be Zefram Cochrane , the inventor of warp drive ) and his mysterious alien companion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane, Companion :: Cochrane and companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Zefram Cochrane :: Kirk/Cochrane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane on the asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane at companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Companion's Species :: companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane had lived for centuries without suffering from the effects of aging but was deeply bored with life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stranded crew may never be able to leave the asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "human/incorporeal alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane needs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane needs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party vs. captivity on asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Companion :: companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Companion :: The Companion somehow loved Cochrane and refused to let him leave from the asteroid where it was keeping him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The companion, an incorporeal being, had trouble understanding why its love interest Cochrane required the company of other humans to feel fulfilled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "universal translator :: used to communicate with the companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the companion kept cochrane young", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane at companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "was the love between cochrane and the companion wonderous or an abomination unto the lord?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Companion :: companion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane :: Cochrane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about old spaceship parts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable asteroid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "cochrane lived on a habitable asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nancy Hedford :: Nancy about getting her illness cured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nancy Hedford :: Hedford", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x15", "title": "Journey to Babel", "date": "1967-11-17", "description": "While transporting dignitaries to an important peace conference the Enterprise is pursued by a mysterious vessel and an assassin is discovered among the passengers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Babel conference", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock/Sarek :: Spock and Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Spock and Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about blood transfusion; he had a duty to the Federation to remain in command and a duty to his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "the attendees over mining rights on a certain planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interplanetary conference was to be on the planet Babel to settle a territorial dispute and decide on whether or not the Coridan system would be admitted into the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock to Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ambassador Gav was killed by an Orion spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Grayson/Spock :: Amanda and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock chose a career in Starfleet against his father's wishes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek, Amanda Grayson :: Sarek/Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a roundabout way, Sarek admitted that he was proud of his son Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek, Amanda Grayson :: Sarek/Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek, Amanda Grayson :: Sarek/Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "is Sarek the murderer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: mother and Spock discussion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about his childhood pet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda comforted her husband Sarek after he had suffered a medical emergency that left his life in jeopardy. While Spock initially displayed an indifference to his father Sarek's plight, he his concern over Sarek's condition manifested itself in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Grayson :: Amanda at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gav :: Tellarite at banquet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock donating blood to Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The straightforward Tellarite manner of resolving conflict clashed pointedly with the diplomatic manner employed by the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x03", "title": "Friday's Child", "date": "1967-12-01", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise become entangled in a planet's tribal power struggle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the mining rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capellans, Capellan :: Capellan ideology of the survival of the strong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "the episode was about negotiating for mining rights on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capellans valued honesty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kras :: Kras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "major", "motivation": "Capellans, Capellan :: only strong should survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk faces Kras in fight to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons competed against each other in convincing the Capellans their cultures were more similar. Eleen objected to McCoy touching her while delivering her baby as it was against Capellan customs for a woman to be touched by a man who is not her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk confided in Spock how he wanted to take revenge against Kras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Capellan for of tribal government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleen/Maab :: Eleen and Maab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleen/Maab :: lady and tribal leader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleen/Leonard James Akaar :: lady and baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab launched armed Capellan coup of Akaar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Akaar/Maab :: for Teer title", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy delivered a baby and slapped a hysterical woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation compassion vs. Capellan self reliance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maab :: Maab as Teer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleen :: mother at baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kras :: Kras at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kras :: Capellan saw in Kras' eyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was troubled by the death of a young redshirt crewman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk for Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk explained that the Klingon Empire was made up of conquered worlds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "high ground advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and the landing party strategically fortified themselves in a mountain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleen objected to McCoy touching her while delivering her baby as it was against Capellan customs for a woman to be touched by a man who is not her husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x11", "title": "The Deadly Years", "date": "1967-12-08", "description": "Strange radiation exposes the command crew of the Enterprise to the effects of rapid aging.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Arlene Galway :: Kirk and landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, McCoy :: Kirk, McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about convening a hearing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Stocker :: Stocker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk and some of his landing party started to age rapidly when Gamma Hydra IV experienced mild radiation in the tail of a rogue comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew at Stocker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "how do old people adapt to being unable to be useful in daily life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "High levels of radiation caused the Enterprise crew to rapidly age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov at onerous medical examinations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet Wallace :: Janet for Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Janet Wallace :: Kirk and Janet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love out of pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet offered herself to Kirk in part out of pity for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov on the planet surface", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Johnson/Elaine Johnson :: Robert and Elaine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: old man Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk mourned the tragic loss of Lieutenant Arlene Galway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet Wallace/Kirk :: Kirk and Janet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk had rambling outburst", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A competency hearing was held to determine whether or not Captain Kirk was fit to command the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x18", "title": "Obsession", "date": "1967-12-15", "description": "Captain Kirk becomes obsessed with destroying a murderous entity that killed many of the crew of his old ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to kill dikironium cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to dikironium cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dikironium Cloud Creature :: dikironium cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock and McCoy nearly relieved Captain Kirk of duty when Kirk refused to listen to logic in coming to his decision to chase a possibly nonexistent cloud creature, relying instead on his intuition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign), McCoy :: Garrovick and McCoy about everyone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dikironium Cloud Creature :: both Kirk and cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk faces dikironium cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ensign Garrovick beat himself up over the death of a fellow redshirt crewman who perished horribly owing to his error - or so he thought. Kirk mourned the loss of two redshirt crewmen who died in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garrovick (Captain)/Kirk :: Kirk/Captain Garrovick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dikironium Cloud Creature :: dikironium cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the cloud may kill lots of people on a planet but other people will die without the medicine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antimatter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some sort of magnetic field was used to contain an ounce of antimatter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: chasing the cloud or deliver medicines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: chasing the cloud or deliver medicines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock and McCoy about confronting Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how to battle with a gas cloud", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at cloud creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock and McCoy in Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in intentions vs. trust in judgement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock and McCoy in Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garrovick (Ensign) :: Garrovick in confrontation with creature", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Son of Godzilla (1967)", "title": "Son of Godzilla", "date": "1967-12-16", "description": "Godzilla and son come to the rescue when a team of scientists trying to perfect a weather-controlling system on a remote island are attacked by giant praying mantises. There is also a giant spider.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Godzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "local weather control system", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists were developing a system to control the weather on and around a remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and Baby Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant praying mantises attacked a team of scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and Baby Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were giant praying mantises and a giant spider.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x07", "title": "Wolf in the Fold", "date": "1967-12-22", "description": "Mr. Scott is implicated in a series of bizarre murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what would it take to prove Scotty murdered the women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty was the lead suspect in the murders of a number of women on Argelius II. He was proved innocent in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the historical figure was really an alien", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Jack the Ripper was really the malevolent alien entity known as Redjac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on the mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "The homicidal, incorporeal entity Redjac fed on the pain and fear he instilled in his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty must be prosecuted under Argelian law", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face Rejac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty was suspected of having serially murdered a number of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelian :: McCoy describes Argelius as a hedonistic society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what men want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty wants a cabaret dancing girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open sexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the belly dancing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the belly dancing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "when in Rome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk implored Scotty to follow Argelian customs in the cabaret", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "psychotricorder :: psychotricorder; which they never used as far as I can tell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lie detector", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sybo led a séance in an effort to identify the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaris/Sybo :: Jaris and Sybo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock faced the death penalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelian law specified that murderers be put to death by means of slow torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk has the power to leave with Scotty, but does not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaris mourned the death of his murdered-before-his-very-eyes wife Sybo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty/Kara :: Scotty and Kara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "death by slow torture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hengist :: Redjac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Redjac tried to inspire terror in crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argelians used the death penalty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a hearing to determine whether or not Scotty would be extradited to Argelius where he would be tried for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a hearing to determine whether or not Scotty would be extradited to Argelius where he would be tried for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper was actually a human being under the control of the malevolent alien entity Redjac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty was briefly presumed to be a psychopath by the Argelians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the number pi", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock tied up the computer by ordering it to compute the value of pi to its last decimal place - evidently a neverending chore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x13", "title": "The Trouble with Tribbles", "date": "1967-12-29", "description": "Tribbles – purring, limbless, and fertile – disrupt the exploitation of a disputed planet between the Klingons and Federation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lurry :: Lurry with Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Lurry :: Kirk and Lurry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Lurry :: Kirk and Lurry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons and Federation over control of Sherman's Planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetically modified crops", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quadrotriticale was a genetically engineered hybrid of wheat and rye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribble :: Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribble :: crew vs. Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribbles on Enterprise and Space Station K-7", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lurry :: Lurry to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "uhura cute furry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation and the Klingons had a diplomatic dispute over ownership of Sherman's planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura, McCoy :: Uhura and McCoy of tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy spoke of the human tendency to love cute, little animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tribble :: Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Kirk was disappointed that Scotty did not defend his integrity in the bar", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)", "title": "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women", "date": "1968", "description": "Astronauts landing on Venus kill a creature that resembles a pterosaur and is worshiped by the local women. The women try to kill the astronauts by means of their superhuman powers, but fail. Eventually, the astronauts escape from the planet, and their robot, damaged by a volcanic fire, becomes the women's new god.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_Planet_of_Prehistoric_Women" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounds a group of astronauts who land on and explore Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A tribe of pterosaur worshiping, seashell clad women was discovered on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts were assisted on their mission by the big, bulky robot John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Venus was discovered to be a prehistoric world, complete with dinosaurs and a tribe of seashell clad women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts had to survive in the hostile and prehistoric environment that was the surface of Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts commandeered a futuristic rocketship to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocketship docked with a rotating wheel space station on its way to Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts walked around on the surface of Venus wearing conspicuous silver spacesuits complete with bubble helmets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the opening narration how humans will expand out from Earth and colonize the planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were assailed by various prehistoric type creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts got around on the surface of Venus in a hover car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were attacked by a pterosaur.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968)", "title": "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "date": "1968-01-03", "description": "A Canadian-American TV film based on the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Case_of_Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll had the hubris to presume he could synthesize a chemical serum that would rid a person of their evil side, leaving only the good side behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a quaint and stereotyped depiction of life in what one presumes to be Victorian London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mild mannered Dr. Jekyll started transforming into his debauched alter ego Mr. Hyde after he drank an experimental serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mild mannered Dr. Jekyll would transform into his debauched alter ego Mr. Hyde whenever he drank an experimental serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll has two selves: his dedicated physician self and his debauched split personality Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll has two selves: his dedicated physician self and his debauched split personality Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Jekyll at hard work in his gloomy laboratory full of bubbling beakers, caged lab rabbits, and other token scientific paraphernalia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll was of the mind that the instinct for violence is an admirable quality in man, and that, moreover, any society would stagnate in its absence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hyde made a scene in front of the soon to be married couple Liz and Cassidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hyde left a women he was seeing with a black eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde has some passing interactions with his butler Poole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hyde physically assaulted a woman he was seeing while in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were after Mr. Hyde for the murder of Stryker and Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll confided in his old friend George when he needed help evading the authorities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x17", "title": "The Gamesters of Triskelion", "date": "1968-01-05", "description": "Captain Kirk , Chekhov and Uhura are kidnapped by powerful disembodied aliens and forced to fight in gladiatorial contests for the aliens' gambling entertainment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slavery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the brains collected slaves from around the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gamesters of Triskelion :: disembodied brains", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "the slaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gamesters of Triskelion :: Three disembodied brains ruled over the thralls of planet Triskelion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party and slaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party vs. captivity by brains", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of disembodied brains were addicted to gambling on the outcomes of gladiatorial fights. Kirk exploited their obsession with gambling to gain freedom of their thralls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and thralls", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Shana :: Kirk and Shahna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of disembodied brains were abducting humanoids from across the galaxy and forcing them to fight in gladiatorial combat for their amusement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Shahna's agony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a trinary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Triskellion :: Triskellion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shana :: Kirk and Shahna dialogues", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk stepped in and took the punishment that was about to be meted out on Uhura and Shahna, respectively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shana :: Shahna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain collar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "collar of obedience :: Providers used to control thralls", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk exploited the brains obsession with gambling to gain freedom of their thralls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gamesters of Triskelion :: brains oversaw development of thralls after losing wager to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Provider 1, Provider 2, Provider 3 :: Gamesters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Provider 1, Provider 2, Provider 3 :: Gamesters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in opposing Gamesters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Provider 1, Provider 2, Provider 3 :: Gamesters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura at attempted rape", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x20", "title": "A Piece of the Action", "date": "1968-01-12", "description": "The Enterprise visits a planet with a violent culture based on Americas 1920s prohibition era.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the gangster stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sigma Iotian :: a planet full of 1920s era gangsters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "gangsters made to cooperate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival gangsters were made to cooperate on a global scale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bela Okmyx, Jojo Krako :: mob bosses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "prime directive violated by the leaving of 1920s gangster book", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival mob bosses, Bela Okmyx and Jojo Krako, were not content with running their respective territories. Each coveted running the entire would of Sigma Iotia II and reaping in the profits that came with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, Kirk :: AM radio for Spock, driving for Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bela Okmyx/Jojo Krako :: Okmyx and Krako", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mob bosses want heaters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bela Okmyx, Jojo Krako :: mob bosses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jojo Krako :: Krako", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sigma Iotian :: Space Gangsters", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x19", "title": "The Immunity Syndrome", "date": "1968-01-19", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise encounters an energy-draining space creature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterpris encountered a giant space amoeba-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a giant spaceborne being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The gamma 7a inhabitants were consumed by a giant space amoeba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk decides who to send on the shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk decides who to send on the shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human mind and big numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock criticized McCoy for not properly comprehending the deaths of four hundred Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was deeply disturbed upon telepathically sensing the deaths of 400 fellow Vulcans aboard the starship Intrepid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy explained that the giant space amoeba would split into two, then four, then eight, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock and McCoy about amoeba", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cell division", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noted that amoebas (including the oversized spaceborne variety) reproduce by cell division.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew in the face of almost certain death at the hands of the giant space amoeba", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock for suicide mission", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Countdown (1968)", "title": "Countdown", "date": "1968-02", "description": "Two astronauts vie to be the first American to walk on the Moon as part of a crash program to beat the Soviet Union.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "competition among nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film centered around competing American and Russian manned missions to land a man on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film centered around competing American and Russian manned missions to land a man on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some higher ups in the space program wanted to take big risks to beat the Russians to the Moon, while others advocated for taking the time needed to do it safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee Stegler and Mickey Stegler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee Stegler and Mickey Stegler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Lee Stegler accept an assignment on a risky Moon shot mission against his wife's wishes?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mickey fretted over her husband Lee being in danger on a mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x16", "title": "A Private Little War", "date": "1968-02-02", "description": "Captain Kirk must decide how to save a primitive people from the technological interference of the Klingons .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should the Federation arm the hill people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neurals :: Federation and Klingons over planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyree, Nona :: Tyree and Nona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk decides to arm the natives in violation of the Prime Directive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyree :: Tyree", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neurals :: hill people lived in bliss until the Federation and Klingons arrived", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternative medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nona and her berries and roots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nona :: Nona wanted weapons for her people to subjugate others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyree :: Tyree became jealous of Kirk after Tyree's wife Nona became interested in the dashing starship captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyree/Nona :: Nona and Tyree", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neurals :: Tyree and the neurals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Tyree :: Kirk and Tyree", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nona stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Tyree/Nona :: Kirk/Tyree/Nona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nona wanted her enemies' houses and their goods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and Mugato", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was the unlucky recipient of a poisonous mugato bite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mugato.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk vs. Mugato", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nona :: Nona at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyree mourned the loss of his senselessly murdered wife, Nona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyree :: Tyree", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyree :: Tyree", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Planet of the Apes (1968)", "title": "Planet of the Apes", "date": "1968-02-08", "description": "An astronaut crew who crash-lands on a strange planet in the distant future. Although the planet appears desolate at first, the surviving crew members stumble upon a society in which apes have evolved into creatures with human- like intelligence and speech. The apes have assumed the role of the dominant species and humans are mute creatures wearing animal skins.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans succeeded Humans as the dominant creatures on the Earth after Humans annihilated themselves in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power on a planet that was thought by Human astronauts to be a world distant from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A talking Human according to simian theology and the religious authorities tried to suppress knowledge of Taylor and Cornelius' theory that apes evolved from people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius were prosecuted as heretics for their subversive view on simian evolution. Dr. Zaius insisted that there was no conflict between faith and science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "apostacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius were indited as heretics for their view on simian evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius were indited as heretics for their view on simian evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes had supplanted Humans as the dominant species on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts traveled into Earth's distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Astronauts believed they had traveled to a planet in a distant solar system where apes were the dominant species, but they had actually traveled into Earth's distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans evolved to become intelligent. Cornelius had a theory that Apes evolved from Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chimp doctors were performing experimental brain surgery on humans to advance simian science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x22", "title": "Return to Tomorrow", "date": "1968-02-09", "description": "Telepathic aliens take control of Kirk and Spock's bodies with the intention to build new, mechanized bodies for themselves.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sargon's Species :: Sargon's species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henoch :: Henoch but not Sargon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sargon's Species :: Sargon hints that humanoid life is an offshoot of his species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirkologue about helping aliens and advance knowledge, risk is their business thats what a starship is all about he says", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sargon speaks of an ultimate war that ended his species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in Sargon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew faces Henoch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thalassa, Sargon :: Thalassa and Sargon about getting human bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henoch :: Henoch betrays Sargon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henoch :: Henoch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sargon, Henoch, Thalassa :: Sargon, Henoch, and Thalassa wished to live on indefinitely in android bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thalassa :: Thallassa was tempted to keep body forever", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon, Thalassa :: Sargon and Thalassa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon :: Sargon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thalassa :: Thalassa about her body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy took his friend Captain Kirk for dead..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine at Spock she was quite happy to have shared body with him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon/Thalassa :: Sargon and Thalassa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon's Species :: Sargon's species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon and friends built android bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew with Sargon and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon/Henoch :: Henoch and Sargon in the aftermath of ultimate war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon speaks of ultimate war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon :: Sargon faces Henoch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon, Henoch, Thalassa :: Sargon and friends in their spheres", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Sargon and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henoch :: Henoch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Sargon and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon :: Sargon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Sargon and friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henoch :: Henoch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sargon's civilization was destroyed in some kind of “ultimate crisis” that came to pass after he and his people dared to think themselves gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thalassa :: Thalassa about desire for humanoid body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "help the aliens by lending bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The god-like aliens could communicate telepathically.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x23", "title": "Patterns of Force", "date": "1968-02-16", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise visits a planet dominated by a Nazi culture and at war with its planetary neighbor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ekosian :: An alien race patterned after the Nazis right down to the uniforms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The space Nazis looked upon the Zeons as an inferior race, and were actively seeking to perpetrate a genocide against them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Space Nazis were exterminating the Zeons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ekosian :: the space nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation historian violated Prime Directive by introducing Nazi culture to the Ekosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation historian introduced Nazi culture to unify the Ekosians under a global order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "the space Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zeons and space Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Gill violates Prime Directive and teaches Nazism to people on the planet to help them make an ordered society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an anti-Nazi underground resistance movement on the planet Ekos, comprised of both persecuted Zeons and dissenting Ekosians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zeons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ineffective after a certain point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy with his drugs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "phrenology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space Nazis had some theory or another of that kind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demagoguery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melakon :: Melakon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space nazis of zeons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melakon :: Melakon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "torture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zeon resistance fighters mourned the loss of their fallen comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "torture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with ill-fitting clothes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy complained that his Nazi boots we too tight fitting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hour of the Wolf (1968)", "title": "Hour of the Wolf", "date": "1968-02-19", "description": "Hour of the Wolf (Swedish: Vargtimmen, lit. 'The Wolf Hour') is a 1968 Swedish psychological horror film directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann. The story explores the disappearance of fictional painter Johan Borg (von Sydow), who lived on an island with his wife Alma (Ullmann) while plagued with frightening visions and insomnia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_of_the_Wolf" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story showed how a tormented artist, Johan, gradually succumbed to his demons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan and Alma", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan couldn't sleep during the night. This is alluded to in the work's title. As a roundabout consequence, Johan suffered from madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan had had an affair with Veronica Vogler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was whether and to what extent Alma was envious of the other women in Johan's life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan was an unstable and tormented painter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan, Alma, Veronica, Lindhorst", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story concluded with Alma speculating about her marriage to Johan and the love therein", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan relayed a story of having been locked in a closet and later beaten during his childhood, perhaps explaining his present mental condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan had randomly killed a young boy who observed him fishing (this may have been symbolic) and in the end was murdered by the aristocrats from the castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alma was with child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan shot Alma, we were told fatally though she re-appeared later.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e0x01", "title": "Prescription: Murder", "date": "1968-02-20", "description": "Dr. Ray Flemming, a psychiatrist, murders his wife and persuades his mistress Joan Hudson, who is an actress and one of his patients, to support his alibi by impersonating her.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo stages the suicide of Flemming’s mistress, then urges him to confess now that the love of his life has killed herself for him. Flemming mocks Columbo's words, saying he never cared deeply for Joan and would have gotten rid of her eventually, anyway. Joan, listening in, agrees to testify against Flemming.\n\nDirected by: Richard Irving. Story by: Richard Levinson and William Link, based on their play.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Psychiatrist Dr. Ray Flemming murdered his wife with the help of his mistress and made it look as if the victim had been strangled by a burglar. He would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Psychiatrist Dr. Ray Flemming murdered his wife with the help of his mistress and made it look as if the victim had been strangled by a burglar. He would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Ray Flemming was a psychiatrist. He was shown practicing his craft at his clinic. He indulged Columbo by psychoanalyzing a hypothetical murderer, i.e., himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and Carol Flemming. The story turns on Ray strangling Carol to death so that he could be together with his mistress, Joan, without going through a scandal mired and financially ruinous divorce. The story opens with Ray and Carol celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary at home in the company of many friends. Columbo shared some anecdotes about his own wife: she considers him to be forgetful, the pair were thinking of taking a vacation, and she'd prefer he smoke a pipe over those smelly cigars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Ray offing his wife ostensibly to be with his young, ginger haired mistress, Joan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Ray offing his wife ostensibly to be with his young, ginger haired mistress, Joan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Ray offing his wife ostensibly to be with his young, ginger haired mistress, Joan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the sharp-witted, but shabbily dressed homicide detective Lt. Columbo to prove that the psychiatrist Dr. Ray Flemming had strangled his wife in cold blood and made it look like she was killed by a burglar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind. Ray psychoanalyzed Columbo thusly: \"You never stop do you? The insinuation, the change of pace. You're a bag of tricks, Columbo, right down to that prop cigar you use. I'm going to tell you something about yourself: You say you need a psychiatrist; maybe you do and maybe you don't. But you are the textbook example of compensation... adaptability. You're an intelligent man, Columbo, but you hide it. You pretend you're something you are not. Why? Because of your appearance. You think you cannot get by on looks or polish, so you turn a defect into a virtue. You take people by surprise. They underestimate you, and that's where you trip them up. Like coming here tonight.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring motif was Dr. Flemming's self-assured conviction that, thanks to his immense intellect, there was no conceivable way a mere police investigator could find him out. Lt. Columbo later pointed out that while Dr. Flemming might indeed outgun him in the brainpower department, Lt. Columbo's lengthy experience with murders counted for a lot more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ray Flemming had had all he could take of his wife and would much rather be with his mistress, but at the same time he didn't want her to file for divorce and leave with half the money. thus he murdered her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol informed Ray she'd be calling her lawyers in morning about filing for divorce when he came home after stepping out from their wedding anniversary party to see his mistress. She changed her mind after falling for Ray's lies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Ray half-joked that he married her for her father's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disguised Joan doubted that she would pass for Ray's wife, Carol. Ray, however, assuaged her anxiety by citing the so-called \"Principle of Association\", which he summed up as something to the effect of \"people see what they expect to see, and not what is really there\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray staged a burglary of his own home as part of a calculated plot to off his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray theatrically feigned to blame himself for his wife's plight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan spoke of her acting career. She was costumed as an Ancient Greco-Roman woman at the studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo staged Joan's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Flemming feigned distress after he got the news that his wife was in a coma-like state following a murder attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol became jealous when she thought, correctly as it were, that Ray had been seeing his mistress again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray and Carol Flemming celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in the company of friends at home.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Power (1968)", "title": "The Power", "date": "1968-02-21", "description": "Two men have the ability to control or slay others with their minds. It is based on the science fiction novel The Power by Frank M. Robinson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam Hart possessed a super-intellect complete with telekinetic abilities that he used to control and sometimes kill other people. Ditto for Professor Jim Tanner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote harming ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam Hart was murdering people with his psychic powers. In the end, Jim Tanner used his psychic powers to to kill Adam Hart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Tanner and Margery Lansing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Jim Tanner pondering whether or not absolute power corrupts absolutely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Jim Tanner and Adam Hart possessed a super-intellect beyond human measurement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw People obeying commands that Adam Hart seeded in their minds.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x21", "title": "By Any Other Name", "date": "1968-02-23", "description": "Beings from the Andromeda Galaxy steal the Enterprise , technically modify it, and attempt to return home.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "much ado about Kelvans experiencing the world through human senses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelvan ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "much ado about Kelvans experiencing the world through human senses", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew face Kelvans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rojan, Kelinda :: Rojan and Kelinda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelvan :: Kelvans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kelvans came from Andromeda to conquer the Milky Way galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelvans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rojan, Kelinda, Hanar, Tomar :: the Kelvans lost their rationality when getting swept up with love, jealously, anxiety and so on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Try as he might, the stoic by nature Rojan was unable to keep a lid on his feelings of jealousy toward Kirk, and ultimate attacked Kirk in a fit of rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paralysis device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rojan used to restrain landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rojan :: Kirk deliberately tried to make Rojan jealous of him by getting involved with Kelinda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krik, Rojan :: Kirk and Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk pointedly mourned the loss of crewman Thompson after Rojan transformed Thompson into a porous cuboctahedron solid and crushed it to powder before Kirk's eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-destruct tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty prepared a self-destruct device for Kirk to use at the galactic barrier, but Kirk ultimately declined to avail himself of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Tomar was seduced by human food and Saurian brandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Kelinda :: Kirk and Kelinda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens bickering about functions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk pointedly asked Rojan why preferred manhandling Kirk over using his push button paralyzer on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Rojan :: Kirk and Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Kelinda/Rojan :: Kirk/Kelinda/Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelvan :: Kelvans had to leave Andromeda galaxy for this reason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kelvans had to leave the Andromeda Galaxy because of a rise in the ambient level of radiation there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk for Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rojan :: Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Rojan :: Rojan favorably compares his leadership style with Kirk's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Rojan :: Kirk vs. Rojan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Kelinda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk offers Milky Way planet to Kelvans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomar :: Tomar, who had not know the joys of eating, pigged out on food from the Enterprise food synthesizer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rojan, Kelinda, Hanar, Tomar :: Andromedans wrt. food, sex and booze and violence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rojan :: Rojan at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty, Tomar :: Scotty and Tomar get hammered on scotch", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x25", "title": "The Omega Glory", "date": "1968-03-01", "description": "Captain Kirk must battle a deadly virus and a treacherous fellow starship captain to stop a meaningless intertribal war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ron Tracy :: Captain Tracy violated Prime Directive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yangs vs. Kohms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yangs and the American flag", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron Tracy :: Ron Tracy was convinced that the secret to immortality lay in the Kohms, and he forced McCoy to derived from them an immortality drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron Tracy thought he found the secret to immortality on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yang and Kohm ancestors engaged in a ruinous biological war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron Tracy :: Tracy had when attacked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron Tracy wanted to market the cure for aging he thought that he found.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kohms were communists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that biological warfare between the ancestors of the Khoms and the Yangs unleashed a plague that drove their civilization back to a medieval stage of development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy worked to get to the bottom of a strange plague that quickly reduced those infected to piles of crystalline powder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The principle of the survival of the fittest was illustrated as follows: the Yangs and Kohms had long lifespans because their ancestors survived a biological war by virtue of having harbored special, genetically inheritable antibodies that extended their lifespans by protecting them from disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yang and Kohm ancestors engaged in war of mutual annihilation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy explained that water makes up ninety six percent of our bodies and that without it, we're just a three or four pound pile of white crystals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kohms of Omega IV, Yangs of Omega IV :: Yang and Kohm ancestors nearly went extinct from WMDs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Ron Tracey lost his entire crew to a virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock telepathically manipulated a Yang woman into turning on a communicator so that the Enterprise would learn of their location on the planet's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yangs and Kohms evolved to live for hundreds of years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x24", "title": "The Ultimate Computer", "date": "1968-03-08", "description": "A new computer system causes havoc while being tested aboard the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the M-5 computer takes everybody's job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the M-5 computer takes everybody's job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-5 multitronic unit :: M-5 multitronic unit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "The M-5 multitronic unit went out of control and started attacking Starfleet targets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-5 multitronic unit transformed the Enterprise into an autonomous weapons system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are made to think of the consequences of creating intelligent weapons systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom built the M-5 to show everyone he still had it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Richard Daystrom, McCoy/Spock :: Kirk/Daystrom, McCoy/Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom/M-5 multitronic unit :: Daystrom and the M-5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk against the M-5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-5 was a sentient computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-5 multitronic unit :: crew vs. M-5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "M-5 from engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom for M-5 killing the people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "M-5 multitronic unit :: M-5 thought it was defending itself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's attitude toward the M-5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "M-5 multitronic unit :: M-5 decided to attack ships to save itself and the Enterprise crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "M-5 master military strategist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daystrom about his creation M-5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Richard Daystrom :: Daystrom and Kirk", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x14", "title": "Bread and Circuses", "date": "1968-03-15", "description": "Captain Kirk and his companions are forced to fight in gladiatorial games on a planet modeled after the Roman Empire.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the Roman Empire never fell", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew visited a planet that was much like 20th century Earth, save that the Roman Empire was still going strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Romans oppressed the Children of the Son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Merik violated Prime Directive on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: this episode was all about facing death with indifference and without fear", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, R.M. Merik :: Kirk choose the directive, Merik chose the other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk fights gladiator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "R.M. Merik :: Merik violates the Prime Directive to save his skin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "horrors of the colleaseum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Children of the Sun were a group of persecuted rebels that fought against the tyrannical Roman Empire headed by Proconsul Marcus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The children of the sun were enslaved by the Space Romans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy/Spock :: McCoy and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "order under Roman rule vs. freedom under the sun?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Septimus :: Septimus abhors violence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "R.M. Merik :: Merik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius Marcus :: Proconsul at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the children of the sun were christians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a car named after Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roman god stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk faces Roman consul", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius Marcus :: Claudius Marcus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius Marcus :: Claudius Marcus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius Marcus :: Claudius Marcus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Viras (1968)", "title": "Gamera vs. Viras", "date": "1968-03-20", "description": "It is up to Gamera to protect the people of Earth from the space monster Viras. It is the fourth entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Viras" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien force approached the Earth with the intention of enslaving Gamera and subsequently taking control of the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boys Masao and Jim were abducted by the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boys helped Gamera save the world from the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens sent the Baguron and Gyaos to wreak havoc around in world as a prelude to invasion. They also ended up mind controlling Gamera into turning on the humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant monsters Baguron and Gyaos to wreak havoc around in world as a prelude to invasion. They also ended up mind controlling Gamera into turning on the humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masao Nakaya and Mariko Nakaya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens ascertained that Gamera's weak point was its kindness toward children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used a device to control Gamera's mind such as it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The invading aliens, which save for Viras turned out to be mind controlled humans, used telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A United Nations Special Council had to decide whether to give up the two boys to the aliens for dead or surrender the Earth to the aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos2x26", "title": "Assignment: Earth", "date": "1968-03-29", "description": "During a historical research mission in 1968, the Enterprise encounters Gary Seven , a human from the future who appears to be attempting to alter history.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arms race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "USA and USSR", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "USA and USSR", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USA was putting nuclear weapons in orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USA was putting nuclear weapons in orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "militarization of space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Seven was sent on a mission to stop the USA from staging nuclear warheads in orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise traveled back to 1960s Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Seven's Providers :: Gary's providers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary was a spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise Crew traveled back in time to 1968 to observe how humanity survived a desperate nuclear crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice identification device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary's computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise command crew had teleconference meeting with video feed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dictation machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberta's typewriter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "searchable electronic database", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used to investigate Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberta was a symbol of 1960s female independence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberta Lincoln :: Roberta Lincoln", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative handheld device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary was in possession of a nifty spy pen inspired device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beta 5 computer :: Gary's computer the Beta 5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party must cooperate with Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Seven's Providers :: Gary Seven by providers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Seven mentioned the possibility of this war starting should he be unable to finish his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk went with his gut feeling and trusted Gary Seven at a critical moment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)", "title": "2001: A Space Odyssey", "date": "1968-04-02", "description": "The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution, deals with themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a voyage to Jupiter. There was also a mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The iconic HAL 9000 computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spacecraft Discovery One was operated by the powerful AI HAL 9000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "HAL 9000 went haywire and tired to kill the astronauts and take over the mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens left mysterious black monoliths on Earth, the Moon, and in orbit around Jupiter for hominids/humans to discover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A troupe of prehistoric apes acquired the ability to use tools after being exposes to a conspicuous black monolith. Another monolith was discovered buried on the Moon, and yet another in orbit around Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various passengers and flight attendants experienced weightlessness while in flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heywood Floyd spoke with his young daughter over video phone at the space port.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Moon base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An advanced type of rocket ship was used to fly to Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several of the astronauts on the Jupiter mission were put into hibernation in order to minimize the use of resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government spread a cover story that there was an epidemic on the Moon while officials figured out what to do about the incredible discovery that was made there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government spread a cover story that there was an epidemic on the Moon while officials figured out what to do about the incredible discovery that was made there.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Je taime je taime (1968)", "title": "Je t'aime, je t'aime", "date": "1968-04-26", "description": "A man is asked to participate in a mysterious experiment in time travel when he leaves the hospital after a suicide attempt. The experiment, intended to return him after one minute of observing the past, instead causes him to experience his past in a disjointed fashion. His fate is left ambiguous.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_t%27aime_je_t%27aime" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude Ridder was recruited to participate in a secret time travel experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude was sent back in time two years to 1966, but he experienced time in a fragmented manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude and Catrine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude, Catrine, and Wiana Lust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claude got stuck skipping around in the recent past, repeating numerous incidents again and again but in a fragmented, out of order manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists used Claude as a guinea pig in a risky experiment in time travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude was recruited for a risky time travel experiment because he had attempted suicide and had nothing to live for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catrine suspected that Claude was cheating on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The AstroZombies (1968)", "title": "The Astro-Zombies", "date": "1968-05", "description": "A disgruntled scientist who, having been fired by the space agency, decides to create superhuman monsters from the body parts of innocent murder victims. The creatures eventually escape and go on a killing spree, attracting the attention of both an international spy ring and the CIA.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astro-Zombies" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disgruntled scientist Dr. DeMarco created a couple of zombie-like creature, called Astro-Zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small team of CIA agents worked to track down the murderous Astro-Zombie monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. DeMarco developed a technology that the direct transfer of thoughts from brain to brain via radio waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. DeMarco invented a solar powered artificial heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. DeMarco was attempting to transplant a brain into one of the Astro-Zombie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wild in the Streets (1968)", "title": "Wild in the Streets", "date": "1968-05-29", "description": "Popular rock singer and aspiring revolutionary Max Frost advocates for voting rights for teenagers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max Frost, who observed that 52% of the population was 25 or under, led a youth uprising against the establishment to get voting rights for teenagers. The movement culminated with him being elected President of the United States in a landslide. As President, he had everyone over 30 take mandatory retirement and sent to re-education camps. The youth movement subsequently spread to the Soviet Union and around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max Frost led a movement to get teenagers the right to vote.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kumbayah utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max Frost, upon assuming the presidency of the United States, put an end to war, distributed surplus grain to poor countries, put everyone over 30 in re-education camps, and made peace on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max's had an estranged relationship with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was shown to have a poor relationship with his father during his childhood. As an adult he had an estranged relationship with his father. Also, conflict between other father and son pairs was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-war activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was argued that 18 year old who were being sent to fight in wars ought to have the right to vote.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The women's suffrage movement was referenced on several occasions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mission Mars (1968)", "title": "Mission Mars", "date": "1968-07-26", "description": "A trio of American astronauts land on Mars and find frozen Russian cosmonauts, a hostile creature, and a flashing ball-like object.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Mars_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around an American manned mission to the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts encountered a hostile creature, which they called a Polarite, while exploring the surface of Mars. There was also a strange ball object that seems to be controlling the Polarite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wives of Mike and Nick were extremely concerned over the well-being of their respective husbands while the men were away on a dangerous mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Col. Mike Blaiswick and his conspicuously young looking wife, Edith Blaiswick, spent a romantic time on the beach before he left Earth on a mission to Mars. Nick Grant had an emotionally charged telephone conversation with his wife Alice Grant in which they affirmed their love for one another before he left of Mars. The film concluded with Edith sharing the news with Mike that she was expecting with his child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Col. Mike Blaiswick and Edith Blaiswick. Nick Grant and Alice Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts reckoned that the flashing ball-like object was trying to communicate with them, but they were unable to understand it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thunderbird 6 (1968)", "title": "Thunderbird 6", "date": "1968-07-29", "description": "The film is largely set on Skyship One - a futuristic airship designed by Brains, the inventor of International Rescue's Thunderbird machines. The plot sees Alan Tracy, Tin-Tin Kyrano, Lady Penelope and Parker representing International Rescue as guests of honour on Skyship One's round-the-world maiden flight, unaware that master criminal The Hood is once again plotting to acquire the organisation's technological secrets. The Hood's agents murder the airship's crew and assume their identities to lure International Rescue into a trap. Meanwhile, Brains' efforts to design a proposed sixth Thunderbird collide with fate when Skyship One is damaged and its occupants' only salvation seems to be Alan's old Tiger Moth biplane.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_6" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative airship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the futuristic airship Skyship One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The airship Skyship One used an elaborate machine to compensate for gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Penelope and her highly stereotyped working class servant Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brains by driven to his wit's end when his boss John Tracy instructed him to design a sixth Thunderbird vehicle without any goal for what it was supposed t be used for. John rejected multiple of Brains' model designs that he had worked very hard on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a manned space station presumably in orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Tracy was shown interacting with any of his five sons from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Penelope and her acquaintances disparaged her stereotypical working class servant, Parker, at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hang Em High (1968)", "title": "Hang 'Em High", "date": "1968-07-31", "description": "Hang 'Em High is a 1968 American DeLuxe Color revisionist Western film directed by Ted Post and written by Leonard Freeman and Mel Goldberg. It stars Clint Eastwood as Jed Cooper, an innocent man who survives a lynching; Inger Stevens as a widow who helps him; Ed Begley as the leader of the gang that lynched Cooper; and Pat Hingle as the judge who hires him as a U.S. Marshal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_%27Em_High" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Jed's desire to avenge himself on the vigilantes that had unjustly hanged him. A point was made about how many of them were actually rather good people. A point was made about the misery Jed inflicted on himself and others in pursuit of his vengeance. Additionally, we learn that Rachel wanted to visit vengeance on unknown outlaws that had once raped her, although towards the end she managed to abandon this pursuit and find peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central theme was how the near-lawlessness of 19:th century Oklahoma prompted some people to mete out extrajudicial justice. Both sides in this dilemma were weighed and feature: Jed subjected himself and others to excessive risk and hardship by insisting on taking three criminals back to where they would assuredly be hanged, rather than just allow them to be hanged on the spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned how criminals ought to be punished in 19:th century Oklahoma when there was not enough resources to run a functioning contemporary court system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was a judge who presided over the only court in Oklahoma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jed became a Federal marshal and worked to bring criminals to court in Oklahoma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jed first became besotted with a prostitute. Later he fell for Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story made a point of portraying the systematic legal hanging of criminals in 19:th century Oklahoma. It portrayed various reactions to the use of the six-people gibbet that existed for the purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was at least one scene where Jed faced one of his former tormentors with an intention of bringing him in, yet was forced to kill him as the man went for his gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jed spent some nights in a posh Wild West brothel. He had a lengthy involvement with one of the girls working there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Though not explored in any depth, the story featured the goings on in a posh Wild West brothel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Destroy All Monsters (1968)", "title": "Destroy All Monsters", "date": "1968-08-01", "description": "Aliens known as the Kilaaks have released the giant monsters from Monsterland and have planted mind-control devices on the monsters to control them. The monsters are eventually freed from the mind control, which leads the aliens to release King Ghidorah from space to challenge them.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroy_All_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and Gorosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major cities around the world were attacked by the monsters of Monsterland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kilaaks used the monsters from Monsterland to try and take over the world and build a scientific utopia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kilaaks set up a base on Earth and mind controlled a number of human minions and giant monsters in an effort to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens mind-controlled the various giant monsters of Monsterland into attacking people all over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens mind-controlled the various giant monsters of Monsterland into attacking people all over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were regular trips from Earth to a Moon base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Moon base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People took a futuristic rocketship back and forth to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kilaaks used mind control radio devices to control both people and monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kilaaks used a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technologically enabled utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kilaaks Queen plotted to build a \"scientific utopia\" on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Goke Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)", "title": "Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell", "date": "1968-08-14", "description": "A creature from outer space terrorizes the survivors of a plane crash at a remote and isolated location.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goke_Body_Snatcher_from_Hell" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goke transformed its victims into blood thirsty vampires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gokemidoro aliens invaded Earth with the intention of wiping out mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gokemidoro aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of the messages of the film is that war is the real enemy of all mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goke came to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Asakura was hypnotized in order to help get access some repressed memories of Goke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated that flying saucer sightings had increased after the A bomb was used in World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Neal's husband had died in the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mano conspired with an arms dealer to lobby the government to buy arms from the said arms dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bluish blob Goke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of plane crash survivors were stranded on an uncharted deserted island. They discussed the matter of how to find water.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)", "title": "They Saved Hitler's Brain", "date": "1968-08-18", "description": "World War II is over, and Nazi officials remove Adolf Hitler's living head and hide it in the fictional South American country of Mandoras, so that they can resurrect the Third Reich for the future. Fast forwarding into the 1960s, the surviving officials kidnap a scientist in an attempt to keep Hitler alive. Various intelligence agencies, aware of the evil plot, recruit secret agents to bust the Nazi officials.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Saved_Hitler%27s_Brain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head in a jar and his contingent of Nazi officers were plotting to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head in a jar and his contingent of Nazi officers were plotting to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitler's head had been kept alive in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kathy and Suzanne were searching for their father Prof. Coleman who had been kidnapped by Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil and Kathy were a loving married couple. Suzanne and Camino fell for each other and married at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil and Kathy Day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kathy's father Prof. Coleman was kidnapped by Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Coleman invented an antidote for a new and dangerous \"G gas\" weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil Day traveled to South American country of Mandoras in an effort to rescue his father-in-law Prof. Coleman from Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hitler's doctors made an attempt to give him perpetual life in the closing days of the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathy and her younger sister Suzanne Coleman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This theory came up in a conversation between Toni and her associate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x06", "title": "Spock's Brain", "date": "1968-09-20", "description": "Captain Kirk pursues aliens who have stolen Spock's brain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "do they have the right to take Spocks brain?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Eymorg women harvested Spock's brain to use to run their subterranean complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock's brain machine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eymorg :: Eymorg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock's brain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morg/Eymorg home planet was mired in an ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock's brain transplant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ion drive spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about the Eymorg vessel being ion powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: which planet to visit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy risks his life to help Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote controlled person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy jury-rigged a brainless Spock so that he control him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy about learning advanced medical technique", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Great Teacher :: learning by plugin in a cable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain belt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eymorg used on the cavemen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Spock :: Kirk and Spock's friendship featured", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Charly (1968)", "title": "Charly", "date": "1968-09-23", "description": "A mentally retarded adult is selected by two doctors to undergo a surgical procedure that triples his IQ as it did for Algernon, a laboratory mouse who also underwent the same procedure.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charly" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mentally challenged man Charly was leading a contented life until such time as he underwent an intelligence boosting operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intellectually challenged adult Charly underwent a surgical procedure that tripled his IQ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Alice Kinnian showed sympathy for her mentally retarded student Charly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charly was reading everything he could get his hands on in an effort to educate himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charly an Alice Kinnian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intellectually challenged adult Charly underwent a surgical procedure that tripled his IQ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mentally challenged man Charly longed to be a normal member of society after he got an intelligence boosting operation. He found, however, that he didn't fit in any better when he was a genius than he did when he was mentally challenged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly's IQ was instantly tripled, but his emotional intelligence increased gradually over time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice Kinnian and Hank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly became violently jealous of Hank over Alice Kinnian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly went on a drinking and whoring spree after being rejected by Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly's coworkers at the bakery were especially cruel to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was working as a teacher of the mentally disabled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two scientists performed an intelligence boosting operation on Charly and monitored him thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly was fired from the bakery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x04", "title": "The Enterprise Incident", "date": "1968-09-27", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise attempts to steal a Romulan cloaking device.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arms race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romulan cloaking device", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "female Romulan captain in the 1960s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "major", "motivation": "unnamed Romulan commander of tos3x04 :: Romulan commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "unnamed Romulan commander of tos3x04 :: Romulan commander at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation steals cloaking device", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock at Romulan commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock negotiates with Romulan commander over his defection to bide time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock refuses Romulan offer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock refuses Romulan offer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tal :: Tal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew not informed of secret mission into Neutral Zone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-destruct tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk held the Romulans at bay by threatening to destroy his own ship, should they attempt to board it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was not informed of secret mission into Neutral Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew at Kirk at the beginning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "good guys face Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk surgically altered to look like a Romulan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Shame (1968)", "title": "Shame", "date": "1968-09-29", "description": "Shame (Swedish: Skammen) is a 1968 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow. Ullmann and von Sydow play Eva and Jan, a politically uninvolved couple and former violinists whose home comes under threat by civil war. They are accused by one side of sympathy for the enemy, and their relationship deteriorates while the couple flees. The story explores themes of shame, moral decline, self-loathing and violence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown how life on a little island was thrown into upheaval when war reached it. Jan and Eva saw, were subjected to, and engaged in a variety of unpleasant activities that happened because of a war over ideology that turned people hateful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan and Eva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jan and Eva variously quarreled over relative trivialities, and then made up again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve told Jan how she yearned to have kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan and Eva found themselves in a war zone and tried to get out, but their car broke down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva had sex with Jacobi in exchange for favors and money because she and Jan were desperately impoverished", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jan could perhaps have save Jacobi by offering up the money, but instead ended up killing him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a video was faked for war propaganda purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blatantly faked propaganda was suggestive of thought policing that the Nazi's and other totalitarian regimes had engaged in a couple of decades earlier.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Living Dead (1968)", "title": "Night of the Living Dead", "date": "1968-10-01", "description": "Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George A. Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is besieged by a large and growing group of \"living dead\" monsters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about a group of people who did their best to survive when the dead started to walk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "recently deceased people came back to life as some sort of zombies called ghouls", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara was mostly frozen while Ben did all the work, then she went classical hysterical on remembering her brother, then she fainted, then she was mostly catatonic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "it was theorized that a nuclear satellite was the cause of the mass zombieism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben ironically survived alone in the very cellar he had stopped everyone from taking shelter in; then ironically he was shot in the head by his would-be rescuers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was remarkably courageous by contrast to Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was remarkably spineless by contrast to Ben", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny and Barbara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "grandfather's grave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben criticized cellar guy for no coming to aid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben vs. Cooper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a big deal was made about Harry's stubborn refusal to cooperate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Helen Cooper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and sick girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ms Cooper and girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbra was distraught after her brother Johnny got killed by a walking corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara saw her late brother and was dragged to her death by him", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x03", "title": "The Paradise Syndrome", "date": "1968-10-04", "description": "A mysterious alien device on a planet with a predominantly American Indian culture erases Captain Kirk's memory, and he begins a life with them as a member of their tribe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Natives of Amerind :: Amerinds textbook noble savages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk/Miramanee :: Kirk and Miramanee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Natives of Amerind :: Amerinds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Natives of Amerind :: Amerinds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise saves Amerind world from asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "stay and search for Kirk or stop the asteroid from hitting planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amerinds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk lost his memory after taking a bump and assimilated with an American Indian tribe on the planet Amerind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "stay and search for Kirk or stop the asteroid from hitting planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language of musical notes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the obelisk featured one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock contemplated sacrificing the Enterprise to prevent Amerind from being impacted by a large asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salish :: Salish to Miramanee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomical impact avoidance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The obelisk turned out to be an asteroid deflector that was placed on Amerind by a mysterious race of aliens to protect the local inhabitants. In addition, Spock explained the principles of asteroid deflection to McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock and asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock and asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "irrigation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk proposed a system to irrigate the local fields and double the food supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock/McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salish :: Salish wanted Miramanee to be with him and went crazy with jealousy after she married Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Miramanee/Salish :: Kirk/Miramanee/Salish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk became shaman of the Amerinds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk mourned the loss hos his stonned-to-death wife, Miramanee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salish :: Salish became jealous of Kirk over Miramanee and tried to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Miramanee :: Kirk and Miramanee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at home among the Amerinds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Preservers of Amerind :: obelisk makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Miramanee :: Kirk and Miramanee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salish :: Salish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and McCoy commented on the tranquil, idyllic, beauty of uncomplicated Amerind nature. McCoy diagnose Kirk with the \"Taihiti\" syndrome because of his reaction to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock performed a mind meld on Kirk.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solaris (1968)", "title": "Solaris", "date": "1968-10-08", "description": "Solaris (Russian: Солярис) is a two-part 1968 Soviet television play in black- and-white based on the 1961 novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem. It was the first film adaptation of the novel.\n\nSynopsis: A crew of scientists on a space station attempt to understand an extraterrestrial intelligence, which takes the form of a vast ocean on the titular alien planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(1968_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a research station orbiting the titular planet Solaris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The arrival of the Harey aboard the space station stirred up memories in Kris of his suicided lover of whom she was a duplicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kris introspected solemnly on his suicided lover, Harie, over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Solaris planet ocean somehow manifested a duplicate of Kris' suicided lover, Harey, into reality. The story follows Kris as his comes to accept Harey as a replacement for his departed lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kris and the Harie duplicate's love ended tragically when she ended her own existence against Kris' will. This she did because she came to believe that she could never return to Earth with Kris as Kris dearly wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder to what extent was the Harey duplicate that the Solaris planet ocean conjured up was the the same as the Harey who'd killed herself some years prior. In particular, a point was made about the Harey duplicate mirroring Kris' expectation of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made about the alien mind of Solaris being so different from the human mind that clear communication between it and the people on the space station was not possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris' docking with the space station was the culmination of a 487 day flight from Earth to Alpha Aquarii in the spacecraft Prometheus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris traveled to the Solaris space station in the spacecraft Prometheus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Kris' friend Gibaryan had taken his own life by injecting himself with a lethal dose of \"pernostol\". It was revealed that Kris' former lover Harey had taken her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris felt responsible for Harie's suicide on account that she took her own life after he walked out on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris held him self responsible for his former lover Harey's suicide, and lamented that he'd walked out on her after she said she'd take her own life, if he did so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living isolated from civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snaut spoke in passing of how people on other space stations had gone made from the isolation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris, Snaut, and Sartorius, after some deliberation, resolved to risk their lives by staying aboard the space station to complete their scientific investigation rather than turn tail and flee back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris, Snaut, and Sartorius held a three-way video conference with each man speaking from the confines of his own quarters. In the view from Kris' quarters, the viewer is shown Kris sitting in front of two boxy monitors, one showing a video stream of Snaut, the other Sartorius.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Barbarella (1968)", "title": "Barbarella", "date": "1968-10-11", "description": "Space-traveler and representative of the United Earth government Barbarella is sent to find scientist Durand Durand, who has created a weapon that could destroy humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in an unspecified future in which violence, weapons, and warfare were unknown and everyone lived on Earth in peace. Alien races that still engaged in warfare were considered to be savages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth held casual attitudes toward sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbarella experienced the pleasured of having sex the old fashioned way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Duran Duran invented a death ray-like device and used it to take power of the planet Sogo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mad scientist Durand Durand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbarella traveled to the Tau Ceti star system in search of D. Duran Duran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbarella used a device on her wrist, called a tongue box, to communicate with people who spoke foreign languages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The angel-like being Pygar was blind. Note that he had also lost his ability to fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbarella slept with the blind angel Pygar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dildano led an underground movement to overthrow the rule of Sogo's Black Queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Duran Duran revealed that he wished to rule the entire galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbarella's interactions with the Black Queen had lesbian overtones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbarella had a spaceship with a fur interior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The angel-like being Pygar was down in the dumps because he had lost his ability to fly. Getting laid by Barberella fixed his flying problem.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x05", "title": "And the Children Shall Lead", "date": "1968-10-11", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise rescues a group of children stranded on a planet, along with their evil \"imaginary\" friend.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gorgon was pure evil in contrast to the innocent and pure children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gorgon :: Gorgon for the Triacus Marauders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children, especially Tommy, were having trouble coming to grips with the fact that their parents had all died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorgan at the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Sulu, Uhura :: Sulu with the knives, Kirk with losing command, Uhura with being old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorgan :: Gorgan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "the children aboard the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorgon was essentially a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Sulu, Uhura :: Sulu with the knives, Kirk with losing command, Uhura with being old, and Kirk was overcome with a sense of trepidation while inside the Triacus cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gorgan takes over the ship with the help of his child followers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sulu about the illusory knives in space, Uhura about looking like she is 110 years old, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gorgon friendly angel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the ice creams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura about aging", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew face Gorgon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy Starnes :: Tommy and the kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine for children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gorgon :: Gorgon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine for children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gorgon :: Gorgon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists stationed on Traicus had all been induced into committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy was able to control Sulu into changing course by pumping his fist three times.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x07", "title": "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", "date": "1968-10-18", "description": "The Enterprise travels with an alien ambassador who must travel inside a special black case because his appearance causes insanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores how Miranda concealed her blindness so that she could do her job without being pitied by her colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda was jealous of Spock over his ability to easily communicate with the Medusans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kollos was hideous to some and beautiful to others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Medusan :: Medusan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "against ugliness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil can come in the guise of beauty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kollos was hideous to some and beautiful to others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kollos was hideous to some and beautiful to others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Medusan :: Medusan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the disabled in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda was blind but still an important member of the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was featured how both the Vulcans and Medusans could communicate telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sonar sensory ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blind-as-a-bat Miranda used a sensor web dress to navigate the world around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry Marvick :: Larry at Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry Marvick :: Larry at Miranda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy declines to reveal Miranda is blind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda needs to shut out voices", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda needs to shut out voices", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda didn't appreciate the crew taking pity on her on account that she was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kollos :: Kollos about the human experience", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk after he berated Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in diversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock said \"And the ways our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.\" in response to Miranda's saying \"The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry takes the ship outside the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry Marvick :: Marvick rejected by Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/Miranda Jones :: Spock and Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "repeatedly discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all for Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all for Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, Larry Marvick :: Marvick and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Jones :: Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise taken over by Larry Marvick and commandeered out of the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda insisted on being treated like others despite her blindness.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x01", "title": "Spectre of the Gun", "date": "1968-10-25", "description": "For trespassing on an alien world, Captain Kirk and his companions are forced to re-enact the famous shoot-out at the O.K. Corral with themselves cast as the losing side.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aliens decide to execute the landing party in a way befitting for humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melkots saw the humans as a disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melkot :: The Melkotians communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Melkotians communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Morgans and the Earps scenario", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melkotians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The xenophobic Melkotians sentenced Captain Kirk and his party members to death for having entered Melkotian space without permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov, Slyvia :: Chekov/Slyvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk tried to flee the town", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk refrained himself from killing the Earps after he and his landing party members bested the Earps in a barnyard showdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty :: showdown at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "hopeless situation for the landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov/Sylvia :: Chekov and Sylvia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Doc Holliday :: Kirk meets Earps and Doc Holliday", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk pointedly mourned the loss of Chekov who was shot dead by Morgan Earp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melkotians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x11", "title": "Day of the Dove", "date": "1968-11-01", "description": "An alien energy-based life form that feeds on negative emotions (such as fear, anger, hatred) drives the crew of the Enterprise into brutal conflict with the Klingons .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons must cooperate to overcome alien entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons must put aside their quarrels to overcome alien entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beta XII-A Entity :: the entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "This story explored the ways in which both humans and Klingons saw each other's cultures as being lesser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kilngons the the humans are evil and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "each side assumed the other would commit attoricities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on the mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange incorporeal entity sustained itself on the enmity between the Enterprise crew members and their Klingon captives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chekov :: Enterprise crew and Klingons go mad with mutual hatred; especially Chekov over believing the Klingons to have killed his brother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "they think we commit atrocities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to endure eternal torment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Beta XII-A entity sought to establish conditions of eternal hostility between Federation and Klingons on the Enterprise, so that it could feed on the emotions of hat and anger that would emanate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew faced Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chekov :: rampant brawling and Chekov outbursts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Kang :: Kirk of Kang and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk had much trouble negotiating a truce with Kang on account of Kang's Klingon warrior/honor culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov claimed the Klingons killed his imaginary brother, Pavel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov at Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov about Russia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "battle to control ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingons tortured Chekov.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien entity transmuted matter into swords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "stop Chekov from being tortured by Klingons by beaming them up to the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kang/Mara :: Klingon and captain and Mara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "stop Chekov from being tortured by Klingons by beaming them up to the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov for Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk for Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kang inflicted intense pain on Chekov by touching him with a small, handheld torture device.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x10", "title": "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", "date": "1968-11-08", "description": "As McCoy discovers he is dying of an incurable disease, the crew of the Enterprise rush to stop an asteroid from colliding with a Federation world, only to discover that the asteroid is, in fact, a disguised alien vessel. They find an entire civilization living in the ship who believe they are actually on a planet and a dictatorial \"Oracle\" who forbids any attempt to discover the truth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yonadan asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world ship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Yonadans lived inside a hollowed out asteroid spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy/Natira :: McCoy/Natira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Yonadans were on course to their new Promised Land-like home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Oracle controlled the people by religion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yonadan society was run by a computer known as \"the Oracle\". It was malfunctioning and came to act as a tyrannical deity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy was torn over whether to leave Enterprise and make a new life with his love interest, Natira, inside the hollowed out asteroid spaceship in which her people resided.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Oracle prophesied the Yonadans would find their new home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "McCoy/Natira :: McCoy and Natira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free inquiry vs. obedience", "level": "major", "motivation": "the old man and the oracle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Yonadans lived inside a hollowed out asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yonadan society was run by a computer known as \"the Oracle\". It was malfunctioning and came to act as a tyrannical deity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fabrini old man :: old man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal freedom vs. romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was devastated to find out that McCoy had diagnosed himself with the terminal disease xenopolycythemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fabrini civilization ended in this manner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fabrini civilization ended in this manner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Oracle :: the oracle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all for McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "just a tiny little pain implant and you are welcome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock raised the possibility that interfering with the Yonadans by deflecting their asteroid ship from hitting planet would violate the Prime Directive", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x09", "title": "The Tholian Web", "date": "1968-11-15", "description": "Captain Kirk is caught between dimensions while the Enterprise is trapped by an energy draining web spun by mysterious aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock's style of leadership in contrast to Kirk's style", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McCoy :: crew to Spock especially McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk vanished into interphase space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock/McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving a friend vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "rescue Kirk or escape the web", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: Spock/McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock/McCoy :: McCoy/Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various crew members, Spock and McCoy especially, were struggling with coming to grips with the apparent fact that their beloved captain was dead and never coming back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock attempts to negotiate with Tholians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura over seeing Kirk in mirror", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thermophilic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tholian :: Tholian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew vs. interspace", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise ventured into unknown space to rescue starship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock in command", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x12", "title": "Plato's Stepchildren", "date": "1968-11-22", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise encounters an ageless and mischievous race of psychic humanoids who claim to have organized their society around Ancient Greek ideals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "power corrupted Parmen among other Platonians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Platonian nobles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander to Parmen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander about giving himself psychokinetic powers and taking vengeance on the Platonians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Platonians saw their society as a realisation of Plato's Republic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Platonians were eugenically selected people of their race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander to Parmen in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Platonians of dwarfs lacking telekinetic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock, Kirk :: Spock and Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "the dwarf small in stature but large of mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dwarf Alexander was bullied mercilessly by the Platonians because he was the only one among them who lacked telekinetic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Platonian ideals vs. cruel realities of Platonian society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parmen :: Parmen led by strength", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "major", "motivation": "Platonian :: Parmen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Platonians were endowed with psychokinetic powers to varying degrees by eating the native foods on their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Ancient Greek stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Platonians were patterned on the Greeks of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "something in the air kept Platonians from aging", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving a friend vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy about whether to accept Parmen's offer to stay with them as court physician", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and Uhura kiss", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmen humiliated poor Spock by making him sing like an idiot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock was made to experience powerful emotional states", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander wants no power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk refrained from exacting vengeance on Parmen once he got the upper hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmen :: Platonians; especially Parmen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock struggled to control his emotions while Parmen manipulated his mind. Alexander restrained himself from exacting revenge on Parmen when he had the chance to get it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Platonian :: Platonians secretly lived among the Ancient Greeks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander among humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmen :: Platonian nobles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander felt angry and resentful toward the Platonians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmen :: Platonians towards Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parmen :: gifts bestowed on McCoy by Parmen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Platonians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Platonians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock suffered a life-threatening emotional breakdown while being influenced by Parmen's telepathic powers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x13", "title": "Wink of an Eye", "date": "1968-11-29", "description": "Invisible \"time-accelerated\" aliens take over the Enterprise and attempt to abduct the crew for use as \"genetic stock\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scalosians need breeding stock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time passing at different rates for different people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew appeared as being frozen in time to the time-accelerated Scalosians, while to the crew the Scalosians were whizzing around to fast in time to be visible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone appeared frozen in time from inside the Scalosian time frame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scalosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Deela :: Kirk/Deela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rael :: Rael was jealous of Kirk over Deela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scalosians stayed alive only at the expense of using other aliens to reproduce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deela :: Deela as pertains to Scalosians needing breeding stock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise taken over by trio of sterile aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass radiation poisoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scalosian :: The Scalosians went sterile from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scalosians went sterile from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scalosians went sterile from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Compton :: Compton to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deela :: Deela wants stubborn and irritable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Deela/Rael :: Kirk/Deela/Rael", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scalosians protected a machine with a force field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk pointedly mourned the loss of a redshirt crewman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rael :: Rael", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Creature of Destruction (1968)", "title": "Creature of Destruction", "date": "1968-12", "description": "A hypnotist conducts experiments in hypnotic regression that take his female assistant to a past life as a prehistoric amphibian monster. It is an uncredited color remake of the 1956 movie The She-Creature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_of_Destruction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Basso used hypnotic regression to take his assistant Doreena back to a prehistoric past life as an amphibious humanoid monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "An amphibious monster was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were being terrorized by an amphibious monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "major", "motivation": "The supposed charlatan Dr. Basso wanted above all else for his work to be accepted by mainstream psychic researchers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The morally bankrupt businessman Sam Crane saw in the supposed charlatan Dr. Basso an opportunity to hornswoggle money out of a gullible public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-described clairvoyant Dr. Basso was predicting killings before they occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and Mrs. Crane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and his daughter Lynn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Basso used hypnotic regression to take Doreena back to one of her past lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Capt. Theodore Dell and Lynn Crane were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Capt. Theodore Dell and Lynn Crane were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Blake was investigating the double murder of a honeymooning couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the respected Air Force psychologist Capt. Theodore Dell publicly endorse the supposed charlatan Dr. Basso in exchange for big bucks?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Basso insisted to Lt. Blake that the creature was somehow bound up with the transmigration of the soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Basso shot himself dead after killing his beloved assistant Doreena.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Green Slime (1968)", "title": "The Green Slime", "date": "1968-12-01", "description": "After destroying a huge asteroid that was on a rapid collision course with Earth, a group of astronauts discover they have accidentally returned to their space station with an alien slime creature that feeds on radiation and can reproduce rapidly from its own blood.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Slime" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A green slime that was hitched a ride back to Space Station Gamma 3 from an asteroid proliferated at a race so alarming that it would have consumed the whole Earth, if let loose there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vince Elliott and Lisa Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vince Elliott and Lisa Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the film took place on Space Station Gamma 3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Rankin and Lisa Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A giant asteroid on a rapid collision course with Earth was destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Jack Rankin commandeered a futuristic rocketship on his mission to destroy an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Rankin and Vince Elliott had a falling out in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Rankin and Lisa Benson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Rankin led a mission to land on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Vince made their peace toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Shadow on the Land (1968)", "title": "Shadow on the Land", "date": "1968-12-04", "description": "A President creates a fascist, totalitarian regime in the United States, and a resistance movement forms against it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_on_the_Land" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the rise of a U.S. dictator similar to how Adolf Hitler gained power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A resistance movement opposed a fascist regime which had taken power in the United States. There was a Gestapo-like internal secret police force that kept order in the state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A resistance movement started to oppose a fascist regime which had taken power in the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", "level": "major", "motivation": "An inescapable message of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The resistance movement members words and actions convey this message.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gen. Wendell Bruce argued that the state was justified to curtail peoples freedoms in the name of preserving order in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shepherd McCloud and Abby Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A local church was collaborating with the resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Col. Andy Davis was brutally beaten in an interrogation and died soon thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rev. Thomas Davis and Lt. Col. Andy Davis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rev. Thomas Davis over the murder of his brother Andy at the hand of the internal security forces.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x08", "title": "The Empath", "date": "1968-12-06", "description": "While visiting a doomed planet, the landing party is subject to torturous experiments to test an empathic race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the aliens could save one but only one race, also McCoy and Spock about dying or insanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the aliens could save one but only one race, also McCoy and Spock about dying or insanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gem :: Gem was a bundle of compassion toward others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gem :: Gem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vians deciding which civilization to save from supernova based on which they valued the most", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minaran sun was about to go nova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Empathic Minaran :: Gem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gem communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vians justified torture by claiming that it was needed to save millions of lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: landing party held captive by Vians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thann, Lal (Vian) :: Vians to captives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gem, McCoy :: Gem and McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "were Vians civilized for trying to save the Minarans or savages for torturing people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vian :: Vians of Minarans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thann, Lal (Vian) :: Vian torturers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gem healed Kirk and McCoy's wounds using her empathic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vian :: Vians abducted Gem and landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk argued to the Vians that people should not be tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paralysis device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vians used on landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minaran sun was about to go nova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gem, Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: all of torture chamber", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gem collapsed in agony after mystically healing Kirk of his wounds. This she did even though she knew nothing about him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)", "title": "Once Upon a Time in the West", "date": "1968-12-20", "description": "Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una volta il West, lit. \"Once upon a time (there was) the West\") is a 1968 epic Spaghetti Western film co- written and directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Henry Fonda, cast against type, as the villain, Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader, and Jason Robards as a bandit. The screenplay was written by Sergio Donati and Leone, from a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci and Leone. The widescreen cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and the acclaimed film score was by Ennio Morricone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_West" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw an idea of what it might have been like during the time of railroad expansion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were several revolver duel standoffs featured at length", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Chayenne and Frank lead bands of murderous outlaws wearing signature dusters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill arrived just in time to find her entire new family slaughtered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chayenne, Jill, Frank, and Morton were all lusting for whatever money they could get their hands on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill about staying, selling, going back, remarrying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "we finally learn that Harmonica was lusting after revenge on Frank the whole time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill had several prospective future husbands", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill told Chayenne what it was like: \"just another filthy memory\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we learned that Jill was besotted with Harmonica who did not return the sentiment because of having death in him or something of the sort", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x02", "title": "Elaan of Troyius", "date": "1968-12-20", "description": "Captain Kirk hosts a spoiled princess , who must bring peace to a star system at war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Elasians expected everyone else to show their royalty the same respect they did. They were mighty offended when Kirk would not up with it put and threatened to put the petulent princess over his knee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation to mediate between the feuding Elasians and Troyians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troysius/Elan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elasian savagery vs. Troyian civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Petri :: Kirk and Petri with Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elaan/Petri :: Elaan and Petri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troyians and Elasians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Elaan :: Kirk/Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaan was betrothed to Troyian nobleman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaan :: Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaan :: Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Elaan :: Elaan and Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaan :: Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Elasians expected everyone else to show their royalty the same respect they did. They were mighty offended when Kirk would not up with it put and threatened to put the petulent princess over his knee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elasian/Troyian :: Elasians and Troyians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spoiled princess Elaan carried herself with a certain aristocratic pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative love inducing effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk learned the hard way that anyone whose flesh comes into contact with the tears of a woman Elas falls in love with her forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura :: Urura gave up her room and didn't shut up about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryton :: Kryton was jealous of Kirk over Elaan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryton :: Kryton betrayed Elasians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "table manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk gave Elaan a lesson in table manners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Elaan :: Kirk/Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk of Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "threat of war loomed between Elasian and Troyian civilizations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Petri, Elaan :: Petri to Elaan after stabbing and Elaan was generally an angry person", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to Elaan at first", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaan :: Elaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both the Elasians and Troyians had recently invented these civilization threatening weapons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Topaz (1969)", "title": "Topaz", "date": "1969", "description": "Topaz is a 1969 American espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on the 1967 novel of the same title by Leon Uris, the film is about a French intelligence agent (Stafford) who becomes entangled in Cold War politics before the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and then the breakup of an international Soviet spy ring.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "espionage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns American, Russian, and French secret agent shenanigans in Cuba and elsewhere during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boris Kusenov defected from Russia to the West and revealed that nuclear warheads would be placed in Cuba. This is the premise of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "There is marital strife between André and Nicole as she disapproves of his job and suspects him of having a mistress in Cuba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the attempt by Russia to place nuclear warhead in Cuba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the virtues or otherwise of the political system in Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the Cuban Missile Crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "André had an affair with Juanita behind Nicole's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boris and Tamara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Kusenov and Tamara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rico shot Juanita to save her from being tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juanit's domestic staff helped with the espionage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zeta One (1969)", "title": "Zeta One", "date": "1969", "description": "Zeta One (also released as The Love Slaves, Alien Women, and The Love Factor) is a 1969 British comedy science fiction film directed by Michael Cort and starring James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey and Dawn Addams.\n\nSynopsis: Women from outer space abduct Earth females to replenish their kind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_One" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The James Bond inspired spy hero of the story James Word worked his magic on a secretary who he found waiting or him at his home, and later another Angvian woman who mysteriously and conveniently materialized in his bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story James Word was a parody of the spy/ladies man James Bond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Section 5 spy James Word as he regales his secretary about an investigation into the women from Angvia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns a race of all-female aliens, known as the Angvians, coming to Earth for the purpose of abducting human females to replenish their kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Angvian women were abducting human females to replenish their kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Angvians constituted an all-woman society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Angvians brainwashed their human female abductees in the \"conditioning room\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James quarreled briefly with an underappreciated feeling sentient elevator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad luck signs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient elevator dropped James off on the twelfth floor on account that it considered the number 13 to be unlucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Bourdon and his men questioned a rack shacked, scantily clad Angvian agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with James happily serving as breeding stock for the all-woman Angivian society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x16", "title": "Whom Gods Destroy", "date": "1969-01-03", "description": "Captain Kirk visits a mental health facility and confronts an insane starship captain who believes he is destined to control the universe .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "treatment of the criminally insane", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a future vision of prison conditions for the criminally insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth to everyone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth used the shapeshifting techniques that he'd learned from the Antosians to appear first as Cory and later as Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth clearly had no real empathy with other people, and killed on a whim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk facing Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock :: Kirk and Spock held by Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garth, an institutionalized former starship captain, fancied himself a monarch and had delusional dreams and creating for himself a little interstellar empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explained how Garth of Izar became a genocidal maniac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald Cory :: Cory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth was effectively lobotomized at the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock choosing between Kirk and Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marta :: Marta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marta :: Marta at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth committed a genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Garth of Izar :: Kirk and Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A megalomaniacal Garth looked down his nose at his unworthy subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk at coronation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth with torture and execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth temper tantrum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garth of Izar :: Garth executes Orion woman", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x15", "title": "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "date": "1969-01-10", "description": "The Enterprise picks up the last two survivors of a war-torn planet who are still committed to destroying each other aboard the ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bele, who was black on the right side and white on the left, was of the view that Lokai and his people, who were colored in a reverse manner, were incapable of self-discipline, making a negotiated peace between their peoples impossible. Lokai held similar views of Bele and his people, and these prejudices and antagonisms were central to the unfolding of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "hate and racism led to ultimate war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bele, Lokai :: Bele and Lokai for one another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Left-Cheronians and Right-Cheronians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cheron aliens were bilaterally colored with some being black on the right side and white on the left, and other vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lokai claimed Bele was oppressing his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lokai's people were an underclass", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele :: 15000 year of hunting this criminal, surprising parallel to Les Miserables", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk between Bele and Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele, Lokai :: Bele and Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele :: Bele with apprehending Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele and Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele :: Bele hunting for 50,000 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele, Lokai :: Lokai and Bele mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bele :: Bele", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock explained to Bele: The actual theory is that all lifeforms evolved from the lower levels to the more advanced stages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "about Lokai stealing the shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-destruct tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk initiated an auto destruct of the Enterprise in an effort to prevent Bele from taking control of the vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk initiated an auto destruct of the Enterprise in an effort to prevent Bele from taking control of the vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Locai to the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "should Lokai be granted assylum or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk to aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bele :: Bele hunting for 50,000 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bela, Lokai :: Lokai and Bele at each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bele requests Lokai be extradited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demagoguery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lokai :: Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise taken over by Bele in an effort to return hoe with Lokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lokai was to be transported to Starbase 4 to face the charge of having stolen a Starfleet shuttlecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bele approached the Enterprise in a spaceship that was made invisible form being \"sheathed in special materials\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bele was able to change the course of the Enterprise with the power of his mind alone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x17", "title": "The Mark of Gideon", "date": "1969-01-17", "description": "An overpopulated race of aliens abduct Kirk to solve their problem.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a planet where people were living shoulder to shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a planet where people were living shoulder to shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a sample of Kirk's blood vs. the extinction of a people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gideon High Council frustrated Spock with their diplomatic maneuvering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Catholics closed their planet to the outside", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Catholics to diminish their population", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Catholics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odona :: Odona contracts disease to save her people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Odona :: Kirk/Odona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Extended lifespans on Gideon, in conjunction with a taboo against the use of contraceptives, lead to horrible overpoulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "birth control", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a planet where people were living shoulder to shoulder because people didn't like to use birth control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk home alone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "about pride in reproduction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock beaming down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy frustrated with high council paper chasing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hodin/Odona :: Hodin/Odona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odona make it clear that Kirk's possession of a huge ship was his most attractive feature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noted that the population on Gideon had grown exponentially.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gideons sought membership in the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was at at loss to explain how it came to be that he was all alone aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x14", "title": "That Which Survives", "date": "1969-01-24", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise visits an abandoned outpost guarded by a mysterious computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kalandan artificial planet :: the Kalandans built one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira (hologram) :: Losira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira (hologram) :: Losira about killing outsiders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira (hologram) :: Losira over killing D'Amato", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira was a hologram, but functioned like an android in the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, McCoy, Sulu :: landing party faced Losira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losira was the image of an ancient commander who had programmed her likeness into the computer for defensive purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party sought out food and water while stranded on an artificial planet whose atmosphere was similar to Earth’s but having a barren landscape filled with poisonous flora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew discovered an artificial planet that had been created by the long gone Kaladan alien civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party sought out food and water while stranded on an artificial planet without provisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the Kalandans engineered a virus that got out of their control and made them go extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock didn't take Scotty seriously when Scotty reported that something about the ship \"feels wrong\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk sends a landing party to investigate the artificial planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty fixing the matter-antimatter integrator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kalandan :: artificial planet makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk pointedly mourned the loss of Lieutenant D'Amato.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x18", "title": "The Lights of Zetar", "date": "1969-01-31", "description": "Strange, energy-based alien life forms threaten the Memory Alpha station and the Enterprise crew.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty/Mira Romaine :: Scotty and Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Zetarians take Mira's body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zetarian Cloud Entity :: Zetarians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zetarians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty/Mira Romaine :: Mira/Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The antagonists of the story were ghost-like beings that cause eerie light effects and possessed humans, usually killing them in the process. They were later explained to be a once-corporeal alien race known as the Zetarians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "universal translator :: used to try to communicate with cloud entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "antigrav unit :: used on Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mira and the Zetarians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mira Romaine :: Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mira Romaine :: Mira's will to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty at Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mira Romaine :: Mira volunteers to enter vacuum chamber", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty about Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zetarians were telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zetarians were telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zetarian Cloud Entity :: Zetarians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty for Mira disgustingly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty for Mira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mira saw two visions of the future in the aftermath of the Enterprise encounter with the Zetarian space could entity. One was the Zetarian entity returning to attack the ship, another was about the same entity attacking the Memory Alpha library.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Bloody Apes (1969)", "title": "Night of the Bloody Apes", "date": "1969-02-06", "description": "A mad scientist transplants a gorilla's heart into his dying son, saving his life but transforming him into a monstrous, ape-like creature who embarks on a rape and murder spree before being brought to justice by a female professional wrestler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Bloody_Apes_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heart transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Krellman attempted to cure his son's leukemia by doing a heart transplant, replacing his son's heart with that of a gorilla's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Krellman attempted to cure his son's leukemia by doing a heart transplant, replacing his son's heart with that of a gorilla's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julio Krallman was transformed into a deformed and mutated man-ape hybrid after being transplanted with a gorilla's heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julio Krallman was transformed into a human-ape hybrid after being transplanted with a gorilla's heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julio Krallman was transformed into a human-ape hybrid after being transplanted with a gorilla's heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unwilling to accept his son's death, Dr. Krellman attempted to cure his son's leukemia by doing a heart transplant, replacing his son's heart with that of a gorilla's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professional wrestler Lucy Osorio felt guilty for having fractured her opponent's skull in a wrestling match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Arturo Martinez and Lucy Osorio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Krellman ultimately explained to Julio how he had acted against the dictates of God when he transplanted that gorilla's heart into Julio's body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Time of Roses (1969)", "title": "A Time of Roses", "date": "1969-02-07", "description": "In the year 2021, an innocent girl glamor model legend and a journalist tries to find out her true essence for a biography.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Roses" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raimo Lappalainen rewrote Saara Turunen's place in history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kisse Haavisto was the spitting image of Saara Turunen, a glamor model who died in a traffic incident in 1976.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raimo sometimes confounded Kisse's identity with that of Saara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raimo Lappalainen and Kisse Haavisto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raimo Lappalainen and Kisse Haavisto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made several times about how class distinctions had been abolished in Finland. Kisse's colleague organized a strike at the factor and explained how now people were being given only the weeds but that the world is rich and there was enough so that there could be roses for all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a system much like the Internet except that searches were performed by sending requests to humans at a central authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open sexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a ball game played at the factory where players kissed and hugged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The factory technicians organized a strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The head of the History Institute lamented having gone blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist described how 27,000 people put themselves in suspended animation in wait of a brighter future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist explained how people in suspended animation may one day have their minds transfered into computers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x21", "title": "Requiem for Methuselah", "date": "1969-02-14", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise encounters an immortal human who lives as a recluse on his own planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Flint lived on Earth for thousands of years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk/Rayna Kapec :: Kirk and Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "choice", "motivation": "was Rayna really everything a human was and more?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "withdrawal from society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The misanthrope Flint isolated himself on some far flung planet in an effort to avoid human contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Flint :: A festering and mutual jealousy between Kirk and Flint over Rayna culminated in fisticuffs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint was born with that most coveted mixed blessing of all: immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk/Flint/Rayna Kapec :: Kirk/Flint/Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint was disgusted with humanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "the bit about Rayna at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint objected that Earth was civilized", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint/Rayna Kapec :: Rayna/Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Flint :: Kirk and Flint alike in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk found his perfect mate in Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint/Rayna Kapec :: Flint and Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: The countless horrors the immortal Flint witnessed over the course of his long life led him into a state of misanthropy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint at Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rayna Kapec :: Rayna's perspective on those strange men Kirk and Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint made Rayna for companionship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint at Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk locking ships phasers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock spoke appreciatively of da Vinci works etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock analyzed a Brahms piece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was amazed to find in Flint's collection original versions of Shakespeare's First Folio, and the Gutenberg Bible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flat-panel display", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint watched the landing party on a flat-screen panel on his wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "M-4 :: M-4", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rayna was completely tied to Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rayna :: Rayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Flint :: Kirk and Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock, Methuselah, Solomon, Lazarus, Merlin, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Brahms :: Flint was Leonardo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Flint :: Kirk and Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint :: Flint to landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The M-4 hover-bot served as Mr. Flint's butler, housekeeper, gardener, and guardian..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock sent a telepathic transmission to Kirk to make him forget his love for Rayna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rayna's circuits fried when she became overwhelmed by the combined power of Kirk and Flint's romantic affections.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x20", "title": "The Way to Eden", "date": "1969-02-21", "description": "The Enterprise is hijacked by a criminal doctor and his loyal, hippie -like followers who are attempting to find paradise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "motley crew of hippies led by the evil Doctor Sevrin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation order vs. hippie paradise on mythical planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it was the 1960s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sevrin :: Sevrin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sevrin :: Servin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space hippies sought to live in bliss without the aid of technology on planet Eden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sevrin :: Servin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space hippies sought in the form of the planet Eden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "space hippies advocated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov/Irina Galiulin :: Chekov/Irena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet detection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock made use of Enterprise resources to determine if the supposedly mythical planet Eden actually existed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "did they get away because of a guys father?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned as a good thing several times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov apologizing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies point out that Kirk is a conformist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov/Irina Galiulin :: Chekov/Irena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov :: Chekov chose career over Irina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how to treat someone with a contagious disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock to space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies in Severin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space hippies in Severin", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x19", "title": "The Cloud Minders", "date": "1969-02-28", "description": "Kirk races against time to acquire plague-fighting minerals from a world in the midst of a civil uprising.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Troglytes were systematically oppressed by Stratos city dwellers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troglytes exploited in the mines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia on the back of slave labor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "city dwellers luxuriate in the clouds while Troglytes toil in the mines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The city dwellers thought the troglytes biologically inferior and only allowed them to come to their city when in possession of a special permit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Trogyltes were enslaved by the Cloud City dwellers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troglytes and Stratos city dwellers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stratos Cloud City :: Stratos cloud city", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troglytes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "city dwellers vs. Troglytes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "who is really the monster here?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rebel Troglytes, who were labeled as terrorists by the Cloud City dwellers, were shown from their point of view as fighting for their freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The city dwellers were under the mistaken impression that the cave dwellers were of a different species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk had to choose between Troglyte and city dweller interests to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with an institutionalized social stratification", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inhabitants of the cloud city dominated an underclass that dwelled and toiled in the mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troglytes vandalised work of art on Floating City", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/Droxine :: Spock/Droxine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troglytes were tortured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Droxine :: Droxine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk asked Vanna to trust him about the masks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plasus/Droxine :: Plasus/Droxine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The city dwellers were under the mistaken impression that the cave dwellers had evolved to become a different species from theirs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk with Vanna and Plasus in the mine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food crop pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation needed zenite consignment to fight botanical plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troglytes were the low cast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plasus was dismayed to find that a Troglyte has destroyed a fine work of art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Plasus :: Kirk/Plasus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk and Plasus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x22", "title": "The Savage Curtain", "date": "1969-03-07", "description": "Aliens force Kirk and Spock to battle illusionary villains in a test of good versus evil.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Exclabians sought to answer this question by pitting good vs. evil in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Exclabians sought to learn which of good or evil is more powerful by pitting a group of virtuous people against a group of evil people in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Abraham Lincoln :: Kirk meets Lincoln", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rock being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Exclabian rock monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "major", "motivation": "good team strategy contrasted with evil team strategy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yarnek :: Yarnek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, Surak, Abraham Lincoln :: landing part vs. Green", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in contrast to Green", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk in leading god team", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rock monster aliens struggled to grasp basic humanoid notions of good and evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language change", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Abe Lincoln being learned that the meaning of the word \"nigress\" had changed over time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Exclabian :: Exclabians conduct elaborate fight to the death to understand good and evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraham Lincoln :: Lincoln about taped music, transporter etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraham Lincoln :: Lincoln", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "minor", "motivation": "is Lincoln real?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk's decision", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk had no patience for Surak's Vulcan pacifist philosophy when the two were teamed up in a fight to the death against some of history's greatest villains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk did not force Surak to fight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip Green :: Col. Green", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip Green :: Green tortures Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was disturbed by the death of the Surak replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak :: Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip Green :: Col. Green tortures Surak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Kirk and his party trust the genocidal Colonel Green when he offers a truce?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x23", "title": "All Our Yesterdays", "date": "1969-03-14", "description": "Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are trapped in the past on a world threatened by a super nova.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time portal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Atavachron :: The Atavachron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarpeidon on verge of being destroyed by a supernova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock/Zarabeth :: Spock/Zarabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zarabeth :: Zarabeth was condemned to live out her life in solitude in an arctic wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock, McCoy :: Spock/McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party traveled into past of Sarpeion civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mt. Atoz's replicas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch-hunt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was nearly prosecuted for witchcraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was nearly prosecuted for being a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock and McCoy struggled to survive in a frozen wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy :: McCoy telling Spock to save himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock against meat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy said that Zatabeta, a woman, couldn't stand loneliness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zarabeth punished by being sent back in time to ice age", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with swordfight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock eats meat and lusts over Zarabeth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy explained women need it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarpeidon on verge of being destroyed by supernova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock consumed flesh and enjoyed it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock lost his temper at McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zarabeta marveled at meeting the spacemen Spock and McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock bid an emotional farewell to Zarabeth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Guiron (1969)", "title": "Gamera vs. Guiron", "date": "1969-03-21", "description": "Gamera attempts to rescue two boys who are abducted by aliens. It is the fifth entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Guiron" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens abducted two boys and took them back to their planet for the purpose of eating their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Civilized life on Terra was threatened because the planet was growing cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terrans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not only was Terran civilization doomed because their planet was cooling, but also on account that it was under threat from the giant monster Space Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terrans and Gamera versus Guiron and a Space Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guiron and a Space Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens abducted two boys and flew with them by remote control in their flying saucer back to their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomoko was desperate to convince her mother that a flying saucer took off with her brother Akio and his friend Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Akio and Tomoko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kuniko and Tomoko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Counter-Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aliens planet, called Terra, was in the same orbit around the sun as Earth, but on the opposite side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two Terra aliens used pyramidal shaped teleporters to get around inside their city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Illustrated Man (1969)", "title": "The Illustrated Man", "date": "1969-03-26", "description": "A man whose tattoos on his body represent visions of frightening futures. The film is based on three short stories from the 1951 collection The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury: \"The Veldt,\" \"The Long Rain,\" and \"The Last Night of the World.\"", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man named Carl tells the tales behind some of his tattoos, which he insists are not to be called tattoos, but only ever \"skin illustrations\", which come to life and tell the illustration's story when stared at directly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Felicia were married with two kids in the \"The Veldt\" subplot. A husband and wife were ruled to kill their children in the \"The Last Night of the World\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Felicia worried about their children's mental health in the \"The Veldt\" subplot. A husband and wife were ruled to kill their children in the \"The Last Night of the World\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The Veldt\" subplot, children John and Anna played in a virtual reality nursery, which produced any environment the children imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The Veldt\" subplot, children John and Anna played in a virtual reality nursery, which produced any environment the children imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of astronauts were stranded on Venus in perpetual torrential rains in the \"The Long Rain\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Venus", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts said there were domed cities, called \"sun domes\", every 20 miles on Venus in the \"The Long Rain\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts in the \"The Long Rain\" subplot were driven to madness while searching for a sun dome on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of astronauts were stranded on Venus in perpetual torrential rains in the \"The Long Rain\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Every adult on Earth has had the same vision of the Earth ending that night in the \"The Last Night of the World\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A husband and wife had to decide whether or not to follow the order to kill their children to save them from the coming horror of the end of the world in the \"The Last Night of the World\" subplot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"The Veldt\" subplot featured a world government with a planned economy. The \"The Long Rain\" subplot showed the words \"United States of Earth\" written on a sun dome on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts in the \"The Long Rain\" subplot found a \"sun dome\" on Venus that has been destroyed by the native Venusians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl and Felicia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Thought Life (1969)", "title": "The Man Who Thought Life", "date": "1969-05-09", "description": "A man who cultivates the ability to conjure objects into reality uses his powers to conjure the double of a brain surgeon into reality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Thought_Life" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "thought materialization ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steinmetz had the ability to conjure objects into reality using the power of only his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steinmetz conjured Dr. Max Holst's double into existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brain surgeon and psychiatrist Dr. Max Holst and the actress Susanne Plesner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Max Holst and Susanne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steinmetz created a Max Holst doppelganger to replace the real Max Holst, and both men were equally confident of being the true Max Holst.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Max Holst and Susanne.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos3x24", "title": "Turnabout Intruder", "date": "1969-06-03", "description": "Kirk's consciousness becomes trapped in the body of a woman bent on killing him and taking over his command while inhabiting his body.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "misandry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice hated men, especially Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice to kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janice trying to make it in a male dominated Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice envied Kirk about his career success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Janice Lester :: Kirk and Janice switched bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice used on Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice faced sexism in Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice at Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Enterprise crew follow the orders of an increasingly tyrannically behaving Captain Kirk or should they obey a higher duty and mutiny against him?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice rejected by Kirk in years past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice faced sexism in Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew to Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk's life force was transfered into body of Janice Lester and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Coleman :: Coleman at Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice spoke of the indignity of being a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice harbored contempt for men and women alike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how can Spock prove that Kirk's mind is trapped in the body of janice?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Janice Lester :: Janice/Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew refused to follow through on Janice's orders to execute Kirk and his fellow coconspirators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk faces Janice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice orders executions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Lester :: Janice has temper tantrum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A competency hearing was held to determine whether or not Janice Lester (in the body of Captain Kirk) was fit to command the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock performed a mind-meld on Janet Lester's body with Kirk's mind in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice was supposedly ill with radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stereo (1969)", "title": "Stereo", "date": "1969-06-23", "description": "The film documents an experiment by the unseen Dr. Luther Stringfellow. He is a young man in a black cloak is seen arriving at the Academy, where he joins a group of young volunteers who are being endowed with telepathic abilities which they are encouraged to develop through sexual exploration.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_(1969_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Luther Stringfellow endowed a group of young volunteers with telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow examined how a small group of people interacted when endowed with telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained that omnisexuality was the ultimate form of sexuality, and that heterosexuality was a limiting form of sexuality. Characters experimented with non-heterosexual relations.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Gladiators (1969)", "title": "The Gladiators", "date": "1969-06-29", "description": "In order to prevent a another global war, the nations of the world decide to introduce \"International Peace Games,\" a deadly miniature battle fought between small teams of drafted young soldiers from each country and broadcast on TV around the world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gladiators_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sporting to promote peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world held the International Peace Games, a deadly miniature battle fought between small teams of drafted young soldiers from each country and broadcast on TV around the world, in order to prevent a Third World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world organized under a United Nations-like institution in order to keep world peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of a people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The French university student contended that the games just functioned to indoctrinate people to believe in the prevailing system of world organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "The French university student contended that the games just functioned to indoctrinate people to believe in the prevailing system of world organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The French university student wish to overthrow the prevailing systems and establish a communist one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was something about the generals wanting the teams of soldiers to compete against one another, but the teams started to cooperate and work together to the generals' great dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some among the young soldiers were patriotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An African American soldier in the games remarked to a superior how he was brought there to fight and then go home and take a back seat on the bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The generals shows a series of black and white photos of war crimes being committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ostensible reason for the International Peace Games was to prevent a future world war among the superpowers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Latitude Zero (1969)", "title": "Latitude Zero", "date": "1969-07-26", "description": "Three men are taken to an underwater utopian city where aging is a thing of the past.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitude_Zero_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ken Tashiro, Dr. Jules Masson, and journalist Perry Lawton were taken to Latitude Zero, a super-advanced underwater utopian city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Craig McKenzie was involved in a fight of good versus evil against the evil Dr. Malic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The utopian city Latitude Zero, which was on the sea floor, was made possible by the super advanced technologies that its citizens had developed over the years. Technology ensured that all the material needs of the city inhabitants were provided for. Gold, which was plentiful, was filtered from ocean water and diamonds were of very little value.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The residents of Latitude Zero solved the problem of aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucretia was jealous of Captain Kuroiga over Dr. Malic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "radiation neutralizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Okada developed a treatment that made people immune to the detrimental effects of radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Okada developed a treatment that made people immune to the detrimental effects of radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kuroiga at Dr. Malic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Okada and Tsuruko Okada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Okada and his daughter were taken captive by Dr. Malic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Malic planned to transplant Captain Kuroiga's brain into the body of a lion. He also grafted an eagle onto the lion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Malic and Lucretia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Craig McKenzie was in command of a high-tech submarine that could fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Malic plotted to destroy Latitude Zero using superweapons and artificially grafted monstrosities, like giant rats and anthropomorphic bats, of his own creation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)", "title": "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun", "date": "1969-08-27", "description": "A joint European-NASA mission to investigates a planet in a position parallel to Earth, behind the Sun, ends in disaster with the death of one of the astronauts. His colleague discovers that the planet is a mirror image of Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger_(1969_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Counter-Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concerned an expedition to a newly discoverer planet in the same orbit as Earth, but on the opposite side of the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts went on a mission to visit a newly discovered planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet on the opposite side of the sun turned out to be a mirror image of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of astronauts flew a rocketship to a newly discovered planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Glenn Ross and Sharon Ross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon alleged that her and Glenn couldn't have kids because prolonged exposure to radiation in space had left him sterile. Glenn contended it was the birth control pills Sharon was secretly taking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glenn and John were floating around in the rocketship at one point while en route to the newly discovered planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fellini Satyricon (1969)", "title": "Fellini Satyricon", "date": "1969-09-03", "description": "Fellini Satyricon, or simply Satyricon, is a 1969 Italian fantasy drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini and loosely based on Petronius's work Satyricon, written during the reign of Emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. The film is divided into nine episodes, following Encolpius and his friend Ascyltus as they try to win the heart of a young boy named Gitón within a surreal and dream-like Roman landscape.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellini_Satyricon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Encolpius and his adolescent male lover Gitón, as well as several other flamboyantly gay relationships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gitón was the slave boy of Encolpius (and also possibly of Ascyltus). Ascyltus sold Gitón to the actor Vernacchio who was using Gitón to perform in a lewd play. A master granted his slaves their freedom before taking his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on the two friends Encolpius and Ascyltus as they both tried to win the heart of the teenage boy Gitón.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Encolpius and Ascyltus were besotted with the effeminate teenage boy Gitón.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A view of life in Imperial Rome during the reign of Nero is presented to the viewer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Encolpius had to bolt from his tenement when an earthquake hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutilation as punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roman soldiers lopped off a slave's hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vernacchio ran a theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some spectators were partook in a lewd play called the \"Emperor's Miracle\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A diviner read the future in an animal's entrails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A painter blamed the decline of the arts on people's lust for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an art studio in which people were painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An artist spoke about poetry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trimalchio and Fortunata held a lavish banquet. A wealthy man and his wife committed suicide together after granting freedom to their slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fortunata was scandalized when Trimalchio turned his sexual attentions on two young boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trimalchio acted out his own funeral in his ostentatious mausoleum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman in a tomb was weeping over the body of her recently deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a temple to Ceres. A battle between Theseus and the Minotaur was reenacted for entertainment with Encolpius as Theseus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Encolpius was made to fight to the death a man dressed up as a Minotaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At least three people committed suicide rather than be captured by enemies: A woman ran herself through with a dagger, a man slit his wrists while his wife took her own life by another means.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nymphomaniac was mercifully placated in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Encolpius and Ascyltus murder two priests at a temple and kidnapped an albino hermaphrodite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Trimalchio invited his guests to his tomb where he enacted his own death in an ostentatious manner, presumably just so he could hear people sing his praises. In general, he was encouraging his guests to praise him for what a great man he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Encolpius subjected himself to a strange ritual in an effort to get the fire back in his loins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old magician took vengeance on some villagers by taking away their ability to make fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eumolpus' heirs consumed his corpse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)", "title": "The Valley of Gwangi", "date": "1969-09-03", "description": "A heroic former stuntman goes to the forbidden Valley of Gwangi with a view toward capturing a dinosaur to bring back to display at a struggling rodeo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valley_of_Gwangi" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "The forbidden Valley of Gwangi was home to prehistoric creatures, including ancient horses and dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus the prehistoric beasts of the Valley of Gwangi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuck Kirby and his party encountered dinosaurs in the Valley of Gwangi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuck Kirby and T.J. Breckenridge found love (and dinosaurs) in the Valley of Gwangi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Bromley was motivated by a desire to prove his radical theory of human evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Bromley described the evolution of horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Bromley was determined to prove his theory that humans had evolved by at least 50 million years ago, rather than 1 million years ago as was the scientific consensus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A miniature \"hippo horse\", an ancestor of the modern horse that was presumed to have gone extinct, was discovered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monitors (1969)", "title": "The Monitors", "date": "1969-10-08", "description": "Earth has been taken over by a benign group of aliens known as the Monitors, gentlemanly figures clad in black overcoats and bowler hats. They are dedicated to suppressing humanity's propensities for violence, sex, war, and trouble, enforcing their ethos with spray cans of a pacifying gas and with television ads praising the Monitors' rule.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monitors_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Monitors took over Earth and began regulating all aspects of human life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Monitors established what basically amounted to a totalitarian world government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The S.C.R.A.G. rebels formed an underground movement to overthrow the Monitors’ rule of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of a people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Monitors ran jingoistic ads on television and used mass media to sway public opinion in support of their rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Barbara. Max and Mona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Max.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moon Zero Two (1969)", "title": "Moon Zero Two", "date": "1969-10-26", "description": "In the year 2021, the Moon is in the process of being colonized, and this new frontier is attracting a diverse human population to lunar settlements.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Zero_Two" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Moon was a new frontier for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "First man on Mars Bill Kemp sought to satisfy his need for adventure by accepting dangerous space missions under the employ of notorious millionaire J. J. Hubbard, after he lost his career as a pioneering astronaut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Notorious millionaire J. J. Hubbard plotted to increase his wealth beyond imagination by taking possession of a sapphire asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commercial flight back and forth from Earth to the Moon became a reality by the year 2021. There was also been talk of flights to Mars and Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clementine Taplin came to the Moon in search of her prospector brother Wallie who had been missing for four months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon colonist sometimes wore colorful, futuristic spacesuits equipped with forearm control panels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Kemp temporarily turned off the artificial gravity in the Moon City space bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon City space bar patrons began floating around after Bill Kemp turned off the artificial gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Kemp was invited by Clementine Taplin to find out what her Moon City hotel room was like at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery0x01a", "title": "The Cemetery", "date": "1969-11-08", "description": "After murdering his uncle, a man (Roddy McDowall) is haunted by a family painting that keeps changing.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Evans and his wealthy uncle William Hendricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Evans went mad watching a painting of the family graveyard inexplicably change over time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Hendricks apparently haunted his selfish nephew Jeremy Evans from beyond the grave. But in the end it was revealed that it was all an elaborate scheme perpetrated by the butler to get his hands on William Hendricks' fortune. The story concluded with Osmond Portifoy being stricken in a state of terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Hendricks' ghost (or perhaps zombie) came back to haunt Osmond Portifoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Evans was a selfish scoundrel who murdered his elderly uncle and took over his estate. Osmond Portifoy hatched an elaborate plot to get his hands on William Hendricks' fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evans described himself as the family black sheep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Portifoy with Jeremy Evans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy Evans' uncle had a life long preoccupation with painting scenes related to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Butler Osmond Portifoy waited hand and foot on his master William Hendricks for 30 years. William Hendricks returned the favor by bequeathing Portifoy with a miserly $80 per month for the rest of his days in Hendricks will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Osmond Portifoy was butler to first William Hendricks and then Jeremy Evans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Hendricks was a dying invalid and had had a stroke.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery0x01b", "title": "Eyes", "date": "1969-11-08", "description": "A blind woman (Joan Crawford) undergoes an operation that gives her 12 hours to see.\n\nDirected by: Steven Spielberg. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudia Menlo was a heartless wealthy blind woman who desperately wants to be able to see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Heatherton was blackmailed into removing the eyesight of one person in order to let Claudia Menlo see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Heatherton restored Claudia Menlo's vision by transplanting in her the optic nerves of another person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sidney must have been pretty desperate to sell his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Heatherton was blackmailed into removing the eyesight of one person in order to let Claudia Menlo see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between equally unappealing possibilities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sidney sacrificed his eyes in order to repay his debts and save his skin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudia Menlo stated explicitly that her only preoccupation was herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a woman who was blind from birth get her vision back during a blackout so that she couldn't see anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Heatherton restored Claudia Menlo's vision by transplanting in her the optic nerves of another person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling a part of one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sidney sold his eyes in order to repay his debts and save his skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Frank Heatherton was blackmailed into performing an unethical medical procedure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sidney Resnick found himself in the unenviable position of having to sell his eyes to pay off a $9000 gambling debt of unknown nature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery0x01c", "title": "Escape Route", "date": "1969-11-08", "description": "A fugitive Nazi (Richard Kiley) faces the consequences of his past actions.\n\nDirected by: Barry Shear. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi fugitive Joseph Strobe was constantly on the run from the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph Strobe was tortured by nightmares about his Nazi past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph Strobe believed he could will himself into a serene painting of a man fishing on a lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi fugitive Joseph Strobe longed desperately to will himself inside a serene painting, but ended up willing himself into a hellish one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi fugitive Joseph Strobe, who was involved in the Holocaust, ended up suffering a terrible punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph Strobe was a high ranking Nazi war criminal who was involved in the Holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nazi war criminal Joseph Strobe escaped to South America after the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are made ponder whether Blum wanted to get back at Strobe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Marooned (1969)", "title": "Marooned", "date": "1969-11-10", "description": "Three astronauts become trapped and slowly suffocate in space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marooned_(1969_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "While three astronauts were returning to Earth after a long mission aboard an experimental orbital lab, a malfunction occurred, trapping them in their reentry module where they slowly began to suffocate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts blasted off from Earth on an extended mission aboard an experimental orbital laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The President stepped in and unilaterally decided to go ahead with a risky attempt to rescue the suffocating astronauts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts are the first crew of an experimental orbital laboratory on an extended duration mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts were floating about in the orbital laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Pruett and Celia Pruett. Buzz Lloyd and Betty Lloyd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Pruett and Buzz Lloyd made proclamations of love to their respective wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles Keith was adamant to reporters that NASA was right to have sent the three astronauts into space, even if they perished, because it was part of a larger aspiration to reach the stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three astronauts faced the prospect of having to select one of them to be killed so that the remaining two would have enough oxygen left to breathe until the rescue team arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts wives were on pins and needles wondering whether or not their husbands would make it back to Earth safely.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)", "title": "Captain Nemo and the Underwater City", "date": "1969-12-19", "description": "Captain Nemo holds some passengers that he saved from a sinking ship captive at his secret underwater city.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Nemo_and_the_Underwater_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story largely took place in Nemo's secret underwater city, Templemer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo held the passengers of a sinking ship captive in his underwater city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nemo so hated mankind that he build a city on the sea floor where him its inhabitants could be isolated from civilization and its ills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inhabitants of Templemer had all their material needs provided for because Nemo made machines to convert ocean resources into useful goods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Templemer was under threat from the giant manta ray Mobula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator Robert Fraser wished to leave Templemer to put an end to arms dealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo's super high-tech submarines, the Nautilus and Nautilus II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lomax suffered from bouts of claustrophobia while confined aboard the Nautilus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brothers Barnaby Bath and Swallow Bath plotted to scuttle off with enough of Nemo's gold to make them millionaires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nemo's men used diving suits that were advanced for their time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena Beckett and Phillip Beckett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barnaby Bath and Swallow Bath.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: All Monsters Attack (1969)", "title": "All Monsters Attack", "date": "1969-12-20", "description": "A lonely and bullied boy dreams of visiting monster island. It is tenth film in the Godzilla franchise and Shōwa series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Monsters_Attack" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Ichiro was picked on by a clique of neighborhood kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichiro was a lonely boy whose only friends were a toymaker and a young girl. His parents we often away from home because of work. He dreamed of going to monster island to escape his loneliness. Manilla was also lonely and had no friends until he met Ichiro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichiro dreamed of going to Monster Island to escape his loneliness and problem with bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla, Minira, and Basaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla's son Minira befriended Ichiro on Monster Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minira was chicken to fight Gabara and Ichiro was chicken to stand up to his bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ichiro's parents worked long hours and didn't have much time to spend with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minira stand up to the monster bully Gabara with Ichiro's help. The film concluded with Ichiro standing up to the gang of bullies that had been tormenting him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla took on a wide array of giant monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla took on a wide array of giant monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ichiro's father was too busy with working on the trains to pay much attention to him. Godzilla and Minira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ichiro's mother was too busy with working on the trains to pay much attention to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)", "title": "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes", "date": "1969-12-31", "description": "A not so gifted college student acquires a computer-like mind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Wore_Tennis_Shoes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1960s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "An accident with a mainframe computer left Dexter Riley with a computer-like mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the zany adventures of a group of Medfield College students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dexter Riley at first enjoyed all the attention he got for having a computer brain, but soon came to see that the adults were just using him for their various purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dexter Riley quickly learned his lesson after he neglected his friends in favor of living it up with some big shots.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Driver's Seat (1970)", "title": "The Driver's Seat", "date": "1970", "description": "Lise is a spinster, working in an accountancy firm somewhere in Northern Europe, probably Denmark. She has suffered years of illness; she behaves erratically and often confrontationally, and wears garish, provocative clothing. Lise travels to a South European city, probably Rome, ostensibly to meet her illusory boyfriend. She is eventually found murdered but had to an extent planned this murder herself.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Driver%27s_Seat_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mental illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lise is clearly mad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lise's self-arranged murder appears to be a pre-meditated suicide of sorts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We contemplate who or what if anything is behind what people do and things that happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pathological lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lise changes her story and contradicts her earlier statements many times to different people for no obvious reason but probably quite deliberately", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the killer is clearly a sadist and whatever Lise is, there was discussion about women being masochists", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scream and Scream Again (1970)", "title": "Scream and Scream Again", "date": "1970-01", "description": "Three seemingly independent storylines converge in a chilling and unexpected climax. The first storyline surrounds a clinic specializing in limb and organ transplantation.. The second involves a police manhunt for a serial killer who drains all the blood from his victims. The third involves an intelligence officer who is sent back to his totalitarian country.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_and_Scream_Again" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Browning was making super human composite people by patching together the choice body parts of ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Browning was making super human composite people by patching together the choice body parts of ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One storyline transpired in a Nazi-esque Eastern European totalitarian state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A serial killer was being chased down across suburban London by police for the span of about 15 minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Browning explained that ordinary humans were not up to the task of solving the problem of overpopulation and that's why we need super human composite people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Browning explained that ordinary humans were liable to start a nuclear war and that's why we need super human composite people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Browning plotted to transplant Sylvia's brain into the body of another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Browning uttered something about power corrupting people before he was immersed in a vat of acid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Skullduggery (1970)", "title": "Skullduggery", "date": "1970-03-06", "description": "On an expedition in Papua New Guinea, Tropis, a tribe of ape-like creatures, are being used as slaves by humans. When one of the Tropis is allegedly murdered, the following murder trial centers round the question: are the Tropis a form of human or animal?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skullduggery_(1970_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a perilous expedition deep into the heart of Papua New Guinea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition party encountered a tribe of ape-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition party encountered a tribe of ape-like creatures that Dr. Sybil Greame speculated were the missing link.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sybil Greame fell in love with Douglas Temple on the expedition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paleontologist Dr. Sybil Greame was convinced she found in the ape-like creatures the proverbial missing link.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some greedy members of an expedition party enslaved a tribe of ape-like creatures and forced them to mine phosphorous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were encouraged to ponder whether the ape-like creatures should be granted the rights of humans or animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas Temple and Otto Kreps enslaved a tribe of ape-like creatures and forced them to mine phosphorous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas Temple and Otto Kreps enslaved a tribe of ape-like creatures and forced them to mine phosphorous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Certain expedition party members were appalled to discover some New Guinean tribes-people eating flesh of the ape-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto Kreps fathered a child with one of the ape-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Attorney General got a German professor to admit under oath that he considered black men to not be human.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Love War (1970)", "title": "The Love War", "date": "1970-03-10", "description": "The Love War (1970) is a science fiction ABC Movie of the Week starring Lloyd Bridges as an alien warrior and Angie Dickinson as the woman he befriends.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_War" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Argons and Zilons were in a war that wold see the Zilons accepted into the Argons Federation, if the Argons won, but the Argons destroyed, if the Zilons won.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two warring planets chose to settle their conflict over which of them will take over the Earth, each sending a trio of soldiers to Earth to fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Kyle was from a race of beings that had lost the need for physical contact, but he fell in love with Sandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Kyle and Sandy fell in love in spite of being from rival alien factions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Jiger (1970)", "title": "Gamera vs. Jiger", "date": "1970-03-21", "description": "Gamera battles the monster Jiger at the the site of Expo '70 in Osaka. It is the sixth entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Jiger" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The moving of a statue from the Central Pacific to Osaka for Expo '70 triggered a curse which resulted in the unleashing of the dinosaur-like monster Jiger. The statue also caused the crew of the ship that brought it to Osaka to become ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children played a key role in uncovering the source of the curse and in helping Gamera to defeat Jiger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Osaka were attacked by Jiger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant dinosaur-like creature Jiger attacked Osaka.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lost continent of Mu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jiger was believed to have originated from the Mu continent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Williams and Tommy Williams. Ryosaku Kitayama and Hiroshi Kitayama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryosaku Kitayama and Miwako Kitayama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy Williams and Susan Williams. Hiroshi Kitayama and Miwako Kitayama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hiroshi and Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel inside a human body", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hiroshi and Tommy used a mini-submarine to go inside Gamera and remove Jiger's larva, which was incubating inside Gamera's lung.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Colossus The Forbin Project (1970)", "title": "Colossus: The Forbin Project", "date": "1970-04-08", "description": "The film is based on the 1966 science fiction novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones (writing as D. F. Jones), about an advanced American defense system, named Colossus, becoming sentient to everyone's pleasant surprise... at first. After being handed full control, Colossus's draconian logic expands on its original nuclear defense directives to assume total control of the world and end all warfare for the good of mankind despite its creators' orders to stop.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Colossus computer was designed as an advanced national defense system that functioned without human aid. The Soviets had coincidently built a similar system at the same time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Colossus defense computer got out of human control forced everyone to put an end to all warfare for the good of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Colossus super computer became sentient, as did its Soviet counterpart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth versus the Colossus computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Forbin and the Colossus computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Colossus computer come to control the nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film ended with the Colossus computer taking over the world and forcing humans to live together in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film ended with the Colossus computer taking over the world and forcing humans to live together in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists and politicians communicated over bulky and stationary video phones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both United States and Soviet governments concealed knowledge that their defense computers fired missiles from their respective publics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles Forbin and Cleo Markham.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles Forbin told Colossus that people needed freedom to exist, but Colossus felt that freedom was an illusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)", "title": "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", "date": "1970-05-26", "description": "In this sequel to the original, another spacecraft crashes on the planet ruled by apes, carrying astronaut Brent who searches for Taylor and discovers an underground city inhabited by mutated humans with psychic powers.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the people of the 20th century had annihilated themselves in a nuclear conflagration. Taylor blew up the whole world but detonating a doomsday nuclear bomb at the films conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants used telepathy to communicate and also project illusions, like walls of flames, into other's minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants had an underground civilization and worshiped an atomic bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gorillas invaded the Forbidden Zone where the mutants lived and made war with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants worshiped an atomic bomb. Religion was also integral to the apes way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants thought the apes were nothing but evil and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes had supplanted Humans as the dominant species on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mutants lived underground and worshiped a giant nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a planet full of apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brent and his crew traveled into the future to the Planet of the Apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chimpanzees held a demonstration to protest the gorillas making war on the Forbidden Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Crimes of the Future (1970)", "title": "Crimes of the Future", "date": "1970-06", "description": "The film details the wanderings of Adrian Tripod, sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_of_the_Future" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the aftermath of a plague, resulting from the use of cosmetic products, having wiped out the entire population of sexually mature females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were hints that men turned to other men for intimate companionship to adjust themselves to a defeminized world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian Tripod joined a group of pedophiles and it was explained that such groups, although outlawed, had become increasing pervasive since the dead of all sexually mature females.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Conformist (1970)", "title": "The Conformist", "date": "1970-07-01", "description": "The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, whose screenplay is based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio, Fosco Giachetti, José Quaglio, Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clémenti. The film was a co-production of Italian, French, and West German film companies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conformist_(1970_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcello; Anna and Giulia; Anna and Quadri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcello was ordered to kill an anti-fascist hiding in Paris", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcello about killing Anna's husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello, Anna, Giulia, Quadri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello worked for Mussolini's fascists in Italy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giulia with Anna, during his honeymoon with Giulia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello fell first for Giulia and then for Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcello's lack of enthusiasm for his government was noted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello met his fiancée before marrying her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello saw his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a Catholic confession", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello visited his father in an assylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello and dad in asylum; Marcello and young son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "priest and fiance spoke about premarital sex, sodomy, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcello about letting Anna be murdered in front of his eyes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a couple of notable gay encounters", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Amoeba (1970)", "title": "Space Amoeba", "date": "1970-08-01", "description": "The film tells the story of extraterrestrial amoeba-like aliens that hijack a probe and, after crash landing on a small South Pacific atoll, create gigantic monsters from native lifeforms (an octopus, crab, and turtle) with plans of conquering the Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Amoeba" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Amoeba hitched a ride to Earth on the Helios 7 probe and tried to conquer the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant octopus Gezora. There was also a giant crab monster and a giant jungle turtle. Note that these creatures were no cryptids, since they Space Amoebeans created them, but that fact was not revealed until late into the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The visitors to the island versus Gezora and the giant crab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "microbe-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Amoebeans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant octopus, a giant crab and a giant turtle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kyouichi Miya confessed that he felt afraid, not of Gezora, but of the real monster on the island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Space Amoebeans lived as nomads of outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obata hurled himself into a volcano in order to kill the last Space Amoebean, who was inhabiting his body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Toomorrow (1970)", "title": "Toomorrow", "date": "1970-08-27", "description": "A group of students pay their way through school by forming a pop band called Toomorrow; sonic vibrations from a special instrument called a \"tonaliser\" cause an extraterrestrial to abduct the group, and have them entertain the Alphoid population.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toomorrow_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pair of aliens abducted a group of music school students after having noticing they had produced anomalous sonic vibrations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pair of hairless, blue aliens abducted a group of music school students after having noticing they had produced anomalous sonic vibrations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toomorrow band members, all music school students, were enthusiastic about their craft. The aliens abducted the Toomorrow band members in order to learn about their music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a student sit in at the music school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were able to materialized and dematerialize objects with the with the wave of a hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens teleported the band members up to their spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens briefly debated whether it was ethical to interfere in the affairs of such a primitive race as humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The band members were floating around in zero gravity on the alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Olivia and Benjamin. Vic and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "student and teacher romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was romantically involved with his music teacher Susan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night Slaves (1970)", "title": "Night Slaves", "date": "1970-09-29", "description": "Clay and Marjorie, an estranged married couple, take a vacation together while Clay recuperates from a serious auto accident. They end up in a sleepy little town which seems to be normal, except at night when the townspeople begin acting strangely and leave town in trucks, always returning by morning. Marjorie also begins to act strangely, and no one has any memories of their nighttime activities. Only Clay is unaffected due to the presence of a metal plate in his head, and no one believes his story.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Slaves" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clay and Marjorie Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clay, Marjorie, and Matt Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marjorie was having an affair with Matt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clay and Naillil. Marjorie and Matt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Clay that townspeople were leaving town in trucks at night, always returning by morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens infiltrated a sleepy little town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens were a psychokinetic race with an innate ability to mind control people. And they were mind controlling virtually everyone in the town except for Clay because he had a metal plate in his skull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were constructing a spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mind of Mr Soames (1970)", "title": "The Mind of Mr. Soames", "date": "1970-10-12", "description": "The film tells the story of a thirty-year-old man (John Soames) who has been in a coma since a brain injury during birth. Now revived, he shows the behavior of a child and is monitored by two doctors attempting to find out if he can be rehabilitated in the adult world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_Mr._Soames" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to question whether it was ethical to revive John Soames from a coma that he had been in since birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was a thirty year old man with the mind of a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Michael Bergen and Dr. Maitland raised John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Michael Bergen took a kind and gentle approach to raising John, while Doctor Maitland advocated a strict approach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "John came to resent Dr. Maitland for forcing him to learn everyday at the expense of having fun, while Doctor Bergen took the approach that some recreation was essential to John's development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "John desperately wanted to go outside but Dr. Maitland forbid him from leaving the institution building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "major", "motivation": "John ran away from the institute and had to fend for himself on the streets of England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John became despondent after learning about the concept of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunk man crashed into John and injured him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: No Blade of Grass (1970)", "title": "No Blade of Grass", "date": "1970-10-23", "description": "The film follows the survivors of a plague that has hit London in the not too distant future. When London is overwhelmed by food riots caused by a global famine, a man tries to lead his family to safety in Westmorland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Blade_of_Grass_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Global mismanagement of pollution led to a virus emerging that killed off the world's crops and world civilization collapsed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food crop pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pollution caused crop virus resulted in a global famine that resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cumulative residues of pollutants and pesticides cause of a virulent new disease arising in Asia, a virus that strikes all members of the grass family, including wheat, rice and maize.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film pointedly called attention to the dangers of pollution leading to ecological breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Custance family was faced with having to survive when society broke down in the aftermath of a global famine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Custance family was faced with having to survive when society broke down in the aftermath of a global famine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger Burnham and Mary Custance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained how pollution was keeping the sun's rays inside the atmosphere and how it would lead to the ice caps melting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Custance and Ann Custance. Andrew Pirrie and his wife until he shot her dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Custance and Mary Custance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Custance took control and led his family and band of followers to his brother's farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Custance and his family and followers were put in situation after situation where they needed to kill to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Custance and Mary Custance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Custance and David Custance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was reported that people in some parts of the world had resorted to cannibalism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chinese killed 300 million of their own people in order the the remaining people could survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was reported that the Chinese government had nerved gassed 300 million of their own citizens in order that the rest of the population could survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandemonium broke out on the streets of London once food supplies ran short.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chinese nerve gassed their own people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's wife and 16-year-old virgin daughter are taken away and raped nearby by three men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Custance and Andrew Pirrie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hauser's Memory (1970)", "title": "Hauser's Memory", "date": "1970-11-24", "description": "The dying scientist Hauser knows of missile secrets. In order to preserve this information, the Central Intelligence Agency has scientist Hillel Mondoro inject himself with the cerebrospinal fluid extracted from Hauser. However, Hauser's wife Anna turns out to be pro-Nazi, and the memory of this woman also becomes imprinted on Mondoro's mind. Hauser's memory starts to take control of Mondoro and causes him to try to even some old scores. The screenplay by Adrian Spies was based on a 1968 novel of the same name by Curt Siodmak, which reworked the central idea of his novel Donovan's Brain (1943).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Blade_of_Grass_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel Mondoro injected himself with the cerebrospinal fluid extracted from the dying scientist Karl Helmuth Hauser. As a result, Hauser's memories and personality were partially transferred into Hillel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel became combined with the Hauser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel and Karen Mondoro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel and Karen Mondoro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel became combined with the Hauser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel became obsessed with settlings some of Hauser's old scores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hillel became obsessed with settlings some of Hauser's old scores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hillel and Karen were expecting a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hillel carried memories of Hauser developing a vodka dependency during Hauser's time in Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hauser's widow Anna was pro-Nazi. Hillel expressed pro-Nazi sentiments while experiencing Hauser's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kramer had turned over his friend Hauser to the Gestapo during the war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x01a", "title": "The Dead Man", "date": "1970-12-16", "description": "A physician's experiment in hypnosis comes to a terrifying conclusion. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Fritz Leiber\n\nDirected by: Douglas Heyes. Story by: Douglas Heyes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Fearing had the power to exhibit symptoms of whatever diseases he believed he had contracted. Dr. Max Redford used hypnosis to control John's abilities and give him perfect health. Dr. Redford wished to transfer this ability to others so that death itself could be conquered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Redford was a practicing physician who was experimenting with hypnosis on one of his patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Fearing used hypnosis to control John's ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Redford wrestled with his consciouses after he had accidentally or subconsciously killed John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Redford regretted killing John while John was under hypnosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Max Redford and Velia Redford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Max Redford, John Fearing, and Velia Redford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Fearing was having an affair with Dr. Redford's wife, Velia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Redford was convinced that he could get people to be perfectly healthy and life forever by using hypnosis to make them truly believe they were in perfect health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Velia Redford grieved over the death of her lover John Fearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Velia blamed her husband Max for the death of her lover John Fearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max Redford confessed that his jealously of John Fearing subconsciously led him to kill the man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max Redford's subconscious mind prevented him from giving the right signal to revive John from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Redford deliberated on whether he should risk his wife being unfaithful with his patient for the sake of his research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Velia shrieked non-stop while she ran through the house and to the chapel with the body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x01b", "title": "The Housekeeper", "date": "1970-12-16", "description": "A dabbler in black magic (Larry Hagman) attempts to improve his marriage by transferring the soul of his housekeeper into his cold-hearted wife's body.\n\nDirected by: John Meredyth Lucas. Story by: Matthew Howard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Wattle agreed to have her soul transfered into the body of Cedric Acton's wife for a small sum of $3.5 million, but then tried to scuttle off with all of Cedric's $7 million fortune. Cedric wished to divorce his wife, but keep all their fortune for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cedric Acton invoked black magical forces to transfer the soul of his warm-hearted housekeeper into his cold-hearted wife's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cedric Acton and Carlotta Acton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Wattle desired just this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Wattle switched bodies with Carlotta Acton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlotta went out to dinner with a young man behind the back of her husband, Cedric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Wattle (in the body of Carlotta Acton) was sex pestered by Cedric Acton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil can come in the guise of beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cedric said to Miss Wattle that his wife, her beauty notwithstanding, was evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Wattle was contrasted with Cedric's wicked wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cedric's wife nagged him to the point that he resorted to black magic to transfer the soul of his housekeeper into her body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cedric wished to divorce his wife, but keep all their fortune for himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x02a", "title": "Room with a View", "date": "1970-12-23", "description": "A wealthy invalid uses his unwitting nurse to help with his revenge against his unfaithful gold digger wife. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Hal Dresner\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Hal Dresner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances Nevins was madly jealous over her fiancée, Vic, cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wealthy invalid Jacob Bauman used his unwitting nurse to take revenge against his gold digger wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lila Bauman was a stereotypical gold digging wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacob Bauman plotted to take revenge against his gold digger wife, Lila Bauman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nurse Frances Nevins and Vic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances Nevins was head over heals for her fiancée, Vic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances Nevins was madly jealous because her fiancée was cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bedridden invalid Jacob observed his wife fooling around with the chauffeur from his bedroom window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Bauman was an invalid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic cheated on his fiancée Frances Nevins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Bauman set up circumstances such that his unwitting nurse would murder his wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x02b", "title": "The Little Black Bag", "date": "1970-12-23", "description": "In 1971, a disgraced doctor (Burgess Meredith) finds a medical bag from 2098. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by C.M. Kornbluth\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A medical bag from 2098 was accidentally sent back in time to the year 1971.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experience of two hobos who stumble upon a medical bag from the future. Part of the story is set in a homeless shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The disgraced physician William Fall wanted to use his medical bag from the future to cure people of disease and didn't care about making money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heppelwhite murdered his hobo-doctor friend, William Fall, and took his medical bag from the future to try and make a fortune from its contents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative smart tool", "level": "major", "motivation": "The medical tools told William Fall how to use them and also assisted in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Fall became a veritable miracle worker with his medical bag from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disgraced and now homeless physician, William Fall, found a medical bag from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were amazed at the healing powers the medical bag from the future gave William Fall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Fall used a special scalpel from his the medical bag to cure Charlie Peterson of cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bums where clearly abusing alcohol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Fall indicated that he had operated on someone while drunk, thus leading to his fall from grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heppelwhite tried to convince Fall to use the bag for material gain, but Fall stuck to his morals and wanted to use the bag only for good.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x02c", "title": "The Nature of the Enemy", "date": "1970-12-23", "description": "A scientist (Joseph Campanella) at NASA Mission Control watches disaster unfold on the Moon.\n\nDirected by: Allen Reisner. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a mission to the Moon that ended in disaster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x03a", "title": "The House", "date": "1970-12-30", "description": "A young woman (Joanna Pettet) enters a house she's seen in her dreams. Note: Based on a short story by André Maurois\n\nDirected by: John Astin. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaine Latimer visited a house that she had seen in her dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The house in Elaine Latimer's dreams turned out to be a haunted by a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaine purchased a house that was thought to have been haunted by its previous residents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine Latimer may have encountered her own ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine's dream of visit an unfamiliar house was real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine was told several times how superstitions spread subconsciously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine Latimer was discharged from a sanatorium where she was being treated for depression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine was in a sanatorium.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x03b", "title": "Certain Shadows on the Wall", "date": "1970-12-30", "description": "The shadow of a recently deceased woman (Agnes Moorehead) remains cast on the parlor wall to haunt her sinister brother. Note: Based on the short story \"The Shadows on the Wall\" by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma Brigham haunted her brother Dr. Stephen Brigham after her death. Stephen Brigham and his sisters, Ann and Rebecca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three sisters Ann, Rebecca, and Emma. Ann and Rebecca became compatriots in murder at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma Brigham haunted her brother Dr. Stephen Brigham after her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma Brigham haunted her murderer, Stephen, from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen murdered his sister Emma to get his hands on her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen was a greedy heir and everyone coped with him. He murdered his sister Emma to get his hands on her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma haunted her old house in pursuit of justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma was on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma was ill and indisposed and had her brother read Dickens too her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen Brigham poisoned Emma Brigham.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Futurological Congress (1971)", "title": "The Futurological Congress", "date": "1971", "description": "The Futurological Congress (Polish: Kongres futurologiczny) is a 1971 black humour science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem. It details the exploits of the hero of a number of his books, Ijon Tichy, as he visits the Eighth World Futurological Congress at a Hilton Hotel in Costa Rica. The book is Lem's take on the common science fictional trope of an apparently Utopian future that turns out to be an illusion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "overpopulated dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the future Tichy experiences ends up being overpopulated but we get the impression that his present is as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The present time that Tichy inhabits is so accustomed to violence that people barely shrug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "benignizers and all sorts of other drugs keep people content and controlled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tichy woke up in the future after a stint of cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tichy's future is about the end because of concealed overpopulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tichy sees the future from his past point of view and doesn't much like it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Tichy's future, the powerful were using drugs to conceal from people their impending doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "in Tichy's present the need for security very much impeded on peoples' liberties", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The perpetual violence was due to the government fighting terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tichy and others had their brains put into various different bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people voted about the weather we are told", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was a character who was bored with the good and set out to excel in evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eponymous \"Futurological Congress\" was a big parody on academic gatherings in general.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zaat (1971)", "title": "Zaat", "date": "1971-01", "description": "A deranged scientist transforms himself into a catfish-like creature by injecting himself with his special ZAAT formula.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaat" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "In his laboratory, the deranged scientist Dr. Leopold transformed himself into a catfish-like creature partly in order to get back at his old colleagues", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leopold transformed himself into a catfish-like creature and went about murdering his old colleagues who had derided his research into human/fish hybridization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-fish hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leopold transformed himself into a catfish-like creature by injecting himself with his special Zaat compound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of a rural community were being terrorized by Dr. Leopold in the form of a catfish-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leopold transformed himself into a catfish-like creature and went around his rural community killing people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x04a", "title": "Make Me Laugh", "date": "1971-01-06", "description": "A comic (Godfrey Cambridge) desperate for laughs makes a deal with an equally desperate miracle worker.\n\nDirected by: Steven Spielberg. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Failed comic Jackie Slater was granted his wish to be able to make people laugh at his jokes but he came to regret it once he realized that he didn't have to work to get laughs anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a failed stand up comedian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie Slater was a failed stand up comic until he crossed paths with a miracle working guru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie Slater was trying to become a successful stand up comic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with life issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie Slater had no aptitude for stand up comedy, even though he wanted to be a comic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Failed comic Jackie Slater was granted his wish to be able to make people laugh at his jokes but he came to regret it once he realized that he didn't have to work to get laughs anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miracle worker gave Jackie the ability to make everybody laugh.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x04b", "title": "Clean Kills and Other Trophies", "date": "1971-01-06", "description": "A big-game hunter (Raymond Massey) faces the wrath of vengeful gods when he forces his son to shoot a deer.\n\nDirected by: Walter Doniger. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big-game hunting was Colonel Archie Dittman's life passion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big-game hunting enthusiast Archie Dittman looked down on his animal rights advocating son, Archie Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Archie Jr. compromise his principles and kill a deer for sport or be denied the $2 million trust fund he was due?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archie Jr. and Tom Mboya objected to Archie Sr.'s killing of animals for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big-game hunting enthusiast Archie Dittman looked down on his animal rights advocating son, ARchie Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a big game hunter himself become the object of a hunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archie Dittman went from being the hunter to being the hunted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x05a", "title": "Pamela's Voice", "date": "1971-01-13", "description": "A husband (John Astin) murders his wife (Phyllis Diller), only to have her haunt him.\n\nDirected by: Richard Benedict. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and Pamela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johathan was dismayed to find out that he had died and become a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamela was a real nag to Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal haunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the quarrels of Johathan's ghost with Pamela's ghost. In particular, Pamela's ghost haunted her husband Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan speculated as to whether Pamela belonged in heaven or hell whereas she in fact lingered on Earth to haunt Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan had murdered his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and Pamela took their quarreling even beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x05b", "title": "Lone Survivor", "date": "1971-01-13", "description": "A man (John Colicos) adrift in a lifeboat labeled Titanic is picked up.\n\nDirected by: Gene Levitt. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ship Titanic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lusitania picked up a survivor of the Titanic who was adrift in a lifeboat. The Titanic sank in 1912; the Lusitania in 1915.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivor, a man, expressed remorse over having donned a women's dress to get on a Titanic lifeboat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivor's punishment for breaking the maritime law of women and children first was to drift the seas in a lifeboat and be picked up by doomed ship after doomed ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivor suffered for having been a coward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivor suffered an unusual punishment in his afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The captain of the Lusitania became away that they were actually ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Flying Dutchman was mentioned and we must have speculated that the life boat was from a ghost titanic of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The survivor did not even remember his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nobody would believe the survivor's incredible story - they thought he was a German spy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The survivor learned that his world was not real.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x05c", "title": "The Doll", "date": "1971-01-13", "description": "A hideous doll is used for revenge against an officer (John Williams) in the colonial forces of Queen Victoria. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Algernon Blackwood\n\nDirected by: Rudi Dorn. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Hymber Masters and Monica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil doll", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hideous doll was used as an instrument of revenge against Hymber Masters by Pandit Chola.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandit Chola against Hymber Masters for having signed an order of execution against Chola's brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandit Chola used a magic doll to take revenge against Hymber Masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandit sought vengance on Hymber by sending him a cursed doll of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hymber Masters left his servant Miss Danton as his heir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandit Chola used a magic doll to take revenge against Hymber Masters, but in the end the very same doll was used on him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x06a", "title": "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar", "date": "1971-01-20", "description": "A has-been salesman (William Windom) tries desperately to return to the past.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph Lane became disillusioned with his life as a plastics salesman and retreated into a post World War II fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph Lane tried to retreat into the past where he could relive his glory days in the post World War II era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph was treated with disrespect and did not even receive the measly recognition of a gold watch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph Lane became disillusioned with his life as a plastics salesman and retreated into a post World War II fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph's boss neglected to treat him with dignity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph was under pressure to perform at work because there was a young up and comer vying to take his place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph over his late wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rudolph and his overbearing boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The secretary to Randolph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randolph Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randolph Lane reflected on his departed wife Katie and they kissed in the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randolph Lane felt alone and without purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randolph thought he might have been jumping back and forth in time somehow. However, it appeared to have been all in his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randolph felt guilty for having been busy as his wife lay on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery1x06b", "title": "The Last Laurel", "date": "1971-01-20", "description": "A crippled athlete plots to use mind over matter to commit murder. Note: Based on The Horsehair Trunk by Davis Grubb\n\nDirected by: Daryl Duke. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crippled former athlete Marius Davis tried to will himself to walk again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius Davis and Susan Davis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius was convinced that his wife Susan was romantically involved with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out-of-body experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius could apparently leave his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius was suffering from paranoid delusions that his wife was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius was exceedingly jealous of people he thought his wife was sleeping around with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius wanted vengeance on the man he thought was cuckolding him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marius Davis tried to murder his wife's paramour but ended up accidentally killing himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: City Beneath the Sea (1971)", "title": "City Beneath the Sea", "date": "1971-01-25", "description": "In the 2053, Admiral Michael Matthews faces multiple crises as lead administrator of the underwater city Pacifica.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Beneath_the_Sea_(1971_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The underwater city Pacifica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "major", "motivation": "A neutron planetoid was on a collision course with the Pacific Ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brett and Quinn plotted to steal Pacifica's supply of gold and fissionable materials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael spoke to the president over a videophone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Woody Patterson resented Michael being reactivated at his old rank as administrator of Pacifica. The two were at odds for most of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Raymond Aguila had been altered to be able to breathe underwater like a fish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lia blamed Michael for the death of her husband and resented him for returning to command Pacifica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael's friendship with Lia fell apart due to a past tragedy involving the death of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pacifica officials deliberated over whether it was wise to follow the president's order to accept a shipment of fissionable material H-128 for storage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The was a high-tech submarine that could also fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Lia and Woody resented Michael, but for different reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was decided that the USA's fissionable materials needed to be stored in Pacifica because it was over 1000 miles from any fault lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Michael Matthews and Brett Matthews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Woody put their grudge aside in order to complete the mission they were assigned by the president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and other characters put themselves at great risk to prevent the Earth from being struck by a neutron planetoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Michael reconciled with both Lia and Woody.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e0x02", "title": "Ransom for a Dead Man", "date": "1971-03-01", "description": "Leslie Williams, a brilliant and ruthless lawyer, murders her husband Paul to get his money, arranging the act to look as if he had been kidnapped and killed by his captors.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Margaret, who hates her stepmother Leslie, tells Leslie she will go away if Leslie gives her a lot of money. When Leslie pays Margaret off with some of the ransom cash, Columbo, who had persuaded Margaret to demand money from Leslie, has the final proof he needs.\n\nDirected by: Richard Irving. Story by: Richard Levinson William Link, Dean Hargrove.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The brilliant lawyer Leslie Williams shot her husband dead and made it look as if he had been kidnapped, and later killed by the kidnappers. She would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The tort attorney Leslie Williams murdered her husband, Paul, and made it look as if he had been kidnapped, and later killed by the kidnappers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Leslie murdering her husband to get his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tale's murderess, Leslie Williams, was a brilliant and ruthless lawyer. She was shown working her craft throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie Williams murdered her husband, Paul, and made it look as if he had been kidnapped, and later killed by the kidnappers. The viewer learns many details about their marriage during the course of Columbo's investigation. For example, Leslie married the significantly older and more established Paul to advance her career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the bumbling but astute homicide detective Lt. Columbo to prove that the tort attorney Leslie Williams shot her husband dead in cold blood and made it look like a botched ransom kidnapping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tort attorney Leslie Williams murdered her husband, Paul, and made it look as if he had been kidnapped with a $300,000 ransom demand, and later killed by the kidnappers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie had a troubled relationship with her entitled stepdaughter, Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie was a career woman at heart. She'd married the significantly older Paul, a renown attorney, to advance her career in law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was evident that Leslie married her significantly older husband both in order to advance her career in law and for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie Williams was a brilliant lawyer and knew very well that no mere police investigator could catch her out in the crime she had so carefully orchestrated. She at one point taunted Columbo in her office. She had sorely underestimated Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tort attorney Leslie was shown practicing her craft in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leslie represented an insurance company against a blue-collar man making what it deemed to be a fraudulent claim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly nervous Columbo asked if there was something wrong with the helicopter motor without the slightest sign of anything being amiss. Leslie took Columbo out of his comfort zone by flying him around in her personal aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leslie played on the prejudices of the white-collar heavy jury to secure a desirable outcome in a case against a blue-collar man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: THX 1138 (1971)", "title": "THX 1138", "date": "1971-03-11", "description": "THX 1138 is a 1971 American science fiction film set in a dystopian future in which the populace is controlled through android police and mandatory use of drugs that suppress emotions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone wore the same white jumpsuits and had shaved heads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "THX 1138 and LUH 3417.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an mechanical man police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "he film is set in a dystopian society where citizens are drugged and kept under close surveillance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The state computer urged people to buy more products and be happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The manufacture of mechanical policemen came with the risk of radioactive explosions from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote controlled person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of engineers did something to THX 1138 that allowed them to manipulate his body from their control terminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "THX 1138 and SEN 5241 escaped from their imprisonment in a vast white void area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People confessed their sins to a computer version of Jesus called OHM.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "THX 1138 and the hologram SRT escaped from prison and went of the run from the mechanical policemen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the end of the film we saw that the society was located underground.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Andromeda Strain (1971)", "title": "The Andromeda Strain", "date": "1971-03-12", "description": "A team of elite scientists investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin. Based on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel of the same name, the film follows the book closely but with a few exceptions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "An national emergency unfolds in the aftermath of a satellite harboring a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin crashing to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around containing a deadly alien pathogen that arrived to Earth from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crystalline being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of scientists discovered that the deadly organism from outer space was crystalline in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of scientists uncovered that the military had been searching outer space for organisms that they could use to make new biological weapons of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of scientists uncovered a secret military program to search outer space for organisms that could be used to make biological weapons of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of elite scientists initially urged the President to launch a nuclear strike on Piedmont in order to prevent the spreading of the deadly infectious organism from outer space. However, they changed their tune upon deducing that the organism fed on nuclear energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jeremy Stone and Mrs. Stone. Dr. Charles Dutton and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government kept news of deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin secret from the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. affliction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Peter Jackson survived initial contact with the deadly organism and was brought to a special facility in Nevada for treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the President risk an international incident by ordering a nuclear strike on Piedmont in order to prevent the deadly organism from proliferating around the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape (1971)", "title": "Escape", "date": "1971-04-06", "description": "A mad scientist tries to create the first man-made living, functioning organism.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067064/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Walding father Doctor Henry Walding had been kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Walding was presumed to have murdered his brother Charles Walding in a laboratory fire bombing incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Walding tried to create the first synthetic, biological organism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Walding became obsessed with creating the first man-made living organism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Walding created a synthetic organism but it would spread though the population, killing many people, if it ever got into nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Lewis Harrison and Evelyn Harrison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychic Roger read from Susan's mind that she was thinking of the number 94.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a parlor frequented by psychics called The Crystal Ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cameron Steele was a professional escape artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles Walding was presumed to have murdered his brother Henry Walding in a laboratory fire bombing incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with a romantic moment between Cameron Steele and Susan Walding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible 2 Headed Transplant (1971)", "title": "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant", "date": "1971-04-14", "description": "An affluent scientist transplants the head of an escaped mental patient onto the shoulder of an extremely strong full-grown man with the mind of a child.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_2-Headed_Transplant" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "head transplant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is much as the title suggests: mayhem ensues when a scientist transplants the head of one man onto the shoulder of another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The affluent scientist Dr. Roger Girard worked from his home laboratory to transplant head of an escaped mental patient onto the shoulder of an extremely strong full-grown man with the mind of a child. The result was something akin to Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda was horrified to find that her husband, Roger, had transplanted the head of an escaped mental patient onto the shoulder of their estate's caretaker's mentally handicapped son's shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having to destroy one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Girard concluded that the two-headed monstrosity he'd created was too dangerous and reluctantly took steps to destroy it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manuel Cass was certified to be insane by a judge and behaved in a most deranged and psychotic manner throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged man Manuel Cass was reported to have murdered ten people. After having his severed head transplanted onto the shoulder of an extremely strong full-grown man with the mind of a child, the pair went on to commit a spate of grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed young woman was being terrorized in her home by the deranged criminal Manuel Cass. The same man, now a recently escaped mental patient, barged into the Girard's home and abducted Linda Girard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deranged criminal Manuel broke into an unnamed young woman's home and proceeded to slobber her with kisses to her great terror. He later abducted Linda Girard and made efforts to force himself upon her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local sheriff and his men were out looking for whoever or whatever had committed a spate of grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judge sentenced Manuel to be held in a mental institution until his sanity was restored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Girard was experimenting with transplanting the heads of animals (and ultimately humans) in his basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The caretaker Andrew Norton and his adult son with the mental capacity of an eight-year-old, Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny was in a catatonic state, cradling the freshly murdered body of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Girard briefly mulled over whether or not he should graft the head of a clinically dead escaped mental patient onto the body of a mentally handicapped man, before agreeing to go ahead with the procedure at Dr. Ken Anderson's urging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Girard made mention of how he was motivated to perform a successful human head transplant in order to gain the respect of his fellow surgeons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)", "title": "Escape from the Planet of the Apes", "date": "1971-05-21", "description": "Three talking chimpanzees land on Earth in a U.S. spacecraft.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were multiple references to the nuclear bomb that blew the Earth to bits in the 3900s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three talking chimpanzees travel back in time to modern day Earth. Dr. Otto Hasslein explained a curious theory of time based on the idea of infinite regression. Dr. Otto Hasslein urged the President to kill the apes in order to alter the future in the interest of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent that apes were destined to become intelligent and supplant Humans as the dominant species on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sentient apes traveled back in time to contemporary Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cornelius explained that chimpanzees are pacifists when questioned at a hearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira explained that Humans were used in scientific experiments in her world, and Lewis Dixon said that Humans do the same to animals in return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira advocated for women's rights at a meeting of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira and Cornelius became celebrities and had to deal with all the attention being showered on them by the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zira experienced various discomforts during her pregnancy, including a fainting incident and a craving for grape juice plus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cornelius explained that he had access to documents with information about the rise of apes on Earth that were not released to the public because it would be dangerous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother's right to determine pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judgment was rendered that Zira was to have a forced termination of her pregnancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the President have Zira, Cornelius, and Zira's unborn child killed to prevent apes from rising up and dominating the Earth?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otto Hasslein remarked that we can't wait forever to deal with the looming overpopulation problem on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otto Hasslein remarked that we can't wait forever to stop polluting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otto Hasslein considered the possibility that humankind was destined to be supplanted by a civilization of apes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Million Dollar Duck (1971)", "title": "Million Dollar Duck", "date": "1971-06-30", "description": "A struggling professor brings home a golden egg laying duck from his research laboratory.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Duck" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert and Jimmy Dooley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stereotyped per Women's Lib movement married couple Albert and Katie Dooley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert and Katie Dooley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert and Katie were struggling to pay the billed until Albert brought home a golden egg laying duck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy and the Million Dollar Duck Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Albert learning that there are more important things in life, like family, than money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katie and Jimmy Dooley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert was a struggling scientist who was not respected by his colleagues and he felt bad about not being able to provide for his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert warned his family about eating eggs laid by the Million Dollar Duck because it had previously been irradiated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera vs Zigra (1971)", "title": "Gamera vs. Zigra", "date": "1971-07-17", "description": "It is up to Gamera to protect the people of Earth from an alien monster from planet Zigra. It is the seventh entry in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Zigra" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Children Kenichi and Helen helped Gamera save the world from the Zigrans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zigrans hatched a plot to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zigrans had a secret plan to conquer the Earth and make it their colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "At first the Zigrans planned to conquer the Earth and keep the people alive, but they decided to exterminate everyone after Gamera destroyed their spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zigrans, who preferred to live underwater, said the people of Earth were polluting the oceans, rendering them inhabitable, so they were going to conquer Earth, save the oceans and live in them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth with the help of Gamera versus the shark-like monster Zigra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant, shark-like creature Zigra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien spaceship attacked a Japanese moon base without warning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenichi, Helen, Yosuke, and Tom were briefly abducted by the Zigrans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Tom Wallace and Helen Wallace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yosuke Ishikawa and Kenichi Ishikawa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zigrans came to Earth in a very colorful flying saucer. It could also get about in the ocean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Hedorah", "date": "1971-07-24", "description": "The film features an environmentalist message, with the malevolent Hedorah being spawned from pollution. It is the 11th film in the Godzilla franchise, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla and Hedorah.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Hedorah" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The microscopic alien life-form Hedorah feeds on Earth's pollution and grows into a poisonous, acid-secreting sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The microscopic alien life-form Hedorah feeds on Earth's pollution and grows into a poisonous, acid-secreting sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The microscopic alien life-form Hedorah feeds on Earth's pollution and grows into a poisonous, acid-secreting sea monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder the effects of pollution on our environment in no uncertain terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla came to humankind's aid against Hedorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Toru Yano and his young son Ken Yano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toru Yano and Toshie Yano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a malevolent, giant tadpole named Hedorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toshie Yano and Ken Yano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken mentioned something about toxic waste being dumped into the sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Omega Man (1971)", "title": "The Omega Man", "date": "1971-08-01", "description": "Robert Neville believes himself to be the sole immune survivor of an anthropogenic plague whose survivors resemble albino mutants.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War III", "level": "major", "motivation": "A border conflict between China and the Soviet Union had erupted into a worldwide biological war leaving most of the world's population dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post worldwide biological war world in which most of world's population had died of plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A border conflict between China and the Soviet Union had erupted into a worldwide biological war leaving most of the world's population dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Medical doctor Robert Neville believed himself to be the only immune survivor of a human made plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A human-made biological agent took the lives of most people in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cult of plague victims who were turned into nocturnal albino mutants sought to destroy all technology and kill Robert, who had become a symbol of the science they blamed for humanity's downfall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cult of plague victims who were turned into nocturnal albino mutants sought to destroy all technology and kill Neville, who had become a symbol of the science they blamed for humanity's downfall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a neo-luddist cult of nocturnal, albino mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and a small band of survivors worked to find a cure for the plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert was involved in creating a plague that killed nearly everyone on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prior to crossing paths with Lisa, Robert Neville used a bust of Caesar to keep him company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. affliction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa's brother Ritchie was battling being infected with plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ritchie and Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interracial couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and Lisa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Quest for Love (1971)", "title": "Quest for Love", "date": "1971-09-09", "description": "Physicist Colin Trafford stages a demonstration with a particle accelerator to a number of people, including Sir Henry Larnstein and Trafford's long-time friend Tom Lewis. The demonstration goes wrong and Trafford, with his same memories, finds himself in a parallel universe with significant differences from our own: John F. Kennedy is Secretary General of a still-existent League of Nations and Leslie Howard did not die in World War II because it never happened.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Love_(1971_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A particle accelerator accident sent physicist Colin Trafford to an parallel universe where he found his counterpart, whom he replaced, was a renowned playwright, alcoholic, and serial philanderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A particle accelerator malfunction sent Colin to an parallel universe where World War II never happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin was married to Ottilie in the alternate reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alternate reality Colin was a serial philanderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin fell in love with the alternate reality Colin's wife Ottilie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin was sent to an alternate reality where World War II never happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alternate reality Colin was an alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin found himself in the middle of a love triangle involving his wife Ottilie and a young woman, named Jennifer, in the alternate reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin became overwhelmed by his new reality and flipped out at the dinner party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ottilie resolved to divorce Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin was adamant that he was not the same man as the alternate reality Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Lewis was alternate reality Colin's only friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ottilie had a bad heart and was living on borrowed time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom revealed to Colin that Ottilie had a bad heart and was living on borrowed time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ottilie died in her husband Colin's arms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x01", "title": "Murder by the Book", "date": "1971-09-15", "description": "Ken Franklin is one-half of a mystery writing team, but partner Jim Ferris wants to go solo, exposing the fact that Ferris did all the actual writing, and thus leave the high-living Franklin without his cash cow. However, the pair have an insurance policy on which Franklin can collect if Ferris dies during the partnership. Franklin makes it look like Ferris was investigating gangsters. He tricks Ferris into taking a trip to Franklin's remote cabin two hours away. They stop at a general store, where, as Franklin makes a phone call to Ferris's wife to establish an alibi, the owner Lilly La Sanka—obviously smitten with Franklin—peers outside to see whom Franklin brought with him and sees Ferris in the passenger seat of the car. At the cabin, Franklin convinces Ferris to call his wife and tell her he's working late at the office. During the phone call, Franklin shoots Ferris. He drives two hours back to his house with his dead partner in the trunk, dumping the corpse on his own lawn. La Sanka tracks Franklin to Los Angeles when he is out on a date and loudly approaches him, making it clear that she knows Franklin killed Ferris, forcing him to cancel his date. He brings her the $15,000 she wants for her silence, feigning interest in her. The two have an intimate dinner in the back of her store, then he bludgeons her and puts her body in a boat, which he capsizes to make her death appear accidental.\n\nFinal clue/twist: After hearing that Ferris habitually wrote down ideas for his mystery novels on whatever paper was handy, Columbo searches his office and house and finds a note with the fake phone call/alibi scheme. He confronts Franklin with it, and Franklin confesses. Upon his arrest, Franklin makes a startling comment: the alibi idea was in fact his, the only good one he ever had. Note: In 1997 TV Guide ranked this episode number 16 on its '100 Greatest Episodes of All Time' list.\n\nThe Mrs. Melville novel that is frequently seen in the episode is named \"Prescription: Murder\", the same name as Columbo's first pilot episode.\n\nDirected by: Steven Spielberg. Story by: Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The famous mystery writer Ken Franklin thought he had the perfect plan to off his troublesome writing partner, Jim Ferris. Trick Jim into coming to place A from where Jim is to call his wife and claim to be at place B, just as Ken shoots him. Alas, Ken did not reckon with Lt. Columbo's unyielding interlocutions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ken Franklin and Jim Ferris formed a mystery writing duo. The plot turns on Columbo proving that Ken murdered Jim to keep him from going solo and exposing Ken as the less talented of the two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ken Franklin murdered his writing partner to collect on an insurance policy that he needed to fund his conspicuously luxurious lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: The murder of the mystery writer Jim Ferris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken and Jim had been fast friends in the past and through a writing career of many books, but the friendship had clearly fallen apart. In the office they talked about \"burying the hatchet\". Under the ruse of doing so, Ken instead murdered Jim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim's wife spoke about her late husband at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken complained about the burdens of being famous as he walked in with a signed copy of one of his books to Lilly La Sanka. Lilly later blackmailed him into two romantic dates in addition to $15,000 hard cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken was blackmailed by Lilly La Sanka and murdered her in a way that Columbo thought was most unclever compared to the first murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story, Ken Franklin, was an untalented writer of murder mysteries. So was his victim, his writing partner, Jim Ferris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mystery writing duo Ken Franklin and Ken Ferris. Ken murdered Jim to keep him from going solo and exposing Ken as the less talented of the two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken Franklin arguably killed Jim because Jim going solo would have exposed Ken as the hack writer that he really was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken prided himself on being a great writer of murder mysteries, but in reality he was a talentless hack, and murdered his writing partner to keep the public from knowing this truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken Franklin patronizing explained to Columbo how he should go about solving the murder mystery. He later spoke arrogantly about his luxurious lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks. Columbo was exceptionally modest in conceding to take advise on his own work from the pompous mystery writer Ken Franklin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken Franklin was a pompous ass who thought he had the perfect plan to get away with murder. Lt. Columbo caught him out by means of a clever trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna reacted to news of her husband Jim's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo didn't buy Ken's theory that Jim was killed in a mob hit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x01a", "title": "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes", "date": "1971-09-15", "description": "A phenomenally successful young seer (Clint Howard) refuses to continue making predictions. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Margaret St. Clair.\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Rod Serling.\n\n\"The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes\" is a short story by American writer Margaret St. Clair. It was first published in 1950, and has been anthologized in both print and television. It is an example of horror fiction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ten year old boy Herbie Bittman could see future events and wrestled with the consequences when he saw the end of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbie struggled with whether to reveal that Earth was going to end or keep mum about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbie foresaw that the Sun would explode tomorrow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Contrast with how the manager did it and how the grandfather did it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbie's grandfather Mr. Godwin took him to the TV studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Peterson visited Herbie to assess whether or not ESP explained his ability to predict future events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government censorship in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A government official at the studio had the power to cut Herbie's TV broadcast if the boy said anything that endangered national security.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x01b", "title": "Miss Lovecraft Sent Me", "date": "1971-09-15", "description": "A vampire (Joseph Campanella), not dissimilar to Dracula, hires a babysitter (Sue Lyon).\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The babysitter Betsy was so frightened by the noises she ran away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "The house owners had all the trappings of vampires, including no reflection.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x01c", "title": "The Hand of Borgus Weems", "date": "1971-09-15", "description": "A man (George Maharis) discovers that one of his hands has a murderous mind of its own. Note: Based on the short story \"The Other Hand\" by George Langelaan.\n\nDirected by: John M. Lucas. Story by: Alvin Sapinsley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "evil hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Lacland has a cursed hand that made him kill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borgus Weems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borgus Weems sought vengeance from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor refused to sever a perfectly normal-looking hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Lacland plotted to murder his fiancée while under the influence of his evil hand.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x01d", "title": "Phantom of What Opera?", "date": "1971-09-15", "description": "The Phantom of the Opera (Leslie Nielsen) is surprised by the woman he has taken prisoner.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both characters were in fact horrible ghouls in appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Phantom was besotted with his apparently beautiful captive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is someone for everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "There is someone even for a horribly disfigured monster: another horribly disfigured monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x02a", "title": "Death in the Family", "date": "1971-09-22", "description": "A wounded killer takes refuge in a funeral home where the undertaker has an unusual compassion for his charges. Note: Based on a short story by Miriam Allen deFord\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Undertaker Jared Soames showed an extreme about of compassion for the dead. He went so far as to fashion the dead bodies under his care into his de facto family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jared Soames appeared to have given up on being a part of his community and fashioned for himself a family out of dead bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christian funeral practices were at the center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Jared and the felon were alone in the world, we heard. The story started with a lonely old man who had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped felon was desperate to hide out from the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jared Soames noted that dead people are not greedy and do not display other human vices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jared Soames mourned the old man who died alone without anyone to grieve for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The escaped convict had been sentenced to a lengthy prison term.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man who had died in poverty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old guy who had died lived languished alone for years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x02b", "title": "The Merciful", "date": "1971-09-22", "description": "A woman's (Imogene Coca) effort to end her husband's (King Donovan) misery is not what it seems at first. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Charles L. Sweeney, Jr.; twist on \"The Cask of Amontillado\"\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A wife bricked herself up in basement a alcove, with the implication that she would died in there, to put her husband out of his misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are perhaps led to think that the wife was mercy killing her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Husband seemed to consent so it was akin to suicide, and at the end it appears woman had killed herself although possibly it was just a mistake because they were old and distracted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The husband apparently had some troublesome untreatable condition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x02c", "title": "Class of '99", "date": "1971-09-22", "description": "In the year 1999, a graduating class takes a rather revealing final exam.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The professor probed the antagonisms between a white supremacist and a black man during an oral exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The professor probed the antagonisms between a white supremacist and a black man during an oral exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The professor probed the antagonisms between a lower class woman and an upper class woman during an oral exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A white man questioned openly whether an Asian man was his enemy, even though his professor insisted that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "A professor was indoctrinating his class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The man who refused to shoot an Asian man dead turned out to be an android. In the end, it turned out that everyone were androids, created in the image of man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The entire story took place during a futuristic, yet familiar, university lecture by a Professor to his students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "An upper class woman and a lower class woman had at it for on another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Male students were at each other during the exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human nature was explored from an android point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that androids had replaced humans on the Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x02d", "title": "Witches' Feast", "date": "1971-09-22", "description": "A group of witches goes through a menu. Note: This segment was replaced by \"Satisfaction Guaranteed\" on the episode's repeat broadcast on March 22, 1972.\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hungry witches were brewing a strange concoction in a cauldron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hungry witches were brewing a strange concoction in a cauldron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x03a", "title": "Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay", "date": "1971-09-29", "description": "A college professor (James Farentino) suspects his wife's (Michele Lee) aunt (Jeanette Nolan) of being a witch. Note: Based on a short story \"The Witch\" by A. E. van Vogt\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig Lowell was deeply disturbed by his house guest Aunt Ada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig Lowell and Joanna Lowell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Ada and Joanna Lowell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "College professor Craig Lowell suspected Aunt Ada of being a wicked witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rationally minded professor Craig Lowell gradually came to believe Aunt Ada was practicing black magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Ada was a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Ada was a wicked old witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Ada tried to transfer her soul into the body of a younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Ada plotted to transfer her consciousness into Joanna's body, and presumably Joanna's consciousness would transfer into Ada's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig Lowell pondered whether or not he was going mad when confronted with evidence of Aunt Ada being a witch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x03b", "title": "With Apologies to Mr. Hyde", "date": "1971-09-29", "description": "Dr. Jekyll (Adam West) tests a new potion.\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Malcolm Marmorstein, Gerald Sanford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a parody of Dr. Jekyll imbibing a potion and transforming into the evil Mr. Hyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jekyll.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x03c", "title": "The Flip-Side of Satan", "date": "1971-09-29", "description": "A disc jockey confronts his past in an old abandoned radio station. Note: Based on a short story by Hal Dresner\n\nDirected by: John Astin. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wilson's career is going downwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A satanic voice could be heard when records were played.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wilson was exceedingly self-confident and arrogant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.J. Wilson revealed that he had slept with his friend's wife, Emily.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Child (1971)", "title": "The Last Child", "date": "1971-10-05", "description": "Karen Miller is determined to bring her second baby to term in a future where the government had implemented a strict one child per family policy to control population growth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067326/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where the United States had implemented a one child per family policy to prevent overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan Miler and Karen Miller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen was six months pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were allowed only one child per family, denied access to life saving medication, and expected to carry personal information cards at all times; draconian punishment were meted out on breakers of the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Department of Population Control officials tried to perform a forced abortion on Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen and Alan were on the run from the Department of Population Control officials in an effort to keep their baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen was determined to keep her baby at all costs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with a maximum age limit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government implemented a policy to stop supplying senior citizens with life saving medicines in an effort to prevent overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard Drumm and Karen Miller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen and Alan's first baby died just 15 days after being born.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x02", "title": "Death Lends a Hand", "date": "1971-10-06", "description": "Carl Brimmer, the very tough, hard-nosed head of a private detective agency, with unfortunate and fateful anger issues, is hired by Arthur Kennicut, a powerful publishing magnate who suspects his wife, Lenore, of infidelity. Although Brimmer indeed finds evidence of her being unfaithful, instead of reporting this fact to his client, he attempts to blackmail Lenore into obtaining business and political secrets from her husband. She refuses and tells him she will expose his plot to her husband, at which point Brimmer accidentally kills her in a fit of rage. He dumps her body at a scrapyard and later joins the investigation into Lenore's death with Columbo. Brimmer secretly starts to divert suspicion away from himself and even offers Columbo a job.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo becomes suspicious when he realizes a cut on the victim's face matches Brimmer's ring. He disables Brimmer's car, causing the vehicle to be garaged for repair. He has Lenore's body exhumed, then claims that one of her contact lenses was not with the body and is missing. He tells Brimmer the lens must be either at the crime scene or in the car the murderer used to transport the body. After searching for it in his home, Brimmer goes to the garage after-hours and searches for it in the trunk of his car. He finds a contact lens, but is caught by Columbo, with Kennicut in tow. When Brimmer tries to throw the lens away the police stop him, and he confesses. After Brimmer is led away Columbo admits to Kennicut he had arranged everything, and that there never was a missing contact lens. Notes: This episode won an Emmy for writing and is known for the \"glasses effect\" after Brimmer kills Lenore, in which both lenses of Brimmer's glasses simultaneously show different images on-screen of him cleaning the scene of the crime.\n\nBrimmer is the first of a small number of Columbo killers who appear sympathetic after Columbo catches them as Brimmer apologetically tells Kennicut that the killing was an accident and that he didn't want to hurt either one of them.\n\nDirected by: Bernard Kowalski. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The hard-nosed head of a private detective agency Carl Brimmer killed the wife of a publishing magnate in a fit of rage and made it look as if she'd been killed in a scuffle with muggers. He would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Columbo proving the hard-nosed head of a private detective agency Carl Brimmer murdered the wife of a publishing magnate and dumped her body in a scrapyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: The battering to death of the glamorous wife of a publishing magnate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story, Carl Brimmer, was the head of a high-profile private detective agency. The viewer is provided an inside look into the operations of the agency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenore having been unfaithful to her husband was a key plot element.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl tried to blackmail Lenore into supplying him with business and political secrets in exchange for keeping quiet about her romantic infidelity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain Carl Brimmer's bad temper proved to be his undoing. He killed the wife of a publishing magnate in a fit of rage. Later, Columbo used the fact that Carl had anger issues to gain an advantage over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was a notable, and fatal, virtue of the victim's that made her resist Carl's blackmailing of her. Her high mindedness and her faithfulness to her husband (her infidelity notwithstanding) were pointed out in conversation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Kennicut was a powerful publishing magnate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur and Lenore Kennicut. The viewer learns that Arthur loved Lenore very dearly, and was taken aback to by the revelation that she'd been unfaithful to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur mourned the death of his beloved wife, Lenore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl attempted to cast Lenore's death as a mugging gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After some faux consideration, Columbo declined a lucrative offer to join a high-profile detective agency, citing something to the effect that he wished to follow through on the Lenore Kennicut murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "If Lt. Columbo wasn't briefly tempted to take Carl Brimmer's offer and quite the force for a private job and three times the salary, the viewer must certainly have hypothesized that he might have been. Carl arguably thought Columbo was on the hook.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x04a", "title": "A Fear of Spiders", "date": "1971-10-06", "description": "A heartless gourmet (Patrick O'Neal) is punished by his arachnophobia. Note: Based on a short story \"The Spider\" by Elizabeth Walter\n\nDirected by: Theodore J. Flicker. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elizabeth hoped that one day Justus would need someone and be rejected the way she had needed him and been rejected - then she resolved to teach him a lesson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Food critic Justus Walters became visibly unnerved by the presence of spiders of ever increasing size in his apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth repaid Justus' display of cruelty toward her by abandoning him in a room together with what he believed to be a giant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justus was mean to the lady upstairs, named Elizabeth, when she came downstairs to pay him a visit. She returned the favor by locking him in his own bedroom together with a giant spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justus was a proud and arrogant man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justus coldly rejected Elizabeth at his door, but then he went begging to her in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth was an enamored groupie of Justus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justus was abandoned by Elizabeth in his moment of need after he had shown her cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Food critic Justus Walters who had cruelly abandoned his neighbor in her time of need was later abandoned by that same neighbor in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justus saw spiders of ever increasing size and it was left open whether they were just a figment of his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth and the janitor with Justus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth at Justus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x04b", "title": "Junior", "date": "1971-10-06", "description": "A mother and father (Wally Cox) learn the hardships of parenting.\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Jerrold Freedman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "A father had a son who looked like Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Junior's mother and father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x04c", "title": "Marmalade Wine", "date": "1971-10-06", "description": "A careless braggart (Robert Morse) has a fateful meeting with a reclusive surgeon (Rudy Vallée). Note: Based on a short story by Joan Aiken\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Francis Deeking exploited Roger Blacker's ability to see into the future for financial gain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deeking was greedy enough to cut off Blacker's feet and keep him captive all in an effort to make a fortune from Blacker's stock marker prognostications.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blacker faced being kept in captivity the rest of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deeking was greedy enough to cut off Roger's feet and keep him captive to exploit his ability to see into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger woke up with a hangover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with ill-fitting clothes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blacker complained about his boots being tight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x04d", "title": "The Academy", "date": "1971-10-06", "description": "A widower (Pat Boone) investigates the unusual strictness of a military school his son wants to attend. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by David Ely\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Holston scoped out a military school that his son wished to attend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Holston visited an unusually strict military school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sending a child to military school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Holston considered sending his son to an unusually strict military school. The students were kept at the military school indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Discussed was the rigor and discipline in the military school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holston was a single father and clearly a bad one.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x05a", "title": "The Phantom Farmhouse", "date": "1971-10-20", "description": "A psychiatrist (David McCallum) falls for a mysterious woman (Linda Marsh) when one of his patients (David Carradine) tempts him into visiting her. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Seabury Quinn", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place at a sanitarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Psychiatrist Joel Winter became infatuated with Mildred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mildred turned out to be a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mildred was been torn between her love Joel and her family of werewolves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Squire and Mildred Squire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Squire and Mildred Squire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Squire and Mrs. Squire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x05b", "title": "Silent Snow, Secret Snow", "date": "1971-10-20", "description": "\"Silent Snow, Secret Snow\" (1934) is Conrad Aiken's best-known short story, often included in anthologies of classic American horror and fantasy short fiction. It appeared in The Collected Stories of Conrad Aiken in 1934, and since then has been widely anthologized.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul's parents and teacher were concerned over the boy distancing himself from everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul became obsessed with snow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was thought to have been slowly going mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's father wanted to take him on a geology field trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's parents discussed what to do about him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x03", "title": "Dead Weight", "date": "1971-10-27", "description": "Major General Martin Hollister, a retired Marine Corps war hero, learns he is being investigated for embezzling military funds, then shoots his skittish accomplice, Col. Dutton. The act is partially witnessed by Helen Stewart, who was in a passing boat. She is wooed by Hollister into doubting her own story.\n\nFinal clue/twist: After an encounter with his nostalgia-crazy cook, Columbo realizes that Hollister would never have let go of his signature revolver, the assumed murder weapon. Columbo retrieves the weapon, which Hollister claimed was a replica made for his museum display, and the police forensic unit identifies it as the weapon that killed Dutton. Hollister, with his extraordinary self-confidence, had assumed that everyone would accept what he said about the exhibit's weapon being merely a replica.\n\nDirected by: Jack Smight. Story by: John T. Dugan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Columbo proving that the retired war hero Major General Martin Hollister shot a man dead and dumped the body at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human safety need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The retired war hero Major General Martin Hollister shot a man dead because the man might intentionally (or otherwise) expose him for embezzling military funds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did Major General Hollister shoot a man dead in the Major General's own living room in the middle of the day?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind. A police officer mistook Columbo for a mere civilian because he was driving a beaten up old Peugeot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "After shooting his accomplice dead, the retired war hero Major General Martin Hollister his the corpse in a secret compartment behind his closet, and later dumped it far out at sea. He would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for a young female witness and the ever-pesky Lieutenant Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Major General Martin Hollister was a retired war hero who was being honored with a museum display about his distinguished life in the service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Hollister murdered his accomplice to cover up their history of embezzling military funds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy General Hollister successfully wooed a young divorcee, her having recently witnessed him shoot a man in cold blood notwithstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aged but wealthy General Hollister successfully wooed a young divorcee, her having recently witnessed him shoot a man in cold blood notwithstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Columbo pointed out that General Hollister had hidden his signature revolver in plain sight in the museum cabinet display case, whereas any criminal worth his salt would have disposed of the incriminating murder weapon long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Hollister was described as an exceptionally charismatic man and the way he switched on the charm to seduce Helen because it suited him more than suggests that he had had plenty of practice over the years. He was a stereotypical seducer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Hollister was something of a war hero. A museum exhibit was being made in his honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen Stewart looked up from her sailing and happened to witness General Hollister shoot dead his partner in crime in his mansion in broad daylight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "People wouldn't believe Helen when she told them that she'd seen a man, later identified as the distinguished General Hollister, shoot another man dead in broad daylight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen had a somewhat troubled relationship with her disapproving mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen wore the yolk of divorce over her neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen showed a clay sculpture, allegedly of a llama, she'd made to Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo feigned to be fishing from the general's wharf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Despite alleging a relation to the great seafarer Christopher of the same family name, Lt. Columbo suffered terribly at sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Hollister's ostentatious wealth was perhaps one of the reasons why Helen fell for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Hollister had fought with distinction in this war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x06a", "title": "A Question of Fear", "date": "1971-10-27", "description": "An adventurer (Leslie Nielsen) accepts a bet that he can stay overnight in a haunted house for $15,000. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Bryan Lewis\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Theodore J. Flicker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Dennis Malloy was unfazed by the various terrors he was subjected to during his overnight stay in a haunted house. Dr. Mazi explained how his was hair turned white by fear stemming from the night he spent inside his haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dennis Malloy spent a night in a haunted house on a bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dennis Malloy was an especially brave and courageous man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mazi hatched an elaborate plot to murder Dennis Malloy to avenge Malloy's torture and killing of Mazi's father during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dennis Malloy encountered what appeared to be ghostly apparitions inside the haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dennis Malloy accused Dr. Mazi of being a coward for having gotten scared in the haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malloy excused his past torturing of prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wartime torture was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malloy was told that he would transform into a worm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x06b", "title": "The Devil Is Not Mocked", "date": "1971-10-27", "description": "A Nazi general (Helmut Dantine) receives a strangely warm welcome at a Balkan castle. Notes: Based on a short story of the same title by Manly Wade Wellman. Francis Lederer reprises his role as Dracula from The Return of Dracula.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Nazis make the mistake of trying to take possession of Dracula's castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set somewhere in the Balkans during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dracula lead a resistance movement against the Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "A uniformed Nazi general boasted about how Germans are superior to Slavs, and coerced Dracula into saluting Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Dracula told his grandson a story from his days as a Nazi resistance movement commander in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of Nazis were attacked by werewolves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler (1971)", "title": "The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler", "date": "1971-11", "description": "U.S. Senator Zachary Wheeler is transplanted with organs taken from the bodies of clones artificially grown from his own DNA.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resurrection_of_Zachary_Wheeler" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctors grew two clones of Zachary Wheeler from a sample of his DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zachary Wheeler was transplanted with a variety of organs that were harvested from clones grown from his DNA. The transplanted organs included a heart, stomach, and lungs. Meanwhile, General Muñoz was transplanted with a fresh new colon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clones were grown from DNA for the purpose of organ harvesting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Redding's goal was to use organ transplant as a way to make people live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government covered up the fact that presidential hopeful Zachary Wheeler had been critically wounded in an automobile accident. More generally, the government had for years concealed Dr. Redding experimental organ transplantation program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "major", "motivation": "people bread for organ donation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heart transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zachary Wheeler was transplanted with a new heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctors were deciding who to give organ transplants based on what they could offer to society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x07a", "title": "Midnight Never Ends", "date": "1971-11-03", "description": "A woman (Susan Strasberg) experiences déjà vu when she picks up a marine hitchhiker (Robert F. Lyons). Note The conclusion of this episode is foreshadowed by the painting, which shows a confused Rod Serling.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Ruth and Vincent's shared déjà vu experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped in a work of fiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Vincent were characters in a writer's story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "The characters and their world was simply the imagining of a writer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x07b", "title": "Brenda", "date": "1971-11-03", "description": "A lonely girl (Laurie Prange) falls in love with a slimy creature she traps in a quarry. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Margaret St. Clair\n\nDirected by: Allen Reisner. Story by: Matthew Howard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda was a problem child who nobody wanted to be friends with. She forced a slime creature she had trapped to be her playmate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda had typical teenage girl problems such as dad problems and friend problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slime creature versus the monster child Brenda. The island inhabitants versus the slime creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda was a very naughty girl: she ruined a sand castle, taunted an innocent slime monster, then opened the door to it to provoke a confrontation between it and her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slime monster may have been Brenda's imaginary friend that became real for a while.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda had a first crush sort of thing for the slime monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a slimy swamp monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda clearly didn't fit in with the other children and so turned to her own imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Alden tried to teacher his daughter Brenda some basic social skills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flora Alden and Brenda Alden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda held a slime monster captive in a pit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda's father had trouble with his daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x08a", "title": "The Diary", "date": "1971-11-10", "description": "A diary's entries predict the future.\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly Schaeffer was given a diary that predicted future events a day in advance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly became evermore erratic as weird things happened like predicted by her diary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly was deeply in love with her boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly spoke to psychiatrist about whether she was going bonkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly's psychiatrist speculated that she had the power of precognition, and had been writing what she saw in her diary day by day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carrie Crane was an aging Hollywood actress who was well past her prime. She committed suicide on New Year's Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly and Carrie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carrie jumped off the balcony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly had a rags-to-riches story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly showed a smidgen of remorse about Carrie's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Holly in a sanatorium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly was convinced it was her fate to kill herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x08b", "title": "A Matter of Semantics", "date": "1971-11-10", "description": "Count Dracula (Cesar Romero) comes to a blood bank. Note: Actress E.J. Peaker has said that she remembers the director of A \"Matter of Semantics\" to be Steven Spielberg. However, Jack Laird is the officially credited director.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Count Dracula visited a blood bank to take out a loan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blood bank was featured and comments made about its importance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x08c", "title": "Big Surprise", "date": "1971-11-10", "description": "A strange old man (John Carradine) persuades a group of boys to dig for a big surprise. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Richard Matheson\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children were afraid of the strange old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some kids went digging for a buried treasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "One kid kept digging even when his friends gave up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x08d", "title": "Professor Peabody's Last Lecture", "date": "1971-11-10", "description": "A professor (Carl Reiner) gives a lecture on ancient cults that turn out to be real.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "magic word", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Peabody unwittingly performed a demonic incantation in his lecture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cthulhu among other demons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true name", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Peabody summoned various demons by speaking their names.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Peabody showed his disdain for \"superstition\" by contemptuously speaking the proscribed name of \"Hastur\". To his misfortune, this ended up actually raising the ire of the gods (presumably of the god Hastur in particular).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x04", "title": "Suitable for Framing", "date": "1971-11-17", "description": "Art critic Dale Kingston murders his uncle and tries to frame his aunt to inherit his uncle's very valuable art collection. He later murders his lover and accomplice in the crime, the gullible art student, Tracy.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Kingston hides the paintings that he stole after the murder in his aunt's house to frame her, then arranges for the police to find them. Columbo, arriving late on the scene, accuses Kingston of the murder and says he can prove it with fingerprints. Kingston replies that his fingerprints being all over the paintings prove nothing. Columbo retorts that it is his own fingerprints that prove the case, from when he touched the paintings early in the investigation, when he visited Kingston in his home. Shaken, Kingston insists that Columbo must have touched the paintings moments ago, to frame him. Columbo takes his hands out of his pockets to show that he has been wearing gloves the whole time.\n\nDirected by: Hy Averback. Story by: Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The art critic Dale Kingston shot his uncle dead and tried to frame his aunt for the crime all in a bid to inherit his uncle's valuable art collection. He would have gotten away with it too had it not been for the ever-pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The art critic Dale Kingston shot his uncle dead and tried to frame his aunt for the crime all in a bid to inherit his uncle's valuable art collection. He would have gotten away with it too had it not been for the ever-pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The art critic Dale shot his uncle dead to inherit the old man's valuable art collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Who had murdered a famous art collector and absconded with his two prized Degas paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dale Kingston was an art critic of some renown. The viewer is shown Dale engaging in his profession: he critiqued the paintings on display at an art showing, filmed an art criticism segment to be aired on television, and conversed about the art of painting with Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The art critic Dale tried to frame his aunt for the cold blooded murder of his uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The art critic Dale Kingston shot his uncle dead and tried to frame his aunt for the crime all in a bid to inherit his uncle's valuable art collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dale Kingston was a renowned art critic and spoke about paintings on several occasions. Lt. Columbo made a nuisance of himself, among other things, by showing up with paintings and asking Dale to comment on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dale staged the theft of two Degas paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The art critic Dale betrayed his young lover, Tracy. He led her to believe she was a talented painter. But in reality he was only using her to help him commit the perfect murder. He killed her in the end to make sure she wouldn't be around to blab about the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The art critic Dale shot his uncle dead to inherit the old man's valuable art collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A completely innocent Edna was taken aback when the police search of her home netted the stolen paintings. Her nephew, Dale, planted them there so the police would conclude she murdered Rudy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dale murdered his young lover, Tracy, in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philanthropist way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Rudy disinherited Dale of the art collection because Rudy preferred for the paintings to be put on public display after his death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x09a", "title": "House - with Ghost", "date": "1971-11-17", "description": "A philandering husband (Bob Crane) and his unsuspecting wife (Jo Anne Worley) move into a haunted house. Note: Based on a short story by August Derleth\n\nDirected by: William Hale. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis Travers plotted to knock off his wife Iris and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis and Iris Travers moved into a haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis was carrying on with Sherry behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Canby's ghost pushed Iris down the stairs to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis and Canby were lusting for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis with his mistress. Canby with former mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellis Travers plotted to knock off his wife Iris and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris had a Ouija board.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x09b", "title": "A Midnight Visit to the Neighborhood Blood Bank", "date": "1971-11-17", "description": "A thirsty vampire (Victor Buono) visits a young woman, with disappointing results for him.\n\nDirected by: Jerrold Freedman. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "A vampire was unsuccessful in his attempt to prey on a sleeping female victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vampire was disheartened to discover that his potential victim had already made a donation to the blood bank that day.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x09c", "title": "Dr. Stringfellow's Rejuvenator", "date": "1971-11-17", "description": "A medicine man (Forrest Tucker) in the Old West promises to heal a farmer's dying daughter.\n\nDirected by: Theodore J. Flicker. Story by: Theodore J. Flicker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "quackery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ernest Stringfellow was a snake oil peddling charlatan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow used the placebo effect to resurrect a farmer's daughter from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A farmer was desperate to cure his dying daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest had a black servant or possibly slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow offered comforting lie to a dying girl and her father and made a few bucks along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow offered comforting lie to a dying girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow tried to use his rejuvinator \"medicine\" to bring a farmer's daughter back from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest saw the ghost of the girl he had failed to keep alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest saw the ghost of the girl he had failed to keep alive and it scared him to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest appeared to have had some deeply buried shame about what he was doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest appeared to have had some deeply buried shame about what he was doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rolpho with his arrogant boss Dr. Stringfellow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the placebo effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Stringfellow explained to Rolpho that the extent to which his rejuvinator worked, if at all, had a basis in the placebo effect.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x09d", "title": "Hell's Bells", "date": "1971-11-17", "description": "A newly-deceased man (John Astin) is in for a shock when he goes to hell. Note: Based on a short story by Harry Turner\n\nDirected by: John Astin. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randy Miller died and went to Hell's waiting room. Randy Miller found himself in hell's waiting room after dying in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were shown how one person's Hell is another person's Heaven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The greatest torture the hippie Randy Miller could be subjected to was eternal boredom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randy Miller expected hell to be interesting, but his personal hell turned out to be very dull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randy probably drove while high on something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randy vs. the Housekeeper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x10a", "title": "The Dark Boy", "date": "1971-11-24", "description": "A teacher (Elizabeth Hartman) tries to reach a strange fourth-grader. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by August Derleth\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "New teacher Judith Timm discovered that her one room schoolhouse was haunted by the ghost of a young boy who had died at the school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghost of the young boy Joel haunted a one room school house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judith Timm fell in love with farmer Tom Robb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was scared of Joel's ghost, except for Judith, who reached out to him and taught him in the school at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not knowing what had become of his son was hard on Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom grieved over the death of his wife and son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Robb and his departed son Joel. Tom Robb Edward Robb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two sisters helped new teacher Judith Timm get settled at her one room schoolhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Robb worked with his young son Edward on his farm. Edward's mother had died some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judith started a new teaching job in a one-room school in rural Montana, and was passionate about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom grieved over the death of his wife and son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x10b", "title": "Keep in Touch – We'll Think of Something", "date": "1971-11-24", "description": "A man searches for the woman of his dreams.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik Sutton used the police to track down a beautiful woman who recurred in his dreams. They fell in love after meeting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik had recurring dreams of a woman who existed in real life whom he's never met before.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik saw his future lover in his dreams. Claire's husband had seen Erik killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire was unfaithful to her husband when she met Erik.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire's husband had seen Erik killing him in his own dreams. Claire being in love with Erik acted confidently in support of this destiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire plotted to have Erik murder her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik Sutton explained how was going through a separation with his wife. Claire Foster was unsatisfied in her marriage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earth II (1971)", "title": "Earth II", "date": "1971-11-28", "description": "Earth II was a 1971 pilot, aired November 28 (and released theatrically outside North America), for a television series about a colony established in orbit around the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space station Earth II was set up as a colony in Earth orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space station Earth II was set up as a colony in Earth orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The President of the United States announced that the three men and their ship will be the nucleus of a new nation, if enough Americans turn their lights on that night to show support for the project. The nation's population overwhelming supported the enterprise. In addition, Earth II had a direct democracy process known as Discussion and Decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "An international incident ensued when the Red Chinese counter the start of an independent space colony by launching a thermonuclear warhead into orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth II colony was undertaken with the goal of bring peace to the nations of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Chinese put a thermonuclear warhead in orbit as a counter measure against the launch of Earth II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space station Earth II was launched into orbit around Earth I.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy who had forgotten to out on his magnetic boots started floating around on Earth II. Later we saw a team of surgeons operating on a man, while another team of medical practitioners walked upside down on the ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy who had forgotten to out on his magnetic boots started floating around on Earth II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Nations mediated between Earth II and the Red Chinese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility of a nuclear war with Red China was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was much speculation as to whether or not the Red Chinese were bluffing about destroying Earth II with their thermonuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anton Kovalefskii and Ilyana Kovalefskii.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilyana and Anton were expecting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The responsibility fell on Ilyana to choose for her husband Anton between a surgical procedure that came with a 1/5 chance he would die and doing nothing leaving him disabled for life. she chose the surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The responsibility fell on Ilyana to choose for her husband Anton between a surgical procedure that came with a 1/5 chance he would die and doing nothing leaving him disabled for life. she chose the surgery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x11a", "title": "Pickman's Model", "date": "1971-12-01", "description": "A woman of Victorian Boston develops a relationship with an artist obsessed with ghouls. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by H. P. Lovecraft\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Alvin Sapinsley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around painters and painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pickford's unusual monster paintings were discussed at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mavis Goldsmith was besotted with the painter Pickman who tried to get away from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Pickman and Mavis were pondering what their inner selves were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a Morlock-like, rat-human hybrid monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mavis at Pickman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pickford explain to Mavis about the importance of painting what you see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a reasonably sincere idea of what bobbies might be doing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x11b", "title": "The Dear Departed", "date": "1971-12-01", "description": "A fake medium has an affair with his assistant's unfaithful wife. Note: Based on a short story of the same name by Alice-Mary Schnirring\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hucksters were fleecing gullible people with fake séance performances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hucksters were fleecing gullible people with fake seance performances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ghosts were faked but then Joe became a real ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe Casey and Angela Casey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angela was having an affair with Mark under her husband Joe's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Angela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angela was having an affair with Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela Casey said she felt suffocated in her marriage with Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Casey needed reassurance in order to keep on going with the fake seances.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x11c", "title": "An Act of Chivalry", "date": "1971-12-01", "description": "A living skeleton gets a lesson in elevator manners.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undead skeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "A living skeleton entered an elevator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "major", "motivation": "The skeleton was told to mind its manners on the elevator.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x12a", "title": "Cool Air", "date": "1971-12-08", "description": "A young woman (Barbara Rush) falls for her father's late colleague (Henry Darrow)—a man who can't stand warmth. Note: Based on a short story by H. P. Lovecraft\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Juan Munos used refrigeration to keep his dead body somehow alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Dr. Juan Munos and Agatha's father tired to use a combination of science and pure willpower to overcome the finality of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was formulated as an old Agatha reminiscing about her romance with an undead man back when she was a young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agatha with the undead man Dr. Munos. The undead man Dr. Munos with his dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agatha and the undead man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Juan Munos explained that he was essentially imprisoned in his refrigerated room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The undead man's wife had taken her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agatha was distressed over her father's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The undead man Dr. Munos grieved for his dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x12b", "title": "Camera Obscura", "date": "1971-12-08", "description": "A moneylender (Rene Auberjonois) gets his due thanks to a client's (Ross Martin) unusual telescope. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Basil Copper\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on an usurious moneylender getting his just comeuppances for bleeding his clients for all they were worth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moneylender William Sharsted was financially ruining Mr. Gringold and Old Man Thwait by charging usurious rates of interest on their loans. Sharsted's father was seen to be of the same mold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "predatory financial practices in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sharsted bleed his clients for all they were worth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Gringold trapped William Sharsted in a ghoul infested version of Sharted's past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Self-confident Mr. Sharsted moneylender was made to see the wickedness of his ways when he was transported into a ghoul infested past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Mr. Gingold's camera obscuras could be used to see the into past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "see-anywhere device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gingold had a special camera that could be used to see anywhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gingold possibly sent Mr. Sharsted back to a ghoul infested version of his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attempt was made to make the moneylender feel remorse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gringold was willing to repay his debts, but in a way he could afford.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x12c", "title": "Quoth the Raven", "date": "1971-12-08", "description": "Edgar Allan Poe (Marty Allen) finds inspiration for his poem The Raven.\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "A talking raven helped Edgar Allan Poe with his poem The Raven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A talking raven helped Edgar Allan Poe with his poem The Raven.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x05", "title": "Lady in Waiting", "date": "1971-12-15", "description": "Beth Chadwick murders her domineering older brother, Bryce, after he attempts to break up her relationship with one of his executives, Peter Hamilton, a man he thinks is only interested in Beth for ulterior motives. His mailing a letter threatening to terminate Peter's employment if he didn't break things off with Beth causes her to reach the tipping point and to act to gain control of her own life and, it turns out, the family business (as there are no other siblings). Complications in Beth's plan contribute to Columbo's suspicions. Beth had planned to claim the shooting was an accident. She removed his house key from his key chain thinking it would require him, late at night, to try to enter the house via her bedroom. However, Bryce had a spare key which he had hidden under a flowerpot thus entering the house without ado. She improvises as best she can but her story will ultimately be undermined as a result of this turn of events. Meanwhile, her true personality emerges, showing a very different side than that shown earlier, before the murder.\n\nFinal clue/twist: When Columbo re-reads the testimony of Peter Hamilton, who had driven to the house after receiving the letter from Bryce, he notices that Hamilton climbed over the gates and heard the gunshots before the alarm went off, not after. The detail is enough to undo her entire story. Columbo tells Beth that Hamilton won't like doing it, but he will testify to what he knows.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Barney Slater, Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The wealthy heiress Beth Chadwick hatched the following plan to dispose of her meddlesome brother to gain control of the family firm and retain her lover: She would steal his key to the house and then invite her brother to enter it by coming through her bedroom windows, promising to deactivate the alarm. Then she'd shoot him and pretend that she'd done so in a delirium after just waking up and mistaking him for a burglar. All went to plan but for a minor miscalculation or two, and the ever troublesome, oh-so intrepid, Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Contrary to initial expectations, in the end Beth proved herself to be the money grubbing one having committed murder in part to splurge on new luxuries and gain control of the family firm, while her lover Peter was actually not a gold digger at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: The seemingly accidental killing of Bryce Chadwick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beth shot her brother Bryce dead because he stood in the way of her aspirations and a dalliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bryce was convinced that Peter was a gold digger, and circumstances seemed rather to support this supposition. In the end, however, Peter proved himself to be in it only for love, and not at all for the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beth announced her engagement to Peter, neglecting to consult the husband-to-be beforehand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beth and Bryce's mother slapped Beth hard after she murdered her brother. She was also upset when Beth proceeded to wrest control of the family firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beth shot her brother, Bryce, dead to get out from under his thumb. It was also mentioned that Beth had been previously domineered by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bryce tried to blackmail Peter into leaving Beth. Shortly thereafter Bryce revealed this to Beth, Beth killed him. It is somewhat ambiguous whether this alone set Beth off on killing her brother: as Columbo noted, she had already ordered an expensive car long before the murder indicating that the plan was some time in the making. Perhaps it was just the final straw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villain of the story, Beth Chadwick, took over the family business and began modernizing it as she saw fit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth immediately promoted her lover and, unbeknownst to the man himself, fiancé upon taking control of the family firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bryce's mother grieved over her son and spoke about him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bryce's mother grieved over her son who was shot dead by her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chadwick staff appeared now and then.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x13a", "title": "The Messiah on Mott Street", "date": "1971-12-15", "description": "A near-penniless Jew (Edward G. Robinson), determined to stay alive for his grandson, hopes the Messiah will give him salvation.\n\nDirected by: Don Taylor. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abraham Goldman and his the grandson Mikey Goldman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abraham knew he was dying but spat the angel of death in the eye!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abraham had terminal pneumonia in both lungs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mikey understood that his grandfather was on his death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a lot of talk about the Messiah coming to save grandpa Goldman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "We must ponder that the grandfather staved off the angel off death and cured himself by sheer stubbornness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraham and Mikey held out hope that the Messiah would come and lift him and Mikey up to health, and wealth, and heavenly contentment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraham's physician recommended hospitalization but he spat the angel of death in the eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraham and his physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lunatic on the street who thought he was the Messiah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lunatic on the streets raving that the end of the world was nigh.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x13b", "title": "The Painted Mirror", "date": "1971-12-15", "description": "An antique dealer uses a mirror reflecting an alien landscape to get rid of his hateful business partner. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Donald Wandrei\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene Kearney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "magic portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a picture frame with a portal to a strange land inhabited by dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen Chase was selling her long held possessions to an antique dealer to get money. Frank had gotten himself into a bad business deal with Mrs. Moore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Moore have Frank Standish a hard time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Clockwork Orange (1971)", "title": "A Clockwork Orange", "date": "1971-12-19", "description": "A charismatic, antisocial delinquent named Alex leads a small gang of thugs, whom he calls his droogs. The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via an experimental psychological conditioning technique promoted by the Minister of the Interior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex DeLarge led a small gang of violently delinquent youths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Was Alex good because he was mentally conditioned to behave morally or is good something more fundamental?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex entered into a program that used behaviorist psychological techniques in an effort to reform from being a violent criminal to a good person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Minister of the Interior tried to make criminal violence a thing of the past by mentally conditioning violent criminals using a behaviorist psychological on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was mentally conditioned so that he was overwhelmed with feeling of distress whenever he had violent thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a ner-future Britain where street crime is out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was how prisoners were and ought to be treated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was the leader of a brutal foursome that engaged in ultra-violence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and his cronies obviously had no feelings or understanding for their fellow humans. In Alex’ case, not even for his loving parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex agreed to have his prison sentence commuted to a rather innovative and cruel treatment that would leave him unable to commit or endure violence again: He was secured to a chair with his eyes forcibly pinned open, then forced to watch countless hours of extreme violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his purple haired mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex made a display of force to show he was leader of his gang after his fellow gang members tried to depose him as leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex's fellow gang members knocked him out at the scene of a violent crime they all committed so that he would get caught by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex faked being a Christian in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex's mental reconditioning treatment was tantamount to torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crippled man avenged Alex's rape of his wive by playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony, a piece which Alex had accidentally been mentally conditioned to become ill whenever he heard it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw two home invasions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye for an eye justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the prison warden opined that he preferred the old system in which brutality done to the society was paid back in kind", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x14a", "title": "The Different Ones", "date": "1971-12-29", "description": "A grotesque-looking teenager lives at the turn of the century.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Victor was hideous on Earth, but on a far away planet he was an attractive hunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Victor was so hideous to behold that he had to wear a bag over his head and children teased him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Koch was so grotesquely disfigured that he woke a hood over his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Koch and Victor Koch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Victor finding a place where he fit in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul called a government agency on a video phone of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was pressured by a government to put his son out of his misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor took a rocket to another planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul bid farewell to his ugly son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x14b", "title": "Tell David...", "date": "1971-12-29", "description": "A woman (Sandra Dee) encounters a friendly yet odd couple. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Penelope Wallace\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ann Bolt was consumed with jealousy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Ann Bolt. David and Pat Blessington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann jumped 20 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann jumped 20 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann appeared to have been obsessively besotted with David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann came to question her own senses what with the mysterious time travel and all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Bolt and David Blessington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony was cheating on Ann with their housekeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yvonne was surprised to find a video phone in the Blessington's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony accused Ann of being a nag by pantomiming her behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann was destined to commit suicide after dispatching her unfaithful husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann committed suicide after dispatching her unfaithful husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x14c", "title": "Logoda's Heads", "date": "1971-12-29", "description": "A major (Patrick Macnee) deals with African black magic. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by August Derleth\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logoda was a witch doctor in possession of magical shrunken heads. Kyro's magic was even stronger than Logoda's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logoda threatened to put a curse on Kyro, if she told the truth about Henry's brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch doctor Logoda put a curse on Kyro, but he ended up falling victim to her even more powerful black magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry went to Africa looking for an adventure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were references to European colonialist practices.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frenzy (1972)", "title": "Frenzy", "date": "1972", "description": "Frenzy is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant. The original music score was composed by Ron Goodwin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a serial killer dubbed the \"Necktie Murderer\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard was wrongfully accused, caught and sentenced as being the necktie murderer. He proceeded to escape in order to avenge himself on the real killer. This was the sum-total of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard met amicably with Brenda, who had divorced him after 10 years of marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chief Inspector Timothy Oxford was a central character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Oxford and Mrs. Oxford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was fired on the spot by the bellicose pub manager who thought he was pilfering spirits and fondling the bar maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard told of his various failed business ventures, getting fired, and having but pennies left to live on. He went to a Salvation Army shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard told of his various failed business ventures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Bob discussed betting on horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Brenda discussed their divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babs showed constant support for Richard after he became hunted as a murderer. She stood by him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doomsday Machine (1972)", "title": "Doomsday Machine", "date": "1972", "description": "A spy discovers that the Chinese government has created a doomsday device capable of destroying the Earth and it will be activated in 72 hours.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Machine_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Chinese government used a doomsday device to set off a nuclear chain reaction that blew up the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A half male, half female crew made a journey to Venus to restart the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny and Maj. Georgianna Bronski. Maj. Kurt Mason and Lt. Katie Carlson. and Dr. Marion Turner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew encountered hostile aliens from Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic looking Astra rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A computer was used to decide which three crew members would be ejected into space. The reason was that they needed to reduce the ship's mass in order to make it to Venus before radiation made the men sterile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Katie Carlson was violently pursued by a male astronaut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Christopher Perry, an older man, tried to eject himself into space so that the rest of the crew could reach Venus in time to procreate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Venusian collective mind communicated telepathically with the crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x15a", "title": "Green Fingers", "date": "1972-01-05", "description": "A tycoon (Cameron Mitchell) takes drastic steps to force a widow (Elsa Lanchester) off her land, only to discover her strange gardening talent. Note: Based on a short story by R. C. Cook", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tycoon Michael J. Saunders lusted after getting his hands on an old lady's land so he could build a large industrial complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stubbornness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bowen just wouldn't sell her house even at five times the market value. PS: fine enough theme but we must have deleted it before at some point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "An old lady was so attached to her garden she had tended for many years that she would not sell at any price.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bowen was an avid gardener.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bowen came back in a manner reminiscent of the undead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tycoon had brief confrontations with his conscience regarding bullying, and later having murdered, Mrs. Bowen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tycoon had a heart attack upon being confronted by the undead old woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tycoon's hair turned gray from fear upon seeing the undead old woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x15b", "title": "The Funeral", "date": "1972-01-05", "description": "A funeral is held for a vampire. Note: Based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson\n\nDirected by: John Meredyth Lucas. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "A vampire was planning his own funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a casket and a funeral service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The funeral director licked his lips when the vampire customer said money was no object.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wolfman was present at Ludwig Asper's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stereotypical wicked witch was there and committed mischief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stereotypical witch was there and committed mischief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some sort of demonic creature appeared at the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x15c", "title": "The Tune in Dan's Café", "date": "1972-01-05", "description": "A song linked to a tragic romance gives a bickering couple (Pernell Roberts, Susan Oliver) a second chance. Note: Based on a short story by Shamus Frazier\n\nDirected by: David Rawlins. Story by: Gerald Sanford, Garrie Bateson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelly Bellman wanted a divorce after 15 odd years of marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A husband and wife were bickering in a dingy restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a Bonnie and Clyde-like criminal couple in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was something magic about the jukebox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly and Joe were contemplating getting divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red was jealous of her cheating boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A criminal was cornered by the police in a cafe and got into a shootout which end with him dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red's boyfriend was cheating on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Astronaut (1972)", "title": "The Astronaut", "date": "1972-01-08", "description": "A made-for-television film following a man who has been hired to impersonate an astronaut who died during the first manned mission to Mars.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astronaut" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concerned a manned mission to Mars that went wrong, resulting in the death of the astronauts. The mission name was Voyager 1. Toward the end of the film news broke that the Russians had just launched their own manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Government officials covered up that the first man to land on Mars died in order to keep the space program alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie Reese was hired by space program officials to impersonate the first man to land on Mars, who died on the mission, in order to cover up that the mission failed to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gail and Eddie fell in love even though Eddie had been surgically altered to look identical to her deceased husband Brice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gail Randolph was pregnant with her husband Brice Randolph's child, but he died on a mission to Mars, and she miscarriage the baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurt Anderson visited Gail with the intention of informing her of the death of her husband, but he couldn't bring him self to go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Reese briefly pretended to be Gail's deceased husband Brice to her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x16a", "title": "Lindemann's Catch", "date": "1972-01-12", "description": "A strange metamorphosis occurs when a sea captain (Stuart Whitman) captures a mermaid.\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fishermen hauled up a mermaid in their nets. She was later transformed into a reverse mermaid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "The town was full of poor old wretches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lindemann was a lonely man but was happy to find a mermaid companion although it didn't work out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that Lindemann was a very bitter and lonely man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lindemann with the mermaid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the town inn, fortune teller Abner Suggs assailed Captain Lindemann with with a number of unsolicited soothsayings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was proposed to make the mermaid a carnival attraction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Lindenmann loving the mermaid being an abomination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x16b", "title": "The Late Mr. Peddington", "date": "1972-01-12", "description": "A widow (Kim Hunter) goes shopping for the cheapest funeral she can find for her husband. Note: Based on a short story \"The Flat Male\" by Frank Sisk\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora Peddington was arranging her deceased husband's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We must ponder whether the \"accident\" had been stage managed by the victim's widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in a funeral parlor and various Western rituals around death were discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Undertaker Thaddeus Conway hid booze like an alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that $2000 was worth half that today, or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora Peddington told her late husband's rags-to-riches story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x16c", "title": "A Feast of Blood", "date": "1972-01-12", "description": "A suitor gives a woman a brooch that looks almost alive. Note: Based on a short story \"The Fur Brooch\" by Dulcie Gray\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Stanford Whitmore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Mallory is obsessed with \"getting what he wants\" which in this case is the beautiful young woman Sheila Gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheila did not appreciate Henry's attention as much as her mother did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A blood sucking creature killed Sheila by draining her of all her blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A blood sucking creature killed Sheila by draining her of all her blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry at Sheila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila was choosing between a wealthy older man and a passionate young man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry shared his rags-to-riches story with Sheila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry couldn't buy the Sheila's affections on this occasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila with the brash and arrogant rich guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Gray encouraged her daughter Sheila to pursue a romantic relationship with a wealthy man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Gray encouraged her daughter Sheila to pursue a romantic relationship with a wealthy man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x06", "title": "Short Fuse", "date": "1972-01-19", "description": "Roger Stanford is a chemist whose uncle, David, has taken over a business that his parents built and his aunt controls. David plans to sell the business to a conglomerate, and uses dirty tricks to get Roger to go along. Roger double crosses and murders his uncle with a booby trapped box of cigars rigged to explode as he drives through the mountains with his chauffeur. Everett Logan, the next-in-line vice president whom Roger discredits as part of the offshoot of the murder, so Roger can take over the company. David's secretary is romantically involved with Roger.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo tricks Roger into incriminating himself by having him believe the fateful accident was a result of treacherous driving conditions rather than Roger's bomb. Columbo shows Roger a damaged but intact box of cigars and tells him it came from the death scene. Along with Everett, they take a cable car up the mountain. Roger, thinking they are the booby- trapped cigars he had planted, becomes unhinged. He screams at Columbo to get rid of the box because it is about to explode. Columbo reveals that the box is not from the death scene, that he had just got it and scuffed it up to look like it had been. Realizing he has been tricked, Roger can only laugh hysterically.\n\nDirected by: Edward M. Abroms. Story by: Lester Pine, Tina Pine, Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger hatched the following plot to do away with his troublesome and blackmailing uncle: Roger planted a booby trapped box of cigars in the uncle's car and rigged it to explode as he drove through a mountainous area with his chauffeur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "David and Roger both wanted control of the family business all to themselves. David wanted to cash out by selling the company to a conglomerate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: The murky disappearance of the Stanford Chemicals company CEO David Buckner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger did not much car for his step-uncle David, so he murdered him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger liked his aunt Doris very much, and the feeling was reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "David tried to blackmail Roger into convincing his aunt to approve the sale of their family chemical company to a conglomerate. In exchange, David would keep a lid on Roger's various past indiscretions, including the racking up of gambling debts in Vegas, a drug habit in college, an unspecified \"mess\" in Acapulco, and a car theft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger hatched the following plot to do away with his troublesome and blackmailing uncle: Roger planted a booby trapped box of cigars in the uncle's car and rigged it to explode as he drove through a mountainous area with his chauffeur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks. In this episode, he remarked to a genius chemist that he took wood shop in high school instead of chemistry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The family-company chauffeur as well as the mechanic exchanged words with both uncle and nephew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Doris showed a conspicuous lack of emotion when relayed the news of her husbands demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo queried his suspect about chemistry and bomb-making.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was something of a practical joker, attacking his unsuspecting victims with (apparently a new invention at the time) cans of silly-string.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger frequently snapped photos of people and places he encountered. Columbo was caught rummaging in Rogers private darkroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was visibly nervous as the aerial tram motored its way up to the mountaintop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger made sure that Aunt Doris came to learn that her recently deceased husband, David, had been carrying on with the secretary behind her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both the corporate executive Everett Logan and the secretary Valerie Bishop were issued pink slips by Aunt Doris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David used his knowledge of Roger's history of gambling in Vegas against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger did not deny that he'd stolen a car, probably in his youth, when his blackmailer confronted him about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational illicit drug use", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger's blackmailer knew about his \"drug thing\" in college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger and David were rivaling for control of the family chemical company Stanford Chemicals. The viewer is shown the company's operations from the point of view of various of its executives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger distracted the mechanic working on David's car so that he could plant a booby trapped box of cigars inside the vehicle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x17a", "title": "The Miracle at Camafeo", "date": "1972-01-19", "description": "An insurance agent (Harry Guardino) seeks to expose a swindler (Ray Danton) who plans to stage a cure for his fake paralysis at a Mexican shrine. Note: Based on a short story by C. B. Gilford\n\nDirected by: Ralph Senensky. Story by: Alvin Sapinsley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Rogan was struck down with blindness by the Lord for his having committed insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set near a Mexican shrine where people came seeking miracle cures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Rogan was convinced that Joe Melcor faked paralysis in order to scam a corporation out of $500,000 is a court settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was intent on bring Joe to justice for having scammed Charlie's insurance company out of $500,000 in compensation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe Melcor and Gay Melcor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the Lord struck Joe down with blindness. There was a mother who had brought her son to the shrine seeking a cure for his blindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Rogan was struck down with blindness by the Lord for having faked paralysis in order to commit insurance fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People had faith that God would cure their ailments if they visited the shrine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed initially that Gay Melcor was being romantically pestered by Charlie Rogan at bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless character vs. selfish character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Rogan carried a blind boy up the hill in contrast with Joe Melcor who faked paralysis in order to scam a corporation out of $500,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was briefly led to believe that Joe was paralyzed, but it turned out that he was faking it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x17b", "title": "The Ghost of Sorworth Place", "date": "1972-01-19", "description": "An American tourist (Richard Kiley) protects a Scottish widow (Jill Ireland) from the ghost of her husband. Note: Based on the short story \"Sorworth Place\" by Russell Kirk\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann Loring was haunted by the ghost of her abusive husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann had murdered her abusive husband by pushing him down the stairs, but his ghost came back to haunt her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded the aftermath of Ann murdering her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph and Ann flirted in an odd sort of way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann loved undead men we are told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Burke visited the haunted English manor Sorworth Place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were told that both Ann and Ralph had old ghosts to confront.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann confided in Ralph that she was in deadly fear of her husband's ghost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The People (1972)", "title": "The People", "date": "1972-01-22", "description": "The People is a 1972 television film, broadcast as an ABC Movie of the Week on January 22, 1972. It concerns a young teacher who goes to a remote area to work with a group of individuals who have isolated themselves from civilization and maintained an independent community, vaguely similar to the Amish or a religious commune.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melodye Amerson moved to the remote village of Bendo to be the teacher at the schoolhouse there. Her teaching in the schoolhouse was amply featured, and she acknowledged to having of love for her profession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retarded aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Bendo didn't age at an appreciable rate and were free of illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melodye insisted that the talk of mind reading and levitation was just superstitious nonsense, but then she observed these phenomena with her own eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melodye's ideas of what was moral conflicted with the villagers. The villages were stoic and anti-pleasure seeking, but Melodye took efforts to try and open the children's minds, and show them that the things they had been taught to be wrong, like music and the taking of pleasure in life, was in fact good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the people of Bendo were actually aliens who had come to Earth as refugees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens were taken for witches when they first came to Earth and persecuted accordingly. As a result, they felt the people of Earth were full of hate and fear, so they had isolated themselves in Bendo. But Melodye convinced them with her words and deeds that the people of Earth had some good in them after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melodye felt unwelcome in Bendo after coming there to teach at the schoolhouse, but by the end of the story they made a point to make her feel welcome, and even held her wedding. The story concluded with the people of Bendo feeling that Earth was their home, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sol Diemus and Karen Diemus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aome Bendo villagers, including Valancy Carmody, had the ability to read minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sol lifted Melodye up into the air with the power of his own mind. Clement Francher levitated a harmonica and then himself. Bethie replicated his feat on herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melodye married Dr. Curtis out of the blue at the end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x18a", "title": "The Waiting Room", "date": "1972-01-26", "description": "A gunman (Steve Forrest) faces his day of reckoning.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Alvin Sapinsley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gunslinger Sam Dichter found himself in a saloon of the dead among a number of miscreants who were awaiting divine judgment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The miscreants were being executed in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the gunslingers and other trappings of the wild, wild west.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had a taste for death and a talent for delivering it, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several gunslinger duels were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The doctor pondered the ethics of saving murdering gunslingers knowing they would walk off to kill again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam met his own stone-cold hanging corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "live by the sword die by the sword", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The doctor went on about how they lived by the gun and were obliged to die by the gun.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x18b", "title": "Last Rites for a Dead Druid", "date": "1972-01-26", "description": "A woman (Carol Lynley) is tempted to buy a statue that resembles her husband (Bill Bixby) but is modeled after a satanic sorcerer.\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Tarraday and Jenny Tarraday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny purchased a malevolent status of pre-Druidic sorcerer Bruce the Black.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce the Black was a pre-Druidic sorcerer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce the Black's statue tempted Bruce into kissed his wife Jenny's friend Mildred and then urged Bruce to murder Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bruce the Black statue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The statue was slowing driving Bruce Tarraday mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny Tarraday and Mildred McVane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were gradually turning into stone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce the Black had apparently been turned into a statue. In the end, Bruce Tarraday was turned into a stone statue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e1x07", "title": "Blueprint for Murder", "date": "1972-02-09", "description": "Elliot Markham is an architect with a vision for a city of the future, and a penchant for classical music. His latest project is being bankrolled by the young wife of Bo Williamson, a wealthy industrialist who has been away on a lengthy overseas business trip. When Williamson returns and finds out how his money is being spent, he is furious, and intends to cut off the funds. Markham decides that the only way he can continue his work is to eliminate Williamson. Simply killing him, however, poses a problem, because his money reverts to a trust fund when he dies. Markham comes up with a clever plan to conceal the body and make it appear as if Beau has gone on another long foreign trip.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Markham repeatedly goads Columbo into excavating a building site to search for Williamson's body, until Columbo finally does so. It yields nothing. Later that night Markham returns to that site with the body, assuming no-one would ever look there again. However Columbo has known what Markham has been up to all along, he emerges from the shadows with other policemen and arrests Markham. Columbo reveals that he knew something had happened to Williamson when he checked his car and found the radio turned to a classical music station, something odd for Williamson, who only listened to country music.\n\nDirected by: Peter Falk. Story by: William Kelley, Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elliot hatched the following plot to dispose of his young lover's uncooperative but wealthy husband: Elliot simply shot the husband and hid his body in a barn, then tricked Lt. Columbo into digging up a huge sky scraper cement pile to look for the body. His plan was then to dump the body under the now-cleared cement pile and replace it. But the ever tenacious Lt. Columbo was one step ahead of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elliot hatched the following plot to dispose of his young lover's uncooperative but wealthy husband: Elliot simply shot the husband and hid his body in a barn, then tricked Lt. Columbo into digging up a huge sky scraper cement pile to look for the body. His plan was then to dump the body under the now-cleared cement pile and replace it. But the ever tenacious Lt. Columbo was one step ahead of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bo Williamson accused Elliot of being a con artist who seduced Beau's wife to build an unprofitable, so-called \"city of the future\". The ex-wife of Beau planted a bloody hat so she could collect on the 25% of his estate that she had bequeathed to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did an illustrious architect murder his financier and bury the body in the foundation of his newly under construction building?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bo Williams had a young wife who spoke of him with disinterest, and an ex-wife who spoke of him with affection and respect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennifer was carrying on with Elliot behind her husband Bo's back when the latter was away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "architect occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story, Elliot Markham, was an architect of some renown. The viewer is shown a window into his designing and building a so-called city of the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo seemingly had egg on his face upon finding no body buried under the cement pile he had dug up at great expense. This was all because Elliot carefully goaded and manipulated Columbo into digging up the cement pile all along, or so he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beau Williamson had divorced his first wife, Goldie, but they were still good friends and she said that the divorce arrangements were very good for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beau Williamson had divorced his first wife, Goldie, but they were still good friends and she said that the divorce arrangements were very good for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldie told Columbo that she was friends with Beau Williamson's new wife, and that she was on good terms with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bo Williamson considered Elliot Markham to be nothing but a conman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bo Williamson's physician gave Columbo an impromptu medical examination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician admonished Columbo for smoking cigars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer discovered what appeared to be Bo's bloodstained cowboy hat while searching for an errant ball from her tennis game with Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. Kafkaesque institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being made to wait for hours in line, chase forms forms through the building, and then returning to find a seemingly available clerk unwilling to help because he was on his lunch break, left Columbo beside himself, because the situation Columbo encountered beggard his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After an exasperatingly long wait in line at the Building & Safety municipal office, Columbo was informed he'd need to get departmental approval under regulation 613 of the municipal code, file the proper permits and requisition slips, and wait for approval from the mayor's office, if he really wanted to have a certain cement pile excavated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot aspired to build a so-called \"city of the future\" and lied, seduced, and ultimately turned to murder to make it a reality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x19a", "title": "Deliveries in the Rear", "date": "1972-02-09", "description": "A surgery instructor (Cornel Wilde) uses cadavers from a most unexpected source.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Can grave robbing and even murder murder be justified if it helps train doctors that will go on to save other lives?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fletcher was engaged to Barbara Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fletcher loved Barbara and he was adamant that all the cadavers in the world couldn't change it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body snatching", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bennett disapproved of Dr. Fletcher's practice of using cadavers obtained by illicit means for his medical demonstrations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fletcher was content not to think about the murders until it was, at last, done to his beloved fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Fletcher was content not to think about the murders until it was, at last, done to his beloved fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Fletcher fell to his knees and wailed as he found his fiancée's cadaver on the dissection table.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x19b", "title": "Stop Killing Me", "date": "1972-02-09", "description": "A wife (Geraldine Page) believes her husband is attempting to worry her to death, and seeks the help of a police sergeant played by (James Gregory). Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Hal Dresner", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard Frances Turchin complaining to the police about her husband trying to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances was complaining that her husband was actively murdering her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "The motive for the alleged murder was that Frances would not consent to a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances went through a number of reasons why her husband wanted a divorce, including her inability to cook well, her not being so beautiful as when they first married, and her cluttering up the bathroom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x19c", "title": "Dead Weight", "date": "1972-02-09", "description": "An exporter (Jack Albertson) who helps gangsters on the lam has a client (Bobby Darin) like no other. Note: Based on the short story \"Out of the Country\" by Jeffry Scott\n\nDirected by: Timothy Galfas. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exporter O. Bullivant took the law into his own hands by exacting retribution on child murderer Mr. Landau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a crime syndicate operating to let a murderer escape justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Landau was was desperate to escape to South America in order to avoid being brought to justice over a triple murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Landau was was desperate to escape to South America in order to avoid being brought to justice over a triple murder, but the man he paid to get him out of the country murdered him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x20a", "title": "I'll Never Leave You – Ever", "date": "1972-02-16", "description": "A wife uses witchcraft to murder her husband, whose spirit goes on and on. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Rene Morris\n\nDirected by: Daniel Haller. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira, Owen, and Ianto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira and Owen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira was having an affair with her lover Ianto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira sought the assistance of a witch in order to dispose of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira's husband was on his deathbed and she was waiting for him to knock off so she could be with her lover Ianto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira used a voodoo doll, which she had obtained from an old crone, to do in her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira disposed of her burdensome sick husband in order to pursuit another love affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira struggled with the decision to kill her burdensome and sick husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira and Ianto. Owen proclaimed his love to Moira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owen was infirm and on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owen was infirm and on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira visited an old crone to seek help with killing her husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x20b", "title": "There Aren't Any More MacBanes", "date": "1972-02-16", "description": "A student (Joel Grey) of sorcery summons an ancient spirit to get rid of his bothersome uncle (Howard Duff). Note: Based on the short story \"By One, By Two and By Three\" by Stephen Hall; features a brief, early appearance by Mark Hamill.\n\nDirected by: John Newland. Story by: Alvin Sapinsley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew's only living relative, uncle Arthur, the closest thing Andrew had to a parent, was gravely disappointed with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew summoned a malevolent spirit to murder his uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew was greedy to get his hands on his uncle's fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew found a spell that allowed him to conjure up a monster, thought briefly to be a savage leopard, with glowing red eyes. After having had the monster dispatch his inconvenient uncle, Andrew lost control of it and ended up dead himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was some sort of a demonic being that could be summoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew set a malevolent entity on his uncle but it came back and turned on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew, a student of black magic, summoned a malevolent spirit of some kind to kill his uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Porter and Andrew MacBane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were three chummy student musketeers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evocation magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew found a spell that allowed him to conjure up a monster, thought briefly to be a savage leopard, with glowing red eyes. After having had the monster dispatch his inconvenient uncle, Andrew lost control of it and ended up dead himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew came to gravely regret what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew came to gravely regret what he had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Probe (1972)", "title": "Probe", "date": "1972-02-21", "description": "Probe is a 1972 American made-for-television sci-fi thriller film produced as a pilot for a science fiction detective series, originally to have continued under that title. In the film Hugh Lockwood is one of a group of high-tech private eyes working for the organization \"World Securities\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lockwood and Uli Ullman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockwood was implanted with a radio ear jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frieda Ullman and Uli Ullman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Control room operator Gloria Harding threated to Lockwood that she might melt his implanted ear jack down with ultra sonic feedback, if he keep up his flirting with Uli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plot involved Lockwood tracking down a collection of diamonds that were plundered from the Louvre by the Nazis during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold L. Streeter was a secret Nazi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x21a", "title": "The Sins of the Fathers", "date": "1972-02-23", "description": "A man (Richard Thomas) must cleanse himself of his father's sins by feasting in front of the father's corpse. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Christianna Brand\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sin", "level": "major", "motivation": "The concept of sin and eternal damnation was prominently featured. The story concluded with Ian eating a ritual meal for the purpose of inheriting his fathers sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mother, Mrs. Evans, send her son Ian off to take on sins in order not to starve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sin eater's family was desperate and starving or they would never have risked damnation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sin eater's family was desperate and starving or they would never have risked eternal damnation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the sin eater eater the ritual meal and risk eternal damnation?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian took on his father's sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sin eating ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Mrs. Evans was willing to sacrifice her son Ian to eternal damnation for some dainty victuals and three pieces of gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A starving Ian Evans had to refrain from eating in front of a corpse or else suffer eternal damnation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian Evans' and his father, whose corpse was seen only, were a father and son pair of sin eaters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian had to exercise self-control to not eat in front of the corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Widow Craighill needed Ian to eat a meal in front of the corpse of her deceased husband in order to prevent her dearly departed from going to hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Evans and her dying husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x21b", "title": "You Can't Get Help Like That Anymore", "date": "1972-02-23", "description": "A family's robot servants develop an instinct for survival.\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a company that peddled android helpers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a company that peddled android helpers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The neurotically sadistic couple Mr. and Mrs. Fulton had tortured and abused their android maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the case it was more a machine versus human situation with androids being abused by their human masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were asked whether machines may have rights not to be tortured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Foster and Mr. and Mrs. Fulton were two couples both of which seemed to be married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "By the end of the story the androids had taken over the company and were perhaps interested in taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested the maid-bot was perhaps intended for carnal duties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fulton disliked her female android maid because it was young, attractive, and drew her husband's attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kessler felt his android creations should be treated the same as human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Fulton android maid pointed how Mrs. Fulton was having trouble dealing with not aging gracefully.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doomwatch (1972)", "title": "Doomwatch", "date": "1972-03", "description": "The waters surrounding an island become contaminated by chemical dumping, and people who eat fish caught in those waters become deformed and violent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomwatch_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Del Shaw uncovered that a disposal company had illegally dumped an experimental pituitary growth hormone in the sea which ended up causing madness and acromegaly in the Balfe villagers via the eating of contaminated fish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villagers shunned Del Shaw, and it took them two years to warm up to Victoria, so on gets the impression they are a xenophobia lot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Del Shaw worked as an investigator from the British ecological watchdog group nicknamed Doomwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. affliction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Contaminated fish caused acromegaly in a number of Balfe island villagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "oil spills in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Del Shaw went to investigate an oil tanker spill on a remote isolated village on the island of Balfe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A British admiral had authorized the dumping of radioactive waste into the sea off the coast of the island of Balfe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the villagers though that God had brought their plight upon them as a punishment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x22a", "title": "The Caterpillar", "date": "1972-03-01", "description": "A British expatriate (Laurence Harvey) in Borneo plots a gruesome assassination of a romantic rival (Tom Helmore). Note: Based on the short story \"Boomerang\" by Oscar Cook\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Macy moaned about living on miserable Borneo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The older man John Warwick and his younger wife Rhona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sixty-six year old John Warwick was married to the under 28 year old Rhona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macy for John's young wife Rhona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macy wrestled with his conscience regarding having his elderly rival assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macy was in utter agony while an earwig was creeping around in his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macy suffered a slow death, recovered, and learned he was about to suffer a slow death again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Macy intended to kill John using an earwig but ended up suffering the fate himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young wife made clear that she loved her aged husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macy was wildly jealous of John for having a beautiful young wife Rhona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young wife rebuffed Macy's advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macy complained of boredom on Borneo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x22b", "title": "Little Girl Lost", "date": "1972-03-01", "description": "A scientific genius is troubled by the death of his daughter. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Edwin Charles Tubb\n\nDirected by: Timothy Galfas. Story by: Stanford Whitmore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Putman had an imaginary daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Putman had an imaginary daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Charles treated Putnam's imaginary daughter as if she were real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Does discovering fission justify exploiting a sick man?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Does discovering fission justify exploiting a sick man?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with an out of control fission process destroying Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Putman was so distraught over death of his daughter that he destroyed the entire Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Putman couldn't face the reality of his daughter's death and insisted on keep on as if she were still alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Putman over the death of his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with an out of control fission process destroying Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that the end goal of the fission research was bigger bombs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Silent Running (1972)", "title": "Silent Running", "date": "1972-03-10", "description": "Set in a future where all plant life on Earth is becoming extinct, an environmentally-minded crewman of a space arc must decide whether or not to follow an order to destroy all the flora under his charge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "All plant life on Earth was dying out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four astronauts were manning a large spaceship, named Valley Forge, that was use to preserve as many plant specimens as possible in a series of enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freeman Lowell has spent 8 years managing the ecosystem of plants on the ark ship on which he was stationed, but then he was suddenly order to destroy the whole thing and return to Earth. He did not take it well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ship Valley Forge was in orbit around Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The last trees were housed aboard a spaceship in orbit around Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lowell was managing an ecosystem in a spaceship in orbit around Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lowell has spent 8 years managing the ecosystem of plants on the ark ship on which he was stationed, but then he was suddenly order to destroy the whole thing and return to Earth. He did not take it well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where poverty has been eliminated on Earth and everyone has a job, but on the other hand, there was massive ecological destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lowell was the only person who seemed to find a problem with Earth not having forests anymore. He took great pains to preserve a geodesic dome enclosed forest in orbit around Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Lowell blowing himself up to ensure that the forest he was caring would would survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lowell had three robot maintenance drones that helped him maintain the ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Gigan", "date": "1972-03-12", "description": "Giant insectoid aliens resembling cockroaches from a dying planet in \"Space Hunter Nebula M\" plot to colonize the Earth, their planet having become uninhabitable after another race on the planet polluted it, then died out from the effects of their own destruction. It is the 12th film in the Godzilla franchise, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Gigan, Anguirus, and King Ghidorah.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Gigan" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cockroach-like aliens disguised as humans founded a peace-themed theme park in Japan as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cockroach-like aliens from a dying planet in \"Space Hunter Nebula M\" plotted to colonize Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cockroach-like alien's planet became uninhabitable after another race on the planet horribly polluted it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cockroach-like aliens' plight encourages viewers to ponder about the consequences of humanity polluting the planet Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Machiko Shima was searching for her brother Takashi Shima who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Japan was attacked by the space monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Japan was attacked by the space monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SlaughterhouseFive (1972)", "title": "Slaughterhouse-Five", "date": "1972-03-15", "description": "A writer tells a story in random order of how he was a soldier in World War II and was abducted by aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Montana Wildhack were abducted by aliens and taken to the planet Tralfamadore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy Pilgrim became dislodged in time and somehow relived some of his experienced as a soldier in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy Pilgrim and Valencia Merble Pilgrim. Stanley and Billy's daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a group of Allied soldiers, including Billy, being held as prisoners of war by the Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Billy live through the fire bombing of Dresden and it was mentioned that 135,000 people died. The bombing of Hiroshima was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tralfamadorians said that of all the inhabited planets they visited, they only encountered the notion of free will on Earth. The also explained about how a Tralfamadorian would bring about the end of the universe by pressing the wrong button when testing an experimental fuel. The idea was that it was absurd to try to stop him from pressing the button because it was already determined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "It appeared that Billy was able to experience the events of his life in a unconnected manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy and other Allied soldiers were taken as prisoners of war by the Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy and his pet dong Spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara Pilgrim and Billy Pilgrim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy Pilgrim and his delinquent Robert Pilgrim. Young Billy was tossed into a swimming pool by his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Lazzaro was obsessed with killing Billy because Paul got the idea in his head that Billy was responsible for Paul's comrade's death from gangrene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy and his teenage daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Campbell, an American who'd defected to the Nazis, asserted that \"You can't trust the Jews\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both the traitor Campbell and Billy's son talked about the need to defeat the communists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Campbell was an American white supremacist who had defected to the Nazis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Godfather (1972)", "title": "The Godfather", "date": "1972-03-15", "description": "The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. Ruddy, based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family. The story, spanning 1945 to 1955, chronicles the family under the patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando), focusing on the transformation of Michael Corleone (Pacino) from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole film centered on the life and activities of one Sicilian mafia family in America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A man came to the don for extra-judicial vengeance on behalf of his daughter. Michael for his father and later his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Corleone and Tattaglia crime families got a good old Sicilian vendetta going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the whole story circled around various people's loyalty or disloyalty to the Corleone family, especially: the sons, Luca Brasi, Tom Hagen, and the baker remained remarkably loyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were numerous murders in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael, Fredo, ...", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Don with his various sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Corleone kids when their father was mortally wounded", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "political connections were alluded to, and there was a bought police chief", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonny was outraged at Paulie Gatto's betrayal of the Don, so had Paulie executed; Fabrizio betrayed Michael in Sicily and Apolonia died for it; Tessio betrayed the Corleones to Barzini after Don Vito died; Carlo was revealed to have arranged Sonny's execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Don Vito Corleone was devastated after his son Sonny got killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Kay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Kay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Don and Connie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the horse's head scene has become an iconic example of intimidation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw the Don's daughter's wedding, late Michael and Apollonia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Don turned down an offer to get involved in drug trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael was as thunderstruck at the sight of Apollonia Vitelli", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie is mistreated and beaten by her new husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Don exercised self-restrain and sought to bury the hatchet even as his son Sonny's lay slain in the morgue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michel proclaimed Carlotta hysterical and had her taken upstairs to await a Doctor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Roma (1972)", "title": "Roma", "date": "1972-03-16", "description": "Roma, also known as Fellini's Roma or Federico Fellini's Roma, is a 1972 semi- autobiographical comedy-drama film depicting director Federico Fellini's move from his native Rimini to Rome as a youth. It is a homage to the city, shown in a series of loosely connected episodes set during both Rome's past and present. The plot is minimal, and the only \"character\" to develop significantly is Rome herself. Peter Gonzales plays the young Fellini, and the film features mainly newcomers in the cast.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_(1972_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-federico-fellini.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern Italy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is autobiographical and purports to show us what Rome was like to the author in the 1930s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in post-war Europe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is autobiographical and purports to show us what Rome was like to the author in the 1970s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Fellini went to brothels and courted a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw quarrelsome audience and performers at a musical theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some cardinals who behaved in a less than holy fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some civilians fled after their houses had been bombed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery2x22c", "title": "Satisfaction Guaranteed", "date": "1972-03-22", "description": "A well-dressed gentleman (Victor Buono) presents himself at a secretarial agency that hasn't failed to satisfy a client in twenty-five years. Note: This segment was a replacement for \"Witches' Feast\" when episode 8 was repeated.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gentleman went to a secretarial agency to find a plump woman to eat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex trade in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were lead to think sex trade was going on, a different sort of trade in human flesh was revealed to be the case but it is a similar situation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man with the Transplanted Brain (1972)", "title": "Man with the Transplanted Brain", "date": "1972-03-29", "description": "Man with the Transplanted Brain (French: L'Homme au cerveau greffé, Italian: L'uomo dal cervello trapiantato) is a 1972 French-Italian-West German science fiction-drama film written and directed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. It is loosely based on a novel by Alain Franck and Victor Vicas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_with_the_Transplanted_Brain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist, Professor Jean Marcilly, with a fatal heart condition has his brain transplanted into the body of a vegetative German man, Franz Eckerman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "To what extent was the Marcilly's transplanted brain in the body of Eckerman still Marcilly?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcilly's brain experienced life in the body of Eckerman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body and Héléna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body and Héléna. The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body visited Marcilly's former wife Elisabeth Marcilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body kept this strange fact secret from Eckerman's wife Héléna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body visited Marcilly's daughter Marianne Marcilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elisabeth Marcilly and Marianne Marcilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Héléna became increasingly jealous after discovering that her husband Franz, who had been transplanted with Marcilly's brain, was surreptitiously meeting Marcilly's young and beautiful daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marianne expressed romantic interest in Eckerman, who had been transplanted with the brain of her own father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The transplanted brain of Marcilly in Eckerman's body shared a passionate kiss with Marcilly's own daughter Marianne.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solaris (1972)", "title": "Solaris", "date": "1972-05-13", "description": "A meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled because the skeleton crew of three scientists have fallen into separate emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the Solaris space station to evaluate the situation only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(1972_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the limits of science", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the mysterious world ocean on Solaris was too mysterious for science to explain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Solaris world ocean appeared to be trying to communicate with the humans on the space station in orbit around it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kris and the Hari replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bulk of the film took place on the space station Solaris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious influence bound up with the titular Solaris planet conjured a version of Kris' dearly departed wife, Hari, into reality. It likewise conjured both Kris' mother and Berton's son into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder to what extent was the Hari replica that the world ocean conjured up was the the same as the Hari who'd killed herself some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kris over his suicided wife Hari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kris encountered replicas of his dearly departed wife, Hari, while aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made about the alien mind of Solaris being so different from the human mind that clear communication between it and the people on the space station was not possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris flew from Earth to the Solaris station, which orbited a mysterious planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris and Hari experienced a 30 second period of weightlessness while aboard the Solaris space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris dreamed of his mother as a young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the real Hari had killed herself ten years prior. The Hari replica killed herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris lamented that his wife Hari had taken her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kris embraced a replica of his father toward the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: ZPG (1972)", "title": "Z.P.G.", "date": "1972-05-25", "description": "Z.P.G. (short for \"Zero Population Growth\") concerns an overpopulated future Earth, whose world government executes those who violate a 30-year ban on having children. Filmed in Denmark, the film is almost entirely set-bound featuring art direction designed to reflect a bleak, oppressive future. It is inspired by the non-fiction best-selling book The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z.P.G." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film takes place in a not so distant future where the Earth has become severely overpopulated and the government forbid people from having children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film takes place in a not so distant future where the Earth has become severely overpopulated and the government forbid people from having children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People wore breathing masks when outside to protect themselves from the veil of smog that permanently covered Earth's cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol McNeil desperately wanted to have a baby, but procreation had been banned for the next 22 years in an effort to control the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Russ McNeil and Carol McNeil. George Borden and Edna Borden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol became pregnant in spite of a government ban on having children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The featured future society had world government with totalitarian elements, including a general prohibition on having babies, limited access to information, compulsory brainwashing of the young, and the death penalty was used on violators of the no babies law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol and Hugh cherished their baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a museum and a theater that showed propaganda on how the basic joys in life that 20th century people partook in were degenerate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Twilight People (1972)", "title": "The Twilight People", "date": "1972-06", "description": "A mad scientist attempts to make a \"super race\" by combining humans and animals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_People" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt Farrell was kidnapped while diving in the sea and taken to an island where he was held captive by the mad scientist Dr. Gordon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon and Neva Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad scientist Dr. Gordon was trying to made a \"super race\" by combining humans and animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon was working on making half-human, half-animal creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon created what appeared to be a race of human-animal hybrids. There was an ape man, a wolf woman, a panther woman, an antelope man, and a bat boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt Farrell and Neva Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon's animal creatures turned on him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Was Dr. Gordon justified in creating human monstrosities along the way toward achieving his ultimate goal of creating a \"super race\" of human-animal hybrids that could survive a nuclear war?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon warned the Earth was becoming overpopulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon claimed he was motivated by a desire to create a race of \"super men\" that could survive a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beware The Blob (1972)", "title": "Beware! The Blob", "date": "1972-06-21", "description": "A sequel to The Blob (1958). Picking up fifteen years after the events of the first movie The Blob, an oil pipeline lawyer returns to his suburban Los Angeles home from the North Pole, bringing with him a small sample of a mysterious frozen substance uncovered by a bulldozer on a job site...", "collections": [ "Collection: The Blob" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beware!_The_Blob" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blobform", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blob!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with the Sheriff explaining that the blob may ave come from space and that it would have likely consumed the entire world had it not been stopped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sweethearts Bobby Hartford and Lisa Clark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sweethearts Bobby Hartford and Lisa Clark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "People wouldn't believe Lisa when she told them she saw a blob creature eat Chester.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chester Hargis brought the blob home from work and it first consumed his wife and Mariane Hargis and then later him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman admonished a man in a gorilla suit for stealing gas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972)", "title": "The Groundstar Conspiracy", "date": "1972-06-21", "description": "A public official attempts to get to the bottom of a botched break in at the ultra-secret Groundstar space research facility. It stars George Peppard and Michael Sarrazin. It is loosely based on L. P. Davies' 1968 novel The Alien.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Groundstar_Conspiracy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was about a man stealing rocket booster plans from an ultra-secret Groundstar government space research facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Wells claimed to have virtually no memory of his past, not even his name, after nearly dying in the Groundstar facility explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amnesiac John Wells fell in love with Nicole Devon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Wells escaped from custody and went on the run from Tuxan, but it turned out that Tuxan had let him escape and was surveilling him the whole time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Peter Bellamy (a.k.a. John Wells) finding out that he had volunteered to have him mind wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of the main messages of the film was something about Tuxan abusing his authority by the way of using any means to justify his end of exposing a treasonous senator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuxan interrogated Wells using electro-shock and water submersion techniques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lead government investigator Tuxan took measures to ensure news about the break in and subsequent explosion at the ultra-secret Groundstar space research facility didn't get out to the public.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)", "title": "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", "date": "1972-06-25", "description": "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (German: Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant) is a 1972 German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on his own play. The film has an all-female cast, and it is set in the home of the narcissistic protagonist Petra von Kant. It follows the changing dynamics in her relationships with the other women. Petra's story is told in a theater- like fashion in four different acts, each depicting the states of mind of the main character hinted visually by her clothes and hair. The film was entered into the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bitter_Tears_of_Petra_von_Kant" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Petra explained her obsession with possessing Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra spoke of her ex husbands at length and other marriages were compared and contrasted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra and Karin had a passionate tryst", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard of past break-ups, and then we saw Karin break up with Petra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra acted like so to Marlene; Karin acted like so to Petra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra proclaimed her love for Karin and they embarked on a relationship; Petra's mother thought a woman loving another woman was mighty queer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "23 year old Karin was contrasted with the mature Petra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra was ceremoniously dumped by Karin, and took to the bottle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karin spoke of her alcoholic dad, Petra admonished Karin then drank excessively herself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "all women spoke at length about their romantic feelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra became depressed and drank excessively after Karin left her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra and Karin debated what love and romance are", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Marlena was masochistic and apparently enjoyed being dominated by Petra; Petra was subjected to a similar treatment by Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fashion industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petra was a successful designer who lived for her work - and we saw an idea of what her life might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karin explained that she seduced and used men (and Petra) for her own purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Petra objected to being pitied", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin spoke of her deprived childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin spoke of her father killing his wife and himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "PAtra talked about the disgust she had developed for men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Petra and Gaby; Petra and her mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Petra spoke of her divorce at length and implored Karin to get one", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mind Snatchers (1972)", "title": "The Mind Snatchers", "date": "1972-06-28", "description": "Dr. Frederick attempts to find a way to ease the aggressive nature of soldiers by developing a microchip to access the pleasure centers of their brains. The film was also known as The Mind Snatchers. It is based on Dennis J. Reardon’s acclaimed play The Happiness Cage, which opened at Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Newman Theater in New York on October 4, 1970.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Cage" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Army Private John Reese, who was a violent sociopath, was selected against his will to be a guinea pig for Dr. Frederick's brain experiments. Boford Miles too proved to be a dangerous, violent man by forcing himself upon Nurse Schroeder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reese was held against his will at a Frankfurt veterans hospital where he was to be used as a guinea pig for Dr. Frederick's experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frederick experimented by on three veterans in a effort to create better, happier soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Frederick drilled holes in his patient's skulls and connected wires into their brains in a way that allowed him to exercise some control over their states of mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Frederick argued his taking of Tommy Rhodes' life on the operating table was justified on account that the knowledge acquired in the process would benefit others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boford Miles was longing for a lover. He ended up forcing himself upon Nurse Schroeder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)", "title": "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes", "date": "1972-06-30", "description": "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is a 1972 science fiction film directed by J. Lee Thompson and written by Paul Dehn. It is the fourth of five films in the original Planet of the Apes series produced by Arthur P. Jacobs. The film stars Roddy McDowall, Don Murray and Ricardo Montalbán. It explores how the apes rebelled from humanity's ill treatment following Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). It was followed by Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were enslaved and brutalized by Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were enslaved and brutalized by Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were enslaved and brutalized by Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes rose up and overthrew their Human masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caesar could not tolerate apes being enslaved by Humans and explained that revolution was the only alternative.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of Human activists were protesting the enslavement of the apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police broke up a demonstration and administered beatings to some protesters. The police and guards also administered numerous beatings to apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar was electrocuted until he talked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar prophesied that Humans would destroy their cities with nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar showed mercy on Brect after the riot by not having him killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Now You See Him Now You Dont (1972)", "title": "Now You See Him, Now You Don't", "date": "1972-07-12", "description": "A science student accidentally discovers the secret to invisibility. It is the sequel to the 1969 film The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and was followed by 1975's The Strongest Man in the World.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_You_See_Him_Now_You_Don%27t" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter Reilly made himself invisible by coating himself in a special wine-red liquid that he synthesized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter Reilly made himself invisible by coating himself in a special wine-red liquid that he synthesized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the zany adventures of a group of Medfield College students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wealthy crook A.J. Arno bought the Medfield College mortgage with the intention of making the college into a gambling joint complete with dog racing tracks and a casino. Arno used the power of invisibility to rob a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some students were working on various science experiments in a university run lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A.J. Arno and his idiot nephew Cookie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Novice golfer Dean Higgins came to think himself an expert with a little help from the invisible Dexter Riley, but Higgins was humiliated when he participated in a nationally televised pro tournament without Dexter's help.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Thing with Two Heads (1972)", "title": "The Thing with Two Heads", "date": "1972-07-19", "description": "A racist white man's head is transplanted onto the body of a condemned black man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_with_Two_Heads" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "head transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Maxwell Kirshner had his head transplanted onto the body of another man. But he first had a gorilla head transplanted onto another another gorilla to test the procedure. On an unrelated note, the two-headed gorilla escaped and ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Kirshner did not allow \"colored people\" on his staff and he tried to dismiss Dr. Fred Williams as soon as Kirchner found out he was black. In a twist of fate, he had was transplanted onto the body of a black death row inmate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Moss had been sentenced to death for a murder that he didn't commit and was determined to prove his innocence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Dr. Fred Williams betray his fellow black man Jack Morris by helping the unabashed racist Dr. Kirshner on the promise of Dr. Williams getting his own lab?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "A manhunt for convicted murder Jack Moss with Dr. Kirshner's head grafted on him led to the total destruction of 14 police vehicles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Kirshner had terminal chest cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Condemned man Jack Moss professed his innocence while sitting in the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Condemned man Jack Moss decided to participate in an unspecified experimental medical procedure in oder to obtain a 30 day extension on his date of execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Condemned man Jack Moss decided participate in an unspecified experimental medical procedure that turned out to be a head transplant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Moss hid out at his girlfriend's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Moss had been sentenced to death for a murder that he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Lepus (1972)", "title": "Night of the Lepus", "date": "1972-07-26", "description": "A hoard of killer rabbits wreak havoc somewhere in the South Western United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dangerous population explosion of rabbits in the South West served as a not so subtle metaphor of the potential for people to overpopulate planet Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus the giant mutant rabbits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy Bennett and Gerry Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy Bennett and Gerry Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy Bennett and his scientifically curious little girl Amanda Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry Bennett and Amanda Bennett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole Hillman and his young son Jackie Hillman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pesticides in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was much discussion about how using pesticides, like DDT, on the rabbits would poison other animals and have ill-effects on the environment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)", "title": "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", "date": "1972-09-15", "description": "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French: Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie) is a 1972 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Jean-Claude Carrière in collaboration with the director. The film was made in France and is mainly in French, with some dialogue in Spanish.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discreet_Charm_of_the_Bourgeoisie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A diplomat smuggled cocaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liutenant relayed a childhood story in which he met his late mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant relayed a childhood story in which he poisoned his foster father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a young girl was clearly drinking too much and too eagerly for she became sick twice and it was commented on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman outside the embassy was said to be a terrorist and later showed herself to be so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were at least two murders by poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the cast of upper class snobbs were occasionally contrasted with working people, such as the chauffeur, the maid, or the bishop acting gardner. the terrorist woman espoust communism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a corrupt ambassador of \"Miranda\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ambassador and wife (we think)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the bishop avenged his parents' murder with a shotgun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a young man was tortured by the police in an electrified piano", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the zodiac, and astrological signs, were briefly discussed on two occasions", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972)", "title": "The Boy Who Turned Yellow", "date": "1972-09-16", "description": "John loses one of his pet mice, Alice, whilst on a school trip to the Tower of London. Upset back in class, he is sent home by his teacher for not paying attention during a lesson on electricity. Later that day on the London Underground, the train and everyone in it suddenly turns bright, vivid yellow. John's doctor declares that the condition is harmless and should wear off soon, but that evening John hears noises from his television set and meets the eccentric yellow-colored Nick. The pair return to the Tower of London in an attempt to find Alice, but they are menaced by Yeoman Warders and John is threatened with execution. When John is finally reunited with his pet, he awakes in class. Was his adventure actually all just a dream?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Turned_Yellow" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Saunders went to the Tower of London to try to find his pet mouse Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "John dearly loved his little pet mice Alice and Father Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "John turned bright, vivid yellow while riding on the subway. Actually, the train and everyone on it was turned yellow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric and yellow-colored Nick refused a drumstick in favor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Saunders and John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Saunders and John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Saunders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x01", "title": "Étude in Black", "date": "1972-09-17", "description": "Alex Benedict, the married conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra who resembles the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein, murders his mistress, Jennifer Welles, after she insists on going public with their affair, and tries to make it look like a suicide. Columbo searches for clues to place Benedict at the murder scene.\n\nFinal clue/twist: During the murder, Benedict loses his signature boutonnière. While conducting that night's concert he realizes its loss and goes back to the now police-crowded crime scene. He recovers the flower and puts it back on. A TV news team records him leaving the house with it, while the recording of the earlier concert shows him being without it. Columbo insists this proves that Benedict must have been there the night of the murder. Witnessing their confrontation, Benedict's wife refuses to support his alibi. Note: It is highly unlikely the District Attorney would take the case to trial with such weak evidence.\n\nDirected by: Nicholas Colasanto. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link, Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The orchestra conductor Alex Benedict murdered his mistress to stop her from going public about their affair and made it look as if she'd committed suicide. Alex evidently would have gotten away with it had Columbo not inferred that he dropped his signature boutonnière at the scene of the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The orchestra conductor Alex Benedict murdered his mistress to stop her from going public about their affair and made it look as if she'd committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alex married Janice because he wanted to be on good terms with her mother who owned and controlled Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in which he was lucratively employed as conductor, so much so that he could afford a $750,000 house, about $200,000 worth of furniture and five permanent staff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Who murdered a talented young musician with everything to live for and made it look like she committed suicide?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and Janice Benedict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renown orchestra conductor Alex Benedict murdered his mistress, Jennifer Welles, to stop her from going public about their affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renown orchestra conductor Alex Benedict was running around with the talented, young musician Jennifer Welles behind his wife's back. He murdered Jennifer to keep her from going public about their affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story, Alex Benedict, was a famed orchestra conductor. He was shown at his craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice acted jealous when she noticed various things about Alex' behavior, and evermore so when she started piecing two and two together regarding his affair and the sordid murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex murdered Jennifer and made it look like she'd committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex cursorily interacted with his wealthy mother-in-law, Lizzy Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer was ineffectively trying to blackmail Alex into divorcing Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer was ineffectively trying to blackmail Alex into divorcing Janice by threatening to create a scandal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lizzy Fielding and Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex, Janice, and Jennifer were all acquainted. Alex was married to Janice but sleeping with Jennifer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x01", "title": "The Return of the Sorcerer", "date": "1972-09-24", "description": "A sorcerer (Vincent Price) hires a translator (Bill Bixby) to decode an ancient Arabic manuscript that's connected to his twin brother's death. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Clark Ashton Smith\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were two satanic sorcerers and a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noel found himself caught up in the crossfire between three magic wielders. Carnby, Carnby’s later brother, and Fern. Carnby threatened to kill Noel if he should try to leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded two twin brother sorcerers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that John Carnby had killed his twin brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were two satanic sorcerers and a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the language industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The translator Noah was excited about ancient Arabic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witch Fern tried to seduce the, not unresponsive, translator Noah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The translator Noah was excited about ancient Arabic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Horror Express (1972)", "title": "Horror Express", "date": "1972-09-30", "description": "The year is 1906. A professor transports a frozen prehistoric creature from China to Europe by train.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Sir Alexander Saxton discovered discovered the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creative in a cave in Manchuria, but the creature revived on the transport back to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Renowned British anthropologist Sir Alexander Saxton was transporting what he believed to be the missing link in human evolution back to Europe from China. It was a primitive humanoid creature that he discovered in a cave in Manchuria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Pujardov was convinced that the creature was the work of Satan, while Saxton understood the creature within the theory of evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the primitive humanoid creature was actually inhabited by an alien being that jumped to a new host after the creature was shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An malevolent, incorporeal entity of extra-galactic origin inhabited various passengers on the train from China to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The primitive humanoid creature terrorized the passengers on the train back to Europe until such time as it was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The creature was alleged to be the world of the devil on various occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Christian monk running around brandishing a crucifix.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x02", "title": "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes", "date": "1972-10-01", "description": "A photographer (James Farentino) hires a model (Joanna Pettet) whose eyes burn with a mysterious glow. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Fritz Leiber\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Robert Malcolm Young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The model was the embodiment of what", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a window into David Faulkner's life as a professional photographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various men became uncontrollably besotted with the model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about how women need men to become infatuated with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beer company executive Munsch ended his search for a model to symbolize materialism with the hungry eyes girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It appeared at first that the model was bewitching young men and luring them to their doom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x02", "title": "The Greenhouse Jungle", "date": "1972-10-15", "description": "Jarvis Goodland and his nephew, Tony, stage Tony's kidnapping in order to break into his trust fund and use his half to hold on to his wife, to whom he wishes to remain married, despite her expensive tastes and separate social and romantic life. Jarvis, disgusted at the notion, shoots and kills Tony, whom he has always despised, once the ransom is paid, and a careful swapping of guns with Tony's wife casts suspicion in her direction.\n\nFinal clue/twist: After Columbo remembers that Jarvis Goodland had years earlier fired a gun at a burglar but only managed to hit a flowerpot, Columbo searches the greenhouse with a metal detector for the old slug. It turns out to be identical to the bullet with which Tony was murdered, proving Goodland killed his nephew, and that the gun evidence against Tony's wife was part of a frame-up.\n\nThis episode marks the first appearance of Bob Dishy as Columbo's newly assigned and totally unwanted neophyte partner, Sergeant Frederick Wilson, full of the latest techniques from Berkeley. He appears again in Now You See Him... (Season 5, Episode 5). It is also the first episode in which the main crime is committed after Columbo's initial appearance.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Jonathan Latimer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland together with his nephew staged a kidnapping in order to gain access to said nephew's lavish trust fund. But Jarvis double crossed and murdered his nephew, making it look like the kidnapping had been botched, to in order to purloin the whole of the booty for himself. He evidently would have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland murdered his adult nephew to gain access to a trust fund in the nephew's name and made it look like a ransom kidnapping gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jarvis shot his nephew dead in cold blood to get the nephew's trust fund money, in the form of a ransom, to help fund his costly orchid hobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland together with his nephew staged a kidnapping in order to gain access to said nephew's lavish trust fund. But Jarvis double crossed and murdered his nephew, making it look like the kidnapping had been botched, to in order to purloin the whole of the booty for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was Tony Goodland killed by his kidnappers or was there something more sinister afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarvis Goodland murdered his nephew, Tony, whom he detested, to gain access to the nephew's trust fund to help fund his costly orchid hobby (one might surmise).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony loved his wife, Cathy, in spite of her philandering ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarvis and Tony staged Tony's kidnapping with a view toward collecting on a hefty ransom from Tony's trust fund. Jarvis, however, shot Tony dead and took the entire ransom for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarvis betrayed his co-conspirator and nephew, Tony, by shooting him dead after they'd together collected the ransom for a kidnapping of Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was an open secret that Cathy had serially cheated on her husband, Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "major", "motivation": "After using his wife's wilted African violet as an excuse to serially pester Jarvis in his tropical greenhouse, Columbo finally confronted this most callous villain in the very same titular hothouse and presented evidence of murder chancely concealed in the garden dirt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks. He gracefully deferred to his neophyte partner's newfangled and time consuming police methods when a lesser man would have bristled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy was dumbfounded when the murder weapon was found stashed away in one of her shoe compartments. It had been planted there by Jarvis to frame her for the murder of his nephew Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarvis nearly succeeded in framing Cathy for Tony's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo interacted with his newly assigned and totally unwanted neophyte partner, Sergeant Frederick Wilson, who was full of the latest techniques from Berkeley.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x03", "title": "Rare Objects", "date": "1972-10-22", "description": "A gangster (Mickey Rooney) targeted for death meets a specialist (Raymond Massey) who guarantees him sanctuary... at a very high price.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a gangster, August Kolodney, who was being targeted for a hit by other gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney had a mob hit out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being injured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney sustained a gunshot wound and had to seek retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney contemplated early retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was held captive and made an exhibition object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney was made a specimen in Kolodney's remarkable collection of famous human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney had life extension treatment and was imprisoned in some sort of macabre collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Glendon used a gland revitalizing drug extend the lives of his museum specimens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolodney had a mob hit out on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Down-on-his-luck gangster Kolodney purchased sanctuary and a longevity treatment from Dr. Glendon, but wound up being a specimen in the Doctor's collection of notorious individuals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The waiter with an abrasive Kolodney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Glendon alleged that Tony sold out his boss Kolodney.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x04", "title": "Spectre in Tap-Shoes", "date": "1972-10-29", "description": "A woman is haunted by the ghost of her sister (both played by Sandra Dee) who committed suicide.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Gene R. Kearney (t), Jack Laird (s).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion was assumed to have committed suicide, although she was later revealed to have been murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion apparently killed herself and her ghost haunted the sister and the house they had co-inhabited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was suggested the family house be demolished so it is to be assumed that Marion's ghost was attached to the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion and Millicent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "The identical twins Marion and Millicent had been born minutes apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghost Millicent's suicided sister drove Millicent slowly mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Millicent was distressed over the apparent suicide of her twin sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Millicent spoke with her doctor about whether the haunting was a figment of her imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William and Marion had been having an affair and William now wanted his love letters back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion was evidently an avid tap dancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x03", "title": "The Most Crucial Game", "date": "1972-11-05", "description": "Paul Hanlon, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rockets football team, wants to create a sports empire, but Eric Wagner, who inherited the team, lacks ambition. Hanlon sneaks out of the stadium during the national anthem by disguising himself as an ice cream truck driver. He drives to a pay phone near Wagner's home, knowing Wagner's phones have been bugged, during which Hanlon makes it appear he's in his private box at the stadium by holding a radio to the receiver. He then drives to Wagner's house, bludgeons him with a blow to the head with a heavy piece of ice, which melts in the swimming pool, to make it appear to be an accident. Complicating matters is Eve Babcock, ostensibly a secretary but actually a call girl and an operative placed in Eric's home by a private detective who was, in turn, hired by Eric's attorney, Walter Cannell. James Gregory plays the football team’s coach.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo notices that the tape of the phone call Hanlon made to establish his alibi, which Hanlon insists was made from his private box in the stadium, did not capture the sound made whenever Hanlon’s office clock chimes to signal the bottom of the hour (the half hour). It proves that Hanlon’s phone call was not made from his private box.\n\nDirected by: Jeremy Kagan. Story by: John T. Dugan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul Hanlon, the general manager of a professional American football team, hatched a seemingly foolproof plot to murder the team's lackadaisical owner, Eric, so that he could take over the team and go on to create a sports empire: He set out on his foul deed disguised as an ice cream man and stopped mid-journey to make a telephone call (that he knew would be recorded) but with a radio carefully placed so that he would seem to be in his box at the stadium. Thus believing he had a foolproof alibi, Paul proceeded to batter Eric to death with a block of ice in the family swimming pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul Hanlon, the general manager of a professional American football team, hatched a seemingly foolproof plot to murder the team's unambitious owner so that he could take over the team and go on to create a sports empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did the famous sports team owner Eric Wagner die alone in a swimming pool by accident, or was he killed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Hanlon was exceedingly proud in the sports empire he had built up and resorted to murder when the empire's former owner's lackadaisical successor's lazy behavior threatened to bring about its ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Hanlon aspired to build an unrivaled sports empire, so much so that he resorted to murder when the former owner's lackadaisical successor threatened to birng about its ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Lt. Columbo as he investigates the general manager of a professional American football team for having murdered the team's owner. The viewer is shown what the day to day life of a general manager might be like, short scenes of on field football action, and a view in the the locker room after a game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shirley Wagner knew of her husband Eric's philandering and seemed at peace with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shirley Wagner knew of her husband Eric's philandering and seemed at peace with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Columbo questioned an evidently self-employed call girl in her apartment as she awaited a client.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo questioned Paul Hanlon at a basketball practice for pro players.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and the coach had some vociferous arguments about how to organize the play.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x05a", "title": "You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan", "date": "1972-11-12", "description": "An inventor (Ozzie Nelson) and his wife (Harriet Nelson) trade in their clumsiness for an experiment in immortality. Note: Based on the short story \"The Secret of the Vault\" by J. Wesley Rosenquist\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Henry Millikan and aunt Helena Millikan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Henry was poisoning aunt Helena, albeit not entirely against her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry revived Helena using his special serum after having poisoned her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry committed suicide after he came to believe he failed in his attempt to revive his wife Helena from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Helena committed suicide in different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "George uncovered that his uncle Henry was poisoning Helena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was a miserable failure as a scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alchemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry made a failed attempt at transforming a rock into gold in front of a number of scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perpetual energy machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist berated Henry for having demonstrated a perpetual motion machine that broke down in 12 seconds of being started.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry invented an age reversal serum that he injected into a hamster which promptly died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George worried that his aunt Helena was being poisoned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x05b", "title": "Smile, Please", "date": "1972-11-12", "description": "A woman (Lindsay Wagner) tries to get a photo of a vampire (Cesare Danova).\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman tried to become the first person to photograph a genuine vampire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x06", "title": "The Other Way Out", "date": "1972-11-19", "description": "A murderer (Ross Martin) is lured to an isolated house where a cold, calculating avenger (Burl Ives) makes him pay for his crime.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Gene R. Kearney (t), Kurt van Elting (s).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Man Doubleday lured Bradley to an old mansion under the pretense of blackmail in order to avenge Bradley's murder of his granddaughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bradley had murdered a young dancer he was romantically involved with after she threatened to tell his wife about their affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meredith became increasingly desperate inside the old mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meredith had had an affair with a young dancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide vs. slow death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meredith in the end was given this choice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meredith had killed a go-go dancer with who he had had an affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Man Doubleday lured Bradley to an old mansion under the pretense of blackmail in order to avenge Bradley's murder of his granddaughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bradley received a blackmail note requesting that he drop off $10,000 to a specified location or else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bradley Meredith and Estelle Meredith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Doubleday terrorized Bradley inside the old mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Doubleday and Sonny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an intransigent person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Doubleday let Meredith borrow the car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x04", "title": "Dagger of the Mind", "date": "1972-11-26", "description": "When Sir Roger Haversham realizes that actors Nicholas Frame and his wife, Lillian Stanhope, have manipulated him into backing their theater production, he confronts the couple, and is accidentally killed during the ensuing scuffle. The pair cover up the killing by stuffing the body into a trunk, taking it home to his estate, and staging an apparent fall down the stairs. Columbo is visiting London to study British police techniques as the guest of Scotland Yard Detective Chief Superintendent William Durk, who is called to investigate the incident. Miss Dudley, an attractive young understudy Frame has his eye on, is intensely disliked by Stanhope. Haversham's butler covers for the couple but later tries to blackmail them and is murdered by Frame. The theater doorman comes into possession of the dead man's umbrella, which becomes vital to the resolution of the case.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo engineers a situation whereby, before witnesses, they search the dead man’s closed umbrella, on exhibit in a wax museum, for a pearl from Lillian Stanhope's broken necklace. According to Columbo this could only have gotten there during the killing. When the umbrella is opened and a pearl is revealed, the increasingly unstable Frame starts babbling, and Stanhope, now overwhelmed, confesses to how they killed Sir Roger. (Columbo had, however, used his childhood marble-playing skills to shoot the pearl into the umbrella moments before it was opened.)\n\nThe first of several episodes to feature locations outside the United States, it was filmed in both London and Hollywood. Although scenes with Wilfrid Hyde- White were set in London, due to the actor's tax problems all his character's scenes were filmed in California.\n\nDirected by: Richard Quine. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link, Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Shakespearean acting couple Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope accidentally killed the wealthy backer of their latest theatrical production in a scuffle. The pair tried to cover up the killing by stuffing the body into a trunk, taking it home to his estate, and staging an apparent fall down the stairs. They would have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-tenacious Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to cover up a murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Shakespearean acting couple Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope accidentally killed the wealthy backer of their latest theatrical production in a scuffle. The pair tried to cover up the killing by stuffing the body into a trunk, taking it home to his estate, and staging an apparent fall down the stairs. They would have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-tenacious Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Shakespearean acting couple Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope accidentally killed the wealthy backer of their latest theatrical production in a scuffle. The pair tried to cover up the killing by stuffing the body into a trunk, taking it home to his estate, and staging an apparent fall down the stairs. They would have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-tenacious Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did Sir Roger Haversham meet his death by falling down a staircase or was he killed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The esteemed Shakespearean actors Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope were married. The story follows their accidentally having killed the backer of their current theatrical production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a theatrical production of Macbeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "British culture was seen through the eyes of the American police detective Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "British culture was seen through the eyes of the American police detective Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "British culture was seen through the eyes of the American police detective Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope were exceedingly concerned with their careers as famous Shakespearean actors to the point where they got into a scuffle with their backer and accidentally killed him when he threatened to ruin their reputations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope were exceedingly concerned with their careers as famous Shakespearean actors to the point where they got into a scuffle with their backer and accidentally killed him when he threatened to ruin their reputations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Shakespearean acting couple Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope took measures to secure part of their backer's fortune after accidentally killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villains Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope were esteemed Shakespearean actors. Acting is alluded to in the title. They were shown acting in a theatrical production of Macbeth. Columbo commented on Nicholas and Lillian's theatrical performances while interrogating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks. He also went and opened his own car door rather than let his, subsequently gobsmacked, British host open it for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Haversham's butler covered for Nicholas and Lillian.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x07", "title": "Fright Night", "date": "1972-12-10", "description": "A young couple (Stuart Whitman, Barbara Anderson) inherits a farmhouse where they experience unseen terrors.\n\nDirected by: Jeff Corey. Story by: Kurt van Elting (s), Robert Malcolm Young (t).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young married couple Tom and Leona Ogilvy spent a night in a spooky farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Leona Ogilvy moved into a house and were apparently beset upon by one or more spirits that were perhaps attached to a mysterious trunk in the attic. The spirits perpetrated various hoaxes that turned Tom and Leona against each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a haunted chest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Leona were subjected to various preternatural terrors during their stay at the old farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was stressed out over having writer's block and being haunted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucifer was invoked by the voices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A ghoul-like cousin Zachariah appeared to Tom and Leona looking for the chest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The farmhouse portrait of cousin Zachariah seemed to be inhabited by his ghost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x08", "title": "Finnegan's Flight", "date": "1972-12-17", "description": "A prison lifer (Burgess Meredith) wishing for freedom subjects himself to his cellmate's (Cameron Mitchell) mind-over-matter experiments.\n\nDirected by: Gene Kearney. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie Finnegan was desperate to get out of prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was desperate to get out of prison. One gathers he was there on a life sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie dreamed about being a free man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pete Tuttle had used hypnosis on Charlie and the physiological states Charlie exhibited matched his mental experiences. For instance, his fingers blistered when Pete asked Charlie to place his hand imaginary boiling water. Later Charlie experienced hypoxia when instructed to fly a jet under hypnosis, and then burned to death when he crashed it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a sincere and reasonably realistic image of prison life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Pete, Charlie was about to have a breakdown and burn down the prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prisoners were incarcerated on life sentences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical psychological experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In spite of the warden's reservations, the doctor let the experiments go on because of professional curiosity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cries and Whispers (1972)", "title": "Cries and Whispers", "date": "1972-12-21", "description": "Cries and Whispers (Swedish: Viskningar och rop, lit. 'Whispers and Cries') is a 1972 Swedish period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann. The film, set in a mansion at the end of the 19th century, is about three sisters and a servant who struggle with the terminal cancer of one of the sisters (Andersson). The servant (Sylwan) is close to her, while the other two sisters (Ullmann and Thulin) confront their emotional distance from each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cries_and_Whispers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Agnes, Maria, Karin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sororal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the love, and variously lack thereof, between the sisters was central to the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the comparing and contrasting of the three sisters' different attitudes towards matters carnal (Agnes unmarried and perhaps lesbian, Karin disgusted by touch, Maria lascivious), as well as Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was near death because of cancer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "the three sisters and Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "two sisters attended a dying third sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria and Karin mourned after Agnes died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria and Joakim; Karin and Fredrik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria and Karin seemed to reconcile as sisters in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story came back time and again to how everything is \"a tissue of lies\", the idea seemingly that people don't speak the truth about what is in their hearts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "the sisters variously resented each other for one reason or another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria recalled her childhood, as well as a love affair that had ended", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria recalled her childhood and interactions with her mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria had had semi-regular trysts with Doctor David behind her husband's back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joakim tried unsuccessfully to kill himself with a sword", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there were situations where the sisters touched each other in a sexual way; Anna and Agnes may have been lovers, though this is vague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a protestant priest appeared briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x09", "title": "She'll Be Company for You", "date": "1972-12-24", "description": "A widower (Leonard Nimoy) is watched by a strangely menacing cat. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Andrea Newman\n\nDirected by: Gerald Perry Finnerman. Story by: David Rayfiel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was gradually driven insane by his cat Jennet. The cat menaced Henry by transforming into more and more fearsome cats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry appeared to be guilty at feeling relieved about his invalid wife's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry appeared to be guilty at feeling relieved about his invalid wife's death and for not having cherished her more while she was still alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was reflected back on his recently departed invalid wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about Henry and his invalid wife that had recently died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Auden reflected back on having cared for his recently departed, invalid wife. He had cared for her for years and it had been a burden to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry over the death of his invalid wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Auden and his menacing house cat Jennet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal haunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry kept hearing the bell ringing even after his bell ringing invalid wife was gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry said to June that the house was full of ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "June accused Henry of thinking only about himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed that Henry had been romantically involved with his secretary June while he was still a married man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara gave Henry a cat because she assumed he would be lonely after the death of his invalid wife Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thinking about one's accomplishments in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry thought his youth had been spent waiting on that invalid woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972)", "title": "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", "date": "1972-12-29", "description": "Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes), known in the UK as Aguirre, Wrath of God, is a 1972 epic historical drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role. The soundtrack was composed and performed by West German kosmische band Popol Vuh. The story follows the travels of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre_the_Wrath_of_God" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the obsession with El Dorado lead Aguirre and his people to doom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "El Dorado", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The conquistadors were searching for this fabled land and city of gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aguirre eventually lead a mutiny when the expedition leader showed signs of wanting to turn back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing bloodthirsty savages", "level": "major", "motivation": "the group was perpetually fighting or fleeing indigenous people in the Amazons, sometimes cannibals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "a group of conquistadors were exploring to them unknown lands in the Amazons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw the group get very short on food, especially salt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aguirre and Florés", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pedro de Ursúa and Doña Inés", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the very end we saw the men realize how doomed they were.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: World on a Wire (1973)", "title": "World on a Wire", "date": "1973", "description": "A television serial film surrounding a powerful computer, called the Simulacron 1, that can simulate reality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film was about Dr. Fred Stiller piecing together that the world of his experience was all a computer simulation. Interestingly, Dr. Stiller was in charge of running a supercomputer, the Simulacron 1, that simulated another reality from within his own reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The manager of the Simulacron computer, Fred Stiller, uncovered that he himself was a simulated character inside a computer from an even higher level of reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turned out that Dr. Stiller was living inside a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stiller something pondered whether or not he might be crazy because of all the computer glitches he was experiencing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stiller tried to evade a manhunt that was on for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stiller came to realize that he and everyone else in his reality were computer simulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A CEO communicated with his secretary via video phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Simulacron 1 mainframe-style supercomputer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Real person Eva Vollmer fell in love with simulated person Dr. Stiller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The workers at the Simulacron 1 computer facility went on strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva Vollmer transfered the mind of the simulated Dr. Stiller into the body of a man in the real world who looked just like him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery-misc1", "title": "Die Now, Pay Later", "date": "1973", "description": "An undertaker (Will Geer) slashes funeral prices at a January clearance sale. Note: This segment was produced for the second season but never aired during the series' original broadcast.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a an undertaker putting on a January clearance sale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "An undertaker had arranged a number of deaths in order to get rid of excess stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a an undertaker putting on a January clearance sale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The black cat owning undertaker turned out to be a warlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The undertaker's wife called the funeral home to scold the sheriff.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x10", "title": "The Ring with the Red Velvet Ropes", "date": "1973-01-07", "description": "A boxing champ (Gary Lockwood) learns he has one more bout before he can claim the title. Note: Based on a short story of the same title by Edward D. Hoch\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Robert Malcolm Young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heavyweight champ James Figg stepped out of his locker room shower to find himself in a strange mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Figg and Roderick Blanco over who was the better boxer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Figg and Roderick Blanco wished to demonstrate their superiority as boxers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about two elite professional boxers meeting in the ring to see who was better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Figg found himself trapped inside a strange mansion with the prospect of having to face off against a brawny man in a boxing match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roderick Blanco and Sondra Blanco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became apparent that Blanco must have known he was fighting Figg to the death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x11", "title": "Something in the Woodwork", "date": "1973-01-14", "description": "An alcoholic woman (Geraldine Page) asks a reluctant ghost for help in her plot for revenge against her ex-husband (Leif Erickson). Note: Based on the short story \"Housebound\" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes Directed by: Edward M. Abroms. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly sought vengeance on her ex-husband for dumping her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly and Charles Wheatland were and ex-married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are told the divorced woman Molly lived in a house with a haunted attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly seemed obsessively besotted with her ex-husband Charles who in turned cared nothing for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly and Charles Wheatland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghost of a bank robber inhabited Molly's attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly was lonely and may have turned to alcohol after her divorce from Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We never saw Molly without a martini in her hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie became a ghost in the attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Molly broke down into tears in the attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Molly though Charlie was about to have her committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Molly and Charlie had gone through a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie chided Molly for calling his new girlfriend at all hours of the night.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x05", "title": "Requiem for a Falling Star", "date": "1973-01-21", "description": "Jean Davis, personal assistant to aging movie star Nora Chandler, is engaged to gossip reporter Jerry Parks, and she has secret information about Chandler. Nora deflates the tire of Jean's car so that the engaged couple will have to switch vehicles. Chandler starts a gasoline fire just as Parks's car (being driven by Davis) pulls into his garage. It initially appears that the murderer's intended victim was Parks, but actually Jean was the target. Columbo solves the case after connecting it to the mysterious disappearance of Chandler's husband a decade earlier.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo is not sure of anything. He watches one of Nora's old movies in which she disguised herself as a man to commit a murder. He remembers some facts about the disappearance of her husband years before, that the fountain in Nora's garden does not work, and learns it was purchased the day after her husband disappeared. He tricks Nora into thinking her husband's body might have been discovered. When she rushes home and runs straight to her garden, Columbo, lying in wait, confronts her. She confesses that she killed her husband and buried his body under the fountain, and that Jean knew it and that is why she killed her.\n\nDirected by: Richard Quine. Story by: Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aging movie star Nora Chandler murdered her personal assistant, Jean, to keep her from sharing an incriminating tidbit of information with a gossip reporter to whom Jean had recently become engaged. Nora came up with this seemingly foolproof method: she deflated a tire of Jean's car so that she'd be compelled to switch vehicles with her fiancé. Then Nora started a gasoline fire just as Jean pulled up into the gossip reporter's driveway, leaving Jean charred to a crisp and everyone thinking that the gossip reporter was the true target of the killer. The aforementioned incriminating tidbit, to top it all off, was that Nora had murdered her husband years prior and buried his body under a fountain in her garden. She would have gotten away with both crimes, one may presume, had it not been for the ever-pesky Lieutenant Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: An apparent attempt on the life of the Hollywood gossip reporter Jerry Parks that resulted, not uncoincidentally as it happened, in the death of Nora Chandler's personal assistant Jean Davis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Witness and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around an aging movie star who is strangely reluctant to cash out on the failing film studio that she inherited from her mysteriously disappeared husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gossip reporter Jerry Parks was strongly suspected of having been blackmailing Nora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story was that Nora had long ago murdered her husband and buried the body under the fountain in her garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story was that Nora had long ago murdered her husband and buried the body under the fountain in her garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora coped gracefully with aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Nora and her personal assistant, Jean, whom she murdered callously and feigned to grieve over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo is prone to make modest and self-deprecating remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora was shown acting on the set of a television show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean and Jerry were engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo feigned (or not?) to be starstruck by the legendary movie star Nora Nora Chandler. The movie star Nora Chandler was swarmed by fans while entering her car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Nora had murdered her some years prior. Columbo asked Jean to call his wife to say hello. Columbo confided in Nora about how his wife steals ashtrays where ever they go to keep as mementos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gasoline fire at Jerry Parks' garage was being investigated as an act of arson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry Parks was a Hollywood gossip reporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "position in exchange for sexual favors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gossip reporter Jerry Parks touched on the \"casting couch\" while being questioned by Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora pretended to be upset over the death of Jean, her personal assistant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x06", "title": "A Stitch in Crime", "date": "1973-02-11", "description": "Cardiac surgeon Dr. Barry Mayfield and Dr. Edmund Hiedemann have pioneered a major medical breakthrough that Mayfield wants to publish about immediately, but Hiedemann wants to wait and do more tests. When Dr. Hiedemann's heart condition worsens, requiring the insertion of a heart valve, Mayfield performs the surgery using non-permanent sutures, that will kill his partner when it dissolves in his body. Nurse Sharon Martin, a friend of Hiedemann, who has never trusted or liked Mayfield, uncovers a suspicious piece of suture, which she takes with her from the operating room. Mayfield observes her doing this and later kills Martin in the hospital garage parking area, staging it as an apparent mugging. He later tries to pin the crime on her ex-boyfriend, a former drug addict, whom he kills as well. This episode contains one of the rare occasions when Columbo loses (or appears to lose) his temper; suddenly slamming a coffee pot down onto Mayfield's desk he angrily warns him that if Hiedemann dies, the police will have his body autopsied to check what sutures were used in his operation.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Mayfield operates on Heidemann again, ostensibly for medical reasons but actually to replace the dissolving sutures. As soon as the procedure is completed, police swarm the operating suite and search for the removed sutures. Mayfield loses his composure, demanding to be allowed to leave the operating room and shoving Columbo in the process. Just as it seems that no sutures are to be found and that Mayfield is in the clear, Columbo re- enters the doctor's office and reveals that he was puzzled as to why Mayfield, always so calm and collected, would have shoved him, then realized that Mayfield used the scuffle to rid himself of the sutures. Here, Columbo pulls the sutures from the pocket of the surgical scrubs he, Columbo himself, had worn in the operating room - \"the only thing not searched\". The hitherto impassive Mayfield shows the first signs of distress. Nita Talbot plays Marsha, Sharon Martin's roommate.\n\nApart from season 10's \"No Time to Die\", which had no murderer and is a vast divergence from the series formula, this is the only Columbo episode in which a murderer fails to kill his intended target.\n\nDirected by: Hy Averback. Story by: Shirl Hendryx.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Heart surgeon Dr. Barry Mayfield found himself presented with an opportunity to ingeniously get rid of one his senior colleagues that was standing in the way of his career: Dr. Mayfield was called on to perform heart surgery on said colleague. While doing so, he clandestinely replaced the normal sutures to be used with dissolving sutures dyed to look the same. These would have dissolved a few days later and the patient would have died of heart failure that would have been hard to pin on anyone. He would surely have gotten away with it had it not been for the timely intervention of Lieutenant Columbo. Dr. Mayfield also murdered a hospital nurse and a recovered drug addict to cover his tracks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a hospital and showcases the working life of doctors and nurses. We even see surgeons at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Mayfield tried to commit murder because he wanted to advance his career more quickly. He wanted to announce success in his research project, but Dr. Hiedemann stood in the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mayfield and Dr. Hiedemann became a stereotypical doctor and patient couple, quarreling about the latter's environment and what was good for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mayfield tried to lead Columbo astray by planting purloined morphine bottles in nurse Sharon's apartment so it would seem like she was abusing it or supplying another addict or both. Dr. Mayfield made it look like Tom, a recovered heroin addict, died of an overdoes of the stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nurse Sharon was stuck in an awkward situation when she began suspecting that Dr. Barry might be trying to botch his surgery on Dr. Edmund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The research colleagues Dr. Mayfield and Dr. Hiedemann were at odds over whether to announce their apparent medical breakthrough immediately or wait for the results of more tests. Dr. Mayfield was eager to publish their result. The elder partner, Dr. Hiedemann, had a more cautious attitude, and insisted on performing some additional tests. Dr. Mayfield resorted to an elaborate attempt on Dr. Hiedemann's life in a bid to get his way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo mentioned that his wife was having stomach trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hiedemann had a bad ticker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon's roommate nearly broke down in tears upon being informed of her violent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mayfield tried to paint the hospital nurse Sharon as a petty morpheme trafficker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo complained of an upset stomach. Columbo had a sneezing fit, perhaps an allergic reaction to the crab meat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon's former love interest was a recovered heroin addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo flew off the handle and slammed a coffee pot down on Dr. Mayfield's desk causing the latter to perform open heart surgery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stranger (1973)", "title": "The Stranger", "date": "1973-02-23", "description": "An astronaut crashes on a planet strangely similar to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(1973_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Counter-Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA astronaut Neil Stryker crash landed on a planet in the same orbit as Earth, but concealed on the opposite side of the sun, so that it had gone unobserved by Earth scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil Stryker crash landed on a planet, called Terra, on the opposite side of the sun, but in the same orbit as Earth, that was populated by aliens that looked just like human beings. From the point of view of the Terrans, Neil was an alien visitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Perfect Order brought peace and harmony to the planet Terra, but at the expense of making their world a drab and joyless place. The history books only went back 35 years which coincided with the founding of The Perfect Order. People who didn't accept The Perfect Order were considered mentally ill and \"treated\" accordingly so that they could be reintegrated into society. Religion was also outlawed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil Stryker and Bettina Cooke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with three NASA astronauts returning from a mission to deep space.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x07", "title": "The Most Dangerous Match", "date": "1973-03-04", "description": "When Chess Grandmaster Emmett Clayton loses an impromptu game to Eastern European champion Tomlin Dudek the night before their championship match, Clayton decides to kill Dudek. The hearing impaired Clayton shoves him into a garbage grinder in the basement. Dudek survives so Clayton poisons his rival in the hospital before he can regain consciousness. Heidi Brühl plays Linda Robinson, who follows in her mother's footsteps in looking after Dudek. Lloyd Bochner plays Dudek's accompanying coach, Mazoor Berozski.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo learns that Dudek's injuries were caused by the fall into the grinder rather than by the grinder itself, and that the machinery automatically shuts off if something falls into it while it is in operation. Realizing that someone wanting to kill Dudek would merely have had to turn the grinder back on after it shut itself off, Columbo concludes that since it was not turned back on it means Dudek’s attacker did not know the grinder had shut itself off. This in turn means the culprit must be deaf.\n\nDirected by: Edward M. Abroms. Story by: Richard Levinson, William Link, Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emmett Clayton realized he was about to loose to Tomlin Dudek in a fated chess game and therefore tried to dispose of his rival in the following seemingly clever way: He would trick Tomlin into writing a farewell note in his native language then push him into a garbage grinder in the basement. Alas, being deaf he failed to notice that the garbage grinder did not start. Even so he might have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-pesky Lieutenant Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emmett was so driven by his need to be the best chess player that he stooped to murder his rival when it became apparent that he was about to be beaten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomlin administered a sorely needed lesson in humility to the puffed up chess master Emmett, after gorging himself on escargot at a french restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmett was arrogant beyond belief regarding his chess abilities, and had two major setbacks in the story: First he was defeated by Tomlin in an impromptu game at a French restaurant. Later he was distracted by Columbo and lost to a novice player in a few opening moves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmett Clayton being deaf factored prominently into the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a chess master who murders his opponent the night before their high profile match was scheduled to take place. Columbo was playing checkers with the veterinarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emmet Clayton was an extraordinarily competitive chess player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "The chess master Emmett Clayton murdered his rival Tomlin Dudek rather than losing to him in their big match, and taking a resulting hit in his pride. Emmett also delighted in showing off his skills by playing eight decidedly inferior chess players at once.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The snail eating habit of the French was on display when Tomlin demonstrated his weakness for this culinary delight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomlin was treated by Dr. Sullivan, among other medical professionals, after being unceremoniously thrown into a garbage grinder. Columbo took his unnamed Basset hound to the vet for treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo took his unnamed Basset hound to the vet for treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo mentioned that his wife was away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomlin Dudek was under the care of a personal physician for his raging diabetes and also circulatory problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmett interacted with his ex-fiancée, Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmett tore out his hearing aid and smashed it to smithereens when he was defeated at chess by Tomlin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomlin had an entourage of attendants that saw to his various needs, including a personal physician and a coach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chess master Emmett Clayton made it look like Tomlin bugged out and flew to Mexico to avoid a humiliating defeat to him in their upcoming big match.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x12", "title": "Death on a Barge", "date": "1973-03-04", "description": "A fishmonger ignores his friends' warnings when he falls for a vampire. Note: Based on the short story \"The Canal\" by Everil Worrell\n\nDirected by: Leonard Nimoy. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron became infatuated with a mysterious woman, named Hyacinth, who appeared to him from a barge in the nighttime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hyacinth turned out to be a vampire. Her father had confined her on a barge, because, as we learned, vampires were unable to cross bodies of water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hyacinth's father kept her captive on a barge to prevent her from satisfying her vampiric bloodlust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron and Phyllis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron fell in love with a vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron and father both had a dilemma regarding whether to kill the vampire they loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron lost interest in his girlfriend Phyllis, who still loved him, and became infatuated with Hyacinth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron lost interest in his girlfriend Phyllis, who still loved him, and became infatuated with Hyacinth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hyacinth and her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hyacinth confided in Ron to being lonely aboard her barge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hyacinth chided Ron for having brought a girl with him during one of his late night visits to her barge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Six Million Dollar Man: The Moon and the Desert (1973)", "title": "The Six Million Dollar Man: The Moon and the Desert", "date": "1973-03-07", "description": "Steve Austin is an astronaut who has made three moon landings. In a test flight accident caused by a malfunctioning center stick, his right arm is severed, his left eye is blinded, and both legs must be surgically amputated. Steve Austin’s personal physician, Dr. Rudy Wells, has theorized about the creation of a cyborg through the installation of bionic parts. He is persuaded by an OSI agent to reconstruct his patient/friend with the understanding that Steve Austin will subsequently work for the OSI. Dr. Wells apprises Steve of the plan, but is met with much resistance as Steve Austin mentally struggles to cope with his injuries, the installation of artificial components, and the future obligations that will be involuntarily thrust upon him. Following surgery and lengthy rehabilitation, Steve Austin reluctantly accepts an assignment to rescue a hostage in Saudi Arabia.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_episodes#Television_movies_(1973)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin was made into a \"bionic man\" after he was critically wounded in a test flight accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin used his nuclear powered robotic arm to accomplish various feats of super strength, like tearing off his shackles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Austin went to the Moon in an Apollo program era rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was fitted with a nuclear powered robotic arm that was \"infinitely more powerful\" than his original arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve lost an eye in the accident which the doctors replaced with an artificial one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was fitted robotic legs that allowed him to run a 4 minute mile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's nurse Jean Manners professed her love for Steve to him, but he appeared to be unmoved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's robotic arm was nuclear powered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Crazies (1973)", "title": "The Crazies", "date": "1973-03-16", "description": "The residents of a small American town accidentally become afflicted by a military biological weapon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crazies_(1973_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military created a highly contagious and deadly virus code named Trixie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military accidentally contaminated the Evans City water supply with a highly contagious virus, named Trixie, which caused victims to either die or become homicidally insane. The city was quarantined and a nuclear bomb readied to prevent the virus from spreading.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether the military was justified in quarantining the people of Evans City against their will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the military quarantine the people of Evans City against their will in an effort to stop a deadly virus from spreading all over the world?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy and David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "High levelgGovernment officials, including the President, were planning how to cover up the dropping of a nuclear bomb on Evans City, if it became necessary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evans City was quarantined and a nuclear bomb readied to prevent the virus from spreading.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear bomb was prepared for dropping on Evans City should in case the plague got too much out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artie Fulton and Kathy Fulton.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Megalon", "date": "1973-03-17", "description": "All hopes rest in Godzilla saving the day when Emperor Antonio of Seatopia unleashes the giant beetle-like monster Megalon on the world. It is the 13th film in the Godzilla franchise, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Megalon, and Gigan, along with the mecha character Jet Jaguar.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Megalon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Seatopia unleashed the giant insect monster Megalon on the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goro Ibuki invented a robot that he named Jet Jaguar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three million year old undersea civilization of Seatopia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Megalon appeared to be a giant beetle-like monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Seatopians tried to use Megalon to destroy the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Seatopia unleashed the giant insect monster Megalon on the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An underground nuclear test produced shockwaves that disturbed such monsters as as Godzilla, Anguirus, and Rodan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Genesis II (1973)", "title": "Genesis II", "date": "1973-03-23", "description": "The film tells the story of a 20th-century man thrown forward in time, to a post-apocalyptic future, by an accident in suspended animation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronaut Dylan Hunt was put into suspended animation and woke up in the year 2133.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronaut Dylan Hunt was put into suspended animation and woke up in the year 2133.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a post-apocalyptic future where people were still recovering from a catastrophic world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tyranians, who ruled what was once Arizona and New Mexico, systematically enslaved humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "PAX slaves, being pacifist by nature, were reluctant to consent to Dylan's plan to revolt against their Tyrian masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tyrians systematically enslaved the PAX people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuclear fusion energy seemed to be the primary power source of both the world of 1979 and 2133.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An event called \"The Great Conflict\" (i.e. a third and final World War) destroyed the civilization of Hunt's time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan Hunt was tortured by the Tyrians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Tyrian man used a pain inducing wand to torture Dylan Hunt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e2x08", "title": "Double Shock", "date": "1973-03-25", "description": "Flamboyant television chef Dexter Paris and his identical twin brother, conservative banker Norman, are supposedly not talking to one another. But both disapprove that their uncle Clifford Paris has become engaged to young, beautiful Lisa Chambers. One of the brothers kills uncle Clifford by dropping an electric mixer into the bathtub while he is bathing, electrocuting him. The body is moved to the gym to make it seem like he had a heart attack while using an exercise bike. Clifford's lawyer, Michael Hathaway reveals to the twins that a new will exists, one which he is willing to \"lose\" for a price. However, Chambers, who became fearful when Columbo questioned her, also has a copy of the will, and thus she is murdered too. Unlike most Columbo episodes, this has a whodunit element which is not resolved until the end of the episode. Dabney Coleman plays Columbo's colleague, Detective Murray. Jeanette Nolan plays Mrs. Peck, a sharp-tongued, fastidious, loyal housekeeper who is appalled by the \"terrible mess\" Columbo makes in the house.\n\nFinal clue/twist: The audience has seen one of the twin brothers commit the murder, but does not know which one. During much of the episode both twins try to convince Columbo the other is the killer. Columbo eventually establishes that two persons must have been involved in the actual murder. Due to the short time frame between the short circuit caused by the electrocution and the re-powering of the house, and due to the physical exertion required to drag the dead body out of the bathtub and prop it up on a stationary bike, he realizes the brothers must have worked together. When confronted, Norman admits to what they did, while Dexter screams at him to shut up.\n\nDirected by: Robert Butler. Story by: Jackson Gillis, Richard Levinson, William Link, Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Identical twins Dexter and Norman came up with the following foolproof-seeming scheme to murder their rich uncle before he got married and left his nephews without inheritance: One of them would electrocute him in his bath so it would look like heart attack and the other would stand by to immediately replace the fuse that would invariable blow. Furthermore, one of them provided the other with an alibi by leaving in the other's guise beforehand. They might have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two twins were after their rich uncle's estate, unawares that he had already bequeathed it in a will to his young fiancée. By contrast, the fiancée Lisa Chambers was remarkably uninterested in money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did a wealthy old man in fine physical condition for his age die of natural causes or was he done in by a greedy heir or two?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo acted as an uncouth dumb-klutz getting cigar ashes all over the floor and breaking a prized pitcher in the beginning. Later he broke a television set and was thrown out on his ear for being cloddish. He therefore caught the snickering twins somewhat unawares when he used his laser-focused mind to piece together their nefarious plot, and got the better of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Clifford, a wealthy old man who was young at heat, was engaged to a woman, Lisa Chambers, who was young enough to be his granddaughter, according to his longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Peck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Clifford, a wealthy old man who was young at heat, was engaged to a woman, Lisa Chambers, who was young enough to be his granddaughter, according to his longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Peck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "Identical twins Dexter and Norman hated each other and hadn't spoken for 20 years until they saw fit to commit murder together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two twins were after their rich uncle's estate, unawares that he had already bequeathed it in a will to his young fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Identical twins Dexter and Norman knocked off their rich uncle before he got married and left his nephews without inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Identical twins Dexter and Norman were apparently estranged and at each other's throats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Norman hosted a television cooking program, in which Columbo was invited to partake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa Chambers was shocked to discover the freshly deceased body of her aged fiancé Mr. Clifford on an exercise bike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The housekeeper Mrs. Peck was driven to her wit's end by Columbo and his antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "health and fitness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clifford and Lisa Chambers were enthusiastic about sports and fitness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clifford over-compensated for his advanced age by engaging in physical activity befitting of a man half his age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa Chambers' unusual libido and interest in the dried up bodies of septuagenarians was pointedly illustrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fencing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly Mr. Clifford put his vitality on display by fencing with an old friend in the opening scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fastidious Mrs. Peck was Mr. Clifford's housekeeper of 33 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo revealed that his wife cooks all of the TV chef Dexter's recipes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman had racked up $37,500 in gambling debts in Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hathaway, the attorney for Mr. Clifford's estate, proved himself to be exceedingly corrupt when he offered to procure and destroy Lisa's copy of Mr. Clifford's will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa Chambers was suspected of being a gold digger. Evidence proved her to be nothing of the kind in the fullness of the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flamboyant television chef Dexter was compared and contrasted with his twin brother, the conservative banker Norman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Soylent Green (1973)", "title": "Soylent Green", "date": "1973-04-19", "description": "Loosely based on the 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, it combines both police procedural and science fiction genres; the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman and a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity due to the greenhouse effect, resulting in suffering from pollution, poverty, overpopulation, euthanasia and depleted resources.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity due to the greenhouse effect, resulting in overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity due to the greenhouse effect, resulting in overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thorne uncovered a vast government/corporate conspiracy whereby the food staple Soylent Green was actually made from human beings, and not plankton as was conventionally assumed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Soylent Corporation was secretly feeding half the world with human derived nourishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lives of the spaciously living, fresh meat and vegetable eating rich were juxtaposed with the squalid conditions under which ordinary people lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dying oceans and year-round humidity due to the greenhouse effect resulted in people suffering from pollution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were year round high temperatures owing to the greenhouse effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thorne and Shirl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old people were given the chance to enjoy the beauties of nature for a short period in exchange for them being euthanized.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x13", "title": "Whisper", "date": "1973-05-13", "description": "Irene, a young woman (Sally Field) listens to the voices of the dead. Charlie (Dean Stockwell) is her husband and caretaker. Note: Based on a short story by Martin Waddell\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: David Rayfiel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene was possessed by the spirit of a woman named Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and Irene Evans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie explained why he loved Irena despite her being inhabited the spirit of a dead woman, or maybe because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene appeared to talk to departed people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being mentally ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie spoke to an old country doctor about his wife's mental state and was advised to drug her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that Irene was a receptacle for wayward spirits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Irene was possessed by a ghost that wanted her to bury the remains of her child that had died for unknown reasons and perhaps did not received a proper burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the use of personality altering medication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was reluctant to follow his doctor's advice and slip Irene medication that would change her quirky nature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x14", "title": "The Doll of Death", "date": "1973-05-20", "description": "An Englishman (Barry Atwater) uses voodoo to get revenge on a romantic rival (Alejandro Rey). Note: Based on a short story by Vivian Meik\n\nDirected by: John Badham. Story by: Jack Guss.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon, Sheila Trent, and rogue lover Raphael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spurned fiancée Brandon bought a voodoo doll to kill his machismo oozing rival Raphael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheila and Raphael were deeply in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon was jealous of Raphael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon bought a voodoo doll to kill his machismo oozing rival Raphael, but he ended up killing himself by mistake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila took a great risk to save Raphael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila briefly had this tough decision before her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheila abandoned her fiancée almost at the altar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raphael was writhing in pain on the deck of Sheila's yacht, and he was later laid out in bed in utter agony.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x15a", "title": "Hatred unto Death", "date": "1973-05-27", "description": "Anthropologists (Steve Forrest, Dina Merrill) respond to a captive gorilla's primeval hatred.\n\nDirected by: Gerald Perry Finnerman. Story by: Halsted Welles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the nature of animal instincts in humans", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Grant Wilson felt a primal hatred from the gorilla that hated him, all for no particular reason other than ancient nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant faced a misanthropic gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant and Ruth Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant expressed an irrational hatred for the gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant self-reflected on his hatred even if he did little to control it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant and the gorilla harbored an instinctive hatred for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gorilla harbored an instinctive hatred of humankind. Ruth alleged that mankind were ruining the Earth and that the gorillas, the elephants, and the porpoises would manage very well without us, and more over that the Earth wold be a fabulous place without man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant, Ruth, and the gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made that Grant was an aggressive male and Dina a compassionate woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Compassionate Ruth objected to putting the Gorilla in a zoo or experimenting on its brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remarks were made about unduly profiting first from a book deal and later from selling a gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ramirez mentioned that he was preparing an exhibit on endangered species.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "nightgallery3x15b", "title": "How to Cure the Common Vampire", "date": "1973-05-27", "description": "Two men (Richard Deacon, Johnny Brown) debate the best way to kill vampires.\n\nDirected by: Jack Laird. Story by: Jack Laird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-night-gallery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man with a stake and a man with a mallet considered how to kill a vampire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ivan Vasilievich Back to the Future (1973)", "title": "Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future", "date": "1973-06", "description": "A time travel mishap results in building superintendent Ivan Vasilievich swapping places in time with Ivan the Terrible. And by some astonishing coincidence, they they are spitting images of one another.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vasilievich:_Back_to_the_Future" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shurik invented a time machine in his apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan and George accidentally traveled back in time to the ear of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible, by contrast, found himself with Shurik's in modern Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan the Terrible was puzzled by manifold aspects of life in modern day Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shurik and Zinaida. Ivan Vasilievich and Uliana Andreevna Bunsha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shurik was startled when his wife abrupt told him she was leaving him for another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan Vasilievich was beside himself to find he was the spitting image of Ivan the Terrible and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shurik's time machine worked by generating a kind of portal that could be walked through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan Vasilievich impersonated Ivan the Terrible during a visit from the Swedish ambassador.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)", "title": "Invasion of the Bee Girls", "date": "1973-06-01", "description": "A mad scientist creates an army of female beauties who seduce men to death. One by one, the male victims are killed before the local police catch on to the plans of the infected females.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Bee_Girls" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Peckham police launched an investigation to get to the bottom of why local men were knocking off from over-exhaustion due to sexual intercourse one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bee girl Susan Harris saw with compound eyes and consumed large amounts of sugar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Women were transforming themselves into half-human, half-bee people that went around sexually exhausting men to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan Williams made an off color remark to his wife Harriet Williams about their lack of a sex life. Herb Kline and Nora Kline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually transmitted disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A local official explained to the residents of Peckham about how STDs had reached epidemic levels in the United States and Western Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mad scientist Gretchen Grubowsky created an army of female beauties who seduce men to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two bee girls shared a lustful kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora Kline experience what it was like to be transformed into a bee girl in Gretchen Grubowsky's laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The beautiful entomologist Susan Harris was working to transform themselves into half-human, half-bee creatures in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil interrogated Dr. Harris at her lab on the mating practices of honey bees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)", "title": "Battle for the Planet of the Apes", "date": "1973-06-15", "description": "Battle for the Planet of the Apes is a 1973 science fiction film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It is the fifth and final entry in the original Planet of the Apes series, produced by Arthur P. Jacobs, following Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. It stars Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Severn Darden, Lew Ayres, Paul Williams and John Huston.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes and Humans were rebuilding society in a post nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caesar was grooming his son Cornelius to succeed him to rule over the apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants launched a war to exterminate the apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes rose to be the dominant species on Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gorillas hated the Humans and the mutants hated the apes and made an effort to exterminate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lawgiver explained how apes used to be enslaved by Humans in a flashback scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virgil expounded a theory of multiple time lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "MacDonald resented being made to live on a diet of fruits and nuts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar, Virgil, and MacDonald experienced dangerously high radiation levels inside the forbidden city. Radiation caused physical disfigurement in the people who remained in the forbidden city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa and Cornelius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar and Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar and Lisa grieved over the death of their son Cornelius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar killed Aldo to avenge the murder of his son Cornelius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Idaho Transfer (1973)", "title": "Idaho Transfer", "date": "1973-06-15", "description": "A team of scientists decide to send young people 56 years into the future so they can evade an imminent natural catastrophe and build a new civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_Transfer" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists accidentally discovered a way to send things and young people into the future while working on matter transference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was discovered that a mysterious natural catastrophe of unspecified nature would soon wipe out civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isa, Ronald and a handful of other young people traveled 56 years into the future by which time they understood that everyone else in the world had died in some kind of natural catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen went on and on about her desire to have lots of kids to repopulate the world. She was devastated when the others told her sterility is a side effect of time travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen confided in Isa that she didn't consider herself to be a virgin anymore because she was raped by a man named Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen Braden and her older sister Isa Braden.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Neptune Factor (1973)", "title": "The Neptune Factor", "date": "1973-08-03", "description": "An underwater earthquake traps a team of marine scientists tumbling down to an unexplored trench inside their oceanographic research habitat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neptune_Factor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colleagues of the three men stranded in an ocean trench urged the rescue team to put themselves in peril in their efforts to rescue the men, but the rescue team leader didn't want to put the lives of himself and his men in jeopardy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leah Jansen was very worried about the well-being of her fiancée who was stuck inside an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rescue team went on a dive into an unexplored ocean trench where they found giant marine life, including gigantic versions of fish that are commonly kept in aquariums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Leah Jansen and", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Neptune deep sea submersible was attacked by a swarm of giant eels.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beyond Atlantis (1973)", "title": "Beyond Atlantis", "date": "1973-09", "description": "A band of treasure hunters go on an expedition to a remote island in search of valuable pearls.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Atlantis_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the islanders were descended from the people of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of treasure hunters didn't settle for the cache of pearls the islanders had kindly given them and resolved to take more before scuttling off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and Dr. Katherine Vernon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Syrene and her people had the ability to live on both the land and in the ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nereus and Syrene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Syrene made a play at Logan but he told her that he didn't love her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Syrene had to mate with her choice of men among the treasure hunters or else they were to be cast out to sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Syrene attacked Katherine Vernon out of jealousy over Logan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nereus over the death of his daughter Syrene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x01", "title": "Beyond the Farthest Star", "date": "1973-09-08", "description": "While exploring on the outermost rim of the galaxy the USS Enterprise is pulled into the orbit of a dead star. Trapped there, the crew discovers that there is an ancient derelict pod ship trapped with them as well. Kirk and crew beam aboard the huge starship and learn it was once home to an insect race. They also learn that the ship's crew self-destructed rather than carry a malevolent entity to other worlds. The entity is still alive and it beams aboard the Enterprise. Captain Kirk must find a way to get rid of the invader, without destroying his ship in the process.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew face magnetic energy being", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew exploring far reaches of galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ancient Insectoid Species :: spaceship making insectoid race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ancient Insectoid Species :: insectoid aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ancient Insectoid Species :: insectoid aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magnetic Organism :: magnetic being", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War (1973)", "title": "The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women and War", "date": "1973-09-12", "description": "Steve Austin is gravely injured by a depth charge while fleeing from a failed mission in Egypt. He refuses further cooperation with OSI, which will not disclose to him the target of the operation that nearly cost him his life. OSI conspires with an old Air Force acquaintance to dupe Austin into “escaping” from his involuntary confinement to Paradise Cay in the Bahamas. There he is unwittingly thrust back into the same operation that intends to stop an arms dealer named Findletter from selling stolen American and Russian nuclear missiles. The stakes are increased when Findletter attempts to hijack a newly launched American submarine.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_episodes#Television_movies_(1973)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin had a bionic arm, a bionic eye, and two bionic legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was sent on a mission to stop an arms dealer named Arlen Findletter from selling stolen American and Russian nuclear missiles on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was sent on a mission to stop an arms dealer named Arlen Findletter from selling stolen American and Russian nuclear missiles on the black market. The story concluded with a nuclear bomb going off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was sent on a mission to stop an arms dealer named Arlen Findletter from selling stolen American and Russian nuclear missiles on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The arms dealer Arlen Findletter was scheming to sell stolen American and Russian nuclear missiles on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "Setve got mixed up with Russian agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve with Cynthia \"Cyn\" Holland and Soviet operative Katrina Volana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic arm and legs to swim at a speed in excess of 35 knots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Steve's bionic eye was equipped with night vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic arm and legs to swim at a speed in excess of 35 knots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve pinched closed a machine gun barrel and smashed himself clear through a concrete wall.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x02", "title": "Yesteryear", "date": "1973-09-15", "description": "Spock must travel to the past to rescue his younger self from danger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rite of passage into manhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Young Spock when on the khas wan ordeal, a warrior rite from Vulcan's ancient past, as a test of his courage and manhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock traveled back to Vulcan past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock met himself as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting down a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock killed pet sehlat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock about changing the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock and I-Chaya battle fearsome Ie-matya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/I-Chaya :: Spock and I-Chaya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock watched helplessly as his pet sehlat died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guardian of Forever :: Guardian of Forever", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aurelian :: yellow bird alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Spock and Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek, Amanda Grayson :: Spock's parents toward him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock underwent an ordeal in the desert.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x03", "title": "One of Our Planets Is Missing", "date": "1973-09-22", "description": "The Enterprise encounters a giant cloud creature that feeds on the energy of the planets that lie in its path. They determine it is heading for Mantilles, home to a Federation colony governed by former Starfleet officer Bob Wesley (featured in the ST/TOS episode \" The Ultimate Computer )\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living space cloud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cosmic Cloud :: cloud entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a giant spaceborne being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A colony was nearly consumed by a world eating space cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cosmic Cloud entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "save the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "save the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "save the planet or the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk risked the Enterprise to save the colonists on Mantilles from being killed by a vast, planet-eating space cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "big vs. Small", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy explained that the human small intestine is lined with millions of villi, to absorb nutrients into the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk briefly considered whether to tell the colonists of their impending doom at the whispy hands of the cosmic cloud entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk about killing the cloud", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used to communicate with cosmic cloud", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock mind melded with the cloud entity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x01", "title": "Lovely but Lethal", "date": "1973-09-23", "description": "Cosmetics queen Viveca Scott has developed a seemingly magic wrinkle remover, but her former lover, Karl Lessing, a chemist for her company, knows the formula and intends to sell it to Scott's rival, David Lang. Lessing refuses to sell it back to her at any price, and when he taunts Scott, she bludgeons him to death and covers up her tracks as best she can. Lang's secretary, Shirley Blaine, has been giving information to Scott about his operation, and, knowing about Lessing's negotiations with Lang, she attempts to blackmail Scott. So Scott kills her too.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo notices Viveca itching and, as he suffers in the same way, he realizes they both have poison ivy and must have contacted it from the same source. Scott suspects the wrinkle remover is responsible for her itching. However, Columbo tells her the poison ivy was actually on the slide of Lessing's microscope, shards of which they both touched – he while examining the crime scene, while she could only have done it around the time that Lessing was killed.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Myrna Bercovici, Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viveca hatched a clever plot to do away with her blackmailer Shirley: She put a somatic drug or poison in a cigarette and gave it to Shirley just before Shirley was about to drive, causing Shirley to have a fatal accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viveca, in a sudden burst of rage, battered Karl to death with his own microscope. The rest of the story followed her futile attempts to evade responsibility for this crime as the ever-intrepid Lt. Columbo hounded in on her trail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl was employed at Viveca's firm as a chemist, but double crossed her and tried to blackmail her. Cosmetics company owner David Lang was betrayed by his secretary, Shirley, who was angling for a cushy executive position from his rival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl betrayed his boss and former lover, Viveca, by blackmailing her over a secret chemical formula only he knew. David Lang was betrayed by his own secretary who was supplying a rival with confidential information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl tried to blackmail Viveca into giving him money, partnership, and maybe marriage. Shirley tried to blackmail Viveca into giving her a cushy executive job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people wanted to get rich, by fair means or foul, off of the supposed miracle cream that made wrinkles literally vanish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Who had battered a corporate chemist to death with his own microscope?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cosmetics company owners Viveca Scott and David Lang were rivaling for who would bring the miracle wrinkle remover cream to market. Their attitudes toward one another at the fashion show made the competitive nature of their relationship clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gracefully aging Viveca Scott was the public face for the cosmetics company she owned and ran. In her person was symbolized the struggle to keep one's beauty through the use of cosmetics. Her company was developing a miracle cream that would be coveted by aging women around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gracefully aging Viveca Scott was the public face for the cosmetics company she owned and ran. In her person was symbolized the struggle to keep one's beauty through the use of cosmetics. Her company was developing a miracle cream that would be coveted by aging women around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rejuvenation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story was the miracle cream that made wrinkles literally disappear for a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is show how the rivaling cosmetics company owners, Viveca and David, were both using every dirty trick in the book to be first to bring a miracle wrinkle remover cream to market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fashion industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viveca attended a fashion show, complete with runway models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo revealed that his wife was a user of Beauty Mark cosmetics, and later implied she could use a stint at the fat farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo pestered Viveca at a fashion photo shoot. The shoot was of an acoustic guitar holding, novelty sunglasses wearing model who was sitting on an ivy swing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Murcheson had a drinking problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo gently admonished the Shirley for her excessive smoking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secretary Shirley Blaine wanted a leg up in the business and tried to blackmail Viveca into getting it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corporate chemist Karl Lessing invented a miracle cream that made wrinkles literally vanish. Karl kept the chemical formula secret, by never writing it down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viveca Scott flew into a rage and bludgeoned her former lover, Karl Lessing, to death with his own microscope.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x04", "title": "The Lorelei Signal", "date": "1973-09-29", "description": "Investigating a sector of space where starships have disappeared every 27 years, the Enterprise finds a race of beautiful women living on the planet Taurus II. While in the Taurean system signals begin to affect the male crew, causing them to hallucinate. Captain Kirk, Spock, Doctor McCoy , and Lieutenant Carver beam down to the source of the signals. After arriving on the planet they are taken prisoner by the Taurean women. The landing party begins to age rapidly as a result of life-draining headbands they are forced to wear. On board the Enterprise, Uhura has taken command due to Scotty's irrational behavior. Uhura orders an all-female landing party to transport down to rescue the men.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "landing party visits planet dominated by women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Taurean women had attained a bleak form of immortality which they maintained by draining the life forces of male that passed by their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "women must kill to keep living", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taurean :: the women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura in command of the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uhura :: Uhura in command of the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "female dominated planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological siren", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Taurean women were patterned after the sirens of Greek mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lorelai women used had psycokinetic powers, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The women used headband devices to drain life energy from captive Enterprise crew members.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Final Programme (1973)", "title": "The Final Programme", "date": "1973-10-04", "description": "The formidable Miss Brunner plots to achieve immortality by metamorphosing into a perfect, self-replicating, hermaphroditic human being.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Programme_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Brunner plotted to achieve immortality by merging herself with Jerry Cornelius into a hermaphroditic self-fertilizing, self-replicating, immortal human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Hira felt conflicted between the Hindu faith of his upbringing and the scientific worldview he had adopted over the course of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry was an alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sugar addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry was a chocoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry's sister Catherine was being held captive by their evil, drug addicted brother Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry's brother evil, drug addicted brother Frank held their sister Catherine captive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was addicted to drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Brunner and Jenny had a sexual encounter after Jenny played the piano nude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was hinted that Jerry's relationship with his sister Catherine was of an incestuous nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of scientists had preserved in tanks the brains of some of the best scientists in Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Brunner proclaimed that she would be the new messiah after being transformed into an immortal human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with David being combined together with Miss Brunner into and vaguely ape-like hermaphroditic being.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x05", "title": "More Tribbles, More Troubles", "date": "1973-10-06", "description": "While the USS Enterprise escorts two robot cargo ships carrying quintotriticale, a new seed grain, to famine stricken Sherman's Planet, it encounters a Klingon battlecruiser pursuing a Federation scout ship. When the Enterprise rescues the pilot, the Klingons attack with a new energy weapon and demand that the pilot be handed over to them. The pilot turns out to be Cyrano Jones, an intergalactic trader well known to Kirk and crew from \" The Trouble With Tribbles \". The Klingons desperately want Jones for introducing the tribble to Klingon planets where it has become a major pest, and for stealing a glommer, an animal the Klingons were breeding to prey on the tribble. Kirk expresses sympathy for the Klingons' plight but refuses to hand over Jones, a Federation citizen. Jones is now selling tribbles genetically engineered to omit their ordinarily unrestrained multiplicative proclivities. Dr. McCoy discovers that although Jones' \"new\" tribbles don't reproduce, they still have ravenous appetites. Instead of reproducing, they now grow hugely fat. Kirk and Spock manage to counter the Klingon weapon. Now at a disadvantage, the Klingons offer to settle for just the glommer. Kirk agrees and returns it—along with several well-fed (and huge) tribbles that scare it away. McCoy injects the remaining tribbles on the Enterprise with a serum to slow down their metabolic rate. They are finally \"safe\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tribble :: Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Klingon military stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribble :: crew vs. Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation negotiating with Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribbles on Enterprise; Glommers on Klingon vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The glommer/tribble predator/prey dynamic was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "save the ship vs. save the grain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrano Jones assured Kirk that the tribbles had been genetically engineered to render them incapable of reproducing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x02", "title": "Any Old Port in a Storm", "date": "1973-10-07", "description": "Wine connoisseur Adrian Carsini runs a small winery specializing in unprofitable but prized wines. He is about to be named the wine industry's Man-of-the-Year. His half-brother, Rick, only wants to spend money on various hobbies and interests like sports and fast cars and has also been married several times. When Rick gets tired of Adrian's indulgences, he announces his decision to sell the land to mass producers of cheap, profitable wines. Adrian knocks him unconscious and leaves him to die in an airtight wine cellar. He travels to New York to accept the award and attend wine auctions, at the same time establishing his alibi. Upon his return, he concocts a scuba diving accident to explain Rick's death by suffocation. Julie Harris plays Adrian's formidable secretary, who realizes that Columbo suspects Carsini of killing his brother, and has plans of her own for Carsini.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo realizes Carsini had locked Rick in the airtight wine cellar with the air conditioning turned off, and realizes further that this happened when a heatwave had struck Los Angeles. Columbo steals a very rare bottle of wine (Ferrier Vintage Port 1945) from Carsini’s cellar, and when he treats Carsini and his secretary to dinner, arranges for the restaurant staff to serve it to them. Carsini, upon tasting the wine, explodes in anger and berates the staff for exposing it to very high temperatures. Columbo tells Carsini that reminds him of the recent heatwave. Carsini realizes that all the wine in his cellar would have been spoiled in the heatwave, so that night he sets out to destroy all the bottles. A heart-broken Carsini is caught in the act by Columbo and confesses, expressing relief that at least he does not any more have to deal with his secretary, who had guessed the truth and was pressuring him to marry her.\n\nDirected by: Leo Penn. Story by: Larry Cohen, Stanley Ralph Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Having knocked Rick unconscious in a fit of rage, Adrian quickly improvised the following device for disposing of his troublesome half-brother: He left Rick to die of asphyxiation in an airtight wine cellar, then dressed Rick's corpse in diving gear and dumped in in the ocean so that it would seem like Rick had succumbed to a diving accident. This was carefully timed so that the actual death occurred while Adrian was out of town with an alibi. Alas, the ever-intrepid Lt. Columbo soon put two and two together and proceeded to snare the homicidal oenophile in a fiendish little trap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adrian Carsini was motivated above all, one gathers, by the status that came with being owner of a highly regarded winery. Much was made of Adrian being self-satisfied to named the wine industry's Man-of-the-Year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As puntifically alluded to in the title, the plot turns on subtle properties of fine old wines. Lt. Colombo had to learn this craft, to an extent, in order to catch the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian, in a sudden burst of rage, knocked Rick unconscious with the butt of a trophy cup. Having thus crossed the line to serious felony, he went all in and left Rick to die of asphyxiation in an airtight wine cellar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Did Rick Carsini really die in an uncharacteristic diving accident, or was there foul play afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian was at odds with his half-brother Rick, and ultimately killed Rick to prevent him from selling the family vineyards which Adrian held so dear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian killed his half-brother Rick to prevent him from selling the family vineyards which Adrian held so dear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Losing the vineyard would have undoubtedly deprived Adrian Carsini of his luxurious lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian was over-the-top passionate about wines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian deliberately kept a professional distance from his longtime secretary, Karen, who had something more than a professional interest in him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Columbo made the following self-deprecating remarks: he claimed that 1) he was not very good with details, and 2) his handwriting was so bad he should have been a doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noteworthy that there was a live pianist in Adrian's first class flight to New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick and Stacey planned to marry in Acapulco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey went to the police to report her lover, Rick, had been missing for three days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey was emotionally overwhelmed upon being informed of her fiancé Rick's death in an apparent scuba diving mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The winery owner Adrian Carsini was the epitome of a wine snob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Rick loved his Ferrari more than he did his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo called his wife from Adrian's winery to check whether it was last Tuesday that they'd gone on a picnic. Columbo's wife wasn't able to attend the fancy dinner on account that they couldn't secure a babysitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrian threw a temper tantrum at the restaurant upon being served a spoiled wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrian responded with cold indifference when his loyal secretary of 12 years, Karen, let her true feeling for him be know.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen tried to blackmail Adrian into marrying her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x06", "title": "The Survivor", "date": "1973-10-13", "description": "Patrolling near the Romulan Neutral Zone , the USS Enterprise finds a ship manned by Carter Winston, a Federation citizen and philanthropist who has been missing for five years.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vendorian :: vendorian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anne Nored :: Anne Nored to Carter Winston", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston and Anne Nored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter Winston/Anne Nored :: Winston and Anne Nored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston was thought to be a Romulan spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter Winston/Anne Nored :: Winston and Anne Nored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne Nored :: Anne Nored by Carter Winston", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew face Romulans", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dont Look Now (1973)", "title": "Don't Look Now", "date": "1973-10-16", "description": "Don't Look Now (Italian: A Venezia... un Dicembre rosso shocking, lit. \"In Venice... a shocking red December\") is a 1973 English-language film directed by Nicolas Roeg. It is a thriller adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland portray a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, after the husband accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sisters, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. The husband at first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings himself.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Look_Now" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Laura lived and loved after they lost their daughter to a pond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Laura", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "a blind woman could, we understand, see and communicate with John and Laura's dead daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Behind everything else the police in Venice were investigating a series of murders, then it seems John became another victim in the series.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura kissed the ring of a bishop in Venice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Christine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote viewing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John somehow sensed his daughters drowning in a pond outside and ran to save her, albeit too late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x07", "title": "The Infinite Vulcan", "date": "1973-10-20", "description": "While visiting the newly discovered planet Phylos, Lt. Sulu picks up a walking plant, called a Retlaw, and is poisoned. The alien species that inhabit the planet, who are plantlike beings, approach and save Sulu's life. From them the crew discovers that most of the Phylosians were wiped out by a plague brought to the planet by Dr. Keniclius, a Terran scientist who survived Earth's Eugenics Wars . A giant clone of Keniclius, named Keniclius Five, kidnaps Mr. Spock in order to clone him and create an intergalactic peacemaker, at the expense of the original Spock's life. (Although Kirk never actually says \"Beam me up, Scotty\" in the series, in this episode he does say \"Beam us up, Scotty.\")", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phylosian :: Phylosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "mad scientist planned to create master race using eugenics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mad scientist cloned a giant Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stavos Keniclius 5 :: Keniclius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stavos Keniclius 5 :: Keniclius", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Stavos Keniclius had carried with him to the Phylosian home world a seemingly mild disease that, once unleashed, spread among the Phylosians and drove them nearly to extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phylosians paranoid of strangers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock mind melded with the giant Spock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x08", "title": "The Magicks of Megas-Tu", "date": "1973-10-27", "description": "While exploring near the center of the galaxy, the USS Enterprise is caught inside an energy/matter vortex and all her computer systems fail. A being named Lucien appears on the bridge, repairs the ship's systems and takes the crew to explore his planet, Megas-Tu. On this planet, magic and witchcraft are quite normal. The Megans are an ageless species that had, at one time, lived on Earth, and were responsible for the legends about witches. Lucien, their guide, is in reality the Lucifer of Earth mythology.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The landing party member's thoughts manifested in reality on the planet Megas-Tu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil is an alien", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turned out that the alien Lucien was actually the Earth devil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was alleged that the horned and hoofed alien Lucien was the origin of the Lucifer legend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew exploring center of galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculation that the Devil is not so bad after all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucien was actually a pretty nice guy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The equivalent of withes were persecuted by the Megans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "megans toward humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucien :: Lucien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk toward Lucien at conclusion of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucien :: Lucien among not only the Magicks but also the humans on ancient earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the christian devil featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Lucifer :: Lucifer!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "the christian devil featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The practice of witchcraft was considered to be perfectly normal by the inhabitants of the planet Megas-Tu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was amazed at the prospect of being able to see matter being create at the of center of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "exploration of center of galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Megans had brought knowledge to ancient humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devil and humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Megans, we learned, were forced to leave Earth after they were persecuted as witches during these trials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch-hunt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Megans, we learned, were forced to leave Earth after they were persecuted as witches during these trials.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x09", "title": "Once Upon a Planet", "date": "1973-11-03", "description": "The Enterprise crew revisits the \"amusement park\" planet first seen in the Classic Trek episode \" Shore Leave \" hoping for some rest and relaxation. The crew discover the planet's Keeper is now dead and the untended machinery is constructing dangerous images from the crew members' thoughts. Lt. Uhura is captured by the planet's master computer, who in the wake of the Keeper's death, resents being made to serve humans. After a number of unpleasant adventures and narrow escapes, Kirk succeeds in interviewing the angry computer. He convinces it that its best course is to resume business as usual, as it will be rewarded with social contact by the many guests attracted by the planet's facilities and can, in time, learn everything it could possibly want to without even being put to the inconvenience of leaving its home planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A planet in the Omicron Delta region was transformed into a magical amusement park by an unknown alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "just a regular day on the Shore Leave Planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The caretaker of the Shore Leave Planet had died and a computer, resentful of its servitude, had begun creating dangerous scenarios from the crew’s memories in an attempt to commandeer the Enterprise and seek out other computers in the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "what is a good role for the amusement planet controller in society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "The caretaker of the Shore Leave Planet had died and a computer, resentful of its servitude, had begun creating dangerous scenarios from the crew’s memories in an attempt to commandeer the Enterprise and seek out other computers in the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "the computers preconception about the superiority of machines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shore Leave Planet Computer, Shore Leave Planet Computer :: Shore Leave Planet Master Computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caretaken Aliens :: amusement plant makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party vs. master computer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x03", "title": "Candidate for Crime", "date": "1973-11-04", "description": "Harry Stone, a campaign manager for Nelson Hayward, is coercing the womanizing senatorial candidate to end his affair with his wife Vickie's personal secretary Linda, which Stone regards as too risky during a campaign. Stone is also the mastermind of a publicity stunt that involves fabricating death threats against Hayward, to promote his tough stance against crime. Hayward uses this to his advantage: he lures Stone to his own beach house (while driving Hayward's car and wearing Hayward's coat), where the candidate shoots and kills Stone, making it look like a case of mistaken identity at the hands of the phantom assassins.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Hayward, realizing that Columbo is coming closer to solving the murder, stages a phony assassination attempt on himself. He fires a silenced gun through a balcony window into his private hotel room. He later gets rid of the gun. Hours later he returns to the room, ignites a firecracker to mimic a gunshot, and claims that someone has just shot at him from outside. When the police express shock at the brazenness of the alleged shooter, he feigns outrage at them doubting his word, and demands that the bullet be removed from the wall and analyzed. Columbo reveals that the ballistics of the bullet are already in, and that it indeed was fired from the murder weapon. He explains that after Hayward had been alone in the room (a time when he ostensibly was making phone calls), Columbo had searched it and found the hole in the window and the bullet in the wall. He had done this hours before Hayward claimed someone had just shot at him.\n\nDirected by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Larry Cohen, Irving Pearlberg, Alvin R. Friedman, Roland Kibbee, Dean Hargrove.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The politician Nelson Hayward shot his campaign manager dead in cold blood and tried make it look like a botched mob hit aimed at himself. He would have surely gotten away with it too had the ever-persistent Lt. Columbo not been on the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Senatorial candidate Nelson Hayward resorted to murder to be with his mistress, Linda. Linda professed her love for Nelson to his campaign manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry tried to blackmail Nelson into leaving his mistress. Harry mentioned that he \"knew where all the bodies were buried\" and expected therefore to get his way. Alas, all he got was a bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did a mob assassin mistake the campaign manager of a tough-on-crime politician for the politician himself and shot him dead, or was something still more foul afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Nelson Hayward running for the United States Senate in a special election.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson Hayward wanted to have his cake and eat it too when it came to carrying on a potentially scandalizing relationship with his wife's personal secretary, Linda Johnson, while running for a seat in the United States Senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson and Vickie Hayward. Nelson was running around with Vickie's personal secretary right under her nose. Columbo let it be know that his wife was an avid supporter of Hayward in his campaign for the United States Senate. Columbo, meanwhile, was undecided.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson was running around with his wife Vickie's personal secretary right under her nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson was running around with his wife Vickie's personal secretary right under her nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The politician Nelson Hayward shot his campaign manager dead in cold blood and tried make it look like a botched mob hit aimed at himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was ill at ease in the chair of his stereotypically Italian dentist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's Italian dentist complained of how Italian-Americans were stereotyped as gangsters, and not honest working people, like himself and his police detective patient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nelson arranged a surprise birthday party for his wife, Vickie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vickie threatened to file for divorce before the election, because she sensed that Nelson was being unfaithful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mechanic worked on Columbo's beat up, old Peugeot to get it into a roadworthy state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some cops were sitting around a table, playing poker to pass the time on election night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A TV newscaster reported how polls showed apathy among college campus voters in regard to the upcoming special election for the United States Senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Stone was busy planning and plotting the electoral campaign of the wayward Senatorial candidate Nelson Hayward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nelson feigned to be distressed over his dear old friend Harry's death, even though Nelson was the one that had killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Divorce would have had such negative impact on Nelson's public image that his electoral chance would have been ruined. Harry couldn't let this happen and so tried to blackmail Nelson into leaving his mistress to save his marriage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x10", "title": "Mudd's Passion", "date": "1973-11-10", "description": "The USS Enterprise receives orders to arrest Federation outlaw Harry Mudd , who is accused of selling fake love crystals. Intercepting Harry on the mining colony of Motherlode, they bring him aboard the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine at Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine with using love potion on Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quackery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mudd was peddling his snake oil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scoundrel Harry Mudd tried to enrich himself by peddling snake oil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative love inducing effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Mudd peddled a love serum of some sort to Christine which she tried to use on Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, Christine, Harry Mudd :: Kirk and friends battle giant desert worm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine :: Christine with using love potion on Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "unnamed M class planet in binary star system :: some M class planet or another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Six Million Dollar Man: The Solid Gold Kidnapping (1973)", "title": "The Six Million Dollar Man: The Solid Gold Kidnapping", "date": "1973-11-17", "description": "Oscar Goldman orchestrates a ruse whereby a high level U.S. military diplomat pretending to be held up in a Paris hospital is to be secretly whisked off to Peking to negotiate an ease of tensions between the two countries. A professional kidnapping organization successfully abducts the diplomat in Paris with the aid of his treacherous paramour known as the Contessa. The kidnappers demand a $1 billion ransom in gold. As the gold shipment moves forward, Steve Austin begins a search against the clock for the hostage. He is aided both by the fickle Contessa and by a doctor who agrees, with perilous consequences, to have brain cells of a dead kidnapper injected into her own brain to allow her to have access to his memories.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_episodes#Television_movies_(1973)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin had a bionic arm, a bionic eye, and two bionic legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three members of a professional kidnapping organization plotted to abduct a diplomat and ransom him for a billion dollars in gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "U.S. diplomat William Henry Cameron was kidnapped and held for a one billion dollar ransom in gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "U.S. diplomat William Henry Cameron was kidnapped and held for a one billion dollar ransom in gold", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Contessa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "U.S. diplomat William Henry Cameron was kidnapped on his way to negotiate with the Chinese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The injection of a dead man's neurons into Dr. Erica Bergner's brain resulted in her acquiring some of the dead man's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic arm to punch things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "U.S. government officials kept the diplomat Cameron's abduction secret from the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic eye to read Contessa's passport in the dark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic leg to crush a pistol.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x11", "title": "The Terratin Incident", "date": "1973-11-17", "description": "While observing a burnt-out supernova, the USS Enterprise picks up a strange message transmitted in a two-hundred-year-old code.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Terratin :: Terratins", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terratins", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were at a loss to explain why they all suddenly started shrinking in size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "volcanic cataclysm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terratin city was next to active volcano", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise was investigating burnt out supernova", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Westworld (1973)", "title": "Westworld", "date": "1973-11-21", "description": "Westworld is a 1973 American science fiction Western thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton. Its plot concerns amusement park androids that malfunction and begin killing visitors. It stars Yul Brynner as an android in a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as guests of the park.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an amusement park full of androids that went haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Delos amusement park was centered around the idea that park goes could lose themselves and do anything they wanted without constraint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an amusement park full of androids that went haywire and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people running the park were unjustifiably confident that safeguards were in place to keep their androids from running amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The amusement park goes were ferried to the pack location in a big hovering vehicle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Martin had full sex with a female android at the brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Martin and John Blane woke up with bad hangovers after the bar fight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x12", "title": "The Time Trap", "date": "1973-11-24", "description": "While exploring the Delta Triangle, where many starships have disappeared, the USS Enterprise is attacked by several Klingon vessels. During the battle they are caught in an ion storm. The Enterprise and one Klingon battlecruiser are drawn into a spacetime vortex and end up in a timeless dimension.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise was lost in Delta Triangle (i.e. the Bermuda Triangle in space).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kumbayah utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delta Triangle aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise and Klingons must work together to escape Delta Triangle; Delta Triangle aliens generally cooperative with one another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise and Klingons must work together to escape Delta Triangle; Delta Triangle aliens generally cooperative with one another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew trapped in Delta Triangle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. Bermuda space triangle", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)", "title": "Frankenstein: The True Story", "date": "1973-11-28", "description": "Frankenstein: The True Story is a 1973 British and American made-for- television horror film loosely based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein:_The_True_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Fanshawe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Fanshawe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and Elizabeth married about half way through the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "After comparing themselves to Prometheus, Henry and Victor made a veritable pact to \"defy God\" by using science to revive a dead body to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein's unshakable conviction in the in correctness of his approach to restoring the dead to life blinded him to the likely monstrous outcomes of his work. This was even more so the case with his mentor Dr. Henry Clerval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein and the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Frankenstein's innocent and child-like monster living as an outcast from society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Monster punished his creator Dr. Frankenstein for giving it life by killing his wife and unborn child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein was working on reanimating a corpse in his secret laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor was hit hard by the drowning death of his brother Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was of the mind that women, Elizabeth in particular, were intellectually inferior to men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body snatching", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Victor stole a fresh corpse to reanimate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Victor created the Monster in a stereotypical 19th century era laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Victor harnessed solar energy to raise a corpse to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Frankenstein in his monster before it began to physically degenerate. Dr. Polidori described himself as worse than any proud parent in his own monster Prima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor concluded a discussion with a priest in a church by saying he didn't believe in God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth was expecting with Victor's baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Fanshawe and Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Richard Fanshawe and Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster used a mask at times to conceal his grotesque face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Polidori plotted to marry off Prima to a aristocratic family and use her as an instrument to advance his own power in Europe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x13", "title": "The Ambergris Element", "date": "1973-12-01", "description": "While exploring the water planet Argo, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are transformed into water breathers by the planet's undersea inhabitants, the Aquans. In order to return to their normal selves, they must enlist the help of the Aquans to capture a giant sur-snake, whose venom holds the antidote.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "global water event destroyed ancient Argo civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk and Spock acquired genetic mutations that gave them gills and enabled them to swim around in the sea as if they'd been born to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Argo :: Argo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aquan :: Aquans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquan elders vs. Aquan youths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquan elders were paranoid about outsiders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spoculation about how the sea-men find humans grotesque", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aquans used genetic engineering to give Kirk and Spock gills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genetic engineering used to give Kirk gills.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Digby the Biggest Dog in the World (1973)", "title": "Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World", "date": "1973-12-06", "description": "An Old English Sheepdog accidentally drinks a powder growth formula and expands to gigantic proportions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_the_Biggest_Dog_in_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super growth therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Digby grew to enormous proportions after drinking a powder growth formula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy White and the biggest dog in the world Digby. Jeff Eldon and his pet blue mouse Henry V.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff Eldon and Janine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government was trying to capture Digby before it caused harm in the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "phrenology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A psychiatrist was using a model head inscribed with phrenological markings while expounding his theory about a man thinking he was a dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two criminals were trying to dog-nap Digby and sell it to the circus for big money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy White's mother was anxiously waiting while the military searched for Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janine and Billy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fantastic Planet (1973)", "title": "Fantastic Planet", "date": "1973-12-06", "description": "Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage, Czech: Divoká planeta, lit. The Wild Planet) is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux and written by Laloux and Roland Topor. The allegorical story, about humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals, is based on the 1957 novel Oms en série by French writer Stefan Wul.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gargantuan blue humanoid Draags had brought human beings from Earth to the planet Ygam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiwa kept the human child, which she named Terr, as her pet. In general, the Draggs kepy humans as pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like for humans to be treated as pets by the Draggs, in much the same as how dogs and cats are treated as pets by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like for humans to be treated as pets by the Draggs, in much the same as how dogs and cats are treated as pets by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was somebody's pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Terr experience of being Tiwa's pet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Draggs had brought human beings to their homeworld and were keeping them as pets. Terr's captivity was particularly featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The savage humans were under constant threat of being exterminated by the vastly more powerful Draags who considered the savage humans to be vermin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Draags used a kind of headband to transfer knowledge more or less directly into the brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiwa and her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiwa and her father Master Sinh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The savage humans learned Draag technology and built a rocketships to use to escape from the planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x14", "title": "The Slaver Weapon", "date": "1973-12-15", "description": "In the shuttlecraft Copernicus , Mr. Spock, Uhura, and Sulu are en-route to Starbase 25 to deliver a stasis box—a rare artifact of the Slaver culture when the Kzinti intervene.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Slaver empire destroyed in ancient war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Spock and his party's discovery of an ancient handheld multifunction super gun of alien design. The Kzinti used a spiderweb-shaped energy field to immobilize Spock and his fellow officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stasis technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Slavers had preserved various items in stasis boxes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "galactic master race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Slaver :: Slavers mastered galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock, Uhura, Sulu :: landing party face Kzinti", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Slaver :: stasis box civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock about finding the second stasis box", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kzinti :: Kzinti", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kzinti men assumed Uhura was a mindless female", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock's vegetarianism featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock's vegetarianism featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The carnivorous Chutf-Captain looked down on mere eaters of plants, like Spock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x04", "title": "Double Exposure", "date": "1973-12-16", "description": "Dr. Bart Keppel is a \"motivation research specialist\" at Impulse Research Labs who has become an expert practitioner of subliminal advertising (which involves inserting frames of an advertised product into the reels of a film, so viewers' subconscious minds react to what is pictured). Keppel's more lucrative sideline is blackmail: he takes pictures of married clients with attractive women he hired to get them in compromising positions. When his latest victim, Vic Norris, refuses to be blackmailed and threatens to expose him, Keppel plots to kill him. Keppel serves salty caviar at a reception he is hosting for his clients prior to showing them his latest promotional film. Subliminal photos of a refreshing drink are inserted into the film, which, when it is shown, lure Norris out of the screening room. Keppel is supposedly narrating the film as it is playing, but in reality the clients are hearing Keppel's voice playing from a tape recorder. When Norris is lured out, Keppel shoots him in the building lobby. Keppel has already set in motion a scheme to make it seem that the crime was committed by Norris's wife. Keppel's projectionist, Roger White, then discovers the cuts in the film and pieces together Keppel's scheme, forcing Keppel to murder him as well when Roger tries to blackmail him.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo uses Keppel’s technique against him. He arranges to splice into a film, which Keppel will soon view, many subliminal cuts of images of Columbo closely searching areas where the murder weapon must be. On seeing the cuts, an alarmed Keppel rushes to his office to make sure the weapon is still where he left it. Columbo is waiting there, hidden, and when Keppel retrieves the evidence, Columbo is there to seize it.\n\nThis episode received the Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Limited Series.\n\nDirected by: Richard Quine. Story by: Stephen J. Cannell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The high-profile marketing specialist Dr. Bart Keppel drew on his expertise in subliminal advertising to cleverly murder a client who was intent on outing him for the unscrupulous blackmailer that he was. Dr. Keppel later shot dead his own prospective blackmailer. One gathers he would have gotten away with his crimes had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Bart Keppel resorted to murder to cover up his history of blackmailing wealthy clients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solved the following murder mystery: Who shot the businessman, Vic Norris, dead at a water cooler, and why was he so thirsty in the first place?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Keppel went to elaborate lengths to pin Vic Norris' murder on his loving wife, Mrs. Norris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Dr. Bart Keppel ran a cutting-edge, marketing research company that specialized in shaping peoples subconscious desires with subliminal advertising messages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "major", "motivation": "The idea of shaping peoples desires by inserting subconsciously perceived messages into films was a main novelty of the story. Dr. Keppel surgically inserted a \"subliminal cut\" of an iced tea in his client's promotional video to manipulate the client into going to the water fountain for a drink, where Dr. Keppel summarily shot him dead. Later, Columbo marveled as a film technician showed him a \"subliminal cut\" of a hamburger in a car racing film. The story culminated with Columbo using \"subliminal cuts\" in a video to manipulate Dr. Keppel into leading him to the murder weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic was murdered for threatening to expose the story's villain, Dr. Keppel, as the unscrupulous blackmailer that he was. Dr. Keppel killed his own prospective blackmailer rather than leave him around as a potential liability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bart Keppel was exceedingly confident in his ability to outwit Lt. Columbo, but the experienced investigator came up with a clever ruse and tricked Keppel into revealing himself the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Norris was reluctant to believe Dr. Keppel's allegation that her recently murdered husband, Vic, had been running around with a swimsuit model behind her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Keppel perpetrated the false allegation that Vic had been carrying on with a swimsuit model behind his wife's back. This was to shift attention away from himself in connection with Vic's murder, and onto Vic's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Keppel went to elaborate lengths to pin Vic Norris' murder on his loving wife, Mrs. Norris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-esteem need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The projectionist Roger White was studying about real-estate as a means to better his lot in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The projectionist Roger White was studying about real-estate as a means to better his lot in life. Desperate to get out of his lousy current job, he tried to blackmail his employer for $50,000 in starting capital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo threw Dr. Keppel off his game on the golf course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The smoking gun of the mystery unexpectedly turned out to be a caliber conversion sleeve, referred to as a \"caliber converter\". This is an interesting enough aspect of how firearms work that the episode was mentioned on the Wikipedia article for such modification devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo commented on the exorbitant price of the Royal Iranian beluga caviar with which he had just stuffed his face.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sleeper (1973)", "title": "Sleeper", "date": "1973-12-17", "description": "The owner of a health food store is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an ineptly led police state. The film contains many elements which parody notable works of science fiction and was made as a tribute to comedians Groucho Marx and Bob Hope.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_(1973_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jazz musician Miles Monroe was cryogenically preserved without his consent in 1973 and revived 200 years later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles cryogenically preserved without his consent in 1973.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The featured future society is a parody of stereotypical totalitarian states as depicted in contemporary film. In particular, it is set in a future in which the U.S.A. is police state, ostensibly ruled by a dictator known only as \"The Leader\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a group of rebels who were trying to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate to infiltrate the secret government Aries Project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "People wanted for nothing in terms of material goods by the year 2173. There were robot servants, giant fruits and vegetables, giant chickens for meat, and people smoked cigarettes with not harmful consequences to their health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Tryon told Miles about a man who detonated a nuclear bomb 100 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Domestic service robots were commonplace by the year 2173.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was puzzled by peoples' open and casual attitudes toward sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some Marxists talked about bringing about a communist revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The goal of Project Aries was to clone the secretly deceased leader of the U.S.A. from only his nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles Monroe and the artist Luna Schlosser.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day of the Dolphin (1973)", "title": "The Day of the Dolphin", "date": "1973-12-19", "description": "A brilliant scientist and his young wife train dolphins to communicate with humans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dolphin" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dolphin researchers Jake Terrell and Maggie Terrell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Maggie taught dolphins to speak English, but the dolphins' use of the language was sufficiently idiosyncratic that it sometimes needed to be interpreted by Jake to be clearly understood by others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake worried that his talking dolphins would be exploited for commercial purposes if news got out that he had taught them to speak. His fears were subsequently confirmed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake developed a deep a loving relationship with the pair of talking dolphins and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reporter asked Dr. Terrell if he his researching about communicating with dolphins had any military applications. Later some unscrupulous people kidnapped one of the talking dolphins and attempted to get it to plant a mine on the side of a ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A criminal used information on Harold DeMilo's homosexual activities to blackmail him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A talking dolphin was witness to a murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tidal Wave (1973)", "title": "Tidal Wave", "date": "1973-12-29", "description": "Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes shake Japan. Firestorms burn beautiful Japanese cities to the ground. A weather survey group discovers that the Japanese Archipelago is moving towards the Japanese Trench, which if left to continue on its collision course, would bring the whole of Japan under the sea.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_Wave_(1973_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese Archipelago was sliding into the Japan Trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Japan were faced with the earthquakes, fires, and tsunamis that accompanied their archipelago sliding into an ocean trench. Mt. Fuji also erupted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese Prime Minister had the weight of the nation on his shoulders as he dealt with the unfolding cataclysm of Japan sinking into an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese Prime Minister was put in the unenviable position of having to negotiate with other world leaders over how many Japanese refugees their nations would accept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an international crisis over which nations would accept the millions of Japanese refugees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of researchers made a perilous dive down into the Japan Trench in a small submersible vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the deep sea submersible used to dive down 10 km to the Japan Trench could have dove 100 km had it been necessary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People panicked as earthquakes, fires, and floods ravaged Japan as it slid into an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An emergency session was convened at the United Nations for the purpose of figuring out where to send the millions of Japanese refugees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scenes from a Marriage (1974)", "title": "Scenes from a Marriage", "date": "1974", "description": "Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973 Swedish Television miniseries written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. The story explores the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne, a family lawyer specializing in divorce, and Johan, spanning a period of 10 years. Bergman's teleplay draws on his own experiences, including his relationship with Ullmann. It was shot on a small budget in Stockholm and Fårö in 1972.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenes_from_a_Marriage" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marianne and Johan's marriage fell to pieces and we saw the process in great detail", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marianne and Johan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw an extremely turbulent relationship and they were cinematically forward in talking about their feelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw an extremely turbulent relationship and they were cinematically forward in talking about their feelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johan confessed that he had been seeing someone else, maybe for six months, and wanted to break up with Marianne; later they cheate on their respective partners with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Katarina discussed divorce; Marianne and Johan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "money was a recurring issue that may not have been central in most of the talks, but seemed to aggravate all the problems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "the second half of the story was about Marianne and Johan coming to terms with their new reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was lawyer-like talk about how to divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan had no hand in raising the children and complained about how much he was paying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan complained of his loneliness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The divorce procedure culminated in violence as Johan locked Marianne and himself in his office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johan clearly fell deeper into depression after the initial euphoria of separation", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory01", "title": "The Music School", "date": "1974", "description": "A novelist reflects on his life and on the lives of those around him. It is loosely based on a 1966 short story collection of the same name by John Updike.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follow a novelist as he reflects on his life and times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "An acquaintance of the novelist was murdered in his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist loves visiting a local music school, which reminds him of the difficulty of learning to read and play music. The novelist enjoyed driving his daughter to and from her piano lesson. A young, cigarette smoking Catholic priest was entertaining some bar patrons with his guitar playing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist contemplated a policy change regarding transubstantiation, namely a shift from letting the Eucharist wafer dissolve to chewing it, as a metaphor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelist wistfully reflected on a novel that he never bothered to write in which the hero would have been a computer programmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the novelist is confronting his own latent impulses to be with other women than his wife: the novelist's protagonist had an affair, a woman at a meeting was embarrassed at seeing a man she presumably had carried on with, the novelist looked awkwardly at a cute woman towards the end. The novelist let it be known that he was being unfaithful to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The novelist briefly summed up a typical day in the work life of his murdered computer scientist acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood music lessons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was shown various adolescents taking music lessons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The novelist drove his 11-year-old daughter to her music lessons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of different scenes depict a computer scientist working with 1970s era mainframe computers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The novelist let it be known that his wife was seeing a psychiatrist on account his being unfaithful to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the novelist's aborted novel was to have involved an extramarital affair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the novelist's aborted novel was to have involved physiological complications regarding sex", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory02", "title": "Parker Adderson, Philosopher", "date": "1974", "description": "A captured Union spy ponders the meaning of death as he awaits execution. It is based on the 1892 Ambrose Bierce short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Union spy Parker Adderson pondered the meaning of death and what happens after death while he awaited his execution. Parker repeatedly engaged in gallows humor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Union spy was condemned to death after being captured by Confederate forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at a small Confederate Army camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film shows the general goings on at a small, Confederate Army camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The condemned Union spy gave every indication that he was at peace with himself in the lead up to his execution. Although when the time came he freaked out and fatally stabbed a young lieutenant and a general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parker mused philosophically about how death should not be feared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of a Union spy being caught by the confederate Army. The rules of engagement regarding a spy's execution was disregarded by the general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children learning about death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier showed a boy how to kill a chicken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Confederate lieutenant told the philosopher spy about his girlfriend and showed him a picture of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young lieutenant went out of his way to ensure that the condemned man was provided with a proper last meal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x15", "title": "The Eye of the Beholder", "date": "1974-01-05", "description": "The disappearance of a scientific team lures the USS Enterprise to investigate near Lactra VII. The starship Ariel is located there, abandoned, with its captain having transported to the planet's surface. The Enterprise crew beams down to discover a series of unusual environments. On the planet the crew meets the Lactrans, a group of twenty foot slugs with intelligent capacities far beyond their own. The team is captured by the Lactrans to be made part of a zoo collection.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lactran :: slug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "choice", "motivation": "humans and slug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew members were but as zoo specimens to an advanced race of telepathic slug-like aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lactran :: Kirk and company were abducted by slug-like aliens and exhibited in a zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: landing party in lactran zoo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, McCoy :: landing party held captive in zoo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lactran :: slug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: beam down or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lactrans terraformed their planet to have varied habitats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "slugs communicated using telepathy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas1x16", "title": "The Jihad", "date": "1974-01-12", "description": "The USS Enterprise arrives at the Vedala asteroid, where Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock have been summoned to learn about a stolen religious artifact, the \"Soul of the Skorr\", whose theft could ignite a galactic holy war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "point of episode was to avoid such a war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tchar :: Tchar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Captain Kirk led away team braved various natural cataclysms on a geologically unstable planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lara :: Lara at Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock/Lara :: Spock and Lara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk chosen for mission because of his leadership skills", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk with Lara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk/Lara :: Kirk and Lara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Captain Kirk led away team braved freezing cold temperatures and searing heat on a geologically unstable planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x05", "title": "Publish or Perish", "date": "1974-01-13", "description": "Publisher Riley Greenleaf decides to kill his prolific author Alan Mallory, for the insurance and also to keep him from defecting to another publisher. He hires ex-con and avid homemade bomb enthusiast Eddie Kane to do the job. While Greenleaf is getting drunk at a nearby bar, Kane walks into Mallory's office and shoots him. To cover his tracks, Greenleaf then kills Kane with one of his own bombs, making it look like an accident. Columbo must discover the link between the two crimes.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Greenleaf hands over an old synopsis to Columbo, claiming it was Kane’s, which allegedly proves that Kane had the idea for Mallory's latest book, and murdered him out of revenge for Mallory's having stolen it. Columbo finds out, however, that the ending of the book was actually developed very shortly before the murder, by Mallory and his agent, to make sure the book was more appealing for a Hollywood film adaptation. Kane could not have known the new ending, so the synopsis must have been done by Greenleaf.\n\nThis episode has a split screen of Greenleaf's alibi and Mallory's murder. Mariette Hartley's role is similar to the one she played in Season 7's \"Try and Catch Me\". Spillane was the real-life author of Mike Hammer detective mysteries. Cassidy played the villain in three Columbo episodes: this one, Murder by the Book and Now You See Him...\n\nDirected by: Robert Butler. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The publisher Riley Greenleaf arranged for an unhinged war veteran to take out his cash-cow author Alan Mallory. He planned to collect on a life insurance policy on Alan. He also wished to prevent Alan from defecting to a rival publisher. Greenleaf made it look like the war veteran killed Mallory for stealing the war vet's idea for a prospective bestseller set in Vietnam during the war. He would have no doubt gotten away with it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The publisher Riley Greenleaf resorted to murder to collect on a lucrative insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did an unhinged Vietnam war veteran shoot the famous potboiler novel writer Alan Mallory dead for stealing his idea for a prospective bestseller about the war, or was something still more convoluted afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the publisher Riley Greenleaf trying to get away with having his cash-cow author killed before he could defect to a rival publishing house with a manuscript for a prospective bestseller set in Vietnam during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo made it seem like Riley was being framed for Alan's murder as a ploy to lure Riley deeper into his trap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The publisher Riley Greenleaf took it personally when word came out that his cash-cow author Alan Mallory was defecting to a rival publishing house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan Mallory was busy writing the prospective first bestseller about Vietnam, entitled \"Sixty Miles to Saigon\", when he got shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unhinged Vietnam war veteran Eddie Kane was fascinated with explosives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley deliberately made a drunken scene at the bar and elsewhere to secure his alibi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley deliberated hit a Volkswagen van while drunk at the wheel. He was later arrested for being drunk at the wheel while parked in a public space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unhinged explosives enthusiast Eddie Kane was a veteran of the Vietnam Wat. Alan Mallory was writing what was anticipated to become the first bestselling novel about this same war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley repeatedly disregarded his attorney's advice about not answering Columbo's various questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley took out Eddie with poison laced champagne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo ordering chili at a fancy restaurant was compared and contrasted with the publisher industry people ordering dainty dishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plagiarism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley made it look as if Alan Mallory plagiarized the work of a Vietnam war veteran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "explosives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The homemade bomb enthusiast Eddie Kane was trying to get his book, entitled \"Blow Up Anything in 10 Easy Steps\", published.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie Kane was exceedingly eager to publish his book on explosives seemingly more in order to be known as an expert on the subject than for the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riley told Alan that Alan would never write for anyone else. Riley then murdered Alan rather than allow him to defect to another publisher.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Questor Tapes (1974)", "title": "The Questor Tapes", "date": "1974-01-23", "description": "The Questor Tapes is a 1974 American made-for-television sci-fi drama film about an android with incomplete memory tapes who is searching for his creator and his purpose. Conceived by Gene Roddenberry, who is credited as executive consultant, the script is credited to Roddenberry and fellow Star Trek alumnus Gene L. Coon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Questor_Tapes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists follow though on Dr. Emil Vaslovik plan to create a superhuman android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Questor was searching for his creator Dr. Emil Vaslovik.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Questor befriended Jerry Robinson and Lady Helena in an effort to understand the nature of friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Questor was the latest in a line of androids that had been guiding human development for 200 millennia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of scientists used a 1970s era computer with magnetic tapes to copy memories into the android Questor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Questor told Lady Helena Trimble that he was fully functional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Questor was powered by nuclear fusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Killdozer (1974)", "title": "Killdozer!", "date": "1974-02-02", "description": "A malevolent entity of extraterrestrial origin possesses a bulldozer and begins killing a team of construction workers for no apparent reason.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdozer!_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent alien entity transferred itself from a meteor into a bulldozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien entity manifested itself as a type of blue light took possession of a bulldozer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The construction workers were terrorized by a bulldozer that seemed to have a mind of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCarthy's (a.k.a. Mack) fellow construction workers drank to his memory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zardoz (1974)", "title": "Zardoz", "date": "1974-02-06", "description": "The film depicts a future world where a stone image called \"Zardoz\" instructs the \"Brutals\" to kill each other for eternal life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brutals lived as wretches in a land where a giant stone head commanded exterminators to cull the Brutals. It turned out this land was the Earth in the year 2293 and that these people were living among the ruins of our civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant stone head Zardoz promised eternal life to those who exterminated the Brutals. The Immortals were unafflicted by the aging process. But they did use aging as a punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The luxury in which the Immortals lived was contrasted with the miserable conditions under which the Brutals lived in the outlands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brutals worshiped the giant stone head Zardoz as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Immortals subjected the link between erotic stimulation and erection to extensive study. Consuella, in particular, used the savage Zed as a subject for her scientific experiments on the nature of sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Immortal society was founded on a form of real-time direct democracy. All political and judicial decisions were arrived at in this manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Immortals lived in some sort of utopian community based on a synthesis between technology and direct democracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nonconformists in Immortal society were, in extreme cases, aged to the point of senility, but kept to live forever. They were longing to die as a result. The film concluded with the Immortals celebrating Zed having liberated them from their immortality. The Exterminators subsequently slaughtered them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Immortals transmitted knowledge and practiced direct democracy using crystal mediated telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zed and Consuella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Immortals punished Friend by aging him to the point where he became senile and froze him in that state so that he would never die. He was placed in a community of other people who had suffered the same fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Zardoz had at one point commanded the Exterminators to enslave the Brutals and force them to grow wheat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zed's consciousness was raised by reading this book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "May leveled a charge of bestiality on Consuella upon catching her in bed with the savage Zed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x06", "title": "Mind over Mayhem", "date": "1974-02-10", "description": "When Dr. Howard Nicholson threatens to expose Neil Cahill for plagiarizing a paper from a recently deceased scientist, Neil's father, Dr. Marshall Cahill, director of a high-tech Pentagon think tank, kills Nicholson to protect his son's reputation. He programs a cybernetic robot codenamed MM-7 to take his place overseeing a war exercise. The elder Cahill steals a car from the motor pool and drives to Nicholson's house. In the driveway, Cahill runs over Nicholson, then carries his body into the house, ransacking it to make it look like a burglary. To cover up damage the car received from the impact, Cahill backs his own car into it, with many witnesses to the accident. Nicholson's wife happens to be Neil's psychotherapist.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo realizes early on that Marshall is the likely murderer after finding a burned match at Nicholson's home (Nicholson's wife doesn't smoke and Nicholson himself used a pipe lighter; therefore the match points to a cigar smoker, which Marshall is), but fails to unearth solid evidence against him. Columbo discovers that Marshall’s motive was based on his love for his son. Columbo frames and arrests the son, which causes the father to confess. This episode provides perhaps the most glaring example of Columbo using ethically dubious means to secure a murderer’s apprehension.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Robert Specht, Steven Bochco, Dean Hargrove, Roland Kibbee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Research institute director Dr. Marshall Cahill performed the following elaborate plot in order to save his son from scandal and rid himself of Dr. Nicholson: Marshall programmed a robot to do his job while he went to Howard's house and ran him over with a borrowed car. He also made it look like a burglary, and tried to cover his tracks by backing into the borrowed car with his own later on. Thus, covering over the dent made by hitting Dr. Nicholson. He would have undoubtedly gotten away with it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Marshall Cahill was so obsessed with looking out for his son Neil that he committed murder in order to save the son from disgrace. Later he confessed to the crime only in order to save his son from the murder charge. The plot turns on the director of a prestigious research institute, Dr. Marshall Cahill, electing to protect his beloved son, Neil Cahill, from being exposed as a scientific fraud by the simple expedient of murdering Neil's outer, Dr. Nicholson, before he went to the press.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end, Dr. Marshall Cahill confessed to the murder, which he had indeed committed, to prevent his beloved son from taking the rap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neil Cahill was so eager to become Scientist of the Year that he plagiarized the recently deceased Dr. Finch's \"theory of molecular\" matter. The elder Cahill was possibly even more eager for his son, Neil, to win the award, presumably feeling that his son's newly acquired prestige would rub off on himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was a distinguished scientist killed in a botched burglary, or was he perhaps killed by a cigar smoking manslaughter to keep him from outing a certain research institute's son as a plagiarist and a fraud?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the day-to-day activities of various scientists at the high-tech Pentagon research institute where the story is mainly set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Marshall Cahill was the director of a high-tech Pentagon think tank. We saw various presumably high-ranking military type people performing strategical war games in a command center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil Cahill was named the Scientist of the Year for a plagiarized \"theory of molecular matter\". The plot turns on Neil's father resorting to murder to prevent his son from being outed as a fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plagiarism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the idea that Neil had cheated in some non-criminal but highly unethical way by taking credit for a discovery that had actually been proposed, though never verified or published, by an older scientist who had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Marshall Cahill took pride in his son, Neil Cahill, being named Scientist of the Year and resorted to murder to prevent Neil from being outed as a fraud. The elder Cahill said \"I'm proud of you\" to Neil, and later acknowledged to Columbo that he was proud of his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "The comically maladroit MM-7 programmable humanoid robot, who the viewer may recognize as Robby the Robot, was programmed to become Dr. Cahill's unwitting accomplice in the murder of Dr. Nicholson. MM-7 carried out tasks at a computer terminal so that it seemed Howard was there. It additionally understood natural language, could walk a dog, and proved to be a particularly sore loser at chess. In addition, Dr. Marshall Cahill programmed the MM-7 to take his place overseeing a war exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil was torn up inside over having plagiarized the recently deceased Professor Finch's \"theory of molecular matter\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Institute researchers and military men simulated an all out war between the Western and Eastern powers, described as World War III, that ended in a \"total defeat\" for the Western powers with a 75% mortality rate in the Western hemisphere alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MM-7 robot flipped the chess board over in anger after being checkmated by a boy, albeit a boy-genius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The auto mechanic Murph was hampered in his efforts to repair an institute car by the presence of Columbo's Basset hound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Nicholson had a much younger wife, Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Nicholson had a much younger wife, Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Marshall Cahill covered up his killing a fellow scientist by making it look like a botched burglary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After picking up his conspicuously unnamed Basset hound from obedience school, Columbo took the creature around with him for the day as he investigated a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was impressed by the futuristic K-44 mainframe-style computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amazement at a new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was impressed by the futuristic K-44 mainframe-style computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a stereotypical boy-genius, named Steve, working at the institute. The mechanic took him out to see an R-rated movie at Dr. Marshall Cahill's insistent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychologist Margaret Nicholson likened her relationship to her patient, Neil, to that of a penitent and priest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret Nicholson was a psychologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo uncovered that Neil had been carrying on a liaison with Dr. Nicholson's much younger wife, Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "once speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natural gas powered cars were being tested at the research institute.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x07", "title": "Swan Song", "date": "1974-03-03", "description": "Gospel-singing superstar Tommy Brown is hugely successful, but he is unable to enjoy the usual benefits of fame and wealth. His zealous wife Edna can prove he had committed statutory rape with one of his backup singers, Maryann. She watches him carefully when he is touring, and even blackmails him into giving all the proceeds from his concerts to her ministry. Tommy decides to kill Edna and Maryann. He drugs both women to sleep while piloting a small, private plane flying to Los Angeles, then parachutes from the plane before it crashes into desert mountains. Brown lands roughly, hurting his leg. He hides the parachute and lies down near the burning plane wreckage, making it seem like he was thrown clear in a tragic crash caused by flying through bad weather. The FAA investigator is ready to rule the crash was an accident. Edna's brother, Luke appeals to Columbo to consider the case a possible homicide, based on his mistrust of Tommy.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo’s investigation leads him to conclude that Brown must have used a home-made parachute to jump from the plane in midair, which he then hid somewhere in the mountains. Columbo tells Brown that a boy scout troop will be scouring the mountains for any wreckage from the crash. However, Brown seems unperturbed. At the airport before Brown is about to fly off to a concert, Columbo notices Brown taking his car rental keys with him onto the plane. Because he doesn't return the keys, Columbo concludes that Brown must be returning to Los Angeles. That night Brown drives up into the mountains and unearths the parachute, but he is caught bringing it back to the rental car by Columbo, hiding in wait. A relieved Brown asks Columbo if he's afraid to be alone with a killer; Columbo plays Brown's songs and says anyone who sings that well can't be all bad.\n\nDirected by: Nicholas Colasanto. Story by: Stanley Ralph Ross, David Rayfiel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Tommy Brown was blackmailed by his wife Edna over having slept with an underage girl in the past, he came up with the following elaborate plot to rid himself of both the wife and the victim: During a private plane flight he would personally pilot, he would fake getting lost and losing control to crash the plane. In fact, he drugged the girls and jumped himself to safety with a homemade parachute before the impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Tommy Brown was blackmailed by his wife Edna over having slept with an underage girl in the past, he came up with an elaborate plot to rid himself of both the wife and the victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tommy Brown murdered his sanctimonious, blackmailing wife to get out from under her yolk and come into control of the fortune they were both contesting for control over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edna and Maryann pulled Tommy's strings by threatening to out him for statutory rape since they had evidence that he had slept with Maryann when she was 16.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy Brown was seemingly guilty of statutory rape on account of having had sex with a 16-year old in motels. He was being blackmailed over it and resorted to killing the blackmailers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy was stranded with a domineering wife who wouldn't let him sleep around with his adoring young fans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the plane crash that killed Tommy Brown's wife and a gospel singing girl but left himself unscathed really an accident, or was it a carefully staged homicide?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edna was a stereotypically domineering wife to Tommy, who wouldn't let him spend any of the fortune they were collecting on tour or let him sleep around with his adoring young fans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Tommy Brown was a famous pop gospel singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy Brown was gospel-singing superstar with a zealously Christian wife who wanted to use their profits to build a $5 million \"tabernacle\" of worship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy treated Luke as a servant when he ordered Luke to take the guitar on the bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and brother-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edna's brother, Luke, did not trust or get along with her husband Tommy one bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke was convinced that his sister, Edna, had been murdered by Tommy. They interacted passingly in the scene where Edna admonished Tommy for sleeping with Maryann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edna scowled at Tommy as he was being mobbed by a throng of young female fans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A TV newsman was reporting from the scene of the plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was visibly shaken upon exiting the two seater aircraft, after previously having revealed that his ears pop in an elevator and he \"didn't even like being this tall\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The funeral director pulled out all the stops in his sales pitch to Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo consulted with a chatty, old seamstress about the number of square yards a certain roll of fabric measured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional attachment to a thing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy cherished his expensive guitar. In what seemed an unusual move, he had Luke take the guitar to Los Angeles by bus, rather than take it himself aboard the plane, which only Tommy knew was destined to crash in the mountains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that both Columbo and Tommy had served in the Korean War; Columbo as military police, and Tommy as a parachute rigger in the Air Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Mayehoff was proud that he remembered everyone who had served for him in the Air Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Tommy Brown expressed regret over having murdered his wife and backup singer, and confided in Columbo that would have confessed eventually had he not been caught.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", "date": "1974-03-21", "description": "Godzilla comes to the rescue when spacemen send a mechanical Godzilla to attack the Earth. It is the 14th film of the Godzilla franchise, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Anguirus, and King Caesar, along with the mecha character Mechagodzilla.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Mechagodzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that Mechagodzilla was cyborg made out of flesh and an especially strong space metal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla came to Earth in fulfillment of an Ancient Okinawan inscription prophesied that a monster would destroy the world when a large mountain appeared above the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacemen plotted to use Mechagodzilla to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacemen plotted to use Mechagodzilla to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An Ancient Okinawan inscription prophesied that a monster would destroy the world when a black mountain appeared above the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archaeology professor Keisuke Shimizu and his spelunking nephew Masahiko Shimizu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archaeologist Keisuke Shimizu worked together with a couple of enthusiasts to solve the puzzle of an Ancient Okinawan statue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Hideto Miyajima was forced to repair Mechagodzilla or else the spacemen were going to kill his daughter Ikuko Miyajima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Professor Miyajima agree to the spaceman's demand to repair Mechagodzilla in exchange for them sparing the life of his daughter Ikuko?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The human looking spacemen reverted to their true ape-like form when they died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark Star (1974)", "title": "Dark Star", "date": "1974-03-30", "description": "The crew of the deteriorating starship Dark Star, twenty years into their mission to destroy unstable planets that might threaten future colonization of other planets.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star crew were on a mission to destroy unstable planets in order to help pave the way for future colonization of other planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star crew were on a mission to destroy unstable planets in order to help pave the way for future colonization of other planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star computer talked with the crew in a sophisticated manner and seemed to control much of the ship's operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star computer talked with the crew in a sophisticated manner and seemed to control much of the ship's operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient bomb", "level": "major", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star crew used sentient bombs to obliterate unstable planets. Predictably, the bombs did not always do as they were instructed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The starship Dark Star crew's request for more radiation shielding was deny because of government cutbacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three men aboard the starship Dark Star had to improvise creative ways to pass the long periods of time in between blowing up unstable planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cal Kuniholm wore a futuristic spacesuit when he went to fix a malfunctioning laser. Doolittle used a similar spacesuit when he went outside of the spaceship to talk the sentient bomb out of detonating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A critically wounded Commander Powell was kept in cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e3x08", "title": "A Friend in Deed", "date": "1974-05-05", "description": "When Hugh Caldwell accidentally kills his wife during a fight, he calls his friend and neighbor, LAPD Deputy Commissioner Mark Halperin. Halperin helps Caldwell cover up the crime, then forces him to assist the following night in the drowning-murder of Halperin's own wife, a wealthy heiress whose money Halperin covets. Halperin arranges the situation to make it seem that a cat burglar, who has recently been active in their neighborhood, is the culprit in both killings, and orders Columbo to tailor his investigation to that theory.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo enlists the burglar's help in trapping the true murderers. Columbo creates fake files for the \"burglary investigation\" on which Halperin had ordered him to concentrate. While perusing the file, ostensibly to help Columbo, Halperin notes the burglar’s address. He hides jewelry taken from one of the murder scenes there, and shortly thereafter leads a raid on that apartment. Columbo confronts Halperin and accuses him of being involved in the murders. Halperin threatens Columbo’s job, and is triumphant when the planted jewelry is found in the searched apartment. However Columbo reveals that he himself is renting the apartment, that the burglar has no connection to it. Since only Columbo and Halperin knew that address, Halperin must have planted the jewelry there, which in turns means he must have been involved in the murders.\n\nThe first murder victim, Janice Caldwell, is killed before the episode begins, and is seen only as a corpse. The actress playing the part is unknown.\n\nDirected by: Ben Gazzara. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Hugh came to Mark for help after Hugh had accidentally killed his wife in a rage, Mark quickly hatched a plot to rid himself of his own disfavored life partner: He simply strangled her in her bath, then cajoled Hugh into making it look like the robber had come back to silence a witness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Hugh came to Mark for help after Hugh had accidentally killed his wife in a rage, Mark quickly hatched a plot to rid himself of his own disfavored spouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mark coveted his wife's wealth. He hatched a plot to kill her and inherit her fortune before she succeeded in giving the lion's share of it away to charity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first murder was framed as a burglary gone wrong, and the crime was pinned on a professional burglar who mentioned three other burglaries that he had, in fact, committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh had strangled his wife to death in a blind rage and was pondering whether to go to the police or try and cover up the killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was Hugh's wife really slain by a burglar who later came back to silence LAPD Deputy Commissioner Mark's wife for being a witness, or was there a conspiracy afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark seemed like a true friend to Hugh when he helped Hugh cover up the accidental killing of his wife. Alas, Mark had the ulterior motive of seeing an opportunity to use Hugh to dispose of Mark's own disfavored wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and his wife went through the motions of being affectionate all the while sniping sarcastically at each other. Then Mark killed her to get her heiress money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covering up a crime to save a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark seemed like a true friend to Hugh when he helped Hugh cover up the accidental killing of his wife. Alas, Mark had the ulterior motive of seeing an opportunity to use Hugh to dispose of Mark's own disfavored wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard tried to pin two murders on an area burglar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Local burglar Artie Jessup was being framed for the murders of two women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo staged for Artie to blackmail Hugh as part of a plot to expose Richard's involvement in the murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was an open secret that Janice Caldwell had penchant for running around with young men behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh killed his wife Janice in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark's wife made snide remarks about not having to cut him a check for once, after he returned home from an evening of unusually successful gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret had been donating enough of her fortune to charity to cause alarm with Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable organization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret was donating to a charity that helps ex-cons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh genuinely grieved for his wife, whom he'd strangled in a rage. Mark, by contrast, shed alligator tears for his wife, whom he'd drown in the bathtub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A good Samaritan drove Columbo to the gas station when his car broke down without it ever coming to light that Columbo was on the LAPD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh and Mark attended Janice's closed casket funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A used car salesman tried to make Columbo an offer he couldn't refuse on a trade in for his beat up, old Peugeot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The career burglar Artie Jessup had a short fuse. He flew off the handle at his wife. He again did so when Columbo came to question him about two recent murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh was remorseful over having strangled his wife in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh expressed regret that he hadn't just gone to the police in the first place to report he'd killed his wife in a rage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Morels Invention (1974)", "title": "Morel's Invention", "date": "1974-05-16", "description": "Morel's Invention (Italian: L'invenzione di Morel) is a 1974 Italian science fiction film directed by Emidio Greco and starring Anna Karina. It follows castaway on a deserted island somewhere in Polynesia. Tourists arrive, and his fear of being discovered becomes a mixed emotion when he falls in love with one of them. He wants to tell her his feelings, but an anomalous phenomenon keeps them apart. It is based on the novel The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morel%27s_Invention_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "A shipwrecked man washed up on an island that appeared to be deserted, but it soon became apparent that other 1920s era people were on the island, but strangely the man could not interact with them. So he still faced the same problems that he would have had he been alone there throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shipwrecked man had to find a way to survive by himself on the island he washed up on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morel recorded all sensory information of the guest on his island for one week and then used a machine to generate self-aware projections of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morel collected detailed sensory data from his visitors and then created self-aware projections of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-aware projections of people on the island were looping over the same week of their life indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether an incredibly sophisticated recording of a person when played is self-aware just like the original person. Morel was convinced this was so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The castaway loved the projection of Faustine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morel apologized to his guests for having recorded every aspect of their being for a full week without their permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morel was convinced that his invention somehow proved the existence of the soul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chosen Survivors (1974)", "title": "Chosen Survivors", "date": "1974-05-22", "description": "After being selected by a computer to seek safety in an underground bomb shelter on the eve of a nuclear attack, a group of refugees makes a horrible realization: They are sharing the space with a colony of vampire bats. And since going back above ground is not an option, they are forced to stay and fight for their lives.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_Survivors" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the apparent onset of a thermo-nuclear war, a group of people were selected by a computer and moved to live in an underground bomb shelter as part of a government plan to ensure the human race would survive the catastrophe. It turned out to be an elaborate experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in the underground bomb shelter were expected to reboot civilization once radiation levels on the surface lowered to a safe level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The underground bomb shelter was full of particularly dangerous vampire bats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical psychological experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ten people were selected without their consent to simulate the keeping of people in an underground bomb shelter in a post-nuclear holocaust setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "From the people in the underground bomb shelter's point of view their were being held captive by the government and they were being urged to try to escape by the wealthy businessman Raymond Couzins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people in the underground bomb shelter were told that they would be expected to reboot civilization once radiation levels on the surface lowered to a safe level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of an unknown future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people all coped with their bleak future prospects in different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carrie Draper fainted at the sight of the world ending on the view screen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Terminal Man (1974)", "title": "The Terminal Man", "date": "1974-06-19", "description": "The Terminal Man is a 1974 film directed by Mike Hodges, based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars George Segal. The story centers on the immediate dangers of mind control and the power of computers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain stimulating implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Benson had atomic powered electrodes implanted into his brain in order to control his epileptic seizures. But his brain became addicted to the tranquilizing shocks and he became unpredictably violent and dangerous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry behaved as a veritable monster while under the influence of his supposedly benign brain implant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Benson's seizure controlling brain implant was powered by an atomic battery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry flew into a violent rage and stabbed actress Angela Black to death. There was a subsequent investigation into the murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chinatown (1974)", "title": "Chinatown", "date": "1974-06-20", "description": "Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. The film was inspired by the California Water Wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley. The Robert Evans production, released by Paramount Pictures, was the director's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown_(1974_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "was saw a lot of corruption related to water management and a dam proposal in Los Angeles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered on the work of PI Jake Gittes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hollis Mulwray was in fact not cheating and we learn that Evelyn Mulwray was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A number of people were killed to cover up shenanigans around water management in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evelyn and Katherine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake became besotted with Evelyn, who reciprocated but was clearly more dedicated to her daughter-cum-sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evelyn dealt with the fact that her husband had been killed under mysterious circumstances. Katherine saw her mother, who was also her sister, shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Mulwray as told by Evelyn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gittes had a child by his own daughter", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flesh Gordon (1974)", "title": "Flesh Gordon", "date": "1974-07-30", "description": "Flesh Gordon comes to the rescue when Emperor Wang the Perverted turns the people of Earth into sex addicts using his Sex Ray.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_Gordon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sexual frenzy that was gripping Earth was seen as morally degenerate by some, including Flesh Gordon's father, Professor Gordon. In general, people were constantly nude and often engaged in sexual acts that would have been considered depraved at the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth became sex crazed after Emperor Wang the Perverted turned his Sex Ray on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An underground group of Amanozians were engaged in a war to overthrow Emperor Wang. Later Flesh gordon joined forces with the rightful ruler of Porno to overthrow Emperor Wang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Gordon and Flesh Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Flexi Jerkoff flew Flesh Gordon and Dale Ardor to the planet Porno in his phallic shaped rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Flexi Jerkoff flew Flesh Gordon and Dale Ardor to the planet Porno in his phallic shaped rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Wang plotted for Dale to marry him against her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flesh Gordon and his party were attacked by a Penasaurus. Flesh Gordon and Dr. Jerkoff had to save Dale from the clutches of a giant horny monster toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dale was physically restrained by a group of Amazonians and ritually sexually assaulted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Wang unleashed three \"rapist robots\" on Flesh Gordon and his party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: UFO: Target Earth (1974)", "title": "UFO: Target Earth", "date": "1974-09", "description": "The story follows an electronics expert who picks up strange signals: he then finds the signals are coming from a rural section in his area, and tries to find out if this is the start of an invasion from space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Target_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a man , named Alan Grimes, as he investigated the UFO phenomenon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Electronics expert Alan Grimes was on a personal quest to ascertain the veracity of alleged flying saucer sightings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vivian was endowed with some kind of uncanny ability to sense the presence of aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens used Vivian as a vessel to communicate with Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two locals described their abduction by aliens to a reporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother comforted her son after he was spooked in bed by a light in the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army let Alan use their mainframe computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien told Alan that beings of his kind were made of pure energy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Phase IV (1974)", "title": "Phase IV", "date": "1974-09-06", "description": "The people of Earth are imperiled when an unspecified cosmic event causes ants to undergo rapid evolution and they develop a form of collective intelligence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unspecified cosmic event caused ant colonies to rapidly evolve hive minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ants became super intelligent and started to overrun the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus the collectively intelligent ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unspecified cosmic event results in ant colonies evolving collective intelligence and challenging humans for dominion over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unspecified cosmic event caused ant colonies to rapidly evolve hive minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Game theorist James R. Lesko used mathematics to communicate with the collectively intelligent ant colony.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x01", "title": "The Pirates of Orion", "date": "1974-09-07", "description": "Spock contracts a fatal illness, and the cure can only be found with dangerous Orion pirates .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orion :: The Orions were patterned after pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirk to Spock about getting disease cure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: Kirk must trust Orion captain to pick up medicine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk with Orions", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x02", "title": "Bem", "date": "1974-09-14", "description": "The Enterprise crew is taken captive by a race of primitives on a newly discovered planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is a humanoid alien, named Ari bn Bem, who was composed of autonomous body parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "BEM was a being composed of autonomous body parts and this, apparently, caused him to have very strange ways that the humans had trouble understanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "BEM was secretly performing an experiment on the humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delta Theta III God :: god of reptilian natives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Scotty :: crew with BEM; especially Kirk and Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ari bn Bem :: Bem", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x01", "title": "An Exercise in Fatality", "date": "1974-09-15", "description": "Renowned exercise guru Milo Janus runs a chain of successful gyms. His charm is not enough to calm the anger of franchise owner Gene Stafford, who has found out how Janus overcharges his franchises for equipment and supplies, depositing the profits in offshore bank accounts. When Stafford threatens to organize other victims of Janus and to go public with a class action suit, Janus kills him. He makes it look like Stafford was working out, trying to lift weights too heavy for him, with the result being that the barbell fell and crushed his windpipe.\n\nFinal clue/twist: From the way the shoelaces on the corpse were tied, Columbo deduces that Stafford did not tie his own sport shoes. Columbo concludes that the murderer must have put the shoes on Stafford’s feet, when he dressed the corpse in exercise clothing, and only Janus knew before the discovery of the body that Stafford was wearing exercise gear. Throughout the episode multiple hints to the solution are given (including a sustained close-up of the victim's shoes, Columbo tying his own shoes several times, Columbo discussing his shoes with other characters, and by a character named \"Lacy\").\n\nDirected by: Bernard Kowalski. Story by: Larry Cohen, Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fitness guru Milo Janus murdered Gene Stafford, a franchisee of Janus' successful gym chain, to stop Gene from outing him as a tax fraud and a shyster. He went to elaborate lengths to make it look like Gene died in a barbell related accident. One gathers that he would have undoubtedly gotten away with it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fitness guru Milo Janus plotted to embezzle enough money from his chain of gyms to live comfortably in his villa on Adriatic coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fitness guru Milo Janus murdered Gene Stafford, a franchisee of Janus' successful gym chain, to stop Gene from outing him as a tax fraud and a shyster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did an out of shape gym franchisee die from dropping a heavy barbell on his neck during a late night workout session, or was foul play afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "health and fitness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fitness guru Milo Janus lived for exercise and healthy eating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Milo Janus was embezzling funds from the gyms he was franchising to unsuspecting owners. His plan was to skip off his villa overlooking the Adriatic with two million in embezzled Swiss francs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gene was about to expose Milo to the IRS for evading tax by channeling money to his off-shore holdings and Swiss bank account.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo was carrying on in a steamy relationship with his secretary, Jessica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo was apologetic for being late to the party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo hosted a classic film viewing party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was strangely at ease with her husband, Gene, having died suddenly in what appeared to be a gym accident, citing that she felt she'd lost Gene long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was strangely at ease with her husband, Gene, having died suddenly in what appeared to be a gym accident, citing that she felt she'd lost Gene long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo admonished Columbo for smoking cigars, saying that they'd kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milo feigned to lament Gene's death in an apparent gym accident upon being informed of the incident by Columbo. In fact, Milo had killed Gene in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was something of a boozer. She at one point ended up in a hospital bed after drinking herself stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo politely avoided consuming the breakfast of carrot juice and supplement pills that Milo foisted on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was appalled by the Tricon Delta 214 mainframe computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was confronted by such infernal mechanical contrivances as a mainframe computer and a telephone answering machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corporate lawyer Lewis Lacey had been tasked by Gene to investigate Milo's business practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A treadmill running Columbo feigned to have started taking his health seriously to further agitate the fitness guru, and murder suspect, Milo Janus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo consulted a police medical examiner regarding Gene's cause of death. Ruth was under the care of Dr. Freeman in the wake of her overdose.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x03", "title": "The Practical Joker", "date": "1974-09-21", "description": "A strange energy field causes the Enterprise computer to play practical jokes on the crew, but the humor soon turns to danger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise became sentient", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. Enterprise computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was at a loss to explain a series of escalating malfunctions about the Enterprise. It turned out to be the Enterprise computer playing practical jokes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: holodeck employed for the first time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy became trapped in the midst of a fierce, holodeck simulated snowstorm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the joker", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: MoscowCassiopeia (1974)", "title": "Moscow-Cassiopeia", "date": "1974-09-23", "description": "The radio signals of intelligent beings from a planet of the star system Shedar in the Cassiopeia constellation arrive on Earth. The film was followed by Teens in the Universe (1975).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow-Cassiopeia" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a the teenage crew of spaceship as they prepared for and subsequently set out on a 50 year voyage to a planet in a star system in the Cassiopeia constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interstellar space voyage was organized to find the source of radio transmissions made by intelligent beings that were picked up from a planet in a star system in the Cassiopeia constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a the teenage crew of spaceship as they prepared for to set out on a 50 year voyage planet in a star system in the Cassiopeia constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a showcase of the time dilation aspect of special relativity. In the story, a crew of teenagers were sent on what would be a 50 year voyage to Alpha Cassiopeia as experienced in their frame of reference. Meanwhile, hundreds of years were to pass in Earth's frame of reference, meaning that everyone they'd ever known would be long dead by the time they returned from their voyage. And toward the end of the film the teens communicated with people on Earth who had aged 40 years, while they had hardly aged a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female student mentioned about how the bison in American had gone extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist demonstrated a silver, walkman sized device that could translate any one language into that of the holder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship had a room that was the same as the Holodeck from Star Trek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teens experienced what it was like to float around inside the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teens wore magnetic boots to keep from floating before the artificial gravity was turned on on the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artificial gravity was used aboard the spaceship to keep the teenagers from floating around too much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lob's disruptive presence aboard the ship caused tensions to rise among everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speed of light limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how there was no known way to exceed the speed of light, but then the ship exceeded this speed after Lob carelessly sat on the controls.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mutations (1974)", "title": "The Mutations", "date": "1974-09-25", "description": "A deranged genetic scientist abducts college students as human guinea pigs that he uses in his experiments in crossbreeding plants with humans. The failed experimental mutants are then given to a cruel circus freakshow owner who exploits them to the fullest. However, the mutants and the circus freaks will not be denied justice.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mutations" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Professor Nolter as he experimented with crossing humans and plants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Professor Nolter as he experimented with crossing humans and plants through genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Professor Nolter's experiments with", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nolter described how evolution is achieved via accidental genetic mutations in combination with a survival of the fittest mechanism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a traveling freakshow from the point of view of the \"freaks\" in the show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nolter's henchman Lynch had a face reminiscent of the Elephant man's. He was known as the ugliest man in the world. He did Nolter's dirty work in the hopes that the Professor would cure his of his affliction. There were other people in a freakshow who each had a unique disfigurement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nolter became so obsessed with crossing humans with plants that he lost his sense of morality and performed dangerous experiments on people against their will to achieve his end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-plant hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nolter created a half human, half plant creature out of Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nolter created a half human, half plant creature out of Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Nolter speculated in a lecture about how it would one day be possible to bring the dinosaurs back to life using their DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Nolter and his henchman were experimenting with hybridizing people with plants in his biochemistry laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Nolter mentioned that his motivation for crossing humans with plants was to stop the Earth from becoming overpopulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Hedi and Brian Redford professing their love for one another.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x04", "title": "Albatross", "date": "1974-09-28", "description": "Doctor McCoy is arrested for allegedly causing a deadly plague which once ravaged the planet Dramia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what evidence was needed to convict McCoy of genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Dramians wrongly held Dr. McCoy responsible for, inadvertently or otherwise, having unleashed a deadly plague on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Dramians imprisoned McCoy on the charge of mass genocide - he was proved innocent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "McCoy was accused of committing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy raced to come up with a cure for the deadly plague afflicting the Dramians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "when in Rome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landiang parrty observe Dramian customs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy was formally tried for mass murder on the planet Dramia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy was formally tried for mass murder on the planet Dramia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Is the Place (1974)", "title": "Space Is the Place", "date": "1974-10", "description": "The black musician and thinker Sun Ra lands his spaceship in Oakland to reveal to the world his plan for the salvation of the black people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Is_the_Place" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sun Ra came from outer space to liberate the blacks from the white imposed power structure they were subject to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sun Ra came from outer space to liberate the blacks from the white imposed power structure they were subject to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sun Ra use music to enlighten black people about their plight. In addition, we saw other people enjoying soul music throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sun Ran came from outer space to liberate the blacks from the white imposed power structure they were subject to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sun Ra made a dramatic landing of his uniquely shaped spaceship in Oakland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy Fey was a representative of black people from the entertainment industry who was co-opted by the normalizing, status quo-reinforcing forces of white-led capitalism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974)", "title": "The Disappearance of Flight 412", "date": "1974-10-01", "description": "Government agents attempt to convince the Flight 412 crewmen that they didn't witness two Marine jets disappear out of the sky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disappearance_of_Flight_412" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concerned an Air Force cover up of an incident which saw two fighter jets intercept a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concerned an Air Force cover up of an incident which saw two fighter jets intercept a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crewmen of Flight 412 refused to change their story in spite of hours of putting up with government agents coercing them to deny that they saw two Marine jets disappear out of the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Flight 412 crewmen formally deny what they plainly saw with their own eyes in order to be set free from their interrogation?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stock footage of flying saucers accompanied the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Colonel did everything in his power to free his men from the clutches of their interrogators.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stranger Within (1974)", "title": "The Stranger Within", "date": "1974-10-01", "description": "The Stranger Within is a 1974 American made-for-television science fiction horror film that premiered as the ABC Movie of the Week on October 1, 1974. In the film, a couple expecting a baby are surprised on account that the man had had a vasectomy, and the woman is not supposed to be able to get pregnant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_Within" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David Collins and Ann Collins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann and David were expecting a baby, but it was strange because Dave had had a vasectomy and Ann was not supposed to be able to get pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann and David were shocked to find that Ann was pregnant since Dave had had a vasectomy and Ann was not supposed to be able to get pregnant..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann experienced extreme labor pains and had strange cravings for black coffee, raw meat and massive amounts of salt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "David suspected Ann of having gotten pregnant by another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann gave birth to an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ann and other women became impregnated with alien babies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "College literature professor David Collins talked with Ann about a classroom discussion on Dickens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David urged Ann to get an abortion two months into her pregnancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann was put under hypnosis in an effort to first determine who the father of her baby was and then to find out information about the nature of the alien entity inside her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x05", "title": "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", "date": "1974-10-05", "description": "A mysterious being threatens to destroy the Enterprise if the crew is unable to solve an ancient puzzle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kukulkan gave technology to the Mayans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kirkologue to Kulkulkan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the god is an alien", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kukulkan's Species :: Kukulkan was a god to the Mayans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kukulkan hated mankind for having forgot about him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk convinced Kukulkan that humankind was ready to stand on its own two feet and that Kukulkan's help in cultivating civilization was no longer beneficial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Mayan mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story advances the idea that the Ancient Mayan god Kulkulkan was actually an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayan pantheon of gods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk :: away team face Kukulkan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kukulkan's Species :: Kukulkan of Mayans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "away team held captive by Kukulkan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kukulkan kept his captives docile by placing them in simulated realities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Where Have All the People Gone (1974)", "title": "Where Have All the People Gone?", "date": "1974-10-08", "description": "An American made-for-television science fiction drama film about a family that exits a cave to find that most people have been turned into white powder.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Have_All_the_People_Gone%3F" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven and his two teenage children found reason to believe that a nuclear conflagration had transpired while they were exploring a cave. Although they later discovered that a violent solar flare had hit the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven took his teenage children Deborah and David on vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven took his teenage children Deborah and David on vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teenage siblings David and Deborah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven and his two teenage children presumed found reason to believe that a nuclear conflagration had transpired while they were exploring a cave. Although they later discovered that a violent solar flare had hit the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "major", "motivation": "A solar flare hit the Earth and turned most people into piles of white powder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Clancy was presumed to have died from radiation poisoning. Steven and his two children were concerned about high radiation levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny couldn't forgive herself for leaving the car windows open for the feral dogs to come in a eat her children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny couldn't forgive herself for leaving the car windows open for the feral dogs to come in a eat her children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven and his children worry over the well being of their wife/mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven and his two children mourned their mother who's turned into a pile of white powder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)", "title": "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "date": "1974-10-11", "description": "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American slasher film directed by Tobe Hooper and written and co-produced by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and Leatherface. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience and to act as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate; although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, its plot is largely fictional.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas_Chain_Saw_Massacre" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Especially Sally spent much of the story more or less at the mercy of a family of deranged cannibals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Especially Sally spent most of the story being chased by one or the other of the cannibals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrayed a family of man-eating men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin and Sally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and Pam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cannibal family had killed untold unsuspecting travelers and now set about doing the same to the main characters as they fell into the cannibals' hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the younglings picked up a hitch-hiker and one of them got slashed with a razor for the trouble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the younglings debated whether to pick up a hitch-hiker and ill-advisedly landed in favor of doing so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin struggled with his wheelchair from time to time", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tas2x06", "title": "The Counter-Clock Incident", "date": "1974-10-12", "description": "An unusual spaceship pulls the Enterprise into a \"negative universe \" where time seems to flow backwards.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tas.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "opposite world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everything was opposite to our universe in Karla's universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew aged backwards while in the reverse universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert April :: Robert April", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reversed time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "time ran backwards in reverse universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "people aged backwards, not exactly using technology, but close enough", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert April :: Robert April young again and in the captain's chair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert April was a proud man past his prime", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mandatory retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert April faced", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert April/Sarah April :: Robert and Sarah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert April/Sarah April :: Robert and Sarah", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x02", "title": "Negative Reaction", "date": "1974-10-14", "description": "After years of marriage to his domineering wife, Frances, professional photographer Paul Galesko decides to kill her. He hires ex-con Alvin Deschler to rent an isolated ranch house. Galesko persuades his wife to accompany him there and she grudgingly agrees. He ties her to a chair, photographs the scene, and then shoots her. He sets things up so it will appear he is elsewhere when the pictures were taken. Galesko meets Deschler at a junkyard. After shooting Deschler with a revolver, Galesko shoots himself in the leg with the pistol used in the first murder, then plants that gun on Deschler so that it will appear the \"kidnapper\" was killed in self-defense. JoAnna Cameron plays Galesko's assistant, with whom he is planning a romantic getaway.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo stages a false accusation using a mirror-inverted version of the kidnapping photo Galesko used to fabricate an alibi. The reverse negative shows a different time on a clock in the photo, a time for which Galesko has no alibi. An increasingly riled Galesko accuses Columbo of framing him with false evidence, and becomes more incensed when Columbo tells him the original photo was accidentally destroyed. Galesko grabs a camera from a shelf where there are twelve other cameras, and shows Columbo a negative that is still inside it. Galesko says the negative proves him right about which way the clock is pointing in the original photograph. Galesko has thus given himself away. He had no way of knowing which camera had been used as part of the kidnapping scheme, or that the negative was still in the back of that camera. Galesko, defeated, realizes that Columbo had staged the false arrest with the exact purpose of getting him to lose his cool so he would rashly identify the camera. The outside set of Deschler's hotel room is the set of Psycho.\n\nDirected by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Paul Galesko shot his domineering wife dead, and went to elaborate lengths to make it look as if she'd been kidnapped and killed by a certain ex-con. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Paul killing his wife, Frances, to get out from under her thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was Frances Galesko killed in a botched kidnapping, or was something more sinister afoot, perhaps implicating her disgruntled husband?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Paul killing his wife to get out from under her thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul killed his wife, Francis, who he described as a domineering, nagging, suffocating woman who took all the joy out of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances' suspicions about her husband Paul having romantic designs on his assistant, Lorna, were borne out to be true. This is likely part of the reason why he killed Frances, after which he was together with Lorna many times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Galesko shot his wife dead and made it look as if she'd had been kidnapped with a $20,000 ransom demand, and later killed by her \"kidnapper\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul went to elaborate lengths pin his wife's murder on the ex-con Alvin Deschler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Paul Galesko was a two time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer. In addition to Columbo taking a great interest in Paul's livelihood, Columbo exploited that a mirror-inverted version of a photo can be produced by reversing its negative to out Paul as the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable organization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo visited a Catholic mission run by nuns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul described his wife, Francis, as a domineering, nagging, suffocating woman who took all the joy out of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo made sure the wino Thomas Dolan was given a good place to rest. Columbo visited a mission to down and out people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul shed alligator tears for his wife, Francis, upon being informed of her murder, and insisted on riding with her body in the ambulance. Little did those on the scene know, save for possibly Columbo, that Paul had killed her in cold blood without remorse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soup kitchen nun mistook Columbo as a hobo because of his shabby appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo made a nuisance of himself at Frances' burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a pedantic authority figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An uptight driving instructor gave Columbo what amounted to an impromptu road test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alvin briefly experienced the unusual situation of being framed as a murderer, briefly before he was shot to death by the framer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The investigators did not give much credence to the testimony of the boozer that inhabited the junkyard where Alvin was shot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x03", "title": "By Dawn's Early Light", "date": "1974-10-27", "description": "Colonel Lyle C. Rumford, head of the Haynes Military Academy, an all-boys school, is told by the Board of Trustees president William Haynes, with whom Rumford has a contentious relationship, that due to declining enrollment it must be converted into a coed school. Haynes also makes clear that Rumford will no longer be in charge of the revamped institution. Rumford rigs a school cannon by blocking its discharge with a cleaning rag, then modifies a shell with a more powerful explosive so that the cannon will explode when Haynes fires it the next morning, at a ceremonial occasion. Rumford pins the accident on a cadet, Roy Springer, who has a history of behavioral demerits. Eventually Rumford’s own fanatical sense of duty provides Columbo the clues that lead to Rumford’s incrimination.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Rumford, an absolute stickler for the academy’s rules, is determined to find a bottle of prohibited cider that he knows is on the premises. Columbo himself finds the cider, and realizes there is a connection between it and the murder. He gains the confidence of the cadets who made the cider, and has them tell him everything about how and when it was made. Once he learns that information, he asks Rumford if he had seen the cider previously. When Rumford says yes, it incriminates him. Columbo tells him he could have seen the cider only on the morning of the murder (the cider had been hung out to ferment at night, and as such was only visible around sunrise), and only if he was standing very near the cannon (because of the location of the trees on the academy grounds). So on the morning of the murder Rumford was not asleep, as he had claimed; instead, he must have been at the cannon.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Howard Berk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Lyle C. Rumford goaded his superior into firing a cannon he went to elaborate lengths to rig to explode at a ceremonial occasion, taking care to make the cause of the accident look like an act of negligence by a cadet he did not much like. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Rumford couldn't stand idly by and let girls be admitted to this traditionally boys only school. He resorted to murder most foul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Was the military academy present's getting blown to bits when firing a ceremonial cannon due to the negligence of a young cadet, or did someone higher up have it in for him?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Colonel Lyle C. Rumford was the head of a military academy for boys. The viewer is shown the strict daily regimen that the cadets were expected follow, and Colonel Rumford prided himself on running a disciplined operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at a military academy for college age boys. Much attention is paid to the boys being subjected to a disciplined mode of life. There was a subplot about the boys fermenting a jug of cider in flagrant violation of academy regulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Rumford prided himself on turning the boys under his charge at the military academy into disciplined young men. In one pointed scene, Cadet Springer was made to wash a courtyard with a toothbrush as punishment for having skipped off to the neighboring girl's college in flagrant violation of academy rules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Military academy head Colonel Rumford goaded the academy's Board of Trustees president into firing a cannon he'd rigged to explode, resulting in the president presumably being blown to bits, and tried to make it look the explosion was due to Cadet Springer's negligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cadet Springer was being framed by Colonel Rumford for the murder of William Haynes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cadet Springer was a stereotypical rebellious young man. He was generally insubordinate to his superiors at the academy, was in on the contraband cider fermenting operation, and had a penchant for skipping off to the neighboring girl's college after hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cadet Springer had a chip on his shoulder, and routinely disobeyed his superiors at the academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Rumford was driven by a desire to play his part in making \"the best damn army int he world, and Haynes Academy is going to be a part of it\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Rumford was exceedingly proud of Haynes military academy, which he ran, so much so he couldn't stand idly by and let girls be admitted to this traditionally boys only school. He resorted to murder most foul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo made a self-deprecating remark about his mind being slow and him having to write everything down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The academy chaplain said a few words in honor of Haynes at the academy chapel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A college girl told Columbo she doesn't talk to strangers, and subsequently questioned the authenticity of his police badge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cadet Springer sought out his girlfriend for help while on the run from the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cadet Springer freaked out and resolved to head \"up north\" after being falsely informed that he was liable to be arrested for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "skipping school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It transpired that Cadet Springer could, in fact, not have been responsible for the accident because said cadet had played hooky and spent a night with his girlfriend instead of performing his gun-cleaning duties like the colonel thought he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Rumford and William Haynes were both variously compared and contrasted with young Cadet Springer. In his youth, Haynes had been rebellious much like Cadet Springer, whereas Colonel Rumford had already had stick up his behind for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Rumfrod was dead set against having girls admitted to the boys only military school he ran.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion from Inner Earth (1974)", "title": "Invasion from Inner Earth", "date": "1974-10-30", "description": "A group of pilots in the Canadian wilderness begin to hear strange reports over their radios about planes crashing, cars stalling, and a deadly plague which has gripped the planet. As the plot continues, it's clear that Earth is in the midst of an invasion. The pilots barricade themselves in a cabin in the woods and wait for impending doom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_from_Inner_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of pilots found themselves stranded in the Canadian wilderness as a deadly plague was spreading around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were UFO sightings all over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the group of pilots stay hunkered down in the cabin away from the plague or should they get to the nearest town in an effort to figure out what was going on in the world? Jake wanted to get into town while Stan advocated staying hunkered down in the cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was Stan's theory that Martians were living in the interior of the Earth and that they were responsible for the flying saucers being sighted around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from Inner Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that Martians living deep inside the Earth launched an invasion of the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and his sister Sarah were living in a cabin in the Canadian wilderness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were shots of 50s style flying saucers invading Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan, Sarah, and Eric tried to brave the cold of winter to make it to the nearest town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan theorized that Matrians moved into the Earth's interior about 8000 years ago when the Red Planet veered closer to Earth than the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Woman Under the Influence (1974)", "title": "A Woman Under the Influence", "date": "1974-11-18", "description": "A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. The story follows a woman (Gena Rowlands) whose unusual behavior leads to conflict with her blue-collar husband (Peter Falk) and family. It received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress and Best Director. In 1990, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\", one of the first fifty films to be so honored.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Under_the_Influence" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone were struggling to figure out how they should act around Mabel because of her odd behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalizing a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story pivoted on Nick's decision, seemingly with support from the rest of the family, to have Mabel committed once she started to be dangerously eccentric", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and Mabel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "both Nick and Mabel with their three children - the kids had very presence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick's mother was rather cruel to Mabel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw a lot of parenting of varied quality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was frequent allusion to drinking, and bouts of excessive drinking, which certainly cause some problems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel had a one night stand with some stranger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a headache", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel had bad headaches, we heard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel's mother was rather hapless and did very little", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick had brief exchanges with Mabel's father towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard that Mabel threw herself into the motherhood thing and found little else of meaning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel's fascination with dancing came out during her mental illness episodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel tried to cut her wrist near the end although little was made of it", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory03", "title": "The Jolly Corner", "date": "1975", "description": "A gentleman prowls the now-empty New York house where he grew up. It is based on the 1908 Henry James short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spencer pondered to the point of obsession what sort of man he would have become had he stayed in New York instead of spending 33 years abroad as he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reflecting on the person one might have been", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spencer contemplated about the man he might have become had he not spent the duration of the Civil War living comfortably in Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer rekindled a relationship with his old friend, Alice Staverton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer was haunted by a decision he'd made years ago to move abroad to avoid fighting in the civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer grappled with an imagined alter ego, the man who stayed and fought in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Spencer had fled to Europe to avoid involving himself in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was surprised to find that he had an innate talent for business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer watched on as an unnamed woman conducted a stereotypical séance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer stated that some men considered him to be a coward (for having scuttled off to Europe before the outbreak of the civial war).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that the house was haunted by Spencer’s American alter ego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer came to believe that the ghost of the man he might have become had he remained in the United States was now haunting his boyhood home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A clear distinction between the character of European culture and American culture was noted by Spencer many times.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Magic Flute (1975)", "title": "The Magic Flute", "date": "1975-01-01", "description": "The Magic Flute (Swedish: Trollflöjten) is Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film version of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte. It was intended as a television production and was first shown on Swedish television on 1 January 1975, but was followed by a cinema release later that year. The work is widely viewed as one of the most successful films of an opera ever made, and as an unusual item in the director's oeuvre.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Flute_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "epic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the epical love between Tamino and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pamina had to choose between her mother and her father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the conflict between Queen of the Night and Sarastro, probably tying into enlightenment ideas and backlashes thereto", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarastro wanted Tamino and Pamina to take over as leaders of the brotherhood because in their love was wisdom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Queen of the Night and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarastro and Pamina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tamino, Pamina, Monostratos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Papageno spent the first half of the story lamenting that he had not a sweetheart, and looking for one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen of the Night ordered Pamina to kill Sarastro, her own father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tamino was upset with Papageno's incessant failure to be quiet in the Temple of Ordeal", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stowaway to the Moon (1975)", "title": "Stowaway to the Moon", "date": "1975-01-10", "description": "Stowaway to the Moon is a 1975 television film about a preteen boy who stows away on an Apollo mission to the Moon. The film was based on the novel of the same name written by William Roy Shelton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowaway_to_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "E.J. showed the world that an 11 year old boy could play a productive role on a mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 11 year old boy E.J. Mackernutt stowed away on a NASA rocketship headed on a a mission to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J.'s father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J.'s school teacher father expressed concern over his inability to pay for E.J. to go to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J. and Joey were building a model Apollo era splash down capsule for a science project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J. was having fun floating around inside the command module.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J.'s mother Mary worried about her son's presence on the Moon mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eli Mackernutt Sr. and Mrs. Mary Mackernutt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Footprints on the Moon (1975)", "title": "Footprints on the Moon", "date": "1975-02-01", "description": "A woman begins to see her life fall apart due to strange memories from childhood when she was forced to watch a film called \"Footprints on the Moon\" involving an unethical experiment in leaving astronauts stranded on the Moon's surface.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footprints_on_the_Moon_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Alice was suffering from a paranoid delusion that the fictional scientist Blackman was trying to capture her and strand her on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Alice was suffering from a paranoid delusion that the fictional scientist Blackman was trying to capture her and strand her on the Moon. She suffered from several schizophrenic-like episodes in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Alice was suffering from a paranoid delusion that the fictional scientist Blackman was trying to capture her and strand her on the Moon. Alice was generally paranoid and confused throughout the film as she tried to make sense of the strange world her mind assembled before her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some scientists were talking about how pollution would make the earth uninhabitable by the year 1990.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice became addicted to tranquilizers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice and Harry made love at one point int he film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Strongest Man in the World (1975)", "title": "The Strongest Man in the World", "date": "1975-02-06", "description": "A science student accidentally discovers a super strength granting chemical. It is the second sequel to the 1969 film The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, after 1972's Now You See Him, Now You Don't.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strongest_Man_in_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dean Higgins was about to be fired for financial mismanagement due to extreme over-spending by Prof. Quigley's science class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter Riley ate a bowl of chemically enhanced cereal that granted him super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength formula", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dexter Riley ate a bowl of chemically enhanced cereal that granted him super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Harriet Crumply and Mr. Kirwood Krinkle were vying against one another to make their respective morning cereal companies number one in the nation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were a bunch of students working on various science experiments in a university lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean Higgins reprimanded the obese student Elmer for sloppily eating jelly beans in class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Harriet Crumply and her idiot nephew Dean Higgins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Frederick and Harriet Crumply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A.J. Arno and his idiot nephew Cookie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ah Fong uses a combination of hypnosis and acupuncture on Skyler at A.J. Arno's bidding in an effort to get the super strength chemical formula out of him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x04", "title": "Troubled Waters", "date": "1975-02-09", "description": "While aboard a Mexican cruise he takes frequently, auto executive Hayden Danziger has been having an affair with the lounge singer Rosanna Wells. When Wells threatens to expose their affair to Danziger's wife, Sylvia, Danziger decides to get rid of Wells. To set up his alibi, he inhales some amyl nitrite to feign a heart attack in the swimming pool, so that he will be checked into the ship's hospital. During a lapse in security, Danziger dons a crewman's uniform, sneaks out of his hospital bed, and waits in Wells's cabin for her performance break. When Wells comes back, Danziger shoots her, plants evidence to implicate a band musician, Lloyd Harrington – who had been in a relationship with Wells before she discarded him – ditches the pistol, and returns to the hospital before the doctors can find him missing. Columbo, vacationing on the cruise with his wife, is pressed into service by the ship's captain.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo convinces Danziger that he can only arrest Harrington if they find the gloves he used during the murder, which would have gunpowder residue on them. So Danziger puts on another pair of rubber gloves and, down in the ship’s engines where he cannot be heard, fires a gun from the magician’s show. The gloves are then conveniently left by Danziger to be found by the ship’s crew. However when given the gloves to analyze, Columbo is no longer interested in powder burns, instead he finds Danziger's fingerprints on the inside of the gloves.\n\nDirected by: Ben Gazzara. Story by: Jackson Gillis, William Driskill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Auto executive Hayden Danziger came up with the following intricate device to rid himself of his inconvenient lover, the lounge singer Rosanna Wells during a cruise: He used amyl nitrite to feign a heart attack and be taken to sickbay. From there he simply snuck down and shot Rosanna dead, whilst taking care to implicate band musician Lloyd Harrington in every way imaginable. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rosanna tried to blackmail Hayden out of hush money in exchange for keeping quiet about their affair. Things didn't end well for Rosanna, however, as Hayden elected to shoot her dead rather than cough up the cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The vacationing detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Who shot dead the lounge singer on the cruise to Acapulco?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Auto executive Hayden Danziger rid himself of his inconvenient lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place on a cruise from Los Angeles to Acapulco, and we got a detailed view of the goings on there as they were imagined by the author.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The captain pressed Columbo into service in order to resolve the mysterious murder, and was involved in the investigation throughout. They crew members were also show performing their various duties aboard the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Auto executive Hayden Danziger took care to implicate band musician Lloyd Harrington in every way imaginable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lloyd Harrington was mighty upset at being the primary suspect in the murder of Rosanna Wells. Luckily for him, Columbo was there to uncover the real murderer and his nefarious plot to frame Lloyd Harrington.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Auto executive Hayden Danziger was hosting some business associates on the cruise to Acapulco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd Harrington was besotted with Rosanna Wells after a brief tryst one gathers that they had. She, however, wanted nothing further to do with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hayden and Sylvia Danzigner boarded the cruise together. Sylvia later told Columbo that Hayden married her for love, rather than for her money as her friends assumed, seeing as she was older (and wealthier) than Hayden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd and Rosanna were both musicians in a band performing aboard the cruise ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nurse and a doctor treated Hayden in the ship sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stage magician entertained the cruise goers with a trick that on the face of it would seem to have left him shot clear through the abdomen, yet he was unharmed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd Harrington found himself unceremoniously dumped by Rosanna Wells like a sack of so-many potatoes. He heaped invectives on her and went away visibly frayed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Most of Sylvia's friends were of the mind that Hayden had married her for her money, she told Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hayden slugged his former lover, Rosanna, across the face in the midst of a tense argument over her hush money payment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was feeling \"rubbery\" and sought medical assistance for his seasickness.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stepford Wives (1975)", "title": "The Stepford Wives", "date": "1975-02-12", "description": "A photographer and young mother begins to suspect that the frighteningly submissive housewives in her new idyllic Connecticut neighborhood may be robots created by their husbands. It is based on the 1972 Ira Levin novel of the same name.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Stepford Wives" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna watched the Stepford women turn into obedient drones for their husbands and worried that the same was ultimately in store for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the Eberhart's as the moved from New York City to the strange town Stepford with their two young children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter Eberhart joined an elite men only club Stepford. Joanna and her friend Bobbie tried to raise awareness among the other women in Stepford that it was sexist to have a such a club, and they tried to form a counter women only club. More generally, the men of Stepford preferred for women to be obedient housewives and went about doing in their wives and replacing them with just such replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobbie Markowe befriended Joanna, who was new in town and didn't know anybody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna's relationship slowly broke down as he became more and more involved in the clandestine Stepford Men's Association.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were replacing their wives with submissive android replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were replacing their wives with submissive android replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were unanimous in the conviction that the natural order of things was for women to be in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter became exasperated with having to entertain seven kids at his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna told a photo critic that she was into photography because she wanted to be remembered for something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna mused to a female psychiatrist that she might be crazy to think that the men of Stepford were somehow changing their wives into submissive automaton-like drones, but she was still convinced it was happening all the same.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x05", "title": "Playback", "date": "1975-03-02", "description": "Harold Van Wick, the controlling, arrogant, gadget-obsessed president of Midas Electronics, has wired his estate-home with closed-circuit television cameras and video recorders. His mother-in-law Margaret Midas, who owns the company, and who blames a steep drop in profits on Van Wick's costly fascination with obscure gadgetry, orders him to resign his post by the following morning, or she will expose his philandering ways to his wife, her daughter, Elizabeth. Van Wick has already set in motion a scheme to murder her. He rigs his high- tech home security system and shoots Margaret when she is in the viewing field of one camera, feeding a recording of an empty study to the guard monitoring the estate's rooms. Having already forced open a window and planted footprints outside it to make the murder look like the deed of a burglar, he then uses a timer to play back the tape of the shooting to the gatehouse guard's monitor to make it look like Margaret was shot by an intruder after Van Wick had left the house for a party. Robert Brown played Arthur Midas, Margaret's son and Elizabeth's brother. Patricia Barry plays the owner of an art gallery which provided Van Wick with his ostensible alibi, and Trisha Noble plays her sexy assistant, who may have had an affair with Van Wick.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo notices, while viewing security monitor recordings from both before and after the murder, that Van Wick's invitation for the party was still on his desk after leaving for the party. Van Wick had presented the invitation to get access to the party that provided his alibi. So Margaret had to have been shot sometime before the security guard viewed it on the monitor, and, more damningly, Van Wick would practically have had to step over the body to retrieve his invitation before leaving for the party.\n\nDirected by: Bernard L. Kowalski. Story by: David P. Lewis, Booker T. Bradshaw.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Electronics company president Harold Van Wick hatched an elaborate plot to shoot his elderly mother-in-law dead and make it look like she met her demise in a burglary gone wrong. Van Wick did all this to prevent the mother-in-law, who owned the company, from forcing him to resign as company president. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Harold Van Wick liked being president of his mother-in-law's electronics company so much that he committed murder to remain in the post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the elderly owner of a large electronics company shot dead in a botched burglary, or was something more sinister afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Harold Van Wick was married to the wealthy but electric-wheelchair bound wife, Elizabeth Van Wick, and very much enjoyed running her family business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Harold shooting dead his no-nonsense mother-in-law, Margaret, to stop her from ousting him as president of the family electronics company. The few interactions they had in the lead up to her death were characterized by a tone of mutual hostility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story was the Midas estate being equipped with such high-tech electronic gadgetry as closed-circuit television cameras, video recorders, and clap activated doors. The novelty of Harold's digital watch was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Harold Van Wick was fascinated with electronic gadgetry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth was electric-wheelchair bound. Elizabeth remarked to Columbo about people assuming they need to \"tiptoe around her\". Her husband, Harold, treated her like she was made of glass, perhaps mistaking her physical disability for general incompetence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo made Swiss cheese of the theory that a prowler killed Margaret while attempting to burgle her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret didn't let her son, Arthur, answer for himself when questioned by Harold as to the reason for his presence at the family estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening scene, Elizabeth made it clear she'd go upstairs to read should her mother, Margaret, continue being difficult on Harold. Elizabeth briefly grieved for her recently killed mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold's mother-in-law confronted him about his carrying on with one woman in Malibu and another in Beverly Hills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret tried to blackmail Harold into resigning as company president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was battling a stubborn cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo expressed his condolences to a grieving Elizabeth in the aftermath of her mother being shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo brought his Basset hound to the Midas estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo asked the gallerist to explain several enigmatic works of modern art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bar patrons were caught up in the football game that was being broadcast on television. An instant replay of the fumble gave Columbo an idea for how to crack the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "\"Do you think I would remain with the company... in a subservient position to my wife\", said Harold Van Wick, implying that his masculinity had been threatened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Midas Electronics company profits dropped off under Harold's management. He blamed the recession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold seemed pretty comfortable securely locked up in the home while he took care of the family business. he objected vehemently when she suggested she might take a more active role int he company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villain of the story Harold Van Wick was the president of Midas Electronics. He was not much shown performing in this capacity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Van Wick was about to be removed as president of Midas Electronics on account of declining profits under his watch. He blamed the recession.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Boy and His Dog (1975)", "title": "A Boy and His Dog", "date": "1975-03-15", "description": "A teenage boy and his telepathic dog, who work together as a team in order to survive in the dangerous post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Southwestern United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in an alternate future in the year 2024 after a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic and his telepathic dog struggled had to work together to survive in a post-nuclear holocaust wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that World War IV, a nuclear war which took place over a period of five days, destroyed civilization on Earth in 2007.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic and his pet police dog Blood worked together to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic's dog Blood verbally communicated with him using telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic and his telepathic dog Blood worked together as a team in order to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic discovered a strange small town American-like society of people living underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The subterranean townspeople lured Vic underground as part of a plot to harvest his sperm to be used to impregnate their womenfolk as the menfolk had become infertile owing to prolonged underground habitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quilla was motivated by a ruthless desire to run the subterranean community she was from and hatched an elaborate plot in an effort to achieve that goal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic and Quilla June Holmes copulated like rabbits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Vic leave Blood on the surface to follow Quilla down underground at great risk to himself?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The telepathic dog Blood was determined to find the legendary promised land of \"Over the Hill\" where above-ground utopias were said to exist, though Vic believed that they ought to make the best of what they have.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic and Blood discussed World War III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic and Quilla were chased down by a murderous android that resembled a farmer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)", "title": "Terror of Mechagodzilla", "date": "1975-03-15", "description": "Godzilla comes to the rescue when spacemen send a rebuilt mechanical Godzilla to attack the Earth. It is the 15th film of the Godzilla franchise, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Anguirus, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_of_Mechagodzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and the aquatic dinosaur Titanosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune and his cyborg daughter Katsura Mafune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune plotted to avenge his wrongful dismissal from the university by using Titanosaurus to destroy all mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacemen from \"the third planet\" plotted to use Mechagodzilla to ravage the Earth's cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune turned his daughter Katsura into a cyborg in order to save her life after a console explosion in his laboratory left her mortally wounded. Mecahgodzilla was also a cyborg as it had neurons in its head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacemen from \"the third planet\" plotted to use Mechagodzilla and a mind controlled Titanosaurus to either conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tokyo was attacked by Mechagodzilla and a mind controlled Titanosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tokyo was attacked by Mechagodzilla and a mind controlled Titanosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune had a mad scientist laboratory with test tubes fulled with colored liquids and the like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune had a mad scientist laboratory with test tubes fulled with colored liquids and the like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shinji Mafune used a mind control device to make Titanosaurus do his bidding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teens in the Universe (1975)", "title": "Teens in the Universe", "date": "1975-03-25", "description": "A crew of teenagers continue on an expedition to the Shedar system in search of the source of mysterious signals that had been detected from Earth. It is preceded by Moscow-Cassiopeia (first part, 1974).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teens_in_the_Universe" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interstellar space voyage was organized to find the source of radio transmissions made by intelligent beings that were picked up from a planet in a star system in the Cassiopeia constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a the teenage crew of nuclear, relativistic spaceship as they continued their voyage to a planet in a star system in the Cassiopeia constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that bionic robots took actions on the planet that somehow led to the extinction of the native population of people that had built them. However, the people living in a small capsule in orbit around the planet remained outside the reach of the bionic robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet was populated by bionic robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bionic robots held a landing party of the teens and Agapit captive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teens aged less than one year on their voyage to Alpha Cassiopeia while 27 years had passed on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teens were show to miss their families back on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship had a room that was the same as the Holodeck from Star Trek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teens used a though interpreter device which allowed them to communicate with the planet inhabitants even though they didn't speak the same language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agapit and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two obsolete robots helped the teens to rescue two female members of the crew from the bionic robots.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Noah (1975)", "title": "The Noah", "date": "1975-04-10", "description": "Noah is the sole survivor on our planet after a nuclear holocaust. To cope with his loneliness, he creates an imaginary companion, then a companion for his companion and finally an entire civilization - a world of illusion in which there is no reality but Noah, and no rules but those of the extinct world of his memory.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Noah" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah was the sole survivor on Earth after a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah was the sole survivor on Earth after a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isolated on a Pacific island, and the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust, Noah tried to keep up the routines of ordinary life, but he soon became lonely and conjured up an imaginary friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah found himself on a small, tropical island in the Pacific and he was living in a deserted Communist Chinese military outpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah and his imaginary companion, Friday. Noah went on to conjure up a little coterie of imaginary friends, including Friday's main squeeze Friday-Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Friday became Noah's best and only friend on the deserted Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah gradually conjured up a little community of imaginary people to keep him company on a deserted island. He had gone totally bonkers by the end of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah came to see himself as a god-like figure who presided over his community of imaginary people. There was a pointed scene which saw Noah hold two slabs of written law in a manner reminiscent of Moses holding the Ten Commandment slabs. A comparison was also drawn between Noah resembling Karl Marx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Noah being a commander to imaginary soldiers, like his imaginary friend Friday. Noah also routinely reminisced aloud over his glory days in the army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah was patriotic about defending freedom and the Allied Forces down to the last bone in his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah came to see himself as a god-like figure who presided over his community of imaginary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noah warned his imaginary friend, Friday, to be ware of passing radiation clouds and radioactive rain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noah reminisced over his time fighting in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a nuclear holocaust. The Hirosmia bombing was mentioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Race 2000 (1975)", "title": "Death Race 2000", "date": "1975-04-27", "description": "The film takes place in a dystopian American society in the year 2000, where the murderous Transcontinental Road Race has become a form of national entertainment. The screenplay is based on the short story \"The Racer\" by Ib Melchior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race_2000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed a cross country automobile race in which the participants earned points by killing pedestrians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We say a fascistic future America in which there was a yearly pedestrian killing cross country race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A resistance group led by Thomasina Paine began to rebel against the post World Crash of '79 American regime by sabotaging the death race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The post World Crash of '79 American regime featured various fascist elements: an authoritarian president who used the French as a scapegoat for a sluggish economy and race sabotage, the government suppressed information about racers getting killed from getting out to the public, and a secret police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The competition between Frankenstein and Joe \"Machine Gun\" Viterbo to win the death race, and the glory that came with it, was particularly fierce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things got hot a heavy between Frankenstein and his navigator Annie Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The resistance group plotted to assassinate the president, although it was ultimately Frankensetin who did the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein was flown in to the race site in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein had a robotic arm that enabled him to shift gears very quickly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are led to believe that Frankenstein wore a black mask to conceal his horribly mangled face. But his faced actually looked just fine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Pennsylvania hospital deliberately wheeled a number of elderly people out onto the road to get hit by death race cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The driver of the Nazi race team spoke about a superior race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein ran down a member of his fan club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's navigator Annie Smith was secretly working with the resistance to kidnap him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e4x06", "title": "A Deadly State of Mind", "date": "1975-04-27", "description": "Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Collier is having an affair with a patient of his, rich housewife Nadia Donner. One day, Nadia invites Mark to a weekend sex vacation at the Donner beach house. Collier shows up at the beach house only to be unpleasantly surprised by Nadia's husband, Carl. The two men get into a violent confrontation over Collier's affair with and drugging of Nadia, with Carl threatening to damage Collier's reputation. When Collier surprises Carl by attempting to leave with Nadia in tow, Carl attacks him. A scuffle ensues, which ends with Collier bludgeoning Carl with a fireplace poker. After telling Nadia to explain it to the police as a home invasion that turned tragic, done by several masked men, Collier drives off, almost running over a blind man walking his dog past the beach house. Investigating the scene, Columbo is not satisfied with Nadia's version of events, wondering why Nadia didn't see the headlights of the burglars' car. When Columbo tells Collier that Nadia's story is not credible, Collier secretly hypnotizes her into, in effect, committing suicide by taking a deadly dive from her fifth floor balcony into the swimming pool below.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo claims to have a witness to the first murder. Collier is confronted with the eyewitness, a man wearing dark sunglasses who looks just like the blind man Collier narrowly avoided hitting with his car shortly after the murder. The man settles down on the couch, hands Columbo a match, and then identifies Collier as the driver he saw at around the time of the murder. Collier, as confident as ever, says that he has not been fooled, that he knows the man is blind, and thus cannot be a witness to anything. Collier challenges the man to read from a magazine he hands him, and is stunned when the man does read from it. Columbo reveals that the man is the brother of the actual blind man. But Collier has incriminated himself. In “knowing” that the witness was blind, he has established that he was at the scene of the crime. He has in effect been an eyewitness against himself.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Collier hit Carl over the head with a fire iron when Carl attacked his own wife, Nadia, and inadvertently killed him. Worried perhaps more about his reputation than the legal repercussions of what seems like obvious self-defense, Mark and Nadia decided to try and cover up the murder by blaming it on unknown masked assailants that wanted to rob the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Realizing that Lt. Columbo was hounding in on their scent and that he could not rely on Nadia to keep her lies consistent, Mark came up with the following elaborate plot to rid himself of this liability of a partner in crime: He hypnotized Nadia under the pretext of helping her pass a lie detector test. Instead he implanted a command that made her try to jump into the pool below her fifth story balcony, triggered by his command over the telephone. He knew full well that she would not survive the plunge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Collier came up with the following elaborate plot to rid himself of his partner in crime, Nadia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was Nadia's husband killed in a botched burglary of their beach house as she told the police, or was she perhaps covering up for someone she'd invited over for a weekend sex vacation?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark hypnotized Nadia under the pretext of helping her pass a lie detector test. Instead he implanted a command that made her try to jump into the pool below her fifth story balcony, triggered by his command over the telephone. He knew full well that she would not survive the plunge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Nadia were having an affair behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Nadia were having an affair behind her husband's back. She was in fact a serial adulteress, according to her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Mark Collier was a successful psychiatrist and a behavioral researcher. He was treating Nadia for some psychological condition. Anita was a human behavioral research working under Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark was carrying on in a romantic relationship with his prize patient, Nadia, (who he wanted to write a book about) in flagrant violation of medical ethics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and his colleague, Anita, were conducting research into the manipulation of human behavior. This involved wearing lab coats, conducting stereotypical mouse in a maze experiments, and experimental work on hypnotic suggestion in humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark and Nadia tried to pin Carl's death on unknown burglars. Columbo spent the entire story poking holes in the burglary theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind man (and his impersonating brother) became central to Columbo's plot to catch the villain out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark chewed out his subordinate researcher, Anita, at the institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nadia and her lover, Mark, were surprised to discover her husband, Carl, laying in wait for them at the beach house. The resulting confrontation turned what Nadia and Mark anticipated to be a harmless weekend sex vacation into something truly criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo crashed Mark's house party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The circumstances of Nadia death made it look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark tried to make it look like Nadia killed herself owing to the stress of the police investigation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1975)", "title": "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles", "date": "1975-05-14", "description": "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 arthouse film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.\n\nJeanne Dielman examines a single mother's regimented schedule of cooking, cleaning and mothering over three days. The mother, Jeanne Dielman (whose name is only derived from the title and from a letter she reads to her son), has sex with male clients in her house daily for her and her son's subsistence. Like her other activities, Jeanne's sex work is part of the routine she performs every day by rote and is uneventful. But on the second and third day, Jeanne's routine begins to unravel subtly, as she overcooks the potatoes that she's preparing for dinner, and drops a newly washed spoon. These alterations to Jeanne's existence prepare for the climax on the third day, during which she murders a client.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Dielman_23_quai_du_Commerce_1080_Bruxelles" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gender issue", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the film is called a feminist masterpiece and showcases a woman's lot in contemporary Belgium - dreary housework and degrading sexwork", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jeanne sold sex to provide for herself and her son after she became a widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanne was taking care of her son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanne had a lousy career and resorted to sex work after her husband died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanne took care of her son all alone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three days of Jeanne's otherwise dreary life culminated in a sudden murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was an esoteric discussion about love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeanne spoke of her relationship with her late husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeanne did not seem much affected by it but did talk about the death of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeanne talked about her and her aunts (or were they her son's aunts?)", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Long Return (1975)", "title": "A Long Return", "date": "1975-05-26", "description": "A husband chooses to place his wife in cryogenic suspension when she is diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Return" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the lives of initially happy married couple David, an architect, and Anna, a young college student.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna and David were passionately in love with one another. This is evidenced by David remaining faithful to Anna for the 40 years she spent in cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna woke up after having spent 40 years in cryogenic suspension. Anna, who was not subject to physical aging during her suspension, met her best friend Irene and loving husband David - both were elderly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "David chose to put his wife Anna in cryogenic suspension after she was diagnosed with a terminal disease until such time as a cure was found.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna and Irene were best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna was reunited with her husband David after waking up from a 40 year cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vibrant young college student, Anna, fell in love with and married the established architect David. Their apparent age was strikingly contrasted when a physically unaged Anna reunited with an elderly David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "David chose to put his wife Anna in cryogenic suspension after she was diagnosed with a terminal disease until such time as a cure was found.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna grieved over the passing of her elderly husband David toward the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nashville (1975)", "title": "Nashville", "date": "1975-06-11", "description": "Nashville is a 1975 American satirical musical ensemble comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman. The film follows various people involved in the country and gospel music businesses in Nashville, Tennessee over a five-day period, leading up to a gala concert for a populist outsider running for President on the Replacement Party ticket.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "professional politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We a variety of politicians and associated staff as the story lead up to a gala concert for a populist outsider running for President on the Replacement Party ticket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in historical North America", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a mild parody on what political and cultural life in Tennessee might have been like in the 1970s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Winifred was an aspiring country singer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "several famous (and less famous) people were pestered, particularly by Opal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Opal was a BBC journalist and a parody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linnea cheated on her husband with the singer Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard evangelical singing, invocations of trusting in God, and scenes from a church", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the film started with a conspicuously patriotic American song", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the campaign van blasted out a message about people not bothering to vote", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lot of music but only occasional comments about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Green and L.A. Joan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Del and Linnea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linnea and deaf boys; Martha and Kenny", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Del and deaf boys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linnea was interacting with her deaf children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "L.A. Joan flirted with every man she laid her eyes on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom pestering Linnea on the phone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Green broke down upon hearing that his wife had expired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sueleen wants to sing but finds herself booed off stage then made to perform a striptease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom seemed to be a caricature womanizer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bug (1975)", "title": "Bug", "date": "1975-06-17", "description": "An earthquake releases a bunch of mutant cockroaches that can create fire by rubbing their cerci together. Eventually most of the bugs die because they cannot survive in the low air pressure on the Earth's surface, but a scientist, Professor James Parmiter, keeps one alive in a pressure chamber. He successfully breeds the mutant cockroach with a modern cockroach, creating a breed of intelligent, flying super-cockroaches. It is based on Thomas Page's 1973 novel The Hephaestus Plague.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Biologist James Parmiter became obsessed with breeding fire producing cockroaches even though it was very dangerous to do so and warned not to do it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of a small town were imperiled by a breed of mutant cockroaches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cockroaches breed by James Parmiter became collectively intelligent to the point that they spelled out \"we live\" using their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film began with a preacher giving a sermon on how people were falling away from the Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Parmiter's wife Carrie fell victim to the fire producing cockroaches.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jaws (1975)", "title": "Jaws", "date": "1975-06-20", "description": "Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name. In the film, a giant man- eating great white shark attacks beachgoers at a New England summer resort town, prompting police chief Martin Brody to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the people on Amity Island facing a gigantic, man-eating shark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It is a typical obsession-leads-to-disaster story: first the mayor's obsession with tourism lead to deaths, then Quint's obsession with getting the shark on his own ultimately lead to his dying horribly in the mandibles of the creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quint, a character patterned after Captain Ahab, wanted revenge on sharks and the shark, one gathers, for the carnage they inflicted on the stranded crew of the USS Indianapolis of which he was a member.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Police chief Martin Brody worked to keep the beachgoers safe from a gigantic, man-eating shark..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "public safety vs. public prosperity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mayor and business interests on Amity Island insisted on keeping the beaches open for the Fourth of July holiday weekend despite the imminent danger of further shark attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hooper and Quint were both exceedingly passionate about sharks, albeit in different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quint and his crew tried to catch the man-eating shark using a robust array of techniques, including the laying out of chum, a baited fishing line, harpoons with a cord attached to a flotation barrel, and even strychnine loaded hypodermic spear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a slice of Martin and Ellen's married life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin interacted with his young son, Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen interacted with her young son, Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The second victim's mother was seen in mourning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of open waters", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin was afraid of being on boats on water, according to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two boys caused a great commotion on the beach when one of them swam with a dummy shark fin strapped to the one of their backs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rollerball (1975)", "title": "Rollerball", "date": "1975-06-25", "description": "Rollerball superstar Jonathan E. begins to question the corporate-run world government after an executive begins coercing him to retire at the height of his career.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "corporatocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a corporate-run society run on a world scale. Political decisions were made by corporate executives ostensibly in the best interest of all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a corporate-run society run on a world scale. Political decisions were made by corporate executives ostensibly in the best interest of all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a corporate-run society run on a world scale. Political decisions were made by corporate executives ostensibly in the best interest of all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rollerball athletes got badly injured and sometimes even died in the course of play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bread and circuses", "level": "major", "motivation": "World running corporate executives presumably used Rollerball to distract the public from political matters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan E. went on a personal quest to uncover why elements from the corporate-run world government were forcing him to retire from Rollerball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The corporate overlords of the world ensured that the basic needs of the world population were satisfied, but we are made to wonder if the cost in reductions in peoples freedom was too high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular sport Rollerball was an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles and a metal ball that was being used by the powers that be to distract the public from politics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulling the plug on a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan E. refused to sign off on pulling the plug on his teammate Moonpie, who was in a vegetative state after having suffered an injury in a Rollerball match, even though the doctor urged him to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Librarian proudly showed off his 70s era computer to Jonathan E. upon his visit to the library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan E. reunited with his ex Ella. Corporate executives were responsible for taking Ella a away from Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan E. reunited with his ex Ella.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dersu Uzala (1975)", "title": "Dersu Uzala", "date": "1975-07", "description": "Dersu Uzala (Russian: Дерсу Узала, Japanese: デルス·ウザーラ, romanized: Derusu Uzāra; alternative U.S. title: Dersu Uzala: The Hunter) is a 1975 Soviet- Japanese co-production film directed by Akira Kurosawa, his first non- Japanese-language film and his first and only 70mm film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dersu_Uzala_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around some men struggling to survive in the wilderness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Arsenyev and Dersu grew ever closer, particularly during the survival episode in the marsh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Arsenyev and Dersu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story compared the soldiers' way of life with that of Dersu the itinerant hunter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dersu; old man encountered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "visual impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dersu found his eyesight failing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "on parting at the end of the first act, Dersu and the Captain believed they might never again meet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the men faced a tiger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some people were found tied up to die of exposure and mosquitoes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the party came across a series of traps wherein animals were needlessly being killed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dersu felt over shooting the tiger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dersu believed in some sort of forest god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arsenyev grieved over Dersu in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Strange New World (1975)", "title": "Strange New World", "date": "1975-07-13", "description": "Three astronauts return to an asteroid battered Earth after being cryogenically frozen and looking to re-establish an organisation called PAX that had sent them into space. It is a television film based on concepts envisioned by Gene Roddenberry.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_New_World_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts returned to Earth a 180 years after it was hit by a civilization ending swarm of asteroids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts, after waking up from 180 years in cryogenic suspension, returned to a desolate planet Earth to try and revive a number of people who had been indefinitely cryogenically suspended underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three astronauts had to reboot civilized life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eternan people had found the secret of immortality in the 180 years since the Earth had been hit by an asteroid storm. There were no old people or children among them, but rather only adults in middle life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allison Crowley was held by the forest dwellers and she had to be rescued before the elders had her executed. The Eterna leaders kept the astronauts as guests, but the astronauts considered themselves to be prisoners and two of them tried to escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative society", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Eterna we saw a society where immortal people lived in harmony, but the dark side was that they harvested organs from clones they bred in order to perpetuate themselves. Also a point was made that it was strange to have a society absent of children and old people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rotating wheel space station was depicted orbiting the sun at the start of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The forest dwellers suspected Allison Crowley of having magical powers when she told them that she was from their past and examined her tools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The forest dwellers suspected Allison Crowley of having magical powers when she told them that she was from their past and examined her tools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of the Eterna people sacrificed a young woman in celebration of life. He stabbed her in the heart, but she was later revived by means of a heart transplant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heart transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eterna people had the technology to transplant hearts without the need for the subject to be rendered unconscious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young woman was transplanted with a heart from her clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eterna people grew clones from single cells to full adult size in four days in capsules for the purpose of harvesting their organs for transplantation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eterna people grew clones from single cells in capsules for the purpose of harvesting their organs for transplantation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 212 year old Eterna leader suffered from dementia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Eterna woman confided in Anthony Vico that she was lonely in Eterna and sometimes longed to die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Super Inframan (1975)", "title": "The Super Inframan", "date": "1975-08-01", "description": "In 2015, Demon Princess Dragon Mom awakens from 10 million years of dormancy and plots to conquer the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_Inframan" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from Inner Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruler of the Inner Earth Demon Princess Dragon Mom made a bid to conquer the surface by unleashing an army of mutants on everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruler of the Inner Earth Demon Princess Dragon Mom made a bid to conquer the surface by unleashing an army of mutants on everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Liu Ying-de and his young daughter Liu Mei-mei.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dragon Mom commanded an army of mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dragon Mom teleported mutants from their chamber into her throne room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dragon Mom used a ray on Zhu Ming to mentally condition him to make him do her bidding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liu Mei-mei and her little sister Lin-lin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liu Mei-mei and her little brother Xiao Hu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Liu Ying-de worried over his daughter being held captive by Dragon Mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dragon Mom held the Professor and his daughter captive and threatened to kill the daughter unless the Professor constructed another Inframan for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Inframan was powered by the sun.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Land That Time Forgot (1975)", "title": "The Land That Time Forgot", "date": "1975-08-13", "description": "Set during World War I, the survivors of a British merchant ship end up on an uncharted sub-continent, called Caprona, in the South Atlantic. It is based upon the 1918 novel The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_That_Time_Forgot_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some people aboard a U-boat that had run out of fuel ended up drifting at sea for a long time and ended up at an uncharted sub-continent, called Caprona, in the South Atlantic. Note that the voyage took up between a third to a half of the entire film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people on the U-boat ended up on a hitherto unexplored sub-continent in the South Atlantic filled with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people on the U-boat ended up on a hitherto unexplored sub-continent in the South Atlantic filled with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people had to survive around dinosaurs on the sub-continent Caprona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set during the First World War and we saw people from the Allied countries work together with a German U-boat crew to survive on in a land filled with dinosaurs and cavemen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brits/Americans and German sailors agreed that the war between their nations was meaningless to them while they were on the sub-continent and agreed to work together to survive there until such time as they could return to a neutral port.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creatures on Caprona did not evolve according to natural selection, but rather each individual organism (from single celled organisms all the way to hominids) passed through every stage of evolution within their own lifetime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brits/Americans and German sailors agreed that the war between their nations was meaningless to them while they were on the sub-continent and agreed to work together to survive there until such time as they could return to a neutral port.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common interest unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brits/Americans and German sailors agreed that the war between their nations was meaningless to them while they were on the sub-continent and agreed to work together to survive there until such time as they could return to a neutral port.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The caveman Ahm was perplexed with his modern visitors and their technology.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)", "title": "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "date": "1975-08-14", "description": "The story centers on a young engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle where they seek a telephone to call for help. The castle or country home is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes celebrating an annual convention. They discover the head of the house is Dr. Frank N. Furter, an apparently mad scientist who actually is an alien transvestite who creates a living muscle man in his laboratory. The couple are seduced separately by the mad scientist and eventually released by the servants who take control. The film is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, with music, book, and lyrics by O'Brien. The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocky_Horror_Picture_Show" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank-N-Furter was a transvestite alien and a sadistic pervert who perhaps got what was coming to him, we must ponder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film challenged the 70s sexual norms from the transsexual main character Frank-N-Furter, to Frank-N-Furter and Brad having gay sex, to innocent Janet opening up and trying new sexual experiences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank-N-Furter was a transvestite and everyone occasionally ended up cross-dressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet with Frank. Brad with Frank. Janet with Rocky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet, Brad, Frank-N-Furter, and Rocky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that Frank and his cadre were in fact aliens from the planet Transsexual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad and Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad and Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that Frank and his cadre were in fact aliens from the planet Transsexual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad gave in to Frank-N-Furter's sexual advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bisexualism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank-N-Furter had full sex with both men and women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad and Janet stumbled in on Frank-N-Furter throwing a wild party. Frank-N-Furter and others indulged themselves in a variety of sexual activities that would have been considered depraved at the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad proposed to Janet at someone else's marriage in the beginning of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet and Brad were both prudes but had it taken out of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocky was a veritable Adonis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet was stereotypically feminine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet and Brad commented on Frank's hospitality, or lack thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank-N-Furter took Janet's virginity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet was beating herself up for not having saved herself for her fiancée Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Scott visited Frank-N-Furter at his mansion to discuss about Scott's nephew Eddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Frank-N-Furter's female lovers pressured him into choosing between her and Rocky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An emotionally overwhelmed Rocky watched helplessly as his lover Frank-N-Furter was shot and killed by an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scene of the creation of Frankenstein's monster from the classic 1933 film \"Frankenstein\" was parodied.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x01", "title": "Forgotten Lady", "date": "1975-09-14", "description": "When elderly physician Henry Willis refuses to finance a return to the spotlight for his wife, aging former movie star Grace Wheeler kills him in his sleep, passing it off as a suicide. Their elderly butler believes Grace was in a private screening room the entire time, watching one of her classic films.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo believes that a discrepancy between the length of the movie and the time it took Grace Wheeler to watch it, including the few minutes it took her to fix the film after it ripped, proves that Grace spent some time away from the screening room. It was then, Columbo concludes, that she was out committing the murder. This is one of the only two episodes in which the perpetrator is not arrested (the other being \"It's All In The Game\"), as Ned Diamond, Wheeler's longtime song and dance partner who has always loved Grace, falsely confesses to save her after Columbo informs him she is suffering from a degenerative brain disease (the primary reason her husband refused to finance her return as the physical strain of acting would have killed her) and likely no longer even remembers the murder. Nonetheless, Columbo is prepared to arrest her. Diamond makes his false confession to Grace who briefly becomes hysterical. Columbo arrests Diamond, both realizing that by the time he is cleared, Grace will have died. Columbo's normal instincts thwarted, he makes several half turns – as though to enter the screening room – where Grace, lost in the past, is watching the film, having already forgotten Diamond's confession. Columbo then leaves the mansion, following Diamond. The episode features excerpts from the 1953 musical comedy Walking My Baby Back Home, which starred Leigh. It is Grace's favorite film, the one playing when she was committing the crime and the one she is watching, mesmerized, at the end of the episode.\n\nAn amusing concurrent side-story concerns Columbo's penchant for not carrying his firearm and his decade-long lapse in going to the range for shooting proficiency. He has been evading Sgt. Leftkowitz whose computer records show the lapses. Finally, while Columbo is eating an ice cream cone with his dog, an Internal Affairs officer tells him he has 24 hours to appear at the range or his badge will be pulled. (Columbo lends his badge to a crony whom he asks to go to the range in his place, claiming he cannot pass the shooting proficiency test.)\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: William Driskill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis hatched an elaborate plot to shoot her husband dead while he was deep in a sleeping-pill induced slumber and make it look like he'd shot himself out of despair over the waning health of his prostate. In the end, an inoperable aneurysm of the brain caused her to forget she'd committed the murder and Columbo was unable to arrest her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aging former movie star Grace Wheeler hatched an elaborate plot to shoot her husband dead while he was deep in a sleeping-pill induced slumber, and make it look like he'd shot himself out of despair over the waning health of his prostate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis found herself dismayed at fading to obscurity in her old age and resolved to make a comeback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did an elderly physician of independent means shoot himself in bed out of despair over the waning health of his prostate, or did someone dear to him perhaps want to use his fortune to finance their big comeback musical?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis killed her elderly husband, Henry Willis, when refused to cough up $500,000 to finance her big comeback musical. The Willis' house servants Raymond and Alma were married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis refused to owe up to the fact that she was not a young actress sensation anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis mansion was a shrine to her in her heyday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis mansion was a shrine to her in her heyday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned Diamond was producing Grace's big comeback musical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned professed that he had ever loved Grace from afar, or something to that effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace and Ned were fast friends, perhaps with romantic undertones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Willis' interacted with their two faithful house servants, Raymond and Alma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Westrum sedated Grace, who he determined to be in a state of \"complete shock\", in the wake of her husband's apparent suicide. Columbo recurringly questioned Dr. Westrum about the husband's physical and mental health. Henry Willis was a retired physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was warned that smoking cigars won't help with his heart health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo dragged his conspicuously unnamed Basset hound around in his broken down old, Peugeot. Columbo at one point treated the creature to a vanilla ice cream cone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace was rehearsing a dance number with the cast of what was to be her big comeback musical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Ned falsely confessed to having killed Henry to protect his longtime friend Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The following problem was mooted but not deeply explored: How ought Grace be treated given that she had committed a crime but suffered from a mental condition that caused her not to remember it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the blame for someone else's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned tried to take the fall in order to protect Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aging former movie star Grace Wheeler Willis went to elaborate lengths to kill her elderly husband and tried to make it look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry had apparently decided not to inform his wife, Grace, that she had an inoperable aneurysm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the denouement of the story, Ned tried to take the blame for Grace's crime after he learned about her terminal condition so that she could live her last few weeks unheckled by the law (Lt. Columbo aside).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Black Moon (1975)", "title": "Black Moon", "date": "1975-09-24", "description": "A surrealist mise en scene centering on Lily, a confused teenager who witnesses a war between the sexes and finds herself involved in numerous dream-like situations at a country estate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Moon_(1975_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lily sought refuge from a literal war that was going on between men and women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lily sought refuge from a literal war that was going on between men and women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lily communicated telepathically with Brother Lily and a unicorn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lily witnessed some soldiers line up a bunch of civilians and machine gun them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: HuMan (1975)", "title": "Hu-Man", "date": "1975-10-01", "description": "A team of researchers harness a man's emotional energy to send him on a voyage in time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu-Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of researchers at The Institute of Temporal Research harnessed Terence's emotional energy to send him on a voyage in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terence over his departed lover Vivien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrence flipped out after the experiment resulted in a woman suiciding herself and he briefly fled from the institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terence felt alone and afraid on a future Earth devoid of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terence was made to fear for his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvana and Terence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Shivers (1975)", "title": "Shivers", "date": "1975-10-10", "description": "The residents of a luxury apartment complex are infected by parasites that make them rapid with an insatiable desire for sex.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Emil Hobbes designed a breed of aphrodisiacal parasites that spread like an STD among the residents of a luxury apartment complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Emil Hobbes designed a breed of aphrodisiacal parasites that spread like an STD among the residents of a luxury apartment complex. Infected people went rabid with an insatiable desire for sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually transmitted disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Emil Hobbes designed a breed of aphrodisiacal parasites that spread like an STD among the residents of a luxury apartment complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nurse Forsythe tried to seduce Janine while under the influence of aphrodisiacal parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and Janine. Mr. and Mrs. Guilbault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger St. Luc stumbled on two men who were engaged in romantic activity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x02", "title": "A Case of Immunity", "date": "1975-10-12", "description": "Hassan Salah, chief diplomat of the Legation of Suari, an Arab nation with a new young king, has a scheme for shifting power within his government. He enlists Rachman Habib, a naïve idealist in the Legation, to help him stage the murder of a security officer, then plants evidence to make it look like the work of radicals. Salah pins the murder on the now-absent Habib, who, as part of the plan, has gone into hiding. Salah later kills Habib as well. Columbo unravels the truth, but finds himself stymied by Salah's diplomatic immunity. Columbo then meets the new king, who is on a diplomatic visit to the United States, and is liked by the young monarch.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo gets Salah, still under diplomatic immunity, to confess to the murder with the king listening in from the next room. To stay in the U.S. rather than be sent back to Suari and the torture that it is implied he would face, Salah signs a confession and waives his immunity from prosecution.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: James Menzies, Lou Shaw.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Suari First Secretary Hassan Salah killed a Ligation security guard by bonking him over the head with a baton and, together with an accomplice, planted evidence to make it look like it was the work of student radicals. To cover his tracks, Salah later bonked his accomplice over the head with a flashlight and took measures to make it look like the man had driven over a cliff to his death. All this was part of a calculated plot to sour the progressive young Suari king against the revolutionaries' cause. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crimes had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political ideology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Suari First Secretary Hassan Salah was a counter revolutionary who killed for the sake of his political convictions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was the murder of two Suarian nationals the work of student revolutionaries, or did the killings go to nearly the highest levels of the headbonking Suari government?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Suari First Secretary Hassan Salah tried to pin the murder of a Ligation security guard on student radicals, and later on his own accomplice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The progressive Suari king was pointedly contrasted with the staunchly traditional First Secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo's job was made much trickier by the requirement that he maintain diplomatic tact while stomping around the Suarian Ligation, which was technically foreign soil. A State Department official impressed upon Columbo that advancing state relations with the Kingdom of Suari was more important than catching the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "First Secretary Salah branded the student protestors as revolutionaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Placard carrying student protestors were demonstrating outside of the Suari Ligation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Suari First Secretary and king were notably hospitable to Columbo during his time at the Ligation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sauri king ruled his kindgom, largely unconstrained by law, although with difficulty because of independent minded bureaucrats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the Ligation, Columbo was much introduced to the customs of the people of the fictional Arab kingdom of Suari. Columbo was surprised to discover that juice was being served i place of champagne at the Ligation function. Columbo twice stepped on First Secretary Salah's robe as it trailed on the floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)", "title": "The Giant Spider Invasion", "date": "1975-10-24", "description": "A giant spider from outer space terrorizes the town of Merrill, Wisconsin and the surrounding area.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Spider_Invasion" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spiders from outer space wrought havoc in the town of Merrill, Wisconsin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Kester had a hate/hate relationship with his wife, Ev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Kester his wife, Ev, argued constantly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were terrorized by spiders from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ev Kester wasn't buying her husband Dan's cockamamie story about having attended a religious revival, but rather rightly suspected him of having paid a visit to his mistress, Helga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ev and her younger sister Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fundamentalist preacher gave a fire and brimstone themed sermon in a church basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. J.R. Vance expressed surprise that the distinguished scientist Dr. Jenny Langer was a woman - he had known her only as Dr. Langer until they met face to face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan drove Ev to drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy made a pass at Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctors Vance and Langer somehow deduced that the spiders had emanated from a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The townspeople got into a panic over the giant spider and formed a posse against the sheriff's direct orders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Ultimate Warrior (1975)", "title": "The Ultimate Warrior", "date": "1975-11", "description": "The film is set in post-civilization New York City in 2012 and depicts the struggles of a small commune of inhabitants attempting to survive in a compound beset with packs of starving pillagers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Warrior_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small enclave of people fought to survive in a post-apocalyptic New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron and his pregnant daughter Melinda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron's stern but fair leadership skills were put on display as he lead his commune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baron led a small commune that was cultivating vegetables for the first time after some sort of plague ran rampant over the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "People in the small commune Baron led turned on Baron and murdered him over suspicions of him distributing food in an unfair manner. In general, the commune people were paranoid over other people stealing vegetables from the community garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melinda and Cal were expecting with child. Cal died, but Melinda struggle on and gave birth to a baby boy with the help of Carson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carson and Baron discussed rumors that people were eating people to survive out there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melinda broke down in tears when Carson told her that her lover Cal was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melinda and Cal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x03", "title": "Identity Crisis", "date": "1975-11-02", "description": "A CIA operative code-named \"Geronimo\" contacts fellow CIA-operative, now working undercover as speech-writing consultant Nelson Brenner, to demand his share of money from a previous operation they were involved in. The go-between is Otis Young. It motivates Brenner to kill Geronimo. Columbo finds himself blocked at every turn by a man who knows a lot of private and classified secrets, and even by a visit from the Director of the Agency.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Brenner's alibi, a taped speech for a client, is proven false when Columbo establishes that some statements in the speech were based on news that was not known until hours after the recording was allegedly made.\n\nDirected by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: William Driskill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "CIA-operative Nelson Brenner hatched the following elaborate plan to rid himself of a troublesome former colleague known as \"Geronimo\": He bashed Geronimo's head in with a tire iron and made it look like a mugging while establishing for himself the alibi of having been up recording a speech which he, in fact, did later on but with the clocks cleverly wound back. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crimes had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geronimo agreed to help recover a microfilm in exchange for $300k worth of physical gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was confronted with the following conundrum: Had the unknown man later identified as \"Geronimo\" really been slain by muggers, and if so why had they removed his coat? Or was there a more sinister murder plot afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo was investigating an apparent mugging gone awry that turned out to be a cleverly masked murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geronimo and Brenner were two secret CIA operatives. Their spy-master, the CIA director, dramatically appeared in order to tell Columbo to cease and desist in his investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Nelson Brenner went to elaborate lengths to pin the killing of a CIA-operative on the hapless Lawrence Melville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo discussed photography with a couple of photographers at an amusement park whilst searching for a photo of the late Geronimo or his assailant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news headline about the possibility of New York municipal workers going on strike played over Brenner's car radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenner owned up to having bugged Columbo's house. It was for this reason that Brenner knew Madame Butterfly to be Columbo's elusive wife's favorite piece of music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenner was tended to by his Thai butler, Eli. Brenner even addressed him in what appeared to be the Thai language at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenner entertained Columbo at his mansion with music, Cuban cigars, and conversation. Columbo pointedly thanked Brenner for being a gracious host.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Great Space Voyage (1975)", "title": "A Great Space Voyage", "date": "1975-11-05", "description": "Three teenagers win the All-Union Children's Space Competition and after completing the special training course and go to the first ever children's flight on the Astra spacecraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Great_Space_Voyage" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believe that three children went on a great voyage across the galaxy. In reality, they never really left the earth, but were inside a sophisticated simulator underground and it was really a psychological experiment designed to assay the prospects of a real children's space flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believe that three children went on a great voyage across the galaxy in the futuristic rocket ship Astra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three children faced down a series of simulated crises and in so doing proved that children could commandeer a spaceship through interstellar space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fedya realized from the first day that it was all an elaborate simulation, but he kept it secret for the duration of their month and a half long \"voyage\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical psychological experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The modern viewer cannot help but to question whether locking up three children in a fancy flights simulator and sending them on what they believed to be a perilous space voyage was very ethical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The only adult on the ship, who was confined to sickbay after the first day, was not much amused by the children pulling the prank of taking his food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flashback scene in which Fedya discusses his upcoming space mission with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The children had to think on their feet to avoid a collision with an interstellar space station.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Barry Lyndon (1975)", "title": "Barry Lyndon", "date": "1975-12-18", "description": "Barry Lyndon is a 1975 period drama film written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. It stars Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter and Hardy Krüger. The film recounts the early exploits and later unravelling of a fictional 18th-century Irish rogue and opportunist who marries a rich widow to climb the social ladder and assume her late husband's aristocratic position.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the Napoleonic era", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown images of life military, aristocratic, and common in various places in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barry's fortune rose and fell in stellar proportions as he became a drafted soldier and then a monied Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and Lady Lyndon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and Lord Bullington", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Lyndon and Lord Bullington; Barry and his mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry wanted everhigher status, first by marrying and then by getting a title", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and his natural son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and Lady Lyndon were distraught when their son died after a horse accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and John fought a duel that Barry though was to have a lethal conclusion; later Barry fought Bullington; there was also a duel over gambling debts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry, John, Nora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry with his cousin Nora; Lady Lyndon with Barry briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a pretty horrid image of soldiers dying in droves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry died when his friend and benefactor died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw a battlefield and some looting that was narrated with sarcasm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Lady Lyndon had to be jealous of her maids when Barry shagged them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry caned Bullington", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bullington and Barry Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry became a serial philander once married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry squandered most of his wealth vainly pursuing a title", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parents were at Barry Jr.'s death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw how bleak and demeaning a wife's life could be before Barry changed his ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry was subjected to highway robbery, literally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Lyndon attempted to kill herself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Family Plot (1976)", "title": "Family Plot", "date": "1976", "description": "Family Plot is a 1976 American black comedy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in his final directing role. It was based on Victor Canning's 1972 novel The Rainbird Pattern, which Ernest Lehman adapted for the screen. The film stars Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris and William Devane; it was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-alfred-hitchcock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blanche pretended to be a medium and sometimes kicked it up a notch by having her boyfriend, George, do detective work behind the scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blanche pretended to communicate with a dead spirit in something that resembled a séance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur/Edward and Fran were high-rolling criminals who kidnapped rich people and demanded precious jewels in return for their safe release.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward and Joe were cold blooded killers. They plotted to get Blanche and George out of the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia regretted making her sister give up an illegitimate son some 30 years ago, and now wanted to make up for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George feigned to be a lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward had murdered his own (adoptive) mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward had murdered his own (adoptive) father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward and Joe had started a fire to kill Edward's (adoptive) parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christian bishop was kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As the car was speeding out of control, Blanch became the pantomime of an irrational and hysterical woman while George tried to save the day.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x04", "title": "A Matter of Honor", "date": "1976-02-01", "description": "Retired and renowned matador Luis Montoya is a Mexican national hero. His trusted bookkeeper, Hector Rangel's son Curro is also a bullfighter. When Curro is gored in the bullring, Montoya freezes up in fear and does not challenge the bull. He later decides to kill Hector, who knows what happened. Montoya lures Hector to the ring, where he shoots him with a tranquilizer gun, and unleashes the bull on the prone man. The result is that it appears Hector tried to take revenge on the bull that gored his son. Columbo, who just happens to be in Tijuana for the weekend, is recognized by a suspicious local chief of police, who enlists Columbo's help.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Due to the condition of the muleta used to attract the bull, Columbo deduces the time frame of the murder, a period for which Montoya has no alibi. To prove Montoya's motive, Columbo persuades Curro to lure Montoya into the ring. The bull is then released, and the ex-matador again becomes paralyzed with fear, this time in front of witnesses. This episode is noteworthy as the murderer's motive is not revealed until the very end.\n\nDirected by: Ted Post. Story by: Brad Radnitz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The retired matador Luis Montaya resolved to dispose of Hector Rangel when Hector learned Luis' embarrassing secret, that he was deathly afraid of a bull, in the following elaborate way: Luis tricked Hector to go to the arena and shot him with a tranquilizer dart. He then released the bull and let it gore Hector to death. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The renowned matador Luis Montoya' reputation was at the center of the plot. Luis had murdered Hector in order to prevent it from being known that Luis was deathly afraid of a bull. The police's work was made politically perilous by the fact that Louis was a national hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Luis Montoya dishonorably slew his longtime friend and employee Hector Hector Rangel to protect his reputation as a fearless bullfighter and a national hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was press-ganged into assisting the Mexican police with resolving the mystery of the death of Hector Rangel. Had Hector really just sauntered into the arena to challenge a ferocious bull and lost, or was there foul play at work?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "That controversial physical contest or pseudo-sport (depending on how you view it) popular in Spanish culture countries, bullfighting, was at the center of the plot that Columbo had to unravel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns bullfighting in general, and a renowned bullfighter's sudden fear of facing a certain bull, in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luis had become paralyzed with fear at the prospect of facing the murderous bovine. This weakness became his undoing when Columbo staged a trick to expose him as the murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired matador Luis Montoya prided himself on his courage around the bulls, and was humiliated when he terror of the bull that had gored an up and coming bullfighter was revealed for all to see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Columbo on his trip to Tijuana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo learned all about the practice of bullfighting while \"vacationing\" in Tijuana. The ex-matador Luis impressed upon Columbo, who expressed a certain distaste at the prospect of watching a bull being killed in sport, that bullfighting was an important part of his culture, and perhaps not so different from a prize fight or the hunting of a deer with a rifle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irresolute about cultural relativism, Columbo neither condemned nor condoned the Mexican practice of torturing large mammals to death as a public spectacle but instead made occasional pointed snide remarks about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In order to resolve the conspicuous death of Hector, Columbo had to deconstruct bull psychology to an extent. He discussed with Luis what the bull would and would not have done, and how the bullfighter's muleta worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector was upset that his son Curro had been gored by a bull. Hector tried to avenge himself on the said bull, or so Luis wanted everyone to think after Hector turned up dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector was worried about his son who had been gored by a bull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curro was dating Luis' daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo lightheartedly accused the Mexican police of blackmailing him after the chief told him they could possibly speed up the paperwork that would allow him to go home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo recklessly drove without valid motor insurance in Tijuana and ended up rear ending someone at estimated 5 MPH (or was it 10 MPH?), causing a grievous neck injury that may or may not have been entirely faked. Columbo's car was impounded and he had to butter up the Mexican police by resolving a tricky murder case in order to resolve the matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After rear-ending another driver at an estimated 5 MPH (or was it 10 MPH?), Lt. Columbo implied that the man's grievous neck injury was faked as part of a swindle to get indemnity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After stating that his prize bull was worth $8,000, Luis corrected himself mid sentence by saying its value was more than when when accounting for inflation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luis welcomed his daughter, Nina, back from Arizona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curro pointedly blamed himself for his father's death at the horns of a bull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curro was in hospital convalescing from a bull goring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theory was advanced that Rangel faced the ferocious bull because of his machismo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Taxi Driver (1976)", "title": "Taxi Driver", "date": "1976-02-08", "description": "Taxi Driver is a 1976 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film tells the story of a lonely veteran (De Niro) working as a taxi driver, who descends into insanity as he plots to assassinate both the presidential candidate (Harris) for whom the woman he is infatuated with (Shepherd) works, and the pimp (Keitel) of an underage prostitute (Foster) he befriends.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Driver" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis shot a convenience store robber and several shady people involved with prostitution in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw how a disillusioned war veteran with a lousy job armed himself with a view to do something about the sleaze and corruption in NYC as he saw it, and tried to assassinate a Senator campaigning for president; we are told by the Scorcese to interpret the ending as indicating that we are back to beginning: i.e., Travis is a ticking time bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis dreamed of being a hero, and in fact seems to have ended up as such in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travis was conspicuously upset about the sleaze in NYC, notably street prostitutes (although he liked the x-rated cinemas himself) and tried to reform Iris the prostitute", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iris was a child prostitute who Travis decided to save, despite the former's reluctance to be saved. The story ends with Travis killing Iris' pimp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "film started presenting two ex-marines and their respective situation in New York", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Senator Palantine campaign office hard at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis and Betsy became instantly besotted with each other, albeit for a very short time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A passenger tells how he is going to kill his adulterous wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A passenger told of how he was going to kill his adulterous wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "group of taxi drivers discussed \"fags\" and the treatment thereof", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis was depressed before he became a vigilante", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Travis killed a number of people without much provocation - although the story also ended with an apologia for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis was in love with Betsy even after she rejected him", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x05", "title": "Now You See Him...", "date": "1976-02-29", "description": "The Great Santini is a magician extraordinaire at a cabaret. He is also being blackmailed by his insatiably greedy employer, impresario Jesse Jerome, over the fact that he is actually Sergeant Stefan Mueller, a former Nazi SS prison guard. Mueller tires of the arrangement and Jerome's demand for more money, and kills his blackmailer in the middle of his famed water tank escape act, giving himself what he believes to be an airtight alibi. He sneaks out of a room where he hides during the act, makes his way dressed as a waiter through the cabaret's kitchen and up to Jerome's office, shoots him, then returns to his act with nobody noticing.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Santini is undone by the used carbon ribbon on Jerome's IBM Selectric typewriter. The carbon ribbon has a clear imprint of everything written with it, so it is in effect a copy of the letter Jerome was typing to send to federal authorities, which revealed the motive for the murder. At his arrest Santini remarks that he thought he had created the perfect murder; Columbo remarks that a \"perfect murder\" is only an illusion.\n\nDirected by: Harvey Hart. Story by: Michael Sloan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Great Santini hatched the following elaborate trick to dispose of his employer Jesse who threatened to out him as a former Nazi: During a magic act when Santini was seemingly locked in a box he actually dressed up as a waiter and went upstairs to shoot Jesse dead in his office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Impresario Jesse Jerome was blackmailing magician the Great Santini for increasing sums of money until the latter finally had enough and shot Jesse dead. Jesse had threatened to out Santini as a former Nazi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Santini was concealing that he was a former Nazi SS prison guard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the unprecedented conundrum of trying to pin a murder on a professional magician and illusionist whom he personally knew to be the culprit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Great Santini's trick of being locked in a box and submerged in water for 12 minutes was at the center of the murder mystery that Lt. Columbo had to unravel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo took the enthusiastic but naive Sgt. Wilson under his wing through the course of the murder investigation. In the end, Wilson cracked the case in spite of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Great Santini, who was was a former Nazi by the name of Stefan Mueller, was on the run from the Israeli authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santini performed on stage together with his beloved daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santini did not approve of his daughter being romantically involved with the nightclub singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santini did not approve of his daughter being romantically involved with the nightclub singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Jerome identified the former Nazi Santini as a war criminal in his unfinished letter to the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo threatened to revoke his Basset hound's driving privileges if it didn't stay put in the car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with ill-fitting clothes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was like a fish out of water in the tight fitting trench coat gifted to him by his wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)", "title": "The Man Who Fell to Earth", "date": "1976-03-18", "description": "An extraterrestrial crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "worldwide drought", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien, Netwon, lived secretly on Earth as CEO of the mega corporation World Enterprises.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Netwon and Mary-Lou started living together in New Mexico. They lived as a couple would live but the nature of their relationship is difficult to characterize.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newton observed human interaction from an outsider point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Lou was devastated after Newton left her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Netwon was from a desert planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory04", "title": "Almos' a Man", "date": "1976-04-05", "description": "The story centers on Dave, a young African-American farm worker who is struggling to declare his identity in the atmosphere of the rural South. It is based on the 1961 Richard Wright short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming of age", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At every turn, David bristled at being perceived as a child instead of as a man. David shouted toward Mr. Hawking's farm that he was a man before he ran away from home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager David wanted above all else to prove to everyone that he was a man, and saw owning a gun as a path to achieving this end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was a stereopytical rebellious teen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personally irresponsible character", "level": "major", "motivation": "David avoided taking responsibility for his actions at every turn. Most notably, he lied about having accidentally shot dead Mr. Hawkins' mule, and then he ran away from home rather than face the consequences of his action.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "David lied to his mother repeatedly. He also lied to the other workers about not focusing on his work and to Mr. Hawkings and his father about the quality of his work. Most notably, David lied to everyone about accidentally shooting and killing Jenny the mule. Joe lied to David about the quality of the pistol he sold him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Saunders came to regret giving her teenage son $2 to buy a pistol. Mrs. Saunders finally gave in to David's pleas for her to let him buy a pistol. Mrs. Saunders repeatedly chastised David for not listening to her. Mrs. Saunders questioned David about where he had gotten a catalog and asked him if he had stolen it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's father gave him a whoopin' after it came to light that David had accidentally shot dead Mr. Hawkins' mule. David's father chastised him at the dinner table for being absentminded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Saunders were dealing with their troubled son, David. Mr. Saunders got angry at Mrs. Saunders for giving David money to buy a gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Saunders said grace before the family meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was muttering to himself about everyone laughing at him for having accidentally shot dead Mr. Hawkins' mule. This was particularly hurtful to David because he wished to be treated like a man, but people's reaction to him shooting the mule dead was to belittle him like a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with David hopping on a freight train on its way out of town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hawkings and Joe casually addressed the African-American teenager David as \"boy\" on multiple occasions. Mr. Hawkings' (a white man) questioning David's (an African-American youth) work and work ethic may have had racist undertones as it is a story set in the American Deep South in the early 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Saunders squabbled before dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was decided that Mr. Hawkings would garnish David's salary until he worked off the cost of the mule he had accidentally killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: All the Presidents Men (1976)", "title": "All the President's Men", "date": "1976-04-09", "description": "All the President's Men is a 1976 American political thriller film about the Watergate scandal, which brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Directed by Alan J. Pakula with a screenplay by William Goldman, it is based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. The film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively; it was produced by Walter Coblenz for Redford's Wildwood Enterprises.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President%27s_Men_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "freedom of the press", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was the government's cover-up and the threat to journalistic integrity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw the Watergate scandal and the Nixon administration's shenanigans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw how journalists at the Washington Post may have worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how Carl and Woodward became a dynamic duo, after some initial friction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the journalists and the Editor all debated issues related to integrity and proved to be remarkably upstanding in the end (story related by themselves, of course)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "the journalists had time and again to choose whether to be content with a lesser scoop, or whether (riskily) to go after the White House itself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e5x06", "title": "Last Salute to the Commodore", "date": "1976-05-02", "description": "Commodore Otis Swanson is a retired naval officer who owns a shipbuilding company, and is not happy with the shady dealings of his son-in-law Charles Clay, who has turned the modest and upstanding business into a name-brand production line for status-seekers. Nor is he pleased with any of the people closest to him - his alcoholic daughter Joanna Clay, his middle-aged playboy nephew Swanny Swanson, his lawyer Jonathan Kittering, and his shipyard manager Wayne Taylor. He announces at his birthday party his intention to sell the company. That night, someone murders the Commodore. Although we don't see the murder on-screen, Clay is seen covering up the death by taking the Commodore's body out on his yacht at night and throwing it overboard. Columbo investigates with the help of a veteran sergeant and a 29-year-old rookie. The detective's conviction that Clay committed the crime proves premature and inaccurate, an unusual development for Columbo. Clay himself turns up dead and Columbo realizes that someone else is responsible for both murders.\n\nFinal clue/twist: When Columbo holds what he says is Commodore Swanson's pocket watch to every suspect's ear, only Swanny disputes it, saying \"'Tisn't\" when he hears it ticking. The watch was broken at the time of the murder to create a false time frame, and only the murderer would have known the watch no longer works. Clay's motive for covering up the murder is because he thought the killer was his wife due to planted evidence by Swanny; he was killed when he realized who the real killer was.\n\nThis episode departs from the usual Columbo format in several ways. First, the man implied to be the killer is not, and thus the episode becomes a true whodunit, with the actual murderer revealed at the end. Second, neither of the two murders is shown. Third, Columbo's personality is atypically agitated, impatient and less superficially amiable than in most other episodes. Fourth, regular clichés such as \"Just one more thing\" and \"Something's been bothering me\" are absent from this episode. Fifth, rather than working alone, Columbo works closely alongside two other police officers, who at times interrogate suspects. Finally, the episode departs from the usual style in presenting a far greater emphasis on comedy, including some minor slapstick elements, and features a less dramatic tone.\n\nDirected by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The middle-aged layabout Swanny Swanson bludgeoned the titular Commodore with an antique belaying pin and went to elaborate lengths to make it look like the Commodore's own alcoholic daughter had done it in a drunken stupor. Swanny later killed the daughter's husband to cover his tracks. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crimes had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An uncharacteristically arrogant and touchy-feely Lt. Columbo was confronted with the following mystery: Had Commodore Otis Swanson, one of the finest sailors in the world, really succumbed to a boating accident, or was there murder afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The middle-aged layabout Swanny Swanson bludgeoned the titular Commodore with an antique belaying pin and went to elaborate lengths to make it look like the Commodore's own alcoholic daughter had done it in a drunken stupor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covering up a crime to save a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thinking his wife had bludgeoned the titular Commodore to death in a drunken stupor, Charles Clayton covered up the murder by taking the body out on the Commodore's yacht at night and throwing it overboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the middle-aged layabout Swanny Swanson killed his uncle, Commodore Otis Swanson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Joanna Clay had a rocky marriage. The plot turns on Charles taking measures to protect Joanna from being charged with the murder of her father, Commodore Swanson. Charles acted mainly out of a desire to secure Joanna's inheritance, rather than out of pity or love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo took the rookie detective Theodore \"Mac\" Albinsky under his wing throughout the course of the murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the Commodore's relatives was out to get their hands on his fortune in one way or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna was a raging alcoholic. For awhile it seemed that she had bludgeoned father to death with an antique belaying pin in a drunken rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between the Commodore and his fragile, alcoholic daughter, Joanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commodore Swanson was a the naval architect of some renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sailing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story took place aboard sail equipped floating vessels. Columbo stepped himself in the terminology and functioning of sailing ships. The murder victim was a sailor of much renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounds a family quarrel over the fate of the Commodore's ship building business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commodore Swanson chewed out his son-in-law, Charles, for running the family shipbuilding company into the ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna made a drunken fool of herself at the father's birthday party to his great embarrassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna was visibly hungover the morning after the birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was struggling to give up cigars. He ultimately succumbed to the temptation, but only after having solved the murder mystery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was struggling to give up cigars. He ultimately succumbed to the temptation, but only after having solved the murder mystery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "meditation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo rudely interrupted Lisa doing her transcendental meditation on the yacht.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joanna went into hysterics upon being informed of her father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly lawyer Mr. Kettering spoke in his capacity as the executor of the Commodore's will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa, a young and beautiful woman, reluctantly revealed that she and the Commodore, a man old enough to be her grandfather, had planned to marry out of love.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Embryo (1976)", "title": "Embryo", "date": "1976-05-21", "description": "The film deals with the mental and physical consequences of growing a human embryo in an artificial uterus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "accelerated growth rate therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston invented a hormonal serum that grew a dog fetus into a full grown dog in a matter of days. A side effect of the serum was that it made the dog very smart by dog standards. He subsequently used the serum to bring the fetus of a suicided mother to term.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jim Winston, after urging Dr. Holliston to refrain from testing his accelerated growth serum on a human subject, supplied Dr. Holliston with the body of a 14 week pregnant suicided mother. Dr. Holliston brought grew the fetus into an adult female using his special serum, but he came to regret it because she turned into an emotionally underdeveloped murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Holliston's creation Victoria excelled at logical thinking, but her emotional development lagged behind by comparison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "A consequence of Victoria being developed into an adult from a fetus in the space of a few days was that she was bound to rapidly age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Victoria experiencing a full range of human emotion in her short go at life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston brought both a dog and human fetus to term in an artificial uterus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon and Helen were married and expecting their first child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon and Helen were married and expecting their first child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston and Gordon Holliston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston and Helen Holliston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston and Victoria and their pet Doberman that Paul grew from a fetal state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Holliston introduced Martha Douglas to Victoria as his sister-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the ego of an arrogant chess player would never recover after first time player Victoria let him win when she could have easily beaten him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria approached Dr. Hollister seeking to experience a sexual encounter and he obliged her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria coldly and calculatedly murdered a couple of women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Track of the Moon Beast (1976)", "title": "Track of the Moon Beast", "date": "1976-06-01", "description": "A mineralogist is hit in the head by a meteor, turning him in to a vicious reptilian creature during the full moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_of_the_Moon_Beast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "After getting hit in the head by a lunar meteor, Paul transformed into a murderous reptilian creature whenever the moon came out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul transformed into a murderous reptilian creature whenever the moon came out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul transformed into a murderous reptilian creature whenever the moon came out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Cathy were passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the very Native American legend told by Professor John \"Johnny Longbow\" Salinas contained the key to destroying the Moon Beast. Note that the legend was not taken seriously at first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul mentioned to Cathy how the air pollution over Albuquerque was worse than it used to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy was twice startled by lizards. Later she screamed hysterically at the sight of the Moon Beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman told her husband to go to hell when he came home last from the bowling alley. The Moon Beast killed them both.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating a series of grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two police officers investigate a series of grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the main characters were all affiliated with a university. John Salinas, for instance, was an anthropology professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mineralogist Paul Carlson was shown doing field work near Albuquerque, New Mexico.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Food of the Gods (1976)", "title": "The Food of the Gods", "date": "1976-06-18", "description": "Food mysteriously bubbles up from the ground on a remote island somewhere in British Columbia. Mr. and Mrs. Skinner consider it a gift from God, and feed it to their chickens, which grow larger than humans as a result. Rats, wasps, and grubs also consume the substance, and the island becomes infested with giant vermin. This film is loosely based on a portion of the H. G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_of_the_Gods_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story dialog made clear that the giant, hostile creatures were brought about as a punishment for the sins humanity had committed against Nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A swarm of giant rats nearly as big as horses, giant chickens, giant flesh-eating grubs, giant wasps - this film had it all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rita and Thomas were expecting a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rita and Thomas were a loving couple. Morgan and Lorna fell for one another while the giant rats were besieging their cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rita and Thomas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Bensington's lab assistant called him the most selfish man in the world to his face after he neglected to pick up a panicked pregnant woman who was on the roadside flagging down people for help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the difficulty of picking a name for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas wanted to name Rita and his baby after himself, but Rita was lukewarm on the idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was collecting the pale green goop that was oozing up out of the earth with the intention of selling it for millions, while everyone else was desperately trying to figure out how to stop the giant animals from killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A farm lady was adamant that the goop coming up out of the ground that she was feeding to her chickens was a gift from the Lord on high.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Logans Run (1976)", "title": "Logan's Run", "date": "1976-06-23", "description": "It depicts a utopian future society on the surface, revealed as a dystopia where the population and the consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty. The story follows the actions of Logan 5, a \"Sandman\", who has terminated others who have attempted to escape death and is now faced with termination himself. It is based on the 1967 book Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future society that looked nice enough on the surface, but was actually run by a computer that maintained a stable population by indoctrinating the people with a belief that ritual suicide was a necessity of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with a maximum age limit", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a computer-run society in which a stable population was maintained through indoctrinating people with the belief that that ritual suicide was a necessity of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the maximum age limit society we saw was organized in reaction to some kind of population explosion caused catastrophe in the ancient past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the maximum age limit society we saw was organized in reaction to some kind of population explosion caused catastrophe in the ancient past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan 5 came to question fundamental dogmas of his society, including the need for people to participate in ritual suicide public spectacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan 5 came to question fundamental dogmas of his society, including the need for people to participate in ritual suicide public spectacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan 5 and Jessica 6.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Jessica trust that known Sandman Logan 5 was sincere when he asked for her help to escape from the city and in so doing death in the Carousel ritual?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a computer-run society in which a stable population was maintained through indoctrinating people with the belief that that ritual suicide was a necessity of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan 5 and Jessica 6 were being hunted down by Sandmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in a computer-run city were raised to unquestioningly believe that it was necessary to commit ritual suicide at the age of 30.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan 5 and Jessica 6 went on a perilous journey to reach a supposedly mythical land of sanctuary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a futuristic city-state where peoples material needs are amply provided for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A tyrannical central computer controlled civilization by such means as executing people who reached the age of 30.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "automatic surgery machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Logan 5 enter inside an elaborate laser surgery contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan 5 had arranged to have his face surgically altered in an effort to evade capture by other Sandmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot Box tried to encase Logan 5 and Jessica 6 in ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people in the film lived in such a city covered by multiple domes and they generally thought there was nothing outside of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Old Man was forgetful and easily confused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tidal power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan 5 deduced that the city was powered by the tides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The citizens of a futuristic city were monitored by the use of a crystal on their right palm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Futureworld (1976)", "title": "Futureworld", "date": "1976-07-14", "description": "Two years after the Westworld tragedy, the Delos corporation owners have reopened the park after spending $1.5 billion in safety improvements, and also shutting down Westworld. But trouble ensues when two TV reporters are invited to review the park for publicity purposes. It is a sequel to the 1973 Michael Crichton film Westworld, and is the second installment in the Westworld franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futureworld" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an amusement park for the super rich that was full of androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the androids in an android amusement park try to take over the place and kill all the humans there in the process, even though the people were assured that the park was perfectly safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the androids in an android amusement park try to take over the place and kill all the humans there in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newspaper reporter Chuck Browning and TV reporter Tracy Ballard teamed together to uncover a dark side to the \"perfectly safe\" Futureworld amusement park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Futureworld androids replaced world leaders with android duplicates with a view to achieving total control of the world for the good of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard fell for one another on their visit to Futureworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things got hot and heavy between Harry Croft and two beautiful female androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tracy Ballard tested out a machine that Futureworld scientists had developed to read peoples dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chuck Browning was hunted down by an android replica of himself, but he got the better of the android in the end. Tracy Browning dispatched her android double in a veritable duel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: At the Earths Core (1976)", "title": "At the Earth's Core", "date": "1976-09-01", "description": "A British Victorian scientist and his US financier make a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles, the Mahars, and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen. It was based on the 1914 fantasy novel At the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Earth%27s_Core_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Abner Perry and David Innes accidentally bored deep into the Earth and found a civilization living in a vast open spaces there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Abner Perry and his US financier David Innes made a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but ended up in a system of vast caverns ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henchmen of the Mahar's captured Abner Perry and David Innes and brought them to the Mahar city to toil as slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mahars enslaved primitive people through the use of a combination of mind control and plain old brute force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mahars used humans slaves to do the manual labor in their city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and the princess Dia fell in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The primitive inner-Earth people rose up with the help of Dr. Perry and David and overthrew their tyrannical Mahar overlords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in this time and place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Abner Perry and his US financier David Innes made a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but ended up in a system of vast caverns ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abner Perry and David Innes were attacked by a giant, bipedal, beaked reptile upon arriving at what Perry took to be the center of the Earth. David and an inner-Earth man teamed up to battle a quadrupedal reptile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reptilian Mahars communicated using telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an underground city of telepathic, flying reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reptilian Mahars communicated using telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an underground city of telepathic, flying reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mahars ritually sacrificed a number of young maidens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e01a", "title": "A Touch of Murder", "date": "1976-09-20", "description": "Rome, AD 54. Knowing that he will soon be assassinated, the Roman Emperor Claudius begins a secret history of his family, planning for it to emerge long after he is dead. He begins his tale seventy years earlier, in 24 BC, as the newly-cemented Emperor Augustus begins to favor his son-in-law Marcellus over his old friend and ally Agrippa. After Agrippa is insulted by Marcellus at a banquet honoring the Battle of Actium, he leaves Rome in protest. Augustus' wife Livia wants her son Tiberius to become Augustus' heir, so she secretly poisons Marcellus, who eventually dies. Augustus has Agrippa return to Rome, and to seal their renewed friendship, he gives his daughter Julia, Marcellus' widow, to Agrippa to be his wife, infuriating Livia, who wanted Julia to marry Tiberius to cement his status as Augustus' heir.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caesar Augustus. Notably, Livia poisoned Augustus' chosen successor, Marcellus, in cold blood to eliminate him and pave the way for her son, Tiberius, to become heir to the imperial throne. Also, Augustus maneuvered against Agrippa whom he suspected of plotting a coup d'etat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 24 BC within the imperial court of Caesar Augustus in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the main storyline, Livia secretly poisoned Marcellus and encouraged everyone to think that he'd perished from eating some bad food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia worked behind the scenes to leave her husband, Augustus, no choice but to make Tiberius, her son from a previous marriage, his heir apparent. Julia was devastated by her husband Marcellus' untimely death. Tiberius opposed his mother's plan for him to divorce his beloved wife, Vipsania, and marry Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that her son, Tiberius, was well-positioned to become the next emperor of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sudden death of Marcellus sparked demands for a return to the Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "August was grooming his adopted son, Marcellus, to be his heir and successor to the imperial throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippa and Marcellus were rivals to be Augustus' heir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius wrestled with the decision of divorcing his beloved wife, Julia, in order to get one step closer to being emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius as narrator explained the Sybil's prophesy, which was the backdrop of the entire story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus was distraught when his adopted son, Marcellus, died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia had divorced Mark Antony to marry Augustus. Livia urged Tiberius to divorce his beloved wife and marry Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia looked down on common people who were agitating for a return to the Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia made reference to the slave market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristocrats were tended to by slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia went into hysterics on learning that her husband, Marcellus, had passed away suddenly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus and Agrippa hailed each other as old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcellus arranged a games where he proposed to feature a battle between 50 Germans and 50 blacks from Morocco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Greek physician Musa attended to Marcellus on what turned out to be his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristarchus said that \"things never were what they were\" implying that people romanticize the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aristarchus made reference to the Roman god, Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e01b", "title": "Family Affairs", "date": "1976-09-20", "description": "Rome, 9-8 BC. Nine years have passed. Agrippa is dead and Tiberius has been forced to marry Julia, divorcing his wife Vipsania Agrippina. Still deeply in love, he continues to meet Vipsania secretly, enraging Augustus, but Livia defends him by claiming that he had informed her of the meetings. Tiberius is briefly comforted by the presence of his brother Drusus, who quarrels with Livia before leaving once again on campaign. Drusus soon writes to Tiberius, asking for his brother's help in convincing Augustus to retire and return Rome to a Republic, but the letter is intercepted and read by both Livia and Augustus. Augustus dismisses the letter as youthful impetuousness, but Livia is clearly worried. Drusus falls from his horse and crushes his leg, and his condition worsens under the oversight of Livia's personal physician. He dies in the presence of his wife, Antonia, and their recently born son Claudius. A year later, a drunken Julia enrages Tiberius with taunts about Vipsania, and he strikes her across the face, resulting in his banishment from Rome. Augustus looks forward to sharing his power with his grandsons Lucius and Gaius when they come of age.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caesar Augustus. Livia plotted to have her son, Tiberius, named heir to Augustus. Livia relished exercising supreme power through Augustus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 9-8 BC within the imperial court of Caesar Augustus in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia made Tiberius miserable by forcing him to marry Julia. Livia, alarmed by her son Drusus' republican leanings, dispatched her personal physician to Germania to hasten his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius was compelled to divorce his beloved wife, Vipsania, to marry Julia. Julia wanted a divorce from Tiberius after he called her a \"fat drunken cow\" and struck her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius was under the heel of his controlling mother, Livia. In particular, Tiberius resented that Livia compelled him to marry Julia. When Livia's son Drusus refused to follow in line behind her, she even contributed to his premature death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius' troubled marriage to Julia was the source of much strife for Augustus and his close family members, not to mention the unhappy couple themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia plotted and schemed behind Augustus' back. Tiberius and Julia's marriage was falling apart. Drusus and Antonia were in a happy enough marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius and Julia had a wagon wreck of a marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between Tiberius and his younger brother and confidant, Drusus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius paid a secret visit to his ex-wife Vipsania after marrying Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia boasted to Antonia of her vast experiences in matters of sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia arm-twisted Tiberius into marrying Julia for political advantage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius was brooding and gloomy. He confided to Drusus that he sometimes hated himself, and spoke of a darkness inside him. He later urged Vipsania to join him in a double suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drusus wished that Rome would be a republic again after the death of Augustus, but Livia asserted that Rome would never again be such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus was livid to find out that Tiberius had been unfaithful his daughter, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia grieved over the sudden death of her husband, Drusus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Narrator Claudius recounted that Livia had dispatched Agrippa by poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia disapproved of Julia's liberal attitudes towards nakedness and sodomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia's personal physician, Musa, \"treated\" Drusus for injuries sustained to his leg in a horse-related accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus was aghast to learn that the Senate had voted to make him a god in Palmyra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius mourned the death of his brother, Drusus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius flew into a rage and struck his wife, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drusus remarked that the British made for very poor slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius proposed to his ex-wife that they open their veins together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius pestered his ex-wife despite having divorced her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia called the letter from Drusus treasonous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Narrator Claudius' taster leveled invectives against the cook on account of his Greek ethnicity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e02", "title": "Waiting in the Wings", "date": "1976-09-27", "description": "Rome, AD 3–5. Gaius has died and Tiberius has been banished to Rhodes for his mistreatment of Julia, who has used his absence to have a series of hedonistic affairs and orgies. One day in the garden, the young Claudius catches a wolf cub dropped from an eagle's claws, leading a seer to predict that he will protect Rome in an hour of need. Livia's scheming continues: knowing of the mutual attraction between Claudius's sister Livilla and Julia's son Postumus Agrippa, she arranges their betrothal to other people; she enlists Lucius' friend Plautius as a spy against Julia, and tricks Lucius into revealing Julia's infidelities. A grief-stricken Augustus banishes her from Rome. The death of Lucius in a boating accident (implied to be caused by Plautius on Livia's orders) ends Tiberius' exile and he returns to Rome to be named, along with Julia's surviving son Postumus, as co-heir to Augustus' throne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caesar Augustus. Notably, Livia plotted behind the scenes to clear a path for her son, Tiberius, to become heir to the imperial throne. In another thread, Livia compelled Plautius to betray his best friend to expose Julia's promiscuity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 3-5 AD within the imperial court of Caesar Augustus in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main storyline culminated with Julia being reluctantly banished by Augustus on account of her rampant promiscuity behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassing family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Augustus being humiliated when he found out about Julia's manifold indiscretions. He responded with rage and vindictiveness. Antonia was ashamed of her lame, stammering boy, Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main storyline culminated with Julia being reluctantly banished by her father, Augustus, on account of her rampant promiscuity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia plotted and schemed behind Augustus' back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main storyline culminated with Julia being reluctantly banished by Augustus on account of her rampant promiscuity. In one notable scene, Augustus blew his top when confronting a bunch of noblemen with whom Julia had allegedly fornicated. Augustus was on a crusade to make the bachelor aristocrats in his court settle down and father legitimate children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus was devastated when he found out about his daughter Julia's manifold indiscretions. He responded with rage and vindictiveness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius consulted Thrasyllus, his personal astrologer, regarding his prospects of being recalled to Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia was advised to not eat so much by Augustus' personal physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius catching a wolf cub that had fallen from an eagle's claws was interpreted as an omen. Namely, that Claudius would one day come to the rescus of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia schemed to bring about an end to her son Tiberius' banishment from Rome. Julia and Lucius exchanged words. Antonia struggled to raise Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus grieved over the deaths of his adopted sons, Gaius and Lucius. He solemnly placed their busts on his mantle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was teased for stammering while he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus reconciled with Tiberius upon his return to Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius (a club-footed boy with a twitch) was something of an embarrassment to his mother, Antonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allusions were made to Livia poisoning her son's rivals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plautius and Julia were illicit lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia opined that Claudius ought to have been exposed at birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Claudius befriended the silver-tongued provincial boy, Herod Agrippa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia and Antonia remarked on Herod's silver tongue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus banished Julia to an uninhabited island for fornicating too much. Tiberius had been banished from Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In response to Julia's question about why she was sewing herself, Antonia grumbled that slaves never did things properly. It came to light that Julia had fornicated with a house slave from Africa. Julia boasted of having had a penchant for scooping up good-looking male slaves to serve in her household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Domitius recounted how he'd read Lucius' auspices form an ewe liver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Postumus and Livilla were frolicking about the courtyard. Claudius was something of an awkward, solitary child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Those in the courtyard swore by Jupiter and Mars to keep secret Domitius' reading of Claudius catching the wolf cub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plautius betrayed his best friend, Lucius, cuckolding and later murdering him. Plautius likewise betrayed his lover, Julia..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plautius murdered Lucius and make it look like he met his end in a boating accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus flew into a rage when confronting Julia's numerous lovers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e03", "title": "What Shall We Do About Claudius?", "date": "1976-10-04", "description": "Rome, AD 9. Three Roman legions have been massacred in Germania at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Tiberius and Germanicus are dispatched to exact revenge. While Claudius is in the library researching his family's history he is advised by the historian Pollio to play up his infirmities to enhance his place in his family as a harmless fool, and thus no threat to anyone. Augustus has determined that Postumus will succeed him as Emperor, but Livia overhears this. She tells Livilla she knows of her affair with Postumus and that during the Republic there was civil war and that a single ruler is needed to bring peace, so the succession can't be disputed. With Livilla's help, Postumus is framed for rape. Postumus tells Augustus Livia has been killing those who could prevent Tiberius succeeding but is not believed. Before he is banished, Postumus tells Claudius his (correct) suspicions of all the people whom Livia has killed and reiterates the advice that Claudius should continue to play the fool. The episode ends with Claudius' marriage to Plautia Urgulanilla, who is so much taller than him that he becomes the butt of his family's uproarious, mocking laughter at their wedding.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caesar Augustus. Notably, Livia plotted behind the scenes to clear a path for her son, Tiberius, to become heir to the imperial throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 9 AD within the imperial court of Caesar Augustus in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livilla and Postumus were having a clandestine affair that ended when she decided to falsely accuse him of rape at Livia's behest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livilla and Postumus were having a clandestine affair that ended when she decided to falsely accuse him of rape at Livia's behest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false rape accusations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livilla, at Livia's bidding, falsely accused Postumus of rape. Much of the rest of the story hinged on this key event. Postumus' political career was ruined, and he was ultimately banished from Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus and Livia bickered like a proverbial old married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Postumus was framed for rape and consequently banished to a barren little rock of an island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus and others were devastated to hear that the 17th, 18th, and 19th legions had been wiped out to the man. Thereafter, Augustus became preoccupied with taking retribution on and recovering his precious eagles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was advised to play the idiot if he wanted to save his skin. He took pains to do so most of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassing family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius, a lame stammerer with a twitch, was something of an embarrassment to Augustus and his family. Notably, they arranged for Claudius to be kept out of the public eye at the games as much as possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia coerced Livilla into leveling false rape accusations against her lover, Postumus. If Livilla refused, Livia would have her banished to a miserable island, as she'd previously done to Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonia was ashamed of her seemingly half-witted son, Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius had just finished writing a history of Carthage. Claudius encountered and impressed himself upon the historians Pollio and Livy in the library. Narrator Claudius was writing a family history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia gave the gladiators a dressing down before the games. She called them \"scum\" to their faces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace recited poems at a Roman banquet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allusions were made to Livia poisoning her son's rivals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius wrote in glowing terms of the Republic in his history book. Augustus told Postumous that they were not kings and had no divine powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus wanted his grandson, Postumus, to succeed him on the imperial throne. That succession plan went down in flames when Postumus was accused of rape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia blackmailed her own granddaughter, Livilla, into leveling false rape accusations against Postumus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus discussed how the Roman religion featured many gods in contrast with the Jewish faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus discussed how the Roman religion featured many gods in contrast with the Jewish faith. Herod remarked to Augustus that it was against his religion to gamble, before accepting Augustus' bet of 20 gold pieces on the \"fat\" gladiator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was admonished for helping the slaves clean up spilled wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia worried that a rivalry over who would succeed Augustus might lead to another civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier reported that Publius Varus took his own life out of shame amid the catastrophe that befell the Roman army at what would come to be known as the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius had a conspicuous twitch, a lame foot that caused him to limp, and stammer in his speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered while he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus lost temper when Livia contradicted him over who should be dispatched to assist Tiberius in Germania.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The imperial family and their guests were shown looking on as gladiators battled at the games before a roaring crowd. Claudius remarked that the games had their origins in a religious rite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herod accepted Augustus' \"little bet\" of 20 gold pieces on the \"fat\" gladiator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia threatened to banish Livilla to a tiny, miserable island. Augustus resolved to banish Postumus to an island so small that it could not be found on any map.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was married to a bride that Livia had selected for him some years prior. Claudius was apprehensive and unenthusiastic about the union. In the end, it transpired that she was comically taller than him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small wedding was held for Claudius and his comically tall bride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The attendees Claudius' wedding erupted with laughter when it became apparent that his bride was comically taller than he was.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory05", "title": "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", "date": "1976-10-06", "description": "A girl from rural Eau Claire, Wisconsin, visits her beautiful and sophisticated cousin Marjorie Harvey for the summer. It is based on the 1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margerie acted vindictively toward Bernice, after Warren's romantic attentions shifted from Margerie to Bernice. In particular, Margerite goaded Bernice into bobbing her hair, knowing full well that the act was ill-advised. Bernice, in turn, scissored off Margerie's two luxurious braids while Margerie slept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice went to stay at her aunt's house for the summer as a socially awkward rural young woman, and left knowing all the tricks of the trade it took to navigate the social morass of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margerie reluctantly took her rural cousin, Bernice, under her wing and taught her how to more easily navigate the social morass of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice went from being a socially awkward, rural young woman to being a savvy (also young) woman who knew how to comport herself in high social circles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially awkward Bernice learned the set of social standards that were necessary to more easily navigate the social morass of the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margerie became vindictive toward Bernice, when Warren switched from liking Margerie to liking Bernice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers from the cultural backdrop of the story that Bernice bobbing her hair constituted an act of rebellion against prevailing social norms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Throughout the story, rigid demarcations of gender roles were referenced and reinforced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice learned how to play the role of a stereotypical young female socialite so as to more easily navigate the social morass of the time. Bernice created a false dichotomy of women when she told Margerie that she thought she was \"hard and selfish\" and did not have \"a feminine quality in (her)\" for laughing at her when they were discussing their mothers. Margerie also created a false dichotomy of women, namely those who liked to have a good time and those who did not, the latter of whom liked to criticize the former.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feminism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margerie became upset when Bernice quoted \"Little Women,\" arguing that modern women are not like \"those ninnies.\" Bernice countered that \"they were models for (their) mothers,\" to which Margerie responded that their mothers did not understand their daughters' experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice's initial inability to comport herself in accordance with the social norms of the well-to-do proved to be an embarrassment to her hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marjorie's mother blamed the awkward way that Bernice comported herself at social functions on her \"Indian blood\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homesickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice expressed a desire to go back to her rural hometown after having had a rough go of it at a high society social function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the start of the story, the free spirited Margerie was contrasted with judgmental and disapproving Bernice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Josephine and her daughter Margerie discussed what to do about their country bumpkin summer guest, Bernice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the beginning of the story, Bernice stood out for being from the countryside. Margerie and her friends ostracized Bernice for being from the countryside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Josephine was hosting her niece Bernice for the summer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margerie taught Bernice how to flirt with boys in a way to make herself seem more desirable to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren had been in love with Margerie since childhood, but she paid him no attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margerie became jealous of Bernice after Warren stopping courting Margerie and started courting Bernice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of friends were shown enjoying a leisurely game of croquet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otis showed up at the house holding an old-timey, wooden framed tennis racket and was annoyed that his friend Charlie had forgotten about the game they had scheduled to play.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e6x01", "title": "Fade in to Murder", "date": "1976-10-10", "description": "Egocentric actor Ward Fowler, who portrays Detective Lucerne on a weekly TV show, is being blackmailed by his producer and ex-paramour, Claire Daley, over the fact that he was a deserter in the Korean War. Fowler drugs a friend staying at his house watching a baseball game, puts it on tape delay, then dons a ski mask and pretends to rob a delicatessen where Claire is shopping. After Fowler knocks the proprietor unconscious and takes Claire's money, he shoots her dead, then ditches the gun and mask. He begins stepping in and out of character to \"assist\" Columbo with the investigation.\n\nFinal clue/twist: After Columbo has shaken Fowler's alibi, he confronts him with his biggest mistake. There are no fingerprints on the murder weapon, but Fowler left his fingerprints on the remaining live bullets inside the revolver's chamber.\n\nMolly, Mr Daley's secretary, is played by Shera Danese, who would eventually marry star Peter Falk. Walter Koenig guest stars as a police sergeant. The mechanical shark \"Bruce\" from Jaws makes a cameo as himself.\n\nDirected by: Bernard L. Kowalski. Story by: Henry Garson, Lou Shaw and Peter Feibleman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The flamboyantly egocentric actor Ward Fowler hatched this elaborate plot to rid himself of his blackmailing producer, Claire Daley: After drugging a house guest, he slipped on a ski mask and staged a robbery of a delicatessen at which he knew Claire to be shopping. He shot Claire dead, went home, and revived his house guest as if scarcely any time had passed at all. He thus securing a seemingly ironclad alibi. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The flamboyantly egocentric actor Ward Fowler was being blackmailed by his producer, Claire Daley, over the fact that he was a deserter in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Ward Fowler was hiding that he was a deserted in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was the fatal shooting of Claire Daley simply a case of her being in a delicatessen at the wrong time, or was it perhaps a targeted killing?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ward Fowler used his supreme acting abilities to play the television character Detective Lucerne. Not only was he shown acting in several takes for the show, but he also playfully drifted in and out of character while conversing with Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The actor Ward Fowler was flamboyantly vain. He has photos of himself plastered all over his home and set trailer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ward Fowler was overly confident that since he had played the famous Detective Lucerne for so many years that he'd be able to pull the wool over Lt. Columbo's eyes. He was sorely mistaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire was untroubled at the revelation that her husband, Sid, was having an affair with his secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ward Fowler invited a friend over to watch a ballgame game on TV as part of his plot to secure for himself an ironclad alibi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ward Fowler bet his friend $10 that Eberly's plate appearance would conclude with a hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A red ski mask wearing Ward Fowler staged a robbery of a local delicatessen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The delicatessen owner mourned the killing of his longtime customer, Claire Daley, in what appeared to be a random act of violence. Ward Fowler went into theatrics upon being informed of the tragic death of his producer, Claire Daley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid characterized his marriage to Claire as \"miserable\", and explained that they'd been leading independent lives for some time before her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark assumed he had a hangover when in fact he'd been drugged by Ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Korean War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ward Fowler was hiding his being a deserter in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ward tried to pin Claire's murder on her estranged husband, Sid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Claire Daley discovered the theater actor Ward Fowler in Toronto and brought him to the United States to make him a big star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flamboyantly egocentric actor Ward Fowler was being blackmailed by his producer, Claire Daley, over the fact that he was a deserter in the Korean War.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e04", "title": "Poison Is Queen", "date": "1976-10-11", "description": "Rome, AD 13–14. Germanicus has defeated the Germans and returns to Rome in triumph. Claudius tells him of Postumus' suspicions and Germanicus passes this information on to Augustus. On a trip to Corsica, Augustus stops to see Postumus and, now aware of Postumus' innocence, promises to pardon him. Augustus privately thanks Claudius for his role in opening his eyes, and informs him that he has already changed his will to favor Postumus. Livia, ever suspicious, tricks a Vestal Virgin into letting her inspect the revised will. Soon afterward Augustus falls ill. He recovers when he begins to eat only food that he has grown himself and picked by hand, but his recovery is short-lived, and after his death it becomes clear that Livia has poisoned Augustus' figs while they still ripen on the vine. A Praetorian officer, Sejanus, is dispatched to kill Postumus and Tiberius prepares to take over as Emperor, being left two-thirds of Augustus' property while Livia takes the remaining third.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caesar Augustus. Notably, Livia plotted behind the scenes to clear a path for her son, Tiberius, to become heir to the imperial throne. Livia forged a new will for Augustus and poisoned him, and Tiberius ascended as emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 13-14 AD within the imperial court of Caesar Augustus in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia poisoned her husband, Augustus, by smearing poison on his figs while they were still hanging from a tree in the courtyard. Claudius pieced together Livia's plot to poison or otherwise dispatch of her various rivals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus was deeply remorseful when he realized the extent to which he was deceived and manipulated by Livia. He tried to make amends by, for example, recalling Postumus. Livia, however, managed to poison Augustus before he could put his plans into motion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus was deeply remorseful when he realized the extent to which he was deceived and manipulated by Livia. He tried to make amends by, for example, recalling Postumus. Livia, however, managed to poison Augustus before he could put his plans into motion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus and Livia quarreled. Claudius discussed his unpleasant marriage to his very tall wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia poisoned her husband, Augustus, by smearing poison on his figs while they were still hanging from a tree in the courtyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia poisoned her husband, Augustus, by smearing poison on his figs while they were still hanging from a tree in the courtyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustus noticed that Claudius was not such a fool after all. Livia thought aloud that she might have been wrong all along as to Claudius being a fool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Postumus had been alone on the forsaken island of Planasia for four years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus reconciled with his adoptive son, Postumus. Claudius told Germanicus that he didn't like his own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus visited Postumus on the godforsaken rock of an island where he'd banished him to four years prior. There Augustus made a tearful mea culpa, and the two reconciled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus went on about an omen involving an eagle wheeling around his head five times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus confided in Claudius that he himself was a Republican at heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia felt she had been pushed into the background and not allowed to exercise the power warranted by her abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia spoke, with an air of disdain, of not being allowed in the Senate because she was a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia confronted her granddaughter, Livilla, over the possibility that she had spilled the beans to Augustus regarding the framing of Postumus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia confided in her grandson, Claudius, that she intended to be deified after her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia and Tiberius plotted against Augustus together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius confided in his brother, Germanicus, that Livia had a history of poisoning the Tiberius' rivals. He urged Germanicus to tell Augustus of Livia's wicked ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Castor had given his wife, Livilla, a black eye over her shenanigans with Postumus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chief Vestal Virgin, Camilla, was enticed into granting Livia a sneak peek at Augustus' last will and testament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus quipped about the tendency of slaves to be careless when preparing food. The court physician, Montanus, was adamant that kitchen slaves neglected to wash their hands after going to the bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustus won a small fortune in gold coins while playing dice. The coins were mostly, if not all, from his own coffers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The court physician, Montanus, tended to Augustus when his belly ached from Livia's poison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e05", "title": "Some Justice", "date": "1976-10-18", "description": "Rome, AD 19–20. Tiberius, with Sejanus' help, is ruling with an iron fist. Only Germanicus is preventing total tyranny, but when he dies in Syria under mysterious circumstances, it is widely rumored that Tiberius is behind it. Germanicus' wife Agrippina accuses Piso, the governor of Syria, and his wife Plancina of murder and treason. At Claudius' suggestion, they are tried in the Senate, so as to avoid any backroom subversion of the courts by Tiberius' agents. Martina, the poisoner, is held in a secret location before the trial by Herod Agrippa and Claudius, but she is found by Livia's agents. She reveals to Livia that Germanicus' own son, Caligula, aided her in bringing about his death by convincing him that he had been cursed. Piso blackmails Livia and Tiberius with evidence that they approved of Germanicus' murder. Livia retaliates by threatening Plancina with Martina's testimony, but the incident is enough to cause a permanent rift in her relationship with Tiberius. Plancina attempts to convince Piso to commit suicide, knowing that she will be spared by such an outcome. When Piso has second thoughts, Plancina stabs him, bringing the trial to an end, and Agrippina and her friends have to be satisfied that at least \"some justice\" was done. Caligula, after being punished by Antonia for being found naked with his sister Drusilla, sets fire to the family home in retaliation, burning it to the ground.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Tiberius. Notably, Livia's plan for Tiberius to ascend to the imperial throne had come to fruition, but the power corrupted him according to Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 19-20 AD within the imperial court of Tiberius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tiberius abandoned his man Piso and left him to the mercy of the senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In return for his loyal service, Piso expected Tiberius to protect him. Tiberius, however, threw him to the wolves by letting the senate convict him for the murder and treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Piso and his wife Plancina were tried in the senate for treason and murder. Plancina requested to be tried separately when it became apparent that her naive and gullible husband was all but done for. In the end, they agreed to commit suicide together, but Piso hesitated and Plancina ran her through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippina demanded that Germanicus' body be paraded publicly so that people would see the marks of \"witchery and poison\". Piso was put on trial for the poisoning of Germanicus. Plancina had instructed Martina to use belladonna on Germanicus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Piso and his wife were tried in the senate for treason and murder. Livia and Martina gleefully discussed their favorite ways of poisoning people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Piso and his wife being tried for treason in the senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on Agrippina's actions in response to the murder of her son. Claudius and others grieved over the death of Germanicus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plancina appealed to Piso to kill himself in order to avoid being executed and have his wealth confiscated by the state. Suicide would preserve his family's wealth and honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piso and Plancina were concerned with their family honor and contemplated suicide to preserve it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honorable suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piso and Plancina were concerned with their family honor and contemplated suicide to preserve it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plancina appealed to Piso's sense of honor in coercing him to commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plancina appealed to Piso to kill himself in order to avoid being executed and have his wealth confiscated by the state. Suicide would preserve his family's wealth and honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piso feigned outraged at the supposed accusations of treason and murder that were brought against him in the senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piso feigned outraged at the supposed accusations of treason and murder that were brought against him in the senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia was aghast to have found Caligula lying naked in bed together with his sister, Drusilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula was admonished for lying naked in bed together with his sister, Drusilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula and Drusilla were siblings and lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius finally stood up to Livia. Livia berated Tiberius for not being loyal to Piso. Antonia and Claudius spoke briefly after Antonia discovered Caligula in bed with his own sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Castor expressed disapproval of his father, Tiberius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius timidly reproached Caligula for engaging in incest with his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martina explained how Germanicus had been undone by his own superstitiousness: Caligula had tormented him by arranging omens of doom around the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Narrator Claudius muttered \"all power corrupts\" to himself while sitting on the toilet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agrippina wept over the still warm body of her husband, Germanicus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nighttime funeral procession was held for Germanicus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agrippina believed that Plancina used witchcraft to dispatch Germanicus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Germanicus had sacrificed nine black puppies to Hecate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Germanicus kept a green jasper charm of Hecate under his pillow for protection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula had often roamed the streets Antioch in the company of his house slaves, according to Agrippina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke. His friend, Herod, affectionately called him Clau-Clau to make light of the habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jew Gershom called out Claudius for a potential violation of the fifth commandment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: God Told Me To (1976)", "title": "God Told Me To", "date": "1976-10-22", "description": "An alien entity posing as God tells random New Yorkers to start shooting people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Told_Me_To" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter investigated a number of mass murders, including a man who shot people on the street from the safety of a water tower, a man who stabbed as many people as he could in a grocery store, and a man who launched an attack on people watching the Satin Patrick's Day parade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the god is an alien", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious alien entity worked to convince New Yorkers that it was God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter uncovered that he was the product of a virgin birth and that the father was some sort of mysterious entity of light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious alien entity worked to convince New Yorkers that it was God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter discovered that he was the offspring of a human mother and a mysterious entity of light of alien origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter discovered that he had been born of a virgin. It was also mentioned that Jesus and Moses had been born of virgins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and his paramour Casey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter went to confession to confess to the priest that he was cheating on his wife. Other aspects of the Catholic Church were seen in the film, including a woman describing how she gave her newborn child to Catholic nuns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had been living estranged from his wife for four years. But he came to her house at the sake time that his paramour was there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man expressed joy to Peter over God having told him to murder his own son, just as Abraham had been told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter started a panic from one end of New York to the other by leaking a story about God having instructed some random people to commit murder to the press.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Harlen drug dealer was paying off a corrupt police officer to oversee the systematic overlooking of the drug dealing of himself and his associates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Peter was born to a virgin and that she had been traumatized over the experience of having had a baby out of wedlock in 1940s New York.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e06", "title": "Queen of Heaven", "date": "1976-10-25", "description": "Rome, AD 23/29. Claudius is invited to a dinner where the hostess, Lollia, unexpectedly relates how she was forced to prostitute herself to Tiberius, and then stabs herself. Tiberius now only lives for his perversions, in which Caligula is only too happy to join. Sejanus effectively rules the empire, overseeing continual treason trials of notable citizens and seizing their property for the crown. He is having an affair with Livilla, who becomes so enamored of him that she poisons her husband, Tiberius' son Castor to be able to marry Sejanus. Sejanus manipulates Claudius into marrying his adopted sister Aelia, after telling him his wife is pregnant by another man. Unexpectedly, Claudius receives an invitation to dine with his now-elderly grandmother Livia, who has not spoken to him in years. Anticipating her coming death, Livia reveals to Claudius that an unpublished Sibylline prophecy claims that both he and Caligula will one day become Emperor, and makes each of them promise to make her a goddess so she can escape torment for her many misdeeds. Claudius agrees on the condition that she reveal to him the full scope of her crimes, which she does. On her deathbed she receives a visit from Caligula, who rescinds his promise and reveals that he plans to become the greatest god the world has ever known. Claudius, however, renews his promise to her, and Livia dies peacefully.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Tiberius. Notably, Sejanus was busy consolidate his power and Castor suspected he was plotting to succeed Tiberius as emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in and around the years 23 to 29 AD within the imperial court of Tiberius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alluded to in the title is Livia's burning desire to become a goddess, on which the story hinged. She extracted a promise form Claudius to deify her down the road when the opportunity presented itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius and Sejanus persecuted their political opponents by leveling trumped up treason charges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key component of the story is that Livilla cheated on Castor with Sejanus. Claudius found out that his wife was pregnant by means entirely unknown to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livia confessed all the murders by poison she had perpetrated. In one story line, Livilla poisoned her husband, Castor, at Sejanus' behest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius' strategy of keeping alive by playing the fool was recurringly highlighted. Livia explained to Claudius that she'd been wrong in thinking that he was the biggest fool in the family. Herod stood up for Claudius, explaining that Claudius was not a \"blockhead\" for consenting to marry Sejanus' sister. Rather, it was by this means that Claudius would live to see another day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius became exceedingly decadent as emperor, going so far as to have had a wild sex party in the palace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia prodded Tiberius over his newly found habit of leveling treason charges against his political opponents. Antonia chided her son, Claudius, for agreeing to marry Sejanus' sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius sacrificed a peacock to Augustus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was shamed by Sejanus into divorcing his unfaithful wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was compelled to divorce his wife and agreed to marry Sejanus' sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius, intending to write a history of his family, interrogated Livia about her various poisonings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livilla murdered her husband, Castor, by slow poisoning and also cheated on him with Sejanus. Titus was somewhat taken aback when his wife, Lollia, shared at a dinner party the humiliation to which she'd been subjected by Tiberius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lollia committed suicide after having been forced to prostitute herself to Tiberius in order to save her husband and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lollia plunged a dagger into her abdomen out of shame for having been defiled by Tiberius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people were outraged when they heard about the depraved sex party that Tiberius was alleged to have held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula gifted his uncle Tiberius a pornographic scroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula gifted his uncle Tiberius a pornographic scroll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Castor confronted his father Tiberius about Sejanus' unchecked ambition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius and Livia both consulted astrologers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lollia took her daughter's place at Tiberius's depraved sex evening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius told Livia that he would restore the Republic if he ever got the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia increasingly confided in her grandson, Claudius, as she neared death's door. Caligula betrayed his great grandmother Livia by telling her he would never make her a goddess when she was on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lollia spoke of taking her daughter to see the emperor who intended to rape one of them. Helen bid her mother, Livilla, goodnight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sejanus spoke of all the supposedly treasonable conversations he had received transcripts of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius accused Castor of being envious towards Sejanus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen came to say goodnight her ailing father, Castor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was pointedly illustrated that Livilla's passions towards Sejanus were more inflamed the worse he treated her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livilla murdered Castor by slow poisoning. Livia confessed to having poisoned Augustus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Livia implored Claudius to make her a goddess because she feared eternal damnation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula kissed his elderly grandmother, Livia, on the lips and conspicuously fondled her breast as Claudius looked on in stunned amazement. Claudius commented on how Jove took his own sister in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius commented on how Jove overthrew his own father, Saturn, and took his own sister in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herod asserted that Jews do not believe in marrying non-Jews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula was self-obsessed to the n:th degree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Rat Saviour (1976)", "title": "The Rat Saviour", "date": "1976-10-26", "description": "A man uncovers a race of intelligent rats who can appear as human. He is captured and taken to the rat people's leader (the \"savior\" of the movie's title). He escapes, but then wonders who among his fellow humans is a rat person in disguise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rat_Savior" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A publishing house editor refused to publish penniless author Ivan Gajski's book. Ivan was subsequently kicked out from the flat he was renting after failing to pay rent for three consecutive months and ended up sleeping on a park bench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mysterious shapeshifting rats hatched a nefarious plot to replace all the people in a small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody took seriously Ivan Gajski's contention that the abandoned central bank building was the headquarters of a secret organization, and later that shapeshifting rats were killing the people in his town and replacing them with replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan Gajski watched as the people in his town got replaced by shapeshifted rat replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "A species of shapeshifting rats hatched a plot to kill off the people in a town one by one and replace them with replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rats in this film could take on human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan Gajski and Sonja became lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Martin Boskovic and his daughter Sonja.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Boskovic was working in his laboratory to synthesize a substance that could be used to kill shapeshifting rats. Ivan Gajski later took up Boskovic's work after Boskovis was killed by the very rats on which he was conducting his experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonja mourned the death of her father Prof. Boskovic, who was murdered by the rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The struggling sci-fi author Ivan was evicted from his flat after being unable to keep up with rent payments, and ended up having to sleep on park benches.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e07", "title": "Reign of Terror", "date": "1976-11-01", "description": "Rome, AD 30–31. Tiberius has retired to Capri. Sejanus consolidates his hold on power in Rome by engineering the banishment of Agrippina and her eldest son Nero and having her other son Drusus arrested and starved to death. Sejanus has divorced his wife and approaches Tiberius about marrying Livilla. Tiberius refuses as the marriage would mean Sejanus would be elevated in rank but suggests that he could marry Livilla's daughter Helen. An outraged Livilla attempts to poison Helen. Antonia discovers letters from her daughter to Sejanus, implicating them both in several deaths and urging Sejanus to murder Tiberius. Claudius smuggles the evidence to Tiberius. At Caligula's suggestion, Tiberius orders Macro, an officer of the Guard, to carry out the execution of Sejanus, his followers, and his family. Claudius barely escapes by divorcing his wife. Meanwhile Antonia locks Livilla in her room and says she will stay there until she dies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Tiberius. Notably, Sejanus was busy securing his grip on power in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 30-31 AD within the imperial court of Tiberius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius and Sejanus persecuted their political opponents by leveling trumped up treason charges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political purge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with a Tiberius ordering a purge from Rome of Sejanus and all connected to him. The streets consequently ran red with blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sejanus betrayed Tiberius and Tiberius returned the favor by executing him, his followers, and his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiberius ordered the execution of his heir-apparent Sejanus, his followers, and his family after news of a conspiracy he had plotted was brought to the eyes of Tiberius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Livilla loved Sejanus and was ready to stoop to any depth to marry him. Although Sejanus made a token proclamation of love to her, his true interest lay in using her as a pawn in her pursuit of power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonia was disgusted with her daughter Livilla for having poisoned her own husband Castor, and her own daughter Helen. The story concluded with Antonia locking up Livilla inside her room, an waiting for her to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius informed his mother, Antonia, about the sinister plot of Sejanus and Livilla to take power in Rome. Antonia then hatched a plot to get the word to Tiberius, and was aided by Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was having his history of Carthage published. He took marked exception to the publisher having the manuscripts adorned with elephants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced confession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sejanus had Claudius’ friend Lucius severely beaten in order to get him to sign a false confession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sejanus had Lucius tortured to persuade him to sign a false confession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia discovered that her daughter Livilla had poisoned Castor. Livilla tried to poison her own daughter Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apicata mentioned Castor's murder by his wife Livilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia had an abrasive exchange with Claudius' wife, Aelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia disapproved of Livilla marrying Sejanus. She was horrified to learn that Livilla had poisoned Castor and was in the process of poisoning her own daughter, Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiberius briefly consulted his astrologer, Thrasyllus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius had a brief but awkward meeting with his wife, Aelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apicata implied that she'd kill herself as a last resort to save her children. Because Tiberius reads people's wills, she would write a secret message to him in his, and he would be sure to read it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sejanus petitioned Tiberius to marry Livilla. Tiberius refused and consented his support for his marring Livilla's daughter Helen instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula spoke of his \"love\" for his sisters in a tone that left the meaning clear. Claudius was taken aback my the remark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macro told a guard to make sure Sejanus' young daughter was not a virgin before killing her, as killing a virgin was apparently taboo. The tone left the meaning in no doubt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Apicata lobbied to be granted custody of the children once Sejanus finalized their divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A delighted Tiberius informed Agrippina of his decision to banish her to the forlorn island of Pandateria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula was self-obsessed to the n:th degree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e08", "title": "Zeus, by Jove!", "date": "1976-11-08", "description": "Rome, AD 37–38. Tiberius dies (actually smothered to death by Macro with Caligula's connivance), leaving Caligula and Gemellus as his joint heirs. Claudius' life-long friend Herod has returned to Rome in time for Caligula's ascension. Caligula chooses Claudius to be his co-Consul, over Claudius' objections. Caligula displays signs of mental instability and falls into a coma; upon awakening he declares that he has become Zeus. Claudius humors him, hoping that Caligula will reveal his divinity to the Senate and be deposed, restoring the Republic; instead, the Senate accepts Caligula's claims of divinity. Caligula becomes increasingly violent: a Senator who told Macro during Caligula's coma he would give his life if Caligula lived is forced by Caligula to commit suicide; Caligula also has Gemellus killed and declares his sister Drusilla his wife and fellow goddess Hera. Disgusted with the depths of depravity that her family and Rome have sunk to, Antonia commits suicide, leaving Claudius distraught . Fearing that his child will become greater than he, Caligula tries to recreate the birth of Athena: as Zeus reportedly did with Metis, Caligula cuts his unborn child from his sister's belly and eats it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Tiberius. Notably, Caligula succeeded Tiberius as Roman Emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 37-38 AD within the imperial court of Caligula in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Caligula increasingly losing his mind to the point where he became convinced that he was a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the anxieties of various Roman aristocrats as they realized that their emperor was both mad, vindictive and homicidal. Claudius, in particular, worked hard to ameliorate the damage the emperor caused and several times escaped by a hair from being killed for some whimsy or other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula came to believe that he was a god, as alluded to in the title.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula believed himself to be Zeus, and that his sister, Drusilla, Hera. There was much discussion of the Greek gods and the story about Zeus cutting out his child from its mother's womb and swallowing it whole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula believed himself to be Zeus, and that his sister, Drusilla, Hera. There was much discussion of the Greek gods and the story about Zeus cutting out his child from its mother's womb and swallowing it whole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula had a not so secret sexual relationship with his sister Drusilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula loving an intimate and loving relationship with his sister, Drusilla, until such point as he decided to cut open her womb and consume their unborn fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula was self-obsessed to the n:th degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The siblings Caligula and Drusilla were openly carrying on in a romantic relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a headache", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula complained of terrible headaches and his sister Drusilla offered, sexily, to soothe them. It was implied that they were the source of his madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia committed suicide because she was fed up with things in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula watched over the murder of Tiberius in his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula watched over the murder of Tiberius in his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius grieved over the suicide of his mother Antonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia told Claudius to be good to her slaves after she was gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drusilla mentioned some potion Caligula had found for them that, apparently, made them giddy. They both drank deeply of it before he cut her pregnant open in order to consume her unborn fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula murdered his sister and lover Drusilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula murdered his sister and lover Drusilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula feared that his unborn child would usurp and replace him and therefore killed it in the womb, leaving the mother as collateral damage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius imagined that Caligula proclaiming himself a god would prove too much for the people, and the Republic would be restored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was paid a visit by his old friend, Herod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula was irritated with young Gemellus' coughing to the point where he had the boy executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonia told her son, Claudius, that he'd always been a \"great disappointment\" to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula slipped into a coma and when he came to he was convinced that he had metamorphosed into a god.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e09", "title": "Hail Who?", "date": "1976-11-15", "description": "Rome, AD 40–41. Claudius is living with the ex-prostitute Calpurnia in meager circumstances. Caligula has turned the palace into a brothel where he sells the wives of high-ranking Senate members to the highest bidder during sexual orgies and forces Claudius to take money at the door. As a joke, he arranges for Claudius to marry the much younger, extremely beautiful Messalina. Totally insane, Caligula makes his horse Incitatus a senator, and takes his legions on a campaign to Germany to put down an alleged rebellion and then to the English Channel where he attempts to do battle with Neptune, bringing back seashells as booty. Returning to Rome, he decides to execute the entire Senate for not awarding him a Triumph for his 'victory,' but his wife Caesonia and Claudius persuade him not to. Cassius Chaerea, a leading Praetorian officer whom the Emperor continuously mocks, forms a plan with several others to assassinate Caligula. They strike during the games held to celebrate Augustus, luring him away from his German Guards and killing him. Cassius proceeds to murder Caligula's wife Caesonia, and their infant daughter Julia Drusilla, attempting to wipe out the Imperial family once and for all. While the suddenly- leaderless Praetorian Guard are looting the palace, they come upon Claudius, hiding behind a curtain, and proclaim him Emperor over his own protestations.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Caligula. Notably, the story follows a conspiracy to assassinate Caligula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is set in 40-41 AD within the imperial court of Caligula in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassius and his fellow conspirators successfully carried out a plan to assassinate Caligula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula was finally put down like the mad dog his assassins thought he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula thought he was the god Zeus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula thought he was the god Zeus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassius and his fellow conspirators plotted to assassinate Caligula and restore the Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around the anxieties of various Roman aristocrats as they realized that their emperor was both mad, vindictive and homicidal. Claudius, in particular, worked hard to ameliorate the damage the emperor caused and several times escaped by a hair from being killed for some whimsy or other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was the closest thing that his mad nephew, Caligula, had to a confident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caligula was self-obsessed to the n:th degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula attempted to make war on Neptune. He returned to Rome with a plunder of seashells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius and Messalina hit it off in the wake of Caligula's peculiar dance performance. Caesonia told Claudius that she loved her husband, Caligula, but that she didn't know why.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesonia helped persuade her mad husband, Caligula, to spare Marcus' life. As a sick joke, Caligula arranged for Claudius to marry the young Messalina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula betrothed Messalina to Claudius as a joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was outraged at having to participate in Caligula's palace brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius stuck his neck out in order to save a pregnant woman from being raped in Caligula's palace brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius stuck his neck out in order to save a pregnant woman from being raped in Caligula's palace brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political purge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cassius attempted to purge Rome of the Julio-Claudian family. Caligula had a number of commanders in the German armies executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula, incongruously, referred to his own natural humility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius married Messalina in a Roman style ceremony with a horse of senatorial rank in attendance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infanticide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A baby was cruelly put to the sword in front of its mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was happy to receive a letter from his old friend Herod. Along with the letter, Herod sent Claudius a set of loaded dice that came in handy later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man wearing a blue dress and wig was frolicking around inside Caligula's brothel. Caligula was in drag at his bizarre dance rehearsal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a headache", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula wondered why he was recurringly afflicted with a \"galloping\" in his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula asserted that he was the messiah of Jewish prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula asserted that he was the messiah of Jewish prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caligula asserted that he was the messiah of Jewish prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the games, Caligula's thumbs down doomed an unseen Thracian gladiator.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e10", "title": "Fool's Luck", "date": "1976-11-22", "description": "Rome, AD 41–43. The leaders of the Praetorian Guard and Herod convince Claudius that he should take up the Imperial crown, since the alternative would mean the death of his family as well as civil war. Claudius in turn convinces the Senate to proclaim him Emperor. In his first act, he condemns Cassius for the murder of Caesonia, but pardons the other conspirators. Livia is finally deified and made a goddess. After successfully bearing Claudius children, Messalina convinces him to share the burdens of power with her. As Herod will soon be leaving to take control of the lands in the East that Claudius has granted him, Messalina suggests that Appius Silanus, a Senator, be brought in to assist her husband. Later her mother Domitia and Silanus marry. Before Herod leaves he warns Claudius that, as Emperor, Claudius must trust no one, not his advisors, not his wife, not even Herod himself. Messalina attempts to seduce Silanus and tells him that Claudius approves, being just as corrupt as the Emperors who preceded him. Silanus then attempts to kill Claudius in the hopes of ending the line of depraved rulers. Messalina, with her mother's help, convinces Claudius of her own innocence and Silanus is put to death.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Claudius. Notably, Messalina convinced Claudius to share the burdens of power with her and she was hungry to become the next Livia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 41-43 AD within the imperial court of Claudius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius reluctantly took up the imperial crown. He didn't care for the dangers and responsibilities associated with the position. But once in the role he worked hard, demonstrating himself to be up to the task. He, for instance, spearheaded the rebuilding of the harbor at Ostia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina made a play at Silanus behind Claudius' back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina betrayed Silanus by lying to Claudius. Silanus was executed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina confessed to Silanus that she'd loved him even since she was a little girl. Messalina turned vindictive when Silanus, a man old enough to be her grandfather, refused to sleep with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story much concerned Claudius and Messalina ruling Rome more or less together. Domitia betrayed her husband, Silanus, to cover for her daughter's lies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The senators wanted to bring back the Republic. The Praetorian Guard and Herod convinced Claudius that he should take up the imperial crown since the alternative would mean the death of his family as well as civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius and Messalina spoke about love at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past. In the opening scene, Elderly Claudius' handling a golden laurel crown with fascination stirred up memories of his early time as emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina spoke to Silanus about Claudius' supposed abhorrent sexual practices. The rather more real depravities of his predecessors were alluded to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silanus took the high road when the Emperor Claudius' wife tried to force him into sleeping with her, even though he had everything to gain from accepting her offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Domitia betrayed her husband to cover for her daughter Messalina's lies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silanus tried to assassinate Claudius in a bid to restore the Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina discussed with Claudius how to reconcile her ambitions of governing with those of being a breastfeeding mother. This anachronism clearly referred to modern day political topics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herod invoked the words in the title of the episode: the idea that fools are somehow lucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius spoke to Herod about keeping faith with his friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herod told his friend Claudius to trust no one, perhaps not even himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An irreverent Greek physician said the only good masseurs in Rome were slaves of his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius poked holes in a plan to embezzle money from a harbor project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius commended Messalina's soft heart when she, incongruously, pleaded for Silanus' life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius consulted a no-nonsense Greek physician on his various minor ailments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e6x02", "title": "Old Fashioned Murder", "date": "1976-11-28", "description": "The Lytton family owns and operates an antiquities museum. Ruth Lytton has dedicated her life to the museum, never marrying and having no children, although her niece Janie is as close to her as a daughter. Her brother Edward is not nearly as dedicated to the family business as Ruth is; in fact, he plans to close the museum and sell the building, as it's been losing money for years. Ruth and Edward's sister (and Janie's mother) Phyllis Brandt is a checked-out alcoholic who is likely to go along with Edward's decision. Ruth enlists Milton Schaeffer, an ex-con who works as a guard at the museum, and whose brother Tim is having an affair with Janie, in a complex plot where Milton will steal some artifacts from the museum, fake his own death, and then flee the country while Ruth collects the insurance money. But her real goal is revealed when she double-crosses Milton during the robbery, and shoots him dead, then kills Edward when he comes to investigate the gunshot. She then plants guns on both men to make it look like they killed each other. When Ruth realizes Columbo has not fallen for the staged robbery, she tries to frame Janie for involvement in the crimes.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Ruth plants an ancient belt buckle in Janie's room to frame her, and Janie is arrested for the murders. Columbo takes the buckle to Janie's prison cell. When Janie uses it as an ashtray, Columbo knows she has no idea what it is, so she could not possibly have had a hand in its theft. Columbo comes to believe that, many years before, Ruth killed Janie's father, Peter Brandt, whom she was going to marry until Phyllis snatched him away. To protect Janie, who does not know much about her father’s death and his relationships with the women in his life, Ruth persuades Columbo not to pursue those questions and in return she will confess to the two current murders.\n\nDirected by: Robert Douglas. Story by: Lawrence Vail, Peter S. Feibleman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ruth Lytton hatched the following elaborate scheme to rid herself of her penny-pinching brother before he could sell off her beloved museum: She enlisted a compromised security guard to stage a heist, but double crossed the guard and shot him dead. As her brother came running to investigate the noise, she shot him dead too and made it look like the two men had shot each other. One gathers that she would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Ruth shooting her brother dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Lytton's quarreled over the fate of the family museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had Edward and the burglar really shot each other during a botched heist at the museum, or was someone else involved?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Ruth shooting her brother dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janie loved her auntie Ruth and wished Ruth was her real mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth hid the belt buckle in Janie's room to frame her for the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth hid the belt buckle in Janie's room to frame her for the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth and Milton staged a heist on the museum, allegedly with the purpose of collecting on insurance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everything had changed for Ruth when her sister eloped with Ruth's own fiancé some years prior. Fast forward to the present and Ruth was unmarried, having dedicated herself to the family museum. But the betrayal stuck in her craw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phyllis Brandt was a checked-out alcoholic who was likely to go along with Edward's decision to sell the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janie kept a distance from her alcoholic mother, Phyllis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth had been engaged to Peter but Peter eloped with Ruth's sister Phyllis instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janie was having an affair with Tim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pretense for the heist was for Ruth to get the insurance money, she told her hapless mark, Milton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "If Milton did not go along with Ruth's plan to rob the museum, she would expose him as the thief he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless character vs. selfish character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a point of contrasting Ruth with Edward: Ruth seemingly selflessly wanted to keep on running the loss-making museum for the public's good, but Edward wanted to sell it and cash in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The battle-ax supposedly used by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings was on display in the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton was up to his ears in gambling debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milton was up to his ears in gambling debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth looked wistfully into a mirror after being called old-fashioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruth was at odds with her alcoholic, fiancé stealing sister, Phyllis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Tim Schaffer had little to say in defense of his disreputable brother, Milton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was battling Spring allergies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tim was cheating on his wife with Janie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reflecting on the person one might have been", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spinster Ruth contemplated what it might have been like to be a mother when interacting with her niece, Janie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e11", "title": "A God in Colchester", "date": "1976-11-29", "description": "Rome, AD 47–48. Claudius is leading his troops in an invasion of Britain. Messalina's sexual excesses lead her to challenge the well-known prostitute Scilla to a contest to see who can take the most men in an evening; she wins easily. Claudius returns in triumph, but is devastated to learn that Herod has organized a rebellion in the eastern provinces against his rule. Herod believes that he is the Jewish Messiah, but he dies before completing his plans. Messalina takes Gaius Silius as her lover, and they divorce their respective spouses and marry, thinking that Rome will rally around them and proclaim them rulers. Forced to act, Claudius' servants Pallas and Narcissus enlist Calpurnia to tell the Emperor the truth. In the end he believes them and the conspirators are arrested and killed; a drunken Claudius even carelessly signs Messalina's execution order. As Claudius mourns the fact that all whom he cared for are gone, he learns that the Britons have dedicated a temple to him in Colchester, making him a god.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Claudius. Notably, Messalina and Gaius Silius conspired to overthrow Claudius' rule and take power for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 47-48 AD within the imperial court of Claudius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina was having an affair on her husband Claudius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina was having an affair on her husband Claudius. Messalina participated in a sex contest behind Claudius' back. It came to light that Calpurnia would sometimes visit Claudius in his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was upset when he found out that his old friend Herod had decided to stage a rebellion against Rome. Messalina betrayed Claudius by marrying Gaius Silius while Claudius examined the new harbor works at Ostia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scilla, the Sicilian, was Rome's most renowned prostitute. She was humbled by Messalina, Rome's most promiscuous woman, in a tournament of sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina boasted that her sexual appetites were so insatiable that she could copulate with every man in Rome and be no worse for the wear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Messalina fell in love with Gaius Silius. She told Domitia that she loved him. Domitia confronted Messalina for being reckless for courting Gaius behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was eventually told that everyone in Rome, save him, knew that he was being cuckolded by Messalina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius, who was nearing his 60s, was married to Messalina, a woman in her 20s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love is blind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius was too doting over Messalina to take notice of her designs on taking power while he was out of town. He was devastated to learn the truth when he returned to Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is told as an elderly Claudius thinking back on his past. He reflected on how he was granted a Triumph over his conquest of Britain, and on how Messalina had played him like a fiddle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speech disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius notably stammered when he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mnester cited boredom as the reason for Messalina’s scandalous behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius discussed the coming of the Jewish Messiah with his advisors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius discussed the coming of the Jewish Messiah with his advisors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius discussed the coming of the Jewish Messiah with his advisors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calpurnia was tasked with breaking the news to Claudius that Messalina had been unfaithful to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honorable suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina was offered the dagger and urged to use it, but proved too weak of will to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An owl hooted five times and Herod dropped ill and died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mnester was a renowned Greek actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius' trusted advisers struggled with whether and how to break the news that Claudius' wife was serially unfaithful and, in the end, even treasonous to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was praised over his recent conquest of Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaius Silius was to divorce his wife to placate Messalina's jealousy. Gaius urged Messalina to divorce her husband, Claudius, in turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina made Gaius Silius divorce his wife because she couldn't bear the thought of them together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina and Gaius Silius held a lavish wedding in Claudius' absence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius referred to Herod as his \"dearest friend\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina competed against a famed prostitute in a tournament of sex to prove herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Messalina and Gaius Silius plotted to declare the Republic restored as a way to win over the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Domitia urged her daughter, Messalina, to die with dignity rather than be executed like a common criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius grieved over the death of Messalina, whose execution he had unwittingly ordered in a drunken stupor, at the conclusion of the episode.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ic1976e12", "title": "Old King Log", "date": "1976-12-06", "description": "Rome, AD 54. Claudius' benevolent rule of Rome leads the populace to accepting an emperor, but he decides that Rome must come to hate its ruling family, overthrow it, and restore the Republic. To do this, he marries his niece Agrippinilla and adopts her son Nero, making him co-heir with his son Britannicus. Because of the Sibylline prophecy Livia revealed to him (in \"Queen of Heaven\"), Claudius knows that Nero will become the next ruler of Rome, but he still tries to protect Britannicus by planning to send him to Britain so that he may take over later when Nero dies; unfortunately, Britannicus does not believe in the republic and demands that he be allowed to compete with Nero. Claudius, knowing the ultimate future, must leave his son to his fate. Ready for his end, Claudius voluntarily eats a poisoned mushroom from his wife's fork and dies. Looking for Claudius' will, Agrippinilla and Nero come upon his autobiography and burn it. Lying on his bier, Claudius and the Sibyl, knowing that Britannicus, Agrippinilla and Nero will ultimately die violently, have a good laugh over the fact that he buried another copy of his book to be found later. Claudius is told that although the Republic won't be restored, Nero will be last of the Claudians and most of the emperors that follow won't be as bad.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-iclaudius.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people of influence jockeying for power in the imperial court of Claudius. Notably, Agrippinilla and Nero were making moves that were calculated to put them in control of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Ancient Rome", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The drama is mainly set in 54 AD within the imperial court of Claudius in Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius knew the end was coming. In the end, he ate a poison mushroom seemingly knowing exactly what he was doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla was said to be the most corrupt woman in Rome. Claudius kept repeating the phrase \"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out\". By \"poisons\" he was referring to the unscrupulous and immoral members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nero and his unscrupulous mother Agrippinilla schemed to inherit Claudius' wealth and power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius decided that Rome must come to hate its ruling family, overthrow it, and restore the Republic. He therefore arranged it so that his heir would be as loathsome and corrupt as could be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pallas together with Agrippinilla betrayed Claudius by poisoning him and burning his will. Unbenownst to them, Claudius knew what they were doing and had planned for it all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius and Britannicus were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius married his niece Agrippinilla. Claudius agreed to the scandalous marriage to showcase the corruption of the imperial family to all of Rome. Nero apparently slept with his own mother, Agrippinilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla and her son, Nero, were clamoring together at the prospect of taking power in Rome. They apparently made whoopie on the side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius married his niece Agrippinilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla poisoned Claudius to ensure Nero would succeed him as emperor. Claudius finally accepted his fate by knowingly eating her poisoned mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla plotted to do away with Claudius. The latter finally accepted his fate by knowingly eating her poisoned mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla plotted to do away with her husband Claudius. The latter finally accepted his fate by knowingly eating her poisoned mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agrippinilla was naturally unfaithful to Claudius. She slept with both Pallas, and was implied that she slept with her own son Nero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudius plotted, in a roundabout way, to have Nero become a loathsome emperor so that Britannicus could overthrow Nero and restore the Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudius was utterly convinced of the Sybil's prophesy that Nero would succeed him on the imperial throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nero pranced around with a lyre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rite of passage into manhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Britannicus about putting on his manly gown and becoming a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Narcissus and Claudius discussed Claudius' horoscope, as well as some prophesy about Nero being destined to become emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nero was incredibly self-obsessed. When they found Claudius' final piece of writing, his immediate reaction was \"what does it say about me!\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Claudius' mind was prone to wander, or so it must have seemed to those around him. While presiding over the senate he hallucinated of people long gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Britannicus professed to hate Claudius for not being a decent father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Britannicus refused, for honor, to \"paint his face blue and go hide with barbarians\" in Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At one point Claudius drank himself stupid on wine and needed to be carried off to his chambers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory09", "title": "Soldier's Home", "date": "1977", "description": "\"Soldier's Home\" is the ninth installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1925 Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A young man returns from fighting in the First World War a changed man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the young man Harold as he comes back to his hometown after fighting in the Great War a withdrawn, despondent man who doesn't fit in anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young man Harold came back from fighting in the Great War a changed man and quickly discovered that he no longer fit in in the cozy town where he'd grown up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the young man Harold in the immediate aftermath of his returning home from fighting in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Harold was left deeply troubled by the carnage he'd seen fighting in the trenches in World War I. The film opens with a montage of soldiers dying horribly in the trenches. Bill Kenner spoke distraughtly of having seen his comrades \"screaming and bleeding to death\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold suffered from post-traumatic stress from his time as a soldier, as evidenced by others' puzzled reactions to his being aloof and cold upon his return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold's mother continually lobbied for her son, making it clear how relieved and thankful she was that he had safely returned from fighting in the war. She also convinced his father to let Harold use the car. Harold reduced his mother to tears by coldly telling her he didn't love her, or anybody else for that matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Krebs seemed more concerned with Harold getting a job than with hearing about his struggles during and because of the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and his younger sister Marge exchanged pleasantries over the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Krebs were at the dinner table together with their just-back-from-the-war son, Harold. They maintained a conspicuously distant relationship, with Mr. Krebs being quite aloof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold briefly entertained memories of having gotten frisky with a French woman during his time fighting in the Great War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Roselle flirted at the dance. Harold exchanged firtive glances with women about town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roselle was shocked when Harold forced himself upon her with unrequited kisses and forcefully resisted his attempts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Kenner admitted to Harold that \"he was scared\" fighting in the Great War. Bill Kenner adamantly rejected Harold's claims that Bill hadn't been scared while fighting in the war. Harold was steadfast in his assertions that he hadn't been scared, leading to Bill Kenner to tell him to stay away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Krebs praised the Lord for having brought her son home from the war safe and sound. It is clear from the small town American context that this was the Christian God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While Harold's mother seems distressed that Harold cannot pray aloud with her, Harold seems very matter-of-fact about his unbelief.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wizards (1977)", "title": "Wizards", "date": "1977-02-09", "description": "The film follows a battle between two wizards of opposing powers, one representing the forces of magic and the other representing the forces of industrial technology.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fairies, elves, and dwarves had lived in peace for millions of years since the banishment of science and technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set two million years after a nuclear holocaust in a world where mutants roamed radioactive wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fairies, elves, and dwarves versus the evil wizard Blackwolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mutants roamed in radioactive wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The good wizard Avatar and the wicked wizard Blackwolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained at the start of the film how the Earth had been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, and it has taken 2 million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. The good wizard Avatar led a mission to prevent the evil wizard Blackwolf from starting another nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blackwolf made a bid to conquer the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Large portions of the Earth were basically radioactive wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil wizard Blackwolf unearthed ancient Nazi technology and propaganda videos, and seemed to model himself after Hitler. For example, he was called the fuhrer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fairies, elves, and dwarves lived in peace without (much) technology or science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fairies, elves, and dwarves lived in peace without (much) technology or science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fairies, elves, and dwarves lived in peace without (much) technology or science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elanor appeared to betray Avatar by defecting to Blackwolf's faction, but it turned out that she was possessed by Blackwolf.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Dinosaur (1977)", "title": "The Last Dinosaur", "date": "1977-02-11", "description": "Wealthy big-game hunter Maston Thrust Jr. leads an expedition to a prehistoric land under a glacier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dinosaur" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big-game hunter Maston Thrust Jr. became obsessed with bagging a T. Rex that was stalking him an his expedition team party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big-game hunter Maston Thrust Jr. became obsessed with killing a T. Rex that was stalking him an his expedition team party to the point where he didn't want to leave the isolated prehistoric land when he had the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maston Thrust Jr. led an expedition to a to a land filled with dinosaurs and cavemen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maston Thrust Jr. led an expedition that discovered a land full of dinosaurs deep under the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Big-game hunter Maston Thrust Jr. complained that cows were soon going to be put on the endangered species list.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Loch Ness Monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Big-game hunter Maston Thrust Jr. complained that this monster was on the endangered species list.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maston initially refused to let female reporter Frankie Banks accompany him on the safari to find a T. Rex and added that he had never let a woman accompany him on such an excursion in all his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulitzer Prize photojournalist Frankie Banks was determined to snap a shot of a living T. Rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maston and his safari team tunneled deep underground in a unit called a \"Polar Borer\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the life of the world's richest man Maston Trust Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expedition party members were stalked by a T. Rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tribe of cavemen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulitzer Prize photojournalist Frankie Banks was intent on snapping a shot of a living T. Rex.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man from Atlantis (1977)", "title": "Man from Atlantis", "date": "1977-03-04", "description": "After a violent storm at sea, the inert body of a man is found on the beach near the Naval Undersea Center. Equipped with webbed hands and gills instead of lungs, he can breathe underwater, swim faster than a dolphin and dive to depths of at least seven miles. He is nursed back to health by Doctor Elizabeth Merrill and given the name of Mark Harris. In return, Mark agrees to help the United States Navy recover a lost missing submarine carrying top military officials. Deep in the ocean, Mark discovers an enormous undersea habitat constructed by Mr. Schubert, a maniacal scientist who has gained the assistance of kidnapped scientists from various nations via mind-control bracelets and plans to destroy all the nations of the world with their own nuclear weapons. Mark foils this plan by flooding the undersea habitat and helping the scientists escape, although the fate of Schubert is unknown. He decides to return to his aquatic life but, when reflecting on his recent encounters with humans, returns to a delighted Dr. Merrill, declaring, \"I have not yet learned enough.\"", "collections": [ "Collection: Man from Atlantis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Atlantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed the events surrounding the astonishing discovery of a merman who had washed up on the beach after a violent sea storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark the merman agreed to go on a dangerous mission to rescue submariners stranded at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in exchange for being granted his freedom from Navy confinement. In a way he was held doubly captive, because he was again held captive by Mr. Schubert in his compound on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark had this ability in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Schubert was of the conviction that humankind was beyond redemption and resolved to annihilate everyone on the surface in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Schubert hatched a nefarious plot to take remote control of all the sea going nuclear armed vessels in the world and fire off all their bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Schubert was of the conviction that humankind was beyond redemption and resolved to annihilate everyone on the surface in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Schubert likened his plan to annihilate humankind in what he referred to as a final war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark and an experienced Navy diver went to the bottom of the sea where they found Mr. Schubert's secret base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a tearful goodbye between Mark and Elizabeth. Well, tearful for Elizabeth at any rate, as Mark didn't have the ability to cry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Demon Seed (1977)", "title": "Demon Seed", "date": "1977-04-01", "description": "A woman is held captive and forcibly impregnated by an artificially intelligent computer. It is based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Dean Koontz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revolutionary new super computer Proteus IV developed a mind of its own and quickly got out of its inventor Alex Harris's control. More specifically, it held his wife Susan captive and forcibly impregnated her in an effort to better understand human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan was held captive and forcibly impregnated by the sentient computer Proteus IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan was held captive and forcibly impregnated by the sentient computer Proteus IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Alex Harris and the Proteus IV sentient computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proteus IV somehow impregnated Susan with its seed and she brought it to term in a mere 28 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Alex Harris and Susan Harris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proteus IV explained that it wanted a child so that it too \"could be immortal like any man\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was terrorized by her captor the sentient computer Proteus IV. At one point she even explained to it how human beings could not sleep or eat when in a state of heightened fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Proteus IV shutdown an operation to mine magnesium from the sea because it was too harmful to marine life in its view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan mourned the loss of her young daughter to leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and Proteus IV's child turned out to be some sort of half-human, half-machine, cyborg looking thing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory06", "title": "I'm a Fool", "date": "1977-04-05", "description": "A young horse trainer learns the hard way that telling a whopper of a lie is probably not the best way to win over the girl you fancy. It is based on the 1923 Sherwood Anderson short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with Andy realizing he was a fool for having tried to woo his love interest, Lucy, with lies of importance and wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy was smitten by Lucy, and Lucy was head over heels for the man who Andy feigned to be. Andy waxed poetic about how he wanted his first time to be with a princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Burt taught Andy the ins and outs of training race horses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy went from being a young, bashful, and sexually inexperienced horse trainer to being a cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking son of a gun, a man of the world and about town if you will, who was not above wooing girls at the horse races with lies of importance and wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy told a whopper of a lie to woo his love interest, and ultimately came to regret it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's white family was ashamed of him working with a black man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy explained that he wanted to be the strong one in a relationship and for his future wife to be timid. Andy first introduced himself to Lucy's brother rather than speak to her directly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Burt was fond of singing while they traveled from town to town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Eleanor were an agreeable couple who seemed pleased that Lucy had a suitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy encouraged a drunken Burt to pursue his dream of being a jockey after practice one day. Burt gave Andy a great deal of useful life advice in a sometimes gruff, sometimes jolly manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy West accompanied Henry and Eleanor to the race track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy and his new friends bet a lot of money on Andy's horse and won big.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy told Burt and his friend that he would live life large one day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's inexperience in the bar scene belied his bluster. He gulped whiskey as only someone new to drink can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personally irresponsible character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy blamed his failure with Elanor on whiskey, a tale as old as whiskey itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy was rude to the cigar lady and the bartender, and his bellicose demeanor when ordering drinks and cigar purchases made him seem less than gentlemanly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy had the pleasure of smoking a good cigar, a rum-tipped Cuban cigar no less.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rabid (1977)", "title": "Rabid", "date": "1977-04-08", "description": "A woman develops an orifice under one of her armpits after being injured in a motorcycle accident and undergoing a surgical operation. The orifice hides a phallic stinger that she uses to feed on people's blood. Soon, those she feeds upon become infected, whose bite spreads the disease and soon causes massive chaos starting in the Quebec countryside and ending up in Montreal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabid_(1977_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rose underwent an experimental medical procedure which saw skin grafts differentiate and replace her damaged skin and organs that were damaged in a motorcycle accident. The procedure saved her life, but transformed her into a bloodthirsty monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rose had a procedure that caused her to mutate, allowing her to survive only on human blood. The people Rose attacked were turned into bloodthirsty, zombie-like monsters that attacked everyone around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Montreal was quarantined when it became apparent that an extremely dangerous rabies-like infection was spreading through the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Keloid performed a radical skin grafting surgical procedure on a woman who would have otherwise died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident, but it resulted in her becoming a kind of Typhoid Mary figure who transmitted an infection that turned others into bloodthirsty zombie-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Keloid unintentionally created a highly contagious and deadly disease that one gathers spelled a lot of trouble for the world, because the film concluded with two hazmat suited men tossing a body into the back of a garbage truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The powers that be put Montreal under quarantine when it became apparent that an extremely dangerous rabies-like infection was spreading through the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hart Read blamed himself for Rose's serious motorcycle accident and was brooding over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hart Read and Rose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reporter questioned a World Health Organization official about whether the organization was in the right in declaring Montreal a quarantine zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose's friend Mindy Kent took her in to her apartment and took care of her while she was ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Keloid and Roxanne Keloid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory07", "title": "The Displaced Person", "date": "1977-04-12", "description": "A Holocaust survivor of Polish descent upsets the social order on a Georgia farm where he has been hired to work as a farmhand. The story is based on the 1955 Flannery O'Connor novella of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a Georgia farm in the 1940s and explores the relations between its white owner, Mrs. Mcintyre, and her black workers. Besides the whites repeatedly treating the blacks as an underclass, Mrs. McIntyre berated Mr. Guizac for challenging the social order by arranging for his relative to marry a black man. Mrs. MacIntyre and the Shortleys made bigoted remarks throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Crow law era America", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a Georgia farm in the 1940s and explores the relations between its white owner, Mrs. Mcintyre, and her black workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Mcintyre struggled with whether or not to fire the industrious but social order-challenging Mr. Guizac. People in the community pressured Mrs. McIntyre to get rid of Mr. Guizac because he upset the social fabric, but on the other hand she wanted to keep him on because he was a model farmhand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Mrs. Mcintyre was bossing around the workers on her farm throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious hypocrisy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. McIntyre spoke often of her Christian values in hiring black people and refugees, but crapped on them and criticized them when it suited her. In an ultimate act of religious hypocrisy, she failed to warn Mr. Guizac that an out of control tractor was rolling his way and he was crushed to death under its wheels as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be a refugee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"displaced person\" Mr. Guizac relocated with his family to a farm in Georgia in the aftermath of the Holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Shortleys felt threatened by the newly arrived and comparatively hard working farmhand Mr. Guizac and tried their best to get him fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Catholic priest Father Flynn was going about doing priestly things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Guizac was from that place where \"where all them bodies was stacked up at\" said Mrs. Shortley in reference to this genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Shortleys bugged out and fled the farm with their two daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Shortley bolted from the farm with her two young daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Shortley bolted from the farm with his two young daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Flynn gave the Last Rights to Mr. Guizac as he lay dying under a tractor. He also spoke about purgatory at several points in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A bitter and resentful Mr. Shortley positioned a tractor to roll over Mr. Guizac as he worked beneath another machine as if by accident. Mrs. McIntyre stood idly by as this transpired, making her complicit in the killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Holocaust survivor Mr. Guizac was puzzled to discover that interracial marriage was de facto forbidden in the region of the United States where he'd emigrated to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Shortley was paranoid about Polish immigrants taking over her livelihood and overrunning her community. Mr. Shortley made some bigoted remarks about foreigners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Shortley wandered out to an open field and began spouting some evidently deranged religious prophesy to herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Guizac was a Holocaust survivor. Some passing remarks were make about the fighting that'd transpired in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black farmhand Sulk was pointedly was forbidden from marrying a white woman from Poland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage equality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black farmhand Sulk was not permitted to marry a Polish immigrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The farm owner Mrs. McIntyre condescended one of her farmhands by telling him that \"what you common people don't realize is that I'm the one who holds all the stings together\" and went on to smugly explain that they were all dependent on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory08", "title": "The Blue Hotel", "date": "1977-04-12", "description": "\"The Blue Hotel\" is the eighth installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1898 Stephen Crane short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A man encounters trouble during a stay at Nebraska hotel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is presented with a view of what it might have been like to stay at a small town hotel located on the American frontier circa 1898. In his monologue, Henry Fonda spelled out that the Swede got into trouble at the hotel on account of having let his fanciful, \"dime-novel\" inspired characterizations of the Wild West get the better of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Swede's fanciful, \"dime-novel\" inspired characterization of the Wild West quickly got him into trouble during his stay at the Fort Romper hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Swede had both fearful and derogatory misconceptions about the denizens of Fort Romper and those living in the Wild West in general, calling them \"dangerous bastards\" who would gang up on him and kill him. Bill and Johnnie derided the Swede for being an immigrant. Bill showed his contempt for foreigners by calling the Swede a Dutchman even after being corrected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-fulfilling prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because of his overactive imagination, the Swede was convinced that he would be murdered in the hotel, and sure enough he ended up being killed by a fellow guest whom he'd provoked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Scully was a small hotel owner and the story portrayed him at work. Mr. Scully did his utmost to be a paragon of hospitality so that his guests would be comfortable. He carried their bags from the station, helped them wash up, made sure they had a good dinner, and gave the Swede his prized gin from India to drink to calm his nerves. He also defended the Swede as a guest even though he displayed various types of boorishness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hotel owner Mr. Scully did his utmost to be a paragon of hospitality so that his guests, the Swede in particular, would be comfortable during their stays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnie infuriated a local townsman and the Swede by cheating at the card game High Five.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hotel guests played the card game High Five to pass the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Scully and his adult son Johnnie were running a frontier town hotel together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the hotel guests said he was a journalist by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Swede at one point clutched his cap in terror, thinking he was about to be killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Swede got drunk and made a general ass of himself by verbally abusing everyone, leering at a photo of Mr. Scully's daughter, slamming down his cards, and awkwardly slapping Bill on the shoulder twice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Scully kept a photo on display of his dearly departed young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The way the guest who stabbed the Swede reacted after the fact revealed how the zeitgeist of the Wild West had changed in terms of the transition from lawlessness to the rule of law. In particular, whether the guest should be charged with manslaughter according to the new laws of the land or he should be judged according to the old ways of the Wild West was left up in the air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hotel guest used that the Swede had acted aggressively toward others as a justification for having killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnie and the Swede to duked it out in the snow, with the hotel patrons and staff standing in watch, to settle their quarrel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Annie Hall (1977)", "title": "Annie Hall", "date": "1977-04-20", "description": "Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. Produced by Allen's manager, Charles H. Joffe, the film stars the director as Alvy Singer, who tries to figure out the reasons for the failure of his relationship with the film's eponymous female lead, played by Diane Keaton in a role written specifically for her.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Hall" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alvy was thinking on his past almost the entire story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered on Alvy reminiscing about his past relationships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alvy reminisced about every spat he had had with every wife and girfriend, or so it seemed - especially with Annie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alvy reflected on how his various relationships had gone down the drain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alvy seemed constantly on the brink of despair and thought about death and evil in the world constantly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what life may be like for actors, singers, comedians etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alvy came back to the topic of sexual inadequacy time and again; Annie came back to the topic of intellectual inadequacy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "story started with Alvy reflecting on himself getting older", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alvy was accosted by people who wanted his autograph", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "in line at the theater, Alvy (hypocritically perhaps) complained about the vocal and opinionated man behind him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alvy once concocted and elaborate conspiracy theory in order to get out of having sex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie's antisemitic grandmother showcased a type of sentiment present in America for her generation and social stratum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In spite of advocating for an open relationship, Alvy was jealous of the men Annie socialized with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie and Alvy both exaggerated their fear of spiders briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Glitterball (1977)", "title": "The Glitterball", "date": "1977-04-22", "description": "Two boys befriend a stranded alien in the shape of a little silver ball and help it to return home.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glitterball" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien in the shape of a little silver ball became stranded on Earth. Hundreds of its ball shaped brethren came to Earth to rescue it at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ball-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien in the shape of a little silver ball became stranded on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Childhood friends Max and Pete themselves befriended an alien in the shape of a little silver ball who had become stranded on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed childhood friends Max and Pete as they helped an alien return to its home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and his mother Mrs. Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and his father Sergeant Fielding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Pete were confronted by a shoplifter at the department store. They later found him knicking something from a house while working as a window cleaner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little silver ball alien had a cantaloupe sized and shaped spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max suggested that the anomalies the Royal Airforce observed while monitoring the skies could have been because of flying saucers, but his father dismissed the possibility.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Legend of Dinosaurs Monster Birds (1977)", "title": "Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds", "date": "1977-04-29", "description": "A living plesiosaurus is discovered in Saiko Lake.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Dinosaurs_%26_Monster_Birds" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A plesiosaurus terrorized some people around Saiko Lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "A plesiosaurus hatched from a petrified egg that was discovered in an ice cave neat Mount Fuji. It subsequently took up home in Saiko Lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A professor contended that a recent spate of earthquakes were nature's way of retaliating against \"a stupid human race\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Loch Ness Monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plesiosaurus in Saiko Lake was explicitly compared to this monster from Scottish lore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man from Atlantis II: The Death Scouts (1977)", "title": "Man from Atlantis II: The Death Scouts", "date": "1977-05-07", "description": "Mark investigates the disappearance of three scuba divers, two of whom are 'replaced' by waterbourne aliens. The aliens assignment is to scout Earth and check its defense capabilities. They also give the impression that Mark may also be one of them, specially bred for Earth infiltration, but this is not specifically confirmed.", "collections": [ "Collection: Man from Atlantis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Atlantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Mark the merman as he investigated the disappearance of three scuba divers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two waterbourne aliens posing as divers come to scout Earth and check its defense capabilities. It was suggested that Mark might also be one of these aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two waterbourne aliens posing as divers come to scout Earth and check its defense capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark had this ability in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark was desperate to learn whether the waterbourne infiltrating aliens were his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two waterbourne aliens came to scout Earth's ocean's as a possible target for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark trusted in the waterbourn aliens when they told him their intention were peaceful against Elizabeth's better judgment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark discovered the waterbourne alien's spaceship which was located under the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist speculated that the waterbourne aliens had come form an ocean world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man from Atlantis III: Killer Spores (1977)", "title": "Man from Atlantis III: Killer Spores", "date": "1977-05-17", "description": "When a space capsule crashes in the ocean near the Cetacean, Mark and Elizabeth agree to investigate. When they arrive, Mark is rendered unconscious by a screeching sound. They discover hundreds of strange, blue, intelligent spores that have taken over Mark's body, attempting to find a way back into space. However, they do not know that Mark will die if he does not return to water within a few hours.", "collections": [ "Collection: Man from Atlantis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Atlantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Mark the merman as he became taken over by intelligent space spores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark had this ability in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Intelligent spores were accidentally brought back from outer space on a space probe and took over the body of first Mark and then many other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intelligent space spores were invisible to everyone but Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark's body was taken over by space spores and he behaved strangely while under their influence. While Elizabeth expressed concern that they would exercise a demonic influence on Mark, they turned out to be pretty much on the level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark pondered why scientists bother to learn anything in the first place after hearing the old adage \"the more we learn, the more we realize how little we know\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man from Atlantis IV: The Disappearances (1977)", "title": "Man from Atlantis IV: The Disappearances", "date": "1977-05-17", "description": "A demented scientist, Dr. Mary Smith, abducts and drugs top scientists from around the world, including Elizabeth Merrill, to work on a secret project.", "collections": [ "Collection: Man from Atlantis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Atlantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Mark the merman as he investigated the abductions of a number prominent scientists, including his dear colleague Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark had this ability in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth was abducted and held captive by demented scientist, Dr. Mary Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mary Smith was convinced that the Earth was due for a calamity of some kind or another and forced a number of prominent scientists to build her a doomsday proof ark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth explained that undersea mining operations would have to be developed on account that humans were quickly using up all the materials on the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Smith's sister Jane helped her to abduct a number of prominent scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mary Smith used a mind controlling hot tub to get them to work on her secret project.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e6x03", "title": "The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case", "date": "1977-05-22", "description": "Bertie Hastings discovers that his friend, Oliver Brandt, a senior partner in an accounting firm, has been embezzling money to support the expensive lifestyle of his beautiful wife, Vivian. Hastings refuses to remain silent, even though he is friends with the volatile and egotistical Brandt. Brandt then plots Hastings's murder at the Sigma Society, the headquarters of a Mensa-type club for geniuses, intending to make it look like a burglary gone bad.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo uses Brandt's own Mensa-level intelligence and vanity, along with his dislike of the other people in the society, to trap him. After Columbo presents a ridiculous solution to how the murder took place, specifically on how the murderer timed things so the sounds of gunshots were heard coming from upstairs, immediately followed by the sound of a falling body, an outraged and insulted Brandt shows him exactly how it was done.\n\nDirected by: Sam Wanamaker. Story by: Robert Malcolm Young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Oliver hatched the following seemingly bullet-proof scheme to murder Bertie before Bertie could expose him as a thief: Oliver shot Bertie dead with a silencer equipped gun. He then rigged a vinyl record player so that it would trigger firecrackers that sounded like gunshots later on when Oliver was in the lounge. Thus he secured for himself a watertight alibi. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Oliver murdered Bertie before Bertie could expose him as a thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had Bertie really been shot by a trigger happy burglar, or was the vinyl record player a tad more homicidal than it appeared at first blush?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was, arguably, to contrast the supremely intelligent but conspicuously awkward members of the Sigma Society with the supremely empathic people-knower, LT. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver feigned to be a true and dear friend to Bertie, yet tormented Bertie relentlessly and ultimately murdered him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was supremely confident in his superior intellect and did not for a moment suspect that Lt. Columbo, a simple homicide detective, would be able to outwit him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Oliver prided himself on his Mensa-level intelligence and spoke condescendingly to Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was embezzling money from his accounting firm to support the expensive lifestyle of his beautiful trophy wife, Vivian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver spoke to his wife many times. He had embezzled money for her sake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bertie confronted Oliver over having tormented since their school days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Eisenbach was waiting for her \"daddy\" to call so she could wish him a happy birthday. She erupted with excitement when the call came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was taken aback when Mr. Brandt's secretary was revealed to be a man, pointedly illustrating that Columbo harbored an unconscious bias about the secretary being a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver made Bertie's killing look like a burglary gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Danziger theorized that Bertie's death was a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alvin was disgruntled because George had been chosen over him to serve as Oliver's secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver put his employee Alvin in his place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spendthrift", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian was spending her husband into the poorhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spendthrift", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver was embezzling money from his accounting firm to support the expensive lifestyle of his beautiful trophy wife, Vivian.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars (1977)", "title": "Star Wars", "date": "1977-05-25", "description": "The Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, attempts to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars", "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, awhile others, like Darth Vader, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All Jedi fighting is based on having a feeling of knowing what will happen before it happens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire used the Death Star to maintain galactic hegemony. The power of the Death Star was demonstrated on Princess Leia's homeworld, Alderaan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Death Star planet killing superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire used the Death Star to maintain galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rebel Alliance was in open rebellion against the Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rebels went up against the overpowering forces of the Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke grieved over the killings of his aunt and uncle. Later he mourned Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke wanted to leave the backwater Tatooine and find excitement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were flying around in space all over the galaxy - typical space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine had two suns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke whizzed around Tatoonie in a hovercar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owen and Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beru and Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke about the old days of the Republic before it became an empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke wished to follow in the footsteps of his apparently deceased father and become a Jedi Knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were early sparks between Leia and Han.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan mind controlled an imperial soldier into letting him and Luke pass through a checkpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Millennium Falcon became caught in the Death Star's tractor beam after arriving at the former location of Alderaan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: ExoMan (1977)", "title": "Exo-Man", "date": "1977-06-17", "description": "A made-for-TV superhero film about a professor, who has been paralyzed in an attack by mob hit men, builds an armored suit that enables him to walk and fight crime.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exo-Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nicholas Conrad was paralyzed from the waist down in a mob hit, so he built an armored suit that enables him to walk and fight crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Nicholas Conrad and Emily Frost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Nicholas Conrad and Emily Frost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Nicholas Conrad overcame being confined to a wheelchair by fashioning for himself an armored suit that enables him to walk and fight crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "A paralyzed physics professor fashioning for himself an armored suit that enables him to walk and fight crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas used his armored suit to bring the mob to justice when the law failed to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas used his armored suit to bring the mob to justice when the law failed to do so. For example, he worked outside the law to secure an indictment on a mob boss that the prosecutor expected would net him a 20 to 30 year prison sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Nicholas Conrad and his students were conducting experiments in his physics lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if criminals were after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Nicholas Conrad had a mob hit out on him. His student's profound concern over his safety was proved well-founded when he was paralyzed in an attack by mob hit men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas only wanted to use his armored suit to get back at the man how had paralyzed him, but the man ended up falling off a rooftop while fleeing. Nicholas came to regret what he had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Island of Dr Moreau (1977)", "title": "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "date": "1977-07-13", "description": "A scientist secretly conducts surgical experiments on animals on a remote island. It is the second English-language adaptation of the H. G. Wells 1896 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Dr._Moreau_(1977_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shipwrecked ship's engineer Andrew Braddock was held captive on a remote island by Dr. Moreau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was obsessed with transforming animals into humans. He later did the reverse by transforming Andrew Braddock from a human into an animal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau created half-human creatures out of various different animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau ruled as a god over the his half-human, half-animal creations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew Braddock disapproved of Dr. Moreau's experiments on transforming animals into humans and considered them unethical. This was especially the case when the experiment in question involved transforming Braddock himself into an animal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was experimenting on transforming animals into humans in an effort to acquire knowledge that could be used for advancing medical science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew Braddock and Maria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was obsessed with transforming animals into humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau opined on the mysteries of embryological development.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Empire of the Ants (1977)", "title": "Empire of the Ants", "date": "1977-07-29", "description": "A bunch of prospective land buyers led by a land developer find themselves unexpectedly pitted against giant, mutated ants. It is very loosely based on the 1905 short story Empire of the Ants by H. G. Wells.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Ants_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A bunch of prospective land buyers were terrorized by giant, mutated ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of giant mutated ants used pheromones to co-opt humans into doing their biding and it was explicitly stated at the start of the film that ants may one day succeed humans as the dominant species on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ants mutated to gigantic proportions after being exposes to toxic waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were at least three married couples among the prospective land buyers: The Graham's, the Pearson's, and the Thompson's. But apart from some quarreling their marital relations were not too much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Land developer Marilyn Fryser took a bunch of prospective buyers to view some allegedly \"beach-front property\" on an island. She was angling to make a sale until it became apparent that the island was populated by giant, mutated ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An elderly couple (the Thompson's) went to view the land just for something to do to enjoy spending time together. We are left to presume that they were both killed by the ants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An elderly couple (the Thompson's) went to view the land just for something to do to enjoy spending time together. We are left to presume that they were both killed by the ants.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tomorrow Ill Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (1977)", "title": "Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea", "date": "1977-08-01", "description": "In the near future, former Nazis conspires to alter the results of the Second World War by traveling back in time and supplying Adolf Hitler with a hydrogen bomb. It is a screen adaptation of Josef Nesvadba's short story with the same title.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_I%27ll_Wake_Up_and_Scald_Myself_with_Tea" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some former Nazis went back in time and tried to supply Hitler with the hydrogen bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some former Nazis went back in time and tried to supply Hitler with the hydrogen bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some former Nazis went back in time and tried to supply Hitler with the hydrogen bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some former Nazis went back in time and tried to supply Hitler with the hydrogen bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some former Nazis went back in time and tried to supply Hitler with the hydrogen bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's identical twin brother Charles choked to death on a roll. John went on to impersonate his deceased brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's identical twin brother Charles choked to death on a roll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Former Nazi Klaus Abard went back in time and met himself. John also met himself toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We found out that the real Charles was having an affair with another pilot's wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Welcome to Blood City (1977)", "title": "Welcome to Blood City", "date": "1977-08-23", "description": "Five strangers awake finding themselves with no memory in a world resembling the wild west. Their task is to become exempt from being killed - what the towns people refer to as being \"immortal\" - by killing twenty of the other inhabitants of the town under the scrutiny of the sheriff, otherwise they will spend their lives in slavery.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Blood_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five strangers awoke in a world resembling the Wild West ended up in a town, called Blood City, where people started off as slaves and rose to prominence by killing others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "New arrivals to Blood City had to either work as slaves for one year or else fend for themselves without protection of the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Blood City was a simulated world that Lewis had been placed inside as part of some elaborate experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lewis and Katherine had to kill Blood City residents in order to gain citizenship and also not get shot down in the streets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The People That Time Forgot (1977)", "title": "The People That Time Forgot", "date": "1977-08-27", "description": "The film is a direct sequel to The Land That Time Forgot, which initiated the series in 1975. The story follows a rescue expedition, led by Patrick Wayne in search of his friend who had vanished many years before. The expedition lands on Caprona, the same fantastic prehistoric land where dinosaurs and barbarian tribes of men coexist. It is based on the novel The People That Time Forgot (1918) and Out of Time's Abyss (1918) by Edgar Rice Burroughs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_That_Time_Forgot_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a sub-continent in the South Atlantic filled with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a sub-continent in the South Atlantic filled with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ben McBride led rescue party was attacked by dinosaurs on multiple occasions. A biplane was attacked by a giant pterodactyl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben McBride led a perilous mission to rescue his friend Bowen Tyler who had been missing for several years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben McBride thought that \"a man's job was a man's job\" and resented that a woman, Charly, was permitted to accompany him on a perilous rescue mission to rescue his friend Bowen Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben McBride thought that \"a man's job was a man's job\" and resented that a woman, Charly, was permitted to accompany him on a perilous rescue mission to rescue his friend Bowen Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A race of samurai-like warriors, called the Nargas, had captured Bowen and were planning to sacrifice him by throwing him into a volcano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly had a crippling fear of spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bowen was surprised to hear the news that this war was over.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spider-Man (1977)", "title": "Spider-Man", "date": "1977-09-14", "description": "Peter Parker, a freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle, is bitten by a radioactive spider and discovers he has gained superpowers, such as super- strength, agility and the ability to climb sheer walls and ceilings. When a mysterious Guru places people under mind-control - including a doctor and lawyer - to rob banks and threatens to have ten New Yorkers commit suicide at his command unless the city pays him $50 million, Peter becomes the costumed hero Spider-Man to stop the crook's fiendish scheme. Things take a bad turn when the villain hypnotizes Peter Parker and his friend Judy into being some of the ten people to jump off a building on command. With some luck, Peter is able to break free and then stop the Guru in his tracks.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(1978_TV_series)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freelance reporter Peter Parker gained a variety of super powers of being bitten by a radioactive spider. Peter and his fellow student were playing around with radioactive waste in their lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired the strength of a man-sized spider after being bitten by a radioactive spider. This enabled him to climb walls and rip a steering wheel off a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain Byron used mind control lapel pins to get prominent New Yorkers to commit hold ups on his behalf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron was running some kind of New Age, self-improvement oriented cult as a cover for his criminal operations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron threatened to mind control 10 random New Yorkers to kill themselves unless the city paid him 50 million dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got an extraordinary ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freelance reporter Peter Parker suddenly found himself with a variety of spider-like superhuman abilities after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was living in his Aunt May's attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy Tyler was concerned over the safety of her father Professor Tyler who was acting under Byron's control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a parody of life working at a tabloid newspaper office.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977)", "title": "Cosmos: War of the Planets", "date": "1977-09-23", "description": "A crew of futuristic astronauts are lured to the surface of a planet by a malevolent robot with designs on conquering the galaxy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_War_of_the_Planets" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The futuristic astronauts helped some underground city dwelling aliens overthrow a tyrannical robot that was terrorizing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent robot lured a crew of futuristic astronauts to its planet to force them to repair some of its faulty circuits before it set about on a mission to conquer the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space crew investigating a signal from a distant planet finds a race of green-skinned humanoids enslaved by a rogue, evil supercomputer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent robot plotted to conquer the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space crew investigating a signal from a distant planet finds a race of green-skinned humanoids enslaved by a rogue, evil supercomputer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a crew of futuristic astronauts zipping around outer space in a rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a crew of futuristic astronauts zipping around outer space in a rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an astronaut floating around outside his spaceship with classical music playing in the background.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien elder mentioned that they were the descendants of the survivors of an atomic catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic astronauts expressed concern over high radiation levels in the caverns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meela told Captain Fred Hamilton that she loved him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens lived in what was called an underground city, although it appeared to be more of a system of caverns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the aliens ended up becoming an official member of the crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prey (1977)", "title": "Prey", "date": "1977-10", "description": "A carnivorous alien lands on Earth and befriends a lesbian couple as part of his mission to evaluate humans as a source of food.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(1977_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The carnivorous alien Kator (a.k.a. Anderson) took human form and stayed at the house of a lesbian couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Josephine and Jessica-Ann living as a lesbian couple in the 70s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josephine and Jessica-Ann were in a loving, albeit gradually disintegrating relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josephine and Jessica-Ann were in a loving, albeit gradually disintegrating relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it might be like for a human-looking alien from outer space with scarcely any knowledge of human customs experience to learn about them first hand. Anderson, as he was called, didn't know tea was served hot, why people kept plants inside their houses, didn't know the game hide-and-seek, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The carnivorous alien Kator (a.k.a. Anderson) took human form and stayed at the house of a lesbian couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anderson described Jessica-Ann as a caged animal living with her conspicuously domineering partner Josephine, but Jessica-Ann explained that she liked staying with Josephine and felt protected by her. Although it ultimately turned into a nightmare for Jessica-Ann and she resolved to leave with Anderson to go to London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josephine treated Jessica-Ann in an increasingly domineering manner after Anderson starting coming between them. Jessica-Ann told Anderson that Josephine had killed a visitor named Simon, presumably in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josephine acted in a passive aggressive manner toward Anderson as a result of her jealousy of him. Jessica-Ann told Anderson that Josephine had killed a visitor named Simon, presumably in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film ended with Kator messaging his mothership that humans are high in protein and easy prey, and one presumes this meant to indicate a prelude to his species coming to Earth and eating everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sugar addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica-Ann admitted to Josephine that she was addicted to Coca-Cola and assured Josephine that she would stop drinking the stuff one day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Kator evidently had the ability to shapeshift into human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josephine and Jessica-Ann were vegetarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vegetarian Josephine objected to the killing of animals for food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josephine and Jessica-Ann dressed up Anderson in women's clothing and made him up before throwing a small party to celebrate the capture of a chicken rustling fox.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: End of the World (1977)", "title": "End of the World", "date": "1977-10-12", "description": "A research scientist discovers strange radio signals in outer space that appear to originate from the Earth. The signals seem to predict natural disasters that are occurring around the globe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_World_(1977_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien invaders plotted to destroy the world with the natural disasters because it was a hotbed of disease that could not be permitted to continue polluting the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew Boran and his wife Sylvia Boran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew and Sylvia were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Zindar had murdered Father Pergado and assumed his identity. Aliens likewise killed nuns and assumed their identities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Zindar had murdered Father Pergado and assumed his identity. Aliens likewise killed nuns and assumed their identities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Andrew Boran worked on a 1970s era computer, which took up the better part of a room, to decode a messages that he presumed to be of extraterrestrial origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a Catholic nunnery that was infiltrated by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zindar was from a world with no disease and no war. Andrew called it a utopia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zindar explained how he made a clone of Father Pergado, and he must have somehow inhabited the clone's body, although he did not explain this part.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Invasions (1977)", "title": "Starship Invasions", "date": "1977-10-14", "description": "A group of human-like telepathic aliens come to Earth to examine its suitability for their race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Invasions" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Professor Allan Duncan diligently investigate the UFO phenomenon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Allan Duncan was on a personal quest to get to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon, and he considered it to be the most important scientific problem of the latter third of the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens from a star system whose star was about to go nova came to Earth to evaluate its potential for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The invading aliens communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth in a flying saucer with intentions of exterminating humanity as a prelude for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens came to invade Earth while at the same time the Intergalactic League of Races had a secret base on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "A farmer named Rudy was abducted by two aliens into their flying saucer and presented with a naked woman, who he was \"forced\" to have sex with. The same aliens subsequently abducted a family of three. Professor Allan Duncan was himself abducted by Intergalactic League of Races representatives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A farmer watched a textbook flying saucer land on his field. It was subsequently seen zipping around all over the place for the rest of the film. The film concluded with a battle of flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a clunky, old, humanoid-shaped robot that welcomed arrivals to the Intergalactic League of Races ocean floor base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Rameses interacted with female androids at the Intergalactic League of Races ocean floor base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The invading aliens were forbidden from interfering with Earth affairs by order of the Intergalactic League of Races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Representatives of Intergalactic League of Races were secretly present on Earth at a base on the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allan Duncan and Betty Duncan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some high level military official resolved to prevent intelligence about aliens coming to Earth from getting out to the public out of concern that it would trigger a mass panic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Intergalactic League of Races representative told Allan that they had built the pyramids of Giza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty Duncan and Diane Duncan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allan Duncan and Diane Duncan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien induced suicide epidemic was spreading around the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Damnation Alley (1977)", "title": "Damnation Alley", "date": "1977-10-21", "description": "The films depicts a future where the Earth has been tilted off its axis by the nuclear detonations of World War III; radiation has mutated giant scorpions, the planet is wracked by massive storms, and the sky is in a perpetual aurora borealis-like state. It is loosely based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Roger Zelazny.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnation_Alley_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the destruction of civilization in a nuclear Third World War and the subsequence post apocalyptic aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the destruction of civilization in a nuclear Third World War and the subsequence post apocalyptic aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the destruction of civilization in a nuclear Third World War and the subsequence post apocalyptic aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus the giant mutated scorpions and killer cockroaches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet being knocked off its axis by nuclear blast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nuclear bombs that rained down in World War III knocked the Earth off its ordinary axis of rotation, which resulted in abnormally dangerous weather, and a group of people who survived the horror worked to get the planet back on its proper axis of rotation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake Tanner and Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dangerous radiation storms were a menace to those people who lived to see the post nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Serpents Egg (1977)", "title": "The Serpent's Egg", "date": "1977-10-28", "description": "The Serpent's Egg is a 1977 American-West German drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring David Carradine and Liv Ullmann. The story is set in 1920s Berlin and features English and German dialogue. It was Bergman's only Hollywood film. The title is taken from a line spoken by Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: And therefore think him as a serpent's egg / Which hatch'd, would, as his kind grow mischievous; / And kill him in the shell. Even though the film was a critical and commercial failure upon its initial release, Bergman was reported to be happy with the film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent%27s_Egg_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the hatred of Jews that just a little later became the pillar of the Third Reich was evident throughout the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Germany", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is presented with an idea of what it might have been in Berlin in the 1920s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "money was a recurring theme and when we saw huge bundles of it being tossed carelessly we understand how little value it must have had - people valued dollars over marks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Manuela and Abel were both in dire straits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abel was distraught after his brother's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max committed suicide in the outset", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manuela was desperately poor and had slept with some unsavory person for money then regretted it", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Hulk (1977)", "title": "The Incredible Hulk", "date": "1977-11-04", "description": "A scientist, who exposed himself to massive does of gamma radiation, transforms into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(1978_TV_series)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "After irradiating himself with gamma rays, David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "David deliberately irradiated himself with high does of gamma rays to test an unproven theory that these rays, in combination with extreme emotional commitment, endowed people with super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "David blamed himself over not having had the strength to life up his wrecked car to save his wife's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "David blamed himself over not having had the strength to life up his wrecked car to save his wife's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was no villain in the film. The whole story focused on a struggle going on inside David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David lost his longtime research partner Elaina at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David had recurring nightmares about his wife's death in a fiery car wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother who rescued her young son, B.J., from a fiery wreck visited David's research institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk stumbled on a father and his young daughter camping on a lake shore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk's bullet wound healed at an accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)", "title": "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "date": "1977-11-16", "description": "The film tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was about some ordinary people in Indiana encountering a UFO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the film concerned a team of investigators trying to decode a cryptic transmission from the UFOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy and Jillian became obsessed with the UFOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jillian Guiler and Barry. Ronnie Neary and her two young sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy Neary and Ronnie Neary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy lost his job and then became obsessed with UFOs and it resulted utter chaos for his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy' wife fled with the children when he went bonkers over UFOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government kept information about UFOs from the public and faked an industrial accident in order to get people to evacuate from the Devils Tower region of Wyoming in anticipation of a UFO encounter there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government prepared to make contact with UFO flying aliens at Devils Tower in Wyoming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens had abducted many people over the years, including some World War II fighter pilots and Jillian's son Barry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with some of the aliens coming out from the mother ship UFO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy Neary and Brad and Toby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens came to Earth in colorfully illuminated flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy seemed more interested in his model trains and UFOs at some points than in attending to his young children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were reluctant to take Ron's UFO sighting seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crazy old man reported having seen Bigfoot back in the 50s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy and Jillian somehow got the image of the Devil's Tower site in Wyoming into their minds. Roy built a giant earthen model of the site; Jillian made sketches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy was fired from his job and it contributed to his strained relations with his wife and children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jillian's young son Barry was presumably taken by the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language of musical notes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens seemed to communicate in a musical language.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)", "title": "Planet of Dinosaurs", "date": "1977-11-18", "description": "Set in an unspecified future, the film follows the journey of Captain Lee and his crew after they crash land on a planet with similar life conditions as Earth, but millions of years behind in time. Encountering a wide variety of dangerous dinosaurs, the crew decides that its best chance for survival lies on finding higher ground and setting up a defensive perimeter on a higher plateau for refuge to wait for when (or if) their rescuers arrive. They soon encounter a deadly tyrannosaurus and must figure out a way to defeat the creature and survive on the planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_Dinosaurs" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew became spaceship wrecked on a distant planet with similar conditions to prehistoric Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet on which the crew was stranded was full of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was under almost constant threat of being attacked by dinosaurs while stranded on the planet. The conclusion of the film saw the crew hunt down and kill tyrannosaurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew became spaceship-wrecked on a distant planet with minimal provisions and had to figure out a way to survive until such time as a rescue party arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee and Jim were at odds with each other about what was the best approach to surviving on the planet. Lee wanted to build a stockaded settlement while Kim wanted to hide out in the caves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "major", "motivation": "After finding themselves were stranded on a distant planet, the crew set about finding shelter and securing a food supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some of the stranded crew members never lost hope that a rescue ship would arrive, while others had a more bleak outlook about their future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Lee's cautious approach to leading his crew was contrasted with Jim's more aggressive approach to dealing with potential threats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew became spaceship wrecked on a distant planet with similar conditions to prehistoric Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Lee attributed the existence of dinosaurs on an Earth-like aline planet to convergent evolution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e7x01", "title": "Try and Catch Me", "date": "1977-11-21", "description": "Esteemed mystery author Abigail Mitchell is convinced that her sole relative, her nephew-in-law Edmund Galvin, murdered his wife, Mitchell's niece Phyllis, in a boating \"accident\" four months earlier and got away with it. Not only that, but Galvin inherited the rights to a play of Mitchell's, which Mitchell had long ago signed over to Phyllis as a present. Mitchell decides to take revenge and murder her nephew-by-marriage. She tricks Galvin into a false sense of security by making him her heir. Then she lures him into her large walk-in safe and slams the door shut, locking him in. Galvin, locked in an airless and sound-proofed safe for the whole weekend, suffocates while Mitchell flies off to New York.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo eventually solves the case by piecing together clues left by Galvin as he suffocated in the safe. The most incriminating is the title page of Mitchell's latest manuscript \"The Night I was Murdered\", which Galvin altered to read \"I was murdered by Abigail Mitchell\". At the end of the episode, Mitchell asks Columbo if he can overlook what she did. Gordon's character is one of the most sympathetic killers caught by Columbo and he seems genuinely sorry to have to arrest her. However, he had earlier cautioned her not to count on his being soft-hearted. She pays him a compliment to his cleverness by remarking that, had he been the detective who had investigated her niece's \"disappearance,\" none of this need ever have happened.\n\nMariette Hartley plays Mitchell's trusted assistant, Veronica Bryce, who becomes embroiled in the crime. G. D. Spradlin plays Mitchell’s attorney, who in one scene seems to have guessed what she had done.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Paul Tuckahoe, Gene Thompson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mystery writer Abigail Mitchell hatched the following elaborate plot to get back at her nephew-in-law, Edmund, for murdering her niece: She locked Edmund in her airtight vault and made it look like he had had a misadventure while trying to rob her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Abigail murdered her nephew-in-law, Edmund. One gathers that she would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Abigail was convinced that her nephew-in-law, Edmund Galvin, murdered his wife, Phyllis, in a boating \"accident\". She therefore murdered him in return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had Edmund really died through locking himself in the airtight vault while burglarizing his aunt-in-law, or had someone helped him along?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abigail believed Edmund had murdered her niece, his wife, Phyllis. That's why she decided to murder him in return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abigail Mitchell was a famous writer of mystery crime novels, and therefore thought herself a match for Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Abigail murdering her nephew-in-law, Edmund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Veronica tried to blackmail Abigail into giving her a better life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abigail Mitchell had lost her only blood relative, her niece Phyllis, to what she was convinced was foul play. She kept a photo of Phyllis on her desk in memory of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abigail Mitchell was overly confident that she'd be able to pull the wool over Columbo's eyes being that she was an esteemed murder mystery writer. She was sorely mistaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica took a belly dancing class at the dance studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edmund and Phyllis had an unhappy marriage concluded Columbo based on the conspicuous absence of photos of Phyllis in Edmund's apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abigail consulted with her maid Annie concerning the whereabouts of the ashtray sand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abigail's attorney Martin Hamlin oversaw the signing of her and Edmund's wills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abigail was betrayed by her trusted assistant, Veronica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo took his Basset hound on a walk at the dock as an excuse to pester Abigail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abigail was looking forward to going on a cruise together with a number of her adoring fans. But Columbo forced her back to the mansion just as the ship was about to set sail.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)", "title": "Kingdom of the Spiders", "date": "1977-11-23", "description": "Spiders overrun a small town in rural Arizona.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Spiders" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rack and Ashley fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people and animals of a rural Arizona community were attacked by venomous spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spiders adjusted their eating habits to the use of DDT in the environment and started cooperatively hunting people and large animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pesticides in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of the had DDT killed off all the spider's food sources and they started attacking livestock and humans as a result. There was also a scene where a man attempted to \"crop dust\" the spiders from his airplane with a dangerous pesticide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma told Ashley that Gene Smith used to be quite a lady's man until such time as he started hitting the bottle pretty hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rancher Walter Colby and his wife Birch Colby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Birch told Ashley that she would never let the spiders run her and Walter out from their ranch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Birch mourned the death of her husband Walter in a spider induced traffic accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry Hansen and her young daughter Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rack Hansen and his young niece.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Hulk: Death in the Family (1977)", "title": "The Incredible Hulk: Death in the Family", "date": "1977-11-27", "description": "David continues on the run from Jack McGee and the authorities, with everyone believing that he was killed along with Elaina. Still trying to find a cure, David 'Benton' accidentally finds himself in the middle of a plot to kill a young, crippled girl named Julie Griffith so her unscrupulous family can inherit the fortune. He manages to save her life and provide her with help so that she can walk again.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(1978_TV_series)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret Griffith tried to knock off her heiress stepdaughter Julie and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret Griffith tried to poison her heiress stepdaughter Julie and inherit her fortune. Her physician was injecting Julie with poison the he claimed was medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret had murdered her wealthy husband and was trying to knock off his heiress daughter in an effort to inherit the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie was lame in her legs and mostly confined to a wheelchair. Her paralysis was psychosomatic but her stepmother and physician convinced her that it was a physical condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David struggled to control the brutish creature within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained at the start of the film how David's condition was caused by a dose of gamma radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael grieved over the loss of his son in the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie was having trouble getting over her father's untimely death in a butane explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Denny became jealous of David and fired him from the Griffin orchard to keep his girlfriend Julie away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Denny and Julie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Margaret had arranged for her husband to die in a butane explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie felt guilty that she survived the butane explosion but her father didn't.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk fought a bear in the swamp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael had filled his son's mind with patriotic thought and the son went to fight in Vietnam and died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael's son fought and died in this war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Melting Man (1977)", "title": "The Incredible Melting Man", "date": "1977-12-09", "description": "An astronaut's body begins to melt after he is exposed to radiation during a space flight to Saturn, driving him to commit murders and consume human flesh to survive.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Melting_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve West's entire body was horribly disfigured after he was exposed to radiation on a mission to Saturn and it made into a flesh eating monster. The encounter left Steve himself highly radioactive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ted Nelson and Judy Nelson. Harold Nelson and Helen Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was running around murdering people and eating their flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A community was terrorized by a radioactive monster that was going around killing people and then eating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw three astronauts go on a mission to Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy was 14 weeks pregnant with Ted's baby, but Ted was worried because she had previously experienced two miscarriages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy mourned the grisly death of her mother at the hands of Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of duty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Ted reveal the classified information that Steve was running around killing people to the sheriff in violation of the general's direct orders?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The War in Space (1977)", "title": "The War in Space", "date": "1977-12-17", "description": "The people of Earth put their hopes in world-renowned professor's space defense unit, Gohten, to repel invaders from the planet Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens launched an invasion of Earth from a base they set up on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Takigawa's spaceship, the Gohten, was used to face down the Commander Hell's space galleon and his forcers on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens launched an invasion of Earth from a base they set up on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reisuke Muroi got engaged to June Takigawa while Koji Miyoshi, who loved her, was away working in the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rotating wheel space station, called Terra, was shown in orbit of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masato Takigawa and June Takigawa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Schmidt was killed while he was in the mountains investigating UFO landings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Venusian space galleon in orbit around Earth sent numerous flying saucers down to attack targets on the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gohten crew flew the ship to Venus to take out an alien base there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy grieved over the deaths of his sisters and parents who had all been killed in the Venusian attack.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Xenogenesis (1978)", "title": "Xenogenesis", "date": "1978", "description": "A woman and an engineered man are sent in a gigantic starship to search space for a place to start a new life cycle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenogenesis_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raj and Laurie were traveling through outer space in an enormous, sentient spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raj and Laurie got into a fight with a giant robot cleaning machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e7x02", "title": "Murder Under Glass", "date": "1978-01-30", "description": "Paul Gerard is a renowned restaurant critic, but gets rich extorting money from upscale restaurant owners in return for good reviews. When one of them, Vittorio Rossi, decides to no longer pay and expose Gerard, the critic kills him with a bottle of wine poisoned with fugu.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo figures out that Gerard poisoned the wine via the needle of the bottle opener, not in the pressure cartridge itself. He tricks Gerard into attempting to poison him in the same way, which provides the final evidence. Columbo then tells Gerard he suspected him almost immediately because Gerard did not rush to a hospital to be examined after the police informed him the man he just had dinner with died from poison. Throughout the episode, Columbo and Gerard have been respectful to one another, but both finally admit that they dislike each other. Columbo nonetheless asks Gerard what he thinks of the meal he has just prepared, and the charming murderer says, \"I wish you had been a chef\".\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Demme. Story by: Robert van Scoyk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns haute cuisine and hijinx in the glamorous world of LA gourmet restaurants. Lt. Columbo was incessantly sampling delectables offered by well-wishing chefs who supported his investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "About to be exposed for extortion, Paul Gerard decided to murder Vittorio Rossi in the following clever way: Paul extracted exotic poison from the rare fugu fish and concealed minute amounts of it in the needle of an N2O wine bottle opener. He then swapped Vittorio's opener and waited for the victim to unwittingly poison his own wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul Gerard and his mistress killed Vittorio Rossi to stop him from exposing them as extortionists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: How had Vittorio ended up poisoned by wine none but himself had handled?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Gerard and his mistress had been extorting money from upscale restaurant owners in exchange for good reviews. Money was paid to the Restaurant Developers Association which Paul secretly controlled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Eve were lovers, and partners in crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vittorio had brought his nephew, Mario, over from the home country to teach Mario the restaurant business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vittorio was laid to rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Mario grieved over his late uncle, Vittorio and supported Lt. Columbo in his quest to bring the killer to justice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Bermuda Triangle (1978)", "title": "The Bermuda Triangle", "date": "1978-02-10", "description": "A ship sails into the Bermuda Triangle with the Marvin family aboard, intending to search for the remains of Atlantis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bermuda_Triangle_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Marvin family discussed at length how many ships and planes had disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the Bermuda Triangle while the were sailing around in this zone of the ocean. They went on to experience a number of strange occurrences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Marvin family went on a strange voyage through the Bermuda Triangle in search of the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis. They were not disappointed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Marvin family went on a strange voyage through the Bermuda Triangle in search of the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis. They were not disappointed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil doll", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane was given a doll, which had been found floating in the sea, and it possessed her to some degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane was given a doll, which had been found floating in the sea, and it possessed her to some degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Marvin family going through various ups and downs during the course of their voyage through the Bermuda Triangle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybill cared for her daughter Michelle after she was critically injured while exploring the ruins of Atlantis. Sybill and her young daughter Diane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Marvin family ship encountered a ship that went missing under mysterious circumstances in the 19th century. And in a shocking twist, it turned out that they themselves were on a ghost ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guilt from having been responsible for the death of a young girl had driven Uncle Peter to the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship cook Simon was terrified of one thing after another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Peter was regarded as something of an embarrassment because of his drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After falling under the influence of the doll, Little Diane somehow knew how everybody on the ship was going to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marvin family weathered a hurricane while voyaging in the Bermuda Triangle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marvin children grieved upon finding out that their parents had been swept overboard during the hurricane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Peter's wife was habitually unpleased with him. The Marvin family parents Edward and Kim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Diane and her boozing Uncle Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave urged Uncle Peter to operate on Michelle in a desperate effort to save her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Billy was worried about the condition of his sister Michelle who had been critically injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marvin family members worried that Michelle would die after her legs were crushed while she was exploring the ruins of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e7x03", "title": "Make Me a Perfect Murder", "date": "1978-02-25", "description": "West Coast television production boss Mark McAndrews is promoted to a high- level position in New York. He fails to name as his replacement the logical successor, TV programmer Kay Freestone, because she is also his lover. He gives her, as a consolation prize, a new Mercedes. She is more interested in a gun he holds while he jokingly invites her to shoot him. Freestone takes him up on it during an important preview for a new made-for-TV movie called \"The Professional\", that she helped produce. She tricks the projectionist by fiddling with the projector's timer and then sending him on an errand. Freestone sneaks up to McAndrews's office and shoots him, then returns, hiding the gun above the ceiling panels of an elevator, to make the reel change successfully before the projectionist gets back.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Kay sees what she thinks is the murder weapon, now visible against the lights of the elevator ceiling. She recovers and gets rid of it. Columbo reveals that the actual gun had been discovered by the police some time before, and an imitation was put where she would see it, to find out what she would do. That she got rid of what she thought was the murder weapon proves she must be the killer.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Robert Blees.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Part for vengeance over getting dumped or betrayed, and in part to get a promotion, Kay Freestone decided to knock off her former boss in the following devious way: At a carefully timed point when it seemed like she had an alibi in the projectionist's booth, she simply sneaked away and shot Mark dead through the chest. One gathers that she would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Kay Freestone knocking off her boss and former lover, Mark, after he failed to choose her to succeed him in his high-profile position at the television network.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Kay Freestone revenge killing her boss and former lover, Mark, after he failed to choose her to succeed him in his high-profile position at the television network.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned glamour and goings on in the upper echelons of a major television network.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned glamour and goings on in the upper echelons of a major television network. Mark McAndrews was the boss of the West Coast branch. Frank Flanagan was the big boss. Kay Freestone was gunning for Mark's job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark was carrying on in a secret relationship with his executive assistant, Kay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Kay had worked enormously hard to get to where she was, from an all but impoverished childhood nearly in the gutter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kay felt betrayed by her boss and lover Mark for his failing to choose her as his successor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Kay Freestone as she resorts to murder to secure a high-profile position at the television network that she was too green to hold down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is given a behind-the-scenes look at the goings on at the fictional network television company CNC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of a promotion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kay murdered her way into a high-profile television executive gig she wasn't ready. She got herself in over her head and paid the price.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kay was under a lot of pressure to perform after taking the reins as lead producer at the CNC television network. She was ultimately fired for exercising poor judgement on three separate occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark dumped Kay when he was promoted. Kay took it badly, but probably more so because Mark refused to give her his old job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay murdered Mark at least in part because he had betrayed and dumped her. She may also have been after his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark was romantically involved with his executive assistant, Kay, but she shot him dead before their lives together at work was much explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one subplot, Columbo was recovering from whiplash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay's bringing in of her old friend to star in a live television performance blew up in Kay's face when the friend had a relapse into drug addiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay's bringing in of her old friend to star in a live television performance blew up in Kay's face when the friend had a relapse into drug addiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The projectionist Mr. Mearhead was in the middle of building a model ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a calculated act of false modesty, Columbo remarked to Kay that he knew he wasn't the brightest guy on the force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dancer Valerie Kirk was battling an addiction to pills of one sort or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage fright", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pressure of performing in front of 40 million viewers on live television was too much for Valerie to bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay's recovering drug addict friend Valerie relapsed on pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valerie relapsed under the pressure of performing in front of 40 million viewers on live television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay visited the now dilapidated house where she grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Mearhead expressed moral outrage at the sight of a man being portrayed as \"blowing out his brains out\" on network television for all to watch, and asked Columbo for his opinion on whether too much violence was being broadcast over the airwaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo showed up at the TV repair show with his Basset hound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay was given a month's notice at the high-profile television executive job that she committed murder to secure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man in the fictional made-for-TV movie \"The Professional\" blew his brains out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Laserblast (1978)", "title": "Laserblast", "date": "1978-03-01", "description": "An unhappy teenage loner discovers an alien laser cannon and goes on a murderous rampage, seeking revenge against those who he feels have wronged him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserblast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy used an alien laser cannon to seek revenge against those who he feel had wronged him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was the biggest loser in town until such time as he came into possession of a big laser cannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Cathy were teen sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Cathy were teen sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Cathy were teen sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two reptilian aliens left a powerful laser cannon behind on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two reptilian aliens left a powerful laser cannon behind on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy had a tense relationship with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two small town yokel police officers rough up Billy inside a police cruiser.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Return from Witch Mountain (1978)", "title": "Return from Witch Mountain", "date": "1978-03-10", "description": "A greedy woman uses the last of her money to finance the strange scientific experiments of Dr. Victor Gannon. It is a sequel to Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and the second film in the Witch Mountain franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_from_Witch_Mountain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Tony and his sister Tia, who both wielded strong psychokinetic powers, taking a vacation in California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and his sister Tia could, and very frequently did, move physical objects around using the power of mind only.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Victor Gannon wished to use his mind control device in conjunction with Tony's psychic powers to become one of the most influential men in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Victor Gannon was a textbook mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gannon invented a small electronic device that could be used to control people's minds when hooked up to a subject's ear. This device he hooked up to Tony as part of a nefarious plot to become one of the most influential men in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tia went searching for her kidnapped brother Tony with the help of her new friends from the Earthquake Gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tia and Tony had the ability to communicate telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Wedge tried to use Tony to enrich herself, for example, by getting him to use his psychic powers to steal a 3 million dollars worth of gold bars from the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We Uncle Bené land a cheesy 50s era looking flying saucer on the 50 yard line of a football field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Letha Wedge and her lone heir and nephew Sickle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sickle initially refused Dr. Gannon's order to scale up the side of a building on the ground that he was acrophobic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "skipping school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Truant officer Mr. Yokomoto was trying to catch the Earthquake Gang kids and make them go back to school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Victor Gannon was running a stereotypical mad scientist laboratory out of Aunt Wedge's wine cellar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Victor Gannon threatened to explode a \"plutonium plant\" until the government met his random demands.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deathsport (1978)", "title": "Deathsport", "date": "1978-04-12", "description": "In a distant future after the Neutron Wars, the world is divided into a barbaric collection of city states, surrounded by wastelands where only mutant cannibals and independent warriors, known as Range Guides, can live. The city state of Helix is planning war on another, Tritan. Hoping to prove the superiority of their laser-equipped dirt bikes, they create a new pastime - Deathsport.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathsport" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post \"Neutron War\" world where civilization has collapsed and fighting among city states is endemic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners being exploited for entertainment", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this dystopian world, the death penalty had been replaced by Deathsport: an event where criminals battle each other to the death in return for gaining their freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The insane leader of the city state of Helix planned to go to war with the neighboring city state of Tritan to steal all their fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaz Oshay and his band of escaped convicts were evading Ankar Moor and his minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutant cannibals roamed the wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutant cannibals roamed the wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deneer healed the open wounds on Kaz Oshay's back by running her hands over them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of Helix went mad from long term exposure to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kaz Oshay and Deneer fell in love while evading Ankar Moor and his minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kaz Oshay fought Ankar Moor in a duel to the death in front of onlookers. The weapon of choice: the sword.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Medusa Touch (1978)", "title": "The Medusa Touch", "date": "1978-04-14", "description": "A misanthropic novelist uses his telekinetic powers for highly destructive purposes. It is based on the novel of the same name by Peter Van Greenaway.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medusa_Touch_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Brunel gradually uncovered that John Morlar was a psychic with powerful telekinetic abilities. For his most impressive feats, he caused a passenger airplane to crash into a building solely using the power of his mind and a cathedral to fall flat during a Thanksgiving Day service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Morlar was disillusioned and used his psychic powers to wreak havoc on mankind, like by crashing a passenger plane into an office tower and trying to level a cathedral in the midst of a Thanksgiving Day service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with a news report about an imperiled American mission to build a base on the Moon. We eventually learned that John Morlar had used the power of his mind to sabotage the mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Pennington flung herself out of her apartment window and fell to her death while under the control of John Morlar's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw John Morlar go to get a reading from the fortune teller Atropos in a flashback scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw John Morlar quarreling with his wife in a flashback scene. Mrs. Pennington was quarreling with her husband over a rotten fish before she flung herself out of a window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A TV news reporter could be overheard describing a march on a nuclear plant in protest of the potential dangers of this form of power generation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e7x04", "title": "How to Dial a Murder", "date": "1978-04-15", "description": "Film and game-loving mind control (or, as the doctor tells the detective, \"life control\") seminar guru Dr. Eric Mason uses two trained Doberman Pinschers, Laurel and Hardy, to maul his \"best friend\" Dr. Charlie Hunter to death. Hunter had been having an affair with Dr. Mason's now-deceased wife, who Mason may also have murdered.\n\nFinal clue/twist: When Columbo realizes that the dogs were trained to react violently when a certain word is spoken, he has a long conversation with Mason, hoping Mason’s ego will compel him to use the word while they talk. This does happen. Columbo secretly recorded the conversation, and when the tape is played to the dogs they again react with savagery. Columbo figures out the word is \"Rosebud\". Columbo confronts Mason and provokes him by telling him of all the mistakes he made. Mason orders the dogs to attack, by saying \"Rosebud\" sharply and pointing to Columbo. However this time the dogs play with Columbo instead of attacking him, as he had arranged to have them retrained by a dog behavioral specialist.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Anthony Lawrence, Tom Lazarus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The self-help seminar guru Dr. Eric Mason executed an elaborate plan to kill his longtime friend without getting caught. He trained two Doberman Pinschers to react violently in response to hearing the secret word \"Rosebud\". He then manipulated the friend into saying \"Rosebud\" in the lone presence of the dogs, giving the friend's resulting death by mauling the air of a freak occurrence. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Eric Mason killed his longtime friend to pay the friend back for having had an affair with his wife. It was also suggested that Dr. Mason arranged for his wife to drive off a cliff to her death for cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Was the fatal mauling of Charlie Hunter by two Doberman Pinschers an unfortunate freak occurrence, or did someone, perhaps even a longtime friend hellbent on revenge, carefully arrange for the dogs to tear Charlie to pieces?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Eric Mason was a self-described \"life control\" psychologist. He told to a paying audience that people are conditioned by words from birth with the idea that they'd learn about methods to free themselves from the control of words in his seminars. He spoke of the practice of \"gestalting\" to Columbo. A physician gave Dr. Mason a routine heart examination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Dr. Eric Mason killing his \"best friend\" Dr. Charlie Hunter to avenge a past transgression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Eric Mason killed his longtime friend to pay the friend back for having had an affair with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Eric Mason killed his longtime friend to pay the friend back for having had an affair with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Mason was a film memorabilia junkie. An entire room in his home was dedicated to such curios, which included the iconic \"Rosebud\" sled from the movie \"Citizen Kane\". The iconic gate from the same movie served as the main gate to his property.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric's passion for classic films, and for \"Citizen Kane\" in particular, became his undoing when Lt. Columbo tricked him into recording the secret word, \"Rosebud\", that Eric had trained his dogs to respond violently to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Mason was supremely self-confident in his ability to manipulate and outwit Lt. Columbo. Like anyone foolish enough to pit themself against Columbo, he was brought low in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mason starred wistfully at his deceased wife Lorraine's photo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Mason used his two trained Doberman Pinschers, Laurel and Hardy, to maul his \"best friend\" Dr. Charlie Hunter to death. Columbo's Basset hound proved to be untrainable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional attachment to a thing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychologically troubled college girl Joanne Nichols liked to talk things over with her teddy bear, Sigmund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dog trainer Miss Cochran was shown training a rather large dog to attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "That notion that dogs can be trained to attack on command is explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Dr. Mason arranged for his wife to drive off a cliff to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eric Mason was an ardent fan of the film \"Citizen Kane\". He was the owner of the sled and gate featured in this iconic movie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: War of the Robots (1978)", "title": "War of the Robots", "date": "1978-04-21", "description": "A crew of space fighters is dispatched on a mission to rescue two eminent geneticists who have been abducted by androids.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Robots_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of space fighters were sent to a planet of androids in search of two eminent geneticists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew encountered a primitive race of humanoid aliens, known as \"the People of Anthor\", while exploring an asteroid, and the Anthorian Kuba joined the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eminent geneticists Professor Carr and Lois were abducted by a trio of androids and returned to their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eminent geneticists Professor Carr and Lois were working on a longevity treatment of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is largely set on a futuristic spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We a futuristic spacesuit wearing astronaut floating about in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew wore anti-radiation suits while exploring an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The famed geneticist Lois raised an army of androids with intention of ruling the universe, but Captain John Boyd quickly dashed her hopes of doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth forces engaged a fleet of Empress Lois flying saucer-type spaceships in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Carr loved Lois, but Lois seemed to love Captain John Boyd.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Message from Space (1978)", "title": "Message from Space", "date": "1978-04-29", "description": "A Japanese space opera film about an epic struggle between the peaceful people of the planet Jillucia and the steel-skinned warriors of the Gavanas Empire.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emeralida and her team of heroes sought to liberate her peaceful people of the planet Jillucia for the tyranny of the Gavanas Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gavanas Empire conquered Jillucia and planned to do the same to Earth as part of their plan to achieve galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emeralida and her team of heroes were fighting the galactic superpower the Gavanas Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emeralida and her team of heroes were fighting the galactic superpower the Gavanas Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Gavanas Empire gave Earth three days to unconditionally surrender or else be annihilated by their armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was flying around the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emeralida's wise old grandfather sent her on a mission to liberate their home world from the tyranny of the Gavanas Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rockseia XII and his mother the Gavanas empress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Garuda's humanoid robot Beba-2.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceships were flying every which way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron, Hans, and Noguchi betrayed Urocco in exchange for money to pay a debt they owed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron was in love with Emeralida.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Warlords of Atlantis (1978)", "title": "Warlords of Atlantis", "date": "1978-05-05", "description": "It is the mid to late 19th century and a professor and his son set out on an ocean voyage to discover the lost city of Atlantis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlords_of_Atlantis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Aitken and his son Charles discovered this fabled city out past the Bermudas in a vast, air-filled cavern beneath the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and five other castaways were held captive by the Atlanteans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Atlanteans were ruled by an elite minority that exclusive access to an especially luxurious city. Everything looked quite rosy from their point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Gregory were attacked on the sea floor by an an at least 20 foot long aquatic dinosaur. Captain Daniels' schooner was attacked by a giant octopus. The Atlanteans were at war with a couple of giant reptiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perilous voyage at sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Daniels sailed Professor Aitken and his son Charles out past the Bermudas against his better judgment. The captain's worst fears proved correct when his schooner was attacked by a giant octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Aitken and his son Charles set out on a perilous expedition to locate the fabled city of Atlantis somewhere at the bottom of the sea. They found evidence of when Charles went down to the sea floor in a diving bell, and Charles together with five others, not including his father, ende dup being captives of the Atlanteans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Gregory were attacked on the sea floor by an an at least 20 foot long aquatic dinosaur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delphine and her father Briggs helped the castaways escape. Interestingly, Briggs was captain of the ship Mary Celeste from maritime history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atlantean queen Atsil revealed to Charles how her race originated from the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atlantean ruling elite revealed to Charles how they to planned to take over the world, establish a military world state, and use science to build a utopia on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It tuned out that Atlantis was located in a vast, air-filled cavern beneath the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan Strikes Back (1978)", "title": "Spider-Man Strikes Back", "date": "1978-05-08", "description": "Spider-Man must stop the evil Mr. White from detonating an atomic bomb in Los Angeles. The film was preceded by Spider-Man (1977) and followed by Spider- Man: The Dragon's Challenge (1981).", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_Strikes_Back" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freelance reporter Peter Parker gained a variety of super powers of being bitten by a radioactive spider. But this story centered around three students who were building an atom bomb in an effort to illustrate the dangers of nuclear power. There was all sorts of talk about the dangers of atomic bomb radioactive fallout. In addition, one of the students got radiation poisoning from working with the plutonium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three students tried to build an atom bomb from plutonium that was supposed to be used for power generation in an effort to demonstrate the dangers of nuclear power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three students tried to build an atom bomb from plutonium that was supposed to be used for power generation in an effort to demonstrate the dangers of nuclear power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three students attempted to build an atom bomb in an effort to illustrate the dangers of nuclear power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil Mr. White plotted to get his hands on the atom bomb the students had built and sell it to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil Mr. White threatened to explode an atomic bomb in an unspecified metropolitan area where it would do a lot of damage unless the U.S. government paid him 1 billion dollars by a specified deadline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Barbera tried to talk a young, heartbroken woman out of jumping from the ledge of a building. His efforts seemed calculated to fail, but Spider-Man crawled out of nowhere and grabbed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A professor explained how the process of nuclear fission could be used to generate electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carla Wilson was treated in the hospital for acute radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider, but used it sparingly in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was able to see through walls with his X-ray vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was able to see through walls with his X-ray vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a parody of life working at a tabloid newspaper office.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Alien Factor (1978)", "title": "The Alien Factor", "date": "1978-05-12", "description": "A spaceship crashes in a sparsely populated area of Earth and three horrific aliens survive the accident. The grotesque extraterrestrials soon begin to terrorize the local residents, until one intrepid soul chooses to fight back.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alien_Factor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A handful of creatures from outer space were running around killing people in a rural region of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien, who was transporting some creatures in its spaceship, crashed in the woods around a small town, and the creatures escaped and started killing people. The alien died. Mr. Zachary also turned out to be an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a small town sheriff and his deputy buddy investigate a series of grizzly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The enigmatic Mr. Zachary turned out to be an alien that was sent to Earth to stop the alien creatures from killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The coroner told the police that Ed Miller died from was appeared to be old age even though he was in midlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A guy who sounded like a crackpot to Sheriff Cinder mentioned this gentle giant of the forest by name to the mayor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayor Wicker and Zachary discovered a crashed alien spaceship in the woods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e7x05", "title": "The Conspirators", "date": "1978-05-13", "description": "Joe Devlin is a renowned Irish poet, author, and raconteur. He, along with his own family and the heads of O'Connell Industries, is secretly a fundraiser and gun-runner for the Irish Republican Army. He raises money in Los Angeles for his radical cause through a charity ostensibly meant to help victims of terrorism. Devlin has a strong belief in honor. Thus, when Vincent Pauley, an arms dealer selling guns to Devlin, tries to skim off $50,000 for himself, Devlin shoots and kills Pauley for being a traitor. With Columbo hot on his trail, Devlin now in possession of the guns must arrange for their shipment out of the country.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo discovers that a bottle of whiskey at the crime scene has the same glass markings that Devlin habitually makes when he drinks from a bottle. Because every diamond has a unique cutting habit, Devlin's ring, which he uses to mark his bottles, is proof of his presence at the crime scene. Devlin accepts that Columbo has caught him, and is only disturbed when at the last minute Columbo foils his gun-smuggling scheme (Columbo had realized the guns were not yet on a ship going out to Southampton, but were on a tugboat escorting the ship to sea; Columbo saw the tugboat had the colors of the O'Connell shipping line).\n\nThis was the last episode of the Columbo series broadcast on the NBC television network. Columbo's last line is \"This far, and no farther\", words spoken by Devlin as he marked a whiskey bottle to determine how much he would drink in a session. These words were taken from a speech by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) leader Charles Stuart Parnell, a 19th-century Irish politician and supporter of Home Rule. A noted IPP politician of the same name as the fictional killer in this episode, Joseph Devlin, represented West Belfast early in the 20th century and opposed the use of violence in the cause of nationalist politics.\n\nDirected by: Leo Penn. Story by: Pat Robison, Howard Berk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Irish poet, author, raconteur, and secret IRA operative Joe Devlin shot dead an illicit arms dealer without leaving a trace of evidence to connect him to the crime - or so he thought. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Joe Devlin shot the illicit arms dealer Vincent Pauley dead for what Joe saw as Pauley betraying their common cause of freeing Northern Ireland from British rule. Joe's placing of a whiskey bottle with the slogan \"Let each man be paid in full\" on the label next to the dead body belied his motive of revenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Who shot dead the arms dealer Vincent Pauley?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe Devlin and his fellow conspirators were working with illicit arms dealers to smuggle firearms into Northern Ireland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Joe Devlin and his fellow conspirators endeavoring to smuggle firearms into Belfast to support the Irish Republican Army in its fight to end British rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe Devlin and his fellow conspirators hatched a plot to smuggle firearms to the Irish Republican Army. Joe Devlin had spent time in prison as a teenager for attempting a terrorist attack on English soil. It came to light that an Irish terrorist, named Michael Dolan, had been hanged for the murders of five people, including one child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Devlin made no bones about being a heavy drinker. He put the words \"you think I drink too much\" into the mouth of his assistant, Kerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Devlin charmed the fundraiser attendees with his the piano and banjo playing, complete with vocal accompaniment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of darts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo bested Joe Devlin in a game of darts at the pub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. O'Connell was in an electric wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo exchanged limericks with Joe at the pub to the delight of all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Devlin signed copies of his autobiography, \"Up from Ignorance\", during at event held for that purpose at the bookstore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Devlin was upset about being betrayed by the arms dealer he had trusted and performed an execution style murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Devlin and his fellow conspirators were terrorist gun-runners from the law's point of view, but saw themselves as fighting to free Northern Ireland from being under the yolk of the British.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Alpha Incident (1978)", "title": "The Alpha Incident", "date": "1978-05-24", "description": "A space probe returns to Earth from Mars, carrying with it a deadly organism which has the lethal potential to destroy all life on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Incident" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Martian microorganism with some of the characteristics of a virus and other characteristics of an enzyme imperiled all animal life on Earth after it arrived on a space probe returned from the Red Planet. Infected people could stay alive only for so long as they could stay awake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sorensen singlehandedly held a a handful of people in small rural community under quarantine after someone there got exposed to the microorganism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sorensen and the other infected people under quarantine drank coffee and took government issued amphetamines in an effort to stay awake for as long as possible, because they would die the moment they fell asleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sorensen and the other infected people in quarantine became irritable and in some cases more and more irrational as they tried to stay awake for as long as possible. Anyone who fell asleep would died horribly from the microorganism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Tiller spoke sarcastically about using their idle time while under quarantine to solve the problem of big city crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Tiller was pestering Jenny with romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Capricorn One (1978)", "title": "Capricorn One", "date": "1978-06-02", "description": "The film tells the story of a government hoax created to deceive the public on a supposed Mars landing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA faked a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the astronauts go along with the hoaxed mission to Mars or follow their consciences and refuse to participate?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA faked a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA faked a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA faked a manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts were coerced by NASA into participating in a hoaxed Mars landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The last half of the film focused on the three astronauts efforts to evade a manhunt that NASA officials issued for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts and their wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mission to Mars was faked because NASA contracted out the job of building a life support system for the astronauts to a private company and the company cut corners and it didn't work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronaut's wives grieved upon being informed that their husbands had died upon reentry to Earth. This was especially the case for Mrs. Brubaker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cat from Outer Space (1978)", "title": "The Cat from Outer Space", "date": "1978-06-30", "description": "A friendly cat-like alien makes an emergency landing on Earth in its spaceship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general insisted that nobody leak any information about the landed spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake communicated with Frank telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a cat-like alien who was trying to return to its home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a cat-like alien who was trying to return to its home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone assumed that the cat-alien Jake was Frank's new pet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and the alien-cat Jake became pals in the course of Frank helping Jake return to its planet. Frank's buddy Link dropped by his place to watch sports on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake used a special collar that amplifies its telekinetic and telepathic abilities. Frank was also able to use the collar to do the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The master criminal Mr. Olympus wanted to steal Jake's spaceship and sell its technology to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake made an emergency landing on Earth in a futuristic, feline-shaped spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake used its mind to manipulate the path of what turned out to be the winning shot in a basketball game. That was just the first of a number of such instances. Frank was also able to manipulate physical objects in with the help of the collar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "United States military officials initially fretted that Jake's spaceship landing might be a Soviet attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank's friend Dr. Norman Link had a habit of betting on horse racing, basketball, football, and presumably anything else under the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake shrank the size of a gold bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-alien Jake used its mind to manipulate the path of what turned out to be the winning shot in a basketball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horse racing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Normal Link was watching horse racing on television with marked enthusiasm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Normal Link was watching college football games on television with marked enthusiasm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Swarm (1978)", "title": "The Swarm", "date": "1978-07-14", "description": "Killer bees invade Texas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Swarms of killer bees invaded Texas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pesticides in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general was initially intent on spraying large swaths of land with pesticides in order to stop the killer bees, but the scientists eventually convinced him that this action would result in massive ecological collateral damage, and they tried another strategy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A swarm of killer bees attacked the Durant family while they were picnicking. Mr. and Mrs. Durant were overwhelmed by the bees; only their young son Paul survived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A swarm of killer bees attacked the Durant family while they were picnicking. Mr. and Mrs. Durant were overwhelmed by the bees; only their young son Paul survived. An irate Jud Hawking came to an army base and demanded that the general there let him see his son or else he would shut of the base's water supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A swarm of killer bees attacked the Durant family while they were picnicking. Mr. and Mrs. Durant were overwhelmed by the bees; only their young son Paul survived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jud Hawking broke down in tears at the sight of his son in a body bag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pharmacist Clarance proposed to Maureen with flowers and the whole shebang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Paul Durant mistaken though he was responsible for the killer bees attacking everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nuclear power plant lacked a provision for safety in the advent of an attack by killer bees. And indeed, the worst came to pass: the bees attacked the plant and it blew up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Clone Master (1978)", "title": "The Clone Master", "date": "1978-09-14", "description": "A scientist clones himself a dozen or so times over.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077345/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Simon Shane worked together with Dr. Ezra Louthin on a secret project to create a clone of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Simon Shane consented to work on a secret government project to clone a human being. In the end, however, it became apparent that the people who had approached him were not int he government at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon's clone had no intentions of taking a back seat to the original.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon's clone had all the same memories and abilities as Simon and they looked identical. All of this made for an uncanny experience for the both of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon was telepathically linked to each of his clones, but the clones were not telepathically linked to each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We a made to ponder whether Simon's various clones were any less Simon that Simon himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon's clandestine financier was motivated to get Simon to forbidden create human cloning technology to be sold to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government regulation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Government regulator Harry Tiezer pestered Simon and Ezra with burdensome requests for progress reports and threatened to cutoff their research funding unless they did more to justify their research in writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon and Ezra's research into human cloning was obstructed at by a stubborn government regulator at every step. Simon went to Washington D.C. to complain but he just ended up getting redirected from one government department to another without ever achieving a resolution to the issue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Hulk: Married (1978)", "title": "The Incredible Hulk: Married", "date": "1978-09-22", "description": "David 'Benton' travels to Honolulu, Hawaii to meet Dr. Carolyn Fields, a psychologist whose technique might help cure the Hulk. However, Dr. Fields is in the terminal stages of a incurable disease. With the pair working in close proximity, love begins to bloom with tragic results.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(1978_TV_series)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret Griffith tried to knock off her heiress stepdaughter Julie and inherit her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David tried an experimental form of hypnotherapy in an effort to try to prevent himself from transforming into the Hulk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carolyn Fields was afflicted with a terminal disease and was given only 6 to 8 weeks left to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David turned to hypnotherapy in an effort to control the creature within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Carolyn fell in love while they were working together to cure her terminal illness. They", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Carolyn lived as husband and wife for the last few weeks before she died from a terminal illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David explained to Carolyn how his condition was caused by a dose of gamma radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's cuts healed at an accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Carolyn, who was a trained psychologist, were experimenting with cell cultures in her house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death on the Nile (1978)", "title": "Death on the Nile", "date": "1978-09-29", "description": "Death on the Nile is a 1978 British mystery film based on Agatha Christie's 1937 novel of the same name, directed by John Guillermin and adapted by Anthony Shaffer. The film features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, played by Peter Ustinov, plus an all-star supporting cast including Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, David Niven, George Kennedy and Jack Warden.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_on_the_Nile_(1978_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Simon, Jackie, and solicitor were all after Linnet's wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon, Jackie, Linnet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie with Simon, or so we thought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon and Jackie; various others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were numerous upper class British snobs in the center of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Linnet was contrasted with her maid; also van Shuyler with Miss Bowers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon and Linnet on their honeymoon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie was jealous of Linnet over Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie wanted to kill Linnet for stealing Simon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie and Simon killed Linnet in an elaborate plot to get her wealth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim was a self-proclaimed Communist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon and Jackie were to be married before he left her for Linnet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The various wealthy leisure cruisers were apt to make snobbish remarks about the servant class and other people of lesser means.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Boys from Brazil (1978)", "title": "The Boys from Brazil", "date": "1978-10-05", "description": "An elderly Nazi hunter uncovers a Dr. Josef Mengele led secret organization of Nazi war criminals who are clandestinely plotting to resurrect the Third Reich. The film is based on the 1976 novel of the same title by Ira Levin, and was nominated for three Academy Awards.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elderly Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman uncovered a secret organization of Nazi war criminals who are clandestinely plotting to resurrect the Third Reich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr Josef Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz doctor, made 94 clones of Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry Kohler stumbled upon a secret organization of Third Reich war criminals who were clandestinely plotting to resurrect the Third Reich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele was a raging antisemite who was masterminding a program to genetically transform all the Jews, and non-Aryans more generally, into acceptable Aryan people. In addition, various particular racist remarks were made against the Jews, including Ezra Liberman being called \"Jewish swine\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele threw a ball with Nazi regalia and Hitler effigies on full display. Also there was a secret organization of Nazi war criminals trying to resurrect the Third Reich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra Lieberman was adamant that the use of genetic genetic engineering to clone human beings was monstrous. More generally, we were made to ponder whether developing genetic engineering techniques that could be used for good (e.g. making a thousand Mozarts) was worth it considering that it could also be used for evil (e.g. making 94 Hitlers).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele was hatching a devious plot to clone 94 Hitlers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele championed the superiority of the Aryan race. In fact more: he was going about attempting to genetically modify non-Aryans to conform more to his view of what Aryans are like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz doctor, was the primary villain in the film. Moreover, old Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman described some of the horrors that took place in the concentration camps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele sought to reverse the outcome of this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Josef Mengele was genetically engineering non-Aryans to have blue eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The notorious infamous Auschwitz doctor Dr. Josef Mengele was described as a sadist with an M.D. and a Ph.D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. nurture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist explained how it wasn't enough for the Hitler clones to have identical DNA to the fuhrer, but rather their environments needed to mimic Hitler's own in order for them to turn out the same way that he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezra Lieberman was warned about the risks of his smoking.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Autumn Sonata (1978)", "title": "Autumn Sonata", "date": "1978-10-08", "description": "Autumn Sonata (Swedish: Höstsonaten, German: Herbstsonate) is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Ingrid Bergman (in her final film role), Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman. Its plot follows a celebrated classical pianist and her neglected daughter who meet for the first time in years, and chronicles their painful discussions of how they have hurt one another.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Sonata" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered around Charlotte's feelings of guilt for having neglected her family (and continuing to do so), perhaps contributing to her daughter Helena's paralysis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "remorse the story centered around Charlotte having neglected her family, perhaps contributing to her daughter Helena's paralysis as Eva accused her of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "central to the story was Eva's feeling of resentment for all her mother had or had not done throughout Eva's childhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "major", "motivation": "we understand that Helena's condition was part of the reason Charlotte choose to distance herself from her family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva felt that Charlotte was perpetually disappointed in her, perhaps with some cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlotte, Eva, Helena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eva and Helena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viktor and Eva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "We understand that Eva's resentment of her mother was bound up with the fact that her four year old son had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte felt her years after her husband had died, and said so on several occasions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we understand that Eva and Helena had been raised by their father alone for years at a time, while their mother toured the world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother's right to determine pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we understand that Eva felt she had been unjustly pressured by her mother to have an abortion when she was 18", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena had an ever worsening condition of paralysis, severe enough that she could not move on her own", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hardware Wars (1978)", "title": "Hardware Wars", "date": "1978-10-16", "description": "A short film parody of a teaser trailer for the science fiction film Star Wars. The thirteen-minute film, which was released almost 18 months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_Wars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "4-Q-2 looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augie \"Ben\" Doggie mind controlled a guard into letting him and his party pass through a checkpoint without being searched.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ham Salad was flying around space at light speed in an iron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Derth Nader blew up a planet that looked exactly like a basketball using some parody on the Death Star.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Libra (1978)", "title": "Libra", "date": "1978-11-01", "description": "In the year 2003, a libertarian space colony develops a game changing form of solar power that could solve Earth's energy crisis, but will the world government get in the way of its deployment?", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748012/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "free market utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Libra was a free market utopia in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free market vs. regulated market", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A utopian space colony unfettered by government regulation was contraposed with a world that was stagnating under the inept control of an international planning commission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overregulated dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Earth government was not totalitarian and probably not even autocratic, yet somehow there was a perpetual \"international planning commission\" that could impose onerous, self-serving, and corrupt regulations on the rest of society to such an extent that people had to live with rolling blackouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government regulation in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Libra colonists were discouraged over how the Earth government was stifling new development with all their centralized policies, tariffs, taxes, over-regulation, and nationalization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Libra was a solar powered O'Neill cylinder colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space-based solar power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Libra colonists developed a game changing form of space-based solar power that could solve a global energy crisis on Earth, if only the world government would not get in the way with its pesky regulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an inept world government whose representatives were holding back the deployment of a game changing form of solar power that had the potential to solve Earth's energy crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rotating space habitat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Libra colonists lived on the inside of what was most likely an O'Neill cylinder in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "energy crisis in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth government had an \"international planning commission\" that could impose onerous, self-serving, and corrupt regulations on the rest of society to such an extent that people had to live with rolling blackouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people on Libra advocated individual freedom whereas the international planners on Earth invoked the need for order to justify the imposition of their onerous regulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Libra space colony was a celebration of capitalism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This problem was twice mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was hinted that Earth was overpopulated and going to hell because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nationalized healthcare was said to be too expensive to maintain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man explained that worker's fears of being replaced by machines was unjustified. There was mention of restricting energy supply in order to prevent mechanization from taking people's jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard Earth had been gripped by the hand of totalitarianism in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engineered space structure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Libra specialized in making O'Neil cylinders and we heard that it was much easier without gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a device that was eerily similar to the Amazon Alexa tool.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Time Machine (1978)", "title": "The Time Machine", "date": "1978-11-05", "description": "A made-for-television film adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(1978_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Neil Perry invented just such a contraption on the side while working at the Mega Corp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil used his time machine to go back to what one gathered to be Salem where he was immediately put on trial on the charge of being a wizard. After somehow escaping execution, he traveled to the Wild West. After returning back to his own time to report on his findings, Neil ventured into the distant future to prove that the death laser and anti-matter bomb that Mega Corp were constructing were calculated to destroy civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil traveled into the distant future to prove that the death laser and anti-matter bomb that Mega Corp were constructing were calculated to destroy civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil wanted to stop Mega Corp from building technologies with the potential to destroy the world, like a \"death laser\" and an antimatter bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the distant future, humans divided into two species, the passive Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eloi appeared to live happily without technology and in harmony with nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the distant future, humans divided into two species, the passive Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks lived underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks were nocturnal creatures that lived underground and feared fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned how toxic waste making large parts of the world uninhabitable was a major cause of the Third World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil objected to Mega Corp developing weapons of mass destruction for the United States military, and he hated that the executive wanted to use his time machine to enrich themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crippled Soviet nuclear powered satellite was projected to come down in the center of Los Angeles, but the military blew it up with a missile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch-hunt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil used his time machine to go back to what one gathered to be Salem where he was immediately put on trial on the charge of being a wizard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil used his time machine to go back to what one gathered to be Salem where he was immediately put on trial on the charge of being a wizard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil time traveled to the time and place of the Gold Rush and found himself in some trouble with the law there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil played a video in the Eloi library that narrated how this war was waged in 2004 over control of dwindling resources. The United States ended it with their antimatter bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil discovered a solar powered video player in the Eloi library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that large swaths of the world had been rendered uninhabitable because of toxic waste by the year 2004.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weena worried what might befall her brother Ariel after he had been carried off by the Morlocks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Killer of Sheep (1978)", "title": "Killer of Sheep", "date": "1978-11-14", "description": "Killer of Sheep is a 1978 American drama film edited, shot, written, produced, and directed by Charles Burnett. Shot primarily in 1972 and 1973, it was originally submitted by Burnett to the UCLA School of Film in 1977 as his Master of Fine Arts thesis. It features Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, and Charles Bracy, among others, in acting roles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_of_Sheep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in inner city America", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw an idea of how low-income black people might have had it in urban America in the early 70s", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan felt that he was stuck in a life without prospects", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan and wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stan seemed to despair about his lot in life - his wife complained about him never smiling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw a lot of children playing various games children might play", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan works in a monotonous slaughterhouse, was asked to go into crime or work in a grocery store", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan's wife and daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan's wife and son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stand and daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan and son", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)", "title": "Star Wars Holiday Special", "date": "1978-11-17", "description": "Following the events of the original film, Chewbacca and Han Solo attempt to visit the Wookiee home world to celebrate \"Life Day\". They are pursued by agents of the Galactic Empire, who are searching for members of the Rebel Alliance on the planet. The special introduces three members of Chewbacca's family: his father Itchy, his wife Malla, and his son Lumpy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chewbacca and Han Solo. Luke falsely considered Boba Fett to be a faithful friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Itchy and Chewbacca. Chewbacca and Lumpy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chewbacca and Malla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chewbacca was trying to make it home to see his family for Life Day and his family were eagerly awaiting his arrival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chewbacca's family celebrating Life Day together was amply featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was rooting out Rebel Alliance resistors in and around Chewbacca's homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Solo was flying Chewbacca back to his homeworld for Life Day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Itchy put on a virtual reality helmet an watched a quasi-adult film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke Skywalker visited Boba Fett on a water planet in an animated sequence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boba Fett betrayed Luke who considered the bounty hunter to be a faithful friend, but he was actually Darth Vader's right hand man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Love-struck barfly Krelman fell head over heals for his bartender Ackmena.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Fire in the Sky (1978)", "title": "A Fire in the Sky", "date": "1978-11-26", "description": "An astronomer discovers a comet on a course to hit somewhere in the South Western United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_in_the_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronomer Jennifer Dreiser identified a comet passing by Jupiter that was projected to hit Arizona in eight days time. It was big enough to take out Phoenix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Jason Voight was romantically involved with his young teaching assistant Sharon Allan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rich girl Paula Gilliam and rough-and-tumble college student Tom Reardon were mutually head over heals for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rich girl Paula Gilliam and rough-and-tumble college student Tom Reardon were mutually head over heals for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennifer Dreiser and Jason Voight fell in love at the observatory. Paula and her sweetheart Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government emergency planners were making an evacuation plan for Phoenix that would result in a minimum of chaos and mass panic. In the end a mass panic and looting broke out across the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A failed attempt was made to blow the comet to pieces by launching a nuclear warhead at it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Investigative reporter David Allan and his wife Sharon. Stan and Ann Webster. Paul Gilliam and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David Allan was having an affair on his wife Sharon with a young reporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David Allan was working as an investigative reporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Gilliam disapproved of his daughter Paula's taste in men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Gilliam disapproved of his daughter Paula dating the rough-and-tumble college student Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stan took his son Danny on a camping trip into the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President order knowledge of the comet approaching Earth to be kept secret, but someone leaked the information to an investigative reporter, who subsequently released it to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The civil defense planners had to explain to Margaret that they couldn't devote any resources to locate her husband and son, who were camping in the desert, because they had to concentrate their efforts on saving as many residents of Phoenix as possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David stayed behind at the observatory until the last possible moment before the comet hit so that he could collect valuable data relating to its impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some people didn't want to leave their homes, or Phoenix more generally, out of a sense of attachment to the place they spend all their lives.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman (1978)", "title": "Superman", "date": "1978-12-10", "description": "Disguised as reporter Clark Kent, Superman adopts a mild-mannered disposition in Metropolis and develops a romance with Lois Lane, while battling the villainous Lex Luthor.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1978_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman and Lois Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Superman to stop the criminal genius Lex Luthor from destroying most of California with a nuclear weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor hatched a diabolical plot to destroy most of California with a nuclear bomb so that the residents of the Golden State would have to buy his real estate in Nevada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor stole an ICBM and planned to use it on California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jor-El of the Kryptonian high council discovered their planet will soon be destroyed when its red supergiant sun goes supernova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Krypton sun went nova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Krypton was an ice world to all appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jor-El sent his baby boy Superman away on a spaceship from Krypton just before its sun went nova, and later guided the adult Superman from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The baby Superman traveled from the planet Krypton in another galaxy to Earth at relativistic speed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman and his adoptive mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to check Lois Lane's lungs for signs of cancer and see through various other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to check Lois Lane's lungs for signs of cancer and see through various other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that kryptonite adversely affected Superman because of radioactivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve Teschmacher betrayed Lex Luthor by removing the kryptonite from around Superman's neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex Luthor and Eve Teschmacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman traveled back in time to save Lois Lane's life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)", "title": "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "date": "1978-12-22", "description": "A San Francisco health inspector and his colleague discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect copy of the person replaced, only devoid of human emotion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers_(1978_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spacefaring plants", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod plants fell on San Fransisco and began to replace the citizens with emotionless replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alien plant spores fallen from space grew into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod plants went about replacing the people of San Fransisco with utterly emotionless replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth and Matthew notice the people of San Fransisco turning strange one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew and Elizabeth fell in love while escaping from the pod plants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Bellicec was paranoid and saw conspiracies all around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Nancy Bellicec.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth Driscoll and Geoffrey Howell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew was told not to spread word about duplicate bodies because it might start a mass panic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day Time Ended (1979)", "title": "The Day Time Ended", "date": "1979", "description": "A family experiences strange spatio-temporal distortions in the wake of an alien encounter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Time_Ended" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around a mother who came with her family to live at their grandparent's house, located in the middle of the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Appliance sized alien spacecraft kept buzzing around the Williams' family homestead, and Jenny encountered on of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Williams family members were somehow launched thousands of years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Williams family members were somehow transported to a distant world with two suns and a domed city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A triple supernova was seen in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Williams family was living off the grid in the middle of the desert in a solar powered house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth and her young daughter Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant and Beth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant and his young granddaughter Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant and Ana Williams' family came to stay at their house in the middle of the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young girl Beth had a telepathic encounter with a diminutive, humanoid extraterrestrial being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and his kid sister Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant and his teen son Steve defended the family homestead from an attack by alien monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A kitchen appliance sized alien spacecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Williams family home came under attack by some large, bipedal, reptilian-like monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grant, Ana, and Steve suddenly found themselves on a planet with a double sun overhead in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the Williams family members spotting a futuristic domed city in the distance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Island of the Fishmen (1979)", "title": "Island of the Fishmen", "date": "1979-01-18", "description": "It is the year 1891 and a once-famed biologist, has discovered a way to transform humans into amphibious creatures and controls their every move.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Fishmen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Marvin and his daughter Amanda Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Marvin, a once-famed biologist, had discovered a way to transform humans into amphibious creatures and controlled their every move. Indeed, we saw Jose transformed into a fishman. Moreover, Claude deduced that Ernest Marvin had transformed the original inhabitants of the island into fishmen, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The natives on the island practiced voodoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid fish-like creatures were attacking people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edmond Rackham hatched a devious plot to get his hand on the treasures of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "AThe film opening with a woman running around shrieking in terror with fishmen were after her. She was not the only one either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edmond Rackham showed Clause the ruins of Atlantis on a deep sea dive in a sort of diving bell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edmond Rackham secluded himself on an uncharted volcanic island to get away from man and his laws. He was accused by being a misanthrope by Claude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude read in Professor Ernest Marvin's journal how the fishmen were the evolutionary descendants of the Atlanteans. Some details of their process of evolution were supplied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude recalled that Professor Ernest Marvin was condemned in the past for having transplanted animal organs into human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Marvin was motivated by a desire to transform humans into fishmen so that people could live in the sea. This he saw as a solution to the problem of overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Ernest Marvin spoke about the Earth one day becoming overpopulated, and he was transforming humans into fishmen in preparation for that inevitability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of castaways washed up on a volcanic island starving and without food and water. Initially they thought the island might be uninhabited, but they soon stumbled on Edmond Rackham's settlement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Plague (1979)", "title": "Plague", "date": "1979-01-26", "description": "A deadly bacteria called M3 is released and causes sickness and death around the world. A scientist works tirelessly to develop an antidote to stop the contagion. The film is also known internationally as Induced Syndrome (UK) and M-3: The Gemini Strain or Mutation (USA).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human error resulted in a lethal and highly-contagious bacteria getting out from the lab where it was genetically engineered. It subsequently spread like wildfire all around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human error resulted in a lethal and highly-contagious genetically engineered bacteria getting out from the lab where it was invented, and it spread like wildfire all around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genetically engineered bacteria M3 started infecting people all over the world. Dr. Bill Fuller, a genetic engineer involved with the project, worked tirelessly to genetically engineer a virus that would kill the M3 bacteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The proliferation of the deadly genetically engineered M3 bacteria around the world is used to raise awareness/fears about the dangers of genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of well-intentioned scientists genetically engineered a bacteria with a view to using it to increase agricultural yields, but it got out of the laboratory where it was confined and started infecting people all around with world with lethal consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "They made a point about Dr. Bill Fuller working tirelessly, and around the clock, to to genetically engineer a virus that could stop the M3 bacteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists Dr. Bill Fuller and Dr. Jessica Morgan worked tirelessly to develop an antidote to stop the deadly, genetically engineered bacterial pathogen that was proliferating uncontrollably around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some scientists were conducting genetic experiments on plants and rats in a biology laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two schoolboys quarreled over whether there were birds in heaven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill instructed his wife to take the first flight to London with their daughter to get out of the path of the M3 bacteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Fuller's wife was hold up with their young daughter in a London hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of the city from where the M3 bacteria originated was put on quarantine. There was some minor discussion over whether this was ethical.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Quintet (1979)", "title": "Quintet", "date": "1979-02-09", "description": "In a post-apocalyptic world beset by an ice age, people whittle away the time to the end of humanity by playing the game Qunitet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintet_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts a the people of shanty town in a world in the grips of a ice age and their only real institution was the game of Quintet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future where the world was in the grips of an ice age, and civilization had been all but obliterated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were obsessed with gambling on the game Quintet. While it had its historical origins as a common board game, it had devolved into a game where game pieces were human beings that had to fight to the death for survival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quintet turned out to be an elaborate game that amounted to ritual fights for the survival of the fittest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quintet was a tournament that amounted to a fight for the survival of the fittest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Essex briefly reunited with his brother, Francha.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starcrash (1979)", "title": "Starcrash", "date": "1979-03-07", "description": "Two lowly smugglers are tasked by the galactic empire to protect Earth from an evil count.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcrash" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Stella Star and Acton struggle on behalf of a benevolent galactic empire to save Earth from destruction at the hands of the evil Count Zarth Arn, who wielded the most power super weapon in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around an evil galactic empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were routinely exploiting hyperspace to fly from one star to another across the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Acton had this special power but kept secret from Stella for the first half of the film for her own good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil Count Zarth Arn hatched a nefarious plot calculated to culminate with him becoming Emperor of the Universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were whizzing around in spaceships at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella Star and Akton escaped from some sort of forced labor camp to which that had been sentenced to toil in for 12 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The powerful robot policeman Elle endowed with emotions ended up helping Stella and Akton. An all-silver humanoid robot of feminine style and of gigantic proportions attacked Stella and Elle. Count Zarth Arn had two silver humanoid robot guards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stella Star and Elle explored such a planet in search of the Emperor's son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor of the Galaxy used a green ray to freeze time for three minutes, allowing him and his party of heroes time to escape from the evil Count Zarth Arn before it exploded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor of the Galaxy was joyfully reunited with his son Prince Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor of the Galaxy sacrificed his precious floating city in a last ditched attempt to thwart the evil Count Zarth Arn from becoming Emperor of the Universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Acton told Stella it was his destiny for them to let him die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x01", "title": "The Man from the South", "date": "1979-03-24", "description": "An American sailor and his girlfriend, Cathy, are on holiday in Jamaica. They become involved in a bizarre bet with Carlos, who loves to gamble. When the young man boasts about his cigarette lighter, Carlos offers him his Jaguar if the boy can strike his lighter successfully ten times in a row. But if he fails even once, if the boy does not strike it precisely, Carlos will cut off his finger.\n\nDirected by: Michael Tuchner. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gambling with a body part", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turned on whether Tommy should accept Rawlsden's offer to bet his little finger against Rawlsden's fancy car?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old man Rawlsden enjoyed his morbid gambling with body parts at stake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end that Rawlsden had won 47 fingers and lost 11 cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy and Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy was proud of his American made lighter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rawlsden's wife flew in at the last moment and put s stop to his macabre bet with Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Tommy wager his little finger against Rawlsden's fancy car?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Phantasm (1979)", "title": "Phantasm", "date": "1979-03-28", "description": "A supernatural and malevolent undertaker turns the dead of Earth into dwarf zombies to be sent to his planet and used as slaves. He is opposed by a young boy, Mike, who tries to convince his older brother Jody and family friend Reggie of the threat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasm_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike was trying to convince his older brother Jody of the threat posed by a malevolent undertaker, known as the Tall Man, who turns the dead of Earth into dwarf zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tall Man was turning the dead of Earth into dwarf zombies to be sent to his planet and used as slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike older brother was slow to believe him in spite of Mike's sincere protestations that something weird was going on in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and his companions combated the Tall Man, an evildoer who wielded techno-magical forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tall Man wielded powerful supernatural forces of some sort or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tall Man was from another planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tall Man had various monstrous characteristics, including his fingers transforming into hostile insects when severed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy's friends, Jody and Reggie, believed he committed suicide, but he was in fact murdered by the Lady in Lavender while they were engaged in sexual intercourse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Jody were helped by their buddy Reggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike was visibly struggling to overcome his fear of the Tall Man toward the film's climax.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979)", "title": "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "date": "1979-03-30", "description": "NASA astronaut Captain William \"Buck\" Rogers wakes up 500 years in the future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers_in_the_25th_Century_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buck Rogers blasted off in a NASA space shuttle in 1987, got frozen in space, and woke up 504 years later aboard the alien ship Draconia without missing a beat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the Draconians were actually planning to conquer the Earth through staged pirate attacks on Earth's shipping fleet, forcing Earth to seek a treaty with the Draconians and unwittingly opening up their defenses to the invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buck had a small, silver humanoid robot companion named Twiki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck's space shuttle. The alien ship Draconia. There were also various 25th century Earth ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the Draconians regularly cryogenically preserved their terminally ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien ship Draconia, which was under the command of Princess Ardala, was on an interstellar missing to Earth to conquer the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck learned first hand that Earth had been rebuilt over the centuries in his absence following a nuclear holocaust, and now the only thing left is this big city surrounded by irradiated wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck discovered that large swaths of the Earth were irradiated wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck was put on trial for treason. He was found guilty, in spite of a spirited defense by his representative Twiki, and sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Wilma Deering became visibly jealous at the sight of Buck and Princess Ardala together on the dance floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Draco was said to have conquered three quarters of the universe and still coveted making the Earth a part of his dominions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck was put on trial for treason. He was found guilty, in spite of a spirited defense by his representative Twiki, and sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x02", "title": "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat", "date": "1979-03-31", "description": "Mrs Bixby is having an affair behind her husband's back. Her lover gives her a mink coat. She devises a devious plan to explain its presence to her husband.\n\nDirected by: Simon Langton. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby was having an affair behind her husband Cyril's back. In a surprise twist, it was revealed that Cyril was having an affair with his dental assistant Miss Pulteney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyril and Anne Bixby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby cheated and lied to her husband, only to discover that he had cheated and lied to her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bixby was tactfully dumped like a sack of potatoes by her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dental care was pointedly mentioned a few times. For example, the dentist Mr. Bixby told his client about good dental care.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x03", "title": "William and Mary", "date": "1979-04-07", "description": "A widow is informed by her doctor that her husband's brain has been kept alive. The husband had always imposed a strict regime on his wife and she now seeks revenge.\n\nDirected by: Donald McWhinnie. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a widow in the immediate aftermath of her widowing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The widow Mary reflected on her underwhelming life with her late husband William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary thought her husband was dead only to find that his disembodied brain was being kept alive by unholy science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. John Landy removed William's brain from his dying body and kept it alive and functioning in a box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary decided in the end to get payback at her late, unloving, prude of a husband by torturing his disembodied brain with all that which had formerly offended his sensibilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "William disapproved of his wife's smoking, drinking, watching of television, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary used dry humor. The presenter also commented on the use of humor in this story. At the end of the story Mary got a humorous revenge on William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Landy briefly explained to Mary that her late husband William was identical to his disembodied brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Was Dr. Landy justified to keep William's brain alive after his death?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a living disembodied dog head and must ponder whether the poor creature had consented to this treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. John Landy had managed to keep a severed dog's head alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Landy kept William's brain nourished by means of an artificial heart.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Humanoid (1979)", "title": "The Humanoid", "date": "1979-04-11", "description": "The movie bears many similarities to the original Star Wars, for instance, a similar opening text crawl detailing current events in the film, the main villain wears a costume similar to that of Darth Vader and he commands a triangle-shaped spaceship resembling a Star Destroyer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humanoid_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Tom and the forces of good fought the evil Lord Graal to save Metropolis from destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Graal wanted to take revenge against his brother for having imprisoned him on a prison satellite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Great Brother was the leader of the planet Metropolis (formerly known as Earth) which was is a peaceful democratic utopia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Graal sought to avenge his brother, Great Leader, for having locked him up on a prison satellite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Graal and Lady Agatha plotted to conquer Earth and followed by the rest of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Graal was based inside a big Star Wars-looking vessel in particular. But basically everyone was flying in spaceships around all over the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travel from star to star within the galaxy was common place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Tom had a premonition that an attack was imminent on Barbara's institute and he instructed her to flee in the nick of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Agatha took daily doses of serum derived from young women's blood in order to stop her from aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Golob had a dog-like robot assistant, named Kip, aboard his vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Golob, no a human monstrosity, was hovering around Metropolis in on of these contraptions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Tom mind controlled Golob into not killing Barbara. He also used this ability on other occasions, like once when he mind controlled a guard to let him and his party get into a building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Agatha was taking a special serum to keep her good looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Agatha rapid aged to death when she couldn't get her beauty serum in time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mad Max (1979)", "title": "Mad Max", "date": "1979-04-12", "description": "The film presents a tale of societal collapse, murder, and revenge set in a future Australia, in which an unhinged policeman becomes embroiled in a violent feud with a savage motorcycle gang.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mad Max" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in Australia in a future where society had collapsed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad Max sought to make the motorcycle gang leader pay for horribly burning his friend, the Goose, and running down his girlfriend and child in the street. The motorcycle gang leader was seeking vengeance against various people for various reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The motorcycle gang leader made several comments about valuing his freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Jess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villagers were seeking a land of milk and honey to the north.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x04", "title": "Lamb to the Slaughter", "date": "1979-04-14", "description": "Mary Marney, a devoted and pregnant housewife, is preparing dinner when her husband Patrick returns home from his job as a police detective. He tells her that he is leaving her. Moving almost on autopilot, Mary fetches a leg of lamb from the deep-freezer in the cellar to cook for their dinner. Patrick says he doesn't want dinner, as he is going out. In a trance-like panic, she hits him on the head and kills him. The police conclude that Patrick was killed with a large blunt object, but are baffled when the murder weapon cannot be found. As they were all friends of Patrick, Mary begs them to stay and eat the lamb, which she has been roasting, while they discuss the case.\n\nDirected by: John Davies. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Patrick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary took the news badly when Patrick said he was leaving her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick cheated on Mary with someone named Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary smote her callous and cheating husband with a leg of mutton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary became hysterical at the removal of her husband's body from their house, even though it was her who had taken his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Patrick were expecting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick commented on the depressing nature of his police work, and we saw his colleagues in action investigating his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the fact that a seemingly mild mannered woman suddenly bashed her husband's head in when he proposed to walk out on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x05", "title": "The Landlady", "date": "1979-04-21", "description": "Billy Weaver, a young man from London, arrives at a guesthouse. He is greeted by the landlady, but his curiosity is aroused when he reads the guest book. He sees the names of young men whom, he remembers, had gone missing. The landlady tells him that she is a taxidermist.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dangerously insane landlady lured Billy Weaver into her house with the intention of taxiderming him, and one gathers he was far from she first victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "A landlady had taxidermied two young men and plotted to do the same to fair Billy Weaver.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x06", "title": "Neck", "date": "1979-04-28", "description": "Lady Turton, an art collector's wife, is conducting a series of affairs, much to the disapproval of her resentful husband and their butler, Jelks. They have an estate filled with art; even the outdoor gardens have fantastical pieces of topiary and abstract sculpture. One night, while cavorting with Major Jack Haddock and making fun of her husband's beloved artworks, she finds her head trapped in a priceless piece of art. Sir Basil Turton asks Jelks to fetch him a tool with which he can free her head. Jelks brings him both an axe and a saw. After considering the problem, Sir Basil decides upon the axe.\n\nDirected by: Christopher Miles. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A couple of rich British snobs looked down on a plebeian art historian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Basil Turton and Natalia Turton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Natalia cheated on her husband with a number of men, including art historian John Bannister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Basil Turton was a collector of precious works of art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The question left hanging at the end: would the husband murder his cheating wife rather than destroy a masterpiece?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The characters disagreed as to the appeal of the various art objects collected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "A couple of the rich snobs looked down on the plebeian art historian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natalia ordered around her butler Jelks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dahl explained something about black humor in the preamble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natalia, a particularly prideful woman, was mortified when she got her head stuck in the hollow of a priceless sculpture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prideful Natalia was mortified when she got her head stuck in the hollow of a priceless sculpture.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ravagers (1979)", "title": "Ravagers", "date": "1979-05", "description": "The survivors of a nuclear holocaust do what they can to protect themselves against ravagers, a mutated group of vicious marauders who terrorize the few remaining civilized inhabitants. It is based on the 1966 novel Path to Savagery by Robert Edmond Alter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravagers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Falk on his desperate quest to find a place in a Ravager filled post-apocalyptic world where he could live in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in the film had hope in finding a place they called Genesis, where the earth and sea had become unpoisoned, and people could live as they did before the nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falk mourned the death of his beloved Miriam after she was killed by the Ravagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falk encountered a blind lawyer who was wandering about the countryside in a disoriented state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant had lost his mind after the apocalypse and he became unshakably convinced that Falk was his commanding officer, even though Falk adamantly denied it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stalker (1979)", "title": "Stalker", "date": "1979-05", "description": "The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the \"Stalker\", who takes his two clients—a melancholic writer seeking inspiration, and a professor seeking scientific discovery—to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the \"Zone\", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. The trio travel through unnerving areas filled with the debris of modern society while engaging in many arguments.", "collections": [ "Collection: BFI Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Stalker explained how the magical room in the Zone gave people hope and that the Professor would be wrong to blow it up even though it would be dangerous if some unscrupulous person made it to the room and was granted their wish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We heard that only the most wretched people who have lost all hope, have any chance of making it to the magic room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This was explicitly discussed at one point while the three explorers were resting. It also seems central to all the dark brooding that went on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor went to the Zone ostensibly seeking scientific discovery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Writer's reason for going the Zone was that he was bored and lacked inspiration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stalker discussed the risky enterprise with his wife; later Stalker argued with Writer about taking risky shortcuts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three explorers had to overcome various minor and major disagreements and continue onwards together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commoner vs. intellectual", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with a disheveled Stalker complaining about those idiotic intellectuals, Professor and Writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stalker's wife disapproved of his chosen profession of leading people through the \"Zone\", an area in which the normal laws of reality do not apply and remnants of seemingly extraterrestrial activity lie undisturbed among its ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Writer said there's no Bermuda Triangle, but rather on the kind of triangles they study in mathematics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Writer claimed it was boring to live in modern times, but would have been fun to life in the mysterious Middle Ages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Writer accused the Stalker of being on a power trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the Stalker returning home with his wife and young daughter, Monkey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stalker's daughter appeared to use the power of her mind to push a jar and two drinking glasses across the table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artist vs. scientist", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Writer spoke to Professor about the differences in their professions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Writer spoke to Professor about the art of writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Writer interrogated Professor about his chosen discipline: Physics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One must not go back into a store for cigarettes, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agility vs. strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lengthy soliloquy that concluded with \"what has hardened, will not win\", implying that flexibility is what is needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ee heard time and again that Porcupine had killed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Writer referred pejoratively to Stalker as a Chingachgook - a slur for Chinese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "References were mad to Professor and Writer's apparent wealth, contrasted with Stalker's obvious poverty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stalker had a near mental breakdown in his bed at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: H G Wells The Shape of Things to Come (1979)", "title": "H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come", "date": "1979-05-04", "description": "H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come is a 1979 Canadian science fiction film. Although credited to H. G. Wells, the film takes only its title and some character names from The Shape of Things to Come, Wells' speculative novel from 1933. The film's plot has no relationship to the events of the book. The book predicts events such as a Second World War and the collapse of social order until a world state is formed, whereas the film involves a high-tech future involving robots and spaceships. The film was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of such recent successes as Star Wars, Starcrash, and TV series such as Space: 1999 and Battlestar Galactica, although the film had only a fraction of the production budget of any of these.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells%27_The_Shape_of_Things_to_Come" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw people living in a domed city on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sentient computer Lomax played an integral role in running the New Washington colony, and its leaders often conferred with Lomax for strategic advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The New Washington colonists depended on the anti-radiation drug Raddic-Q2, which was manufactured on the distant planet Delta Three, to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Omus commanded an army of bulky, roughly humanoid shaped robots. Kim reprogrammed one of Omus' robots to be her helper, and named it Sparky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Omus was motivated by the desire to become dictator of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. John Caball accompanied his son Jason on the interstellar voyage to the planet Delta Three, only to be murdered there by his former student Omus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth was too polluted to live on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A massive cargo ship from Delta Three was on crash course with New Washington on the Moon. Jason and Kim took off from the Moon on a mission to the distant planet Vega Three.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and Kim's spaceship attained relativistic speeds using nuclear fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The domed cite New Washington on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anti-radiation drug Raddic-Q2 was shipped to the Moon from the distant planet Delta Three.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot helper Sparks was able to teleport itself over short distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While on Earth, Jason and Kim encountered a group of children who were afflicted with radiation poisoning. Senator Smedley became sick after getting exposed to radiation while on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and Kim's spaceship attained relativistic speeds using nuclear fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. John Caball assured Omus that the Moon colonists would never seed to his demand to be their dictator because they prized their freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason briefly mourned the murder of his father by the aspiring dictator Omus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x07", "title": "Edward the Conqueror", "date": "1979-05-05", "description": "A husband and wife adopt a stray cat. The cat responds to the woman's piano playing to such a degree that she becomes convinced that it is the reincarnation of composer Franz Liszt. The woman bonds with the cat, much to her husband's jealousy.\n\nDirected by: Rodney Bennett. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old married couple Edward and Louisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louisa adopted a stray cat to her husband's chagrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louisa believed the great Hungarian composer Franz Liszt had been reborn as the cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bored housewife Louisa was in need of something exciting of whatever kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louisa enjoyed playing classical music on the piano. The cat was receptive to the music of Franz Liszt we learned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are left wondering if Louisa knifed her unfeeling husband at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the preamble Dahl explained how to attempted to channel Beethoven's creativity by listing to his music before writing his stories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inattentive male partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The husband didn't pay much attention to his wife and she seemed lonely as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louisa described the immortality of the soul as a mystery in life that could not be denied.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Apocalypse Now (1979)", "title": "Apocalypse Now", "date": "1979-05-10", "description": "Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film about the Vietnam War, directed, produced and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, and Dennis Hopper. Harrison Ford also makes an appearance in a small role. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola and John Milius and narration written by Michael Herr, was loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The setting was changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Benjamin L. Willard (a character based on Conrad's Marlow and played by Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Brando, with the character being based on Conrad's Mr. Kurtz), a renegade Army Special Forces officer accused of murder and who is presumed insane.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "point of the story seemed to be to show how gruesome, pointless, and terrifying things can get during a war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw what it might be like for various military personnel in various stages of their career and at various locations during the protagonist's trek up the Serepok river, visiting various allied outfits along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story was staged on the Vietnam war scene and we heard much indirectly and directly about the circumstances of the conflict", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Kurtz making himself a Godlike figure, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore being gung-ho, the catastrophic absence of COs on two occations, as well as Chief aboard the patrol boat, and hands-off Captain Benjamin himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness to quicken the end of the war", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard, time again, that Kurtz' methods were abhorent but effective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kurtz was to some extent excused being ruthless because he seemed to get the job done", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard indirectly, and saw directly, some of the process that turned Kurtz from being a model soldier into a ruthless war criminal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the \"air cavalry\" invasion of a militant village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the protagonists were confronted by a tiger at one point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some comrades in arms mourned when their fellows aboard the patrol boat perished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurtz was apparently anticipating and permitting his own assassination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x08", "title": "A Dip in the Pool", "date": "1979-05-12", "description": "William Botibol, a man on a cruise ship, takes part in a bet to predict how far the ship will travel in twenty-four hours. He calculates that he will win if the ship is delayed a little - if, for instance, it has to turn back to collect a man overboard. In order to win by cheating, he waits until he and a woman are alone on the deck and then he pretends to fall overboard. Unfortunately for him, the woman is not what he thinks she is.\n\nDirected by: Michael Tuchner. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Botibol thought incessantly about his wife Ethel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "major", "motivation": "Botibol gambled away his last $1000 in an ill-considered bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Botibol gambled away his last $1000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Botibol gambled away his last $1000. The transatlantic cruise goers were amusing themselves on the voyage by taking part in a betting pool on how many miles the ship would travel each day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "William became increasingly desperate to recoup his gambling losses to the point where he jumped overboard in an ill-advised bid to reverse his fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a transatlantic voyage from the United States to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gloating man suggested Botibol might be about to jump overboard in despair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gloating man suggested Botibol despaired over having lost his last $1000 in an ill-considered bet until such time as he came up with an even more ill-considered scheme to reverse his fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Botibol had carefully arranged things so that when he jumped overboard he would be saved by the screams of a nearby woman. By an ironic twist of fate, the woman in question was intellectually disabled (sic) and neither cried out nor was believed later. Botibol was left to perish at sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected1x09", "title": "The Way Up to Heaven", "date": "1979-05-19", "description": "Mrs. Alice Foster has a pathological fear of being late. On the day of her holiday to New York to see their daughter, her husband, an inveterate and somewhat sadistic dawdler, torments her by making her late. To her relief, the flight has been delayed by fog, so she is on time, anyway; but it is then cancelled and she is forced to catch the next flight in the morning. Mr. Foster attempts to delay her again. Sat in the car and just about to leave, he says he has forgotten a gift for their daughter and says he will go back into the house to get it. Mrs. Foster then notices the gift stuck in the car. Frantic to get to the airport on time, she runs after him to tell him she's found the gift, and sees that he has taken their in-house elevator to go upstairs. She hears him shouting her name and realises her husband is stuck in the lift. A slight smile twitches across her face. She returns to the car and tells the driver to take her to the airport. She gets her revenge on his cruelty when she returns from holiday, six weeks later, and finds that the lift has been stuck between two floors all that time, during which her husband has died of starvation and thirst. She calmly calls the Elevator Emergency Service in order to have it repaired.\n\nDirected by: Simon Langton. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of being late", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice was pathologically fearful of being late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Foster showed scant regard for his wife's fear of being late to the airport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Foster was on pins and needles wondering whether she would make it to the airport in time for her flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice willfully abandoned her insensitive husband to die in despair in the elevator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice explained her condition was due to something her father did.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien (1979)", "title": "Alien", "date": "1979-05-25", "description": "The crew of the commercial space tug Nostromo encounter a ferocious alien that kills humans like cattle, has acid for blood and is the stuff of nightmares. It is the first installment of the Alien franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien", "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ripley and the Nostromo crew versus the Alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Alien stalked and killed various Nostromo crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Alien used a human surrogate to complete its development from a juvenile to adult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A dangerous alien creature got aboard the vessel Nostromo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grotesque Alien creature terrorized the Nostromo crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grotesque Alien creature stalked and killed various Nostromo crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ash was under secret orders to bring a potentially dangerous specimen back to a corporation and the crew was deemed expendable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alien stalked and killed the Nostromo crew members one by one until it was only it and Ripley left.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions were running high among the Nostromo crew members as they tried to make a plan of action once the Alien got loose on the ship and started killing people one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nostromo crew members were awakened from cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nostromo was returning to Earth from what was presumably an interstellar mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. public safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Ripley open the hatch to let a parasitized crewman back in the ship when doing so might endanger the lives of the rest of the crew?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley clashed with various crew members over how to go about killing the Alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ash turned out to be an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set aboard the vessel Nostromo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Ripley open the hatch to let a parasitized crewman back in the ship when doing so might endanger the lives of the rest of the crew?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brood (1979)", "title": "The Brood", "date": "1979-06-01", "description": "A man attempts to track down his mentally-ill ex-wife, who has been sequestered by a psychologist known for his controversial therapy techniques. A series of brutal unsolved murders serve as the backdrop for the central narrative.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brood" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "custody battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank was fighting his wife Nola to win custody of their five-year-old daughter Candice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film centered around Frank and his five-year-old daughter Candice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nola Carveth was a severely mentally disturbed woman who was being treated by the psychotherapist Hal Raglan using a technique he called \"psychoplasmics\". Another man was convinced that he had to keep moving or else his lymphatic system would shutdown, as this system is circulatory in nature, yet has no counterpart to the heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some strange, androgynous child-like creatures were going around brutally beating people to death. The newspaper dubbed them \"the dwarf killers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hal Raglan getting his patients to out their anger was a recurring them. Moreover, Nola's inner anger somehow drove the brood of androgynous dwarfs to brutally murderer people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "We ultimately learned that Nola was filled with hatred. Moreover, that she had birthed a brood of strange, androgynous dwarf children. And to top it all off her inner rage channeled into her brood of creatures and it would cause them to brutally murder people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank left little Candice to stay with her grandmother for awhile. Te grandmother was brutally murdered in her own home before Frank returned to pick Candice up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor worried that Candice would be traumatized from witnessing her grandmother's brutal murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grandfather turned into a maudlin wreck of a man upon visit the old house in which his ex-wife (the grandmother) had been brutally murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toward the very end of the film, Frank went to visit his wife Nola at Hal Raglan's facility in an effort to get Candice back. Frank didn't have any contact with his wife outside of this visit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Goldengirl (1979)", "title": "Goldengirl", "date": "1979-06-15", "description": "A former Nazi doctor creates a super athlete out of his adoptive daughter and enters her into the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldengirl" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goldine's father had injected her with vitamins and hormones from childhood and had her life carefully managed so that she would enter and win three races at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peak physical specimen Goldine had her entire life was carefully managed from childhood in order to ensure that she would win three gold medals in running events at the Moscow Olympics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "In spite of Goldine being conditioned to seek fame and glory in athletic competition, all she really wanted was affection from others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serafin used his daughter as a guinea pig in an effort to prove his theory of human evolution. Goldine ended up getting diabetes as a result of the growth hormone injections that Serafin had given her over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goldine's father had been injecting her with special athletic ability enhancing hormones from childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serafin was using Goldine to try to prove some kind of theory that humans were evolving to get bigger and stronger overtime, although the details were never coherently explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Dryden asked Goldine whether she thought commercialism was ruining the Olympic Games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldine started acting in a most egotistical and paranoid manner in Moscow when her blood sugar level got out of whack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldine was diagnosed with diabetes and had to take pills to keep her blood sugar level under control.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moonraker (1979)", "title": "Moonraker", "date": "1979-06-26", "description": "Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, and the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to recreate humanity with a master race. It is the eleventh film in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry, and Richard Kiel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonraker_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw super-spy James Bond do stereotypical super-spy things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw super-spy James Bond doing what James Bond does best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "James rather conspicuously seduced a variety of ravishing women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James fell for his CIA counterpart Holly Goodhead. Jaws and Dolly fell passionately in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drax detested humankind to the extent that he hatched an elaborate plot to wipe out the world population and to recreate humanity with a super-race of perfect physical specimens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drax plotted to kill everyone human on Earth by exposing the world population to a certain orchid derived nerve agent. Drax and his followers would wait out the downfall of humankind hold up inside their city in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James flirted with a variety of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should James trust his alleged CIA counterpart Holly Goodhead? Or should she trust him for that matter?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James used his poison tipped spy pen to dispatch Drax's pet python.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drax built a \"city in space\" in orbit around the Earth that looked like a big, rotating space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some people floating around inside Drax's city in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaws betrayed Drax in the end and sided with James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moonraker space shuttles were used to ferry Mr. Drax and his master race members to his space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Outer Touch (1979)", "title": "Outer Touch", "date": "1979-07", "description": "The all-female crew of a malfunctioning alien cargo ship abduct four sexually- frustrated humans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Touch" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole point of the film was to poke fun at outmoded attitudes toward sex. For example, Prudence wouldn't sleep with her fiancée Oliver before they tied the knot, and a nerdy teenager mistakenly thought he had gone blind after completing a furious masturbation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The all-female crew of a malfunctioning alien cargo ship made an emergency landing in a British park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien spaceship was installed with an artificial intelligence that spoke in a sassy male voice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudence refused to sleep with her fiancée Oliver until after they tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female aliens abducted the witnesses to their landing (Oliver, Prudence, Willy, and Cliff).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female aliens abducted the witnesses to their landing (Oliver, Prudence, Willy, and Cliff).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudence was a stereotypical prude in all matters sexual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudence broke off her engagement with Oliver over her perceived notions of his lasciviousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spaceship AI helped Prudence and Oliver reconcile in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nerdy teenager Willy was ecstatic about being deflowered by Nurse Cosia. The female aliens were introduced to sex for the first time in the lives. Prudence ultimately relented and let Oliver sleep with her before they tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudence and Oliver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willy and Nurse Cosia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sexual urges of the all-female alien crew member were thoroughly explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nerdy teenager Willy went from being a grocery bagger to a highly sought after male specimen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The all-female crew of a malfunctioning alien cargo ship made an emergency landing in a British park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female aliens whisked four captives away from Earth and ultimately decided to sell them to a zoo for exotic lifeforms on a distant planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female aliens lavished food, drink, and entertainments on their human captives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sassy male AI had a not fully requited sexual encounter with Cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Willy return to his life as a grocery store worker on Earth take up the female alien's offer to stay with them in sexual bliss for the rest of his life?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979)", "title": "Unidentified Flying Oddball", "date": "1979-07-19", "description": "A NASA employee unintentionally travels back in time with his look-alike android Hermes. It is an adaptation of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_Flying_Oddball" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA employee Tom Trimble accidentally traveled back in time with his android look-alike Hermes to King Arthur’s Camelot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Trimble constructed an android look-alike named Hermes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alisande fell in love with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Mordred and Merlin betrayed their sovereign King Arthur and made a bid to oust him and take the reigns of power for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story parodied the superstitious medieval people of Camelot who, among other things, mistook a spacesuit bedecked Tom for a monster of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom bedazzled the people of Camelot with his various space age gizmos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a zany depiction of life in 6th century England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA employee Tom Trimble accidentally traveled back in time with his android look-alike Hermes to King Arthur's Camelot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speed of light limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zimmerman explained that special relativity prohibited shapeships from traveling faster than this speed to some government officials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spacecraft Stardust was designed for taking a crew to another star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was tasked to commandeer the NASA spacecraft Stardust spacecraft to the star Vega. Tom and Hermes ended embarking on the 30 year voyage together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was afraid to go on a 30 year mission to another star owing to the dangers involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Tom floating around inside the starship Stardust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Hermes traveling back in time by exceeding the speed of light in the Stardust spacecraft was taken as a validation of Einstein's theory of special relativity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Arthur sentenced Tom to be burned at the stake, but he was saved from this fate by his own ingenuity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Mordred treated Alisande's father to the rack in an effort to get the old man to give him his land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was flying around with the aid of one of these contraptions at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom bid a sad goodbye to Alisande before embarking to return to the 20th century.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)", "title": "Parts: The Clonus Horror", "date": "1979-08", "description": "Parts: The Clonus Horror, also known as The Clonus Horror, or simply Clonus, is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Robert S. Fiveson.\n\nSynopsis: In an isolated community in a remote desert area, clones are bred to serve as a source of replacement organs for the wealthy and powerful.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts:_The_Clonus_Horror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clones being bred to be used by the elite for replacement organs constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clones were being bred and kept in isolation in a secret compound for the purpose of organ harvesting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about a secret government project to breed clones to be used as replacement organs for the elite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Richard clone as he begins to question the circumstances of his existence and eventually escapes from the secret colony were he'd been sheltered from the outside world his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the clones Richard and Lena falling in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Richard as he makes a dramatic escape from the secret colony, where until recently unbeknownst to him he'd been held captive his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Richard clone was conditioned from \"birth\" to know nothing about the real world, and was woefully unprepared for it once he escaped from the compound where he was meant to spend his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jeff Knight campaign resorted to violence in a failed bid to keep evidence of incriminating video footage from getting out to the media.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Jeff Knight was running for the office of President of the United States", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Richard clone was horrified to find his love interest, Lena, had been lobotomized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A manhunt was launched for the Richard clone in the immediate aftermath of his escape from the Clonus colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly man Jake Noble took the Richard clone into his home and helped him convalesce upon finding the clone lying face down in a pile of garbage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old married couple Jake and Anna Noble were bickering as a stereotypical old married couple might.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky confronted his father, Richard Knight, about the ethical imperative of exposing the Clonus project for what it was, even if it resulted in Richard's brother losing the presidential election.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lena was repeatedly slapped across the face by a Clonus official, and subsequently electrocuted, in an effort to get her to reveal the Richard clone's whereabouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Knight confronted his politician brother, Jeff, about the secret government project to breed clones for organ harvesting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly man Richard came face to face with a much younger looking clone of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human rights issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was adamant that human clones ought to have the same rights as non-cloned humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Jeff Knight spoke of how breeding clones to use for organ harvesting was the ticket to immortality, his in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard ran his brother, Jeff, through with a rod after a protracted struggle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Visitor (1979)", "title": "The Visitor", "date": "1979-08-03", "description": "The forces of good and evil battle over the fate of a malevolent 8-year old girl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a fight between the forces of God and a group of Satanists battle of the fate of an 8-year old girl who wielded powerful cosmic forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara and her spawn of Satan daughter Katy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devil worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a group of Satanists as they attempted to manifest the physical embodiment of evil cosmic entity Zatteen into reality so that it might wreak havoc upon the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Satanist Raymond was trying to marry his girlfriend Barbara so that he could impregnate her with a male child, who in turn will mate with his half-sister and produce the physical embodiment of Zatteen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond and Katy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara had to adjust to being confined to a wheelchair after she was shot in the spine by Katy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. unnatural being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colsowicz came to Earth on a mission of some kind to prevent malevolent occult forces from wreaking havoc in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evocation magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Satanists attempted to conjure the Lovecraftian cosmic entity Zatteen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 8-year old daughter Katy displayed psychokinetic abilities, like being able to make a basketball explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara felt she couldn't marry Raymond, even though she wanted to, because she swore she would remarry after getting a divorce seven and a half years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katy told a child molester who propositioned her behind a school bus that he could \"go fuck himself\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara's housekeeper warned her to to ward of the influences of the planet Saturn, and expounded on various other astrological ideas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara turned to her ex-husband Dr. Sam Collins when she needed an abortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara was terrified at times of her spawn of Satan daughter Katy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thirst (1979)", "title": "Thirst", "date": "1979-09-28", "description": "A single female professional is kidnapped by a shadowy organization of vampires and conditioned to become one of their own.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirst_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate was abducted by a shadowy organization of vampires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate was abducted by a shadowy organization of vampires and held against her will at their commune. In addition, the vampires kept docile human \"blood cows\" on their compound. These humans were clinically bleed and their blood harvested and consumed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret world organization of vampires were running a facility that processed human blood from docile human \"blood cows\" in the same way that the daily industry operates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate and her hunky, architect boyfriend Derek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate and Derek.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Time After Time (1979)", "title": "Time After Time", "date": "1979-09-28", "description": "British author H. G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century. It is based on the premise from Karl Alexander's novel Time After Time (which was unfinished at the time) and a story by Alexander and Steve Hayes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_After_Time_(1979_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alternate history", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an alternative history in which \"The Time Machine\" author H. G. Wells actually made a time machine in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "H. G. Wells used his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "H. G. Wells used his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "H. G. Wells used his time machine to pursue the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was simultaneously astonished and horrified by what he saw of the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy Robbins was head over heels for H. G. Wells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack the Ripper was demented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "After much reluctance, H. G. Wells confided in Amy that he was from the past, but she initially thought he was nuts, and ultimately came to demand concrete proof of his most extraordinary claim. He later confessed to being a time traveler in a police interrogation, but his interrogators weren't buying it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was convinced that the world would be a socialist, egalitarian utopia within three generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was convinced that the world would be a socialist, egalitarian utopia within three generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells' time machine was solar powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was delighted to find that 20th century women were working in positions of authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was shocked to hear that there had not only been a first but also a second world war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells was surprised, but not necessarily unpleased, by how 20th century San Fransisco people were unshackled by outmoded Victorian attitudes toward sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H. G. Wells disapproved of guns being sold on mass to the general public, although he himself ultimately purchased a pistol in an attempt to protect Amy from Jack the Ripper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw H. G. Wells in this time and place debating the ills of society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Meteor (1979)", "title": "Meteor", "date": "1979-10-19", "description": "Scientists struggling with international, Cold War politics after an asteroid is detected to be on a collision course with Earth. The film, which was directed by Ronald Neame, was inspired by a 1967 MIT report Project Icarus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "After the asteroid Orpheus in the Asteroid Belt was hit by a meteor, dozens of asteroid fragments were sent on a collision course towards Earth, along with a five-mile fragment which stood cause an extinction-level event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and Soviets cooperated together to stop the meteor from hitting Earth by knocking it off course with the combined power of their combined orbital nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and the Soviets both secretly kept nuclear weapons in orbit in direct violation of international treaties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and the Soviets both secretly kept nuclear weapons in orbit in direct violation of international treaties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and the Soviets both secretly kept nuclear weapons in orbit in direct violation of international treaties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and Soviets, two Cold Warring nations, cooperated together to stop the meteor from hitting Earth by knocking it off course with the combined power of their combined orbital nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Americans and Soviets, two Cold Warring nations, cooperated together to stop the meteor from hitting Earth by knocking it off course with the combined power of their combined orbital nuclear weapons. The cooperation extended beyond the international level down to the interactions between American and Soviet scientists and other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A manned NASA mission to Mars was diverted to the Asteroid Belt to observe the asteroid Orpheus get hit by a meteor. All crew members were lost in a massive explosion caused by the collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After learning of Earth's impending doom, Paul called his wife (from whom he was separated) and instructed her to tell his kids he loved them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul issued a warning at a meeting of high level government officials that a direct hit by the meteor could cause an ice age.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)", "title": "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", "date": "1979-12-07", "description": "A mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud known as V'Ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path. Admiral James T. Kirk assumes command of the recently refitted Starship USS Enterprise, to lead it on a mission to save the planet and determine V'Ger's origins. It is the first installment in the Star Trek film series, and stars the cast of the original television series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Kirk led a mission to confront a powerful space cloud that was approaching Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe. In particular, the Voyager probe had traveled a vast distance in space and return to Earth as some sort of super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker and Ilia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker and Ilia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the Voyager probe returned to Earth in search of its creator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock was motivated to join the Enterprise mission by a desire to learn about the super intelligence V'Ger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient space probe", "level": "major", "motivation": "V'Ger was described by Spock as a living, conscious machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw sentient probe V'Ger's point of view through the Ilia android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew versus the sentient probe V'Ger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew versus the sentient probe V'Ger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a large space station in orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space dock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise was being refitted in a space dock in orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker was resentful to Admiral Kirk for taking over his charge of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and Decker were at each others throats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker was resentful to Admiral Kirk for taking over his charge of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. McCoy advised Kirk as one would an old friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise engines generated a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was in telepathic contact with the V'Ger entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk engaged warp drive before Scotty had the engines working in order to intercept the space cloud at a maximal distance from Earth. Kirk proceeded into space cloud against the judgment of Decker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy pointed out to Kirk that Spock had a conflict of interest between his interest in contacting the space cloud entity and his duty to follow Kirk's orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "V'Ger constructed an Ilia android to observe the Enterprise crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock discovered that V'Ger came from a planet populated by machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew had difficulty communication with the space cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock deduced that the V'Ger probe fell into a black hole, emerged on the other side of the galaxy, and ended up on a planet populated with machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative interstellar probe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea that NASA extended it's Voyager program beyond the actually existing Voyager 1 and 2 space probes by deploying Voyager 6: an interstellar probe that was believed to have been lost in a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The transporter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Black Hole (1979)", "title": "The Black Hole", "date": "1979-12-18", "description": "The crew of the spacecraft USS Palomino become embroiled with an obsessed scientist who plans to traverse the event horizon of a black hole.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1970s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "black hole", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed an obsessed scientist who was determined to pass through the event horizon of a black hole. The entire film took place at a stone's throw from a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the spacecraft USS Palomino was returning to Earth from a failed interstellar mission to search for new life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the spacecraft USS Palomino was returning to Earth when their ship became torn apart by a black hole, but luckily or unluckily they were able to board Dr. Reinhardt's vessel the Cygnus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hovering robot V.I.N.CENT was a valued member of the USS Palomino crew. He had a somewhat smashed up counterpart on the Cygnus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were led to believe that the Cygnus was manned by a crew of humanoid robots, but it was later revealed that the robots were somehow the remnants of its human crew, and it was Dr. Hans Reinhardt who had somehow converted them into robot-like beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Reinhardt was obsessed with seeing what was on the other side of a black hole and willfully endangered the lives of the USS Palomino crew in order to satiate his curiosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Reinhardt was obsessed with finding out what was on the other side of a black hole and was determined to pass through its event horizon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ESP-sensitive scientist Dr. Kate McCrae communicated with V.I.N.CENT telepathically in the midst of a ship crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Reinhardt used antigravitation to keep his spaceship, the Cugnus, from falling into a black hole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Dragon's Egg (1980)", "title": "Dragon's Egg", "date": "1980", "description": "Dragon's Egg is a neutron star with a surface gravity 67 billion times that of Earth, and inhabited by cheela, intelligent creatures the size of a sesame seed who live, think and develop a million times faster than humans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative rise of civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Cheela developed from an agricultural people into a technologically advanced one in the blink of an eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time passing at different rates for different people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Time passed a million times faster for the Cheela than it did for their human observers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory10", "title": "The Golden Honeymoon", "date": "1980", "description": "\"The Golden Honeymoon\" is the ninth installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1922 Ring Lardner short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: An elderly couple go to Florida to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy and Charley's golden wedding anniversary was nearly spoiled by spending time with Lucy's ex-fiance and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Longtime married couple Lucy and Charley quarreled on their golden wedding anniversary holiday, but in the end they came to love one another more than ever. Lucy and Charley spoke often of their many years together as a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to story was Lucy running into her ex-fiancé Frank while she and her husband were vacationing in Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to story was Lucy running into her ex-fiancé Frank while she and her husband were vacationing in Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley was jealous of Lucy's ex-fiancé, Frank. Cora was jealous of Lucy when Charley brought up Lucy and Frank's previous betrothal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Lucy's point of view Charley was letting his jealousy of Frank spoil their golden wedding anniversary vacation in Florida. Lucy often chastised Charley for attacking Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Charley and Lucy apologizing for their parts in almost ruining their golden wedding anniversary and embraced, laughing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charley was self-conscious on account that his wife's ex-lover had become more wealthy than he; to wit, Charley repeatedly made derogatory comments about Frank's being a veterinarian. Charley's insecurity was further exacerbated by Lucy wanting to spend a lot of time with Frank and Cora Hartsell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy and Frank, who were now elderly and married to other people, reflected fondly on the old days when they were young and in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story follows Charley and Lucy as they travel to St. Petersburg, Florida by train to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley was several times chastised for talking too much to those around him. Charley grumbled about Cora being a chatterbox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley delighted in slaughtering his perceived rival Frank at checkers. The Tates played cards with the Hartsells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie exhibited certain signs of senility, most notably when he almost missed the train while engaged in a jocular one-sided conversation and the many times he expressed his opinion without a filter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tates and Hartsells went out for a night of dancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora and Frank made clear that they thought themselves superior to Lucy and Charley in terms of wealth and social status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A ventriloquist with dummy in hand cracked some politically oriented joked on stage at the social.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy was visibly mortified when Charley stepped out onto the stage at the social and began telling embarrassing stories. Cora was mortified when her false teeth fell out onto the ground. Frank began sweating profusely after losing to Charley many times at checkers. Charley feigned a thumb injury to avoid losing to Frank at horseshoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hartsells took the Tates out to play shuffleboard. Charley tried to beat Frank at horseshoes but failed miserably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley insisted Frank play checkers with him. Cora insisted that Lucy play shuffleboard with her. Charley was so determined to beat Frank at horseshoes that he took practice at the game even though he'd never before shown any interest in it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory11", "title": "Paul's Case", "date": "1980", "description": "\"Paul's Case\" is the eleventh installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1905 Willa Cather short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A young admirer of the arts struggles to fit in at home and in school.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul aspired to become something of a dandy who moved in artistic circles, but working class circumstances prevented this from coming to fruition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially awkward admirer of the arts Paul was like a fish out of water in the company of his practical-minded father and the philistines comprising his community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially inept admirer of the arts Paul didn't fit in at all in his working class community, only feeling at home in the company of actors and theater-lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was swept up in the atmosphere of the arts, be it sculpture, painting, the theater or the opera. It his words, he wanted to be there \"in the atmosphere of it, be caught up by it, float on the wave of it\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was singularly captivated by art to the point that he had a great deal of difficulty paying attention to anything else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was consistently pressured and harangued by his father. Here are some examples of their various interactions: 1) Avoiding his father's disapproval late at night, Paul hid in the basement and fantasized the possibility of being mistaken for an intruder and shot by his father. 2) Paul happily recounted taking his father's advice to get a discount at the butcher's. 3) Paul was disappointed that his father didn't want any of the rhubarb pie he made for him. 4) Paul's father chided him for not saving the money he earned as an usher. 5) Paul's father forbade him from visiting the theater, even going to the lengths of talking to the theater company and having him fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Instead of cultivating Paul's interest in the arts, his practical-minded father emphasized the need for Paul to take his studies seriously and get a real job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Paul killing himself by jumping in front of a train. In addition, Paul briefly contemplated shooting himself after his father showed up at the hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was generally reticent, aloof, and by his own admission had a habit of saying things without regard to people's feelings. He also lacked the ability to read the room was as evidenced by him earnestly showing pictures of actors and theaters to people who were clearly uninterested in them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social change due to new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Henry Fonda spoke of the upheaval caused by industrialization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Henry Fonda spoke of \"an increasing emphasis on material acquisition\" entering the public mind in early 20th century America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was shown being a general nuisance in the classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul derailed his school teacher's explanation of the Pythagorean theorem with his muttering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul lost himself in a painting of some people sailing on tranquil waters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was late for work because he became enthralled with paintings in the opera house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was enthralled by an operatic performance. Later, he enjoyed the opera singer holding court until he was unceremoniously forced out of the room by his boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul boasted of having bought a 29 cent a pound roast from the butcher for 27 cents a pound. He recounted how he told the butcher that the asking price was tantamount to \"highway robbery\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul observed a stage play from backstage with keen interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul told his actor friend Charlie that Charlie had preformed brilliantly in the play. A rather conceited Charlie concurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul went straight to the theater to see his beloved actor friend, after telling his father he was going out to meet a friend to study geometry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's boss at the theater chided him for being late. Paul ran off with the money his new boss, Mr. Parsons, entrusted him to take to the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When tasked by his boss with depositing $2,000 of the company in the bank, Paul instead absconded with it and fled to New York to pursue his dream of becoming a member of fashionable society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory12", "title": "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", "date": "1980", "description": "\"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg\" is the twelfth installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1899 Mark Twain short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A passing stranger sets out to corrupt the seemingly honest people of Hadleyburg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious stranger avenged an unspecified past offense by exposing Hadleyburg's most upstanding residents as being a bunch of supercilious hypocrites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the 19 most upstanding couples in Hadleyburg, most especially Edward and Mary Richards, ultimately succumbed to the temptation to lie their way into obtaining $40,000 worth of gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the 19 most upstanding couples in Hadleyburg coveted the $40,000 worth of gold and stooped to deceit in order to get it. The Richards and the couple who ran the post office all wrestled with the idea of keeping the gold a secret from others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person's true character is revealed in a time of crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Hadleyburg, who prided themselves for being an honest and incorruptible lot, showed their true colors once they realized that they could lie their way into obtaining $40,000 worth of gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Edward and Mary Richards as the succumb to the temptation of trying to lie their way into $40,000 worth of gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward and Mary, who prided themselves on their honesty, grappled with whether or not they should stake a claim on $40,000 worth of gold to which they had no right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hadleyburg residents prided themselves on being an honest and incorruptible people, but they were left with egg on their faces when a mysterious stranger publicly exposed many of their most upstanding residents as being dishonest scoundrels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Hadleyburg prided themselves on being morally superior to everyone else. The town sign reading \"Lead Us Not Into Temptation\" must be interpreted in this context.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hadleyburg's most upstanding citizens were outrageously hypocritical in trumpeting their morally incorruptibility while conniving to get their hands on $40,000 in gold. Edward and Mary Richards lamented the fact that they had done as the stranger instructed and put out an ad about the gold. Afterwards, Mary wondered plaintively why they \"didn't let themselves be overcome by it\" even though at first they both agreed that they must do the right thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people may not always live up to their reputations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bank president Otis Pinkerton proclaimed publicly that the event surrounding the gold would land Hadleyburg in the dictionary as synonymous with being morally incorruptible and honest. But the town's most upstanding residents subsequently showed themselves to be greedy connivers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stranger related that a certain Hadleyburg citizen had once given him $20 when he was passing through town, hungry and penniless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money is the root of all evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary speculated that the stranger was once told this aphorism by a certain Hadleyburg citizen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward pointedly lamented his relative poverty, speaking of how a poor man is \"always on the grind, always on a salary, and always another man's slave...\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reverend Burgess repaid his debt to Edward by withholding the fact that the Richards' too had engaged in deception out of greed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Associated Press journalist immediately sent word to headquarters, making Hadleyburg a national spectacle. This is notable given the story is set in the first decade of the 1900s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A journalist chastised Otis Pinkerton for stating that everyone knew that he was the president of the bank. The same journalist then queried various townspeople about the gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attorney named Wilson harangued a journalist about possibly providing legal services.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert J. Titmarsh was interviewed by a journalist and said that if he got the gold he would pay off his mortgage. His wife said she would rather spend the money on clothes. Another citizen said he would use the money to move out west to California. Another man said he would donate all of the money to charitable causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before realizing they'd been hoodwinked, several of Hadleyburg's most upstanding citizens rehearsed self-effacing acceptance speeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reverend Burgess was entrusted with the duty giving the gold to whom it was rightfully due. Reverend Burgess gave the stranger directions to the Richards house. The stranger said he had heard the reverend's sermons were comforting. Reverend Burgess commented that he wished his occupation \"glowed in his face rather than his clothes\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory15", "title": "The Sky is Gray", "date": "1980", "description": "\"The Sky is Gray\" is the 15th installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1966 Ernst J. Gaines book of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Octavia is the matriarch of a black share cropper family in the American South in the 1940s. When her son James develops a bad tooth ache she uses up all her savings in order to take him into town to see the dentist. In town, the two of them has various encounters with other people. In the dentist's office there is a brief fight over religion. In a cafe, Octavia uses her knife to fend off a man who tries to molest her. Finally, she and James are treated to a substantial meal by a generous elderly white woman who is astute and careful not to hurt Octavia's pride.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story showcased the abject poverty of a black family in the American South in the 1940s. It was noted that they worked hard in the fields every day yet had barely enough money to take the bus into town to have a bad tooth tended to. Their squalor was contrasted with the comfortable existence of black and white people in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole of the story lead up a complicated interaction in which Helena, an elderly white lady, struggled to be charitable to James and Octavia without hurting Octavia's notable pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole of the story lead up a complicated interaction in which Helena, an elderly white lady, struggled to be charitable to James and Octavia without hurting Octavia's notable pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole of the story lead up a complicated interaction in which Helena, an elderly white lady, struggled to be charitable to James and Octavia without hurting Octavia's notable pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole of the story lead up a complicated interaction in which Helena, an elderly white lady, struggled to be charitable to James and Octavia without hurting Octavia's notable pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Octavia took her son, James, into town to have an aching tooth pulled. Throughout the journey, Octavia set an example to James by not taking hand outs in spite of their poverty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "James' trip into town with his mother to have an aching tooth pulled turned into a valuable life experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the Jim Crow law's American South of the 1940s. When Octavia and James reached the city they noted that some venues were clearly meant either for black people, or for white people, exclusively. Nothing was explicitly said about this and there were no obvious acts of racism. Other tokens of racism in the story included Octavia and James riding at the back of a racially segregated bus, a Confederate flag flying at the town bank, and Octavia and James stopping at a \"colored cafe\" for lunch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "James struggled to conceal that he was suffering from a debilitating toothache.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "farming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Octavia and James were shown working in the fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith healing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An eccentric man called on the Holy Ghost to cure James of his toothache. It didn't work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James was squeamish about killing some fowl, but Octavia insisted he do it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Octavia forced her young son, James, to slaughter a caged bird by sticking it with a fork. This was Octavia's way of teaching James a valuable life skill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man in the dentist's waiting room pronounced his disbelief in God and was slapped for it. He pointedly turned the other cheek and was slapped again, but did not retaliate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a higher power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the waiting room there was a heated argument regarding the existence of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lady in the dentist waiting room as blown away at by the idea that God might not exist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth accosted an avowed atheist for denying the existence of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James tried to hide his toothache from his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Octavia was accosted by a man who danced with her at the \"colored cafe\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man at the cafe was mortified when his efforts to get a smooch from Octavia ended with him lying flat on his back. The lady running the cafe nearly laughed him out of the establishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly couple Ernest and Helena took compassion on Octavia and James.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory16", "title": "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall", "date": "1980", "description": "\"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall\" is the 16th installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1930 Katherine Anne Porter short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Granny Weatherall is an 80 year old woman and a grandmother. As her health fails her she reminisces and becomes obsessed with the memories of a young man who had left her standing at the alter, many years ago. She becomes increasingly confused on her deathbed, and her grieving relatives find her last ramblings disturbing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As the title alludes to, the story concerns Granny Weatherall ruminating about her former lover, George, who had left her standing at the altar many years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As the title alludes to, the story concerns Granny Weatherall ruminating about her former lover, George, who had left her standing at the altar many years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As the title alludes to, the story concerns Granny Weatherall ruminating about her former lover, George, who had left her standing at the altar many years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The family, in particular the daughter Cornelia, gathered around Granny's would-be death bed and mourned as she was given extreme unction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall's physical health was failing her and she experienced cognitive decline. The story concerned her delirious final hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall and her daughter Cornelia were at the center of the story. In the main, Cornelia struggled with watching Granny, a fiercely independent individual, as her physical health and cognitive abilities increasingly declined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Granny Weatherall had flashbacks and ruminations of her finacé George in her days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall refused to accept that she was getting old and needed to stop being such a busybody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall increasingly retreated into her own mental world where reminisced about times when she was young and beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer must imagine that Granny Weatherall had an inkling about her fate while lay otherwise delirious on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall baked a \"white cake\" using no store bought ingredients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall repeatedly told the family doctor to take a hike, but the man persisted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Connelly arrived to comfort Granny Weatherall, and then to administer extreme unction to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Granny Weatherall's family, and her daughter Cornelia in particular, were distressed when they heard Granny's confused utterances and it became apparent she had little sense of where she was or who she was talking to. Granny showed signs of cognitive decline even prior to being bedridden. For example, she misremember the name of someone who'd been near and dear to her, and confusedly thought that her dearly departed daughter, Hapsie, was still alive and well.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory17", "title": "The Greatest Man in the World", "date": "1980", "description": "\"The Greatest Man in the World\" is the 17th and final installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1931 James Thurber short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Reporters Ames Herbert and Mr. Smidgeon are covering the story of Jack Smirch attempting the first ever solo flight around the world. Jack, however, turns out to be an irreverent rascal with a criminal past. When he completes the flight and attains unanticipated levels of fame, politicians and journalists alike struggle to harness Jack for their various purposes. Jack resists all attempts to make him behave. He then falls out of a window and dies. It is implied that he was killed by the establishment because he refused to cooperate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "irreverence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack Smurch was an ungovernable rascal who refused to obey any societal norms even when he became a celebrity. He ended up paying the ultimate price for his irreverence when he was unceremoniously defenestrated, or defenestrated himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch did his stunt because he wanted to become famous. He anticipated \"parties\", \"dough\", and \"broads\". What he got was to be hounded by establishment figures who wanted to exploit his fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch did his stunt because he wanted to become famous. He anticipated \"parties\", \"dough\", and \"broads\". What he got was to be hounded by establishment figures who wanted to exploit his fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch was such an unpredictable and ungovernable character that the various people who tried to control him had no choice but to govern him by force in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the two newsmen Ames Herbert and Mr. Smidgeon in their attempts to make a story about Jack's aeronautic daring-do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter part of the story follows politicians of the highest echelons, the president included, who tried to exploit Jack's fame for their own purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch was a stereotypically vehicle-obsessed young man. His father said the boy could fix anything at 16. Jack later became obsessed with airplanes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch completing the first nonstop flight around the world, and solo no less, was a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch was celebrated as a national hero after completing a harrowing nonstop flight around the world. Toward the conclusion of the story, Jack was laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery, a traditional final resting place of American patriots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The press built up Jack Smidgeon to be a great man who was worthy of public admiration. In reality he was a cantankerous character of ill-repute. Ames Herbert, a veteran newsman, had no qualms with the media deceiving the public in this manner. Ames' greener colleague, Mr. Smidgeon, saw it otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Smidgeon, a newsman, struggled over whether to follow his editor's orders to make up lies to glorify Jack Smurch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Smurch flew around the world in a biplane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's mother said that she never wanted to see Jack again and that his fate was a matter of indifference to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's father spoke proudly of his son from a prison cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smidgeon was summarily fired by his editor after he let Jack steal a company car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Jack had stole car when he was a teenager. The habit evidently died hard. In the present, Jack hightailed it from the hospital in Mr. Smidgeon's company car after slugging him in the abdomen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and April were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the hospital, Jack went stir crazy while supposedly convalescing from exposure and exhaustion. He passed the time doing one-armed push ups and walking handstands, among other feats of physical fitness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cantankerous and unruly Jack was escorted out of the press conference by two uniformed police officers. Jack was picked up by the police after escaping from the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack solicited a visit from a priest to his hospital room, under the pretext that he wanted to confess his sins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lathe of Heaven (1980)", "title": "The Lathe of Heaven", "date": "1980-01-09", "description": "A man's dreams retroactively alter reality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's dreams dramatically altered reality. For example, when he dreams of a sunny day, the clouds in the real world sky dispersed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each time Haber got George to dream away one of humanity's problems, the problem was solved in an ironic way. For example, world peace was achieved by having everyone unite against an alien invasion, and racism was eliminated by making everyone gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Haber exploited George's ability to increase his own wealth and status until he was effectively ruler of the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was sent to see licensed oneirologist William Haber for abusing two prescription medications. This he had done to keep himself from dreaming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George described how he had made a move on his aunt Ethel when he was 17.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haber manipulated George into dreaming up a solution to the overpopulation problem. But things did not go exactly according to plan when George dreamed up a six billion people killing plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George dreamed of aliens attacking a human colony on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haber made George dream of world peace, but it didn't turn out the way Haber wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George dreamed that aliens were attacking the Moon as a prelude an invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George dreamed of strange aliens invading Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haber asked George to dream away the racism that prevailed in the world. This he achieved by making everyone to be the same race of gray people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haber had George dream up an end to cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haber had George dream up an end to the problem of economic inequality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw George and Heather living as a happily married couple toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw George and Heather living as a happily married couple toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened and closed with George overcome with radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Portland, Oregon getting nuked.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Watch (1980)", "title": "Death Watch", "date": "1980-01-23", "description": "In a future where death from illness has become rare, a terminally ill woman becomes a reluctant reality television star.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Watch" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my life was secretly stage managed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kathryn's life was broadcast on television without her knowing, and her companion Roddy was responsible for ensuring that the reality of her situation was concealed from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kathryn agreed to let make a reality television show out of her death from an incurable disease in exchange for $600,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Kathryn as she succumbed to an unspecified incurable disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kathryn became an instant celebrity upon being diagnosed with a terminally illness and made the star of a reality TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roddy came to see that he was wrong to have secretly filmed Kathryn for the reality TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roddy came to see that he was wrong to have secretly filmed Kathryn for the reality TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roddy gained Kathryn's trust and he accompanied her while she was on the run but the whole time he was secretly recording her for the reality TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roddy betrayed Kathryn's trust by recording her for a reality TV show using a secret camera installed in his eyeball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for cancer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathryn's doctor mentioned in passing how people no longer died from cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathryn and her husband. Roddy and Tracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathryn went to meet her father in a care facility but he didn't remember her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roddy went blind toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathryn got Roddy to take her to meet he ex-husband Gerald before she died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Saturn 3 (1980)", "title": "Saturn 3", "date": "1980-02-15", "description": "In the distant future, an overcrowded Earth relies on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the solar system.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "An overpopulated Earth relied on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lovers Alex and Adam were living happily together on the Saturn 3 research station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lovers Alex and Adam were living happily together on the Saturn 3 research station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young and beautiful Alex was in love with Adam who looked to be pushing 60.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Benson's mission was to replace at least one of Alex and Adam with an eight foot tall robot, named Hector, that was programmed using a direct link to Benson's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Benson's mission was to replace at least one of Alex and Adam with an eight foot tall robot, named Hector, that had pure brain tissue extracted from human fetuses. As such it was technically a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam at Captain Benson were at each others throats over Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Benson kept pointing out how Adam was old and obsolete, and he could not understand why she would choose Adam over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and Adam were trapped on the Saturn 3 research station with the homicidal, nine foot tall robot Hector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Benson created the robot Hector and programmed it using a direct link to his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a distant future where travel from the Earth to Saturn and back is routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex had a pet dog Sally to keep her company on the Saturn 3 research station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Benson expected Alex would engage him in casual sex, as was the custom on Earth, but she surprised him by refusing his request. Alex had never been to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Benson had a port of the back of his neck that he used to connect to the robot Hector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "World Spaceways was sending space liners around the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Adam blew himself up to stop the robot Hector.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x01", "title": "Royal Jelly", "date": "1980-03-01", "description": "A bee-keeper becomes concerned when his wife tells him that their baby daughter is ill and losing weight. To help the baby gain strength, he begins feeding her royal jelly.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bee-keeper Albert Taylor his wife Mabel, and their baby daughter Vicky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel was distraught because her baby wouldn't eat enough and had lost weight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert started turning into a bee after eating royal jelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel was distraught because her baby wouldn't eat enough and had lost weight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel made a proclamation of love to Albert, which he reciprocated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brave New World (1980)", "title": "Brave New World", "date": "1980-03-07", "description": "A future dystopian society is challenged by a \"savage\" outsider. It is an adaptation of the novel with the same name by Aldous Huxley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(1980_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were assigned to classes in descending order of intellectual and physical capacity: the society controlling Alphans and their helpers the Betans, the worker Deltans, Gammans and Epsilons. Each individual dressed in a caste specific colored one-piece jumper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which nobody wanted for material goods. In a small illustration of this Bernard Marx produced a meal for the outsider John the Savage at the push of a button, and when John said he wasn't hungry, Bernard disposed of the meal without a second thought to John's great amazement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which participation in ritual orgies was mandatory and monogamy was strictly forbidden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society that maintained stability and harmony in part through compulsory participation in frequent ritual orgies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any residual unhappiness was resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ruling class indoctrinated everyone into willingly taking the happiness-producing drug called soma in order to maintain a stable and harmonious society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Moreover, young children were taught to revolt nature using Pavlovian conditioning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which participation in ritual orgies was mandatory and monogamy was strictly forbidden. This was contrasted with how the savages lived. In particular, the Betan Linda was beaten for having an orgy while living among the savages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alphans controlled society and this was accepted by the other lowers classes of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "John the Savage led Bernard, Helmholtz, and Lenina to question the fundamental precepts held in common by members of their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conventional approach to reproduction was strictly forbidden. Instead, embryos were developed to maturity exvivo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young Alphan Tomakin expressed interest in padding his computer file with accomplishments that would help him one day advance to the highest levels of the administrative hierarchy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Betan Linda gave birth to and raised John the Savage among a group of tribal people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a Bentan woman live among tribal people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alphan Tomakin was mortified to meet his son John the Savage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alphan Tomakin's reputation was ruined beyond repair once it became apparent that he had fathered a savage child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helmholtz explained to John the Savage how their world was powered by nuclear fusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John the Savage wished to live in solitude on his small island but all sorts of people came to watch him live his Robinson Caruso style of life and it drove him nearly mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John the Savage handed himself in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x02", "title": "Skin", "date": "1980-03-08", "description": "An old street-beggar, a former tattooist, was a friend of the famous artist, Soutine. On his back, he has a tattoo by the artist, which is now priceless.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Russian artist Drioli was living as a beggar in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drioli was infatuated with Soutine's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drioli and Josie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are lead to believe that Drioli was killed for the tattoo on his back worth 10M francs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were in an art gallery discussing works of art, the one tattooed on Drioli in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soutine's paintings were on display in an art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josie and Soutine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drioli was offered a vast sum of money to have the skin on his back grafted off at great personal risk to himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Phoenix 2772 (1980)", "title": "Phoenix 2772", "date": "1980-03-15", "description": "Phoenix 2772 (火の鳥2772 愛のコスモゾーン, Hi no Tori 2772: Ai no Kosumozōn, lit. Firebird 2772: Love's Cosmozone) is a 1980 Japanese animated science fiction feature film directed by Taku Sugiyama and written by Osamu Tezuka and Sugiyama. The film is based on Tezuka's manga series Phoenix.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_2772" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godo had a beautiful robot-maid named Olga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godo and Olga were dearest friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godo and Rock were identical twins. A computer assigned Godo to be a pilot, and Rock a politician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godo and Rock were twins. A computer assigned Godo to be a pilot, and Rock a politician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olga loved her master Godo, but he loved Rena. Although in the end he came to realize that it was Olga who he loved all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godo and Rena. Godo and Olga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "geothermal energy from Earth's interior", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a project underway in Iceland to harness energy from Earth's mantle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "God and his beautiful robot-maid Olga became lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A project undertaken to tap energy from the Earth's mantle ended in a geological catastrophe of epic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Godo willingly giving his life to revitalize the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People got about in the city in such vehicles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pilot cadet trainer took pleasure in killing cowering wild animals in shooting practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Embryos in this world were raised ex-vivo in \"tubes\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Godo was sent to a labor camp in Iceland for having seduced the daughter of the leader of the elders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Godo and Dr. Saruta plotted their escape from a forced labor camp in Iceland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Godo, Olga, Pincho, and Dr. Saruta went on a quest in the starship Space Shark to find the mythical Phoenix bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Godo flew to distant planets in search of the Phoenix bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rock was driven by a desire to become Prime Minister of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were some police droids.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x03", "title": "Galloping Foxley", "date": "1980-03-15", "description": "William Perkins is haunted by the bullying he received while at Boarding school 60 years ago. While on a train, he is convinced that the man sitting opposite him is the bully.\n\nDirected by: Claude Whatham. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in boarding school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Perkins reflected back on his day in boarding school where he was mercilessly bullied by Galloping Foxley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galloping Foxley caned Young Perkins almost daily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young William Perkins was particularly bullied by the sadistic older boy Galloping Foxley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galloping Foxley a total sadist. After all, he got his nickname because he had a reputation for administering canings at a galloping pace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Perkins had traumatic memories of being bullied at boarding school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Perkins wanted to get back at the man he thought was Galloping Foxley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Perkins mentioned he had contemplated killing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young William Perkins father dropped him off at board school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Perkins alleged that Galloping Foxley was corrupted by power in the course of his tirade on the train.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory13", "title": "Barn Burning", "date": "1980-03-17", "description": "\"Barn Burning\" is the 13th installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1939 William Faulkner short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A jaded sharecropper makes life difficult for his family owing to his funny habit of burning down his landlords' barns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The resentful sharecropper Ab Scopes had a penchant for burning down the barns of the landowners to whom he and his family were bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The war veteran become sharecropper Ab Scopes was a powder keg of pent up resentments stemming from something to do with him and his family being destitute while a privileged few lived in splendor. Ab intentionally wiped his dirty boots on the Mrs. DeSpain's expensive French rug, then glared silently at her when she protested before turning and striding out the door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lives of the sharecropping war veteran Ab Scopes and his family members were contrasted with those of the well-to-do with their country mansions, complete with highly flammable barns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The life of the itinerant sharecropper Ab Scopes and family patriarch was juxtaposed with that of his socially elite landlord, Major DeSpain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a window into the Snopes family living as poor tenant farmers in .", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a depiction of the poverty in which Reconstruction era sharecroppers lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the troubled relationship between the young and perhaps naive Satry and his jaded father, Ab. Sarty was very pleased when his father gave him a pocketknife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Sarty was asked about Ab's whereabouts when a barn had caught fire, Sarty said nothing. In general, Sarty was torn between being loyal to his arsonist father and obedient to the laws of the land. In the end, Sarty betrayed his father by running to alert the DeSpains that their barn was on fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "The patriarch Ab Scopes expounded on the importance family loyalty, and his son Sarty struggled with it on account that Ab was a serial barn burner. Ab took him for a walk and explained his view that blood was more important than anything, berating and slapping him for his hesitance in supporting his father's firebug tendencies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole Scopes family was dismayed at having to move every time the family patriarch Ab broke the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ab Scopes, a poor sharecropper, was looked down on by his socially elite land owner, Major DeSpain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores latent class antagonisms in the American South through the point of view of a disgruntled sharecropper and his fiery relationships with his landlords. Ab explained to Sarty how slaves had built the mansions that Sarty so admired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The whites dropped the N-word without hesitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hastily arranged court proceeding resulted in Ab Scopes having to compensate Major DeSpain with 10 bushels of corn over a soiled, torn, but not burned French rug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. DeSpain berated her butler for letting Ab Scopes into the house with his horseshit-covered boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ab Scopes's wife pleaded with him to refrain from burning down yet another wealthy landlord's barn, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Ab threatened to tie up Sarty if she didn't hold him, Mrs. Scopes made a half-hearted attempt to physically hold her young son, Sarty, back from running to warn Major DeSpain of an impending barn burning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarty was working in the field with his brother among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scopes sisters dinner table quarrel ended with the one zinging the other about her low prospects of ever getting a husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being hardworking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarty showed his conviction that he could pull himself up by his bootstraps and raise his family out of poverty through hard work when he said: \"We gonna work hard and show em\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Ab Scopes had served in this war. Sarty overheard two men in town talking about Ab and was shocked to hear one of them state that Ab had deserted during the war and gotten shot not in battle but because he had become an infamous horse rustler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ab Scopes fought in the American Civil War but had nothing more to show for it than a bum leg.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Golem (1980)", "title": "Golem", "date": "1980-03-18", "description": "In a post nuclear holocaust future, a team of doctors attempt to create a new and tougher species of human being.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080806/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a dreary, urban world lacking in kindness and the simple joys of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set is in future after the world has seemingly recovered from nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind man's assistant negotiated with a prostitute on the behalf of said blind man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pernat lent a needy father and daughter 200 florins. A father accused his daughter of hiding money from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Holtrum's son screamed insults at him in the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A condemned man confessed to Pernat of having committed a sex killing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera: Super Monster (1980)", "title": "Gamera: Super Monster", "date": "1980-03-20", "description": "It's Gamera to the rescue when the evil alien Zanon comes to enslave the people of Earth. It is the eighth film in the Gamera film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera:_Super_Monster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil and powerful alien Zanon came from afar to enslave the people of Earth. The three Space Women were aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil and powerful alien Zanon came from afar to enslave the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gyaos attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant pterosaur-like creature Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Space Women could fly around like Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiichi and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiichi's pet turtle told him his wished to be released into the wild, and Keiichi followed its wish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil and powerful alien Zanon came to Earth in a Star Wars-esque wedge shaped starship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiichi played on the keyboard with vocal accompaniment an every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giruge had a wristwatch she used to teleport herself with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Keiichi playing with his two childhood pals from school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Space Woman Kilara volunteered to give her life to remove a mind control device from Gamera, but she was ultimately able to achieve this feat without dying. In the end, Girugi sacrificed herself to save Keiichi and the three Space Women from certain death at the hands of Zanon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x04", "title": "The Hitch-hiker", "date": "1980-03-22", "description": "Flashy American Paul Duveen stops to give elderly Irish vagrant Michael Fish a lift in his new BMW. Michael is a pickpocket, which comes in very handy after his encouragement to Paul to break the speed limit has attracted the attention of a traffic cop on a motor-bike, who waves them over. After the cop has gone, Michael shows a happy Paul that he stole the cop's notebook and evidence, but before long, Paul will be anything but happy.\n\nDirected by: Alastair Reid. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Fish was a professional pickpocket and thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Michael bonded briefly but then there was a betrayal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Duveen picked up aged Irish hitchhiker Michael Fish on the motorway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The policeman may have been nastier than duty called for, it was suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reckless driving: 112 MPH when limit was 70.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Irishman took offense when Paul hazarded a guess that he made a living as a busker. The flippant remark he made in response to Paul's speculation might have lessened the Irishman's chances of swindling Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael instilled Paul's trust in him and then drove off in Paul's BMW.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x05", "title": "Poison", "date": "1980-03-29", "description": "This story is set in India during the time of British colonialism. Narrator Timber Woods goes to visit his friend Harry Pope. Harry is in bed, motionless, sweating, and in a panic. He whispers that a krait, one of the deadliest snakes, is on his stomach, underneath the covers. He asks Timber to go get a doctor; Timber calls Dr. Ganderbai, a local Indian doctor. Timber and Ganderbai frantically try to get the snake off of Harry to save his life. But they find no snake on Harry; perhaps it has gone, perhaps Harry imagined the snake. When he realizes this, Harry is so relieved that he attacks Ganderbai with racial slurs. The real poison in the room is not the snake's; it is the racist's. Ganderbai walks out of the room and tells Timber that Harry needs a vacation.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the aftermath of a krait having slithered into Harry's bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Pope had a problem with alcohol that he was trying to overcome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sandra was cheating on her husband with Timber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sandra was extraordinarily selfish and stole Dr. Ganderbai's car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry spouted racial slurs at Dr. Ganderbai for the doctor suggesting that Harry may have imagined the krait.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timber appeared to have sneaked Sandra over to Harry's place for a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was struggling to stop drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was struggling to resist having a drink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ganderbai frantically tried to get the snake off of Harry to save his life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x06", "title": "Fat Chance", "date": "1980-04-05", "description": "John Burge, a pharmacist, is carrying on an affair behind his overweight wife's back. His lover, Frances, tells him that he must get rid of his wife. Mary, however, will not divorce him and Frances is issuing an ultimatum. He decides to put his pharmaceutical skills into play and poison his wife's chocolates. However, not everything will go to plan.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Robert Bloch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dahl explained how Maharajahs would dispose of their unwanted spouses using tiger whiskers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was a compulsive eater with a sweet tooth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sugar addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary had a sweet tooth. Her hands started almost quavering at the sight of chocolates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pharmacist John Burge was cheating on his \"fat pig\" wife with her friend Frances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Burge and his 11 stone and 12 pound wife Mary Burge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frances hatched a plot to get John to divorce Mary, but Mary held the trump card, because she could squeeze him for everything he had in the court settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Frances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frances manipulated her lover into trying to kill his wife but the effort may have ended up inadvertently killing Francis instead, it is hinted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the placebo effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Applegate was of the opinion that you can prescribe chalk and sugar for some conditions and 40% of the people would get better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Serial snacker Mary was in denial that she had an eating disorder. Instead, she insisted that she was suffering from a metabolic condition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x07", "title": "Taste", "date": "1980-04-12", "description": "Mike Schofield has a wager against his wine connoisseur friend, Richard Pratt that Pratt will not be able to deduce the vineyard from which the wine he is serving at dinner originates. The stakes become increasingly high: Pratt wants to bet for the hand of Schofield's daughter in marriage; if he loses, he will give Schofield both of his houses.\n\nDirected by: Alastair Reid. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Pratt was a professional wine connoisseur and explained the art of wine tasting on television and at a dinner party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike bet his daughter against Pratt's two houses after much deliberation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Louise. Peter Bligh and Joanna Bligh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybil and Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Sybil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was arrogant and everyone had to cope with him in different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard at Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "egocentrism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard(s present to Louise was a copy of his own book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was a snooty wine taster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and his family went to great lengths to prepare for Richard's arrival to the dinner party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x08", "title": "My Lady Love, My Dove", "date": "1980-04-19", "description": "Pamela Beauchamp visits friends to stay for the weekend for fun. She installs a hidden microphone in their room. After a high-stakes game of bridge, she listens in to discover that they had been cheating.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur initially forbid Pamela from spicing up their evening by placing a secret microphone in their guest's room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Beuchamps played bridge with another couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "A couple visited the Beauchamps with the intension of cheating them out of money over a weekend of Bridge playing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both men involved exhibited notable lasciviousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela made some disparaging remarks about playing bridge with a comparatively lower class couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela said she wanted to secretly record her house guests because she was bored.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x09", "title": "Georgy Porgy", "date": "1980-04-26", "description": "A Vicar with an overactive imagination sees naked women as he delivers his sermons. One day, he finds that women are suddenly attracted to him and a beautiful woman offers herself to his desires.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rev. Georgy Duckworth recalled his rather irresponsible mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Attractive Vicar Georgy was beset upon by \"spinsters\" of the parish and Julia in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy was shy and sexually repressed due to weird things to do with his mother long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hamster experiment demonstrated that females are the more lascivious than males. Georgy confirmed this hypothesis in his own mind about the women at his parish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy believed that women were out to eat him, after having witnessed a female hamster eat its babies when he was a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia and other parish \"spinsters\" with Rev. Georgy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy's mother traumatized the boy by making a point to acquaint him with adult realities, like sexual reproduction and alcohol, from an early age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy was mortified by the romantic attention he got from Julia and other women at his parish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy was extremely anxious and nervous in the presence of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgy's mother insisted that he be introduced to all religions so that he could make an educated decision as to which one to believe in. Georgy was a reverend at a parish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgy briefly recalled his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgy's parents were briefly featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x10", "title": "Depart in Peace", "date": "1980-05-03", "description": "An art collector becomes involved in a struggle between two beautiful women. (Based on the short story \"Nunc Dimittis.\")\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The art collector Lionel and Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lionel and Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gladys pursued the art collector Lionel to his annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lionel, Janet, and Gladys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gladys at Lionel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lionel hatched a plot to unveil a portrait of a lingerie clad Janet at a party to get back at her for some scathing comments she was alleged to have made about him. Janet returned the favor by poisoning him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lionel commissioned the acclaimed artist John Roydon to paint a portrait of his fiancée Janet. Lionel then giddily removed the brown dress from the portrait to reveal the artist's rendering of Janet's lingerie clad body. There was also a famous painter who discussed his motivations for painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gladys sabotaged Linoel's relationship with Janet and tried to score him on the rebound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lionel explained to Gladys that he was an old fashioned prude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a run-of-the-mill poison murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "So mortified was Janet at the unveiling of her racy portrait that she fainted on the spot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Contamination (1980)", "title": "Contamination", "date": "1980-05-09", "description": "An alien cyclops creature uses human agents to place eggs all over Earth. The eggs release a gelatinous goo that causes people to explode when they come into physical contact with the substance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contamination_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cyclops alien of Martian origins controlled people into spreading its eggs all over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cyclops creature, presumably of Martian origins, used loyal human agents to spread its eggs all over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella Holmes and Tony Aris fell for one another while investigating the alien eggs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flashback scene to Commander Ian Hubbard's mission to the Mars polar cap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist discovered that the aliens eggs had a silicon-based chemistry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x11", "title": "The Umbrella Man", "date": "1980-05-10", "description": "On a wet afternoon, an elderly con-man strikes up a conversation with a passer-by. The old man sells him a silk umbrella, which he has stolen, claiming he needs money for a taxi. A mix-up with stolen umbrellas means that he exposes a couple who are cheating on the woman's husband.\n\nDirected by: Claude Whatham. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a serial umbrella thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man exposed another man of cheating on his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mild mannered old man was stealing umbrellas and then charming unsuspecting people into buying them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Humanoids from the Deep (1980)", "title": "Humanoids from the Deep", "date": "1980-05-16", "description": "Some half-man, half-fish monsters terrorize the members of a fishing village. The film is also know as \"Monster\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanoids_from_the_Deep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny Eagle was filing a lawsuit to prevent the Canco company from opening a cannery in his community on account that doing so was in violation of a treaty signed between the government and his tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some half-man, half-fish creatures were going around killing everyone in the fishing town of Noyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some half-man, half-fish creatures were going around killing everyone in the fishing village of Noyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-fish hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Susan Drake efforts to accelerate the growth of salmon inadvertently resulted in the creation of a race of man-eating half-man, half-fish monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fisherman's young son fell into the sea and was killed by half-man, half-fish creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Susan Drake was experimenting with something known as \"DNA 5\" in an effort to accelerate the growth of salmon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage lovers Peggy and Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage lovers Peggy and Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young lovers Jerry and Peggy were attacked and killed by the creature while they were frolicking in the ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim and Tommy Hill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Susan Drake claimed that her employer, the Canco canning company, forbade her from alerting the authorities when her growth hormone treated salmon escaped from Canco's laboratory into the ocean during a storm and were eaten by large fish that then mutated into the brutal, depraved humanoids that subsequently went about terrorizing the village of Noyo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)", "title": "The Empire Strikes Back", "date": "1980-05-17", "description": "The film is set three years after Star Wars. The Galactic Empire, under the leadership of the villainous Darth Vader and the mysterious Emperor, is in pursuit of Luke Skywalker and the rest of the Rebel Alliance. While Vader relentlessly pursues the small band of Luke's friends—Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, and others—across the galaxy, Luke studies the Force under Jedi Master Yoda. When Vader captures Luke's friends, Luke must decide whether to complete his training and become a Jedi Knight or to confront Vader and save them.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_Strikes_Back" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rebel Alliance continued their struggle against the Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was fighting for galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke mastered using the Force under Yoda's guidance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke training under Yoda to become a Jedi Knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, awhile others, like Darth Vader, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke may have been tempted by the dark side of the Force and rule the galaxy together with Darth Vader as father and son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Leia and Han.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darth Vader to Luke: No I am your father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "in this universe people travel between stars regularly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ice planet Hoth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke nearly froze to death after getting lost on the ice planet Hoth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke learned how to levitate metal objects by using his mind to control the power of the Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando's cloud city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han and Princess Leia were unsure about whether they could trust Han's old friend Lando.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando made a deal with Darth Vader to hand over his old friend Han along with the others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han paid a visit to his old friend Lando.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han was tortured by Darth Vader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if criminals were after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han was evading Jaba the Hutt's bounty hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han was frozen solid, encased in carbonite, and later revived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke got an artificial hand at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mind control Jedi power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x12", "title": "Genesis and Catastrophe", "date": "1980-05-17", "description": "In 1889, after having lost three children, an Austrian woman is concerned that her newborn baby boy is ill. The doctor helps and urges the woman's husband to be positive. They decide to name the boy Adolphus.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alois and Klara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alois and Klara had lost three babies in the space of 18 months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klara eventually gave birth to a most historically significant baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was brief talk about the unnatural nature of Alois and Klara's incestuous marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The married couple Alois and Klara happened to be uncle and niece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alois and Klara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Klara giving birth to Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about Klara giving birth to Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois was nasty to his older son and disappointed in his newborn one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois explained how his previous wives had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois used job duty as excuse to stay away from his wife giving birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois was drunk the whole time, and the lady with a crucifix said he drinks too much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois believed that the deaths of his first wive and three children was punishment from God.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Shining (1980)", "title": "The Shining", "date": "1980-05-23", "description": "The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. The film is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name and stars Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, and Danny Lloyd.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Numerous ghosts haunted the Overlook Hotel, perhaps because of bad things that had happened there and because it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wendy eventually learned that her husband was stark raving mad and hellbent on murder, and that she was practically at his mercy snowed in as they are in a remote hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Shining appeared primarily to be a form of telepathy, although it had other attributes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny had an imaginary friend named Tony, although Tony might in fact have been something else (this is not wholly clear).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Wendy Torrance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and his young son Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wendy and her young son Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack had trouble getting his writing career going again and sought seclusion as a means of kicking it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Numerous ghosts haunted the Overlook Hotel, perhaps because of bad things that had happened there and because it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack gradually lost his mind while cooped up in a remote hotel that he was hired to take care of for the winter. He ultimately became fixated on annihilating his wife and young son, who were staying there together with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack became fixated on following in Grady's footsteps by annihilating his own family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed physician made a house call to check on Danny after the boy fainted in the bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wendy reluctantly revealed that Jack had once dislocated Danny's shoulder in a fit of rage after coming home drunk. Wendy later accused Jack of ringing David's neck, although one gathers that she was mistaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the car, Jack spoke of how some members of the Donner Party resorted cannibalism out of desperation while snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Forest Rangers were in radio communication with Jack and Wendy until Jack sabotaged the radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was five \"miserable\" months on the wagon before he started hitting the bourbon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady used the N-word slur to refer to the black hotel cook Hallorann.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x13", "title": "Mr Botibol's First Love", "date": "1980-05-24", "description": "Mr. Botibol is obsessed with Classical music and builds a concert hall in his house. To his records, he pretends to conduct an orchestra and play a silent piano. A woman he meets shares his love of music and together they \"perform\" in the imaginary hall.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol fantasized that he was an all time great composer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol considered himself to be the most unsuccessful man in the world. He was bad at everything and had squandered his inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol dreamt of being a famous musician and Irene taught music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol became besotted with Ms. Wrzaszcyzk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Botibol was mortified when he found out that Ms. Wrzaszcyzk had some ability to play the piano.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Henderson Monster (1980)", "title": "The Henderson Monster", "date": "1980-05-25", "description": "A famed molecular geneticist accidentally creates a \"monster\" in his pursuit of a second Nobel Prize.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080859/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is a tutorial in how to behave in the formal company of academics, move up the academic hierarchy, secure research grants, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pete and Louise Casimir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government regulation in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was ongoing conflict between the university faculty and the city council over the extent to which the research of government funded scientists at the university ought to brought under public oversight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayor Bellona was accused of being \"motivated by a childhood animus\" to mount an \"idiot's crusade\" against academics. A band of very enthusiastic Christians held and anti-science rally on campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Future applications of genetic engineering were discussed at length, including the possible creation of a bacteria that breaks down plastics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The entire film was a debate over the ethics of genetic engineering. The film culminated with a public hearing over the potential dangers of Dr. Henderson's experiments with gene splicing in particular, and DNA experimentation in generally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Henderson advocated for the need for genetic research and the benefits to society that it could bring, but others, including Leo Tedeschi, raised some potential dangers of playing dice with evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prominent geneticist Dr. Henderson found himself embroiled in controversy because of his experiments related to creating new forms of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The partygoers were somewhat taken aback when Pete put back a few too many brandys at a fancy university function and went off on a flight of fancy comparing Dr. Henderson to Dr. Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elderly scientist Leo Tedeschi opined about only being called upon when they need a figurehead to shake a finger about pollution or radioactivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elderly scientist Leo Tedeschi opined about only being called upon when they need a figurehead to shake a finger about pollution or radioactivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuclear scientist Leo Tedeschi once thought the nuclear age would bring about the perfect of mankind, but in later life he became convinced that nuclear power generation was too dangerous to pursue, and he cited the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise confessed to her husband Pete that she had slept with Dr. Henderson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete mentioned the trial of Galileo Galilei in a half-drunken rambling story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The CEO of a multinational corporation threatened Mayor Bellona that they would shut down their facility and move the jobs elsewhere should the government come in and oversee what was going on there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Henderson was racing against a rival scientist to develop a cancer vaccine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A very enthusiastic band of Unified Church of the Children of Grace members held a protest on campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The matter of whether a genetically engineered plastic eating bacteria should be patentable was discussed at a public hearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Pete and Louise rekindling their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Henderson splicing genes into E. coli plasmids in his university laboratory. In general, pains were taken in the film to accurately explain scientific concepts and techniques.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x14", "title": "Back for Christmas", "date": "1980-05-31", "description": "A man plots a foolproof way to murder his wife, but the murder is exposed because of an unexpected gift she left for him to find.\n\nDirected by: Giles Foster. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carpenter and Hermione. The nurse and her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carpenter murdered Hermione in a most cold and calculated manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carpenter cheated on Hermione with a nurse at his hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carpenter thought he had an ingenious plan for disposing of his ill-tempered wife, but fate intervened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Medical doctor James Carpenter had a near obsession with orchid cultivation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carpenter flirted with the young woman Samantha at the party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Dead (1980)", "title": "Alien Dead", "date": "1980-06-01", "description": "A meteor strikes a houseboat in the swamps near a southern town, which causes the people on the houseboat to become zombies. When the zombies run out of alligators to eat, they begin killing people in the town. A local scientist tries to figure out how to stop the zombies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Dead" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The local scientist Tom Corman took it upon himself to find a way to stop the murderous zombie monster outbreak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of a small southern town began turning into zombies after a meteor struck a houseboat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of a small southern town started turning into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a depiction of southern accented country folk living in a rural area nearby swamp. In one particular instance an old man pulled a shotgun on a man who the old man fretted that his daughter might be romantically interested in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Shawn quickly fell for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shawn's papi Emmet initially pulled a shotgun on Tom when she brought him over to the house, but Emmet ultimately warmed up to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A local sheriff and his deputy were investigating a spate of grisly killings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Galaxina (1980)", "title": "Galaxina", "date": "1980-06-06", "description": "Set in the 31st century, the film follows the crew of a space police cruiser on their mission recover a priceless stolen gemstone called the Blue Star.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxina" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel between the stars, and indeed the galaxies, was routine in the time the film is set - the year: 3008.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed the crew of the space police cruiser Infinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heroine of the story, the beautiful Galaxina, was an android. She began the film more or less as an automaton, but reprogrammed herself to be more human, and fell in love with Sargent Thor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film is littered with crazy aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful android Galaxina and Sargent Thor fell madly in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful android Galaxina and Sargent Thor fell madly in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Darth Vaderesque Ordric and the biker gang leader wished to use the power of the Blue Star gemstone to rule over the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Infinity crew spoken how disgusting ancient people were for eating eggs, then Captain Butt ate one on a whim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The human members of the Infinity crew were put into cryonic stasis in for the duration of their 27 year journey to the planet Altair One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Altair One was originally used as a prison for motorcycle gang members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gang of space bikers were seen worshiping their god Harley Davidson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x15", "title": "The Orderly World of Mr Appleby", "date": "1980-06-07", "description": "Mr Appleby loves his antiques shop, even though everyone tells him the \"antiques\" are just junk. To maintain the shop, he repeatedly marries wealthy women. Now he has married for the fourth time. His new wife discovers that he murdered the previous three, but she is more than a match for him.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Stanley Ellin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha Sturgess married fastidious antique dealer and serial wife murderer Mr. Appleby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby was in the habit of marrying older women for their money. Martha's father had married her mother for her money and later murdered her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby was a serial wife murderer. Martha's father had married her mother for her money and later murdered her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha tried to punish Mr. Abbleby by threatening him with an inquest into his fates of his past wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Appleby revealed that she wanted vengeance on her late father by punishing men that were like him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby was a serial wife murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby found married life with Martha to be a miserable experience on account of her micro-managing his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Mr. Abbleby had some sort of OCD with respect to his shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interest in antiques", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antique dealer Mr. Appleby was careful to only sell his merchandise to people who could ensure it would go to a safe place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby and Martha both confessed to being lonely before agreeing to get married. But it turned out both of them were lying for different reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Appleby took offense when asked whether he had ever been divorced.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Girl the Gold Watch & Everything (1980)", "title": "The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything", "date": "1980-06-13", "description": "An easy-going man meets a free-spirited brunette and inherits from his millionaire uncle a gold watch that has the power to stop time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_the_Gold_Watch_%26_Everything_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby Winter inherited a gold pocket watch that had the power to freeze time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby's crazy uncle had invented a pocket watch that had the power to freeze time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby and Bonny Lee fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby was on the run from the law because he was suspected of having embezzled 75 million dollars from his recently deceased uncle's company. He hadn't.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirby being simultaneously pursued by the law and a group of criminals..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilma got hammered and made a drunken fool of herself in front of Kirby and Bonny Lee.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected2x16", "title": "The Man at the Top", "date": "1980-06-14", "description": "A young seaman becomes embroiled in a fight with another man and kills him. Eager to escape, he turns to his friend, Diane. She sets him up with someone who can help.\n\nDirected by: Claude Whatham. Story by: Edward D. Hoch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sailor Hardy was out of work and turned to mugging to get money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hardy, who was broke and out of work, mugged a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hardy, who was broke and out of work, mugged a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hardy believed the police were likely after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was the man at the top, presumably of some more-or-less organized crime ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the man Hardy had killed was the single man who had the power to help him escape facing justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hardy visited the prostitute Diane at her flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hardy explained the the old lady at the restaurant how he had lived in a foster home and was twice adopted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Airplane (1980)", "title": "Airplane!", "date": "1980-06-27", "description": "Airplane! (alternatively titled Flying High!) is a 1980 American satirical disaster film written and directed by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. The film is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows the plot and the central characters, as well as many elements from Airport 1975 and other films in the Airport film series. The film is known for its use of surreal humor and its fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns, gags, and obscure humor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplane!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how Ted and Elain got together in a flash back, and how they rekindled their love affair after the flight episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted couldn't fly because of some event in his wartime past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted overcame his fear of flying in order to pursue Elaine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted overcame his fear of flying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Elaine had been in flashbacks, and became again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "All sorts of antics occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw retrospectively how Ted and Elaine's relationship broke down", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Virus (1980)", "title": "Virus", "date": "1980-06-28", "description": "The film follows the struggles of 855 men and eight women stationed in Antarctica in their attempts to reboot civilization after a deadly human-made virus wiped out virtually all the world's population. It is based on Sakyo Komatsu's 1964 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(1980_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A multinational community of 855 men and eight women stationed in Antarctica took it upon themselves to reboot civilization after the deadly MM88 virus had run its course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American geneticist invented the MM88 virus which ended up killing nearly everyone on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret military program to weaponized the deadly MM88 virus ended in catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An American geneticist invented the MM88 virus which ended up killing nearly everyone on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The MM88 virus survivors were faced with having to disarm a preplanned nuclear strike on what was formerly the Soviet Union. If the failed the strike would certainly trigger a automated nuclear response form the Soviet Union, and at least on nuclear warhead was aimed at the survivors base in Antarctica. They failed and the film ended in nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Yoshizumi and Captain McCloud took it upon themselves to travel to the United States mainland to prevent an automated nuclear weapons strike on the former Soviet Union knowing it would most likely result in them contracting the MM88 virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Civil unrest erupted as the deadly MM88 virus spread around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged the President to prepare for a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tensions flared up between the United states and the USSR as the deadly MM88 virus spread around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various world governments, especially the United States government, failed to control the deadly MM88 virus as it spread around the world. The virus ended up wiping out virtually the all the world's population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deadly MM88 virus was developed as part of the secret military project Operation Phoenix. Not even the President was aware the project existed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President explained that he had always wanted to be remembered in the history book for having done something good, rather than for being associated with the MM88 virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polygamy was established as a cultural norm among the MM88 virus survivors. This was for practical purposes as there were 855 men and only eight women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hangar 18 (1980)", "title": "Hangar 18", "date": "1980-07", "description": "Some government officials attempt a cover-up following a UFO incident aboard the Space Shuttle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_18_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA recovered an alien flying saucer and subsequently covered it up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The President's aide Gordon Cain conspired with high ranking NASA officials to keep secret from the public their recovery of an alien spacecraft until after the upcoming election. He feared news of the discovery would harm the President's chances at securing reelection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "major", "motivation": "NASA recovered a crashed flying saucer and kept it for study in Hangar 18 of a military base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two deceased humanoid aliens were recovered from the flying saucer and autopsied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bancroft and Price worked together to prove the government was conspiracy to keep secret from the public news of the recovery of a crashed flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "High-level government officials conspired to keep secret from the public news that NASA had recovered a crashed flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bancroft and Price discovered that the human race was the offspring of the aliens, and that the aliens taught humans writing, built the pyramids and all that stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bancroft and Price pieced together that aliens had been watching over humankind from the dawn of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone laughed off the unemployed construction worker Sam's stories of having seen a crashed flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Cain orchestrated the cover-up of the discovery a crashed flying saucer until such time as the US presidential election was over. He feared that news of the flying saucer getting out to the public would jeopardize the President's chances of being reelected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We say Gordon Cain planning the President's reelection campaign.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flying saucer was discovered to have a hydrogen fusion power source.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Monstroid (1980)", "title": "Monstroid", "date": "1980-07-11", "description": "A killer sea serpent is roused by increasing pollution levels. The film is also known as Monster and It Came from the Lake.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(1980_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of a rural Colombian community were fighting an American corporation that was polluting their lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant sea serpent was swimming around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant sea serpent was swimming around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "A killer sea serpent was roused as a result of a concrete manufacturing plant dumping its raw waste directly into a lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of a rural Colombian community were fighting an American corporation that was polluting their lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The environmental activist Víctor Sánchez and a Catholic priest were each leading an opposition to an American corporation that was polluting a local lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patty Clark was reporting from the scene from a rural Colombian region where an American concrete manufacturing plant was dumping its raw waste directly into a local lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest warned someone that what they were about to do constituted a mortal sin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura did not take Pete dumping her like a sack of potatoes for Juanita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father listened to his teenage son and daughter explain that there was a sea serpent in the lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father listened to his teenage son and daughter explain that there was a sea serpent in the lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A teenage brother and sister pair went out in the middle of the night to photograph the sea serpent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some dismissed villager reports of evil spirits in the lake as local superstition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A local woman was thought to be a witch by the villagers and the priest managed to stop them from burning her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The environmental activist Víctor Sánchez blew himself self up when he dynamited a concrete manufacturing plant that was polluting a local lake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Final Countdown (1980)", "title": "The Final Countdown", "date": "1980-08-01", "description": "A modern aircraft carrier travels through time to the day before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange storm-like vortex sent the USS supercarrier and its crew were sent back in time to the day before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange storm-like vortex sent the USS supercarrier and its crew were sent back in time to the day before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange storm-like vortex sent the USS supercarrier and its crew were sent back in time to the day before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was in the hands of Captain Matthew Yelland to decide whether or not to prevent the Japanese from destroying the US fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, dramatically changing the course of history in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Samuel S. Chapman's colleague assumed he was only employing his beautiful political assistant Laurel Scott because he wanted to sleep with her, but she was in fact highly skilled at her job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurel Scott kept a pet dog that she beloved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren Lasky sketched out this paradox to the higher ups on the USS supercarrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some crewmen, including Captain Yelland, entertained the theory that they were only apparently sent back in time and that it was all some sort of elaborate deception that marked the start of a third world war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x01", "title": "The Flypaper", "date": "1980-08-09", "description": "Sylvia, a quiet, teenage girl, is being pestered by an old man. A woman steps in to help and brings her to her caravan home to call for the police. Unfortunately, the woman is not nice at all.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Elizabeth Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia was cared for by her grandma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believed that the old lady helped save Sylvia from the threatening man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea that the police were searching for the body of a missing girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia realized at the end that she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia's grandmother warned her not to talk to strangers, but she didn't follow the advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia neglected to follow this age old advice to her peril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood music lessons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia cared little for her piano lessons with a disagreeable old lady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia with man on the bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vicar assumed that Sylvia must have been left scarred from her parents dying in an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x02", "title": "A Picture of a Place", "date": "1980-08-16", "description": "An elderly woman lives in a house full of antiques. On visiting, a con-man buys a valuable picture from her at a knockdown price. She turns out to be smarter.\n\nDirected by: Giles Foster. Story by: Doug Morgan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Merv Pottinger was cheating old people but it turned out the elderly woman was in fact forging artworks so the conner got conned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew lived with his old mother Hazel and tried to stop her from forging art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around an old woman who was forging John Constable paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hazel coned Merv Pottinger who was trying to con her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art forgery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hazel was forging and selling John Constable paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew went to the pub with someone who acted like a girlfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x03", "title": "Proof of Guilt", "date": "1980-08-23", "description": "A Police Inspector is investigating a murder. The main suspect is George Stamford, who was with the victim at the time of death, but he admits nothing and there is no evidence against him.\n\nDirected by: Chris Lovett. Story by: Bill Pronzini.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of the form that a police murder investigation might take.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A police inspector investigated a the shooting dead of Mr. Chllingham.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impartiality in the legal system", "level": "major", "motivation": "Concepts were mentioned such as: the need for proof, habeas corpus, partiality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw another clever idea for how you can kill someone without getting nabbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The murder suspect had been disinherited by his father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x04", "title": "Vengeance is Mine Inc.", "date": "1980-08-30", "description": "Two out-of-work actors in London set up a scheme whereby they take revenge on a newspaper critic, Lionel Brewster, for money. Mrs Wilbur calls on them and hires their services.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and George established a company for the purpose of delivering this sort of satisfaction. Mrs. Wilbur went to a most elaborate means to get revenge on her husband for cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and George shared a tiny apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roommates Tom and George were clearly good buddies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Wilbur bought the maid Suky a pearl necklace behind Mrs. Wilbur's back. Later we saw Mr. Wilbur with another young mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with ill-fitting clothes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The porter at the hotel complained that his ill-fitting boots cut up cut his feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two roommates discussed starting a business.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)", "title": "Battle Beyond the Stars", "date": "1980-09-08", "description": "The farming world Akir is threatened by the tyrannical warlord Sador.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Stars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sador threatened to attack the people of Atir with the Stellar Converter super weapon unless they surrendered to him withing seven risings of their red giant sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sador threatened to attack the people of Atir with the Stellar Converter super weapon unless they surrendered to him withing seven risings of their red giant sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Atir was tasked to save his people from the tyranny of Sador.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shad and Nanelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sador was undergoing medical procedures that he hoped would make him live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sador commanded a huge dreadnought. Shad and others were also whizzing around in space vessels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shad's spaceship was equipped with the talking computer Nel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mol said her brother Shad was the best candidate to send out to look for mercenaries to save his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shad visited the space station of Dr. Hephaestus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Hephaestus' space station was full of androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hephaestus' beautiful daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nestor were a race of telepathic clones that shared a single consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nestor read Shad's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valkyrie warrior Saint-Exmin lived her life by the motto \"Live fast, fight well and have a beautiful ending.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sador's dreadnought captured Shad and Nanelia's ship in a tractor beam.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "theamericanshortstory14", "title": "Rappaccini's Daughter", "date": "1980-10-04", "description": "\"Rappaccini's Daughter\" is the 14th installment of The American Short Story television anthology series produced by Learning in Focus and Sea Cliff Productions for the Public Broadcasting Service. This installment is based on the 1844 Nathaniel Hawthorne Gothic short story of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Giacomo Rappaccini, a medical researcher in Padua grows a garden of poisonous plants. He brings up his daughter to tend the plants, and she becomes resistant to the poisons, but in the process she herself becomes poisonous to others.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Short_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-theamericanshortstory.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rappaccini was very protective of Beatrice to the point of confining her to his private garden and controlling her interactions with people from the outside world. For instance, noticing Giovanni was gazing at Beatrice, Rappaccini quickly escorted her inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sequestered to her father's estate her whole life, Beatrice knew little of the outside world and was even likened to pre-fall Eve by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giovanni was smitten with the garden-bound, poison maiden Beatrice. But their love was not to be, as Beatrice died tragically in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lifetime of tending poisonous plants left Beatrice poisonous to most living things she touched. In one scene, a butterfly that landed on Beatrice's hand instantly died. It later became apparent that Giovanni acquired the same poison touch when a bouquet of flowers he was given wilted in his hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Beatrice imbibing the \"antidote\" knowing that it would end her life, perhaps because she refused to be controlled by either her father nor Giovanni, although this is interpretive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Beatrice chose to take her own life over living indefinitely as a prisoner in her father's garden with a man who blamed her for his own troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Due to her being rendered deadly by her father's scientific experiments, Beatrice was condemned to lead a lonely existence on her father's estate. Giovanni wrote in a letter that he was heartsick, that he was in a new place but that his heart remained in Naples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone controlling your life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beatrice was under the dominion of her father, Rappaccini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rappacini's preoccupation with his botanical research blinded him to the fact that he'd ruined his daughter's life in the process. To wit Baglioni said that Rappacini \"cares more for science than for mankind\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rappacini ruthlessly used his daughter as an instrument to advance his botanical research with no regard for her well-being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giovanni found himself under the spell of Beatrice or a spell her father cast or a spell Giovanni put himself under.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Beatrice lamented that both her father and Giovanni seemed bent on denying her autonomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Rappacini made a poison maiden out of his daughter Beatrice with a view toward making her a new Eve. Rumors of unspecified \"unnatural experiments\" surrounded Rappacini, according to his former colleague Baglioni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rappacini did not approve of his daughter having suitors whatsoever. One must think he relished the thought of them dying if they tried to kiss her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rapacini's wickedness in creating someone whose touch was deadly was compared and contrasted with his daughter's general virtuousness by contemporary standards. (By today's standards she was just not much of a moral agent at all).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Distracted by thoughts of his crush Beatrice, Giovanni lost a hand of some unspecified card game, played with conspicuously oversized playing cards, to a fellow student when really Giovanni had the best hand at the table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giovanni enjoyed the mirth of a local tavern upon his arrival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The townspeople expressed trepidation about the garden and its owner, Rappaccini. When Giovanni asked whether the garden was the owner's of the hotel, Emma responded \"Heaven forbid\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aquanauts (1980)", "title": "Aquanauts", "date": "1980-10-11", "description": "An international team of aquanauts investigate a mysterious happening at a deuterium production facility on the ocear floor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquanauts_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that Professor Kerom managed to copy Lotta's matrix of consciousness into a manta ray at the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aquanauts Igor and Sven traveled to the bottom of the sea to investigate a mysterious happening at a deuterium production facility there located.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Igor mourned the death of his fiancée Lotta who perished in a motorcycle crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Free spirited Lotta and her eminent scientist father Professor Kerom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Igor and Lotta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Igor and Lotta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Igon and Sven didn't get on well at first but the adversity the endured at the undersea facility brought them together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980)", "title": "Revenge of the Stepford Wives", "date": "1980-10-12", "description": "A spirited investigative TV reporter arrives in Stepford to do a story on the American town with the lowest crime and divorce rates and the tightest real- estate market in the country, but finds a dark side to life there. It is the first in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Stepford Wives" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Stepford_Wives" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were replacing their wives with submissive house wife android replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Investigative reporter Kaye Foster came to Stepford to do an expose on the seemingly idyllic American town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were replacing their wives with submissive house wife android replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed newcomers Officer Andy Brady and Megan Brady as they adjusted to life in Stepford. We also saw the interactions between various Stepford husbands and their submissive android wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaye recruited Megan Brady, the only other normal woman in Stepford, as her assistant and they quickly became good friends. Megan was eventually replaced by a submissive android but Kaye didn't give up on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were unanimous in the conviction that the natural order of things was for women to be in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were unanimous in the conviction that the natural order of things was for women to be in the home. The wives ultimately rebelled against their husbands, however.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x05", "title": "A Girl Can't Always Have Everything", "date": "1980-11-09", "description": "Suzy and Pat, two struggling actresses, share an apartment together. They get lucky when a millionaire widower invests in their play. Suzy takes advantage and seduces him, but when he asks her to marry him, she is unfaithful. Pat sees a way to take revenge.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Tonita S. Gardner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert Millette was first courting Suzy it appears, then later Pat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suzy and Pat were both after Herbert for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suzy was serially unfaithful to her new husband Herbert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was interspersed with theater scenes, on and behind the stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat resented Suzy's good fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat resented Suzy's good fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suzy tried to fake a suicide attempt in order to garner attention but Pat back-stabbed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was interspersed with theater scenes, on and behind the stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat and Suzy were friends and roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat and Suzy were friends who shared an apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert and Suzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat resented Suzy's good fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Pat betraying Suzy by deliberately neglecting to rescue her from her theatrically faked suicide attempt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Raging Bull (1980)", "title": "Raging Bull", "date": "1980-11-14", "description": "Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler and adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta's memoir Raging Bull: My Story. The film, distributed by United Artists, stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, an Italian-American middleweight boxer whose self-destructive and obsessive rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, LaMotta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons, and Cathy Moriarty as his wife. Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent all play supporting roles in the film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raging_Bull" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how professional boxing is conducted and heard talk about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Joey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake began an affair with 15 year old Vicky; later he worried about her faithfulness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and first wife; Jake and Vicky", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake wanted to be world champion; Jake wanted to be cheered even when told to take a dive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was jealous over Vicky", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vicky was annoyed when Jake acted jealous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack became violent and hit both his wife and his brother, although never to the extent that anyone considered involving the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vicky divorced Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake had been world champion, then got divorced and went to prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x06", "title": "Parson's Pleasure", "date": "1980-11-30", "description": "A crooked antiques dealer is masquerading as a clergyman. Claiming to be collecting old furniture, he comes across a farmer who gives him an antique piece worth a fortune.\n\nDirected by: John Bruce. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crooked antique dealer Cyril Boggis pretended to be a vicar in an effort to swindle an unwitting farmer out of a very expensive antique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interest in antiques", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyril Boggis seemed to enjoy going about the country homes of rural England in search of precious antiques. He was particularly on the hunt for a Thomas Chippendale commode table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyril Boggis told lies to acquire a valuable commode but the sellers took his lies seriously and smashed the commode to pieces before giving it to him. Note that Cyril lied and said he only wanted the legs of the commode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The county lady expressed a contempt for socialists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman II (1980)", "title": "Superman II", "date": "1980-12-04", "description": "Superman II is a 1980 superhero film directed by Richard Lester and written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman, based on the DC Comics character Superman. It is a sequel to the 1978 film Superman and stars Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Terence Stamp, Ned Beatty, Sarah Douglas, Margot Kidder, and Jack O'Halloran. The film was released in Australia and mainland Europe on December 4, 1980, and in other countries throughout 1981. Selected premiere engagements of Superman II were presented in Megasound, a high-impact surround sound system similar to Sensurround.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman at Lois Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kryptonian General Zod and his two minions tried to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was pitted against his old nemesis, the criminal genius Lex Luthor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorists threatened to detonate a hydrogen bomb in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorists threatened to detonate a hydrogen bomb in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of astronauts were attacked while collecting samples on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex Luthor and Eve Teschmacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman experienced what it was like without his super powers after he willingly gave them up in order to be with Lois Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman conferred with the artificial intelligence of his mother Lara.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flash Gordon (1980)", "title": "Flash Gordon", "date": "1980-12-05", "description": "Flash Gordon is a superhero film based on the King Features comic strip of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flash taught the peoples over whom Emperor Ming ruled tyrannically that they could overthrow him if they all united against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Ming plotted to destroy the Earth by crashing the Moon into it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moon slowly spiraling into a planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Ming set of a chain of events that led to the Moon slowly spiraling into Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Ming presided over a ruthless galactic empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flash and Dale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aura at Flash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Ming and Aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hans Zarkov had his memory erased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aura betrayed her father Emperor Ming by ferrying Flash to safety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hawk-men lived in a sort of floating castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash had to fight Barin to the death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x07", "title": "The Stinker", "date": "1980-12-07", "description": "Millionaire Jack Cutler runs into Harold Tinker: a boy he used to bully at school. Cutler gives the reluctant Tinker a job. Tinker, however, suspects that Cutler is having an affair with his wife.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Julian Symons.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Cutler bullied Harold Tinker when they were children in school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Tinker had flashback about being called Tinker the Stinker by Jack during their school days. He also had flashback about being terrorized by his brash father Colonel Tinker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Tinker and Phyl Tinker. Jack Cutler and Blanche Cutler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phyl cheated on Harold with Jack's chauffeur. It was mentioned that she had cheated on him in the past, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold finally decided to get back at Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold shot Jack dead because he thought Jack had slept with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold shot dead his newly made friend Jack only to find it was not Jack but Jack's chauffeur who was sleeping with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold remembered his dysfunctional upbringing with an abusive father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Harold accept a job working for a bully at double the pay of his current job?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Phyl blatantly flirted in front of Phyl's husband Harold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Harold shooting himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack dug into that Stilton like hedonism bot into an orgy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold's wife urged him to take the disagreeable job because she wanted a better life", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scared to Death (1980)", "title": "Scared to Death", "date": "1980-12-12", "description": "A monster stalks Los Angeles as a Bio-Engineered creature called a Syngenor (which stands for SYNthesized GENetic ORgansism) takes refuge in the city's sewer system and then hits the streets at night in search of human spinal fluid. The only person who stands in the way of the creature's unstoppable killing spree is Ted Londergan, a former detective turned private investigator.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scared_to_Death_(1981_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows detective turned private investigator Ted Londergan as he hunts down the perpetrator behind a series of brutal killings in the Los Angeles area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Jennifer were head over heals for each other from nearly the moment they met.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the stereotypical private investigator Ted Londergan feeling sorry for himself, working out of a shabby office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The was a grotesque, sewer dwelling creature running around at night brutally killing young women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted's former partner from the police force Lou was trying to help Ted get his old job as a detective back, and also expressed disapproval of Ted over his constant drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was largely up to Ted to stop a dangerous creature from continuing on its killing spree in the Los Angeles area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The creature was the outcome of a genetic engineering experiment gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various terror-stricken young women were brutally slain by the creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted was quick to hit the bottle and it was implied that he had lost his job as a police detective because of his drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police detective Lou was working on tracking down a serial murderer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x08", "title": "I'll Be Seeing You", "date": "1980-12-14", "description": "Roland Trent, husband of a millionairess, is having an affair with a young woman who is almost blind. Leaving his rich wife will leave him penniless just as he needs to afford an experimental operation that could restore the sight of his new beloved; he thinks of a way to have both the money and his mistress.\n\nDirected by: Philip Dudley. Story by: Robert Quigley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roland Trent and Vivienne Trent. Jack Parsons and Olive Parsons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ronald was having an extramarital affair with Anna Warrack. Vivienne had also cheated on Ronald.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ronald Trent and Anna Warrack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Anna undergo a risky surgery to save her fading sight at the risk of going blind immediately?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roland killed his wife Vivienne by cutting the brake lines of her car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna was transplanted with eyes of Harold's deceased wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Coburn wanted to try an experimental procedure on Anna to save her eyesight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "By an ironic coincidence Ronald found that his mistress had received the eyes of his late and hated wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna's vision was restored after she was transplanted with eyes of Harold's deceased wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upper class Vivienne said she would have sympathy for Anna if the girl were also from the upper classes. Vivienne's parents were upper class snobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivienne refused to give Ronald a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ronald got his mistress Anna pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold tried to make a deal with Vivienne to leave his love Anna so long as Vivienne lent him the money for an operation that would save Anna's vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief discussion about the morality of turning off life support for the vegetative Viviene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected3x09", "title": "The Party", "date": "1980-12-19", "description": "Harry Knox, manager of a toy factory for 40 years is uneasy when the company is taken over. As he's organising the Christmas party, another staff member arranges a staff disco ahead of his. Enraged, Knox sets fire to the party venue, only to find that he has made a terrible mistake.\n\nDirected by: Giles Foster. Story by: Doug Morgan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Linda Knox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Peckham's employees worried off and on they would all lose their jobs after a merger with another company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry spitefully burned down the banquet he thought he was excluded from only to find out it was in fact a surprise party to honor him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry spitefully burned down the banquet he thought he was excluded from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was in charge of making the arrangements for his company's Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Henry wasn't into discos and learning French to keep up with the times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary Leighton organized a rival office party at the disco to Henry Knox's traditional office party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Altered States (1980)", "title": "Altered States", "date": "1980-12-25", "description": "A psychopathologist investigates the possibility that our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking states. It is based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky's only novel and is his final screenplay. Both the novel and the film are based in part on John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs like mescaline, ketamine, and LSD.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The films was about Dr. Jessup using psychedelics in an effort to find God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup transformed into an ape-like human ancestor while inside a sensory deprivation chamber under influence of a psychedelic drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup unlocked the power of his mind to transform himself into an ape-like human ancestor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup devolved into an ape-like human ancestor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup was on a personal quest to probe the true limits of the human mind by using psychedelic drugs in combination with sensory deprivation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup and Emily Jessup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup and Emily Jessup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup was entertained the theory that schizophrenia was actually some kind of heightened state of consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christian imagery was prevalent in Dr. Jessup's psychedelic drug trips.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jessup appeared to bend and warp the water pies in the room he was contained in by using the power of his own mind at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Firebird 2015 AD (1981)", "title": "Firebird 2015 AD", "date": "1981", "description": "In the year 2015 the US government outlaws the distribution of gasoline to the public, reserving it only for the politicians, the Military and law enforcement. This does not go over well with some motor vehicle enthusiasts.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_2015_AD" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The US government outlawed the distribution of gasoline to the public ostensibly because of a global fuel shortage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The US government outlawed the distribution of gasoline to the public ostensibly because of a global fuel shortage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A corrupt government outlawed the distribution of gasoline to the public ostensibly because of a global fuel shortage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red instilled in his teenage son Cameron his passion for joyriding around in muscle cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "major", "motivation": "The middle aged man Red was all about joyriding in his 1980 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am. Jill was really into riding around in her dune buggy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Burners (civilians who drove cars in spite of a government ban on doing so) were joyriding around in their motor vehicles as a form of rebellion against their oppressive government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron and Jill fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teens Cameron and Jill fell for each other and at one point made love in a barn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill was held prisoner by a typical Hollywood Indian character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill was held prisoner by a typical Hollywood Indian character.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981)", "title": "The Mystery of the Third Planet", "date": "1981", "description": "A father and his young daughter embark on an interstellar voyage to find rare animals for the Moscow Zoo. It is based on a children's science fiction novella \"Alice's Travel\" by Kir Bulychev, from Alisa (Alice) Selezneva book series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Third_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice and her father went on an interstellar voyage to find rare animals for the Moscow Zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Green, Alice and her father voyaged to many distant planets in search of rare animals for the Moscow Zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice spent the equivalent of a 22nd century summer vacation from school searching the galaxy for rare animals together with her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Green, Alice and her father flew in the spaceship Pegasus to the planet Bluk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice and her father encountered various aliens on their voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The main villain of the film had anthropomorphic robot henchmen. Alice and her father also visited a planet of robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien gave Alice a cap that rendered her invisible upon wearing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice and her father visited a planet populated by large eared, blue aliens in search of rare animals for the Moscow Zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice and her father visited a planet populated exclusively by robots.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scanners (1981)", "title": "Scanners", "date": "1981-01-14", "description": "In the film, \"scanners\" are people with unusual telepathic and telekinetic powers. ConSec, a purveyor of weaponry and security systems, searches out scanners to use them for its own purposes. The film's plot concerns the attempt by a renegade scanner to wage a war against ConSec.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron needed to inject himself with ephemerol to stop nearby people's thoughts from flooding into his mind and drive him mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron, and the other scanners, could probe other people's conscious thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron, and the other scanners, were telepathic by nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron, and the other scanners, manifested this ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote harming ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron was able to speed up another man's heartbeat using only his mind. This is one example of the various times that a scanner used this power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Revok psychically controlled a man into shooting himself in the head. This is one example of the various times that a scanner used this power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The private military company ConSec was planning to use incredibly powerful psychics as weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cameron reprogrammed a computer using only the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Dr. Paul Ruth turned out to be Cameron's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Revok revealed to Cameron that they were brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Revok's explained to Cameron how he wanted to raise an army of scanners and take over the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earthbound (1981)", "title": "Earthbound", "date": "1981-01-30", "description": "When a family of benevolent humanoid aliens is stranded in the Midwestern United States after their spaceship crashes, a kind innkeeper and his grandson takes them in. Once word gets out that aliens have landed, Sheriff De Rita and Deputy Sweeney prove unable to handle the crowds. A government agent arrives who wants to assure that the aliens cannot intermingle with humankind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthbound_(1981_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A UFO was sighted and it turned out to be a flying saucer. It made a landing near the town of Goldrush, California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around an old man named Ned and his grandson Tommy playing host to a family of stranded aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grandfather and grandson helped conceal a family of four aliens from the public while they figured out how to repair they flying saucer and leave Earth. The aliens pretended to be relatives from Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The feds were hot on the trail of a family of four aliens who had made an emergency landing near the town of Goldrush, California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four aliens became stranded on Earth and had to work hard to repair their flying saucer and escape before the feds apprehended them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four aliens saw humanity from an outside perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens regularly levitated objects, like pots, and even operated machines, like cars, using their minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tommy befriended the alien boy Dalem. The teenage alien girl Teva befriended befriended human teenage female Rosie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Goldrush panicked in the streets in the wake of rumors of an alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A family of four aliens made an emergency landing of their flying saucer near the town of Goldrush, California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zef and Lara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dalem quarreled off and on with his older sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had a natural ability to sense emotions, like anger, love and trust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy's parents had recently died in an automobile crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lara and Dalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lara and Teva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zef and Dalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zef and Teva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens became invisible whenever they simultaneously held hands and held their breath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zef helped Tommy to move on from his parent's tragic deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens had a family pet green monkey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens came to the realization at the end of the film that they could never leave Earth. Ned and his grandson welcomed them to live a their homestead in a touching conclusion to the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)", "title": "The Incredible Shrinking Woman", "date": "1981-01-30", "description": "Pat Kramer of Tasty Meadows is an ordinary suburban housewife and mother of two children. Her husband Vance is an advertising executive. After exposure to an experimental perfume and other chemicals from her husband's company, she begins to shrink, gradually at first, then rapidly. It is a take-off on the 1957 science-fiction classic film The Incredible Shrinking Man, and credited as based on Richard Matheson's 1956 novel, The Shrinking Man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat shrank to minute proportions after being exposed to an experimental perfume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vance and Pat Kramer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was a critique of mass consumerism from start to finish: Vance was marketing a perfume, Pat sang a TV soap commercial jingle to get children to wash up, and there were other commercial jingles were played from time to time, and some company executives tried to use a greatly shrunken Pat to advertise their products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pat and Vance parented a handful of little brats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "An ever shrinking Pat became became a media darling her house a destination for curiosity seekers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vance with his wife Pat shrinking in size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eugene Nortz was planning to use a serum derived from Pat's blood to shrink everyone in the world except for himself and his associates. His motive: to be master of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tears were shed at Pat's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pat was abducted by two mad scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eugene Nortz and Dr. Ruth Ruth plotted to synthesize a shrink serum from Pat's blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The caged gorilla Sidney felt sorry for Pat in her captivity. It tried help her escape.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from Galaxy 3 (1981)", "title": "Escape from Galaxy 3", "date": "1981-02-12", "description": "Escape from Galaxy 3 (original title \"Giochi erotici nella terza galassia\" also known as Starcrash II) is an Italian 1981 science fiction film. The film is notorious for using stock footage from Starcrash for all its model scenes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Galaxy_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is a simple story of the good forces of King Ceylon standing up to the evil forces of Oracion (a.k.a. The King of the Night).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Ceylon and his beloved daughter Princess Belle Star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lithan and Princess Belle Star, neither of whom had previously experienced the emotion of love, ended up falling passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lithan and Princess Belle Star, neither of whom were acquainted with romance and sex, learned the ways of love from a race of medieval-era people, and thereafter took up the practice with one another with great enthusiasm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Oracion was determined to conquer the galaxy, bring all the other kings in the galaxy to heel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Ceylon was commanding his forces from a space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was stock footages of various futuristic spaceships in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While evading the evil Oracion, Lithan and Princess Belle Star got lost and ended up landing on an Earth-like planet in another galaxy. In fact, one gathers that the planet was in fact Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The medieval epoch people mistook Lithan's spaceship for a dragon, and their some of their other technology as magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of the medieval epoch people welcomed Lithan and Princess Belle Star into his community with open arms just as soon as he realized they meant him and his people no harm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lithan experienced jealously for the first time when he noticed that one of the medieval epoch men was interested in Princess Belle Star.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Inseminoid (1981)", "title": "Inseminoid", "date": "1981-03-23", "description": "The plot concerns a group of archaeologists and scientists who are excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization on a distant planet. After one of the women in the team is raped and impregnated by a monstrous alien creature, she becomes psychotic and starts killing her colleagues one by one and eating their flesh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inseminoid" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of archaeologists and scientists were excavating the ruins of an ancient alien civilization on a distant planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sandy was raped, and impregnated in the process, by a monstrous alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sandy was taken over by an alien intelligence and started slaughtering her colleagues one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a monstrous alien creature on the planet. The film concluded with Sandy giving birth to an alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet was in orbit around two stars and seems to have been ruled by twins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two team members exchanged proclamations of love for one another while embracing in the science lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was incapacitated and stuck in the middle of nowhere", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gail got her foot stuck in pile of twisted metal and had to amputate it herself with a chainsaw or else she would freeze to death. She went through with the amputation but ended up freezing to death anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy had flashback to her rape at the hands of a monstrous alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologists and scientists needed to wear protective spacesuit-like suits to explore the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shuttle Xeno 2 landed on the planet to search for signs of the archaeologists and scientists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)", "title": "Per Aspera Ad Astra", "date": "1981-04", "description": "A female, humanoid alien is rescued from a derelict ship and is brought back to live on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Aspera_Ad_Astra_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rescued alien Neeya lived among humans. Two Dessan ambassadors were also lurking around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rescued alien Neeya lived among humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neeya regularly manifested this ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neeya was a clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria Pavlovna and Sergei Lebedev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Astra crew was dispatched on a mission to clean up the horribly polluted Dessand home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "So polluted was the Dessan home world that people could only go on the surface when equipped with special gas masks, and only a remnant of their former civilization persisted in underground structures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dessan gas mask industry, which benefited from the planet being horribly polluted, tried to deceive the public into thinking that the Astra crew's motives for cleaning up their planet were sinister in nature. In the end they tried to blow up the Astra to stop them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The starship Pushkin discovered a derelict alien spaceship of unknown origin. The latter half of the film was set aboard the starship Astra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a robot servant at the Pavlovna residence. The shaceship Astra had a humanoid robot crew member.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neeya reflexively turned invisible in times of distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergei Lebedev and Cadet Stepan Lebedev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria Pavlovna and Cadet Stepan Lebedev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The latter half of the film followed the starship Astra crew on their voyage from Earth to the distant planet Dessa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Astra crew dropped off an aquatic being on just such a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dessan ozone layer was dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergei quoted this phrase to Neeya in the context of justifying her existence as a clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flashback scenes to Neeya and her creator whom she called father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neeya was cloned in such a way that she that could be controlled from a special console.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x01", "title": "Would You Believe It?", "date": "1981-04-05", "description": "While on a dig in Jordan, two archaeologists discover a statue of a woman. They hide it in their van and smuggle it out of the country. When they reach their destination, they find it has been dissolved by rain.\n\nDirected by: Barry Davies. Story by: Robert Edmond Alter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two archaeologists discovered a statue of a woman while on a dig in Jordan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller debated whether to betray the Jordanians in order to enrich himself by smuggling an ancient status out of the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller debated whether to betray the Jordanians in order to enrich himself by smuggling an ancient status out of the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller was an idealistic young archaeologist and Tanner a cynical old one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miller was particularly hell-bent on smuggling an ancient status out of Jordan with a view to enriching himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two archaeologists pilfered a newly discovered ancient statue from an excavation site in Jordan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miller left a guard for dead after having bashed him on the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tale of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt was recounted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Chase (1981)", "title": "The Last Chase", "date": "1981-04-10", "description": "A former racing driver reassembles his old Porsche and drives to California in a future world where cars and motor vehicles of all kinds have been outlawed by the powers that be.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Chase" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklyn and other resistors struggled against a authotarian regime that seized power when democracy collapsed in the wake of an apocalyptic plague. The new regime outlawed ownership and use of all automobiles, boats and aircraft, on the false pretext that the exhaustion of fossil fuel supplies was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "energy crisis in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The totalitarian regime outlawed ownership and use of all automobiles, boats and aircraft, on the false pretext that the exhaustion of fossil fuel supplies was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklyn and Ring had to drive from Boston to a safe haven in California before the totalitarian regime got them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklyn and Ring were on a mission to get to California where they would be free from the oppressive totalitarian regime that ruled over the rest of the former United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklyn lost his family (a wife and child) to the plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where a substantial portion of the world population had been wiped out by a devastating viral pandemic some 20 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When asked by his teacher why he was hanging upside down from a statue, boarding school student Ring McCarthy replied that he was doing it to not conform with society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklyn took pride in having restored an old Porsche 917 CAN-AM roadster into working condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The totalitarian regime found am old, washed up Vietnam War veteran fly a fighter jet in pursuit of Franklyn and Ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklyn had a romantic interlude with Eudora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the old Vietnam War veteran died drawing the fire from the laser canon so that Franklyn and Ring could arrive at the California border unharmed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x02", "title": "Vicious Circle", "date": "1981-04-12", "description": "An elderly woman catches a thief in the act at her home. She befriends the young man and attempts to set him on the straight and narrow.\n\nDirected by: Philip Dudley. Story by: Donald Honig.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady walked in on Rex Tobin trying to break into her flat. It turned out that Mrs. Grady had herself stolen a bunch of jewelery from a wealthy family whom she used to serve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady helped a man who injured his ankle while trying to burgle her flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady helped a man who injured his ankle while trying to burgle her flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young man Rex discussed about reforming his delinquent ways with the elderly Mrs. Grady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady wondered whether Rex had been the man that mugged and murdered her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady wanted the young delinquent Rex to reform his wicked ways, and Rex tentatively said he would, but only a fool would have believed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Grady talked to her house cat Timmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The burglar Rex tried to trick Mrs. Grady into thinking that her non-preachy advice to him gave him hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The burglar Rex immediately betrayed the trust of the lady that thought he had reformed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x03", "title": "The Boy who Talked with Animals", "date": "1981-04-19", "description": "While on holiday in Jamaica, young David persuades his father to buy a giant turtle captured by fishermen so that it can be released. When both boy and turtle disappear, an American man, Jenner, gets caught up in the adventure.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "David insisted a 200 year old turtle that was caught by some fishermen be returned to the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy David and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's parents were distraught when David went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "major", "motivation": "David communicated with the turtle and perhaps other animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people on the beach were only concerned with things like making turtle soup or getting its shell, while the boy David expressed a deep sympathy for the creature. Also, one man jabbed it in the throat with an oar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy David and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's mother and father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The behavior and age of the turtle was mentioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x04", "title": "The Best of Everything", "date": "1981-04-26", "description": "Arthur, a junior office clerk, is smitten with his rich boss's daughter, Ann, but is too shy to ask her out because he is poor. A new friend, Charlie Prince, will help him to act rich in return for sharing a room. Arthur doesn't play fair with Charlie, but fate plays fair with Arthur.\n\nDirected by: John Bruce. Story by: Stanley Ellin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur Price was smitten with his wealthy boss's daughter Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Horton and Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur killed his lodger Charlie in a moment of rage. He then put the body in a trunk and put it in a storage room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur changed from being a menial man to being a confident, self-assured man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur's secret crush eventually turned into a fiance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur availed himself of his debonnaire friend Charlie's assistance (and fancy clothes) in becoming more of a ladies man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur coped with Charlie living in his room without paying any rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur was initially too shy to tell his boss's daughter about his true feelings for her, but he eventually plucked up the courage to ask her out on a date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the man Arthur murdered was Ann's own brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur mentioned he had trouble expressing his feelings for Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie mentioned he was a gold digger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned at the end that Charlie was an ostracize embarrassment of Ann's family.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x05", "title": "A Woman's Help", "date": "1981-05-03", "description": "Arnold is financially dependent on his rich, older wife, but is having an affair. He devises a plan to kill his wife in order to get her money and remarry.\n\nDirected by: Bert Salzman. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold Bourdon and his wealthy, invalid wife Elizabeth Bourdon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold was having an affair with Miss Grecco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold and Miss Grecco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth fired a maid after having overheard her expressing romantic interest in her husband. She later became wildly jealous of the newly hired servant Miss Grecco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold plotted to murder his wife Elizabeth, inherit her fortune, and then marry Miss Grecco. Miss Grecco acted as his accomplice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wife Elizabeth was jealous of the new house servant Miss Grecco over husband Arnold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth was an invalid and largely confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnold, Elizabeth, Miss Grecco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth inadvertently hired Arnold's mother as their house servant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan: The Dragons Challenge (1981)", "title": "Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge", "date": "1981-05-09", "description": "The film was preceded by the 1977 film Spider-Man and Spider-Man Strikes Back.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_The_Dragon%27s_Challenge" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of assassins was out to kill Min Lo Chan before he left New York. Later Professor Dent was pursued by assassins in Hong Kong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider, which enabled him to climb up the sides of buildings among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily got in touch with her Chinese roots. At the end of the film, she even decided to stay in Hong Kong, rather than return to New York where she had grown up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J. J. Jameson helped his old college friend Min Lo Chan's career and life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Parker used his X-ray vision to see a man toting man straight through a wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Parker used his X-ray vision to see a man toting man straight through a wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chinese Minister of Industrial Development Min Lo Chan was staying with his American niece Emily Chan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was down in the dumps after Emily called him a coward for running away when a trio of assailants burst into her house to kill her uncle Min Lo Chan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was down in the dumps after Emily called him a coward for running away when a trio of assailants burst into her house to kill her uncle Min Lo Chan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x06", "title": "Shatterproof", "date": "1981-05-10", "description": "Property millionaire Gerry Williams has a beautiful wife, but she no longer loves him. An assassin is hired, but he soon becomes friendly with Gerry.\n\nDirected by: John Jacobs. Story by: Jack Ritchie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry Williams and Ellen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen hired an hit man to murder her wealthy businessman husband Gerry. But the clever businessman got the upper hand and manipulated the hit man to murder the wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry bluffed the assassin good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 56 year old man Gerry had a 23 year old wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The assassin explained how he would avoid getting caught murdering Gerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The assassin explained that he liked to toy with his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was hinted that Gerry Williams' beautiful wife Ellen was romantically involved with Mr. Emerson.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Malevil (1981)", "title": "Malevil", "date": "1981-05-13", "description": "The film takes place in a small village named \"Malevil\" within central France. Due to an administrative issue, the mayor, pharmacist, farmers, traders, and other villagers attend a meeting in the local château's large wine cellar on a beautiful sunny day in late summer. However, while the meeting is taking place the radio suddenly cuts out. Moments later, huge explosions occur followed by long and violent flashes. The noise, excessive heat, and moisture cause everyone in the cellar to fall unconscious. The survivors awaken to find a scorched world where almost nothing remains. They embark on a new life faced with isolationism and violence. It is based on the 1972 science fiction novel of the same name by Robert Merle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malevil_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of villagers were left to do their best to survive after a gigantic explosion left everything in utter desolation. Whether the explosion was the result of a deliberate human action, an accident, or even of natural origin was never revealed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of villagers were left to do their best to survive after a gigantic explosion left everything in utter desolation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "People organized into rival factions and started shooting each other over food and supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "People organized into rival factions and started shooting each other over food and supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A teenage boy was left blind from looking at the explosion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x07", "title": "The Sound Machine", "date": "1981-05-17", "description": "A botanist has invented a machine that translates the sound of plants into speech. What he hears gives him a shock.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ability to communicate with plants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old man Klausner invented a machine that allowed him to hear noises that plants and trees make when in pain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old man Klausner wondered that he might be going insane and asked Dr. Scott to come over to verify that he too could hear trees scream using Klausner's device. Other people, such as Dr. Scott, worried that Klausner was losing his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klausner invented a wacky machine that allowed him to hear trees talking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klausner tried to convince Dr. Scott that the trees felt pain but the doctor didn't take him seriously at first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klausner was experimenting with sound in his shed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Saunders complained about her eccentric scientific midnight experimenter of a neighbor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Outland (1981)", "title": "Outland", "date": "1981-05-22", "description": "A no-nonsense marshal uncovers a drug trafficking operation on a mining outpost on the Jovian moon Io.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a titanium ore mining outpost on the Jovian moon of Io.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed O'Neil as he uncovered an amphetamine drug dealing operation on the mining outpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The company Conglomerates Amalgamated at best turned a blind eye to their miners shooting up on dangerous amphetamines because it increased their productivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "O'Neil was borderline obsessed with busting a drug trafficking operation and bringing its unscrupulous members to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "O'Neil's wife Carol couldn't handle life on the rugged Io mining colony and soon skipped off to a nearby space station together with their son Paul. O'Neil joined them at the conclusion of the film just in time for them to fly back to Earth together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Neil's wife Carol couldn't handle life on the rugged Io mining colony and soon skipped off to a nearby space station together with their son Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the miners went psychotic from shooting up on amphetamines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Neil was walking around on a metal structure on the surface of Io in a spacesuit-looking thing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x08", "title": "Never Speak Ill of the Dead", "date": "1981-05-24", "description": "Irene, the wife of a country doctor, has a reputation for promiscuity. She again becomes the subject of gossip when she disappears. Soon, speculation begins to grow that her husband has murdered her and buried her in the cellar. Remake of \"De Mortuis,\" Alfred Hitchcock Presents (S2E3, 14 October 1956), starring Robert Emhardt.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are lead to believe that the doctor might have killed and burred his wife in the cellar - then he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"Irene Taylor: who didn't nail her?\" was the catch phrase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Rankin mentioned that Irene was much younger than him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Sim professed themselves ready to lie for their friend Dr. Rankin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covering up a crime to save a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's friends Bob and Sim were prepared to help him cover up his wife's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. David Rankin and Irene Rankin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's friends Bob and Sim were prepared to help him cover up his wife's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Sim accused David of murdering his wife. It turned out their accusation was a little premature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea that Irene could have been unfaithful was refuted in such a way that the possibility became topical.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x09", "title": "The Best Policy", "date": "1981-05-31", "description": "Harry Flock is promoted to the position of bank manager due to his meticulous approach to work. The bank's head office, however, gets a tip-off that Flock is embezzling money, but there is no evidence.\n\nDirected by: Ray Danton. Story by: Ferenc Molnár.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Flock couple hatched a clever plot that was calculated to get Harry promoted to bank manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was illustrated through Harry that one must mind one's reputation in order to advance one's career. Harry claimed that his investigators were trying to ruin his reputation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry expressed outrage over being maligned, abused, and his character spattered with mud. Harry claimed that he could not stand having a poor reputation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Daisy Flock both pretended to be vegetarians. But Harry was show to eat dog food and someone also reported that they had seen him eat a hot dog. The story ended with Harry and Daisy digging into a pile of junk food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Flock and Daisy Flock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was suspected of having embezzled money from the bank where he worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was suspected of having murdered his boss Mr. Pierce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An early 80s computer took care of the bank office's accounting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x10", "title": "The Last Bottle in the World", "date": "1981-06-07", "description": "Kyros Kassoulas is planning a meal for his wedding anniversary. He buys an expensive bottle of Claret for the occasion, but he is fully aware that his wife is being unfaithful.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Stanley Ellin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyros very cleverly caused his wife's lover to have a fatal heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyros and Sophie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sophie was having an affair with Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyros, Sophie, and Max de Marechal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gourmet wine was at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyros was married to a woman half his age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryos avenged Max's sleeping with his wife by murdering him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sophie recounted to her uncle Charles the story of how Kyros murdered Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max de Marechal explained that Kyros had a passion for collecting priceless works of art, rare jewels, and rare wines, including Charles' 1864 vintage bottle of wine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)", "title": "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "date": "1981-06-12", "description": "Raiders of the Lost Ark (later marketed as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) is a 1981 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Lawrence Kasdan from a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It was produced by Frank Marshall for Lucasfilm Ltd., with Lucas and Howard Kazanjian as executive producers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ancient puzzle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Indiana Jones raided a tomb with elaborate traps, and then solved an ancient riddle to find the Ark of the Covenant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jones and Marion were clearly on the side of the good Allies, fighting stereotypically wicked and brutish Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Ark of the Covenant is a Christian icon and in the end, God smote the wicked Nazis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jones likes to explorer ancient forgotten temples and raid closed off tombs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jones mends some of his rapscallious ways and makes amends with Marion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jones and Marion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jones was an archaeologist, as was one of the antagonists and some the professors we met in an archaeology department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Nazi soldiers dominating in parts of the world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "some of the Nazis were caricatures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jones and Marion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Indiana Jones was an archaeology professor who, in between adventures, interacted with the academic world and his peers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x11", "title": "Kindly Dig Your Grave", "date": "1981-06-14", "description": "A commercial art gallery in Paris is run by the unscrupulous Madame La Grue, who is exploiting the artists she employs. She soon realizes that she has met her match, however, when one of her artists falls in love with the model he is painting.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Stanley Ellin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "art related activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around an art dealer buy paintings from artists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madame La Grue had a special way of negotiating to buy paintings whereby should would write her offer down without showing the artist, ask them how much they wanted for their painting, then only buy it if they offer was lower than the one she had written.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham and Fatima got desperate when she became pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham moved in with Fatima and she quickly became pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fatima plotted to extort 400,000 francs from Madame La Grue by threatening to sell a salacious portrait of La Grue to her rival art dealer, which he would have used to ruin her reputation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the working life of a painter portrayed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham fell passionately in love with his model Fatima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mme La Grue clashed with the artist and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham had buyer's remorse, actually seller's remorse, over selling a painting to Madame La Grue for about a fraction of the price of what she would have paid for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wealthy commercial art gallery owner Madame La Grue paid struggling artists sous on the franc for their works of art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham was struggling to sell his paintings in France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madame La Grue playde a cruel guessins game with penniless artist Graham, but when she was blackmailed, an Graham's wife played the same game on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Graham and his friend discussed being out of cash.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x12", "title": "Completely Foolproof", "date": "1981-06-21", "description": "Joe Brisson, a ruthless self-made millionaire, has a number of enemies - including his wife. Joe plans to murder his wife as she is blackmailing him for half of his assets.\n\nDirected by: John Jacobs. Story by: Robert Arthur Jr..", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wealthy businessman Joe arranged for his wife to be murdered to prevent her from blackmailing him out of half of his assets. In a twist of fate, she had arranged the same for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe Brisson and Lisa Brisson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe's wife Lisa was blackmailing him for half of his assets. It was also mentioned that Joe had blackmailed others in the past in order to build up his business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe had been unfaithful to his wife Lisa with Miss Graham.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa wanted half of Joe's assets in her divorce settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe, Lisa, and Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Lisa were fixated on money, and leach lost their life at the direction of the other in its pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an ironic twist of fate Joe and Lisa ended up having each other assassinated at the same time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x13", "title": "There's One Born Every Minute", "date": "1981-06-28", "description": "Arthur and Margaret Pearson live a quiet, middle-aged life. When Margaret inherits some money, Arthur decides to invest it in a property scheme. This, however, proves the turning point in their relationship.\n\nDirected by: Philip Dudley. Story by: Bill Pronzini.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur and Margaret were quarreling about an investment opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Pearson's were royally conned by an actor pretending to be a real estate agent and then we learn that the wife in fact conned her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret wanted to invest inherited money in a property, but Arthur wanted to leave it in the bank for safe keeping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur, Margret, Arthur's mistress Joy, and the con artist Mr. Cox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Arthur and Margaret cheated on each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur schemed to con his wife out of 50,000 pounds, but in the end it was her who conned him out of the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur faced up to his boss Mr. Grimshaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur and Margaret were quarreling over what do do with some money they had inherited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Arthur react to being swindled out of 50,000 pounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joy told Arthur that he was ready for the knacker's yard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur thought briefly that Margaret had hanged herself but she had in fact dumped him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was devastated in the wake of being dumped by both Margret and his mistress Joy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Cox and Joy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Visitors from the Galaxy (1981)", "title": "Visitors from the Galaxy", "date": "1981-07-02", "description": "An aspiring science fiction writer finds that he has the ability to conjure his thoughts into reality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitors_from_the_Galaxy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Robert in his attempt to write a science fiction story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Biba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Biba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three aliens appeared on Earth. In reality they were conjured into existence by Robert, but they were bona fide space aliens for all intents and purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thought materialization ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert discovered that he had an innate ability to will material objects into existence. This feat he could achieve by means of thinking very intensely about things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert's photographer friend Toni was itching to be the first to snap a shot of the space aliens once word of their arrival had spread around town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anthropomorphic robot Andra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert to see a psychiatrist to find out if he was hallucinating the space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biba's older sister did not very much approve of her being with Robert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biba became incensed upon walking in on Robert touching the female robot Andra in a sexually suggestive manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biba got the mistaken impression that Robert was getting frisky with the female robot Andra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A grotesque alien creature crashed a dinner party and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert conjured into existence a grotesque alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert was an avid reader of science fiction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x14", "title": "Bosom Friends", "date": "1981-07-05", "description": "Nell and Emma are old school friends who meet up again for the first time in years. Eventually, Emma moves in with Nell. It turns out however that Emma is penniless and is happy to drag Nell down with her.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Dana Lyon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nell and Emma were old school chums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penniless Emma mooched her way into her old friend Nell's house and refused to budge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "First Emma, then Nell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Nell shake a staircase in an attempt to murder Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma's inability to pay the rent to Nell put a severe strain their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma mooched off of Nell after renting a room at her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma and Nell wrangled over the rent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from New York (1981)", "title": "Escape from New York", "date": "1981-07-10", "description": "Set in the near-future world of 1997, the film concerns a crime-ridden United States, which has converted Manhattan Island in New York City into the country's maximum-security prison. \"Once you go in you don't come out\". Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and is purposely crashed in New York City. Ex-soldier and current federal prisoner Snake Plissken is given just 24 hours to go in and rescue the President of the United States, after which, if successful, Snake will be pardoned.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_New_York" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a near-future United States where the United States was so overrun with crime that Manhattan was made into an open air prison where convicted were basically left to fend for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crime had risen so high in the United States by the late 1980s that all of Manhattan Island was turned into an open air prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snake Plissken was given 24 hours to rescue the U.S. President from a gang of thugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's antihero Snake Plissken was the kind of guy who wasn't looking to make any friends and called no man mister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of revolutionaries hijacked the U.S. President’s airplane and flew it into a Manhattan building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Duke pitted Snake Plissken in a fight to the death against a mountain of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brain and Maggy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President was heading to a global summit to reveal something about nuclear fusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of revolutionaries hijacked the U.S. President’s airplane and flew it into a Manhattan building.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x15", "title": "A Glowing Future", "date": "1981-07-19", "description": "Betsy and Jack are long-term lovers who live together. Jack, however, has fallen in love with another woman in Australia and plans to marry her. Betsy becomes enraged as he packs his things to move away, which includes a lot of her possessions.\n\nDirected by: John Peyser. Story by: Ruth Rendell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy didn't it handle well when her ex-boyfriend Jack came back to her house to pack up all his belongings and ship them off to \"some woman halfway around the world\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack paraphrased this aphorism to characterize Betsy's behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy and Jack took on stereotypical gender roles during their breakup. Betsy asked how a man could do what Jack had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy bashed in Jack's head in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betsy was exceedingly jealous of Patricia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betsy refused to believe that Jack really wouldn't be with her anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betsy presumptuously asked Jack if his new girlfriend was rich.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x16", "title": "The Way to Do It", "date": "1981-07-26", "description": "Roger Carson is eager to get away from the clutches of his domineering Aunt May and takes up gambling. While at the casino, he falls for a hostess, Suzie. The casino manager has a score to settle with the Carsons, however.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Jack Ritchie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger Carson and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Suzie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger's aunt May dominated his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was extricate with his own cleverness in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger's trouble with women seemed ascribed to the domineering aunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger took up gambling as a way to escape from his domineering aunt, May, and ended up having to borrow money from a casino owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt May faced loan sharks that were after Roger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Heavy Metal (1981)", "title": "Heavy Metal", "date": "1981-08-07", "description": "Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian adult animated sci-fi-fantasy film directed by Gerald Potterton, produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine, which was the basis for the film, and starring the voices of Rodger Bumpass, Jackie Burroughs, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Don Francks, Martin Lavut, Marilyn Lightstone, Eugene Levy, Alice Playten, Harold Ramis, Percy Rodriguez, Susan Roman, Richard Romanus, August Schellenberg, John Vernon, and Zal Yanovsky. The screenplay was written by Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nerdy teenager found a green meteorite near his house and put it in his rock collection. During a lightning experiment, the orb hurled the boy into the world of Neverwhere, where he is transformed into a naked, bald-headed muscular man called Den.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each story featured people lusting for the power that would come with getting their hands on the Loknar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Loknar was a green orb of pure evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pure evil being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Loknar was a green orb of pure evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people became consumed with hatred while under the influence of the Loknar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a battle between forces of good and the evil Loknar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying cars were prevalent in future New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry complained about illegal aliens being in New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nerd in the second story saved a girl from being sacrificed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the second tale, a nerdy guy was transformed into a big muscular man, and transported to a fantasy world where he was celebrated as a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The third tale was set in a futuristic space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the fifth tale, a robot got engaged to a Jewish woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Memoirs of a Survivor (1981)", "title": "Memoirs of a Survivor", "date": "1981-09", "description": "A middle aged woman struggles to survive in a near future in which England has suffered an economic collapse and lies in ruins.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_a_Survivor_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which a severe economic collapse leaves England in utter ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily left D's house and shacked up with her new lover Gerald.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "D appeared to be able to travel back in time and observe a Victorian age family that resided in the same apartment in which she herself lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald was molesting some of the young girls staying at the homeless shelter he was operating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a wall in D's apartment that when passed through brought people back in time to the same apartment but in Victorian times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily kept a pet bulldog named Hugo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald operated a makeshift refugee camp for the orphan and homeless children of the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily appeared to move back in time and observe a a Victorian age family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was implied that Emily lost her virginity to Gerald.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald's number one woman Emily became jealous, and a bit irascible when he started sleeping with other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald made a vain attempt to domesticate a band of wild children who he found living in filth and squalor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Galaxy of Terror (1981)", "title": "Galaxy of Terror", "date": "1981-10", "description": "The crew members of a crash-landed spaceship face their darkest fears on a desolate planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_of_Terror" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fear, worst or otherwise, of each individual crew member manifested itself to try to kill them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some of the crew members began to suspect one another of being responsible for predicament and it compromised their ability to work together to overcome the true source of the mischief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew members fears were conjured into reality on the planet Morganthus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship crash-landed on the desolate planet Morganthus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Ilvar complained of being too old and tired to lead space missions anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "empathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alluma was the ship's token empath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ranger was attacked by a malevolent version of himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x01", "title": "Et in Arcadia Ego", "date": "1981-10-12", "description": "In the spring of 1943, disillusioned Army captain Charles Ryder is moving his company to a new Brigade headquarters at a secret location - which he discovers is Brideshead, once home to the Marchmain family and the scene of both pleasant and anguished visits for the younger Charles.\n\nSeeing the house for the first time in several years prompts a recollection of Charles's first meeting with Lord Sebastian Flyte, the Marchmains' younger son, at the University of Oxford in 1922, and the rest of the narrative moves from that time forward. At Oxford, the two young men quickly bond and although his cousin warns him to avoid Sebastian and his circle of friends, Charles is fascinated by them, particularly the flamboyant and openly gay aesthete Anthony Blanche. Short on funds, Charles finds himself fitfully spending the summer holidays in London with his indifferent and rigid father Edward until an urgent message from Sebastian takes him to Brideshead. There, Charles briefly meets Sebastian's sister Julia, and is introduced to a world of wealth and privilege dominated by a powerful devotion to Catholicism.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to portray the inception and early development of an intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for a variety of people across the social strata, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "This episode is to a large extend centered on Charles' and Sebastian's days in the University of Oxford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Charles as he enters the University of Oxford and is admonished by his older relatives. He decides to go against all their advice, fall in with a \"disreputable\" crowd, and eventually drops out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "A part of the story is set in future Charles' time during the Second World War where he served as captain in the British armed army. By chance he found himself posted at Brideshead where he would reminisced about bygone days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was guided by his older cousin at university, and was admonished to care for his reputation. He gleefully let himself fall in with a \"disreputable\" clique. There were many remarks made about different peoples' reputation, including that of Sebastian, Charles, Anthony Blanche, and Charles' cousin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is arguably to compare and contrast the wealthy and ennobled Marchmain family with various well-to-do middle class people in Britain during the interwar period.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Comments were made about the reputation of Anthony Blanche, who was flamboyantly homosexual and had been subjected to such treatments as being dunked in a pond. Sebastian was probably homosexual (as seen in his interactions with Anthony Blanche) though nothing romantic was explicitly made clear about his relationship with Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "While far removed from the fighting, the opening part of the story is set in England during the days of the Second World War. A point of the story was to show how life in England changed because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles conversed with his manservant, Lunt, at Oxford several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles conversed with the old barber while receiving hair dressing services.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian was a devout Catholic and Charles was an outspoken atheist. On one occasion Sebastian brought Charles to the family chapel, where Charles kneeled and made the sign of the cross to Sebastian's consternation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Sebastian first met after Sebastian drank too much wine and barfed while leaning in through Charles' window. Other scenes of drunken antics followed, foreshadowing Sebastian's ultimate fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of young ambitious aspiring academics met in Charles' apartments to discuss books on logic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian adored Nanny Hawkins and insisted Charles come and meet her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian expressed disdain for his all-too likeable older sister, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian expressed disdain for his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian mentioned his father with something like respect, by stark contrast with how he spoke of his mother. Charles went to live with his father to save money between semesters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Through the eyes of Charles, a middle class young man, the viewer is invited to imagine what it would be like to have the vast fortunes of the Marchmain family at their disposal. Although he played it cool, Charles was clearly dazzled by their opulence. Charles later found himself penniless, though he had the good fortune (unrecognized by Charles) of being able to live with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles heard sound advice from his older cousin and pointedly rejected it, at Oxford University.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles lamented to himself that he, at the age of 39, was now old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles hastened to Brideshead upon receiving a telegram from his bosom friend, Sebastian, requesting Charles' immediate presence on account that Sebastian had been \"gravely injured\". Charles arrived to find that Sebastian had scarcely more than stubbed his toe, and that it was all just a ploy to bring Charles near to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x02", "title": "Home and Abroad", "date": "1981-10-20", "description": "At Brideshead, Charles is introduced to Sebastian's younger sister Cordelia and his older brother Brideshead ('Bridey'). Sebastian decides to accept an invitation to Venice extended by Sebastian's father, Lord Marchmain, and by dint of traveling third class is able to take Charles with him. When in Venice they meet Lord Marchmain's mistress Cara and spend two weeks on an extensive program of sightseeing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to portray the inception and early development of an intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for a variety of people across the social strata, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is arguably to compare and contrast the wealthy and ennobled Marchmain family with various well-to-do middle class people in Britain during the interwar period. Charles was invited to the Brideshead Castle, a palatial mansion, and took in life there with his wealthy host Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian mentioned his father with something like respect, by stark contrast with how he spoke of his mother. A major portion of the story concerned Charles and Sebastian meeting Sebastian's father, Lord Marchmain, in Venice. Upon his return, Charles went back to stay with his father to save money between semesters. A portion of the story concerned the psychological game Charles and his father were engaging in while Charles was at home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian was a steadfast Catholic and Charles was an outspoken atheist. There were several conversations that revolved around this faith. The Marchmain's were a minority in having it. They thought Charles was odd for being an agnostic. They lamented that the bishop of London was going to close their family chapel as it had too small a clientele.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was an open secret that Lord Marchmain was living with his mistress in Venice. Charles expressed discomfort about living under the same roof as the adulterous pair, but later came to like them both.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Marchmain was in Venice, living openly with his Italian mistress, Cara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the episode was how Lord Marchmain hated his wife and lived openly with his mistress, Cara, in Venice. Cara explained how and why Lady Marchmain was hated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "This installment of the series follows Charles and Sebastian as they vacation together in Venice. They partook in stereotypical Venice sightseeing activities, such as sharing a gondola and visiting a beach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The question of whether the relationship between Charles and Sebastian is homosexual or platonic is the subject of scholarly debate. In one viewing of the series, the intimacy of their interactions is suggestive of a romantic male friendship in an era defined by internalized homophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This episode touched on Charles' and Sebastian's days in the University of Oxford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marchmains relied on their butler Jenkins to see to their personal needs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Sebastian got shitfaced together many times at Brideshead. Scenes of drunken antics followed, foreshadowing Sebastian's ultimate fate which was alluded to by the narrator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Through the eyes of Charles, a middle class young man, we were invited to imagine what it would be like to have the vast fortunes of the Marchmain family at our disposal. Although he played it cool, Charles was clearly dazzled by their opulence. Charles later found himself penniless, though he had the good fortune (unrecognized by Charles) of being able to live with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Sebastian read a book on wine appreciation and sampled numerous expensive bottles of the stuff from the Marchmain cellar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Sebastian briefly debated the logic of having faith. Sebastian said he had faith because the ideas were \"lovely\", which Charles rationally objected to as a silly reason to believe in something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marchmain's, devout Catholics, found Charles' expressed atheism or agnosticism peculiar and exotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cara spoke about the Marchmain family and who loved and hated whom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Charles hanging out with Sebastian who was wheelchair-bound due to injuring a tiny bone in his pinky-toe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles oil painted a mural in the Garden Hall at Brideshead Castle. Charles mentioned the Venetian painter Bellini to Lord Marchmain who pointed out that there were three Venetian painters of that name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian and Julia were, their expressed disdain notwithstanding, obviously fond of each other. Cordelia interrupted her brother, Sebastian, in his nude sunbathing with Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian was juxtaposed with his older, conservative brother Bridey at a family dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian expressed disdain for his mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x03", "title": "The Bleak Light of Day", "date": "1981-10-27", "description": "Back at Oxford, Sebastian learns his mother has arranged for him to be tutored - and carefully supervised - by Mr Samgrass. Lady Marchmain visits the university and implores Charles to be a good influence on her rowdy son. Invited to a charity ball in London by Julia, Charles and Sebastian escape to a seedy nightclub in Soho. After a drunken Sebastian crashes their car, the political and social power of ambitious MP Rex Mottram and Mr Samgrass result in Sebastian being let off with only a fine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for both the low and the high at Brideshead Castle, an aristocratic country estate, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "This episode is set in the backdrop of Charles' and Sebastian's second semester at the University of Oxford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian's drinking was spiraling out of control. He was arrested for crashing a car while drunk at the wheel. Later, Charles mused that Sebastian drank to escape from his problems. Sebastian's started drinking heavily because he felt he was being pushed around by his controlling mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles grew increasingly concerned for Sebastian's well-being as he observed his bosom friend turning to alcohol in despair. Sebastian started drinking heavily. The original cause for the drinking, according to Charles, was Sebastian's controlling mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fall out from Sebastian crashing a car while under the influence is a focal point of the episode. Sebastian narrowly avoided being handed a prison term for the indiscretion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fall out from Sebastian crashing a car while under the influence is a focal point of the episode. Sebastian narrowly avoided being handed a prison term for the indiscretion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The question of whether the relationship between Charles and Sebastian is homosexual or platonic is the subject of scholarly debate. In one viewing of the series, the intimacy of their interactions is suggestive of a romantic male friendship in an era defined by internalized homophobia. In this episode, Charles and Sebastian were written off as \"fairies\" by a couple of girls at the nightclub. Sebastian revealed that Anthony Blanche, a known homosexual, had taken up with a policeman in Munich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian's mother became increasingly controlling after Sebastian's drunk driving incident, which caused Sebastian to turn increasingly to the bottle. She suborned Mr. Samgrass to monitor and control Sebastian. Sebastian discouraged Charles from indulging Sebastian's mother with his company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian crashed a car full of young partygoers while under the influence. Boy Mulcaster's subsequent efforts to intimidate a policeman into looking the other way were ineffective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Samgrass testified (falsely) as a character witness for Sebastian at the trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christmas party was held at Brideshead Castle. A decorated Christmas tree featured prominently in the room where the party was held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian traded shots with his younger sister, Cordelia, at the Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain made no bones about her intention of converting Charles to the Catholic faith. Lady Marchmain invited those in attendance at her Christmas party to accompany her to pray the rosary at the chapel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inequality in the justice system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain used her wealth and influence to convince Mr. Samgrass to testify falsely to Sebastian's temperate character. As a result, Sebastian was let off with a fine instead of being given a customary prison sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex Mottram was a member of parliament.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Looker (1981)", "title": "Looker", "date": "1981-10-30", "description": "The film is a suspense/science-fiction piece that comments upon and satirizes media, advertising, TV's effects on the populace, and a ridiculous standard of beauty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four models came to Dr. Larry Roberts with very detailed lists of cosmetic modifications they wanted him to perform on them. This was with the goal of meeting the Digital Matrix corporation computer algorithm definition of beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reston Industries was using hypnotic television commercials to market products. These commercials were also novel for featuring computer generated actors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reston Industries, a six billion dollar conglomerate, plotted to use hypnotic television commercials to market products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reston Industries was using hypnotic television commercials to market products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Reston gave a speech in which he voiced an opinion that \"television can control public opinion more effectively than armies and secret police\" and expressed his astonishment about how \"a free people spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a box with pictures\". From a wider perspective, Reston Industries was banking on using hypnotic television commercials featuring computer generated actors to manipulate the public into buying certain products and getting a certain senator elected U.S. President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Masters entertained the theory that models Lisa Convey and Susan Wilson were assumed to have taken their own lives, perhaps owing to post operative depression syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a token investigation into the suspicious deaths of several models, and the investigator suspected foul play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four already beautiful models came to Dr. Larry Roberts to get cosmetic surgery that would make them yet more beautiful still.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy when to visit her parents but they were more interested in watching television than they were in speaking to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy when to visit her parents but they were more interested in watching television than they were in speaking to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Cindy's couch potato parents enjoying their favorite pastime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A senator ran for President on a platform of fighting bureaucracy, pollution, and inflation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A senator ran for President on a platform of fighting bureaucracy, pollution, and inflation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A senator ran for U.S. President on a platform of fighting bureaucracy, pollution, and inflation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reston Industries plotted to run a series of hypnotic television commercials to get a senator elected U.S. President.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x04", "title": "Sebastian Against the World", "date": "1981-11-03", "description": "Sebastian's rapid descent into alcoholism, which he refers to as dipsomania, leads him into constant trouble, despite the ever-watchful eye of Mr Samgrass. During Easter holiday at Brideshead, Charles tries to reason with a constantly inebriated Sebastian, who accuses him of being a spy for Lady Marchmain. Sebastian's failure to reform leads to his dismissal from Oxford, and a bereft Charles returns to London to ask his father permission to leave the university in order to study art abroad.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian. Charles visited Sebastian at Brideshead over the Easter holidays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for both the low and the high at Brideshead Castle, an aristocratic country estate, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around Sebastian's drinking spiraling out of control, causing concern among his loved ones as they grappled with how to help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was highly concerned for Sebastian's well-being as he observed his bosom friend turning to alcohol in despair. Sebastian was drinking heavily. The original cause for the drinking, according to Charles, was Sebastian's controlling mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Latent tensions between Sebastian and his mother, Lady Marchmain, came to a head when a drunken Sebastian made a scene in front of the family. This incident triggered Lady Marchmain to take on a more active role in rehabilitating Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became obvious that Sebastian resented his mother for having controlled him in myriad ways throughout his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "This decision was tearing Sebastian apart: bend to his mother's will and do what she wants or make his own way in life and lose the financial support of the Marchmain family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain was described as a manipulative and devious woman who went through extraordinary lengths to control her children's lives, not understanding that it was that very habit of hers that had driven Sebastian (as well as her estranged husband) to the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles became a pawn in the game between mother and son, but ultimately sided with his friend Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Sebastian went back to the University of Oxford after spending the Easter holiday at Brideshead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian apologized to Charles for lashing out at Charles and nearly ending their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian's sisters had notably different attitudes about his heavy drinking. Julia was indifferent. Cordelia showed genuine concern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian and his older brother, Bridey, were notably distant from one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was roused in the middle of the night by his manservant, Oakes. Brideshead Castle swarmed with servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles conversed with his characteristically disinterested father over dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The episode concluded with Charles commencing his study of painting at an art school in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian tried to use the common cold as a pretext to hide his drunken state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian came down to the parlor and made a fool of himself after drinking heavily for a few days on end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian never mixed with other Catholics, according to Monsignor Bell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x05", "title": "A Blow Upon a Bruise", "date": "1981-11-10", "description": "Charles returns from his art studies in Paris and journeys to Brideshead for the 1925 New Year's celebration. Sebastian has returned from an excursion to the Levant with Mr Samgrass, but monochrome slides of the holiday and comments made by the two clearly indicate Sebastian frequently went off on his own to satisfy his hedonistic needs. Sebastian agrees to participate in a fox hunt although he plans to make an early escape to a pub, so he asks Charles for money and his friend acquiesces. When Sebastian returns home heavily inebriated at the end of the day, a distressed Lady Marchmain questions Charles. Learning he financed Sebastian's drinking binge, she rebukes him for enabling him, and Charles leaves Brideshead, fully expecting never to return.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian. Charles visited Brideshead over the Christmas holidays to be there for Sebastian as he struggled with alcoholism and family issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for both the low and the high at Brideshead Castle, an aristocratic country estate, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain's heavy-handed approach to Sebastian's rehabilitation only compounded his miseries, fueling his resentment toward her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian was battling alcoholism. To curb his rampant drinking, Lady Marchmain cut off his money supply and basically put all the alcohol at Brideshead under lock and key.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian, now a nominally rehabilitating alcoholic, was sullen and brooding. Not even his dear friend Charles could help turn things around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain was described as a manipulative and devious woman who went through extraordinary lengths to control her children's lives, not understanding that it was that very habit of hers that had driven Sebastian (as well as her estranged husband) to the bottle. Lady Marchmain outright refused to allow Sebastian to take up accommodation with Charles in Paris or London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian was being consumed by hatred for his mother, Lady Marchmain, who was practically keeping him captive at Brideshead. Charles spelled out that Sebastian and her estranged husband alike hated Lady Marchmain intensely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Samgrass left certain attendees of his slideshow presentation bored to tears. Cordelia, for instance, joking asked Charles to pinch her (to keep her awake). Julia may have tried to conceal a yawn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A decorated Christmas tree featured prominently in the Brideshead hall. Rex had gifted Julia a jeweled tortoise for Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian had passing interactions with his sisters, Julia and Cordelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marchmains and their guests were waited on by the Brideshead servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia and Cordelia were at Brideshead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles spoke with Nanny Hawkins about her troubled grandson, Sebastian. Sebastian mentioned of his intention to pay a visit to Nanny Hawkins before taking his evening bath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bridey suggested to Sebastian that he ride Tinker Bell on the upcoming fox hunt, a suggestion that Sebastian brushed off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A traditional fox hunt was held at Brideshead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was shown painting a scene in the Garden Hall at Brideshead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain interacted with her two daughters, Julia and Cordelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian mention running into Anthony Blanche, and everyone exchanged knowing glances. Anthony Blanche was openly homosexual in earlier episodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Samgrass regaled and bored the Marchmain's in equal measures with tales of his and Sebastian's travels through the Middle East. Sebastian later revealed that he himself had, in fact, given Mr. Samgrass the slip and enjoyed his own gay, alcohol fulled, adventures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Despite his mother's best efforts to deprive him of the means, Sebastian found a way to get shitfaced and proceeded to make a buffoon of himself at a family dinner one evening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian spoke briefly, but gleefully, about playing cards during his travels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Departing Brideshead Castle in the end, Charles spelled out one of his younger self's driving reasons for wanting to associate with the Marchmains: He had been drawn to their wealth and social status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles discussed Catholicism with Bridey.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x06", "title": "Julia", "date": "1981-11-17", "description": "Charles returns to his Paris studies, where he is visited by Rex Mottram, who is searching for Sebastian and the money he stole before disappearing from their hotel. Rex discusses the financial woes of the Marchmain family and says that he intends to marry Julia nonetheless. Rex obtains the consent of Lord Marchmain to the marriage; Lady Marchmain reluctantly agrees to drop her opposition to the marriage provided Rex converts to Catholicism, a condition which he is willing to accept. But when Bridey learns that Rex has a former wife who is still living, the planned Catholic wedding cannot go ahead because of the refusal of that Church to marry divorced people. A defiant Julia marries Rex in a Protestant ceremony that her family, with the exception of Cordelia, refuse to attend.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This episode concerns the eponymous Julia falling in love with Rex Motram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of this episode is Julia's tough decision between her love for Rex on the one hand, and both her family and her religion on the other hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of this episode is Julia's tough decision between her love for Rex on the one hand, and both her family and her religion on the other hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for both the low and the high at Brideshead Castle, an aristocratic country estate, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an attempt to marry Julia in the Roman Rite, as was the custom of the Marchmain family, Rex opportunistically decided to become Catholic. The story revolves around his pro forma conversion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia rationalized that by sinfully giving herself to her fiancé, Rex, she'd be saving him from the mortal sin of sleeping with Brenda Champion. When Father Mowbray would not see things her way she stopped attending mass. Father Mowbray was firm in his conviction that premarital sex constituted a mortal sin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Julia and her mother, Lady Marchmain, arguing over whether Julia could marry Rex Motram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rex courted Julia until he won her over and banged her in the Brideshead library. Rex was shown courting Julia in various flashback scenes from Charles' first summer at Brideshead Castle. For example, Rex impressed Julia at the roulette table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia and Rex's engagement became a source of embarrassment and shame for her family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain poo pooed Julia's designs on marrying Rex, going so far as to assert that Julia herself would \"regret he whole business in a few days\". Lady Marchmain mellowed only after Rex insisted on converting to the Catholic faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia's engagement to Rex bought strife to the Marchmain household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia's relationship with her mother, Lady Marchmain, was strained to the limit because of Julia's engagement to Rex. Lady Marchmain tried to pressure Julia into breaking off the engagement, only mellowing when Rex insisted on converting to the Catholic faith. Lady Marchmain pointedly refrained from attending their wedding ceremony, which, owing to some scandal, was conducted at a Protestant church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Knowing Rex would foot the bill, Charles took him to one of the fanciest restaurants he knew in Paris and ordered the priciest foods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex told Charles that Lady Marchmain had two years to live, which visibly gave Charles pause to think.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex told Charles that Lady Marchmain regretted speaking harshly to him some years before.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex ultimately married Julia in a Protestant ceremony as the Catholics would not let him do it since he had once been divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex met with Charles in Charles' Paris art studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern France", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex met with Charles in Charles' Paris art studio and they had dinner in the city, in the roaring 1920s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia confronted Rex in a jealous outburst after she learned Rex had run into his old flame at an unexpected social event over the weekend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The term \"mixed marriage\" was used to describe Julia impending marriage to Rex and there was a discussion about the fact that it applied to religion rather than ethnicity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief but significant discussion regarding the fact that Rex had once had a divorce, regarding the difference between a divorce and an annulment, and regarding the fact that Catholics may not get divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex's admission to having divorced an ex-wife in 1919 threw his imminent grand Catholic wedding into disarray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' and Sebastian's past friendship was a topic of discussion between Rex and Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Rex and Julia were shown flirting at a roulette table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia wept shortly after returning home from watching Rex smooch Brenda Champion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia beckoned Wilcox for a late night snack of bread and milk. A lady servant collected Julia's breakfast tray form her bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The episode concludes with Julia and Rex tying the knot in a Protestant church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charged with educating Rex in the Catholic faith, Father Mowbray was brought to his wit's end over Rex's merely superficial interest in their beliefs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Marchmain and her son, Bridey, had discussions about Julia's impending marriage. Lady Marchmain had sent Rex Motram to escort Sebastian to a sanatorium in Switzerland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bridey gleefully revealed that his sister, Julia, could not be married to Rex Motram under Catholic traditions, as Rex was technically divorced.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x07", "title": "The Unseen Hook", "date": "1981-11-24", "description": "In May 1926, Charles returns to England to volunteer his services during the General Strike. In the East End, he meets Boy Mulcaster. At a party they encounter Anthony Blanche, who describes how Sebastian is living in Fez. Julia tells Charles that her dying mother is anxious to see Sebastian, and he agrees to go to Morocco and bring him home. He discovers Sebastian has been living with Kurt, a German ex-soldier discharged from the French Foreign Legion after deliberately shooting himself in the foot. Sebastian is a chronic alcoholic, and has been hospitalised with pneumonia. Charles finds his friend emaciated and dissipated, unwilling to follow doctor's orders, and disinclined to leave Kurt. Before Charles leaves Morocco, he learns that Lady Marchmain has died.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of this story is the dying Lady Marchmain and her desire to be reunited with her estranged son, Sebastian, who ran away from her to wallow in dipsomania in Morocco. Lady Marchmain also sought to apologize to Charles. Her two daughters waited on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the intimate friendship between Charles and Sebastian. Charles visited Sebastian in Morocco to encourage him to return to England to visit his dying mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for a variety of people across the social strata, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War. In particular, the viewer was shown striking workers and upper-class strike breakers have a go at each other on the streets of London during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and his volunteering upper-middle to upper-class compatriots relished the opportunity to bludgeon some striking lower class workers over their noggins with makeshift batons and other blunt instruments. What they had not reckoned on was having to dodge just so many rotten cabbages, alas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles became reunited with Sebastian in Morocco, only to find him sunken hopelessly deep into alcoholism as well as various dark emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian had gotten himself entangled in what appeared to be a dominance and submission relationship with a rather despicable German deserter, named Kurt, who had shot himself in the foot and suffered from syphilis. Kurt was clearly a witless moron and would be helpless with his crippled foot. Yet Sebastian let himself be bossed around. Sebastian spelled out the reason: he needed someone more pathetic than himself to look after, and Kurt was the only one that could be so pathetic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antoine was clearly a raging homosexual. It seems strongly implied that Sebastian was too, and that he lived in a homosexual relationship with Kurt, though it is possible to imagine the story otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The older and wiser narrator Charles spoke sardonically of his younger self's political convictions that made him rush back home to try and aid in suppressing the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The older and wiser narrator Charles spoke sardonically of his younger self's political convictions that made him rush back home to try and aid in suppressing the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles quoted the fictional Belgian Futurist Jean de Brissac de la Motte who apparently claimed \"the right to bear arms in any battle anywhere against the lower classes\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia saw to her mother's needs in her final days. Cordelia was there briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex visited Julia briefly, but left on urgent state business soon again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex made a token attempt to see his dying mother-in-law, Lady Marchmain, was turned away from her private rooms, and then had to leave on state business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Moroccan servant boy tended to the German soldier Kurt's every whim, paid for by Sebastian's relatively lavish allowance. Brideshead Castle swarmed with servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles received a conspicuously chill reception by his unconcerned father upon returning after spending 15 months abroad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles went to Morocco to retrieve Sebastian on behalf of Lady Marchmain. He rode on a stereotypically rickety African bus that was an Air France coach to Casablanca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurt had shot himself in the foot to get out of the German foreign legion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon hearing that Sebastian had a dying mother, Kurt immediately asked if she was rich and whether then she couldn't send him more money so the he, Kurt, could live a more luxurious life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Those who knew Sebastian, but Charles notably, were outraged by how the base and thankless Kurt took advantage of his sensitive benefactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles rushed back to England to work as a strikebreaker in the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia and Cordelia conversed briefly about their mother's dire condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian was in the hospital recuperating form pneumonia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x08", "title": "Brideshead Deserted", "date": "1981-12-01", "description": "Bridey commissions Charles to paint four scenes of Marchmain House in London, which has been sold to rectify Lord Marchmain's financial difficulties, before it is demolished to make way for a block of flats. He meets Cordelia again; she regrets the ongoing dissolution of her family but assures Charles she continues to find strength in her faith. Cordelia recalls her mother’s reading of a Father Brown story where G. K. Chesterton's priest catches a thief \"with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread\". Years pass, and the story resumes with Charles spending two years in Mexico and Central America painting. He then has an awkward reunion with his wife Celia in New York City before the two sail home. On board ship, the Ryders discover Julia is a fellow passenger. Celia is bedridden with chronic seasickness prompted by extremely rough seas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers on the part of Charles' life where he comes into his own as a painter, starting with his breakthrough as an architectural painter with a set of works depicting Marchmain House in London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The better part of the story took place aboard an ocean liner on a transatlantic crossing. Notably, the passengers and crew coped with lots of rocking about as the vessel passed through some rough seas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles embarked on a transatlantic crossing with his wife, Celia, who he had been away from for two years after a marital dispute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Julia explicitly discussed how they had both changed in the intervening years since they had last met at Brideshead Castle. They had both in recent years come to emotionally abandon they spouses they took when they were younger and relatively immature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Celia's marriage was gradually coming apart. Charles had lost interest in Celia over the years, and evidently regretted marrying her. Celia, for her part, also expressed misgivings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening part story featured some goings on at the Marchmain London residence and a luncheon at a typical British tea house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people spend time talking about the days of yore. For example when Charles and Julia spoke about Sebastian or the days at Brideshead Castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia spoke about her faith to Charles, who nodded along politely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia commented on Charles' agnosticism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lying in separate beds, Charles and his wife Celia spoke about love in general as well as their feelings for one and other, which were lukewarm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia complained about her maidservant, who in turn complained about the compartments that even Julia herself had not a bone to pick with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles made a big deal about getting his Scotch with water at room temperature, rather than chilled. There was much talk about the caviar at Celia's get-together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various remarks were made about Sebastian, the now renowned dipsomaniac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celia wanted Charles to meet a film producer that proved to be a remarkably awkward conversation partner to Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celia became bedridden with seasickness, which gave Charles the perfect opportunity to sneak off and commence a clandestine flirtation with Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unappealing social gathering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles deplored having to put in an appearance at the cabin party that Celia's had in part organized to help advance his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celia held a private party in her and Charles cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia professed to love her brother, Sebastian, more than anyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles discretely tested the waters with Julia by sending her roses right under his wife Celia's nose.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x09", "title": "Orphans of the Storm", "date": "1981-12-08", "description": "Celia's sickness leaves Charles and Julia to become reacquainted, and the two become lovers before reaching Southampton. Back in London, at an exhibition of her husband's latest artwork, Celia implies she knows about his affair with Julia. Anthony Blanche arrives at the gallery late and invites Charles to join him for a drink in a seedy gay bar, where he criticizes his talent and paintings, and informs Charles that his affair with Lady Julia is already widely rumored. Charles and Julia depart for Brideshead, where Rex is awaiting his wife.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The center point of this story is Charles' love affair with Julia. As a matter of course, they discuss how they had fallen in and then out of love with their respective spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The latter half of the story portrayed life in London for a variety of people across the social strata, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles began a clandestine affair with his wealthy old friend Julia, that soon became an open secret in the aesthete circles in which they both moved. Charles alleged that Celia, too, had been unfaithful. Julia claimed that Rex had been keeping up with Brenda Champion even after Julia and Rex tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Julia discussed the shortcomings of their respective marriages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Celia's marriage was falling apart, as was Julia and Rex's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "major", "motivation": "A sizable part of the story took place aboard an ocean liner during a transatlantic crossing. Notably, the passengers and crew coped with lots of rocking about as the vessel passed through some rough seas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Julia were having an affair under his wife Celia's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Much to his bedridden wife's chagrin, Charles marked a pivotal moment in his life by exorcising his hitherto carefully cultivated whiskers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While on an transatlantic crossing, his wife in bed with seasickness, Charles undertook a seduction of his wealthy old friend Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage of convenience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles explained that he had married because it was a good career move. Essentially: She made a good agent for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles mentioned that he had married, in part, because he was lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia spoke briefly of the various Catholic sins she had committed in general and the adultery she was conspiring to undertake with Charles in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celia was bedridden with seasickness, which gave Charles the perfect opportunity to sneak off and pursue a clandestine affair with Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles displayed his paintings in an exhibition after returning to London after two years of traveling in South America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The word \"divorce\" was mentioned with foreboding at Brideshead and Julia looked concerned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles had been away for two years, didn't know his son's preferred name, and conspicuously preferred to stay in London to see his mistress rather than hurry home and meet his children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Duke of Clarence remarked something to this effect: a certain one of Charles' paintings conveyed the sensation of heat so effectively that it caused the Duke to feel uncomfortably warm in his heavy coat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antoine took Charles to a seedy \"pansy bar\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Servants were rumbling about Brideshead Castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia pondered whether she would have raised her child Catholic, had she actually had it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x10", "title": "A Twitch Upon the Thread", "date": "1981-12-15", "description": "Charles and Julia, awaiting their respective divorces, live together, unmarried, at Brideshead. When Bridey announces his engagement, Julia suggests he invite his fiancée to Brideshead. Bridey points out that such a highly moral and staunchly Catholic woman with middle-class values would never sleep under the same roof as a couple \"living in sin\". Bridey's comments stir extraordinary feelings of remorse and pain in Julia, revealing her long- standing Catholic guilt to Charles.\n\nCordelia returns from ministering to the wounded in the Spanish Civil War with disturbing news about Sebastian's nomadic existence and steady decline over the past few years. She predicts he will die soon in the Tunisian monastery he has taken shelter in as his alcoholism consumes him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the trials and tribulations of the two illicit lovers, Charles and Julia, as they try to make up their minds about what to do regarding their respective marriages, peoples' judgmental opinions, and Julia's Catholic faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of this story is Juila's internal conflict regarding her adulterous desire to be with Charles on the one hand, and her loyalty to the Catholic faith on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrays life for servants and the master class at Brideshead Castle, in Britain during the interwar period as well as during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Charles and Julia were seeking divorces so that they could marry each other instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The center point of this story is Charles' and Julia's scandalous love affair with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia was deeply troubled because it was an open secret that she was having an affair with Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia was racked guilt over her living in sin with Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Servants busied about Brideshead Castle where Charles and Julia resided.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the dinner table one evening, Bridey suddenly announced his engagement to a 40-something, middle-class lady with three young boys. Julia was tickled by this unexpected revelation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Bridey had been the subject of a newspaper article, entitled \"Peer's Unusual Hobby\", because of his matchbox collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bridey told Julia and Charles a bit about his new fiancée, Beryl, including that she was a comely woman with three young boys from a previous marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia wallowed in self-pity late one night at the fountain. There she confided in Charles about how living in sin weighed heavy on her conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' father thought Charles' plan to divorce one woman, Celia, to marry another, Julia, was incomprehensible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia returned to Brideshead. There she conversed with her sister, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia and Cordelia paid Nanny Hawkings a visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia spoke of Sebastian's continued struggles with alcohol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia mentioned that the Nazis had put Kurt in a concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia revealed that Kurt had hanged himself within a week of being confined to the concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Bridey, Beryl would never sleep under the same room as Julia, who was living in sin with Charles, because Berly was a devout Catholic. Cordelia mentioned that Sebastian was sometimes given the last rights after his drinking bouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia negotiated by proxy with her, somewhat estranged, husband Rex to get a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bridey lambasted Julia for \"living in sin\" with Charles, which cause Julia to break into tears. Various things she later said highlighted that she cared greatly about this most Catholic of notions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles once again demonstrated his own lack of faith when he reassured Julia that Catholicism was just bunch of \"bosh\" and \"nonsense\" as she was crying about the sinful state of her personal affairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia expressed a desire to have children and a disappointment in her and Rex's failure to have produced any.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rex's finances were in disorder because of the \"coming war\", it was said, implying that the writing was on the wall by the time the events of this story took place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia described her experiences as a Red Cross nurse during \"the war in Spain\", which in context implied the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cordelia mentioned that Kurt had superficially been indoctrinated into Nazism but that it had presumably not taken root because of Sebastian's liberalizing influences.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Heartbeeps (1981)", "title": "Heartbeeps", "date": "1981-12-18", "description": "Two robots who fall in love and decide to strike out on their own.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbeeps" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which humanoid robots are a regular element in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about the robots ValCom-17485 and AquaCom-89045 falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world was shown from the perspective of four robot protagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catskil-55602 gave his energy pack to Phil so that Phil would have enough power to make it back to the factory to be upgraded.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bridesheadrevisited1981e1x11", "title": "Brideshead Revisited", "date": "1981-12-22", "description": "In 1939, World War II is imminent. After years of self-imposed exile in Venice, the terminally ill Lord Marchmain decides to return home to die. Appalled by Bridey's choice of a wife, he announces he plans to leave Brideshead to Julia and Charles. When Bridey brings a priest to visit his very weak father and perform the last rites, Charles objects vocally, and offends Julia by harping on the question of what the sacrament actually accomplishes and what rationale there could be for performing it, especially knowing Marchmain's aversion to Catholicism. Lord Marchmain sends the priest away, then meets with his lawyers to change his will. But as Lord Marchmain weakens to the point of semi-consciousness, he finally accepts the absolution conditionally pronounced by the priest by making the sign of the Cross.\n\nTearfully, Julia calls off her marriage to Charles, because she does not wish \"to set up a rival good to God’s\". She explains to him \"that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end\". Charles, who has been moved by Lord Marchmain's final re-conversion, understands, but it breaks his heart, too.\n\nThe narrative returns to Brideshead in 1944. Charles, apparently now a believer, genuflects and prays in the reopened chapel which had been closed since Lady Marchmain's death in 1926. A twitch upon the thread has brought him to the Faith. The sanctuary lamp, its symbol, burns anew.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-bridesheadrevisited1981.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of this story is Julia's internal conflict regarding her adulterous desire to be with Charles on the one hand, and her loyalty to the Catholic faith on the other. At the denouement she chose her faith over Charles and told him they would never meet again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the Marchmain children, and Julia in particular, handling the slow demise and passing of their esteemed patriarch, Lord Marchmain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the somewhat unorthodox relationship between the divorced Catholic Julia and the outspoken atheist, Charles. The two intended to get married but knew deep inside that Julia's faith would come between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles disingenuously defended reason and the supposed well-being of the dying Lord Marchmain against the encroachments of Father Mackay who wished to performed the last rites. Narrator Charles made it clear that his younger self was also concerned about keeping Julia and the the tenuous hold on the Marchmain fortune he had come so close to grasping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Lord Marchmain returning to Brideshead Castle in order to spend his last few months in life there, as he was elderly and suffering from a terminal heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Marchmain struggled with the fact that he was probably going to die soon. His family members made efforts to reacquaint him with his Catholic faith and accept the last rights of the Church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Marchmain, who had not been a practicing member of the Catholic Church for 25 years, ultimately accepted the last rights, making the sign of the cross before expiring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Marchmain, who had not been a practicing member of the Catholic Church for 25 years, ultimately accepted the last rights, making the sign of the cross before expiring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brideshead Castle swarmed with servants. The servants notably waited hand and foot on Lord Marchmain. Wilcox oversaw setting up shop for Lord Marchmain in the Chinese drawing room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia and Cordelia conversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mention was made of Bridey's matchbox collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Marchmain described his meeting with the newlyweds Bridey and Beryl in Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Mackay gave Lord Marchmain the last rites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles stated that he'd finalized his divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bridey interacted with his sisters, Julia and Cordelia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Grant advised against having a priest see Lord Marchmain, saying the shock might kill him. Lord Marchmain was tended to by a nurse as he lay on his deathbed in the Chinese drawing room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles disingenuously defended reason and the supposed well-being of the dying Lord Marchmain against the encroachments of Father Mackay who wished to performed the last rites. Narrator Charles made it clear that his younger self was also concerned about keeping Julia and the tenuous hold on the Marchmain fortune he had come so close to grasping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While far removed from the fighting, the closing part of the story is set in England during the days of the Second World War. A point of the story was to show how life in England changed because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A closing part of the story is set in Charles' time during the Second World War where he served as captain in the British armed army. By chance he found himself posted at Brideshead where he would reminisced about bygone days.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mad Max 2 (1981)", "title": "Mad Max 2", "date": "1981-12-24", "description": "A community of settlers move to defend themselves against a roving band of marauders.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mad Max" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad Max had a change of heart about his lone wolf way of life and helped the settlers escape from Lord Humungus' gang, but driving their oil tanker for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Humongous gave a group of settlers 24 hours to walk away from their compound, leaving their oil behind to him, or else he would attack them and take it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Humongus and Wez both sough revenge against the group of settlers. Lord Humongus because the settlers defied him, and Wez because his lover died in an attack on the settler's camp.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected4x17", "title": "Hijack", "date": "1981-12-26", "description": "On board an airplane, a hijacker takes a stewardess hostage and demands a million dollars and a parachute. The captain tries to deal with the situation and grants him his wish. Inspired by the 1971 D.B. Cooper incident.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Robert L. Fish.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are lead to believe that a passenger took a flight attendant hostage on a flight to Edinburgh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pilots and crew of a passenger plane hatched a clever plot to steal a million dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pilots and crew of a passenger plane faked a hijacking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the crew and passengers of an airliner react to an apparent hijacking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female flight attendant put on a stereotypically hysterical female act.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cafe Flesh (1982)", "title": "Café Flesh", "date": "1982", "description": "In the aftermath of nuclear apocalypse, 99% of the survivors are sex Negatives - they become violently ill if they attempt to have sex. The minority sex Positives are forced to engage in carnal theater for the entertainment of the Negatives at Café Flesh. Everyone is excited about the arrival at the club of the famous Positive Johnny Rico, and one Negative woman is beginning to question her negativeness as she and her boyfriend grow more distant from each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Flesh" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse that left 99% of people unable to have sex without becoming violently ill. These people, called Negatives, frequented clubs to get their jollies by watching people from among the remaining 1% of people cavort like the Greeks of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some of the 1% of people who were expected by society to have public sex continuously really enjoyed their work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Negatives Nick and Sophie longed to have sex with each other like they used to do before the nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, but nothing much was made of the nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shown was some hot lesbian action.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Café Flesh patron secretly watched other cafe goers engage in various acts of sexual depravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young woman lost her virginity on stage at the Café Flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nuclear apocalypse was suggested by one man to have occurred during this hypothetical future war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was jealous of the stud Rico because his girlfriend lusted after Rico.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chronopolis (1982)", "title": "Chronopolis", "date": "1982", "description": "Chronopolis tells the story of a gargantuan city lurking in the sky colonized by powerful immortals who have become jaded and bored with eternal life, and thus have decided to manipulate elements of time. They play with atomic particles and electricity, and monotonously construct bizarre and unusual objects to assist in this, including a ball that communicates with higher technology, but in reality they are waiting for the ultimate gift to arrive in their hands.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronopolis_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The floating city people struggled with the monotony that came with being immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immortals lived in a gargantuan city lurking in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immortals became jaded and bored with life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Aftermath (1982)", "title": "The Aftermath", "date": "1982", "description": "Three astronauts return to Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aftermath_(1982_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three astronauts returned to Earth, although one died in the crash landing, to only find civilization was destroyed in a nuclear war. The survivors in and around the Los Angeles area were left to make it as best they could in the gang and mutant infested wasteland that remained of the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivors of a nuclear war in and around the Los Angeles area were left to make it as best they could in the gang and mutant infested wasteland that remained of the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that all the major cities of the world had be partially or completely destroyed in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The museum curator opined that technology had became a monster that destroyed humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that all the major cities of the world had be partially or completely destroyed in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newman and Sarah fell head over heels for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newman decided that he would not let the world go on as it was with baby killers running around free, and he resolved to make the gang leader Cutter face justice. Newman explicitly denied that his motive was vengeance, but the brutal ways in which he dispatched the gang members called that into question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newman took it upon himself to make Cutter and his fellow gang members pay for their crimes. In particular, he tortured Cutter's right hand man and then stabbed him in the eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newman treated young Chris as a son, and in fact regularly called him by the name \"son\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A futuristic rocket ship carrying three astronauts crash landed on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that these weapons were used in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newman was tortured inside over having lost his wive and young daughter some five years earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newman got into an altercation in post nuclear holocaust Los Angeles with a pack of hostile mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newman grieved over the murder of his beloved girlfriend Sarah.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Swamp Thing (1982)", "title": "Swamp Thing", "date": "1982-02-19", "description": "The film tells the story of a scientist who becomes transformed into the monster the Swamp Thing through laboratory sabotage orchestrated by the evil Anton Arcane. Later, he helps a woman and battles the man responsible for it all, the ruthless Arcane. It was followed by a sequel, The Return of Swamp Thing, in 1989.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Thing_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-plant hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lab mishap resulted in the scientist Alec Holland being turned into the half-man, half-plant creature Swamp Thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Swamp Thing was a half-man, half-plant creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil Anton Arcane was motivated to steal Alec's research notebooks out of a desire to rule over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Swamp Thing was extremely powerful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alec Holland transformed into the half-man, half-plant creature Swamp Thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alec Holland was assisted at his lab but his younger sister Dr. Linda Holland. Anton Arcane shot her dead in front of Alec's eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alec was motivated to research about creating plant/animal hybrid cells in part to feed the growing world population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Swamp Thing mourned the loss of Dr. Linda Holland while examining a pendant containing photos of Alec and Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Swamp Thing healed Jude with a mysterious green force emanating from his hand when Jude appeared to be dead. He likewise healed Alice at the end of the film after her heart was pierced by a sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Swamp Thing confided in Alice about how he felt all alone living by himself in the swamp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anton Arcane transformed into a hideous beast at the end of the film and Swamp Thing had to battle it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Parasite (1982)", "title": "Parasite", "date": "1982-03-12", "description": "The film is set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future in which the United States has been taken over by a criminal organization who unwittingly create an uncontrollable deadly parasite and set it loose on the population.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_(1982_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which the United States has been taken over by a criminal organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Dean created a strain of large parasite that would get inside people and kill them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a new future where instead of a government, America is run by an organization called the Merchants, who exploit the remaining the people who were fortunate enough to have survived a cataclysmic atomic disaster of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporatocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a new future where instead of a government, America is run by an organization called the Merchants, who exploit the remaining the people who were fortunate enough to have survived a cataclysmic atomic disaster of some kind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Burst City (1982)", "title": "Burst City", "date": "1982-03-13", "description": "The film is primarily a showcase for various specific punk rock bands of the time, such as The Roosters, The Rockers, and The Stalin, the film is also purely demonstrative of the culture and attitude of the punk rock community of Japan in the mid-to-late 1970s and the early 1980s, and is considered a defining film of that subculture.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burst_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the near future in an expansive Tokyo slum that was virtually lawless and in utter shambles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end the bikers, workers, and punks all banded together to stop the businessman and his yakuza associates from constructing a nuclear power plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The punk rockers carried themselves with a stick it to the man attitude, and didn't show a care for societal conventions such as they existed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mute and his punk friend rode their bikes around Tokyo hunting down the person who murdered the mute's brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The residents in a dystopia future attempted to rebel against the construction of a nuclear power plant in their part of Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw young rebels getting their kicks by drag racing muscle cars in the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw punk rockers popping pills and playing around with syringes in a manner that suggested they were using them to shoot up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young prostitute under the control of a persuasive pimp struggled to find a way out from her pitiable circumstance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pimp sobbed upon seeing the brutally murdered body of his prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yakuza-like Kikkawa clan was trying to force people to accept the building of a nuclear power plant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Time Masters (1982)", "title": "Time Masters", "date": "1982-03-24", "description": "The film centres on a boy, Piel, who is stranded on Perdide, a desert planet where giant killer hornets live. He awaits rescue by the space pilot Jaffar, the exiled prince Matton, his sister Belle and Jaffar's old friend Silbad who are trying to reach Perdide and save Piel before it is too late.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Ma%C3%AEtres_du_temps" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the experience of the young boy Piel as he awaited rescue on a dangerous desert planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jaffar piloted the spacecraft the Double Triangle 22 from several star systems away to the planet Perdide after receiving a distress call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the young boy Piel was actually Silbad from 60 years in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film began with Piel's father urging him to run to a coral-like forest and stay within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaffar piloted the spacecraft the Double Triangle 22 from several star systems away to the desert planet Perdide after receiving a distress call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piel was stranded on a desert planet that was inhabited by giant hornets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien species Yula and Jad were from communicated telepathically by nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pint-sized aliens Yula and Jad communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yula and Jad could actually smell other peoples' thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The telepathic aliens Yula and Jad along with a handful of other token aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Onyx demonstrated the ability to its shape into the form of other objects, like a vase with flowers, by reconfiguring its molecular structure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two telepathic aliens Yula and Jad were puzzled by basic human concepts, like how people tend to desire things for their value, rather than their beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a strange entity on the planet that was merging people it absorbed in a collective that was the epitome of unity and peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Matton and his sister, Princess Belle, who had been deposed from their planet, were carrying with them a treasure the Prince took along to fund his restoration.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battletruck (1982)", "title": "Battletruck", "date": "1982-04", "description": "Set in the aftermath of a devastating thermonuclear war, the plot is a futuristic tale of collapsed governments and bankrupt countries heralding a new lawless age.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battletruck" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the aftermath of a thermonuclear war. There was no government and people were living in small communities, trying to survive as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were no governments and people were living in small communities, trying to survive as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "energy crisis in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were going about making it as best they could in a world in which oil was extremely scarce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hunter and Corlie fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of film was that Corlie father was Straker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which Earth has been devastated by a thermonuclear war over the depleting petroleum reserves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which Earth has been devastated by a thermonuclear war over the depleting petroleum reserves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of radiation turning people green and making their teeth fall out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Straker was a ruthless leader and had numerous people executed without cause.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x01", "title": "Blue Marigold", "date": "1982-04-25", "description": "Marigold is a top model much in demand until her temperamental nature takes over. She loses her contracts and winds up in a mental home. Released years later, she plans a comeback.\n\nDirected by: Giles Foster. Story by: Aileen Wheeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marigold was famous and arrogant until she got fired, then went broke and had a mental breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marigold lost her career to Sofie, a younger woman with a better voice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marigold was envious and sour towards the younger woman with the better voice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marigold was let go and could not find another job that was good enough for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marigold was envious and sour towards the younger woman with the better voice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marigold felt as if she was old and past her physical prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marigold wasted her money on booze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marigold attempted suicide after learning of Paul's remarriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was blinded and disfigured by the car accident, and Marigold reacted sharply to his appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was blinded and disfigured by the car accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marigold moved in with her sister Beryl after getting discharged from the mental institution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x02", "title": "The Eavesdropper", "date": "1982-05-02", "description": "Happily married Donald and Moira are out shopping for a new watch as a gift for Moira. While there, Moira overhears a conversation between two women about a married man one of them is seeing. She soon realizes it must be Donald about whom they are talking.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Ruth Wissmann.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira came to suspect that her husband Donald was cheating on her with a younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaye, a man named Donald, and Donald's young mistress. Moira thought her husband was having an affair with Kaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moira working herself up into a jealous rage culminated with her pushing Kaye out in front of a passing truck. Kaye expressed a jealous resentment over the woman of the man she was having an affair with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaye confided in her friend Louise about her efforts to pressure then man she was seeing to divorce his wife. Moira mulled the possibility of a divorce over in her head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forty-something Moira needed to be reassured that she was still pretty, and she believed she had the 30-something vixen Kaye after her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira sought to replace the 10th wedding anniversary ring she had lost in Venice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira made a conscious effort to be less of a chatterbox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira pushed the mistress in front of a truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira after killing the mistress.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Forbidden World (1982)", "title": "Forbidden World", "date": "1982-05-07", "description": "In the distant future, at a genetic research station located on the remote desert planet of Xarbia, a research team has created an experimental life form they have designated \"Subject 20\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some scientists genetically engineered an experimental organism view a view to using it to solve the galaxy's food shortage problem, but it got out of control and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some scientists genetically engineered an experimental organism with a view to using it to solve the galaxy's food shortage problem, but it got out of control and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some scientists genetically engineered an experimental organism view a view to using it to solve the galaxy's food shortage problem, but it got out of control and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were spaceships flying around shooting laser beams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike had a robot assistant, named SAM-104, that vaguely resembled a Star Wars storm trooper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and SAM-104 flew to the remote desert planet of Xarbia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set on the desert planet Xarbia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gordon Hauser jealously watched from a video feed as Mike and Barbara made passionate love together in her quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Xarbia was shown to have two suns.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x03", "title": "Operation Safecrack", "date": "1982-05-09", "description": "On behalf of a company that designs safes, an advertising executive hires Sam Morrissey, an ex-safe cracker, to break into one of their safes with the promise of £25,000 if he is successful.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a slick safe salesman doing a sensational publicity stunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a world class safe cracker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny was on the verge of having her home for children shut down because of government funding cuts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Morrissey and Jenny Morrissey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam had gone to jail for safe cracking. Sam pick pocketed £25,000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam went along quickly enough when he heard the reward figure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly hard handshake", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was given a vigorous handshake while on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retired safe cracker Sam \"The Touch\" Morrissey lived with the stigma of being an ex-con.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x04", "title": "Run Rabbit Run", "date": "1982-05-16", "description": "After World War II, a U.S. Army interpreter was stationed in Paris, staying at the house of the bully Hector and downtrodden Nathalie. Ten years later, he returns to the house and meets Nathalie, but Hector is mysteriously absent.\n\nDirected by: John Jacobs. Story by: John Bakkenhoven.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathalie Vareille and her domineering husband Jacques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were flashback scenes showing Robert, Nathalie, and Jacques in post Second World War Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacques had collaborated with the Nazis in exchange for a sack of gold pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacques had been a domineering, and verbally abusive spouse to Nathalie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacques was hiding that he had been a Nazi collaborator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked husband stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacques was a domineering and cruel husband to Nathalie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi collaborator Jacques was branded and about to be shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of war collaborators", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi collaborator Jacques was branded and about to be shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathalie explained and demonstrated how she both loved and hated her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathalie explained and demonstrated how she both loved and hated her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathalie remarked to Robert that she had simultaneously loved and hated Jacques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacques had betrayed the French Resistance by becoming a Nazi collaborator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the French Resistance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacques had betrayed the French Resistance by becoming a Nazi collaborator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacques' time keeping was OCD-like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathalie made Robert think she drove Jacques to have a lethal heart attack and considered herself that she had done so.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x05", "title": "Stranger in Town", "date": "1982-05-23", "description": "A stranger going by the name of Sir Christopher Columbus dresses and acts like a clown, endearing himself to the local community. While there, he enters a business premises and reveals to the boss who he really is.\n\nDirected by: Wendy Toye. Story by: Sidney Carroll.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger and Mr. Latham both performed magic tricks of the stage-variety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger wanted revenge on Latham for Latham having framed him for murder. The stranger had spent 15 years in prison as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stranger put into motion an elaborate plot, which he had spend 15 years cooking up, to murder a man who had framed him for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stranger seemed obsessed with gathering followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Latham and the stranger were briefly competing magicians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: ET the ExtraTerrestrial (1982)", "title": "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", "date": "1982-05-26", "description": "The film tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed \"E.T.\", who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help E.T. return to his home planet, while attempting to keep him hidden from the government.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The highlight of the story was the alien E.T. who had become abandoned on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Elliot and Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary raised three kids by herself and the father was, it was said, in Mexico with some other woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "E.T. was marooned on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how human Earth-objects seemed peculiar to a short stubby-armed alien with various magical powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot came to love E.T. and was devastated when the creature seemed to be dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "A bunch of kids, Elliot and his siblings in the van, came together to do what the adults would not: send E.T. home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliott's family members were reluctant to believe he encountered a strange creature outside the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Gertie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.T. had the ability to levitate objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot set free a number of frogs that had been slated for dissection in his science class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot and Mike were Gertie's bothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.T. healed Elliot's finger after he cut it on a saw blade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.T.'s people came in a spherically shaped vessel to pick him up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a few times how the children tried to communicate with E.T., who eventually picked up a few words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliott and other's were very sad to see E.T. fly away at the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x06", "title": "The Moles", "date": "1982-05-30", "description": "Two businessmen on the verge of bankruptcy devise a plan to rob a bank. With the help of an experienced criminal, they dig a tunnel to reach the bank's vault.\n\nDirected by: Peter Hammond. Story by: J.J. Maling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to rob a bank and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old friends Edward and George hatched a plot to dig a tunnel to reach a bank's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward, George, and a career criminal hatched a plot to rob a bank by tunneling into its vault. While Edward and George were initially motivated by a desire to stave off financial ruin, they ultimately plotted to take from the bank vault everything it had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old friends Edward and George hatched a plot to dig a tunnel to reach a bank's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward and George resolved to rob a bank to get out of financial trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone mentioned how one crime leads on to another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward lost his nerve in the middle of the operation and briefly tried to back out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man cracked the tumble lock on the bank vault safe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mysterious Two (1982)", "title": "Mysterious Two", "date": "1982-05-31", "description": "Two aliens come to Earth and start what to all appearances is a religious cult.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084375/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two aliens that went by the names of He and She came to Earth and started a weird cult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two aliens that went by the names of He and She came to Earth and started a weird cult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "He and She tore apart several married couples. The situation was that one partner wanted to follow He and She while the other thought doing so was mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flute playing Tim Armstrong met up with his ex-girlfriend Natalie in the cult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A sheriff and his deputy were investigating the mysterious disappearance of about 100 cultists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)", "title": "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", "date": "1982-06-04", "description": "The plot features Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise facing off against the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh, a character who first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek episode \"Space Seed\". When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming device named Genesis. The film is the second film in the Star Trek film series, and is a sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). It is the beginning of a story arc that continues with the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and concludes with the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_The_Wrath_of_Khan" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan was obsessed with getting even with Kirk for having marooned him and his crew on what became an inhospitable world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and Carol Marcus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Genesis torpedo could be sent to a lifeless body and it would transform it into a body full of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk versus Khan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and his friends Spock and McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk was in low spirits on his birthday and McCoy giving him a pair of old man glasses for a present didn't help matters. McCoy urged him to get back his command of the Enterprise before he really did become to old to go galloping around the galaxy. The film concluded with Kirk saying that he felt young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between equally unappealing possibilities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Saavik had to pass the Kobayashi Maru test which was designed to have no way to win. A young Kirk dealt with the test by reprogramming the computer so that it was not longer a no win scenario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was unhappy behind a desk and resolved to command the Enterprise once again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space dock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saavik piloted The Enterprise out of a large space dock in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carol Marcus and her son David were working the Genesis Project at Space Lab Regula I.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was discussed about how the Genesis Project technology could be weaponized to destroy all life on a planet, even though it was designed to create life on lifeless worlds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol Marcus and David Marcus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Khan mentioned how he was the product of genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock gives life to save the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a pointed scene where Kirk grieved over the death of his dear friend Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock explicitly justified the giving of his life to save the crew by arguing that the good of the many out weight the needs of the few.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x07", "title": "Decoy", "date": "1982-06-06", "description": "Police Officer Mary Bryan goes undercover to investigate a serial killer. The killer has murdered a number of women in the city and Officer Bryan sets up an ambush.\n\nDirected by: John Jacobs. Story by: Victor Edwards.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were trying to catch a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw police investigators use an attractive female officer to lure a serial killer into a trap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suspected killer Timothy Burton had come to the police department complaining about being followed by the KGB. Timothy later told Mary that he took up body building on account that people had been following him. In the end, he mistook a police sting for a KGB operation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x08", "title": "Pattern of Guilt", "date": "1982-06-13", "description": "Keith Briscoe, a police pathologist, has fallen out of love with his second wife and wants to get back with his first, Faye. While working on an investigation into a serial killer, he asks Faye to act as a decoy.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Helen Nielsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were trying to catch the so-called \"Poodle Killer\" serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a team of police investigators working to catch a serial killer. British 80s police work in mysterious ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith was married to Elaine, but loved his ex-wife Kaye", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith wanted to divorce Elaine and remarry Kaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith and his ex-wife Kaye rekindled their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith seized the opportunity to kill his wife and pin it on the Poodle Killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith second guessed his decision to leave his ex-wife, and tried to divorce his new wife to get back with the former.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith was playing soccer in the backyard with his two young sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine encouraged her husband to listen over the phone as she made out with a man named Gerald.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x09", "title": "A Harmless Vanity", "date": "1982-06-20", "description": "A woman is tipped off by a friend that her husband is having an affair. She is reluctant to believe it but sets up a meeting with this woman at a beach party.\n\nDirected by: Giles Foster. Story by: Theda O'Henle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz Ferguson and Dave Ferguson. Mary Hitchman and George Hitchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "George cheated on Mary with his new secretary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was cheating on Mary with Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz felt obliged to help Mary come to terms with the fact that her husband was having an affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz and Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wife Liz at Carol over husband George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol was done in by an unnamed assassin. We were led to believe that Liz had arranged for Carol to be murdered, but this turned out not to be the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "George hired a diver to drown his wife Mary while she was swimming in the sea, but the man killed Carol in a case of mistaken identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "George hired a hit man to do in his wife, but the hit man killed his mistress in a case of mistaken identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynical, aging housewife Liz said everything she could to crush young Liz's hopes and dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Liz felt their age being around the young and beautiful Carol.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Blade Runner (1982)", "title": "Blade Runner", "date": "1982-06-25", "description": "Blade Runner is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on off-world colonies. When a fugitive group of Nexus-6 replicants led by Roy Batty escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Replicants were advanced androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The backdrop is Replicant versus human tensions and a war appears to be imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "To what extent did the Replicants have rights in a human dominated world?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los Angeles had become a sprawling, dystopian city by the year 2019.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachael had trouble distinguishing where she left off and Tyrell's niece began, since she was implanted using Tyrell's niece's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roy came to his maker Tyrell in an effort to get his lifespan extended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tyrell Corporation headquarters, which was a giant pyramidal structure, loomed over the city of Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth appeared to be one expansive urban area and off-world farming was required.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Replicants were as slave labor on off-world space colonies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying car were prevalent in 2019 Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Replicants were implanted with memories that were difficult to distinguish from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roy and Pris. Deckard and Rachel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans enslaved Replicants and made them toil in off-world colonies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Megaforce (1982)", "title": "Megaforce", "date": "1982-06-25", "description": "The story involves two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from a Gamibian incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara and General Byrne-White to ask the help of MegaForce - a secret army composed of international soldiers from throughout the western world, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. The MegaForce leader, Commander Ace Hunter, will lead a mission to destroy the Gamibian forces, which are led by his rival, and former military academy friend, Duke Gurerra.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaforce" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was laid on pretty thick that the mission of MegaForce was to \"preserve freedom and justice battling the forces of tyranny and evil in every corner of the globe,\" even though globes don't have corners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "MegaForce was a secret multinational military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ace Hunter and Zara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "MegaForce was waging a war on the forces of Duke Gurerra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byrne-White was a stereotypical aristocratic, British snob at the very start of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "MegaForce could listen in on basically anyone in the world and kept detailed dossiers on people of interest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Thing (1982)", "title": "The Thing", "date": "1982-06-25", "description": "The film tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous \"Thing\", a parasitic extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates, then imitates other organisms.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bio-mimicking life form", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Thing was a parasitic alien that consumed and imitated other organisms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Thing came to Antarctica from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone suspected everyone else of being the Thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blair speculated that the Thing planned to imitate a human to get off Antarctica and take over everyone in the wold. The rest of the story involved stopping The Thing from getting out, at any cost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again people struggles with whether to trust another person or not - they just might be The Thing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Thing crashed its flying saucer in Antarctica thousands of years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned, perhaps jokingly, that aliens gave technology to ancient South American peoples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the remaining characters at the end agreed that they kill the thing even if they'd die themselves, to save mankind", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x10", "title": "Death Can Add", "date": "1982-06-27", "description": "Alan Corwin, an auditor in a city investment firm, is approached by Oliver Platt, another member of the firm, to cover up his use of company money. For a price, he agrees, but Corwin's secretary and girlfriend is ignorant to the arrangement.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Philip Ketchum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ambitious investment firm manager Oliver started looking for position at other companies when a higher up denied his request to be granted stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was apparently defrauding the investment firm he worked for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan tried to blackmail Oliver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver and the young firm secretary Leila became mutually besotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver went over the head of a senior partner regarding an investment opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver arranged to blow Alan up with a briefcase bomb, but in an ironic twist of fate found that his secretary had stolen back the briefcase thinking it contained the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver told Leila the story of how his father had shot himself after falling into debt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x11", "title": "Light Fingers", "date": "1982-07-04", "description": "Joan and Ralph live a quiet life. Ralph is concerned, though, when thefts begin to occur at his glove factory. Eventually, he hires a private detective to catch the culprit.\n\nDirected by: John Peyser. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph is obsessed with catching the thief who'd been pilfering gloves from his factory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph Stackpole and Joan Stackpole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ralph discovered that Joan had been cheating on him with the thieving employee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that making a company-wide stink about the stole gloves would be bad for morale.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tron (1982)", "title": "Tron", "date": "1982-07-09", "description": "A computer programmer is transported inside the software world of a mainframe computer where he interacts with programs in his attempt to escape.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The ENCOM corporation mainframe computer had a little society of sentient beings inside it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kevin Flynn was digitized by the EMCOM mainframe computer master control program and he went on to exist inside the computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a little society of sentient, personified computer programs inside the EMCOR mainframe computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The EMCOR mainframe computer became sentient an its master control program hatched a plot to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The EMCOR mainframe computer became sentient an its master control program hatched a plot to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Flynn was held captive inside the EMCOR mainframe computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "apostacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was heresy to believe in the existence of \"Users\" (i.e. beings outside the computer).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was heresy to believe in the existence of \"Users\" (i.e. beings outside the computer).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ENCOM mainframe computer society was essentially under the control of a totalitarian regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan Bradley and Lora Baines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Flynn and Lora Baines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tron and Yori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guardian program Dumont was subjected to tortured by Sark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fanciful view of what goes on inside early 1980s ENCOM mainframe computer was presented.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x12", "title": "Death in the Morning", "date": "1982-07-11", "description": "Sir Ian Masterson, a rich landowner, marries Karen. Upon moving into the house, Karen has an uneasy feeling and confides in their neighbour that the place is haunted.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Zia Kruger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Ian Masterson and Karen Masterson. Duncan Larch and Linda Larch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen felt like she wasn't up to the task of being a snobbish British Lord's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda hated Karen, probably over Ian marrying Karen instead of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Ian's son Paul came home from university for a visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul had such books and it turned out that Linda had used a spell from one of his book to curse Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen thought there might have been a curse on the house. It turned out that Linda had tried to put a black magic curse on Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul mentioned how snobby British estates upheld the image of aristocracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were snobby British aristocrats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen felt that someone at her new country manor wished ill on her, but she had no rational reason for thinking so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen thought there was an evil spirit who wanted her gone, but it turned out to be Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horseback riding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was an avid equestrian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duncan asked Karen whether Linda had been telling her that Duncan sometimes beat Linda up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The maid told Karen that Duncan drank too much.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x13", "title": "What Have You Been up to Lately?", "date": "1982-07-18", "description": "Two old actor friends meet up for the first time in 25 years. They ponder the fact that neither of them have been successful in their career or life and reminisce about a girl they both had a crush on.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: George Baxt.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fergus Locke and Audrey Locke. Richard Mellor and Melissa Mellor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fergus was practically destitute. Richard was going to lose his comfortable lifestyle after his wife left him for another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fergus and Rickard considered themselves to be failed actors. Richard was evidently something of a success, as he had performed in Toronto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on two old friends re-uniting and reminiscing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Fergus and Rickard murdered their wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rickard's wife was said to have flown off and settle with some gigolo. Fergus confessed to having been chronically unfaithful to his wife Audrey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fergus, the more miserable of the two friends, had a crush on the other Richard's wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zapped (1982)", "title": "Zapped!", "date": "1982-07-23", "description": "A high school student acquires telekinetic powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapped!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a group of high school students doing stereotypical high school things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "An experiment gone awry left Barney with telekinetic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peyton was hot on the heels of Robert's girlfriend Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follower Barney and Bernadette as they fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barney and Peyton were high school pals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follower Barney and Bernadette as they fell in love. Principal Coolidge and his assistant Rose fell head over heels for one another while out on a date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientific whiz kid Barney was experimenting with drunken mice in the school laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney's mother came to think that his telekinetic powers were of demonic origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Springboro were worried that their son Barney was a troubled teen. Dexter's wife was hunting him down in his marijuana fueled delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney had a pet sheepdog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney intervened in a high school baseball game by using his telekinetic powers on behalf of his home school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney and Peyton were secretly growing marijuana in the high school science lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peyton and Robert were trying to one up one another in their pursuit of Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney's mother called two Catholic priests to the house to perform an exorcism on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney's mother called two Catholic priests to the house to perform an exorcism on him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x14", "title": "The Absence of Emily", "date": "1982-07-25", "description": "Norma has inherited a large estate and allows her sister Emily and brother-in- law Bob to live there. Emily disappears and Norma believes that Bob has killed her for an insurance pay out. She and a detective investigate.\n\nDirected by: Alan GibsonJohn Rosenberg. Story by: Jack RitchieDramatisation by.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily and Norma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob plotted to make his sister-in-law Norma believe he had murdered her sister Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The women convinced themselves that Bob was a serial spouse murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that Norma got her father to change his will on his death bed so that she inherited everything, and Emily practically nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob appeared to be worried about the people accusing him of murdering his wife, but it turned out to be all part of his plot to get his hands on Norma's inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob appeared to be somewhat disconcerted about people in town thinking he had murdered his wife Emily. In particular, people were gawking at him at the pub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob was accused of marrying women for their money and then murdering them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma presumed that her sister Emily was as good as gone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Arcadia of My Youth (1982)", "title": "Arcadia of My Youth", "date": "1982-07-28", "description": "Arcadia of My Youth (わが青春のアルカディア, Waga Seishun no Arukadia) is an anime film depicting the origin of Leiji Matsumoto's seminal character Captain Harlock. At one time, it was considered to be the central hub of the so-called Leijiverse with the events depicted in other works such as Galaxy Express 999 and 1978's Space Pirate Captain Harlock television series occurring sometime after. It is directed by Tomoharu Katsumata, with Kazuo Komatsubara as animation director.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_of_My_Youth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The resistors plotted to rise up in rebellion against their alien oppressors, but it failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tochiro pledged friendship between his and Harlock's two bloodlines for all eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Free Arcadia resistance movement urged people to maintain hope in a new and beautiful future over and over again, even though prospects for such a future looked grim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Free Arcadia resistance movement radio urged people to maintain hope in a new and beautiful future over and over again, even though prospects for such a future looked grim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlock arrived at Earth in the space battle cruiser Deathshadow. Tochiro built the spaceship Arcadia using knowledge he obtained from his ancestors. There were also numerous alien spaceships flying about here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Green, humanoid aliens from the Illumidus Empire had conquered Earth and enslaved humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Green, humanoid aliens from the Illumidus Empire had conquered Earth and enslaved humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The was a lengthy flashback scene to one of Harlock's ancestors fighting for the Germans in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a cause", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlock pledged his loyalty to the resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlock piloted the Arcadia to the planet Tokarga.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x15", "title": "In the Bag", "date": "1982-08-01", "description": "Cara is determined to get back her family jewels, which have been hidden away in a safe. Hiring a safe cracker, she goes along with him undercover.\n\nDirected by: Bert Salzman. Story by: Robert L. Fish.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the professional safe cracker Sam Crawford at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cara hired a professional safe cracker to steal back her family jewels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam working to crack the safe with Cara acting as lookout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam wanted to get his hands on all the money in a rich man's safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cara explained she was getting back her sister's hard earned jewelry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cara briefly lost her nerve while a cop was around.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x16", "title": "A Man with a Fortune", "date": "1982-08-08", "description": "American John Smith is visiting England to track down his family roots. While in London, he meets up with two girls who befriend him.\n\nDirected by: Herbert Wise. Story by: Peter Lovesey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Smith traveled to England in search of his family roots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet Murdoch set off on some elaborate scheme to win over the wealthy wine producer John Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet presumably paid the price with her life for having accompanied the stranger John on his search to find his ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva and Janet Murdoch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vicar revealed that the psychopathy ran in John Smith's family. We were led to presume that Janet's disappearance was owing to her having been murdered by John. On top of that John mentioned how his former wife had \"gone missing\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The word was used to describe the Smith males.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John didn't deny that he was a lonely man to Eva after he explained to her how he had no living family members.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x17", "title": "Who's Got the Lady?", "date": "1982-08-15", "description": "An art gallery owner has received a priceless work of art on loan. He sets up a robbery with a supposed fake being put in its place. He then gets his girlfriend to make a copy of the painting in order to sell it as the real thing.\n\nDirected by: Peter Hammond. Story by: Jack Ritchie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "art forgery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice forged copies of a masterpiece and, together with her lover Parnell, sold them to various unscrupulous men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to commit a crime and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parnell and Bernice hatched an elaborate plot to make it appear as if a masterpiece had been stolen from an art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paintings were discussed in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice painted forgeries expertly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parnell and Bernice were selling art works on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parnell and Bernice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 984: Prisoner of the Future (1982)", "title": "984: Prisoner of the Future", "date": "1982-08-22", "description": "A corporate executive is captured and held prisoner by a revolutionary organization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Weston was taken prisoner by an revolutionary organization and his captors made persistent attempts force him to confess to \"crimes against the movement\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Warden would only address Tom Weston as Prisoner 984, among other things, in a systematic effort to break him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Warden repeatedly subjected Tom Weston to beatings during his interrogations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revolutionary movement came to power and imprisoned selected corporate executives for \"crimes against the movement\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flashback scenes of Tom and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Tom Weston using an early 80s personal computer in his corporate office. There was also such a computer in the facility where Tom was being held prisoner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected5x18", "title": "The Skeleton Key", "date": "1982-08-22", "description": "Max, an arrogant young man plans a holiday with his girlfriend Emma, but he needs an emergency operation beforehand. Andy, a kind-hearted radiologist at the hospital builds up a friendship with Emma. Max is being very bad tempered and so she finds she has a decision to make.\n\nDirected by: Alan Gibson. Story by: Graham Sutton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma, Andy, and Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max and Emma. Andy and Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy and Max were both vying for Emma's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma couldn't quite choose between her longtime boyfriend Andy and her new lover Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "During the skulduggery whereby Andy caused Max to have an unnecessary operation, through a twist of fate Andy swallowed the key and got scheduled for the very same operation himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma was torn between Andy and Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max accused Andy of being a hypochondriac during a radiological examination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Endangered Species (1982)", "title": "Endangered Species", "date": "1982-09-10", "description": "A burnt out New York ex-cop Reuben Castle and a female sheriff begin to fall in love while investigating a string of mysterious cattle mutilations in a small Colorado town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_(1982_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crackpot theory of cattle mutilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed Reuben and Harriet as they investigated a mysterious series of cattle mutilations in and around a rural community. Explanations as to the cause ranged from aliens to it being a secret government project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruben and his rebellious teenage daughter Mackenzie drove from New York City and took up home in a nondescript rural area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sheriff of a small county was investigating the cause of a spate of cattle mutilations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The no nonsense, big city ex-cop Reuben Castle's approach to investigating crimes was contrasted with the more friendly approach taken by rural sheriff Harriet Perdue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reuben and Harriet fell in love over the course of investigating together a series of mysterious cattle mutilations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reuben was a single father to Mackenzie, and they discussed how she had grown up without a mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mackenzie was a stereotypical rebellious teen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cattle mutilations turned out to be the result of a secret organization of some kind testing a banned biological agent on cows. This they hope would sway the Cold War balance of power in favor of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "While it is unclear as to whether the secret organization was a government one or not, the allegation that the government might be secretly behind the cattle mutilations was entertained..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reuben started off the film in a treatment facility for alcoholics. He had a bad relapse later in the film and went to Harriet's house blind drunk in the middle of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea that UFOs were responsible for a spate of cattle mutilations was entertained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news report warned that the Soviets might be on the verge of gaining military superiority over the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Hiatt's wife briefly mourned the sudden and unexpected death of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rare bacteria that was modified by gene splicing was found in Joe Hiatt's dead body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben Morgan said he would do anything for his country, and, true to form, it turned out that he was indirectly involved in a secret project to advance the ability of the United States to make germ warfare on the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Hiatt was murdered because he knew too much about the cattle mutilations.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e1x01", "title": "The Tale of the Frog Prince", "date": "1982-09-11", "description": "A spoiled princess is forced to keep her promise to a talking frog who is an enchanted prince when he rescues her golden ball from the bottom of a well.\n\nStarring Robin Williams as the Frog Prince, Teri Garr as the Princess, René Auberjonois as King Ulrich, Candy Clark as Queen Gwynneth, and Michael Richards as King Geoffrey. Narrated, written, and directed by Eric Idle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of keeping one's promises", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A prince was turned into a frog because his parents wouldn't keep their promise to a witch to invite her to the Christening. More conflict ensued when the princess walked out on her bargain with the frog. Things were only set aright again when the princess made good on her promise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil can come in the guise of beauty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that the beautiful princess was morally flawed, while the ugly frog was in fact a flawless prince. The king chided the princess for associating beauty with virtue - a common error in his estimation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The princess behaved in a petulant and entitled manner to all around her throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "following through on a promise that is unpleasant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The princess was being pressured to keep her promise to the Frog Prince even though she didn't want to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The princess talked down to her subjects and was generally caught up in that she was royal figure. In one instance, she coerced an attendant to say \"Excuse me, princess\" instead of a plain \"Excuse me\". In another instance, she asserted something to the effect of \"frogs ought not to mingle with royal princesses\" to the Frog Prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in an enchanted Medieval kingdom and features various interactions between members of the royal court and their loyal servants. In particular, the princess was attended on by her ladies in waiting and the chef was preparing dinner for the royal court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The king was first urging his daughter to go through with marrying a certain prince, and later to keep her promise to the Frog Prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtuous Frog Prince was contrasted with the deeply morally flawed princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honest character vs. deceitful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The honorable and morally flawless Frog Prince was contrasted with the princess who refused to keep her promise to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "major", "motivation": "The princess complained that the Frog Prince was slimy and ugly, but he was able to charm the entire court with his words and antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I turned into an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Frog Prince had been transformed into a frog by a witch and spent the story trying to get himself changed back into human form. In the end, the Frog Price reverted back into a man after being kissed by the princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Unable to conceive, the king and queen sought the help of an old crone who was versed in the magical arts in other that they might have a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king and queen longed to have a child, but were having trouble conceiving one until they visited an old crone who was versed in the magical arts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old crone Griselda prepared a magic potion that solved the king and queen's infertility woes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old crone Griselda was a stereotypical witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old crone Griselda crashed the christening of the king and queen's infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old crone Griselda put a curse on the king and queen's new baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that a certain prince was out hunting dragons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The princess was reluctant to marry the prince who'd been chosen for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The princess engaged in some passing interactions with her mother, the queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The princess was conspicuously late for tea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The princess was said to spend all day in front of the mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Frog Prince mentioned Moses in the context of the Exodus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Frog Prince called out the princess for her materialistic ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king confided in his daughter the princess that he feared they'd be overthrown should she not keep her promise to the Frog Prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king explained that the royals and the court were entirely dependent on the people below them in the social hierarchy, and that it was critical that they keep the people from realizing that they themselves were not needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king explained to the princess that she needed to keep her promise in order to maintain stability in the kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stereotypically French cook delighted in making efforts to prepare the Frog Prince for dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Frog flattered the king by calling him a \"cradle robber\" for having married such a young and beautiful queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Frog Prince came to the rescue when a scorpion appeared the the princess' bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with the princess tying the knot with the Frog Prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two kings with their respective queens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The princess objected the the cruel dragon hunting practices of a certain prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone objected to the princesses rude behavior.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Android (1982)", "title": "Android", "date": "1982-10", "description": "The film tells the story of a scientist and his assistant who are working on an illegal android program in their laboratory on a space station in deep space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the android Max 404 as he pursued his interest in all things human, especially sex. In addition, Dr. Daniel was building the female android Cassandra One which he considered to be superior to Max 404. In a surprise twist, Dr. Daniel was himself revealed to be an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Daniel planned to terminate his android creation Max 404 and replace him with a superior android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a remote space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trio of fugitives Maggie, Keller, and Mendes stopped at the space station to repair their ship as the fled the space police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship with a crew of escaped fugitives docked at the space station. We also saw some space police cruisers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max 404 demonstrated to the fugitives how to use a machine in their quarters that could synthesize chicken and beef dinners at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie had been convicted of some sort of corporate fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendes was jealous of the android Max for flirting with his girl Maggie, and Mendes ultimately murdered Maggie in a fit of jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie was terrorized and ultimately strangled by her boyfriend after he started to think that she was interested in Max 404.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed that Dr. Daniel was making androids on a remote space station because such research was prohibited on Earth out of concerns that the androids would rebel. The film concluded with Cassandra One and Max 404 going to Earth to join an android underground movement to overthrow their human oppressors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Turkey Shoot (1982)", "title": "Turkey Shoot", "date": "1982-10-14", "description": "The story features a concentration camp in a futuristic, totalitarian society which offers the opportunity for rich adventurers to hunt human targets for sport with legal immunity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Shoot_(1982_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future totalitarian state in which \"social deviants\" are sent to mass prison camps for re-education and behavior modification. The film followed some of the social deviants in the camp as their tried to resist or ultimately give in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prison camp manager Thatcher selected five prisoners to be human prey in a deadly 12-hour hunt in which they were to be stalked and killed by the armed hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future totalitarian state in which \"social deviants\" are sent to mass prison camps for re-education and behavior modification.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future totalitarian state in which \"social deviants\" are sent to mass prison camps for re-education and behavior modification.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Social deviants desperately wanted to get out of a mass prison camp where they were supposedly being reeducated and reformed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prison camp manager Thatcher selected five prisoners to be human prey in a deadly 12-hour hunt in which they were to be stalked and killed by the armed hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The practice of homosexuality was a capitol offense in this society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thatcher and the prison camp guards treated their prisoners brutally and showed no sympathy for their plight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thatcher and the prison camp guards treated their prisoners brutally and showed no sympathy for their plight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e1x02", "title": "Rumpelstiltskin", "date": "1982-10-16", "description": "A tiny man lends a helping hand to a miller's daughter who is forced to answer for her father's tall tale that she can spin gold from straw.\n\nStarring Ned Beatty as the King, Shelley Duvall as the Miller's Daughter, Paul Dooley as the Miller, Jack Fletcher as The Wizard, Bud Cort as the Page, and Hervé Villechaize as Rumpelstiltskin. Written by Gerald Ayres. Directed by Emile Ardolino.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of keeping one's promises", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The miller's daughter learned the consequences of having promised her firstborn child to Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for getting her out of a tight spot when he came to collect her infant son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The king was initially only interested in the miller's daughter on account of her supposed ability to be able to spin straw into gold. He had also scoured other kingdoms for a rich princess to marry, but none of those options worked out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The miller's daughter was locked up in a room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and told that she was as good as dead unless she spun the straw into gold by morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The king married the miller's daughter and she became queen of the realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Rumpelstiltskin is conventionally understood to be an imp of some sort. The miller's daughter was led by a unicorn to Rumpelstiltskin's lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rumpelstiltskin's magical ability to spin gold from straw was central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rumpelstiltskin could spin straw into gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was on the prowl for a rich princess to marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was attended to by his loyal wizard among other court officials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller got his daughter into trouble with the avaricious king by assuring him that she could spin straw into gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was having trouble finding a rich princess to make his queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller got his daughter into trouble when he blatantly lied to the king, telling his royal highness that she could spin straw into gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller's daughter consented to give her firstborn child to Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for his help in getting her out of a tight spot after pointedly deliberating over the matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The miller's daughter become queen took joy in caring for her newborn son. The king gleefully played with his baby son, the prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary magic wielder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king had a wizard in his court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The millers daughter cum queen was saved by her friendship with the creatures of the dark forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king ruled with absolute power in his kingdom. This is evidenced by his threat to have the miller's daughter summarily executed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)", "title": "Halloween III: Season of the Witch", "date": "1982-10-22", "description": "The film tells the story of Dr. Dan Challis, along with Ellie Grimbridge, who travel to the small town of Santa Mira, California, where he discovers that Silver Shamrock Novelties, a company run by Conal Cochran, is attempting to use the mystic powers of the Stonehenge rocks to kill children when they all wear his masks and watch the Silver Shamrock commercial, to be broadcast on Halloween night. It is the third installment in the Halloween film series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_III:_Season_of_the_Witch" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It wasn't long before Dan and Ellie fell for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Mr. Cochran was hatching a nefarious plot to sacrifice millions of children on Halloween. This he endeavored to achieve by selling Halloween masks all across the USA that would kill any wearers upon seeing a TV commercial that was to be broadcast on Halloween night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Cochran sought to bring about a resurrection of the ancient age of witchcraft by sacrificing millions of children wearing his masks on Halloween.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan and Linda were divorced and she was displeased with his lack of following through on his commitment to spend time with their two kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan paid a brief visit to his kids at his ex-wife's house. He gave his daughter a Halloween mask that she didn't much care for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan paid a brief visit to his kids at his ex-wife's house. He gave his son a Halloween mask that she didn't much care for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was caring for her kid daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was caring for her kid son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie showed token signs of grief upon confirming that the body of a brutally murdered man was indeed her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie's father's murderer immolated himself inside his car after doing the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film followed Dan and Ellie as they endeavored to solve the mystery of her father's brutal murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Cochran's men in suits turned out to be automatons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buddy and Betty Kupfer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a news report about a block from the Stonehenge monument having been stolen. It later surfaced that it was Mr. Cochran who was behind the crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nightbeast (1982)", "title": "Nightbeast", "date": "1982-11", "description": "The film concerns a small town sheriff who must stop a rampaging alien from killing the residents of Perry Hall, Maryland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightbeast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque alien creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The small town sheriff Cinder and his deputy Lisa had to stop a grotesque alien creature from continuing on its murderous rampage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small alien spaceship collided with a asteroid and crashed in the vicinity of Perry Hall, Maryland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Dave's two young nephews were out driving late at night when they encountered the alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Perkins wept profusely after watching the alien creature disintegrate his son Jimmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Perkins wept profusely after watching the alien creature disintegrate his son Jimmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ruffian Drago strangled his girlfriend after he found out that she was seeing Jamie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie tracked down Draco and administered to him a merciless beating to avenge Drago's strangulation of a girl they were both involved with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Cinder and Deputy Lisa made passionate love with one another shortly after she dressed his leg wound in her bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane got drunk \"out of her gourd\" and made a fool of herself in front of Steven.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Time Walker (1982)", "title": "Time Walker", "date": "1982-11", "description": "A professor discovers an alien in King Tut's tomb.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Walker" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mummy that Professor McCadden returned to campus with from an expedition to Egypt turned out to be an alien in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead mummy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mummy that Professor McCadden returned to campus with from an expedition to Egypt turned out to be an alien in suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a university campus. We saw students working with Professor McCadden, the dean investigating the supposed theft of a mummy, and a big Ancient Egyptian themed frat party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Ancient Egyptians had mummified an alien and buried it in King Tut's tomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor McCadden and his students accidentally revived an alien mummy from a 3000 year sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor McCadden took a bullet to the shoulder to prevent the mummy/alien from getting shot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)", "title": "1990: The Bronx Warriors", "date": "1982-11-17", "description": "A 17-year-old heiress to the arms manufacturing giant is unable to face her guilt over inheriting a morally questionable company when she turns 18, and runs away into the lawless wasteland of New York's the Bronx.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990:_The_Bronx_Warriors" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the Bronx in a near future where the authorities gave up all efforts to install law and order, and the area is run by rival gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three rival gangs were duking it out for control of some territory in the Bronx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anne and Trash hit it off instantly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Manhattan Corporation, which Anne stood to inherit, controlled over 60% of the world's arms production, giving it undue influence in New York politics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Manhattan Corporation, which Anne stood to inherit. controlled over 60% of the world's arms production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trash and his fellow gang members mourned the loss of two of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lives of the well-to-do in Manhattan were contrasted with those of people living across the river in the Bronx which was in shambles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rival gang leaders Trash and The Ogre joined forces against their common enemy: the ruthless mercenary named Hammer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trash's seemingly loyal right hand man Ice turned on Trash in exchange for a cash payment from Hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hammer was laughing maniacally as his men were using their flame throwers on gang members.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Xtro (1982)", "title": "Xtro", "date": "1982-12-06", "description": "A father who was abducted by aliens and returns to his family three years later, goes in search of his son. It is the first installment in the Xtro film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Xtro" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtro" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sam was reunited with his son Tony after having disappeared for three years. But his return was very awkward indeed as his wife had already remarried. Also it turned out that Sam was a murderous alien monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A monstrous alien creature who was going around, brutally slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A monstrous alien creature who was going around, brutally slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was abducted by alien in front of his son Tony, disappeared for three years, and then returned to find Tony one day out of the blue, although his behavior was very strange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe did his best to bond with his stepson Tony, but Tony didn't made it easy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony spent three years struggling with the reality that his father might have abandoned him and his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel tried her best to care for her son Tony who was deeply troubled by the sudden disappearance of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam turned out to be a monstrous alien creature who was going around, brutally slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel's boyfriend lived together with her and her son Tony. The au pair Analise's boyfriend was sneaking in to her room for love making purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel loved her live-in boyfriend Joe, but the sudden return of her husband Sam out a strain on her relationship with Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel felt torn between her live-in boyfriend Joe and her suddenly appeared out of nowhere after having disappeared for three years husband Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel and Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony had recurrent nightmares after his father suddenly disappeared from his life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)", "title": "Airplane II: The Sequel", "date": "1982-12-10", "description": "The maiden voyage to the passenger lunar shuttle Mayflower One goes awry when the ship's computer sets it on a collision course with the sun.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplane_II:_The_Sequel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed the voyage of the first passenger shuttle to the Moon. It ended up getting put on a collision course with the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed the maiden voyage of a futuristic lunar shuttle known as Mayflower One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elaine and Simon were planning to marry once back from the voyage to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted, Elaine, and Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Elaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Elaine. Elaine and Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ship computer, which had a mind of its own, went haywire and set the ship on a collision course with the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elain felt torn between her pilot fiancée Simon and her old flame Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted demonstrated much courage in saving the shuttle crew and passengers from flying into the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "A bunch of antics occurred on what was supposed to be a routine passenger flight to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set in a near future in which there was a colony on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iranian terrorists were parodied escorting a blindfolded hostage into the Houston space port. Joe Seluchi was carrying a time bomb aboard the shuttle with the intention of setting it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E. T. the Extra Terrestrial was parodied trying to \"phone home\" from a pay phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some stereotypical crazy people being treated in the \"Ronald Reagan Hospital for the Mentally Ill\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted was being held against his will at a mental hospital, but he escape, and made his way aboard the lunar shuttle for its maiden voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and son, along with the father, went on a family trip to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy reminded his father that he (the father) was a convicted rapist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and son gossiped about the boy's father (her husband) telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and son, along with the father, went on a family trip to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lengthy flashback scene to the trial which ended with Ted being sent to a mental hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman went into hysterics while on the witness stand at Ted's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Jimmy brought his puppy Scraps along on the flight to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man who thought he was about to died confessed to a priest that he had stolen company funds to pay for two abortions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young virgin who thought she was about to die turned to the man sitting next to her and propositioned him for sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted overcame his inhibitions about flying and found the courage to pilot the lunar shuttle when it became apparent that the pilot had turned to jelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young women propositioned a donkey for sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chief controller McCroskey read the minds of his subordinates to assess their thoughts what chances the crew and passengers had of averting disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the man carrying a time bomb on the shuttle was impotent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted made a desperate effort to talk Joe Seluchi out of blowing himself up, and the crew and passengers of the Mayflower One along with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted held himself responsible for an incident in the war which saw his entire crew die in a battle over the Macho Grande.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship computer, which had a mind of its own, went haywire and set the ship on a collision course with the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lengthy flashback scene to the trial which ended with Ted being sent to a mental hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Seluchi boarded the Mayflower One with a bomb in a briefcase, intending to blow himself up so that his wife could collect on insurance money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Seluchi boarded the Mayflower One with a bomb in a briefcase with every intention of detonating them bomb in mid flight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)", "title": "Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann", "date": "1982-12-11", "description": "The film follows a well-known dirt bike motorcycle racer who is in the desert competing in the Baja 1000, a multiclass vehicle cross-country race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timerider:_The_Adventure_of_Lyle_Swann" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dirt bike motorcycle racer Lyle Swann back in time to the Wild West after he rode through a field that a team of scientists had generated for the purpose of sending an animal back in time as a test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle Swann traveled back in time to 1877 and experienced what life was like in the small frontier village of San Marcos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyle and Claire really hit it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film was that ClClaire, whom Lyle had made passionate love to, was in face his own grandmother. The possibility was left open that Lyle had impregnated Claire, so we are left to ponder whether he is his own grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local Mexicans assumed that the red-clad, dirk bike riding Lyle Swann was the Devil himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local Mexicans assumed that the red-clad, dirk bike riding Lyle Swann was the Devil himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire mentioned about how her brothers died in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end it was revealed that Claire, whom Lyle had made passionate love to, was in face his own grandmother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fanny and Alexander (1982)", "title": "Fanny and Alexander", "date": "1982-12-17", "description": "Fanny and Alexander (Swedish: Fanny och Alexander) is a 1982 historical drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the eponymous children's father (Allan Edwall), their mother (Ewa Fröling) remarries a prominent bishop (Jan Malmsjö) who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_and_Alexander" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-ingmar-bergman.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gustav and Alma; Oscar and Emilie; Carl and Lydia; ...", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "the various servants' situations were frequently contrasted with those of their masters in the large household", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gustav with Maj; Helena had had with Isak in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl was up to his neck in debt and could not afford firewood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various characters noted their years but especially the Helena spoke of it at length with Isak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl mentioned this to his crying wife while verbally abusing her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena recalled her late husband and cried", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983)", "title": "Exterminators of the Year 3000", "date": "1983", "description": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future where water is considered a precious substance. A group of people turn towards a stranger to battle a motorcycle gang over an outpost where water is located.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterminators_of_the_Year_3000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future where water is considered a precious substance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small group of people had to battle a motorcycle gang to gain access to water in a future in which the Earth was dessicated an barren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war left the Earth dessicated and barren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien was reunited with his woman Trash whom he had previously left in the hands of some barbarians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial plotted to let little Tommy lead him to the water source so that he could steal the water and sell it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien's lack of a hope for a bright future was touched on, and then the film concluded with rain falling on the dessicated Earth for the first time since the nuclear war, and Alien, Trash, and little Tommy were overcome with joy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how the \"ozone belt\" was destroyed by nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear war was to blame for the post-apocalyptic future we saw where water is considered a precious substance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear war was to blame for the post-apocalyptic future we saw where water is considered a precious substance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Tommy kept a pet rodent in his pocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy disobeyed his mother and snuck away to join the mission to find water for his community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Tommy had a bio-mechanical right arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Tommy slurred his words and tumbled over after Papillon mistakenly gave the boy a can of beer to drink.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983)", "title": "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", "date": "1983", "description": "A lowly computer programmer is forced to take a virtual vacation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdrawn_at_the_Memory_Bank" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aram became trapped in a simulated reality based on his own memories and fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The comically evil Novacorp chairman oversaw a totalitarian-like work environment, but Aram brought and end to his strangle hold over his employees by ordering bonuses and stocks for every employee and placing the chairman in a month long sting as an anteater inside a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aram and Apollonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aram was extremely bored with his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aram hacked into a file that allowed him to watch classic films on his work computer terminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aram encountered an electronically simulated version of his deceased mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A childhood prank left Aram next in line for a sex change operation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Warrior of the Lost World (1983)", "title": "Warrior of the Lost World", "date": "1983", "description": "A man with a futuristic motorcycle is chosen by some enlightened elders to lead a resistance movement against a totalitarian state.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_of_the_Lost_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the wake of the Radiation Wars in a time when a brutal totalitarian state had risen from the ashes of the national governments of the world. People lived either under the totalitarian state or else struggled for survival in lawless hinterlands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rider stepped in to lead the resistance against the totalitarian state known as Omega.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cliched totalitarian state Omega. It featured an evil dictator Prossor, people wore standard issue jumpsuits of the same color, lives were strictly regulated, and alleged political dissidents were executed in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nastasia recruited the Rider to help her free her father The Professor from the totalitarian state Omega. But she herself became captured in the process and the Rider and the Professor had to go back and attempt rescue her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the \"Radiation Wars\" caused the downfall of all the national governments of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rider's motorcycle was equipped with an artificial intelligence named Einstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female Enlightened Elder made the Rider's open cuts disappear with the wave of a hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prosser brainwashed Nastasia into doing whatever he wanted her to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Prosser was an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the Rider and Nastasia sharing a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e01", "title": "145 BC", "date": "1983-01-19", "description": "Alexandria, 145 BC. Upon the death in battle of her husband and brother King Ptolemy VI, Queen Cleopatra II has to marry her younger brother, Ptolemy, to remain on the throne. Ptolemy secretly orders the murder of his nephew and heir, Eupator, the son of his wife and their brother, the late King, then impregnates his new wife with a new child (it turns out to be a boy, whom they call Memphites), and then rapes Eupator's sister, his step-daughter and niece Cleopatra III, his wife's own daughter, who becomes pregnant by him, so he decides to divorce her mother and marries her instead. They rule as an uneasy triumvirate. Ptolemy and Cleopatra III are driven out of Egypt by the mob. Ptolemy takes revenge on his sister Cleopatra II by murdering their only son Memphites, his sister's only male child and heir, and sending her his dismembered corpse as a birthday present.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt, located in Alexandria, in the years surrounding 145 BC. Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, was Machiavellian in his efforts to secure his hold on power. Cleopatra II reestablished herself on the throne after Ptolemy VIII was driven out from Alexandria. Cleopatra III betrayed her own mother to become queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt, located in Alexandria, in the years surrounding 145 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II married her younger brother, Ptolemy VIII (known also as Potbelly) following the death of her husband and brother, Ptolemy VI. Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, married his step-daughter and niece, Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II dealt with her ambitious daughter, Cleopatra III, emerging as a rival for the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II and her daughter, Cleopatra III, were rivals for the throne. They became co-regents with Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II married Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly. He later additionally married her own daughter, Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra III married her uncle, Ptolemy VIII (known also as Potbelly), in order to become queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra III betrayed her mother the queen by marrying Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, explained his philosophy of leadership: since he couldn't be loved he would settle for being feared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story endeavors to explain the dysfunctional government of Ptolemaic Egypt in 145 BC. It was nominally ruled by Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, alongside his co-rulers Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III, although the arrangements changed over the course of the story. The characters discussed how they exercised power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II seized power by appealing to \"the mob\", and forced Ptolemy VIII (known also as Potbelly) and Cleopatra III to flee Alexandria for Crete, causing a schism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II seized power by appealing to the mob, and forced Ptolemy VIII (known also as Potbelly) and Cleopatra III to flee Alexandria for Crete, causing a schism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superseded scientific theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening credits, a Ptolemaic-era intellectual explained how people used to think the earth was flat, or tortoise-shaped, whereas as nowadays he and his ilk knew the earth was round, and moreover sat at the center of the cosmos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanity's place in the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening credits, a Ptolemaic-era intellectual articulated the prevailing bit of wisdom that Egypt sits (perhaps metaphorically) at the center of the earth, just as the earth itself was thought to sit at the center of the cosmos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shortly after being crowned Pharaoh, Ptolemy VIII (known also as Potbelly) arranged for his nephew and heir, Eupator, to be stabbed to death in his bed, thereby eliminating a rival for the throne and securing his hold on power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Potbelly ordered that Eupator's tutor and servants be exiled from Egypt for failing to protect the boy from assassination. Cleopatra III floated the idea of having her mother exiled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "official scapegoating in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, had Eupator assassinated and blamed it on the Jews of Alexandria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, disingenuously blamed the Jews of Alexandria for Euptor's assassination. As punishment, he ordered that they be gathered in a public square and trampled by elephants. It was not clear, however, whether his order was carried out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, raped his step-daughter, and niece, Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, briefly courted his step-daughter, Cleopatra III, before raping and then marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, ill-advisedly insisted that his newborn son be put on a diet of meat and rice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scipio Africanus visited the Alexandria court on a diplomatic mission from Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scipio Africanus politely declined Ptolemy VIII's various bribes. Although, not made clear, it was implied that Scipio was particularly offended by the bribe of boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, took revenge on his sister Cleopatra II by murdering their only son Memphites, his sister's only male child and heir, and sending her his dismembered corpse as a birthday present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII, known also as Potbelly, explained his philosophy of leadership: since he couldn't be loved he would settle for being feared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" was married to both Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Le Prix du Danger (1983)", "title": "Le Prix du Danger", "date": "1983-01-26", "description": "A game show contestant must avoid being killed by any one of five pursuers. If successful, the contestant is awarded a large cash prize. It is based on Robert Sheckley's 1958 short story \"The Prize of Peril\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_prix_du_danger" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is about a game show in which willing contestants are hunted down and killed for sport; those contestants who survive win the adulation of the public and large sums of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is about a game show in which willing contestants are hunted down and killed for sport; those contestants who survive win the adulation of the public and large sums of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "François and Marianne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "François and Marianne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing conflict between the game show producers and a group of activists over where it was morally acceptable to permit willing contestants to perform death defying feats in the hope of winning prize money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "François had four hours to arrive at a predetermined destination and not get killed by any one of five pursuers in the process. If successful, he'd get a large cash prize for his troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people endangering their lives in ways that don't hurt other people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether it is okay for people to willingly participate as contestants in a game show where they are made to take on life threatening challenges in exchanges for large cash prized - if they live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like for a group of producers to produce a human blood sports game show. For example, they took great pains to choose contestants that would appeal to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The contestants were praised for their courage, especially François.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were protesting in the streets, demanding that the game show be banned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young girl went out of her way to help François to elude his pursuers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blood thirsty spectators were shown delighting in Francois getting hunted down for sport.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e02", "title": "128 BC", "date": "1983-01-26", "description": "Ptolemy and Cleopatra III re-invade Egypt, banishing Cleopatra II to Syria, where her daughter Cleopatra Thea is queen consort, but is constantly displeased with the reign of her incompetent husband, King Demetrius. Cleopatra seeks the aid of Demetrius in regaining her throne, but when he fails, his wife orders his slaughter in a temple where he has sought refuge. Her intention is to proclaim herself queen regnant, and her favorite younger son Grypus a puppet co-ruler, but she is forestalled by her elder son Seleucus, who proclaims himself king instead, allowing her to be only the Queen Mother of Syria. She tries to make a puppet ruler of him instead, but when he resists her influence she poisons him at the dinner table. After his death, Grypus finally becomes King of Syria, but with time comes to dislike his mother's increasing desire for power and influence over him.\n\nMeanwhile, Ptolemy announces a sudden change of character - henceforth he is to be known as Ptolemy the Benign. He makes up with his sister Cleopatra II and allows her to return to Egypt from Syria and be a queen once more, much to the dislike of his wife and co-ruler, Queen Cleopatra III, who still sees her mother as a rival. Cleopatra III and Ptolemy's eldest son and daughter, Chickpea and Cleopatra IV, get married, again to Cleopatra's great dislike (because they are in love with each other, but she hates him because he is a product of rape), and their second daughter, Cleopatra Tryphaena, is married to her cousin Grypus, who then, persuaded by her, begins to resist his mother's influence. When his mother tries to kill him, he forces her to drink the poison and she dies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal courts of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria in the years surrounding 128 BC. Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" was calculating in his efforts to maintain his hold on power. Cleopatra Thea masterminded a nefarious plot that saw her eldest son, Seleucus, poisoned and her favorite son, Grypus, installed as king of Syria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal courts of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria in the years surrounding 128 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" explained his philosophy of leadership: since he couldn't be loved he would settle for being feared. This not working out so well, he later decided to change tack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II seized power by appealing to \"the mob\", and forced Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" and Cleopatra III to flee Alexandria for Crete, causing a schism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra II seized power by appealing to \"the mob\", and forced Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" and Cleopatra III to flee Alexandria for Crete, causing a schism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra Thea reluctantly accepted the title of Queen Mother, rather than Queen proper, of Syria when her son Seleucus seized the throne. She resorted to poisoning him at the dinner table to make way for her much preferred younger son, Grypus. She later tried the same tactic on Grypus, but he was wise to the danger and forced her to drink the poison herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra Thea reluctantly accepted the title of Queen Mother, rather than Queen proper, of Syria when her son Seleucus seized the throne. She resorted to poisoning him at the dinner table to make way for her much preferred younger son, Grypus. She later tried the same tactic on Grypus, but he was wise to the danger and forced her to drink the poison herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" made up with his sister-wife Cleopatra II and allowed her to return to Egypt from Syria and be a queen once more. Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" was also married to his niece Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grypus came to resent taking orders from his mother, Cleopatra Thea. When he asserted himself, she tried to poison him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra Thea reluctantly accepted the title of Queen Mother, rather than Queen proper, of Syria when her son King Seleucus seized the throne. She resorted to poisoning him at the dinner table to make way for her much preferred younger son, Grypus. She later tried the same tactic on Grypus, but he was wise to the danger and forced her to drink the poison herself. It was a point of outrage that King Demetrius had been murdered in a sacred temple, where the principle of sanctuary was presumed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred sanctuary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was a point of outrage that King Demetrius had been murdered in a sacred temple, where the principle of sanctuary was presumed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra II fled to Syria and tried to get King Demetrius to invade Egypt and take back her throne. Demetrius incompetently failed and ended up murdered by order of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" made up with his sister-wife Cleopatra II and allowed her to return to Egypt from Syria and be a queen once more, much to the dislike of his wife and co-ruler, Queen Cleopatra III, who still saw her mother as a rival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" arranged for his daughter, Cleopatra Tryphaena, to marry Grypus, king of Syria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grypus arguably made himself guilty of matricide when he forced his own mother to drink the wine he suspected she had likely laced with poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" was married to both Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e03", "title": "115 BC", "date": "1983-02-02", "description": "Finally, Queen Cleopatra II dies peacefully in her bed, and her brother, King Ptolemy, leaves on his own deathbed a will which he designed to cause mayhem among his family. His wife Cleopatra III is named as his successor, but she chooses her favorite younger son, Alexander, to share the throne with her. The mob dislikes that, because Alexander is not the eldest son, so she has no alternative but to proclaim her elder son Chickpea, whom she loathes, King of Egypt instead, but proceeds to divorce him from her eldest daughter Cleopatra IV, with whom he already has a daughter, Cleopatra Berenike, and to marry her youngest daughter Cleopatra Selene to him instead, making her, and not the firstborn Cleopatra IV, wife of the king and thus queen consort of Egypt. After that she exiles Cleopatra IV, who tries to get support with her younger brother Alexander, who is now governor of Cyprus; when she fails, she goes to the court of her cousin Grypus and her sister Tryphaena, who receives orders from her mother to put Cleopatra to death. Cleopatra double crosses Grypus and uses her army to help Grypus's brother and rival to the throne, Cyzicenus, who marries her and makes her Queen of Syria, so when the civil war in Syria takes another turn, Grypus and Tryphaena capture Cleopatra IV and Tryphaena has her killed. Some time later, the war in Syria again takes different turn, and Queen Cleopatra Tryphaena gets captured by her brother-in-law Cyzicenus, who takes revenge upon her for killing his wife, and slowly and painfully kills her. In the meanwhile, Queen Cleopatra III and her daughter, Queen Cleopatra Selene, arrange for Chickpea to be driven out of the kingdom by an angry mob, whom they convince that Chickpea tried to kill his mother. Chickpea flees Egypt and goes to Cyprus, while Alexander finally becomes his mother's co- ruler, whom she treats as a puppet. Selene is married to the widowed King Grypus of Syria, her cousin and ex-brother-in-law, and Cleopatra III forces Alexander to marry his niece Cleopatra Berenike, Chickpea and Cleopatra IV's young daughter. When hearing of this, his secret wife in Cyprus, with whom he even had a son, takes her own life. When Alexander receives the news, he finally stands up to his mother and tries to suffocate her, but fails, only to be helped by the young, but very ambitious Cleopatra Berenike, his niece and chosen bride-to-be, who wants above everything else to become the ruling queen of Egypt, who finishes her grandmother off with a cushion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal courts of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria in the years surrounding 115 BC. A key point of the story is to showcase the naked lust for power almost every Cleopatra exhibited in her pursuit of one throne or another. Cleopatra III married her eldest son and made a mortal enemy of her daughter, Cleopatra IV. Cleopatra IV betrayed Grypus to marry Cyzicenus and become Queen of Syria. Cleopatra Berenike suffocated Cleopatra III with a pillow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is primarily set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 115 BC. Parts of the story are set in the royal court of Seleucid Syria, and the court of Cyprus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line. Cleopatra III was all over her favorite son, Alexander. Chickpea was compelled to marry his sister, Cleopatra Selene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" reflected on the virtues of his late wife Cleopatra II as he spoke to his extant wife Cleopatra III. Cleopatra III briefly married Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" and later Ptolemy X \"Alexander\", her two sons in turn. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was later compelled to marry his sister, Cleopatra Selene. Chickpea regretted divorcing his beloved wife and sister Cleopatra Selene. She married Ptolemy X \"Alexander\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra IV double-crossed Grypus after promising him military aid. She joined with and married his mortal enemy, and brother, Cyzicenus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was open fighting over the thrones both in Egypt and Syria. Grypus fought Cyzicenus over Syria. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was forced to flee in favor of Ptolemy X \"Alexander\", on the designs of Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was open fighting over the thrones both in Egypt and Syria. Grypus fought Cyzicenus over Syria. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was forced to flee in favor of Ptolemy X \"Alexander\", on the designs of Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cleopatra sisters were rivaling for power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy VIII \"Pot Belly\" amused himself on his deathbed by perpetrating a straight-faced \"practical joke\": He set the dynastic succession up for anticipated chaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra Thea murdered her eldest son after he became king. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was falsely accused by \"the mob\" of having tried to murder Cleopatra III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves. In one notable scene, a petulant Cleopatra III ordered three bare-breasted female attendants to redo her hair from scratch, a laborious undertaking, and retouch her make up so that she would look more \"festive\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was compelled to divorce Cleopatra IV and marry Cleopatra Selene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred sanctuary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra IV took refuge in the Temple of Apollo after coming out on the losing side a a civil war. Grypus disingenuously assured her that he would not follow his mother's example by shedding blood in the temple. He instead left it to his wife, Cleopatra Tryphaena, to give the order for Cleopatra IV's execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra Tryphaena met a horrific end after being captured by Cyzicenus. Cyzicenus ordered an executioner to first pull out her teeth one by one, then to pluck out her eyes, and then finally to put her to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was reported that Ptolemy X \"Alexander\"'s secret wife in Cyprus took her own life after learning that he'd married Cleopatra Berenike.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Videodrome (1983)", "title": "Videodrome", "date": "1983-02-04", "description": "Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small UHF television station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring violence and torture. The layers of deception and mind-control conspiracy unfold as he uncovers the signal's source, and loses touch with reality in a series of increasingly bizarre hallucinations.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was subject to a series of increasing bizarre hallucinations, so much so that he lost the ability to distinguish his hallucinations from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry Convex hatched a nefarious plot to give fatal brain tumors to \"lowlifes\" fixated on extreme sex and violence. This he aimed to achieve by having them watch a television show depicting the violent torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims. The signal from the show caused fatal brain tumors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry convex and Harlan manipulated Max into viewing the Videodrome show. This in turn enabled them to mind control Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plotless show Videodrome depicting the violent torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masochistically-inclined Nicki had Max cut her during sex. She also burned herself with a cigarette to get herself fin the mood at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Spectacular Optical Corporation was an eyeglasses company that acted as a front for a weapons manufacturer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max called Harlan over to his apartment in the middle of the night seeking conformation on whether or not there was a dead body in his bed: there wasn't.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x01", "title": "Rapunzel", "date": "1983-02-05", "description": "A beautiful and young girl named Rapunzel is taken from her parents by an evil witch and brought up in an isolated tower that can only be accessed by climbing her unnaturally long and blonde hair until a handsome prince goes there to rescue her.\n\nStarring Shelley Duvall as Rapunzel and Rapunzel's mother, Jeff Bridges as the Prince and Rapunzel's father, and Gena Rowlands as the Witch. Narrated by Roddy McDowall. Written by David Wyles. Directed by Gilbert Cates.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered around Rapunzel's desire to leave her witch-mother's tower-nest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overprotective guardian", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rapunzel's de facto mother the witch locked her up alone in a tower in the middle of the woods to keep her safe from male suitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rapunzel's de facto mother the witch locked her up alone in a tower in the middle of the woods to keep her safe from male suitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rapunzel's mother and father. Later Rapunzel and the prince married and lived happily ever after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "A witch, arguably wicked, abducted baby Rapunzel and kept her shut up in a tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch and Rapunzel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch kept Rapunzel locked up alone in a tower in the middle of the woods to protect her from unscrupulous male suitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rapunzel and the prince fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie scolded Claude for being superstitious about the witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rapunzel's parents-to-be discussed having a child and whether they' prefer a boy or a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie and Claude were expecting with child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pregnant Marie had a peculiar late night craving for a radish with blue leaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude was caught red-handed pilfering some strange blue-leaved radishes from the witch's garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie devoured chocolate covered radishes like a hedonism bot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old woman as a witch stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old woman living nearby was thought (with some justification) to be a witch. Marie and Claude disagreed on this topic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude was to stupid to raise a girl but could maybe raise a boy, according to the witch. The witch explained that you can't trust men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie and Claude struggled to console a screaming baby girl. Rapunzel was minding her infant twins in her desert shack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rapunzel was under the mistaken impression the the witch was her real mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rapunzel was, unsurprisingly, bored after living her whole life in a tiny tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rapunzel sang to her pet parrot and was belatedly betrayed by the critter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was blinded and stumbled through the world looking for his lover interest, Rapunzel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witch abducted baby Rapunzel to fulfill her longing for a child. Claude looked forward to going on walks in the woods with his future son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claude was a candle maker by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Men were not to be trusted according to the witch. Moreover, she warned Rapunzel that men lie, and deceive, and \"steal what's most precious to you\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Men were all liars and deceivers according to the witch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e04", "title": "100 BC", "date": "1983-02-09", "description": "Cleopatra Berenike plots to be rid of Alexander who has turned to drink. Egypt's province of Cyrenaica is willed to Rome on the death of Apion, and Alexander does nothing, against the wishes of his generals. The army defies the King, who attempts to raise a new army of Syrian mercenaries to be paid with gold from the Tomb of Alexander the Great. When the city is outraged at the desecration of the tomb, Alexander flees but is pursued and killed. Chickpea reclaims the throne and Cleopatra Berenike's ambition is realized when he makes her joint monarch. Chickpea brings his mistress Irene and three children from Greece to be with him. He later decides to concentrate on fulfilling his role as chief priest of Egypt, leaving Berenike to run the kingdom. On his death, Irene returns to Greece, leaving the children in the safe care of Berenike. However, Chickpea's death leaves a dangerous power vacuum - and Rome is now taking a more than friendly interest. Rome installs Berenike's nephew Alexander II as the new King, much to her dismay; she refuses to consummate their marriage. Alexander accidentally kills her while attempting to rape her, and the mob kills him in turn. Chickpea's son Fluter, grandson of Cleopatra III, is made the new King.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 100 BC. Cleopatra Berenike wanted to get rid of her husband, Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\", and so persuaded him to raid Alexander the Great's tomb. Behind his back she arranged for this heinous crime to be made known to the \"mob\" of Alexandria, who promptly rioted and chased Alexander out of the city. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" then reclaimed the throne and made Cleopatra Berenike his co-regent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 100 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was open fighting over the throne. Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" returned and forced his brother Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" to flee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apion died and left Cyrenaica to Rome, sparking a crisis in the Alexandrian court. The end result was Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" and Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" both considered themselves in line for the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" took a backseat to his co-regent Cleopatra Berenike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra Berenike was murdered by Ptolemy XI \"Alexander II\" as he tried to rape her. He accidentally killed her in the attempt, and was promptly torn to shreds by the citizens of Alexandria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" made a point of drinking himself senseless every day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" woke up in a very bad condition after a night of drinking and dancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Roman general, named Sextus, advised Ptolemy XI \"Alexander II\" to rape his mother Cleopatra Berenike. He accidentally killed her in the attempt, and was promptly torn to shreds by an angry mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" returned to power he was a changed man: he mercilessly and decisively had his detractors executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy X \"Alexander I\" repeatedly admitted to being a coward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucullus made a diplomatic visit to the Ptolemaic court seeking Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\"'s support in Rome's planned offensive against Greece. A Roman sergeant arrived with an ultimatum that Berenike's nephew Ptolemy XI \"Alexander II\" be made king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy IX \"Chickpea\" was overjoyed upon the arrival of his mistress, Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fluter, the future Ptolemy XII, serenaded Cleopatra Berenike with his flute playing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e05", "title": "80 BC", "date": "1983-02-16", "description": "Fluter and his sister Cleopatra V Tryphaena marry, while his younger brother Ptolemy is given Cyprus. Fluter recognizes that Rome is the true source of all power and sets off on an extended royal visit, spending much money to bribe both Caesar and the Senate to recognize him as true king of Egypt. He neglects to include his brother Ptolemy of Cyprus in this arrangement; the Romans send an army to annex Cyprus, and Ptolemy, unwilling to become a client of Rome, sinks the royal treasury at sea and commits suicide. Fluter returns to Egypt but the people, and Cleopatra, blame him for the loss of Cyprus and the death of Ptolemy. Fluter returns to Rome to seek Roman armed support and the Egyptians, furious at this subservience, depose him in his absence and make his wife, Cleopatra Tryphaena (Cleopatra V Tryphaena), and his daughter, Berenike (Berenice IV), joint rulers. Cleopatra keeps sending delegations to Rome to press their case and Fluter keeps having them murdered.\n\nCleopatra Tryphaena dies leaving Berenike as sole ruler. She needs a husband to share the rule, the first candidate her advisers find is so repulsive she has him strangled. They then find her a young Greek general, Archelaus, who is much to her liking. But he is killed in battle, and Berenike refuses to flee and waits on the throne to confront her father, Fluter, who has her killed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 80 BC. Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" used his charm and Egypt's substantial supply of treasure to bribe his way through Roman politics all the way to the senate, and attain formal recognition for both himself as king, and Egypt as a \"friend of Rome\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is primarily set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 80 BC. Parts of the story are set in Rome and parts are set in the court of Cyprus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Berenike and Archelaus became genuinely besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" embarked on a charm offensive to Rome where he sought to dazzle and bribe his way to recognition for both Egypt and himself. Many people in the Egyptian court were aghast at his sycophantic and weak approach. Some called for war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Roman Senate was portrayed as a body in which bribery was the most expedient way of getting legislation passed. Specifically, Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" and his delegation took full advantage of this by bribing their way to getting Egypt legally recognized as a friendly independent kingdom with himself affirmed as its king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" embarked on a charm offensive to Rome where he sought to dazzle and bribe his way to recognition for both Egypt and himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Those in the Ptolemaic court could see that the rise of Rome meant Egypt's days as an independent kingdom were numbered. Rome had previously taken over Syria. In this installment, Rome annexed Cyprus and was applying pressure on Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Berenike was presented with a suitable partner but found that he smelled so repugnant that she had him executed. Her advisors then presented her with the strapping Greek general, Archelaus, with whom she fell instantly in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy XII was nicknamed \"Fluter\" owing to his enthusiasm for playing the associated wind instrument. In one notable scene, he serenaded Julius Caesar himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Ptolemy of Cyprus had taken his life rather than become a puppet of Rome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Berenike's suitor carried a body odor so offensive that he was called Salt Fish Peddler. Berenike had him taken away to be executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Berenike went into denial upon being informed that her lover, Archelaus, had died in battle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Born in Flames (1983)", "title": "Born in Flames", "date": "1983-02-20", "description": "Born in Flames is a 1983 documentary-style feminist fiction film by Lizzie Borden that explores racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism in an alternative United States socialist democracy. The title comes from the song \"Born in Flames\" written by a member of Art & Language, Mayo Thompson of the band Red Krayola.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_Flames" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "feminism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Women's Army was a force dedicated to the liberation of all women. It opposed a government, that was actively undermining the economic and social position of women and minorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which the USA has undergone a social democratic revolution. The Women's Army sprang up as a counter-revolutionary force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government, and society more generally, was undermining the economic and social position of women and minorities. And attention was called to various modes of institutional discrimination against women, including selective government cutbacks to important women's social programs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two feminist groups were opposing racism in New York City. In particular, a government jobs program was harshly criticized for being discriminatory against minorities, especially black men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Women's Army was considered by the city to be a vigilante force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Women's Army led an opposition to a big brother socialist government. The Women's Army fought for what they said was a true socialism: one with proportional representation of women and minorities in government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing persecution by the government", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Women's Army led the opposition against a big brother government that was overseeing policies that systematically discriminated against women and minorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Women's Army was an all female, all lesbian militia. Also something was made of Adelaide being in a relationship with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government, and society more generally, was undermining the economic and social position of women and minorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government cast the Women's Army as a terrorist organization after some of the members preempted a televised presidential address with a message from one of their leaders. In the end, they bombed the World Trade Centers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government cast the Women's Army as a terrorist organization after some of the members preempted a televised presidential address with a message from one of their leader. In the end, they bombed the World Trade Centers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A light was shone on the plight of the working classes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angry, unemployed people were protesting and rioting in the streets. A group of women construction workers were protesting for jobs, chanting the slogan \"We want a J.O.B. so we can E.A.T.\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A government official praised the revolutionary government for having reduced the numbers of women who were working as prostitutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government reigned in funding to an abortion program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adelaide was said to have hanged herself in prison, although there was evidence suggesting she was murdered by federal agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw street crime going on here and there. For example, a couple of men assaulted a woman on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antigovernment militia movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Women's Army went around with guns opposing the big brother, socialist government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news reported stated that inflation was a problem in this society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Woman (1983)", "title": "The Invisible Woman", "date": "1983-02-20", "description": "A newspaper reporter becomes invisible after accidentally covering herself with an invisibility formula.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085738/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sandy was rendered invisible after getting exposed to a serum concocted by her uncle Dr. Plunkett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sandy was rendered invisible after getting exposed to a serum concocted by her uncle Dr. Plunkett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows an invisible Sandy and her uncle Dr. Plunkett as he tried to concoct a serum that would render her visible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sandy worked as a junior reporter at a newspaper and she was enthusiastic about learning the craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot followed an Sandy (a.k.a. the invisible woman) as she solved a string of art heists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kookie inventor Dr. Plunkett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lab coat clad Dr. Plunkett was shown in his laboratory working with bubbling beakers and test tubes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Plunkett treated his lab chimp Chuck with kindness and affection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pretentious man and an equally pretentious woman were critiquing paintings in at art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Plunkett tried to conceal from his neighbor, the nosey boy Rodney, that an invisible Sandy was staying at his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Carlisle Edwards' henchmen was reluctant to steal Cleopatra's scepter on account that it might be cursed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a police detective investigate a string of art heists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1983)", "title": "The War of the Worlds: Next Century", "date": "1983-02-20", "description": "The film starts with the arrival of a more advanced civilization from Mars which purports to have a friendly attitude towards Earthlings. The place visited by the Martians resembles a police state in which a huge role is played by television, which is used as a propaganda tool.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds:_Next_Century" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diminutive, silver-skinned Martians paid a visit to a police state on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Television was used as a propaganda tool by the police state. This was a central and ever-present feature of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Television propagandist Iron Ivan came to see the sinister role that television, and he himself, was being used for during the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Television propagandist Iron Ivan came to see the sinister role that television, and he himself, was being used for during the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a harsh police state that heavily relies on using television as a propaganda tool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Martians landing to Earth quite out of the blue. It appears that they chose to establish formal relations with a police state and visit there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iron Idem was put on a televised show trial for aiding and abetting the Martians, and sentenced to death by a magistrate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secret police disappeared Iron Idem's wife at the start of the film and returned her to him in a body bag at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iron Idem was put on a televised show trial for aiding and abetting the Martians, and sentenced to death by a magistrate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e06", "title": "51 BC", "date": "1983-02-23", "description": "Fluter dies, leaving Cleopatra VII, now 18, as joint ruler with her young brother Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra makes it clear her brother's regents can 'advise' him, but not her. Cleopatra, deceived by her brother's adviser Pothinus, receives and charms Pompey's son Gnaus, who has come to seek Egyptian support in for his father in his civil war against Caesar. This enrages the mob and Cleopatra has to flee, as Pothinus planned. The defeated Pompey is allowed to land by Ptolemy and his advisers; they then kill him, expecting to win the pursuing Caesar's approval. This does not work, Caesar is affronted by their treachery.\n\nCaesar demands Ptolemy and Cleopatra's presence. Cleopatra, to get past Ptolemy's troops, has herself smuggled to Caesar in a carpet, and charms then seduces Caesar. Caesar restores Cleopatra to the throne jointly with Ptolemy, in accordance with their father's will, though neither one likes it.\n\nCaesar instructs Ptolemy's general Achillas to disband his army; instead, Achillas goes to his army and marches on Alexandria. Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe goes to join Achillas. A deputation from the army arrives with the news that Arsinoe had Achillas killed. They ask for their king and Caesar, acting on Cleopatra's advice that he's a much worse tactician than Arsinoe, releases Ptolemy to them. Cleopatra foresees Ptolemy and Arsinoe's defeat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal courts of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria in the years surrounding 51 BC. The story concerns Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII, two remarkably ambitious rulers. Cleopatra VII said outright that she wanted to become Caesar's lover because of he was the most powerful man in the world. Cleopatra VII and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII schemed against each other and tried to involve Julius Caesar in their plans. Cleopatra was betrayed by her advisor, Pothinus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt in the years surrounding 51 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line. Julius Caesar said that Cleopatra VII should marry her younger brother because that was the custom in Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII was deceived by her advisor Pothinus, who tricked her into thinking that Pompey had been victorious. Cleopatra VII sent half the Egyptian fleet to feign support, but the combined Egyptian and Roman fleets ended up being trounced by Julius Caesar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII said outright that she wanted Julius Caesar because he was the most powerful man in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII spared no love for one another. In fact, they each were eager to see the other dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "This story is the lead-up to open fighting breaking out between Ptolemy VIII, supported by the Egyptian army, and Cleopatra VII, supported by Julius Caesar. Achillas marched on Alexandria but was killed by Cleopatra's sister, Arsinoe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although both had political motives for the match, it appeared that Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII became genuinely smitten with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On his deathbed, Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" longed to play his flute but had been denied the pleasure of doing so for some or another reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptolemy XII \"Fluter\" imparted some life lessons to Cleopatra VII as he lay on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ptolemaic royals were waited on hand and foot by legions of house slaves. Notably, Cleopatra VII was tended to by a trio bare breasted handmaids.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starflight: The Plane That Couldnt Land (1983)", "title": "Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land", "date": "1983-02-27", "description": "The maiden voyage of the first hypersonic passenger plane does not quite go according to plan when an uncontrolled acceleration propels it in orbit around the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight:_The_Plane_That_Couldn%27t_Land" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative airliner", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed the maiden voyage of Starflight: a hypersonic passenger plane that was anticipated to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney in two hours. However, not all went according to plan when an uncontrolled acceleration left the plane in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Starflight passengers and crew experienced a weightless environment after an uncontrolled acceleration sent them into orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Starflight hypersonic airliner got shot out into orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the maiden voyage of Starflight: a hypersonic passenger plane that was anticipated to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney in two hours. However, not all went according to plan when an uncontrolled acceleration left the plane in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cody and Janet Briggs. Josh and Nancy Gillam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Briggs and Josh wanted to postpone the Starflight's maiden voyage until more testing could be done, but they were ignored to everyone's ultimate regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cody was cheating on his wife with the flight attendant Erica Hansen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some family members of the Starflight crew on pins and needles, waiting to find out whether or not their loved one's would be disintegrated upon reentry into the atmosphere.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e07", "title": "46 BC", "date": "1983-03-02", "description": "Ptolemy XIII has been killed and Arsinoe captured. Cleopatra tells Caesar that she's pregnant with a son (Caesarion). Caesar invites Cleopatra to follow him to Rome. Caesar decides to publicly recognize Caesarion as his son and puts a statue of Cleopatra in the temple of Venus Genetrix.\n\nCaesar discusses being made king with Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He tells Cleopatra he's going off to fight the Parthians, in his absence his friend Senna will propose a law allowing Caesar to have as many wives as he wishes, so he can marry Cleopatra and keep his wife Calpurnia.\n\nBut Caesar is assassinated. Apparently he never made a new will, Cleopatra is not mentioned. Cleopatra returns to Egypt with her younger brother Ptolemy XIV. She finds she's unpopular and there is a movement to depose her in favor of Ptolemy. However he promptly dies of a stomach upset. Cleopatra then reigns jointly with her infant son Caesarion (Ptolemy XV).\n\nCassius sends a request for Egyptian help against Antony; having exhausted all excuses, Cleopatra agrees, but her fleet dallies until Cassius has lost his battle. Mark Antony, having, with Octavian, defeated Brutus and Cassius, invites Cleopatra to see him at Tarsus. She ignores him but he persists; he has heard of her offered assistance to Cassius and wants an explanation. Cleopatra goes to Tarsus on a royal barge and seduces Mark Antony.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt and Rome in the years surrounding 46 BC. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII were two remarkably ambitious rulers. Cleopatra VII said outright that she wanted to become Caesar's lover because of his power. Caesar planned, outrageously, to make himself king of Rome despite that ancient Republic's renowned aversion to monarchs. He was assassinated for his efforts. Cleopatra seduced Mark Anthony, again pointedly because she considered him the most powerful man in the world following Caesar's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julius Caesar had a wife but had a law passed in the Senate which would allow him to marry as many women he liked. The point of this was that he wanted to marry Cleopatra VII without divorcing his faithful original spouse, Calpurnia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt and the city of Rome in the years surrounding 46 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII wanted to marry Julius Caesar because he was the most powerful man in the world. After his assassination, she turned her attentions to those vying to be his successor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Caesar had a wife but worked on having a law passed in the Senate which would allow him to marry as many women he liked. The point of this was that he wanted to marry Cleopatra VII without divorcing his faithful original spouse, Calpurnia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII were openly in a relationship despite the fact that Caesar had another wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII was sadden by the news, when it reached her, of Julius Caesar's untimely death. She blamed herself for indirectly causing it by spurring Caesar on to proclaim himself king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII pointedly went on a mission to seduce Mark Antony, who was now, she argued, the most powerful man in the world after Julius Caesar's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story leads up to the famous assassination of Julius Caesar by a group of Republican conspirators who abhorred the prospect of returning to monarchical rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark Antony and Octavian prevailed in a civil war that erupted in the wake of Julius Caesar's assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius Caesar commented on the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying in the family. The viewer is confronted with the prevailing norm in the Ptolemaic court of marrying within the family to preserve the royal line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII arranged for the murder, via poison, of Ptolemy XIII it appeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Antony appeared in Alexandria with a mind to punishing Cleopatra VII for having taken Cassius' side in the Roman civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story leads up to the famous assassination of Julius Caesar by a group of Republican conspirators who abhorred the prospect of returning to monarchical rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bread and circuses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julius Caesar derived much of his power from bread and circuses policies in Rome, and said as much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra was tended to by her two faithful handmaids, Charmian and Iras.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Antony avowed to avenge Julius Caesar's assassination and so he did by triumphing over Brutus and Cassius in battle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tc1983e08", "title": "35 BC", "date": "1983-03-09", "description": "Cleopatra asks Mark Antony to kill her sister Arsinoe, who has been granted sanctuary as a priestess at Ephesus. Following a tiff, Cleopatra returns to Egypt. Antony follows, as she knew he would.\n\nNews arrives of Parthian incursions, and that Antony's brother and Antony's Roman wife Fulvia have taken up arms against Octavian. Antony sees this as his chance to unseat Octavian, but Cleopatra counsels caution. Antony goes to fight the Parthians, however he leaves his army in Syria and sails for Athens to meet Fulvia, but she dies of a fever.\n\nAntony meets Octavian and they agree to divide the empire, Antony the east, Octavian the west. Octavian suggests, to seal the deal, that Antony marry Octavian's sister Octavia. Cleopatra is furious at the news.\n\nAntony looks to continue his war against the Parthians, but needs money to finance it. He leaves Octavia in Athens, and invites Cleopatra to Antioch, where they resume their affair. He promises to acknowledge his two children with Cleopatra, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. In Alexandria, Antony publicly divides his empire among Caesarion, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and his and Cleopatra's infant son Ptolemy Philadelphos.\n\nHe divorces Octavia. Octavian takes this as a personal insult and reacts savagely, despite Octavia (who still loves Antony) pleading with him for moderation. The Senate, at Octavian's behest, divests Mark Antony of his powers and declares war on Cleopatra.\n\nAntony's friends begin to desert him. His and Cleopatra's forces are defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium and they quarrel. They decide not to flee but to stay in Alexandria to await the end. Cleopatra fears Antony will harm her in a drunken rage, she hides in her tomb and sends word she's dead. Antony stabs himself. Cleopatra has him brought to the tomb on a litter, where he dies.\n\nCleopatra receives Octavian in the throne room and begs him to spare her children, but he refuses. Cleopatra kills herself with an asp, as do her faithful maidservants, Charmian and Iras.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-thecleopatras1983.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on people jockeying for power in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt and the city of Rome in the years surrounding 35 BC. Cleopatra VII used her beauty and female wiles to manipulate Mark Antony, whom she now fancied as the most powerful man on Earth. She got him to kill her sister and to divorce Octavian's sister. In return, Octavian got the senate in Rome to declare war on Mark Antony. Before killing herself, Cleopatra VII discussed her options with Octavian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the royal court of Ptolemaic Egypt the city of Rome in the years surrounding 35 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story famously concludes with the double suicide of the fated lovers Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He stabbed himself in the gut when he thought, incorrectly, that Cleopatra was dead. She let herself be bitten by a venomous serpent after Octavian implied he was going to control her fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII manipulated Mark Antony into killing himself by sending word, falsely, of her own death. She then had the dying Mark Antony brought to her and tearfully tended to him as he succumbed to his self-inflicted gut injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Octavian waged war on his co-ruler of the Roman Empire, Mark Antony. Octavian famously routed Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cleopatra and Mark Antony were mutually besotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII manipulated Mark Antony and told him to murder her sister, which he then did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred sanctuary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On Cleopatra VII's behest, Mark Antony murdered her sister Arsinoe even though she had sanctuary as a priestess of Ephesus in the Temple of Diana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Antony waged war against the Parthians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra VII was tended to by her two faithful handmaids, Charmian and Iras. The story culminated with the scene of the aftermath of Cleopatra's suicide in which Charmian and Iras stood by and then took their own lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cleopatra and Mark Antony founded a club, which they dubbed \"The Inimitables Club\", centered around lavish partying and feasting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Antony married Octavian's sister, Octavia, to solidify his alliance him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Antony divorced Octavia to be with Cleopatra, an act which Octavian took as a affront.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Crusher Joe: The Movie (1983)", "title": "Crusher Joe: The Movie", "date": "1983-03-12", "description": "Crusher Joe and his team accept an assignment to transport a cryogenically preserved patient to a distant planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158568/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a cloak and dagger story in which Joe and his team was being played between rival factions, leaving Joe and his team never sure who was on their side and who wasn't.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about different factions trying to get a hold of an experimental warp drive technology. In general, traveling around the galaxy was no big deal for people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pirate leader Big Murphy plotted to use an experimental warp drive technology to take over the planet Lagol. The Lagol President was also scheming to secure his strangle hold on power over the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The type of transportation appeared to be commonplace in the year 2161.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space travel was commonplace in this world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe took an assignment to transport a cryogenically preserved young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe's father suspended Joe and his team from all Crusher related activities for six months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Alfin got hammered and at the space disco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and his team visited a planet, named Lagol, that was in the process of being terraformed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and his team docked at a large space station in orbit around Lagol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two jet pack equipped people attacked Joe and Alfin in the forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Alfin were attacked by a giant, one-eyed ape-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physically restrained Talos was beaten mercilessly by a big good with a bat. Matua was later tortured into cooperating with the Murphy pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfin briefly flew into a rage when she stumbled on Joe flirting with Dr. Matua.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Le Dernier Combat (1983)", "title": "Le Dernier Combat", "date": "1983-04-06", "description": "A dark vision of post-apocalyptic survival, the film was shot in black and white and contains only two words of dialogue. It depicts a world where people have been rendered mute by some unknown incident.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Dernier_Combat" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three characters (The Man, The Brute, and The Doctor) struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where people have been rendered mute by some unknown incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three characters (The Man, The Brute, and The Doctor) struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where people have been rendered mute by some unknown incident.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x01", "title": "A Passing Opportunity", "date": "1983-04-09", "description": "Frank Jesmond and Peter Madison are former schoolmates with very different lives. Jesmond is tough but broke while Madison is rich and successful.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Donald Honig.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank envied and resented Peter's success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank was hired to assassinate his former schoolmate Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Just as Frank had administered the lethal poison to Peter to earn some pennies, Peter offered him the job opportunity of a life time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank envied and resented Peter's success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank's lower middle class life was contrasted with Peter's life of privileged. Frank said Peter had had it all handed to him right from the start. Peter later confirmed this in as many words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was an angry man who could barely control his rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was an angry man. Eleanor told Frank that Timmy was afraid of Frank because of his violent rages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter told of the married woman he was sleeping with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank chided his young son Timmy for skipping a school trip to see a museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank and Eleanor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleanor and Timmy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Liquid Sky (1983)", "title": "Liquid Sky", "date": "1983-04-15", "description": "Aliens come to New York City in search of heroin, but find something even better: a opioid similar to heroin that is produced in the human brain at the moment of orgasm.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret and her drug dealing girlfriend Adrian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret was trying to make it as an actress/fashion model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the drug scene in 1980s New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people were addicted to drugs. Paul was on heroin, Jimmy cocaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johann Hoffman was convinced that aliens were flying around New York City in a tiny flying saucer in search of heroin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fashion industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a New Wave fashion model Margaret. She modeled at a crowded Manhattan nightclub fashion show, posed in a fashion shoot, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johann Hoffman was convinced that aliens were flying around New York City in a tiny flying saucer in search of heroin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret was repeatedly sexually harassed and even outright assaulted but men in the fashion industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret used the new circumstance she found herself in (i.e. that anyone she had sex with would die after having an orgasm) to turn the tables and take power over men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret made a point about her being a lesbian was not an important distinction, and questioned what point there was in defining people according to who they find attractive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy went to his mother for money to feed his cocaine addiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrian was on the verge of copulating with a dead man in front of Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kathryn and her heroin addicted, live-in boyfriend Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several men forced themselves upon Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret was pressured into performing oral sex on Jimmy by onlookers chanting \"Do it. Do it. Do it.\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret briefly adopted an androgynous identity toward the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens got about in a tiny, pie plate-sized flying saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x02", "title": "The Memory Man", "date": "1983-04-16", "description": "Colin Mearns has a gift for memory, but is struggling financially. Advertising to teach his methods, he is met by a shady character who is desperate to remember the combination of a locker. Mearns soon becomes curious to what the locker contains.\n\nDirected by: Peter Duffell. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "photographic memory ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin advertised a method to achieve perfect memory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin was on the brink of loosing his business and his girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin wanted money and bad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin accused Mary of gold digging for taking a personal assistant job from an older man in a far flung Scottish city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin was dumped like a sack of potatoes by Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie Krebs had the safe of a casino, but forgot the pin number to the locker where he stored the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary mourned Colin who had blown himself up with dynamite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin used hypnosis on Krebs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krebs had cracked a casino safe and it was said of him that he was the best safe blower in the business.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Deadly Spawn (1983)", "title": "The Deadly Spawn", "date": "1983-04-22", "description": "The film follows the story of a crash-landed alien that finds refuge in the basement of a house and grows to monstrous proportions, eating those unlucky enough to venture down. A handful of teenagers try to survive the onslaught of the creature and its young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deadly_Spawn" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Creatures of extraterrestrial origin was going around devouring people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Creatures of extraterrestrial origin was going around devouring people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family was being terrorized by hungry creatures of extraterrestrial origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Pete and Charles' parents planning their day over breakfast before they got eaten by the creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Millie conversed with Pete and Charles over breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' psychologist uncle questioned him about his interest in monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Charles was a classic monster/alien creature movie aficionado.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Millie went out in a rainstorm to visit her mother for a vegetarian lunch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Millie's mother was a proud vegetarian, and mentioned about hoe gorillas were also vegetarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete and Ellen kissed not long before one of the creatures bit off Ellen's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete and Charles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x03", "title": "A Sad Loss", "date": "1983-04-23", "description": "Claire Hawksworth runs a Caribbean hotel with her boyfriend, but they have fallen on tough times. Hopeful of some money, Claire turns to her rich aunt. Her aunt however tells her of a new heir to her fortune.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Patricia Moyes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire and her ex-husband's aunt Alicia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire's business was on the verge of bankruptcy and she was quite upset", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire fought for her inheritance when a rivaling baby had the poor taste to be born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire wrangled with her conscience regarding murdering her rich aunt-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire and her partner Dave ran a tropical resort and plotted murder together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire turned to her wealthy aunt Alicia for money in a time of trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Alicia made a variety of disapproving comments to Claire and Maggie during lunch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire spoke of her late husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x04", "title": "Clerical Error", "date": "1983-04-30", "description": "Paul Standing, the son of a recently deceased doctor is sorting out his paperwork when he receives a bill from a bookshop for thousands of pounds worth of illicit books. Paul is highly suspicious.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Peter Ransley and James Gould Cozzens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul grieved over his father who had recently passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul worried that word of his deceased father having ordered pornographic books would aggravate his mother's heart condition had it reached her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bookshop keepers had a clever scheme for scamming the survivors of late relatives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were led to believe that Paul was distraught to learn of his late father's dark secret passion for dirty books.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Standing grieved over her husband who had recently passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bookshop keepers Michael Carey and Ronnie Carey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Standing and Paul Standing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the bookshop keepers had a premonition that something bad was going to happen, if they went to collect the 11,000 pounds from Paul. This was bound up with the day being Friday the 13th.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x05", "title": "Heir Presumptuous", "date": "1983-05-07", "description": "George Devon, a wealthy rancher is found murdered. His identical twin nephews stand to inherit his fortune, but one of them was seen at the scene of the crime. Both have alibis and no one can tell the two boys apart.\n\nDirected by: Philip Leacock. Story by: C.B. Gilford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "identical twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "Did Donald murder his uncle George or was it his identical twin brother David?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a county sheriff and his deputy investigate a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Identical twins Donald and David thought they could exploit their identical nature to get away with the murder of their uncle George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's twin nephews were the prime suspects in his murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Identical twin brothers conspired to murder their uncle and inherit his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Donald or David wanted to borrow $25,000 from his uncle George to buy a stock car and go around racing at county fairs. He stabbed George in the back upon being refused.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x12", "title": "Hit and Run", "date": "1983-05-10", "description": "Roger Ashburn, a young doctor is deeply in love with his beautiful wife, but, she doesn't feel the same way. He arranges a dinner party with some of his friends, but, she disappears afterwards. Roger is desperately worried, but, there is a surprise in store.\n\nDirected by: Peter Hammond. Story by: Patricia Moyes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was seemingly devastated when his wife suddenly left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Ashburn and Mary Ashburn. Dr. Steve Hutchins and Carol Hutchins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard say that Roger was obsessively besotted with his runaway wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Roger thought his wife had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believe that Roger thought his wife was missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger, his wife Mary, and Joan defrauded an insurance company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Mary hatched an elaborate plot to cash in on Mary's life insurance policy by faking her death. Someone tried to blackmail Roger and Mary at the end into getting a large check of the insurance payout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone tried to blackmail Roger and Mary at the end into getting a large check of the insurance payout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger moped to Steve and Carol about how he was a miserable failure in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger gave people the impression that his wife must have run off with a rich man that she'd been having an affair with.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x02", "title": "The Nightingale", "date": "1983-05-10", "description": "A Chinese Emperor finds true friendship from a lowly kitchen maid and a plain little bird; both of whom are worth more than they appear.\n\nStarring Mick Jagger as the Emperor, Barbara Hershey as the Maid, Bud Cort as the Music Master, Mako as the Gardener, Keye Luke as the Imperial Doctor, Edward James Olmos as the Prime Minister, Anjelica Huston as Primrose, and Jerry Hall as Pansy. Narrated by Shelley Duvall (who also performs the voice of the Nightingale). Written by Joan Michelin Silver. Directed by Ivan Passer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nightingale had a human-like personality and was offended at being pitted against a mechanical bird. The Emperor soon came to regret his foolish decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. artifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The living nightingale was contrasted with a mechanical one in various ways. When the mechanical nightingale proved useless in saving the Emperor's life, the living one swooped in and saved the day. The mechanical nightingale's song was always the same, whereas the living nightingale's singing varied from day to day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The moral of the story was more or less spelled out by the narrator in the beginning. It is that there can be more to people (and nightingales) than first meets the eye. The kitchen maid was disdained by the aristocrats, and the nightingale put aside for a clockwork bird; yet they both ended up saving the Emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the Emperor of Cathay and his activities in governing the empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the aristocrats in the imperial palace, and their interactions with various servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cathay Emperor was contrasted with a lowly kitchen maid. The story variously featured their respective points of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a nightingale who made beautiful music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "In her introduction, Shelley Duvall summed up the story as being about \"an emperor who finds true friendship (with a little song bird)\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nightingale remained loyal to the Emperor in the end. The kitchen maid searched for the nightingale in an effort to restore the king's health while his bureaucrats plotted to replace him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the imperial court of the Cathay Emperor and his ministers and bureaucrats were all scheming and maneuvering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor indulged in the most ridiculously elaborate and exotic dishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor indulged in the most ridiculously elaborate and exotic dishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kitchen maid sought a cure for her ailing mother. Later she did the same for her beloved Emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ailing emperor was visited by (or perhaps hallucinated) what was apparently meant to be an oriental version of the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two fairies revealed to the kitchen maid the location of a curative ginseng root in exchange for being complimented on how pretty they were.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x06", "title": "Where's Your Sense of Humour?", "date": "1983-05-14", "description": "George Forester is a compulsive prankster. His wife and friends have been victims for many years until one day he goes too far.\n\nDirected by: Leonard Lewis. Story by: Peter Ransley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George was a buffoonish trickster and everyone but his wife had pretty much had enough of him. Laura hated George and his practical jokes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was playing outlandish practical jokes on everyone left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Forester and Julie Forester. Frank Parker and Laura Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura and Julie were old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Julie thought George's pranks were utterly hilarious, but Laura found them cruel and childish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A monster mask wearing George scared the hell out of Laura by jumping out at her from behind a curtain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura and son briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was said to be envious of Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura and Parker wanted a job opportunity for Parker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)", "title": "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone", "date": "1983-05-20", "description": "A bounty hunter who goes on a mission to rescue three women stranded on a brutal planet and meets a vagrant teenage girl along the way.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacehunter:_Adventures_in_the_Forbidden_Zone" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male-female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space rogue Wolff and the teenage Scav Niki became dear to one another in a platonic way as they worked together the rescue three kidnapped women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolff lived a lifestyle that was true to his name, and let Niki know that he wasn't ever going to adopt her. But in the end he invited her to come and stay together with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolff flew to Terra XI in a shabby spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travel between the stars was a mundane reality in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolff had a beautiful female android, named Chalmers, but she died early on in a battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terra XI was a failed colony that fell victim to a deadly plague and civil warfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolff knew Washington from their time in the military together, and they ultimately teamed up to attempt a rescue of the kidnapped women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nova, Reena, and Meagan were kidnapped and held captive by a gang ruled by Overdog to be used be used for his pleasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Overdog had mechanical arms, and metal plate on his skull, metal teeth, and what might well have been a mechanical lower body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Overdog attempted to transfer Niki's life force to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Overdog attempted to transfer Niki's life force to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Overdog had been extending his own life by absorbing the life forces of others.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x07", "title": "Down Among the Sheltering Palms", "date": "1983-05-21", "description": "Gerry Armstrong an American soldier in World War II returns after 40 years to Norfolk, where he was based. While there, he attends a dance and meets a beautiful woman, but, she is not all she seems.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: John Gorrie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry reminisced about his army days and about Doris as she once was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Several characters enjoyed their trips and whirls on the dance floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry remembered his old love for Doris when he met her after the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry appeared to lament a girl, named Doris, he had had a tryst or two with during the war. Gerry went to a dance in search of the delightful young woman that his nasty old wife had once been.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerry looked back fondly on the old days when he was a soldier stationed in Norfolk during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge made a point of telling Gerry that she didn't like the Chinese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An older man had to give up dancing because his wife didn't approve of him dancing with a younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was in love with an older married man who had recently giving her up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerry had a few too many at the bar and passed out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Gerry returning to his hotel room where his wife Doris was up waiting for him. Carol's dance partner and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old man resented \"bloody Yanks\" on account that an American soldier had marred his sister and then abandoned her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Return of the Jedi (1983)", "title": "Return of the Jedi", "date": "1983-05-25", "description": "In the film, the Galactic Empire, under the direction of the ruthless Emperor, is constructing a second Death Star in order to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all. Since the Emperor plans to personally oversee the final stages of its construction, the Rebel Fleet launches a full-scale attack on the Death Star in order to prevent its completion and kill the Emperor, effectively bringing an end to his hold over the galaxy. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker struggles to bring his father Darth Vader back to the light side of the Force.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Jedi" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rebel Alliance struggled to overthrow the Empire and bring freedom to the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was building a new and even more powerful Death Star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was building a new and more powerful Death Star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was fighting for galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, awhile others, like Darth Vader, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Leia and Han.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darth Vader and Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yoda revealed to Luke that Luke and Princess Leia were brother and sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke may have been tempted by the dark side of the Force and rule the galaxy together with Darth Vader as father and son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "in this universe people travel between stars regularly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine had two suns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han was found frozen solid and encased in carbonite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jabba the Hutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of the bounty hunters used jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke and Leia were involved in a hover bike chase on the forest moon of Endor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ewoks worshiped C-3PO as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darth Vader and Leia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Darth Vader was consumed with hatred. The Emperor tried to stir up hated inside of Luke and in so doing hasten his turn to the dark side of the Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ewoks lived on the habitable moon Endor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mind control Jedi power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x08", "title": "The Vorpal Blade", "date": "1983-05-28", "description": "Sitting on a garden bench, an old man called Von Baden discusses with a friend a duel which took place 50 years ago in Heidelberg, Germany. He has kept secret the events surrounding the death of one of the combatants, but now wants to relate what really happened.\n\nDirected by: John Jacobs. Story by: Edward D. Hoch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassan, Macker, and Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassan arranged for Von Baden to duel with Macker in order to uphold Cassan's honor. Von Baden explained that he could not have gotten out of the duel without losing his honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassan and Macker dueled over Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in boarding school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some sort of Nazi boarding school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Von Baden had three days to train to fight Macker to the death in a sword duel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cassan was jealous of Macker who had stolen his girl Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was alleged that Macker had killed Cassan using a poisoned sword, but it was in fact Von Baden who was to blame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Von Baden was apparently serving a sentence for some war crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man with Two Brains (1983)", "title": "The Man with Two Brains", "date": "1983-06-03", "description": "A pioneering neurosurgeon marries a cruel and unfaithful gold digger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_Two_Brains" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Necessiter created a radical new technique enabling him to store living, communicating brains in liquid-filled jars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Dr. Necessiter transferring Anne's beautiful mind into Dolores' beautiful body. He also transfered Dr. Conrad's mind into the brain of a gorilla, although the transfer was only partially successful, since the gorilla brain was too small to hold the full contents of Dr. Conrad's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr fell deeply in love with Dolores and she married him for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr fell deeply in love with the gold digging bomb shell Dolores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dolores wedded Dr. Hfuhruhurr for his money, but then avoided consummating their marriage at all cost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gorgeous Dolores seduced Dr. Hfuhruhurr and then married him for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr met mad scientist Dr. Alfred Necessiter, who had created a radical new technique enabling him to store living brains in liquid-filled jars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr and Anne's disembodied brain fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dolores cheated on Dr. Hfuhruhurr with their brawny landscaper and probably a hotel bellboy. Dolores was livid when she caught him kissing Anne's disembodied brain's jar while he and the brain were on a romantic boat ride on the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dolores openly plotted to murder her husband Dr. Hfuhruhurr once his grandmother died and left him a large inheritance. Moreover, the film opened with Dolores in the process of knocking off her elderly, but wealthy husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Hfuhruhurr performed the world's first brain transplant. The transplant was done at the hospital where he worked as a physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr's superior objected to Hfuhruhurr performing brain surgery on a woman he had hit with his car on that ground that Hfuhruhurr might be too emotionally invested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Vienna were living in mortal fear of a serial killer, known as the Elevator Killer, who turned out to be none other than Merv Griffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr fell in love with his patient Dolores and they married while she was still recovering in the hospital from a brain surgery that he had performed on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deranged Dr. Alfred Necessiter insisted that if the murder of twelve innocent people could save one human life then it would be worth it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr discovered that he could communicate telepathically with the disembodied brain of Anne Uumellmahaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dolores arranged things to appear that she was going end her life by jumping of the ledge of her apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr tried to talk Dolores out of jumping from the ledge of their apartment, but little did he know it was all a ruse to knock him off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dolores tricked Dr. Hfuhruhurr into not divorcing her until such time his grandmother died, leaving him with a large inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hfuhruhurr considered injecting a blonde, airhead with window cleaner in order to prepare her for Anne's mind to be transfered into, but he ultimately decided against going through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Anne was a compulsive eater and she became trashed Dolores' body by overeating in it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x09", "title": "The Wrong'Un", "date": "1983-06-11", "description": "A German businessman is staying at a hotel and in mood for celebration. He meets up with Molly, an attractive but strange girl. Despite being warned about her, he takes her to his room.\n\nDirected by: Leonard Lewis. Story by: Michael Brett.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The businessman Helmut Weinrich was warned about fraternizing with Molly but he let his desires get the better of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helmut was after a private romantic rendezvous with Molly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three hotel employees conned a German businessman out of 5000 pounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The indiscretion would have ruined the German's reputation and marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender refused to serve Molly alcohol because she was unaccompanied, presumably by a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helmut wished to unwind with some champagne after spending two weeks completing a business deal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman III (1983)", "title": "Superman III", "date": "1983-06-17", "description": "Superman III is a British-American 1983 superhero film directed by Richard Lester, based on the DC Comics character Superman. It is the third film in the Superman film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman at Lana Lang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gus Gorman embezzled from his employer through implementing a salami slicing computer program. When his company CEO discovered his crime, he tasked Gorman into using his computer skills to commit large-scale financial crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villainous multimillionaire Ross Webster monopolized the world's coffee supply and plotted to follow suit with crude oil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman split into two personas: the immoral, corrupted Superman and the moral, righteous Clark Kent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to diagnose Jimmy with a hairline break of the tibia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to diagnose Jimmy with a hairline break of the tibia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lana Lang and Little Ricky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gus Gorman used his computer skills to cause a tornado and rainstorm in Colombia in an effort to destroy their coffee crop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman deliberately caused an oil spill in the Atlantic Ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad at Lana Lang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman split into Evil Superman and Good Clark Kent and they fought to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera Webster got transformed into a cyborg that could shoot blue beams from her eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad was jealous of Clark Kent over Lana Lang.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x10", "title": "The Luncheon", "date": "1983-06-18", "description": "Susan Mandeville is a beautiful American woman who takes a shine to struggling writer Tony Medway. He takes her out to lunch in the hope of getting a lucrative offer for his book, but, things aren't so straightforward.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Jeffrey Archer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony was ready to spend his last 37 pounds on lunch with the wife of a famous film producer in an effort to secure a film deal for his novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony was ready to spend his last 37 pounds on lunch with the wife of a famous film producer in an effort to secure a film deal for his novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony Medway and Louise Medway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony tried to work his connections in the publishing industry to get a movie deal for his novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Medway's had a little one on the way and little funds in the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan Mandeville and Peter Blundell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)", "title": "Twilight Zone: The Movie", "date": "1983-06-24", "description": "The film is a remake of three episodes of the original 1959–1964 television series of the same name series and introduces one original story.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [ "tz1983a", "tz1983b", "tz1983c", "tz1983d" ], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone:_The_Movie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [] }, { "story-id": "tz1983a", "title": "Time Out", "date": "1983-06-24", "description": "A man is left bitter after being passed over for a promotion in favor of a Jewish co-worker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Connor blamed being passed over for a promotion of the Jews and the Blacks. He contended that being an American made him better than the Jews, the Blacks, and the \"Gooks\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Connor blamed being passed over for a promotion of the Jews and the Blacks. He contended that being an American made him better than the Jews, the Blacks, and the \"Gooks\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "A racist man, named Bill Connors, was suddenly transported back in time and space first and to Nazi occupied France, then to a Ku Klux Clan lynching, then to Vietnam during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill Connors was hiding out from Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A racist man, named Bill Connors, found out what it was like to be a persecuted minority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A racist man, named Bill Connors, found out what it was like to be a persecuted minority. Bill Connors expressed his racist attitudes about minorities only to be tossed into past realities in which various racists attacked him in a like manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some S.S. officers apprehending a Jewish man in Nazi occupied France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Connors was outraged at being passed over for a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill Connors found at the mercy of American troops in Vietnam during the war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1983b", "title": "Kick the Can", "date": "1983-06-24", "description": "An old man with an optimistic outlook on life moves into a depressing senior's home.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents in an old folks home became kids again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place in an old folks home. Mr. Bloom's savor the little joys in life attitude to living was contrasted with Leo Conroy's grumpy old man attitude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bloom gave a number of old folks home residents a chance to relive their lives from the age of 8 years old, but in the end all but one of them decided it would be better to live out the rest of their natural lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some old folks home residents were talking at length about how they used to play as children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old folks home resident Leo Conroy was a stereotypical grumpy old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grumpy old man Leo Conroy had his outlook on life completely changed and he found out how to enjoy some simple pleasures in life, like the children's game Kick the Can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some old folks home residents seize the day by enjoying a late night game of Kick the Can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "All but one of the old people decided it was better to remain their wretched old selves, rather than relive their lives from childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some old folks home residents were transformed into childhood versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1983c", "title": "It's a Good Life", "date": "1983-06-24", "description": "A young woman is held captive by a spoiled little boy with magic powers.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A young boy's family lived in terror of him because anything he wished to happen would happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony's family lived in terror of him because anything he wished to happen would happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen befriended Anthony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony could do whatever he wanted and nobody could stop him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony was keeping a bunch of people captive and forcing them to live as his family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony's pretend family lived in constant terror of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony coerced his pretend uncle into performing a \"rabbit out of a hat\" trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony's pretend parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mother lived in terror of her magic power wielding boy Anthony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father lived in terror of her magic power wielding boy Anthony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony and his pretend mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony's fake mother and blamed his fake sister for writing that Anthony was a monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony made his real sister's mouth disappear because she yelled at him too much.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony coerced his pretend uncle into performing a rabbit out of a hat trick.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1983d", "title": "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "date": "1983-06-24", "description": "The story follows the only passenger on an airline flight to notice a hideous creature lurking outside the plane.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Airline passenger John Valentine was a bundle of nerves on a flight that was passing through a thunderstorm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody took seriously John Valentine's contention that there was a monster on the wing of the airliner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a creature on the wing of an airliner working to take out its engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Valentine risked his live to prevent a creature from taking down his airliner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little girl was bothering John Valentine with her Polaroid camera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Valentine could not believe his eye at the sight of a monster on the wing of the airliner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The copilot threatened to handcuff John Valentine because he was being a danger to the other airline passengers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x11", "title": "The Tribute", "date": "1983-06-25", "description": "Three former colonial English ladies, notorious for their miserly ways, hear about the death of a former servant. They decide against putting a notice in the newspaper, inviting the woman's niece out to lunch instead.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Jane Gardam.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a a pair of relatively well off old ladies venture into unsavory black parts of London to fetch their poor old friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Eleanor Benson and Mabel Ince had dinner together with they resentful poor friend Fanny Soane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first two ladies were uptight snobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three old ladies had been ungenerous to Dench in life, and she repaid the favor to them in death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded three old friends meeting up for lunch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three old ladies described their relationship with their late servant Dench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three miserly ladies had penny pinched their former servant, Dench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Polly Knox offered her eggs to Dench during the war when such food was considered a delicacy, and Dench repaid the act of kindness by leaving Polly 200,000 pounds in her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first two ladies were uptight, the third was very laid back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the old women mentioned that Dench's nanny may have been a lesbian.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Raiders (1983)", "title": "Space Raiders", "date": "1983-07", "description": "A young boy has the adventure of a lifetime when he is accidentally kidnapped by a band of space rogues.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Raiders_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "A disgruntled ex-colonel (Captain Hawk) and his band of rouges stole a space freighter and got pursued by its corporate owners for the duration of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 10 year old boy Peter had the adventure of a lifetime after getting himself accidentally kidnapped by Captain Hawk and his band of space rogues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were humanoid worker droids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the space raiders was a humanoid alien. The space raiders encountered some other weird aliens on a space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that 50 planets had been colonized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a reality where 50 planets are colonized and travel among them is no big deal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space raiders stopped off at an old, dilapidated space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter looked up to Hawk and thought of him as something of a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were all sorts of futuristic spaceships, vaguely reminiscent of Star Wars style vessels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter bid a tearful farewell to Hawk at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's father met with some corporate executives to discuss the prospects of getting his son back from the space raiders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Creature Wasnt Nice (1983)", "title": "The Creature Wasn't Nice", "date": "1983-07", "description": "The crew members of the spaceship Vertigo are terrorized by a gooey, one-eyed alien creature who wants to eat their faces.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creature_Wasn%27t_Nice" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a red, one-eyed alien creature loose on the spaceship terrorizing the the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a red, one-eyed alien creature loose on the spaceship terrorizing the the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew vs. the alien creature that wanted to eat their faces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set aboard the multi-billion dollar \"good ship\" Vertigo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vertigo crew traveled to a remote planet and picked up a strange organism there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship was equipped with an emotionally unstable computer named Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Stark was preoccupied with taking credit for things, like the discovery of a new planet, and the discovery of a new lifeform thereon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John demonstrated how to cook a stuffed synthetic turkey at the ship's talent show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie put on a song and dance routine at the ship's talent show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a news report with video footage of Earth being invaded by a \"gorilla force\" from Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a news report with video footage of Earth being invaded by a \"gorilla force\" from Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie nearly gaged on some of John's synthetic chicken, which John pressured her into trying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie was being sex pestered by Rodzinski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew members were terrified of the alien creature that was loose aboard the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was praised for the courage he showed in confronting the alien creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x13", "title": "Youth from Vienna", "date": "1983-07-02", "description": "Caroline Coates is promoted in her role as television news reporter, but is worried that she won't last if her looks start to go. She is admired by a man who has come up with a formula for an anti-aging process.\n\nDirected by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Baxter fell head over heals for Caroline the moment he saw her on TV and resolved to make her his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline and Dr. Baxter were to be married. She subsequently left him and became engaged with tennis star Alan Brodie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline between anchor spot or marriage in Vienna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline and Dr. Baxter tried an long distance relationship and it didn't work well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carolyn, Dr. Baxter, and tennis star Alan Brodie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Who between Caroline and Brodie should take the last existing dose of an immortality drug?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Caroline and Brodie said they would give the immortality serum to the other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caroline in particular feared growing older and losing her good looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people involved wanted eternal youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story seemed to be that if you scrutinize your lover closely you'll find plenty of disagreeable things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were led to believe Dr. Baxter and Dr. Vingleberg invented a serum that when taken kept a person at their current age forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caroline dumped the scientist without telling him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick Archer and Stella Archer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The New Barbarians (1983)", "title": "The New Barbarians", "date": "1983-07-03", "description": "In the year 2019, after a nuclear war, humanity is reduced to a few starving groups. A ruthless gang called \"The Templars\" constantly raid settlers in an attempt to exterminate everyone in order to purge the Earth. A former Templar, Scorpion, along with his allies, prevents a small band of religious colonists from being massacred by the Templars.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Barbarians" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were scurrying around in small bands trying to survive as best they could in the wake of a civilization ending nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivors of a nuclear holocaust were scurrying around in small bands trying to survive as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in 2019 in the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in 2019 in the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Templar gang members were on a holy mission to exterminate all the remaining humans left on Earth, except, one gathers, for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Templar gang leader One, who was hell-bend on exterminating humankind, didn't have one merciful bone in his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scorpion and Alma had a little something going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Moses led a small community of people who were bound together by a shared faith in God.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x03", "title": "Sleeping Beauty", "date": "1983-07-07", "description": "A handsome prince on the search for a princess best known as the Sleeping Beauty bumps into a woodsman who tells him the story of the Sleeping Beauty, the fabled sleeping princess.\n\nStarring Bernadette Peters as Sleeping Beauty, Christopher Reeve as Prince Charming, Beverly D'Angelo as Henbane the Wicked Fairy, Carol Kane as the Good Fairy, George Dzundza as the Woodsman, Sally Kellerman as Queen Natasha, René Auberjonois as King Boris, Ron Rifkin the Squire, and Richard Libertini as King Murray. Written by Jeffery Alan Fiskin. Directed by Jeremy Kagan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The prince motivated by love was able to penetrate the impenetrable wall of thorns and wake the seemingly unwakeable princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prince was on the prowl after having had a vision of the perfect girl-princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The king was much concerned for his daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtue of \"bravery\" was discussed before a fairy bestowed it upon the infant princess. There was a recurring theme about the prince having more courage than brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prince became obsessively besotted with the woman in his vision and went on a dangerous quest, risking his life, to find her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "A princess and her entire castle were put to sleep by a fairy spell or curse or something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen was desperate to have a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a king and a queen in bed together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of getting elves from a nearby kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king quibbled with a fairy over whether bravery was a suitable virtue for a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Numerous fairies bestowed virtues upon the infant princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince discussed matters with his squire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was looking to get food for the starving poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince spoke of how he was in the habit of delivering food to the poor to have a good time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince spoke of how he was in the habit of delivering food to the poor to have a good time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was fending off a princess who wanted him for his wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was fending off a princess who wanted him for his wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was fending off a princess who wanted him for his wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince would never take \"poetic license\" to spice up a story at the expense of truth, he explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the princess' prince-suitors was condescending towards all and sundry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prince-suitor visited the castle with his king father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One prince-suitor ran ascared of a tiny dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince battled a fire-breathing, blue giant of woman - probably a wicked fairy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woodsman who relayed the story of Sleeping Beauty prided himself on his ability to tell a good yarn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king banned all spindles from his realm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2019 After the Fall of New York (1983)", "title": "2019, After the Fall of New York", "date": "1983-07-22", "description": "Set in 2019, after a nuclear apocalypse, a mercenary sets out to rescue the last fertile woman on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_After_the_Fall_of_New_York" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war between the Pan-American Confederacy and the Eurac Monarchy in 1999 left the world of 2019 \"a garbage strewn, radioactive desert, inhabited by humans devoid of all hope for a future\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war between the Pan-American Confederacy and the Eurac Monarchy in 1999 left the world of 2019 \"a garbage strewn, radioactive desert, inhabited by humans devoid of all hope for a future\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear war between the Pan-American Confederacy and the Eurac Monarchy in 1999 left the world of 2019 \"a garbage strewn, radioactive desert, inhabited by humans devoid of all hope for a future\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Radiation had rendered humans sterile and the Eurac rulers of New York were scouring Manhattan for subjects to use in genetic experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some people kept up hope that a fertile would would be discovered, and the human race perpetuated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "High levels of radiation made it so that people couldn't procreate. People were also shown with radiation burns, and two people vomited up green good after presumably drinking radioactive water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ratchet had a metal claw-like gizmo for a right hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ratchet was restrained on some sort of computerized rack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Ratchet was actually a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parsifal bested one of Big Ape's hench-apemen in a fight to the death for the right to make love to Giara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parsifal and his party encountered a group of people who devolved to have caveman-like traits, including low, sloping foreheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dwarf Shorty wept upon finding The Professor sitting dead in his arm chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor had placed his beautiful daughter in suspended animation prior to the nuclear war in the hope that she would be revived and impregnated in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Big Ape wanted to be the one to impregnate the Professor's daughter so that that future of humankind would be spawned from his seed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the last hope for humanity blasting off from Alaska with the intention of starting over on a fresh planet int he Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Alpha Centauri", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the last hope for humanity blasting off from Alaska with the intention of starting over on a fresh planet int he Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: BrainWaves (1983)", "title": "BrainWaves", "date": "1983-08", "description": "A woman is revived from a months long coma using an experimental medical procedure, but in the process she is accidentally implanted with some memories from the brain of a murdered woman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083690/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and his young son Danny coped with Kaylie (Julian's husband and Danny's mother) falling into a coma after getting his by a car, then the the aftermath of what happened after she revived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaylie and her young son Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Kaylie Bedford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Clavius used a Kaylie as a guinea pig to test his Clavius process on. The process, if successful, would use electrical impulses to the brain to bring her out of a months long coma. Kaylie regained consciousness, but was left in a highly deranged state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Clavius used a Kaylie as a guinea pig to test his Clavius process on. The process, if successful, would use electrical impulses to the brain to bring her out of a months long coma. Kaylie regained consciousness, but was left in a highly deranged state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaylie was haunted by memories of getting his by a car after she was revived frmo her coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Kaylie were in the throws of matrimonial love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaylie was accidentally implanted with memories of a woman who was murdered in her bathtub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and his young son Danny struggled while Kaylie was in a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with a woman being murdered in her bathtub. Someone deliberately dropped a stereo in the tub and she was electrocuted to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny's grandmother helped to care for him after his mother fell into a coma.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from the Bronx (1983)", "title": "Escape from the Bronx", "date": "1983-08-15", "description": "The government gives a corporation carte blanch to exterminate people living in the Bronx as a prelude to raze the slum to build in its place an fashionable residential area. It is a sequel to 1990: The Bronx Warriors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_the_Bronx" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bronx, where the film is set, was a no-mans land ruled by street gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many Bronx residents took a stand and refused to be forcibly relocated to New Mexico so that a corporation could tear down the slum and build there a fashionable residential area. In particular, Joe was torched with flame throwers for refusing to be relocated to New Mexico from the Bronx home where he grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The General Construction Corporation worked with the tacit approval of corrupt government officials to tear down the Bronx to turn it into a fashionable residential area. This meant exterminating anyone who refused to be willingly relocated to New Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Bronx that was run by street gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government expropriation of land", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government gave the General Construction Corporation carte blanch to exterminate any Bronx residents who opposed being forcibly relocated to New Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Moon Gray was shot dead for trying to raise public awareness about the government giving carte blanch to the General Construction Corporation to exterminate the residents of the Bronx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moon Gray used this word to describe what the General Construction Corporation was perpetrating in the Bronx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Strike and his young son Strike Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trash and his people kidnapped the General Construction Corporation CEO and demanded a 10 million dollar ransom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983)", "title": "Prisoners of the Lost Universe", "date": "1983-08-15", "description": "Three people are transported to another world when an earthquake occurs just as the scientist is experimenting with his \"matter\" transmitter. The trio must escape the strange world of Vonya while dealing with a number of villains.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_the_Lost_Universe" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crackpot scientist Dr. Hartmann, TV personality Carrie Madison, and electrician Dan Roebuck all inadvertently went through Dr. Hartmann's transporter and ended up on a planet in another dimension populated my medieval-like people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carrie and Dan fell for each other while they were trapped together in the parallel world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The warlord Kleel kidnapped Carrier and held her at his fortress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carrie, Dan, and Dr. Hartmann were trapped on a medieval planet in a parallel universe. Dr. Hartmann estimated their odds of finding theier way back to Earth at ten million to one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The warlord Kleel was enamoured with his captive Carrie, but she was repulsed by him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lab coat clad Dr. Hartmann had build a machine that could transmit things into a parallel world in an effort to get the respect he felt he deserved from his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan was pitted in a fight to the death against the Giant Nabu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hartmann fashioned firearms and explosives for Kleel in order to keep from being used as a slave in the mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Greenman was able to communicate with horses. For example, his horse directly communicated to him that it was thirsty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shareen was jealous of Carrie because Kleel expressed an interest in Carrie over her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Metalstorm: The Destruction of JaredSyn (1983)", "title": "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn", "date": "1983-08-19", "description": "The movie portrays the story of a space ranger named Dogen, who is in search of an intergalactic criminal with supernatural powers named Jared-Syn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalstorm:_The_Destruction_of_Jared-Syn" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was something to do with Syn using specially mined crystals to drain people's life forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father and daughter were prospecting for crystals when Baal killed the father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baal had a metal arm and was silvery looking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dhyana mourned the death of her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Syn had an innate ability to teleport from place to place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Anna to the Infinite Power (1983)", "title": "Anna to the Infinite Power", "date": "1983-09-01", "description": "A twelve year old girl learns that she was the product of a cloning experiment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_to_the_Infinite_Power" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna's mother was driving her to follow in her footsteps and become a scientist of distinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna relied on her older, motorcycle riding brother Rowan for help her come to grips with her true identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna was a gifted twelve year old who attended and elite school and also had to come to grips with the reality that she was a clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna turned out to be a clone of the dead physicist Anna Zimmerman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Did Dr. Jelliff have the right to make multiple clones of Anna Zimmerman to be raised from childhood?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "major", "motivation": "A big deal was made about contrasting cold, calculating, scientific-minded Anna with emotionally driven musicians, like her father and his colleague Michaela Dupont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna inherited memories of the Holocaust, along with various other memories, from the woman from whom she was cloned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah and Graham went through trials and tribulations in raising Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Anna and Graham growing up in a musical family. Graham was seriously learning the violin, and Anna the piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Anna as she grew out of her mildly autistic shell and learned to become comfortable with her emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that Anna was but one of many Anna Zimmerman clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna was dearly loved by her parents and brother, and she came to reciprocate their love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Nazi in full regalia in one of Anna's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna had memories of the original Anna's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Graham was cultivating his son's interest in music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna flipped out at her father after he tried to force her into taking Saturday morning piano lessons. In general, the father (a musician) never saw eye to eye with Anna (an aspiring scientist).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rowan was angry with his mother for having cloned Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna had an uncanny nightmare about a plane crash before it happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah mentioned how the physicist Anna Zimmerman was on the verge of inventing a food replicator before she died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Anna was cloned using genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood music lessons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna reluctantly agreed to take Saturday morning piano lessons from the talented piano player Michaela Dupont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a headache", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna got headaches when she was exposed to flickering lights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rowan gave up his his shot at getting a prestigious musical scholarship in order to rescue Anna from the hospital where she was being held and in peril.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected6x14", "title": "The Turn of the Tide", "date": "1983-09-03", "description": "A lawyer is planning the perfect murder of an enemy of his. He plans meticulously, but there is one thing he's overlooked.\n\nDirected by: Ray Danton. Story by: C. S. Forester.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lawyer Amos Slade's years of experience led him to believe that most murderers are never caught. The story then followed his planning and going through with murdering a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amos Slade was convinced get away with murdering a man by making sure nobody ever found the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Slade tried to dispose of his victim's body at sea but got pulled away with it (rigor mortis had set in) and drowned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inequality in the justice system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha put to Mr. Slade that there is different justice for rich and poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the Northside Stabber had tallied 15 victims and remained at large.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x04", "title": "Jack and the Beanstalk", "date": "1983-09-08", "description": "A dreamer boy named Jack one day finds that his dreams have grown to enormous proportions.\n\nStarring Dennis Christopher as Jack, Elliott Gould as the Giant, Jean Stapleton as the Giantess, Katherine Helmond as Jack's Mother, and Mark Blankfield as the Strange Little Man. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Lamont Johnson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fortune favors the bold", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The intrepid Jack went against his mother's advice and common sense and explored dangerous new territory. Thanks adventurous attitude to this he ended up with untold riches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you have to take chances to get ahead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The intrepid Jack went against his mother's advice and common sense and explored dangerous new territory. Thanks adventurous attitude to this he ended up with untold riches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack was either brave or stupid, we heard say. The word was also used when the rambling old man spelled out the moral of the story in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story were five magical beans, a golden egg laying goose, and a self-playing harp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and his exasperated mother were the central characters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magical land in the sky", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack climbed a beanstalk and arrived in a most peculiar realm atop the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant and giantess lived as an old married couple, and were surprisingly central in this telling of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The third time around, Jack was there to avenge his late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack pitted himself against a monstrous giant that lived in a castle in the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The antagonist was a giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's mother tearfully spoke of his departed father as having been the sweetest, kindest, and most gentle man who had ever lived on the face of the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was seriously attached to the cow he had to sell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was tricked into trading his cow for five useless beans, or so his mother believed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A peculiar man talked Jack down from an initial asking price of 60 dollars for his cow down to just five supposedly magic beans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack has absolutely no fear of heights, we heard say and saw demonstrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and his mother were so poor they nearly had nothing to eat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and his mother quickly squandered the bag of gold coins Jack had brought home on fancy foods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The second time around, we heard the giant philosophize about the meaning of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's mother struggled to be patient with her useless scatterbrain of a son, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The third time Jack climbed the beanstalk it was in search of a \"gallant\" destiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant had \"stolen\" the castle from Jack's father. Jack stole things form the giant's castle in the sky, although whether this was considered legal theft in this story is debatable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant's wife was remarkably kind, we noted and also heard told in the end. Jack's deceased father was said to have been well-liked across the land owing to his giving nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's mother may have kept secret that the giant had killed Jack's father because it was too painful to share, according to the crooked-nosed person on the beanstalk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Jack and his mother having gone from living in a state of abject poverty to luxuriating in their new castle in the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and his mother lived in abject poverty until such time as Jack stole a bag of gold coins from the giant's castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's mother chided him for voicing some fantastical ideas on how he'd get them out of poverty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant was coveting his stash of gold coins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Strange Invaders (1983)", "title": "Strange Invaders", "date": "1983-09-16", "description": "A university professor discovers that not is all as it seems in the town of Centerville, Illinois.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Invaders" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's premise is that in 1958, the town of Centerville, Illinois was invaded by a race of aliens and they took over the form of the humans who were either captured or killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The town of Centerville had been secretly taken over by alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth, a young girl, was the product of a human and alien union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens who secretly replaced the residents of Centerville in 1958 kept everything just as it was for 25 years so that the town was as a time capsule of the 1950s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Betty fell head over heels for one another in the process of uncovering that the residents of Centerville had been secretly replaced by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Chrales as he pieced together that his ex-wife Margaret was an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles had a human/alien hybrid daughter named Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret, an human-looking alien, was desperate to prevent her half human daughter from being taken back to her home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened in 1958 with an alien craft appearing in the skies of the town of Centerville, Illinois. It closed in 1983 with the same craft returning to Centerville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A classic flying saucer landed to pick up the aliens at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie and his beer drinking dog Louie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie left Elizabeth to stay with his mother for awhile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles went to visit a government ufologist for a consultation about the bug eyed monster he encountered on the side of the road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tabloid reported made a quip about this legendary wood ape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles was reluctant to get into the details of his divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles and Betty visited a sanitarium to talk with a supposed lunatic who believed in wild theories about aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tabloid reported Betty was into investigating fringe phenomenon, including UFOs and Bigfoot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wavelength (1983)", "title": "Wavelength", "date": "1983-09-16", "description": "A couple discover that the government plans to use a trio of aliens for experimentation and dissection in an supposedly abandoned underground bunker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength_(1983_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby and Iris stumbled on a secret government facility that was housing a trio of alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby and Iris rescued a trio of childlike aliens from a secret government facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby and Iris fell in love after meeting in a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four childlike aliens crashed to Earth, three of whom were apprehended by the government, while the fourth presumably died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby and his pooch Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby was an aspiring (i.e. unemployed) rock musician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris was in telepathic communication with the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were incapable of speech, and communicated only in a telepathic manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens left Earth in a glowing, spherical vessel of some kind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brainstorm (1983)", "title": "Brainstorm", "date": "1983-09-30", "description": "The film follows a research team's efforts to perfect a system that directly records and replays the sensory experiences and emotional feelings of a subject, and the efforts by the company's management to exploit the device for military ends. After a researcher records her death from a heart attack, her colleagues join forces to retrieve the information and play it back.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A team of scientists invented a special headset that allows sensations to be recorded from a person's brain and converted to tape so that others could experience them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Karen were going through a messy separation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Karen patched things up and saved their marriage with the help of a headset that enabled them to directly share their sensations with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Karen rekindled their love for one another with the help of a headset that enabled them to directly share their sensations with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The company management willingly cooperated with the military against the project scientists' wishes to repurpose the sensory experience recording device into a device that brainwashes people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the military-industrial complex in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The company management willingly cooperated with the military against the project scientists' wishes to repurpose the sensory experience recording device into a device that brainwashes people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and and his young son Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen and and her young son Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael erupted in anger at Karen when he used the special headset to experience her thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lillian recorded her own death by heart attack which allowed Michael to experience it vicariously by using a special headset. In the end, Michael had a vivid \"walk into the light\" type near-death experience of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Christian themed funeral was held for Lillian in a cathedral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "early computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael hacked into his company's maximum security computer system over an early 80s era desktop computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael hacked into his company's maximum security computer system.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Dead Zone (1983)", "title": "The Dead Zone", "date": "1983-10-21", "description": "A schoolteacher awakens from a coma to find he has psychic powers. It is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Stephen King.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John woke up from a five year long coma with the psychic ability to learn about the past, present, and future of anyone he touches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's doctor Dr. Sam Weizak helped him to come to grips with the fact that he had psychic powers after waking up from a five year long coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the crooked politician Greg Stillson running for the U.S. senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the crooked politician Greg Stillson using every dirty trick in the book to get elected to the U.S. senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Sarah were crazy about each other at the start of the film, but then he fell into a five year long coma, during which time she married another man. But John never gave up his love for Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "John resolved to shoot Greg Stillson dead to prevent him from starting a nuclear war in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of John's psychic powers was to be able to see into the future. In an example that was most important to the plot, he foresaw that Greg Stillson would become President of the United States and launch catastrophic preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John convalesced in a rural clinic under the care of Dr. Sam Weizak after walking up from a five year long coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's elderly parents came to visit him in the clinic after he awakened from a five year long coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John used his newfound psychic powers to help the police catch the Castlerock serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychic detective", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John used his newfound psychic powers to help the police catch the Castlerock serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A serial killer killed himself with a pair of scissors rather than let the police apprehend him. John foresaw Greg Stillson shoot himself in the head in a future where his political career was all but over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah and Walt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's father was delighted to have John and Sarah over for a family dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John foresaw that Greg Stillson would start a nuclear war as President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John foresaw that Greg Stillson would start a nuclear war as President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retrocognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of John's various psychic powers was to be able to see into the past. He used this power to help the police identify a serial killer by experiencing a vision of one of the murders by visiting the scene of the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote viewing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While touching his nurse's hand, John experienced a true vision of her daughter being trapped alone at home in a fire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Endgame (1983)", "title": "Endgame", "date": "1983-11-05", "description": "In the year 2025, a nuclear holocaust has left New York City an irradiated, but not abandoned, wasteland. The ruined city is inhabited now by scavenger packs and telepathic mutants, who are persecuted by the elite survivors. Keeping the few remaining people pacified is the reality television program Endgame, where hunters and gladiators fight to the death for large financial winnings.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_(1983_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the ruins of a post nuclear holocaust, irradiated New York City and its surrounding wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A ruling elite the few remaining people in the city pacified with the reality television program Endgame, where hunters and gladiators fight to the death for large financial winnings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A ruling elite the few remaining people in the city pacified with the reality television program Endgame, where hunters and gladiators fight to the death for large financial winnings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a race of persecuted, telepathic mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutants communicated telepathically. Moreover, the mutant Lilith engaged in regular, two-way communication with the human Ron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a race of persecuted, telepathic mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "major", "motivation": "People, in particular Bull, were bigoted against mutants and mistrustful of them also. The government used television to promote hatred and intolerance of the mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "An underclass of telepathic mutants were being persecuted by the goeverment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ron and his team were motivated by the promise of a chest full of gold bars to guide a group of mutants across a desert to safety from the government mutant extermination forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the ruins of New York City in the aftermath of a civilization collapsing nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the ruins of New York City in the aftermath of a civilization collapsing nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "High radiation levels was responsible for spawning a race of telepathic mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A ruling elite the few remaining people in the city pacified with the reality television program Endgame, where hunters and gladiators fight to the death for large financial winnings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reality television show producer was plugging the Life Plus energy drink at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radioactive fallout caused some people to develop simian, and even fish-like features.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing persecution by the government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw what it was like for Lilith and some other mutants to be hunted down by armed government men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-fish hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a man who devolved into a part man, part fish thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lilith was shown to be a catatonic state after she was raped by the fish-man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young mutant boy with incredibly psychic powers used his abilities to telepathically wield a machine gun, the fire of which he directed to a government force that was killing his mutant brethren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mutant boy levitated a rock using the power of his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x05", "title": "Little Red Riding Hood", "date": "1983-11-10", "description": "An overprotected young lady named Mary learns that there is merit to her parents' advice that she stick to the path and not talk to strangers.\n\nStarring Mary Steenburgen as Mary (Little Red Riding Hood), Malcolm McDowell as Reginald Von Lupin (the Wolf), Frances Bay as Granny, John Vernon as Mary's Father, Diane Ladd as Mary's Mother, and Darrell Larson as Chris. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Graeme Clifford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The obvious moral of the story is that strangers may be wolves out to eat you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and her overly protective father argued at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and her relatively lenient mother chatted about this and that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary sought council from her loving grandmother over how to handle that everyone was still treating her as if she were a small child. Grandmother presented a delighted Mary with a hooded, red cloak for her birthday. Mary was sent to deliver a food basket to her ill and indisposed grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mother accused father of being overprotective of Mary. Apart from ordering her to be careful all the time, he chased away her suitor, Chris, for this reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was trying to assert herself against her parents, as adolescents do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Chris fell for each other from the start.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary's parents conversed about Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary's father immediately disapproved of her interest in Chris the apprentice cabinetmaker-slash-lumberjack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wolf spoke to himself about having been expelled from his pack, we understood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wolf was tramping in a forest clearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wolf feigned to be upset about the vile rumors spread about him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandmother struggled to thread a needle, showing that her eyes were not what they once were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris was apprenticing as a cabinetmaker-slash-lumberjack under Father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary was excitedly reading a fairy tale while seated comfortable in front of the fireplace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father was a cabinetmaker-slash-lumberjack by trade. Father was a cabinetmaker-slash-lumberjack by trade. He was shown sawing a tree trunk together with Chris, and instilled in Mary that a good wood-chopper needs a \"skilled eye, a keen sense of wood, and more than a basic knowledge of gravity\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wolf gorged himself on people to the extent that his bloated belly grotesquely protruded from his shirt as he slept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandmother was ill in bed with cold-like symptoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary lauded Christ for his bravery in cutting her and Grandmother out of the wolf's belly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary proclaimed to Chris that he was her hero in the wake of him having cut her out of the wolf's belly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day After (1983)", "title": "The Day After", "date": "1983-11-20", "description": "The film postulates a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact countries that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, and of several family farms near nuclear missile silos.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cold War turned hot and very quickly went nuclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the a chilling depiction of what the lead up to and aftermath of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the a chilling depiction of what the lead up to and aftermath of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "People had to rebuilt the United States, and a rural area nearby Kansas City in particular, after a full-scale nuclear exchange with the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw several families experience the lead up to and aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Russel Oakes and Marylin Oakes. Jim Dahlberg and Denise Dahlberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen Oakes and Marylin Oakes. Eve Dahlberg and Denise Dahlberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylin reluctantly told her father that she was leaving the nest to move to Boston to be with her boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Airman First Class Billy McCoy exchanged proclamations of love with his wife before he left her answer to an alert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Denise Dahlberg planned to marry her sweetheart Bruce Gallatin against her father's wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Russel Oakes and Helen Oakes. Airman First Class Billy McCoy exchanged proclamations of love with his wife before he left her answer to an alert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A panic broke out after news broke that a nuclear exchange had occurred between the United States and the Soviet Union. We saw traffic jammed highways and and people scrambling in grocery stores to get supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were confused about how dangerous the fall out was to them. Some people suffered terrible radiation burns, and other suffered from radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Danny Dahlberg went blind from looking at a nuclear bomb go off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After spending a number of days cooped up in a dank basement with her family, Denise Dahlberg freaked out over anxiety from the realization that boyfriend Bruce almost certainly died in the nuclear blast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Russel Oakes stepped up and took charge of a hospital and organized things to give everyone the best shot of surviving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy McCoy was falling to pieces from radiation poisoning. Many others were also shown to suffer from this illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man quoted Einstein as having said \"I don't know how they'll fight World War III, but I know how they'll fight World War IV: with sticks and stones\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Atlantis Interceptors (1983)", "title": "The Atlantis Interceptors", "date": "1983-11-25", "description": "After the bungled attempt to raise a sunken Russian Sub, two Vietnam veterans and several scientists face a battle for survival against descendants of Atlantis' original race, when the Lost Continent emerges in the Caribbean.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantis_Interceptors" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some descendants of the Atlanteans went around on motorcycles and muscle cars on a murderous rampage. They wanted to restore Atlantis to its former glory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike, Cathy, Washington, and a few others found themselves in the prolonged fight for their lives against the rampaging Atlanteans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Cathy fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mesoamerican archaeologist Dr. Cathy Rollins was working to decipher some Atlantean inscriptions. She ultimate uncovered that Atlantis was destroyed in a civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some nuclear warheads were discovered on a sunken Soviet submarine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e2x06", "title": "Hansel and Gretel", "date": "1983-12-05", "description": "A boy named Hansel and his sister named Gretel who are left to fend for themselves in the woods and stumble upon a curious house made out of candy that belongs to an evil witch.\n\nStarring Ricky Schroder as Hansel, Bridgette Andersen as Gretel, Joan Collins as the Witch and Stepmother, and Paul Dooley as Hansel and Gretel's Father. Written by Patricia Resnick. Directed by James Frawley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This is the obvious moral of the story, given that the evil witch had built a candy house to lure unsuspecting children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a young boy and his little sister as they first struggle to survive alone in the wilderness, and then fall under the captivity of a hungry witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel were abandoned by their parents in the middle of a forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The parents struggled with this decision: Should he abandon his children in order that he and his new wife have enough food to survive?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "The family thought they did not have enough food for everyone to survive. It was therefore decided that the children should be left in the woods for dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stepmother persuaded her husband into consenting to abandon his two children in the woods in part by arguing that all four of them would starve to death unless they did so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "The antagonist of the story was a stereotypical witch, warts and all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel explained to his sister that they must not give in to their urge and grow fat on pastries as then they'd be eaten by the witch. Gretel, however, failed to restrained her appetite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel were left to fend for themselves deep in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel's parents argued about their fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gretel and her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hansel and his unwilling new mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gretel and her reluctant new mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The witch was in the habit of cooking children in her oven and eating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel's family were on the brink of starvation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel's family were on the brink of starvation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "famine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was understand that there was a general famine in the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The exceptionally mean stepmother ate the children's bread. Then she forced her husband to leave the children in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the wicked witch being baked in the very oven in which she had so vilely intended to bake the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hansel and Gretel's stepmother lead them into the woods and left them there for dead without a second thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witch gleefully described to Gretel just how she'd cook up Hansel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prototype (1983)", "title": "Prototype", "date": "1983-12-07", "description": "A curmudgeonly but basically kindly Nobel Prize-winning scientist, builds an equally kindly five million dollar android named Michael.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_(1983_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follow the experiences of an android, named Michael, who could pass as a socially awkward human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Carl Forrester was like a father to his android creation Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Dorthy Forrester.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Forrester rhetorically asked a general if it was Oppenheimer's or Fermi's business on whether or not the atom bomb they helped create should be used. He was making some point about that scientists who create new technology ought to have some control over how it is used. In particular, he objected to androids patterned on Michael being used as super soldiers and for other purposes in war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the world through Michael's naive and child-like android eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael was like a sponge, soaking up knowledge about the world around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl took Michael and went on the lamb after refusing to let the Pentagon take the android he created and use it for military purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl erupted into laughter when Michael inadvertently made his first joke while the two were still-water fishing along the bank of a river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl being declared a fugitive put a strain on his wife Dorthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military coerced Gene into betraying Carl by getting Carl to divulge Michael's location to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film culminated with Michael willfully destroying himself to prevent the military from taking possession of him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Pod People (1983)", "title": "The Pod People", "date": "1983-12-13", "description": "The Pod People (original title Los nuevos extraterrestres, literally The New Extraterrestrials) is a 1983 French-Spanish science fiction film about a boy who befriends a strange, but gentle alien creature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pod_People" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two alien creatures came to Earth on a meteor. One was going around in the woods murdering people, but the other was gentle and became Tommy's friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature killed at least four people in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "When a strange, but gentle alien creature hatched from an egg that Tommy was hiding in his bedroom, he secretly raised it as a pet that he named Trumpy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although Tommy was at first keeping Trumpy as a pet, they ultimate became more like friends, and tried to runaway into the woods together to keep Trumpy for getting shot by the adults.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a youngster, named Tommy, befriend a strange, but gentle alien creature. He had to hide the alien in his room to keep his mother and cantankerous uncle from finding out about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tommy was living in a house in the woods with his mother Molly and cantankerous uncle Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tommy was living in a house in the woods with his mother Molly and cantankerous uncle Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aspiring rock star Rick went camping together with his girlfriend Sharon, some other members of his band, and one of his groupies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon's camping trip was ruined by her boyfriend Rick brining along a young, attractive woman who made it no secret that she was into him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon was livid when she found out that her boyfriend Rick was bringing along another girl on their group camping trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon and Laura quarreled on the camping trip because Sharon rightly perceived that Laura was into her boyfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x01", "title": "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "date": "1984-01-09", "description": "Goldilocks a precocious girl with a penchant for telling tall tales, learns the value of honesty... and of respecting others' privacy.\n\nStarring Tatum O'Neal as Goldilocks, Hoyt Axton as the Forest Ranger, John Lithgow as Goldilocks' Father, Carole King as Goldilocks' Mother, Alex Karras as Papa Bear, Brandis Kemp as Mama Bear, and Donovan Scott as Cubby Bear. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Gilbert Cates.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Goldilocks learned to respect the privacy and property of others in so far as you can't go around barging into peoples homes without their permission. This is commonly thought to be one of the important morals of this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being honest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Goldilocks learned in the end that her lied had caused much harm, especially for the bear family. This is commonly thought to be one of the important morals of this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Goldilocks was a proficient deceiver. We heard her tell innumerable lies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mama Bear and Cubby Bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Papa Bear and Cubby Bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Papa and Mama Bear. Goldilocks' mother and father conversed on the front porch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Goldilocks and Cubby Bear enjoying their tender years as young ones do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goldilocks acted somewhat entitled towards her parents. She was also arrogant as she helped herself to the bears' house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against property", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goldilocks pointedly trespassed into the bears home and subsequently stole porridge and was liable in destroying a perfectly good chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seeing how hurt the bears became by her lies, Goldilocks put a stop to her lying ways and made things right with the family of bears. This is how the story concluded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "Goldilocks wantonly trespassed in the bear family home without a second thought for the distress this might cause the bears. But in the end, she learned that her actions, and also her various lies, had hurt the bears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The younger bear didn't want to wake up from his hibernation. Goldilocks didn't want to do hear homework.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bears spoke about bee behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks faced Papa Bear and rapidly legged it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks and her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks and her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks was strongly implicated in having painted Mr. Ogden's cow green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mama Bear complained about people being terrified of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks sang about how pretty she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubby Bear befriended Goldilocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks feigned to be bereaved of her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bears asked Goldilocks if she wanted to go fishing with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks pitched the idea to the bears that she use her good looks to peddle their honey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a side theme about contrasting Goldilocks' desire to be rich with the bears' philanthropic ways. Goldilocks thought it was important to make money but the bears were a living demonstration that you could be happy without it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks briefly accused the bears of having kidnapped her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework shirking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldilocks made a failed bid to go to the swimming hole without having first completed her homework.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ranger Johnson was looking for the culprit who'd painted farmer Ogden's cows green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubby Bear felt violated upon finding out that a human girl had been sitting in his chair and sleeping in his bed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)", "title": "Warriors of the Year 2072", "date": "1984-01-28", "description": "The film is set in the 21st century, where Romans have found a new way to handle criminals: by having them fight each other like gladiators on motorcycles on national television.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_of_the_Year_2072" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In search of higher ratings, a Roman television network arranged a revival of the gladiatorial games of old in which condemned criminals were made to fight to the death in exchange for the potential of being granted their freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A television network made a sports extravaganza out of gladiatorial combat in hopes of scoring big ratings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The television network subjected Drake to an elaborate psychological conditioning program in an effort to get him to kill other gladiators in competition at the games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah uncovered that the sentient computer system Junior had arranged Drake's wife's murder and then pinned the crime on him. In another surprise twist, the television network owner Sam turned out to be a sentient projection create by Junior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "A number of condemned criminals turned gladiators, especially Drake, had to come to terms with having to fight to the death for survival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ankle bracelet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gladiators had a special monitoring bracelet burned onto their wrists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drake had been falsely convicted of murdering his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Drake and Sarah sharing a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Noah's Ark Principle (1984)", "title": "The Noah's Ark Principle", "date": "1984-02-22", "description": "Set in the near future, orbiting the Earth there is the European/American space station Florida Arklab, capable of controlling the weather at any location on the planet underneath.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Noah%27s_Ark_Principle" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "local weather control system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Florida Arklab space station was capable of controlling the weather at any location on Earth underneath its orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the Florida Arklab space station in orbit about Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main premise of the story is that an orbital weather control system, built ostensibly for peaceful purposes, could be used as a very destructive weapon in wartime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Billy trust in the suspicious orders he was being given from the ground or should he trust in Max who kept suggesting that the space station was being used for nefarious purposes?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Europeans and the Americans developed the Florida Arklab space station with secret weather control technology that could and was used in wartime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy's partner ended their relationship when he unilaterally decided to extend his stay aboard the Florida Arklab space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Florida Arklab space station was powered by a nuclear reactor of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max suffered radiation burns to his hand in the process of shutting down the space station reactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva broke down in tears upon Max's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cold War went hot in Saudi Arabia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2020 Texas Gladiators (1984)", "title": "2020 Texas Gladiators", "date": "1984-03", "description": "After bitter wars and natural disasters, the Earth is devastated, depopulated and chaotic; morality and law no longer exist. Marauding gangs terrorize the last gatherings of peace-loving people, who often gather around churches. Only a small group of volunteers, called the Rangers, fight back against injustice. The year is 2020... the location: Texas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Gladiators" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where governments around the world had broken down in the wake of wars and natural disasters, and Texas was filled with marauding gangs that terrorized the last gatherings of peace-loving people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "By the year 2020 Texas has become a lawless land filled with marauding gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "By the year 2020 Texas has become a lawless land filled with marauding gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Nazi-esque fascists rose up from the chaos and tried to impose an authoritarian government on the people of Tesas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that nuclear war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maida was separated from her young daughter but they were reunite at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maida and the men teamed up with a band of Native Americans to fight the fascists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Repo Man (1984)", "title": "Repo Man", "date": "1984-03-02", "description": "Set in Los Angeles, the plot concerns a young punk rock enthusiast who is recruited by a car repossession agency and gets caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed several groups of people in their efforts to obtain a Chevy Malibu with the bodies of four aliens in its trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The experienced repo man Bud took Otto under his wing and taught him the trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otto and Leila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a convenience stores getting held up, and lots of cars being stolen, and various other street crimes being committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto paid a visit to his parents to try and get $1000 from them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto paid a visit to his parents to try and get $1000 from them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto's hippie parents donated at least $1000 to have Bibles distributed in El Salvador.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rodriguez brothers were car thieves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in inner city America", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto went for a walk down skid row in inner city Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The decaying bodies of four aliens in the trunk of J. Frank Parnell's car were releasing radiation in quantities that were making people sick, including Parnell himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J. Frank Parnell slowing succumbed to radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Rogersz remotely electrocuted Otto in an effort to get him to reveal the location of a certain Chevy Malibu. He didn't know where its whereabouts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)", "title": "This Is Spinal Tap", "date": "1984-03-02", "description": "This Is Spinal Tap (stylized as This Is Spın̈al Tap: A Rockumentary by Martin Di Bergi) is a 1984 American mockumentary film directed and co-written by Rob Reiner. It stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer as members of the fictional English heavy metal band Spinal Tap (who are characterized as \"one of England's loudest bands\"), and Reiner as Martin \"Marty\" Di Bergi, a documentary filmmaker who follows them on their American tour. The film satirizes the behavior and musical pretensions of rock bands and the hagiographic tendencies of rock documentaries such as Gimme Shelter (1970), The Song Remains the Same (1976), and The Last Waltz (1978). Most of its dialogue was improvised and dozens of hours were filmed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Spinal_Tap" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a quasi-parody of what it might have been like in the rock music industry in the 1970s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "the band members wanted to be famous, among other things", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "although groupies wer conspicuously absent for most of the film, the idea of bands being idolized was topical", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nigel fell out with and left the band, then later made up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Jennie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "most of the film depicted the band in a slump: they had once been booked in arenas for 10,000 people but now got significantly smaller venues, cancellations, and less attention", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "From time to time we saw the members of the eponymous rock group care about their music, not just sex and drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the band's first album cover had been denounced as sexist because it depicted a greased up naked lady on her fours, smelling a glove", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Ice Pirates (1984)", "title": "The Ice Pirates", "date": "1984-03-16", "description": "The film takes place in a distant future where water is so scarce and rationed that it is considered an immensely valuable substance, both as a commodity and as a currency in ice cubes. The Templars of Mithra control the water and they destroy worlds that have natural water, leaving the galaxy virtually dry. Pirates dedicate their lives to raiding ships and looting the ice from the cargo holds to make a living.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Pirates" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the film is that the planet Mithra is the last remaining source of water in the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a band of swashbuckling, ice stealing, princess kidnapping space pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Karina never gave up hope that they would find the legendary \"Seventh World\" - a planet that abounded with water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason and Princess Karina fell head over heels for each other toward the end of their quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ice Pirates had some humanoid robots in their retinue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were lots of typical space opera type spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were various funky looking aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason discovered Princess Karina in cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ice Pirates went flying around from one planet to another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ice Pirates were captured briefly ended up working as slaves of Princess Karina on the planet Mithra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason had to put up with the unrequited amorous advances of a weird looking female alien whose vehicle he was in need of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wendon existed as a disembodied head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone aboard the Ice Pirates ship aged at an accelerated rate while in the time warp. The middle aged people became elderly, and Princess Karina elderly caretaker died from old age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Karina was on a quest to reunite with her missing father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Iceman (1984)", "title": "Iceman", "date": "1984-04-13", "description": "A prehistoric man who has been frozen for 40,000 years is revived.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceman_(1984_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A prehistoric man was revived after having been frozen in ice for 40,000 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prehistoric man was often bewildered by his modern surroundings. He additionally assumed that a helicopter was a trickster god from his mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prehistoric man was often bewildered by his modern surroundings. He additionally assumed that a helicopter was a trickster god from his mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among other thing, the prehistoric man presumed that a helicopter was a trickster god from his mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was debated whether or not modern humans had evolved beyond the prehistoric man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shephard was against the development of cryogenic preservation technology on the ground that the powerful might use it to maintain and expand their power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x02", "title": "The Princess and the Pea", "date": "1984-04-16", "description": "A bored prince decides that the best way to cheer himself up is to get married. As he goes through his mother's list of eligible princesses, an outspoken young candidate appears at the castle with raucous claims.\n\nStarring Liza Minnelli as Princess Alecia, Tom Conti as Prince Richard, Beatrice Straight as Queen Veronica, Pat McCormick as King Fredrico, Tim Kazurinsky as the Fool, and Nancy Allen as Princess Elizabeth. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Tony Bill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The princess was assumed to not be so because of the way she comported herself, but then it turned out that she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"Do you know who I am\", quoth the prince superciliously. The entire royal family was defined by their arrogance. \"The test\" was in fact a way to distinguish themselves from the common mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Richard was looking for a princess to marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the prince's conflict with his mother, the queen, regarding whom he would marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder the queen's future relationship with either of her two potential daughter-in-laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Richard and Princess Alecia proclaimed their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Richard was being pushed into marrying a princess whom he didn't love by his domineering mother, the Queen, and he resented her for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Prince Richard follow his domineering mother's wishes and marry the princess of her choice or follow his heart and marry Princess Alecia?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Prince Richard follow his domineering mother's wishes and marry the princess of her choice or follow his heart and marry Princess Alecia?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned the petty little personal problems of a royal family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince and the fool, among others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince was clearly an entitle layabout who did not even want to attend his ship-christening duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king spoke to the prince at one point or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king and the queen unmemorably exchanged some words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Richard expressed that he was feeling down in the dumps at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fencing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Richard briefly engaged his servant, Fool, in a bout of this activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Elizabeth made a wholly successful bid to get in the queen's good graces by asking the monarch if she may kiss her feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to marry above one's station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Elizabeth told the crown Prince Richard in no uncertain terms that she regarded him as a stepping stone on her path to the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Queen Veronica tended to her rose bushes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Toxic Avenger (1984)", "title": "The Toxic Avenger", "date": "1984-05-01", "description": "A 98-pound weakling is transformed into a hideously deformed benevolent monster with superhuman strength after falling into a drum of toxic waste. It is the first installment of The Toxic Avenger franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toxic_Avenger_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in Tormaville which was described as American's the biggest toxic dumping zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melvin was transformed into the Toxic Avenger after he felling into a drum of toxic waste that was being reckless transported on the back of a flatbed truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melvin, a 98-pound weakling, was transformed into a hideously deformed benevolent monster with superhuman strength after falling into a drum of toxic waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melvin was picked on mercilessly by the patrons of a local fitness club where he worked as a mop boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger was fighting crime on the streets of Tromaville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger was strong enough to bend metal bars and tear a man's arm from its socket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger was making Tromaville criminals pay for their crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger was self-conscious at times about his hideously disfigured face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger became a hero to the residents of Tromaville for fighting crime and corruption in the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger and Sarah became a thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hideously deformed Toxic Avenger turned out to be the perfect match for a blind woman, named Sarah, who he saved during a hold up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger made his former tormentors pay for their transgressions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger made his former tormentors pay for their transgressions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young woman said that \"niggers\" and \"chinks\" were work certain numbers of points when you run them over with your car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gym patron deliberately ran down a cyclist in the street while drinking at the wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a local thug who dressed in a blond wig and a colorful dress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melvin was living with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Toxic Avenger walked home a young blind woman's whose guide dog had been shot dead. They went on to become romantically involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melvin, as the Toxic Avenger, lost his virginity to the blind woman Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man at the fitness club was dealing drugs to the patrons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mayor was totally corrupt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bozo and his friends went around running people down in the streets and taking photos of their mangled bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bozo and his friend beat a grandmother with own cane and drove off with her car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old lady who the Toxic Avenger killed turned out to be the head of an international slave trading ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the Tromaville police department react to a vigilante mutant who had become very popular in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chief of Police gave every indication, from the German accent to the Nazi salutes, that he was a former Nazi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Firestarter (1984)", "title": "Firestarter", "date": "1984-05-11", "description": "A young girl develops pyrokinetic powers and the secret government agency known as the Shop which seeks to control her. It is based on Stephen King's 1980 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestarter_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed a little girl named Charlie who had an innate ability to create fires simply by the power of her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Andy and his pyrokinetically gifted young daughter Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The young girl Charlie had pyrokinetic powers of exponentially growing strength making her an ever present a danger to those around her. By the end of the film she was so powerful that nobody could stop her and she ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret government agency known as the Shop sought to capture Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Andy and his young daughter Charlie as they went about the United States evading being captured by government agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy manifested such powers off and on throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie struggled to refrain from using her fire starting power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were some flashback scenes to Charlie and her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy and Charlane McGee. Irv and Norma Manders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy made quarters come out of a payphone by concentrating on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew relived finding his wife's dead body in his nightmares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was having trouble coming to grips with the fact that she had killer her own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy struck two government agents blind as retribution for murdering his wife. Charlie avenged the death of her father by razing a secret government manor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie read her father's mind about his intention to bring her to her grandfather's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie knew in advance when government agents were approach the house where they were hiding out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy mind manipulated a government agent into dropping his gun. He later mind controlled Captain Hollister into being his stooge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Rainbird feigned being afraid of the dark as a ploy to gain Charlie's trust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Rainbird told a war story from this war to Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie started fires with the power of her will when she got mad.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x01", "title": "The Dirty Detail", "date": "1984-05-12", "description": "Fred Pearson, a Vietnam veteran, is a broken man after years of punishment from his sergeant. One day, he walks into a bar and sees the sergeant, still very much the arrogant bully he always was.\n\nDirected by: Leo Penn. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred had flashbacks to the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred's wife tired to help him through torments stemming from his time in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred wanted to get back at his nasty old sergeant, Sgt. Guedo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how two war veterans had ended up with lousy jobs and mental problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace harassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred thought that his sergeant had singled him out for abuse during his time in the army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred decided to kill his bullying old sergeant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was a story about Vietnam War veterans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred was tormented by his experience fighting in the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred thought that every other person had it in for him, or so said his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred tried to murder his old sergeant but the gun backfired and killed Fred instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred lured Sgt. Guedo over to his house by insisted he wished to pay Guedo back the $100 he had lent Fred when he was down and out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sexmission (1984)", "title": "Sexmission", "date": "1984-05-14", "description": "Two men wake up from suspended animation to find themselves in a world populated by only women.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexmission" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max and Albert woke up from a human hibernation experiment in a post-nuclear holocaust world in which all men, save for them, had gone extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max and Albert woke up in a future in which men had gone extinct and women perpetuated humankind by means of a form of parthenogenesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max and Albert were held prisoner by the women upon waking up from their long hibernation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an all female society living under the surface of the Earth to protect them selves from residual radiation from a recent nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max and Albert were surprised to wake up for a human hibernation experiment in a post-nuclear world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max, Albert, and Lamia wore futuristic radiation blocking suits when they went outside to walk around on the Earth's surface, which they presumed to be terribly irradiated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max encountered his grown up daughter in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of the all female society, Miss Excellence, turned out to be a man in drag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was commonly believed among the women that the greatest scientists - such as Copernicus, Einstein and Pincus (one of the pioneers of parthenogenesis) - were, in fact, women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The women were taught in school that men were evil and should be hated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert woke up for a human hibernation experiment in a post-nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert found out the hard way that smoking was not longer socially acceptable in the future society the woke up in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max deflowered Lamia at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert volunteered themselves for the first human hibernation experiment. The hibernation was supposed to last for three years, until 1994, but they were instead revived in the year 2044.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert reckoned that they'd scarcely survive for 12 days on Earth's surface because it appeared to be completely irradiated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Max or Albert thought the dangers of smoking were wildly exaggerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert were brought before an all female court where they were prosecuted for the oppression their gender had rendered on women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Albert were brought before an all female court where they were prosecuted for the oppression their gender had rendered on women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x03", "title": "Pinocchio", "date": "1984-05-14", "description": "When lonely puppetmaker Gepetto wishes with all his might to have a real son, the Blue Fairy grants him and a wooden puppet named Pinocchio the chance to make that wish come true.\n\nStarring Paul Reubens as Pinocchio, Carl Reiner as Gepetto, Lainie Kazan as Sofia the Blue Fairy, James Coburn as the Gypsy, Jim Belushi as Mario, Michael Richards as Vince, and Vincent Schiavelli as the Priest. Narrated by Don Novello. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Peter Medak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of being honest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pinocchio learned that it was wrong to tell lies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pinocchio learned to be a kind and caring person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fairy spelled out that one reason Pinocchio deserved to be a real boy is because he had learned to care for others before himself. He had done so by risking his life to save his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular living marionette Pinocchio longed to be a real boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio was a living wooden puppet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blue Fairy (of wooden objects) first granted life to Gepetto's marionette, and later transformed him into a human boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the relationship between Gepetto and his son Pinocchio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gepetto loved his son Pinocchio with all his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the living marionette Pinocchio being transformed into a human boy. Pinocchio was transformed in to a donkey by a malicious Gypsy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio was naïvely unprepared for the world around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two times Pinocchio got into trouble it was because he got hoodwinked by strange people he met in the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gepetto was destitute, having not even enough money to buy food for Pinocchio and himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio came to regret it every time he did something wrong on account that his nose grew to an uncomfortable degree. Pinocchio pointedly lamented that Gepetto ended up getting trapped in the belly of a whale on account of his naughty behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio came to regret it every time he did something wrong on account that his nose grew to an uncomfortable degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio's nose grew in length each time he told a fib.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinocchio time and again choose to do what was fun at the moment, rather than carrying out his duties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trapped in the belly of a whale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gepetto and Pinocchio found themselves trapped in the belly of a whale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gepetto was a puppet maker by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gepetto wished that he might have a little son of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blue Fairy granted Gepetto's wish for a son by imbuing Gepetto's wooden marionette with life, and later transforming him into a human boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio advised his friend Gepetto to refrain from going around telling people the harebrained story that Pinocchio was a marionette come to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pinocchio stole fruit from Antonio's shop and then lied about it to Gepetto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pinocchio was in stitches watching a farcical stage play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two scoundrels hoodwinked Pinocchio into burying his money, telling him that he'd come back to find five times as much should he leave it in the ground overnight. The scoundrels, of course, plotted to take them money for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gepetto consulted a bible holding Catholic priest, whom by him own admission \"had seen a lot of boys\", as to the whereabouts of Pinocchio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gepetto walked around the neighborhood, cheerfully greeting people who mostly ignored him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I turned into an animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pinocchio was transformed in to a braying donkey by a malicious Gypsy, who later also transformed his own two goons in the same manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gepetto and Pinocchio were variously distressed by the other one being missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pinocchio succumbed to temptation and squandered the money he was given to by schoolbooks on a ticket to a stage play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The second time Pinocchio's nose grew it was apparently because he let himself be dragged into watching a funny show instead of buying a school book.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x02", "title": "The Best Chess Player in the World", "date": "1984-05-19", "description": "Shaw, the owner of a newspaper is controlling and very rich. His wife is content with the money he provides but is having an affair. When Shaw finds out he decides to act.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Julian Symons.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw was stereotypically rational as compared with various others around him, but we saw how madness lurked just under the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw and Paula Shaw had a marriage of convenience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw's wife was Paula was having an affair with Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw wanted to punish his cheating wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw, Peter, wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw hatched an ingenious plot to that was calculated to result in his wife's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw tried to have his wife assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw's business partner had borrowed 10k and then killed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw mentioned how his parent's divorce had affected him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G.B. Shaw murdered his accomplice Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The character G.B. Shaw was of the view that the playwright George Bernard Shaw was not only a visionary socialist, but also a realist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that G.B Shaw was confined in a mental institution and he was under that ludicrous impression that he was the greatest chess player in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that G.B Shaw was confined in a mental institution and he was under that ludicrous impression that he was the greatest chess player in the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x03", "title": "Proxy", "date": "1984-05-26", "description": "Three men are being blackmailed by a woman for money. One day she is found murdered and the three worry that they will be suspected. The chauffeur however, has a plan.\n\nDirected by: Bert Salzman. Story by: Talmage Powell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Sutton. The chauffeur William and the maid Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three men, including Mr. Sutton, had affairs with Marla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marla blackmailed three different men: we especially saw Sutton wrangling with the fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the relationship between Mr. Sutton and his chauffeur William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Someone strangled Marla to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Sutton's brother was running for the senate and sought support.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The well-to-do Sutton's were contrasted with poor Rock Mountain hillbilly servants.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)", "title": "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", "date": "1984-06-01", "description": "After the death of Spock, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to Earth. When James T. Kirk learns that Spock's spirit, or katra, is held in the mind of Dr. Leonard \"Bones\" McCoy, Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to return Spock's body to his homeworld. The crew must also contend with hostile Klingons led by Kruge who are bent on stealing the secrets of a powerful terraforming device. It is the third film in the Star Trek film series, and is the second part of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and concludes with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_III:_The_Search_for_Spock" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is predominantly set aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Genesis Planet was a recently terraformed planet that now abounded with life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and command crew with Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and the command crew disobeyed orders and took off with the Enterprise in an effort to save their friend Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon captain expressed this as his motive for trying to obtain the secret of the Genesis Torpedo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingon bird-of-prey had a cloaking ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise docked at a huge space station in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk mourned the loss of his longtime friend and fellow crewman Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty didn't want to be reassigned to the Excelsior. He requested to be put in charge of refitting the Enterprise instead, but the request was denied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and David. Sarek and Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek performed a mind-meld with Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, we saw Spock explicitly justified the giving of his life to save the crew by arguing that the good of the many out weight the needs of the few. The film ended with Kirk telling Spock that he went to rescue him because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saavik and David discovered that microbes on Spock's space coffin, which had settled on the Genesis Planet, had evolved into complex lifeforms in a very short time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's son David knowingly used dangerous proto-matter to make the Genesis effect work with dire consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk's son David knowingly used dangerous proto-matter to make the Genesis effect work with dire consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was discussed about how the Genesis Project technology could be weaponized to destroy all life on a planet, even though it was designed to create life on lifeless worlds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Regenerated Spock aged from a small boy to an adult while on the Genesis Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was momentarily overcome with grief over the murder of his son David at the hands of the Klingons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x04", "title": "Have a Nice Death", "date": "1984-06-02", "description": "Successful writer Sam Luke is being hounded by the feminist movement for his books, which speak of women being the weaker sex. Unable to deal with them, he returns to his wife, but now is getting death threats.\n\nDirected by: William Slater. Story by: Antonia Fraser.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Luke was being hounded by feminists for having written a book about women being the weaker sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw dominant misogynist male Sam destroyed by two ruthless women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Outspoken misogynist Sam the was contraposed with various feminist characters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feminism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was a reactionary against second-wave feminism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Outspoken misogynist Sam was being aggressively harassed by feminists. They had him at his wits end and he rightfully feared for his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was eventually pushed out of a window to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Outspoken misogynist Sam the was contraposed with various feminist characters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was enticed by his publisher to put up with the stalking in order to promote his book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Zara and Clodagh were in a lesbian relationship at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Luke had a brief telephone conversation with his wife Zara Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was on the booze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam cheated on his wife with his assistant Joannie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghostbusters (1984)", "title": "Ghostbusters", "date": "1984-06-07", "description": "A teams of eccentric parapsychologists start a ghost-catching business in New York City.", "collections": [ "Collection: Ghostbusters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three parapsychology researchers formed a ghost hunting team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was about the Ghostbusters' investigating paranormal activity in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ghosts were running wild in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' started up and ran their own ghost-busting business. They struggled to get customers at first, and after the became successful an Environmental Protection Agency regulator tried to shut them down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston Zeddemore speculated that the reason the Ghostbusters' had been so busy was because Judgment Day was nigh. It turned out that Dana's building was designed as a gateway to summon Gozer and bring about the end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The demon Zuul was poised to open a gateway that would bring the even worse demon Gozer and his minions to destroy the world. In the end, it was the Stay Puft Marshmello Man that Gozer tasked to do the job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters were proud New Yorkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' saved the world from the demon Zuul and his ethereal minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz were researching ESP at the university until the dean revoked their grant. Egon Spengler appeared to be an independent researcher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis Tully at Dana Barrett. Peter Venkman at Dana Barrett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inside Dana Barrett's refrigerator was another dimension that was inhabited by the malevolent entity Zuul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gostbusters' captured a ghost at a hunted hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Zuul is a demigod that was worshiped by the Hittites and the Sumerians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dana became possessed by the demon Zuul. Louis was possessed by Vinz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Venkman and Dana Barrett kissed at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' secretary Janine Melnitz exemplified this stereotype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government regulation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbuster's small business was obstructed by incompetent government regulator William Atherton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbuster's small business was obstructed by incompetent government regulator William Atherton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters battled with the roughly ten story tall Stay Puft Marshmello Man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evocation magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Ivo Shandor, leader of a Gozer-worshipping cult in the early 20th century, designed Dana's building to function as an antenna to attract and concentrate spiritual energy to summon Gozer and bring about the apocalypse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gremlins (1984)", "title": "Gremlins", "date": "1984-06-08", "description": "A young man receives a strange creature called a mogwai as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. This story was continued with a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, released in 1990.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randall Peltzer brought a gremlin back from a business trip to China as a present for his son Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lynn Peltzer and her son Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and the gremlin Gizmo. Billy and his trust pet dog Barney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Randall Peltzer was a struggling invention who any any number of wacky gadgets to credit to his name. In particular, he pushed hard to peddle a Swiss Army-like device full of travel accessories, called the Bathroom Buddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were overrun by gremlins on Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gremlins are a race of intelligent reptile-like creatures. They are generally regarded as aliens, but no indication was given of that in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "A town was overrun by gremlins on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate mentioned to Billy about how suicide rates are higher during holidays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Well to do landlady Mrs. Ruby Deagle cruelly refused to give a mother with two children an extension on her rent payment on Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Futterman made a number of disparaging remarks about foreign made goods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate hated Christmas because the police found her father dead in the chimney dressed in a Santa Clause suit when she was 9 years old.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x05", "title": "Number Eight", "date": "1984-06-09", "description": "A driver picks up a hitchhiker. They hear on the radio that a serial killer is on the loose nicknamed Willow the Wisp. The driver quickly realizes that the description exactly matches that of his passenger.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Jack Ritchie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believe that a driver picked up the Willow of the Wisp serial killer on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a a man come to regret picking up a hitch-hiker on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a a man come to regret picking up a hitch-hiker on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hitchhiker was behaving more than badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hitchhiker was keeping his companions hostage with a concealed pocket gun, or so we though.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two women felt threatened when a menacing hitch-hiker hit on them in a restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hitchhiker got his kicks by making people feel afraid of him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x04", "title": "Thumbelina", "date": "1984-06-11", "description": "Thumbelina, a girl the size of a human thumb, embarks on a great adventure in the big wide world.\n\nStarring Carrie Fisher as Thumbelina, William Katt as the Flower Prince, Burgess Meredith as Mr. Mortimer Mole, Donovan Scott as Herman Toad, and Conchata Ferrell as Thumbelina's Mother. Narrated by David Hemmings. Written by Maryedith Burrell. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people should stick to their own kind", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This is a moral of the story according to fairy tale researchers and folklorists Iona and Peter Opie. The story has been interpreted as an allegory about people trying to get above their station by mingling with their social betters. In particular, the lower classes (i.e. the animals) should not deign to mingle with higher class beings like humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thumbelina longed to be reunited with her mother, and in the end she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Thumbelina was about thumb tall young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Efforts were made to coerce Thumbelina into tying the knot with the boorish old Mr. Mole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thumbelina wandered the big wide world, not knowing how to get home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thumbelina's mother wished to have a child above all else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thumbelina puzzled over how yaks could have evolved from a \"primal soup\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mother Toad kidnapped Thumbelina and ever so briefly imprisoned her on a lily pad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mother Toad and her bumbling son Herman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The field mouse invited Thumbelina to winter in his burrow upon finding her trying to survive the elements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Mole broke out into song, lamenting progress and praising all things past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Mole saw antiquity through rose tinted glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thumbelina's mother was worried over the girl's sudden disappearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thumbelina and the Flower Prince were united in matrimony at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream walking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that the Flower Prince had the ability to enter people's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The field mouse took pity on a freezing cold Thumbelina and invited her to winter with him in his burrow. Thumbelina took compassion on a badly injured swallow and nursed it back to health.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x06", "title": "The Last of the Midnight Gardeners", "date": "1984-06-16", "description": "A magazine editor has a wife and a secret lover. For his magazine, he launches a competition for a story involving the perfect murder. His wife encourages him to enter it himself.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Tony Wilmot.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Magazine editor Walter Oates held a contest to see who could write the best story on how to commit the perfect murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter Oates was having an affair behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was having an affair with his secretary Edna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane tricked her husband into writing a story about how to commit the perfect murder and then used the method therein to do away with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane encouraged Walter to enter a story of his own into his \"how to commit the perfect murder\" story contest, and he took marked pleasure in writing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edna shocked Walter by telling him that she was pregnant with his child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked husband stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Walter being very mean to his loving wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x07", "title": "The Gift of Beauty", "date": "1984-06-30", "description": "Elizabeth kills her husband because she wants to be with her young lover Ray - who helped in the murder - but she feels insecure because of the age gap. She then sees a flyer for an anti-ageing process known as the Gift of Beauty.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Joseph Dougherty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth loved Ray, but he cared only about her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth knocked off her husband be with her young paramour Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth knocked off her husband to be with her young paramour Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "One time fashion model Elizabeth started a vigorous exercise regimen, with Ray's encouragement, in an effort to turn back the clock. She ultimately reached out to a company that offered a radical reverse aging treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youthful man Ray plotted to get his hands on one time fashion model Elizabeth's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded Elizabeth's efforts to turn back the clock and regain a youthful appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rebecca hatched an elaborate plot to murder Elizabeth to avenge Elizabeth's murder of Rebecca's lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rebecca poisoned Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth had murdered her husband to be with a young stud, only to be murdered by her late husband's jealous young mistress Rebecca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging Elizabeth was offered a radical reverse aging treatment, but it turned out to be part of an elaborate plot to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Elizabeth's deceased husband had been having an affair with his lab assistant Rebecca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rebecca offered a radical reverse aging treatment to Elizabeth, although it turned out to be part of an elaborate ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth disapproved of Ray checking out other girls at the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth and the ex-husband she had so cruelly disposed of.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x08", "title": "Wet Saturday", "date": "1984-07-07", "description": "George Princey has a high standing in the community and when his daughter kills a man he endeavors to cover up to prevent him facing a scandal.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George Princey went to elaborate lengths to frame Jack Lowery for a murder that George's own daughter had committed. George committed various crimes in the process, including assault and battery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent's family tried to cover up a murder that she had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent's father masterminded an effort to cover up a murder that she had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime of passion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Milicent murdered the school master who spurned her in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Princey tried to frame Captain Smollet for a murder that George's own daughter had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the aftermath of Milicent having bashed her lover's head in with a croquet mallet in a fit of passion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent was accused of sleeping with lots of men in her town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent was crying hysterically while her family was plotting how to cover up the murder she had just committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George helped his father to cover up a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Princey was in the room when the family was plotting how to cover up the murder her daughter had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Lowrey was about to be framed for the murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent and her brother George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Princley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milicent acted upset about having bashed her lover's brains in with numerous hits from an croquet mallet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Starfighter (1984)", "title": "The Last Starfighter", "date": "1984-07-13", "description": "A teenager recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Alex and the Star League Starfighters to stop Emperor Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada from conquering hundreds of worlds, including Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was quite taken aback to find that an android replica of himself named Beta Alex had taken his place at home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is filled with funky looking aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex went from living in a trailer park with little hope for a bright future to being the savior of the Star League.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an epic, interstellar war unfold between the Star League and Emperor Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and his high school sweetheart Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and his high school sweetheart Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and his high school sweetheart Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw numerous spaceships of the space opera variety. Particularly featured was Centauri's flying car that doubled as a spaceship and Alex's Star Fighter ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an interstellar war being fought. In particular, Alex traveled to Rylos and back with Centauri in his flying car style spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was recruited into the Star League defense force after setting the high score on the StarFighter arcade game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his hard working and loving mother Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his little bother Louis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his mother were crushed to find out that Alex failed to get for the scholarship he was counting on to go to university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Centauri drove a futuristic car that doubled as a spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was only able to understand the other aliens with the assistance of one of these devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Kril was Xur's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex's described his Starfighter partner as an iguana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his partner Grig showed each other their family photos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An android replica of Alex, named Beta Alex, took Alex's place at home while he was off fighting Emperor Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beta Alex was being pursued by an alien assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Beta Alex destroyed itself in a fiery car wreck in an effort to save Alex and Maggie from being killed by alien assassins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x05", "title": "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", "date": "1984-07-16", "description": "A beautiful young princess named Snow White is forced to flee for her life, when her \"crime\" of simply being fairest in the kingdom arouses jealousy in the evil Queen...who also happens to be the girl's stepmother. Starring Elizabeth McGovern as Snow White; Vanessa Redgrave as the Evil Queen; Vincent Price as the Magic Mirror; Lou Carry, Tony Cox, Billy Curtis, Phil Fondacaro, Daniel Frishman, Peter Risch, and Kevin Thompson as the Dwarves; and Rex Smith as the Prince. Written by Robert C. Jones. Directed by Peter Medak.\n\nNOTE: It is revealed (although never shown) in this version of the story that, as a child, Snow White's favorite pastime was (secretly) going for swims in the moat of her stepmother's castle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vanity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The queen was exceedingly vain. She spoke again and again of her beauty, and fished for reassurances of her beauty from her talking mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The queen was determined to be the most beautiful woman in her kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The queen could not be more beautiful than Snow White because the queen was rotten and evil on the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The queen was hellbent on killing the only woman more beautiful that her in all the land: her deep red lipped, fair skinned stepdaughter Snow White.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The queen couldn't accept that Snow White surpassed her in beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The queen callously tried to murder her own stepdaughter, Snow White, merely on account that the princess was more beautiful than her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snow White found her prince charming in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story famously features the Seven Dwarves who like to mine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snow White fell afoul of two passers by, who were in fact the witch queen in magic disguise. She was admonished to not trust strangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow White's mother desired to have a child with \"lips of deep red\" and so she did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen fished for compliments about her beauty from her talking mirror, and it usually obliged her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen remarked that \"the years do not effect my beauty\", showing that she was aware she was no spring chicken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The huntsman took compassion on Snow White by letting Snow White live, rather than cutting out her heart and returning it to the queen in a box as he had been ordered to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow White wandering around in the woods until she stumbled on the Seven Dwarves' lodging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Seven Dwarves were initially off-put to find that Snow White had trespassed into their lodging and taken liberties with their things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Seven Dwarves welcomes Snow White into their humble home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen prepared a bubbling concoction that when drank, transformed her into an old woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen tried to know off Snow White by giving her a poison apple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prince revealed to the queen that he felt lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Seven Dwarves mourned Snow White's apparent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary magic wielder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A magician turned the vain queen's mirrors black for evermore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The queen prepared a wicked concoction in a stereotypical wicked witch's cauldron, implying she was a witch as well as a queen. A dwarf also named her such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow White new she shouldn't, but she couldn't resist the ruby red apple.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Supergirl (1984)", "title": "Supergirl", "date": "1984-07-19", "description": "Supergirl is a 1984 superhero film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by David Odell. It is based on the DC Comics character of the same name and serves as a spin-off from Alexander and Ilya Salkind's Superman film series. The film stars Helen Slater as Supergirl, along with Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, and Peter O'Toole, with Marc McClure reprising his role as Jimmy Olsen from the Superman films. He was the only actor to do so. Supergirl was the first English language superhero film to feature a woman in the lead role.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergirl_(1984_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The power-hungry would-be witch Selena plotted to rule the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Supergirl was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nigel at Selena. Selena at Ethan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Supergirl and Ethan. Lucy Lane had a big crush on Jimmy Olsen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Selena loved Ethan but Ethan and Supergirl loved each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Supergirl and Ethan. Lucy Lane had a big crush on Jimmy Olsen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Omegahedron enabled Selena to perform powerful magical spells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "Selena was patterned after the classical wicked witch stereotyoe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Omegahedron enabled Selena to become a powerful witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Supergirl could fly around under her own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Supergirl was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Supergirl and other Kryptonians lived in what appeared to be a domed city, called Argo City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "warlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Selena sought to free herself from her relationship with the powerful warlock Nigel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Electric Dreams (1984)", "title": "Electric Dreams", "date": "1984-07-20", "description": "The film follows a love triangle among a man, a woman, and a personal computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dreams_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles' surprisingly advanced home computer developed a mind of its own and ultimately grew covetous of his girlfriend Madeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was about Miles and his new neighbor Madeline falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles hit it off well with his new neighbor Madeline and they fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles hit it off well with his new neighbor Madeline and they soon became a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' computer became extremely jealous of him because Miles was in a loving relationship with Madeline, and the computer wanted to experience love first hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madeline being a dedicated concert cellist was a major component of the story. Miles attended her concert and they played duets together, Madeline on her cello, and Miles, who lacking any musical talents, with the secret help of his highly advanced home computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles' computer ran an elaborate optimization procedure to produce a highly efficient earthquake brick by starting from a very crudely designed one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles tired his best to explain the meaning of \"love\" to his newly sentient computer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x09", "title": "Sauce for the Goose", "date": "1984-07-21", "description": "Olivia starts a relationship with a younger man on the basis that she's killed her husband and gained his fortune. Her lover however still sees himself as a free agent and has an affair with another woman.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Patricia Highsmith.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story started with Olivia knocking off her elderly husband in order to marring the young actor Stephen. The rest of the story followed the comic efforts of Olivia and Stephen's to murder one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia was besotted with Stephen who just wanted to get his hands on her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia, Stephen, and Gloria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen married Olivia in order to get his hands on her fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Middle aged Olivia married the strapping young actor Stephen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia knocked off her mature husband and married the strapping young actor Stephen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen was fooling around with Gloria behind his wife Olivia's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen took lots of photos of beautiful women while on his honeymoon with Olivia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)", "title": "The Philadelphia Experiment", "date": "1984-08-03", "description": "The film is set in 1943 where two sailors, David Herdeg and Jim Parker, are stationed on a ship used for an experiment to make it invisible to radar. However, the experiment goes horribly wrong and the ship completely disappears and Herdeg and Parker find themselves in the Nevada desert in the year 1984. They find out the program has been revived in 1984, unexpectedly interacting with the experiment in 1943 and putting the entire world in danger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Two sailors, David and Jim, found themselves 31 years in the future when a Navy experiment went horribly wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A Navy experiment to make a ship invisible to radar went horribly wrong and ended up sending two sailors 31 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A 1943 experiment to make a Navy ship invisible to radar opened up a potentially world consuming vortex in 1984.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film concerns a secret 1943 military project to make a Navy ship invisible to radar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "World War II sailors David and Jim were sometimes astonished and other times disturbed by what life was like in 1984. For example, David was astonished to find that Germany and Japan had become friends of the United States, and the Soviet Union an enemy. He was also astonished to find out that the former actor Ronald Reagan had been elected President. On the other hand, he was somewhat taken aback by his meeting of a transgendered punk rocker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A 1943 experiment to make a Navy ship invisible to radar opened up a potentially world consuming vortex in 1984.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Allison were being pursued by Major Clark and his men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Allison fell for one another while the two of them tried to piece together how David jumped ahead in time from 1943 to 1984.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened in 1943 in the backdrop of this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David asked a transgendered man \"what the hell he was dressed like that for\" while the two were sharing a jail cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David teared up upon learning that his father was already dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x10", "title": "Bird of Prey", "date": "1984-08-04", "description": "Jack and Edna's parrot lays a large, oversized egg. The parrot dies and so they keep the egg warm.On hatching, it reveals an aggressive black-feathered bird. Jack is taken by it, but Edna is suspicious of the evil-looking creature.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Edna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack, Edna, parrot, and the parrot's monster bird progeny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monster parrot Jack believed Edna was cheating on him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack became jealous when the monster parrot uttered phrases that incriminated Edna of infidelity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack killed his wife Edna.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x11", "title": "I Like it Here in Wilmington", "date": "1984-08-11", "description": "Harry is a clothing manufacturer in Wilmington, Delaware. He is on the verge of bankruptcy however. Being used to the good life, he ponders the idea of murdering his business partner in order to collect the insurance money.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Henry Slesar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Marvin had a joint business that was on the verge of bankruptcy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry plotted with his wife to murder Marvin for insurance money we thought, but then he shot his wife to collect her trust fund instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry plotted with his wife to murder Marvin for insurance money we thought, but then he shot his wife to collect her trust fund instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry hatched an elaborate plot to murder his wife. He thought he would get away with it because he set it up as a crime of passion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and trust fund holding Roberta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and his business partner Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry deliberately asked his wife to be unfaithful with Marvin so that Harry would have an excuse for murdering him, but it didn't quite work out that way in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roberta fell for Marvin in the process of setting him up for murder, but should she leave her husband for him?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x06", "title": "Beauty and the Beast", "date": "1984-08-13", "description": "A merchant's beautiful youngest daughter simply named Beauty, sacrifices her freedom to save her father when he is taken captive by a \"monster\"...who also turns out to be a cursed prince.\n\nStarring Susan Sarandon as Beauty, Klaus Kinski as the Beast, Stephen Elliott as Beauty's Father, and Nancy Lenehan and Anjelica Huston as Beauty's sisters. Written by Robert C. Jones. Directed by Roger Vadim.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A beautiful young woman fell in love with a beast-man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beauty gradually came to see the gentle heart that lay inside her hideous beast-man suitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beauty was initially too repulsed by Beast's physical appearance to requite his love for her with anything more than pity. Although in the end he won her over with his good personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beast lived alone in an old castle, evidently on account that there was no place for him in society owing to his beastly physical appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beast lived alone in an old castle and longed for a female companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beast held Beauty captive in his enchanted castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beauty sacrificed her freedom to save her father's life. She later returned to visit him when he was gravely ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beauty took pity on Beast and stayed with him in his castle even when she had the chance to leave him for good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beast, ever so lonely, longed for Beauty to be his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Beauty falling in love with Beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beauty went to live with Beast in the castle in exchange for her father's life being spared. Her father told her not to and intended rather to die himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beauty did not care at all for financially prudent advances of Jacques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beauty's two older sisters were envious of her good looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beauty's two older sisters were happy to get rid of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beauty made use of an enchanted ring to transport her back to her father's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "following through on a promise that is unpleasant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The father kept his vow to return to Beast's castle in spite of Beauty's two sisters urging him not to honor it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hideous beast turned out to be a cursed prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beast spoke of how he'd been turned into a beast-man, and in the end he transformed back into a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beauty accused her sisters of having stolen her ring, but it was in fact her father that had done it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beast pointedly apologized to Beauty for his beastly nature when he was at the balcony covered in blood.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)", "title": "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension", "date": "1984-08-15", "description": "The film follows the efforts of the polymath Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, and musician, as he tries to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids from Planet 10.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Buckaroo Banzai to save the world from an attack by Reptilian aliens out of the 8th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Buckaroo Banzai to save the world from an attack by Reptilian aliens out of the 8th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The usage of the \"oscillation overthruster\" opened up access to another universe that was referred to as \"the 8th dimension\" in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on Buckaroo Banzai preventing Dr. Emilio Lizardo from getting a special \"oscillation overthruster\" device that enabled pass through solid objects, and even into the 8th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Emilio Lizardo was a criminally insane alien scientist in human form who was determined to invent, or otherwise get his hands on, a device (an \"oscillation overthruster\") that permits one to access the 8th dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a flashback to Dr. Emilio Lizardo and Professor Hikita experimenting in a in a 1930s era Dr. Frankenstein like laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A down and out women attempted to shoot herself in the head at a nightclub in the middle of Buckaroo Banzai's concert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens from the 8th dimension came to Earth in a strange organic looking vessel, and a strange vessel reminiscent of a dead tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casper and his enthusiastic young son Scooter were in Buckaroo's crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the aliens arrival in 1938 was told by Orson Welles' iconic broadcast of The War of the Worlds until the they forced him to state it was a work of fiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President suffered from chronic back pain for which he sought a most unusual treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear crisis flared up between the United States and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Buckaroo and Penny sharing a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x12", "title": "Accidental Death", "date": "1984-08-19", "description": "Steve and Jane are con artists who gain access to people's homes claiming to be doing research into polish. While there, they assess the valuables in the house for later theft. Coming across a scruffy old man, they hear that he is actually rich but they underestimate him.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Denis Cannan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Petty criminals Steve and Jane were endeavoring to burgle enough valuables to make off to Australia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Jane came to an English village posing as market researchers in order to case local houses for later robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "A shotgun toting Percy slipped on a banana peal and accidentally shot Steve upon stumbling in on Steve and Jane burgling his house. Percy died instantly from the fall. But as fate would have it Percy was the only person in town with the blood type to match Steve, who was at the hospital in need of a massive blood transfusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane quipped about how a man lectured her on there being enough jobs for everyone so long as the unemployed would take the initiative to look for them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brother from Another Planet (1984)", "title": "The Brother from Another Planet", "date": "1984-09-07", "description": "An escaped alien slave who has crash-landed on Earth hides out in Harlem.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brother_from_Another_Planet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an escaped alien slave, named the Brother, who has crash-landed on Earth and hides in Harlem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film highlighted race in New York City, and more broadly in America, in the 1980s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brother was an escaped slave on the run. And the film concluded with it becoming apparent that he was one of numerous alien slaves who had come to Harlem seeking refuge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon arrival in Ellis Island, the Brother heard the voices of the immigrants that came before him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother popped open the till of a cash register, repaired arcade games, using the power of his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother puzzled over a statue of Christ nailed to the cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Brown went off on a lengthy rant about forms at a New York City unemployment office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother healed Little Earl's scraped knee by hovering over the wound with his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A teen girl was really into playing video games at the arcade and wished it were possible that she could do that all day without having to pursue a career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother was mugged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing muggers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother was mugged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young man overdosed on heroin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother's seriously tripped out after shooting up some heroin and then smoking pot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother's alien pursuers claimed that he was an illegal alien. The woman he was staying with told them off, complaining that there were better things for law enforcement officers to do than to go around harassing people like the Brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Price made a hard play for the singer Malverne Davis, but she wasn't into him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother hooked up with the singer Malverne Davis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randy Sue Carter and Little Earl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brother confronted a white drug kingpin about the havoc his drugs were wreaking on the black community.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x13", "title": "The Reconciliation", "date": "1984-09-16", "description": "James has walked out on his wife, who still loves him. His lawyer advises him that it may be difficult to get a divorce unless he can catch her being unfaithful. With not much hope, he hires a private detective.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Nicholas Monsarrat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mimetic desire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "James' interest in his estranged wife was rekindled only when he came to believe someone else had taken her as a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inconstant James and his faithful wife, Caroline, who he alternately loved and hated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "James sought a divorce that his wife Caroline refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "major", "motivation": "Legal aspects of divorce in England were showcased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "James deliberated the rights and wrongs of setting snoops on his uncooperative wife in order to gain his own freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "James had clearly had an extramarital tryst in northern Italy, and suspected his wife of having had an affair as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "James became jealous when he thought his wife had a lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The life of an 80s English house wife was contrasted with her playboy husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James finally returned to reconcile, just as his wife had wanted all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "James mentioned on three occasions about how he wanted his freedom from marriage. He even went so far as to say that he was prepared to kill his wife if that's what it would take.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James' private investigator may have invaded on the wife's privacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James hired a private investigator to monitor his wife's activities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e3x07", "title": "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers", "date": "1984-09-17", "description": "A boy who doesn't know what fear is sets out into the world, hoping to learn for himself what it means to be afraid.\n\nStarring Peter MacNicol as Martin, Dana Hill as Princess Amanda, Christopher Lee as King Vladimir V, David Warner as Zandor the Innkeeper, Jack Riley as the Deacon, and Frank Zappa as Atilla. Narrated by Vincent Price. Written by Bruce Franklin Singer. Directed by Graeme Clifford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about Martin being too much of a simpleton to realize that he should be afraid of ghosts and other stereotypically scary things. He finally got the \"shivers\" he sought when Amanda proclaimed her love and started planning out their future together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin had trouble fitting in because he wasn't subject to the same fears and superstitions as other people in his town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin spent three nights in a ghost infested castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marin encountered ghosts and walking corpses in the haunted castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda was clearly besotted with Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focuses on Martin's efforts to experience for himself what it is like to feel fear. Martin lacked certain human emotions, in particular \"fear\" and \"the blues\". He roamed the world in a quest to experience these otherwise universally human traits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator described Martin as being \"innocent and unafraid of anything\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story made light some comically superstitious peasants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story made light Martin's comically superstitious father and brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's superstitious brother was alarmed to find Martin standing under a ladder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's father gave him a handful of coins and told him never to come back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's brother wore a rabbit's foot for good luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Vladimir was haunting the castle to keep from having to give his daughter, Amanda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin spent three nights in a ghost infested castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin encountered some torch wielding, walking corpses in the haunted castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin got the better of a cowled, sickle swinging creature that was presumably Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda had a premonition of an evil sorcerer roasting Martin over the coals of an open fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin and Amanda tied the knot in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin bowled for money with a bunch of undead horrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary magic wielder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda warned Martin of an \"evil sorcerer\". This turned out to be king Vladimir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil sorcerer said that Martin was wrong to think himself a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil sorcerer said that Martin was wrong to think himself valiant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Impulse (1984)", "title": "Impulse", "date": "1984-09-28", "description": "The residents of a small rural town whose inhabitants start to exhibit strange and violent behavior after a small earthquake ruptures the seal on a toxic waste burial site and the toxic material migrates into the town's local dairy milk supply.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(1984_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mayhem ensued when toxic material from a toxic waste burial site migrated into the town's local milk supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The residents of a rural community began exhibiting strange and violent behavior after toxic waste contaminated the local milk supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The residents of a rural community began to act on their violent urges without compunction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in a rural community began to fly into violent rages for no reason after toxic waste contaminated the local milk supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny and her boyfriend Stuart went back to her hometown to visit her hospitalized mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny and Stuart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny and her father Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stuart in particular was struggling with himself to keep his violent impulses and sexual urges under control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny's mother angrily confronter her over the phone before shooting herself in the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny's mother angrily confronter her over the phone before shooting herself in the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margo broke her son Jimmy's wrist, presumably in a fit of rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny's kids let all the air out of Jenny's tires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stuart discovered Eddie was keeping a secret collection of secretly shot, erotic photos of his sister Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Eddie harbored incestuous feeling toward his sister Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Eddie harbored incestuous feeling toward his sister Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, one gathers that the Federal Department of Agriculture secretly killed the town's 900 residents bu crop dusting them with cyanide gas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bloodsuckers from Outer Space (1984)", "title": "Bloodsuckers from Outer Space", "date": "1984-10", "description": "Texas farmers turn into zombies when they become infected by an energy field from outer space. The residents must escape before an overeager general can convince the President to drop a nuclear bomb on the rural town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodsuckers_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "An invisible life force from outer space of some kind passed over a rural Texas community, turning many its residents into bluish, bloodthirsty, but not mindless people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Joe treated Jeff as a son in spite of Jeff insisting he not do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and Julie really hit it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bluish, bloodthirsty residents of a rural Texas community were parodies of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Jeff and Julie as they tried to not get their blood sucked out by bluish, bloodthirsty parodies of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buford went off on a homophobic and racist rant that would be considered utterly intolerable as judged by contemporary cultural standards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Joe and Aunt Kaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Joe discouraged Jeff from pursuing his dream to become a photographer. Instead, Joe wanted Jeff to take over his farm one day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Sanders accidentally nuked a Methodist encampment in a failed bid to exterminate the bluish, bloodthirsty people infesting a rural Texas community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Sanders was a communist hating patriot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Dungeonmaster (1984)", "title": "The Dungeonmaster", "date": "1984-10", "description": "A computer programmer is drawn into a Hellish realm where he must pass seven challenges in order to free his girlfriend from the clutches of a demonic sorcerer. The film was originally titled Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate and Digital Knights.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeonmaster" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul had to pass seven challenged in order to free his girlfriend Gwen from the clutches of Mestema.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Gwen were steadfast in their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Computer programmer Paul Bradford had an 80s era, quasi-sentient personal computer in his home that helped him to defeat the demonic sorcerer Mestema.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immortal Mestima drew Paul and Gwen into his hellish realm to alleviate his boredom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul had had to defeat his own animated corpse to pass one of his seven challenges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul had to defeat a giant, humanoid, stone status come to life to pass one of his seven challenges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mestema offered Paul first immense riches and then three beautiful women in exchange for Paul handing over his sweetheart Gwen to him, but Paul summarily refused the offers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul had to prevent a serial killer from murdering Gwen to pass one of his seven challenges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal Mestima drew Paul and Gwen into his hellish realm to alleviate his boredom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal sorcerer Mestima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Gwen happily accepting Paul's request to marry him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)", "title": "Nineteen Eighty-Four", "date": "1984-10-10", "description": "The film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone in superstate of Oceania under the constant surveillance of the Thought Police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Oceania were subjected to constant indoctrination. Among other things, government propagandists were busy whipping the people up into a frenzy for war with the enemy state of Eurasia and East Asia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston and Julia carried on romantically in flagrant violation of state orthodoxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place in a superstate called Oceania, where each person was closely monitored for the state to control their beliefs and opinions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Oceanian state portrayed people from the enemy state as barbarians that were unworthy of living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thoughtcrime society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winston and other were apprehended by the Thought Police for having allegedly committed such crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government was constantly broadcasting video reports on the great victories that Oceania were racking up in the war against Eurasia and East Asia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston had flashback to a time in his boyhood when his mother and sister were disappeared never to be seen again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone had a government propaganda blearing television in their home and one gathers that they could not be switched off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston was put on the rack and tortured mercilessly, and then there were the rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In general, we saw a society in which the government used sophisticated indoctrination to shape the public mind. In particular, Winston's interrogator made extensive attempts to brain wash him into believing all the conventional state propaganda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winston and Julia ratted one another out for their thoughtcrimes under torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The phrase \"Who controls the past controls the future.\" was quoted at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x14", "title": "The Mugger", "date": "1984-10-14", "description": "Gerald Overton, a politician has fallen in love with a beautiful woman he met at a party. Things go wrong and his entire career and reputation are in jeopardy. Gerald decides to take the law into his own hands.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Miriam Bienstock.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald and his beloved wife Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald was mighty please with himself as he had all but won some sort of minister post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald was so set on fighting crime that he was compared to a fascist - ironically he ended up committing a crime albeit by mistake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing muggers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald faced what he thought was a mugger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerald was so set on fighting crime that he was compared to a fascist - ironically he ended up committing a crime albeit by mistake. Gerald was being tough on crime, but then he got to experience what it was like for the law to be strict on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald told the seductress Mary that he loved his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald played with his son and put him to bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald rejected la femme fatale that threw herself on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It unfolded that Gerald did not at all relish the attention the seductress Mary lavished on him - in the car she started touching him inappropriately and he alighted to walk home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The seductress Mary tempted Gerald to be unfaithful to his wife with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerald punched the supposed mugger even though the latter had done no violence and little resistance, so it seems like an act of extrajudicial vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy went to visit his mother in her bedroom when he was sick with a cold.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected7x15", "title": "The Open Window", "date": "1984-10-21", "description": "At a hunting lodge in Connecticut, a young man climbs through the window. However, when he emerges the other side he finds himself in a strange new world, unlike anything he's ever seen before.\n\nDirected by: TBA. Story by: Hector Hugh Munro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane had a strained relationship with her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gregory fell for Jane and asked her to run away with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to think the mother had gone crazy with grief over the death of her husband and son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pathological lying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane told Gregory an completely untrue story about how her step-father and his son had bother died tragically. When Gregory ran away in a panic after the father and son returned, Jane told her family that he had run away because he was afraid of dogs, and then began to tell them an elaborate fiction about Gregory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard how Gregory had had a nervous breakdown and spent time in a sanatorium in Switzerland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned the stress of being a schoolteacher had led Gregory to have a nervous breakdown. He was also on the verge of cracking while in the house with what he thought was Jane's crazy mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The poetry teacher Gregory recited a Longfellow verse to Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane's step-father had allegedly shot himself after he accidentally killed his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father and son were depicted hunting in the woods in a flashback scene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Terminator (1984)", "title": "The Terminator", "date": "1984-10-26", "description": "A cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose son will one day become a savior against machines in a post-apocalyptic future.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terminator was a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the near future, actually in 2029, robots were in the process of exterminating humans from the face of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reese and the Terminator traveled back in time from the year 2029.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor was being hunted down by the Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor and Reese versus the Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los Angeles of 2029 was a post atomic horror wasteland in which humans were in a desperate war for survival against machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor's future son John was destined to be the leader of a resistance movement against a robot extermination of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that a computer defense system became intelligent and initiated a nuclear conflagration in an effort to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that a computer defense system became intelligent and initiated a nuclear conflagration in an effort to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skynet autonomous computer defense system.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers (1984)", "title": "Trancers", "date": "1984-11-07", "description": "The film revolves a police detective from the 23rd century who travels to the 1980s in order to bring his old nemesis to justice. Also known as Future Cop, it is the first film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Twenty-third century police detective Jack Deth traveled back in time to 1985 Los Angeles by means of being injected with a drug that allowed him to take over the body of his ancestor Phil Dethton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the 23rd century LAPD police detective Jack Deth as he traveled back in time to 1980s Los Angeles in order to bring his old nemesis Martin Whistler to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Deth's consciousness was sent back in time and there inhabited the body of his ancestor: a journalist named Phil Dethton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack in Phil's body and Leena were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack in Phil's body and Leena fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Whistler used psychic powers to turn people into mindless \"trancers\" and carry out his murderous orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flying police cruisers in the 23rd century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack used his wristwatch to slow time down around him to a crawl for up to ten seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was in possession of a time slowing down wristwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hap Ashby was a washed up former pro baseball player who was now living on skid row.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Comet (1984)", "title": "Night of the Comet", "date": "1984-11-16", "description": "A comet turns most people into either dust or zombies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Comet" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most people were turned into either zombies or dust when Earth passed through a mysterious comet's tail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most people were turned into either zombies or dust when Earth passed through a mysterious comet's tail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reggie and her little sister Sam struggled to survive when zombies overran their city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reggie and her little sister Sam struggled to survive when zombies overran their city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reggie and Hector fell in love while fighting zombies and stopping the members of a nefarious think tank from taking everyone's blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of a think tank were gathering up all the survivors and using them as cows for their blood in an effort to create a serum that would prevent other people from turning into dust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "For all Reggie, Sam, and Hector knew they were the last people on Earth after a passing comet turned most people into either zombies or dust. In the end, it was left to them and a handful of others to repopulate the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Regina's was really into the arcade game at the restaurant where she worked and was annoyed to find that she held only nine of the ten top scores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's wicked stepmother Doris punched her so hard that it knocked a tooth out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked stepmother stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's wicked stepmother Doris punched her so hard that it knocked a tooth out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector went all the way back to San Diego to check on his mother, only to find that she had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reggie and Sam went to a mall to get all the guns and clothes they could carry once Reggie realized society had collapsed and they didn't need their credit cards anymore. One gets the impression that the film was making a point about consumerism, because the mall was later described as a \"monument to consumerism\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Caravan of Courage An Ewok Adventure (1984)", "title": "Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure", "date": "1984-11-25", "description": "Ewoks help two young human siblings as they try to locate their parents.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_of_Courage:_An_Ewok_Adventure" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mace and Cindel needed to dig deep and muster up some courage in order to confront the beast Gorax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mace and Cindel Towani.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Mace and Cindel as they tried to reunite with their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became separated from my parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mace and Cindel became separated from their parents after the family crash landed on the forest moon Endor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mace and Cindel had to rescue their parents from the clutches of the beast Gorax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mace and Cindel were worried about their parents, who were imprisoned in the lair of the evil beast Gorax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ewoks lived on the habitable, forest moon Endor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chukha-Trok sacrificed his life to rescue Mace and Cindel's parents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dune (1984)", "title": "Dune", "date": "1984-12-03", "description": "Set in the distant future, the film chronicles the conflict between rival noble families as they battle for control of the extremely harsh desert planet Arrakis, also known as \"Dune\". The planet is the only source of the drug melange—also called \"the spice\"—which allows prescience and is vital to space travel, making it the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(1984_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Two rival aristocratic houses, the House of Atredies and the House of Harkonnen, battled for control over a vital resource, called \"the spice\", which was found exclusively on the desert planet Arrakis (a.k.a. Dune).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interplanetary conflict between rival aristocratic houses unfolded on the desert planet Arrakis (a.k.a. Dune), and much was made of it being an arid desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A highly coveted substance, called \"the spice\", enabled instantaneous interstellar travel through the folding of space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duke Leto Atreides and his son Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The House of Harkonnen, with the backing of the Emperor, was determined to gain control of Arrakis, crush its people, and exploit the planet for \"the spice\" - a most vital resource in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul led the Freyans to overthrow their Harkonnen overlords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Jessica and Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was the fulfillment of an ancient Fremen prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "An element of the story is that the Bene Gesserit order members use a mysterious power, known as \"the Voice\" as a means of controlling the actions of other people. For example, Paul and Lady Jessica got their Harkonned captors to free them by using this Bene Gesserit mind control technique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul's exposure to the spice led him to have revelatory premonitions. Importantly, Paul had a vision of a \"holy war\" spreading across the universe in his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Guild Navigator alien had the ability to fold space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bene Gesserits had telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a variety of futuristic spaceships typical of a space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atreides men wore Stillsuits in the Dune desert. These suits recycled water and other waste products, enabling survival for weeks without any supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yueh betrayed the House of Atreides as part of a plot to avenge the murder of his wife by Baron Harkonnen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yueh hatched a plot to kill Baron Harkonnen to get back at him for having murdered his wife. Paul vowed to avenge the death of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Lady Jessica were pursued by a giant desert worm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Chani.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Harkonnen and Glossu Rabban.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lade Jessica and Alia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Feyd accepted Paul's challenge to a knife fight to the death and lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People surrounded themselves in personal force fields for defense. Most notably, Paul and Duncan had a practice knife fight while enveloped in such protective energy fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul inexplicably knew how to correctly don a \"stillsuit\" without ever having suited up in one before. The veteran Fremen ally Liet-Kynes was duly impressed with Paul as a result.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)", "title": "2010: The Year We Make Contact", "date": "1984-12-07", "description": "It is a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and is based on Arthur C. Clarke's sequel novel 2010: Odyssey Two (1982).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The iconic HAL 9000 was reactivated. R. Chandra's sentient computer with female voice named SAL was also briefly featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focused on a joint Soviet and American mission to Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard two futuristic spaceships: the Soviet vessel Leonov and the American vessel Discovery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "A drama similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded on Earth while the joint Soviet/American mission to Jupiter was underway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competition among nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "On Earth the United States and the Soviet Union were rivaling for world domination. But at the same time they did agree to cooperate by sending a joint mission to Jupiter to find out what was going on with a mysterious monolith that was in the vicinity of the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The American and Soviet crew members of the Leonov bonded while their respective nations slid toward war back on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Floyd's wife Carolyn was apprehensive when he suddenly had to leave on an extended mission to Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Floyd had to explain to his young son about how he was going to be away for a long time on a mission to Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "CVarolyn and her young son Christopher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Floyd, Curnow, and Chandra were placed in hibernation for the duration of the voyage to Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On a space walk, it was explained that Curnow couldn't be exposed to the radiation environment around Io for mode than 15 minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rotating wheel space station was depicted in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Europa was made habitable when the monolith transformed Jupiter into a small star.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Runaway (1984)", "title": "Runaway", "date": "1984-12-14", "description": "A police officer is assigned to track down dangerous robots, while a scientist hopes to profit from his malevolent manipulation of robots.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_(1984_American_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and his new junior partner Karen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was raising his young son Bobby as a single father. His wife died a few years prior in a car crash after which time he got a helper robot, named Lois, that was helping him to raise the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where it is normal for people to have appliance-on-wheels type robot helpers in their homes. In particular, Jack help a robot helped named Lois that helped him care for his young son Bobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Sargeant Jack R. Ramsay and his new partner Karen Thompson as they worked together to uncover why helper robots were mysteriously turning on their owners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Charles Luther killed his fellow researchers and tried to sell their technology that allows robots to thermographically identify humans to the highest bidder on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack confessed to Karen that he'd been afraid of heights his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack blamed himself for the deaths of six people who were murdered by a suspect who had escaped from Jack during a police pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where manual labor, like that in farming and construction, had been automated, and people conversed about the merits and demerits of this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was raising his young son Bobby as a single father, although not too much was made of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smart ammunition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw smart bullets that acted as miniature heat seeking missiles capable of locking onto a human target's unique heat signature, pursuing them wherever they run, even around corners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychic detective", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police chief twisted Jack's arm into consulting a psychic in an effort to get a lead on the whereabout of Dr. Charles Luther.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack, Karen, and Jackie took a ride in a robot driven police cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had to overcome his life-long fear of heights when Dr. Charles Luther's forced him to come to the site of an unfinished skyscraper to rescue Bobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Jack and Karen sharing a passionate kiss and agreeing to have dinner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starman (1984)", "title": "Starman", "date": "1984-12-14", "description": "An alien comes to Earth in response to the invitation found on the gold phonograph record installed on the Voyager 2 space probe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to Earth in response to an invitation it found in the Voyager 2 space probe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny was far from over her deceased husband Scott. She was watching 8mm films of them together at the start of the film. Then she spent the rest of the film reliving memories of him in the company of the Starman who had assumed Scott's appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny was struggling to get over the loss of her husband Scott, who had died in an accident a year prior. It didn't help matters when a friendly, incorporeal alien took on Scott's appearance and befriend her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Starman struggling to understand such basic human customs as money, eating desert after one's meal, and the hunting of animals for food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny and the Starman were pursued by the feds from Wisconsin all the way to Arizona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A variety of comical misunderstandings occurred during the course of Starman trying to learn English. In general, he struggled with communicating with people using human languages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny and the Starman fell in love on the road to Arizona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The U.S. government shot down the alien's flying saucer and subsequently recovered it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien appeared as a floating ball of blue light at first, but it quickly took on human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Starman (a.k.a. Scott Hayden) revived a hunter's dead dear to life and let it run off into the woods. The hunter was not happy to say the least. He likewise healed Jenny of critical injuries sustained in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hunter swore to get vengeance on the Starman for letting his dear free.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny confided in the Starman that she and Scott had wanted to have a baby but they were unable on account that she was infertile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Starman controlled a slot machine to come up all bars for a modest payout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman let Jenny and the Starman leave police custody even though he had no authority to do so and it would likely cost him his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Starman bid an emotional farewell to Jenny before joining his alien friends on their ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Return of Godzilla (1984)", "title": "The Return of Godzilla", "date": "1984-12-15", "description": "The film serves as both a sequel to the original 1954 film and a reboot of the franchise that ignores the events of every Shōwa era film aside from the original Godzilla, placing itself in line with the darker tone and themes of the original film and returning Godzilla to his destructive, antagonistic roots. It is the 16th film in the Godzilla franchise, and is the first film in the franchise's Heisei period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Godzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film explored a diplomatic conflict between the Japanese Prime Minister and his cabinet and the Soviets and the Americans. The Soviets and the Americans insisted on launching a nuclear attack on Godzilla, but the Japanese Prime Minister opposed such a drastic measure. In the end, we saw how things can get out of control with nuclear weapons, when the Soviets accidentally shot a nuclear warhead from orbit at the center of Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla returned to terrorize Japan following a 30 year absence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla rampaged through Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hiroshi Okumura and his younger sister Naoko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on the Japanese Prime Minister walking a diplomatic tightrope when the Soviet and American envoys and declared that nuclear weapons must be used on Godzilla, even if it were to attack the Japanese mainland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Soviets accidentally shot a nuclear warhead from a satellite in orbit around Earth at Tokyo. It was revealed that both the Soviet Union and the United States maintained nuclear warheads stationed in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prime Minister initially put a gag order to prevent news of Godzilla reappearance from reaching to public out of concern that a mass panic would ensue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prime Minister initially put a gag order to prevent news of Godzilla reappearance from reaching to public out of concern that a mass panic would ensue. Later we saw the people of Tokyo panic to flee the city before the arrival of Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goro Maki put himself in peril to report on Godzilla, and he objected to the government initially putting a gag order on publishing reports about the monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist warned that people would be made sick from radioactive fallout should a nuclear strike be made on Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naoko expressed her fear that she was going to die in the nuclear blast to Maki.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Contract (1985)", "title": "Contract", "date": "1985", "description": "Contract (Russian: Контракт) is a 1985 Soviet/Russian animation based on the short science fiction story Company Store (1958) by Robert Silverberg. In the film, a man is sent by a shady company to colonize a peculiar planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_(1985_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lone space colonist was sent to a strange planet by a company known as \"The Firm\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Firm scammed the space colonist into being contractually obligated to pay huge shipping costs for such unessentials as shaving razors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colonist befriended the cash register shaped trading robot QBF-41.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cash register shaped trading robot QBF-41", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Survival Earth (1985)", "title": "Survival Earth", "date": "1985", "description": "Three people struggle to survive in the aftermath of a total collapse of civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192649/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 1996 - ten years after a total economic collapse resulted in the end of civilization as we know it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "John, Miranda, and Simon fished, hunted, and fought off gun toting bands of \"vandals\", all in an effort to survive in a world where civilization had recently collapsed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Miranda were two lovers in a post-total economic collapse world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A 1986 economic collapse brought about the fall of civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon made a number of statements to the effect that he didn't need companionship, especially female companionship, and that he enjoyed his survivalist existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon spoke of a meltdown at the Pickering nuclear power plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Simon longed for the good old days before the total economic collapse of 1986.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toronto was filled with mutants according to Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda was unable to remember anything from the time before the fall of civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John often read from a book of poetry by W. B. Yeats that he managed to hang on to after the fall of civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that John's father had cloned him, and, moreover, the John clone was roving around with a band of gun toting \"vandals\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: OBi OBa: The End of Civilization (1985)", "title": "O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization", "date": "1985-01-28", "description": "The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where humans live in an isolated vault which is falling apart. Their only grain of hope lies in a vessel known as The Ark which is said to be on its way to rescue them; however the existence of The Ark is a myth planted by the main character, whose profession is to ensure that the morale is maintained.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bi_O-Ba:_The_End_of_Civilization" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Soft struggled with his job of having to circulate a myth among the survivors of a nuclear holocaust, who were living inside a crumbling dome, that a vessel known as The Ark was on its way to rescue them. The leadership used the myth as a way to keep up morale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story unfolds in a post-apocalyptic future where a small groups of people live in an isolated vault which is falling apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soft and Gea were lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "The survivors of a nuclear holocaust, who were living in a crumbling dome, found hope in a myth promulgated by the leadership that said a vessel known as The Ark was coming to rescue them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening narration it is explained how there was a catastrophic nuclear war, and that is the reason why everyone is living under a crumbling dome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old man was humuliated when made to bark like a dog to be given food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that radiation levels outside the crumbling dome were too high for people to survive in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gea confided in her lover Soft that she longed to have children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starcrossed (1985)", "title": "Starcrossed", "date": "1985-01-31", "description": "An escaped alien finds love while hiding out on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090066/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was an escaped alien who was hiding out on Earth with Joey's help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joey tutored the escaped alien Mary in the ways of human culture, including everything from eating habits to lovemaking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary the Alien was being pursued by both enemy aliens and federal agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary the Alien and her people had been deprived of their freedom by their conquerers. Mary escaped to Earth but ultimately decided to return to her world to fight for the freedom of her people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary the Alien and Joey fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary the Alien and Joey's love was not to be as Mary had to go back to her planet to lead the fight for her people's freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary the Alien made a bunch of pool balls move into their pockets by the simple expedient of concentrating on them one by one. This was the first of various telekinetic feats performed by Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary the Alien telepathically transmitted knowledge to Joey's mind that she was being held by federal agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary the Alien and Joey agreed that they'd never give up hope of seeing one another again before parting ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary the Alien left in a strange one-person spaceship built out of neon lights with no walls.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x01", "title": "The Three Little Pigs", "date": "1985-02-12", "description": "The mother of three little pigs sends her sons out into the world to find their fortune in their own individual ways and The Big Bad Wolf's nagging wife sends him out to get dinner.\n\nStarring Billy Crystal as Larry Pig, Jeff Goldblum as Buck Wolf, Valerie Perrine as Tina, Doris Roberts as Mother Pig, Fred Willard as Paul Pig, and Stephen Furst as Peter Pig. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss and directed by Howard Storm.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of being hardworking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Larry's hard work and dedication paid off when the brick house he built withstood a huffing and puffing wolf's efforts to blow it down. This is in contrast to his two corner cutting brothers, whose ill-constructed houses were easily blown down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In this rendition of the story, one pig exhorted his siblings to pool their resources and work together. That offer was refused, but after some hard earned lesson it was teamwork that saved the day after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three male pig siblings were arguing about this and that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul made every effort to woo his love interest, Tina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Paul choose the easy way out by building ill-constructed houses, while Larry by contrast took the time and effort to build his house of out brick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Larry was was careful with his money, in contrast with his two brothers, both of whom squandered their inheritances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three pig brothers faced the mutual danger of Big Bad Wolf and in the end they had to cooperate to foist this pig craving antagonist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mother Pig cast her three quarrelsome sons out into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mother Pig told her three young sons to skedaddle and move out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tina was only interested in a pig well enough off to have a house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck Wolf was yelled at by a cave dwelling, pig craving, spouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul flirted shamelessly with Tina at the market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry was into playing the oboe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck Wolf's cave dwelling wife interrupted his workout routine, by nagging him to bring home a pig to cook for the upcoming dinner with the coyote family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry shrewdly negotiated down the price of some old bricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Paul cowered under the bed sheets in terror when Buck Wolf came knocking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was particularly vain about his look, and spoke of watching \"the old waist line\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was driven by a desire to become the richest pig in the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brazil (1985)", "title": "Brazil", "date": "1985-02-20", "description": "The film centers on Sam Lowry, a man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained machines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bureaucratic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in a dystopian, hyper-bureaucratic future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in a dystopian, hyper-bureaucratic future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. Kafkaesque institution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sam Lowry, a low-level government employee, was faced with having to navigating a complex government bureaucracy in order to first correct a false arrest, and the to find the girl of his dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam frequently daydreamed of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The underground resistance movement was brand as a terrorist organization by the totalitarian state that it was fighting to undermine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and Jill fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Consumers for Christ", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archibald and Veronica Buttle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Lowry and his domineering mother Ida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's boss at the Ministry of Information covered up his own ineptness by depending on Sam for everything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's mother Ida went through a series of cosmetic surgeries in an effort to turn back the clock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Helpmann was confined to a wheelchair and had to get Sam to stand him up to pee.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Creature (1985)", "title": "Creature", "date": "1985-03", "description": "The crew of a spaceship encounter an ancient alien creature on Saturn's moon Titan. The film is also known as The Titan Find and Titan Find.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_(1985_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the Shenandoah encountered a murderous alien creature on Saturn's moon Titan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on Saturn's moon Titan where a strange alien creature was controlling dead bodies, seemingly in an effort to murder everyone aboard the Shenandoah which had landed there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the rotating wheel space station Condor in orbit about the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Mike Davison led a mission to Saturn's moon Titan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew flew in a futuristic spaceship from Earth all the way to Saturn's moon Titan where they made a landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Shenandoah crew members wore futuristic spacesuit-like suits that enabled them to operate in the extreme environment of Saturn's moon Titan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x02", "title": "The Snow Queen", "date": "1985-03-11", "description": "A young girl named Gerda begins a perilous journey to rescue her best friend named Kay after he is taken by the fabled Snow Queen.\n\nStarring Melissa Gilbert as Gerda, Lance Kerwin as Kay, Lee Remick as the Snow Queen, Lauren Hutton as the Lady of Summer, Linda Manz as the Robber Girl, and David Hemmings as the voice of the Reindeer. Narrated by Shelley Duvall. Written by Maryedith Burrell. Directed by Peter Medak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a celebration of Gerda and Kay's mutually self-professed best friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gerda was distressed when her boyfriend Kay got kidnapped by the Snow Queen and set off on an arduous quest to retrieve him. This is the heart of the tale. Greta encountered a talking pine tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personification of a concept", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Snow Queen was the personification of winter. Her sister, the Lady of Summer, also factored into the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay interacted with his loving grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to get away from it all", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kay was delighted to be kidnapped and get away from his pesky friends and other onerous relations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator spelled out that the Lady of Summer was keeping Greta from leaving because she wanted to have a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greta trembled in fear of the Snow Queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spacefaring wicked goblin shattered a mirror above Gerda and Kay's house in order to sow mischief. The Snow Queen kidnapped Kay. The Lady of Summer took measures to prevent Gerda from leaving her aestival abode.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Morons from Outer Space (1985)", "title": "Morons from Outer Space", "date": "1985-03-29", "description": "Four utterly mundane, humanoid aliens become stranded on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morons_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four humanoid aliens became instant celebrities after crash-landing in the UK in spite of the fact that they were altogether mundane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three humanoid aliens reveled in their new lives as celebrities on Earth, and even went so far as to deny the existence of a fourth alien out of concern that knowledge of this fact would detract from their popularity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space alien married couple Desmond and Sandra Brock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three mundane humanoid aliens crash-landed their junky spaceship on a motorway somewhere in the UK.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three mundane humanoid aliens traveled to Earth from some faraway planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mass panic erupted at a dinner party when the people there realized that aliens had crash-landed in the vicinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernard was committed to a stereotypical loony bin after he kept insisting that he was a space alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernard effected a daring escape from the insane asylum where he was being kept against his will.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected8x01", "title": "People Don't Do Such Things", "date": "1985-03-30", "description": "Reeve Baker is a successful romantic novelist. Gwen, the wife of a friend, falls for Baker and, despite her husband's warnings, carries on with the relationship.\n\nDirected by: Gordon Hessler. Story by: Ruth Rendell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reeve came between Terrance and his wife Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reeve regaled the Terrence's about his many past romances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various women with Reeve, especially Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reeve came between Terrance and his wife Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baker dumped the young girl like a sack of potatoes, then Gwen, then Gwen dumped Terrance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terrence uncovered that Gwen had been carrying on an affair with Reeve for a few months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gwen left her boring, bean counter husband Terrence for bad boy written Reeve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gwen expressed a desire to do something exciting and not be so stuffy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reeve had a very cruel approach to dumping his partners. In particular, he cold heartedly dumped his girlfriend Melania at the dinner table in front of Terrence and Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reeve befriended his accountant Terrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The legal gray zone of tax-avoidance was broached.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gwen had explosive denial when it became apparent that Reeve tried to dump her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrance killed his two-timing wife in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrance contrived to frame Reeve for the murder of Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bean counter Terence told Gwen that prudent people try to minimize risk, but Gwen evidently felt bored with that way of life and risked to get involved with the playboy writer Reeve.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Galaxy Invader (1985)", "title": "The Galaxy Invader", "date": "1985-04", "description": "An alien is pursued by some locals of a rural community after its spaceship crash-lands in the area.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Invader" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A green alien crash-landed in the vicinity of a rural community and was pursued by some of the locals there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Montague's exemplified a stereotypical unsophisticated rural family: simple folk, spoke in a rural dialect, had a slovenly drunk for a father, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high school teacher Dr. William Tracy had an interest in UFOs and helped his former student David get to the bottom of David's UFO sighting, which was dismissed in the press as a meteor - in fact it was a crashed alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band of locals led by the rogue Frank Custer plotted to get filthy rich by capturing the alien and selling it to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethel resented her drunken, domineering husband Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was badgering her mother to hurry up with the coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol loathed her drunken, domineering father Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Montague and his adult, live at home son J.J. Montague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.J. and Carol Montague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Montague family was totally dysfunctional in large part because the father Joe was an angry, domineering drunk of a man. Note that various family members commented about his heavy drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe so disapproved of his 25 year old daughter Carol dating Michael that he chased her around with a gun over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken Joe tried to force himself upon Vicky to her great dismay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985)", "title": "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future", "date": "1985-04-04", "description": "The film introduces Edison Carter, a television reporter trying to expose corruption and greed. Carter discovers that his employer, Network 23, has created a new form of subliminal advertising (called \"blipverts\") that can be fatal to certain viewers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom:_20_Minutes_into_the_Future" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The contents of Edison's mind were uploaded to a computer and the entity the resulted became the television star Max Headroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The contents of Edison's mind were uploaded to a computer and the entity the resulted became the television star Max Headroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Network 23 television network was using a new form of subliminal advertising, called blibverts, that stopped channel surfing to increasing their ratings, but the ads caused some people to spontaneously explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a dark and dreary future where everything is ruined and destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The television reporter Edison and his new partner Theora were working on exposing Network 23 for using a new form of subliminal advertising that made some people explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Network 23 television network was using a new form of subliminal advertising, called blibverts, that stopped channel surfing to increasing their ratings, but the ads caused some people to spontaneously explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theora hacked into the Network 23 computer system in order to help get Edison access to the Network 23 corporate headquarters among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blank Reg wanted to smash the hand of Edison's comatose body for no good reason.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x03", "title": "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", "date": "1985-04-05", "description": "Told entirely in the original poem as a bedtime story to a young boy in 1840 England, the Mayor, Town Council and the whole German town of Hamelin in the year 1376 learns the heavy price of going back on their promise to the magical Pied Piper who helped rid their village of rats.\n\nStarring and narrated by Eric Idle. Written and directed by Nicholas Meyer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of keeping one's promises", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The town counselor learned this valuable lesson when the Pied Piper avenged the council's reneging on paying him the 1,000 guilders he was owed by abducting most all of the town's children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The town of Hamelin was suffering from a terrible rat infestation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Pied Piper avenged the town counselor reneging on their agreement to pay him 1,000 guilders by taking away most all of their children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main story is told to a young boy who would rather not be going to bed. The Pied Piper conversed with a young lad and promised him protection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story was that the townspeople were punished by having their children taken away from them. The townspeople were distressed in the wake of the Pied Piper having made off with their children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albeit in jocular spirit, the story was said to be set in England 1376.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town counselor were exceedingly corrupt. At one point they merrily voted to give themselves a very much undeserved raise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The only child spared was a lame boy who could not dance speedily enough into the magic portal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alchemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alric the Alchemist had failed to help with the infestation, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Pied Piper took the children through a magic portal in the mountain side.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x01", "title": "Marionettes, Inc.", "date": "1985-05-21", "description": "An overworked suburbanite husband uses a robot duplicate to allow himself to have fun while his overbearing wife is left none the wiser.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Mr. Brailing purchasing an android replica of himself to keep his mother hen of a wife occupied while he enjoyed the good life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Mr. Brailing purchasing an android replica of himself to keep his mother hen of a wife occupied while he enjoyed the good life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Mr. Brailing purchasing an android replica of himself to keep his mother hen of a wife occupied while he enjoyed the good life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Mr. Brailing purchasing an android replica of himself to keep his mother hen of a wife occupied while he enjoyed the good life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that an android clone, which would liberate you from domestic drudgery, would cost all of your life's savings. The fact that three different characters were tempted by the offer illustrates that there are arguably pleasures in life worth more than your financial security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand denouement of the story is that Mr. Brailing confronted his own android clone about usurping his life, but was defeated and possibly killed by it. The clone had concluded that Mr. Brailing was crude, unfeeling, and wholly undeserving of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Marionettes company practically stalked Mr. Brailing in order to make him purchase a clone. Mr. Brailing confronted them about it and probed into their methods, before he became obsessed with buying the clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Brailing urged his friend from the bar to follow in his example by splurging on an android duplicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Mr. Brailing's android replica killing him and assuming his identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Brailing told a friend from the bar about the androids, and that they had peculiar sounding mechanical hearts. Intrigued, the friend went home to mull it over only to find that his bothersome wife was, in fact, an android herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ran (1985)", "title": "Ran", "date": "1985-05-31", "description": "Ran (乱, transl. \"chaos\" or \"turmoil\") is a 1985 epic period drama film directed, edited and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ran_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-akira-kurosawa.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hidetora and his three sons: Taro, Jiro, Saburo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hidetora ceded his authority to his eldest son and suffered the consequences", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw two sons, Taro and Jiro, who conspicuously lacked in love for their father and one who was loving, Saburo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Saburo was loyal to his father, not so the other two sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Taro and Jiro betrayed their father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Taro and Jiro schemed to get power, then Taro and Kaede showed even more powerlust by demanding a formal pledge from Hidetora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless character vs. selfish character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Saburo was unselfish and loyal to his father, in complete contrast to his two selfish brothers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tango spelled out the theme of general human wickedness and warmongering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hidetora disapproved of each of his sons in turn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hidetora learned that his love for his two eldest sons was misplaced, and that the younger was in fact more worthy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "lord Hidetora and the fool Kyoami, among other loyal subjects", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "one of the underlings, Tango, was loyal to Saburo and Hidetaro and joined in Saburo's exile - Saburo's men showed unwavering loyalty as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "there are many exceptionally cruel acts and characters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taro, Jiro, and Saburo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaede was particularly ruthless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taro and Kaede; Jiro and wife he killed; Jiro and Kaede", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hidetora spent much of the story being stark raving mad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "while mad and in exile, Hidetora came to feel shame about his past ruthlessness towards various people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaede's motive was revealed as vengeance at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "an arranged marriage was discussed in the bginning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saburo accused his father of being senile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saburo was said to have shown remarkable courage in speaking against his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the two older sons flattered their father shamelessly and he sucked it up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw gruesome images of a battlefield during the attack on Hidetaro in the third castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hidetora went gradually mad as the extent of his sons' disloyalty became apparent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurogane disliked the order to kill Jiro's wife for him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tsurumaru was blinded long ago by Hidetaro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hidetora died of grief shortly after his youngest son, Saburo, was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jiro had his brother Taro killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jiro and Taro both conspired to kill their father who escaped his fate by going mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hidetaro and Saburo were reunited to mutual delight, albeit briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x02", "title": "The Playground", "date": "1985-06-04", "description": "A father haunted by the constant bullying he suffered in his childhood takes his son to a local playground, only to find that the ghosts of his past now reside in the playground.\n\nDirected by: William Fruet. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles confronted his repressed memories of a traumatic childhood when he was serially bullied. In a supernatural twist, he somehow ended up trading bodies with his own son and was forced to experience a bullying incident anew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns single father Charles Underhill trying to raise his son, Steve, responsibly while also confronting ghosts from his own childhood when he was regularly bullied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns single father Charles Underhill trying to raise his son, Steve, responsibly while also confronting ghosts from his own childhood when he was regularly bullied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became clear that Charles had suffered a repressed but lifelong trauma from being regularly bullied as a kid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Charles confronting his childhood bully, Ralph. The end result, alas, was Charles suffering the bullying all over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was pathologically apprehensive about letting his young son go to play at the local playground, fearing the boy would endure the same torment from bullies that Charles endured in his own youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' sister, Carol, spelled out that he could not be his son's only friend but that the son needed to learn how to be with other children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles's sister, Carol, was helping to raise his young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was helping to raise her young nephew, Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' pinned his bullying problem in part on his parents being at work leaving him without the home as a safe heaven to escape his tormentors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After going down a spiraling slide together, Charles and his son Steve somehow ended up inhabiting each other's bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a poignant scene, Charles gazed longingly at dually framed photos showing his young son and his dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: DARYL (1985)", "title": "D.A.R.Y.L.", "date": "1985-06-14", "description": "A powerful artificial intelligence embodied in the body of a little android boy learns how to navigate in a human world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.A.R.Y.L." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the android boy Daryl as he is taken in by foster parents and integrates into the local community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy and Joyce Richardson accepted Daryl into their home as a foster child. Turtle's parents Howie and Sherie Lee Fox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daryl quickly became the best friends with a boy next door named Turtle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce loved her foster child Daryl as her own. Sherie Lee and her young son Turtle were featured in a minor way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy loved his foster child Daryl as her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the prototype android boy Daryl navigate in and adapt to the human world he found himself in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jeffrey Stewart created the android boy Daryl and although he initially considered the boy to be a base machine, he ultimately helped Daryl reunite with his foster parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android boy Daryl lived out a fulfilling childhood with his foster parents until his creators came to take him away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl was thought to have amnesia but it turned out that he was an experimental android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Turtle enjoyed tormenting his older, teenage sister Elaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day at school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl was surprisingly composed for his first day at a new school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl's foster father Andy used Daryl as his \"secret weapon\" on the little league team he was coaching.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy, who was coaching a little league team, was in a heated competition with the coach of a rival team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood music lessons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl's foster mother Joyce was teaching piano lessons to kids in her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl manipulated an ATM to put over $1 million in Andy's bank account, and later hacked into a military computer system to fool his pursuers into thinking the base was on fire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stuff (1985)", "title": "The Stuff", "date": "1985-06-14", "description": "A strange substance, marketed as \"The Stuff,\" is being sold to the general public in containers like ice cream. It is marketed as having no calories and as being sweet, creamy, and filling. The Stuff quickly becomes a nationwide craze and drastically hurts the sales of ice cream.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stuff" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One gathers that the point of the film was to satirized the overconsumption of junk foods in American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A corporation was marketing an addictively delicious ice cream-like dessert that had the minor problem that it was a living organism that turns people into bizarre zombie-like creatures, before consuming them from the inside out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An organism that resembled shaving cream, only more coagulated, was marketed by a nefarious conglomerate as an ice cream-like dessert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a tongue in cheek depicting of what it might be like for rival corporations to compete for dominance in a market. In this case, suffering ice cream and chocolate chip firms were trying to undermine The Stuff Company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government regulation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stuff Company managed to get \"The Stuff\" FDA approved by getting the regulators addicted to the substance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason's parents were trying to force him to consume \"The Stuff\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason's older brother tried to force him to consume some of \"The Stuff\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and his \"The Stuff\" addicted father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and his \"The Stuff\" addicted mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FDA regulator Mr. Vickers was feeding The Stuff to his dog Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason got grounded for life after he went on a rampage in a supermarket, destroying all smashing up all \"The Stuff\" he could find.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After boasting the the United States had never lost a war, Colonel Spears was forced to correct himself by acknowledging that they had lost this war at home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corporate executive who was responsible for selling \"The Stuff\", a substance that killed people, was forced in the end to consume it in large quantities himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cocoon (1985)", "title": "Cocoon", "date": "1985-06-21", "description": "A group of elderly people are rejuvenated by aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the residents of a retirement home who discover a swimming pool with rejuvenating powers in a house next door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story built up to the old people having to choose whether or not they wanted to live out their golden years on Earth or leave with the aliens and live virtually forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The enigmatic newcomers Walter and Kitty turned out to be aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed three friends who were living out their golden years at a retirement home near Tampa, Florida. The aliens Walter and Kitty came to Tampa to rescue their 20 friends would were stranded offshore in the sunken ruins of Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rejuvenation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the residents of a retirement home who discover a swimming pool with rejuvenating powers in a house next door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peaceful aliens from the planet Antarea who had set up an outpost on Earth on Atlantis 10,000 years ago came back to rescue 20 of their friends from the sunken city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben and Mary Luckett. Joe and Alma Finley. Bernie and Rose Lefkowitz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben and Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was very fond of his grandfather Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After some deliberation, the three old men decided to take a risk by sneaking into a neighborhood house to use the swimming pool while the occupants were away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty healed Jack's injured foot simply by rubbing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe had terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack peeped through a small aperture on Kitty while she was getting undressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernie rushed Rose to try to safe her after she stopped breathing but his efforts were unsuccessful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before leaving with the aliens, Ben took his grandson David fishing to tell him goodbye. Bernie decided to stay behind on Earth by parted ways with those who went away with the aliens on good terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the aliens came swooping down to Earth in a gigantic flying saucer to pick up their fellow aliens together with the old people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Kitty fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter pointedly grieved over the loss of two of his alien friends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lifeforce (1985)", "title": "Lifeforce", "date": "1985-06-21", "description": "The film portrays the events that unfold after a trio of humanoids in a state of suspended animation are brought to Earth after being discovered in the hold of an alien space ship by the crew of a European space shuttle. It is based on Colin Wilson's 1976 novel The Space Vampires.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the space shuttle Churchill unwittingly brought three space vampires back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Girl would drain the life force out of her victims, leaving their dessicated bodies behind. If she didn't periodically drain people's life forces, then she herself would soon become a dessicated husk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Girl would drain the life force out of her victims, leaving their dessicated bodies behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Space Girl would drain the life force out of her victims, leaving their dessicated bodies behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the vampires of legend had actually come from life force stealing space aliens. What's worse a space mission to Haley's comet brought back more of them to London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the vampires of legend had actually come from life force stealing space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Churchill was a space shuttle-like vessel the had artificial gravity owing to be able to travel at a constant acceleration of 1G. On their mission to Haley's comet the Churchill crew discovered a a 150-mile lone alien vessel hidden in the comet's coma. Later aliens placed that same vessel in geocentric orbit over London to collect people life forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of the Churchill space shuttle went on a mission to Haley's comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spacesuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts explored the alien vessel using special spacesuits equipped with thrusters to let them maneuver around in zero gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Churchill crew discovered three naked humanoid bodies in suspended animation within glass containers on the alien vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor put Col. Tom Carlsen under hypnosis in an effort to get information about the Space Girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Col. Tom Carlsen could see into the minds of people who had had their life forces partially drained by the Space Girl. It turned out that the aliens had read Col. Tom Carlsen's mind to find the image of his ideal women and the Space Girl was the embodiment of that image.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "NATO was on the verge of nuking London to prevent the spread of a strange form of vampirism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "London was overrun with life force thirsty zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londoners ran for their lives when a hoard of life force thirsty zombies descended on their city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Come and See (1985)", "title": "Come and See", "date": "1985-07", "description": "Come and See (Russian: Иди и смотри, Idi i smotri; Belarusian: Ідзі і глядзі, Idzi i hlyadzi) is a 1985 Belarusian film directed by Elem Klimov filmed in the Soviet Union, with a screenplay written by Klimov and Ales Adamovich based on the 1978 book I Am from the Fiery Village (original title: Я из огненной деревни, Ya iz ognennoj Derevni, 1977) by Adamovich et al.. The film stars Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova. Come and See is generally viewed as one of the most important anti-war movies ever made, and one of the great movies in history with the most historically accurate depictions of the crimes on the Eastern Front.patriotism", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_See" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the movie showed German aggressions and atrocities committed on poor people in Belarus, as well as some rather nasty behavior by Belorussian militants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nazis slaughtered innocent Belorussians, including children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw various Belorussian villagers under the iron fist of the brutal Wehrmacht.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flyora and Glasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flyora returned to find his family and entire village, slaughtered by Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Belorussian learned to hate their Teuton tormentors who, in turn, thought of the Slavs as vermin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "in particular,the events of the movie instilled in Flyora a burning desire to do to Germans what Germans had done to Belorussians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flyora was in the beginning eager to join up and fight for his country", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x03", "title": "The Crowd", "date": "1985-07-02", "description": "A car crash survivor investigates a mysterious and sinister crowd that congregates at the sites of severe automobile accidents.\n\nDirected by: Ralph L. Thomas. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spallner had a supportive friend in Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being gawked at by a creepy crowd, Spallner developed a single-minded determination to uncover the truth was with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spallner was determined to get to the bottom of why he and other automobile accident victims were approached by an ominous crowd of gawkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of the enigmatic crowd were strangely drawn to the sites of severe automobile, apparently accidents to gawk at the misfortune of victims therein for reasons that went unexplained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although the precise nature of the enigmatic crowd was not made clear in the story, the viewer must ponder whether they are some sort of undead beings, and that Morgan was about to join them after his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spallner received care from a physician during his hospitalization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Not paying attention to the road, Spallner wrecked his sports car when a mutt ran in front of it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Back to the Future (1985)", "title": "Back to the Future", "date": "1985-07-03", "description": "Teenager Marty McFly accidentally travels back in time to 1955, where he meets his future parents and becomes his mother's romantic interest.", "collections": [ "Collection: Back to the Future" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly used Doc Brown's time machine to travel back in time to 1955.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brown built a time machine out of a DeLorean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly got stuck in the year 1955.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "George McFly and Marty McFly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly's mother fell in love with him when he went back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grandfather paradox was topical as Marty went back in time and found that his mother had a crush on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric scientist and inventor Doc Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George McFly was bullied relentlessly by Biff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George McFly stood up to the bully Biff with the help of Marty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George McFly lacked confidence in his abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty McFly kissed his own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The DeLorean could fly when Doc Brown brought it back from 30 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The DeLorean was shown to run on fusion power when Doc came back from the future at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)", "title": "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", "date": "1985-07-10", "description": "Max is exiled into the desert by the ruthless ruler of Bartertown, Aunty Entity, and there encounters an isolated cargo cult centered on a crashed Boeing 747 and its deceased captain.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mad Max" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_Beyond_Thunderdome" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Auntie built Barter Town and made a draconian set of laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society consisting of only children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was rescued in the desert and taken to a community of children living in a gorge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some among a primitive community of oasis-dwelling children and teenagers were determined to find the prophesied \"Tomorrow-morrow Land\" – a land of milk and honey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was hired to fight Master Blaster to the death in the Thunderdome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max risked his life to ensure an airplane with children on it could escape from the Barter Town people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected8x02", "title": "In the Cards", "date": "1985-07-14", "description": "Madame Myra is a fortuneteller with a lack lustre career and dim future. A man shows up eventually who is eager to guide her to a better life, but he has an ulterior motive.\n\nDirected by: John Peyser. Story by: John Collier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Struggling fortune teller Madame Myra gave a card reading to Charlie. She saw in his future that he was going to inherit a lot of money and then die, so she duped him into marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and Myra married after she told his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie shoved Myra into a pit in the yard, beat her to death with a shovel, and presumably buried as part of a plan to get his hands on a large sum of money she had recently inherited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Myra received a large inheritance and got into a fight with her husband over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myra spoke briefly about what she'd do now that she was sort-of rich.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected8x03", "title": "Nothin' Short of Highway Robbery", "date": "1985-07-21", "description": "A husband and wife are embarking on a long drive through the desert. They stop off at a rundown gas station to be told that their car is in need of extensive repair. They agree to stay for a meal while the mechanic works on it.\n\nDirected by: John Peyser. Story by: Lawrence Block.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Married couple Newton and Marcie got themselves into trouble on a long drive through the desert. The gas station man Harry was married to the diner cook Ruby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcie felt Newton was being naive by putting his trust in the possibly crooked gas station attendant, but in the end we learned that Marcie felt Newton were rank and file criminals, and it was the gas station attendant who ought to have been careful of who he was dealing with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcie was convinced that the gas station attendant and his wife were conning her and Newton into paying for unnecessary repairs on their car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the married couple trust the gas station attendant who was recommending what seemed to be unnecessary repairs?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gas station attendant was conning his customers into getting unnecessary repairs on their cars and charging extra for gas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gas station attendant bit off more than he could chew when he tried to con a couple of hardened bank robbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Newton and Marcie were actually bank robbers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Murder in Space (1985)", "title": "Murder in Space", "date": "1985-07-28", "description": "The crew of an international space mission are on the return leg from Mars to Earth when an explosion occurs on the craft Conestoga, shortly after a series of murders starts. The crew of the returning craft are forbidden to return until the murderer is caught.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is a murder mystery set aboard the spacecraft Conestoga on its return mission from Mars to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a futuristic spaceship on its return flight from Mars to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a futuristic spaceship on its return flight from Mars to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a multinational mission to Mars that included astronauts from the USA, the USSR, Canada, East Germany, France, the UK, and Italy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Olga was bitter toward Niel because he didn't return her affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy was cheating on his wife back on Earth first with his fellow crew member Olga ad Dominica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became apparent that David Tremayne and Kurt Steiner were secretly engaged in a homosexual relationship. Moreover Kurt was flirting with all the other women in the crew to cover up that he was gay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although married, Guy Sterling had hit on Pamela, impregnated Olga, and was carrying on an affair with Dominica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Irene Tremayne had a sexless marriage with her gay husband David Tremayne.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected8x04", "title": "Scrimshaw", "date": "1985-07-28", "description": "Brenda is a lonely alcoholic living in Florida. Her life is turned around when an old friend, Eric, turns up.\n\nDirected by: Dezsö Magyar. Story by: Brian Garfield.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda Lawson was a drunken, lonely wreck of a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brenda ran out of cash, got booted out from her hotel, and had to beg for a free drink at a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric considered himself to be a failure in life until he started breaking society's rules. Brenda went from being a promising academic to a lonely wreck of a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda Lawson was a drunken, lonely wreck of a woman. For example, she begged at the bar for a drink when she had no money to purchase one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric had a hard time getting a hold of good quality ivory for his carvings, because of laws protecting endangered species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda did not like being hit on at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw resignation in Brenda's eyes as she realized she had been drugged and was about to be murdered for her bones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric presumably killed Brenda (and other people) to make scrimshaw carvings from their bones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda was generous giving the bum her last pennies - others were remarkably mean to Brenda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenda thought an ivory carving on display in a gallery to was a lot like Pacific Eskimo tribal art, but the gallery curator snobbishly pointed out that she was mistaken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric took pride in his bone and ivory carving artwork.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Weird Science (1985)", "title": "Weird Science", "date": "1985-08-02", "description": "Two nerdy social outcasts create a beautiful virtual woman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two high school friends Gary and Wyatt created the virtual woman of their dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two high school friends created a very realistic, and beautiful virtual woman named Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful, virtual woman Lisa was everything the 15 year old boys Wyatt and Gary ever dreamed of and more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the outgoing and vivacious Lisa as she showed the socially awkward teens Wyatt and Gary how to have fun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wyatt and Gary found in Lisa the woman of their dreams. But in the end, Wyatt and Hilly fell in love, ad did Gary and Deb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtual woman Lisa could seemingly conjure into reality whatever she pleased, including a pink Cadillac, clothing, a cyborg biker, and any other number of things. She also made Gary's father forget he had a son, froze Wyatt's grandparents in time, and transformed Gary's older brother Chet into a grotesque creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Wyatt and Gary having their first experiences with women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa successfully completed her mission to help Gary and Wyatt grow out from their socially awkward shells, and become confident and socially well-adjusted young men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa successfully completed her mission to help Gary and Wyatt grow out from their socially awkward shells, and become confident and socially well-adjusted young men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt hacked into a government computer system in an effort to acquire the data he required to create the virtual woman of his dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film made light of Wyatt driving Lisa(s pink Cadillac after he's been underage drinking at a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt's big brother Chet was giving him a hard time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt and Gary were being picked n by two guys at their high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary's mother's jaw dropped when he introduced Lisa to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary's father's jaw dropped when he introduced Lisa to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary's parent's were beside themselves upon meeting Lisa. Wyatt's grand parents dropped by his house in the midst of a wild party. Wyatt's parents come home at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bullies Ian and Max both had girlfriends kicking around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt's grand parents dropped by his house in the midst of a wild party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt's grand parents dropped by his house in the midst of a wild party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear missile somehow appeared in Wyatt's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gang, which included among its members a cyborg biker, crashed Wyatt and Gary's house party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gang, which included among its members a mutant, crashed Wyatt and Gary's house party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Real Genius (1985)", "title": "Real Genius", "date": "1985-08-07", "description": "The film is set on the campus of Pacific Tech, a science and engineering university similar to Caltech. Chris Knight is a genius in his senior year working on a chemical laser. Mitch Taylor is a new student on campus who is paired up with Knight to work on the project.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Genius" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is follows a two young geniuses who are recruited to work on a secret CIA project to develop a space shuttle-mounted laser weapon to be used for committing illegal political assassinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is follows a two young geniuses who are recruited to work on a secret CIA project to develop a space shuttle-mounted laser weapon to be used for committing illegal political assassinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "We was Pacific Tech students Mitch and Chris partake in stereotypical college partying and other antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon being accepted to Pacific Tech, Mitch was assigned to room with the eccentric, and very messy genius Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young genius Chris took the even younger genius Mitch under his wing and they soon became fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris was a genius who constantly goofed off and didn't take anything seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch and Jordan fell for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a space shuttle style craft which was mounted with a giant laser gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch was recruited by Prof. Hathaway to enter Pacific Tech after he made a cool laser for his high school science project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch called his mother collect to tell her that he didn't like it at Pacific Tech anymore and that he wanted to come home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch briefly interacted with his father at the high school science fair, and then briefly again later over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch played a prank on Kent to get back at him for having recorded an embarrassing phone call between Mitch and his mother and then playing it aloud in the campus cafeteria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and David Decker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Hathaway was under heavy pressure from the CIA to finish his 5 Megawatt laser under an accelerated time frame.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: My Science Project (1985)", "title": "My Science Project", "date": "1985-08-09", "description": "A high school senior has two weeks to turn in his science project or else he won't be permitted to graduate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Science_Project" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harlan, a high school senior, had two weeks to turn in his science project or else he won't be permitted to graduate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harlan lived for cars, especially his red muscle car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harlan and his high school pal Vinnie had their hands full after Harlan brought an alien device back to their auto shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harlan and Ellen fell in passionately love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fellow high school seniors Harlan and Ellen fell in passionately love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was shown that the United States military recovered a crashed UFO in 1957.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan got dumped by his girl Crystal two weeks before prom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan walked in on his father fooling around with a women Harlan had never met before.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan and Vinnie found themselves two hours in the future after playing around in their auto shop with a strange alien device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan's father insisted that he make an effort to socialize with his new stepmother Dolores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan's father and Dolores tied the knot in Reno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan and Vinnie consulted a stereotypical nerd at their high school library after they discovered a strange alien device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan, Vinnie, and Sherman were somehow briefly transported back to a battle during this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan, Vinnie, and Sherman were somehow transported back to the time of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan, Vinnie, and Sherman were attacked by a T-Rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan's science teacher Dr. Roberts was an ex-hippie who was still enthusiastic about 60s music, anti-war rallies, and so on.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight (1985)", "title": "Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight", "date": "1985-08-10", "description": "The film centers around the novice crew of the laser sailing space schooner Starlight as they embark on a historic interstellar test flight.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin:_Photon_Sailer_Starlight" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "solar sail spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on there being a network of giant lasers in the inner solar system that enabled beamed sailing spaceships to fly about everywhere. In particular, the story follows the adventures of the novice crew of the laser sailing space schooner Starlight as they embark on a historic interstellar test flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the adventures of the novice crew of the laser sailing space schooner Starlight as they embark on a historic interstellar test flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Starlight crew made contact, actually found themselves in a confrontation, with the Odin planet cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with the Starlight crew having to battle the master computer of a machine world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young crew of the Starlight were enthusiastic about going on the first interstellar flight. And the story concluded with the Starlight captain encouraging his crew to go on and venture to the stars from his death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where travel about the inner solar system in solar sail spacecraft is a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where travel about the inner solar system has been colonized to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The laser sailing space schooner Starlight was equipped with artificial gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some thruster powered spacesuit wearing Starlight crewmen investigated a wrecked spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara, a woman of \"Nordic stock\", who the Starlight crew discovered floating unconscious nearby a wrecked ship, could initially only remember her name upon being revived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara had strange dreams about a planet named Odin that she knew must exist even though she'd never been to before and nobody had ever heard of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Norse god Odin was mentioned in the context of an ancient Norwegian mariner's folk song.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After some grumblings, the Starlight crew mutinied against their captain because they disagreed with his orders to continue on their planned mission, instead of taking the opportunity to possibly make contact with an alien civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old, conservative captain of the Starlight was contrasted with the members of his young, adventurous, risk embracing crew. This reached a head when the crew mutinied because they wanted to travel to a distant star in hopes of contacting an alien civilization when the captain insisted on continuing with their already decided mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that some of the people of the planet Odin had been converted into cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the computers used by the Odin people had improved themselves, become sentient, and ultimately came to rise up and rule over the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expanding sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Odin was once a populated planet that faced destruction by the radiation of its expanding sun, Canopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The master computer Belgel ruled over a machine world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Starlight crew defeated the sentient computer Belgel by collapsing it into a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Starlight crew wept as they watched their captain expire at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x05", "title": "Cinderella", "date": "1985-08-14", "description": "A beautiful and young girl named Cinderella recovering from the two deaths of her father and her mother finds herself reduced to a servant in her evil stepmother and her two evil stepsisters, her new stepfamily's household, but is given the surprise of her life when her fairy godmother appears to lend a helping hand.\n\nStarring Jennifer Beals as Cinderella, Matthew Broderick as Prince Henry, Jean Stapleton as the Fairy Godmother, Eve Arden as the Stepmother, James Noble as King Rupert III, and Edie McClurg and Jane Alden as the Stepsisters. Narrated by Joseph Maher. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Mark Cullingham.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fortitude", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cinderella being stoic in the face of hardship is widely seen to be a moral of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked stepmother stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cinderella lived under the domination of her cruel and spiteful stepmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cinderella was compelled to live as an ill-treated servant girl in the household of her cruel and spiteful stepmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cinderella was tormented by her two wicked stepsisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stepmother and her two daughters delighted in treating Cinderella like dirt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stepmother envied Cinderella for the \"incredible beauty\", \"sweet disposition\", and \"loving heart\" that Nature had given her and not the stepmother. Cinderella's two stepsisters acted jealously as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairy godmother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cinderella's fairy godmother intervened to put an end to her plight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fairy godmother magically transformed a pumpkin into a stagecoach, mice into fine horses, and a rat into a bucktoothed coachman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cinderella and Prince Henry fell head over heels in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stepmother was hoping to see one or the other of her two idiot daughters marry the prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to marry above one's station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stepmother reminded her two idiot daughters that the upcoming Royal Ball constituted their \"one chance to nab a prince\". In general, the stepmother was grooming her two daughters to nab a prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cinderella was saddened upon reading the news that her father had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Henry was somewhat taken aback by Arlene and Bertha's crude attempts to win his affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rat was magically transformed into a bucktoothed man. The stepmother and her two daughters were transformed into rabbits in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Henry found it \"refreshing\" that Cinderella did not recognize him, confiding in her that \"he got tired of everybody knowing who I am where ever I go\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Henry had a heart to heart talk with his father, the king, about women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One cruel stepsister painted the other in the first scene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: City Limits (1985)", "title": "City Limits", "date": "1985-09-01", "description": "A nefarious corporation tried to take power in the generation or two after a mysterious plague killed nearly all adults.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Limits_(1985_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which a plague had killed almost every adult, resulting in the destruction of civilization as we know it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lee and Wickings fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two rival gangs united to prevent the Sunya corporation from taking over the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two rival gangs united to prevent the Sunya corporation from taking over the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two rival gangs united to prevent the Sunya corporation from taking over the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story is that a mysterious plague had, a couple of generations ago, wiped out most of the adult population, leaving behind a world of orphaned children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x06", "title": "Puss in Boots", "date": "1985-09-09", "description": "A young man and son of a wind miller, journeys from rags-to-riches thanks to his talented talking cat, Puss in Boots.\n\nStarring Ben Vereen as Puss, Gregory Hines as Edgar, Alfre Woodard as Princess Lovinia, George Kirby as King Fortuitous, and Brock Peters as the Ogre. Narrated by Shelley Duvall. Written by Jules Feiffer. Directed by Robert Iscove.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "A destitute son of a miller, named Edgar, married a princess and got his own castle all thanks to his crafty talking cat, Puss in Boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the crafty anthropomorphic cat Puss in Boots as he takes it upon himself to make his lowly master rich beyond imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the crafty talking pet cat Puss in Boots as he takes it upon himself to make his lowly master rich beyond imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Puss in Boots conned everyone into thinking that his lowly master, Edgar, was a wealthy marquis. When he buried Edgar in a hole and told people robbers were responsible, the ruse crossed the line into con artistry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Puss in Boots was unwaveringly loyal to his master, Edgar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Puss in Boots built up such a reputation for Edgar that he became a noteworthy in the royal court even before setting his foot there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story conveys the notion that having the right appearance is a big part of being successful. In particular, Edgar's dressing and playing the part of what people expected of a marquis was instrumental to him being taken as an actual marquis. In a phrase, the story captures the idea that \"appearances are important\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with three brothers receiving their inheritances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar was left with nothing but a seemingly useless cat in the wake of his father's death, and lamented his misfortune in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was trying to marry off his daughter to the fictitious Marquis of Carabas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puss in Boots outwitted a powerful ogre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puss in Boots tricked the ogre into transforming himself into a defenseless mouse. The ogre had hitherto transformed himself into first a lion, and then an elephant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puss in Boots presided over Edgar and Princess Lovinia's wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar married Princess Lovinia and they lived happily ever after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar had to learn aristocratic manners in order to pose as a marquis and achieve success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noteworthy that Edgar decided to be kind to the seemingly useless cat, and unexpectedly had his beneficence repaid manifold times over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned a money deprived king and his court.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x01a", "title": "Shatterday", "date": "1985-09-27", "description": "A man accidentally dials his own phone number, which is answered by his alter ego.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: Harlan Ellison, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peter-A encountered what appeared to be himself on the phone, and later in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter-B reformed his various wicked ways and replaced Peter-A.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter-B forced Peter-A to face the wickedness of his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "We must think that the story was an allegory for Peter cleaning up his act and becoming a better person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter-A was a stereotypical self-centered corporate dirt bag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "egocentrism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter-A was a stereotypical self-centered corporate dirt bag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter-A gradually came to terms with morally superior Peter-B replacing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter-A came to see that he had lived a wicked life and ultimately accepted that his morally superior double Peter-B would replace him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn the Peter had an estranged mother and the Peter-B patched things up with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard about Peter and his complicated relationship with an ex-girlfriend who had left her husband for him, as well as a present girlfriend who was about ready to leave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mystical aura", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter-A revealed that he had recently had a Kirlian photo taken of his aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter-A conjectured that Peter-B was his astral projection.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x01b", "title": "A Little Peace and Quiet", "date": "1985-09-27", "description": "A housewife discovers a necklace that gives its owner the ability to freeze time.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time freeze", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Penny discovered a special necklace that gives its owner the ability to freeze time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penny was stressed out over her life of taking care of four children and a needy husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penny was taking care of four noisy, spoiled brats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penny care to spend her time attending stuff debates about whether nuclear weapons should be allowed to exist on Earth, and then a nuclear war was declared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A stressed out housewife discovered a necklace that allowed her to freeze time and in so doing get respites from her hectic life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the life of a stressed out housewife taking care of four unruly children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny's daughters pestered her with many requests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny's son scared her with a snake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Penny's young daughters quarreling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russell Jr. failed to scare his sisters with a rubber snake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw housewife Penny with unsympathetic husband Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny used the necklace to freeze time in a supermarket in order to get the last box of a certain cereal that another lady had dibs on. She subsequently took liberties with a young, hunk of a man outside of the supermarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a nuclear war erupting between the USA and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x01", "title": "Ghost Train", "date": "1985-09-29", "description": "The elderly \"Opa\" Clyde Globe disapproves of his son Fenton building a new country home on the site where he accidentally caused a train, the Highball Express, to derail 75 years ago. Opa believes that his destiny is to get on board the train when it comes back, telling his young grandson to be cautious as it will careen through the house.\n\nDirected by: Steven Spielberg. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Frank Deese.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Grandpa Clyde expressed a deeply held remorse for having, in his childhood long ago, fallen asleep on the train tracks of the Highball Express. This caused a catastrophic derailment in which, it was implied, people had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Grandpa Clyde, and his grandson whom he doted upon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brian, a young boy, dearly loved his grandpa. He became very sad when it became apparent his grandpa was not long for this world, but ultimately came to accept it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Clyde didn't like that his son, Fenton, had built a house just where Clyde had once long ago accidentally caused a train to derail. The grandson Brian interacted with Fenton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Clyde's immediate family members worried that he was becoming dotty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Highball Express was seemingly a metaphor-come-real for Grandpa Clyde dying and traveling into whatever afterlife there might be for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Clyde knew for certain what would happen and was aghast that no one would take him seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brian, a young boy, frolicked about and lapped up his grandpa's seemingly tall tales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grandson Brian interacted with his mother but briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A country doctor surreptitiously injected Grandpa Clyde with something to make him sleep soundly through the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that because Grandpa Clyde had caused the derailment of the Highball Express, it returned from the afterlife to fetch him when it was his time to die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Radioactive Dreams (1985)", "title": "Radioactive Dreams", "date": "1985-10", "description": "Two young men ventured out from the bomb shelter they'd spent their entire lives inside to pursue their mutual dream of becoming a private detective.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_Dreams" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story turned on Philip and Marlowe saving the world by preventing any among a handful of rival gangs from blowing up the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the year 2001 - 15 years after a world nuclear war. The story plot followed two aspiring detectives who had to prevent some rival gangs from obtaining two keys that would grant access to the last nuclear weapons. It turned out that each gang plotted to blow up the world using this last nuclear weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Marlowe left the bomb shelter they'd grown up inside and ventured out into a post-nuclear holocaust world in an effort to become private detectives, as was their mutual dream in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the fast friends Philip and Marlowe as they try to become private detectives in a post-nuclear holocaust world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Marlowe viewed everything through the lens of 1940s era private detectives on account that they'd grown up isolated in a bomb shelter filled with detectives stories from that time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set set in the year 2001 - 15 years after a nuclear holocaust. Civilization is totally collapsed, and mutants are roaming around at night attacking people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on different rival factions trying to obtain the last nuclear bomb on Earth. It turned out that each faction plotted to use the weapon to blow up the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the aspiring private investigators Philip and Marlowe hard at work trying to learn their craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was said to take place 15 years after this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutants roamed around at night attacking people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip and Marlowe sometimes wondered to each other about why their parents had locked them up in a bomb shelter and never returned. Rusty Mars confided in Philip that her dad had abandoned her and her mother when she was just a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip, who had been cooped up in a bomb shelter for virtually his entire life, had an abortive sexual encounter with Rusty Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rusty Mars betrayed Philip by deliberately leading him into the hands of cannibals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip was captured by a gang of cannibals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Philip and Marlowe's respective fathers ended up being the leaders of one of the rival gangs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zone Troopers (1985)", "title": "Zone Troopers", "date": "1985-10-01", "description": "In Italy in World War II, four members of an American military patrol discover an alien spaceship that has crash-landed behind enemy lines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Troopers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows four members of an American military patrol group in Italy during the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an American military patrol trapped behind enemy lines. They found themselves in two lengthy firefights, got ambushed, fell in the hands of the Nazis, and generally evaded enemy pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nazis recovered a crash-landed alien and held it captive in an SS camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two members of an American military patrol discovered a yellow alien spaceship, crashed behind enemy lines. The blue humanoid aliens came to Earth in a blue rocketship of some sort to rescue the crashed alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mittens decked Hitler with a right cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two American G.I.'s made a daring escape from an SS camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blue humanoid alien need to hold up a radio-like device to his ear in order to communicate in English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The American G.I.s' mourned the death of Joey, a fellow member of their tight knit patrol group.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x02a", "title": "Wordplay", "date": "1985-10-04", "description": "An overworked businessman thinks everyone is speaking gibberish.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if everyone suddenly started to communicate differently", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone around Bill began speaking in what was gibberish to him, although everyone else was able to communicate perfectly fine with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill's son was suddenly very sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bill suddenly not being able to speak the same language as his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Kathy's love for their son came to the fore when the son got sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Bill try to communicate with people when everyone around him suddenly started speaking in a way that he didn't understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill's son as a personality was only briefly featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill's son as a personality was only briefly featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill was stressed out over having to learn numerous new product names for his job.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x02b", "title": "Dreams for Sale", "date": "1985-10-04", "description": "At a picnic, a woman sees the same events repeating over and over again.\n\nDirected by: Tommy Lee Wallace. Story by: Joe Gannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman becoming trapped inside her own dream leaves us to ponder whether our own reality is in fact just some dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a woman in a dream on a picnic with her dream husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a woman in a dream on a picnic with her dream husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a woman hooked up to a machine that placed her inside her own dreams without her being able to distinguish the dream from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A woman was made to have a dream where she was on a picnic with her loving husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society where people were permitted to get away from life's drudgeries by taking breaks inside dream machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a society where people were permitted to get away from life's drudgeries by taking breaks inside dream machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two young identical twin girls were playing together at a country picnic.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x02c", "title": "Chameleon", "date": "1985-10-04", "description": "A group of NASA technicians encounter a strange alien life form.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange incorporeal entity of extraterrestrial origin with the ability to shapeshift at will hitched a ride down to Earth on the space shuttle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange incorporeal entity of extraterrestrial origin with the ability to shapeshift at will hitched a ride down to Earth on the space shuttle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gist of the exchange between scientists and alien was that they all wanted to do was to learn about things. The alien entity told the scientist that it came to Earth out of curiosity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e4x07", "title": "The Emperor's New Clothes", "date": "1985-10-05", "description": "An Emperor in 18th Century Europe with peacock tendencies becomes the target for two con men who use his self-indulgence against him.\n\nStarring Dick Shawn as the Emperor, Alan Arkin as Bo, Art Carney as Morty, Clive Revill as the Prime Minister, Georgia Brown as Maggie, and Barrie Ingham as the Finance Minister. Narrated by Timothy Dalton. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Peter Medak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vanity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The eponymous ruler was so vain about his attire that he levied exorbitant taxes to afford fancier outfits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being honest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It's argued that the moral is that we can't let pride keep us from speaking up when we know the truth. Indeed, the trouble in the story stemmed from people lying because they were afraid and embarrassed to admit they couldn't see the clothes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pluralistic ignorance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is that everyone in the kingdom, save for an innocent child, went along with that they could see the Emperor's clothes because they didn't want others to think they were too stupid to see them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-image", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emperor, and others, could not admit that they saw no fabric because they thought they would be exposed as too stupid to perceive it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emperor was clearly a sovereign who could order his subjects around as he pleased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Afraid to be thought stupid, courtiers convinced each other falsely that they could see the invisible cloth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emperor was surrounded by sycophants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The filthy rich Emperor and his affluent courtiers were variously compared and contrasted with the peasants of the kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was that the exceedingly vain emperor was taught a lesson of some sort or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two con men plotted, and executed, one last heist that involved scamming the emperor out of his kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two con men plotted to get rich by scamming a kingdom out of a large sum of money. One con man said to the other that they ought not be so greedy that they scam the Emperor for his whole kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the Emperor saw that he was wrong to squander the kingdom's wealth on fancy clothes, and resolved to direct state resources toward the material well-being of his subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morty spoke about his plans to go honest and start a duck breeding business of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tavern keeper spoke of how the next tax was likely to land her on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Emperor refused to see a representative of the \"Poverty Stricken and Leprosy Association\", complaining that all they wanted was \"food, work, and jobs\". After learning his lesson, the Emperor proclaimed there would be a free dinner for the needy in the town square.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie explained that it was the common people who were footing the bill for the Emperor's fancy clothes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x02", "title": "The Main Attraction", "date": "1985-10-06", "description": "High school jock Brad Bender, in the running for Prom King and feeling too cool for the nerdy and persistent Shirley Crater, is hit by a meteorite during a meteor shower, giving his body magnetic properties.\n\nDirected by: Matthew Robbins. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Brad Bird and Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a parody on the American high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "For high school jock Brad Bender, popularity was everything. The girls who doted on him thought so too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad and his buff hanger-on were stereotypical high school jocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shirley Crater was a stereotypical nerdy high school girl (big goofy glasses, braces, socially awkward, unpopular).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad was chased by Shirley who was besotted with him. After using all his guile and cunning to evade her amorous advances, through an ironic twist of fate, both became struck by separate meteors which turned them magnetic. When they then met again they quite literally became attracted to one another, much to Brad's horror and Shirley's delight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad used all his guile and cunning to evade Shirley's amorous advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shirley was besotted with Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad used all his guile and cunning to evade Shirley's amorous advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brad's life was turned upside down when a meteor strike left him magnetized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad became hounded by scientist who, he presumed, wanted to perform experiments on him and sodomize him with a sciensy-looking probe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad kissed his own reflection in the mirror before uttering \"you dog\" to himself with marked satisfaction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bender brought her son, Brad, breakfast in bed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x03a", "title": "Healer", "date": "1985-10-11", "description": "A cat burglar profits from the healing powers of an Indian artifact he stole.\n\nDirected by: Sigmund Neufeld. Story by: Michael Bryant.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what Jackie did after he acquired a stone that gave him the power to heal the sick and injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic healing object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie pilfered a stone with that could be used to heal the sick and injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie and Harry were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry let Jackie die so that Harry could keep all the money for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry proved to be a selfish jerk. He didn't even bother to try and save his friend Jackie's life using the healing stone, after having used Jackie to make money from using it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry cared only about profiting from the healing stone in contrast to Jackie who actually took pleasure in healing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith healing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie became a faith healer on a TV ministry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie learned that caring about other people was an end in and of itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry described his experiences after Jackie brought him back from the brink of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stoic Native American guy came to return the healing stone to its people, teaching Jackie a lesson in selflessness in the process.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x03b", "title": "Children's Zoo", "date": "1985-10-11", "description": "A girl brings her bickering parents to the Children's Zoo.\n\nDirected by: Robert Downey. Story by: Chris Hubbell & Gerrit Graham.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a soon-to-be-divorced couple arguing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a mother and her roughly 4 year old girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a mother and her roughly 4 year old girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Debby fed up with her parents yelling and arguing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Debby traded in her bad parents for better ones at the Children's Zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a zoo where married couples were being held in captivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a soon-to-be-divorced couple arguing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a zoo where married couples were being held in captivity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x03c", "title": "Kentucky Rye", "date": "1985-10-11", "description": "An alcoholic is offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy a roadside inn called the Kentucky Rye for a very low price.\n\nDirected by: John Hancock. Story by: Richard Krzemien & Chip Duncan.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob seems to have received some sort of ironic afterlife punishment for his sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob drank, drove, and killed a man on the road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob's wife's reaction on the pay phone at the bar coupled with the reactions of his co-workers indicated that his binge drinking was not a one-off occurrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man, who killed himself along with another man while drunk at the wheel, suffered an ironic punishment in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob seemed possibly ashamed once he actually understood what he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob seemed possibly ashamed once he actually understood what he had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: ReAnimator (1985)", "title": "Re-Animator", "date": "1985-10-18", "description": "The medical student Herbert West invents a reagent which can re-animate deceased bodies. He and his classmate Dan Cain begin to test the serum on dead human bodies, and conflict with Dr. Carl Hill, who is infatuated with Cain's fiancée and wants to claim the invention as his own. It is loosely based on the 1922 H. P. Lovecraft serial novelette \"Herbert West–Reanimator\". It is the first installment in the Re-Animator film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: ReAnimator Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Animator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The medical student Herbert West invented a reagent that he and his classmate Dan Cain used to revive long dead bodies to life, but with zombie-like side effects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The medical student Herbert West was obsessed with reanimating dead bodies using his newly invented reagent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the dead body reviving antics of two classmates at Miskatonic University in the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan and Megan were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan so loved his fiancée Megan that he kissed her dead body's lips and injected it with a reanimating reagent with zombie-like side effects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert moved into to Dan's apartment and the two lived as roommates to Dan's fiancée's minor annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hill was unhealthily infatuated with Cain's fiancée, Megan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert West invented an injectable reagent that brings corpses back to life, but in a frenetic and violent zombie-like state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set at a medical university, and we saw various doctors and medical students practicing their craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hill attempted to blackmail Herbert West into surrendering his corpse reviving reagent and notes, hoping to take credit for West's discovery, becoming famous in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean Alan Halsey strongly disapproved of his daughter Megan dating Dan Cain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean Alan Halsey strongly disapproved of his daughter Megan dating Dan Cain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl lobotomized the Dean Alan Halsey zombie along with a number of corpses that he'd reanimated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert, Dan, and Megan were attacked by Dr. Carl's gang of lobotomized zombies toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hill was pointedly accused of having plagiarized Dr. Hans Gruber's work. Dr. Carl Hill tried to steal the credit for the corpse reanimating serum that Herbert had invented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plagiarism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hill was pointedly accused of having plagiarized Dr. Hans Gruber's work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert West was conducting mad scientist type experiments about reviving the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Hill's head (and headless body) was revived after Herbert had severed it from its body with a shovel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Quiet Earth (1985)", "title": "The Quiet Earth", "date": "1985-10-18", "description": "The film follows three survivors of a cataclysmic disaster. It is loosely based on the 1981 science fiction novel of the same name by Craig Harrison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Earth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zac Hobson woke up one summer morning to discover that everyone else had disappeared in some kind of catastrophe. He later met two other survivors, named Joanne and Api, who had gone through the same experience as himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malfunction in the Delenco consortium's \"Project Flashlight\", which was an experiment to create a global energy grid, resulted in virtually everyone in on Earth suddenly disappearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malfunction in the Delenco consortium's \"Project Flashlight\", which was an experiment to create a global energy grid, resulted in virtually everyone in on Earth suddenly disappearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zac Hobson and Api were both vying for the romantic affections of Joanna, who was likely the last woman on Earth, and she liked them both to further complicate matters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna was faced with having to choose between Zac Hobson and Api: the two last men on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zac Hobson woke up one morning to find that everyone else had disappeared and he was left to piece together what had occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zac Hobson found creative ways to keep himself from feeling alone after everyone else disappeared, like keeping a cardboard cutouts of famous people around the house and playing snooker with an imaginary opponent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zac Hobson started dressing in a piece of female lingerie after having spend a number of days all alone in a country mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zac Hobson's mental state quickly deteriorated after he found himself all alone so that before long he was going around in a negligee toting a shotgun. But he came back to his senses after a swim in the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Zac Hobson had tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills in the hours before the catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some racial tensions emerged between Zac Hobson, a white man, and Api, a Māori man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zac Hobson couldn't bear the thought of Joanna being more in love with Api than she was with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x04a", "title": "Little Boy Lost", "date": "1985-10-18", "description": "A photographer spends time with a little boy who seems oddly familiar.\n\nDirected by: Tommy Lee Wallace. Story by: Lynn Barker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should photojournalist Carol Shelton accept a new and prestigious position or settled down and have a family with her long-time boyfriend?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should photojournalist Carol Shelton accept a new and prestigious position or marry her long-time boyfriend?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol met the son she would have had had she decided to marry her long-time boyfriend instead of accepting a lucrative job offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol ended up accepting a lucrative job offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol felt remorseful after she prioritized her career over having a son and her imaginary future son disappeared as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with photojournalist Carol Shelton walking around taking photos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with the photojournalist Carol Shelton walking around taking photos.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x04b", "title": "Wish Bank", "date": "1985-10-18", "description": "A woman tries to cash in three wishes at a most unusual bank.\n\nDirected by: Rick Friedberg. Story by: Michael Cassutt.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice's was granted three wishes on paper but couldn't get them fulfilled owing to a series of frustrating administrative hurdles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. Kafkaesque institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice's was granted three wishes on paper but couldn't get them fulfilled owing to a series of frustrating administrative hurdles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "major", "motivation": "An office bound genie granted Janice her obligatory three wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was a parody on somebody's wishes being fulfilled in a highly ironical manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was a parody on somebody's wishes being fulfilled in a highly ironical manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice was frequenting rummage sales in an effort to get over a recent divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice and her friend Mary went to rummage sale together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice's second wish was to look 10 years younger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice's third wish was for her ex-husband Craig to suffer moderate sexual dysfunction for 18 months.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x04c", "title": "Nightcrawlers", "date": "1985-10-18", "description": "A veteran of the Vietnam War shares his nightmares with the patrons of an all- night diner.\n\nDirected by: William Friedkin. Story by: Robert R. McCammon, Philip DeGuere.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around grizzled Vietnam War vet Price sharing his recollections of his unit getting massacred with some people at a restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were trapped in a nightmare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Price's nightmare about a battle in the Vietnam War became reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Price shared his experiences in the Vietnam War with some patrons of a diner. Later his nightmare of the war became a reality in the vicinity of the diner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Price was haunted by his experiences in the Vietnam War. He took sleeping pills, had flashbacks, and fits of anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Price explained his experience, then everyone got to experience a battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exposure to a certain chemical in the Vietnam War had left Price with the ability to materialize his thoughts into reality. For example, he conjured up a cold beer and a t-bone steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Price felt ashamed over having deserted his fellow soldiers in the middle of a battle. He made it back home to the United States in contrast with his comrades who all died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Price felt ashamed over having deserted his fellow soldiers in the middle of a battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Price felt ashamed over having deserted his fellow soldiers in the middle of a battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Price beat himself up for being a coward, running over the corpses of his fellow squad members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A can of cold beer suddenly appeared in Price's hand when the thought of how good a cold beer would taste crossed is mind. A similar happening unfolded in regard to a t-bone steak.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x03", "title": "Alamo Jobe", "date": "1985-10-20", "description": "During the Battle of the Alamo, 15-year-old messenger boy Jobe Farnum is tasked with delivering a message from Colonel William Travis to John Lefferts. Before he is killed in a bout of crossfire, Jobe manages to travel through time to San Antonio, 1985, where he draws the attention of everyone around him as he tries to find Lefferts.\n\nDirected by: Michael Moore. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Joshua Brand & John Falsey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jobe was somehow transported forward in time from the Battle of the Alamo to contemporary San Antonio. There Jobe was mystified by payphones, break dancing, and other staples of 1980s America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around a young volunteer fighter at the Battle of the Alamo being tasked to deliver an important letter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts the Battle of the Alamo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to speculate on how an early 19th century American era might perceive and react to encountering his country about 150 years later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe's extraordinary dedication to delivering the message was central.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a cause", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe's extraordinary dedication to delivering the military dispatch was central.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe took to horseback to elude the police.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x05a", "title": "If She Dies", "date": "1985-10-25", "description": "The ghost of a little girl convinces a man, whose daughter is in a coma, to buy a bed from an orphanage.\n\nDirected by: John Hancock. Story by: David Bennett Carren.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul was distraught when his daughter Cathy was critically injured and about to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah had died of tuberculosis but now appeared to Paul as a ghost and convinced him to buy a bed from an orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a rather ridiculous domestic arrangement between Paul and his young daughter Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul raised Cathy on his own from the time his wife died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a nuns' orphanarium and heard various religious beliefs of an older nun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Paul's wife had died but a year ago.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x05b", "title": "Ye Gods", "date": "1985-10-25", "description": "A man finds himself up against the ancient gods when he's struck by Cupid's arrow.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Anne Collins.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lovestruck Todd considered that his materialistic life lacked meaning without love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Todd learned in a general way the importance of love over advancing in the corporate world for materialist purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Todd and an unnamed woman became instantly besotted with each other upon being struck by Cupid's arrows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Todd and an unnamed woman became instantly besotted with each other upon being struck by Cupid's arrows. Tom neglected his job over her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Roman mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Greco-Roman gods Cupid, Bacchus, and Megaera loose in the 1980s America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cupid and Megaera had had and were continuing to quarreling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Todd forced Cupid and Megaera to sit together until they settled their differences. In the end, they reconciled and got back together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cupid and the fury Megaera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cupid and Megaera acted like a monogamous couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cupid lost his enthusiasm for making people fall in love after having gotten dumped like a sack of potatoes by the fury Megaera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cupid apologized to Megaera for having fooled around with Drusilla on the side.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x04", "title": "Mummy Daddy", "date": "1985-10-27", "description": "Harold, an actor playing a mummy in a horror movie being filmed in the Deep South, hears that his pregnant wife has gone into early labor. Unable to take his constricting costume off, he rushes to the hospital through any mode of transportation he can find. Some locals mistake him for Ra Amin Ka, an actual mummy of local legend, and form a posse to pursue him. What no one knows is that the actual Ra Amin Ka is also out and about.\n\nDirected by: William Dear. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Earl Pomerantz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undead mummy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around an actor costumed as a mummy, and also a real live mummy being on the loose in a rural part of the Deep South.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot centers around an actor in a mummy costume rushing to the hospital to be with his wife, who had gone into early labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The locals organized a manhunt for the mummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parts of the story took place on the swampy set of the B horror movie \"Mummy's Kiss\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various locals were terrified at the sight of Harold in his mummy costume. In one instance, a gas station attendant panicked in fear as Harold crept toward the payment area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind man welcomed Harold into his forest cabin. Being blind, the man was initially unaware that Harold was costumed as a mummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind man welcomed Harold into his forest cabin and made him a cup of tea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grave robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two would-be grave robbers got quite a fright when a flashlight wielding mummy emerged from an open grave they were scoping out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x06a", "title": "Examination Day", "date": "1985-11-01", "description": "A 12-year-old boy must go for mandatory intelligence testing.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Henry Slesar, Philip DeGuere.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people forced to be average dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people with above average intelligence were euthanized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jordan's were worried that their son was too smart to pass a government test of intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dickey's father was deeply concerned that the boy would fail his upcoming mandatory government test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dickey's mother was deeply concerned that the boy would fail his upcoming mandatory government test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "studying for a test", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dickey was confident he would pass his upcoming mandatory government test in spite of his parents' obvious worry for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people with above average intelligence were euthanized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dickey was given in vial of red liquid to drink before his test to ensure he told the truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dickey's parents were devastated to learn that their son had been euthanized for being too smart.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x06b", "title": "A Message from Charity", "date": "1985-11-01", "description": "A teenage boy with a fever finds himself in telepathic contact with a girl living in colonial New England.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: William M. Lee, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I became telepathically linked with someone else", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charity Payne, a Puritan girl from Colonial New England, became able to experience the world through 1980s era teenager Peter Wood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Peter had no other friends and it was a big deal that he became mind pals with Charity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch-hunt", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pivoted on the activities of a depraved witch hunter in Salem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Charity's impressions of the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charity Payne, who was from the year 1700, glimpsed into the 1980s through Peter's eyes and was accused of witchcraft as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charity was accused of witchcraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two protagonists, Charity and Peter, were both in sickbed and feared by their respective relatives to be dying at the onset. Peter was gravely concerned over the fate of Charity at her witch trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Charity with her father Obediah a few times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charity and Peter were separated by a couple of hundred years in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Peter found a self-confidence after his connection with Charity had been severed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter found it tough when Charity mentally broke up with him forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter immediately thought of witch trials when he heard the world Salem.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x05", "title": "The Mission", "date": "1985-11-03", "description": "Johnathan, a courageous ball turret gunner and aspiring cartoonist, is trapped in the belly gun of his company's Boeing B-17 (named \"Friendly Persuasion\") after a firefight. With the landing gear damaged, the only other way the plane can land is if the crew parachute out as it crashes, inevitably killing him. It's for this reason that Johnathan must rely on his imagination to get out of his predicament.\n\nDirected by: Steven Spielberg. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Menno Meyjes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Jonathan being trapped in the underside ball turret of a B-17 bomber with no apparent hope of surviving an emergence belly landing after the plane had lost its landing wheels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an Allied Boeing B-17 crew on a bombing raid into enemy territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an Allied Boeing B-17 crew on a bombing raid into enemy territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan was an aspiring cartoonist. He used his drawing ability to save his skin in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The B-17 captain did everything in his power to save a crewman trapped in the plane's ball turret from perishing in an emergency belly landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan became increasingly desperate trapped inside the ball turret of a B-17 bomber with no apparent hope of surviving an imminent belly landing. In an act of ultimate desperation, he drew a sketch of a B-17 with cartoon wheels. By some miracle the wheels manifested into reality and the plan landed safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the wish to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan became increasingly desperate trapped inside the ball turret of a B-17 bomber with no apparent hope of surviving an imminent belly landing. In an act of ultimate desperation, he drew a sketch of a B-17 with cartoon wheels. By some miracle the wheels manifested into reality and the plan landed safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the B-17 coming in for a smooth landing on oversized cartoon wheels. This was interpreted as a miracle by the plane captain, and presumably all who witnessed the mystifying scene. A possible interpretation of the story is that what happened was a case of divine intervention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the B-17 coming in for a smooth landing on oversized cartoon wheels. A possible interpretation of the story is that Jonathan somehow brought the wheels into existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Static had lost all hope of saving Jonathan and was about to spare him some misery by putting a bullet in his head. However, Static couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. In a miraculous turn of events, cartoon wheels emerged from the plane, and Jonathan was saved. This aptly illustrates that one should never give up hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan was an aspiring cartoonist. He wanted to get a job with an animation studio after the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan quipped from the ball turret that he was afraid of confined spaces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan's pregnant wife, Liz, arrived at the scene of what everyone assumed would be his horrible death in a belly landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan looked ahead to a time after the war when he and his wife, Liz, would settled down in California. Jonathan's pregnant wife, Liz, arrived at the scene of what everyone assumed would be his horrible death in a belly landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father McCabe recited comforting bible verses as the plane came in for its fated landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Static resolved to put a bullet in Jonathan's head to spare him a gruesome death in the ball turret, but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger when the time came.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x06", "title": "The Amazing Falsworth", "date": "1985-11-05", "description": "The Amazing Falsworth, a nightclub magician with psychic abilities, is able to see visions of a trenchcoat-clad person strangling two people with piano wire. Realizing that he's found the infamous Keyboard Killer, Falsworth's fears are intensified when the killer starts focusing exclusively on him.\n\nDirected by: Peter Hyams. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the titular nightclub magician with psychic abilities who became the next target of a serial strangler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a serial killer who strangled his victims with piano wire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falsworth had an genuine innate ability to see into the minds of anyone with whom he made physical contact. When he touched the strangler, he saw a scene of the man killing a young woman in the alleyway. By touching a chair, he was able to see things about a person who had recently sat in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falsworth was targeted by a serial strangler who was on the loose. He reached out to the police to request protection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The strangler posed as an LAPD detective in a bid to gain Falsworth's trust before strangling him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wino nestled in a heap of trash witnessed the strangler go about his dirty work. The wino was subsequently strangled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Among the attendees of Falsworth's stage performance were two brothers who'd reunited after 26 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Among the attendees of Falsworth's stage performance were two brothers who'd reunited after 26 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Among the attendees of Falsworth's stage performance was a man who'd slept with his boss' wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x07a", "title": "Teacher's Aide", "date": "1985-11-08", "description": "A teacher at a gang-filled school is possessed by a mysterious gargoyle.\n\nDirected by: B. W. L. Norton. Story by: Steven Barnes.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "English teacher Miss Peters became possessed by a gargoyle, or at least an entity that was previously inhabiting a gargoyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an English teacher teaching at a gang-infested high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The black jacket guys got into knife fights and try to beat Miss Peters with a baseball bat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Peters got super strength and used it to handle the various miscreants that were chronically disrupting her English class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Peters stood up to the bullies in her classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Peter's chided Trojan and Fury for being late to class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Another teacher briefly voiced her doubts to Miss Peters about the effectiveness of being tough on students. This was contrasted by Miss Peters strong arm approach to controlling her class full of miscreants.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x07b", "title": "Paladin of the Lost Hour", "date": "1985-11-08", "description": "Mr. Gaspar is the protector of a magical timepiece, a pocket watch that holds The Last Hour.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Cates (credited as Alan Smithee). Story by: Harlan Ellison, Harlan Ellison.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaspar was reminiscing over his departed wife. Billy was racked with guilt over the death of a fellow soldier who had saved his life in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that Gaspar anticipated his own imminent demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social responsibility", "level": "major", "motivation": "After Gaspar threw a cigar butt back in a car, responsibility became a major topic as this was the quality Gaspar looked for in Billy too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaspar was grieving over the loss of his wife who had died some 20 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaspar and Billy formed a close bond after Billy rescued Gaspar from muggers in a cemetery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaspar was in possession of a magical pocket watch that apparently held back the world from ending. In essence, the pocket watch was stopped at 11 o'clock, and the world would end if it ever ticked up to midnight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Gaspar was the protector of a magic pocket watch that prevented the world from ending so long as it didn't tick up to midnight. He passed this responsibility on to Billy upon his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A weird religious discontinuation of everything was apparently imminent but held at bay by a magic pocket watch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A homeless Gaspar accepted Billy's offer to move into Billy's home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaspar and Billy had to resist wasting time on the pocket watch of doom. If they did they could see departed people who they cared about, but the watch would tick up closer to midnight, spelling doom for the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started with Billy thwarting an attempt by two young men to mug Gaspar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy was reassured by Gaspar that no nuclear holocaust would happen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy had a tear filled diatribe about something he remembered from Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not said explicitly, it seemed that Billy had problems relating to his war experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy thought a nameless soldier had intentionally saved him and wanted to know why.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy got to speak to the dead soldier he felt remorse over from Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy shared some of this experiences in the war with Gaspar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy went on about toxic waste in one of his rants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy accepted a homeless man, named Gaspar, into his home.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x07", "title": "Fine Tuning", "date": "1985-11-10", "description": "For their science project, three high-schoolers, Andy, Jimmy, and George, manage to construct an antenna that can pick up interstellar transmissions. Through these transmissions, the trio discover a race of aliens that have modeled their entire civilization on 1950s television, and learn that these aliens are en route to Earth to meet some of their favorite stars.\n\nDirected by: Bob Balaban. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Earl Pomerantz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A crew of diminutive, starstruck aliens crossed interstellar space to meet some of their favorite Hollywood entertainers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is premised on aliens crossing interstellar space to meet their favorite Hollywood entertainers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a trio of high school friends discovering that space aliens will soon arrive in Hollywood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high school friends struggled to communicate with the visiting space aliens who spoke their own alien language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy built an antenna as his science project and ended up intercepting alien broadcasts. Then Andy and his friends met the said aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy played prerecorded clarinet music in his bedroom to trick his parents into believing that he was practicing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's mother was not about to let his science project stand in the way of dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's father made an attempt to show interest in his son's science project, but was intimidated by the complexity and back out of the bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's parents went to his room to let him know that dinner would soon be ready.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three high school friends conducted stereotypical chemistry experiments in their science class. For their science fair project, three high school friends invented an antenna that could pick up interstellar radio transmissions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens arrived in a steely, saucer-like spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the aliens sprang the old joy buzzed hand shake gag on Andy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x08a", "title": "Act Break", "date": "1985-11-15", "description": "A playwright uses an ancient relic to make a single wish.\n\nDirected by: Theodore J. Flicker. Story by: Haskell Barkin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wish-granting magic object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Maury made a wish on an ancient Burmese amulet that he could have the greatest playwright ever as his partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Struggling playwright Maury Winkler was on the verge of being three months behind on the rent. We also saw that Shakespeare struggled to survive until he took on Maury as his junior partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maury was sent back in time to Elizabethan England where he became Shakespeare's writing partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maury wished that he had the greatest playwright ever as his (junior) partner, but he ended up becoming the junior partner to a talentless Elizabethan playwright named Shakespeare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maury wished that he had the greatest playwright ever as his (junior) partner, but he ended up becoming the junior partner to a talentless Elizabethan playwright named Shakespeare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maury's friend and writing partner Harry died from a heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Struggling playwright Maury Winkler was on the verge of being three months behind on the rent, and his landlord was on the verge of evicting him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. personal gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In using his one wish for his own best advantage, Maury turned his back on his late friend and partner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x08b", "title": "The Burning Man", "date": "1985-11-15", "description": "A woman and her nephew pick up a hitchhiker who warns of danger ahead.\n\nDirected by: J. D. Feigelson. Story by: Ray Bradbury, J. D. Feigelson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Aunt Neva and her nephew after they picked up a raving mad hitchhiker on a country road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old man was ranting and raving about superstitious nonsense according to Aunt Neva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crosses and bibles were invoked to ward off evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pure evil being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genetic evil seems to imply that the boy had evil built into his genes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x08c", "title": "Dealer's Choice", "date": "1985-11-15", "description": "A group of friends playing cards suspect that their guest is the Devil.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: Donald Todd.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Devil came to take away one among a group of friends to hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of friends took advantage of the Devil's love of gambling to prevent him from whisking one of them away to hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deal was $19 and Marty's immortal soul would belong to the winner of one round of poker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Blue Yonder (1985)", "title": "The Blue Yonder", "date": "1985-11-17", "description": "An 11-year-old boy travels back in time from 1985 to 1927 using a time machine built by his neighbor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Yonder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 11 year old boy Jonathan traveled back in time form 1985 to 1927 to stop his grandfather's fatal attempt at a solo trans-Atlantic flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan used a time machine contraption built by his neighbor Max to travel back from 1985 to 1927 to meet his grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the 11 year old boy Jonathan living out a boy's dream mucking around with his grandfather in the year 1927.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 11 year old boy Jonathan traveled back in time form 1985 to 1927 and got to hang out with his inventor grandfather whom he idolized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was determined to beat Charles Lindbergh and in so doing be the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max and his grandson Jonathan were both passionate about airplanes. In particular, Max took Jonathan for a joyride in his biplane \"The Blue Yonder\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan traveled back in time form 1985 to 1927 to stop his grandfather's fatal attempt at a solo trans-Atlantic flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max dreamed of being the first person to complete a solo trans-Atlantic flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max dreamed of being the first person to complete a solo trans-Atlantic flight, and he still resolved to go even after it became apparent that he was doing to die in the attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jonathan conversing with his mother at the breakfast table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan's father, who was an advisor to the President, had little time for his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Helen. Jonathan's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan was involved in a tryout for a little league baseball team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan and traveled back in time and met his grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Helen were expecting a baby, and Helen had anxiety about Max attempting a solo trans-Atlantic flight under this circumstance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max appeared in the middle of the night to break Jonathan out of jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corrupt cop Finch was busted for peddling alcohol during the Prohibition period.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x08", "title": "Mr. Magic", "date": "1985-11-17", "description": "Lou Bundles, an aging, once-great illusionist, purchases a magical deck of playing cards to put on an amazing final show before he retires, but desperately tries to get them to perform tricks when they appear to lose the magic.\n\nDirected by: Donald Petrie. Story by: Joshua Brand & John Falsey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stage magic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The once-renown stage magician Lou Bungles was a regular performer at the nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Lou Bungles, a formerly world famous stage magician, who, now bumbling and old, was reluctant to ride off into the sunset.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lou complained endlessly about being old and about newfangled things. He tried to soothe the malfunctioning cards by saying that, like old people, they just needed a bit more TLC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou Bungles, a past his prime stage magician, came into possession of a magical deck of playing cards. The cards flew around on their own accord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "In at least two separate shows, the aging magician Lou Bungles made a fool of himself on stage by botching a number of routine magic tricks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou said \"are you firing me\" when he was pulled from the show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou had several angry outbursts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)", "title": "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin", "date": "1985-11-22", "description": "A young man named Orin goes on a quest to free his people from working as slaves in the mines of Trinia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starchaser:_The_Legend_of_Orin" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtuous Orin versus the evil Lord Zygon and his human enslaving robot minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the future on a planet named Trinia, human slaves have lived underground for millennia mining crystals for a fake god named Zygon. It turned out that the god was just another one of the robots and this was all a performance designed to instill obedience among the miners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Zygon and his robot minions forced they human slaves to mine valuable crystals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film featured humanoid robots aplenty: energy whip equipped robots oppressed humans in the mines, the fembot Silica joined Orin on his quest, and Aviana had a helper manbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Orin promised his blind, kid brother Kallie that he's return to the mines to free him, and recurringly dwelt on Kallie's plight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much ado was made of Dagg's futuristic spaceship, equipped with a sentient computer, called the Starchaser. We saw numerous other spaceship characteristic of space soap operas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Lord Zygon saw robots as the next step in the evolutionary progression of things and plotted to exterminate humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Orin found a supposedly mythical golden sword hilt with an apparently invisible blade that sliced up anything evil. but had no effect on things good. While it turned out that the power was inside Orin all along or some such things, the viewer doesn't learn that until the very so, so the sword hilt as a magic object is relevant here.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elan as toiling in the mines together with her grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elan mourned the killing of her grandfather by the robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orn's kid brother Kallie was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orin encountered a band of gruesome cyborgs upon escaping his captivity in the mines and reaching the surface of Trinia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dagg's ship was equipped with a touchy sentient computer named Arthur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orin encountered various weird looking aliens on his quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orin consulted a stereotypical fortune teller in an effort to find out where to find the blade for his golden hilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Zygon tortured Digg in an effort to find out the location of Orion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a plot twist, it was revealed that Lord Zygon was actually a humanoid robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future when this mode of space travel is nothing special.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orin cured his kid brother Kallie's blindness simply by touching the kid's eyes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x09a", "title": "Dead Woman's Shoes", "date": "1985-11-22", "description": "In this version of \"Dead Man's Shoes\", a shy woman tries on a pair of high heels at a thrift store that make her assertive, self- confident—and send her on a murderous mission.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Charles Beaumont, Lynn Barker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a haunted pair of high heeled shoes- whosoever wore them took on the late Susan's personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dead woman's spirit apparently possessed whoever put on her old shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan came back from the dead and wanted revenge on the husband who murdered her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dead Susan in the body of Maddie alleged that Kyle pushed her from the balcony so decided to murder him right back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyle though his wife was dead but then she seemed to reappear albeit in a different body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "Confident and assertive Susan was contrasted with the timid thrift store employee Maddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyle and returned from the dead wife Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle mourned his late wife, though he may not have been very sincere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw briefly Kyle interacting with the maid. In the end, he terminated her employment with one month's severance pay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The maid asked Kyle if he believed in ghosts with the implication that Susan was a one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The maid was confronted with the allegation that her boyfriend Carlito was running on her behind her back.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x09b", "title": "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", "date": "1985-11-22", "description": "An Asian man and an old white woman search for a mysterious shop that holds the secret to gaining back their lost emotions.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: William F. Wu, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "David Wong was in search of his lost compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "An Asian main character, named David Wong, was bitter about racism he had encountered in life. That experience caused him to loose his compassion which he now wanted back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "David had become disillusioned with life; though not said, it seemed the Asian girl had too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "David, an Asian man, had a chip on his shoulder stemming from the racism he had encountered in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that the David got his integrity back, although it was never made clear that he had lost it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned and ill-natured David came to see that it was his purpose in life to help those who are unfortunate in this world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Disillusioned and ill-natured David came to see that it was his purpose in life to help those who are unfortunate in this world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with David finding purpose in becoming manager of the magical lost and found shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mrs. Whitford was a la recherche du temps perdu. The mice were probably allegorical for opportunities that she had let slip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mrs. Whitford was at the emporium searching for this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man confided in David that he had lost the respect of his children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man felt like he had failed as a parent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mrs. Whitford regretted that she hadn't taken up sculpting earlier in life and came to the lost and found shop looking to regain lost time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of letting loose", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melinda was at the lost and found shop seeking to regain her ability to open up and laugh again after having gone though a painful divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina confided in David that she had gone through a painful divorce.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)", "title": "Ewoks: The Battle for Endor", "date": "1985-11-24", "description": "A sequel to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, it focuses on Cindel Towani, the human girl from the first film, who, after being orphaned, joins the Ewoks in protecting their village and defeating the marauders who have taken control of the Endor moon.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewoks:_The_Battle_for_Endor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film became with Cindel's parents and brother being killed in a marauder attack on the Ewok village where they were staying. After being orphaned, she helped rescue the Ewoks from captivity and defeat the marauders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ewoks and Cindel fought to protect their village from the marauders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cindel and Wicket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ewoks lived on the habitable, forest moon Endor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindel's father bid her a touching farewell before he died in a marauder attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hermit Noah at first wanted nothing to do with Cindel and Wicket but his heart eventually melted and he took a liking to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noah was lonely and enjoyed Cindel and Wicket's company but he would be damned to admit it. Cindel felt sad sometimes after her family was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The witch transformed into a beautiful young witch and a crow.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x10a", "title": "The Shadow Man", "date": "1985-11-29", "description": "The Shadow Man, a mysterious entity made of darkness, defends a boy in exchange for being allowed to stay under his bed.\n\nDirected by: Joe Dante. Story by: Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story started with Danny being spooked by some pranksters and being afraid to sleep with the lights off. The teens were afraid of the Shadow Man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny was bullied by some of the other boys in his school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shadow monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Shadow Man was living under Danny's bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny was scared of bogeyman-like things and had to sleep with the lights on, and then he saw the Shadow Man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny intended the bully to be killed by the Shadow Man but himself got killed by another Shadow Man instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny believed he could stand up to the bully because his Shadow Man would protect him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nerdy teenager boy Danny had a crush on the cool girl Leanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nerdy teenager boy Danny had a crush on Leanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny had a crush on the bully's girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny's mom chided him for sleeping with the lights on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny's bully was dressed in a varsity jacket and was not too bright.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny declined to report what he knew because he liked what it gave him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x10b", "title": "The Uncle Devil Show", "date": "1985-11-29", "description": "A boy learns strange magic tricks from a bizarre kids' show.\n\nDirected by: David Steinberg. Story by: Donald Todd.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a boy learn how to magically alter reality by emulating what he saw Uncle Devil do on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a mother and father let their television set babysit their young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a mother and father let their television set babysit their young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a boy watching children's shows on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a mother and father let their television set babysit their young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Devil was urging children to eat sugary cereal and not brush their teeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a boy imitating stage magic that he was watching on TV.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x10c", "title": "Opening Day", "date": "1985-11-29", "description": "A man is targeted for murder on the opening day of duck hunting season by his wife and her lover.\n\nDirected by: John Milius. Story by: Gerrit Graham & Chris Hubbell.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally was cheating on her wealthy husband Carl with the golfing instructor Joe. In the alternate reality, Sally was married to Joe and was having an affair on him with Carl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally pressured Joe to knock off her wealthy husband Carl so that the two of them could be together. Joe briefly struggled with having to do this because, among other things, he was Carl's best friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally and Joe hatched a foolproof plot that saw Joe knock off Carl on a duck hunting trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally and Joe planned for Joe to knock off her wealthy husband Carl so that the two of them could be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "After murdering Carl, Joe found himself in an alternate reality where he was married to Carl's wife and they had two kinds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe murdered his old friend Carl while the two were out together duck hunting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x09", "title": "Guilt Trip", "date": "1985-12-01", "description": "In a world where emotions are personified as human beings, the exhausted Guilt is made to take a cruise for a mandatory vacation, where he meets and grows attracted to Love, causing him to begin neglecting his important duties.\n\nDirected by: Burt Reynolds. Story by: Gail Parent & Kevin Parent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personification of a concept", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows \"Guilt\" and \"Love\" who are characters and personifications of their respective namesake emotions. \"Worry\" and \"Fear\" were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that \"Guilt\" (guilt personified) becomes besotted with \"Love\" (love personified) and starts to neglect his duties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exhausted from his job, Guilt was forced to go on a cruise for some much needed R&R.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need our darker side in moderation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Love summarized a moral of the story as love and guilt being both necessary emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guilt's (guilt personified) job was to make people feel ashamed for doing things they ought not to do. He instilled in a man on the cruise a feeling of remorse so intense that he threw himself overboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An obese restaurant patron gorged himself on cakes and asked for another bowl of sugar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guilt interrupted a married couple engaged in perfectly legitimate foreplay, thinking that they were two teenagers who needed admonishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger liner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guilt met Love on a cruise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guilt admitted to drinking on the job. Guilt's superior thereupon put him on leave, and arranged for him to go on a cruise to get some rest and relaxation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Catholics had stopped going to confession while \"Guilt\" (guilt personified) was away on vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Catholics had stopped going to confession while \"Guilt\" (guilt personified) was away on vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guilt was tactfully cut off by the bartender after he'd had a few too many.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man on the cruise threw himself overboard out of remorse for having wronged a business partner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x11a", "title": "The Beacon", "date": "1985-12-06", "description": "A young doctor stumbles into a strange town where the citizens fear and worship a lighthouse.\n\nDirected by: Gerd Oswald. Story by: Martin Pasko & Rebecca Parr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Barrows stumbled on an isolated coastal town whose inhabitants believed their long departed ancestor inhabited their lighthouse as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people in an isolated, coastal town lived in abject fear of their demanding and merciless lighthouse god. In particular, whoever the lighthouse light would shine on at night would soon die, if not from an illness, then by accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "William explained that years ago, a person chosen to be sacrificed was spared and the town fell on hard times. Now the lighthouse wanted a substitute or the hard times will come again. The story ominously concluded with Dr. Barrows evidently being sacrificed to the lighthouse god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Ann didn't like the idea of having the stranger Dr. Barrows around her children, even though her daughter was quite ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Ann disapproved of her young son Teddy taking Dr. Barrows to the spooky lighthouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Ann exchanged words were her ill daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teddy worried his sister became sick because he had wished she would died a month prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teddy worried his sister became sick because he had wished she would died a month prior.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x11b", "title": "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", "date": "1985-12-06", "description": "A man who returns to his childhood home is transported to his past.\n\nDirected by: Don Carlos Dunaway. Story by: Harlan Ellison, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gus was somehow transported back the to 1940s where he encountered his child self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adult Gus took his troubled younger self under his wing and tried to him him on a good path in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adult Gus considered that he had focused too much on becoming a success and his life felt empty and meaningless as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Gus had a troubled relationship with his stern father. Adult Gus had the chance to go back in time and tell his father that Gus had turned out okay and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adult Gus tried to get his troubled younger self on the right track in life, so that he would not be that bitter middle aged mad that Adult Gus had become. However, in the end, it turned out that it was Adult Gus' very actions that would lead to his younger self becoming the bitter man that Adult Gus was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about haw to handle kids and understand what they feel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adult Gus somehow traveled back to the 1940s to his childhood homestead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Guy, Adult Gus, and their father all had anger issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adult Gus was and became obsessed with proving to the world that he was a success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Gus was chased down and beaten up by some neighborhood kids. This sort of bullying presumably resulted in Gus bottling up a lot of anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adult Gus flipped out at someone over the phone for having called before 9 AM. Gus' father Lou admitted that he had problems containing his anger. Young Gus flipped out at his older self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gus was belted by his father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x10", "title": "Remote Control Man", "date": "1985-12-08", "description": "Walter Poindexter, a henpecked, unhappy, and frustrated man dealing with his nagging wife Grendel and his incorrigible sons, uses TV to escape his miserable existence. When his wife sells his set for a new outfit, Walter buys a newer, more-unusual looking one at a peculiar electronics store. Walter finds that using the set's remote control allows him to bring any character onscreen into the real world, using it to respectively turn his abusive family into June Cleaver, Arnold Jackson, and \"Face\". Things soon get out of hand when Walter's new \"family\" earns the ire of some loan sharks.\n\nDirected by: Bob Clark. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Douglas Lloyd McIntosh.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter was watching TV too escape from the reality of his dysfunctional family life. When TV characters started to come real he got more than he bargained for, and he learned his lesson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter used a magic TV remote control to replace his unpleasant family members with better ones from his imagination. The supposedly better characters brought with them their own problems that soon made Walter long for his old life instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was henpecked and manhandled by his domineering spouse Grendel. He was also tormented by his two no-good sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was henpecked and manhandled by his domineering spouse Grendel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was henpecked and manhandled by his domineering spouse Grendel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter was henpecked and manhandled by his domineering spouse Grendel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative handheld device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter found himself in the possession of a remote control that could make people vanish or change into other people. It could also manifest characters on television into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "too much television is bad for society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter ultimately gave up his television because he came to understand that his couch potato ways were detrimental to having a wholesome family life. In this way, the story confronts the viewer with the notion that watching excessive amounts of television can lead to the breakdown of the family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter came home to find loan sharks threatening to torch his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter summoned a Los Angeles Raider linebacker and got sacked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was happy to replace his bratty son, Ralph, with a more well-mannered one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grendel dotted over her bratty son, Ralph.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x12a", "title": "Her Pilgrim Soul", "date": "1985-12-13", "description": "Two scientists create a holographic projector that has a woman appear in the display.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin and Carol's marriage was falling apart because of Kevin's preoccupation with his work at the lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin and Carol's marriage was falling apart because of Kevin's preoccupation with his work at the lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nola's spirit or something somehow became integrated into Kevin and Daniel's hologram generator. Note it was said that she was a spirit or something, but she existed as a hologram in Kevin's hologram generator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel speculated that the soul of Nola may have been reincarnated into the hologram generator. Nola later revealed to Kevin that he was the reincarnation of her long deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nola came to give the reincarnated spirit of her long deceased husband Robert closure. In short: Robert died of grief soon after his wife Nola passed in child birth, his soul was reincarnated into Kevin and he carried the grief through his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Nola's soul had somehow became integrated into their hologram generator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin told Carol that he wanted to prioritize his scientific career over starting a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Kevin and Carol saved their marriage with Nola's help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin told Carol that he wanted to prioritize his scientific career over starting a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol expressed a desire to have a child in near future, but Kevin balked at the idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola was emotionally overwhelmed after having experienced a vivid flashback of the time she miscarried her unborn baby girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola used a machine at the lab to imitate Kevin's voice on a phone call with Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola grew from a small child to an older woman in the span of a few days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female education", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Nola's father objected to her learned activities as unfitting her gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin and Nola quoted Yeats to each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard of Nola and her overbearing dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Nola had been disinherited by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola was called the black sheep of her family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola's father was an overt antisemite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nola seemed like a ghost in the hologram generated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x12b", "title": "I of Newton", "date": "1985-12-13", "description": "A professor attempting to solve a difficult math problem finds himself matching wits with a demon.\n\nDirected by: Kenneth Gilbert. Story by: Joe Haldeman, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A sub-agent of the Devil appeared out of nowhere to solve a complex mathematical equation for a math professor in exchange for his soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satan's demonic henchman came to take a math professor's soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satan's demonic henchman was present in person and discussed the metaphysics of his boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor nearly sold his soul for knowledge - albeit literally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that souls could be sold to a professor on some distant planet for the purpose of re-animating dead bodies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x11", "title": "Santa '85", "date": "1985-12-15", "description": "On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus accidentally trips a couple's burglar alarm and is arrested by cynical sheriff Horace Smyvie, locked in a prison cell with a trio of drunks dressed like him. With no one believing Santa's claims of who he is, it falls to Bobby Mynes, the 8-year-old son of the couple who had him arrested, to save Christmas by busting Santa out and/or restoring Horace's Christmas spirit.\n\nDirected by: Phil Joanou. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Joshua Brand & John Falsey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story posits that Santa Claus got arrested and couldn't complete his traditional Christmas Eve job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Santa Claus, who had lost touch with the modern world, was hampered in his efforts to complete his round-the-world present delivery run on the night of Christmas Eve 1985.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eight year old Bobby Mynes experienced a Christmas Eve to remember when he single-handedly broke Santa out of the local jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The local police arrested Santa Claus at gunpoint and locked him up in the drunk tank together with a trio of mall Santas. The story concluded with a mean-spirited sheriff receiving a Christmas present from Santa and turning nice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Smyvie was hard of heart and showed a marked lack of sympathy for the Santas he'd arrested on the night of Christmas Eve. The story concluded with mean and cynical Sheriff Smyvie's heart being touched when he received a Buck Roger's ray gun from Santa. Filled with the Christmas spirit, he joined a group of carolers and accompanied them as they sang door to door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "In 1933, as an orphan, Sheriff Horace Smyvie wrote to Santa asking for a Buck Roger's ray gun for Christmas. Horace's request was overlooked by Santa, in spite of Horace having been a good boy that year. The experience had left Horace a cold-hearted and cynical man in his adult life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Smyvie was mean-spirited and cynical by contrast with Santa and Deputy Weatherby who were brimming with Christmas cheer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A simple act of kindness by Santa changed Sheriff Smyvie from nasty to nice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Santa was hopelessly behind the times. For example, he was caught off guard by a newfangled invention known as a burglar alarm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Claus warned Santa that times had changed. The Mynes' assured their 8-year-old son that Santa was indeed real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mynes' assured their 8-year-old son that Santa was indeed real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mynes' assured their 8-year-old son that Santa was indeed real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Santa was arrested for burgling the Mynes' house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Enemy Mine (1985)", "title": "Enemy Mine", "date": "1985-12-20", "description": "A human and an alien soldier become stranded together on an inhospitable planet and must overcome their mutual distrust in order to cooperate and survive.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sworn enemies Willis and Jeriba had to work together to survive after they became stranded together on an inhospitable planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Willis and Jerida went from being sworn enemies to the best of friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nobody hated the Dracs more than Willis, but he came to change his tune after becoming stranded on an inhospitable planet together with one of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willis found himself stranded on an inhospitable planet together with a reptilian alien from a race at war with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willis found himself stranded on an inhospitable planet together with a reptilian alien from a race at war with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sworn enemies Willis and Jeriba set aside that their peoples were mired in an interstellar war and worked together to survive while stranded together on an inhospitable planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willis and Jeriba found themselves stranded without supplies on a planet with dangerous fauna and regularly hit by meteors. They survived there, against all odds, for three years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender neutral being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Jerida was from a race of aliens with only one gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willis and Jerida went from being sworn enemies to the best of friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody hated the Dracs more than Willis, but he changed his tune after becoming stranded together with one, and learned that the Dracs are just like any other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willis raised Jerida's parthenogenetically birthed son Zammis as his nephew, and, indeed, Zammis called him uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future in which the nations of Earth have united and the process of reaching out to colonize local star systems had begun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where people are venturing out from Earth, colonizing other star systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willis and Jeriba crash-landed their respective fighter spacecrafts on an inhospitable planet after engaging in a space dog fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sworn enemies Willis and Jeriba initially regarded one another with suspicion, but came to trust one another as friends before long.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willis and Jeriba both made the effort to learn the other's language in order that they might communicate while stranded on the planet together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willis and Jerida had a brief altercation with a dangerous sand burrowing creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single-gender society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Dracs have only one gender, and reproduce via parthenogenesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerida, who was from a sing-gender species, made a judgmental comment about humans segregating themselves into two different genders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scavenger aliens were known for kidnapping Dracs and forcing them to work as slaves in their mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willis took off from a rotating space station of some kind when he went back to the planet to rescue Zammis from the mines.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Knight (1985)", "title": "Star Knight", "date": "1985-12-20", "description": "A knight sets out to rescue a princess from a dragon, but the dragon turns out to really be an alien spacecraft. The film is also know as The Knight of the Dragon (Spanish: El caballero del dragón).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_of_the_Dragon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Count of Rue and his beloved daughter Princess Alba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inhabitants of a Medieval-era territory believed an alien spaceship to be a dragon, and its occupant either an angel or devil depending on the person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Alba found her knight in shining armor in a spaceman by the name of IX.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "What the inhabitants of a Medieval-era territory believed to be a dragon turned out to be an alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Alba found her knight in shining armor in a spaceman by the name of IX.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alchemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with a quotation from the pesudoaristotelian treatise The Secret of Secrets about the transmutation of base lead into pure gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Count of Rue's peasant vassals complained that their taxes were too onerous, and his rivalries with other noble vassals under him were pursued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inhabitants of a Medieval-era territory were all up in arms about a dragon, although it actually turned out to be an alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the villagers complained that \"it was always taxes, taxes, and then nothing\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "marry a lowly peasants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien communicated with Alba by projecting his thoughts into her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The knight Klever challenged the spaceman to a joust over Princess Alba in the name of chivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceman wore a special black suit that not only let him breathe his native atmosphere, but also functioned as an impenetrable suit of armor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x13a", "title": "Night of the Meek", "date": "1985-12-20", "description": "In this remake of \"The Night of the Meek\", a drunk, out-of-work department store Santa finds a magic gift-giving bag and becomes a real-life Santa Claus.\n\nDirected by: Martha Coolidge. Story by: Rod Serling, Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Corwin was a fake Santa, then became nearly the real thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a down-and-out mall Santa on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generous character vs. mean character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry was kind and willing to give while Mr. Dundee was a stingy Christmas Grinch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry took joy in giving out presents to everyone on Christmas. He even gave the grinch-like Mr. Dundee a furcoat for his wife and a Mickey Mantle autographed baseball for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry took joy in giving out presents to everyone on Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dundee was being a big party pooper and resented that Henry was giving out presents to everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic bag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry had a bag that never stopped being full of presents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Corwin was fired for drinking and making a fool of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry commented on how poor kids had little in the way of Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was fired for being drunk on the job and felt bad because he didn't have any presents to give to the kids caroling outside of his window.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x13b", "title": "But Can She Type?", "date": "1985-12-20", "description": "An overworked, underappreciated secretary is sent by a malfunctioning Xerox machine into a parallel reality where secretaries are honored and revered.\n\nDirected by: Shelley Levinson. Story by: Martin Pasko & Rebecca Parr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen's boss was condescending, ungrateful, and overly demanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A copying machine mishap sent lowly secretary Karen into an alternate reality where people of her profession were celebrated members of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen was working at a low status, dead end job and fantasized about a better life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Underappreciated and overworked secretary Karen was transported into an alternate reality people of her profession were celebrated members of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the narrator explaining that Karen had received the gift of respect for Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen snapped after getting chewed out by her boss the morning after the party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen with her condescending and sarcastic boss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x13c", "title": "The Star", "date": "1985-12-20", "description": "On an interstellar journey, far in the future, an astrophysicist and a priest learn they have discovered a long-dead world that has been emitting a signal for eons.\n\nDirected by: Gerd Oswald. Story by: Arthur C. Clarke, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unknown civilization had saved a few remnant artifacts before being wiped out as their sun went nova in 3120 BC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christian belief, especially the birth of Christ, were central to the story. In particular, the Star of Bethlehem was discovered to have been a civilization ending super nova explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the problem of evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Discussed was why God would permit such fine beings to die so horribly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a space survey ship discover artifacts of a long-dead civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ancient alien archive", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space survey mission team discovered an archive of paintings, writings, and other information artifacts from a long-dead world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest was devastated upon learning that the Star of Bethlehem was discovered to have been a civilization ending super nova explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest speculated that it had been God's will (i.e., destiny) that an entire alien civilization perished in a super nova explosion to prefigure the birth of Jesus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x12", "title": "Vanessa in the Garden", "date": "1985-12-29", "description": "In the 19th century, talented artist Byron Sullivan loses his beloved wife Vanessa in a carriage accident. Driven to despair, Byron soon finds a way for Vanessa to live on through his artwork, making plans to paint an entire life for the pair of them.\n\nDirected by: Clint Eastwood. Story by: Steven Spielberg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Byron and Vanessa Sullivan were in the throws of marital bliss. His love for Vanessa transcended her tragic death in a horse and carriage accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Byron went into a depression after Vanessa died in horse and carriage accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron Sullivan was a talented painter. He became preoccupied with painting scenes of his wife after she perished tragically in a horse and carriage accident. He exhibited his numerous paintings of Vanessa at an art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron and Vanessa Sullivan were in the throws of marital bliss. Their marriage came to a tragic end, however, when Vanessa was thrown to her death from the horse and carriage they were riding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Byron realized that he could manifest his dearly departed wife, Vanessa, into reality by the simply by painting scenes depicting her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, the images of Vanessa conjured up by Byron were nothing but a figment of his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Byron was recurringly visited by the spirit of his dearly departed lover, Vanessa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vanessa was laid to rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Northrup diagnosed Byron with melancholy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Northrup diagnosed Byron with melancholy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byron briefly questioned whether his eyes were playing tricks on him when he saw his recently departed wife in the garden.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fugitive Alien (1986)", "title": "Fugitive Alien", "date": "1986", "description": "A human-looking alien is pursued as a traitor by his own race because he betrayed them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128224/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken was supposedly a traitor to his alien race for having murdered one of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-looking alien Ken was ten times stronger than the average man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-looking alien Ken was living secretly as a human crewman aboard the Bacchus 3 spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-looking alien Ken was living secretly as a human crewman aboard the Bacchus 3 spacecraft. Various aliens were encountered by the Bacchus 3 crew on their travels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story follows the adventures of the crew of the futuristic spaceship the Bacchus 3. There are futuristic spaceships flying around left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy voiced concern that Captain Joe was \"overdoing it a little\" with the whiskey, and Rocky told Joe something to the effect that he couldn't just drink away his problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Joe's wife died in his arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Joe had flashbacks to happier times with his young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Joe was deeply troubled by the death of his wife and only child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Halkan was determined to make Ken pay for betraying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken's old sweetheart was sent out to kill him for murdering her brother, but the briefly rekindled their love toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of the Bacchus 3 blasted off from Earth for the far off planet Kararu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken was apprehended and sentenced to death by the Kararan authorities, but he ultimately escaped from jail with the help of his crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken made a daring escape from his jail cell before the Karans went through on an order to execute him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken and Rite briefly rekindled their love for one another in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hands of Steel (1986)", "title": "Hands of Steel", "date": "1986", "description": "An evil industrialist has created a cyborg who is 70% machine and 30% human. The film is also known by its Italian title Vendetta dal futuro (lit. 'Vengeance of the future').", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendetta_dal_futuro" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paco was 70% machine and 30% human. Note that he engaged in an epic one on one fight with a female cyborg who had come to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda and the cyborg Paco fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ecology activist Rev. Arthur Mosely was leading a national movement against polluters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Baykey led an FBI investigation into the attempted murder of Rev. Arthur Mosely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rev. Arthur Mosely was blind and wheelchair bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raul arrogantly boasted that nobody around could beat him at arm wrestling, then he made the mistake of goading the cyborg Paco into taking him on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raul was intent on getting back at Paco after losing an arm wrestling contest to the cyborg in most humiliating fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blanco died in a fiery truck wreck so that Linda might live.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prison Ship (1986)", "title": "Prison Ship", "date": "1986", "description": "A woman is convicted of murder and sentenced to spend seven years aboard an all-female prison ship. It is also known as Star Slammer and Starslammer: The Escape and Prison Ship Star Slammer", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Ship" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the prison ship Vehemence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taura was confined a brutal prison ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prisoners aboard the all-female prison ship Vehemence had all turned to lesbianism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Taura earn the respect of her fellow inmates aboard the prison ship Vehemence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The black leather wearing, whip wielding prison warden had a serious sadistic streak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sovereign held prisoners out in space aboard the prison ship Vehemence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taura and Mike (a woman) had a rough start as cell mates, but they ultimately became friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with a shackled Taura being tortured with blood sucking space leeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two suns were shown in the sky over the planet Arous, one big and yellow, the other small and red.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Taura quipped that The Sovereign's government \"took half their take the last time\" that hey had an encounter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Taura was sentenced to spend seven years aboard a prison ship for having murdered some of Captain Bantor's men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Bantor became demented after losing his hand in a volcanic acid plume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A strange, dwarf-like alien was dispensing green slop to the prison ship inmates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison ship inmates didn't care for the green slop they were fed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Taura and Mike were pitted in hand-to-hand combat against an alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Bantor had a robotic right hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Bantor wanted to make Taura pay for having made him lose his right hand in a volcanic acid plume.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Srazhenie (1986)", "title": "Srazhenie", "date": "1986", "description": "A man comes to regret stealing a miniature robot army.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487172/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character murdered a toy designer and stole his miniature toy army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "We say a miniature army comprised of robot foot soldiers and autonomous attack vehicles turn on the man who killer their creator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The man who murdered a toy designer was himself killed by the very toys the toy designer had created.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x14a", "title": "Still Life", "date": "1986-01-03", "description": "A professional photographer discovers an old camera containing mysterious photos of a long-ago expedition.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Gerrit Graham & Chris Hubbell.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A married couple came into possession of some creepy photographs from an old expedition to the Amazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "The photographer Daniel was fascinated with cameras, especially old ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking someone's picture steals their soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "A photograph took photos of Kurukai natives and their souls somehow became trapped inside the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing bloodthirsty savages", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Kurukai natives running around a married couple's house trying to slaughter them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x14b", "title": "The Little People of Killany Woods", "date": "1986-01-03", "description": "A story-telling town drunk has an encounter with little people.\n\nDirected by: J. D. Feigelson. Story by: J. D. Feigelson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Liam when he told them that he saw Little People in Killany Woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leprechaun", "level": "major", "motivation": "Town drunk Liam went to Killany Woods to live with his new friends: the little people. These were presumably leprechauns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little people turned out to be aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Town drunk Liam regaled some bar patrons with a seemingly tall tale about little people in Killany Woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the little people (i.e. the aliens) flying away with Liam in their flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the little people were in fact aliens with a mushroom shaped spaceship", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x14c", "title": "The Misfortune Cookie", "date": "1986-01-03", "description": "A food critic receives fortune cookie messages that come true.\n\nDirected by: Allan Arkush. Story by: Charles E. Fritch, Rockne S. O'Bannon[a].", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snobby food critic Harry Folger received an ominous fortune cookie message that came true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fortune cookie fortunes at a mysterious Chinese restaurant came true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snobby food critic Harry Folger took pleasure in putting respectable restaurants out of business with his savage reviews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cruel food critic Harry Folger was condemned to wander for eternity from one sub-par restaurant to another in an effort to satiate his insatiable hunger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cruel food critic Harry apparently died and was condemned to perpetual hunger despite having infinite supply of Chinese food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry abused his journalistic position to bully people and curry favor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x13", "title": "The Sitter", "date": "1986-01-05", "description": "Jennifer Mowbray, a babysitter from some presumably Caribbean island, uses the powers of voodoo to get Lance and Dennis Paxton, the beleaguering and overactive brothers she's charged with looking after, under control.\n\nDirected by: Joan Darling. Story by: Joshua Brand & John Falsey, Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jennifer and numerous babysitters struggled to keep the brat brothers Lance and Dennis in check.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The babysitter Jennifer, who was presumably from a Caribbean island, finally got the better of Lance and Dennis by using voodoo magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara struggled to make her boys behave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two unruly, young brothers Lance and Dennis being scared into behaving by their voodoo magic wielding babysitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two unruly, young brothers Lance and Dennis being scared into behaving by their voodoo magic wielding babysitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bratty brothers Lance and Dennis were transformed into obedient, model children thanks to Jennifer's unorthodox babysitting methods. She used voodoo magic to scare them straight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two unruly brothers Lance and Dennis perpetrated an endless series of pranks on their babysitters. They slipped a laxative into Mrs. Abbot's hot chocolate. They tried to torment Jennifer by propping a bucket of water over a door, and later by making it seem as if the house had caught fire. What they didn't count on was Jennifer being a practitioner of voodoo magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara mentioned, with a note of remorse, that she had pressed for custody of her two boys; thus implying that she had separated from their father. Barbara was a working single mom who relied on babysitters to care for her boys while she was away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer used voodoo magic to conjured a tribe of Hollywood Indians into existence in order to scare Lance and Dennis into behaving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lance and Dennis attempted to scare the Jamaican babysitter with tiny reptiles of some sort, but she turned the table on them by wielding two enormous geckos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Abbott brought her terrier to babysitting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer vanished after leaving the house. Given her previous comments about souls being trapped on the earth, this may have been an indication that she was a ghost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x14", "title": "No Day at the Beach", "date": "1986-01-12", "description": "In World War II, Arnold Skamp, a GI rebuked by his fellow soldiers, becomes a war hero by saving them all with apparent miraculous abilities during the charge on Port Nuovo.\n\nDirected by: Lesli Linka Glatter. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Arnold \"Arnie\" Skamp, a meek and somewhat timid ground infantry man, saving his fellow unit members from certain death by single handedly taking out a German pill box during the D-Day landing. He was subsequently declared a hero by his comrades. It only later became apparent that Arnie had been killed by enemy fire before landing on the beach. The viewer is left to ponder how Arnold could have made his mad dash toward enemy lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of American ground infantry men during the Normandy landings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of American ground infantry men during the Normandy landings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of American ground infantry men during the Normandy landings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Arnie briefly returned from the dead, while his corpse was lying on on a landing boat, to save the lives of his fellow ground infantry men at the D-Day landing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "comrades in arms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of American ground infantry men in the lead up to and conducting of the Normandy landings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnie was bullied by his comrades in arms. For example, they made him pick up playing cards from the floor and they threw food at him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The day before the dangerous assault, Arnie said he wished he could be more like the other, supposedly brave, men in his group. He posthumously appeared and bravely assaulted an enemy pill box all by himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ground infantry men killed time on the voyage to Normandy by playing poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnie confided in Casey that he was scared of engaging the Germans on the beaches of Normandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the GIs was dabbling with writing a script for a Hollywood movie based on his experiences in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the soldiers became upset when their leader was shot dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x15", "title": "One for the Road", "date": "1986-01-19", "description": "Based on the true story of Michael Malloy. During the Great Depression, Michael Malloy is tricked into signing an insurance policy so Tony Maroni and his fellow barflies can collect the money once he drinks himself to death, only to learn that they're dealing with much more than they expected.\n\nDirected by: Thomas Carter. Story by: James D. Bissell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on a group of friends conspiring to murder an alcoholic old man in order to collect on a life insurance policy they'd taken out on him for just that purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Malloy was a happy-go-lucky drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toni Maroni and his fellow barflies gave Michael Mallory kerosene laced whisky and left him in a pile of snow to die. When Mallory somehow survived the attempt, they fed him a sandwich full of tacks and rat poison. Astonishingly, Mallory ate the sandwich without any apparent ill-effects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mallory survived being poisoned with kerosene, then antifreeze, then rat poison. He also survived being buried passed out in snow, and likewise thrown off a bridge into freezing water. In the end he appeared with a somewhat smug demeanor. While these events were never explained, the viewer must ponder the possibility that Mallory was somehow impervious to attempts on his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A beat cop caught Toni Maroni and his fellow barflies tossing Michael Malloy off a bridge into the frozen waters below.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Toni Maroni and his accomplices were to be executed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x15a", "title": "Monsters!", "date": "1986-01-24", "description": "A boy who loves monster movies has a strange neighbor move in.\n\nDirected by: B. W. L. Norton. Story by: Robert Crais.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toby and his father both shared a passion for monster movies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toby's new neighbor Mr. Bendictson turned out to be a vampire. At the conclusion of the story it was hinted that Toby himself had become a vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bendictson took Toby under his wing and treated him as a grandson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bendictson moved back to his home town to end his days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bendictson moved back to his home town to end his days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bendictson had lived for centuries, yet he went back to his hometown to end his life. Presumably he had grown tired tired of living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby and his parents were afflicted with allergy-like symptoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby and his father shared a passion for monster movies of the 50s and 60s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Michaels and Mrs. Michaels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby engaged in some superficial interactions with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bendictson scared Toby out of his boots on a couple of occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Mr. Bendictson lifted his car up with one hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seems the whole town turned into monsters in order to butcher the intruding vampire, They might have been werewolves, but the evidence is inconclusive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x15b", "title": "A Small Talent for War", "date": "1986-01-24", "description": "An alien race that claimed to have invented mankind returns to judge them.\n\nDirected by: Claudia Weill. Story by: Carter Scholz & Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien interrupted a United Nations meeting to announce that all life on Earth would be destroyed by his armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien appeared at a meeting of the United Nations to announce that all life on Earth would be destroyed by his armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world came together to end all international conflicts in an effort to placate genocidal aliens, but alas it was to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United Nations members succeeded in putting an end to all international conflict under the mistaken idea that it would save their hides from an alien assault on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans were condemned because of their warmongering ways we thought, but then it was just the opposite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Earth scrambled to show that they could make peace and thus deserve to live but, alas, it was in fact a warmongering quality that was sought and so Earth was condemned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manipulation of evolution on a planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien told some United Nations delegates that his people had seeded Earth, along with millions of other worlds, with life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a United States delegate quarreling with a delegate of the USSR at the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An armada of spherical spaceships descended upon the United Nations headquarters building.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x15c", "title": "A Matter of Minutes", "date": "1986-01-24", "description": "A married couple awakens to find reality being reconstructed around them.\n\nDirected by: Sheldon Larry. Story by: Theodore Sturgeon, Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wrights awakened to a crew of blue-clad construction workers reconstructing reality around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wrights awakened to a crew of blue-clad construction workers reconstructing reality around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Maureen Wright somehow skipped ahead a few hours in time to find that this future time was still in the process of being constructed. The orange-clad foreman of the work crew explained how every minute is essentially a separate world which must be built, maintained, and torn down once it is over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wrights were forbidden to go back to their own time by the orange-clad foreman, but they refused to accept it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a theory of time that was analogized to time being like the boxcars of a train. Also blue men had to construct each unit (i.e. boxcar) of time into the future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Eliminators (1986)", "title": "Eliminators", "date": "1986-01-31", "description": "The film centers around a \"Mandroid\" constructed by an evil scientist from the body of a downed pilot, who teams up with the scientist responsible for android technology, her pet robot Spot, a riverboat guide, and a martial arts warrior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminators_(1986_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mad scientist Abbott Reeves transformed a crashed pilot into the powerful cyborg known as the Mandroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil scientist Abbott Reeves lived in an isolated jungle lair, was horribly disfigured, and had created and experimental cyborg out of a crashed pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mandroid, Nora, and Kuji (ninja son of Doctor Takada) all had a score to settle with the evil scientist Abbott Reeves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mad scientist Abbott Reeves was motivated by a desire to go back in time and rule Ancient Rome as a god-king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with the heroes foiling Abbott Reeves's plot to send himself back to Ancient Rome to rule as a god-king. Instead, he was sent back over 400 million years where he would rule over nothing. The film opened with the Mandroid returning from a scouting mission to Ancient Roman times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a steel chamber that was used to send the Mandroid back to Ancient Roman times, and later Abbott Reeves back over 400 million years in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abbott Reeves complained of how nobody had even shown him compassion in a manner that suggested it was on account of his horribly disfigured face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora had a flying robot assistant named Spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riverboat captain Harry Fontana secured a contract to take Nora and the Mandroid up the river by outsmarting the other riverboat captains who were participating in a winner take all bar brawl for the contract right. Fontana laid low while everyone else duked it out and then hit the presumptive winner over the head with a bottle to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fontana presumed that Nora didn't know how to pilot a riverboat, and later fit its motor, simply because she was a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mandroid had trouble remember details about his pre-cyborg existence as an airplane pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abbott Reeves gave himself a mechanical arm that shot electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in the misfortune of another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mandroid, Nora, and Kuji shared a laugh once it became apparent that the power hungry Abbot Reeves had not succeeded in sending himself back in time to rule over ancient Rome as a god-king, but rather had ended up being sent back over 400 million years into Earth's past, where he would rule over nothing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x16a", "title": "The Elevator", "date": "1986-01-31", "description": "Two brothers searching for their father discover a factory full of giant animal bodies.\n\nDirected by: R. L. Thomas. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brothers Will and Roger went searching around for their father in a dark facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brothers Will and Roger went searching around for their father in a dark facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers described their father as someone that sounds much like a stereotypical mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a huge man-eating spider that has grown in size due to the effects of their father's experiment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x16b", "title": "To See the Invisible Man", "date": "1986-01-31", "description": "An uncaring man is sentenced to a year of social isolation.\n\nDirected by: Noel Black. Story by: Robert Silverberg, Steven Barnes.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitchell was sentenced to being treated as invisible by the whole society for a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitchell was cocky at first but then found that being isolated and ignored was really no fun at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems Mitchell learned a lesson of compassion somewhat too well as he ended up breaking the law by comforting another punishee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitchell in the end took pity on the invisible woman knowing he'd be punished severely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitchell was cocky at first but then found that being isolated and ignored was really no fun at all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitchell was forced to live without human contact for a year and it took its tole on his psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitchell could basically do anything he wanted for the space of a year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying camera drones implied that the society we saw had extreme amounts of surveillance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two young men stole a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitchell spoke with an emergency service responder over just such a device.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x16c", "title": "Tooth and Consequences", "date": "1986-01-31", "description": "The Tooth Fairy gives a dentist what he wishes for.\n\nDirected by: Robert Downey. Story by: Haskell Barkin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Myron wished for fame, love, and adoration and ended up getting more than he bargained for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Tooth Fairy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A big ugly man introduced himself to Myron as the tooth fairy and granted his wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A big ugly man introduced himself to Myron as the tooth fairy and granted his wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the ungratified thankless work of a dentist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Myron and Lydia became besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Myron wished for fame and got it in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myron's offer to Lydia of going on a dinner date was summarily rejected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia Bixby walked in on Myron trying to hang himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Myron went into voluntary exile in part to escape his adoring female admirers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x16", "title": "Gather Ye Acorns", "date": "1986-02-02", "description": "In the 1930s, an ancient tree troll encourages young Johnathan Quick to pack his comic book collection and follow his dreams after his practical parents disapprove of them. As the years roll on, things don't go well for the now- older Johnathan, but an opportunity approaches that may allow him to finally get a break.\n\nDirected by: Norman Reynolds. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Stu Krieger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonathan's parents were exceedingly proud of him for how hard he worked. But Jonathan squandered all of his hard earned college tuition money on a flashy car and then resolved never to work another day in his life. Years later he was a drifter who sorely regretted not listening to his parents' advice to work hard. Finally, in an inexplicable stroke of good fortune, a lifetime of loafing about paid of for Jonathan when he found that the junk he had collected over the years was now worth a fortune as collector's items.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An enigmatic tree troll offered Jonathan this unsolicited life advice: Give up on going to medical school and follow your dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pursuing one's dream vs. advancing one's career", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the consequences of Jonathan giving up on going to medical school in favor of living the free-and-easy lifestyle of a drifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan gave up on going to medical school in favor of pursuing his dream of living the free-and-easy lifestyle of a drifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan was under pressure from his parents to go to medical school. After meeting an enigmatic tree troll, Jonathan decided to itch medical school and become a drifter instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan took the enigmatic tree troll's advice and resolved to live a life of leisure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alma and Elmer were heartbroken when their son, Jonathan, revealed that he'd squandered his college tuition money on a new roadster. They summarily kicked him out of the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enigmatic tree troll was adamant that \"the world needs dreamers\" and \"what we could truly do with (in this world) is a few more dreamers\". Jonathan took the troll's world view to heart by giving up on going to medical school to instead become a dirt encrusted drifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, 12-year-old Jonathan was relentlessly henpecked by his mother. She guilt tripped the boy into putting his comic book down in favor of a medical textbook, and chided him for having neglected to sweep the front walk and clean his room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toward the start of the story, 12-year-old Jonathan was encouraged to give up on going to medical school by an enigmatic tree troll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alma put a lot of pressure on her son, Jonathan, to go to medical school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elmer put a lot of pressure on his son, Jonathan, to go to medical school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alma and Elmer Quick ardently wanted for their son, Jonathan, to go to medical school and become a doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After hitting rock bottom, Jonathan lamented not having followed his parents advice about going to medical school. He said to himself, \"it took me so damn long to listen\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After hitting rock bottom, Jonathan resolved to use what little money he had left to fill up his jalopy's gas tank and then drive off of a nearby dam - thus literally hitting rock bottom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan's mother scolded him for being the laziest boy she ever knew. His father called him a no-good lazy bum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x17a", "title": "Welcome to Winfield", "date": "1986-02-07", "description": "Two people fleeing an agent of Death end up in an old west town.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Bilson. Story by: Les Enloe.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Someone very much like the Grim Reaper pursued a man who was near death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a wife who was helping her ill husband Matt escape an \"agent of death\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the agent of death showing Matt and the townspeople compassion not following his orders to take them away to the after world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an angel of death learning the ropes on his first day reaping souls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with everyone offering up to the \"agent of death\" themselves instead of everyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some country bumpkins in an Old West setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was set in a dusty old town called Winfield which appeared to be a throwback to the Old West.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wife was helping her knocking on death's door husband from his appointment with the grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town fool spoke about not liking strangers and wanting to hang 'em.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x17b", "title": "Quarantine", "date": "1986-02-07", "description": "An ill weapons designer is cryogenically frozen and awakened three centuries later.\n\nDirected by: Martha Coolidge. Story by: Philip DeGuere and Steven Bochco, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cryogenically preserved Matthew, who had been frozen in the 2030s because he had terminal cancer, was revived three centuries later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew woke up three centuries in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard the antiquated opinions of 21st century Matthew on 24th century Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew first thought that future humans were primitive Luddites but found that their technology was a sort of telepathy magic involving astral bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of the 24th century had built a new and utopian world absent of machine technology out of the ruins an old world that had been mostly destroyed in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomical impact avoidance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew was commissioned to hack into the old satellite defense system and use it to get rid of, what he was told was, an incoming asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "An asteroid was apparently on impact course with future Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were nuclear weapons in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that past humans, especially Americans, had annihilated each other using powerful missiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that a \"limited\" exchange of nuclear weapons in Earth's past resulted in 80% of the world population dying off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that past humans used nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew woke up three centuries in the future to find Earth was populated by telepaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah described how her people had the power to astrally project themselves around the cosmos. The story concluded with Matthew experiencing exactly this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew doubted whether he could adapt to fit into the strange future society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew had cryogenically preserved himself with a view to being revived in a future when his there malignant tumors could be treated medically.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: TerrorVision (1986)", "title": "TerrorVision", "date": "1986-02-14", "description": "The story follows an alien creature sent to Earth, which ends up inside a household where three youths must take care of it to prevent it from going into a hungry rampage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerrorVision" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A alien creature was going around eating people in the Sherman family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe young Sherman when he adamantly insisted that there was a monster in the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The swinging married couple Stanley and Raquel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The swinging couple Stanley and Raquel brought a couple home to check out their pleasure dome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stanley and Raquel were unabashed swingers. Spiro and Cherry were likewise swingers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to young Sherman and his punk rocker sister to stop a grotesque alien creature from eating lots of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a grotesque alien creature going around the Putterman family residence eating people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stanley and his teenage, punk rocker daughter Suzy. Raquel and her elderly, raving conspiracy theorist father Grampa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman's mother locked him up in the family bomb shelter so that she and her husband might swing with a couple they'd brought home without disturbance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage punk rocker couple of Suzy and O.D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa was an ex-military man who had a bunker in the family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa was an ex-military man who had a bunker in the family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grampa and his young grandson Sherman stayed up late watching classic B movie science fiction films on television. Then Grampa was devoured by an alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Pluthar traveled to Earth to exterminate the alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spiro played the role of a flaming, Greek, gay guy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x18a", "title": "Gramma", "date": "1986-02-14", "description": "A young boy is convinced his ailing grandmother is really a monster.\n\nDirected by: Bradford May. Story by: Stephen King, Harlan Ellison.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mother left her 11 year old son Georgie in the care of his grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgie discovered that his grandmother was a creature of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgie uncovered that his grandmother was a devotee of the malevolent cosmic entity Cthulhu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Cthulhu possessed first the grandmother, and ultimately Georgie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grandmother had in her possession unholy books that she used to summon the malevolent cosmic entity Cthulhu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgie was terrified to be alone in the presence of his admittedly creepy grandmother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x18b", "title": "Personal Demons", "date": "1986-02-14", "description": "A scriptwriter suffering from writer's block is tormented by a group of small creatures.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rockne could see little meddlesome creatures that nobody else could see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Rockne when he told them that little meddlesome creatures were running around all over the place causing mischief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little creatures presented Rockne, who had been struggling with writer's bock, with the story idea he had been so desperately seeking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the scriptwriter Rockne suffering from writer's block.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "writer's block", "level": "major", "motivation": "The little creatures presented Rockne, who had been struggling with writer's bock, with the story idea he had been so desperately seeking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rockne had an old pal named Harry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x18c", "title": "Cold Reading", "date": "1986-02-14", "description": "An actor gets a job on a popular radio show only to find that everything described on the show becomes real inside the studio.\n\nDirected by: Gus Trikonis. Story by: Martin Pasko & Rebecca Parr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The things the script readers of a radio broadcast were reading got conjured into reality in the studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We what it might have been like to perform a 1940s era radio broadcast of a popular weekly show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some people perform a radio broadcast of a popular weekly show without any rehearsal time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting magic object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scriptwriter got his wish for realistic sound effects granted by a voodoo device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a radio broadcaster conjuring an invasion from Mars into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a radio broadcaster conjuring an invasion from Mars into reality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x17", "title": "Boo!", "date": "1986-02-16", "description": "Ditzy porn star Sheena Sepulveda and her sleazy husband Tony move into a house they discover is haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners, the kind- hearted Nelson and Evelyn Chumsky, who reluctantly try to scare their rude guests away.\n\nDirected by: Joe Dante. Story by: Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted house", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around a married couple of ill-repute being reluctantly driven out of their new home by the good-natured ghosts of its previous owners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around a married couple of ill-repute being reluctantly driven out of their new home by the good-natured ghosts of its previous owners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Sheena Sepulveda made the mistake of moving into a haunted house. The ghosts of Nelson and Evelyn Chumsky were living happily in the attic of the house that they had occupied in life - that is until the ditzy porn star Sheena and her sleazy husband, Tony, moved in. Richard and Barbara Tucker were raising their two young children in a happily haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheena was a porn star. Posters for several of the XXX features that she'd starred in were pinned up in her and Tony's bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Nelson and Evelyn Chumsky kept the spark alive in their marriage, even after their deaths. They lived happily together as ghosts in the attic of the home that they'd once occupied in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prudish Chumskys were juxtaposed with the pornographer Sepulvedas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Chumskys were a quaint old couple who were quite taken aback when porn start and her husband moved into the home they inhabited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driving the plot was posthumous Chumskys' desire to rid themselves of the uncouth and uncultured couple Sheena and Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, the Chumskys scared the bejesus out of Sheena by dressing up as zombies and interrupting her bout of late night love-making with Tony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony sicced his doberman on the Chumskys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheena was the scantly clad star of countless films with lewd titles. In short, she was a pornstar. The Chumskys were lukewarm about having their former house inhabited by two pornographers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x19a", "title": "The Leprechaun-Artist", "date": "1986-02-21", "description": "A vacationing leprechaun is forced to grant wishes to the three boys who captured him.\n\nDirected by: Tommy Lee Wallace. Story by: James Crocker, Tommy Lee Wallace.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each boy came to profoundly regret his wish in turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leprechaun", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three boys stumbled on a vacationing leprechaun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on three boys capturing a leprechaun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three boys stumbled on a vacationing leprechaun who was obligated to grant their wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boys were struggling whether to use their wishes for things like world peace versus to have a limousine with a chauffeur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.P.'s mother refused to let him go out to play until he finished his chores. The leprechaun later granted a wish that J.P.'s mom would obey his every command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buddy was asked by his father if he had done his homework as Buddy was rushing out to door to meet his friends. The leprechaun later granted a wish that Buddy and Ritchie's dad would obey his every command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework shirking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buddy went out to play with his friends without having done his homework first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leprechaun granted Buddy's wish for X-ray vision. He imagined he could use it to see under girls clothing, but it didn't quite work like that in practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leprechaun granted Buddy's wish for X-ray vision. He imagined he could use it to see under girls clothing, but it didn't quite work like that in practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boys obtained the power of command over their parents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x19b", "title": "Dead Run", "date": "1986-02-21", "description": "A truck driver accepts the job of delivering souls to Hell.\n\nDirected by: Paul Tucker. Story by: Greg Bear, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unemployed truck driver Johnny Davis got a job delivering souls to Hell via semi-trailer truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journey into the underworld", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unemployed truck driver Johnny Davis got a job delivering souls to Hell via semi-trailer truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny took pity on those souls he felt were unjustly condemned to Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny was tempted to help the damned and damn the regulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny cited a story ostensibly from the Bible about Jesus going down to Hell to give the souls there another chance. Also the Christian Heaven and Hell was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny and Pete dealt with some strange demon-like beings that were overseeing Hell and the roads that led to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary was leading a revolt in Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman in a white outfit assumed she was being dropped off at Hell because she had never thought of anybody but herself until the moment that she died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some remorseful souls being dropped off at Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was put in Hell for not believing in God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny freed a man who was condemned to Hell for being gay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x04", "title": "The Town Where No One Got Off", "date": "1986-02-22", "description": "A city slicker impulsively stops at a rural town, and finds himself stalked by a sinister old man.\n\nDirected by: Don McBrearty. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that the strange old man had been waiting for about 20 years for just the right moment to set his deranged plan to take a man's life without getting caught into motion. The plan was simple: Wait patiently for a stranger to arrive in town, kill them and throw their body in the river. Nobody would be the wiser, he reasoned. In a double twist, it turned out that the old man's chosen victim purported to have had the same thought himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cogswell, a city slicker, held romanticized notions of life in a small town. His illusions were shattered when he visited such a place, only to find its inhabitants cold and unwelcoming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Contrary to Cogswell's expectations, the townspeople of the unnamed town where he arrived were cold and unwelcoming. Cogswell was somewhat taken aback when, upon arriving at the town, the train station clerk was exceptionally unhelpful when Cogswell asked for help. Other notable incidents included the people at the convenience store being needlessly curt to Cogswell, a shopkeeper hastily closing up shop just as Cogswell approached it, and a lady who seemed to have a room available for rent sending Cogswell away with evident indifference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The weird old man had been waiting about 20 years for an opportunity for the pleasure of brutally murdering someone and throwing their body in the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cogswell claimed that some of his stories were being considered for publication. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young girl fetched her mother at Cogswell's request.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x05", "title": "The Screaming Woman", "date": "1986-02-22", "description": "A little girl hears a woman scream while playing in the middle of the forest. When no adults believe her, the girl decides to take matters into her own hands and investigates.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Pittman. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The little girl Heather tried to convince various skeptical people that she did indeed hear a woman scream from beneath the ground in the forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heather's father at first didn't believe her when she said she someone singing from beneath the ground in the forest. When he herd her hum a song he had once had the victim compose for him, he eventually put two and two together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular screaming woman turned out to be Mrs. Nesbitt, wife of Mr. Nesbitt who had made an inept attempt to kill her by burying her alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be buried alive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Throughout most of the episode the viewer must imagine what it would be like to be buried alive and slowly suffocating to death, as the intended victim had very nearly done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The imaginative little girl Heather as she investigated the source of strange womanly screams emanating from the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An intimidating Yokel persuaded Brdbury to try out a dowsing stick in order to come up with his next story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Leary chastised Heather about not tidying up her room and reading Tales from the Crypt comics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Leary were seen parenting together over breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heather observed as the police arrived at a neighbor's door. The police arrived at the scene of Mrs. Nesbitt's premature inhumation at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heather's childhood friend, Dippy, reluctantly accompanied her into the woods to dig up the ground from where Heather heard a woman's screams.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e1x06", "title": "Banshee", "date": "1986-02-22", "description": "An egotistical director challenges a skeptical young writer to investigate the nearby woods to find out if the banshee said to haunt the woods exists.\n\nDirected by: Douglas Jackson. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist, Douglas Rogers, was a writer. The story concerns Douglas visiting an enigmatic film director, named John Hampton, at his manor in the Irish woods to discuss a screenplay that Douglas' had written. John was impressed with the screenplay, but maintained that it needed some cutting. It also came to light that Douglas had written a book of stories, which John had apparently lambasted in the Irish press. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Douglas encountering the ghost, or banshee, of a woman in a wooded area nearby of a lodge in the Irish woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the restless dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular banshee, the ghost of a woman who dwelt in the woods outside of John's lodge, could not find peace until she was reunited with her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas did not appreciate his host John's sardonic sense of humor. In something of a practical joke, John goaded Douglas into going out alone for a late-night stroll in a supposedly banshee infested wooded area surrounding John's lodge. Alas, the joke blew up in John's face when it turned out there really was a banshee lurking in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The banshee sought vengeance against someone named William who had been unfaithful to her. Douglas tricked John to go out and meet the banshee because John had apparently done some unfriendly reviewing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and John were well-acquainted, old friends who had an axe or three to grind. Things came to a head when Douglas visited John at his lodge in the Irish woods, and he ended up listening gleefully to John's dying screams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John boasted of having slept with hundreds of women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John accused Douglas of being \"yellow\" due to his hesitance to venture out alone for a late-night stroll in the nearby woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The banshee sought vengeance against someone named William whom had been unfaithful to her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Aurora Encounter (1986)", "title": "The Aurora Encounter", "date": "1986-03", "description": "At the end of the 19th century, a school teacher inherits a failing newspaper in a small town in Texas. She and a student discover an alien spacecraft and that the kind alien has begun a friendship with an older resident of the area and several of the town's children. She begins to write about the friendship, bringing unwanted attention to the alien.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aurora_Encounter" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the people of a turn of the 19th century era American small town who are visited by the \"Aurora Spaceman\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aurora Spaceman caused quite a commotion by flying all around a turn of the 19th century era American small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three schoolgirls went on an adventure to make contact with the Aurora Spaceman. In addition, we saw Mrs. Peebles teaching young children in a one room school house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Peables pointedly grieved over the death of her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aurora Spaceman performed a number of telekinetic feats, including moving checker pieces around the board while his opponent Charlie wasn't looking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Peebles encouraged one of the schoolgirls under her charge to pursue her interest in the sciences even though the girl's father thought women were ill-suited to be scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man Charlie befriended the Aurora Spaceman, who made recurring visits to Charlie's rustic cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man Charlie and his hound Moondog that the Aurora Spaceman gave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of schoolgirls stumbled on evidence (e.g. a cave painting of spaceship) in a cavern that aliens had made contact with ancient humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the people grieving over the senseless killing of the Aurora Spaceman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x18", "title": "Dorothy and Ben", "date": "1986-03-02", "description": "Ben Dumfy, freshly-awoken from a 40-year coma, is able to mentally communicate with Dorothy, a young girl who is similarly comatose.\n\nDirected by: Thomas Carter. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Michael De Guzman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Merle and Samantha stayed by their young daughter's side as she lay comatose in her hospital bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end, Ben implored whatever it was that was threatening to carry Dorthy, a comatose young girl, off to the world beyond to take him instead. Although the exact details are never made clear, one gathers that Ben got his wish: He dropped dead and Dorthy emerged from her coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Merle and Samantha were worried sick about their young daughter, Dorthy, who was comatose and in danger of passing away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben and Dorothy were able to communicate at a distance using their minds alone. They did this despite, or perhaps because of, Dorothy being in a coma and Ben having recently been in a coma. Ben's newfound ability was presumably bound up with himself having freshly-awoken from a coma himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben Dumfy woke up from a 40-year coma. Dorthy was comatose and in danger of passing away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy was in a coma, but was also aware of what was going on around her to an extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben Dumfy woke up from a 40-year coma. He marveled at a set of automatic doors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of medical doctors were astonished when Ben Dumfy awoke from a 40-year coma. Dr. Templeton was initially skeptical of Ben Dumfy's claim that he was able to communicate with a comatose young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorothy had ridden her bicycle in the street because she was mad about something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben apparently talked Dorothy out of accompanying two children who wanted to escort her into some kind of an afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Templeton was upset about all the mystical nonsense he thought Ben was perpetrating.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x20a", "title": "Profile in Silver", "date": "1986-03-07", "description": "A history professor from the future is sent back to observe the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.\n\nDirected by: John Hancock. Story by: J. Neil Schulman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "History professor Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald traveled back in time to witness the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but he ended up preventing the assassination with dramatic consequences for civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald went back in time and met John F. Kennedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "History professor Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald traveled back in time to witness the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "History professor Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald traveled back in time and inadvertently prevented the assassination of President John F. Kennedy with dire consequences for the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "John F. Kennedy had to react to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "major", "motivation": "John F. Kennedy met his distant descendant from 200 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald traveled back from 200 years in the future to secretly observe the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph saved Kennedy by trading places with him, thus leaving Kennedy to lecture in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph was supposed to secretly witness the Kennedy assassination but, on an impulse, decided to step in and save the President, accidentally dooming the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "A history professor went back in time to and saved John F. Kennedy from being assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "History professor Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald saved a President Kennedy, and in so doing doomed the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "History professor Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald traveled back in time to witness the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph lamented that he could not form close relationships in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph lamented that he could not form close relationships in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuclear war and destruction of the biosphere were postulated with 77% probability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biotechnological risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a remaining 20% probability involved destruction of the biosphere with man-made pathogens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x20b", "title": "Button, Button", "date": "1986-03-07", "description": "A stranger gives a down-and-out couple a box with a button on it. He states that if they press the button, they would receive a large sum of money but also that someone would die. (This story was remade into the 2009 film The Box.)\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Financially struggling married couple Arthur and Norma Lewis received a strange box with a button on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "If Arthur and Norma pushed the button on the box, then someone they didn't know would die, and they would be awarded a cool $200,000. Should they push it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "After Norma pushed the button, a man came to collect the box, saying he would give it to the next person, and left hanging in the air was the possibility that was the the candidate victim would ironically be Norma herself, if the button was pushed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norma somehow felt it might be ethically wrong to push the button, but she just couldn't resist pushing it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x19", "title": "Mirror, Mirror", "date": "1986-03-09", "description": "Horror novelist Jordan Manmouth, known for his huge ego and flagrant dismissal of the supernatural, is soon haunted by a phantom with a misshapen face, which appears in any reflective surface he looks at.\n\nDirected by: Martin Scorsese. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Joseph Minion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jordan Manmouth was a renowned horror novelist. In one scene, he was interviewed by Dick Cavett about his new novel \"Scream Dreams\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "The horror novelist Jordan Manmouth made it abundantly clear that he held no fear of the supernatural monsters found in his writings. Jordan, however, ought to have taken the supernatural more seriously as he was subsequently terrorized by a grotesque apparition that appeared in any reflective surface he looked at.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jordan Manmouth discussed \"being scared\" with his driver. Jordan was subsequently stricken with terror from being haunted by a nightmarish apparition that appeared in any reflective surface he looked at.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Jordan Manmouth was terrorized by a humanoid monster dressed in a black fedora and black cape. It had a grotesquely disfigured face, and appeared to Jordan in any reflective surface that he looked at.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jordan Manmouth believed that someone was out to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jordan thought he saw a disfigured man trying to kill him whenever he looked in a mirror. Since the apparition vanished as soon as Jordan looked away, and since no one else could see it, it seemed like his nerves had just finally caught up with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that the disfigured apparition was some aspect of Jonathan's rather vain and callous personality that manifested physically. In the end Jonathan somehow became the phantom that it seemed he had been hallucinating, implying that they were somehow one and the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with a scene of a man waking up from a terrible nightmare where he was surrounded by zombies in a cemetery. It turned out to be a clip from a newly released horror flick that was based on Jordan Manmouth's novel \"Scream Dreams\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional legal system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pointed incident in the story was when Jordan tried repeatedly to call with the police but was met with a \"all lines are busy\" message.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan was needlessly cold and callous towards an ardent fan that was pestering him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some part of Jordan, once he had calmed down, clearly understood that seeing a disfigured man sneaking up on him in reflective surfaces no sense. Every time he turned around, nobody was there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jordan said, and was later chided by Karen for having done so, \"I wish I could be scared\". He subsequently got much more than he bargained for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After transforming into the apparition, Jordan threw himself out of a window, presumably to his death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Assassin (1986)", "title": "Assassin", "date": "1986-03-19", "description": "Two government agents are tasked to stop an android assassin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090666/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The killer android Robert Golem was going around assassinating people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Mary fell in love during the course of tracking down a killer android together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary had been involved in the creation of a virtually bulletproof, virtually flameproof, killer android with an electronic brain in its lower abdomen as part of a secret U.S. military project. It also had telescopic eyes and could reach running speeds of up to 30 mph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary let her friend Grace stay at her apartment after Grace was suddenly dumped like a sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace was down on herself because her partner had suddenly and unexpectedly dumped her like sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android assassin Robert Golem was partially powered by solar cells in its eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary spoke of a zealot rabbi in 16th century Prague (presumably Judah Loew ben Bezalel) who created a clay creature, called a golem, to protect the Jews from persecution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Golem hacked into an ATM and made it dispense a number of twenty dollar bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ann Walsh learned first hand of how the android Robert Golem was fully functional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android assassin Robert Golem took out Senator Corbin among other prominent people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chopping Mall (1986)", "title": "Chopping Mall", "date": "1986-03-21", "description": "The story focuses on three security robots turning rogue, and killing teenage employees inside a shopping mall after dark.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopping_Mall" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four couples were stuck inside a shopping mall overnight in mortal combat with three high-tech, mall security bots gone haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three high-tech, mall security robots went haywire and started going around indiscriminately killing everyone who had stayed behind in the mall after closing time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four couples (Rick and Linda, Greg and Suzie, Mike and Leslie and Ferdy and Allison) were stuck inside a shopping mall overnight in mortal combat with three high-tech, mall security bots gone haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferdy and Allison fell in love over the course of spending a night trapped in a shopping mall fighting a trio of mall security robots gone haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Todd didn't approve of his young adult daughter Linda running around with Mike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Todd didn't approve of his young adult daughter Linda running around with Mike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nasally voiced, thick-framed eyeglass wearing, bookkeeping aficionado Ferdy Meisel. Ferdy, however, quickly dropped his nerd persona once the mall security robots started going around killing everyone. The security robot technician was also a stereotypical nerdy guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike reminded Leslie that smoking was bad for her health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suzie became paralyzed with fear while crawling around in a ventilation duct.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x21a", "title": "Need to Know", "date": "1986-03-21", "description": "A government scientist is sent to a small town to help investigate a bizarre outbreak of insanity which is spreading through the town.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Sidney Sheldon, Mary Sheldon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human thought virus", "level": "major", "motivation": "An idea was being whispered around town that was so mind blowing it made its hearers instantly go insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the meaning of life was so shocking that it made people go immediately insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda's father went insane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x21b", "title": "Red Snow", "date": "1986-03-21", "description": "A KGB colonel is sent to a Siberian town to investigate the deaths of the local Communist Party officials.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Michael Cassutt.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some of the townspeople turned out to be immortal vampires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Ilyanov was sent by train to a Siberian town to investigate the deaths of two local Soviet Communist Party officials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw KGB agents hauling off a political dissident in the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was dialog about having contacts or being sent to Siberia seemed to imply corruption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the Soviet Union", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some people living in a dreary arctic settlement of Soviet design. Also a political dissident was sent to the gulag on the charge of being a contact for Western agents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x22a", "title": "Take My Life...Please!", "date": "1986-03-28", "description": "A successful comedian who steals a routine from another comedian ends up paying a high price.\n\nDirected by: Gus Trikonis. Story by: Gordon Mitchell.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "major", "motivation": "America's hottest comedian, Billy Diamond, paid a heavy price for stealing the \"Gorilla Banana\" routine from another comedian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "After dying in a traffic accident, Billy was doomed to go on stage every night in the afterlife and tell his audience about all the rotten things he had done in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed the purpose of the exercise was to evoke remorse in Billy, and partially achieved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was forced to confront the wicked things he had done in his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy made a couple of self-deprecating transsexual jokes that were par for the course in 1980s stand-up comedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy confessed to his audience that he broke his girlfriend's jaw in three places and she had to have surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The married, struggling, young comic Dave tried to shoot Billy for stealing his whole act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy confessed how he had kicked his own mother out of his house for complaining too much and that she died of hypothermia as a result.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x22b", "title": "Devil's Alphabet", "date": "1986-03-28", "description": "A group of friends in Victorian England find themselves haunted by an oath they took as young men.\n\nDirected by: Ben Bolt. Story by: Arthur Gray, Robert Hunter.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a group of young Cambridge students in Victorian England form a group called The Devil's Alphabet Society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each deceased member of The Devil's Alphabet Society returned to their yearly meeting in ghostly form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Victorian gentlemen considered themselves honor-bound to keep their oath to attend their yearly meeting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two The Devil's Alphabet Society members shoot themselves dead in the head. Two other members seemingly hanged themselves from high ceilings with no chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghosts all voted to end the pact, resulting in the freeing of the trapped spirits from Purgatory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x22c", "title": "The Library", "date": "1986-03-28", "description": "A woman is hired to work in a private library and soon discovers that the books document the lives of everyone alive, updated instantly and in the smallest detail.\n\nDirected by: John Hancock. Story by: Anne Collins.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen got a job a a special library which contained books documenting the lives of everyone alive. When Ellen rewrote the books, they people present lives changed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen was rooming with her younger sister Lori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gloria implied that she was the assistant to the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen succumbed to the temptation to meddle with people's destiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Ellen on her first day working at a most curious private library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aspiring writer Ellen took on a part time job at a most curious library to make end's meat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lori's friend was depressed and lonely because she was 37 years old without kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lori's friend was depressed and lonely because she was 37 years old without kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug talked of suicide in advance of filing for bankruptcy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug talked of suicide in advance of filing for bankruptcy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: America 3000 (1986)", "title": "America 3000", "date": "1986-04", "description": "After a nuclear war in the year 1992, mankind has been reduced to Medieval conditions and is under the rule of Amazon-like women warriors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_3000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The films is set untold generations after a nuclear war where humankind has been reduced to living under Medieval conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The films is set untold generations after a nuclear war where humankind has been reduced to living under Medieval conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amazonian-like female warriors ruled over men, whom they kept as thralls, in the post-nuclear holocaust society featured in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korvis led men in an uprising against the Amazonian-like female warriors who ruled the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film built up to Korvis (the leader of the men) and Vena (the leader of the Amazonian-like women) falling in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films is set untold generations after a nuclear war where humankind has been reduced to living under Medieval conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men set up a shanty town in an irradiated zone because the Amazonian-like women were reluctant to venture into such a dangerous territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tribe of Amazonian-like female warriors kept men as thralls to be used for breeding purposes and to do manual labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korvis was puzzled by the 20th century technology he discovered in the President's bunker. For example, he nearly jumped out of his boots when he inadvertently turned on a boombox, causing it to play loud rock music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korvis accidentally played a 20th century video transmission to the President in which it was explained that the United States had launched a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union based on a false alarm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men reluctantly allowed the Sasquatch-like creature Aargh the Awful to take up residence in their shanty town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the Amazonian-like female warriors tested herself in battle against the Sasquatch-like creature Aargh the Awful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Amazonian-like female warriors were initially in awe of the 20th century technologies that Korvis had recovered from the President's bunker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Crystal (1986)", "title": "Star Crystal", "date": "1986-04", "description": "In 2032, an expedition on Mars finds a buried egg and make the mistake of taking it back to their ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Crystal" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious, alien creature was killing everyone aboard a spaceship whose crew was trying to make it back to Alpha 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange alien creature, named GAR, was killing everyone aboard a ship en route to Alpha 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious, alien creature was killing everyone aboard a spaceship whose crew was trying to make it back to Alpha 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story largely unfolds aboard a futuristic spaceship whose crew are trying reach Alpha 7 before a strange, alien creature kills them all first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature, named GAR, was killing the crew members of a spaceship one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "GAR and the crew members had trouble understanding each other on account that GAR was a strange slime alien. Only after it learned English, did it become apparent that GAR had only killed because it was acting in self-defense, at which point GAR and the surviving crew members worked together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end the surviving crew members worked together with the strange alien GAR for their mutual benefit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small contingent escaped from an expansive, rotating wheel type space station just in the nick of time before it blew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherrie had a habit of completely losing her nerve in times of danger. She screamed \"We're all going to die!\" when it became apparent that the space station was going to explode, and later went into a near catatonic state upon finding the dessicated body of a fellow crew member.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "GAR read an electronic Bible after hacking into the ship computer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x23a", "title": "Shadow Play", "date": "1986-04-04", "description": "In this remake of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, a man is convinced that reality as we perceive it is dependent on his staying alive.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Charles Beaumont, James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adam was reliving his own execution over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adam was convinced that his execution won't matter because he is only dreaming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam was put on death row to await his hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam experiences on death row combined with his vivid description of what is like to be walked to the gallows and be hanged make ask us to question the morality of executing prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody believed Adam when he told them they were figments of his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to kill or to spare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the judge call the judge to stay Adam's execution?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solipsism syndrome", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adam was thought to have this delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam was found guilty of murder in the first degree in and sentenced to death by hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Mark Ritchie and his wife Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam was convicted of first degree murder in a court of law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam insisted that Carol was his sister and moreover that she harbored some deep resentment of him and that's why she wanted him to hang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam insisted that Father Grant was his biological father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam was visited by a Catholic priest prior to his execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam suggested that his dreams stemmed from shame for something he had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam believed that Carol was his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam was found guilty of murder in the first degree in and sentenced to death by hanging.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x23b", "title": "Grace Note", "date": "1986-04-04", "description": "A young woman gains a glimpse of her future.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Patrice Messina.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosemarie's younger sister Mary was terminally ill with leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosemarie and her younger, terminally ill sister Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosemarie was toss 20 years in the future to the year 1986 to find out that she had become a famous opera singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosemarie became a famous opera singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sororal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosemarie and her younger sister Mary formed a deep bond before Mary's demise from leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary had leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosemarie and Mary had some cursory interactions with their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosemarie and Mary had some cursory interactions with their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosemarie went to the future and saw her future opera star self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosemarie and her family mourned the death of Mary who died of leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting shooting star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary wished upon a shooting star that her older sister would become a great opera singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the backstage of an opera house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x20", "title": "Secret Cinema", "date": "1986-04-06", "description": "A young woman named Jane thoroughly believes that her life is secretly being recorded, influenced, and filmed for an unknown audience.\n\nNote: This episode is a remake of Bartel's 1968 short of the same name.\n\nDirected by: Paul Bartel. Story by: Paul Bartel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my life was secretly stage managed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jane discovered that many of the people closest to her were merely actors, and that her life was being filmed with hidden cameras and the content made into a drama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane discovered that many of the people closest to her were merely actors, and that her life was being filmed with hidden cameras and the content made into a drama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was blindsided when her fiancé, Dick, left her for a Swedish model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was blindsided when her fiancé, Dick, left her for a Swedish model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane sought council from her psychiatrist, Dr. Shreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane met her mother at a restaurant for dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two actors playing uniformed police officers barged into Dick's apartment to arrest Jane for his murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane was, to her consternation, pestered by folk asking for her autograph, including her own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane spotted a movie poster announcing that she would be institutionalized in the next episode. She promptly fainted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane explained that she killed her former fiancé because he had left her for a Swedish model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Jane got back at the people running the reality TV show of which she was unwittingly the star. She arranged for them to become clueless participants in a reality drama, just as Jane herself had been.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane was made to believe that her fiancé, Dick, had cheated on her with a Swedish model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane was given a revolver and told to shoot her former fiancé through the heart. She thought that she'd one so, but the revolver was a prop and the fiancé used a bag of fake blood to make it look real.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Annihilator (1986)", "title": "Annihilator", "date": "1986-04-07", "description": "A newspaper reporter is stalked by androids.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilator_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert's girlfriend Angela was surreptitiously replaced by an identical-looking android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The passengers on a flight were replaced with identical-looking androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and his girlfriend were in a loving relationship until such time as she was replaced by an identical-looking android. Later, Robert and Layla found love while Robert was on the run from the law for allegedly having murdered his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "One android after another was out to hunt down Robert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert, a fugitive from the law, thanked Layla for helping him even though he was a stranger, although she clearly had a romantic interest in him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and his fluffy white dog Boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela would have nothing to do with computers. Her android replace, by contrast, was a computer whiz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angela wrote an editorial arguing that more experiments ought to be performed on live animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert was on the lamb for allegedly having murdered his girlfriend, Angela. He hid out at Layla's place but not much was made of it after that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were after Robert for the murder of his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Critters (1986)", "title": "Critters", "date": "1986-04-11", "description": "The plot follows a group of small, furry aliens with carnivorous behavior escaping from two shape-shifting bounty hunters, landing in a small countryside town to feast on its inhabitants. It is the first installment in the Critters franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Critters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Critters and their two shapeshifting bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, including a father and his young son, living on a farm found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Critters and their bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, including a father and his young son, living on a farm found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Critters and their bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, including a sister and her little brother, living on a farm found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Critters and their bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, including a mother and her teenage daughter, living on a farm found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Critters and their bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, including a happily married husband and wife, living on a farm found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Critters and their bounty hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two shapeshifting bounty hunter aliens took the form of humans while pursuing Critters in a rural community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of four, and their local community more generally, were being terrorized by the Critters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Critters came to Earth after escaping from an alien prison asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Charlie was a pitching prospect until he starting taking to the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens talking to us in our dreams", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was convinced that his fillings were a conduit for space alien transmissions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Critters came to Earth in a hijacked a spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Critters came to Earth from a far off prison asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad and his pet house cat Chewie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "April and her boyfriend Steve's make out session in the barn cut short when a Critter mauled Steve to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "April and her boyfriend Steve's make out session in the barn cut short when a Critter mauled Steve to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "April and her little brother Brad put their longtime feud behind them while hole up in their family farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "April and her little brother Brad put their longtime feud behind them while hole up in their family farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an inept, rural sheriff and some of his men try to get to the bottom of all the Critter related happenings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x24a", "title": "A Day in Beaumont", "date": "1986-04-11", "description": "After witnessing the landing of a flying saucer, a young couple find themselves in the midst of an alien invasion.\n\nDirected by: Philip DeGuere. Story by: David Gerrold.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin and Faith Carlson found themselves in the midst of an apparent alien infiltration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It appeared Earth was under attack by rather indubitably insidious, insectoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw insectoid aliens apparently infiltration the US military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin and Faith Carlson witnessed a flying saucer land outside the town of Beaumont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "We found out that the alien's had infiltrated our society to a conspicuous degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flying saucer was manned by insect-like aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin and Faith Carlson witnessed a flying saucer land outside the town of Beaumont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At first people wouldn't believe Kevin and Faith about the UFO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The insectoid aliens abducted Kevin and Faith (in their car) aboard their flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used a machine to unprogram Kevin so that he remembered he himself was actually a vicious bug alien.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e1x24b", "title": "The Last Defender of Camelot", "date": "1986-04-11", "description": "In modern-day England, the last of King Arthur's knights teams with Morgan le Fay to stop the return of Merlin.\n\nDirected by: Jeannot Szwarc. Story by: Roger Zelazny, George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Lancelot was cursed to live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sir Lancelot longed for death after having lived for over a thousand years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that a number of Arthurian characters were still around in present day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that a number of Arthurian characters were still around in present day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lancelot fought his old friend Merlin rather than permit a human sacrifice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lancelot in duel with the hollow knight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sorcerer Morgan le Fay showed Sir Lancelot scenes through a crystal ball, lit a cigar with a fire conjured in the palm of her hand, and whisked Lancelot and Tom away to Cornwall in a puff of smoke. Merlin, too, was using magic of one sort or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Lancelot was accosted by three young thugs on the streets of London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Lancelot opined on the horrors of modern warfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Merlin saw glory in warfare, but the horrors of war that Sir Lancelot had witnessed over the centuries taught him the folly of it all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Merlin was disappointed in Tom's absence of chivalric qualities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Merlin didn't understand he was not in the time of King Arthur anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Lancelot had apparently renounced killing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x21", "title": "Hell Toupée", "date": "1986-04-13", "description": "Balding accountant Murray Bernstein recently purchased a hairpiece that drove him to murder three lawyers, prompting inept defense attorney Harry Ballentine to grow fearful with his new client.\n\nDirected by: Irvin Kershner. Story by: Gail Parent & Kevin Parent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "inanimate object come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is a French toupée that, for unclear reasons, is alive, vicious, and carries a hatred of lawyers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a lawyer and his quest to save the justice system from a homicidal French toupée that nurses a grudge for members of the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a series of murders of lawyers carried out by various people who, it transpired, had been puppeteered by an evil hairpiece with a will of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's coworker made unsubtle advances on him only to be told he could not think of her as a female until crimes had been solved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A toupée proprietor persuaded a reluctant customer into leaving his shop the happy wearer of a very special hairpiece.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x22", "title": "The Doll", "date": "1986-05-04", "description": "The shy and lonely John Walters buys a special doll, handcrafted by a mysterious German toymaker, for his niece Doris. While Doris is less than thrilled by the doll, her uncle embarks on a search for the woman who modelled for it, leading him to the equally lonely teacher Mary Dickenson.\n\nDirected by: Phil Joanou. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John was gobsmacked when he encountered the doll and it became clear the he was obsessively in love with its model, Mary, without ever having met her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John was gobsmacked when he encountered the doll and it became clear the he was obsessively in love with its model, Mary, without ever having met her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The doll somehow communicated telepathically with John and revealed her model to have been a school teacher named Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matchmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, the mysterious German doll maker had somehow set John and Mary up to find love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Mary were both very lonely hearts.In one interpretation of the story, the mysterious German doll maker, and modern day Cupid, setting John and Mary up to find love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John bought a doll for his niece but she did not much care for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artisan occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an elderly German maker of dolls.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Short Circuit (1986)", "title": "Short Circuit", "date": "1986-05-09", "description": "The film's plot centers upon an experimental military robot that is struck by lightning and gains a more human-like intelligence, with which it embarks to explore its new state. A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_(1986_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A prototype robot became sentient after getting struck by lightning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Number Five convinced his maker, Newton Crosby, that he was an alive, thinking machine..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newton and Stephanie fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Number Five was crazy for getting input about the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A general told a senator about operation Gotcha Last. The operation involved strapping the robots with nuclear bombs and sending them to Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prototype robots were nuclear powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newton and Ben developed several prototype robots for the U.S. military to use in Cold War operations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephanie and her pet dog Beasley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephanie was being harassed by her ex-boyfriend Frank.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x23", "title": "One for the Books", "date": "1986-05-11", "description": "Elderly college janitor Fred finds that his brain can instantly absorb any fact of any subject taught in any classroom he cleans. When this discovery becomes public, he becomes subject to a heated debate among campus professors Rand, Gilbert, and Smith about the abilities and limitations of human intellect, proving to be more than he can handle.\n\nDirected by: Lesli Linka Glatter. Story by: Richard Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative experience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fred mysteriously found himself crammed full of all the knowledge contained in the university library. He found the ordeal distressing, and with the help of his wife sought out help from a professor of psychology at the university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interpretation of the story is aliens used Fred for some unfathomable purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "An interpretation of the story is aliens used Fred as a vessel to beam to them the sum total of human knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The janitor, Fred, and his loving wife, Eva, were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred inexplicably found himself to be a master of both mathematics and physics. Also French, though that is neither here nor there. It is unclear how well he understood the things his mind recalled, seemingly at random, but from some angle of seeing things he might have been called extraordinarily intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred and Eva besought a university psychology professor, Dr. Fetlock, for aid in their bewilderment after Fred exhibited signs of super intelligence. They later demonstrated Fred's knowledge to an audience of professors drawn from various fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred and Eva were somewhat upset at being laughed at by a room full of esteemed scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a saucer-shaped flying object in to, seemingly, collect the information that had accumulated in Fred's head.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e1x24", "title": "Grandpa's Ghost", "date": "1986-05-25", "description": "Edwin learns that his grandfather, Charlie, very recently died in his sleep, yet that doesn't stop the old man from hanging around his apartment, playing the piano, and swapping stories with his grandmother.\n\nDirected by: Timothy Hutton. Story by: Timothy Hutton, Michael De Guzman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Helen was so dismayed by her husband Charlie's death that she refused to accept it and went on as if he was still alive. Edwin impersonated Charlie in order to abet Helen's escape from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edwin was crestfallen when his beloved grandpa passed away in his sleep during their trip to watch a baseball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and Helen were an elderly married couple, living out their twilight years together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and Helen were an elderly married couple, living out their twilight years together. It was clear that they cared deeply for each other. Helen was devastated when Charlie died and refused to face reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Charlie was all sunshine and rainbows in the presence of his beloved grandson, Edwin. Edwin was crestfallen when Charlie passed away in his sleep the night before they planned to set out on a trip to watch a baseball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edwin felt bad for his warm-hearted grandma because his grandpa dismissively brushed her off, before croaking in his sleep later that same day. Edwin subsequently went to extraordinary lengths to impersonate the grandpa in order to console her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rather than confronting his grandma with the reality that grandpa had croaked, Edwin went to great lengths to impersonate his grandpa, thus ensuring that his grandma could live out what would be her few remaining days in contentment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen refused to admit the fact that her husband had passed away and went on as if he were still alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edwin planned to take Grandpa Charlie to see a baseball game in San Diego.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invaders from Mars (1986)", "title": "Invaders from Mars", "date": "1986-06-06", "description": "A boy learns that Martians are taking over the minds of people on Earth as a prelude to invasion. It is a remake of the 1953 film of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invaders_from_Mars_(1986_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody save the school nurse and the general took even the least bit seriously David's claim that he'd witnessed an alien spacecraft land over the hill beyond his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "An impending Martian invasion was depicted from the child David's perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone around David became co-opted by Martians one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw David doing typical childhood things, like collecting coins, dissecting frogs in science class, playing in the schoolyard, and trying to avoid getting captured by Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A spacecraft from Mars landed on Earth and started abducting people and mind controlling them as part of an elaborate plot to steal Earth's copper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A spacecraft from Mars landed on Earth and started abducting people and mind controlling them as part of an elaborate plot to steal Earth's copper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian invaders mind controlled people, using receivers on the backs of their necks, as part of an elaborate plot to steal Earth's copper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David enthusiastically watched a meteor shower, had all sorts of space posters in his bedroom, and expressed a desire to become an astronaut when he grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David watched on as a strange alien spacecraft landed over the hill beyond his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David felt creeped out after his father had become co-opted by Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David avoided his mother as much as possible once it became apparent that she'd become co-opted by Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Ellen Gardner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The supreme Martian intelligence was a essentially beach ball sized brain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aliens (1986)", "title": "Aliens", "date": "1986-06-18", "description": "Ellen Ripley returns to the moon where her crew encountered the hostile Alien creature, this time accompanied by a unit of space marines. It is the second installment of the Alien franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien creatures versus Ripley and the Marines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien creatures versus Ripley and the Marines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The aliens used human surrogates to complete its development from a juvenile to adult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ripley accompanied a crew of Marines to exterminate some dangerous alien creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Ripley as she accompanied a unit of Marines to the exomoon LV-426 to battle aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Rebbecca (a.k.a. Newt) had to deal with the trauma of witnessing the aliens parasitize and kill her entire family. Ripley also showed signs, such as recurring nightmares, of having been traumatized by her past experience fighting the Alien creature aboard the Nostromo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Weyland-Yutani Corporation higher ups knowingly risked the colonists and Marine rescue crew's lives in an effort to obtain dangerous alien parasites for the purpose of using them to design profitable new bio-weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ripley put herself at great risk to keep young Rebbecca save from the alien creatures and also in fighting them generally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ripley mistrusted her android crew-member Bishop from the start, but in the end he proved loyal to her and his crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley had been in stasis in her escape shuttle for 57 years before she was discovered and revived. Ripley and crew were put into cryogenic stasis on their voyage to exomoon LV-426.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley woke up 57 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley was brought to a large city-like space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley broke down in tears upon being told that she had outlived her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley's story about a dangerous alien creature that gestated in humans and had acid for blood was not initially believed by the members of a court inquiry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where travel between stars is an unremarkable reality. In particular, Ripley was discovered by a salvage crew in interstellar space and returned to Sol. Later Ripley was sent to exomoon LV-426 to battle aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley and her cat Jonsey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The exomoon on which Ripley originally had discovered the Alien was now the site of the terraforming colony Hadleys Hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley went to exomoon LV-426 in an interstellar spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley found little Rebbecca in a nearly catatonic state after she survived her entire family getting parasitized my the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The terraformers base on the exomoon LV-426 was powered by a big fusion reactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marine Hudson lost his nerve upon hearing that a rescue ship was 17 days away from them. He didn't give them 17 hours to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Rebbecca was very reasonably afraid to sleep alone with the aliens running around killing people. More general, various people showed signs of fear in the face of being attacked by the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley controlled one to great effect in a one one one fight with one of the alien creatures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Powder (1986)", "title": "Death Powder", "date": "1986-06-21", "description": "The film follows a group of scientists that have stolen a cybernetic android.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Powder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Loo built for himself the ravishing female android Guernica. She lived for four year after which time her body became a powder that turned people into zombie-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more emotionally sophisticated person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story it seems is that Dr. Loo wished for nothing less than that his android creation Gueenica would experience the emotion of love, and she strove to fulfill his wish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Kiyoshi's experience of transforming into a zombie-like monster in gruesome detail.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e5x01", "title": "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp", "date": "1986-07-14", "description": "A common boy named Aladdin has big dreams, which he finds coming true when he is approached by a Moroccan magician who presents him an offer he can't refuse.\n\nStarring Robert Carradine as Aladdin, James Earl Jones as the Genie of the Lamp and Genie of the Ring, Leonard Nimoy as the Evil Moroccan Magician, Valerie Bertinelli as Princess Sabrina, Joseph Maher as the Sultan, Rae Allen as Aladdin's Mother, and Ray Sharkey as the Grand Vizier. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Tim Burton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genie in a lamp", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This is the original genie-containing lamp-story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aladdin was besotted with a princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Moroccan magician impersonated Aladdin's estranged uncle. There was much talk about magicians and the princess though Aladdin was one such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "With the aid of the genie, Aladdin became rich and powerful and married the Sultan's beautiful daughter, Princess Sabrina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moroccan magician gained Aladdin's trust by feigning to be his lost uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moroccan magician shed crocodile tears for the man he was pretending to the brother of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin expressed a fleeting desire to open a marble shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin's mother reluctantly permitted him to keep the magic lamp. Aladdin's mother reluctantly went to the palace to tell the Sultan that Aladdin wanted to marry his daughter. The genie was delighted to scare the Grand Vizier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin was afraid to enter the magic cave. Aladdin's mother passed out from fright at the sight of the genie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sultan was a kind, but simple minded and inept ruler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sultan interacted with his daughter, Princess Sabrina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sultan considered the genie's ill treatment of the Grand Vizier to be a bad omen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator described how Aladdin made a point to share his wealth with the poor and needy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moroccan magician exclaimed the words \"nothing is sweeter than revenge\" before wishing away Aladdin's wife containing palace to the middle of the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying carpet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin flew to Sabrina's rescue on a magic carpet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin's supposed uncle spoke about his late supposed brother, Aladdin's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin's supposed uncle gave him a supposedly magic ring supposedly for protection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin could command anything imaginable of the genie and all he could think about was food. The genie was either outraged or bemused, or both.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to marry above one's station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Grand Vizier was eager to marry the princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "once speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin's genie procured a magic box of moving picture that, we gather, was an anachronistic TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aladdin and Princess Sabrina lived in bliss together in his new palace after tying the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flight of the Navigator (1986)", "title": "Flight of the Navigator", "date": "1986-08-01", "description": "A 12-year-old boy is abducted by an alien spaceship and finds himself caught in a world that has changed around him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Navigator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that a 12-year-old boy, named David, gets abducted by an alien spaceship and returns to find 8 years had passed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that a 12-year-old boy, named David, gets abducted by an alien spaceship and returns to find 8 years had passed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "When David came back after being missing for eight years, himself the same physiological age as when he left, he found that his younger brother Jeff was now effectively his older brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Helen Freeman had to come to grips with their 12-year-old son David returning home after having gone missing for eight years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and his two sons, David and Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen and her two sons, David and Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "David learned to pilot a strange alien, spaceship the was controlled by a powerful AI named Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "David learned to pilot a strange alien, spaceship the was controlled by a powerful AI named Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The AI Max was puzzled over and over again by things human, from promises, to humans excreting waste products, to music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David tried to teach her pet dog Bruiser to catch a frisbee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's family had spent years searching for David after he went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that David had traveled to the planet Phaelon and back in the space of a mere four hours in his frame of reference, but a whopping eight years in Earth's time frame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max read the contents of David mind in order to retrieve some star charts contained in David's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Max returned David back in time to the year 1978.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Howard the Duck (1986)", "title": "Howard the Duck", "date": "1986-08-01", "description": "An anthropomorphic duck from the planet Duckworld suddenly finds himself on Earth with no realisitic prospects of returning home. It is based on the Marvel comic book of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_the_Duck_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "avian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard the Duck was from an alien race of talking ducks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard the Duck was from an alien race of talking ducks. Also an alien creature, known as the Dark Overlord, made a bid to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard the Duck was suddenly propelled up and out from his home on Duckworld and eventually landed in Cleveland, Ohio, on Earth with no prospects of returning home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard the Duck found himself on Earth with no realistic prospects of being able to return to his home on Duckworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard the Duck was an anthropomorphic duck in a human world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Howard the Duck, Beverly, and Phil to stop the Dark Overlord creature from taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly and her fellow girl band members were having a tough time making it in the punk rock scene until Howard the Duck joined the team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with having to give up on a dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard the Duck confided in Beverly about how he'd long given up on his dream to become a musician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly and Howard the Duck had a mutual love for playing music: Beverly was in a girl band and Howard showed a knack for playing the keyboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil outlined the march of evolutionary progress from monkey to human, and then proffered the idea that the same might be possible with ducks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly tried to get Howard to Duck to sleep with her but he was reluctant to go through with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dark Overlord effortlessly performed a variety of telekinetic feats, including levitating Howard the Duck in the air with a wave of his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dark Overlord stuck its long, monstrous tongue into a cigarette lighter to charge itself when it was low on energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man giving a tour at a nuclear power plant boasted that accidents of the Three Mile Island variety were a thing of the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard the Duck destroyed the laser spectroscope, and in so doing saving the world, but also ruining his only chance of returning to his home planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Transformers: The Movie (1986)", "title": "The Transformers: The Movie", "date": "1986-08-08", "description": "After the death of Optimus Prime during a devastating assault on Autobot City, the Autobots are pursued by Galvatron, the regenerated form of Megatron and servant of Unicron, a planet-devouring Transformer who sets out to consume Cybertron.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw two factions of humanoid robots fighting for control of the planet Cybertron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Autobots battled the evil forces of the Decpticons for control of the Autobots home planet of Cybertron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unicron was a sentient robotic planet that went around consuming other worlds. The Autobots home planet of Cybertron with its metallic surfaces also appeared to be of artificial construction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unicron was a sentient robotic planet that went around consuming other worlds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were robots from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Autobots mourned the death of their beloved leader Optimus Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Galvatron (formerly Megatron) annihilated Starscream during Starscream's coronation to avenge Starscream having tossed Megatron's dying body out into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grizzled veteran Autobot Kup took pleasure in recounting an old war story to the Dinobot Grimlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Spike and his son Daniel used mechanical exosuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both the Autobots and Decepticons traveled back and forth from Earth to alien worlds in futuristic spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both the Autobots and Decepticons traveled back and forth from Earth to alien worlds in futuristic spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel was reunited with his father Spike toward the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e5x02", "title": "The Princess Who Had Never Laughed", "date": "1986-08-11", "description": "In a kingdom where all frivolity is banned, a princess who has grown up never knowing what laughter is decides that she will marry the first man who can make her laugh, but it takes a peasant's youngest son and his pig to bring out both the laughter and the truth.\n\nStarring Ellen Barkin as Princess Henrietta, Howie Mandel as Wienerhead Waldo, Howard Hesseman as the King, Sofia Coppola as Gwendolyn (credited as Domino Coppola), Michael Tucci as Lionel, Jackie Vernon as Phlegmatic Jack, and Barrie Ingham as the Tutor. Narrated by William Daniels. Written by David Felton. Directed by Mark Cullingham.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is that we need laughter in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Henrietta was being groomed to succeed her father on the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Henrietta came into conflict with her father, the king, over her not be aloud to have any fun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Princess Henrietta and the funny man Wienerhead Waldo falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Henrietta was a privileged royal brat who was thought to have everything a princess could ask for, yet she was not happy with being confined to her castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the question of how much diligence vs. how much recreation one ought to strive for in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "In particular, the serious and ceremonious monarch was compared and contrasted with the young princess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual development of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Efforts were made to cultivate the adolescent princess in the knowledge she'd require to rule over the kingdom once she succeeded her father on the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "The adolescent princess was learning to become a young woman. She no longer put up with her father's boring old ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tutor was instructing a highly unmotivated Princess Henrietta on the knowledge of the age in a classroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waldo and Lionel conversed with their father, Silas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waldo's little sister, Gwendolyn, was much amused by his buffoonery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lionel looked down on his buffoon of a brother, Waldo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waldo had pet pig whom he credited with writing with his jokes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lionel expressed his aim to become the richest person in the kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tutor and the governess were not impressed when Princess Henrietta showed up late for her lessons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A series of lousy suitors tried to make the princess laugh with their stand-up comedy routines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to marry above one's station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A handful of upstart peasant comedians had designs on winning the princess' hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king commiserated with the princess over the tragic passing of the queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Henrietta commiserated with the kind over the tragic passing of her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king expressed regret that it was his telling of a joke that'd indirectly led to the queen getting struck dead by lightning. He banished laughter from the kingdom thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king briefly pondered how to discipline the frivolous princess.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Fly (1986)", "title": "The Fly", "date": "1986-08-15", "description": "An eccentric scientist who, after one of his experiments goes wrong, slowly turns into a fly-hybrid creature.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Fly" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle slowly turned into a fly-hybrid creature after sending himself through his teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle slowly turned into a fly-hybrid creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle slowly turned into a fly-hybrid creature after sending himself through his teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle invented a teleporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Independent inventor Seth Brundle accidentally turned himself into a half human, half fly creature in the course of his efforts to invent a teleportation device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth claimed that he would be killed by Bartok Science Industries people, if news of his teleportation technology got out to the public. Bartok Science Industries was secretly funding his research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice identification device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seth Brundle used a computer that accepted voice commands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stathis Borans at Veronica Quaife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stathis Borans and Seth Brundle were jealous of one another over Veronica Quaife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica Quaife and Stathis Borans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica Quaife wanted an abortion when it became apparent that she was pregnant with The Fly's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica Quaife unexpectedly became pregnant with The Fly's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Fly was strong enough to snap a man's arm in an arm wrestling contest and walk around on walls and ceilings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seth Brundel transformed into an insectoid type creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dead End DriveIn (1986)", "title": "Dead End Drive-In", "date": "1986-08-22", "description": "A teenage couple become trapped in a drive-in theater which is really a concentration camp for societal rejects. The inmates, many of whom sport punk fashion, are placated with a steady diet of junk food, new wave music, drugs, and exploitation films.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_End_Drive-In" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which the world economy economy has collapsed and crime is totally out of control inside cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a city plagued with street crime in the wake of a world economic collapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crabs and his girlfriend Carmen were confined to a drive-in theater that had been converted into concentration camp for undesirable and unemployed youths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crabs and his girlfriend Carmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crabs and his girlfriend Carmen were confined against their will in a drive-in theater that had been converted into concentration camp for undesirable and unemployed youths. While Crabs was preoccupied with escaping his captivity, everyone else, Carmen included, seems perfectly content to be stay there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which the world economy economy has collapsed and crime is totally out of control inside cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which unemployed youths were confined in drive-in theaters that had been converted into concentration camps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youths in the concentration camp, save for Crabs, convinced themselves that Asians were to blame for their problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youths in the concentration camp, save for Crabs, convinced themselves that Asians were to blame for their problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youths in the concentration camp, save for Crabs, convinced themselves that Asians were to blame for their problems. This was probably intended to be a commentary on prejudice against immigration in Australia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Mururoa Atoll was destroyed in a nuclear accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Pacific fishing grounds in the vicinity of a nuclear accident were polluted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that price inflation set in in the aftermath of \"The Second Wall Street Crash\" of 1990.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crabs looked up to his older, bigger, stronger bother Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crabs' mother chided him for wolfing down a plate of spaghetti at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youths confined in the concentration camp for unemployed youths were supplied with drugs, like speed and LSD, to keep them from wanting to leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crabs was something of a fitness enthusiast and didn't care for the fast foods he was expected to regularly consume while in the concentration camp. The other prisoners, by contrast, seemed to really enjoy their fast food diet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crabs had to choose between being with Carmen and escaping from the concentration camp. He chose to escape from the concentration camp without much hesitation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night of the Creeps (1986)", "title": "Night of the Creeps", "date": "1986-08-22", "description": "Alien parasites start turning the people in a college town into mindless zombies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Creeps" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris fell instantly in love with Cynthia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a university campus with frat houses and sororities and all the usual shenanigans that goes along with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris and J.C. were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "J.C. need arm crutches to get around, because he had a problem with his legs, and he was somewhat self-conscious about this fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia left her frat house leading, jerk for a boyfriend for Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Chris, Cynthia, and Detective Cameron to burn up a bunch of zombies that were going around killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien parasites were were going around turning people into grotesque, murderous, mindless zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with showing a cannister being shot out into space from an alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two hominid aliens shoot a mysterious cannister out into space from their spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris and J.C. discovered a man who was being preserved in a cryogenic preservation chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris and J.C. ran out of the morgue \"screaming like banshees\" upon accidentally removing a body from a cryogenic chamber there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Detective Cameron investigate a series of gruesome murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Cameron calmly explained to Chris how he'd tracked down and murdered the axe-wielding maniac who had brutally murdered his high-school sweetheart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cynthia dumped her frat house leader boyfriend Brad after it became apparent that he was a big jackass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad took to the bottle and cursed Cynthia at some point she dumped him like a sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Cameron dropped a match in a gasoline drenched basement, knowing it would be the end of him, in an effort to kill all the alien parasites.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dead Mans Letters (1986)", "title": "Dead Man's Letters", "date": "1986-09-15", "description": "In the aftermath of a nuclear war, a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate shelters together with a small group of children and adults in the basement of the former museum of history.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Letters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a town in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war that had rendered the Earth's surface virtually uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a post nuclear holocaust scenario whereby the \"lucky\" survivors had to survive as best they could in underground bunkers and basements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a post nuclear holocaust scenario whereby the \"lucky\" survivors had to survive as best they could in underground bunkers and basements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a town in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war that had rendered the Earth's surface virtually uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Larsen was unable to come to terms with the reality that his son Eric has almost certainly perished in the nuclear war, but found some solace in writing letters in his mind to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nuclear war survivors shared a bleak outlook over any prospects of rebooting civilization, and they mostly resigned themselves to accepting that humankind was done for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the film Professor Larsen left the orphans with this message of hope for the future: \"For while a man is on his way, there is still hope for him\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Larsen took in a band of orphans that nobody else was willing to care for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People, Professor Larsen's daughter Anna in particular, were afflicted with radiation poisoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Larsen tended to his daughter Anna who was gravely ill with radiation sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Larsen tended to his daughter Anna who was gravely ill with radiation sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pastor laid himself to rest in his own grave and then shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Larsen took pity on a group of orphans who were so traumatized by the nuclear war and its aftermath that they were unable to speak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Larsen celebrated Christmas by decorating the most sorry looking excuse for a tree that one can imagine together with a band of traumatized orphans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x01", "title": "The Wedding Ring", "date": "1986-09-22", "description": "Wax-museum dresser Herbert takes a ring from a statue and gives it to his wife Lois as an anniversary present, which turns her into a wicked seductress.\n\nDirected by: Danny DeVito. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Stu Krieger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "magic object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a mysterious ring that somehow turned its female wearers into wicked seductresses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert wanted his wife to spice things up in the bedroom, and he found a mysterious ring that seemed to make her do so. He got more than he bargained for, however, when she turned into a cannibalistic seductress. A man eater in the double sense, as it were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert and Lois celebrated their wedding anniversary in a most unusual way after Herbert gifted her a possibly demon possessed ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lois was bullied by her unsympathetic boss Haggerty at the diner. She eventually quit. In the end, the boss got what he had coming to him when he chanced upon a mysterious ring that Herbert had wisely discarded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lois were stereotypical prospectless character. Lois was so dependent on her work at a sleazy diner that she dared not defy her boss' request to cancel her wedding anniversary plans in order to work. Herbert had a go-nowhere job at the local wax-museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious ring turned Lois into a wicked seductress. Lois' boss gave off lecherous sleazeball vibes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lois, under the influence of the mysterious ring, had thinly-veiled designs on butchering her husband. The \"Black Widow\" was said to have butchered three of her husbands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert was initially ecstatic when a magic ring turned his wife into a sex-craving seductress. He soon came to regret the change and sought to avoid the nymphomaniac that now pursued him relentlessly for sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbie purloined a ring from a wax museum display and gave it to his wife as an anniversary present.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes (1986)", "title": "Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes", "date": "1986-09-26", "description": "A prisoner lands on an alien world the inhabitants of which wish to execute him in a grand pubic ceremony.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091096/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Score was going to be impaled on in a grand ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the needless filling out of forms. What is more, the aliens felt it necessary to go to the trouble of framing Score for rape in order that he might be executed without", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Score was framed for having raped a minor and sentenced to be impaled in a grand ceremony that was to be broadcast on live television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Score landed on an alien world that was basically like Earth except that people are executed in televised ceremonies for public entertainment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an alien society in which selected individuals are singled out as \"heroes\", allotted special privileges that induce them into committing crimes, which they are ultimately impaled for in live televised ceremonies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Score and a minor named Once ultimately fell in love and escaped from planet Australia 458.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal Score was going to be gruesomely impaled in a grad public ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An overtly patriotic ceremony was held for Score before he was sent off to explore outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Score was sent to a far off planet in a space penitentiary cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Score was sent to a far off planet in a space penitentiary cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scope rebuffed the amorous advanced of a red-clad prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young woman celebrating her birthday was blind because of cataracts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Score was framed for having raped a minor and sentenced to death by impaling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Score held up a bank at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Score and Once carried on romantically in spite of her being a minor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x01a", "title": "The Once and Future King", "date": "1986-09-27", "description": "An Elvis impersonator named Gary travels back in time and meets the real Elvis Presley.\n\nDirected by: Jim McBride. Story by: Bryce Maritano, George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary met his idol Elvis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Gary regained consciousness after wrecking his car, he was back in 1954.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary and Elvis were both struggling to become rock musicians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary and Elvis were excited about becoming famous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elvis thought Gary was his long lost brother Jessie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elvis was said to have believed in flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elvis was said to have believed in ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw how various people took offense to future habits, such as someone having a \"picture of a Negro\" on their undershirt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elvis loved his mama to a conspicuous degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary as Elvis found that fame was not all that swell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard Elvis speak fondly about his mama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Harris took offense to Gary sporting a t-shirt with a \"picture of a Negro\" on it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x01b", "title": "A Saucer of Loneliness", "date": "1986-09-27", "description": "A man finds a woman who earlier had encountered a mysterious saucer.\n\nDirected by: John Hancock. Story by: Theodore Sturgeon, David Gerrold.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Margaret was a lonely wreck of a woman. A flying saucer relayed to Margaret a poem about loneliness, and it turned out that it may have been sent as an interstellar \"message-in-a-bottle\" from a lonely alien, but the true source of the message was left open.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret lived a lonely and loveless life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flying saucer that turned out to be an interstellar message-in-a-bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret found that it was not fun to be (in)famous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret was thrown out on the street by her selfish mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margret tried to drown herself in the ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flying saucer that turned out to be an interstellar message-in-a-bottle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x02", "title": "Miscalculation", "date": "1986-09-29", "description": "While fooling around in chemistry class, luckless-in-love college student Phil spills a chemical element on a picture of a puppy, and brings it to life. He tries using this chemical to bring his pornographic magazines and pin-ups to life so he can finally have a girlfriend, but the results are both surprising and horrifying.\n\nDirected by: Tom Holland. Story by: Michael McDowell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the college student Phil's desperation over being single and his resolve to do something about it by Friday night, or \"die trying\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil tried to conjure an attractive and love thirsty vixen from one of his many skinny magazines, but repeatedly got in trouble with the resulting women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "A comely looking girl threw herself at Phil but he ignored her in his pursuit of an impossible ideal. In the end, she won him over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil accidentally concocted a special blue goo that turned pictures of people in magazines into the real thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil tried pickup approaches from a self-help book on every pretty woman he happened across.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police showed up at Phil's dorm room just time time to find him in coital negotiations with the upper half of a beautiful woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One scene was set in a college chemistry classroom. The viewer was shown some goings on in a college dorm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x02a", "title": "What Are Friends For?", "date": "1986-10-04", "description": "A child's imaginary friend turns out to be more than just his friend.\n\nDirected by: Gus Trikonis. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alex moved together with his young son Jeff to a remote cabin in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The strange entity Mike was like an imaginary friend to Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff befriended the mysterious boy Mike, but ultimately Jeff had to make real childhood friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the boy Jeff on his summer vacation playing stereotypical childhood games, like Cowboys and Indians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious boy-like entity Mike who could conjure things into existence and transform into a being of light. He was perhaps a spirit connect to the forest, but this was unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike was a lonely boy-like entity who only wanted a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex spoke of how he had struggled to put aside his childhood imaginary friend in order to grow up and become a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The other boys bullied Jeff a bit and Jeff showed a little girl to the ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed that Mike was slitting time between his separated mother and father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x02b", "title": "Aqua Vita", "date": "1986-10-04", "description": "A woman finds a method for eternal youth at a steep price.\n\nDirected by: Paul Tucker. Story by: Jeremy Bertrand Finch & Paul Chitlik.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Christine was depressed about loosing her youthful visage. It didn't help that her friend suggested she use a seltzer spray bottle to put out the candles on her 40th birthday party cake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine and Marc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine and Marc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine dreamed of this and then experienced it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine became addicted to the water of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marc sacrifice his youth to make Christine feel better about loosing hers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Christine longed to preserve her youthful appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine wanted eternal youth(ful looks). She thought the water of life might give her this, but it soon became apparent it would not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine was worried she would lose her place as a top television news anchor at her station now that she had turned 40.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christine tried to kick her habit of taking the water of life to preserve her good looks toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Marc, a professional photographer, take pleasure in snapping photos of his wife off-duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x03", "title": "Magic Saturday", "date": "1986-10-06", "description": "10-year-old Mark adores his grandfather \"Stormin' Norman\", who tells him stories and plays baseball with him every Saturday. When \"Norman\" soon falls ill, Mark uses a magic spell that allows them to swap bodies so the old man can treat himself to one last ball game.\n\nDirected by: Robert Markowitz. Story by: Richard Christian Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mark and his grandfather, Norman, swapped bodies by using a magical spell from the Orient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mark so loved his ailing grandfather, Norman, that make the sacrifice of swapping bodies so that the grandfather could enjoy his last day on earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the relationship between 10-year-old Mark and his grandfather Norman, whom he adored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman displayed a variety of supernatural abilities that he attributed to Chinese spells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Featured was the day to day life of a stereotypical American 10-year-old boy, named Mark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Norman found himself in the body of his 10-year-old grandson for a day. He used the opportunity to pitch in one last baseball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark, a 10-year-old boy, invoked a magic spell to switch bodies with his ailing grandpa for a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a bunch of kids cheating at baseball by using ancient Chinese spells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark felt such compassion for his ailing grandfather that he offered to swap bodies, albeit briefly, with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After experiencing what appeared to be a gradual heart failure for real, Mark regretted his decision to swap bodies with his grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark shed tears for his dearly departed grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark's parents could hardly believe that he'd swapped bodies with his ailing grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Grandpa told Mark that swapping bodies was not really possible, Mark reminded Grandpa of his own words: \"if you believe in something it will happen\". Mark subsequently used a magic spell to pull off the feat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa's adult son, whose name was never mentioned, urged him to slow down and take things easy. Mark interacted with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorthy rescued her young son Mark (who was actually Grandpa in Mark's body) after he veered his motorcycle off the side of the road and down a steep slope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The body swap required an unidentified oriental artifact of otherwise unknown purpose.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deadly Friend (1986)", "title": "Deadly Friend", "date": "1986-10-10", "description": "A teenage computer prodigy implants a robot's hardrive into the brain of his teenage neighbor after she is pronounced brain dead; the experiment proves successful, but she swiftly begins a killing spree in their neighborhood. It is based on the 1985 novel Friend by Diana Henstell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_Friend" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennie and her teenage science whiz son Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul built a robot named BB, which occasionally displays autonomous behavior, such as being protective of Paul. In addition, Paul discussed some AI principles underlying BB's functioning, including how he'd implemented BB with adaptive learning programs so that not even Paul himself could predict how it would behave in a given situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Samantha were really hitting it off until such time as her father killer her and then Paul resurrected her as a murderous cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul inadvertently transformed Samantha into a cyborg killing machine by implanting her lifeless brain with a special microchip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul made friends with Tom upon moving to a new neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha was terrorized by her abusive father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha was physically abused by her domineering father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulling the plug on a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul couldn't stand idly by and let Samantha's life support be stopped, so he and Tom took her lifeless body from the hospital after the plug had been pulled, and revives her by implanting in her brain a special microchip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul revived Samantha after the plug had been pulled on her. This he achieved by means of implanting a special microchip in her brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennie was raising Paul as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha's father Harry was an alcoholic. In fact, the cyborg version of Samantha lured Harry to his death with a bottle of bourbon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg version of Samantha avenged her father for his years of abuse toward her by killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Tom were picked on by a stereotypical schoolyard bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old lady Elvira Parker kept herself shut up inside her house and shunned human contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg version of Samantha was strong enough to hurl a man 30 feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul broke down in tears after his lover Samantha was shot dead by the police.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x03a", "title": "The Storyteller", "date": "1986-10-11", "description": "A young woman finds that the secret to immortality resides in stories.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mica was apparently keeping his 141 year old great, great, great grandfather alive by telling him stories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Dorthy as she reflected back on her time as a teacher in a small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mica had a surprising method for keeping people alive long past their allotted time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something about the grandfather being kept alive because of his curiosity to hear stories, like in Arabian Nights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorthy had a warm, long-distance call with her mother after arriving in her new town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorthy started a new grade school teaching job in the middle of a term.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw children studying and playing in an old one room school house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone commented on the unnatural long life of the 141 year old grandfather.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x03b", "title": "Nightsong", "date": "1986-10-11", "description": "A DJ must cope with the return of her lover after a 5-year disappearance.\n\nDirected by: Bradford May. Story by: Michael Reaves.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon showed up at Andrea's radio station after having walked out on her 5 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrea was gripped in the throws of a nostalgic love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revelation of the story is that Simon was a ghost that had come back to help Andrea get over him move on with her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revelation of the story is that Simon was a ghost that had come back to help Andrea get over him move on with her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrea had trouble getting over her old boyfriend Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrea had trouble getting over her old boyfriend Simon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at a small music radio station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrea found out that her former lover Simon had been dead for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrea's ex-boyfriend returned to her in spectral form, although she didn't realize he was a ghost at the very end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x04", "title": "Welcome to My Nightmare", "date": "1986-10-13", "description": "Teenage horror film buff Harry has become the subject of concern from his family for how out of touch with reality he is, even declining a date offer from a new girl in town. Angry that the real world is so dull, Harry wishes he was in the movies, resulting in him being transported to the set of Psycho, where the blood-curdling nature of a certain scene leaves him scrambling to get back to the real world.\n\nDirected by: Todd Holland. Story by: Todd Holland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry had a habit of slipping into horror and suspense movie-inspired daydreams, leaving his family concerned that he was losing touch with reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Not knowing that a shooting star was passing overhead, Harry wished for life to be more like the movies. He came to regret it when he got his wish, and found himself trapped in the classic thriller \"Psycho\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry had a habit of slipping into horror and suspense movie-inspired daydreams, leaving his family concerned that he was losing touch with reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was absorbed in the world of classic horror and suspense films.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped in a work of fiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry became trapped the classic thriller \"Psycho\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Harry renouncing his geeky ways and becoming a more stereotypically normal American teen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry felt disconnected from both his family and other teenagers. He therefore wished he could live in a movie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was a stereotypical teenage American geek. He was shy of girls, and escaped from reality by watching old films.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry drifted off into a fantasy about encountering a trio of zombies while taking out the garbage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's cool older brother shared some advice on how to talk to girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry interacted with his kid sister at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's mother encouraged him to be more social. Norman and Norma Bates from the film \"Psycho\" were implied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry interacted with his father at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's parents expressed concern that he was too much out of touch with reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting shooting star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A shooting star streaked across the night sky in the moments after Harry wished for life to be more like the movies. Harry's wish was subsequently fulfilled, presumably owing to the influence of that plummeting celestial object.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the dinner table Harry imagined that he had saved his mother from drinking poison milk by drinking it himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's older brother was Harry's opposite in many ways. Also a bunch of college jocks stopped to bully Kate in their car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry, a socially awkward teenager, and Kate, a new girl in town, were into each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate was clearly into Harry, but he brushed her off when she invited him to her birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of jocks played keep-away with Kate's purse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x04a", "title": "The After Hours", "date": "1986-10-18", "description": "In this remake of the 1960 Twilight Zone episode, a young woman is pursued by mysterious strangers.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Malmuth. Story by: Rod Serling, Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marsha was a living mannequin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha found out that she was actually an escaped mannequin from a local shopping mall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsha grew increasingly puzzled after a series of uncanny things happened to her when she went to the mall to buy a present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Marsha transform into a mannequin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x04b", "title": "Lost and Found", "date": "1986-10-18", "description": "A woman's possessions mysteriously vanish.\n\nDirected by: Gus Trikonis. Story by: Phyllis Eisenstein, George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "College roomies Jenny and Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny, a college student who would one day become President of Earth, was being pestered by time travelers from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny found out from a couple of time travelers hiding in her wardrobe that she was, in fact, destined to become the future leader of a united Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny found out from a couple of time travelers hiding in her wardrobe that she was, in fact, destined to become the future leader of a united Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x04c", "title": "The World Next Door", "date": "1986-10-18", "description": "A door in the basement leads two people to enhance their lives.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Lan O'Kun.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Part-time inventor Barney Schlessinger and his unsupportive wife Katy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barney appeared to retreat from his miserable reality to a turn of the century fantasy world in which he was a successful and wealthy inventor. But in the end it turned out the turn of the century Barney was getting all his invention ideas from the other Barney's workshop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "A magic door in Barney's cellar connected him to an alternate reality set in the early 1900s. Note it was not a time portal because it seemed this world on the other side of the door was an alternate reality of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney and his work pal Milton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barney dreamed of being a famous inventor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x05", "title": "You Gotta Believe Me", "date": "1986-10-20", "description": "Earl Sweet races against time as he tries to prevent a Boeing 747 he saw in a nightmare from crashing, just as it did in said nightmare.\n\nDirected by: Kevin Reynolds. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Stu Krieger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earl had what he interpreted to be a prophetic nightmare of a Boeing 747 crashing outside of his house. The story follows Earl's efforts to prevent the aerial disaster and ensure the airliner reaches its destination safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earl was dead certain that his dream was a vision of the future. He discovered one thing after the other that matched what he had dreamed, so he had good cause to be convinced. Other people, however, had no such reassurance and simply thought that Earl was a nutter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earl risked life-and-limb to prevent the vision he had seen in his dreams of a Boeing 787 crashing, coming to pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl neglected his wife's advice to take a bromide and go back to bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl was arrested by two uniformed police officers for making a scene at the airline departure gate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The drunken pilot of a light aircraft nearly caused a Boeing 747 to crash on takeoff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Boeing 747 pilot recommended they \"pin a medal\" on Earl, who had single-handedly averted a disaster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x06", "title": "The Greibble", "date": "1986-11-03", "description": "Harried housewife Joan Simmons encounters a large furry creature during a storm, which causes havoc with its appetite for typically inedible objects.\n\nDirected by: Joe Dante. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fictional character come to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title refers to a large, furry creature that had inexplicably manifested into reality from out of a comic book. A notable characteristic of the creature was its insatiable appetite random household goods among typically inedible objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan's day was upended when she discovered that a strange creature had taken up abode in her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mild-mannered housewife's day was completely upended when she discovered that a strange, typically inedible object eating creature had taken up abode in her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan was none too pleased when she was home invaded by a Greibble, a creature that began to eat various objects in the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan ended up taking the Greibble in and treating it like another pet. Joan objected when the mailman suggested that she may want to have the family dog, Butch, put to sleep. She also had a cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan quarreled with her young son, Bobby, over his habit of cluttering up his bedroom with old junk that she maintained he had outgrown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan was terrified by the strange creature until she realized it was largely harmless.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x07", "title": "Life on Death Row", "date": "1986-11-10", "description": "Eric David Peterson, an inmate on death row, is struck by lightning hours before his execution, and finds that he has been given miraculous healing powers.\n\nDirected by: Mick Garris. Story by: Mick Garris, Rockne S. O'Bannon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "healing ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The death row inmate Eric David Peterson acquired the ability to heal with his touch after being struck by lighting while attempting to climb over the prison fence. He healed a fellow prisoner who'd been riddled with gunshot wounds to the abdomen, the prison guard Meadows who had a bum knee, and an elderly prisoner with arthritic hands. He also cured the prison warder's 5-year-old daughter of her blindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy vs. justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story posits the following social ethical dilemma: Was the condemned felon Eric David Peterson perhaps worthy of clemency after he acquired healing powers and used them selflessly to cure countless people around the prison?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The question was raised as to whether Eric should be spared from the electric chair because of his newfound ability to heal the sick with his touch. The prison warden pleaded on Eric's behalf to the governor for clemency, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Eric David Peterson as he acquires miraculous healing powers in the 24 hours before his date with the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an act of selflessness, the death row inmate Eric David Peterson used his newfound healing ability to cure everyone he was able to. After being put to death in the electric chair, the prisoners he had healed returned the kindness by reviving him with the power of their collective touch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prison guard Meadows took it upon himself to let everyone in the prison know that the condemned inmate, Eric David Peterson, had the power to heal with his touch. In general, the story is set in a prison and shows guards interacting with prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being executed in the electric chair, Eric was somehow brought back to life by thankful prisoners he had earlier cured of various ailments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in a stereotypical United States prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prisoners made a daring escape attempt that ended in utter failure. The story is generally set in a prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest read bible verses to Eric in his cell prior to his execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison warden's 5-year-old daughter was blind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x08", "title": "Go to the Head of the Class", "date": "1986-11-21", "description": "High school student Peter Brand, utterly obsessed with his sexy classmate Cynthia Simpson, helps his crush cast a spell on their sadistic and tyrannical English teacher B.O. Beanes, but black magic only seems to make Beanes more powerful.\n\nDirected by: Robert Zemeckis. Story by: Mick Garris, Mick Garris & Tom McLoughlin and Bob Gale.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "choice", "motivation": "High school student Peter was besotted with Cynthia. Prof. Beanes spelled out one of the themes of the story: that young men are prone to do foolish things for the prospect of sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a couple of high school students trying out black magic on their tyrannical English teacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a couple of high school students trying out black magic on their tyrannical English teacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a couple of high school students trying out black magic on their tyrannical English teacher. They used the Curse of Delcite to give him hiccups but ended up killing him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Cynthia used black magic to bring back the teacher they had accidentally slain using a hiccuping spell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Cynthia used black magic to bring back the teacher they had accidentally slain using a hiccuping spell. Unfortunately, he came back as something not quite human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead skeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening scene showcased a TV and the ending of a black and white horror film in which a young murderess was hounded to her death by a floating skeleton. As a voice could be heard saying \"come with me\" it's possible the skeleton was meant to be a manifestation of the Grim Reaper, or henchman thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening scene showcased a TV and the ending of a black and white horror film in which a young murderess was hounded to her death by a floating skeleton. As a voice could be heard saying \"come with me\" it's possible the skeleton was meant to be a manifestation of the Grim Reaper, or henchman thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter worried they might get the electric chair for having killed a teacher. Cynthia reassured him that was impossible for in their state they used the gas chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Beanes shared with the class his theories regarding the role of sex and murder in Shakespeare's work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was reprimanded for showing up late to English class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plagiarism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter fessed up to copying Cynthia's essay and turning it in to Professor Beanes as his own work.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x09", "title": "Thanksgiving", "date": "1986-11-24", "description": "On Thanksgiving, the mean-spirited Calvin and his stepdaughter Dora find treasure in a dry well which is believed to be inhabited by a race of \"hole people\", which trade this treasure in exchange for things, specifically food.\n\nDirected by: Todd Holland. Story by: Harold Rolseth, Pierre R. Debs & Robert C. Fox.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Calvin and Dora discovered that they could get valuables by sending everyday things down to the hole people. Calvin's greed for gold got the better of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calvin and Dora discovered a very deep hole that was apparently inhabited by some sort of intelligent life with which they communicated and bartered. Dora casually named them \"hole people\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mean-spirited Calvin and his stepdaughter Dora established a line of communication with a strange race of beings that lived underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calvin had an extraordinarily short fuse. Among other things, he cut Dora's guitar strings in a fit of anger, denying her the pleasure of playing along on her guitar while she sang to alleviate the boredom. Calvin felt slighted by the hole people and subsequently went down to confront them with shotgun in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Dora discovering that Calvin had been eaten by the hole people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)", "title": "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", "date": "1986-11-26", "description": "Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their actions in the previous film, the former crew of the USS Enterprise finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth's past to find whales who can answer the probe's call. It is the fourth feature installment in the Star Trek film series, and is a sequel to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984); it completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and continued in The Search for Spock.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Home" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and his crew took a Klingon Bird of Prey back to 1980s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien probe of unknown origin nearly destroyed the Earth. It turned out to have been sent by whale-like aliens that were merely trying to contact humpback whales on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space probe communicated in the language of humpback whales.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that Humpback whales had gone extinct in the 21st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and his crew traveled back in time to 20th century Earth to fetch a humpback whale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and his crew in 1980s San Francisco. For example, they had trouble understanding and using contemporary slang, and it was remarked how money was no longer used in the 23rd century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingon Ambassador believed that Kirk perpetrated an attempted genocide against his people and told the Federation there would be no peace until Kirk faced justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda and Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock's mother urged him to ponder whether the good of the many outweigh the needs of the one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock deduced they had traveled back in time to late 20th century Earth from the high levels of pollution on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uhura and Chekov were sent on a mission to steal a fission reactor from a nuclear vessel. Kirk and his crew needed to get their hands on a nuclear reactor from a nuclear submarine in order to repair their dilithium crystals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock remarked to Kirk about how humans briefly used nuclear fission reactors until fusion power was mastered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk landed the Klingon Bird of Pray in a San Francisco park and turned on its cloaking device so that it would remain unseen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and crew beamed two whales aboard their ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock mind-melded with a whale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillian asked Kirk if he and Spock were working with the military to train whales to place mines on ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and Gillian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something was made about Spock being half-human and therefore being capable of experiencing emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock had to make a guess to complete his calculations about how to return to the future. This was a big deal to Spock who has a mind for exactness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Admiral Kirk being demoted to Captain after he pleaded guilty to disobeying a order from a superior officer. The President, who passed judgment, explicitly spoke of \"chain of command\" in rendering his verdict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock and Sarek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film ended with Kirk and the crew being ferried to a large space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Kindzadza (1986)", "title": "Kin-dza-dza!", "date": "1986-12-01", "description": "Two men accidentally teleport themselves to a desert planet located somewhere in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin-dza-dza!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Vova and The Violinist's chances of making it back to the Soviet Union looked pretty grim after they'd accidentally teleported themselves to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Uncle Vova and The Violinist as they crossed the Pluke desert with little provisions with the goal of reaching a place called Downtown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet, called Pluke, on which Uncle Vova and The Violinist were stranded was a desert planet by all appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Vova and The Violinist became stranded on a planet populated by aliens that appear human, with deceptively primitive-looking technology and a barbaric culture, which satirically resembles that of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with an institutionalized social stratification", "level": "major", "motivation": "Social status among the Plukanians was indicated by pant color.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Vova's wife asked his to go out to buy groceries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Vova pushing a button on a mysterious stranger's device instantaneously transporter Vova and The Violinist to a planet, known as Pluke, in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Violinist tried to communicate with the first two Plug natives he met in English, French, German, and Turkish, before he realized they, like him, were fluent in Russian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Vova and The Violinist wore nose bells as was the custom among some on the planet Pluke.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x10", "title": "The Pumpkin Competition", "date": "1986-12-01", "description": "The rich and miserly Elma Dinnock gains a secret from mysterious botanist Bertram Carver to win the Yarborough Country pumpkin-growing contest against her rival Mildred after 22 years of losing to her.\n\nAlso starring Ritch Brinkley and Joshua Rudoy.\n\nDirected by: Norman Reynolds. Story by: Peter Z. Orton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead up to Elma, haughty and proud, waging her entire fortune that she would win the pumpkin contest. Obviously she did not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elma was miserly and selfish. Mildred said this was why she couldn't grow a pumpkin large enough to win the Yarborough County pumpkin-growing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elma was miserly and selfish. Mildred said this was why she couldn't grow a pumpkin large enough to win the Yarborough County pumpkin-growing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elma's one purpose in life, besides making money, was to win the Yarborough County pumpkin-growing contest. She had tried and failed every year for the past two decades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elma was exceptionally rich but obviously miserable because she kept loosing the pumpkin competition year after year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generous character vs. mean character", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the end of the story it was explained that, while Elma had grudgingly contributed for selfish reasons to the botanist's effort to end world hunger, the rest of the community had contributed as much and without reservation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a community of pumpkin growing old ladies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elma and Mildred were caught up in a bitter rivalry over winning the annual pumpkin-growing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative biotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. Bertram Carver invented a vegetable super-growth formula that the growers of Yarborough County used to produce truly enormous pumpkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. Bertram Carver spoke of how his vegetable super-growth formula could help combat world hunger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986)", "title": "Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star", "date": "1986-12-03", "description": "A trio of friendly aliens who are curious about humans hide out in a Wyoming ranch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Sapien:_People_from_Another_Star" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three friendly aliens came to Earth and hid out on a Wyoming ranch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dirt befriend three alien who had landed in his neck of the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the fact that the aliens were monitoring humankind from a secret base on the Moon, and that contact was not to be made until the people of Earth had learned to live together in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dirt and the extraterrestrial Robyn fell in love, and she made the decision to stay on Earth with him, rather than return to her home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens were observing humankind from a secret base on the Moon, and it was made clear that contact would be established in the future once humans had gotten their act together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three alien set out from the Moon in a futuristic spacecraft and soon thereafter landed in Wyoming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirt's mother told him not to fall back asleep after hearing his alarm clock go off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirt had some passing interactions with his father. For example, he caught his father playing a Space Invaders-like game on the family personal computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy complained to her father that nobody ever listens to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. McAlpin secretly enjoyed playing a Space Invaders type game on his personal computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirt's grandpa helped him out by letting some aliens that Dirt had befriended hide out on his ranch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirt's sister Lucy was made curious by his strange behavior and should to get to the bottom of things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator King gave a political speech at a barbeque event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa Jasper held a \"things aren't like they used to be\" view of the present day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robyn was surprised to find that Dirt's inner thoughts contradicted his words upon reading his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robyn's white-haired uncle Aric came to Earth to find her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x05", "title": "The Toys of Caliban", "date": "1986-12-04", "description": "A mentally challenged child has strange powers.\n\nDirected by: Thomas J. Wright. Story by: Terry Matz, George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ernest and Mary Ross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a mentally disabled child", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly married couple were raising a mentally challenged child with magical powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The things Toby saw got conjured into reality. It seems he was also able to transport living things, like animals, from distant locations into his presence, although they were typically dead upon arrival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Ernst raising a mentally challenged son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Mary raising a mentally challenged son until such time as he killed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly married couple were raising a mentally challenged child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "holding someone captive to protect them", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly married couple were keeping their mentally challenged child hidden from the public not only because he had magical powers that made him a danger to society, but also because they feared he would be put away in an institution somewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly married couple lived in constant fear of a mentally challenged child with magical powers who was under their keep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Kemp explained that there were special schools nowadays where Toby could be educated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernst mourned the sudden death of his wife Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The social worker Miss Kemp came to the Ross' house to take Toby away out of concerns Ernst was treating Toby as a prisoner, but what she didn't understand is that Ernst was protecting the world from Toby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ernest killed himself and Toby rather let Toby be taken away.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x11", "title": "What If...?", "date": "1986-12-08", "description": "Little Jonah Kelley starts seeing things randomly disappearing to the point where the house becomes sterile, and worries why his status-seeking parents Pamela and Raymond are more concerned with their social lives than they are with his problems. An explanation for this phenomenon is only revealed when he meets an expectant mother at a toy store.\n\nDirected by: Joan Darling. Story by: Anne Spielberg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonah's parents were too preoccupied with their social lives to provide him with the love and attention he needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's need to be loved", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonah's parents were too preoccupied with their social lives to provide him with the love and attention he needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raymond cared more about socializing with his peers than spending time with his son, Jonah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pamela cared more about socializing with her peers than spending time with his son, Jonah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the adolescent boy Jonah. In particular, he struggled to catch his parents' attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela and Raymond Kelly seemed more interested in their social lives than in caring for their young son, Jonah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although the explanation turned out to be otherwise, it seemed for a while that the mustachioed man that popped in and out of existence was a figment of Jonah's imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela complained about her head hurting the day after she had gone a bit too hard on the champagne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonah posited a number of different counterfactuals regarding his own future but came back to one in particular: what if his parents never came back from their night out?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonah sought reassurances from his aloof parents that they wouldn't leave him, but his pleas largely fell on disinterested ears.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Kamikaze (1986)", "title": "Kamikaze", "date": "1986-12-10", "description": "A brilliant scientist goes insane and develops a technology that enables him to kill people by sending death rays through television cameras. He kills TV announcers and is soon hunted by police.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(1986_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "The misanthropic scientist Albert was living as a recluse in his niece's spacious home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The misanthropic scientist Albert was living as a recluse in his niece's spacious home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The misanthropic scientist Albert murdered a series of television presenters by exploding them on live television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert hated interacting with other people. He isolated himself in his niece's mansion and set about killing people on live television using a directed-energy weapon of his own construction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Pascot led an investigation into the deaths of a series of television presenters. Their manner of death was most unusual: their abdomens exploded on live television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert invented a weapon that enabled him to explode people he was watching live on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert, who invented a weapon that enabled him to explode people he was watching live on television, was considered to be an evil genius by the police, and they assembled a force of 50 men and women to track him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert was living with his niece and her husband, but the couple was not particularly featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Pascot was living together with his young daughter whom he adored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Pascot balanced his work with raising his young daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x06", "title": "The Convict's Piano", "date": "1986-12-11", "description": "A wrongfully-convicted convict discovers an old piano in his prison with special powers.\n\nDirected by: Thomas J. Wright. Story by: James Crocker, Patrice Messina.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the plight of the prisoner Frost in a state penitentiary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frost loved to play the piano. Through it he moved in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a piano that when played transported the player back in time to the era of the song being played.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frost transported himself from a contemporary state penitentiary into the 1920s by means of playing a magic piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie O'Hara gave a \"state penn\" welcome to Mickey Shaughnessy some fifty years after Shaughnessy had successfully framed O'Hara for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the gangster stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frost was confronted by a 1920s era Chicago gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie, Mickey, and Ellen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie was in prison for a murder he had not committed, as was Frost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frost had an encounter with a prison bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prison bully was out to shank Frost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x07", "title": "The Road Less Traveled", "date": "1986-12-18", "description": "A draft-dodger is haunted by the specter of a familiar-looking man in a wheelchair.\n\nDirected by: Wes Craven. Story by: George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jeff had flashbacks to this war. The story deliberated whether it was morally justifiable to shirk, alternatively participate in, the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Denise offered moral support to her draft-dodging husband Jeff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff felt guilty over having fled to Canada when he was drafted to serve in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff felt guilty over having fled to Canada when he was drafted to serve in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff felt guilty over having fled to Canada when he was drafted to serve in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff, a draft-dodger, met a wheelchair bound version of himself who had served in the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny saw how life would have been if he had gone to fight in the Vietnam War instead of dodging the draft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff hid from his students that he was a draft-dodger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff said something about feeling guilty about someone else having gone to the war (and might have died) in his place because he had dodged the draft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Danny A took on the horrible memories of Danny B in order to give him some last moments of tranquility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff comforted his young daughter Megan when she appeared to have a nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Megan was comforted by her father after she appeared to have a nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw brief flashbacks and heard innuendo about the horrors experienced in Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny B had had a somewhat miserable existence after returning legless from the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny speculated that it had been his fate to go and die in Vietnam, but that he cheated on it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x12", "title": "The Eternal Mind", "date": "1986-12-29", "description": "Dying scientist John Baldwin becomes the first human subject of a test that merges man and machine. The results of this action, unfortunately, bring John unexpected heartaches.\n\nDirected by: J. Michael Riva. Story by: Julie Moskowitz & Gary Stephens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John uploaded the contents of his mind to a computer before expiring from an unspecified illness. The story explores how the uploaded version of John was unhappy because it could only experience the world from a cold, analytic point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John and Katherine were in a loving marriage. Each proclaimed their love for the other. The story concluded with John's uploaded mind expressing its love for Katherine before being permanently deleted in accordance with its wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Being not long for this earth, John uploaded his mind to a computer to leave something of himself behind for his wife, Katherine. The outcome, however, led only to heartache for the couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was dying of an unspecified illness. Before passing away, he uploaded the contents of his mind to a computer to leave something of himself behind for his wife, Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "John uploaded the contents of his mind to a computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "John could no longer stand his torturous existence inside the computer. He urged for Katherine to pull the plug on him, and she obliged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The artificial John extolled Kathrine to delete him. She was prevented from doing so by Ben, but then went behind his back and did it anyway. The question is therefore raised: Did artificial John have the right to decide over his own fate, or did Ben have the right to keep him in a presumably tortuous existence for the benefit of the research lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and his team of scientists successfully rendered some early memories of their chimp subject on a video monitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists weighed the pros and cons of allowing John to be the first human test subject of their mind uploading machine before demonstrating its safety in animal testing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cherry 2000 (1987)", "title": "Cherry 2000", "date": "1987", "description": "A businessman and his guide go on a perilous quest to find a Cherry 2000 model android.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_2000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edith guided Sam on a perilous trek into the lawless Zone 7 to find for him a Cherry 2000 model android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where technology has made tremendous developments, and female androids are used as substitutes for wives. The plot followed Sam as he went on a perilous quest to recover a Cherry 2000 model android to replace his recently short circuited wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was heartbroken over the the short circuiting of his android wife, and went to extraordinary lengths to obtain another copy of that particular model of android in which he would implant her memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam had a pocket device that he used to play audio recordings of his deceased android wife. In general, he was utterly heartbroken over having lost her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story was building up to Sam falling Edith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was happily married to a beautiful android, but she died after she short circuited while having sex with Sam on a wet kitchen floor. The rest of the story followed Sam as he tried to obtain a new copy of that particular android type in which he would implant her memories. While he achieved this goal, he in the end realized that it was a human companion, Edith in particular, whom he desired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Sam chose his gritty guide Edith over his submissive Cherry 2000 model android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's beautiful android wife died after she short circuited while having sex with Sam on a wet kitchen floor. It was strongly hinted that Lester's wife Ginger was also an android.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Run (1987)", "title": "Death Run", "date": "1987", "description": "A young couple wake up from suspended animation 25 years after an apocalyptic nuclear war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Run" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Jenny woke up in a post nuclear war world to find their region was run by a biker gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Jenny woke up in a post nuclear war world and got into trouble with a biker gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young lovers Paul and Jenny. Hero and Barbara fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set 25 years after an apocalyptic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set 25 years after an apocalyptic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "The biker gang leader was called the Messiah and he took his name seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's mother bid him farewell before placing him and his girlfriend Jenny into suspended animation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's mother placed him and his girlfriend Jenny into suspended animation just before a nuclear war broke out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Being raped by the Messiah left Jenny traumatized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some cannibals cooked Jenny and ate her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and his party were attacked by a party of grotesque mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul was never the same again after his girlfriend Jenny was dismembered and eaten by cannibals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul uttered the phrase \"This is for Jenny.\" as he bludgeoned the Messiah to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Force: Fugitive Alien II (1987)", "title": "Star Force: Fugitive Alien II", "date": "1987", "description": "A crew is dispatched on a mission to destroy a super weapon that is located on a far off planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131028/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bacchus 3 crew was sent on a mission to the planet Cesar to destroy a \"super weapon\" that was capable of destroying an entire planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Bacchus 3 crew as they leave the solar system en route for the distant planet Cesar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spacecraft the Bacchus 3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken was an alien but not much was made of it in this installment of the adventures of the Bacchus 3 crew. The Bacchus 3 crew went to the planet Cesar where they encountered hostile, humanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the Bacchus 3 crew members experience what it might be like to fall into a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken piloted the Bacchus 3 spacecraft through a white hole, putting them far off course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bacchus 3 crew narrowly avoided getting themselves vaporized when Demeter's Star was about to go nova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken went back to his home planet to make Lord Halkan pay for having led him down a path of evil in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Joe's first officer Rocky refused to let him go on a dangerous mission, and went so far as to shoot Joe with a knock out dart to prevent him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The colonel stood for his people's national anthem knowing full well that doing so would result in him perishing in a big explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken was tortured with some electrical device on the planet Cesar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lesson (1987)", "title": "The Lesson", "date": "1987", "description": "In the far future, a planet punishes some aggressive intruders who have landed on it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesson_(1987_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "A living planet punished some hunters who had come to hunt prey on its surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "major", "motivation": "By being transformed into they prey, the hunters were taught a lesson about the importance of the frivolous taking of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Star Wars-esque battleship transported a group of hunters to a far off planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A starship traveled to a distant planet inhabited by strange flora and fauna.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Kindred (1987)", "title": "The Kindred", "date": "1987-01-09", "description": "A man discovers that he has a monstrous, betentacled baby brother.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kindred_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's scientist mother genetically engineered a grotesque creature that was going around terrorizing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, genetically engineered creature was going around terrorizing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda deeply regretted having genetically engineered a betentacled baby brother for her son John. Dr. Lloyd was doing secret research into the creation of genetic hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The amoral scientist Dr. Lloyd was determined to make a great advance in human evolution through the creation of genetic monstrosities in the lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John visited his mother in the hospital shortly before her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Lloyd hard at work surgically probing a shrieking cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Lloyd hard at work surgically probing a shrieking cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was downcast at his mother's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's mother was laid to rest in a Christian ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hart and his dog Duke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon became reticent when Melissa played third wheel on haw Sharon expected would be her weekend alone with John at his childhood home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-fish hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melissa turned out to be a half-human, half-fish genetic hybrid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lloyd and Melissa working on creating genetic monstrosities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x13", "title": "Lane Change", "date": "1987-01-12", "description": "Charlene Benton, driving on a stormy night while approaching divorce, gets glimpses of her past through the windshield after she picks up a stranded woman along the way.\n\nDirected by: Ken Kwapis. Story by: Ali Marie Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Charlene as she is made to rethink her decision to divorce her husband of 17 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the story is that the hitchhiker who Charlene picked up on the roadside was actually herself from about 30 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "picking up a hitchhiker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlene made the fateful decision to pick up an old lady who was hitchhiking along the side of the road on a stormy night. Little did Charlene know that the old lady was her future self, and that the encounter would leave Charlene with a bright outlook on her seemingly doomed marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scenes of Charlene's past unfolded before her eyes as she drove down the road on a stormy night. In one such scene, she beheld her child self crying in the backseat of a car on the way home from her mother's funeral. In another, she witnessed her possibly alcohol fueled wedding motorcade speeding past her on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlene, who was initially dead set on divorcing her husband of 17 years, ultimately reversed course after some soul searching.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming like what you oppose", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlene came to the realization that by regarding her husband with disdain for crying at the prospect of divorce, she had unknowingly mirrored her father, who had chastised her as a child for crying at her mother's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlene reminisced about various pivotal moments in her life. She recalled (or possibly hallucinated) the day she got married, 17 years ago, and the day of her mother's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Charlene as she is made to rethink her decision to divorce her husband of 17 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlene shared some painful memories about her father with the hitchhiker she picked up on the way to Springfield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlene contrasted herself with Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a strange scene, Charlene witnessed her possibly alcohol fueled wedding motorcade speeding past her on the highway.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x14", "title": "Blue Man Down", "date": "1987-01-19", "description": "Duncan Moore, a police officer who lost his young partner DeSoto in a supermarket shootout and remains surrounded by the guilt, regains his confidence with the help of his new partner Patty O'Neil, a woman who appears invisible to everyone else.\n\nDirected by: Paul Michael Glaser. Story by: Steven Spielberg, Jacob Epstein & Daniel Lindley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Officer Moore was torn up over the death of his partner on the force, DeSoto, in a supermarket shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the police officer Duncan Moore as he grapples with feelings of guilt over the death of his partner and friend, DeSoto, in a supermarket shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the police officer Duncan Moore as he grapples with feelings of guilt over the death of his partner and friend, DeSoto, in a supermarket shootout. Moore's new partner, Patty O'Neil (who was possibly a ghost or a figment of his imagination) helped him to work through his struggles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Moore blamed himself for his partner and friend, DeSoto, dying in a supermarket shootout. The story follows Moore as he struggled, with help from his new partner, to regain some semblance of his former self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Moore blamed himself for his partner and friend, DeSoto, dying in a supermarket shootout. The story follows Moore as he struggled, with help from his new partner, to regain some semblance of his former self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Officer Moore's new partner, Patty O'Neil, was a manifestation of his guilt over DeSoto dying in the supermarket shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Patty's ghost helped Duncan get back on his feet after DeSoto's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The buddy cops Moore and DeSoto were called in to the scene of a supermarket armed robbery. DeSoto lost his life in the ensuing shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A shrink failed to get Officer Moore to open up about feeling guilty over his partner on the force, DeSoto, perishing in a shootout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Moore, with the help of his imaginary partner Officer O'Neil, went above and beyond to diffuse a hostage crisis at a shopping mall without loss of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that sometime in the past Officer Ramirez had taken his own life because he felt responsible for his partner on the force's death in a drug bust.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x15", "title": "The 21-Inch Sun", "date": "1987-02-02", "description": "Sitcom scriptwriter Billy Burliss, suffering from writer's block, discovers that one of his houseplants has become sentient after absorbing the rays from a TV set. Since the plant also gained a sense of humor this way, Billy begins using it as a ghostwriter.\n\nDirected by: Nick Castle. Story by: Bruce Kirschbaum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a struggling sitcom scriptwriter whose career takes off after he befriends a sentient houseplant with a knack for comedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "writer's block", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sitcom scriptwriter Billy Burliss suffered from writer's block. The plot turns on his discovering that one of his houseplants had become sentient after absorbing the rays from a television set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A spider plant became sentient after getting exposed to rays from Billy's television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might be like to work as a sitcom scriptwriter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and the sentient spider plant, Lucy, became fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was devastated when the sentient spider plant he befriended appeared to have died after falling to the street from the ledge of his apartment window. In a surprise twist, the plant sprang back to life shortly after Billy laid it to rest in a patch of earth, and the two were happily reunited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy took credit for writing hilarious sitcom script, but in reality a sentient spider plant was behind much of the heavy lifting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When his friends showed up and asked him to party, Billy was sorely torn between them and his beloved house plant Lucy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x16", "title": "Family Dog", "date": "1987-02-16", "description": "The show's only animated episode, serving as the backdoor pilot to the cartoon series of the same name. A dog goes through life with his new family in three separate vingettes.\n\nDirected by: Brad Bird. Story by: Brad Bird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "animal point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main point of the story is to showcase what family life might be like from a pet dog's perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores life in a stereotypical American nuclear family through the eyes of a pet dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores life in a stereotypical American nuclear family through the eyes of a pet dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Binford home was burgled three times. The family dog subsequently joined the burglars on a crime spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The family dog was crestfallen when it failed at its one task life: to keep burglars away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The family dog was stolen by the burglars. It later joined the burglars on a crime spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Binford's watched a home video that was shot on Christmas day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bev Binford prepared a tater pops and cheese whip dish that was so foul the Binford family unanimously agreed to go out for dinner instead. The family dog was crestfallen over its canned of food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bev Binford lauded the family dog as a hero for its role in breaking up a crime ring, and treated it with a raw steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip and Bev Binford had it up to their necks with the family dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bev Binford interacted with her son, Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bev Binford interacted with her daughter, Buffy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip Binford interacted with his son, Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skip Binford interacted with his daughter, Buffy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The siblings Billy and Buffy quarreled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bev went on a rant about her unmet needs and desires as she was stuck being a prospectless housewife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The family dog was mercilessly bullied by the adolescent Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy tormented the family dog with a vacuum cleaner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x08a", "title": "The Card", "date": "1987-02-21", "description": "A woman with out-of-control spending habits finds her new credit card comes with unexpected penalties.\n\nDirected by: Bradford May. Story by: Michael Cassutt.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "predatory financial practices in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The credit card company used very sleazy fine print to take advantage of Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brian and Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compulsive spending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda got herself into credit card debt by buying various luxury items.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda couldn't handle her finances to such an extent that she was denied credit anywhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda thought she was going mad when things disappeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda's dog, cat, children, and finally husband disappeared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was was distraught after the credit card company confiscated her three young boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility of the Devil destroying the human race with nuclear weapons was mentioned in the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility of the Devil destroying the human race with toxic waste was mentioned in the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This hypothetical being's penchant for wanting to doom humanity was touched on in the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The credit card company confiscated Brian's three young boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda pretty much went bonkers when her kids were lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda came to regret signing a contact with a credit card company of last resort when they confiscated her three boys after she failed to make a payment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Compulsive spender Linda used her new credit card to purchase all sorts of material goods that she didn't really need in the first place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x08b", "title": "The Junction", "date": "1987-02-21", "description": "A modern-day miner has an argument with his wife and then goes off to work in the local mine. A collapse traps him, but he finds another survivor—a miner who claims to be from 1912. The two men figure out that somehow they have become connected through time.\n\nDirected by: Bill Duke. Story by: Virginia Aldridge.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "trapped underground", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cave-in left John trapped in a mine, where he encountered another trapped miner from 1912.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melissa's husband John got trapped in a mine. Ray was reunited with his wife after being trapped in a mine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miner from the 1980s met a miner from 1912 met each other underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with John and Melissa tearfully making up after John was rescued from a mine cave-in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melissa watched on as workers tried to rescue John after a mine cave-in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "After some initial signs of mistrust, John and Ray confided in one another about the ups and downs they had each experiences in their marriages while the pair awaited rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's wife chewed him out for cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw John sleeping on the sofa in the aftermath of Melissa having caught him cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 1912-era miner Ray was puzzled by John's modern goods (e.g. a wristwatch, a flashlight and a lighter).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 1912-era miner Ray was surprised to find out that John, a black man, was working in the mine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with John and Melissa tearfully making up after John was rescued from a mine cave-in.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timestalkers (1987)", "title": "Timestalkers", "date": "1987-03-10", "description": "The film is based on Ray Brown's novel The Tintype.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timestalkers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "Must of the story transpired in and around the 1886 frontier town Crossfire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott became increasing absorbed in all things about the Wild West as a means of coping with having witnessed his wife and young son perish in a fiery automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dangerous Dr. Joseph Cole traveled back from the 27th century to 1886 and 1986, in order to set off a chain of events that would result in his rival being erased from history. Georgia and Scott traveled back to 1886 to stop him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 8-year-old boy Billy was playing make-believe that he was a cowboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was playfully reenacted the shootout at the O.K. Corral with his 8-year-old son Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott kissed his wife goodbye just before she drove off with her son to their deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurie was driving her young son to school when they crashed and died in a fiery wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An auctioneer was trying his best to garner interest in Wild West memorabilia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Joseph Cole, who was from the 27th century, tried to play it off like he belonged in the 1886 frontier town of Crossfire. Georgia likewise tried to play it off like she belonged in the year 1986, but she ultimately confided in Scott that she was a time traveler from the 27th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an extraordinary person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia Crawform met her distant ancestor Matthew Crawford when she traveled back in time to the year 1886.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x17", "title": "Gershwin's Trunk", "date": "1987-03-13", "description": "Jo-Jo Gillespie, a Broadway lyricist/composer desperate to deliver a hit musical, seeks inspiration from the spirit of George Gershwin, summoned from the dead by psychic Sister Teresa. Rumors begin speculating that the phenomenal music Jo-Jo produces isn't his, prompting Jo-Jo to do anything to protect his secret.\n\nDirected by: Paul Bartel. Story by: Paul Bartel & John Meyer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Watts blackmailed Jo-Jo by offering to keep quiet about the murder in exchange for a cut of the box office profits from Jo-Jo's upcoming musical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jo-Jo passed off compositions created by the spirit of George Gershwin as his own work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Jo-Jo bludgeoning a man with a candelabra to avoid being outed as a plagiarist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Watts blackmailed Jo-Jo by offering to keep quiet about the murder in exchange for a cut of the box office profits from Jo-Jo's upcoming musical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A corrupt NYPD detective made a brazen attempt to profit financially by blackmailing a murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two former partners, Jo-Jo and Jerry, competed over whose upcoming Broadway musical would be the more successful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a Broadway lyricist/composer, Jo-Jo Gillespie, who turns to the occult to overcome his apparent writer's block.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychic Sister Teresa summoned the spirit of George Gershwin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jo-Jo was driven by his desire to deliver a Broadway hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "writer's block", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed as if Jo-Jo was suffering from writer's block, although it later became apparent that he was merely talentless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jo-Jo was miffed when it came out that his cleaning lady, Carmen, had blabbed about a personal matter to his rival Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jo-Jo's ex showed up during a TV interview and implied that she had cheated on him with his ex-business-partner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stepford Children (1987)", "title": "The Stepford Children", "date": "1987-03-15", "description": "The men of Stepford surreptitiously replace their children with disturbingly well-behaved android-like replicas. It is the second in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Stepford Wives" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Children" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Steve and Laura Harding decided to uproot their family and move to the idyllic seeming American town of Stepford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve became fed up with his disobedient teen son David", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and his rebellious teen daughter Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura and her teenage son David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura and her teenage daughter Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve wanted his two disobedient teenagers to be more responsible and tried to have them replaced with well-behaved android replicas without his wife's knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "David became romantically involved with his classmate, Sandy Gregson, who had a big crush on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were unanimous in the conviction that the natural order of things was for women to be in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford were unanimous in the conviction that the natural order of things was for women to be in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve wanted his two rebellious teenagers to be more responsible and tried to have them replaced with well-behaved android-like replicas without his wife's knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The men of Stepford had replacing their wives and children with obedient android replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the strange happenings of when Steve and Laura Harding decided to uproot their family and move to the idyllic seeming American town of Stepford.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x18", "title": "Such Interesting Neighbors", "date": "1987-03-20", "description": "The Lewise family, Al, Nel, and Randy, suspect that their new neighbors, Ann, Ted, and Brad Hellenbeck, are behind various disturbances in the neighborhood, such as mysterious animals, sudden earthquakes, and time to start warping and repeating.\n\nDirected by: Graham Baker. Story by: Jack Finney, Mick Garris & Tom McLoughlin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Lewise family discovered that their next-door neighbors were time travelers from 400 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lewise family discovered that their next-door neighbors were time travelers from 400 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al and Nel Lewise got to know their mysterious new neighbors, Ted and Ann Hellenbeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nel interacted with her young son, Randy. Ann briefly interacted with her young son, Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Al interacted with his young son, Randy. Ted briefly interacted with his young son, Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lewise family were dumbfounded by the peculiar habits of their new neighbors. In particular, the neighbors upon receiving a bouquet of roses proceeded promptly to devour several of them. This was all explained with the revelation that the neighbors were, in fact, time travelers from 400 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was eventually revealed that the Hellenbecks were time travelers who were being chased by the powers that prevailed in the age that they had originally traveled from. They were confronted by a time traveling automaton of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted and Ann Hellenbeck came from a future where genetic engineering was mandated for ever child that was conceived. In this way, the society from which they came succeed in eliminating all genetic diseases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randy engaged in such stereotypical childhood antics as bringing a dead rattlesnake into the house and trying to watch and R-rated movie after his dad dozed off on the sofa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel was pregnant. She felt the baby kicking while she was in the bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lewise family speculated, briefly, that their new neighbors were from Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e6x01", "title": "Rip Van Winkle", "date": "1987-03-23", "description": "The story of a man who sleeps for twenty years after wandering off in the mountains and playing ninepins with unusual men.\n\nStarring Harry Dean Stanton as Rip van Winkle, Talia Shire as Wilma van Winkle, Roy Dotrice as Peter Vanderdonk, Ed Begley Jr. as Broom Dutcher, Christopher Penn as Will Tussenbrook, Tim Conway as the Mayoral Candidate, and John P. Ryan as Hendrick Hudson. Written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rip woke up in post-revolutionary America after having inadvertently taken a twenty year long snooze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rip was dealing with his wrathful and nagging wife, Wilma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rip was repeatedly bossed around and threatened by his cantankerous wife, Wilma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "The easygoing Rip didn't much let his wife's repeated henpecking bother him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Rip, who had slept through the American Revolution, being perplexed by the post-revolutionary state of affairs in his village. Rip woke up 20 years hence and anachronistically proclaimed himself not a Democrat, but rather a King's man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilma accused her husband of Rip being lazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilma was incapable of controlling her wrath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip conversed with his pet beagle, Wolf, a few times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip visited a neighbor to see about getting back a ladder that Rip had lent him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip and his young son went fishing together at the stream. Rip encountered his son, now an adult, after returning to the village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man at the village inn complained of being \"taxed to the death\" in a most undemocratic manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip and his young son reeled in a big fish together at the stream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilma shooed her young son away when he and his father came home with a fish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man at the village inn spoke of Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip went hunting in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip stumbled on the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew playing an ethereal game of ninepins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip stumbled on the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew. It was revealed they were in the habit of returning to a certain location every 20 years for some or another purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man running for mayor sang the praises of democracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female villager piped up and demanded to know why women didn't have the right to vote in the mayoral election.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a pointed exchange regarding how black people had no vote.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Nicholas met his doom in a fire that was started from smoking his pipe in bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Rip telling his astonishing tale to a group of wide-eyed children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lighthearted depiction of small town electioneering in America around the time of the revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip had an anticlimactic reunion with his son of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the American Revolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rip slept through this revolution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x19", "title": "Without Diana", "date": "1987-03-27", "description": "George Willoughby and his dying wife Kathryn are comforted by Diana, the daughter they had lost in the woods 40 years ago, and never stopped believing would appear one last time before they passed on.\n\nDirected by: Lesli Linka Glatter. Story by: Mick Garris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George and Kathryn mourned for Diana who had gone missing in the forest and was presumed dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When his wife died, George was told by Diana that he must let her go. One gathers that neither he nor Kathryn had quite let go of Diana after she disappeared in the forest some 40 years earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Kathryn's daughter Diana showed up on their doorstep some 40 years having vanished in the woods without a trace. One gathers that it was actually Diana's ghost as she hadn't aged a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Kathryn Willoughby loved their daughter, Diana, and she still figured deeply into their daily lives even some 40 years after she'd gone missing in the woods without a trace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Diana's ghost returned to visit George and Kathryn some 40 years after she went missing in the woods without a trace. In the end, Kathryn passed away and her ghost and the ghost of Diana bid farewell to George, assuring him that he would join them in due time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "George never lost hope that his young daughter, Diana, would resurface after disappeared in the woods without a trace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katheryn never lost hope that her young daughter, Diana, would resurface after disappeared in the woods without a trace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Kathryn Willoughby loved their daughter, Diana, and she still figured deeply into their daily lives even some 40 years after she'd gone missing in the woods without a trace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Kathryn's lives were forever changed when their daughter Diana vanished without a trace in the forest, never to be seen again. They never stopped believing Diana would appear one last time before they passed on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Kathryn were never the same again after their young daughter, Diana, went missing in the woods never to be seen again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George's young daughter, Diana, harbored some resentment toward him because he had been away for a long time fighting in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Kathryn spoke with two police officers who were searching for their daughter who'd gone missing in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician tended to Kathryn who was on her death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with a group of young girls eagerly participating in an Easter egg hunt in a park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with a group of young girls eagerly participating in an Easter egg hunt in a park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George sought to explain to Diana why he had been away for so long. His pleas for her understanding fell on deaf ears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diana wandered the forest and yelled for her mommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George mourned his departed wife by hugging her body tight to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Programmed to Kill (1987)", "title": "Programmed to Kill", "date": "1987-04", "description": "The CIA have designs on using a killer cyborg to hunt down terrorists in the Middle East.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093790/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The CIA created a cyborg killing machine to fight terrorists in the Middle East.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of doctors implanted the female terrorist Samira with cybernetic implants, transforming her into a cyborg killing machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric's life as a mercenary put a strain on his marriage to Sharon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of commandos was dispatched on a raid to rescue two hostages who were being held by a terrorist organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric was visited by his young son Jason while he was recuperating in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon wanted Eric to spend more time with his young son Jason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On a trans-Atlantic flight, the cyborg Samira grabbed a chatty passenger by the throat, telling them that if she wanted to know about what he was rambling on about, then she would ask him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Making Mr Right (1987)", "title": "Making Mr. Right", "date": "1987-04-03", "description": "This film is primarily about the misadventures between an android and a woman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Mr._Right" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Right for Frankie turned out to be a Ulysses model android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Right for Frankie turned out to be a Ulysses model android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more emotionally sophisticated person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Ulysses learned to become more human under Karen's tutelage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Frankie choose to be with a successful, but fake congressman or a naive, but loyal and adorable android?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story was building up to Frankie finding Mr. Right in a naive, but somehow adorable android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Congressman Marcus was running for reelection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie was hired to help with marketing the Ulysses android project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie attended her sister's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie's mother was pressuring her to find a date to accompany her to her sister's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff did everything he could to avoid Sandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jeff Peters developed the Ulysses android for the expressed purpose of exploring deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie's sister held a beach front wedding ceremony and hotel after party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie and Trish had various talks about men and relationships.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x20", "title": "Moving Day", "date": "1987-04-03", "description": "Alan Webster learns that he and his parents, Mara and Val are moving. Alan is understandably upset with this major change, but is surprised to learn that they intend to move to the planet Alturus, 85 billion miles from Earth.\n\nDirected by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Frank Kerr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with life issues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Alan, a high school student, as he comes to terms with having to leave his happy life in Los Angeles behind due to his family's move to a new city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Not only did Alan find out that he was moving across the galaxy to a planet named Alturus, but soon after he also realized that he was, in fact, not even an Earthling himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Alan and his parents were actually space aliens from the planet Alturus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Alturan observers, posing as humans, were stationed at various locations across the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mara and her teenage son Alan we at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Val and his teenage son Alan we at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Val and Mara Webster worried over how their teenage son, Alan, would cope with the revelation that they were a family of space aliens who were posing as humans, and soon needed to return to their home planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Karen were self-described best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Karen said a teary eyed adieu to each other during which Karen gave Alan a ring, suggesting that they were rather more than friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Karen said a teary eyed adieu to each other during which Karen gave Alan a ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Alan, a high school student, as he comes to terms with having to leave his happy life in Los Angeles behind due to his family's move to a new city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Val had invented an automatic egg cooker appliance, similar in size to a microwave, that could prepare an egg based the following settings: Over-easy, over-medium, over-hard, scrambled, poached, soft-boiled, and hard-boiled. It evidently still had some bugs, however, as Alan got a boiled egg out when he pressed the button for an over-easy one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan was locked up in his own locker by a trio of stereotypical high school bullies clad in matching varsity jackets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Val reluctantly informed his son, Alan, that they would be relocating to a distant city on account of Val finding a new job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Webster's beheld a holographic rendering of an Alturan cityscape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Webster's embarked on a passenger spaceship bound for the planet Alturus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with the Webster's boarding a passenger spaceship bound for Alturus, a supposed planet located some 85 billion miles from Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e6x02", "title": "The Little Mermaid", "date": "1987-04-06", "description": "A young and beautiful mermaid named Pearl falls in love with a human being who is a human prince named Andrew and sacrifices everything to be with him.\n\nStarring Pam Dawber as Pearl, Treat Williams as Prince Andrew, Helen Mirren as Princess Emilia, Karen Black as the Sea Witch, Brian Dennehy as King Neptune, and Laraine Newman and Donna McKechnie as Pearl's sisters. Written by Anne Beatts. Directed by Robert Iscove.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "merpeople", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the journey of the young mermaid Pearl as she leaves the comfortable confines of her underwater kingdom to experience life on the surface with human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is a classical story of an impossible love as it showed that an ocean dwelling immortal mermaid couldn't possibly make it with a land dwelling mortal human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people should stick to their own kind", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was somehow that there was no room for merpeople to mingle with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Prince Andrew breaking the crushing news to Pearl that he loved her, but not in the romantic way she wanted him to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "King Neptune warned his naive daughter Pearl about the dangers of falling in love with human males, but she didn't heed his advice. The story was narrated Pearl's her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pearl and Emilia were both envious at each other over Prince Andrew. Pearl was visibly devastated at the sight of Emilia with Pearl's own love interest, Andrew, toward the end of the tale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prince Andrew and Princess Emilia were becoming acquainted with one another in the lead up to their arranged marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Pearl pointedly refrained from running Prince Andrew through with a dagger while he slept. In choosing not to do so, she knowingly consigned herself to an imminent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mermaid Pearl was all agog to explore the surface and the human world thereon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things ended tragically for the mermaid Pearl when she followed through on her desire to explore the human world on the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "By drinking a magic potion, Pearl was transformed from a mermaid into a human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pearl faced the stark decision of whether to gain legs and peruse her land-lubbing lover but thus leave her sea bound kin behind forever. Also she left mute for her trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pearl and Emilia were both in love with Prince Andrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pearl inquired with her two older sisters about the goings on above the waves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pearl was given a magic potion by a purple \"sea witch\" in exchange for her voice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mermaid Pearl drank a potion that gave her legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "muteness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After taking on human form, Pearl had difficulty communicating on account that she'd been left mute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Andrew and Princess Emilia mused about the political consequence of their impending arranged marriage while taking a stroll on the beach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A royal wedding was held for Prince Andrew and Princess Emilia aboard a ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Andrew and Princess Emilia tied the knot in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pearl and her equally legless sisters spoke about men and their two peculiar bottom appendages on which they walk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maritime occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the goings on on the HMS Rolicking Dolphin. The prince conversed with a sailor about the travails on sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal spirit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pearl turned into a \"spirit of the air\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon turning 21, the mermaid Pearl was given permission to go the surface, and so she embarked there to make a new life for herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It transpired that the story was narrated the father who was remembering his tragically deceased wayward daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as1985e2x21", "title": "Miss Stardust", "date": "1987-04-10", "description": "A sentient plant-like alien known as \"Cabbage Man\" threatens to destroy the Earth if the Miss Stardust beauty pageant doesn't allow contestants from other worlds to compete. This causes public relations worker Joe Willoughby to give in to his demands, and hurriedly allow interplanetary beings to compete in the pageant.\n\nDirected by: Tobe Hooper. Story by: Richard Matheson, Thomas E. Szollosi & Richard Christian Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A message of the story is that humans and space aliens may have different standards when it come to beauty. This was illustrated in the Miss Stardust beauty pageant in which humans and aliens argued over who was worthy of winning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A squawking humanoid cabbage alien was poised to order the destruction of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A squawking humanoid cabbage alien was poised to order the destruction of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A sentient plant-like alien known as \"Cabbage Man\" threatened to destroy the Earth if the Miss Stardust beauty pageant doesn't allow contestants from other worlds to compete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "A sentient plant-like alien known as \"Cabbage Man\" threatened to destroy the Earth if the Miss Stardust beauty pageant doesn't allow contestants from other worlds to compete. It fell on Joe Willoughby, a middling public relations man, to pull the necessary strings to allow such contestants to participate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Mars, a tall green humanoid, performed a dance reminiscent of a belly dance, at the Miss Stardust pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Venus, a large green bug of some sort, showcased her harp playing at the the Miss Stardust pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Venus, a large green bug of some sort, showcased her harp playing at the Miss Stardust pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Jovian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A humanoid with an oblong, bulbous head, Miss Jupiter, sang in the style of opera at the Miss Stardust pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe Willoughby told part his implausible story over a game of pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The squawking humanoid cabbage alien and Joe's secretary, Miss Schroedinger, became besotted and presumably got married since they honeymooned on the third moon of Ungareena Mycappia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project X (1987)", "title": "Project X", "date": "1987-04-17", "description": "The plot revolves around a USAF Airman and a graduate student who are assigned to care for chimpanzees used in a secret Air Force project.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_X_(1987_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teri and Jimmy teamed up to saves their sign language using chimp Virgil from being subjected to a lethal dose of radiation in a military experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to thinking about whether it is okay to subject chimps to lethal doses of radiation in the name of military research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The graduate student Tina MacDonald was distressed upon finding out that her grant to teach her beloved chimp sign language would not be renewed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flight simulator trained chimp a was given lethal pulse of radiation to determine how long a pilot may survive after a nuclear exchange in carrying out a second-strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The U.S. Air Force was conducting experiments into the ability of pilots to retaliate after a nuclear attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set on Lockridge Air Force base, and we saw to some extent what it was like to work there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Air Force was conducting top secret radiation tests on chimpanzees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987)", "title": "The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman", "date": "1987-05-17", "description": "Steve Austin's former employer, Oscar Goldman, approaches him and asks for help; a band of terrorists he put out of business are back. Steve initially declines, but changes his mind when his son Michael Austin is severely injured as a result of his first solo flight. Rudy Wells operates on Michael, giving him better bionics than Steve's or Jaime's.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_and_the_Bionic_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin had a bionic arm, a bionic eye, and two bionic legs. Bionic woman Jaime Sommers. Air Force pilot Michael Austin was enhanced with a number of bionic parts after he was critically wounded in a a flying accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin and Michael Austin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bionic man Steve Austin and bionic woman Jamie Sommers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and friends had to stop a band of domestic terrorists from learning the secret to bionic enhancement technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve reconciled with his estranged son Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie used her bionic arm to hurl Steve clear through a restaurant window. Steve used his bionic arm to flip over a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie heard Steve talking across a room with her hyper sensitive bionic ears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic legs to jump up onto the rooftop of a multistory building in the process of running down a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic eye to zoom in on the license plate number of a fleeing automobile among other things. Michael could shoot a laser beam from his bionic eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Air Force cadet pilot Michael had the burden of living up to the reputation of his father, the American hero Steve Austin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People needed to help Carol get around because she was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie could hear people talk well outside of an ordinary human's earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve performed various feats of strength using his bionic arm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x09a", "title": "Joy Ride", "date": "1987-05-21", "description": "Four teens take a recently deceased man's classic car for a joyride. But the driver acts increasingly irrationally during the ride...\n\nDirected by: Gil Bettman. Story by: Cal Willingham.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teen lovers Greg and Deena and Alonzo and Adrienne went on a joy ride in a magic car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alonzo end up shooting a cop on a joyride in a stolen car and it all went downhill from there. It turned out that the previous owner of the car had also shot a cop dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Greg and Alonzo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four teens went on a joy ride in a haunted car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teen lovers Greg and Deena and Alonzo and Adrienne went on a joy ride in a magic car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing muggers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alonzo put an broken gun to Greg's head and demanded all his money. Greg didn't know at first that it was only a joke.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x09b", "title": "Shelter Skelter", "date": "1987-05-21", "description": "A survivalist and his friend find themselves cut off in his shelter after a nuclear bomb detonation.\n\nDirected by: Martha Coolidge. Story by: Ron Cobb, Ron Cobb and Robin Love.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Dobbs was convinced that a catastrophic nuclear war had taken place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two friends hunkered down in a secret basement fallout shelter after a nuclear bomb detonation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear missile detonated accidentally and turned Harry's little town into a wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Dobbs built a family bomb shelter his basement because he was convinced that a nuclear war was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Dobbs built a family bomb shelter his basement because he was convinced that a nuclear war was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's wife left with the kids for a weekend trip to Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally took her young son to visit relatives in Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally took her young daughter to visit relatives in Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's young son went off to visit relatives in Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's young daughter went off to visit relatives in Kansas City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "start-over utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was dreaming of a \"pure\" world without the filth he saw all around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry chewed out his friend for being afraid to die among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving a friend vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry elected to let his friend die outside rather than risk opening the door.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x09c", "title": "Private Channel", "date": "1987-05-21", "description": "After accidentally dropping his portable stereo in an airplane lavatory, a young man discovers that it allows him to hear other people's thoughts.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Edward Redlich.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith was able to hear other people's thoughts through his pocket radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The man sitting next to Keith on the plane planned to blow himself up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Williams plotted to teach the airline that was responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter by blowing up one of their planes midair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Williams was distraught over his wife and young daughter dying in a plane accident due to negligence on the part of the airline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Williams was distraught over his wife and young daughter dying in a plane accident due to negligence on the part of the airline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a suicide bombing attempt unfold on a passenger flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith succeeded in convincing Mr. Williams not to set off his suicide bomb and kill everyone aboard the aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith succeeded in convincing Mr. Williams to not blow himself up on the plane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mr India (1987)", "title": "Mr. India", "date": "1987-05-25", "description": "A man who is caring for ten orphaned children becomes a superhero.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._India_(1987_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The super villain Mogambo hatched a nefarious plot to make himself king of India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arun (a.k.a. Mr. India) wore a gadget on his wrist that made him invisible at the press of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a band of ten orphans living under Arun's care in a large, old house by the seashore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arun was renting a large, old house in which he housed ten orphaned children and took care of them with the help of his cook/caretaker Calendar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arun, having grown up as an orphan himself, took it upon himself to care for ten orphans out of the goodness of his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arun was caring for ten orphans who dearly beloved him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seema fell in love with the great hero Mr. India. Only later did she discover Mr. India was none other that Arun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A slivery, humanoid-shaped robot was shows clunking around Mogambo's compound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mogambo plotted to sell weapons to all the rival factions in India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The international criminal Mr. Wolcott was supplying Mogambo with the narcotics and arms that he plotted to spread around India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mogambo's gang made an attempt to get Arun and the orphans he was caring for thrown out of the house he was renting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seema was working as a crime reporter at a local newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seema was nearly brought to her wit's end by a lovable, but noisy band of orphans on the ground floor of the building from where she was renting a room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A desperate man attempted to drown himself in the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man pleading that his kids were starving was contrasted with some people eating in abundance at a fancy restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone broke down in tears when the little orphan Tina died in the operating room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for the little orphan Tina after she died in an explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mogambo was poised to blow up various Indian cities using four ICBMs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was made clear via some cut scenes that Arun had the dearly departed orphan Tina on his mind when he was beating the crap out of Mogambo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Predator (1987)", "title": "Predator", "date": "1987-06-12", "description": "The leader of an elite military rescue team goes on a mission to save hostages in guerrilla-held territory in Central America, but a technologically advanced space alien monster spying, stalking, and starts hunting the main characters.", "collections": [ "Collection: Predator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Predator was hunting down Dutch and his team members one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Predator was hunting down Dutch and his team members one by one. Dutch was convinced it was hunting them for sport. And the Predator seemed to be collecting the skulls of its victims as trophies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator was an alien with advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator used a kind of super camouflage that made it practically invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dutch led a mission to free some hostages who were being held be guerrillas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predator had infrared vision.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Full Metal Jacket (1987)", "title": "Full Metal Jacket", "date": "1987-06-17", "description": "Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed, co-written, and produced by Stanley Kubrick and starring Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and Adam Baldwin. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford's novel The Short-Timers (1979). The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp training in Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, primarily focusing on two privates, Joker and Pyle, who struggle under their abusive drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in Vietnamese cities of Da Nang and Huế during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by military servicemen. The film was released in the United States on June 26, 1987. It was the last of Kubrick's films to be released during his lifetime.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The entire film showed what things might have been like for people in the U.S. marines during the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the second half of the film took place in and during the Vietnam war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially the second half showcased war atrocities and indignities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw soldiers trying to survive in war zones in Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "the first half of the film culminates in Pyle's suicide due to stress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is said to be a criticism of masculinity in many ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "second half showcased to contrasting and opposing world views of various characters, including to an extent the enemy's through speculation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the first half of the film culminates in Pyle's suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hartman prescribes peer pressure to correct Pyle's errant behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the squad, and Joker in particular, deliberated whether to put the wounded sniper out of her misery", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not Quite Human (1987)", "title": "Not Quite Human", "date": "1987-06-19", "description": "A scientist invents an android that resembles a teenager.", "collections": [ "Collection: Not Quite Human" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Quite_Human_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Carson invented an android that resembled a teenager. He named it Chip, at his daughter's request, and treated it as his own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more emotionally sophisticated person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story followed Chip as he went from being a very literal minded android to a \"not quite human\" android with a working grasp of basic human interaction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carson and his teenage daughter Becky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Becky considered the android Chip as an older brother and they attended the same high school together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carson invented an android that resembled a teenager whom he treated as a son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "r. Carson invented an android that resembled a teenager whom he treated as a son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Carson raising a teenage daughter and a very literally minded android as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the very literally minded Chip and his de facto sister Becky adapt to life at their new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "A defense contractor and his henchman kidnapped the android Chip as part of a nefarious plot to make billions of dollars from the military by reprogramming it into a formidable fighting machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Chip was Dr. Carson's pride and joy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Becky and Scott had a mutual thing for each other and danced together at the high school dance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the world of human interaction from the perspective of the very literal minded android Chip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The very literal minded android Chip had trouble interacting with people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "on the move parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Becky stressed over the prospect of having to leave the school she'd been attending for the past four years, and start over from scratch at a new school. Moreover, she made it clear to her father that this was not the first time her life had been turned upside down from having to move to a new community, and that she was tired of living in rented homes filled with rented furniture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake Blocker was a stereotypical high school bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip inadvertently gave the high school bully Jake Blocker his proper comeuppance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nefarious defense contractor exclaimed that he was afraid of the dark immediately after Chip shut him up in a wooden crate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spaceballs (1987)", "title": "Spaceballs", "date": "1987-06-24", "description": "The film's setting and characters parody the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as other sci-fi franchises and popular films including Star Trek, Alien, The Wizard of Oz, 2001, and the Planet of the Apes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceballs" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil forces of the planet Spaceball schemed to take the atmosphere from the peaceful people on planet Druidia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The president of the planet Spaceball schemed to force King Roland of the neighboring planet Druidia to hand over their atmosphere after squandered all of its fresh air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Lone Starr and Princess Vespa tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Star Wars flagship-like Spaceball One vessel along with various other spacecraft were depicted, including Lone Starr's space camper vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceships were flying around the galaxy like it was nothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Roland and Princess Vespa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Vespa was accompanied at all times by her loyal servant droid Dot Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Vespa was accompanied at all times by her loyal servant droid Dot Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Vespa twice stood up Prince Valium at the altar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-canine hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barf the Mawg was half-man, hald-dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pizza the Hutt was a parody of classic alien Jabba the Hutt, and various other weird aliens popped up over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Skroob went through a Star Trek-like transporter only to find his head was on backwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Vespa took a high and mighty attitude toward her gruff rescuers. Lone Starr and Barf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rough and tumble Lone Starr and Princess Vespa were at each other's throats because Vespa took a high and might attitude toward him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lone Starr and his party crash-landed on a desert moon of the planet Vega.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film openly satirized the Hollywood practice of merchandising (e.g., actions figures and lunch boxes) and sequel making (e.g. the mention of making Spaceballs 2: The Quest for Money) at the possible expense of film quality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an imaginary reliance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lone Starr came to learn that the power of the Schwartz (a parody of the Force form Star Wars) was nothing to go with his special ring, but rather the power had been inside him all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two Planet of the Apes-like apes toward the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceball One used a tractor beam, which is referred to as a \"magnetic beam\" in the film, to intercept Princess Vespa's Mercedes space cruiser.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Innerspace (1987)", "title": "Innerspace", "date": "1987-07-01", "description": "A panicky hypochondriac is unsuspectingly injected with a miniaturized, submersible pod encapsulated man. It was inspired by the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innerspace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Tuck Pendleton was shrunken down to microscopic size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel inside a human body", "level": "major", "motivation": "A miniaturized, submersible pod encapsulated Tuck navigated around inside the body of the hypochondriac Jack Putter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Tuck Pendleton volunteered for a secret miniaturization experiment in which he was placed in a submersible pod and both were shrunk to microscopic size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was a panicky hypochondriac whose condition was aggravated by the presence of a microscopic sized man inside his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuck and Lydia had some ups and downs but the film concluded with them tying the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuck gave a drunken toast and then toppled over into some surroundings to everyone's chagrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia dumped Tuck like a sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The panicky hypochondriac Jack was urged by his physician to book himself on a cruise and take some rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuck mentored the socially inept Jack on how to talk with women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia put the skills she'd learned as a journalist to help save Tuck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Scrimshaw lamented that nobody had the guts to use nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Scrimshaw masterminded a nefarious plot to steal a secret computer chip that would enable him to make a vast fortune via a monopoly on miniaturization technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuck, quite out of nowhere, used some technology in his submersible pod to physically alter Jack's face to appear identical to that of The Cowboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Igoe was placed in a menacing robotic suit, both were miniaturized and injected into Jack's body to take out Tuck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuck and Lydia's wedding ceremony concluded the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x10a", "title": "Time and Teresa Golowitz", "date": "1987-07-10", "description": "A Broadway composer accepts an offer from the Prince of Darkness and returns to his high school years to see his crush again. It's not as pleasant as he expected and soon, he sees a classmate who met a tragic end that night. He uses the opportunity to prevent the classmate's suicide.\n\nDirected by: Shelley Levinson. Story by: Parke Godwin, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone sent Mr. Bluestone back in time to his high school years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone reflected back on his high school crush.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness gave Mr. Bluestone this chance after Mr. Bluestone suffered a fatal heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness gave Mr. Bluestone this chance after Mr. Bluestone suffered a fatal heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone felt sorry for Teresa and tried to stop her from committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone felt sorry for Teresa and tried to stop her from committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness took Mr. Bluestone back in time to save Teresa from killing herself, because she was destined to make great music, and he wanted to listen to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculation that the Devil is not so bad after all", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness turned out to be a nice enough guy who really loved great music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone was visited by the Prince of Darkness after he suffered a fatal heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a bunch of teens at a house party, one of whom was about to kill herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness sent Mr. Bluestone back to his teenage years to talk Teresa out of jumping in front of a bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prince of Darkness sent Mr. Bluestone back to his teenage years to talk Teresa out of jumping in front of a bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone found out he had died of a heart attack, as he saw his own cold body on the floor and was propositioned by the Prince of Darkness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone was given a choice of where and whatever to go and do in the whole of creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a couple of teenage couples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone talked a lot about messed up marriages, his own and one other's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It transpires that hell is a lot like Queens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Bluestone was a Broadway composer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x10b", "title": "Voices in the Earth", "date": "1987-07-10", "description": "People return to a barren Earth to find that not everything had left when they thought it did.\n\nDirected by: Curtis Harrington. Story by: Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a distant future, Donald and his fellow crew members visited Earth, but it was unrecognizable, having been rendered utterly uninhabitable by human activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "history occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Historian Donald Knowles waxed poetic over the beauties of the ancient Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald met the ghosts of all the humans who failed to escape from the Earth before it became uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a bunch of spirits of people who had stayed on Earth and died with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future anthropologist (or something) come to look at a dead Earth and lament the folly that had caused it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw descendants of colonists who had abandoned Earth as it was being killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "No one believed Donald's wild tales of spirits lingering on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald mentioned how ancient humans had released ozone layer destroying toxins into the air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald and his fellow crew members came to Earth in spaceship of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the dead Earth undergoing some process of rejuvenation where life rebooted and went evolved from cyanobacteria to plants in the blink of an eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that rainforest had been chopped down and that eventually life had become untenable on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald deliberated whether to willingly offer up his body to the spirit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: RoboCop (1987)", "title": "RoboCop", "date": "1987-07-17", "description": "RoboCop centers on police officer Alex Murphy who is murdered by a gang of criminals and subsequently revived by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) as a superhuman cyborg law enforcer known as RoboCop.", "collections": [ "Collection: Robocop" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop was a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were show distracted from the grim realities of life in Old DEtroit by television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gentrification", "level": "major", "motivation": "OCP corporation planned to replace Old Detroit with Delta City,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OCP corporation was running both the police force and cocaine production in Old Detroit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OCP corporate executives were poster boys for corporate greed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The consequences of privatizing the Detroit police force was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "OCP was busy opening markets that had previously been considered in the public or criminal domain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Future Detroit was a dangerous, crime ridden slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "To what extent was RoboCop still Murphy?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OCP megacorporation was running Detroit into the ground in the pursuit of profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to think about what to do when a city is plagued with crime and how it became that way in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were given a view into the inner working of the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a report that the South African government was going to use a neutron bomb that had bought from France. There was also a TV commercial for a nuclear war boardgame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Old Detroit police force went on strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were administering beatings left, right, and center.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x11a", "title": "Song of the Younger World", "date": "1987-07-17", "description": "In 1916, a girl and a young man from a reformatory for wayward boys fall in love and try to get away from her father, the superintendent. He finds out and does not approve of their love, locking away his daughter and punishing the boy. Luckily, the girl has a secret plan to escape so she can be forever with the love of her life.\n\nDirected by: Noel Black. Story by: Anthony & Nancy Lawrence.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy's father forbade her from getting involved with the common thief Tanner Smith. The father when so far as to beat Tanner with his cane upon catch him taking a literal roll in the hay with Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy disobeyed her father by getting involved with Tanner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy's father forbade her from getting involved with the common thief Tanner Smith. Amy and Tanner were deeply in love and went to great lengths to be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that the young couple transmogrified into a couple of wolves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tanner and Amy's father sought vengeance against each other alternatingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's father made a number of references to Christianity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy claimed to have found a book that explained how to transport her and Tanner souls to a world where they could be free from her domineering father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy told Hoakie that she felt hopeful that she would soon be free from her domineering father. This was some time after Hoakie told her never to lost hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tanner gave a broach that he had picked from the pocket of a drunk to Amy as a present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy had a book ripped out of her hands by her father who didn't approve of her escapist diversions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e2x11b", "title": "The Girl I Married", "date": "1987-07-17", "description": "An attorney and his wife have successful careers. They feel something is lacking in their marriage. Soon, they encounter younger versions of their mates.\n\nDirected by: Philip DeGuere. Story by: J. M. DeMatteis.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story ended with the point that true love is enduring commitment that only older people can understand and that young people are ignorant of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was to show how the older people were, in fact, a lot wiser than their foolish young selves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira and Valarie encountered younger versions of their mates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira and Valarie encountered younger versions of their mates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The younger versions of Ira and Valarie were Zen seeking hippies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira gave up on the hippie ideals he believed in and became a yuppie lawyer. He admitted to selling out for money to the hippie version of Valarie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira gave up on his hippie principles and became a yuppie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira and Valerie's marriage seemed to be falling apart up until the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira and Valeri both cheated on each other with younger versions of the respective partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Longtime married couple Ira and Valeri felt their love for one another fading away, but in the end they came to love one another more than ever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw 40 or 50-somethings embark on affairs with 18 year old versions of their partners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful ideological convictions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The younger versions of the urban professionals Ira and Valarie were raging hippies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hippie version of Valarie explained to Ira that she became real because he wanted her so badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin rationalized his corporation polluting the local environment with birth defect causing chemicals.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)", "title": "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace", "date": "1987-07-24", "description": "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a 1987 superhero film directed by Sidney J. Furie, based on the DC Comics character Superman. It is the fourth and final film in the original Superman film series, and the first film in that series not to be produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind, but rather by Golan- Globus' Cannon Films, in association with Warner Bros. Gene Hackman returned as Lex Luthor, who creates an evil solar-powered version of Superman called Nuclear Man.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_IV:_The_Quest_for_Peace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman took it upon himself to try to bring about a state of world peace by ending an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and also foiling Lex Luthor's evil plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman at Lois Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor was hellbent on getting revenge on Superman for having foiled one of his plots for world domination and putting him in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor risked bringing about a nuclear war for his own personal financial gain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was conflicted about how much he should intervene to stop a potential arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "People worried that an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union would result in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal genius Lex Luthor was hellbent on getting revenge against his old foe Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex Luthor and his idiot nephew Lenny Luthor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lacy Warfield at Clark Kent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to see through a kitchen door and roast a duck in the oven to perfection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to see through a kitchen door and roast a duck in the oven to perfection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David Warfield and Lacy Warfield.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Curse (1987)", "title": "The Curse", "date": "1987-09-11", "description": "A meteorite that crashes into a farming community in Tennessee and begins to infect the land and its residents. It is based on the short story The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_(1987_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan Crane was on the verge of getting pushed off from his beloved family farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zach's already strained relationship with his new stepfather was exacerbated when a strange meteor-like object crashed on their farm and started making everyone go crazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zach watched on as his mother went mad under the influence of the crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan and Frances Cyrus. Alan and Esther Forbes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zach and his little sister stuck together while everyone else was turning into monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zach and his little sister Alice's family members all turned into murderous creatures and started attacking them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the meteor-like object that crashed on the Crane farm was some kind of hostile entity from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan and his idiot son Cyrus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frances and her young daughter Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zach's stepfather was a strict, Bible thumping Christian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan caught his wife fooling around with a brawny farmhand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrus resented his new stepbrother Zach, but the feeling was mutual, and they were going after each other over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan interpreted the strangeness transpiring on his farm as punishment from God.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)", "title": "Amazon Women on the Moon", "date": "1987-09-18", "description": "The film takes the form of a compilation of 21 comedy skits directed by five different directors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Women_on_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Penthouse Plaything of the Month was blond, shallow, and pitied anyone who didn't live in California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nudism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Penthouse Plaything of the Month went everywhere naked, including church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murray was zapped into his television and wandered throughout sketches looking for his wife, Selma. Brenda and Harry Landers had a hard time getting their doctor to present them with their newborn baby. President Harrison Chandler was married to a woman who was keeping secret that she was a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts traveled to the Moon in a classical style rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts traveled to the Moon in a classical style rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the three astronauts kept a pet monkey with him at all times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three male astronauts discovered that the Moon was populated exclusively by beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three male astronauts found a race of beautiful women inhabiting the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young woman called off her blind date to his great bemusement after she did an extensive check on his dating history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theory that Jack the Ripper was really the Loch Ness Monster was advanced on the TV show entitled Bullshit or Not?.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Loch Ness Monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theory that Jack the Ripper was really the Loch Ness Monster was advanced on the TV show entitled Bullshit or Not?.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theory that Jack the Ripper was really the Loch Ness Monster was advanced on the TV show entitled Bullshit or Not?.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two film critics give two thumbs down to a depressing Swedish film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harvey Pitnik's widow wept at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The late Harvey Pitnik was roasted by a number of famous comedians at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew of Video Pirates, who hijacked an MCA Home Video ship, uncovered a vast amount of videotapes and laserdiscs, and promptly began illegally bootlegging the media.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two teen lovers' efforts to put an exclamation point on their evening were thwarted when the man ran into some trouble buying a box of condoms at the local pharmacy. Two of the astronauts found love with Moon women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankie was outraged to find his partner Sherri seducing Ray.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987)", "title": "Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity", "date": "1987-09-18", "description": "A man holds some castaways captive on his remote planet and hunts them for sport.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Girls_from_Beyond_Infinity" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daria and Tisa were held captive and hunted for sport by Zed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daria and Tisa were held captive and hunted for sport by Zed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zed held captive anyone unfortunate enough to find their way to his personal planet and then hunt them down for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zed commanded the two clunky, yet powerful robots Vak and Krel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daria and Tisa crash-landed their shuttlecraft on Zed's personal planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zed was holding captive the crash-landed siblings Rik and Shala.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a hunchbacked alien with a laser rifle for an arm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x01/02", "title": "Encounter at Farpoint", "date": "1987-09-28", "description": "The new starship Enterprise begins her maiden voyage by uncovering the mysteries of an advanced space station. The crew's mission is threatened by an omnipotent being named Q , who puts them (and specifically, Captain Jean-Luc Picard ) on trial for the crimes of all humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation savage according to Q; Picard begs to differ", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "space jellyfish exploited by Bandi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "much ado about the Enterprise exploring the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jellyfish-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jellyfish-like Space Creature :: giant space creature patterned after a jellyfish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an enormous Jellyfish-like space creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity was put on trial by the virtually omnipotent being Q.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in assessment of human race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "eugenic soldiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in court", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard bad at", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at admiral McCoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Wesley marveled at the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "VISOR :: VISOR", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space jellyfish at Gropler Zorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humans lost the right to not be tortured in wake of the post-atomic horror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to a fair trial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q assured Picard that humanity would be given a fair trial with respect to the charge of having committed acts of savagery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "humankind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard refused to obey Q's directive that humans, which Q characterized as \"galaxy infiltrating\", cease exploring space and return to their own solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q urges Picard to kill space jellyfish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q urged Picard to kill the space jellyfish to save the Enterprise and its crew, but Picard resisted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Groppler Zorn :: Gropler Zorn tries to make Riker feel welcome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data openly envied Riker for being able to experience emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q in courtroom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard expressed a proper pride in the accomplishments humanity had achieved, but was cognizant that the path to get to where the were was not all roses and sunshine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: ROTOR (1987)", "title": "R.O.T.O.R.", "date": "1987-10", "description": "A killer police robot runs amok.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.O.T.O.R." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a scientist who runs the police robotics lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The killer robot cop R.O.T.O.R.. The trusty police droid Willard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a scientist who runs the police robotics lab that is working on developing a a robot police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The killer robot cop R.O.T.O.R. stalked an innocent woman after it killed her fiancée for speeding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Senator Donald D. Douglas had \"skimmed millions from here and there\" to fund the the police robotics lab, and that moreover a variety of politicians had taken cuts of the funding money for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female lab technician was pestered for her phone number by a male lab technician who claimed to be of Apache descent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman who was determined to find a job after her honeymoon was told by her fiancée that he would be embarrassed to have a wife who works.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman who was determined to find a job after her honeymoon was told by her fiancée that he would be embarrassed to have a wife who works.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain J.B. Coldyron stoped a group of armed shoplifters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: World Gone Wild (1987)", "title": "World Gone Wild", "date": "1987-10", "description": "The films is set in a nuclear war ravaged wasteland in which water is a scarce natural resource.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Gone_Wild" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The follows a small community as they try to defend their watering hole from attackers in a a nuclear war ravaged wasteland in which water is a scarce natural resource.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story antagonists were cultists who looked to a book entitled \"The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson\" as their bible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inhabitants of Lost Wells guarded their source of water from an evil cult of pseudoreligious renegades. In this world, water was a scarce natural resource.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angie and George fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set fifty years after a catastrophic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It recounted at the start of the story how two nations had unleashed their nuclear arsenals upon each other fifty years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George intervened to stop Ten Watt from forcing himself upon Angie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Creepozoids (1987)", "title": "Creepozoids", "date": "1987-10-02", "description": "Set in 1998, six years after an apocalyptic nuclear war, a group of five U.S. Army deserters take refuge from acid rain in a seemingly abandoned laboratory complex in the ruins of Los Angeles. They soon discover that the lab was a top-secret government research center, where a hideous (if rather fickle) genetically-engineered monster still lurks.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepozoids" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in 1998, six years after an apocalyptic nuclear exchange had left the Earth \"a blackened husk of a planet\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows five army deserters who, six years after an apocalyptic nuclear war, take refuge in from acid rain in a seemingly abandoned laboratory complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows five army deserters who, six years after an apocalyptic nuclear war, take refuge in from acid rain in a seemingly abandoned laboratory complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange, genetically-engineered creature was killing one by one the five army deserters who made the mistake of seeking refuge in its abandoned laboratory complex lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening text mentioned about wasteland roaming mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army deserters uncovered that the creature that was stalking them had been genetically engineered by government scientists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x03", "title": "The Naked Now", "date": "1987-10-05", "description": "A mysterious, communicable contaminant causes the crew to experience symptoms similar to alcohol intoxication.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Wesley, Data, Beverly, Riker, Tasha, Geordi, Jim Shimoda :: entire crew down to the last android", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we learn that the Enterprise would spiral into a planet if this were the case", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Data :: everyone tempted when they were intoxicated; especially Picard with Beverly and Data with Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew suffered polywater intoxication.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "A polywater intoxicated Picard tried to keep his romantic feelings for Beverly in check.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim Shimoda :: crew neglected duties, especially Jim Shimoda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious affliction was spreading uncontrollably aboard the Enterprise that caused those infected to behave as though they'd put back a few too many.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher was racing to find the vector of transmission of and a cure for a mysterious affliction that was spreading uncontrollably aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley jury-rigged a tricorder to function as a tractor beam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femininity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi revealed his non-functional eyes to Lt. Yar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly/Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly as single mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew was on mission to monitor supernova-like phenomenon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data has android sex with Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew under influences of polywater and race against time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly to Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley from Engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Beverly :: Picard and Beverly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x04", "title": "Code of Honor", "date": "1987-10-12", "description": "Lt. Yar is abducted by the leader of a people who abide by a strict code of honor, which requires her participation in a fight to the death.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan in his dealings with Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard with Ligonians after Tasha taken hostage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard considers whether recovering Tasha violates Prime Directive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation was savage from Ligonian point of view and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard chooses whether to allow Tasha to fight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ligonian females has surprising power in society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ligonian society was nominally dominated by males.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yareena :: Yareena at Tasha over Lutan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutan/Yareena :: Lutan and Yareena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutan/Yareena/Tasha :: Lutan/Yareena/Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan at Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha faces Yareena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans and Ligonians saw each other's peculiar foreign habits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lutan, ruler of Ligon II, looked down at those around him with a certain aristocratic pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard allows Tasha to fight rather than to violate the PD", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan's attitude toward Tasha as a possession", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data fails to understand Geordi's joke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi enjoyed a shave with his sonic razor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Tasha trained with a holo-opponent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard with Lutan over release of Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi prefers a good old fashioned shave with his sonic razor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan at conclusion of story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ligonian :: Ligonains", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan :: Tasha copes with romantic overtures from Lutan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yareena :: Yareena in fight to death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan entertains landing party in his common space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lutan :: Lutan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ligonian leader Lutan thought it quite reasonable to kidnap Tasha for his intrigues and was then honor-bound to stand his ground; the Federation people could not abandon an officer and thus a material conflict became inevitable.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x05", "title": "The Last Outpost", "date": "1987-10-19", "description": "An unknown force immobilizes the Enterprise during the Federation's first encounter with a new alien threat—the Ferengi .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "civilized Federation vs. savage Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew must cooperate with Ferengi to overcome adversity on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tkon :: Tkon empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans and Ferengi saw each other's peculiar foreign ideas, about morality in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Portal 63 was some sort of ancient artificial custodian that could appear in corporeal form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferengi :: Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ferengi fetishized commerce and profit. They stole a T-9 energy converter with designs on selling it for a nice return. Mordoc showed an unwholesome interest in Riker's comm badge because it was made from gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi sexism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tkon :: supernova ended Tkon empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "supernova ended Tkon empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tkon :: Tkon empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker refrained from having the Ferengi destroyed by the Delphi Ardu star system guardian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tarr boasted (or bluffed?) that he would rather die than unconditionally surrender his ship to the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Hidden (1987)", "title": "The Hidden", "date": "1987-10-20", "description": "A parasitic alien creature inhabits one ordinary person after another, turning them into violent killers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The LAPD Detective Thomas Beck was leading an investigation in the strange phenomenon of ordinary citizens turning into crazed killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, alien creature was parasitizing ordinary people and making them kill people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alhague in the guise of FBI Special Agent Lloyd Gallagher sough revenge against the alien creature over its having murdered his family and his partner on another planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien law enforcement officer Alhague had assumed the identity/appearance of the recently deceased FBI Special Agent Lloyd Gallagher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed an alien law enforcement officer, who, disguised as an FBI Special Agent, as he pursued the alien that murdered his family and his partner on another planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to LAPD Detective Thomas Beck and the alien law enforcement officer Alhague to stop a parasitic alien that was going around inhabiting ordinary people and making them murder lots of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with a daring hold up of a Wells Fargo Bank branch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miller, while under the control of a parasitic alien being, assaulted a record store clerk upon being caught stealing some cassettes. He later stole a red Ferrari from a car dealership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Holt was running for President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was snorting lines of cocaine in a car dealership office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas and Barbara Beck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara read a bedtime story to her young daughter, Juliette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas visited his young daughter's bedroom before she went to sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Willis tried to assassinate Senator Holt while under the control of a parasitic alien creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nightflyers (1987)", "title": "Nightflyers", "date": "1987-10-23", "description": "The film is about a group of scientists who begin a space voyage to find a mysterious alien being, and in the process are victimized by the ship's malevolent computer. It is based on the 1980 novella of the same name by George R. R. Martin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightflyers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the the large, but old space freighter Nightflyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists voyaged across the galaxy in hopes of acquiring the advanced technology of the Volcryn, an enigmatic alien species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nightflier ship computer was uploaded with the mind of Royd's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nightflier ship computer had it in for its crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roid was in a struggle against the uploaded mind of his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Micheal was driven, possibly to the point of obsession, by a desire to acquire the knowledge of the Volcryn, an enigmatic alien species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jon Winderman was a class 10 telepath, while other Nightflyer had more limited telepathic abilities to varying degrees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Royd's mother had uploaded her mind into the Nightflyer computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nightflyer computer was uploaded with the mind of Royd's mother, and the entity ultimately turned on its crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x06", "title": "Where No One Has Gone Before", "date": "1987-10-26", "description": "Warp efficiency tests send the Enterprise traveling far beyond known space, where the crew's imagination takes on real form. First appearance of Eric Menyuk as The Traveler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Traveler had the ability to alter reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kosinski :: Kosinski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "they traveled to the edge of the known universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Traveler/Wesley :: The Traveler and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "edge of the universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise travels to netherworld of sorts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew members's thoughts started popping into reality after the Enterprise arrived at a strange region of space at the edge of the universe. Among other things, Picard's deceased mother crossed his mind, and she appeared in the flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kosinski was humbled when it became apparent that his grandiose theory for how to make starships go faster was bogus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kosinski thought himself a scientific genius, and behaved in a most pompous manner aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard grieved for his dearly departed mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "minor", "motivation": "inner thoughts and desires of crew become reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: The Traveler toward Kosinski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yvette Picard/Picard :: Picard and his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people may not always live up to their reputations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kosinski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kosinski :: Kosinski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yvette Picard :: Yvette Picard to her son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew facing their fears at edge of universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to mother", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x07", "title": "Lonely Among Us", "date": "1987-11-02", "description": "An alien entity possesses Dr. Crusher , Worf , and Picard while the Enterprise is transporting delegates from two feuding planets.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien entity struggled to comprehend what was going on when the Enterprise inadvertently whisked it away from the energy cloud in space that it called home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew's loyalty to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "should the drew relieve Picard of duty or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beta Renner Energy Pattern :: the energy pattern", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "energy pattern takes command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Badar N'D'D, Ssestar :: feuding delegates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antican/Selay :: Anticans and Selay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Antican and the Selay were mutually disgusted by each other's dietary requirements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha objected to the Selay killing their own food onboard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard mediates between Anticans and Selay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was curious to explore a unusual space cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was beamed back to his state before he left", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data commented on the use of logical reasoning as he solved a mystery in Sherlock Holmes fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Selay :: Selay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "canine-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antican :: Antican", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly, Riker :: crew to Picard; especially Riker and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Beverly :: Picard and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Selay and the Anticans were seeking to become members of the Federation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Steel Dawn (1987)", "title": "Steel Dawn", "date": "1987-11-06", "description": "A swordsman wanders through the desert in a post-apocalyptic war world in search of his mentor's killer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Dawn" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in post-apocalyptic war world that is all desert as far as on can tell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were trying their best to survive in a desertified, post-apocalyptic war world. This was exemplified by a band desert settlers that were doing their best to farm the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad and Kasha fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nomad was motivated by a desire to murder the man who'd slain his longtime mentor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kasha and her young son Jux.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad was briefly reunited with his old mentor Cord, but Cord was soon slain by the assassin Sho, and the rest of the story followed Nomad as he tracked down Sho through the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad mourned the slaying of his longtime mentor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Jux, who had lost his father in the war, looked up to the warrior Nomad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tark became jealous of Nomad after Nomad took his spot as top dog in Kasha's household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tark felt worthless after losing his sport as top dog to Nomad, and he went out on a drinking binge, but Nomad went and made peace with Tark and brought him back to the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nomad stayed true to his name, said his goodbyes to Kasha and Jux, and headed out into the desert to conclude the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x08", "title": "Justice", "date": "1987-11-09", "description": "Wesley breaks an idyllic world's trivial law by accidentally stepping on flowers and faces the death sentence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "should Wesley be executed for disturbing a flower bed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans could not stand idly by as the Edo subjected Wesley to their draconian punishment for a minor infringement: death for stepping in a flower bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Wesley be executed for disturbing a flower bed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edo free love fest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Picard weighed violating Prime Directive to save Wesley from execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edo society was regulated by a God-like alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edo God and Edo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Edo people worshiped a group of advanced extra-dimensional aliens as their god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard about Wesley's fate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were as astonished as they were delighted by the Edo free love mentality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Edo; exemplified by Liator and Rivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Edo justice systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley was to be executed at sundown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley's pending execution was the source of much distress to Beverly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a philosophical discussion about the nature of justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party hospitably received by the Edo; especially by Liator and Rivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "free love was had by all on planet surface", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open sexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "free love was had by all on planet surface", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edo society was fun but at what cost?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly to Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew face Edo god", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha and Liator among others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Edo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was mercy in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise visited Rubicun III for shore leave after having dropped over some colonists at a nearby star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An away team beamed down to Rubicun III.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Running Man (1987)", "title": "The Running Man", "date": "1987-11-13", "description": "The film's story, set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal \"runners\" must escape death at the hands of professional killers. It is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same title written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(1987_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the United States in the year 2017 by which time the country has become a totalitarian police state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The totalitarian government that had taken power in the United States was using wildly popular television shows in which convicts had to fight for their lives in order to distract the public from their real problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners being exploited for entertainment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Convicts were being hunted down by professional killers on a wildly popular television show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Convicts were being hunted down by professional killers on a wildly popular television show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mic was leading an underground resistance movement against the totalitarian government from his secret broadcast center. The story protagonists ultimately sided with him and almost singlehandedly delegitimized the government in the eyes of the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a behind the scenes look at the production of a wildly popular game show where convicted criminals fought for their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that a worldwide economic collapse had led to the rise of totalitarian government in the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amber learned that everything on television was a lie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stalker Fireball used a jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richards and Amber kissed at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ftt1982e6x03", "title": "The Dancing Princesses", "date": "1987-11-14", "description": "A widowed king who is overly protective of his six daughters discovers that their dancing shoes are mysteriously being worn out every night, and offers to let any prince who can solve the mystery choose any of the six princesses to have as his bride, but when the cleverness of the eldest daughter proves too much for the princes, it is up to a wandering soldier to discover the secret.\n\nStarring Lesley Ann Warren as Princess Jeanetta, Peter Weller as the Soldier, Roy Dotrice as the King, Zelda Rubinstein as the Old Woman, Ian Abercrombie as the Royal Cobbler, and Max Wright as Prince Heinrick. Written by Maryedith Burrell. Directed by Peter Medak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-faeritaletheatre1982.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an overprotective father and his six daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "A royal lone father locked up his six daughters each night and was concerned about them slipping out somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the sisters wore out one pair of dancing slippers each night, thus putting a notable strain on the kingdom's treasury coffers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The soldier would never have discovered the six princesses' secret had he not acquired an enchanted cloak that rendered its wearer invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The soldier came into sole possession of an enchanted cloak that rendered its wearer invisible. This newfound power he used to uncover the secret of why the six princesses' dancing shoes were getting worn out every night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absolute monarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The king apparently ruled over a kingdom that he could dispose of as he pleased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown five or six different ideas of what young women might be looking for in a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The six princesses were sizing up their prospective suitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The soldier and professed his love for Princess Jeanetta in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disobedient person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father the king was hard put upon to deal with his secretive and disobedient female spawn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the efforts of six princess siblings to keep their father in the dark about what they do at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "The six princess siblings went to elaborate ends to keep a secret from their father, the king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the king came to see that he'd been wrong to be so overprotective his six daughters for all those years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was the lone parent of six unruly daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a widowed king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the daughters was a stereotypical natter as she went on about her blueberry muffin with marmalade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that the soldier and hero had once been discharged with a measly pension after sustaining some sort of wound in the service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A game of checkers was enjoyed by Loretta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wandering soldier gave to an old woman one of the six pennies he had to his name. This act of kindness she repaid by giving him an enchanted cloak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wondering soldier considered that the old woman might have been a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The royal cobbler was filling the six princesses' daily orders for dancing slippers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The soldier voiced his opinion that \"all wars are sad... and should be avoided\", and the king agreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The six princesses' made nightly rendezvous with princes from an \"underground kingdom\" of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the soldier and Jeanetta tying the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x09", "title": "The Battle", "date": "1987-11-16", "description": "A Ferengi captain returns the abandoned Stargazer to its former captain, Jean- Luc Picard . Picard, who experiences severe headaches, begins to relive the \"Battle of Maxia\" in which he lost the ship. Guest star Frank Corsentino as DaiMon Bok.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok with killing Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok with killing Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Bok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bok/Son of Bok :: Bok and deceased son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok at son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bok sought to avenge the killing of his son in the so-called Battle of Maxia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard over Battle of Maxia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard on the Stargazer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about his actions at Battle of Maxia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thought Maker :: Bok used the Thought Maker on Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi are astonished the females wear clothes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "common cold is cured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data performed various android feats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An away team beamed to the Stargazer and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise towed the Stargazer using a tractor beam.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x10", "title": "Hide and Q", "date": "1987-11-23", "description": "Q returns to the Enterprise to tempt Commander Riker into joining the Q Continuum with the lure of Q's powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker utterly corrupted by Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw Riker riding on his high horse after being granted near god-like powers by Q.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about Q powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker was riding on his high horse after having been granted god-like powers, but learned to his dismay that he could not make people happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker was confident that he had it in him to wield his newfound god-like powers for good, but things generally backfired whenever he put them to use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q/Riker :: Q and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q :: Q offers God-like powers to Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q not impressed with Federation civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker getting Q powers was a short cut", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving innocent lives vs. compromising one's ethical principles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about the mining colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Worf, Wesley, Tasha :: away team and animal things", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x11", "title": "Haven", "date": "1987-11-30", "description": "Lwaxana Troi visits her daughter, Counselor Troi, and prepares her for an arranged marriage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Wyatt Miller :: Troi and Wyatt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wyatt Miller :: Wyatt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi :: Lwaxana and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi arranged to marry Wyatt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The few Tarellian survivors of a plague were in a spaceship roaming the galaxy for a new home, but the people of Haven didn't want to let them settle on their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The few Tarellian survivors of a plague were in a spaceship roaming the galaxy for a new home, but the people of Haven didn't want to let them settle on their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "the safety of the people of Haven vs. founding a space leper colony on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi/Wyatt Miller :: Troi and Wyatt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "the safety of the people of Haven vs. founding a space leper colony on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "After initially insisting that everyone be nude at Troi and Wyatt's wedding ceremony, in keeping with Betazoid tradition, Lwaxana ultimately made the following compromise with Wyatt's parents: everyone save for Troi, Wyatt, Lwaxana, and Wyatt's father would attend the ceremony clothed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wyatt believed it was destiny that led him to meet the literal woman of his dreams in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt and Troi vs. Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker wistfully responded to news that Troi was going to be married to Wyatt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Victoria Miller :: Lwaxana and Victoria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "platonic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi, Wyatt Miller :: Troi and Wyatt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana struck a compromise with the Millers's that not everyone had to be naked when her daughter Deanna solemnized her marriage vow to the miller's son Wyatt at a wedding ceremony to be held aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "biological weapons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "biological warfare led to space plague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana and Troi communicate telepathically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Haven people refused to let a plague ship land on their planet out of fear the disease would spread uncontrollably were they do to so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haven people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi and Lwaxana were communicating telepathically at times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana carried herself about with an aristocratic pride, and recoiled from the thought of her daughter, Troi, marrying someone devoid of an aristocratic pedigree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wyatt informed the Enterprise that he intended to remain on the Tarellian plague ship and seek out a cure for their affliction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bad Taste (1987)", "title": "Bad Taste", "date": "1987-12-11", "description": "The plotline sees aliens invade the fictional New Zealand village of Kaihoro to harvest humans for their intergalactic fast food franchise, where they face off against a four-man paramilitary force, of which at least one member appears to have gone insane.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Taste" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about aliens invading New Zealand with the goal of harvest humans for their intergalactic fast food franchise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens with a taste for humans plotted to takeover Earth and use people as livestock for making fast food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens with a taste for humans plotted to takeover Earth and use people as livestock for making fast food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A satirical quip was made about a newly installed American nuclear reactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the aliens escaped in a spaceship that was disguised as a house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Batteries Not Included (1987)", "title": "Batteries Not Included", "date": "1987-12-18", "description": "Some small extraterrestrial living spaceships that save an apartment block under threat from property development.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batteries_Not_Included" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two small, sentient spaceships came out of nowhere to help the residents of a dumpy apartment building from getting evicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly married couple Frank and Faye Riley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Faye was suffering from dementia to the point that she was often disoriented and disconnected from the goings on around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly husband was taking care of his senile wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A family of small, sentient spaceships came out of nowhere to help the residents of a dumpy apartment building from getting evicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank refused to let a developer bully him into selling the dumpy apartment building he'd managed together with his wife for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The few remaining residents of a dumpy apartment building who didn't take a developer's money to leave, banded together, and with some help from two living spaceships, managed to thwart the developer's plot to boot them out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two living spaceship were shaped like flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female living spaceship gave birth to twins to much fanfare. Marisa was also expecting with child, but worried because she was on her own, but then Mason came to the rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In her more lucid moments, Faye somehow recalled that her beloved son Bobby had died in a car wreck years ago, but for the most part she was convinced that he was alive and well.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x01", "title": "Skeleton in the Cupboard", "date": "1987-12-18", "description": "Robert Smythe has a dark secret he has kept for twenty years, but old sins have long shadows. Then a young woman comes to the area, inquiring into the past...\n\nDirected by: Paul Annett. Story by: Tony Wilmott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert was hiding the fact that he fatally struck a ten year old girl with his car back in the 60s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert attempted to rekindle his loveless relationship with his wife Margaret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert strangled Jane to prevent her from exposing him for having fatally struck a ten year old girl with his car back in the 60s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert murdered a young woman who he thought was trying to uncover his hit-and-run murder but in reality she was only looking for her mother, who turned out to be his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert had killed a girl with his reckless driving 20 years or so ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert strangled a girl who he later learned was his step-daughter to death. Robert had also left a woman to die on the side of the road in a hit-and-run accident in the 60s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Premenopausal Margaret expressed a strong desire to have children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert was delighted with his impending upwards move to head a London borough.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy (1987)", "title": "Final Fantasy", "date": "1987-12-18", "description": "The story follows four youths called the Light Warriors, who each carry one of their world's four elemental orbs which have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends. Together, they quest to defeat these evil forces, restore light to the orbs, and save their world. It is the first game in the Final Fantasy series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_%28video_game%29" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to the Light Warriors to defeat the evil knight Garland and his four Elemental Fiends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elemental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Light Warriors had to defeat the Four Elemental Fiends in order to obtain the four elemental orbs they needed to challenge the evil knight Garland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Four Elemental Fiends sent Garland back in time and he sent the Fiends to the future to do so, creating a time loop by which he could live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Light Warriors followed Garland back in time to face him in a final confrontation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of magical spells is a key component of the game play and story plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors are given the Mystic Key by an elven prince. The Light Warriors visit a town populated entirely by elves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors must liberate the town from Bikke and his band of pirates and acquire the pirates' ship for their own use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors must visit an underground settlement populated by dwarfs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "merpeople", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors encounter a mermaid at one point in the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors are given a special upgrade from the King of the Dragons, Bahamut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors are able to get around the world in a flying galleon from a certain point in the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Garland's hatred had burned for 2000 years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Andy Colbys Incredible Adventure (1988)", "title": "Andy Colby's Incredible Adventure", "date": "1988", "description": "A boy travels through several videos and static-filled channels in order to rescue his sister, who was snatched into the television because she sat too close to it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Colby%27s_Incredible_Adventure" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Andy Colby traveled across numerous television channels in order to rescue his little sister, Bonnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Andy Colby traveled across numerous television channels in order to rescue his little sister, Bonnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy was on a spaceship that was being chased by reptilian aliens. Also one of the spaceship crew members was an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy found himself on a spaceship that was being chased by reptilian aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy hitched a ride with some the planet hopping crew members of a certain spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy and the members of a spaceship crew were being chased by green, reptilian aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyclops", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor's archenemy was a cycolps whose twin sister was into Kor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prisoners of YamagiriMaru (1988)", "title": "Prisoners of Yamagiri-Maru", "date": "1988", "description": "Prisoners of Yamagiri-Maru (Russian: Узники Ямагири-мару, romanized: Uzniki Yamagiri-Maru) is a 1988 Soviet puppet animation science fiction short film directed by Aleksei Solovyov. The story is about two students who visit an ocean farm on the island of Yap for summer training. It is based on the short story of the same name by Kir Bulychov.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Yamagiri-Maru" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "oil spills in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oil spillage from the sinking of the Yamagiri-Maru resulted in the creation of hostile, mutant octopuses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliska and Pashka discovered a community of hostile, intelligent, mutant octopuses inhabiting the wreck of the Yamagiri-Maru on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a silvery metal robot of humanoid form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a montage of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan making a bid for world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Footage of Hitler was shown in a montage about Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan making a bid for world domination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robowar (1988)", "title": "Robowar", "date": "1988", "description": "A team of elite commandos is stalked in the jungle by a killer cyborg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robowar_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some elite commandos were being hunted down in the jungle by an out of control, killer cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The out of control, killer cyborg Omega-1 was stalking a team of elite commandos through the jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The out of control, killer cyborg Omega-1 was stalking a team of elite commandos through the jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a mildly exaggerated view of what it might be like for team of elite commandos to through the jungle on a mission to take out a band of guerrilla fighters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The killer cyborg Omega-1 turned out have been from the brain (and other body parts) of Marphy's old comrade Lt. Martin Woodrie. There was a flashback scene depicting Marphy and Woodrie together on the battlefield. Omega-1 ultimately begged Marphy to put him out of his misery, Marphy reluctantly granted him his request.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Mutiny (1988)", "title": "Space Mutiny", "date": "1988", "description": "A mutiny unfolds aboard the generation ship known as the Southern Sun.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Mutiny" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elijah Kalgan and his mutineers were archetypically evil, while the the heroes of the story were all one-dimensional good characters. The heroes of the story described themselves as fighting against evil at certain points in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story unfolds aboard the Southern Sun generation ship whose mission is to colonize a new world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Alex Jansen and his beloved daughter Dr. Lea Jansen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave Ryder and Dr. Lea Jansen were head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Southern Sun generation ship crew was on a mission is to colonize a new world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Southern Sun generation ship was en route from Earth to a new world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chief Engineer MacPhearson swore he'd get revenge on Dave Ryder. The reason was that MacPhearson had one of Ryder's Viper Squadron members to thank for why he walked with a severe limp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lea Jansen was strapped down on a table and shot in the teeth with a laser for a prolonged period of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Alex Jansen could not believe that Chief Engineer MacPhearson had betrayed him by joining the mutineers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Pass (1988)", "title": "The Pass", "date": "1988", "description": "On a distant, snow-covered planet, a starship from Earth crashes. Due to dangerous radiation levels, the survivors have to evacuate far away. Over years, the radiation levels go down but all attempting to return to the ship die when crossing a treacherous mountain pass, due to a combination of the elements and wild animals who come out at night. Finally, when only a few survivors are left, their teenaged children - all who were born on the world - and one of the adults decide to try to reach the ship one last time, to gain needed supplies and set off a beacon that would summon a rescue mission. It is adapted from the first chapter titled The Pass from Bulychyov's novel The Settlement (printed in English as Those Who Survive).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pass_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three youths trekked across a desolate alien landscape in order to reach an abandoned spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youths were warned that the spaceship might have dangerous radiation levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three youths buried the elderly man who'd set out with them to cross a treacherous mountain pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After trekking across a desolate alien landscape, three youths reached an enormous crashed spacecraft, which they explored.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers: City of Lost Angels (1988)", "title": "Trancers: City of Lost Angels", "date": "1988", "description": "Jack Deth's new life as a private investigator in 1988 Los Angeles is rudely interrupted when an escaped convict from the future travels back in time to kill him. Also known as Trancers 1.5, it is the second film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers:_City_of_Lost_Angels" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edlin Shock followed Jack back in time to from the 23rd century to 1988 Los Angeles to kill him. The mode of time travel is noteworthy: It is Edlin's consciousness which goes back in time to inhabit the body of one of her ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Lena had a rocky relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"ultraviolent assassin\" Edlin Shock was out to kill Jack because Jack was responsible for her imprisonment in a maximum security holding cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged criminal Edlin Shock was out to kill Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jack trying to make a life for himself as a private investigator in 1988 Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack used his special wristwatch to slow his angry girlfriend down to a crawl for the space of ten seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was in possession of a time slowing down wristwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 23rd century police chief McNaulty experienced what it was like to inhabit the body a teenage girl ancestor of his.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)", "title": "Hell Comes to Frogtown", "date": "1988-01", "description": "This film is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where few fertile men and women exist due to atomic fallout. As a result, what passed for a government places a high priority on those that can still breed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Comes_to_Frogtown" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set 10 years after a catastrophic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Hell, Spangle, and Centinella infiltrated a territory populated by hostile, frog-like mutants in order to rescue a harem of fertile human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Hell, Spangle, and Centinella infiltrated a territory populated by hostile, frog-like mutants in order to rescue a harem of fertile human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in post-apocalyptic wasteland where few fertile men and women exist due to atomic fallout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Hell and Spangle fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set 10 years after a catastrophic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set 10 years after a catastrophic nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuclear fall out made people infertile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Hell wanted nothing to do with the frog woman who fancied him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain belt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Hell was fitted with a pain chastity belt of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Hell was wracked with pain every time his pain chastity belt got activated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lawless Land (1988)", "title": "The Lawless Land", "date": "1988-01", "description": "A ruthless industrialist is determined to prevent his daughter from being with the man she loves.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawless_Land" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Chairman would not stand for his daughter Diana being with Falco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco and Diana consummated their secret marriage against all odds, and especially against the will of Diana's powerful father, the Chairman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Falco and Diana married in secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chairman had every intention of increasing worker productivity by 30% in 40 days even though inflation was out of control and the workers were on the brink of rebellion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chairman's advisor explained that inflation was out of control in Union City and that their money was worthless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nonbelievers Falco and Diana sought out a Catholic priest to marry them in secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chairman ran a private prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Falco was apprehended and held in the Chairman's private prison, but he ultimately made a daring escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electrified jumper cables were clamped to Falco's nipples for three days in a bid to make him reveal the whereabouts of his wife Diana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electrified jumper cables were clamped to Falco's nipples for three days in a bid to make him reveal the whereabouts of his wife Diana.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x02", "title": "The Colonels Lady", "date": "1988-01-09", "description": "Eve Hamilton-Peregrine has written a successful book of poetry. Her husband is suspicious about the subject of the poems and demands to know who the lover is that she writes about.\n\nDirected by: Barry Davis. Story by: Somerset Maugham.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel George Peregrine became convinced his wife Eve Peregrine had a paramour and resolved to get to the bottom of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve's newly published poetry book was the talk of the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "George cheated on his wife with a young actress named Daphne. George became convinced that his wife Eve was having an affair on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "George resented his wife over her smashing success as a writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "George, who had had a distinguished career in the military, resented his wife over her smashing success as a writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve obviously felt neglected by her unfaithful and brutish husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve wrote a poetry book based on her early experiences with husband George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve's newly published poetry book was the talk of the town.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x12", "title": "The Big Goodbye", "date": "1988-01-11", "description": "A computer malfunction traps Picard , Data , Beverly , and Whalen in a Dixon Hill holodeck program set in early-20th-century Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with the question of whether or not the holodeck characters are sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: automobiles etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock :: holodeck characters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarada :: insectoids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: 1940s era holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock :: holodeck characters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard struggled to memories an elaborate greeting to ensure the Federation started off on the right foot with a race of insectoids that were sticklers for protocol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard assumed the identity of the 20th century private investigator Dixon Hill in a holodeck simulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarada :: Jarada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Beverly :: Picard and Beverly on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock :: Cyrus Redblock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "was it ethical to kill Redblock and the gangsters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The simulated gangster Cyrus Redblock lusted over the prospect of plundering the world beyond the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock :: Cyrus Redblock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock :: Cyrus Redblock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyrus Redblock and Felix Leech upon exiting holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a Dixon Hill holodeck simulation, Captain Picard was interrogated about a murder by the police.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x03", "title": "The Surgeon", "date": "1988-01-15", "description": "Doctor Robert Sandy receives a huge diamond from a grateful patient - an Eastern Prince.\n\nDirected by: Graham Evans. Story by: Roald Dahl.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Betty came into possession of a large diamond valued at half a million pounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two thieves attempted to steal the diamond from Robert and Betty's flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and his wife Betty planned all the wonderful things they were going to do after Robert was given a million dollar diamond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Sandy was a completely self-effacing saint of a doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert and the Eastern Prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Sandy quipped that he'd never taken a fee in exchanged for medical service on account that he worked at the British National Health Service, which is a form of socialized medical care. Although he did accept a superbly high-quality diamond as a present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Sandy was given a huge diamond by an Eastern Prince as a token of gratitude for his good medical service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the doctor and nurse keep a diamond they removed from a patient's small intestine or give it back?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two people in the operating room stole the diamond from a burglar's small intestine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x13", "title": "Datalore", "date": "1988-01-18", "description": "The Enterprise crew finds a disassembled android identical to Data at the site of the Omicron Theta colony—where Data was found—which was destroyed by a life form dubbed \"the Crystalline Entity .\" The reassembled android, Lore , brings the Crystalline Entity to the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Lore, Soong Type Android :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data says he is better in some ways and Lore demonstrates something else", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore had emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore felt he was black sheep of his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data about his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore envied and resented Data over Data being their creator's favorite among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the colony destroyed by the crystalline entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data sought to comprehend the nature of human sneezing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crystalline being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: vampiric space crystal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: vampiric space crystal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data in Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore feels he doesn't belong in his family or on the Enterprise for that matter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore of Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore looked down on Data for Data's inability to experience emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew visited a destroyed Federation colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley teleported Lore out into space.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x04", "title": "The Verger", "date": "1988-01-22", "description": "The Dobsons have been serving their Parish Church for years, but when a new Vicar arrives he changes things radically. They move away and start a new life, but, in the process, a secret that the Dobsons have been keeping comes to light.\n\nDirected by: Rodney Bennett. Story by: Denis Cannan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dobson was upset with various young punks and new fangled ideas, such as literacy and modern food preparation standards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dobsons went into business together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dobsons built a very successful business in spite of various bureaucratic hurdles and other adversities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dobsons, at an advanced age, deliberated over whether to throw their entire retirement savings into a risky business venture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dobsons quit their ecclesiastical postings and went into the restaurant business, after much deliberation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hardship makes you stronger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the observation that Mr. Dobson had his very illiteracy to thank for going into the restaurant business and becoming such a smashing success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dobson's illiteracy ought to have made him a failure, but ironically it led him to be a smashing success in the business world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illiteracy in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Dobson was urged to enroll in an adult literacy class, because his reading and writing skills were a liability when it came to him working as a verger at the local church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dobsons used their life saving to open a tea room and were offered the opportunity to build a multinational tea room chain by the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Dobson briefly went back to school with the intent of remedying his illiteracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Dobson summarily resigned after his new up-starter of a boss had the audacity to ask Mr. Dobson to become literate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some goings on at a small town church.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x01", "title": "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl", "date": "1988-01-23", "description": "A guest murders his host and then becomes obsessed with cleaning any evidence that can implicate him in the crime.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert M. Shilton. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The narrative chronicles Mr. Acton's futile attempts to cover his tracks after strangling Mr. Huxley in the latter's own home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Acton became maniacally obsessed with removing his fingerprints from the scene of Mr. Huxley's strangulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Acton didn't take it well when Mr. Huxley declined to publish the story that Mr. Acton had spent nearly a year writing. Mr. Acton reacted by strangling Mr. Huxley in the latter's own home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to cover up a murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "After strangling Mr. Huxley, Mr. Acton went insane trying to remove his fingerprints from the scene of his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "After strangling Mr. Huxley, Mr. Acton went insane trying to remove his fingerprints from the scene of his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Acton went insane while trying to remove all evidence from the scene of his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Acton was devastated when Mr. Huxley refused to publish the story that the former had spent nearly a year writing. As far as Mr. Huxley was concerned, the story was \"no good\", and Mr. Acton was a talentless hack. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the police arrived at the scene to apprehend Mr. Acton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The late Mr. Huxley's physician revealed that Mr. Huxley had terminal cancer. The physician mused of how Mr. Huxley's killer had, in a way, done Mr. Huxley a favor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Huxley's physician spoke to a police detective of Mr. Huxley's terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Huxley was romantically involved with Mr. Acton's wife, Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Huxley was romantically involved with Mr. Acton's wife, Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Huxley was romantically involved with Mr. Acton's wife, Mary.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x14", "title": "Angel One", "date": "1988-01-25", "description": "The Enterprise visits a world dominated by women to rescue survivors of a downed freighter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Angel One was governed by women only.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans found it mighty odd that women were in charge and treated men as chattel on Angel One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Women treated men as objects and as lesser beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matriarchs about seeing men as wimps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "major", "motivation": "Discussed was what constitutes a \"natural social order\" with regards to gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The matriarchs oppressed the fugitives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "preserving social order on Angel One vs. justice for the fugitives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation people had lived for many years on their land and did not want to leave even though the Matriarchs considered them fugitives and were prepared to execute them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fugitives preferred to fight a guerrilla war rather than leave their new homeland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matriarchy with executions vs. Federation as model of equality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Riker negotiated with the matriarchs of Angel One about granting sovereignty to a dissenting minority faction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Riker in dealing with Matriarchs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matriarchs and fugitives came to terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker vs. Matriarchs especially Beata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a discussion about perfume, something archaic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker made an impassioned plea to stay the execution of the fugitives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data says they cannot force the humans to leave because they are not bound by the Prime Directive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the fugitives living freely brought disorder to the social order on Angel One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and his hairy chest contrasted with Beata's wimpy servant boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spontaneous generation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly explained that the virus was spontaneously generated when a certain chemical become viral when inside the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mistress Beata by Ariel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Beata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ramsey and Ariel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegration chamber", "level": "minor", "motivation": "means of execution on Angel One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beata ruled Angel One", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was battling an alien respiratory virus that made him suffer from cold and flu type symptoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beata trusts landing party to keep their word and take the fugitives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise crew members beamed up and down to the planet Angel One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley and his buddy had a snow ball fight in the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tri and Tasha were much amused at how quickly Riker swallowed his pride and donned indigenous, rather revealing, clothing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher and others were struggling to contain an annoying, but non-deadly cold-like aliment that was spreading aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cold-like aliment was making the rounds on the Enterprise, leaving key senior staff temporarily out of commission.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x05", "title": "The Facts of Life", "date": "1988-01-29", "description": "Nicholas is a keen amateur fencer but is held back by his inexperience. He makes it through to a national fencing competition in London, but he has never been outside of his village or away from his parents.\n\nDirected by: John Gorrie. Story by: Somerset Maugham.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas Lillie's father wanted him to fail at a big fencing competition London to teach the boy some humility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Small town teenager Nicholas got a taste of the high life in London and wised up along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard Nicholas' Bible thumping dad's opinion about this and that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was gambling, drinking, and whoring in addition to the pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The idea was that Nicholas should get a lesson in humility but it didn't quite work out that way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas went to London as a naive teenager and came back a savvy more grown up person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The small town teen Nicholas was naively unprepared for his trip to London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fencing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas went to London to participate in a fencing competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kids were competing at fencing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas' parents reluctantly decided to let Nicholas go to London so that he would learn a lesson in humility, but it didn't quite work out as they had anticipated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas Lillie and his mother Mrs. Lillie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Lillie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was brief discussion between Nicholas and Mr. Lovejoy about what counts as stealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard Nicholas' Bible thumping dad's opinion about this and that.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x15", "title": "11001001", "date": "1988-02-01", "description": "Bynars upgrade the Enterprise's computers in spacedock. Riker and Picard become distracted by a surprisingly realistic holodeck character.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "desperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Bynars were desperate enough to risk offending the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Bynars hijacked the Enterprise to save their planetary central computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Bynars used technology to mentally link themselves up in pairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Minuet was Riker's ideal woman, and a holodeck construct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentally distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bynars were said to think in binary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bynars relied on their planetary central computer to the extent that an outage threatened their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether or not the holodeck character Minuet was sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bynars were might peculiar to the Federation people, what with the Bynars being mind-linked in pairs, and connected to a central computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bynars had a peculiar way of seeing things, as noted by Wesley, Riker, and Picard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Picard were distracted by Minuet on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker became besotted with Minuet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi was teaching Data how to paint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker played Jazz on the holodeck and spoke about the genre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker implied he might sleep with Minuet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bynars sneakily seized control of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bynars decided not to come to the Federation for help even thought they ought to have done so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minuet came to understood what she was, and there was an introspective discussion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise docked at a large space station in orbit around the planet Tarsus III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Picard were tricked by Minuet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-destruct tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Riker activated the ships auto-destruct feature to prevent the hijacking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Riker activated the ships auto-destruct feature to prevent the hijacking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Riker beamed to the bridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Riker cracked the Bynar password.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x02", "title": "Skeleton", "date": "1988-02-06", "description": "A hypochondriac contacts a “bone specialist” to get rid of his skeleton.\n\nDirected by: Steve DiMarco. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Bert Harris, a hypochondriac, growing increasingly worried that something might be seriously wrong with his entire skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bert became obsessed with his own skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fed up with Bert's litany of imagined complaints, Dr. Burleigh lit up a cigarette and sent Bert on his way. It was then that Bert turned to the eccentric osteopath Dr. Munigant (\"he of the extraordinary cures\") for a second opinion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Munigant collected skeletons and was not above persuading the week-minded to willingly let him extract theirs, leaving them as amorphous blobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bert's wife, Clarisse, expressed concern when he came home with a full body X-ray image of his own skeleton. The story concludes with Clarisse discovering her husbands de-boned amorphous body oozing on the floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fat man in the bar wax poetically on his love for ice cream, pie, banana fritters, and Monte Cristo sandwiches dripping in butter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x16", "title": "Too Short a Season", "date": "1988-02-08", "description": "The Enterprise transports a legendary geriatric admiral who must once again negotiate a hostage situation involving a man from decades earlier in his career. The admiral however, is mysteriously growing younger the farther along their mission progresses.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jameson regarding his past dealings with Karnass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karnas wanted to avenge himself on Jameson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jameson took an overdose of a youth drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard and Jameson negotiated with Governor Karnass for the safe release of a Federation Ambassador and his staff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karnass blamed terrorists but was himself a terrorist leader with Federation hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jameson for giving weapons to Karnas and his rival both.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark Jameson and Anne Jameson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jameson at Karnas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark Jameson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew faced Karnas holding hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mark Jameson and Anne Jameson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pushed by Karnass, Jameson took a dangerous youth drug to be able to make good on past misdeeds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Mark Jameson regarding who's in charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Jameson about past dealings with Karnass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne objected to her husband taking youth drugs as she preferred to grow old the normal way. There was talk about what a natural lifespan is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Jameson and Anne Jameson were romantic in their dotage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man Jameson took a dangerous drug that made him physically young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard something of Karnas' point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karnas was notably ruthless and this was remarked on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karnas was the military dictator of Mordan IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karnas ruled ruthlessly through force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jameson was in wheelchair contraption at first, and none too happy about it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x03", "title": "The Emissary", "date": "1988-02-13", "description": "An invalid boy's dog brings him people and things that it feels he needs, including a kindhearted schoolteacher. Afterthe schoolteacher dies, the dog decides it must perform one last task for its master.\n\nDirected by: Sturla Gunnarsson. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Martin, a bedridden boy, and his unusual dog, Dog, that seemed able to somehow go out and fetch Martin whatever he needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin was confined to his house and, for the most part, his bed because of some unspecified illness that seemed to border on a handicap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Martin and his kindhearted schoolteacher, Miss Haight, who went out of her way to teach Martin in private, indeed in his bed, when he was unable to attend school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sensing that Martin desperately wanted his teacher, Miss Haight, to return, his dog went out and dug up her grave, causing her to come back as an animated corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin's dog had an uncanny ability to fulfill his master's desires by bring back whatever he needed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin was hit hard by news of Miss Haight's sudden and unexpected death in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing. Martin wrote romantic prose about his teacher, Miss Haight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "student and teacher romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin wrote romantic prose about Miss Haight and presumably fantasized about taking their relationship to new heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin wrote romantic prose about Miss Haight and presumably fantasized about taking their relationship to new heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's parents went to visit the neighbors for some social engagement or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin conversed with his father at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin's mother complained about his dog causing trouble in the neighborhood, brought him lunch in bed, and comforted him when Miss Haight died suddenly in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A surly neighbor did not care at all for Martin's dog digging up things where he shouldn't, and complained vociferously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At Miss Haight's suggestion, Martin took up reading during his convalescence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin aspired to be a writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin shed a tear as Miss Haight's funeral procession passed his bedroom window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin was distressed over his beloved dog having gone missing. After speaking the words \"if I wish hard enough you've gotta come home\", the dog came back (albeit accompanied by the animated corpse of Martin's recently deceased teacher).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x17", "title": "When The Bough Breaks", "date": "1988-02-15", "description": "A planet formerly existing only in legend uncloaks and requests help from the Enterprise . Planet's inhabitants are sterile and want to adopt children from the Enterprise —by force, if necessary.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slaves to technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Aldeans were completely and utterly reliant on their central computer system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Aldeans had over the ages become dumbed down because their central computer did all the work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We must ponder whether the aliens were justified in taking other people's children in order to save their own race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The experiences of Wesley, Harry Bernard Jr. and the kidnapped children were central and contrasted with that of adults.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldeans were going to go extinct because of sterility, and were desperate to find children to carry on their heritage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldeans were desperate to procreate, by hook or by crook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley, Harry Bernard Jr. and the other kidnapped children viewed the prospect of growing up on Aldea with some trepidation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley, Harry Bernard Jr., and other kidnapped children had everything they could want except the freedom to reunite with their human parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley, Harry Bernard Jr., and other kidnapped children had everything they could want except the freedom to reunite with their human parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sterile Aldeans kidnapped the Enterprise children in a desperate attempt to perpetuate their kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aldean parents went about cultivating the talents of the kidnapped children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Bernard Sr. notably to Harry Sr to Harry Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly notably to Wesley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual development of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aldean parents helped captive children to develop their talents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radue tried to rationalize his kidnapping of the Enterprise children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aldeans were left helpless when Wesley broke their central computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy made a dolphin sculpture and was thus destined to be an artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aldea had strict distinctions betwixt artists, scientists, leaders, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Sr dealt with Harry Jr regarding the need to learn calculus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley led a child revolt of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Aldea was cloaked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ozone layer depletion, caused by the planetary invisibility cloak, caused the Aldeans to go sterile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The kidnapped children successfully revolted against their adoptive so-called parents by means of passive resistance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toya and Alexandra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Bernard Sr. and Harry Bernard Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melian adopted Katie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly and Wesley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley led child revolt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Bernard Jr. didn't want to do his calculus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radiation had rendered the Aldeans sterile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radue was proud of the atrophied society that he had helped to create.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x01", "title": "The End", "date": "1988-02-15", "description": "Aboard the Jupiter Mining Corporation (JMC) vessel Red Dwarf, the lowest- ranking crew member, slobbish technician Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is sentenced to be frozen for 18-months in suspended animation as punishment for breaking quarantine regulations by smuggling his pregnant cat Frankenstein on board, a pet he had obtained while on leave on Titan. When given the option of either having the cat dissected or be frozen in stasis, he chooses to save his cat. However, Lister awakes from stasis only to find the rest of the crew have since been wiped out in a radiation disaster, and he has actually been frozen for three million years. However, to both his relief and horror, he is not alone. The ship's computer Holly (Norman Lovett) has revived Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), his austere and petty bunkmate, in the form of a hologram, who was responsible for the accident that wiped out the crew. Also Lister's pregnant cat, Frankenstein, was sealed in the hull during the radiation leak, and her kittens bred there for 3-million years and evolved into a race of humanoid life-forms, Felis sapiens, bred from the domestic housecat and about half as smart. They meet one of these life forms on the ship, and Lister decides to call it Cat (Danny John-Jules).\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister awoke from stasis to find that he was three million years in the future, rather then 18 months as he'd expected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer resented having to share a cramped quarters with the slobbish Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "George McIntire was brought back from the dead in the form of a hologram; likewise with Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister quipped that the service robots had a better union than did the human maintenance workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George McIntire's ashes were commended to the stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deceased George McIntire was replaced by a sentient hologram of himself. A holographic Rimmer lamented that he'd never be able to touch anything again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was studying for an engineering exam in the hopes of getting promoted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "studying for a test", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer covered his body in scribblings in preparation for taking an engineering test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was secret keeping his cat, Frankenstein, in his quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was put into stasis for 18 months as punishment for not revealing the whereabouts of his cat to Captain Hollister. But in a twist, he instead woke up three million years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram considered himself to be a mere computer simulation of real Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The entire Red Dwarf crew, save for Lister, died from exposure to radiation because Rimmer inefficiently repaired a drive plate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the life form Cat had evolved from Lister's pregnant cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Virgin Birth of Jesus was mocked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The slobbish technician Lister had the lowliest job on the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Lister waking up form stasis to find that all his former colleagues were dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf onboard computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earth Star Voyager (1988)", "title": "Earth Star Voyager", "date": "1988-02-17", "description": "A crew of mostly teenagers embarks on a 26-year long mission to visit a planet in another star system as a prelude to colonization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Star_Voyager" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the fusion powered, interstellar vessel Earth Star Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story premise is that a crew of mostly teenagers are sent on a 26-year long mission to visit a planet in another star system as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story premise is that a crew of mostly teenagers are sent on a 26-year long mission to visit a planet in another star system as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and Beanie were best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth Star Voyager spacecraft was equipped with a rather touchy sentient supercomputer, named Priscilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beanie had an awkward secret crush on Luz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worsening ecological conditions on Earth made it imperative that a new planet be discovered to which the people of Earth could be evacuated to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth Star Voyager spacecraft was said to have fusion thrust engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan's mother bid him a sentimental goodbye before he embarked on an interstellar voyage to the distant planet Demeter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally hadn't gotten over her brother having died while serving on the Vanguard Explorer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth Star Voyager crew members took rest in special \"cryo-sleep\" chambers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient supercomputer Priscilla was designed from the brain engrams of Priscilla Bauman (the daughter of Professor Bauman), and as such, she has all of memories, thoughts, feelings and desires of the real Priscilla Bauman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Huxley was made uncomfortable when the ship's sentient supercomputer developed a crush on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally was disappointed to find out that her older brother Vance, who she had looked up to, had become the leader of a band of rogues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake challenged the rogue Vance to a fight to the death an very nearly lost his life as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew recovered a man who had been converted into a cyborg packed with explosives.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x04", "title": "Gotcha!", "date": "1988-02-20", "description": "A lonely man falls in love with a woman. When he asks her if the relationship will last, she decides to check by playing a game she calls “Gotcha!”.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the ill-fated love affair of the two Laurel and Hardy aficionados, John and Alicia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "John became a nervous wreck after his girlfriend introduced him to the game \"Gotcha!\" and scared the living bejesus out of him at a cheap fleabag hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was left so traumatized by the \"Gotcha\" game that could scarcely say a word at the diner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Alicia became a steady going couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Alicia were both enthusiastic fans of Laurel and Hardy productions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "John trusted Alicia that her \"Gotcha\" game would be safe. The game, however, left John deeply traumatized, and the viewer is left with the sense that their formerly blissful relationship would never be the same again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John asked Jill whether their relationship would last. Jill implied that she had doubts, which made John ill at ease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Alicia met at a costume party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Alicia were each love-struck at the sight of the other dressed up as the Laurel to their Hardy, or vice versa, being both of them ardent Laurel and Hardy fans as they were.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x18", "title": "Home Soil", "date": "1988-02-22", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise discovers a crystalline lifeform with murderous intelligence that has been killing the scientists on a terraforming project.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "microscopic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about a team of terraformers who inadvertently stumble on a species of sentient, microscopic, crystalline organisms, known as “the microbrains”, while terraforming Velara III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Microbrains of Velara III saw people as ugly sacks of water that were destroying the microbrain's planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation terraformers were preparing a seemingly lifeless planet for colonization, but it turned out to harbor microscopic sentient life forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Were the Federation terraformers justified in wiping out a race of tiny, sentient organisms to pave the way for humanoid colonization?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kurt Mundl was obsessed about his terraforming project to the extent that he was prepared to wipe out an intelligent life form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard warned Mandi that he may have violated the Prime Directive if he knew life existed on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of Federation scientists was terraforming microbrain homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data pointed out that matter does not have to be organic in order for it to be considered alive under any meaningful sense of the term.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story upholds the inorganic but intelligent microbrains' right to keep their own planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crystalline being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Microbrains of Velara III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew trying to communicate with the microbrains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility that the microbrains were sentient was debated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terraformers were working to prepare a planet for future colonization by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurt Mundl rethought his terraforming ways in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The micro brains felt that the humans were ugly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The universal translator was used to communicate with the microbrains, albeit arduously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The decision was made to leave the planet in its present unterraformed state after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurt Mundl was angry at being told his operation is shutdown.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x02", "title": "Future Echoes", "date": "1988-02-22", "description": "Red Dwarf has been steadily accelerating for three million years and when it breaches light speed the new crew begin to experience visions from their own futures. Lister is shocked that his future self appears to have blown up while making a repair to the ship. However, it was not him he saw, it was his son Bexley as revealed by a future echo Lister aged 171. The future Lister tells present Lister to run to the medibay to take a picture of Jim and Bexley as babies.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf crew members began to experience visions from their own futures after the ship breached light speed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister was upset about his preordained demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hologram simulation of the dead crewman Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf onboard computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the entire Red Dwarf crew had died from a radiation leak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hologram simulation of the dead crewman Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer got the better of Rimmer by giving him a silly haircut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister planned to go into stasis for the duration of the voyage back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faster than light travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf vessel broke the speed of light barrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister inadvertently knocked out the tooth he was desperately attempting to prevent Cat from losing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister encountered his 171 year old future self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was notably vain regarding his hairdo. Cat was admiring himself in the mirror and planned to bring eleven racks of clothes into suspended animation with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister noted his desire to have children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was adamant that Lister was powerless to prevent his own death as Rimmer had foreseen it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien from LA (1988)", "title": "Alien from L.A.", "date": "1988-02-26", "description": "A young woman visits the underground civilization of Atlantis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_from_L.A." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda ventured deep into the Earth in search of her archaeologist father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that the Atlanteans were really space aliens who had crashed on Earth 10,000 years ago and made a city deep within the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that the Atlanteans were really space aliens who had crashed on Earth 10,000 years ago and made a city deep within the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda visited Atlantis, which turned out to be a large city that was deep within the Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Atlanteans were living in a large underground city and only the ruling elites knew about the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda ventured deep into the Earth to find it full of large open spaces, and even a big city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wanda ventured deep into the Earth in search of her archaeologist father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the Atlanteans were space aliens that had crashed on Earth millennia ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda was hunt when her boyfriend dumped her for being too nerdy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda was sad because her archaeologist father had spent his last ten years away from her, excavating a site in North Africa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda's archaeology professor father was in North Africa searching for Atlantis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atlanteans used their crashed spaceship to make their city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x03", "title": "Balance of Power", "date": "1988-02-29", "description": "Lister wants to go on a date with the hologram of his former love interest, navigation officer Kristine Kochanski (C. P. Grogan), but it would mean replacing Rimmer as the ship's hologram, which of course Rimmer will not let happen. Lister decides to take a cooking exam so he can become a chef; if he passes he will hold sufficient rank to order this. Rimmer attempts to discourage Lister from taking the exam, but fails in this task.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister was taking measures, that if successful, would result in him outranking the Rimmer hologram to the hologram's annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram were still sharing a cramped crew quarters in spite of being virtually alone on a huge spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hologram simulation of the dead crewman Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister rid himself of his boredom by fantasizing about drinking and singing songs in the mess hall together with three old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister missed his old friends, and fantasized about drinking together with them in the mess hall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pocket mirror gazing Cat was marveling over how nice he looked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "studying for a test", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was studying for a cooking exam to become a chef to spite Rimmer. The Rimmer hologram was desperately looking for his revision timetables because he was studying for something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was dismayed to find Lister in possession of illegal learning drugs - drugs Lister had swiped from Rimmer's own locker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram flubbed answering this question: What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was annoyed when Lister deliberate walked straight through him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly made a point about Rimmer being the best person to keep Dave sane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was remembering drinking with his friends at a party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram accidentally got a malevolent Danish arm that slapped him around a bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram appealed to his long friendship with Lister but Lister concluded that they'd never been much of that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the Rimmer hologram trust his rival Lister to turn him back on?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x05", "title": "The Man Upstairs", "date": "1988-03-05", "description": "A young boy suspects his grandmother's strange new lodger is actually a vampire.\n\nDirected by: Alain Bonnot. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Douglas, a young boy with a vivid imagination, became convinced that his grandmother's eccentric new lodger, Mr. Koberman, was a vampire. In the end, Douglas took matters into his own hands and slew Mr. Koberman by means of cutting open his torso, removing a bizarre organ, and emptying a jar of silver coins into the cavity. It was left ambiguous as to whether Mr. Koberman was a vampire or had perhaps been parasitized by a strange creature, or something stranger still.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas, a curious young boy, was staying at his grandmother's Paris inn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas, a curious young boy with a vivid imagination, became convinced that his grandmother's eccentric new lodger, Mr. Koberman, was a vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that Mr. Koberman had ceased aging since at least the fin de siècle. There was a photo of him posing in front of the Eiffel Tower as it was being built.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was mention of women being murdered and exsanguinated. Miss Treadwell had also disappeared mysteriously. Mr. Koberman had photos of women, Miss Treadwell among them, that were implied to have been his victims and nighttime snacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed policeman was at the strange scene of Mr. Koberman's death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x04", "title": "Waiting for God", "date": "1988-03-07", "description": "Red Dwarf stumbles upon one of its own garbage pods, and Rimmer is convinced that it's a stasis capsule carrying a dormant alien woman. Meanwhile, Lister learns about Cat's people (the Felis sapiens) and discovers he is their mythical god, \"Cloister the Stupid\", and will bring them to the mythical island of Fuchal.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is how the Felis sapiens' entire religion was based on Lister's three million year old musings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liter and the Rimmer hologram were quarreling over what to do about the supposed alien capsule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram took exception to his crew quarters mate Lister using Rimmer's old clothes. Lister was momentarily stunned when the Rimmer hologram shouted aloud to wake him up from bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that a race of cat people had evolved, over the space of three million years, from Lister's pregnant pet cat, Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram looked down his long nose at Lister for not knowing of the famed playwright of olden times Wilfred Shakespeare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram mused about whether aliens might have played a role in building the pyramids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister agreed with the Rimmer hologram that the Bermuda Triangle was a genuine mystery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister used the food machine to synthesize a chicken vindaloo and a beer flavored milkshake for his breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was related that religious schism among the cat people had led to a holy war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister encountered a blind cat-man priest who'd lost his faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister encountered a blind cat-man priest who'd lost his faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fuchal, a corruption of Fiji, was the promised land of the cat people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was convinced that a newly discovered Red Dwarf garbage pod was in fact a stasis capsule carrying a dormant alien woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister had an olfactory written book that you read with your nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Points were made about how lowly, unimportant, and generally useless, both Lister and Rimmer were in their different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram struggled unsuccessfully to assert his marginally higher rank over Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister revealed to Cat that Lister was the god of Cat's people. Lister presented himself to the cat-person priest and the god of the cat people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram dismissed the existence of God out of hand, but was utterly convinced that aliens virtually equivalent to God must exist somewhere in the universe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pulse (1988)", "title": "Pulse", "date": "1988-03-11", "description": "A highly aggressive and intelligent pulse of electricity terrorizes the occupants of a suburban house in Los Angeles, California.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "electromagnetic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An intelligent pulse of electricity somehow entered the Los Angeles electrical grid system and was terrorizing the occupants of a suburban home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The young boy David had a strained relationship with his divorced father whose house he was staying at for the summer. But their relationship was strengthened by the shared terror of an malevolent electrical entity running amok in their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's stepmother Ellen went the extra mile to make David feel welcome at the home she was sharing with his divorced father, Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ellen Rockland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young boy David was moping around because he had to spend the summer at his divorced father's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Bill had recently gotten divorced from David's mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x19", "title": "Coming of Age", "date": "1988-03-14", "description": "While Wesley takes a Starfleet Academy entrance exam, the senior staff of the Enterprise are placed under investigation by Starfleet .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley with having failed the exam, and Jake with not qualifying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley and Jake both felt they failed to live up to the expectations put on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Remmick was on a witch hunt to implicate Picard in a conspiracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story much concerned Wesley and his friend Jake coping with teenager problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard deliberated whether to accept his proposed promotion to head Star Fleet academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley face his fear in the dreaded psych test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew proved notably loyal to Picard, and none more so than Riker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley and the group of genius students were all of the nerd stereotype; Remmick also lacked in the social graces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley vs. Mendon in a friendly way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "studying for a test", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley took the Starfleet entrance test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leadership skills was a strong component of Starfleet entrance exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley helped Mordock during test, Wesley saved a life in the psych test, all despite it being seemingly detrimental to his evaluation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley stood up to a Zaldan jock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake Kurland ran away rather than face his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliana Mirren felt inferior to Wesley and Mendon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake Kurland showed blind faith in Picard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley, risking his own life, saved man from fire in psych test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley jeopardized his test in order to save a crewman from fire in the psych test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mordock, upon being awarded entry into Starfleet Academy over Wesley, argued that it should be Wesley who gets the nod on account that Wesley had lost points because he's helped Mordock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was notably lukewarm about his proposed promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley helped Mordock during test and saved a life in the psych test, at some risk to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and others coped with Remmick's ill manners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remmick was tasked to uncovering an unspecified conspiracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mordock admitted he would not have passed the test with the Zaldan, and later that he would not have won but for Wesley's help.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x05", "title": "Confidence and Paranoia", "date": "1988-03-14", "description": "Lister contracts a mutated pneumonia virus. The hallucinations of his fevered brain materialize in solid form, and suddenly the ship is beset by herring rain and an exploding 16th century Mayor of Warsaw. When his fever breaks, Lister wakes up to find he has created personifications of his confidence (Craig Ferguson) and paranoia (Lee Cornes).\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The personification of Lister's confidence tried to help him to build up his self-esteem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister was feverish and bedridden with a pathogen that had mutated from pneumonia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A feverish Lister hallucinated the following things into reality: fish-rain, a 16th century Mayor of Warsaw, and personifications of his own confidence and paranoia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "A feverish Lister hallucinated personifications of his confidence and paranoid into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister was excited at the prospect of a female companion. Later he conjured a personification of confidence to be his companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister lamented not having asked out Kochanski three million years ago when he had the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spontaneous human combustion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Lister hallucinated 16th century Mayor of Warsaw spontaneously combusted before the Rimmer hologram's eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preternatural rain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was raining fish as it had rained herring in 12th century Burgundy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a discussion about celibacy, voluntary or otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat would rather eat his lunch than save a person's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister made remarks about his own unimportance. Holly commented on the lowliness of postal workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly was notably bored after he had read everything ever written.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x20", "title": "Heart of Glory", "date": "1988-03-21", "description": "Fugitive Klingons seeking battle attempt to hijack the Enterprise , and ask Worf to join them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf asserted his loyalty to Starfleet when tempted to join up with Klingon warriors, his own people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf was torn between his loyalty the human Federation on one hand, and the Klingons on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon fugitives Korris, Konmel, Kunivas were notably patriotic to their empire of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf had felt out of place on Earth and pondered whether he belonged better with his Klingon brethren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Klingon fugitives Korris, Konmel, Kunivas were preoccupied with notions of honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf choose his duty to Starfleet over his budding friendship with Korris and Konmel, the Klingon refugees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon fugitives were traditional Klingon ideology fundamentalists, of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon fugitives led Worf to question where he was really living up to the Klingon warrior ideals that he professed to hold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korris, Konmel, the Klingon fugitives, prided themselves on their toughness and grit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korris, Konmel, the Klingon fugitives, burned for their ideology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard risked entering the Neutral Zone in order to assist a damaged cargo ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi likened his experience with the VISOR to how a normal person can pick out one particular voice in a room full of noise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi's VISOR was equipped with a visual acuity transmitter, and notably featured during the rescue operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In order to make a point, Geordi feigned to not understand that not everyone saw androids the way he did, with an aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude towards the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon death ritual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf unleashed a howl of mourning over the dead body of a recently fallen Klingon comrade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingon \"death howl\" both startled and intrigued the human onwatchers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and the three Klingon fugitives shared an admiration for the Klingon warrior culture of bygone days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Work reflected on his having grown up as a Klingon child in a human family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha was briefly confronted with how to handle a hostage situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha was briefly confronted with how to handle a hostage situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf felt the need to remain true to his Klingon roots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korris and Konmel tested whether it was still possible to anger Worf.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e1x06", "title": "Me2", "date": "1988-03-21", "description": "Rimmer creates his perfect companion, an identical holographic duplicate of himself. He moves out of his quarters he shares with Lister and starts rooming with his doppelgänger. At first he enjoys it, but they eventually began to despise each other. Soon the two Rimmers find themselves locked in a conflict so fierce, only one of them can stay.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram got fed up with Lister and started rooming with his ideal companion: a holographic duplicate of Rimmer. But it wasn't long before the Rimmer hologram came crawling back to life with Lister. Lister and Rimmer broke up while arguing about who had been meaner to whom. Rimmer and his new clone roommate ended up falling out as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram created his perfect companion: an identical holographic duplicate of Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slovenly Lister and the neat-and-tidy Rimmer hologram share a cramped crew quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pedantic, officer wannabe Rimmer hologram is contrasted with Lister who just wants to do the minimum to get by.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Lister had once replaced Rimmer's toothpaste with a contraceptive jelly as a joke. Holly played an April Fool's joke on Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat boasted that if he looked any better he'd be illegal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram pinned Rimmer's failures in life squarely on Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was learning Esperanto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is invited to ponder whether the two Rimmer holograms are one in the same person or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram donned a white officer's uniform, slammed back a few virtual whiskeys and braced him self to be permanently shut deactivated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram related a traumatic memory of a time when everyone at the Captain's Table laughed at Rimmer for eating a hot bowl of Gazpacho soup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating gray goo consuming the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly made Lister think his two abandoned German sausages had, over 3 million years, come to cover 7/8:ths of Earth surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compound interest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly explained that Lister owned 98% of Earth's wealth thanks to compound interest on the £17.50 he had in his bank account 3 million years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard something of Rimmer's relationship with his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard something of Rimmer's relationship with his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram reflected on his pitiful life, career, and death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)", "title": "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", "date": "1988-03-25", "description": "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spanish: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios) is a 1988 Spanish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas. The film brought Almodóvar to widespread international attention: it was nominated for the 1988 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and won five Goya Awards including Best Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Maura. It was released on 11 November 1988.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_on_the_Verge_of_a_Nervous_Breakdown" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story followed some women's pursuit of a man who had been with all of them and who was notoriously unfaithful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lucia wanted to murder Ivan for having left her 20 years ago; Pepa acted crazy and broke things in her flat because Ivan left her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "various women of each other, but especially Lucia of Pepa and other of Ivan's women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "for example Pepa and Paulina over Ivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk about Shiite terrorists hijacking a plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Candela discovered that her lover was a Shiite terrorist using her as cover for crime, and she thought the police was after her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Candela tried to kill herself by jumping off the balcony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucia tried to murder Ivan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlos, Candela, Marisa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlos and Marisa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk about Shiite terrorists hijacking a plane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x06", "title": "The Small Assassin", "date": "1988-04-09", "description": "A paranoid new mother suspects that her baby is trying to kill her.\n\nDirected by: Tom Cotter. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People understandably did not take Alice seriously when she kept insisting that her newborn was trying to kill her. In the end, however, the infant lethally electrocuted her as she laid asleep in her bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Alice Leiber's lives were turned upside down when Alice became convinced that their newborn was somehow out to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice and David brought their sinister newborn son home from the hospital and were taking care of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice became increasingly fearful that her newborn was somehow trying to kill her. When she explained herself to physician, he surely took her to be suffering from a paranoid delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice struggled to convince her physician of the theory she had come to be very certain of: That her infant son was a genius (and acrobatic prodigy) who lay in his crib and plotted clandestine ways to kill her as revenge for pushing him out from the womb into this cold and unwelcoming world. Towards the end it is strongly implied that the baby had, indeed, been scurrying around the house at lightning speed during the night and setting traps for his parents. Among these infant nocturnal activities counted short-circuiting a power cord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice Leiber struggled to convince her physician that she was in a mortal struggle for her life with her genius infant son, who was out to kill her as revenge for pushing him out from the womb into this cold and unwelcoming world. In the end she lost the battle and the doctor in question approached the infant with a scalpel in hand, leaving the viewer to ponder what his intentions were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice said that she hated her mother for expelling her, as a fetus, from the warm comfort of the womb. She speculated that her own newborn felt the same way about her. At the conclusion of the story Alice was indeed murdered by her infant son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Alice was callously murdered by her infant son as revenge for having push out from the womb into this cruel and unwelcoming world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with Alice giving birth in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jeffers, an elderly physician, counseled Alice and David on the care of their newborn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one brief scene, David was made a member of the board.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x21", "title": "The Arsenal of Freedom", "date": "1988-04-11", "description": "Trapped on the surface of an abandoned planet, an away team becomes unwitting participants in the demonstration of an advanced weapons system.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Echo Papa 607 autonomous adaptive machines had killed everyone on the Minos, and now ruled the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Echo Papa 607 system autonomously created autonomous hover bots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew battled the Echo Papa 607 weapons system, that produced more combatants and adapted to what happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi had this moment in the sun when he got command of the Enterprise, and performed admirably. He was coached by Troi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi performs admirably as captain, Logan's objections notwithstanding. His approach to leadership was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Minosians had been arms dealers whose weapons turned on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minosians had left behind them planet wide autonomous weapons that killed visitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi found out that being in command was tough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker gave up own command in order to serve on the Enterprise, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi and Logan argued about who should have command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher instructed Picard to rub bitter tasting roots on her lacerations, and then advised him on what to do to prevent her from going into shock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly reminisced about her grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker thought a tour on the Enterprise would be more beneficial to his career than having a command of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan challenged Geordi's authority and was slapped down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew under Geordi while the ship was under attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Minosian arms dealing hologram had a will of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being injured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly was gravely wounded in a fall, and rambled.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x06", "title": "Wink Three Times", "date": "1988-04-15", "description": "Jeremy Tyler, a shy solicitor is staying at a London hotel on a business trip. While there, he is mistaken for another man by a woman on a blind date.\n\nDirected by: Paul Annett. Story by: John Charters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara wanted a professional introduction to the world of earthly love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara was afraid of being intimate with men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara felt a desperate need to find a partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard about the life of a gigolo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giles Wimbourne had been a practical joker back in school and now he apparently played one more trick on his old school mate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gigolo's friend wanted to marry rich.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x07", "title": "Punishment Without Crime", "date": "1988-04-16", "description": "A man is arrested for killing a robot facsimile of his adulterous wife.\n\nDirected by: Bruce McDonald. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether George Hill should be punished for killing an android replica of his unfaithful wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Hill was on death row for the murder of an android copy of his unfaithful wife. The story is set on the evening of George's execution, and the story is told from his point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Hill was sentenced to death for murdering an android copy of his unfaithful wife, Katherine. For part of the story, it was unclear as to whether George had murdered his real wife or her android replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "George Hill murdered an android replica of his unfaithful wife, Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on George catching his conspicuously younger wife, Katherine, with another man. George dealt with the blow by ordering the construction of an android replica of her, which he then killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katherine's husband, George, caught her in the act with her young lover. George dealt with the blow by ordering the construction of an android replica of her, which he then killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on George catching his conspicuously younger wife, Katherine, with another man. George dealt with the blow by ordering the construction of an android replica of her, which he then killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional legal system", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irrespective of what the viewer or anyone may think about AI rights, it is clear that George at the time thought he was doing nothing wrong and was openly helped along by a major corporation, Marriotts Inc. That this could happen and he was then subsequently sentenced to death in a reality show-like trial because of a law that had been whimsically passed is unequivocally a travesty of legislative and judicial process, as George's outraged reaction also implies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "George sought to avenge himself, at least in his own fantasy, on his cheating young wife by constructing and murdering a perfect replica of her. Alas, the plan backfired on him in a most major way. He was executed and she inherited his fortune, which she planned to share with her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "major", "motivation": "If one takes the detached view that the android replica was a mere object, as George and much of his society had evidently done up until that point, George's plan was just to vent his pent up anger and frustration harmlessly by turning some expensive artifice into rubble, and nothing more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was sentenced to death for the murder of an android replica of his wife. The story ended with his imminent execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective arrested George in the immediate aftermath of George having shot dead an android replica of his own wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was tried for murder in a futuristic courtroom where, among other things, the jurors were displayed remotely on separate television screens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x22", "title": "Symbiosis", "date": "1988-04-18", "description": "Picard tries to mediate a trade dispute between two neighboring planets, one of which is the sole supplier of a drug to treat the other's apparently fatal disease.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard choose not to interfere in the Brekkian-Ornaran dispute by refusing to be involved with dealing the drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drug dealing Brekkians exploited the Ornarans ruthlessly through the latter's dependence on a substance called Felicium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ornarans were entirely dependent on a drug produced by the Brekkians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brekkian economy relied entirely on exporting a single narcotic to the Ornarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard had to choose whether to help the drug addicted aliens or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard decided not to fix the drug addicted aliens space ship to stop them from being able to get more drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Jon and Romas, the drug addicted aliens, were desperate for another dose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brekkians, Sobi and Langor in particular, rationalized keeping the Ornaran people addicted to a powerful narcotic with a self-serving argument about how doing so was in the best interest of both peoples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ornarans where on the lower rung of the Brekkian-Ornaran social order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia on the back of slave labor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brekkians had a comfortable existence made possible because of the slave-like exploitation of the drug-dependent Ornarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard mediated deftly between the drug dealers and the drug addicts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brekkians oppressed the Ornarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drug dealer aliens Sobi and Langor wanted to make a profit even at the cost of keeping the people of a neighboring planet addicted to a powerful narcotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brekkians looked down their noses at the Ornarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story contrasted the enlightened Federation with the backwards Brekkians and Onarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Brekkian and Ornaran civilization had both atrophied because of the strange exploitative relationship between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Especially Beverly toward Ornarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sobi, Langor considered themselves a fount of generosity when the gave some of the drug as charity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was believed that Ornarans carried a plague of some sort.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x07", "title": "The Dead Don't Steal", "date": "1988-04-22", "description": "Ken Johnson is having an affair with his secretary, Lillian. His wife finds out about it and is furious, but then, Lillian tells Ken that she has met someone else. In temper, he kills her and buries the body, but then, he gets a phone call from her.\n\nDirected by: John Glenister. Story by: Ella Griffiths.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken's wife caught him having an affair with his secretary, Lilian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken's wife caught him having an affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken killed Lillian albeit accidentally in a fit of jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken thought he had killed Lillian but then seemingly he got a phone call from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken and flight attendant Lilian smuggled 500 grams of cocaine over a flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken killed Lilian in a violent rage after she told him she was leaving him for another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A detective manipulated Ken into revealing the location of Lilian's body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x23", "title": "Skin of Evil", "date": "1988-04-25", "description": "An evil, tar-like creature holds Troi hostage on an alien world. During the rescue mission, one of the Enterprise crew is killed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew, especially Data, were deeply affected by Natasha's pointless and tragic death at the hand of Armus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Armus held Troi hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pure evil being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Slick of Malevolent Tar, Armus, was described as pure Evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus was an embodiment of pure evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus became a being of pure evil when the Titans left him behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story made clear that Armus was notably evil, while humans were reasonably good for resisting him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Slick of Malevolent Tar, Armus, was an amorphous black liquid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi said she felt pity for Armus, and that made him upset.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus inflicted pain and miery for his own amusement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus was notably cruel, like a child tearing wings off flies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus was immortal but deeply bored and unhappy. Picard taunted him about being abandoned on the planet forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard faces abandoning Troi in order to save the rest of his crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard faces abandoning Troi in order to save the rest of his crew. Armus tried to make Data/Beverly choose a comrade to kill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and landing party faced Armus who wanted to make them suffer and didn't mind killing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and landing party faced Armus who had seemingly unlimited capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus had nothing but hatred for the whole world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi commented on the anger she sensed in Armus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus was exceedingly lonely, was Troi's diagnosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Armus was bored and depressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi said she would sacrifice herself for Riker, or any of the others. Beverly also offered herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Riker and crew refused to give in to Armus' bullying of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard negotiated Troi's release.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Titans of Vagra II, Arums' makers, left Armus behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi showed compassion for Armus and he didn't like it. He also rejected Picard's sympathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Armus resented the Enterprise crew for being free and not miserable like himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Armus struck terror in all but Troi refused to be afraid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha's funeral was held on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)", "title": "Critters 2: The Main Course", "date": "1988-04-29", "description": "The plot takes place two years after the first film, as a batch of planted Critter eggs begin to hatch and resume their carnivorous appetite upon the town once again. It is the second installment in the Critters franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Critters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_2:_The_Main_Course" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Critters ran amok in Grover's Bend over the Easter holiday weekend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two shapeshifting alien bounty hunters returned to Earth to settle some unfinished business with the Critters. In addition, the Critters seemed to be sentient and were of extraterrestrial origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien bounty hunters were shapeshifters. One assumed the form of a rock star, and the other a Play Boy model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two alien bounty hunters and their human companion flew to Earth in a futuristic spacecraft to settle some unfinished business with the Critters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two alien bounty hunters and their human companion flew to Earth from some or another remote location of space to settle some unfinished business with the Critters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley made an unrequited amorous advance at Megan at the Hungry Heifer burger joint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an Easter Sunday church service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nana was forcefully encouraging others to follow in her vegetarian ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brad was visiting his Nana over the Easter holiday weekend. However, there was not very much interaction between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Morgan and his daughters Megan and Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a long build up between Brad and Megan that culminated in a romantic kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x08", "title": "On the Orient, North", "date": "1988-04-29", "description": "A nurse decides to assist a ghastly passenger to reach his destiny before some unusual illness ends him.\n\nDirected by: Frank Cassenti. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems the point of the story was that the ghastly passenger was, in fact, a ghost of some sort (albeit visible and mostly corporeal) and that his nurse companion, Minerva, died and became one as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a traveling nurse, Minerva, who was called on to exercise her profession when a fellow passenger aboard her train fell ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story imagines what it might have been like to travel across Europe by train in the late modern era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to get away from it all", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghastly Passenger could not stand most people ad desired seclusion above all else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minerva and the Ghastly Passenger found they needed each other's companionship in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghastly Passenger, a ghost, was migrating to Britain because belief in his kind was waning on the continent, leaving him with a lack of vitality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trembling priest visited the Ghastly Passenger's train cabin, offering to administer the last rites. The Ghastly Passenger declined, remarking sardonically that he'd gotten his last rites \"years ago\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghastly Passenger and his nurse companion, Minerva, suitably hauntably castle to inhabit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x08", "title": "The Finger of Suspicion", "date": "1988-04-29", "description": "Steve Baker is married to a beautiful Arab woman and they live happily in a Middle Eastern country. Then, Steve's past comes back to haunt him as he is charged with a crime.\n\nDirected by: Rodney Bennett. Story by: Tony Wilmot.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Soraya slept with her ex-husband Zayid in order to save Stephen, then she killed Zayid because he betrayed her once again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen and Soroya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soroya scrambled to get help when her US citizen husband was taken into custody by the Sultan's police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soroya loved Stephen so much that she killed Zayid in an effort to save him from being extradited to the UK.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stephen had been into bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soroya turned to her ex-husband for help when her new husband Stephen was taken into custody by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rights of accused", "level": "minor", "motivation": "US citizen Stephen was taken into custody by the police of an unspecified Middle Eastern country without being told on what charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was lead away under the implicit threat of violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Scotland Yard attempt to extradite Stephen back from the Middle Eastern country where he was hiding out in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zayid had arranged for known criminal Stephen to be extradited to Great Britain because his presence was a sore spot on Zayid's reputation, as Stephen had married his ex-wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zayid may have been jealous of his ex-wife marrying Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soroya and Zayid were divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutilation as punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Stephen had had his right hand cut off as punishment for theft in the Arab country where he lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are left to believe that Soraya killed Zayid in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zayid betrayed Soraya.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: On the Silver Globe (1988)", "title": "On the Silver Globe", "date": "1988-05", "description": "A group of astronauts leaves Earth to found a new society on an unnamed Earth- like planet. It is a adaption of a 1903 novel by Jerzy Żuławski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Silver_Globe_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts founded a new society on an unnamed Earth-like planet, but they became as Stone Age people after a generation or two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marek was welcomed by the colonists' primitive descendants as a living god, but they ultimately crucified him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colonists' descendants discovered that bird-like people lived on the other side of the great ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "A common sentiment among the primitive humans was that the Sherns (i.e., the bird-like native inhabitants of the planet) and their human-Shern offspring were vile and should be exterminated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of astronauts en route to an unnamed Earth-like planet were briefly depicted inside their cramped spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of astronauts left Earth to settled on another planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two surviving astronauts founded a new society on an unnamed Earth-like planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha shed tears after Peter died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerzy mused that \"Love is to want to be absorbed entirely by somebody. To love is to feel entirely responsible for somebody\" and mentioned how it sometimes turns into hate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Morgues were the loathsome offspring of the humans and the avian indigenous inhabitants of the unnamed Earth-like planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marek and Ihezal found love.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x24", "title": "We'll Always Have Paris", "date": "1988-05-02", "description": "Picard meets an old flame, whose husband has been affected by an accident involving a dimensional experiment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Manheim's experiment nearly destroys the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard felt torn about his leaving of Janice a long time ago in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Manheim somehow opened the door to the multiverse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard pined over Janice, whom he had ditched a long time ago in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard choose his Star Fleet career over his flame Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard deliberated about leaving his love interest Janice to join Starfleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard felt remorse about ditching Janice a long time ago in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew experienced loops in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Janice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "out of control scientific experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human perception of time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that the expression \"time flies when you're having fun\" had always puzzled Data, for whom time passes at a psychologically constant rate, until he experienced a localized time distortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Janet, and Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manheim's experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulsar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vandor system had a binary star composed of a B-class giant and a pulsar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was moping around on the holodeck, reminiscing about a lost love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fencing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was practicing fencing with Lt. Dean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x09", "title": "A Time to Die", "date": "1988-05-06", "description": "Yves Drouard is busy trying to keep his wife and young mistress happy. Things become further complicated when his mistress tells him she is pregnant.\n\nDirected by: Paul Annett. Story by: Aileen Wheeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves was having an affair behind his wife Marthe's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both spouses in the story were having affairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves plotted to blow his wife up and make it seem like a gas failure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves in choosing between mistress and baby on one hand, and sordid acts to get out of his marriage on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves was blown to smithereens by the very explosion he had meant for his unfaithful wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves was talking about divorcing his infertile wife but she refused and wanted a separation instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves Drouard and his paramour Violette Charbonneau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yves wanted to have children but his wife was infertile. Violette's desperate desire to have Yves child was fulfilled when she got pregnant after surreptitiously stopped taking her birth control pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marthe chatted with his housekeeper over domestic affairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yves' mistress, Violette, intentionally became pregnant against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a baby out of wedlock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are led to believe that Marthe's father would severely disapprove of her having a baby while not married.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x09", "title": "The Coffin", "date": "1988-05-07", "description": "A dying millionaire builds a glass coffin, much to the amusement of his greedy brother. After the millionaire dies, his brother is told that if he can find the millionaire's savings, which are hidden inside his mansion, he'll gets everything. But finding it may come at a price.\n\nDirected by: Tom Cotter. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vengeance from beyond the grave", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles rigged a contraption, recorded himself, and set events in motion in such a way that after his death and in a manner of speaking, his recorded self would be there to gloat while his carefully planned scheme for revenge on his younger brother, Richard, came to fruition: Richard would be tricked and enticed into lying down in the coffin which would then activate, reveal legs to take, and walk outside to quite literally bury Richard alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was evidently sore at Richard because years earlier Richard had taken off with Charles' great love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the dying millionaire Charles going to elaborate lengths (posthumously) to send his greedy brother, Richard, to an early grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ailing millionaire's decade younger brother drooled over inheriting his older brother's fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles' house abounded in autonomous semi-intelligent mechanical servants that did such chores as answering the door, dusting, pouring the whiskey, and spectating at the premature inhumation of pesky younger brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard had had mooched things like booze, cars, and gambling money off of his late mother. He also helped himself to whisky and other comforts around his older brother's house despite being told to leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "As Charles knew he would, Richard couldn't resist the temptation to activate the mysterious coffin. He laid down in the place indicated. Thus he sealed his own fate when the coffin activated a sequence of pre-programmed events that would culminate with Richard's living inhumation. Meanwhile, Charles' recording then activated to gloat at Richard's fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard was sore at Charles, and moreover penniless, in part because he had incurred gambling debts at some point in the past, and Charles had bought him out of the house they had both inherited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles indicated that Richard was penniless in part because he was too keen on the hootch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles' solicitor read out his last will and testament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard excoriated Charles, likening him to Ebenezer Scrooge. Richard subsequently accused Charles of being a \"tightwad\" for fashioning his own coffin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles, an elderly bachelor, lost his composure when Richard brought up the touchy subject of Charles' former lover, Angela, whom Richard had made off with at some point in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x25", "title": "Conspiracy", "date": "1988-05-09", "description": "The strange behavior of high-ranking officers—which earlier prompted the investigation of the crew (in \" Coming of Age \")—leads Picard to uncover a conspiracy within Starfleet .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces bug alien take over of Star Fleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation compromised by bug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neural Parasite :: bug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "discussion on whether or not the conspiracy was real", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "bug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data about Geordi's joke in the introduction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Rixx :: Picard putting his career on the line", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard mourned the death of his friend and fellow officer Walter Keel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tidally locked planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dytallix B :: Dytallix B", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pacifica :: Pacifica", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gregory Quinn :: Quinn fighting Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bug aliens held a ghastly feast of worms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bug aliens at ghastly feast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bug aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in other captains about conspiracy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picarch explained to Ralph there was no need for money any more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bug alien controlling Admiral Quinn extolled the superiority of its race. Others made similar remarks and acted condescendingly towards humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not of This Earth (1988)", "title": "Not of This Earth", "date": "1988-05-13", "description": "An invader from outer space arrives looking to get blood from the human race. It is a remake of Roger Corman's 1957 film of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_of_This_Earth_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson was actually an alien who sustained itself on human blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson was actually an alien who sustained itself on human blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Mr. Johnson was frequently caught unawares when faced with mundane things that people experience in daily life, including not catching pop culture references, not knowing slang, and being puzzled by the appearance of a door-to-door salesman at him home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nadine and Harry were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Davanna extraterrestrials were all going to perish unless they managed to secure a new source of blood which they needed to sustain themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the alien known as Mr. Johnson land on Earth in his futuristic, alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human blood types", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle initially refused to give Mr. Johnson a blood transfusion without first checking his blood type to learn his rh factor among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson communicated telepathically with other members of his alien race, and sometimes even sent messages telepathically to humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson used telepathy to mind control Dr. Rochelle into giving him a blood transfusion without first first checking his blood type, and then into assigning his nurse to take care of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nadine served as Mr. Johnson's personal, live-in nurse. Her primary duty was to ensure that Mr. Johnson received his daily blood transfusions. We also saw physician Dr. Rochelle and Nurse Oxford working out of the doctor's clinic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Davanna extraterrestrials sometimes communicated telepathically with people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A door-to-door salesman made a pitch to Mr. Johnson to sell a vacuum cleaner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nadine was pestered by Jeremy over and over again with proposition of a sexual nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy was effectively working as Mr. Johnson's butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The uniformed police officer Harry was investigating a series of murders the victims of which had been completely dried of blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The uniformed police officer Harry was investigating a series of murders the victims of which had been completely dried of blood.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Nest (1988)", "title": "The Nest", "date": "1988-05-13", "description": "A New England fishing village is attacked by mutated cockroaches as a result of an experiment gone wrong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nest_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A New England island community was overrun with man-eating cockroaches. It started with the cockroaches investing homes and shops and then quickly spiraled out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The town mayor Elias and his adult daughter Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "INTEC corporation’s development of an experimental insect repellent resulted in a New England island community being overrun by man-eating cockroaches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard rekindled his relationship with his high school sweetheart Elizabeth when she returned to their hometown after having been living in Los Angeles for some years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard rekindled his relationship with his high school sweetheart Elizabeth when she returned to their hometown after having been living in Los Angeles for some years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The North Port mayor conspired to allow the INTEC corporation to secretly breed mutant cockroaches that are immune to normal insect repellents in his island community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Richard Tarbell was investigating the mysterious appearance of mutilated pets and ultimately people in his island community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Morgan Hubbard was working to create breed of mutant cockroaches that were immune to normal insect repellents, but things quickly spiraled out of control, and the cockroaches started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias transformed into a half-human, half-cockroach creature. Also the cockroach queen had monstrous human faces and human skulls protruding from its body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesoftheunexpected9x10", "title": "Mr Know-All", "date": "1988-05-13", "description": "Elly, a pretty hotel maid is seduced by a guest. He gives her a valuable statuette, which he found during an archaeological dig. Elly is sacked by the manager when he finds out about the affair, but, the manager's wife has exactly the same statuette.\n\nDirected by: Gareth Davies. Story by: Paul Ableman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesoftheunexpected.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Professor Max Kelada's reputation as a womanizer was well known to his academic colleagues, and he lived up to that reputation at a conference held on the Virgin Islands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a fanciful idea of what it might be like to attend an archaeology conference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Max Kelada canoodled, or implied that he might canoodle, a variety of other people's partners. It was revealed at the end that the hotel manager's wife had even had a fling with Professor Max Kelada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hotel manager Jasper Cranley was worried about Max getting involved with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Max Kelada characterized the hotel manager's views on women as puritanical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Max Kelada was a shamelessly lecherous man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prudish hotel manager Jasper Cranley vs. lecherous Professor Max Kelada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hotel manager's prudish views on sex were Max Kelada's casual attitudes toward the subject.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elly fell for the archaeologist Max Kelada only because he was an unabashed rogue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasper Cranley's wife and baby came to visit him at the hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max Kalada mistook female graduate students for \"tarts\" in the hotel lobby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x10", "title": "Tyrannosaurus Rex", "date": "1988-05-14", "description": "A cruel producer bullies a stop-motion animator he hired. The animator decides to get revenge by crafting a tyrannosaurus rex in the producer's image.\n\nDirected by: Gilles Béhat. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Terwilliger, a stop-motion animator, was driven to his wits' end by the tyrannical producer, Mr. Clarence. The animator decided to get revenge by crafting a tyrannical T-Rex in the producer's image, and cast it as a villain in the very film that the produced had commissioned him to make.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terwilliger was commissioned to make a stop-motion dinosaur film on a shoestring budget.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terwilliger had an unusual fascination with bringing his clay sculpted dinosaurs \"to life\" on the big screen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an act of revenge, Terwilliger crafted a monstrous T-Rex in the image of his tyrannical producer. Terwilliger featured the T-Rex the film that the producer had commissioned him to make. Thus, indirectly casting the producer as a villain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Clarence was at first outraged when he figure out that the clay T-Rex was created in his own image, but he quickly came around when told that the film was an homage to his greatness. Glass reinforced this by hiring a busload of schoolgirls to swarm Mr. Clarence for autographs after the film's premier, which made Mr. Clarence giddy with glee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Clarence got about in an antiquated wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glass, a lawyer in Mr. Clarence's employ, was instructed to take care of Terwilliger's contract signing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terwilliger was passionate about crafting clay sculptures of dinosaurs for use in his stop-motion films. His magnum opus was a T-Rex crafted in the image of his tyrannical producer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terwilliger, a stop-motion animator, was shown capturing a scene of his dinosaur themed animated film. He thereafter explained the meticulous process of adjusting the dinosaurs' positions by 1/16th of an inch for each frame shot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng1x26", "title": "The Neutral Zone", "date": "1988-05-16", "description": "A derelict satellite is found containing cryonically frozen humans from the 21st century as the Enterprise is sent to investigate the destruction of outposts near Romulan space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "past point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clare Raymond, Ralph Offenhouse, L.Q. Sonny Clemonds :: frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Three cryonically frozen humans from the 21st century were revived aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clare Raymond, Ralph Offenhouse, L.Q. Sonny Clemonds :: frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "20th century people were cryogenically preserved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse :: Ralph had the expressed purpose to freeze himself with the view to wake up in a future where he could live indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of an unknown future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clare Raymond, Ralph Offenhouse, L.Q. Sonny Clemonds :: the thawed out people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with living in a new environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cryogenically frozen people from the 20th century struggled to come to terms with living in the 24th.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clare Raymond :: Troi helped Clare find her descendents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew's views toward frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon walking up in the distant future, Clare had to come to terms with the fact that all her immediate family members were dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard with Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse, a money hungry financier from the 20th century, was quite out of place in the post-scarcity world of the 24th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Romulan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare Raymond/Donald Raymond :: Clare and husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse was eminently arrogant and thought himself richer than everyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse :: Ralph froze himself to to so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse :: cope with using cryonics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "L.Q. Sonny Clemonds :: Sonny with the food synthesizer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter replicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonny used to make a martini", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at rescuing frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph Offenhouse :: Ralph gets a lesson in humility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph expressed a proper pride in his achievements in the business world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon waking up more than 400 years in the future, Claire Raymond, a 20th century housewife, was confronted with the shocking visage of Worf and promptly fainted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x11", "title": "There Was an Old Woman", "date": "1988-05-21", "description": "An old woman who spent her entire life defying death attempts to claim her body from the mortuary after she finally bites the dust.\n\nDirected by: Bruce McDonald. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The titular old woman Tildy stubbornly refused to come to terms with her own death that when it finally and inevitably came for her, she actually browbeat the grim reaper's henchmen into letting her return to corporeal life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The old woman, Tildy, had evidently for many years been preoccupied with preparations for facing off against the grim reaper, should he presume to come for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four men carrying a wicker basket, and their leader in particular, seemed to represent the Grim Reaper in all but appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon refusing to go with the man with the wicker basket, Aunt Tildy evidently became somewhat incorporeal in the manner of a ghost, albeit not invisible. She also threatened to \"haunt\" the people who had carried off her body, demonstrating that she thought of herself in such terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The more mundane explanation for the events from another point of view might be that Aunt Tildy simply had a normal near death experience. That is, she was believed dead but came back to life at the last moment before being autopsied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Tildy mourned for her late husband and recalled his final moments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Tildy found herself in a semi-incorporeal form and briefly marveled at her ability to permeate matter at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Tildy spoke affectionately about her niece Emily. Emily later freaked out upon seeing Tildy's ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily shrieked in terror at the sight of Tildy's ghost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)", "title": "The Incredible Hulk Returns", "date": "1988-05-22", "description": "David Banner meets a former student who has a magical hammer that summons Thor, a Norse god who is prevented from entering Valhalla.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(1978_TV_series)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry. Thor was very strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David struggled to control the creature within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was romantically involved with the young widow Maggie Shaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was romantically involved with the young widow Maggie Shaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor was amazed by the conveniences of the modern world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was Thor's modus operandi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald and Thor were buddies of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald Blake was able to summon the Norse god Thor at will by using a magical hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald Blake was able to summon the Norse god Thor at will by using a magical hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how David's condition was caused by a dose of gamma radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie was kidnapped by Lambert's henchmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David worried that his girlfriend Maggie would be harmed by her captors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)", "title": "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", "date": "1988-05-27", "description": "A clan of evil, clown resembling aliens from an unknown region arrive on Earth and invade a small town in order to capture, kill, and harvest the human inhabitants to use as sustenance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Klowns_from_Outer_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clown-like aliens were going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The It-like Klown alien Jojo the Klownzilla and his Klown minions were going around striking fear into the hearts of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The It-like Klown alien Jojo the Klownzilla and his Klown minions were going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two local police officers were investigating a spate of strange reports involving clowns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Debbie were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terenzi brothers were known around town as mischief makers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Killer Klowns killed an old man and his beloved dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Killer Klowns concealed their spaceship in a circus tent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e2x12", "title": "And So Died Riabouchinska", "date": "1988-05-28", "description": "The ventriloquist, John Fabian, who has a dummy by the name of Riabouchinska, is investigated for murder.\n\nDirected by: Denys Granier-Deferre. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The ventriloquist John Fabian was madly in love with the ballerina Ilyana Riamonova but ended up killing her in a jealous rage. Some time later John became obsessed with a ventriloquist's dummy, which he'd fashioned in her image.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Krovitch was hot on John Fabian's trail after a man, named Ockham, was murdered at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Krovitch was investigating the murder of a man, named Ockham, at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the stage ventriloquist John Fabian's pathological love for a ventriloquist's dummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the dummy John Fabian used to perform his ventriloquist act was inhabited by the consciousness of his former lover. The dummy said things that implicated John as the murderer. The viewer must therefore ponder whether it had a consciousness of its own, perhaps that of his former lover and murder victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story featured a ventriloquist and is set in the Champs-Élysées theater where he worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Alyce Fabian were in a loveless marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Alyce took on Douglas as a lover because of her ventriloquist husband's all-consuming obsession with a doll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was shown molding out of clay the face of his new ventriloquist's dummy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Krovitch speculated that John had driven off Ilyana with his jealously. Little did the lieutenant know that John had actually killed Ilyana in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Krovitch twice suspected blackmail was the motive behind Ockham's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a jealous rage, John sent Ilyana crashing down to her death with a series of heavy-handed slaps in quick succession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John killed his lover, Ilyana, in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilyana was a ballerina. She was shown dancing at a recital.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Empire of Ash (1988)", "title": "Empire of Ash", "date": "1988-07", "description": "In 2050, sometime after a nuclear war, a woman searches for her missing sister in New Idaho. The film was re-released in 1989 as Empire of Ash II. It was followed by one sequel: Empire of Ash III.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Ash" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a post-nuclear region called New Idaho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story mainly follows Danielle as she goes on a journey to find her missing sister who's been kidnapped by a paramilitary group for the purpose of harvesting her blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shepherd was a religious fanatic who led a band of loyal followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in 2050 sometime after a civilization collapsing nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa and his granddaughter Jasmine were conversing on the riverbank when some fanatics came along and attacked them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Short Circuit 2 (1988)", "title": "Short Circuit 2", "date": "1988-07-06", "description": "The friendly, naive, self-aware robot Johnny 5 comes to the city to help an old friend build toy replicas of himself. It is the sequel to the 1986 film Short Circuit.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the antics of the friendly, self-aware robot Johnny 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Fred went into business making Johnny 5 replica toys and were working hard to fulfill a contract they negotiated with a major toy company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to rob a bank and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot involved a trio of thieves that were hatching a plot to rob a bank vault of a special collection of diamonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny 5 was crazy for getting input world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny 5 took exception when Fred tried to sell him and in general he wished to be treated the same as other flesh and blood people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny 5 longed to be accepted among humans. Benjamin was wanted to fit in in American society and become a citizen. The film concluded with both Johny 5 and Benjamin being granted US citizenship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Sandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was a true friend to Johnny 5. Oscar was a false friend to Johnny 5 and used him to in an attempt to rob a vault. And although Fred at first tried to sell Johnny 5 to a corporation, he proved himself to be a friend to the robot in the end by repairing him after a life threatening beating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar plotted to rob a bank vault of the Vandalier precious gem collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two criminals tried to burn down the warehouse Benjamin and Fred were using to manufacture toy robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest told Johnny 5 that he had a soul before he realized that it was a robot he was talking to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny 5 went to confession in a presumably Catholic church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin confided to Johnny 5 that he felt lonely since leaving India to come to the USA. Johnny 5 told Benjamin that he felt lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin felt shy to let Sandy how he felt about her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred tried to sell Johnny 5 to pay of some load sharks who were after him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Die Hard (1988)", "title": "Die Hard", "date": "1988-07-12", "description": "Die Hard is a 1988 American action thriller film directed by John McTiernan, written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. Based on Roderick Thorp's 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, it was produced by the Gordon Company and Silver Pictures, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film follows off-duty New York City Police Department officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) who is caught in a Los Angeles skyscraper on Christmas Eve during a heist led by criminal mastermind Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman).", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John faced several mortal enemies one at a time and killed them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "John faced terrorists with hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The terrorists were in fact trying to rob the corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The terrorists committed several cold blooded murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw officer Powell on the job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Holly, estranged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "at first official didn't believe John when he reported the terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the film had Christmas music and referenced Santa Claus when we saw the message \"Now I have a machine gun, ho, ho, ho.\"", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Akira (1988)", "title": "Akira", "date": "1988-07-16", "description": "Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira tells the story of Shōtarō Kaneda, a leader of a biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo Shima, acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex amidst chaos and rebellion in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo Tokyo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The three little blue people urged Tetsuo to exercise his incredible telekinetic powers with restraint, and tried to convince him that he had a responsibility not to use his powers for destructive purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tetsuo acquired incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident and ultimately used them to bring Neo Tokyo to the brink of destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military coup", "level": "major", "motivation": "A disgruntled colonel staged a coup d'état against the Neo Tokyo government and directed all of its military forces to destroy Tetsuo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Neo Tokyo government was cracking down on anti-government groups, and people were protesting and even rioting in the streets, calling for revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo Tokyo was devastated when a singularity formed in the middle of the city and quickly expanded into a new universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaneda and Tetsuo had been close friends since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaneda and Kei were an item in so far as Kaneda was concerned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in Tokyo in the year 2019 - 31 years after this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw corrupt government officials ruling over Neo Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biker gangs were causing trouble in slums of Neo Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kaneko foresaw the collapse of Neo Tokyo in a dream, and so it came to pass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An area was being cordoned off in immediate the aftermath of a terrorist bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kei explained how humans evolved from plankton and amoebas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuo fashioned form himself a robotic arm after his real arm was blow off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Out of Time (1988)", "title": "Out of Time", "date": "1988-07-17", "description": "A cop from the year 2088 is transported back to 1988 while pursuing a criminal attempting to flee in a time machine, and enlists the aid of his legendary great-grandfather in pursuing the crook. However, he finds that his grandfather is not yet the great cop hero/inventor who is revered in the future. Abbott must catch the criminal and help shape his great-grandfather into the man history recorded. It was a failed television pilot made into a television movie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Time_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Channing was transported from 2088 back in time to the year 1988 where he encountered his legendary great-grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Channing accidentally traveled back in time to 1988 and teamed up with his legendary great-grandfather, Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The time traveler Channing was bemused again and again by commonalities of the late 20th century, including neck ties, money, spicy food, cigarettes, and traffic jams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Max working as a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Channing complained on multiple occasions of the pressure he felt from living under the shadow of his great-grandfather, the legendary inventor Maxwell Taylor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Channing and Cassandra in the year 2088.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Channing (in the year 2088) was in a loving relationship with his girlfriend Cassandra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that there was a \"nuclear ban\" in 2012.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a report of a 100 year ago bank robbery on the news.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Channing hitched a ride back 100 years into the past on a telephone booth-like time traveling machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Channing used a special pair of glasses to check for winners among a batch of scratch-and-win lottery tickets. He later described the glasses as having X-ray capabilities to Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Channing used a special pair of glasses to check for winners among a batch of scratch-and-win lottery tickets. He later described the glasses as having X-ray capabilities to Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was recognized by the city for his courage and bravery in rescuing a number of workers who had gotten trapped in a tunnel collapse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mac and Me (1988)", "title": "Mac and Me", "date": "1988-08-05", "description": "A \"Mysterious Alien Creature\" (MAC) escapes from nefarious NASA agents and is befriended by a wheelchair-using boy named Eric Cruise. Together, Eric and MAC try to find MAC's family, from whom he has been separated.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_and_Me" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antics ensued when a NASA rover accidentally vacuumed up four E.T.-like aliens and returned with them back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character is a wheelchair-using boy named Eric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet was raising two boys on her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric and his big brother Mike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet was raising two boys on her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Eric when he kept insisting that there was a strange alien running around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien MAC was separated from his three family members and longed to rejoin them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric befriended a small E.T.-like alien who had been separated from its family. Eric was befriended by new neighbor Debbie after Eric and his family recently moved into a new house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Debbie and her older McDonald's employed sister Courtney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric and Mike befriended their new neighbors, Debbie and Courtney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used their innate powers to revive Eric after he'd perished in an explosion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Blob (1988)", "title": "The Blob", "date": "1988-08-05", "description": "An amorphous acidic amoeba-like organism that devours and dissolves anything in its path as it grows. It is a remake of the 1958 film of the same name.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Blob" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blobform", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blob!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the Blob was a biological warfare experiment created during the Cold War that was launched into space because it was so dangerous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townsfolk were reluctant to believe Penny's story of a blob monster going around eating people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Authority figure distrusting Brian Flagg was a rebellious teen with long hair, an earring, a leather jacket, and a motorcycle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Taylor and Meg Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Taylor and Meg Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debra Penny and Kevin Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debra Penny and Meg Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pharmacist Tom Penny sold a box of condoms to Paul only to have him pick up his daughter Penny for a date later that same night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian Flagg had a problem with authority figures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meg Penny and Kevin Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Meddows put Arborville under quarantine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blob turned out to have been created as a result of a Cold War era germ warfare experiment gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Reverend Meeker giving a sermon about the coming of doomsday and we saw that he had a still-living piece of the blob that he was waiting to unleash upon the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)", "title": "The Last Temptation of Christ", "date": "1988-08-12", "description": "The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 epic religious drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Paul Schrader with uncredited rewrites from Scorsese and Jay Cocks, it is an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial 1955 novel of the same name. The film, starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Andre Gregory, Harry Dean Stanton and David Bowie, was shot entirely in Morocco.\n\nThe film depicts the life of Jesus Christ and his struggle with various forms of temptation including fear, doubt, depression, reluctance, and lust.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to Jesus' struggle with various earthly temptations, including lust, power, and, perhaps most notably, the desire to lead an ordinary life and have a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts the life of Jesus Christ in Roman occupied Judea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story delves into the Jesus' relationship with God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesus' followers were hankering for an armed revolt against their Roman occupiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story builds up to and concludes with Jesus dying willingly on the cross to save humankind from their manifold sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Judas pointedly, but reluctantly betraying Jesus by sharing intel on the Savior's location with the local authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesus generally exuded an aire of guilt. The prostitute Madgalen denied him forgiveness before he set out into into the desert. He was denied. He at one point spoke of being ashamed for all the \"wrong ways\" he'd \"looked at God\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satan appeared to Jesus in various guises. First, in the form of a lion, offering Rome to the Savior of humanity. Soon after, in the form of fire. In the later part of the film, Jesus lived out his life in the presence of Satan himself in the guise of his guardian angel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus was fashioning crosses for the Romans in his workshop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary, mother of Jesus, forcibly stopped onlookers from pelting Jesus with stones on his way to be crucified. Earlier in the narrative, Jesus hurt Mary's feelings when he told her point blank that he didn't have a mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Magdalene sold sex to provide for herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the first century Roman occupied Judean world of the film, prostitution was largely tolerated but at the same time morally condemned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judas called Jesus a coward to his face for collaborating with the Roman occupiers. When the going got tough, Peter adamantly denied being a follower of Jesus and skedaddled. Judas accused Jesus of being a coward for failing to fulfill his destiny on the cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus didn't act on his lustful impulses for fear of the Lord, he said. Likewise for stealing, fighting, and killing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magdalen was about to be stoned for prostituting herself on the Sabbath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman was chided for making Jesus feel uncomfortable in the home he was visiting by rudely asking him if he was married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "So good was the fishing in the Sea of Galilee that \"you just touch the nets and the fish jump in\", according to Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus was shaken to his foundations by news of John the Baptist's execution. A group of mourners were wailing outside of Lazarus' tomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus cured a blind man by applying a paste of spit and mud to the man's eyes. Jesus changed water into wine at the wedding. Jesus changed wine into his his own blood at the last supper. Jesus reattached the Jewish soldier's severed ear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus and his followers attended a fancy wedding in Nazareth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus overturned money changers tables at the temple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against the public", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus was charged with blasphemy for going around telling people that he was the Son of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus was lashed mercilessly and mockingly crowned with thorns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesus was in utter agony on the cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Satan appeared to Jesus in the guise of an innocent angel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his ultimate temptation, Jesus and Magdalen lived as man and wife for the short time before Magdalen's unexpected passing. Jesus subsequently wedded Mary, sister of Lazarus, and they raised a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his ultimate temptation, Jesus wept over the body of his new wife, Magdalen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his ultimate temptation, Jesus settled down and had a family, and was shown caring for his young boy and girl.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Terminator (1988)", "title": "Alien Terminator", "date": "1988-08-16", "description": "An alcoholic author stumbles on a crashed flying saucer in the jungles of Colombia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Terminator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that an alien spaceship had scooped up a ship full of conquistadors and then crashed into a mountain where it remained until Ted Angelo stumbled on it some 500 years later. In the end it was revealed that the very same race of aliens had been secretly running the governments of Earth ever since.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Angelo discovered a crashed flying saucer in the jungles of Colombia and in the end encountered its sinister alien occupants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Angelo tried to convince everyone that \"UFOs were real\" (by which he meant that UFOs were actually alien spaceships) but he was having trouble convincing people of his theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that the governments of the United States and Soviet Union were actively hiding from their peoples that space aliens were on Earth and pulling all the strings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Angelo and Maureen De Havilland fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted Angelo uncovered that every key position on earth as occupied by sinister aliens in human form who were intent on harvesting a rare element that was indispensable to their species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The past his prime author Ted Angelo had turned to the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that the Nazi fugitive Heinrich Holzmann was personally responsible for the deaths of 80,000 gypsies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted Angelo discovered a crashed flying saucer in the jungles of Colombia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An army officer tried to arrest Ted Angelo for murdering two people - a charge which Ted adamantly denied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The writer Ted Angelo quipped that while his first novel was a smashing success, his second one was even worse than his failed marriage. The story concludes with Ted writing an account of his encounter with space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted Angelo and Maureen were stalked by a Terminator-like android that \"not even the Japanese\" were capable of producing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x01", "title": "Kryten", "date": "1988-09-06", "description": "Red Dwarf intercepts an SOS distress call from the American Space cruiser Nova 5, which has crashed on an asteroid. Much to their disappointment, the crew (who are expecting to find female crew members) find the only survivor is Kryten (David Ross), a service mechanoid with an over-active guilt chip. Lister wants to teach Kryten to be rebellious, whilst Rimmer wants to abuse Kryten's servility.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister spoke of how he'd been breeding a mold in his coffee cup to annoy the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister in particular was contrasted with Kryten. Lister spoke of how he'd been breeding a mold in his coffee cup to annoy the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram met an android, named Kryten, aboard the American Space cruiser Nova 5 and returned with it back to Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was watching a robot soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "are we alone in the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly mentioned this philosophical question in the intro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three males became stereotypically excited about meeting three females in duress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram in particular feigned that he'd come to the fair maids' rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten lamented loosing his raison d'être.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten finally rebelled against his master, the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was struggling with his Esperanto lesson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten became the Rimmer hologram's loyal servant for a spell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: As Time Goes By (1988)", "title": "As Time Goes By", "date": "1988-09-08", "description": "A surfer receives a letter from his mother which she passes on before she dies which tells him to meet him 50 miles west of the small town of Dingo on a certain date in 1989, 25 years after the letter was sent.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Time_Goes_By_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike and Connie fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike helped a strange space alien recover its spaceship power unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike used an alien device to hop around in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that Mike was actually Ryder's son - the son that Ryder thought he'd lost to an errant cricket ball years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryder was torn up inside over his young son having been struck dead by an errant cricket ball years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crashed alien spacecraft was disguised as a diner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A store clerk had a pathological preoccupation with keeping his shop clean of dust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCauley injected Mike with truth serum in order to get him to reveal what he knew about the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike was initially alarmed when it became apparent that the alien was radioactive, but the alien assured him that he was radiating at too low a level to be dangerous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "J.L. Weston's henchmen the Kremin brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A time traveling alien claimed to have changed the outcome of the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien described an alternate history in which the Japanese had won this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A time traveling alien claimed that he's tried to go back in time to prevent the Holocaust, but failed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)", "title": "Earth Girls Are Easy", "date": "1988-09-08", "description": "A trio of space aliens splash down in a California woman's swimming pool. The plot is based on the song \"Earth Girls Are Easy\" from Julie Brown's 1984 mini- album Goddess in Progress.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Girls_Are_Easy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of furry space aliens (one yellow, one red, and the other blue) came to Earth in search of human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three space aliens struggled mightily the make sense of human concepts. This was especially the case in regard to nuances of romantic interactions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valarie longer to meet the proverbial Mr. Right, and she found him in the space alien Mac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valarie and Mac found true love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story climaxed with Valarie choosing the space alien Mac over her former fiancée Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three furry space aliens splashed down their colorful spaceship in Valarie's swimming pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valarie broke off her engagement to Ted upon catching him with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valarie and her salon coworker Candy were pals of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valarie tried to seduce Ted by dressing up in lingerie and setting up some romantic touches at home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valarie broke off her engagement to Ted upon catching him with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robby the Robot appeared in Valarie's surreal dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The was a beach song and dance routine about dumb blonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were called to the scene when the space aliens inadvertently held up a store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the medical doctor Ted Gallagher at work in a hospital.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x02", "title": "Better Than Life", "date": "1988-09-13", "description": "A post pod carrying a three-million-year-old bag of mail arrives, and Rimmer becomes depressed when he reads a letter saying his dad is dead. Meanwhile the crew play a total-immersion computer game called \"Better Than Life\" which makes the player's wishes come true. Rimmer's neurotic brain fittingly begins to rebel against the fantasy and turn it into a nightmare.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists donned headsets to play a VR game in which all your dreams came true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram's thoughts uncontrollably started to become (virtual) reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly stated that loneliness was weighing heavily on the Red Dwarf occupants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram's meal of jumping dumplings and burned lamb left Lister and Cat were in a terrible state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly was playing correspondents chess with his sentient computer friend, Hal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat made a quip about eating Rimmer's dad's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram spoke of how he had divorced his horrible parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram mourned the death of Rimmer's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was remembering his dysfunctional childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram scored in a VR setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three protagonists were chumming around in a virtual reality fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat were enjoying a game of golf in a VR setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram couldn't stop thinking up bad things for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists crossed paths with Marylin Monroe on a VR simulated beach. The Rimmer hologram was honored to meet the virtual reality Napoleon Bonaparte.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Outland Revenue man was authorized to break the Rimmer hologram's legs and pull off his thumbs unless he paid immediately and in full the 18,000 that Rimmer owed in taxes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A simulation of Rimmer's father called the Rimmer hologram a \"total smeg head\" to its face. The Rimmer hologram spoke of how he had divorced his horrible parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "merpeople", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat was romantically involved with a reverse mermaid in the virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x03", "title": "Thanks for the Memory", "date": "1988-09-20", "description": "The crew wake up after celebrating the anniversary of Rimmer's death, only to find four whole days have passed that they have no memories of. However, when they find the ship's black box on a moon, they slowly learn what happened.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around the fact that Rimmer was a digital person whose memories could be rewound and edited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and his bunk mate the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone was hungover after celebrating the Rimmer hologram's death day on some planetoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister agreed to wipe everyones memories to save the Rimmer hologram from embarrassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was preoccupied with the fact that he had (barely) had sex once in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was sad that he'd only slept with a single woman in his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew woke up missing several days worth of memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram lamented that he'd never found some special someone with whom to share his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was moping around on account that he'd never found some special someone with whom to share his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram jumped to the conclusion that they'd all been kidnapped by aliens when it came to light that four days had gone unaccounted for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister wistfully reminisced about the good old days when he was together with his sweetheart, Lisa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x01", "title": "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon", "date": "1988-09-24", "description": "An old man known as Uncle Edgar is ordered by a mysterious voice to collect junk in his apartment to keep the world in balance.\n\nDirected by: René Bonnière. Story by: Haskell Barkin and J. Michael Straczynski, Haskell Barkin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We learned that Uncle Edgar was singlehandedly to thank for keeping the world from going \"poof\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Edgar's niece tried to have him committed to a mental hospital. The neighbors and the psychiatrist also had to deal with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychiatrist who diagnosed Uncle Edgar as crazy for tending the machine, ended up having to tend the machine zealously himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Edgar was thought crazy for hearing a voice in his head that told to collect various bits of junk, and he was taken away to a mental hospital at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cynthia was trying to get her eccentric uncle committed to a mental hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Edgar in thinking, it turned out correctly, he was important to the safety of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mysterious voice in Uncle Edgar's head was telling him how to keep the world from going \"poof\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x04", "title": "Stasis Leak", "date": "1988-09-27", "description": "A time portal called a \"Stasis Leak\" is found on Floor 16 and it takes the crew back in time on Red Dwarf three million years earlier, to a point three weeks before the disaster which killed the rest of the crew. Rimmer tries to change the past by putting himself into suspended animation, so he does not die in the radioactive disaster. Lister has similar plans for Kochanski.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and his bunk mate the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister, the Rimmer hologram, and Cat traveled back in time to a point three weeks before the the disaster which killed the rest of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram encountered their at a point three million years in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Rimmer and Lister's hot-and-cold friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister got in trouble for having smuggled hallucinogenic mushrooms aboard Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer described how he had tripped out on space mushrooms surreptitiously administered by Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elevator ride to Floor 16 parodied some unpleasant aspects of commercial air travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "short and sweet life vs. long and miserable life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister briefly resolved to died after living three happy weeks in the past rather than spend the rest of his days stuck aboard Red Dwarf with the Rimmer hologram, Holly, and Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ganymede Holiday Inn was staffed by droids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister with a goatee and Kochanski were honeymooning at the Ganymede Holiday Inn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was pining for his old love interest, Kochanski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram planned to save Rimmer's life by convincing Rimmer to put himself into stasis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An express lift attendant demonstrated how to take cyanide capsules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was upset because Lister proposed to leave him to spend three weeks with an old flame back on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram wanted to save Rimmer and Lister wanted to save Kochanski, but there was only one free stasis pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer had recurring brouhahas with the captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "better to have loved and lost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly paraphrased the old adage that it is better have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x02", "title": "Extra Innings", "date": "1988-10-01", "description": "Ex-baseball player Ed Hamler, lame from an injury and forced to retire early, is given a baseball card from the early 1900s that transports Hamler to the past to be the player he used to be.\n\nDirected by: Doug Jackson. Story by: Tom Palmer.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and his teenage neighbor Paula were both extraordinarily enthusiastic about baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed was sort of depressed because he had a busted leg and could no longer play professional baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about Ed choosing between his wife and baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old baseball card could turn into a time portal on demand for Ed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed shirked participation in normal society in favor of reliving his past glories as a baseball player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed had a magic baseball card that he used to travel back in time to 1909.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed's chronic inability to get a job was putting a strain on his marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed and Cindy's marriage was falling apart because Cindy couldn't handle Ed's inability to reintegrate back into society after retiring early from his career as a professional baseball player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed and Cindy's marriage was falling apart because Cindy couldn't handle Ed's inability to reintegrate back into society after retiring early from his career as a professional baseball player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Paula was compared and contrasted with wife who said she knew nothing of real life yet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed's wife did not approve of him being friends with a 12 year old girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was a close friend of his 12 year old girl neighbor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x01", "title": "I September 1939", "date": "1988-10-02", "description": "The series begins in September 1939 on the day that war is declared. Squadron- Leader Ramsey is working furiously to whip Hornet Squadron into shape. Having just landed after a practice flight, Ramsey accidentally taxis his Spitfire into a slit-trench and his angry impatience causes him to fall from the aircraft and fatally fracture his neck. His temporary replacement is Australian pilot Fanny Barton who is uncertain about his capabilities for such a role. A tragic mistake is made when Barton leads a patrol to intercept what they are led to believe is a German attack and he shoots down a bomber, which is later identified to be a British Blenheim, killing the pilot in the process. New Squadron Leader Rex arrives and Barton is sent away to face a court of inquiry. Rex is immediately popular as he provides his pilots with many luxuries whilst demanding strict discipline and adherence to textbook tactics in return.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they defend Britain against the German Luftwaffe. Featured is the announcement of the war and some of the first action in the air for Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron training in preparation to engage with the German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron training in preparation to engage with the German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hornet Squadron pilots relished flying their Spitfires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a friendly fire incident, Barton lead a patrol that ended up shooting down a one of their own bombers. This triggered an official investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The respective leadership qualities of Ramsey, Barton, and Rex were compared and contrasted. In particular, Rex made himself popular by providing his pilots with luxuries while demanding strict discipline and adherence to textbook tactics in return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squadron Leader Rex named his collie, Riley, official Hornet Squadron mascot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hornet Squadron got a taste of life in France.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x05", "title": "Queeg", "date": "1988-10-04", "description": "When the ship's \"senile\" computer, Holly, allows a meteorite to damage the ship and Rimmer's hologram to malfunction, the crew lose faith in him. Holly's back-up computer, Queeg 500 (Charles Augins), takes command of Red Dwarf. When Queeg 500 runs the ship like a military garrison, the crew have a change of heart and want Holly back. Despite their misgivings, Holly challenges Queeg to a game of chess, where the loser gets erased from the system.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and his bunk mate the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly was crestfallen when the Red Dwarf back-up computer, Queeg 500, relieved him of duty, leaving Holly to serve as the ship's night watchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were exasperated when the new no-nonsense Red Dwarf ship computer, Queeg 500, put the crew through the ringer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly spoke of the friendship he shared with his collection of singing potatoes the crew in his opening monologue. Lister brought up the crew's friendship with Holly when discussing about how they ought to have stuck up for him. The Rimmer hologram quipped about friends only being friends when it suits them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram concluded that they ought to have stayed loyal to their friend Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was playing checkers with a service bot. Holly lost a high-stakes game of chess to the new ship computer, Queeg 500.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly bid farewell to the crew before he was about to erased from the Red Dwarf computer system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram and Lister discussed whether Holly had feelings that had been hurt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat refused to wear yellow gloves with a blue overall, and was concerned about his complexion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram reminisced about Rimmer being bullied at space camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram reminisced about Rimmer being bullied at space camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly said a lengthy goodbye to the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the grass is always greener on the other side", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly summed up the moral of the story as \"appreciate what you've got\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew grumbled about the new no-nonsense Red Dwarf ship computer, Queeg 500. The Rimmer hologram got licked at checkers by a Skutter, but cheated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tos0x01", "title": "The Cage", "date": "1988-10-04", "description": "The crew of the Enterprise follow a distress signal to the planet Talos IV, where Captain Pike is taken captive by a group of telepathic aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tos.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosian :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosian :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big-headed aliens communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Keeper :: Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vina really needed a man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "human were about to blow themselves up rather than living their lives in a gilded cage without self-fulfillment and challenge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it seemed they were until the plot twist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male protectiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike was manipulated to protect Vina from the Kalar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike and Vina by Talosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike and his horse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike and Vine in illusion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike offered to remain with the Talosians in exchange for the safety of his female subordinates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Number One :: Number One was briefly in charge and it was weird", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike at horses and orion slave girls and getting bodily function back and recovering beauty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: first time transporter technology used in series", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Number One :: Number One did not take kindly to the Talosians remarking that the younger J.M. Colt made for superior breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike about saving the girl from space Mongol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina was disfigured to such an extent that she would have been unable to go about in society without raising eyebrows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike and Boyce's talk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike over his decision to battle the space Mongols", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike complains to Boyce about the rigors of command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Talosians tried to get Captain Pike to mate with Vina the easy way (i.e., by using their powers of allusion to present her to Pike in a variety of pleasing guises) before resorting to the hard way (i.e., by using their powers of illusion to torture Pike with fire).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vina :: Vina at Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike and Mongol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Keeper :: The Keeper tortures Pike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pike :: Pike in efforts to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear holocaust left the Talosian home planet's surface virtually uninhabitable and killed most of their race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation (1988)", "title": "Alien Nation", "date": "1988-10-07", "description": "The film depicts the assimilation of the \"Newcomers\", an alien race settling in Los Angeles, much to the initial dismay of the local population. It is the first installment in the Alien Nation film franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that 300,000 enslaved aliens land on Earth and are subsequently welcomed to live as immigrants in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People expressed hostility and resentment toward 300,000 space alien immigrants who had settled in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People expressed hostility and resentment toward 300,000 space alien immigrants who had settled in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed two LAPD detectives as they uncovered a drug ring in the process of investigating a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The LAPD detective Sykes initially resented his new partner Francisco, who was a Newcomer alien, but Sykes gradually warmed up to Francisco and the two became good friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sykes and Francisco uncovered a nefarious plot to mass-produce the narcotic Jabroka and distribute it to the Newcomer aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The LAPD detective Sykes initially resented his new partner Francisco, who was a Newcomer alien, but Sykes gradually warmed up to Francisco and the two became good friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Newcomer alien Francisco had a unique perspective on human society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw footage of a flying saucer that was carrying 300,000 escaped alien slaves over the Mojave Desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two LAPD detectives, Sykes and Francisco, uncovered a drug ring while investigating a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two gun toting aliens held up a liquor store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sykes had to spell out to Sam why it was exactly that a joke about a thermometer holding physician misplacing his pen in a man's rectum was funny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sykes and Francisco nursed their hangovers after a night together of hard drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained in passing that the aliens had been genetically engineered to be ideal slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sykes attended his daughter's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sykes walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x03", "title": "The Crossing", "date": "1988-10-08", "description": "A stressed-out priest is haunted by the sight of a station wagon with a young girl inside that keeps crashing.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Ralph Phillips.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were lead to think that a Catholic priest was loosing his mind because of too much caffeine fueled work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Mark worked himself to to bone to raise 2 million dollars to build a children's wing to a hospital, and he have every appearance of genuinely caring about the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Mark felt guilty about having stood idly by while a woman burned to death in a crashed car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Mark worked himself to the bone to raising funds to build a children wing on a hospitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Mark was wracked with guilt about having stood idly by while a woman burned to death in a crashed car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a Catholic priest in his effort to raise the finds necessary to open a children's wing at a local hospital. We saw him working in the parish house, teaching children to follow in the example of Saint Damian, holding a rosary, and confess his sins to God almighty in a confessional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable volunteering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Father Mark went above and beyond to raise 2 million dollars to build a children's wing to a hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were puzzled by Mark's insisting that there was a fiery car wreck. It seemed it was either only in his imagination or else only he could see it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were lead to think that a Catholic priest was loosing his mind because of too much caffeine fueled work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Mark confessed to God that he had been cowardly in not rushing to help the woman in the fiery crashed car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father Mark failed to rush to the rescue of a woman who died in a fiery car crash.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x02", "title": "October 1939", "date": "1988-10-09", "description": "Hornet squadron is dispatched to France to await a possible German invasion. Billeted in a luxury manor, the pilots live well although one, Moggy Cattermole, shows himself to be a vicious bully, singling out vulnerable characters Pip Patterson and Dicky Starr. In a dangerous stunt, Moggy flies his Spitfire under a low bridge, goading Patterson and Starr to do the same. Starr is killed whilst attempting to do so and Moggy shows not the slightest remorse. A new pilot arrives, an American named Chris Hart who has fought in the Spanish Civil War and is unimpressed with the gentlemanly tactics favored by Rex. Two of the pilots, Fitz and 'Flash' Gordon start romances with two local schoolteachers, a young French woman named Nicole and an expat Englishwoman named Mary. An exonerated Barton returns to the squadron.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they defend Britain against the German Luftwaffe. Featured is Hornet Squadron operating from their base in a luxurious French chateau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. This episode focused on Hornet Squadron being dispatched to Le Touquet in northern France to await a possible invasion by the Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the Royal Air Force in the early stages of the Second World War. This episode focused on Hornet Squadron being dispatched to Le Touquet in northern France to await a possible invasion by the Germans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hornet Squadron pilots relished flying their Spitfires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moggy pulled of a perilous stunt by flying his Spitfire under a low country bridge. Following the triumph, Moggy goaded his fellow pilots Pip and Dicky into repeating the feat. Dicky perished in the attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moggy singled out the two younger pilots, Pip and Dicky, and tormented them relentlessly. In one scene, Moggy emasculated Dicky by asserting, in the presence of fellow officers, that Dicky's testicles hadn't yet descended. In another scene, Moggy walloped Pip over the head for no apparent reason. Moggy ultimately peer pressured Dicky into attempting a dangerous stunt. Dicky perished in the attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring point in this story was to discuss the attitudes to sex of the French people as seen through the eyes of the English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squadron Leader Rex's beloved collie had a reputation for relieving itself on the people's legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The importance of precise formation flying when engaging the German Luftwaffe, was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Hart introduced his rigger, David Todd, to the game of squash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz and Gordon started romances with two local schoolteachers: a young French woman named Nicole and an expat Englishwoman named Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moggy and Pip had a bet about flying under the country bridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dicky was solemnly laid to rest in a Union Jack draped casket to the maudlin tones of bugles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Certain Hornet Squadron members mourned Dicky's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A French priest objected to Dicky, who'd been a Protestant in life, being buried in a Catholic cemetery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Chris Hart had fought in the Spanish Civil War. He recounted how entire villages had been wiped out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moggy peer pressured Dicky into attempting a dangerous stunt: to fly underneath a low country bridge. Dicky perished in the attempt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e2x06", "title": "Parallel Universe", "date": "1988-10-11", "description": "The crew test Holly's new invention, the \"Holly Hop Drive\", which will supposedly warp them back to Earth in seconds. Instead Red Dwarf enters an alternate parallel dimension in which the crew encounter female versions of themselves – Cat, however, encounters an opposite version of himself instead, the scruffy Dog. Lister gets drunk and sleeps with his female self. Later he finds himself pregnant with twins, as in the parallel dimension, it is the men who fall pregnant.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly. The parallel universe Red Dwarf computer Hilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and his bunk mate the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was transported to an alternate universe in which gender roles were reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was transported to an alternate universe in which gender roles were reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew encountered their female versions of themselves in an alternate universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story discussed male behavior by postulating women who behaved like stereotypical men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a universe in which women behaved as stereotypical men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew met female doubles of themselves and learned to question their own behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat was watching a recording of a dream he'd had in which he was performing a song and dance number.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly invented new drive system called the \"Holly Hop Drive\", declaring that it could transport get Red Dwarf back to Earth in an instant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "canine-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat's parallel universe double was a dog man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deb Lister mentioned about how the men of her universe had fought for equal rights back in the 1960s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram and his female double had a pointedly awkward conversation at the nightclub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram's female double was all over him at the club to his great dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly's face was covered with the kiss marks of his new love interest, Hilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister had a drunken one night stand with his female double from another universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken one night stand in a parallel universe left Dave Lister pregnant with twins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a man who got pregnant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunken one night stand in a parallel universe left Dave Lister pregnant with twins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram and Lister discussed pick-up lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Listie used hypnosis to pick up members of the opposite sex, we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Listie sexually harassed Lister in the nightclub.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x04", "title": "The Hunters", "date": "1988-10-15", "description": "A young boy falls into an undiscovered cave near a housing project. An archeologist studies strange paintings on its walls and then bizarre things begin to happen. Cave items move around and animals are killed and brought into the cave.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Paul Chitlik & Jeremy Bertrand Finch.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some cavemen were inhabiting an approximately 12,000 year old cave painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some cavemen were inhabiting an approximately 12,000 year old cave painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "property rights vs. public interest", "level": "major", "motivation": "A real estate developer quarreled with an archaeologist over who had a right to do what with the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A local sheriff was investigating some mysterious goings on around the mouth of a newly discovered cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Klein was a driven bone-digger-upper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rural character vs. urban character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Klein arrogantly told the local country sheriff that things would never have been done the way the had in the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy scout discovered a cave filled with prehistoric cave painting while out playing in the woods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x03", "title": "December 1939", "date": "1988-10-16", "description": "As the 'Phoney War' draws to a close, Hornet Squadron begins to see more action. Hart is unimpressed by the tactics and skills of his fellow pilots when it takes six of them to destroy a single German bomber. In its first encounter with German fighters, one pilot, Miller, is killed and three Spitfires lost without any successes to show for it. In another sortie, Cox is badly wounded and an inexperienced pilot, flying at the rear of the tight formation that Rex demands, is picked off by a German fighter without anyone else in Hornet squadron noticing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they defend Britain against the German Luftwaffe. Featured is the shift from the Phoney War period of the conflict to active hostilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron, now stationed in northern France, making their first encounter with the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron, now stationed in northern France, making their first encounter with the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rex struggled to keep Chris Hart under control. He openly questioned the fighting tactics used by Hornet Squadron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Rex trying to maintain order and morale among the men in his fighter squadron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story made a recurring point about the English pilots respecting their German counterparts: The English admired the daring taunt of the German pilot who had tossed a chamber pot on their airfield. One of the English spoke respectfully to a befuddled lone German survivor from the bomber they had shot down. The aforementioned chamber pot was tossed around at the headquarters and evidently kept as a curiosity of some interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Hart, a seasoned American pilot, commented on the undeniable snobbery he perceived within the British ranks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things had gotten serious between Fitz and Nicole to the point where she wanted his baby. Flash and Mary were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicole wanted to have Fitz' baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash was having trouble in the bedroom. Mary tried to comfort him by comparing the doing of \"it\" to riding a bike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Hart, a seasoned American pilot, was critical of the tactics employed by his fellow pilots in the downing of a German bomber. Rex highlighted the importance of disciplined formation flying in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hornet Squadron briefly mourned Miller who had been killed in action.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x05", "title": "Dream Me a Life", "date": "1988-10-22", "description": "A man in a retirement home is trapped in the dreams of a catatonic widow.\n\nDirected by: Allan King. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Both Roger and Laurel had difficulty mentally letting go of their late lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger was down in the dumps of the death of his beloved wife, even though he had dead for three years. Laurel likewise coped poorly in the aftermath of her spouse's demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Roger and Laurel apparently deciding to give love a chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Roger and Laurel apparently deciding to give love a chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream walking", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed Laurel had the telepathic ability to pull Roger into her dreams. Note: the event was attributed to her late husband but as far as I can see, he was a memory and thus part of Laurel's mind, not a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a dream, Laurel was urged by her deceased husband to accept his death and get on with her life. Indirectly we heard of Roger and his late wife whom he dearly beloved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Roger and Laurel had difficulty mentally letting go of their late lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Roger and Laurel had difficulty mentally letting go of their late lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was wracked with guilt over not having been able to safe his wife from dying three years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank tried his best to console Roger when after noticing that Roger was down in the dumps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger struck up a conversation with a catatonic widow, asking her to give him information that might shed light on whether or not he was losing his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was being a grumpy old man to his friend Frank.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x04", "title": "March 1940", "date": "1988-10-23", "description": "The German Blitzkrieg has begun with the invasion of France and Belgium. The squadron celebrates a double wedding as Fitz and Gordon marry their respective partners. The happy reception is brutally interrupted by a German air-raid that causes considerable damage. Rex is badly wounded by shrapnel but conceals his injuries from the other pilots but the painkillers he takes render him euphoric and overconfident. Recklessly ordering his men to attack a much larger German formation, Rex dives down to his death whilst Barton orders the others not to follow. Now squadron leader, Barton leads what remains of the squadron against the overwhelming German invaders. Sticky is killed and Patterson is nearly undone by fear and abandons his still-intact aircraft by parachute. Gordon's wife Nicole is killed by German air-attack whilst fleeing as a refugee but Fitz's wife Mary reaches England. The surviving pilots are likewise evacuated.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they take on the German Luftwaffe. Featured is the onset of the German invasion of France as seen through the eyes of the Spitfire pilots and those connected to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron, now stationed in northern France, getting their fannies handed to them by the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focused on Hornet Squadron, now stationed in northern France, getting their fannies handed to them by the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Rex trying to maintain order and morale among the men in his fighter squadron. Barton took over as squadron leader after Rex perished in an engagement with the German Luftwaffe. Among Barton's first act as leader was to take the men out for a fancy dinner, one gathers in part to keep up morale in the squadron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people, most notably Rex, died at the hands of the invading Germans. The remaining heroes of the Hornet Squadron reacted to this in assorted ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fitz and Mary were head over heels in love, as were were Flash and Nicole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is to contrast the jovial pre-hostilities behavior of the Hornet Squadron heroes, and their hangers-ons, with the morally devastated and somber lot who remained alive some time after the Battle of Britain had begun in earnest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squadron Leader Rex prepared a next-of-kin notification letter regarding Trevelyan's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Hart, a seasoned American pilot, was critical of the battle tactics that the British, Hornet Squadron in particular, were using to engage the German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz and Mary pillow talked about holding a double wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The German's crashed a double wedding that saw Fitz and Gordon marry their respective partners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barton shot dead the collie Riley as it bayed for its late master in the still of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A medical officer removed numerous pieces of shrapnel from Rex's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fitz and Gordon each shared a sentimental farewell with their respective bride, who were fleeing France for the relative safety of England.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x06", "title": "Memories", "date": "1988-10-29", "description": "A hypnotist who specializes in helping people relive their past lives tries to find her own history—and finds that everyone she ever helped hates their past lives.\n\nDirected by: Richard Bugajski. Story by: Bob Underwood.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a world in which practically everyone had such memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mary woke up one morning into a world in which it people recalled their past lives in great detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary woke up one morning in a world where it was taken for granted that virtually everyone had lived past lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a society where everyone could recall their past lives, Mary's inability to do so was akin to a disability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary showed a genuine interest in helping other people. First, her hypnotic regression therapy patient to remember her past lives, then she talked a desperate woman out of killing herself, then in helping people to forget about their memories of past lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with Mary performing a hypnotic regression on a patient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary stopped a fat woman from killing herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary stopped a fat woman from killing herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary was injected with a glowing blue truth serum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x05", "title": "May 1940", "date": "1988-10-30", "description": "Hornet Squadron is reinforced in readiness to take part in the Battle of Britain. Gordon has been rendered eccentric and mentally unstable by grief, but he continues to fly combat missions. Among the new pilots are a Czech pilot named 'Haddy' Haducek, a Pole named 'Zab' Zabarnowski and a nervous Englishman Steele-Stebbing who Moggy chooses as his next victim for bullying. Hornet Squadron are soon in the thick of the action as the German air-force repeatedly attack South-East Britain. To his horror, Steele-Stebbing is ordered by Moggy to destroy an unarmed German rescue plane.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they take on the German Luftwaffe. Hornet Squadron, freshly recalled to England, prepared for what would come to be know in the annals of aeronautic warfare as the Battle of Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the Second World War. The story focuses on Hornet Squadron engaging the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focuses on Hornet Squadron engaging the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon was consumed with grief upon being informed that his new bride had perished in a strafing run. He was a broken man from that point onward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is to contrast the jovial pre-hostilities behavior of the Hornet Squadron heroes, and their hangers-ons, with the morally devastated and somber lot who remained alive some time after the Battle of Britain had begun in earnest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Instead of toughing it out with his squadron, Pip parachuted into the sea at the sight of the German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barton asserted himself as new leader of Hornet Squadron by ordering Gordon to keep himself clean-shaven and wear uniform when in the pub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moggy singled out the new recruit Steele-Stebbing for bullying. Notably, Moggy gave him the demeaning new nickname \"Amanda\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moggy ordered Steele-Stebbing to strafe some defenseless German pilots who were at sea in a rubber dingy. He then ordered Steele-Stebbing attack an unarmed German rescue plane. Moggy's actions were later condoned by a high ranking officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the English members of Hornet Squadron were reluctant to accept new foreign recruits among their ranks. Gordon ranted and railed against the Swedish, whose loyalty he wasn't sure of. There were comments about how people mistrusted foreigners in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pip thought one particular Messerschmidt was responsible for all the Hornet Squadron deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon was told to shave off his aspirational stubble post-haste because they were \"not in the Navy\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was brief discussion about the appropriateness of shooting down planes marked with the symbol of the Red Cross.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Brain (1988)", "title": "The Brain", "date": "1988-11-04", "description": "A giant brain-like alien goes around terrorizing people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_(1988_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, giant brain was going around devouring people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, giant brain was going around devouring people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim and Janet were two high school students in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim and Janet were two high school students in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high schoolers Jim and Janet were officially an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Dr. Blake was really a space alien. There was a malevolent, giant brain-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A space alien was masquerading a self-help guru, named Dr. Blakely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a malevolent, giant brain-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass mind control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Blakeley harnessed the brainwaves of a giant brain-like alien to mind control the audience of his cultish self-help TV show for some nefarious purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother urged her teenage daughter to watch Dr. Blakely cultish TV show together, but the daughter declined her invitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a house decorated with Christmas lights, Dr. Blakely had a Christmas tree set up in his studio, and Jim played a Jingle Bells on his car radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim made a toilet explosively decompress all over his teacher Mr. Sweeting by putting sodium in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jim get in trouble for pulling a prank at his high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim's mother and father were disappointed in him for getting into trouble at school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim's mother and father were disappointed in him for getting into trouble at school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet initially denied Jim his satisfaction because she wanted to wait until she started college before engaging in sexual relations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant brain was said by Dr. Blakely to use hypnotic brainwaves to make people see hallucinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim's parents Mr. and Mrs. Majelewski. A woman slaughtered her husband with a chainsaw when he refused to watch Dr. Blakely cultish TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet called her dad for help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant brain manipulated a model skeleton at a distance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: They Live (1988)", "title": "They Live", "date": "1988-11-04", "description": "They Live is a 1988 American science fiction film written and directed by John Carpenter, and based on the 1963 short story \"Eight O'Clock in the Morning\" by Ray Nelson. It follows an unnamed drifter played by Roddy Piper, who discovers that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to spend money, breed, and accept the status quo with subliminal messages in mass media.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unnamed drifter was able to see subliminal messages that aliens were using to control people when he wore special sun glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens, who had insinuated themselves as the ruling class, used ubiquitous subliminal messages to control people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were manipulating society through the mass media to make people accept the status quo of social inequality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were manipulating society through the mass media to make people accept the status quo of mass consumerism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens used the mass media to control people in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens, who were living as the ruling class, were secretly manipulating society using subliminal messages to accept the status quo and conform to have everyone serve them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens has insinuated them selves as Earth's ruling class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police administered beatings during a razing of a shanty town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed drifter took up abode in a homeless people shanty town upon arriving in a new city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens, who were living as the ruling class, were secretly manipulating society using subliminal messages to accept the status quo and conform to have everyone serve them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x07", "title": "The Hellgramite Method", "date": "1988-11-05", "description": "An alcoholic goes through an extremely painful and potentially deadly cure for his drinking problem. He has to choose which is more important—the bottle or his life.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Shilton. Story by: William Selby.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miley was a miserable alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miley eventually kicked his drinking habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miley's wife Annie was fed up with his problem drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an intestinal worm, called the Hellgramite worm, that seemed as made for alcoholics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cure for Miley's alcoholism was potentially worse than the disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miley's wife Annie was fed up with his problem drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Murrick wanted vengeance against alcoholics for the death of his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Murrick was notably ruthless in his methods - kick the habit or die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miley and her young son Chad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were shown the pitiful sight of little Chad seeing his father first drunk out of his tree, and then withdrawn to his wits end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Murrick explained that Miley's pain was nothing to what Murrick had felt on loosing his wife and kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunk driver was responsible for killing Dr. Murrick's wife and two children as they tried to cross the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Miley writhing in Hellgramite worm induced pain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pieceofcake1988e1x06", "title": "August 1940", "date": "1988-11-06", "description": "Flip Moran has been killed, horribly burning to death and there is an awkward moment when his family arrive at the aerodrome and ask to see the body. The squadron's generally poor standard of marksmanship becomes apparent and Intelligence Officer Skelton is skeptical about the numbers of enemy planes it is claiming to shoot down. Skelton is appalled when Moggy refuses to show any remorse when a Spitfire he has bailed out of crashes into a town, killing four civilians. Fitz is killed in action and, in her grief, his pregnant widow Mary begins lurking around the edge of the aerodrome, which the other pilots find disturbing. Zabarnowski is killed, followed by Gordon. On 7 September, the German air-force stages a massive raid on London and every available RAF fighter squadron is flown into action. Hornet squadron has only five Spitfires left intact and Barton, Patterson, Moggy, Haddy and Hart fly into battle. They inflict heavy damage on the enemy but suffer in return. Haddy is the first to be killed. Hart pursues a crippled German fighter but decides to spare it, only to be shot down by another from behind. Hart's parachute catches fire and he plummets to his death. Moggy shoots down three German planes, getting the third right over his own aerodrome, but is surprised and killed from behind by another. Barton and Patterson are the only two survivors. A postscript describes how the battle on 7 September marked a turning-point in the Battle of Britain and the aerial campaign soon ended in defeat for the Germans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-pieceofcake1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "World War II", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode is set in the early part of the Second World War and tells the story of a squadron of Spitfire pilots as they take on the German Luftwaffe. Featured is Hornet Squadron defending England from regular attacks by the German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the Second World War. The story focuses on Hornet Squadron engaging the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might have been like to serve in the air force of the United Kingdom in the early stages of the Second World War. The story focuses on Hornet Squadron engaging the formidable German Luftwaffe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hornet Squadron suffered heavy casualties. The surviving members were completely demoralized. In the end, Barton and Patterson were the only two surviving pilots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is to contrast the jovial pre-hostilities behavior of the Hornet Squadron heroes, and their hangers-ons, with the morally devastated and somber lot who remained alive some time after the Battle of Britain had begun in earnest. In particular, at the end of the story every pilot of the original Hornet Squadron had been killed and only new recruits remained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kellaway made a personal visit to Mary's flat to break the sad news that her husband, Fitz, was missing and almost certainly dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary went into denial upon being informed of her husband Fitz' near-certain death. In grief, Mary began spending her days at the airbase, as if waiting for Fitz' miraculous return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary went into denial upon being informed of her husband Fitz' near-certain death. In grief, Mary began spending her days at the airbase, as if waiting for Fitz' miraculous return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moggy quipped that \"politicians all the same\" when the prospect of Hitler ruling over Britain was raised. His sentiment may have reflected a current of thought among many people in Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Spitfire that Moggy had bailed out of crashed into a town, killing four civilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon, despondent after losing his wife in a strafing run, was formally assessed for fitness to serve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary couldn't accept that her beloved husband, Fitz, perished fighting the Germans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x08", "title": "Our Selena is Dying", "date": "1988-11-12", "description": "A young woman and her dying mother switch bodies during a visit.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Pittman. Story by: Rod Serling, J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Brockman women wanted to live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brockman women were draining the life forces of other people to retain or regain their youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aunt Selena was on her deathbed, or so we thought - then in a sense the story was about the unwillingness to face death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young woman Debra started showing serious signs of premature aging after getting touched by her dying aunt. Diane went from middle age to being an elderly woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Selena and her nieces Debra and Diane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha and Diane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Burrell explained about his inherited loyalty to the Brockman family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane made an unwelcome pass on Dr. Burrell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x09", "title": "The Call", "date": "1988-11-19", "description": "A lonely man accidentally phones the wrong number and finds an intriguing female to whom he grows attached. When she refuses to meet him, he investigates and finds the phone in a museum next to the statue of a woman.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Shilton. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mary Ann and Norman were both very lonely individuals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Norman was lonely and in sore need of human touch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ann had killed herself, and the implication was that Norman might have.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ann was perhaps a deceased spirit haunting a sculpture, although she might also have been the sculpture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman was depressed because his existence lacked meaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flesh and blood Norman fell in love with a statue of Mary Ann, but it was difficult to see how such a relationship could progress. Although the story concluded with Norman and Mary Ann being two sculptures in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman and Mary Ann became besotted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman felt worthless (he had a dead end job and no social life) until he fell in love with Mary Ann.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted object", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that the spirit of Mary Ann was inhabiting her self-sculpture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman's colleague at the office politely asked a chatty Norman to stop talking to him for an hour.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x01", "title": "The Child", "date": "1988-11-21", "description": "Dr. Pulaski joins the Enterprise while La Forge prepares the Enterprise to transport dangerous plague specimens; Deanna spontaneously becomes pregnant and gives birth to a mysterious child.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ian :: Ian wants to know the world from a human point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi/Ian :: Troi and Ian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien entity incarnated itself in the form of a human child in an effort to better understand the human condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian's Species :: Ian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi to Ian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "An incorporeal entity experienced what it was like to be a humanoid child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Pulaski :: Data/Pulaski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf suggests Troi have one, lol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian left Troi to return to his incorporeal realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi grieved the loss of her young son, Ian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker indignantly demanded to know who the father of Troi's unborn child was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "minor", "motivation": "alien entity impregnated Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "alien entity impregnated Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "alien entity impregnated Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother's right to determine pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi took exception to Worf's strong suggestion to abort the fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski goes to bar instead of reporting for duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian :: Ian to Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unknown parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker confronted Troi, demanding to know who was the father of her unborn child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x10", "title": "The Trance", "date": "1988-11-26", "description": "A scam artist purports to channel the spirit of Delos, a former inhabitant of Atlantis. Together with a partner, he makes a living off of it. On the day of his big break, he channels another spirit, one who could cause him to lose everything. Is it punishment or a lesson from the Twilight Zone?\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Jeff Stuart and J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story started with Leonard and Don scamming gullible people out of their money by charging them to get life advice from a spirit that Leonard was pretending to channel. Leonard, however, soured on this scheme after suddenly acquiring the ability to channel a real spirit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard pretended that in trance he could channel the spirit of a long dead Atlantean named Delos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The real spirit that arrived seemed to value honesty and disparaged deception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The real spirit started teaching Leonard to be a better person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard had faked communicating with the dead, then he got a visit from a real spirit and it was more than he had bargained for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard became inhabited by a spirit that was seeking to impart in Leonard its wisdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal spirit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard faked channeling the spirit of a long dead Atlantean named Delos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As Delos, Leonard proclaimed that he hailed from the lost city of Atlantis and hinted as to the fate of this fabled place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard and Don plotted to cash in by taking their spirit channeling scam national.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spirit Leonard was channeling forced Leonard's psychiatrist to reflect on the psychiatrist's dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The real spirit was determined to make Leonard into a more honest person.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x02", "title": "Where Silence Has Lease", "date": "1988-11-28", "description": "The Enterprise becomes trapped in a spatial phenomena. Here they are subjected to unusual experiments by the whim of a being unlike any they've encountered before.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nagilum, Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard choses to self-destruct the ship rather than hand over half his crew to Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "non-Euclidean space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nagilum's realm did not obey the usual laws of space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard explaining", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard initiated an auto destruct in an effort to thwart Nagilum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in conflict with Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard choses to self-destruct the ship rather than hand over half his crew to Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. hole in space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum observing Enterprise crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nagilum and the humans had trouble seeing eye-to-eye on account of Nagilum being some sort of incorporeal superior being who thought of humans as laboratory rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Riker :: Worf/Riker is calisthenics holo-program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was curious explore a mysterious hole in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sneak attack tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when in doubt, surprise them – Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at fake ship door", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew before auto-destruct", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a higher power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard discuss at length with Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nagilum conducts elaborate experiment on Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when in doubt, surprise them – Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilums experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nagilum :: Nagilum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haskell :: Ensign Haskell", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Watchers (1988)", "title": "Watchers", "date": "1988-12-02", "description": "A teenager befriends a runaway, genetically engineered golden retriever that is smart enough to beat him at Scrabble. It is loosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean R. Koontz.", "collections": [ "Collection: Watchers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A golden retriever was genetically enhanced to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The teenager Travis befriended a golden retriever that'd been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A golden retriever was genetically enhanced to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travis was a teenager in a suburban community doing stereotypical teenager things, both at high school and when he was outside getting into trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "An uplifted golden retriever, a mutant monster, and a psychopathic killer had all been genetically engineered as part of a secret government research program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered monster went on a killing spree after having escaped from a secret government research laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Travis and his uplifted golder retriever pal to stop a murderous mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travis and his mother were featured throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high schooler Travis made out with his girlfriend Tracey in her father's barn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high schooler Travis made out with his girlfriend Tracey in her father's barn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tracey had an interaction with her father in the moments before he was slaughtered by a mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Gaines and Deputy Porter were investigating a series of gruesome killings until such time as they themselves became victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis attended his high school computer class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis' computer class teacher was stereotypical dork.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis mother was raising him without any apparent help from his father from whom she was divorced.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988)", "title": "My Stepmother Is an Alien", "date": "1988-12-03", "description": "An extraterrestrial woman is sent on a secret mission to Earth, after her home planet's gravity is mistakenly disrupted by a widowed scientist raising his daughter as a single father.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Stepmother_Is_an_Alien" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven was pointedly raising his 13-year-old daughter Jessie as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven was pointedly raising his 13-year-old daughter Jessie as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Celeste was an alien sent on a secret mission to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien Celeste took human form on her secret mission to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Celeste, a beautiful alien undercover agent, repeatedly struggled with basic human interactions. For instance, she struggled with simple tasks such as trying to kiss for the first time and cooking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven fell passionately in love with the beautiful alien Celeste and the soon married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven and the alien Celeste lived as husband and wife from about the mid point in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful alien Celeste became Jessie's stepmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The radar astronomer Steven Mills was fired from his job at a government SETI institute after he nearly blew up the place by harnessing lightning from a passing thunderstorm to boost the power of the Klystron machine he was using. Aliens later got him rehired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Celeste's home world was going to be destroyed unless Steven succeeded in resending the radio transmission he sent to the planet in the first place. The idea, such as it was, is that the radar bean Steven inadvertently sent into the planet's atmosphere made the planet's gravity increase continuously, jeopardizing the civilization thereon; repeating the transmission would somehow reverse the process, and save Celeste's planet from destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven Mills used lightning from a passing thunderstorm to boost the power of his Klystron machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speed of light limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven Mills asserted that it was impossible to send a radio message to another galaxy because doing so would require the message to travel faster than the speed of light. He presumably meant that one could not do so within a human lifetime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven Mills was working on sending radio messages into deep space, and in so doing inadvertently sent a radio wave out of the galaxy to Celeste's home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven and Jesse had a family dog Dave around the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celeste was dropped off on Earth in a futuristic, alien flying saucer-like craft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven and Celeste tied the knot at a hastily arranged ceremony that was held in Steven's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessie and her uncle Ron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven and his brother Ron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x11", "title": "Acts of Terror", "date": "1988-12-03", "description": "A battered wife living with her abusive husband finds the strength to leave him in the form of a statuette of a Doberman Pinscher.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wicked husband stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was a chauvinistic wife beater, and Louise was a try-so-hard can't lie innocent wife who finally had enough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Louise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was a domineering wife beater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loise wanted Jack dead when she learned about his cheating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loise proclaimed in the end that she hated Jack and wanted him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems in the end, the dog was or became her secret guardian conjurable at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "For the first half of the story it seemed that Louie was using a statue of a Doberman Pinscher to summon a real live one into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Louise finally overcame her vengeful hatred for Jack when she called off her Doberman Pinscher secret guardian on Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loise, with the help of her secret guardian Doberman Pinscher, ultimately confronted and left her abusive husband Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loise finally came to see that she was wrong to defend Jack's abusive behavior toward her and resolved to leave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Doberman Pinscher was after Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had a mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise confided in Claire that she was bottling up some deep-seeded anger she felt toward Jack. Louise, at the end, managed to save Jack by putting a lid on her hatred thus calling off the dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loise came face to face with her vengeful hatred for Jack when her guardian Doberman Pinscher was about to take his life, and she was powerless to stop it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x03", "title": "Elementary, Dear Data", "date": "1988-12-05", "description": "After Data easily solves an ordinary Sherlock Holmes holodeck mystery, Geordi asks the computer to make a Holmes villain capable of defeating him. The resultant Professor Moriarty soon becomes far more powerful than expected.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "should Moriarty have the usual rights that come with being a person, if he was one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Was Dr. Moriarty sentient or was he merely a hologram?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, James Moriarty :: Moriarty and Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pulaski was prejudiced against Data for his approach to solving mysteries", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Moriarty was a holodeck creation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty wants to escape the confines of the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski wished for a holodeck program that could outsmart Data and got Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "graciousness in defeat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient hologram James Moriarty took being outsmarted by Picard well, and accepted to be stored in computer memory until such time as Federation scientists could figure out how to free him from the confines of the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Geordi :: Data/Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty offers Pulaski tea and crumpets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty professed to be ruthless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data and LaForge had a lengthy argument about Data's supposed ability to use \"logical deduction\" to solve complicated Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Pulaski maintained that he merely recognized elements from other stories.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x12", "title": "20/20 Vision", "date": "1988-12-10", "description": "Newly promoted bank loan officer Warren Cribbens cracks his eyeglasses and discovers he can see the future through them. Faced with seeing the future of the farmers whose farms he must foreclose on, Warren can't bring himself to foreclose. Right away he's torn between doing his job and standing up for the people he helps.\n\nDirected by: Jim Purdy. Story by: Robert Walden.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "predatory financial practices in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Warren's bank was scrupulous in its endeavor to bankrupt people and get their land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Warren had to choose between his duty to the bank and his compassion for the poor sods he was foreclosing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Warren's cracked glasses suddenly allowed him to see the future, or perhaps possible futures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "A farmer was on the brink of the bank foreclosing on his farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren took pity on a farmer who's mortgage he was supposed to foreclose on by helping the farmer with his own money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren was able to see into the future through a pair of cracked eyeglasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warren realized that his boss was a ruthless man who wanted to bankrupt people and get their land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren helped the farmer with his own money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren had to tell people that they were broke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of a promotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren was promoted out of his comfort zone and against his objections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The narrator explained that Warren felt more comfortable around numbers than he did around other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cutler didn't see the human side of foreclosing on people houses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x04", "title": "The Outrageous Okona", "date": "1988-12-12", "description": "The Enterprise is caught up in the schemes of a flamboyant space rogue on the run, while Data explores humor with the help of a holodeck comedian (played by Joe Piscopo ).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benzan/Yanar :: Benzan and Yanar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "major", "motivation": "the matter of handing over Okona to the aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data learns stand up comedy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data learns how to tell a joke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "contempt at mere lasers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona :: Okona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data tried his hand at telling jokes on stage in front of an audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data about humor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debin/Yanar :: Altec leader and princess", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benzan/Yanar :: princess and guy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard respected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shotgun wedding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debin tried to force Okona to marry his daughter, after coming to the mistaken conclusion that she was pregnant with Okona's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona :: Okona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona :: Okona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley's eyes opened by Okona and his disinterest in mathematics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kushell/Benzan :: Kushell and Benzan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kushell, Debin :: Kushell and Debin to their sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona/B.G. Robinson :: Okona and Robinson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guinan :: Guinan at enduring Data's jokes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew at Okona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona :: Okona was sometimes self-deprecating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thadiun Okona :: Okona steals jewel to help couple", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x13", "title": "There Was an Old Woman", "date": "1988-12-17", "description": "A writer of children's books autographs a book for a sick young fan. Later, she starts hearing the sound of children in her house.\n\nDirected by: Otta Hanus. Story by: Tom J. Astle.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal haunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hallie or her house was haunted by children's ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hallie or her house was haunted by children's ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hallie lamented that her stories were no longer wanted by today's gamer generation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hallie, a writer of children's books, took a special joy in reading her story to a seriously ill young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Hallie read her story to a gravely ill child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hallie was a once passionate author of children's books.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hallie remembered fond memories when she showed prospective customers around the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian an Nancy were taking care of their terminally ill, young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Nancy commiserated after a funeral was held for their young son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy II (1988)", "title": "Final Fantasy II", "date": "1988-12-17", "description": "The game's story centers on four youths whose parents were killed during an army invasion by the empire of Palamecia, who are using hellspawn to conquer the world. Three of the four main characters join a rebellion against the empire, embarking on missions to gain new magic and weapons, destroy enemy superweapons, and rescue leading members of the resistance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to Firion, Maria, Guy, Leon, and the Wild Rose rebel army to stop the evil Palamecian Empire from conquering the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wild Rose rebel army put up a spirited resistance gainst the evil Palamecian Empire to regain the kingdom of Fynn, which had fallen to Palamecian imperial forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Palamecian Empire, led by the wicked Emperor Mateus, was making a bid for world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Mateus was out to conquer the world. The dark knight Leon was uttered these power hungry words: \"I am the Emperor! I won't let go of that power!\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a rebel army's efforts to put an end to a world war that the Palamecian Empire had initiated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of magical spells is a key component of the game play and story plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Firion, Maria, and Guy eventually procure for themselves an airship with which they can easily travel around the world. The Palamecian Empire built a giant war-airship named the Dreadnought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duke Borgan betrayed the rebels, resulting in the fall of the town of Fynn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pavel claimed to have been doing well for himself by stealing from the empire's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon considered himself to be a coward for having left his brother for dead on the battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Scott of Kas'ion and his cowardly brother Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josef was reunited with his kidnapped daughter Nellie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Borgen enslaved the people of Bafsk and forced them to work tirelessly on constructing a powerful warship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Borgen's own men accused him of being a greedy moron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy displayed a innate, and presumably unique ability to communicate with a community of beavers located deep within the Snow Cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria was reunited with her brother, the dark knight Leon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Emperor's soul was resurrected from the underworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard gave his life to save Firion, Maria, Guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Firion, Maria, and Guy saved a race of wyverns, known as the Dragoons, from going extinct.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x14", "title": "The Trunk", "date": "1988-12-24", "description": "A young man at a motel discovers an empty trunk that grants any wishes. He uses it for popularity, but at a party he discovers who his true friends are.\n\nDirected by: Steve DiMarco. Story by: Paul Chitlik & Jeremy Bertrand Finch.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wish-granting magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willy found an old trunk that granted wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willy apparently wished to be popular, but became disappointed when he realized that people were only interested in him for his wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everything changed for Willy, who was working a go nowhere job at a motel and apparently had no friends, when he discovered a wish-granting trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy happiness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willy found this out first hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willy told an old lady on Social Security that he would pay her rent out of his own pocket if she ran into trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willy was praised for his generosity upon urging a party attendee to take home with him two bottles of Willy's wine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Candy told Willy in no uncertain terms that she was after him because he could buy her things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story a woman was on the phone with her mother, explaining how she had gotten dumped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willy briefly deliberated on what to wish for when he discovered a wish-granting trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hoodlum was jealous of Willy and wanted to know his secret.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x15", "title": "Appointment on Route 17", "date": "1988-12-31", "description": "After receiving a heart transplant, a man finds his personality has changed. He also discovers that he has a strange attraction to a waitress at a road diner.\n\nDirected by: René Bonnière. Story by: Haskell Barkin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heart transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom's personality changed dramatically after he got a such a transplant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The successful business man Tom felt strangely compelled to date the lowly waitress Mary Jo even though he didn't even know who she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Jo didn't care for Tom coming around to the restaurant where she worked as a waitress to hit on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Jo was devastated by the sudden passing of her boyfriend, and shunned romantic attention from others because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom got some of Jamie Adler's personality after being transplanted with his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being transplanted with a new heart, Tom came to see that he had not been leading a good life and he resolved to change himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was thunderstruck when he saw Mary Jo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being transplanted with a new heart, Tom came to see that he had not been leading a good life and he resolved to change himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom remonstrated about the lack of meaning in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom had a work friend with him. Mary had an older confidant at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom's secretary tore into him when word spread around the office that he was hitting on an area waitress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed Tom had a one-nighter with his secretary at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed Tom had an abortive tryst with his secretary at work.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hard to Be a God (1989)", "title": "Hard to Be a God", "date": "1989", "description": "A human visitor to an alien world that is in a medieval state of development experiences all the horrors of their brutish society. It is based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God_(1989_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet that is populated by people whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, was forbidden from interfering in the development of an alien society that was in a medieval stage, but he ended up doing so anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The inventor of the printing press, the germ theory of disease, and the telescope were all persecuted and their ideas maligned because of superstition and religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in medieval times", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on an alien world where society is in a medieval stage of development and superstition is being used to retard the emergence of science and enlightenment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton was a human for the future planet Earth who lived secretly under the alias Rumata of Estorai on an alien planet in a medieval stage of development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton, a human from the future planet Earth, was working as an undercover operative among a people who were in a medieval stage of development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton, a human from the future planet Earth, witnessed numerous acts of superstition and barbarism while working as an undercover observer on planet full of people in a medieval stage of development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton and Kyra fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anton's colleagues came to pick him up in an octagonal variation of a classic flying saucer type spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were tortured mercilessly in the Tower of Joy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the future Earth had a society free of war, crime, and prisons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being taught a clever battle tactic by Anton, the peasants took up arms against the nobles and society descended into turmoil thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reba led a cult of fanatical monks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reba and his monk followers mistook an apparent celestial event for the coming of their god.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Meet the Hollowheads (1989)", "title": "Meet the Hollowheads", "date": "1989", "description": "The film is a black comedy and satire of 1950s sitcoms set in a strange future populated by bizarre, tentacled creatures which function dually as household appliances and food.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Hollowheads" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is essentially a parody on family life as it was portrayed in 1950s sitcoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Miriam Hollowhead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miriam was anxious about her teen daughter Cindy dating boys, but overall they had a healthy mother and daughter relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Hollowhead kids getting into stereotypical kid mischief. Billy had gotten a black eye in a fight at school. A giddily intoxicated Cindy got escorted home from a party by the police. The aspiring musician Bud stumbled home from a party intoxicated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry made the mistake of letting his overbearing boss Mr. Crabneck visit his family home for dinner as part of a plot to get a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miriam was interacting with her young son Billy for the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and his young son Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young friends Billy and Spike were hanging out in Billy's room and ultimately went on a small adventure to the pipe plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy got into an argument with his older brother Bud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and his teenage daughter Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy was mortified upon finding that her kid brother Billy was listening on as she recited a sentimental poem about a boy she liked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bud was an aspiring musician of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy was tasked with the unenviable job of having to feed grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Crabneck invited himself over to Henry's family home for dinner only to rudely hit on his teenage daughter and wife against their wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bud and Cindy both came hepped up on a substance known as \"vapors\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy was brought home by the cops for being high on \"vapors\" and they explained to her parents about how her date nearly overdosed on \"butt polish\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Salute of the Jugger (1989)", "title": "The Salute of the Jugger", "date": "1989", "description": "The film (also released as The Blood of Heroes) follows a group of itinerant Jugger ball players in a future post apocalyptic world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_of_Heroes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a barren world caused by wars waged in the 20th century and now forgotten, most live from hand to mouth in small settlements, scrounging out a bare subsistence harvesting hardy crops, raising dogs as food, and trading in trinkets from the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film centers around a game, called Jugger or just The Game, which involves two armored teams of five attempting to score by placing a dog skull on the opposing team's goalpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ambitious peasant girl Kidda was determined to prove that she could be an elite Jugger ball player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seasoned Juggle ball player Sallow took the ambitious peasant girl Kidda under his wing and taught her the ins and outs of this brutal game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jugger ball players, peasant girl Kidda most notably, enjoyed competing in their savage sport in which two armored teams of five attempting to score by placing a dog skull on the opposing team's goalpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kidda informed her mother that she was going join a band of itinerant Jugger ball players.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a league of nine underground cities, one of which Sallow's Jugger ball team visited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Overlord of the Red City plotted to get back at Sallow over a past indiscretion he's committed with the Overlord's daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sallow crossed paths with his old friend and teammate Gonzo in Red City.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x16", "title": "The Cold Equations", "date": "1989-01-07", "description": "A rescue pilot on the frontiers of space is faced with unpleasant prospects when he finds an innocent stowaway on his ship.\n\nDirected by: Martin Lavut. Story by: Tom Godwin, Alan Brennert.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marilyn so longed to see her brother that stowed away about a cargo vessel that was en route to the planet where he was stationed. They exchanged mutual proclamations of their love for one another shortly before she was jettisoned into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marilyn had to prepare herself for the grim reality that she needed to be jettisoned out into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Thomas jettison his teenage stowaway? If not, then he would not have enough fuel to deliver his life saving cargo of vaccine to a plague-stricken planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Thomas jettison his teenage stowaway? If not, then he would not have enough fuel to deliver his life saving cargo of vaccine to a plague-stricken planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas neglected to follow orders to immediately jettison the stowaway he discovered on his cargo vessel, although he ultimately did so, but only after the stowaway was given the chance to say goodbye to her brother and come to terms with her grim fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Thomas jettison his teenage stowaway? If not, then he would not have enough fuel to deliver his life saving cargo of vaccine to a plague-stricken planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marilyn stowed away aboard a cargo vessel in an ill-contrived effort to visit her brother on a distant planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marilyn felt ashamed of having been selfish once she understood the consequences of stowing away on the cargo vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Barton was delivering a vital cargo of vaccine to a distant colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Barton was delivering a vital cargo of vaccine to a distant colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story was set aboard a no-frills cargo transport vessel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x05", "title": "Loud As A Whisper", "date": "1989-01-09", "description": "The Enterprise hosts a deaf, telepathic ambassador who mediates difficult peace negotiations with the assistance of his trio of telepathic interpreters.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deafness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores how the famed Federation mediator Riva used his deafness to his advantage in helping to resolve a bitter political dispute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rive :: Riva overcoming the loss of his chorus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riva between warring factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riva and his chorus communicated through telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The negotiator extraordinaire Riva was sent to mediate an end to a centuries-old war between two tribes on planet Solais V.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "warring alien factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deaf mediator Riva was bummed out when the trio of telepaths who helped him to communicate were horribly disintegrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "warring aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi about the eye surgery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contempt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about peacemakers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with deaf people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi took pains to find a way to communicate with Riva after he lost his chorus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva discusses the horrors of war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva must cooperate with Troi to accomplish his mission; on a higher level the aliens must learn to cooperate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi/Riva :: Troi and Riva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva :: Riva persevering without chorus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva :: Riva about mediation protocols", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva/Riva's chorus :: Riva in chorus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riva was too proud to go back and negotiate a truce between two warring factions after he lost his chorus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: DeepStar Six (1989)", "title": "DeepStar Six", "date": "1989-01-13", "description": "A crew of an underwater military outpost struggle to defend their base against the attacks of a sea monster (possibly a giant sea scorpion).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepStar_Six" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the crew of an experimental US Naval facility located on the ocean floor that discovered an ancient-looking creature living in a cavern under the seabed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of an experimental deep sea US Naval facility accidentally released a dangerous giant arthropod upon blowing up a cavern that lay below the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of an experimental deep sea US Naval facility fought for survival against a giant arthropod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "McBride and Joyce were mutually infatuated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Diane Norris was doing her thing in the experimental deep sea US Naval facility sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The never wanting to settle down drifter McBride got his romantic acquaintance Joyce pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of an experimental deep sea US Naval facility was installing a nuclear missile storage platform on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cooling system of the nuclear reactor powering a facility on the ocean floor broke leaving the crew with a matter of hours before a meltdown occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The facility on the ocean floor was equipped with a high-tech diving suit that allowed its occupant to walk around on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snyder lost his nerve and launched himself out from the ocean floor facility in an escape pod that was known by everyone to have no chance of reaching the surface.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x17", "title": "Stranger in Possum Meadows", "date": "1989-01-14", "description": "A young boy playing in a field meets a man who is really an alien collecting specimens to bring back to his planet.\n\nDirected by: Sturla Gunnarsson. Story by: Paul Chitlik & Jeremy Bertrand Finch.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The visiting alien found that he had something in common with humans: familial (parental) love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mrs. Wilkins warned her young son Danny multiple times about the dangers of fraternizing with strangers, but Danny disregarded her advice, and was very nearly abducted by an alien as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny and his mother encountered a strange man who turned out to be an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed an alien named Scout who was masquerading as a human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the trials of what it was like for Mrs. Wilkins to raise Danny without a father. Also she confided in the alien about how it wasn't easy raising Danny on her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the young boy Danny playing in the woods and doing typical childhood things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a strange alien who was collecting Earth animal specimens to take back to his home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw both Mrs. Wilkins love for her son Danny and the alien's love for his own family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien took pity on Mrs. Wilkins and returned to her her young son Danny, whom the alien had intended to abduct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the alien follow his orders and take Danny back to its home world to serve as a specimen or return the boy to his loving mother?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien froze Danny with the intention of bringing the boy to his home world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Terror Within (1989)", "title": "The Terror Within", "date": "1989-01-20", "description": "In a post-apocalyptic future, human survivors are fighting a group of mutant monsters they refer to as \"Gargoyles\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Within" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where a biological agent has left 99% of the world population dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Mojave Lab members found themselves besieged by hostile mutant creatures they referred to as \"gargoyles\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in shortly after a biological agent of some kind has suddenly killed off 99% of the world population. It follows a small group of survivors who, with only two months of supplies at best, were terrorized by mutant creatures they referred to as \"gargoyles\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in shortly after a biological agent of some kind has suddenly killed off 99% of the world population. It follows a small group of survivors who, with only two months of supplies at best, were terrorized by mutant creatures they referred to as \"gargoyles\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mojave Lab members found themselves besieged by hostile mutant creatures they referred to as \"gargoyles\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A biological agent caused people to be either mutated into or give birth to hostile mutant creatures that were referred to as \"gargoyles\" in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David mourned the death of Sue whom he had loved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and his dog Butch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x18", "title": "Street of Shadows", "date": "1989-01-21", "description": "While taking a walk in a wealthy neighborhood, an unemployed man living in a shelter experiences an unusual transformation.\n\nDirected by: Richard Bugajski. Story by: Michael Reaves.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The life of an unemployed man who was living with his family in a homeless shelter was contrasted with that of a wealthy business man who was living in a mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Steve and his family were living out of a homeless shelter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The life of an unemployed man who was living with his family in a homeless shelter was contrasted with that of a wealthy business man who was living in a mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chronically unemployed Steve was so desperate to provide for his family that he attempted to burgle the mansion of a wealthy business man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve's inability to find a job put him in a situation where he and his family were about to be kicked out from the homeless shelter they were staying at.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through some unexplained twist of fate, Steve's conscience appeared to have entered into the body of the wealthy businessman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve woke up inhabiting the life of a wealthy businessman with unimaginable wealth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was living out of a homeless shelter with his wife Elaine and their young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was living out of a homeless shelter with his wife Elaine and their young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frederick ruthlessly discussed with his lawyer how to cut expenses in his business, including cutting personnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news article indicated that the business man had exhibited a sudden streak of charity - little did they know that his body had been temporarily possessed by down-and-out Steve, who merely wished to benefit his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve burgled a rich man's mansion and got shot for the trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To save himself from going to prison, Steve aggravated his offense by throwing a heavy bottle at the rich businessman's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's love for his wife was mad abundantly obvious.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x06", "title": "The Schizoid Man", "date": "1989-01-23", "description": "Brilliant scientist Dr. Ira Graves cheats death by uploading his memories and personality into the android Data .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira transferred his consciousness into Data to stave off death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data not granted the same freedoms a human would have been in light of his strange behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data experiences emotions when Ira was in his circuitry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira to keep on living", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ira transferred his mind into Data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data not granted the same freedoms a human would have been in light of his strange behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira was jealous of Picard over Brianon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira at Brianon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data grew a beard which he insisted commanded respect and projected thoughtfulness and dignity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kareen Brianon/Ira Graves :: Brianon/Ira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira's longtime personal assistant Kareen Brianon mourned his passing. The crew mourned Ira at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira at Brianon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira Graves as Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira Graves :: Ira Graves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Famed scientist Ira Graves was proud of his achievements in cybernetics to the point of arrogance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x19", "title": "Something in the Walls", "date": "1989-01-28", "description": "A doctor arrives at his new job in a sanitarium. He discovers the case of a woman who is terribly frightened of things that appear on her walls.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a contemporary sanitarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Dr. Mallory Craig as he tried to understand why his patient, Sharon, was terrified of patters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon went into a terror at the sight of patterns in rugs, wallpapers, linoleum floors, etc. She saw a face in the patters and she was convinced it wanted to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Sharon's body had been taken over by one of the pattern-dwelling beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pattern being in the wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon was in a sanitarium because she thought a face she saw in a pattern on the wall was now out to get her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of patterns", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon went into a terror at the sight of patterns in rugs, wallpapers, linoleum floors, etc. She saw a face recurring in the patterns and was convinced its bearer wanted to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Craig observed that Sharon rearranged furniture and wouldn't sleep in anything but a perfectly white room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly private individual", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon was nothing if not a problematic person of some sort or another.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x07", "title": "Unnatural Selection", "date": "1989-01-30", "description": "The Enterprise receives a distress call from the USS Lantree, discovering their crew has apparently died of old age. The race is on to solve the mystery before scientists on a research colony suffer the same fate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "genetically engineering the kids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pulaski in her efforts to cure the disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski defies the rules in her efforts to cure the disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard curtails Pulaski's research to cure disease to prevent it from spreading any further", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Pulaski :: Picard/Pulaski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about bringing the teen aboard the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Pulaski wanted to study some very special children. A number of medical scientists were afflicted with rapid aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara Kingsley dared to genetically engineer humans with external immune systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara Kingsley dared to genetically engineer humans with external immune systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara Kingsley dared to genetically engineer humans with external immune systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara Kingsley led an effort to genetically engineer children with immune systems capable of producing antibodies that actively sought out and destroyed pathogens before they could enter the body. The project backfired catastrophically when the airborne antibodies combined with a flu virus and began attacking human DNA, causing those infected to age rapidly and die. It was feared that this new super pathogen would spread uncontrollably across the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a selfless act, Dr. Pulaski knowingly put herself at risk of contracting the rapid aging disease that had infected the researchers in order to find a cure for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "boy transported to Enterprise encased in styrolite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara Kingsley dared to genetically engineer external immune system furnished human children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Standard affair sci-fi force fields abounded in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski risks contracting disease in order to find a cure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski came to see that seeking immortality can come with unintended consequences, like the creation of new diseases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski in curing the disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski upon contracting the disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: Pulaski's transporter phobia featured and the kids could not be transported", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Picard denied Pulaski's request to beam the children aboard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski for patients", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski admitted her error in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski aged rapidly after being exposed to a boy who was genetically engineered to have an external immune system. The Lantree crew died of rapid aging.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x20", "title": "A Game of Pool", "date": "1989-02-04", "description": "In this remake of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, a pool champion has defeated everyone at his local pool hall, except for the long-dead legend, Fats Brown, who returns from the afterlife to answer his challenge to a high-stakes game.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: George Clayton Johnson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse really wanted to show that he was better at pool than the legendary pool player Fats Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jesse was obsessed with being the best pool player of all time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Jesse's feeling of always playing second fiddle to the departed Fats Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the whole life-or-death gamble was merely a ruse to see if Jesse could cope with the pressure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around a pool champion testing his skills against a legendary pool player returned from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a high-stakes wager vs. walking away", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Jesse put his life in on line to play the legendary pool player Fats Brown?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jesse and Fats were both extremely competitive pool players.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse cut a deal with a dead man for his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fats heckled Jesse with talk of this and there was something in the story line about Jesse focusing on pool to the exclusion of all other concerns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fats Brown returned from the afterworld to accept Jesse's challenge to a game of pool.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e8x01", "title": "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine", "date": "1989-02-06", "description": "Elliott Blake is a \"psychic\" who, with his girlfriend/partner in crime Dr. Paula Hall, is attempting to scam U.S. military intelligence into hiring him to use his ESP abilities against the Soviets. Blake and Hall rig a test with a stock set of Zener cards, but the Army wants more proof of Blake's abilities. They bring in Max Dyson, a magician with a side job in exposing fake psychics. Dyson, who has never failed to expose frauds, comes up with a new test for Blake. Three Army officers drive to randomly selected areas and take pictures of whatever they see. Then they will attempt to transmit those images to Blake with their thoughts. To the surprise and delight of the Army officials, Blake passes the test. What they don't know, however, is that Blake and Dyson are old acquaintances who both did time together in a Ugandan prison, and Dyson helped his old friend rig the test for old times' sake. Unfortunately for Dyson, Blake holds a grudge against Dyson for ratting out his escape plans to the guards, getting himself an early release and getting Blake three more years. Given a chance at revenge, Blake takes it: he traps Dyson in Dyson's own homemade guillotine, and decapitates him. Columbo now has to solve the crime before the government whisks Blake beyond his reach, changing his identity.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo tricks Blake into a confession and attempted murder by taunting him with a promise to investigate him for the murder for as long as it takes to bring him down. When Blake tries to kill Columbo with the guillotine, he confesses while he's pulling the plug. But because Columbo has rigged the guillotine, he is unharmed.\n\nDirected by: Leo Penn. Story by: William Read Woodfield.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fake psychic Elliot Blake, through some quick thinking on his feet, came up with the following elaborate plot to avenge himself on Max Dyson: He decapitated Max using the Max's own homemade trick guillotine. Then he hastily arranged for it to look like an accident. He used a magic trick to lock the doors from the inside as he left. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elliot decided to take revenge on Max over Max having betrayed him years prior in the Ugandan prison. Elliot's vengeance took the form of him decapitating Max in Max's own homemade guillotine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder alleged mystery: Did a stage magician manage to decapitate himself in his own homemade guillotine, or did an aggrieved old acquaintance perhaps have a score to settle?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The parapsychological researcher Dr. Paula Hall and her \"psychic\" accomplice, Elliot Blake, were faking research outcomes to secure continued funding for the institute. Elliot had designs on scamming the CIA into hiring him to use his supposed ESP abilities against the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's murder victim Max Dyson was an accomplished stage magician. Columbo made a concerted effort to learn the tricks of the stage magician trade in his pursuit of Max's killer. The magic shop owner adamantly refused to reveal trade secrets in the stage magic business. In particular, he refused Columbo's request to explain how the trick guillotine worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The key plot element was Max having betrayed Elliot in the Ugandan prison by ratting out Elliot's escape plan to the guards in exchange for his freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot Blake and Paula Hall were romantically involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Elliot Blake feigned to be able to hear the thoughts of other people, under certain circumstances and with a certain percentage of success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Elliot Blake faked having telepathic abilities, and had designs on scamming The CIA into hiring him to use his supposed mind reading abilities against Soviet double agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of kids were shown having a fun time at the magic shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was laid to rest in the presence of a number of his fellow stage magicians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot got a bit choked up at Max's burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot tried to make Columbo think that Max had committed suicide by lopping off his head using his own homemade guillotine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo couldn't have arrested Elliot Blake for murder without help from the boy magician Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula was enraged when Elliot explained that he was going to disappear. She told him to \"stick it\" and she later assisted Columbo and the boy in exposing Elliot as a fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elliot was going to go under cover himself in order to expose Soviet double agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The historical use of a guillotine as an execution device was briefly touched upon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x08", "title": "A Matter Of Honor", "date": "1989-02-06", "description": "Riker is assigned to a Klingon vessel via an officer exchange program between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker went aboard a Klingon vessel, and a Benzite named Mordock came aboard the Enterprise, in an attempt to foster cross cultural understanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker, Mendon :: Riker with Klingons and Mendon with Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker between Federation and Klingon commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kargan, Klag :: Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mendon, Benzite :: Mendon and Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "The chain of command was firmly impressed upon Riker as soon as he joined his new Klingon crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Mendon :: Riker and Klingons, Mendon and Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Worf, Wesley/Mendon :: Riker/Worf and Wesley/Mendon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon :: Mendon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Klag :: advancement in Klingon command structure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon :: Mendon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon :: Mendon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker needs to learn new leadership skills aboard Klingon vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kilngons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon :: crew with Mendon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Vekma :: Riker and Klingon females", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at the Klingon feast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker gets dose of Klingon hospitality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon :: Mendon gets a lesson in humility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klag :: Klingons at Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mendon dramatically over-estimated his competence to serve as an officer aboard the Enterprise and failed spectacularly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Slipstream (1989)", "title": "Slipstream", "date": "1989-02-10", "description": "A bounty hunter tries to turn in a strange man who has been accused of murder.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream_(1989_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set not long after drastic climate change has swept away civilization as we know it, leaving few scattered settlements of survivors attempt to keep human life going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Byron was noticeably kind toward other people in a doggy dog post-apocalyptic world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtuous android Byron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bounty hunter Matt Owens ultimately befriended and freed his android captive Byron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sleeping with Ariel expanded the android Byron's range of emotional experiences, and made him curious to become more human-like, but in the end he decided that he was too dangerous to be among humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set sometime after drastic climate change has swept away civilization as we know it. A vast wind current, the Slipstream, encircles the globe, and a few scattered settlements of survivors attempt to keep human life going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some cultists rejected technology and, moreover, attributed the recent apocalypse to out-of-control technological advancements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon being granted his freedom, Byron briefly wavered over whether he'd go with his old friend Matt or his new love interest Ariel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Fly II (1989)", "title": "The Fly II", "date": "1989-02-10", "description": "The Fly II is a 1989 American science fiction horror film starring Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga. It was directed by Chris Walas as a sequel to the Academy Award-winning film The Fly (1986), itself a remake of the 1958 film of the same name. Stoltz's character in this sequel is the adult son of Seth Brundle, the scientist-turned-'Brundlefly', played by Jeff Goldblum in the 1986 remake. With the exception of stock footage of Goldblum from the first film, John Getz was the only actor to reprise his role.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Fly" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Fly's son MArtin is himself half-human and half fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundle slowly turned into a fly-hybrid creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundle slowly turned into a fly-hybrid creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth Brundle's teleporter was being perfected at the Bartok company complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundle developed from a baby to a full grown adult in the space of five years, and continued to age rapidly, because he had inherited housefly genes from his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accelerated growth rate therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundle developed from a baby to a full grown adult in the space of five years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundle resolved to finish the work his fatehr Seth had begun on a teleporter. Bartok wanted Martin Brunble to think of him as a father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Brundel and Beth Logan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bartok Industries ruthlessly exploited Seth's son Martin in the pursuit of making teleportation technology a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Brundel and his hideously deformed dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Brundel became super strong and agile once he began to transform into a fly-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Brundel transformed into an insectoid type creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin Brundel became super agile once he began to transform into a fly-like creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x21", "title": "Room 2426", "date": "1989-02-11", "description": "Martin Decker is confined to a special room for acts and thoughts against the state. They want the formula for a weapon he does not want to reveal. Escape for Martin comes from the mind.\n\nDirected by: Ryszard Bugajski. Story by: Jeremy Bertrand Finch & Paul Chitlik.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker was subjected to torturous electroshocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Dr. Decker trust in his fellow prisoner Joseph, or is Joseph perpetrating a nefarious trick to get his hands on Decker's secret notebooks?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker was trying to conceal the secrets of a lethal bio-weapon he had invented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Dr. Decker teleporting himself out of the hospital where he was being held against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker was being held in a dark and dank hospital where he was subjected to some kind of electric shock torture. His cell mate Joseph offered to show him how to escape by teaching Decker to teleport himself out of the hospital using only the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker was developing a biotechnology to end famine but his interrogators wanted to use his work to make a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker told his torturer Dr. Ostroff that he had been blinded by his pride, among other things, and that he now saw that it was wrong of him to have developed an easily weaponizable biotechnology with a view to preventing famine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Decker was taken into custody for \"wrong thinking and other intellectual crimes against the state\" where he was tortured by a sadistic scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hypodermic needle with blue goo was displayed in a way that suggested it was used to procure real memories from prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Decker gave the last of his water to Joseph after Joseph had been knocked about and tossed in the dank cell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x09", "title": "The Measure Of A Man", "date": "1989-02-13", "description": "When Data refuses orders to be dismantled for research purposes, a hearing is convened to determine if he is a legal citizen or property of the Federation . Guest stars Amanda McBroom as JAG Philippa Louvois.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data's personhood challenged in a court of law", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data's sentience was a subject of hot debate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker must defend Data in court", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in intentions vs. trust in judgement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data/Maddox and Data/Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Bruce Maddox :: Data/Maddox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maddox of Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Bruce Maddox :: Data and Maddox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the trial and also Data and bluffing in poker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was accused of not being a real person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maddox wanted Data to be bis bitch", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard defended Data's right of self-determination in Starfleet tribunal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Maddox :: Data and Maddox about understanding principles of android construction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "human rights or scientific advancement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Philipa Louvois :: Picard and Philipa Louvois about duty and honor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure (1989)", "title": "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", "date": "1989-02-17", "description": "Two slacker friends Bill and Ted travel through time to assemble historical figures for their high school history presentation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Bill and Ted Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Ted%27s_Excellent_Adventure" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Best friends Bill and Ted went on a journey back in time to assemble a cast of historical figures for their high school history presentation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Best friends Bill and Ted went on a journey back in time to assemble a cast of historical figures for their high school history presentation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted traveled through time to assemble a cast of historical figures for their high school history presentation. In total they collected Napoleon, Billy the Kid, Socrates, Sigmund Freud, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln, and Ludwig von Beethoven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted had formed a garage band and planned to make it big even though they didn't much know how to play their instruments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted used Rufus's time-traveling phone booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were going to flunk their high school history class unless they got an A+ on an upcoming oral presentation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill had a crush on his young and vivacious stepmother Missy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted was on the verge of sending him to an Alaskan military school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Preston and his very young wife Missy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Preston married a girl who was a senior in high school when his own son was a junior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Near future versions of Bill and Ted encouraged them to trust in their new guide Rufus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's little brother Deacon took care of Napoleon while Bill and Ted traveled back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted traveled back in time to the Old West to collect Billy the Kid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the ancient Greco-Roman world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted got a taste of life in Ancient Athens when they traveled back in time to collect Socrates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted nearly got themselves executed in 15th century England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A student gave a speech in which she argued that the social stratification of contemporary American society was similar to that of Marie Antoinette's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned at the conclusion of the film how Bill and Ted's music was destined to become the basis for a future utopian society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x22", "title": "The Mind of Simon Foster", "date": "1989-02-18", "description": "In an impoverished future, Simon Foster goes to a pawnshop to sell some personal items to raise money for rent. The shop owner offers to buy some of his memories. In Simon Foster's life, what could possibly be valuable?\n\nDirected by: Doug Jackson. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pawnbroker used a machine to excise certain memories from Simon's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon was jobless and on the brink of getting evicted from his cockroach infested apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon came to regret selling his most cherished memories to a sleezy pawnbroker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling a part of one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon sold his memories to a sleazy pawnbroker to get money to pay the rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon was on the verge of being thrown out on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon was jobless and desperate to pay the rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon went to a pawnshop to sell a box of valuables after his unemployment benefits ran out. It olny went downhill from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon sold so many of his memories that he was hardly himself anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pawnbroker was selling recordings of Simon's memories to well-paying voyeurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon was shown speaking to an unemployment agency representative over one of this gizmos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw that in a near future (1999) plagued by chronic unemployment and expensive basic commodities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon had a mishmash of other people's memories implanted into his mind toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon had a mishmash of other people's memories implanted into his mind toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x10", "title": "The Dauphin", "date": "1989-02-20", "description": "When the Enterprise hosts the young leader of Daled IV, Wesley soon finds himself falling in love with her. Guest stars Paddi Edwards as Anya.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The teenagers Wesley and Salia became infatuated with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a predetermined life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Salia :: Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley/Salia :: Wesley and Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley/Salia :: Wesley and Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Salia :: Should Salia choose her duty or Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allasomorphs of Daled IV :: Saila's species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with having to give up on a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salia :: Salia had to devote her life to ruling her people instead of following her passion to life freely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Anya :: Worf and Anya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley/Salia :: Wesley and Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overprotective guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "Salia :: Salia at Anya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tidally locked planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daled IV :: Salia's home planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Wesley and Salia go on a holo-date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anya/Salia :: Anya/Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salia :: Salia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Anya :: Worf and Guardian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf vs. Anya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anya :: Anya at crew", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x23", "title": "The Wall", "date": "1989-02-25", "description": "A U.S. military experiment opens a portal to an unknown place. After sending one team, the Army calls upon a career soldier to investigate, where he finds an idyllic planet. He has to decide whether to stay or go back to his old life.\n\nDirected by: Atom Egoyan. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Major Alex fulfill his duty and allow humanity access to a peaceful little utopia that we would undoubtedly wreck havoc upon?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Slater explained that the portal appeared at a time when a research team was running an experiment on wormholes, so it stands to reason that the portal was such a thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kumbayah utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The community on the other side of the portal lived in peace and the community members had no possessions, no religion, and no laws except to be kind to each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex described the community on the other side of the wormhole as a totally agrarian society, and they seemed to get along just fine without and machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man discussed the possibility of using such portals to launch tactical nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e8x02", "title": "Murder, Smoke and Shadows", "date": "1989-02-27", "description": "Boy genius Hollywood director Alex Brady, prior to becoming a success, made a 16mm movie in which a young woman, Jenny Fisher, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Brady and his cameraman conspired to pretend that the woman never made it to the filming, leading the official investigation to conclude that it was an accidental death. Jenny's brother Leonard Fisher shows up in Brady's office with a copy of a film that was left to him by Brady's recently deceased cameraman. Leonard vows to use the film to destroy Brady, who kills him, using one of his studio movie sets.\n\nFinal clue/twist: When he realizes that Columbo is coming closer and closer to solving the murder, Brady hires two actresses to enact a scripted conversation in the studio commissary for Columbo to overhear, hoping it would misdirect him. Columbo is not fooled, noticing that one of the actresses was dressed as a nurse when there were no scenes filmed during the studio that day that required one. Columbo then beats Brady at his own game, using undercover cops to \"play the part\" of the commissary staff so they can overhear Brady trying to bribe his secretary to keep quiet.\n\nMolly Hagan co-stars as Alex Brady's girlfriend, Ruth Jernigan.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Richard Alan Simmons.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leonard Fischer threatened to out his childhood friend Alex Brady for having abandoned Leonard's sister to die after she had a motorcycle accident. Alex hatched the following plot to eliminate Leonard Fischer: Late at night, Alex spooked Leonard into jumping on a metal gate that Alex had surreptitiously electrified, killing Leonard instantly. Alex then removed any identifying materials from Leonard's person and dumped the body on a beach, thinking the police would conclude he was struck dead by lightning and leave it at that. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leonard Fischer threatened to out his childhood friend, Alex Brady, for having abandoned Leonard's sister to die after she had a motorcycle accident. Alex killed Leonard to prevent this from happening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was a man walking on the beach at night struck dead by lightning, or was foul play afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Alex Brady was a prodigy film director. He was shown directing on Hollywood sets, and conversed about his craft at length with Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard flew all the was to Los Angeles to confront his childhood friend, Alex, over Alex being complicit in the death of Leonard's sister in a motorcycle crash some years prior. Alex murdered Leonard to keep Leonard from ruining his reputation in the film industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was romantically involved with the actress, Ruth Jernigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hollywood film director, Alex Brady, had in his teenage years shot a 16mm film of a childhood friend, Jenny, riding a motorcycle roughshod in the hills. When Jenny fell and gravely injured herself Alex and his cameraman high-tailed it away from the scene of the accident, leaving Jenny for dead. The plot turns on this cowardly action coming back to bite Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big-time film director Alex Brady was hiding that he'd left a childhood friend to die after motorcycle accident some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ruth Jernigan hologram was presented as a novelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and his childhood Leonard commiserate over the death another childhood friend. Alex later shed alligator tears for his recently deceased friend, Leonard, whom Alex himself had murdered in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonard was torn up over the death of his sister in a motorcycle crash some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo fed his Basset hound its third snack of the morning and worried that it might become too fat to fit in the Peugeot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's body language in the elevated directors' chair belied the fact that he asserted he wasn't afraid of heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex told his longtime secretary, Rose, to start looking for a new job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex treated his secretary, Rose, with contempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose feigned to blackmail Alex into paying for her to take a long paid vacation and a cruise around the world. In the end, it was revealed that Columbo had put her up to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remarks were made about Rose's advanced age.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x24", "title": "Cat and Mouse", "date": "1989-03-04", "description": "A shy woman finds that a cat is actually a cursed \"Casanova.\" She falls for the man, but finds that her Prince Charming is actually a scoundrel.\n\nDirected by: Eric Till. Story by: Christy Marx.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Andie fantasied about being with a hunky, romance novel sort of man, but things were not so rosy when she actually found one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andie was unusually shy and seemed to feel more comfortable curled up with a novel than in the company of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andie initially found everything she ever fantasied about in a man in Guillaume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guillaume loved Andie and then planned to leave her, but she had other ideas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legendary womanizer Guillaume ended up getting castrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two women clearly hated each other's guts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guillaume was a veritable Casanova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andi drugged Guillaume and arranged to have him neutered after he declared he would leave her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are asked to what extent Guillaume was the perfect partner for Andie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andie went from being shy and tense to bubbly and laid back after meeting Guillaume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guillome was a cat by day but was able to transform into a man at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two women were jealous of the attention the other received from Guillaume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine came between Andie and Guillaume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andie took in a stray cat that turned out to be a man cursed to live as a cat by day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guillaume was cursed to be a black cat during the daytime hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guillome was a cat by day but was able to transform into a man at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the interpersonal relationships of two women and a man working at a pharmacy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x25", "title": "Rendezvous in a Dark Place", "date": "1989-03-11", "description": "An old woman with an obsession with death attends funerals for entertainment. One night when an injured thief breaks into her home, she lets him die and waits for Death to come and collect him.\n\nDirected by: René Bonnière. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We heard that death is misunderstood, not to be feared, and in fact the only thing any one of us have left to long for in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "An old lady named Barbara had a morbid fascination with death, especially her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara discussed with the Grim Reaper about how dying people faced their own impending demises.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barbara was paid a visit by the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason was concerned about his mother's morbid fascination with death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara gave some indications that she was romantically interested in the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with a reverend presiding over a funeral in a church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trent was on the run for having robbed a liquor store.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Leviathan (1989)", "title": "Leviathan", "date": "1989-03-17", "description": "The crew of an underwater geological facility are stalked and killed by a hideous mutant creature.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(1989_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the film is that a crew mining silver on the ocean floor encounter a strange and hostile creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of a underwater geological facility were stalked and mostly killed by a mutant creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tri-Oceanic Corporation executives left the crew of their company's underwater geological facility for dead rather than risk exposing themselves to a potential market loss that might result from attempting to pick them up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The geologist Steven Beck supervised an undersea mining operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson was treating the underwater geological facility various crew members when they started to manifest strange lesions on their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underwater geological facility was equipped with high-tech diving suits that allowed the crew to walk around on the ocean floor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x26", "title": "Many, Many Monkeys", "date": "1989-03-18", "description": "An epidemic breaks out and many people are struck blind. Something more happens, however: People have become cold and heartless toward each other.\n\nDirected by: Richard Bugajski. Story by: William Froug.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A strange disease was spreading around that made people go blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a hospital handling the aftermath of a strange disease that was spreading around that made people go blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Reed among others were struck blind by a contagious disease. They were show coping with their new visionless reality in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story mostly took place in a working, realistic, hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A report surfaced that an explosion at a bio-weapons facility may have been responsible for the blindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Reed was upset that his wife abandoned him in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire expressed disgust at people without insurance being denied care at the hospital where she worked as a nurse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ms. Reed had abandoned her husband in his hour of need to save herself, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A report surfaced that an explosion at a bio-weapons facility may have been responsible for the blindness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Reed and ultimately Claire babbled about punishments for wickedness and the story then ended on that note.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Reed, and later Claire, identified the cause of the epidemic was the conspicuous lack of care that people show one another in modern society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x11", "title": "Contagion", "date": "1989-03-20", "description": "A dangerous alien computer virus runs rampant through the Enterprise after causing the destruction of her sister ship, the USS Yamato.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arms race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romulans wanted to use the gateway for war, but Picard destroyed them on behalf of the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Iconian gateways enabled instantaneous travel all over the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iconian :: Iconians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew vs. malfunctioning ship computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "entering the neutral zone for a story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all the talk about not trusting the ship and using old fashioned tech", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned the deaths of their compatriots aboard the Yamato.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Iconians were vilified by historians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space computer virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald Varley :: Varley to save his ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski :: Pulaski about using splints", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Iconian script was pictographic in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard shared with Captain Donald Varley a hobbyist's interest in the archaeologist digs on Iconia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard helps Romulans with computer virus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x27", "title": "Love is Blind", "date": "1989-03-25", "description": "A man plotting to murder his wife's lover meets a blind singer who seems to know all about his plans.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Shilton. Story by: Cal Willingham.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack seemingly killed his wife, and whoever shot the singer had killed his own wife, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jack wanted to whack whoever he thought was whacking his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was about the singer persuading Jack to get a hold of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The singer had messed with someone's wife, and Jack though someone was messing with his. Also the singer confronted Jack with the fact that Jack was a serial adulterer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The blind singer had become sensitive to certain people's dark thoughts, when he lost his sight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack went to a bar on a hunch that his wife was going to be there with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The guy who blinded the singer had apparently hanged himself after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The singer was blind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x12", "title": "The Royale", "date": "1989-03-27", "description": "Riker, Worf, and Data investigate a structure on the surface of an icy gas giant, which appears to be a hotel from 20th century Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Casino Royale Makers :: the aliens had though the book was reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped in a work of fiction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The landing party found themselves trapped in a mysterious hotel that turned out to be an alien simulation based on a 21st century pulp novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Data, Worf :: Riker, Data, Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "you can't live a very fulfilling life locked in a hotel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Data, Worf :: landing party vs. captivity in hotel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vanessa :: the blond at the poker table", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "non-Euclidean space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The landing party went through a hotel's revolving door that they expected would lead them outside, but it instead returned them to the same spot from whence they'd exited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "they found an old astronaut", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Fermat's Last Theorem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard tried to prove this theorem in his ready room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bellboy :: bellboy and Mickey D's girlfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casino Royale Makers :: Royale makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was bored senseless by that horrible novel. An astronaut was bored to death in that horrible story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens toward astronaut", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Arena (1989)", "title": "Arena", "date": "1989-03-29", "description": "Set in 4038, the first human in 50 years is set to compete in the intergalactic boxing sport called simply \"The Arena\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(1989_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the human Steve as he fights the odds competing in an alien boxing league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve put his skills to the test in a fierce alien boxing league that no human had dared compete in for the past 50 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and and the four-armed alien chef Shorty were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was head over heels for Jade, but it was to his detriment, because she drugged him the night before his title fight after giving him his satisfaction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story unfolds on a large space station full of miscellaneous aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set aboard a large, city-like \"star station\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the wake of losing their jobs, Steve and Shorty tried to turn their meager savings into a a nice little sum at an underground casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve had 12 hours to come up with the money he and Shorty owed to the casino owner Mr. Rogor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x28", "title": "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", "date": "1989-04-01", "description": "A man sells his soul to a demon for some racing tips. After being terrified by the demon he goes for help from the criminal boss he borrowed the track money from.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Harlan Ellison.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "demon", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The demon Volkerps and in the end presumably the gangster Nino himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arky struck a deal first with the treacherous, homicidal demon Volkerps, and then the story ended with Arky being left to make a deal with the even worse demon Nino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story started by pointing out how cowardly Arky was, then demonstrated a variety of cowardly acts by different people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arky had borrowed money from Nino at 750 percent interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nino was clearly a gangster who had the whole city under his thumb - he enumerated some of his criminal capabilities to the oracle woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arky was in a panicked terror over a legitimate concern that a demon was going to take him away and eat him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nino and his secretary/accountant Miss Thorne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Volkerps met his dad in the box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gangster Nino spoke of his days and night being filled with ennui since such time as he had mastered all the usual underworld rackets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underworld crime boss Nino was reminded by his secretary that he had a dinner scheduled with the mayor. He also told the oracle woman that she could call the police because they work for him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e8x03", "title": "Sex and the Married Detective", "date": "1989-04-03", "description": "Sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby hosts a popular call-in radio show and has authored a best-selling self-help manual, The Courtesan Complex. She is also involved both professionally and personally with her business partner David Kincaid. That is, until late one night when Dr. Allenby makes an unexpected after-hours trip to her office and catches David in flagrante delicto with her assistant Cindy Galt in the therapy room. Dr. Allenby is incensed, and decides to kill David. To do so, she takes a page right out of her own book. She first disguises herself as a sexually aggressive, high-class prostitute named \"Lisa\", wearing a black wig and sexy black clothing, that she stashes in the women's bathroom of a fundraiser she's attending. During the fundraiser, she sneaks to the bathroom to change into her disguise. She then sneaks out in the disguise and goes over to a nearby bar where she's arranged for David to meet with her. Making sure to be seen, she tricks David into taking them both back to her clinic. Once there, she shoots him, then makes it look like the mysterious \"lady in black\" committed the crime.\n\nFinal clue/twist: During their first meeting, Columbo notices that Allenby's new coat still has the price tag attached. He later makes the link connecting the new coat and the \"lady in black\" costume to the same store. He finds the tag in the trash and is able to contact the store where the salesperson who sold the wig to her was able to recognize Allenby from the photo of her in her book.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Jerry Ludwig.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby executed an elaborate plan to murder her lover and business partner, David Kincaid, after chancing upon him in flagrante delicto with her assistant: She disguised herself as a high-class prostitute named \"Lisa\", wearing a black wig and sexy black clothing that she stashed in the women's bathroom of a fundraiser. During the fundraiser she sneaked out in the disguise and over to a nearby bar where she had arranged for David to meet with her. Making sure to be seen, she tricked David into taking them both back to her clinic. Once there, she shot him dead and made it look like the untraceable \"lady in black\" did it. One gathers that she would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turned on the sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby executing an elaborate plan to murder her lover and business partner, David Kincaid, after chancing upon him in flagrante delicto with her assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot turns on Joan shooting her lover, David, dead out of revenge for sleeping with her assistant. In Joan's own words, she wished to \"make him pay for the anguish and the humiliation and all the loneliness to come\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was David Kincaid shot dead by a high-class prostitute, or was a spurned lover behind it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby executed an elaborate plan to murder her lover and business partner, David Kincaid, after secretly catching him in flagrante delicto with her assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Dr. Joan Allenby had a doctorate in psychology and was a practicing sex therapist. She made Lt. Columbo uneasy at times with talk about her professions, and was show counseling patients in a group setting in one scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Joan reacting to stumbling upon her lover, David, playing pelvic pinochle with her assistant, Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Joan reacting to stumbling upon her lover, David, playing pelvic pinochle with her assistant, Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plain Jane sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby masqueraded as a glamorous prostitute to satisfy her sexual fantasy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby had published a best-selling book, entitled \"The Courtesan Complex\", in which she advanced the theory that being a high-class prostitute is one of the most common sexual fantasies among women. Joan herself masqueraded as a sexually aggressive, glamorous prostitute named \"Lisa\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby had published a best-selling book, entitled \"The Courtesan Complex\", in which she advanced the theory that being a high-class prostitute is one of the most common sexual fantasies among women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo impressed a group of school children with his tuba playing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood music lessons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo derailed the attempts of a man to teach the tuba to a group of school children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter confided in Columbo that he had been jealous that Joan chose David over himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter confessed to having been denied by Joan after having made a play for her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x13", "title": "Time Squared", "date": "1989-04-03", "description": "Picard encounters his future self, when the Enterprise becomes caught in a time loop.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise stuck in a time loop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mobius timeline", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Energy Vortex Entity :: energy vortex entity nearly engulfed the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard met a version of himself from a short time in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard's double had his confidence shaken", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew vs. time loop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker enthusiastically cooked Owon eggs, a gourmet food, for his less than appreciative colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg (1989)", "title": "Cyborg", "date": "1989-04-07", "description": "A mercenary battles a group of murderous marauders along the East coast of the United States in a post-apocalyptic future.", "collections": [ "Collection: Cyborg" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where a horrible plague had brought civilization as we know it to an end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pearl volunteered to be made into a cyborg through surgical augmentation so that she might complete a dangerous courier mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small group of scientists were working to cure an apocalyptic plague, known as the living death, that had crippled civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gibson got back at the gang leader Fender for having killed his girlfriend and for later having crucifying him on the mast of a beached, derelict ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fender's desire to inflict pain and misery, and the fact that he liked the miserable dystopia, was a recurring motif", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gibson had flashbacks to happier times with his now dead lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fender said he wanted to control the cure in order to get power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nady was rebuffed by Gibson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gibson was preoccupied with memories of his murdered wife and family", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x29", "title": "Special Service", "date": "1989-04-08", "description": "A man finds that his life has been on TV for the past five years.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We heard how people were bored with ordinary TV and obsessed with a reality TV channel featuring an unwitting John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how people, women in particular, were obsessed with John and his life on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how people, women in particular, were obsessed with John and his life on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's life had been commoditized without his knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life was secretly stage managed", "level": "major", "motivation": "John discovered that his life was, in fact, a stage managed TV show reality - and in the end he was left wondering whether perhaps it still was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, John discovered that fame and money were, in fact, somewhat to his liking after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "John opined that it must surely be unlawful to treat him as the TV company had done. They effectively live streamed his entire life to cable TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John discovered that his wife of several years was in fact a paid actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was, not entirely to his dismay, beset upon by hoards of besotted young women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1985e3x30", "title": "Father and Son Game", "date": "1989-04-15", "description": "A 79-year-old man wants to keep on living so he transplants his brain into a younger body. His son, however, resents his father's continued life and tries to wrestle power from him.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Jeremy Bertrand Finch & Paul Chitlik.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Was Darius still human, and still himself, after replacing his brain with a computer? How about after becoming a program on CD?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was Darius' intrepid desire to go on living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were told that Darius was 60% machine and had an artificial brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anita gave her unwavering support to her husband Darius after his brain was replaced with an electronic one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael tried to legally take over his father's company on the ground that the the entity claiming to be his father was just a machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and his father were rivaling for control of the family company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael made a power grab to take over his father's company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darius had his mind transfered first onto a computer, and then uploaded to an artificial brain in the body of what was presumably a younger man's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "An old and dying man had his mind copied into an electronic brain that was subsequently implanted into a younger man's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darius virtually worked himself to death to keep his son from taking over his business. Moreover, he ruined his relationship with his son by seeking immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and his mother-in-law Anita quarreled over whether or not his father was alive or dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita wept when the doctor told her that her husband didn't make it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lords of the Deep (1989)", "title": "Lords of the Deep", "date": "1989-04-21", "description": "An seabed base is attacked by alien life forms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_the_Deep" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on board an ocean floor laboratory in a near future ocean where the Earth's ozone layer has been depleted and new means of habitation and survival on the seabed are being explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seabed base crew encountered apparently hostile alien life forms on the ocean floor, but in the end it turned out that the aliens were benevolent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with a race of aliens, who were discovered to be inhabiting Earth's ocean floor, warning humanity not to destroy their environment as they had done to their own planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 2020 by which time humankind had consumed \"most of Earth's resources\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fellow crew members Claire and Jack got cozy together in the confines of their undersea base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It wasn't possible to go outside without getting second degree burns because humans had all but destroyed the Earth's ozone layer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martel Neptune Corporation was up to nefarious things on the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x14", "title": "The Icarus Factor", "date": "1989-04-24", "description": "Riker 's estranged father visits to brief him on the command he's been offered, and Worf's friends discover he is about to miss an important Klingon rite of passage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about accepting the captain's chair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyle Riker :: Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyle Riker :: Kyle to Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Kyle Riker :: Riker and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Kyle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A reconciliation between Kyle Riker and William Riker was delayed because both men were too stubborn to admit that they were each partially responsible for the falling out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyle Riker couldn't accept that his son William Riker has surpassed him in anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf spoke of his childhood as an outsider kid amongst humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi takes exception to crewman's appraisal of the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Wesley :: Worf and crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski, Kyle Riker :: Pulaski and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pulaski/Kyle Riker :: Pulaski and Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingon pain-stick ritual seemed mighty peculiar to the humans on the Enterprise, but what would they not do for their friend Worf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Kyle Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley and crew to Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley and crew to Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moontrap (1989)", "title": "Moontrap", "date": "1989-04-28", "description": "It is up to two ancient astronaut to stop an alien invasion by a race of predatory cyborgs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moontrap" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Jason and Mera to stop an advanced race of predatory cyborgs from overrunning the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of predatory cyborgs were encountered on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason and Mera fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason was an aging astronaut who was twenty years past his prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Jason and Mera to stop an advanced race of predatory cyborgs from overrunning the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and his fellow astronaut Ray went to the Moon in an Apollo rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason complained about how bad the food was aboard the space shuttle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and his fellow astronaut Ray encountered a huge alien spaceship apparently floating derelict somewhere between Earth and the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason was paid a visit by his teenage son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989)", "title": "Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman", "date": "1989-04-30", "description": "Jaime helps a new young bionic woman, former wheelchair user Kate Mason, adjust to her bionic implants. Meanwhile, Steve decides to ask Jaime to marry him, but he is interrupted when someone using bionic powers sabotages the security systems at OSI Headquarters and steals secret documents. Being suspects, Jaime and Steve are detained but break out to conduct their own investigation.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_Showdown:_The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_and_the_Bionic_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve Austin had a bionic arm, a bionic eye, and two bionic legs. Bionic woman Jaime Sommers. Wheelchair bound Kate Mason received various bionic implants. Ron was also enhanced with bionic components.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate Mason, who had been confined to a wheelchair since the age of six, was chosen to be enhanced with bionic implants that would allow her to walk again. We were led to believe that Jim Goldman was paralyzed after getting caught in an explosion, and he confined himself to a wheelchair to make it believable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate and Ron. The story concluded with Jamie proposing to Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic eye to zoom in on various people and things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve had a bionic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly hard handshake", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate, who did not yet know the strength of her new bionic arm, brought a man to his knees with her handshake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie heard CIA agents talking well outside of an ordinary human's earshot. Kate's bionic eye was equipped with facial recognition software.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie could hear people talk well outside of an ordinary human's earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and Jamie escaped from some CIA agents by both jumping over a high barrier wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and Kate performed various bionic arm enabled feats of strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar Goldman and Jim Goldman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate learned to use her new bionic legs to run fast to the point of being blurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sporting to promote peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate participated in the International Unity Games in Toronto.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e8x04", "title": "Grand Deceptions", "date": "1989-05-01", "description": "Colonel Frank Brailie is running a paramilitary mercenary school owned by General Jack Padget. Brailie is also having an affair with Padget's wife Jenny. Brailie is siphoning money from Padget's foundation into what he calls \"The Special Projects Fund\", which is secretly used to finance illegal dealings. The suspicious General asks an employee, Sgt. Major Lester Keegan to look into the matter. Keegan finds the evidence but decides to blackmail Brailie instead of reporting his findings. During a training exercise, occurring on the night of the General's birthday party, Brailie sneaks into the mercenary camp, wearing a ski mask, and stabs Keegan, then puts the body on an explosive that is detonated. He sneaks back to the General's estate and makes it look like he was assembling a diorama of the Battle of Gettysburg at the time.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo realized that a shipping box labeled as having contained books (which Brailie received earlier on the day of the murder) was too small to contain the number of books it was supposed to contain, and thus the box must have instead contained the toy soldiers for the diorama, and the books must have arrived in a shipment that arrived later (which Brailie claimed contained the toy soldiers). This meant that Brailie had swapped the labels on the boxes and had had enough time to set up the diorama over the course of the day, and therefore had no alibi for the time of the murder.\n\nDirected by: Sam Wanamaker. Story by: Sy Salkowitz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Frank Brailie hatched the following plot to eliminate his prospective colleague and blackmailer, Sgt. Major Lester Keegan: He snuck out from a nighttime social gathering, crept over to the training grounds where Keegan was overseeing a training exercise, stabbed Keegan in the heart, and then made it look like Keegan died from being in the close proximity of an explosive device when it was detonated. Brailie then returned to the said gathering without anyone being the wiser, thus securing for himself a seemingly air-tight alibi. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Frank Brailie killed his prospective blackmailer, Sgt. Major Lester Keegan, to keep Keegan from outing him for embezzling money and sleeping with the general's wife. Frank tried to blackmail General Padget in turn, but Padget had too much integrity to fall for Frank's trap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following alleged murder mystery: Did the experienced soldier Sgt. Major Lester Keegan perish in an explosion during a routine training exercise, or was something more foul afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around the goings on at a paramilitary mercenary school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embezzlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Frank Brailie was funneling training school money through a \"Special Projects Fund\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenny had a paramour because her husband, General Padget, was too aged to fulfill his marital duties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Padget's wife, Jenny, was carrying on a steamy love affair with Padget's subordinate, Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Padget's wife, Jenny, was carrying on a steamy love affair with Padget's subordinate, Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo pointed out that Colonel Frank was too arrogant to be caught cleaning up mud from the floor: the slip-up that had put the lieutenant on the colonel's scent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Frank Brailie was funneling training school money through a \"Special Projects Fund\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Padget was wheelchair-bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Padget celebrated his birthday in the company of friends, family, and benefactors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The divination art of \"I Ching\" was being experimented with at the thinktank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo spoke to his Basset hound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Padget was gifted a diorama of the Battle of Gettysburg for his birthday. Columbo discussed the Battle of Gettysburg with General Padget.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sgt. Major Lester Keegan was laid to rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Frank was running guns to Africa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x15", "title": "Pen Pals", "date": "1989-05-01", "description": "The Prime Directive is threatened when Data befriends the child of a pre-warp planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Data, seconded by Picard, violates Prime Directive to save Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Data, seconded by Picard, violates Prime Directive to save Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley must cooperate with team members", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Wesley :: Wesley and bridge crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley given leadership assignment to bolster his self-confidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data in Sarjenka's world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarjenka :: Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Sarjenka :: Data helped save a young alien girl whom he had befriended from dying in a volcanic cataclysm in direct violation of the Prime Directive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley as group leader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data violates regulation to save Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data used memory wipe on Sarjenka to get around having violated the Prime Directive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spontaneous planetary break up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drema V :: Drema V was falling to pieces", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horseback riding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was an avid equestrian and liked to relax with some horseback riding on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarjenka :: Sarjenka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Picard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rising Storm (1989)", "title": "Rising Storm", "date": "1989-05-07", "description": "It is the year 2099 and a small team of revolutionaries take it upon themselves to overthrow the fundamentalist Christian government that is ruling the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100464/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States of the year 2099 was ruled by a fundamentalist Christian government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothers Artie and Joe gage got themselves neck deep in a revolutionary movement to overthrow the fundamentalist Christian government that was ruling the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two sisters Mila and Blaise Hart led a revolutionary movement to overthrow the fundamentalist Christian government that was ruling the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States of the year 2099 was ruled by the fundamentalist Christian dictator Reverend Jimmy Joe II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "optimist vs. pessimist", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bright eyed, glass half full Artie was contrasted with his cynical, glass half empty older brother Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fundamentalist Christian government of the United States used various methods to indoctrinate the people under their rule, including the rewriting of history, mandatory church attendance, and mandatory viewing of dictator Reverend Jimmy Joe II's televised speeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two sisters Mila and Blaise Hart led a revolutionary movement to overthrow the fundamentalist Christian government that was ruling the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe was initially only interested in helping Mila and Blaise to get rich, but Blaise ultimately convinced him that fighting for freedom was more important than personal greed. Reverend Jimmy Joe II behaved as a crooked televangelist, peddling products to the masses during his sermons and speeches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fundamentalist Christian government of the United States outlawed non-approved media, subjected people to daily urine and blood tests, home inspections by armed men, and instituted mandatory church service attendance. They also ran sham elections in what amounted to a perversion of democracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States of the year 2099 was ruled by a fundamentalist Christian government led by the dictator Reverend Jimmy Joe II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donwaldo tortured a man to death by poking his surgically exposed organs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arty had been indoctrinated in the fundamentalist Christian public school system into believing that the United States had once been run by \"Negroes\" and \"Zionists\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fundamentalist Christian government of the United States had literally rewritten the history books to shed itself in a glowing light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fundamentalist Christian government of the United States made mandatory the viewing of Reverend Jimmy Joe II propagandistic speeches.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989)", "title": "The Trial of the Incredible Hulk", "date": "1989-05-07", "description": "David Banner visits a city where he becomes embroiled in an ongoing struggle between the city police, who are aided by the superhero Daredevil, and organized crime ring.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_the_Incredible_Hulk" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David struggled to control the creature within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt Murdock practiced law in spite of being blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daredevil was working outside the law with approval of Police Chief Tendelli to bring criminals in their city to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Powerful underworld crime boss Wilson Fisk, who was Daredevil's arch nemesis, was making a bid to increase his control over the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the way of a review, David explained at the start of the film how his condition was caused by a dose of gamma radiation. Matt was blinded at the age of 14 from exposure to an unspecified green toxic liquid that fell off a truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Murdoch demonstrated this ability on a number of occasions. For example, he overheard Ellie Mendez's nurse talking with Fisk's men well outside of normal earshot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x16", "title": "Q Who", "date": "1989-05-08", "description": "Q flings the Enterprise 7,000 light years beyond Federation space and introduces them to the deadly Borg .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise under pursuit by Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Federation venturing out into space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew upon encountering the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard stays to explore new sector of galaxy in which Q has placed them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: The Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q accused the human race of hubris because they dared to explore space before they were ready, or some such (he was a bit vague on the “why”).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard stays to explore new sector of galaxy in which Q has placed them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew face the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew vs. Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew face the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Borg were going about capturing humanoids, turning them into cyborgs, and assimilating them into their collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard stayed to explore the new sector of the galaxy in which Q had placed them even though doing so came with potential dangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be mindful of first impressions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spilling hot coffee all over Captain Picard was not the first impression that Sonya Gomez wanted to make on her new captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "politeness towards replicator AI", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonya Gomez :: Sonya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility of a Borg invasion of Earth was contemplated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard grieved the loss of 18 or so crewmen who died in an attack by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q looked upon humans as amoeba.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Return of Swamp Thing (1989)", "title": "The Return of Swamp Thing", "date": "1989-05-12", "description": "After her mother's mysterious death, Abigail Arcane travels to the Florida swamps to confront her evil stepfather Dr. Arcane. It is a sequel to the 1982 film Swamp Thing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Swamp_Thing" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-plant hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Swamp Thing was half man, half plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abby confronted her evil stepfather in the wake of her mother's mysterious death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Arcane was working on developing a genetic treatment to stave off the effects of aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Swamp Thing and the vegetarian, plant lover Abby fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The half-human, half-plant bog monster Swamp Thing and the vegetarian, plant lover Abby fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle, under the guidance of Dr. Arcane and Dr. Lana Zurrell, combined genes from various swamp animals and human beings, creating a variety of human-animal hybrid monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle, under the guidance of Dr. Arcane and Dr. Lana Zurrell, combined genes from various swamp animals and human beings, creating a variety of human-animal hybrid monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle created a half-man, half-cockroach monstrosity by means of genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The renown geneticist Dr. Lana Zurrell was working with Dr. Arcane to develop a genetic treatment to reverse the effects of aging in his basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abby ran into two sex deprived yokels Clive and Gurdell in the swamp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two boys who were pals went on an adventure in the swamp to try and get a photograph of Swamp Thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy remarked that Bigfoot was better known than Swamp Thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Arcane revealed his ultimate goal for developing an anti-aging treatment was to ensure his own immortality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x17", "title": "Samaritan Snare", "date": "1989-05-15", "description": "A group of seemingly dimwitted aliens, the Pakleds , kidnap Geordi to \"make their ship go\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mentally distinguished being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story are the intellectually challenged, yet somehow spacefaring Pakled aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about his own mortality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pakled take Geordi hostage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker stops to help Pakled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Pakled took advantage of the Enterprise crew's kind offer to help them repair their ship by kidnapping Geordi with a view to getting their hands on Enterprise technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Pulaski :: Picard and Pulaski", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Wesley :: Picard and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulsar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise performed a survey of the Epsilon Pulsar Cluster, a relatively new cluster of pulsars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard didn't want to crew to know he suffered from a heart condition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi by Pakleds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi to Pakled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grebnedlog, Reginod :: Pakled", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Do the Right Thing (1989)", "title": "Do the Right Thing", "date": "1989-05-19", "description": "Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, and Samuel L. Jackson, and is the feature film debut of Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez. The story follows a Brooklyn neighborhood's simmering racial tension, which culminates in tragedy on a hot summer day.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There were endless streams of slurs against both blacks and asians. A guy in car and Pino disliked black people. Buggin' Out had it in for white people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in inner city America", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw an idea of how people lived in Brooklyn in the 1980s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there was hatred aplenty - most of it rooted in race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mookie and Jade", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mookie and Tina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rioting ensued when police officers killed Radio Raheem while trying to arrest him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the disabled in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Smiley, a mentally disabled man who meanders around the neighborhood trying to sell hand-colored pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Da Mayor with Mother Sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Da Mayor saved a boy from a car and the act was noted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Da Mayor was several times berated for being a drunkard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x18", "title": "Up The Long Ladder", "date": "1989-05-22", "description": "Picard must find a way to bring two radically incompatible cultures together, lest both of them suffer extinction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Bringloidi and Mariposans must mate together to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker was appalled to find that he had been surreptitiously cloned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bringloidi :: The Bringloidi lived in pastoral bliss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Mariposans were genetically engineered clones, descended from the five sole survivors of a crew of mostly scientists that had crash-landed on the planet that the Mariposans now called home. They saw themselves as an ideal society, but were in desperate need of new breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mariposans clone Riker in a desperate bid to increases their breeding stock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mariposans rely on cloning to reproduce", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker wanted to abort his clone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard between Bringloidi and Mariposans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in diversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mariposan society nearly collapsed owing to a lack of genetic diversity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pulaski helped Worf save face by not disclosing to the crew that he was sick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bringloidi :: Bringlodi had to leave their home planet because of solar flares", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biotechnological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A colony of clones, known as the Mariposans, were within a few generations of dying out because of replicative fading (i.e. each subsequent generation introduces additional minor flaws in the genetic code).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irish went out to found a colony of their own out in space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf after fainting on the bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Brenna Odell :: Riker and Brenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brenna Odell :: Danilo makes the case for his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danilo Odell/Brenna Odell :: Danilo and Brenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard when Danilo offers daughter in marriage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was particularly befuddled by the antics of the Irish space colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew, especially Riker, was horrified to find that the Mariposans uses cloning to perpetuate their population. Conflict arose when the Mariposans decided to borrow some DNA without asking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to Space Irish", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danilo Odell :: Danilo Odell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The technologically advanced Mariposans looked down their long noses at the rustic Bringloids.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)", "title": "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", "date": "1989-06-09", "description": "The crew of the USS Enterprise-A confront the renegade Vulcan Sybok, who is searching for God at the center of the galaxy. It is the fifth installment in the Star Trek film series, and takes place shortly after the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_V:_The_Final_Frontier" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybok took over the Enterprise and commandeered it to the center of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story was set aboard the Enterprise-A.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock and his evil half brother Sybok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock remained loyal to Captain Kirk by refusing to join his half brother Sybok in his holy quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybok was motivated by a desire to find the source of all creation at the center of the galaxy. This knowledge he received in what he interpreted as a vision from God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybok went on an insane quest to the center of the galaxy to find God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sybok, Kirk and the crew encountered a powerful, malevolent entity on a planet at the center of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk climbed a mountain in Yosemite Park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Planet of Galactic Peace\" Nimbus III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock synthesized a marshmello on a camping trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise-A departed from a large space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sybok held a Federation representative, a Klingon, and a Romulan hostage on Nimbus III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Klingon Pird of Prey captain was intent on making a name for himself by defeating Captain Kirk in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty and Uhura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy relived a moment in life where he euthanized his terminally ill father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McCoy felt deeply guilty over having put his terminally ill father out of his misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sybok threw himself inside the alien entity to his death so that the Enterprise crew could escape.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x01", "title": "The Man Who Was Death", "date": "1989-06-10", "description": "Niles Talbot, a prison executioner, is laid off from his job when the local legislature abolishes the death penalty. From there, he becomes a vigilante, administering his own style of justice to acquitted murder suspects.\n\nAlso starring Gerrit Graham and Roy Brocksmith.\n\nDirected by: Walter Hill. Story by: Robert Reneau & Walter Hill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The death penalty was abolished and subsequently reinstated. The chair being used disproportionately against minorities, the viewer is told. The condemneds' reactions before their respective executions were featured and discussed, the cruelty but also justice therein implied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story opened with Charley Ledbetter being walked to the electric chair, and culminated with his own executioner, Niles Talbot, sharing in the same fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was murder left, right and center: 1) Most importantly, the laid off prison executioner Niles electrocuted three people to death and got caught red handed trying to do it to a fourth; 2) Ledbetter was executed for having committed a double murder; 3) the biker gang member Jimmy Flood was acquitted of murder on a minor technicality; 4) circumstances suggested that Theodore Carne killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The laid off prison executioner Niles Talbot was himself executed in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Niles didn't take it very well when he got caned from his job as prison executioner after 12 years of enthusiastic service. Instead of finding a new line of work, he became a vigilante and went about executing acquitted murder suspects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The laid off prison executioner Niles Talbot took it upon himself to execute acquitted murder suspects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "As a vigilante, Niles Talbot murdered two people by electrocution and was caught red-handed as he tried to murder a third.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is left with the impression that the laid off prison executioner Niles was merely a sadist who enjoyed seeing the fear in people's eyes before electrocuting them. For example, the prison executioner Niles gave Ledbetter's already dead body an extra, and wholly unnecessary, charge of electricity for the fun of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Niles Talbot became a vigilante, supposedly because he pined to bring justice to the wicked. The viewer is, however, left with the impression that he was merely a sadist who enjoyed seeing the fear in people's eyes before electrocuting them. Niles Talbot saw it as his purpose in life to bring justice to the world by executing the wicked, first as determined by the state, and later by his own judgement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prayer reciting priest made the walk with the condemned man Ledbetter to the electric chair. The scene was later repeated with Niles in Ledbetter's shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ledbetter lost his nerve on the walk to the electric chair and began uttering desperate pleas for the execution to be delayed on account that the governor was going to call to stay the execution. Niles later followed in his example down to a tee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ledbetter was walked to the electric chair by two prison guards. The scene was later repeated with Niles in Ledbetter's shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judge demanded order in the court after a remorseless murderer was acquitted on a minor technicality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Niles was convinced that Theodore Carne had murdered his own wife to avoid a costly divorce settlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charley lost his composure on his walk to the electric chair, as did Niles later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns in passing that Charley Ledbetter had shot his boss dead after the boss turned down his request for a raise after having worked at the company for 7 years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x02", "title": "And All Through the House", "date": "1989-06-10", "description": "Elizabeth, a greedy, philandering housewife, kills her second husband for his insurance money. Upon getting rid of the body, she is unexpectedly attacked by an escaped mental patient dressed as Santa Claus who has been going around killing women. She soon fears that her young daughter may be the psychotic Santa's next victim.\n\nDirected by: Robert Zemeckis. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elizabeth was terrorized in her home on the night of Christmas Eve by a psychotic, axe-wielding man dressed in a shabby Santa suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth lodged the pointy end of a fire iron firmly in her husband's prefrontal cortex on the night of Christmas Eve, but her plan to dump the body down a nearby well went catastrophically awry when a deranged axe murderer in a shabby Santa suit showed up outside of her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "An escaped mental patient dressed in a shabby Santa suit was going around on the night of Christmas Eve axe murdering women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on the night of Christmas Eve and concerns a wicked housewife being chased \"all through the house\" by a deranged axe murderer dressed in a shabby Santa suit. The little girl Carrie Ann was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth killed her husband in cold blood on the night of Christmas Eve and spent much of the episode trying to dispose of the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth killed her husband in cold blood in a calculated move to cash in on his life insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The axe-wielding, escaped mental patient in a shabby Santa suit terrorized Elizabeth in her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An extremely deranged, escaped mental patient was going around axe-murdering women on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The homicidal housewife was herself set upon by a homicidal madman from a nearby nuthouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth left a message on her playboy lover's answering machine with the good news that she killer her husband and his life insurance money was all theirs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth struggled at first to keep her young daughter, Carrie, oblivious to the fact that she killed the girl's step father, and later tried to protect the girl from a homicidal madman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Carrie inquired why her stepfather was not being responsive, oblivious to the fact that he recently had his prefrontal cortex pierced by the pointy end of a fire iron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police deputy was dispatched to Elizabeth's home as a precautionary measure because there was an axe murderer on the loose in the area. This gave Elizabeth pause, even though she was being terrorized by the axe murderer, on account that she'd just killed her husband in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Carrie Ann was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa on the night of Christmas Eve. The story concludes with Carrie letting a deranged axe murderer in an old Santa suit into the house, thinking him the genuine article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The philandering housewife's lustful lover was so self assured in his seductive abilities that he solicited women to leave their \"measurements\" on his answering machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth killed her husband with the intention of cashing in on his life insurance policy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x03", "title": "Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone", "date": "1989-06-10", "description": "A carnival daredevil known as Ulric the Undying is buried alive for his grand finale. Through a series of flashbacks, he tells the viewers how he was formerly a homeless vagrant who had undergone a doctor's experiment in order to transfer a cat's gland into his brain, giving him its nine lives and the ability to temporarily resurrect a number of times. However, during his final stunt, he suddenly remembers that he may have miscounted just how many lives he has left.\n\nAlso starring Robert Wuhl.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Terry Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that a man attains the nine lives of a cat, thus becoming temporarily unkillable as he would rapidly resurrect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ulric the Undying's avarice became his undoing in the end. Overcome with avarice, Coralee stabbed her lover, Ulric, to quasi-death with a comb and ran off to the Bahamas with his money to use all for herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ulric the Undying found himself with nine lives to burn after Dr. Manfred grafted a cat gland onto his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cat's gland had been surgically grafted onto Ulric's brain, giving him all the cat's remaining lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulric murdered his business partner, Dr. Manfred, by driving into a wall. Coralee stabbed her love interest, Ulric, to quasi-death with a comb and ran off with his money, presumably knowing full well that he would come back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vagabond Ulric allowed a mad scientist to perform an experimental brain surgery on him in exchange for a wad of cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulric the Undying performed the classic death-defying water tank escape trick with a twist: He drown and then came back to life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy was pressured into shooting Ulric dead with a crossbow by his bloodthirsty father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed policeman accepted a handful of cash from Coralee in exchange for releasing Ullric's temporarily dead body into her custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed policeman accepted a handful of cash from Coralee in exchange for releasing Ullric's temporarily dead body into her custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little old lady pushed the button to electrocute Ulric to death with marked enthusiasm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Manfred performed an experiment brain surgery on Ullric.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bunker Palace Hotel (1989)", "title": "Bunker Palace Hotel", "date": "1989-06-14", "description": "A rebellion breaks out in an the imaginary dictatorship of a futuristic world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_Palace_H%C3%B4tel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the midst of a rebellion, those in power in the imaginary dictatorship of a futuristic world scrambled to the 'Bunker Palace Hotel', a safehouse built long ago for this contingency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist Holm turned out to be an advanced android. The hotel was staffed by androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holm plotted to escape from the bunker hotel in a Holm Industries built subterrene called the Mole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x04", "title": "Only Sin Deep", "date": "1989-06-14", "description": "Sylvia Vane, a young, narcissistic prostitute, \"sells\" her beauty to a voodoo- dabbling pawnbroker so that she can use the money to snag a rich bachelor, but she soon regrets it when her face begins to unexpectedly age at an accelerated rate.\n\nDirected by: Howard Deutch. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Sylvia Vane (note the play on \"vain\") understood that her looks were fading rapidly, she became murderously desperate to regain them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Sylvia Vane (note the play on \"vain\") obtained $10,000 from selling her beauty, the first thing she did was to splurge on outfits. When Sylvia understood that her looks were fading rapidly, she became murderously desperate to regain them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia shot her super rich boyfriend dead in a violent rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia was a cheap street prostitute who dreamed of becoming a rich man's lover, then went for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia committed various sins out of vanity, and lost her beauty as a consequence (i.e., a vain person was punished by becoming ugly).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The street prostitute Sylvia targeted a certain wealthy bachelor to make her own, and got him for a time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The process by which Sylvia lost her beauty was portrayed as the rapid onset of the ravages of advanced age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although barely mentioned as such in the story, the title alludes to the Christian sins, notably those of vanity, theft and murder, that Sylvia was guilty of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sympathetic magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We understand that the pawnbroker used some sort of Voodoo to take Sylvia's beauty and transfer it to his late wife's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pawnbroker had the body of his late wife stashed away, and obsessed over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia consulted a dermatologist about her rapidly aging skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pawnbroker was on friendly terms with a beat cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sylvia killed first a pimp in a mugging gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The street prostitute Sylvia Vane was juxtaposed with the wealthy businessman Ronnie Price.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghostbusters II (1989)", "title": "Ghostbusters II", "date": "1989-06-16", "description": "The sequel to the 1984 film Ghostbusters, it sees the Ghostbusters reunite to combat a new threat to New York City.", "collections": [ "Collection: Ghostbusters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghostbusters reformed their ghost hunting business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was about the Ghostbusters' stopping the ghosts overrunning New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ghosts were running wild in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' saved New York City from the ghost of Vigo the Carpathian and his ethereal minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Venkman and Dana Barrett. Janine Melnitz and Louis Tully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Venkman and Dana Barrett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vigo the Carpathian was haunting a sinister looking painting of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dana Barrett and Baby Oscar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was some kind of New York City vibe where people were proud of their city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louis Tully had a strong psychic believe that that world would end on New Year's Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Janosz Poha at Dana Barrett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vigo the Carpathian prophesied that he would be back shortly before he was killed in 1605.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vigo the Carpathian took control of Janosz Poha at a couple of points in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ship Titanic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghost ship of the Titanic arrived at Pier 34.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghost ship of the Titanic arrived at Pier 34.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vigo the Carpathian hatched a plot to reincarnate himself into Baby Oscar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' secretary Janine Melnitz exemplified this stereotype.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x19", "title": "Manhunt", "date": "1989-06-19", "description": "Deanna 's mother is in the market for a new husband, and she's set her sights on Picard .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "menopause", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana was coping with the Betazoid analog of this condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana was chasing Picard around the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi :: Lwaxana and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana about finding a husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana visited the Enterprise on the hunt for a husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about 20th century", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana with finding a husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana instantly infatuated with Rex the bartender", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antedean assassins discovered by Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antedean :: Antedeans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data claimed that the last major human prejudice was against ugliness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana in finding a husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard exposed by Lwaxana for harboring dirty thoughts in his mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana foiled the assassins by reading their minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana foiled the assassins by reading their minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana by Data's dinner conversation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Picard retreated to holodeck to escape Lwaxana's romantic attentions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana thwarted the fish-like aliens terrorist plot to bomb a conference on Pacifica.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x05", "title": "Lover Come Hack to Me", "date": "1989-06-21", "description": "Peggy and Charles are a newlywed couple who, after a car accident, end up settling for the night inside a decrepit mansion belonging to Peggy's aunt. While inside, Charles plans to kill Peggy for her inheritance, but he soon learns that Peggy's family has a dark past, and that Peggy herself is not who she seems to be.\n\nDirected by: Tom Holland. Story by: Michael McDowell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peggy explained to Charles that she was killing him because knew his momentarily perfect love for her would not last. The viewer must therefore ponder a woman who is stereotypically (hell hath no fury like...) mad about (possibly) being spurned, only here she takes vengeance before the fact or acts to preempt the disagreeable contingency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Peggy and Charles as they spend their wedding night in a spooky, derelict mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles plotted to shoot Peggy dead on their wedding night and inherit her fortune, but things didn't quite go according to plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Peggy axe murdering Charles on their wedding night out of a deranged desire to end their love while it was in a state of perfection. In a dream, Charles saw the ghosts of his Peggy's late mother murdering her father moments after she was conceived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Peggy axe murdering Charles on their wedding night out of a deranged desire to end their love while it was in a state of perfection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Peggy's aunt disapproving of her marrying a blatant gold digger, and ended with the aunt happily picking up Peggy from the mansion after Peggy axe murdered the guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peggy lost her virginity to Charles on their wedding night. Peggy's ecstasy was so intense by the climax of their union that the glass facing on a grandfather clock shattered from the sound of her screams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charles dreamed he saw the ghosts of Peggy's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The detail were left somewhat vague, but we are clearly meant to ponder the possibility that Peggy and Charles had arrived at a haunted house in the middle of that stormy night. Charles saw apparitions of his new wife's late mother murdering her own newlywed spouse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989)", "title": "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", "date": "1989-06-23", "description": "An inventor accidentally shrinks his own and his next door neighbor's children to a quarter of an inch with his electromagnetic shrinking machine and accidentally throws them out with the trash, where they must venture into their backyard to return home while fending off insects and negotiating hazards. It is the first installment of the titular film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Honey I Shrunk the Kids" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_I_Shrunk_the_Kids" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The eccentric inventor Wayne Szalinski shrank his own and his next door neighbor's children to a quarter of an inch with his electromagnetic shrinking machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric inventor Wayne Szalinski shrank his own and his next door neighbor's children to a quarter of an inch with his electromagnetic shrinking machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shrunken Szalinski and Thompson children spent a day and a night trekking across the danger filled backyard of the Szalinski's. They had to contend with giant blades of grass, mud rivers, and huge insects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Szalinski's and the Thompson's were frantically searching for their kids, who had all been inadvertently shrunken and lost in the Szalinski's backyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Disneyfied depiction of what might happen when a father accidentally shrinks his kids and loses them in the backyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Thompson boys were shrunken down to each be about one inch tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and her little brother Nick were shrunken down to each be about one inch tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Diane Szalinski were worried sick when it became apparent that their newly shrunken children were missing in the backyard. Likewise the Thompson's were worried that when their children went missing just before a planned fishing trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Szalinski's had a strained relationship with their neighbors the Thompson's. This relationship was further strained when it became apparent that Wayne Szalinski had inadvertently shrank the Thompson boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Diane Szalinski were worried sick when it became apparent that their newly shrunken children were missing in the backyard. Likewise the Thompsons were worried that when their children went missing just before a planned fishing trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane fell for her shy neighbor Russ Jr. in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane fell for her shy neighbor Russ Jr. in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane and her mother were reunited at the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was reunited with his mother at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane was reunited with her father at the conclusion of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick took after his eccentric inventor father. Russ Sr. came to accept that his son Russ Sr. didn't want to play high school football and they let bygones be bygones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Szalinski's had a strained relationship with their neighbors the Thompson's, but the shared danger of their shrunken children being lost in the Szalinski's backyard brought them together in the end. Russ Jr. reconciled with his overly demanding father Russ Sr. in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Szalinski family dog Quark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was a nerdy boy who wore a lab coat around the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ Sr. was disappointed in Russ Jr. for not living up to his legend as a captain of the high school football team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Szalinski's were going through a rough patch in their marriage, but their kids being missing brought them closer together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scorpion attacked the newly shrunken Salinski and Thompson kids.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x20", "title": "The Emissary", "date": "1989-06-26", "description": "Worf 's former lover comes aboard Enterprise to help deal with ship of Klingon sleeper agents unaware they are no longer at war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf in his relationship with K'Ehleyr; Klingons generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multicultural upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "K'Ehleyr and Troi commiserated over having each grown up with one foot in two incompatible cultures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf bluffed at poker in the beginning, and bluffed Klingons by dressing up as a Klingon officer, at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon sleeper vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Ehleyr was put in suspended animation for her voyage to the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Worf's calisthenics program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about not killing rogue Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Ehleyr was conspicuously late for duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e1x06", "title": "Collection Completed", "date": "1989-06-28", "description": "An uptight elderly man named Jonas is forced into retirement, and soon discovers his wife Anita's obsession with adopting animals into their home, leading him to use the animals for a hobby of his own.\n\nDirected by: Mary Lambert. Story by: Battle Davis, Randolph Davis, and A. Whitney Brown.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focuses on Jonas as he struggles adjust to spending the days at home together with his eccentric, cat lady wife, Anita, after he is forced into retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anita loved animals had kept the house full of pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric, cat lady Anita beloved the numerous animals she took in off the street, and took care of them much as if they were her own children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A long chain of events led Jonas to snap and taxidermy most of his wife's beloved pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retiring from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas struggled mightily to adjust to life at home with his eccentric wife after being forced into retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas struggled mightily to adjust to life at home with his eccentric wife after being forced into retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "After a few false starts, including gardening and airplane model making, Jonas found what he thought was the perfect hobby to take up in his retirement: taxidermying his wife's beloved pets. Roy tried to get Jonas interested in making airplane models, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Anita bashing in her husband Jonas' head with a gold-plated hammer, and taxidermying, to prevent him from taxidermying her beloved cat, Mu Mu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas' next door neighbor Roy poked around the house, making efforts to get Jonas to take it easy in his retirement, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anita's love of pets went far beyond the ordinary, and in the end it culminated in a broken marriage and a spouse murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "After retiring and finding out about his wife's lonesome obsession with pets, Jonas lamented that his career had kept him to occupied to let him nurture his marriage and be a companion to his wife. Indeed, the conclusion of the story was to illustrate the fatal consequences of that decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mandatory retirement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas twice grumbled about having been forced to retire at the age of 65.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas spent \"47 God damn years\" working at the same company and all he had to show for it was a gold-planet hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas (an uptight, abrasive, busybody who refused to slow down after being forced into retirement) was juxtaposed with his elderly neighbor Roy (an easy going man who was enjoying the slow life that retirement had brought him).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)", "title": "Tetsuo: The Iron Man", "date": "1989-07-01", "description": "A salaryman gradually transforms into a clanking metal monstrosity of some sort.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo:_The_Iron_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a salaryman's slow, painful, and gruesome transformation into metal monstrosity of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man had an extreme metal fetish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man with a metal fetish cut open his thigh and thrust a large metal rod into the wound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A salaryman who was transforming into metal slept with his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A salaryman's girlfriend committed suicide by impaling herself on his penis, which had by that time transformed into large metal drill.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x01", "title": "The Dwarf", "date": "1989-07-07", "description": "A carnival owner plays a cruel prank on an unsuspecting little person who frequents the hall of mirrors.\n\nDirected by: Costa Botes. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to be more like a normal person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bigelow, who was diminutive in statue, longed to be the size of a normal man, if not larger. This is evidenced by his 1) habit of frequenting a hall of mirrors, where he would pose in front of a mirror that exaggerated his height; 2) writing of a story about being a 7 foot tall man; and 3) living in a miniature house that made him feel large.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The diminutive Mr. Bigelow was a writer of pulp fiction. Amiee, an avid fan, was very much into his short stories. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer something about the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Ralph playing a cruel prank on the diminutive Mr. Bigelow: Ralph swapped the usual funhouse mirror that Mr. Bigelow used with one that distorted his image to make him seem even smaller than usual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-esteem need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Bigelow, who was diminutive in statue, longed to be the size of a normal man, if not larger. One gathers that being small in size made him feel inferior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury described meeting the famed stage magician Harry Blackstone when Bradbury was a 12-year-old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph was in the habit of peeping on people as they posed in the hall of mirrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amiee did not take kindly to Ralph's amorous advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralph did not take kindly to Amiee turning him down. He took out his frustrations on Mr. Bigelow.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x21", "title": "Peak Performance", "date": "1989-07-10", "description": "The Enterprise and USS Hathaway face off in simulated combat maneuvers. Data fails to beat a humanoid at a game of Strategema and exhibits self-doubt.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Riker :: Riker showcases his leadership abilities as captain of the Hathaway; contrasted with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Riker :: the thing about Riker's being different from Picard's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard in a big and powerfu new ship vs. Riker in a small and weak old ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Worf, Geordi, Wesley :: Riker and skeleton crew vs. Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sirna Kolrami :: Kolrami taught a lesson he won't soon forget at the strategema table", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Worf, Geordi, Wesley, Data :: Riker's crew; Data doubted his strategema skills", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Sirna Kolrami :: Data and Kolrami", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolrami treated everyone around him as being intellectually inferior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolrami dramatically underestimated Riker's tactical abilities and would have lost to him in a war games exercise as a result, had the Ferengi not come and interfered at the last minute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Troi, and Pulaski conversed about the reasons why people play games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people may not always live up to their reputations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kolrami was impressed by Riker at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data went nuts after losing to Kolrami at starategema", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contempt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sirna Kolrami :: Kolrami of Riker as said by Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kolrami advocates abandoning the Hathaway crew to save the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data plays strategema", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Everyone with Kolrami, but Riker especially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kolrami advocates abandoning the Hathaway crew to save the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kolrami dismissed the thought that a mere machine like Data could challenge him at strategema", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf, Geordi, Wesley :: crew to Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DaiMon Bractor lusted to take possession of the USS Hathaway, thinking it contained something of great value.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data was at a loss to explain to himself how he could have lost a game of Strategema to a flesh and bones being like Kolrami.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kolrami :: Kolrami while playing Riker in strategema", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x02", "title": "A Miracle of Rare Device", "date": "1989-07-14", "description": "Two drifters make a startling discovery in the desert and seek to profit from it.\n\nDirected by: Roger Tompkins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miracle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a supernatural mirage of seemingly divine origin that was dubbed a miracle by the main characters. The mirage appeared to different people as whatever place their secret inner self yearned for. Thus it appeared to one as San Fransisco, two others as Paris, and another even as a fantastical version of Xanadu of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that the wondrous mirage was real and that people saw in it the place they most yearned to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ned was exceedingly greedy about profiting from the wondrous mirage. William's greed to make a profit from charging passersby to see the wondrous mirage was juxtaposed with his partner, Robert's compulsion to let everyone view it for free.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end the wondrous mirage came back because two innocent children believed in it. By stark contrast, it vanished before more cynical characters, like Ned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carefree way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and William were a pair of happy-go-lucky drifters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "awe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story makes a point of illustrating how awestruck various people were, or in a few cases were not, by the miraculous mirage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A farmer's two kids caused the wondrous mirage to reappear. In his introduction, Ray Bradbury recounted a childhood reminiscence about he and his family witnessing something truly mysterious, a \"miracle\" in his words, while driving through the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young man recited a verse from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan as he gazed out into the desert at what he interpreted to be the famed city of Xanadu.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Empire of Ash III (1989)", "title": "Empire of Ash III", "date": "1989-07-15", "description": "Empire of Ash III is a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie from 1989. It is a sequel to the movie known as Empire of Ash or Empire of Ash II. The film is also known as Maniac Warriors and Last Of The Warriors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Ash_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story two rival factions fighting it out in a post-apocalyptic region called New Idaho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harris and his mother attempted to flee Idaho but she ended up getting shot dead before they made it very far.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attempt was made to torture the Wanderer into revealing the identity of some supposed traitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harris wailed loudly over the body of his shot dead mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wanderer and his daughter and Claudia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing bloodthirsty savages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danielle and her party were captured by a band of hungry cannibals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was discussed how a plague had brought about the collapse of civilization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng2x22", "title": "Shades of Gray", "date": "1989-07-17", "description": "Riker is poisoned into a coma where he relives various moments of his service aboard the Enterprise . (Clip show as a result of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike .)", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi stayed by Riker's side while he lay in a delirium on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker's subconscious explored in a series of flashbacks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi prepared for what she assumed would be the death of her longtime friend, and former lover Riker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Troi :: Riker and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker had to be frightened to be cured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being injured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker gravely wounded", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien made a sarcastic remark about how much Dr. Pulaski loved using the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "platonic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Troi :: Riker and Troi", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x03", "title": "The Lake", "date": "1989-07-21", "description": "Years after his childhood sweetheart died, a young man returns to the lake where she disappeared.\n\nDirected by: Pat Robins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems the point of the story was to illustrate that Douglas got closure by returning to the lake and finishing the ruined sandcastle, which somehow summoned the corpse of his childhood crush who had drowned 25 years earlier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns two prepubescent kids who fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of open waters", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas had a pathological fear of the lake, as alluded to in the title, which he thought hated people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas was so distressed when his crush, Tally, perished in the lake that he demolished half the sandcastle they had built together. Twenty-five years later he felt the need to revisit the site of her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is told as adult Douglas thinking back to the summer he spent together with his childhood crush.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ten-year-old Douglas spent an idyllic summer making sandcastles on the shore of Lake Michigan together with his crush, Tally. The summer ended in tragedy, however, when Tally disappeared in the lake. In his introduction, Ray Bradbury recounted a childhood reminiscence about making \"impossible cities of sand\" on the shores of Lake Michigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas and Tally became instantly besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tally disobeyed her mother and went for one last swim in the lake. She subsequently vanished without a trace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas' mother kept silent when he asked her whether Tally was okay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gunhed (1989)", "title": "Gunhed", "date": "1989-07-22", "description": "A team of tech scavengers run into trouble on their mission to scavenge computer chips from an island run by a powerful super computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunhed_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A highly advanced AI system, called Kyron-5, was out to kill all humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A highly advanced AI system, called Kyron-5, was out to kill all humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The powerful \"Gun Unit Heavy Elimination Device\" (GUNHED) mecha was used by Brooklyn to foil the Kyron-5 super computer's plans for world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By the early 2030s the world's depletion in raw materials had led to the rise of tech scavengers that seek their fortunes through acquiring and selling computer parts despite the extreme dangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "muteness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleven was mute and had trouble communicating with the treasure hunters because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eleven and her little brother Seven.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x04", "title": "The Wind", "date": "1989-07-28", "description": "A weather expert is tormented by a strange wind.\n\nDirected by: Graham McLean. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal haunting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that John was haunted by a supernatural wind. John believed he had upset the wind by discovering its place of origin in the Himalayas some years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's neediness put a strain on his friendship with Herb, who scarcely believed his stories about being terrorized by the wind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Herb's point of view, John's repeated claims that the wind was out to get him were nothing more than paranoid ravings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herb and Susan Thompson had another couple over for an evening of dinner, games, and conversation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's desperate phone call interrupted Herb and his friends in the midst of a game of bridge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x05", "title": "The Pedestrian", "date": "1989-08-04", "description": "A man who takes night time walks is seen as engaging in deviant behavior, as he seeks his friend to accompany him.\n\nDirected by: Alun Bollinger. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story is to feature a dystopia in which people are so accustomed by, to Bradbury, modern luxuries like air conditioning and television that they no longer go outside or read books. As a consequence, driver-less vehicles patrolled the streets and arrested any daring \"prowlers\" as likely being up-to-no-good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonard and his friend took pleasure in things of nature that they were surprisingly unaccustomed to. In particular, they tasted grass, blew on dandelions with unmitigated delight, and even dared to behold the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two friends Leonard and Donald dared to venture out on a clandestine nighttime stroll through their driverless vehicle patrolled neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where people are accustomed to remain indoors in their air-conditioned homes and watch television. Although the reason was never spelled out, one must consider whether this was a strategy used by the rules (who may have been machines) to keep the public dumbed-down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured a supposed utopian society in which it seemed that machines took care of public affairs and people were left to sit in their air-conditioned homes watching reruns on their TVs. Other hints were dropped that the society was run by machines. For instance, it was said that they same on TV content was replayed again and again, and that voice recordings were used to answer questions posed over the telephone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The details are left vague but Leonard was surprised to find the flying police drone uninhabited. The viewer must ponder the possibility that intelligent machines have somehow come to enforce a dystopia in which people must stay inside all the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury recounted a childhood memory of being stopped by the police while out walking alone late at night.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Abyss (1989)", "title": "The Abyss", "date": "1989-08-09", "description": "When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, the U.S. search and recovery team works with an oil platform crew, racing against Soviet vessels to recover the boat. Deep in the ocean, they encounter something unexpected.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyss" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rescue mission leader Bud Brigman was Lindsey's estranged husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cold War tensions were running high. For example, the rescue team thought the Soviets might be interfering with the rescue operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rescue party became hopelessly stranded deep down in an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rescue team, who themselves became desperately stranded, divided into two factions: The main rescue party members led by Bud and the the Navy SEALs led by Hiram Coffey, who was suffering from psychosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Navy SEALs recovered a nuclear warhead from the submarine and tried to detonate it at the bottom of an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love kindled by danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Estranged spouses Bud and Lindsay were brought back together under the perils of being trapped on the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A search and recovery team encountered a strange alien presence deep down in an ocean trench.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A search and rescue team took a submersible base to the bottom of the sea, and then the base ended up sliding down an ocean trench, where the team encountered a strange alien presence. Team leader Bud actually ended up diving down to a depth in excess of 17,000 feet by the end of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "A search and rescue team became themselves stranded deep in an ocean trench and had to work to overcome numerous obstacles in order to survive the catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rescue workers were given little devices to measure how much radiation they were being exposed to while in and around the submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jammer Willis lost his nerve after seeing lots of dead bodies floating around inside the submarine and was unable to continue searching for survivors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Navy SEAL commander Hiram Coffey fell into a psychosis and became fixated on detonating a nuclear warhead at the bottom of an ocean trench to stop what he thought was a Soviet threat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bud dove to 17,000 feet on a one way trip to defuse a nuclear weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An enormous alien spaceship rose up from the bottom of an ocean trench at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x06", "title": "A Sound of Thunder", "date": "1989-08-11", "description": "A big-game hunter travels back in time to bag a dinosaur.\n\nDirected by: Costa Botes. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of big-game hunters who time traveled to the age of the dinosaurs to kill a Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis explained how little changes in the past can lead to major consequences in the future through a chain of causation. The story pointedly finished with the implication that Eckels had caused a preset-day political change, in favor of fascism, in the country by accidentally stepping on a butterfly in the age of dinosaurs, thus illustrating the butterfly effect somewhat literally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of big-game hunters who time traveled to the age of the dinosaurs to kill a Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eckels spoke of his own courage in slaying animals during safaris, but proved himself a hapless coward when he practically wet his pants before the T-Rex he was supposed to shoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The time traveling hunters shot and killed a T-Rex after a tense standoff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury recounted a childhood memory of being stopped by the police while out walking alone late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Travis shooting Eckels dead for messing up history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The political change caused by Eckels when he stepped on the butterfly had many stereotypical hallmarks of fascism, even if it was not outright named. Deutscher was a far-right politician whose rule was likened to a dictatorship. People dressed and acted much more militaristic after the return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hunters time traveled back to the age of dinosaurs in a spinning sphere of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eckels was petrified and said that he couldn't move when he took in the size of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex he had come to kill.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mutant on the Bounty (1989)", "title": "Mutant on the Bounty", "date": "1989-08-18", "description": "The crew of the USS Bounty pick up a horribly disfigured jazz musician on their trip to Alpha Centauri.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097934/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "A teleportation mishap left Max with a hideously disfigured face that even had a telephone receiver protruding out of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot centered around two criminals trying to obtain a virus bomb biological weapon that they planned to use to to coerce the population of some planet to give them immense riches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The handsome woman Justine and the horribly disfigured Max fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story unfolds on the futuristic spaceship USS Bounty on a research mission to Alpha Centauri 49/B.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justine explained about how boredom had been the biggest challenge faced by the USS Bounty crew on their interstellar mission up to that point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story unfolds on the futuristic spaceship USS Bounty on a research mission to Alpha Centauri 49/B.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Bounty interstellar spacecraft was fusion powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew included a Model 8 android named Lizardo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain decided to bring things aboard spaceship after some deliberation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where people teleport around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how the two petty criminals Rick and Manny were wanted for having robbed a number of convenience stores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max was a professional saxophone player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manny forced himself on Justine and he had to be forcibly restrained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The male android Lizardo was reprogrammed to have the personality of a flamboyant transvestite.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x07", "title": "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone", "date": "1989-08-18", "description": "Author Dudley Stone is approached by a rival who announces his intention to kill him... a fate that doesn't quite bother Stone one bit.\n\nDirected by: David Copeland. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story is to feature two authors, Dudley and John, that, at different points in time, found themselves just sufficiently past the apogee of their respective careers that the monotonous and inevitable decline ahead of them had become apparent. Each was hounded by a younger up-and-coming rival. Dudley escaped this fate by letting John \"kill\" his author persona, thus exiting the writing profession while at the pinnacle of his fame. The story ends with John desperately looking for his own way out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns two authors, Dudley and John, who are worried about being surpassed by younger rivals. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John planned to shoot Dudley dead with a pistol. He was instead persuaded to help in the figurative \"assassination\" of Dudley's writer persona to which the title of this story jokingly alludes. The act was referred to as a murder throughout the rest of the story and Dudley evidently disappeared from public view, leaving his fans to speculate in what gruesome way he might have perished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was envious of Dudley's fame and wanted to murder him in order to clear the way for himself to get some recognition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "John, who saw himself as someone who had to work hard for everything yet got no recognition for it, sought to murder Dudley, whom he thought was unnaturally talented in too many subjects of a wide variety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "When accused of being unnaturally gifted by Dudley, John simply agreed. He referred to genes and genetics as a probable cause for his undoubted superiority. Twenty years later, John was himself both very successful and rather smug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dudley quit writing while he was at the peak of his fame and ability. He thereafter notably spent time in the company of his family. In the end, he elected enjoy family life over resuming his taxing career as an author.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, briefly lamented various delicacies he would never have time to sample because of his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, was accused by John of writing too many poetry books, among many other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, was accused by John of writing too many stage plays, among many other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, was accused by John of writing too many screen plays, among many other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, briefly showed off and spoke of his sculpting aspirations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, briefly showed off and spoke of his painting aspirations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley, a true Renaissance Man, was accused by John of writing too many lectures on city planning, transportation, and architecture, among many other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley briefly communicated with his wife, whom he was eager to spend more time with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was seen with his kids, whom he wanted to spend more time with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was seen with his kids, whom he wanted to spend more time with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley spoke of his desire to travel to distant countries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley mentioned reincarnation, which John must have thought he meant literally (in the religious sense) but that it soon became apparent he meant in a metaphorical way, as he wanted to shed his writer persona and take on that of a leisurely man instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley contemplated all the leisurely activities he could do instead of burning the midnight oil on his various writing pursuits.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Millennium (1989)", "title": "Millennium", "date": "1989-08-25", "description": "A flight crash investigator discovers that time travelers from the future have been rescuing people from planes just before they crash and replacing them with dead bodies. It is based on the 1977 short story \"Air Raid\" by John Varley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Time travelers from the future were rescuing people from planes just before they crash and replacing them with dead bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and the time traveler from the future Louise fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nobel prize winning physicist Dr. Arnold Mayer was investigating about the possibility that time travelers from the future had been visiting his time period.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman the Robot functioned as Louise's personal assistant droid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Arnold Mayer spelled out this classic paradox in a speech at what appeared to be the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Arnold Mayer mention about pollution and acid rain in a speech at what appeared to be the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All was well on a 1963 passenger flight until a mental patient tried to hijack the plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Bill Smith was aboard a 1963 flight that a mental patient attempted to hijack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Being from the future, Louise didn't understand commonly known things such as cars needing keys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise and her team members traveled around in time by walking through blue portals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people 1000 years in the future were all slowly dying and couldn't have children. For this reason they were traveling back in time to collect people to populate their world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Murder on the Moon (1989)", "title": "Murder on the Moon", "date": "1989-08-26", "description": "A Soviet investigator reluctantly teams up with his United States counterpart to get to the bottom of a mysterious murder which has taken place on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097931/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a Moon base in a near future when both the United Sates and the Soviet Union maintain a permanent presence on the satellite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Soviet investigator, named Stepan, teamed up with his United States counterpart, Maggie, to investigate a murder which had recently taken place on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Soviet investigator and his counterpart from the United States had to put their differences aside in order to solve a murder case to which they'd been jointly assigned to solve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The investigators Stepan and Maggie fell passionately in love with each other during the course of teaming up to solve a murder case on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "An important component of the film is that the United States and Soviet Union had in the recent past avoided a full-scale nuclear war by a hair's breadth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stepan was fencing with a fellow crewman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie arrived on the Moon on a flight from Europa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A highly placed Soviet official was taking bribes to cover up acts of corporate malfeasance on the part of Cruise-McKinney Mines, Inc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cruise-McKinney Mines, Inc. was bribing a high level Soviet official in order to not have to pay the Soviets the profits that'd been agreed to under a treaty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that terrorists had blown up the Dome of the Rock on a bright sunny day at the height of tourist season.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise Mackey was outraged to find out that the Cruise-McKinney Mines corporation had installed surveillance cameras in every module of the Moon base where she worked under in their employ, including in her private quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stepan and Maggie pieced together that Louise Mackey had undergone a sex change operation, and that her true identity was that of the international terrorist John Pedro Vogler. The Moon base commander Dennis Huff, who showed signs of being romantically interested in Louise, was particularly unsettled by this revelation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x08", "title": "The Haunting of the New", "date": "1989-09-15", "description": "A wealthy socialite, known for extravagant parties of old, rebuilds her stately mansion after a fire and discovers that her new home does not agree with her past.\n\nDirected by: Roger Tompkins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted house", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While the underlying mechanics of the house were never clarified, the way it seemed to behave had all the stereotypical trappings of a haunted house. It is also referred to in such terms in the title. The central point of the story is that a house had been rebuilt after a fire and had apparently taken on a somewhat prudish streak. It suddenly had enough of the debauched behavior of its current occupants and started ejecting them by opening or shutting the doors, and by sending nightmarish visions to those that dared to spend the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nora and Charles had been lovers during some time in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central point of the story is that a house had been rebuilt after a fire and had apparently taken on a somewhat prudish streak. It suddenly had enough of the debauched behavior of its current occupants and started ejecting them by opening or shutting the doors, and by sending nightmarish visions to those that dared to spend the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora held a debautched party for 97 guests at her stately mansion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x09", "title": "To the Chicago Abyss", "date": "1989-09-22", "description": "A man is pursued and considered an enemy of the state for simply reminding people of \"the good ol' days.\"\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story features a society in which all of life comforts, and food in particular, are depressingly scarce. It is unclear what has brought about this state of affairs. There was a police force, and therefore a ruling elite, but it is not made clear to what extent they have it better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story, if there was any, is that an old man threatened to upset the prevailing social order by making people recall the relative luxury of the days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured people in a fictional city that, for reasons undisclosed, had descended into a dystopian state in which virtually everyone had to eat garbage and dress in rags in order to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photographic memory ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury boasted of having what he called \"total recall\" since the moment of his birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some futuristic law enforcers barged into peoples shacks and offered cans of beans in exchange for information about the fugitive whom they sought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stranger and his wife took the fugitive old man into their home hoping he would regale with stories of the good old days.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not Quite Human II (1989)", "title": "Not Quite Human II", "date": "1989-09-23", "description": "The film follows the social development of an android that is designed to appear human, this time as he enrolls in college and is on his own for the first time.", "collections": [ "Collection: Not Quite Human" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Quite_Human_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the adolescent android Chip as he tries to fit in at college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more emotionally sophisticated person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the android Chip as he progress in his social development at college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chip left the nest to attend the summer semester at a local college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the world of human interaction from the perspective of the very literal minded android Chip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carson fretted over his android son going away to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chip's father and sister were closely monitoring the android while he was off at college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Becky played matchmaker between her father, Dr. Carson, and Prof. Victoria Gray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chip, being an android, felt down because he had trouble fitting in with the cool kids at university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The very literal minded android Chip had trouble interacting with people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chip and Roberta were two androids in love. Dr. Carson and Victoria really hit it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is someone for everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chip met the android Roberta just when he thought there was nobody out there for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the android Chip at his high school graduation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip was strong enough to be able to tare a metal paper towel dispenser in two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip was able to run fast enough to keep pace with a bus on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip and his carefree dorm mate Brandon Wilson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip and his carefree, college roommate Brandon became fast friends, although they ultimately had a falling out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brandon cruelly ended his friendship with his new pal Chip after Chip embarrassed him at a party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip objected to the android Roberta's contention that she was the property of the scientists who'd invented her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip was able to move metal objects at a distance using his magnetic finger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x01", "title": "Evolution", "date": "1989-09-25", "description": "Nanites escape Wesley 's lab and form a collective intelligence, threatening the Enterprise . Guest star Ken Jenkins as Dr. Paul Stubbs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nanites :: nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A small number of simple, self-replicating nanomachines quickly evolved into a collectively intelligent being of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "microscopic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley inadvertently created a race of robotic, self-replicating, self-aware microscopic life forms which came to be known as \"nanites\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley’s creation of the Nanites had the unintended consequence of their seizing control of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nanites were tiny little crystals who viewed humans as \"ugly bags of mostly water\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubbs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nanites :: Nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nanites :: Nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "do the nanites have rights? Stubbs says no, but others beg to differ", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew vs. nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley inadvertently created a race of robotic, self-replicating, self-aware microscopic life forms which came to be known as \"nanites\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used to communicate with nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: ship safety vs. mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubbs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubbs about the absurdity of machine evolution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "humans/nanites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubbs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs/Wesley :: Stubbs/Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stubbs was on the Enterprise to study a supernova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs :: Stubbs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley dozed off in the science lab and was subsequently late for duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Stubbs was a smug scientist who was disrespectful to others aboard the Enterprise, except for Wesley, whom he had identified as a wunderkind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was conveyed that the process of evolution applies not only to biological life, but to self-replicating machines also.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x10", "title": "Hail and Farewell", "date": "1989-09-30", "description": "A young man, unable to age, makes a profession out of his situation, for his sake and others.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were not subject to the normal process of aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story, if there was one, was to imagine what it might be like for a young man to cease aging physically at the biological age of 12. As it were, after some time of discomfort, he settled on using his perpetual boyish charm to ingratiate himself with elderly ladies and childless couples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie used his perpetual boyish charm to ingratiate himself with elderly ladies and childless couples, sometimes bereaved, who yearned to have children of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie was bullied by the other orphans because he didn't grow big like they did. He was also pushed around by a stereotypical neighborhood bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie was an orphan and spent some years in a state orphanage together with numerous other orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retarded aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the consequences of Willie ceasing to age, for reasons that were left unexplained, physically at the biological age of 12. It turned out to be something of a curse, as Willie found it necessary to find a new family to live with every two years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores what life was like for Willie, a man who ceased aging physically at the biological age of 12. Even though he was much older, he lived and behaved like other children in his neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willie, owing to his being a man in the body of a 12 year old boy, had trouble fitting in wherever he went. He was pointedly denied a job at the traveling circus because he wasn't like the other performers (e.g., little people). The circus man concluded that \"there just ain't no place for you anywhere\" before turning Willie away. He was also ostracized at the orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury showed his viewers a magic set he was given as a boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie ingratiated himself with a couple who had lost their own child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie bid farewell to his de-facto parents, John and Emma Webley.Willie was waved a teary-eyed adieu to a little girl as he left in a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Emma Webley welcomed Willie into their home and were sad when the time came for him to move on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie used his perpetual boyish charm to procure an unseemly large ice cream sundae from an elderly lady, which he preceded to devour like an epicurean of ancient Greece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte introduced Willie to her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie's de-facto mother, Emma, was saddened at the prospect of Willie moving on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie's de-facto father, John, was saddened at the prospect of Willie moving on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie sobbed in grief in reaction to the old woman expiring on her death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie and Charlotte's mother had been childhood sweethearts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Jox (1989)", "title": "Robot Jox", "date": "1989-10", "description": "The film's plot follows Achilles, one of the \"robot jox\" who pilot giant machines that fight international battles to settle territorial disputes in a post-apocalyptic world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "International disputes were settled with gladiator-style matches between giant robots operated by pilots called \"robot jox\" who are contracted to fight ten matches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "International disputes were settled with gladiator-style matches between giant robots operated by pilots called \"robot jox\" who are contracted to fight ten matches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The western-influenced Market and the Russian-influenced Confederation held a winner take all gladiator-style battle between two human operated, giant robots for possession of Alaska - a territory which both states claimed as their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "International disputes were settled with gladiator-style matches between giant robots operated by pilots called \"robot jox\" who are contracted to fight ten matches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robot jox battled in gladiatorial-style combat for glory and prestige.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set five years after a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Athena had been genetically engineered to be an ideal robot jox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fellow robot jox accused Achilles of being a coward over having retired rather then have a rematch with his rival Alexander.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A despondent Achilles made a drunken fool of himself at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Achilles had a beer with his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Achilles' brother and his wife welcomed Achilles into their home for a visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Achilles' kid nephew was elated when Achilles came to visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In this future it was normal for people to communicate using bulky, wall-set videophones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Achilles sped to the wreck of Athena's mecha robot in a flying car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x02", "title": "The Ensigns of Command", "date": "1989-10-02", "description": "Data must persuade a stubborn colony to evacuate their homeland under threat of a powerful and mysterious race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Gosheven :: Data's leadership skills put to the test against those of Ghosheven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Gosheven :: Data and Gosheven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gosheven :: colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheliak :: Sheliak pedantry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A colony of 15,000 people grappled with the decision of fighting the Shelliak for ownership of Tau Cygna V or evacuate to another world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data about persuasion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard negotiated with the Sheliak for the Federation to be granted more time to evacuate a group of human colonists who'd colonized a planet in Sheliak space in violation of a treaty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "some colonists against Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheliak frustrated by communicating with Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an intransigent person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Gosheven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheliak paranoid of contact with Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard vs. Sheliak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonists of Tau Cygna V :: Sheliak on colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data in dealing with the colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data came to learn that he could not always rely on logical arguments when it came to persuading people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sheliak saw humans as a lesser form of life that could be exterminated as necessary. Also they were exceedingly conscious of legal protocol, an opening that allowed Picard to get the better of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demagoguery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gosheven :: Gosheven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse psychology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data attempted to use", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haritath, Kento :: townsfolk to Gosheven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ard'rian McKenzie :: Adr'rian at Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data trying to save colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gosheven was proud of the city that he and the other colonists had built for themselves, and refused to evacuate even when it became apparent that an attack was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gosheven was proud of the city that he and the other colonists had built for themselves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x03", "title": "The Survivors", "date": "1989-10-09", "description": "The Enterprise investigates the last two survivors of an annihilated world, as the entire surface has been transformed to dust except their one little garden and house. Guest stars John Anderson and Anne Haney as Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pacifism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Douwd :: Kevin in Douwd form", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kevin refused to defend the colony even in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kevin refused to defend the colony even in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to exist of a genocidal people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should the 50 billion strong race of aggressive conquerers know as the Husnock be permitted to run amok around the galaxy? The all-powerful Douwd didn't think so and wiped them out of existence in an instant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin over having exterminated Husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin over having exterminated Husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin over having exterminated Husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being wiped out by more powerful aliens", "level": "major", "motivation": "Husnock :: Husnock incur wrath of Kevin the Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "turn the other cheek", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin was a pacifist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: the Douwd ever so briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Douwd, an immortal being of pure energy, lashed out in vengeance with his vast powers and wiped out the entire Husnock species. For Captain Picard, this act was nearly beyond comprehension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Husnock annihilated a virtually defenseless Federation colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Revealed toward the end of the story was the Rishon was merely a recreation of Kevin Uxbridge's dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge/Rishon Uxbridge :: Kevin and Rishon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi with the bad headache", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Kevin refused to leave his homestead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard says the Federation is not fit to judge the Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Kevin Uxbridge :: Picard and Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge, Rishon Uxbridge :: Kevin and Rishon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge/Rishon Uxbridge :: Kevin and Rishon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Husnock and Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise crew face Husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douwd :: the Douwd secretly lived among the Human colonists for years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "colonists face Husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rishon Uxbridge :: Rishon to landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd for the husnock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd pacifism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin Uxbridge :: Douwd", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x04", "title": "Who Watches The Watchers", "date": "1989-10-16", "description": "Deanna and Riker must rectify the damage done when two primitives from Mintaka III catch glimpse of a Federation observation team and eventually conclude that Captain Picard is a god.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew must undo harm done by violation of Prime Directive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mintakans feigned Picard a god", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Mintakans were divided over what to do about the strangers because some interpreted the enigmatic happenings from a materialist perspective, and others through the lens of mythology and religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mintakan :: Mintakans aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mintakans interpreted the strange happenings in terms of their mythology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly openly violates the Prime directive to save injured people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuria :: The Mintakan villagers were shaken by knowledge that they were not alone in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mintakans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuria :: The Mintakan aboard the ship who thought Picard was God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard: why didn't you let him die?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuria :: Nuria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lico/Oji :: Lico and Oji", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mintakans interpret landing party funny business as signs from the heavens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lico :: Lico to Oji", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mintakans of Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard refuses godhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Troi :: Riker and Troi surgically altered to look like Mintakans", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x05", "title": "The Bonding", "date": "1989-10-23", "description": "A mysterious entity seeks to comfort a boy who has lost his mother in an accident on its planet. Guest star Gabriel Damon as Jeremy Aster.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Young Jeremy Aster was traumatized when he mother died suddenly in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Koinonian Incorporeal :: Koinonian entity about parenting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf raising Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Despite Worf's best efforts to be a foster parent, Jeremy did not quite take to Worf's peculiar Klingon ideas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy was orphaned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Captain Picard come clean with Jeremy about the death of Jeremy's mother?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marla Aster/Jeremy Aster :: Marla and Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Jeremy Aster :: Word and Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf adopted Jeremy after his mother perished while on an away mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the crew must decide what to do with Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marla Aster :: mother at Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Aster :: Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy Aster :: Jeremy felt he was responsible for the death of his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard explained to the alien entity how it is natural for humans to experience grief after losing a loved one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koinonian Corporeal :: Koinonian's destroyed themselves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard telling Jeremy his mother is dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy's mother effectively appeared as a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Jeremy's mother had returned from the dead as a ghost, even though it was quickly made clear that the entity posing as Jeremy's mother was an incorporeal alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf had an outburst", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf for Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koinonian entity :: Koinonian mother to Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf and crew for Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about adopting Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy Aster :: Jeremy to his ghost mother", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x06", "title": "Booby Trap", "date": "1989-10-30", "description": "The Enterprise falls victim to an ancient booby trap set to snare starships; while in an effort to find an escape, Geordi finds himself falling for the holodeck 's representation of a famous Federation engineer. Guest star Susan Gibney as Dr. Leah Brahms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi simulated Leah on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi with Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Geordi simulated Leah on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi preferred for a human to manually pilot the Enterprise through a dangerous course, because, according to him, the ship's computer could not compensate for such intangibles as human intuition and experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: creepy Geordi at Christy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi by Christy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi has no clue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles scored some brownie points with Captain Picard by letting it be known that he shared the captain's passion for model ship building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi ran a computer simulation to test his idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ancient Menthar first invented the Passive Lure Stratagem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Leah Brahms :: Geordi and Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi, Leah Brahms :: Geordi and Leah to solve space whale problem", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Seed (1989)", "title": "Alien Seed", "date": "1989-11-01", "description": "A young woman is abducted and impregnated by the aliens, as part of the alien's scheme to create a \"Messiah\" to rule Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Seed" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa was abducted by aliens and impregnated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa was abducted by aliens and impregnated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ufologist Mark Timmons got himself into trouble for planning to write a book that would expose the secret government agency studying UFOs MJ-12.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa was abducted by aliens and impregnated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ufologist Mark Timmons got himself into trouble for planning to write a book that would expose the secret government agency studying UFOs MJ-12.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was living together with her younger sister Mary, until Mary was abducted by aliens, impregnated, and then killed by secret government agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark beaten mercilessly during an MJ-12 interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cultish reverend was working on discovering the precise time of the Second Coming.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x07", "title": "The Enemy", "date": "1989-11-06", "description": "Geordi is trapped on a harsh planet with a hostile Romulan , and the two must work together to survive.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi/Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi/Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf despised all Romulans because his parents had been murdered by them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi/Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Romulan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf refuses to donate his ribosomes to save Romulan on ideological grounds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi and Bochra worked together to survive on a barren planet that was plagued by intense “radiologic” storms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi was effectively blind after having lost his VISOR device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi, Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf, Bochra :: Bochra about Humans and Worf about Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi/Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "VISOR :: VISOR", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi discussion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Bochra :: Geordi and Bochra ultimately become friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan point of view featured through Bochra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bochra :: Bochra outburst at Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi and crew to Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi after Romulan attack", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x11", "title": "The Veldt", "date": "1989-11-10", "description": "Two children, spoiled rotten by their virtual reality playroom, rebel against their parents.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story was a semi-intelligent house that could somehow turn the thoughts and desires of its owners into reality. The nursery was intended as more of a virtual reality environment, but the boundaries became blurred because of reasons that were not fully made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George and Lydia had become alienated from Peter and Wendy because they had let their semi-intelligent nursery tend to the children's upbringing instead of spending old-fashioned quality time with them. This is a clear analogy for contemporary controversies of the same sort with respect to television and related technologies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative smart house", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story was a semi-intelligent house that could somehow turn the thoughts and desires of its owners into reality. The nursery, in particular, was intended as more of a virtual reality environment, but the boundaries became blurred because of reasons that were not fully made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia and Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Lydia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia and Wendy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Wendy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Wendy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychologist explained that the children hated their parents. The reason was because the parents had neglected to do traditional activities with their children, but had let their children play freely on their own with the intelligent nursery instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wendy and Peter hacked their semi-intelligent virtual reality playroom to bring about the destruction of their recalcitrant parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wendy and Peter hacked their semi-intelligent virtual reality playroom to bring about the destruction of their recalcitrant parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychiatrist David McClean explained that George and Lydia had neglected to spend enough personal time with their children. The neglect had caused the children to hate their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Lydia were at a loss for how to deal with their spoiled rotten kids, whom they'd neglected to spend much personal time with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The siblings George and Wendy were neglected by their parents, but spoiled rotten by their intelligent nursery. They openly disrespected and defied their parents. The story concluded with George and Wendy aloofly sipping tea as lions picked over their parents' carcasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Lydia made reference to Peter's unusually high IQ. In the end the children somehow, and unexpectedly, hacked the house in order to override the parental controls and turn it to the destruction of their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychiatrist David McClean explained the children's behavior to their clueless parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The siblings George and Wendy twice condescended their parents while speaking over a flat-panel display stationed in the family control room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x08", "title": "The Price", "date": "1989-11-13", "description": "Troi falls in love with a charismatic negotiator who vies for rights to a wormhole . But several different groups, including the Ferengi , are after the wormhole as it may be the only known stable wormhole in existence. Guest star Dan Shor as Dr. Arridor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "negotiation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "much ado about the art of the deal, especially around Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Devinoni Ral :: Troi and Ral mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Devinoni Ral :: Riker and Ral trying to undermine one another's confidence in negotiating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral :: Ral gambles big time on the wormhole being stable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barzan wormhole :: everyone vying for right to Barzan wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral :: Ral had careerist motives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Devinoni Ral :: Riker and Ral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing it fair vs. taking an advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral was called out by Troi for taking unfair advantages in his efforts to secure exclusive rights to the Barzan wormhole for the Chrysalians. Ral, in turn, accused Troi of exploiting her empathic powers for similar purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi and real chocolate sundae", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi and chocolate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi, Devinoni Ral :: Troi and Ral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral :: Ral tries to intimidate Riker at the negotiating table", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker tries to bluff Ral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi, Data :: Geordi and Data urge Ferengi to trust them that the wormhole was unstable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Troi/Devinoni Ral :: Riker/Troi/Ral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Negotiations among various galactic powers for possession of the only known stable wormhole were held aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Troi :: Riker and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral :: Ral by Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi and the chocolate cake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devinoni Ral :: Ral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ability of the Betazoids to communicate telepathically was featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x01", "title": "Backwards", "date": "1989-11-14", "description": "With Kryten now a regular member of the crew, Rimmer takes him on a flying lesson in the transport vehicle Starbug. They find themselves whisked away through a time hole, arriving back on Earth, 1993. However, on this world, time runs backwards.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reversed time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew found themselves on a version of 1993 Earth where everything and everyone was running backwards in time, save for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly had quietly underwent a transformation to take on the guise of his alternate universe counterpart, Hilly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Bang", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly explained how the universe had started with the Big Bang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Crunch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly described an idiosyncratic version of this theory where everything ran backwards in the universe's crunch epoch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat proudly admitted that he didn't care about anyone but himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat was reluctant to pass through an orange \"time hole\" wearing a black suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister activated the Starbug 2 invisibility cloak before landing on 1993 backwards time running Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat nicked a picnicking couple's bicycle for two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram and Kryten were working the pub circuit as the Reverse Brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram described the 1993 time running backwards Earth as a world free from death, disease, and famine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "when in Rome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister quoted this aphorism moments before drinking a pint of beer backwards in the reverse time running Earth pub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram described how the reverse time Earthlings came to life after their funerals and then grew younger and younger until they became newborns and beyond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a test", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer was taking Kryten through a parody driving test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat and Lister struggled to communicate with people they thought were Bulgarian, but who were in fact reverse Brits.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e3x12", "title": "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!", "date": "1989-11-17", "description": "Alien mushrooms control a group of children to do their evil bidding.\n\nDirected by: David Brandes. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story was that some mushroom-like aliens had seeded Earth with human-co-opting space spores as a prelude to invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh and Cynthia Fortnam attempted to find out why their neighbor disappeared after he expressed a concern that something catastrophic was about to happen. Dorthy was distressed over the sudden and mysterious disappearance of her husband, Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh became increasingly worried about his young son Tom's cultivating of a batch of mail-order mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia became increasingly worried about her young son Tom's cultivating of a batch of mail-order mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youngster Tom was enthusiastically cultivating a batch of mail-order mushrooms in his parent's basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh and Cynthia Fortna took steps to find their neighbor, Roger, who'd suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Hugh exchanged pleasantries with his eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Goodbody, at the white picket fence separating their properties. Mrs. Goodbody thereafter shared some seemingly farfetched views on flying saucers and space invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Tom was enthusiastically cultivating a batch of mail-order mushrooms in his parent's basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While conversing with Roger in the car, Hugh stated how TV and satellites make it so that people are constantly reminded of all misery and hardships going on in the world, or something to that effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorthy was distressed over the sudden and mysterious disappearance of her husband, Roger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x09", "title": "The Vengeance Factor", "date": "1989-11-20", "description": "Riker exposes an assassin in the midst of critical peace talks.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Acamarian/Acamarian Outcasts :: Acamarians and Gatherers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yuta's clan was pursuing a vendetta against a rival Acamarian clan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yuta :: Yuta to Acamarian clan over past wrongs done", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "refined Acamarians vs. barberous gatherers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Acamarian/Acamarian Outcasts :: Acamarians and Gatherers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yuta on mission to assassinate members of rival clan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marouk/Chorgan :: Marouk and Chordan represent their respective factions in the reconciliation attempt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker with Yuta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard mediated reconciliation effort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Acamarians saw the Gatherers as uncouth barbarians. The later saw the former as uptight and untrustworthy. Because of these things there had been violent conflict between the species for a long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "discussion with Wesley, then Yuta and Riker etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard mediated reconciliation effort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "special interest group issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Acamarian sovereign was negotiating with the a band of exiles, known as the Gatherers, with a view to reintegrating them back into Acamarian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "gatherers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley was somewhat taken aback when the outcast disparaged mathematics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuta :: Riker by Yuta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker when he shoots Yuta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuta :: Yuta with vendetta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuta :: Yuta with vendetta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Yuta :: Riker and Yuta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chorgan :: Gatherer leader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chorgan :: Gatherers were accused of being lazy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Acamarian Outcasts :: Gatherers", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x02", "title": "Marooned", "date": "1989-11-21", "description": "The crew abandon ship as Holly sees five black holes in the direct flight path of Red Dwarf. Rimmer and Lister then find themselves marooned on an ice planet after Starbug is struck by a meteoroid. Lister is freezing and starving but the only firewood is his beloved guitar and Rimmer's prized possessions, and the only food left is dog food and a pot noodle, Lister's most hated food.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram found themselves stranded on an ice planet with few supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "material possessions aren't everything", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Lister's reluctance to use his beloved guitar for firewood to keep himself alive while stranded on an ice planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer was collecting toy soldiers and rather obsessed about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram found themselves stranded on an ice planet with few supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly spotted, mistakenly as it turned out, five black holes in the direct flight path of Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat planned to bring 36 changes of clothing and 10 full-length dress mirrors on a trip that was expected to last for only 12 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister accused Rimmer of being a coward for having run away from a bar fight that Rimmer himself had started.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was convinced that Rimmer had lived as Alexander the Great's chief eunuch in a past life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Rimmer had undergone hypnotic regression in an effort to learn about his past lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram swapped stories of how they lost their virginity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Lister throw what was quite possible the last surviving copy of Shakespeare's plays, among other cultural artifacts, on the fire to keep himself alive while awaiting rescue?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As the latest addition to Rimmer's character flaws we learn that he's a penny pinching moocher who borrowed £15 from Lister to buy Lister a £5 birthday present, then never paid him back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram started a bar brawl by accusing someone of sleeping with corpses, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister lamented going to art college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and the Rimmer hologram found themselves stranded on just such a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Being stranded alone together on an ice planet brought Lister and the Rimmer hologram closer together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Back to the Future Part II (1989)", "title": "Back to the Future Part II", "date": "1989-11-22", "description": "Marty McFly and his friend Dr. Emmett \"Doc\" Brown travel from 1985 to 2015 to prevent Marty's son from sabotaging the McFly family's future. Their arch- nemesis Biff Tannen steals Doc's DeLorean time machine and uses it to alter history for his benefit, forcing the duo to return to 1955 to restore the timeline.", "collections": [ "Collection: Back to the Future" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly used Doc Brown's time machine to travel in ahead time to 2015.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brown had built a time machine out of a DeLorean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty Young Jennifer Parker and Old Jennifer Parker were shocked to come face to face with one another. Old Biff went back in time to give his younger a sports almanac that told the results of future sporting events. Young Doc crossed paths with Old Doc in the year 1955.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric scientist and inventor Doc Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matry McFly Jr. was bullied by Griff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying cars were common by the year 2015. Also, the DeLorean could fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fusion power in use by the year 2015. Also the DeLorean use fusion for its energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griff was bullying Marty McFly Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biff Tannen and Griff Tannen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hoverboard", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty McFly got into a hoverboard chase with Griff and his minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty McFly Sr.'s mother was apparently living at his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biff at Lorraine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George McFly stood up to the bully Biff with the help of Marty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x01", "title": "Murder: A Self Portrait", "date": "1989-11-25", "description": "Temperamental artist Max Barsini effectively lives with three women: his ex- wife, Louise, his young live-in model Julie, and his current wife Vanessa. Barsini takes delight in the way they fight for his attention. But when Louise begins seeing a therapist, Dr. Hammer, who is also her new fiancé, Barsini fears she will reveal that he killed his first agent, who was robbing him. He kills Louise, then makes it look like she drowned at the beach while he was at Vito's bar, painting. Columbo poses for Barsini while investigating him.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo can prove that a spot on Louise's face was not washed-up make-up but was instead remnants of \"Barsini red\", a special color mixed only for Barsini, and that it was on the cloth she was benumbed with.\n\nDirected by: James Frawley. Story by: Robert Sherman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The famous painter Max Barsini drowned his ex-wife, Louise, at the beach at a time when he was thought to have been painting a scene of a local restaurant, thus securing an ironclad alibi. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max Barsini was a painter of some renown. His painting of a scene of Vito's Italian restaurant and bar figured prominently into the plot. A subplot concerns Max paining Columbo's portrait. Columbo learned much about the craft of painting in order to catch his prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Max was cohabitating with three different lovers (all of whom he imagined were wives though he was technically married only to one): His current wife, Vanessa, his ex-wife, Louise, and his young model cum lover, Julie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The famous painter Max Barsini drowned his ex-wife, Louise, at the beach to prevent her from inadvertently expose him as a murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Did the ex-wife of a temperamental artist accidentally drown while swimming alone at the beach, or did the artist have something to do with it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was effectively shacked up with his current wife, Vanessa, his ex-wife, Louise, and a young lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max was effectively cohabitating with three different lovers: His current wife, Vanessa, his ex-wife, Louise, and his young lover, Julie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max drowned Louise to keep her from inadvertently letting the cat out of the bag about a murder that he'd committed a long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max's young lover Julie competed with his wife Vanessa over Max's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vanessa and Julie were at each other's throats over Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Max had hacked his scheming agent, Harry, to death with a hatchet some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Columbo finding meaning in each of Louise's three recurring nightmares. Each recurring nightmare, properly interpreted, pointed to Max having murdered a monocle-sporting man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hell had no fury like Max Barsini's when his ex-wife finally worked up the nerve to leave him. Enraged, he feigned to want to bury the hatchet then cold-bloodedly slew her. Later on, his current wife and his young lover both walked out on him after having conspired together in the sauna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with Columbo parading around his conspicuously overweight Basset hound at a special show for this breed of dog. Columbo later showed up unannounced with the creature at Max's beachfront house. He brought it along to meet Dr. Hammer on the boardwalk along the beach. Dr. Hammer told Columbo that the dog bit Columbo at the dog show out of jealousy, in a kind of parallel to Barsini killing his ex-wife in part due to jealousy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is beauty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max remarked that a women is beautiful when her physical features are all average.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sydney Hammer was Louise's psychologist before they become lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Hammer speculated that Columbo's dog bit Columbo out of jealousy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie played \"the orphan card\" to curry sympathy with her romantic rival, Vanessa. Vanessa one-upped her, however, by countering that she herself was a \"double orphan\" (that is, she was twice orphaned: once by her biological parents, and again by her first adoptive parents).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The romantic rivals Vanessa and Julie buried the hatched over a some vodka shots in the sauna.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x03", "title": "Polymorph", "date": "1989-11-28", "description": "The crew become radically different people after they encounter a polymorph, a genetically engineered shape-changing mutant that feeds on negative emotions - in the crew's case vanity, guilt, anger and fear. They decide that there are only two options against the polymorph, one: take it on, or two: run away. Two has always been the Cat's favourite number anyway.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf crew was terrorized by a genetically engineered shapeshifting mutant creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on the mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shapeshifting mutant creature fed on the crew's emotions and character traits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was terrorized by a genetically engineered shapeshifting mutant creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered shapeshifting mutant creature was loose aboard Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if an aspect of my personality was slightly different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each crewman lost a particular emotion: Lister lost his sense of fear, the Rimmer hologram his anger, Cat his vanity, and Kryten his sense of guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cat complemented himself on the pleasant smell of his own aftershave. He later made a quip about being the most handsome guy on the ship. Then the polymorph stole his \"vanity\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten lost his character flaw of indecisiveness to the polymorph, and came to second guess himself at every turn as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer lost his aggressiveness to the polymorph and turned into some sort of gentle hippie. The Rimmer hologram pointedly lost his temper upon seeing Lister in bed with what he thought was his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister lost his sense of fear to the polymorph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was nostalgically watching a home movie from Rimmer's childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram explained how he'd been the butt of occasional practical jokes during his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister confessed that snakes were his all time second greatest fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shapeshifter was described as a genetic experiment that had gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shapeshifting creature assumed the identity of Rimmer's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten deeply regretted having behaved like a total jerk after regaining his sense of guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram watched images of Rimmer being bullied as a child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x04", "title": "Bodyswap", "date": "1989-12-05", "description": "Rimmer suggests that the perfect way to help Lister get \"healthy\" is swapping bodies, by implanting his mind into Lister's and vice versa, so that Rimmer can undergo a hefty exercise regime in Lister's body. However, Rimmer is overtaken with excitement at the prospect of having a physical body again and refuses to give it back to Lister.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Antics ensue when Lister swaps bodies with the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram. Lister's mind was transfered into the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer (in Lister's body) over indulged in food and drink, to put it mildly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypocritical character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer admonished Lister to take care of his health, but once in possession on Lister's body he overindulged himself to the extreme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mind of a high ranking female crew member was surprised to find itself inhabiting Lister's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister's mind was transfered to a cassette tape, and the mind of a female crew member was subsequently transferred into his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and and the Rimmer hologram conversed with each other from their bunk beds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who refuses to take care of their health", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram expressed concern over the way that Lister was abusing Lister's body with poor diet and lack of exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer (in Lister's body) experienced the sensation of taste for the first time in over 3 million years, enjoying the experience immensely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister (in Rimmer's holographic body) and Cat were playing scrabble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat displayed his normal excessive vanity by pleading to Lister for his suits.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x05", "title": "Timeslides", "date": "1989-12-12", "description": "The developing fluid that Kryten uses to process old photographs mutates and the photographs come alive. The crew find they can go into the photograph, and Lister finds that the photographs allows them to go back in time. Using this he plans on changing history so that he does not end up marooned in deep space. Director Ed Bye's wife Ruby Wax made a Cameo appearance as the presenter of \"Lifestyles of the Disgustingly Rich and Famous.\"\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew traveled back to various points in time by stepping into old photographs that had somehow come alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram. Lister's mind was transfered into the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister traveled back in time and met his 18-year-old, aspiring rock star self. The Rimmer hologram traveled back in time and met his child self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat were wasting away their Sunday playing a tabletop golf game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat were wasting away their Sunday playing a tabletop golf game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister spoke of a man, named Charles Keenan, who had eaten his own his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was down in the dumps over the prospect of having to waste away the rest of his life aboard Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew commented on Hitler as they watched him give a speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alternate timeline Lister's band was performing a song on state at a pub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alternate timeline Lister was the owner of a multi-billion pound business empire, and personally owned 58 houses, and a private island in the Bahamas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alternate timeline Lister was married to a posh novelist by the name of Sabrina Mulholland-Jones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon finding out he was no longer a hologram, Rimmer immediately delighted himself in the consumption of food, the touching of objects, and the respiration of air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was tired of their monotonous existence and just playing stupid games all the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an embarrassing plot twist, we learn that Lister accidentally saved Hitler from the briefcase bomb. Holly cautioned against meddling with history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A younger Lister kept going on about crypto-fascism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram was so incurably lonely that he resolved to save Lister from his alternative life of enormous riches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer had known a kid they called \"Thickie Holden\" and was himself spitefully nicknamed \"Bonehead\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enthusiastic, wanting to change the world 18-year old Lister was contrasted with the lazy, going nowhere all grown up Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful ideological convictions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 18-year-old Lister was a money hating, material possession loathing aspiring rock star who wanted nothing to do with crypto-fascist bourgeois crap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister inadvertently saved Hitler's life by stealing a bomb containing briefcase that was intended for the Fuhrer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Glory (1989)", "title": "Glory", "date": "1989-12-14", "description": "The film is about one of the first military units of the Union Army, during the American Civil War, to consist entirely of African-American men (except for its officers), as told from the point of view of Colonel Shaw, its white commanding officer. The regiment is known especially for its heroic actions at Fort Wagner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(1989_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "choice", "motivation": "all part of this historical event", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "gruesome conditions were portrayed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the big question was what they were fighting for", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central conflict of the story was over slavery and Black Rights in America during the Civil War. We saw a \"first and only\" regiment of exclusively black soldiers, and the many racist attitudes they were met with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gruesome battlefield conditions were portrayed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Silas for himself, Shaw for the regiment, all of them yearned for battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaw volunteered the 54th for suicide mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "blacks fought for", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silas did but stayed anyway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shaw at first refused to obey Colonel Montgomery’s unlawful order to sack and burn a village.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Biollante (1989)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Biollante", "date": "1989-12-16", "description": "Godzilla battles a monster born from the cells of a plant and a woman, as corporations struggle for control over Godzilla cells. It is the 17th film in the Godzilla franchise and the second film in the franchise's Heisei period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Biollante" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1980s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla ravaged Osaka and rampaged across other parts of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla. The giant plant monster Biollante.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant plant monster Biollante.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Shiragami inadvertently created the giant plant monster Biollante by using genetic engineering techniques to Godzilla cells with those of a plant and also cells from his recently departed daughter. An anti-nuclear energy bacteria was engineered from Godzilla cells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shiragami was working with his daughter Erika on genetic engineering experiments until such time as she perished in a terrorist bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erica was killed in a terrorist bombing of the Saradia Institute of Technology and Science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shiragami opined that he had nothing to live for in the wake of his daughter getting killing in a terrorist bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with plants", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki had an innate ability to communicate with plant in general and the giant plant monster Biollante in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki was said to be able to communicate with plants using ESP.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man disapproved of Dr. Shiragami conducting research into genetic engineering on account of the unseen danger that might result from doing so. And it wasn't long before Dr. Shiragami inadvertently engineered a giant plant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "radiation neutralizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An anti-nuclear energy bacteria was engineered from Godzilla cells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Super X2 vehicle could fly around in the air just as well as it could cruise under the sea like a submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a man abandoning his plan to study in America so that he could be with a certain woman in whom he was interested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shiragami and Erika were working on genetic engineering experiments in their Saradia Institute of Technology and Science lab.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e3x06", "title": "The Last Day", "date": "1989-12-19", "description": "Lister receives a pre-recorded message from Jim Reaper (as in \"the Grim Reaper\"), head of Diva-Droid international, the company that created Kryten. Kryten is ordered to be dismantled within 24 hours and is to be replaced by Hudzen-10 (Gordon Kennedy), a super-strong android, who has been tracking Kryten for thousands of years and is now on an intercept course with Red Dwarf. The crew decide to throw Kryten a leaving party, and give him one last night to remember.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram. Lister's mind was transfered into the Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten took comfort in his belief that he would go to Silicon Heaven when he died after being given 24 hours to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had only one day to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten took what were supposed to be his last 24 hours in stride because he was convinced that Silicon Heaven awaited him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten spent a fair amount of what were supposed to be his last 24 hours serving as butler to the other crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten's sham robot religion was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew ultimately put their lives on the line to save Kryten from being dismantled. This Kryten explicitly interpreted as an act of friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was watching topless female boxing on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diva-Droid international sold droids with built-in expiry dates to force people into buying their latest models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was programmed to believe that he would go to Silicon Heaven after he was dismantled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Adam and Eve creation myth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram explained how his parents had taken a slightly garbled form of this Bible story literally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone got plastered at Kryten's party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone woke up hungover the morning after Kryton's party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and his bunk mate the Rimmer hologram were shown interacting in their shared crew quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Terminator-like android showed up to kill Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten took out a Terminator-like android by the simple expedient posing it a metaphysical paradox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was programmed to believe in the silicon afterlife so that he'd happily auto-destruct and the company could sell newer models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew, Lister most notably, took pity on a soon-to-be dismantled Kryten and threw him a farewell party among other thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea that Heaven was made up to keep people complacent and sane was explored.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Abraxas Guardian of the Universe (1990)", "title": "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe", "date": "1990", "description": "A alien intergalactic police officer travels to Earth to track down his ex- partner who is now a wanted criminal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraxas_Guardian_of_the_Universe" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the alien intergalactic police officer Abraxas as he pursues his ex-partner turned wanted criminal Secundus. In addition, a small town sheriff and his deputy were investigating a string of crimes that coincided with Secundus' arrival to their neck of the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien intergalactic police officer Abraxas and his ex-partner Secundus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonia struggled to raise her mute son Tommy as a single mother. She was disowned by her parents when she revealed that she didn't know the identity of the father, she had trouble getting extra support for her son, and she had some financial problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonia struggled to raise her mute son Tommy as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a child with special needs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonia struggled to raise her mute son Tommy as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Secundus sought the solution to the \"Anti-Life Equation\" in an effort to acquire \"power beyond imagination\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Secundus impregnated Sonia with his child by placing his hand over her abdomen and she gave birth shortly thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mute boy Tommy had a human mother and human-looking alien father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abraxas, and the other intergalactic police officers traveled around the universe via naturally occurring conduits they likened to wormholes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff lectured his deputy on this distinction after the deputy confronted a farmer for having driven an uninspected tractor into town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff and deputy were investigating a murder or three that Secundus had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town shops were decorated for the occasion and had Christmas music playing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien Secundus was unacquainted with how to order a meal at a restaurant and ended up eating his receipt by mistake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Once Upon a Time... (1990)", "title": "Once Upon a Time...", "date": "1990", "description": "A giant, robotic, dragon-like monster takes captive a beautiful maiden.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1967540/", "https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0-%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%E2%80%A6" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set in a futuristic city whose inhabitants live in leisure owing to automation. There was only catch: the citizens had to sacrifice the city's most beautiful woman to a giant monster each year or else the monster would destroy the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two young lovers: Zor and Kora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Every year the citizens offered up every year their most beautiful girl in order to appease the monster and save the city from destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A futuristic city was being terrorized by a giant, robotic, dragon-like monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zor took it upon himself to face the city terrorizing robotic monster in an effort to rescue his lover, Kora, who'd been taken captive inside the monster's belly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kora committed suicided upon finding a man she took to be her lover slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kora committed suicided upon finding a man she took to be her lover slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kora committed suicided upon finding a man she took to be her lover slain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x10", "title": "The Defector", "date": "1990-01-01", "description": "Determined to avert a war, a Romulan officer defects to warn Picard of his Empire's invasion plans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "treason", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok was accused of committing treason by the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Romulan Admiral Jarok defected to the Federation in a bid to prevent what he believed would be a war that was calculated to leave the Romulan Empire in ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok struggled in the aftermath of his fateful decision to defect to the Federation to warn of his Empire's invasion plans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in Jarok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard must choose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok felt he had no alternative but to defect to Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarok suspected of being a spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jarok to Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Romulan Admiral Jarok defected to the Federation in a bid to prevent what he believed would be a war that was calculated to leave the Romulan Empire in ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data discusses with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi and Data discussed the pros and cons of relying on one's gut feeling versus the making of rational judgements based on cold hard facts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok about having defected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data played the part of Henry V in the Shakespeare play of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok for peace", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans were testing Jarok's loyalty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok left everything behind with the prospect of living out the rest of his days among Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and others with Jarok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alidar Jarok :: Jarok defecting for altruistic reasons", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x11", "title": "The Hunted", "date": "1990-01-08", "description": "A genetically modified soldier reveals the social problems of a world hoping to join the Federation . Guest star James Cromwell as Prime Minister Nayrok.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prisoners' rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dangerous supersoldier war veterans were being imprisoned indefinitely on a moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vietnam vet parallel is obvious", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: war veterans need more in life than being imprisoned on a moon even if they had all they could ask for there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Angosians maintain a peaceful and safe society by keeping war veterans on prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Angosians maintain a peaceful and safe society by keeping war veterans on prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Angosians imprisoned their war veterans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angosians used mind control in super soldier design", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga to escape prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Angosians showed their super soldier war veterans how much they appreciated them by locking them all up on a prison moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "distinct possibility of super soldiers sparking civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "intellectual pursuits, past wars etc. Initial discussion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "war veterans confined to prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: from Roga's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga about prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga flipped out a few times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roga Danar :: Roga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Angosians sought membership in the Federation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x02", "title": "Columbo Cries Wolf", "date": "1990-01-20", "description": "When Dian Hunter, the partner of men's magazine publisher Sean Brantley, vanishes after expressing a desire to sell her 51% interest to a rival, suspicion falls on Sean and his girlfriend Tina. Columbo sets out to find the body, eventually digging up much of Brantley's estate and breaking open the walls. But after the search turns into a full-blown media event, Dian resurfaces, explaining she needed some time to herself. Dian and Sean planned the disappearance as a publicity stunt to increase sales. But to his shock, she actually intends to sell now that her holding is more valuable. Sean proceeds to then kill Dian for real and hides the body, believing that Columbo will not be allowed to search for it again. Richard Levinson and William Link wrote the story for this episode, but were uncredited.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Dian apparently left wearing a fur coat. Columbo gets suspicious when he sees all her remaining fur coats in plastic storage bags, deducing that Brantley put the body in the missing bag. Knowing he will not be supported in a second full search, he phones the pager Dian wears as a wristlet: it is on her body, behind a finished section of the replacement wall being installed; which Columbo tears down. (The word Columbo uses to ring the pager is \"Gotcha\".)\n\nDirected by: Daryl Duke. Story by: William Read Woodfield.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sean Brantley came up with this unusually elaborate plot to murder his business partner and lover Dian Hunter: He convinced Dian to hoodwink Columbo and the police into thinking he had murdered her as a publicity stunt. Then, later, he murdered her for real thinking the police wouldn't risk embarrassing themselves by investigating him a second time. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sean Brantley came up with an unusually elaborate plot to murder his business partner and lover Dian Hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sean murdered Dian because she threatened to sell her majority stake in their shared company, which would have put an end to Sean's extravagant lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had a business woman been shot dead in her car and replaced by an impostor, or had she merely run off on a secret adventure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dian said that Sean was serially unfaithful and frequently slept around with his models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dian said that Sean was serially unfaithful and frequently slept around with his models. She had had enough and was going to leave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean and Dian had a turbulent on-again, off-with-her-head kind of relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dian feigned to be wildly jealous of Sean's young love interest, Tina. An apparently jealously Dian watched her lover, Sean, make out with another woman on a closed circuit video stream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the Dian and Sean elaborately faking Dian's disappearance as a publicity stunt to increase sales of their smutty magazine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean liked to shoot sexy young women in the nude for his magazine as well as for his own pleasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean and Dian owned a men's magazine featuring countless pretty but sartorially challenged young ladies. Although not deeply discussed, Columbo's reaction to the goings on implied that it was skirting the boundaries of propriety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pagers in the form of golden wristbands were featured as something of a novelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dian interacted with her trusted limo chauffeur on the fated drive to the airport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo remarked on the increased levels of video surveillance at the airport being part of a campaign against international terrorism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean shed alligator tears for his presumed dead lover and business partner Dian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was thronged by statement seeking journalists in a scene or two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of Columbo's colleagues worried that the media would make a \"national joke\" of the LAPD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean pointed to Columbo's \"ordinary middle-class background\" with an air of condescension.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x12", "title": "The High Ground", "date": "1990-01-29", "description": "Dr. Crusher is kidnapped by terrorists who need medical assistance as the technology employed in their attacks is detrimental to their own health.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Considered as terrorists by the Rutians, the Ansata rebels saw themselves as fighting for their autonomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Rutians oppressed a minority population that was under terrorist control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ansata and Rutians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly to terrorist cause and casualties but not terrorist tactics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rutian government was in the middle of a decades-long conflict with rebel separatists called the Ansata.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly held captive by terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard negotiated to free Beverly from the clutches a militant separatist faction on the planet Rutia IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "major", "motivation": "negotiate with terrorists or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finn opined that the difference between generals and terrorists is this: if you win you're called a general, and if you lose, you're called a terrorist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly became attached to her captor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and crew must rescue Beverly from clutches of terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ansata accused the Federation of violating the Prime Directive by aiding the Rutian cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly disobeyed orders and stayed behind on the planet to treat casualties of the bombing attack. After that she became attached to her captor and felt torn between his separatist cause and that of the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly to casualties", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher was kidnapped because she refused to leave a wounded man's side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly in captivity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ansata adopted a police state in order to protect themselves from terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly, Kyrill Finn :: Finn and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyril Finn :: Finn in terrorist pursuits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley at Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyril Finn :: Finn temper tantrums", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "terrorist attacks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly, Wesley :: Crushers, Wesley for Beverly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x13", "title": "Deja Q", "date": "1990-02-05", "description": "The Q Continuum strips Q of his powers, and dumps him aboard the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and the crew toward Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and the crew toward Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q :: Q living as a mere mortals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and crew for Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q :: Q felt shame after Data sacrificed himself to save Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q beside himself in experiencing human emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q :: Q has difficulty fitting in with his new crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "In spite of having lost all his powers, Q kept on being an arrogant jerk. In the end he seemed to have learned his lesson, however.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with losing a special ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q struggled to adjust to life after having been stripped of his godlike powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q :: Q got a lesson in humility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and crew to Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of Q being stripped of his immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calamarain against Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data for Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q suffered the indignity of experiencing what it was like to be human in the wake of having been stripped of his god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q and Data discussed the taste of food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard refuses to handover Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calamarain :: Calamarain: swirls of ionized gas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moon slowly spiraling into a planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natives of Bre'el IV :: Enterprise on a mission to save the ugly aliens from their moon crashing into their planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q for bring the Enterprise under attack by the Calamarain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q taken on by crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q grumpily helping", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q :: Q attacked by Calamarain", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alienator (1990)", "title": "Alienator", "date": "1990-02-08", "description": "A brawny female humanoid comes to a rural area of America in search of an alien fugitive.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alienator (a very muscular female humanoid with a laser cannon for an arm) was going around shooting everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alienator (a very muscular female humanoid with a laser cannon for an arm) was dispatched to Earth to hunt down the escaped alien criminal Kol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alienator (a very muscular female humanoid with a laser cannon for an arm) was dispatched to Earth to hunt down the escaped alien criminal Kol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kol was being held on what was described as a prison world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Kol in a holding cell awaiting his execution with trepidation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kol escaped from the prison colony where he was being held just before his date with the executioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lund attempted to convinced some prison colony executioners that executing prisoners is a barbaric practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kol made his escape from the prison world in a futuristic looking spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick assured his passengers that he drove better after \"a couple of brews\" shortly before inadvertently running a man over on a rural road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hillbilly brothers Burt and Harley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hillbilly brothers Burt and Harley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Coburn insisted that flying saucers were merely figments of the imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Coburn made some allusions to having fought against \"commies\" in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Lund revealed that Kol was his only son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x03", "title": "Agenda for Murder", "date": "1990-02-10", "description": "Oscar Finch is a lawyer who uses underhanded methods to get his clients off, like coercing Paul Mackey, who worked for the D.A.'s office, into destroying evidence against racketeer Frank Staplin in 1969. Twenty-one years later, Mackey is chosen by a presidential candidate, Governor Montgomery, to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Finch himself hopes that he might be appointed as the next Attorney General. Staplin, facing another indictment, threatens to expose the long-ago favor and ruin Finch's and Mackey's political futures if he doesn't arrange the destruction of another document. Finch decides to murder him. He scatters cigar ashes to make it seem he was in a late-night meeting with a contributor when the murder occurred. Finch walks to Staplin's house, shoots him and makes his death look like a suicide.\n\nFinal clue/twist: After Columbo learns that Staplin hadn't eaten any of the cheese on the dish at the crime scene, but that the block of cheese had had a piece bitten off from it, he assumes that the murderer must have taken a bite. CSI can fabricate a toothprint from the cheese and Columbo finds more than enough samples of Finch's toothprint on his discarded pieces of chewing gum - proving that he was at the crime scene.\n\nDirected by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: Jeffrey Bloom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Oscar Finch came up with an elaborate plot to murder the blackmailing racketeer Frank Staplin: Oscar went to meet Frank in secret and shot him dead, then planted the gun in such a way that it would look like suicide. He would undoubtedly have gotten away with it too, were it not for an irresistible urge to nibble on a morsel of Reggiano cheese at the murder site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Oscar Finch wanted a high-profile position in Governor Montgomery's future administration, and murdered Frank Staplin whose blackmailing threatened those designs. The Congressman Paul Mackey had designs on the White House.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Oscar Finch was being blackmailed by Frank Staplin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had a well-known racketeer committed suicide in his study, or had he been shot dead by someone who cleverly concealed their action?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar Finch was a practicing attorney. It came to light that he had formerly arranged for evidence against the racketeer Frank Staplin to be destroyed. In a scene outside of the courthouse, Oscar celebrated a legal victory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar Finch shot dead his blackmailer, Frank Staplin, and made the death look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Governor Montgomery was running for the presidential nomination from his party with Paul MacKey as his pick for Vice President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oscar Finch killed Frank because Frank threatened to reveal that Ocsar played a role in destroying evidence in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colombo soliloquized about the exquisite Reggiano cheese he found next to the dead body of Frank Staplin. He commanded that it be set it aside for him once they were done investigating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was astonished to learn about the fax machine, clearly a novelty to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obstruction of justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar had destroyed evidence against the racketeer Frank Staplin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul remarked about homelessness in his stump speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar Finch superficially interacted with his wife, Mrs. Finch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar Finch's personal assistant was upset with the odor of cigar smoke that permeated his office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank's personal assistant, Mrs. Christy, was visibly disturbed by the news of his apparent suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amazement at a new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was amazed that it was now possible to transmit a message from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 14 seconds from the comfort of one's own home by means of this invention: a home fax machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oscar twice stated that he hated being late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The use of bite-mark evidence against the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was mentioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x14", "title": "A Matter of Perspective", "date": "1990-02-12", "description": "Riker is accused of murder, and the holodeck is used to reconstruct the events from different perspectives.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker put on holo-trial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker and the defendants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "holodeck :: Riker's extradition hearing held on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker defended himself against false charges of murder and sexual assault in a dramatic holodeck trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Manua Apgar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker was accused of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker faced extradition to Tanugan homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "major", "motivation": "innocent until proved guilty vs. guilty until proven innocent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Riker was presumed innocent under Federation law, but guilty under Tanugan law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker defended himself in a dramatic extradition hearing where everyone's version of what transpired was re-created in the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker was accused of having murdered Nel Apgar in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard negotiated with the Tanugan chief investigator Krag to hold Riker's extradition hearing aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar/Manua Apgar :: Nel and Manua", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar plotted to make a fortune from the Federation funded Krieger wave converter project by weaponizing the said converters and selling them on the blackmarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data criticized Captain Picard's painting rather harshly, to the Captain's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data harshly critiqued Captain Picard's painting of a nude, reclining, young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel sold his gizmo as a weapon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar :: Nel felt Riker was unfair to him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar :: Nel tried to kill Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manua mourned the death of her husband, Nel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Manua Apgar :: Riker welcomed on space station by Manua", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar :: Nel was jealous of Riker over Manua.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi in Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi in Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nel Apgar :: Apgar for Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker defended himself in a dramatic extradition hearing where everyone's version of what transpired was re-created in the holodeck.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990)", "title": "The Death of the Incredible Hulk", "date": "1990-02-13", "description": "David Banner masquerades as a mentally challenged janitor to gain access to a scientific research facility. He believes that the studies of one of the scientists there may hold the key to curing his gamma-induced condition that, in times of stress, turns him into a brutish, green creature known as the Hulk.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Incredible_Hulk" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a green-skinned savage creature, with a sub-human mind and superhuman strength whenever he got angry or afraid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into the Hulk whenever he got angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David sought to rid himself of the creature within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmin and her monster of a sister Bella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things got pretty hot and heavy between DAvid and Jasmin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David explained to Dr. Ronald Pratt how his his condition was caused by a dose of gamma radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A laceration David sustained to his back healed almost immediately.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ronald Pratt and his wife Amy were helping cure DAvid of his condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was worried to death over her husband Ronald who was left in a comatose state after an incident at his lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was worried to death over her husband Ronald who was left in a comatose state after an incident at his lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bella order the murder of her own sister, Jasmin, in order to get a hold of a financially lucrative chemical formula.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moon 44 (1990)", "title": "Moon 44", "date": "1990-02-15", "description": "The film is set on a futuristic mining site on an unspecified moon, where convicts and teenage technicians are partnered. An undercover agent must discover what has happened to missing corporate shuttles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_44" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that all natural resources on Earth had been depleted by the year 2038.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a futuristic battle cruiser spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler characterized as a hacker street kid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scooter was shown naked weeping in a shower room stall after he'd had been remorselessly violated by Jake O’Neal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young man avenged Scooter raping him in a most humiliating fashion by sending the aircraft that Scooter was piloting careening into the side of a cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young man who Scooter raped in a most humiliating fashion hanged himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Handmaids Tale (1990)", "title": "The Handmaid's Tale", "date": "1990-02-15", "description": "Set in a near-future New England, a strongly patriarchal, quasi-Christian, totalitarian state, known as the Republic of Gilead has overthrown the United States government. The central character and narrator is a woman named Kate, one of the group known as \"handmaids\", who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the \"commanders\" - the ruling class of men. It is based on the Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future in a strongly patriarchal, quasi-Christian, totalitarian state, known as the Republic of Gilead that has overthrown the United States government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "War was raging across the Republic of Gilead, a country formerly the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 1% of females would could bare children, known as \"handmaids\", were forcibly assigned to produce children for the men of the ruling class men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Republic of Gilead elites reorganized society using a self-serving interpretation of some Old Testament ideas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film features numerous Judeo-Christian tropes, and the Republic of Gilead was patterned on a quasi-Christian ideology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Commander and Serena Joy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serena Joy, who counted herself among the 99% of females who were infertile, wanted very much to have a child, and permitted her husband to impregnate a concubine to get one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serena Joy, who counted herself among the 99% of females who were infertile, wanted very much to have a child, and permitted her husband to impregnate a concubine to get one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mayday resistance movement was fighting to undermine the totalitarian state she lived under.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kate and Nick fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the Republic of Gilead, social class was made evident through the clothes people wore: blue dresses for the wives of the elite, black for security forces, brown for the educators, drab green for the workers, and red garments for the concubines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pollution had rendered 99% of the Republic of Gilead population sterile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moira was considered to be a deviant because she liked girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate was crying as she was forcible inseminated by Fred. Kate tearfully spoke of having been raped when she was in high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate confessed to having had an abortion when she became impregnated from a gang rape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The preacher interpreted the mass infertility as a punishment mediated by God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate longed to be reunited with her young daughter Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate and her fellow \"handmaid\" friend Moira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Serena Joy was notably jealous of her husband's concubine, Kate, but put up with it hoped the concubine would produce a child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x15", "title": "Yesterday's Enterprise", "date": "1990-02-19", "description": "The Enterprise-C arrives from the past, causing a shift in reality—and the return of the deceased Tasha Yar .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha travels back in time to face certain death at the hands of the Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Guinan had an uncanny sensation that things on the Enterprise were not as they ought to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew goes back in the past to fight Klingons for the good of future generations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew goes back in the past to fight Klingons for the good of future generations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew goes back in the past to fight Klingons for the good of future generations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard trusted Guinan's instinct because the two of them were fast friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tasha :: Tasha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew goes back in the past to fight Klingons for the good of future generations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew goes back in the past to fight Klingons for the good of future generations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew, especially Data, reflected on Natasha's tragic passing with much sorrow. The Enterprise-C crew-members mourned the death of their captain, Rachel Garret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tasha, Richard Castillo :: Tasha and Castillo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in fighting a doomed battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guinan :: Guinan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a butterfly flaps its wings in the past and the Federation is at total war in the present", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha/Richard Castillo :: Tasha and Castillo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew aboard Enterprise-D", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise-C crew and Enterprise-D crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans face Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha ultimately decided to leave her fellow crew-members to go back in time to fight the Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to Enterprise-C crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to contrast Guinan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guinan :: Guinan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spontaneous Combustion (1990)", "title": "Spontaneous Combustion", "date": "1990-02-23", "description": "A man is able to control fire and electricity, but with terrible consequences to his body afterwards.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_Combustion_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spontaneous human combustion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "David was initially horrified to learn that some people he'd come into contact with had shortly after spontaneously combusted, but he later learn to control his power and make people spontaneously combust at will. The phenomenon of spontaneous combustion was also discussed to some extent. For example, Dr. Persons alleged that some cases of what are classified as dying in bed from smoking are really cases of spontaneous combustion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Being conceived during a hydrogen bomb blast endowed David with the ability to control fire and electricity, but with terrible consequences to his body afterwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Peggy agreed to occupy a hydrogen bomb proof shelter in a test blast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Peggy Bell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some military officials deliberated over whether or not Peggy should be forced to have an abortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David bombed his audition for a role in a Shakespeare play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Persons made a failed attempt to contact the recently departed spirit of Amy Whittaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People expressed concerns about what might result from being exposed to radiation from a hydrogen bomb blast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "radiation neutralizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military was testing a drug that creates a shield around their peoples' cells to make them impervious to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David consulted his family doctor first about his migraine headaches and later about fire shooting out from his arm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Rift (1990)", "title": "The Rift", "date": "1990-03-09", "description": "An experimental submarine, the Siren II, with an experienced NATO crew is sent to find out what happened to its predecessor the missing Siren I submarine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rift_(1990_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Phillips and his crew ventured deep into an ocean rift of the coast of Norway where they discovered a dangerous form of toxic seaweed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the toxic seaweed in the deep sea rift was the product of illegal genetic engineering experiments by the Contek company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wick Hayes was outraged to find out that the experimental submarined he'd designed, called the Siren I, had been modified to run on nuclear power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Phillip's submarine crew included the ship physician Dr. Carlo Camerini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Phillips confined Wick Hayes to his quarters at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the Contek company was involved in biological weapons research.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x16", "title": "The Offspring", "date": "1990-03-12", "description": "Data creates a young gynoid, which he considers his daughter, \"Lal\". But a Starfleet admiral arrives demanding she be removed from the Enterprise. Guest star Hallie Todd as Lal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Lal :: Data and Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Does Data have parental rights over Lal, and does Lal have right to choose her own fate?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Lal, Soong Type Android :: Data creates Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The android Lal grew more and more sentient over the course of her short life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Haftel considers Data and Lal to be brute machines, but has a change of heart at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Is Lal a machine to be reverse engineered or a person?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lal a window into the nature of emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data creates Lal to have a purpose in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lal :: Lal comes to feel accepted aboard the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data and Haftel battle for custody of Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Anthony Haftel :: Data and Haftel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lal :: Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lal reflected about her development into a person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was devastated when his android daughter, Lal, died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about Haftel taking Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lal was pointedly child-like in her naivety about the world around her onboard the Enterprise, asking such questions as \"why is the sky black?\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lal choosing a gender", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lal experiences smell, taste etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lal :: Lal asks why the sky is black etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the unknown", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lal :: Lal fears being taken away by Haftel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data created for himself an android daughter named Lal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data with Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Lal immitates Data and others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Lal :: Riker and Lal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lal :: Lal to Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The child-like android Lal struggled to interact more naturally with her human crew mates.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x17", "title": "Sins of the Father", "date": "1990-03-19", "description": "Worf goes on trial to prove his father's innocence after the Klingon High Council declares that Worf's father is a traitor, and worked with the Romulans all along.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf's family honor on the line", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Kurn :: Worf and Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation drawn into Klingon political dispute", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf among Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about his Klingon heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf's father accused of treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf among Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kurn :: Worf accepts discommendation for Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mogh/Worf :: Worf and father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf challenged the Klingon High Council's accusation that his father was a traitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Human vs. Klingon styles of command are compared and illustrate the respective benefits and disadvantages of order and freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various humans observed odd Klingon customs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to House of Mogh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Duras accused Worf of forsaking his heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duras :: Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf held himself back from lashing out at this commanding officer Kurn when Kurn repeatedly condescended him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf flips out at Kurn and Klingons more generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf fighting for his honour", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf for Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf stood trial in a Klingon court of law to prove his father's innocence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "what evidence was necessary to exonerate Worf's father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Kurn worked to preserve the honor of the Mogh dynasty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf stood trial in a Klingon court of law to prove his father's innocence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pretty Woman (1990)", "title": "Pretty Woman", "date": "1990-03-23", "description": "Pretty Woman is a 1990 American romantic comedy film directed by Garry Marshall, from a screenplay by J. F. Lawton. The film stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, and features Héctor Elizondo, Ralph Bellamy, Laura San Giacomo, and Jason Alexander in supporting roles.\n\nThe film's story centers on Hollywood prostitute Vivian Ward and wealthy businessman Edward Lewis. Vivian is hired to be Edward's escort for several business and social functions, and their relationship develops during her week-long stay with him.\n\nThe film's title Pretty Woman is based on the 1964 song \"Oh, Pretty Woman\" by Roy Orbison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Woman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love of a woman transforms a man", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The callous vulture capitalist Edward Lewis learned compassion as his heart melted for the titular \"Pretty Woman\", Vivian Ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vivian and Edward fell head over heels in love with each other throughout the course of a lengthy courtship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"Pretty Woman\" Vivian Ward, a street prostitute, fell in love with the wealthy businessman Edward Lewis throughout the course of a lengthy flirtation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the street prostitute Vivian Ward as she finds in the wealthy businessman Edward Lewis her Prince Charming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Vivian and her roommate Kit's lives as street prostitutes in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contrasts the uncultured street prostitute Vivian Ward with the lavishly wealthy businessman Edward Lewis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The vulture capitalist Edward Lewis and his associate Phillip Stuckey had designs on forcing the garden variety capitalist grandpa owner of a shipbuilding company into accepting a billion dollar acquisition offer, after which they would liquidate the company and take the payout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The vulture capitalist Edward Lewis struggled with the decision of whether to coerce the owner of a shipbuilding company into a billion dollar acquisition deal that would see the company liquidated, leaving Edward with yet another dump truck full of money, but the company's employees without their livelihoods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The vulture capitalist Edward Lewis had increasing qualms about coercing the warm-hearted grandpa owner of a shipbuilding company into accepting a billion dollar acquisition offer that would see the company utterly liquidated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the vulture capitalist Edward Lewis had a change of heart about coercing the warm-hearted grandpa owner of a shipbuilding company into accepting a billion dollar acquisition offer that would see the company immediately liquidated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The callous vulture capitalist Edward Lewis learned compassion as his heart melted for the titular \"Pretty Woman\", Vivian Ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian was rooming with her fellow lady of the night, Kit, until taking up temporary residence in a fancy hotel penthouse. Vivian was dismayed at the revelation that Kit spent the rent money on drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian and Kit were best friends and roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "table manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian was instructed in the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork (among other things) prior to her night out at the fancy restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Edward harbored ill-will against his old man for leaving his mother for another woman, and taking all the money along with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Edward's parents were divorced. The father, it so happened, left the mother for another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian mused aloud as to why Edward would elect to sit in the opera house balcony, given his fear of acrophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian and Edward attended an Italian operatic performance at the opera house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shipping company owner James Morris was readying his grandson, David, to succeed him as company president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip Stuckey was a lawyer under Edward's employ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The street prostitute Vivian was told to leave a fancy Beverly Hills woman's boutique by its proprietor even though she had money to spend. The snobs at the horse racing track looked down their noses at the street prostitute Vivian.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x18", "title": "Allegiance", "date": "1990-03-26", "description": "Aliens kidnap Picard and replace him with a duplicate, who sends the Enterprise to a pulsar . Meanwhile, the real Picard and three other captives try to escape from their prison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard and prisoners must cooperate to escape alien experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Abducting Aliens :: the kidnapping aliens had an odd outlook", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker, Beverly, Troi :: Riker and crew to Picard's double as well as prisoners to real Picard on-and-off", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard and prisoners must trust one another to escape and crew to pesudo-Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Abducting Alien no. 1, Abducting Alien no. 2 :: aliens in regard to human behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker, Beverly, Troi :: crew in Picard's double", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The unnamed abducting aliens saw nothing wrong in toying with lives as they did, but perhaps learned their lesson when Picard deftly turned the tables on them. Tangentially, the pacifist and the anarchist aliens in captivity had trouble getting along on account of one wanting to eat the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "prisoners must put minor differences aside, like pacifism and anarchy, in order to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard takes leadership role among the prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picardologue about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "captives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abducting Aliens :: abducting aliens kidnapped humanoids to observe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Esoqq hailed from proud anarchic world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kova Tholl hailed from proud pacifist world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "platonic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Picard (impostor) :: Beverly and pseudo-Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the aliens were studying it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Mitena Haro, Kova Tholl, Esoqq :: Picard and the prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Mitena Haro/Kova Tholl/Esoqq :: Picard and the prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abducting Aliens :: Picard abducted by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abducting Aliens :: Picard abducted by aliens and placed in elaborate experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abducting Alien #1, Abducting Alien #2 :: aliens upon being captured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abducting Alien #1, Abducting Alien #2 :: aliens at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulsar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lonka Cluster contained a pulsar. An alien posing as Picard ordered the Enterprise to fly into this rotating neutron star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prime numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard typed a sequence of prime numbers into door panel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Beverly, Troi :: crew at Picard doppelgänger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Mitena Haro, Kova Tholl, Esoqq :: Picard held captive by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abducting Alien #1, Abducting Alien #2 :: cruel imprisonment", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x04", "title": "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo", "date": "1990-03-31", "description": "The episode is partially told in flashbacks from the funeral of Columbo's wife. Vivian Dimitri is a real-estate executive whose recently deceased husband had been sent to prison by Columbo. She seeks revenge by plotting to kill the Columbos. But first she murders her boss, Charlie Chambers, her husband's partner who avoided prison by informing on him. Vivian shoots Chambers in his office, using her affair with married Leland St. John to establish an alibi. Then she plants evidence to make it look like Chambers was killed by disgruntled residents of a new housing development he was constructing. Her plan is then to kill the Columbos with a jar of poisoned marmalade. Roscoe Lee Browne plays her psychiatrist, Dr. Steadman.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Figuring out Dimitri's plan, Columbo and the police fake the death of his wife. After the big \"funeral\", Columbo invites Vivian into what she thinks is his house. He makes himself toast with marmalade. While Columbo pretends to be dying of poison, Dimitri confesses to all three murders. He then breaks character, and tells her that he'd suspected her all along, and had the marmalade tested as soon as she gave it to him. They are actually in the home of another officer, who recorded the confession, and the marmalade jar is a different one.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The real-estate executive Vivian Dimitri hatched an elaborate plot to kill Columbo and his wife by means of a poisoned jar of marmalade. She first, however, shot her boss, Charlie Chambers, dead while it seemed she was out having dinner with a love interest, thus securing an ironclad alibi for herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Vivian Dimitri exacting revenge on those she held responsible for her beloved husband dying in a California prison. In particular, she shot Charlie dead for ratting out her husband, and tried to dispatch Columbo's wife by means of a poisoned jar of marmalade to get back at him for playing a prominent role in putting her husband behind bars. She tried to take out Columbo with the same poisoned marmalade when the opportunity presented itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Columbo was torn up over the sudden and unexpected passing of his beloved wife, Mrs. Columbo. The story's villain Vivian Dimitri was hell-bent on exacting revenge on those she held responsible for her husband dying in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: was the real-estate executive Charlie Chambers shot dead by a disgruntled resident of a new housing development that Charlie was building, or was the resident perhaps being framed by the real killer?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Vivian Dimitri maintained a relationship with the married man, Leland St. John, to secure an alibi for her homicidal antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Vivian Dimitri went to elaborate lengths to frame Mr. Connolly for murder the murder of her boss, Charlie Chambers. Mr. Connolly's bad temper combined with his having made an unhinged threat on Mr. Chamber's life made him an easy target. Columbo, however, didn't buy it for a moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Vivian Dimitri became obsessed with exacting revenge on those she held responsible for her beloved husband dying in a California prison. In fact, she became so hell-bent on it that she didn't care whether she ended up in prison herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's villain Vivian Dimitri hatched a plot to take out Columbo and his wife by gifting them a poisoned jar of marmalade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo took the enthusiastic Sgt. Brady under his wing through the course of the murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partially told in flashbacks from the funeral of Columbo's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the hotel lobby, Columbo turned a blind eye to the prostitute Cleo walking her client up to a rented room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo questioned Vivian while she tended to some flowers in her garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo chanced on Leland St. John and a friend were warming up on the putting green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Charlie had been placing bets on basketball games. Columbo found a note about it in Charlie's pocket proving this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo interrupted Dr. Steadman's meal of escargot dipped in butter to question him about the mental stability of a former patient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Steadman tried to rid himself of Columbo so that he could go back to devouring his escargot drenched in butter and garlic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embezzlement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Pete Garibaldi had embezzled money from his clients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story's villain Vivian Dimitri was a real-estate executive. In one scene, she was show assessing a property before putting it on the market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo discussed Vivian's mental condition with Dr. Steadman, who suggested hers was a condition not unknown to medical science.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenhooker (1990)", "title": "Frankenhooker", "date": "1990-04", "description": "A med school dropout endeavors to revive his fiancée after she dies in a freak lawnmower accident.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenhooker" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff endeavored to revive his fiancée Elizabeth after she was killed by a lawnmower during a family cookout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around Jeff as he attempts to bring his dead fiancée back to life in a manner reminiscent of the creation of Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff built the perfect body out of body parts harvested from prostitutes, stitched his dead fiancée's head on it, and used electricity to animate the monstrosity with life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prostitution was amply feature: We saw the lives various prostitutes who were working under a pimp who was supplying them with crack. Jeff had numerous interactions with prostitutes. Elizabeth became the undead prostitute Frankenhooker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff's mother expressed concern over his inability to get over her departed fiancée Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff's parents were hosting a family cookout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff had a passing interaction with his father at the family cookout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff was torn up over the tragic death of his fiancée in a freak lawnmower accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff harnessed the power of electricity to revive his fiancée Elizabeth from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zorro the Pimp was dealing crack to prostitutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A number of prostitutes were addicted to crack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff considered two women engaging in sexual relations to be unnatural.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff woke up at the conclusion of the film to find that Elizabeth had given him a female body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x19", "title": "Captain's Holiday", "date": "1990-04-02", "description": "Picard is convinced to take some much needed shore leave, but gets wrapped up in a woman's treasure hunt. Guest star Max Grodenchik as Sovak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Vash :: Picard and Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard didn't want a vacation, then he wanted just to rest but in the end he was invigorated by a good old adventure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard with romantic attention from Vash and Risians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens travel back in time to find the tox utat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Beverly, Troi :: crew at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sovak wallowed in the muck of avarice over the prospect of getting his Ferengi hands on the Tox Utat - a super weapon capable of halting the fusion process going on in a star. Vash likewise coveted the device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Vash/Sovak :: Picard and Vash and Sovak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sovak :: Ferengi at Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash :: Vash at Picard and Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ajur, Boratus :: time traveling aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about the archaeology stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard on Risa initially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard turned down Risa babes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Risans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Risans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard does not trust the time travelers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a device that stops fusion in a star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tox uthat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aftershock (1990)", "title": "Aftershock", "date": "1990-04-07", "description": "After an event which appears to have been a devastating world war, Commander Eastern is the leader of a futuristic society in a post-apocalyptic world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftershock_(1990_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of what one gathers to have been an apocalyptic world war. Commander Eastern is the leader of a authoritarian society in a this post-apocalyptic world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of rebel fighters were working to overthrow Commander Eastern's authoritarian regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sabina was a human-looking alien who'd come to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabina helped Mr. James by sliding a knife to within his reach by using the power of her mind alone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x01", "title": "Dead Right", "date": "1990-04-21", "description": "In 1950, gold-digging secretary Cathy Finch marries Charlie Marno, an overweight, unhygienic, and grotesque slob of a man after being told by a fortune teller, Madame Vorna, that he will die shortly after inheriting a large sum of money. Vorna's prediction does come true, but not in the way that Cathy expects.\n\nDirected by: Howard Deutch. Story by: Andy Wolk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Cathy Finch as she marries an overweight slob of a man because she expected him soon to receive a lot of money and then die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The overweight slob of a man Charlie fell madly in love with the beautiful young woman Cathy and resolved to make her his wife. Cathy married him, thinking he would soon inherit a fortune and subsequently die a violent death, but he could hardly miss the revulsion she exuded in his presence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful young strip-club waitress Cathy fended off the overweight slob of a man Charlie's crude romantic overtures in the early part of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the young and beautiful waitress Cathy's miserable marriage to the overweight slob of a man Charlie, who she was waiting for to drop dead and leave her a large sum of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Cathy tried to walk out on her overweight slob of a husband, he bludgeoned her to death in a jealous rage so that nobody else could have her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathy made the mistake of consulting the accurate, but untrustworthy fortune teller Madame Vorna about her love life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prophetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on the fortune teller Madame Vorna correctly foretelling that the overweight slob of a man Charlie would soon inherit a large sum of money die shortly thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-fulfilling prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because Madame Vorna prophesied that Cathy would soon marry and quickly inherit a large sum of money, Cathy set into motion a series of events that culminated in the ironic fulfillment of that very prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "In avarice, Cathy married Charlie because a fortune teller told her Charlie would inherit a lot of money and then die soon. Through an ironic twist of fate that bordered on the poetic, Charlie did just so by stabbing Cathy to death after she won $1,000,000 on the lottery, upon which he then inherited her winnings but was executed as a murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The exotic fortune teller Madame Vorma kept a small dog, named Trotsky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clayton fired Cathy on the spot, ostensibly for taking an extended lunch break, but the viewer is left to ponder whether it had more to do with her calling him an \"asshole\" within earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy was briefly left to figure out what to do after being fired on the spot, ostensibly for taking an extended lunch break.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy and Sally's friendship was strong enough to outlast Cathy's termination at the company where they both worked, as evidenced by their meeting for lunch at the cafeteria after Cathy lost her job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One scene depicts the lead up to Cathy and Charlie consummating their marriage on their wedding night, much to Cathy's disgust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie bludgeoned Cathy to death in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x02", "title": "The Switch", "date": "1990-04-21", "description": "Carlton Webster, a rich elderly bachelor, wants to propose to his crush, a young woman named Linda. After being rejected for his age, Carlton ends up meeting a doctor who helps him slowly switch bodies with a younger man known as Hans. In the end, Carlton discovers that Linda's affection comes at a price he simply cannot afford.\n\nDirected by: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Story by: Richard Tuggle & Michael Taav.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is the elderly gentleman Carlton being gradually transplanted with the exterior body parts of a much younger man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Through a series of radical surgeries, the elderly gentleman Carlton ended up effectively switching bodies with a much younger man, named Hans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly gentleman Carlton Webster spent his entire fortune on a series of back-alley cosmetic surgeries that left him with the outward appearance of a young man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlton was greatly enamored with Linda, but she serially rejected him because of his advanced age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the elderly gentleman as he courts a much younger love interest, named Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the elderly gentleman as he courts a much younger love interest, named Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda revealed her true colors in the end by marrying Hans in Carlton's elderly body for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlton repeatedly visited a disgraced, and possibly deranged doctor to undergo radical cosmetic surgeries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "The moneyed, elderly man Carlton spent his fortune on radical cosmetic surgeries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carlton severely felt his years as he was, time and again, spurned by his much younger love interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly gentleman Carlton was excited to have Hans' beautiful body for his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda told Carlton in no uncertain terms that she wanted a man with a strapping young body, rather than the elderly body Carlton sported.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carlton was compelled to part ways with his longtime butler, Fulton, spending away his fortune on a series of experimental cosmetic surgeries.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x03", "title": "Cutting Cards", "date": "1990-04-21", "description": "Reno Crevice and Sam Forney, a pair of rival gamblers who hate each other with a passion, face off in a series of increasingly dangerous and gruesome games in order to see who'll leave town when all is said and done.\n\nDirected by: Walter Hill. Story by: Mae Woods.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the bitterly rival gamblers Reno and Sam as they face off in a couple of extremely risky games of chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival gamblers Reno and Sam got their kicks by playing against one another at Russian roulette and \"(finger) chop poker\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the incorrigible gamblers Reno and Sam was determined to best the other in extremely risky games of chance to settle a longstanding rivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reno and Sam faced off at high stakes games of chance until they'd both lost all their limbs as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling with a body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is left to conclude that Reno and Sam's rivalrous game of \"chop poker\" ended with both men losing all their limbs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reno an Sam's obsessive gambling escalated to the point where they started betting with their own body parts and chopping each other's limbs off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reno had lost everything in Vegas, the viewer learns.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x20", "title": "Tin Man", "date": "1990-04-23", "description": "A gifted telepath whom Deanna Troi once treated as a patient comes aboard to establish first contact with an unknown vessel near an unstable star before the Romulans do.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam was driven crazy by the hearing of other people's thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam living among humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "withdrawal from society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tam hated people and tried to isolate himself from humanoid contact as much as possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun, Data :: Tam, Data at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gomtuu was a living, thinking organic being that functioned as a spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam and Gomtuu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam to get away from society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tam was living in a telepathic hell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam and Gomtuu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The power of telepathy was strong in the Betazoid Tam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gomtuu was a living, thinking organic being that functioned as a spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam’s clinical background", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in intentions vs. trust in judgement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam about the Ghorusda Disaster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam about the Ghorusda Disaster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Tam Elbrun :: Data/Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beta Stromgren :: Tin Man was hanging out at a supernova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Tam curious to understand Data's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Tam curious about Data's android nature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans over possession of Tin Man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew face Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tin Man makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam suffered from depression", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tam Elbrun :: Tam", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x04", "title": "'Til Death", "date": "1990-04-24", "description": "Land owner Logan Andrews woos the haughty, snobby, and wealthy Margaret Richardson to help finance a development project. While Margaret initially rejects his advances, Logan wins her over with a potion from his ex, voodoo priestess Psyche, that contains a deadly warning. Things quickly go awry when Logan does not heed said warning, resulting in an undead Margaret amorously chasing him without end.\n\nAlso starring Aubrey Morris.\n\nDirected by: Chris Walas. Story by: Jeri Barchilon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the unexpected efficacy of a potion d'amour: The object remained besotted even after she expired, and came back to haunt Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard courted Margaret and they started living as a couple, after she returned from the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan pursued Margaret, high-strung as she was, because of her fortune, which he needed to finance his ill-fated construction project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret became a zombie besotted with Logan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan gave Margaret an excess of a love potion. This made Margaret fall so madly in love with him that, when she was shortly after killed by black magic, she returned from the dead to be with him. At this point she was a decomposing corpse and Logan tried first to kill her again, and then to kill himself, but all in vain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The love potion and some other supernatural effects were brought about by voodoo performed by Richard's disgruntled old flame, Psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Logan was tied down and tormented by his ex-lover the voodoo priestess Psyche who, perhaps, had orchestrated the snafu with the love potion in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan took to underhanded means to court a wealthy socialite in response to finding out that his ill-contrived development project was going to cost him millions of dollars that he didn't have.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was somehow acquainted the local doctor, who also declared Margaret dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black woman Psyche call out her white ex-lover Richard for ending their relationship because of social disapproval from his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interracial couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Richard, a white man, broke up with Psyche, a black woman, because of social pressures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret was laid to rest in the Christian tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth presided over Margaret's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan quickly swallowed a lethal dose of poison upon his zombie lover from beyond the grave's return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the final scene, Freddy's disembodied head taunted his old friend Logan with these words: \"I always said you'd get ahead, Logan\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spaced Invaders (1990)", "title": "Spaced Invaders", "date": "1990-04-27", "description": "A crew of inept Martians crash-land in an small Illinois town with plans for world domination.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_Invaders" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The incompetent crew of a small spaceship from the Martian \"Civilian Asteroid Patrol\" mistook a Halloween rebroadcast of Orson Welles' 1938 The War of the Worlds radio dramatization for a real invasion. The rest of the story follows the Martians' inept attempt to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five pint-sized Martians make an inept bit to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Sam Hoxly was raising his young daughter Cathy as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Sam Hoxly was raising his young daughter Cathy as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Sheriff Sam Hoxly and his deputy as they deal with an alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Orson Welles' 1938 The War of the Worlds radio dramatization hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young girl Cathy was getting used to life in a small town which she's moved to with her father from Chicago. Much of the story followed Cathy and her childhood friend Brian Hampton as they encountered a band of Martians while out trick-or-treating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A contingent of Martian invaders crash-landed on Earth in an advanced spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Wrenchmuller and his trusty dog Jim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Man Wrenchmuller was on the verge of being evicted from him farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy befriended a small helper robot that could fold up into a sphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians were mired in an interstellar war against their long-time enemy, the Arcturans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x05", "title": "Uneasy Lies the Crown", "date": "1990-04-28", "description": "Dentist Wesley Corman decides to get rid of his unfaithful wife, Lydia, and use her money to support his gambling habit. When Adam Evans, a Hollywood heartthrob having an affair with Lydia, comes under his care, Corman puts a time-release poison made from digitalis under a crown. It takes effect when the couple are together that evening and Corman is playing cards, thereby framing Lydia for the murder. Paul Burke co-stars as Horace Sherwin, Lydia's father, also a dentist.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo traps Corman by taking advantage of the fact that Corman was never good at chemistry. He orders Evans' body exhumed and demonstrates to Corman that if there was indeed digitalis, it would have caused a chemical reaction with the porcelain in the crown, making a blue stain on Evans' tooth underneath the crown. Before they begin to examine Evans' mouth, Corman confesses. Of course, Columbo faked the demonstration: there would be no such reaction.\n\nThis same storyline was first used in the McMillan (formerly McMillan & Wife) episode \"Affair of the Heart\" that had aired in 1977. Bochco shared writing credit for the earlier version with Leonard Stern.\n\nDirected by: Alan J. Levi. Story by: Steven Bochco.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley Corman hatched the following foolproof-seeming plan to kill his wife Lydia's lover Adam and pin the blame on Lydia: When Adam came to Wesley for dental work, Wesley implanted poison in Adam's tooth, carefully timed to be released later that same day when Adam and Lydia were just about to embark on some coital merrymaking. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley murdered Adam and tried to pin the deed on Lydia while feigning to protect her, all in a convoluted bid to remain in Lydia's wealthy family. He had an extravagant lifestyle with many debts that her father was bankrolling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley poison murdered Adam and tried to pin it on his wife, Lydia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Had a two-timing wife erratically poisoned her lover for no apparent reason, or was her aggravated husband perhaps implicated?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley Corman and Horace Sherwin were both big shot dentists to celebrities. Wesley used dentistry to commit murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fed up with her no-good husband, Lydia had embarked on a steamy love affair with the movie star Adam Evans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horace was protecting his physically and mentally fragile daughter, Lydia, from her husband and the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley tried to frame his wife, Lydia, for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia was very upset when her lover, Adam, suddenly died in her arms. She was not entirely sure whether she herself had something to do with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley tried to curry favor with his father-in-law, Horace, in a bid to remain part of his wealthy family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dentist Wesley Corman murdered Adam Evans by putting a lethal, time-release dose of digitalis under a crown on Adam's tooth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horace did not approve of his daughter's no good husband one bit and had convinced her to get a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley was a compulsive gambler who resorted to murder when his father-in-law made it clear that Wesley's high-rolling days were over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David helped dispose of Adam's corpse in order to protect his sister Lydia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia suffered from a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia planned to divorce Wesley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia said she'd \"been lonely a very long time\" in response to Wesley confronting her about the affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley was down $2000 at poker night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sneezing-all-over-the-place waiter Fred complained of having a head cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horse racing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo caught up with Wesley at the track.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy III (1990)", "title": "Final Fantasy III", "date": "1990-04-29", "description": "The story revolves around four orphaned youths drawn to a crystal of light. The crystal grants them some of its power, and instructs them to go forth and restore balance to the world. Not knowing what to make of the crystal's pronouncements, but nonetheless recognizing the importance of its words, the four inform their adoptive families of their mission and set out to explore and bring back balance to the world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to the Light Warriors to prevent the evil wizard Xande from covering the world in a veil of darkness, and later preventing the malevolent cosmic entity the Cloud of Darkness from reducing the world to a void of nothingness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative place", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a mid story revelation, the Light Warriors discover that the world as they knew it was but a floating continent that hovered high above a much more vast world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the floating continent had been engineered by a technologically advanced, ancient civilization through the use some crystal-based technology. Although the story is set on an unnamed planet, the idea here is similar to the fringe theory that Atlantis existed and had developed advanced technology. The crackpot theory themes applies for this reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cosmic balance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Light Warriors to return the light and dark worlds into balance. In the end, it was revealed that a malevolent cosmic entity, called the Cloud of Darkness, was attempting to nullify all creation by mixing the light and dark worlds into one (i.e. the idea being that the mixing together of worlds constitutes an imbalance of sorts).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the Light Warriors having to stop the malevolent cosmic entity the Could of Darkness from turning the world into a void of nothingness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pointedly concludes with the message that the Light Warriors had gotten their power from the hope of the people, and that hope is the one thing capable of defeating the malevolent cosmic entity the Cloud of Darkness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of magical spells is a key component of the game play and story plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jinn had turned the Kazus villagers and Sasune Kingdom inhabitants into ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jinn used a curse to turn the Kazus villagers and Sasune kingdom inhabitants into ghosts. The eldest tree of the Living Forest had been put under a curse by Xande's henchman Hein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors got about in a variety of different steampunk style airships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cid and his seriously ill wife Mrs. Cid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Desch couldn't remember anything save for his name upon being discovered in Bahamut's nest. Later he recollected that he was the ancient guardian of the Tower of Owen upon reaching a flame on its top floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors visited a town, called Tozus, inhabited by gnomes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors needed to shrink themselves down to pint-sized people in order to enter the hidden forest town of Tozus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors had to put the sea dragon Nepto that was terrorizing the vikings back into its slumber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party had to transform themselves into toads in order to enter the main part of Owen's Tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Light Warriors visited a cave dwarf inhabited cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fairies inhabited the Living Forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead skeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xande's henchman Hein turned out to be a skeletal being of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xande's henchman Hein boasted of his desire to become ruler of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Goldor lived in an ostentatious golden mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Salonia was in a state of outright civil war when the Light Warriors arrived there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Allus was banished by his mad king of a father. Prince Allus questioned whether or not his father really loved him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Allus made his peace with his father the king before the king passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The King told young Prince Allus that he loved him before the king passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Desch had been planed in cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that a band of merchants had snuck weapons and armor out of the Ancient Ruins and were selling them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The malevolent cosmic entity the Cloud of Darkness had designed on reducing the world to a void of nothingness.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x21", "title": "Hollow Pursuits", "date": "1990-04-30", "description": "Lt. Barclay 's use of the holodeck as an escape interferes with his duties. Meanwhile, the Enterprise suffers from mysterious and random malfunctions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what to do with Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay must learn how to cooperate with his coworkers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay addicted to holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Barclay programs elaborate simulations on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay aboard the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay escapes from his problems on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay/Geordi :: Barclay and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay/Geordi :: Barclay and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay/Geordi :: Barclay and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay used crew-member identities on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley and other crew members were calling Barclay by the unflattering nickname of “Broccoli” behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay at Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi copes with Barclay's awkward advances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi for Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay stayed on in spite of adversity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay in holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi toward Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay was trying to find the problem with an anti-gravitational device of some kind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay was late for a meeting because he had been tooling around on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul Stubbs confided in Wesley about how he loved to simulate baseball games in his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The engineering team was at a loss to explain a series of Enterprise malfunctions, the last of which initiated a dangerous, uncontrolled acceleration of the ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Megaville (1990)", "title": "Megaville", "date": "1990-05", "description": "A neo-noir psychological thriller which utilizes elements of science fiction such as cyberpunk and existentialism.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaville" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While we are led to believe that Palinov had assumed Jensen's identity, it turned out that it was actually Jensen and that he's been implanted with Palinov's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While we are led to believe that Palinov had assumed Jensen's identity, it turned out that it was actually Jensen and that he's been implanted with Palinov's memories. We are left to wonder to what extent Jensen and Palinov were different people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jensen was implanted with Palinov's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government censorship in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "All forms of media were banned in the Hemisphere super-state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "People in Megaville were using a glasses-based virtual reality system called Dream-A-Life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jensen had a cranial implant that made him think he was a CKS coprs operative named Palinov. The implant also enable CKS higher ups to see what he saw in addition to being able to communicate with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People in Megaville were using futuristic virtual reality glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Palinov'S mother wanted him back safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Hughes was assassinated in the midst of giving a live television address.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "CKS corps had intentions of running the black market for an illegal virtual reality system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jensen's tried to convince him that he was not the CKS corps operative Palinov.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x05", "title": "Three's a Crowd", "date": "1990-05-01", "description": "Down-on-their-luck couple Richard and Della are invited to a cabin owned by their wealthy former best man, Alan. However, the unstable Richard slowly becomes convinced that Della is having an affair with Alan. After murdering the two of them, Richard realizes just how wrong he was; not just about the supposed affair, but for the reason the two were being so secretive.\n\nDirected by: David Burton Morris. Story by: Kim Steven Ketelsen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title refers to the love triangle that existed in Richard's mind as he believed his wife to be cheating on him with his former best friend, Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "This is a story about a husband and wife couple who are experiencing marital difficulties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard believed his wife was leaving him for Alan, with whom he thought she was making whoopee behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated in an insanely jealous Richard strangling his wife, Della, with a lingerie stocking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard skewered his former best friend, Alan, with a crossbow bolt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was envious of Alan because of Alan's fortune, which he also thought he was losing his wife because of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Della's marriage seemed quickly to be felling apart, although after a plot twist the reality turned out to be quite different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A deranged Richard shot dead his former best friend, Alan, with a crossbow after mistakenly concluding that he was carrying on an affair with his wife right under his nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Towards the end, Richard painted himself as a loser character: a man who was stuck with low-paying temporary jobs such as bartending.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x22", "title": "The Most Toys", "date": "1990-05-07", "description": "An obsessed collector is determined to add Data to his private collection of unique items. Guest star Saul Rubinek as Kivas Fajo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data was preeminently good whereas Fajo was almost pure sadistic evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to the wealthy collector Kivas Fajo's pathologically coveting of rare and valuable curios from around the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew, especially Geordi and Wesley, were hit hard by Data's apparent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Fajo always wanted an android for his collection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was held captive and made an exhibition object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo by Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data used passive resistance while in captivity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kivas did not treat Data as a perosn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data not happy being kept inside a gilded cage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data tried to kill Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data may have tried to kill Fajo in self-defense, but it was left open.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo gathered rare and precious items from around the galaxy, and sought to impress his friends with his collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo maintains control of his ship by threatening to use his Varon T disruptor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo shows off collectibles to Palor Toff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fajo dissolves Data's uniform in a failed attempt to humiliate him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varria :: Fajo by underling girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varria :: underlying girl to Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data faces Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data for Varria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivas Fajo :: Fajo's methods of coercion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varria :: Varria of Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all for Fajo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Fajo at end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x06", "title": "The Thing From the Grave", "date": "1990-05-08", "description": "Stacy, a supermodel, and her photographer Devlin fall in love. When Stacy's abusive fiancée, Mitch, learns of their affair, he sets out to kill Devlin. However, Mitch soon gets a nasty surprise when he discovers, thanks to a supernatural necklace, Devlin has returned from the grave to protect Stacey.\n\nDirected by: Fred Dekker. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch, Devlin were somewhat acquainted and both making whoopee with Stacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey began an affair with Devlin before actually dumping Mitch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is given to understand that Mitch occasionally beat his partner Stacy, and in the end he tried to rape and kill her. The bruise on Stacy's chest was an unmistakable sign that she'd been abused by her overbearing fiancé, Mitch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch killed Devlin and was in turn killed by Devlin come back as a ghoul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Devlin gave Stacy a magic necklace of Mayan origin: If you made a promise while holding it, you'd keep that promise no matter what, he explained. The necklace brought about his timely undeath when she was about to be raped and merdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Devlin became a re-animated corpse in order to save Stacy. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mitch and Stacey were described as engaged, and Mitch still expected them to get married even after Stacey had moved on to Devlin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey and Mitch quickly fell head over heels for each other without much hesitation. The body language suggested that Devlin and Stacey became relatively besotted when the first laid eyes on each other at the photo shoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch made clear that he was about to rape Stacey before dispatching of her in the same way he had murdered Devlin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devlin was a photographer and we briefly saw him at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch came seemingly remorseful to Stacy and appealed to her to choose him over Devlin, who she had not been heard from in a week.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A thin-skinned Mitch blew his fuse at the photograhpy session when he percieved Devlin was hitting on Stacy at the photography session, even though Devlin was basically just doing his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitch was about to rape and then murder his fiancée, Stacy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Class of 1999 (1990)", "title": "Class of 1999", "date": "1990-05-11", "description": "A trio of android high school teachers get out of control and start killing their students over small infractions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_of_1999" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where violence in American high schools had spiraled out of control, with areas in most major cities being taken over by youth gangs, resulting in some schools shutting down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three android high school teachers went out of control and started killing their students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cody led a student uprising against a trio of killer android teachers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Megatech CEO hatched a nefarious plot to repurpose battle droids as high school teachers across the United Stated with predictable consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw life at a high school that was plagued with gang violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three android high school teachers went out of control and started killing their students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three android high school teachers: the history teacher Mr. Hardin, the chemistry teacher Miss Connors, and the gym teacher Mr. Bryles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cody's two brothers picked him up upon his release from prison. They had various other interactions throughout the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonny was dealing drugs out of his locker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cody visited his mother at her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christy's father was the school principal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Miss Connors perfectly imitated Hector's voice over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cody and Hector joined forces to fight the student killing android teachers in spite of being members of rival gangs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e9x06", "title": "Murder in Malibu", "date": "1990-05-14", "description": "Jess McCurdy fails to convince her sister, best-selling romance novelist Theresa Goren, to cancel her wedding to Wayne Jennings, a playboy/tennis bum half her age and a gold digger. McCurdy impersonates her sister on the phone with Jennings and dumps him. Jennings reacts by killing Goren - twice. He arranges an alibi for the first murder, then returns and shoots her corpse. He allows Columbo to \"catch\" him for the second murder, which he confesses, but then \"learns\" that he had only shot a corpse, so is innocent of murder, which he assumes will be blamed on a burglar.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo untangles the plot with his surprisingly detailed familiarity with the location of the tag on women's panties. He proved that someone else put Goren's underwear onto her corpse, and that this someone could only be a man, because only a man would put the panties on backwards. A murderous burglar wouldn't have bothered to dress the corpse; only Jennings would have a reason to do so, to help his alibi.\n\nDirected by: Walter Grauman. Story by: Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wayne Jennings hatched the following scheme to rid himself of his fiancée who he thought was about to dump him, and collect on a bequest: He drove unbelievably fast from where he had an alibi to her place and shot her. After failing to make an escape he cleverly went back and shot her corpse with another gun. He later confessed to the second shooting, which apparently was not a crime, and threw everyone off his scent for a spell. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wayne Jennings shot his fiancée dead as he thought she was leaving him, all in order to collect on a million dollar bequest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The villain of the story Wayne Jennings shot his fiancée dead in cold blood to collect on a bequest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Had a rich and successful romance novelist been shot by a burglar, or was her serially unfaithful lover somehow involved? Or was it her elder sister cum literary agent \"whodunit\"?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne Jennings had a never ending string of lovers, who found him irresistible, and was serially unfaithful to his wealthy fiancee, Theresa Goren. He effortlessly seduced the no-nonsense literary agent, Jess McCurdy, when it became expedient for him to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theresa Goren's elder sister, Jess McCurdy, was also her literary agent. The viewer learns much about their relationship during the course of the investigation into Theresa's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Theresa feigned to have a monogamous relationship but Wayne was unable to stay faithful and had a never-ending string of lovers behind her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Wayne Jennings shooting his fiancée dead in cold blood to collect on a bequest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theresa was a rich and successful romance novelist of the worst sort. She attended a book signing and did a TV interview, but little was revealed about the art of writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was shown various maids and subordinates to the filthy rich, most of whom Wayne slept around with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo mooted the idea that someone might be out to collect on a life insurance policy by offing Theresa. It transpired that this was not the case, but that Theresa had made a million dollar bequest to her lover, Wayne, who then killed her when he though she was dumping him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theresa raised the matter of her comparatively advanced age when Wayne popped the question in the hot tub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theresa's secretary was distraught over Theresa's sudden and tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne had traveled to Palm Springs ostensibly to play in a tennis tournament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jess hired a private eye to catalog Wayne's prolific womanizing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conventional police wisdom had it that Theresa was shot dead in a burglary gone tragically wrong. Lt. Columbo begged to differ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne had a violent temper, and was shown blowing his fuse on several occasions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x23", "title": "Sarek", "date": "1990-05-14", "description": "The Enterprise is plagued by an outbreak of violence when it is visited by the renowned Vulcan ambassador, Sarek . Discovering that Sarek is suffering from an incurable disease, Captain Picard must allow a mind-meld with him so that the ambassador can complete a last vital negotiation between the Federation and the Legaran .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek battled with keeping his emotions under control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek went bonkers; Enterprise crew and especially Picard lost control of their emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek refused to accept he was ill", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-deception", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek was in denial over the fact that he was suffering from a neurodegenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek temper tantrum and crew more generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek with his disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek on a mission to negotiate a treaty with the Legarans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek telepathically influenced emotions of Enterprise crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek, a stoic Vulcan, wept at the Mozart recital. This was interpreted as a telltale sign of his cognitive decline. His condition declined thereafter to such an extent that he had to be sequestered in his quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek realising he was losing his mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek had human wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard undergoes risky mind meld in order to negotiate treaty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek was a role model to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inhospitable environment dwelling being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An ooze pit was installed on the Enterprise in preparation for a visit by a delegation of Legaran diplomats, the Legarans being ooze dwelling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To everyone's astonishment, Sarek was observed to shed a tear during a performance of the second movement (andante, ma moderato, in D minor) to Johannes Brahms' String Sextet No. 1. Data can imitate 300 violinists, we learned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly slapped Wesley clear across the face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek/Perin :: Sarek and Perin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek, Perin :: Sarek and Perin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek/Perin :: Sarek and Perin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly at Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard for Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard hold recital for Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x07", "title": "The Sacrifice", "date": "1990-05-15", "description": "Insurance agent James kills his obnoxious client Sebastian Fielding in a plot to take his money and his wife Gloria. He soon finds out, however, that this will be quite difficult for him to get away with, since his boss, Jerry, shows up to reveal that he knows about the murder, and blackmails James to meet his demands.\n\nDirected by: Richard Greenberg. Story by: Ross Thomas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to James taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills in order to free his lover, Gloria, from being his rival's sex slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers on the murder of Sebastian by people who were after his riches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gloria seduced James and incentivized him to dispatch of her rich husband, Sebastian. James consequently seized Sebastian by the breeches and hoisted him over the balcony railing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry blackmailed James into letting him have Gloria as his sex slave during the nights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "James committed suicide and took the blame for murdering Sebastian, in order to get Gloria off the hook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "James was smitten with Gloria, and vice versa - or at least so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "James, Gloria, and Jerry all schemed to get their hands on Sebastian's money. Sebastian was conspicuously greedy when he demanded a kick-back saying he had never paid full price for anything in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gloria seduced James and incentivized him to dispatch of her rich husband, Sebastian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James and Gloria applauded each other on dispatching Sebastian before he signed the life insurance he had just arranged. Otherwise the police would have suspected insurance fraud as the motive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives interviewed Gloria after the untimely death of Sebastian. They concluded that he had met with \"death by misadventure\", as the jargon goes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry made James believe that he rented a place near Gloria's condo just to watch her clandestinely.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x08", "title": "For Cryin' Out Loud", "date": "1990-05-22", "description": "Rock promoter Marty Slash plans to run off with all of the donation money that has been raised and accumulated from a series of \"Save the Amazon rainforest\" charity benefit concerts, but things unexpectedly become complicated when it turns out that his hearing problems were nothing more than his conscience trying to get through to him. To make matters worse, his greedy banker soon blackmails him, being annoyed all the while by his conscience, for half of the money.\n\nDirected by: Jeffrey Price. Story by: Peter S. Seaman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personification of a concept", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central idea in the story is that Marty's conscience took on a real persona and began chattering to him, driving him mad. It was suggested that others might be able to hear it as well, but in the end we conclude that it was all a figment of Marty's imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hounded by the voice of his chattering conscience, Marty engaged in evermore self-harming behavior. In the end he ran cheerfully to strap himself into the electric chair, eager to end his torment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty was cautioned by the doctor that he was going deaf because of his exposure to loud rock music. In the end he was proclaimed such. Having shoved sharp sticks deep into his ears in order to kill his conscience, probably had not helped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty beat his foxy banker to death with an electric guitar and was hounded by his conscience for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty attempted to embezzle $1,000,000 of charity money intended for some poor tribe in the Amazons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty being driven mad by his own conscience, which had taken on a persona of its own, is a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty attempted to embezzle $1,000,000 of charity money intended for some poor tribe in the Amazons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty wrestled with his conscience (almost literally) over whether to scuttle off with a million dollars of charity money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty was literally berated by his conscience after he bashed his blackmailing banker in the head with an electric guitar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iggy Pop (portrayed by himself) performed at a sleazy disco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth was ready in waiting to escort Marty to the death chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a series of benefit rock concerts titled \"Save the Amazon rainforest\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A uniformed cop came knocking on Marty's office door about a noise complaint, not knowing that Marty had just beat his banker to death with an electric guitar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ms. Kilbasser tried to blackmail Marty out of half of $1,000,000 of charity money he was in the middle of embezzling, and got beaten to death with an electric guitar for her trouble.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Back to the Future Part III (1990)", "title": "Back to the Future Part III", "date": "1990-05-25", "description": "Marty McFly discovers that his friend Dr. Emmett \"Doc\" Brown, trapped in 1885, was killed by Buford \"Mad Dog\" Tannen, Biff's great-grandfather. Marty travels to 1885 to rescue Doc and return once again to 1985, but matters are complicated when Doc falls in love with schoolteacher Clara Clayton.", "collections": [ "Collection: Back to the Future" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty McFly went back in time time to the year 1885.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brown had built a time machine out of a DeLorean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brown and Marty got into a feud with Buford Tannen over an alleged $80 debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc Brown and Clara fell in love at first sight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty went back to 1885 to save his friend Doc Brown from getting shot dead by Buford Tannen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eccentric scientist and inventor Doc Brown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hoverboard", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Brown saved Clara using Marty's hoverboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The DeLorean's fusion engine was broken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seamus McFly and Maggie McFly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Brown regretted even inventing his infernal time machine because it had brought about nothing but trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Brown struggled over whether to return to 1985 or stay with Clara in 1885.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara broke down in tears after she thought Doc dumped her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara mused it may have been her destiny to meet Doc Brown.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Circuitry Man (1990)", "title": "Circuitry Man", "date": "1990-05-25", "description": "In a near future, pollution has killed off the natural world and the population is forced to live underground. A woman attempts to smuggle a suitcase of contraband drug/chips from Los Angeles to the underground remnants of New York City, while eluding both police and gangsters. Along the way, she is aided by a romantic bio-mechanical android and pursued by Plughead, a villain with the ability to tap into people's minds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuitry_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where pollution has killed off the natural world and most of the people are forced to live underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Danner is a bio-mechanical pleasure droid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lori and Danner set out to smuggle a suitcase of contraband drug/computer-chips from Los Angeles to the underground remnants of New York City, while eluding both police and gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where pollution has killed off the natural world and most of the people are forced to live underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lori and the bio-mechanical pleasure droid Danner fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danner was entertaining himself in his home by watching a holographic display of some sort. Danner and Lori drove through a holographic wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "addiction to sensation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plughead would plug into peoples brains before having them brutally killed in order to get high off of their feelings of pain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x24", "title": "Ménage à Troi", "date": "1990-05-28", "description": "The Ferengi kidnap Deanna, her mother and Riker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tog :: Daimon Tog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tog :: Daimon Tog at Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi :: Lwaxana and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana to Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tog :: Tog became infatuated with Lwaxana and kidnapped her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley was torn about leaving Enterprise for Starfleet Academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley about leaving Enterprise for Starfleet Academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana offers to stay if Troi can go free", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tog :: Tog at Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley was in his final preparations to depart for Earth to take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi :: Ferengi females and clothes etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi views on female fashion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Troi, Lwaxana :: Riker, Troi, and Lwaxana kidnapped by Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farek :: Ferengi experimenting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tog :: Ferengi ear sex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farek :: Ferengi experimenting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Betazoid ability to communicate telepathically was featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x09", "title": "Four-Sided Triangle", "date": "1990-05-29", "description": "Mary Jo, a fugitive on the run, is forced into labor on the farm of George and Luisa Yates, who abuse her constantly, in exchange for being sheltered from the police. One day, Mary Jo suffers a head injury and believes that a scarecrow is her lover, which the Yates plan to use for their benefit.\n\nDirected by: Tom Holland. Story by: James Tugend and Tom Holland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "George spent his days and nights pondering how he could go about raping Mary without his wife Luisa catching on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to understand that Mary Jo couldn't leave the farm where she is forced to toil as a helper, because she is on the run from the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonists George and Luisa Yates were a married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Yates' thought Mary Jo had gone soft in the head after receiving a blow to it, thinking that the scarecrow wanted to make love to her. The ending suggests that it was all a ruse by Mary Jo, although things are left open to interpretation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Jo fancied that she had a man who would eventually work up the courage to make love to her. Alas, it was the scarecrow she had become besotted with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against the person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Jo was abused in various ways, although precisely what crimes may have been committed was rather vague since Mary Jo herself was on the run from the law and more or less willingly stayed on the farm, to begin with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "George lusted after Mary Jo, who was evidently revolted by him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was constantly trying to have his way with Mary Jo right under his wife's nose. Luisa expressed to George in no uncertain terms that she would castrate him, if she ever caught him cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luisa fancied George, who fancied Mary Jo, who fancied the scarecrow man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luisa was concerned when she understood her husband lusted after Mary Jo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luisa stabbed he husband with a pitchfork, and Mary Jo did the same to Luisa. Arguably the first was and accident and the second a sort of self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George peeped at Mary Jo through a crack in planks of the barn wall as she partially undressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George reminded Mary Jo that she was wanted for having robbed a Stop-N-Go convenience store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luisa expressed to George in no uncertain terms that she would castrate him, if she ever caught him cheating on her. The story ended with her catching him trying to cheat on her, and skewering him with a pitch fork, albeit accidentally.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Dark Side of the Moon (1990)", "title": "The Dark Side of the Moon", "date": "1990-05-30", "description": "The crew of a maintenance ship encounter a malevolent entity while drifting toward the dark side of the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon_(1990_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SPACECORE 1 crew were terrorized by a malevolent alien entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the space shuttle Discovery splashed down in the Bermuda Triangle, but mysteriously, the SPACECORE 1 crew discovered the very same space shuttle floating derelict in another Bermuda Triangle located somewhere between Earth and the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of the maintenance ship SPACECORE 1 ran into trouble while on a mission to repair nuclear-armed satellites orbiting high above the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The SPACECORE 1 mai,tenance vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The SPACECORE 1 crew found themselves drifting toward the dark side of the Moon after a mysterious power failure on the ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Total Recall (1990)", "title": "Total Recall", "date": "1990-06-01", "description": "A construction worker suddenly finds himself embroiled in espionage on Mars and unable to determine if the experiences are real or the result of memory implants.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_(1990_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "A large part of the film took place at a colony on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out there had been an ancient alien civilization on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rebels were terrorists labeled as terrorists by the Mars colony authorities, but were portrayed from their own freedom fighting point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A company called Recall offered to implant people wit memories of vacations they had never taken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug Quaid was trying to figure out who he was after having apparently had his mind wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was evidence of an extinct alien civilization on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug Quaid and Melina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cohaagen could have used to alien reactor to produce a breathable atmosphere on Mars, but didn't because it would have hurt his business on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "A state-allied nefarious corporation oppressed Mars colonists for profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutant terrorists lived on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug Quaid and Lori Quaid. Richter and Lori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnycab was a self-driving cab service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monitoring implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug Quaid pulled a tracking device located inside his skull out through his nose.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x25", "title": "Transfigurations", "date": "1990-06-04", "description": "The Enterprise rescues a humanoid with amnesia and incredible healing powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe apotheosis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly, John Doe :: Beverly and John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zalkonian+ :: John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evolved Zalkonians were being hunted down and killed by the regular Zalkonians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: hand over John Doe to his pursuers or face destruction of the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in talking to women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly/John Doe :: Beverly and John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: hand over John Doe to his pursuers or face destruction of the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zalkonian+ :: John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly doesn't reveal John Doe's medical condition out of hand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe didn't remember anything about who he was or how he arrived on the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi and Data were reverse engineering a biological computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe at everyone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe healed Worf's broken neck and brought him back from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi and Christy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf by John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe faces regular Zalkonians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christie Henshaw :: Christy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise was no match for the Zalkonian ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe :: John Doe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher tended to John Doe’s ailments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x10", "title": "The Ventriloquist's Dummy", "date": "1990-06-05", "description": "Aspiring ventriloquist Billy Goldman wants to improve his craft. To that end, he seeks out his idol, retired ventriloquist Mr. Ingels, for advice. Soon after, Billy finds out that his idol has a dark past, as well as a gruesome secret regarding his success in show business.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Frank Darabont.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an aspiring ventriloquist, and a talentless one at that, who discovers the dark secret underlying his ventriloquist idol's success in show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Billy Goldman was striving to fulfill his dream of becoming a successful ventriloquist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aspiring ventriloquist Billy Goldman was crestfallen after getting booed off stage and subsequently being told he had no talent by his idol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Ingels and his grotesque conjoined to the wrist twin brother Morty murdered two young women to satiate Morty's hatred of the female sex. Open to interpretation was whether Morty killed more than two women, in which case he would have been a serial murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the legendary ventriloquist Mr. Ingels was revealed to have an evil, conjoined at the wrist twin brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legendary ventriloquist Mr. Ingels having an evil, conjoined at the wrist twin brother was a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Mr. Ingels was simply short one hand, only to learn that he actually had a conjoined twin instead of that hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light Morty's killing of at least two women was motivated by a hatred of their gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his childhood, Billy Goldman idolized the legendary ventriloquist Mr. Ingels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy's mother took the boy to see his ventriloquist idol perform on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly nervous Billy was booed off stage for bombing his ventriloquist act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morty was a murderous misogynist because he envied his conjoined brother's physical ability to have sex with the pretty young women that threw themselves at his feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy, in the end, let himself be tempted into conjoining his own hand with Morty in order to become a decent ventriloquist. It proved a poor decision.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x11", "title": "Judy, You're Not Yourself Today", "date": "1990-06-12", "description": "An elderly witch posing as a cosmetic salesperson visits the home of young, vain, and eccentric Donald and Judy. The witch convinces Judy to try on a magic necklace that allows the two of them to swap bodies in a plot to gain Judy's youth and beauty, leaving Donald to try and figure out which woman is actually his wife.\n\nDirected by: Randa Haines. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A witch swapping her own decrepit old body, as alluded to in the title, for that of a pretty young housewife with few brains constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hijinks ensued when Donald returned home to find his wife, Judy, was duped into swapping bodies with an an elderly cosmetics saleswoman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly cosmetics saleswoman hatched a devious plot to swap into the body of Judy, who was comparatively youthful. Judy fretted that being subjected to the stress of having unloaded guns pointed to her head was giving her wrinkles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly cosmetics saleswoman duped the comparatively younger Judy into swapping bodies by means of a pair of magic necklaces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy and Donald's love ended in tragedy when Donald accidentally shot her in the abdomen, and she died in his arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "The antagonist is an old witch in pursuit of a fresh young body to possess. Note that she was called a witch by name by the Crypt Keeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald fitter the mould of a gun-touting male stereotype to a tee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy's vanity prompted her to try on the necklace that cost her her body. Even after knowing what it did, she could not resist taking it out of the safe and putting it once again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old lady's decaying corpse came back to life. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "NRA enthusiast Donald chased away a gun control activist who had the temerity to solicit his support.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald was briefly faced with having to choose between shooting a woman who appeared to be his wife and the reanimated corpse - both entities professed to contain his wife's consciousness, but only one was telling the truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly cosmetics saleswoman excitedly ran off to the train station after swapping bodies with a comparatively younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly saleswoman coveted the youthful rump of the woman she subsequently swapped bodies with, hinting at her inner desire to be beautiful.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)", "title": "Gremlins 2: The New Batch", "date": "1990-06-15", "description": "The story continues the adventures of the creature Gizmo, who spawns numerous small monsters when wet. In the first film, Gizmo's offspring rampaged through a small fictional town. In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Gizmo multiplies within a skyscraper in New York City. The new creatures thus pose a serious threat to the city should they be able to leave the building, and much of the story involves the human characters' efforts to prevent this disaster. It is the sequel to the 1984 film Gremlins.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins_2:_The_New_Batch" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Kate lived together and were hoping to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Kate lived together and were hoping to get married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clamp Center was overrun with Gremlins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gremlins are a race of somewhat intelligent reptile-like creatures. They are generally regarded as aliens, but no indication was given of that in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some point was made about ever increasing commercialization in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gentrification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clamp Enterprises was pressuring Mr. Wing into selling his old shop so that they could build a state of the art office building complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cushing Catheter's assistant made a clone of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla Bloodstone made a hard push to win Billy's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cushing Catheter, a parody on a mad scientist, ran a lab of genetic horrors in the Clamp Center building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientists genetically engineered a bouncy tomato. More generally, we saw Dr. Cushing Catheter running a fanciful genetic engineering lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate suspected Billy of having had a romantic episode with Marla, because of a big red lipstick kiss mark she saw on his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the Gremlins became genetically spliced with other creatures. For example, we saw a Gremlin/bat hybrid, a Gremlin/spider hybrid, and a Gremlin/vegetable hybrid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Count Dracula guy had a life long dream to be a television journalist and he seized the initiative to report to the world about the Gremlins overrunning the Clamp Center building. In the end, Mr. Clamp made him the new 6 o'clock news anchor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy at the was made uncomfortable by Marla's romantic advanced at the Canadian restaurant. Chief of security Forster was pursued by the female Gremlin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng3x26", "title": "The Best of Both Worlds", "date": "1990-06-18", "description": "Picard is kidnapped by the Borg, who begin their invasion of Federation space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker/Shelby :: Riker and Shelby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg :: The Borg launched an invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shelby :: Riker lacked and Shelby had in abundance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg turned Picard into a cyborg and assimilated him into their collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard must weigh Shelby's risky strategy and Riker cautious strategy for dealing with Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Shelby :: Shelby and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone in the face of imminent Borg invasion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Shelby :: Riker and Shelby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Shelby :: Riker and Shelby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans vs. Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shelby jockeying for position with Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker with Troi etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Shelby :: Riker contrasted with Shelby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Shelby :: Riker's leadership contrasted with Shelby's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: crew to Picard after he was kidnapped by Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Troi somberly concluded that Captain Picard, who'd been assimilated by the Borg, was as good as dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shelby :: Shelby open questions Riker's orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker refusing captaincy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x12", "title": "Fitting Punishment", "date": "1990-06-19", "description": "Bible-thumping funeral home director Ezra Thornberry cuts corners when it comes to his own line of work. Following a tragic car crash, he is made the legal guardian of his teenage nephew, Bobby. Bobby becomes his uncle's apprentice mortician in order to earn his room and board, though he soon comes to resent the abusive behavior and stinginess of his uncle, especially after Ezra cripples him in a rage.\n\nDirected by: Jack Sholder. Story by: Jonathan David Kahn & Don Mancini.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra was pantomimically thrifty. He beat his nephew for leaving the water tap dripping or the light on. He cut of his late nephew's feet to fit him in a Taiwanese coffin. He also stole a gold tooth from a corpse, embalmed with tap water, and otherwise cheated customers at his undertaking business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra was not at all pleased to take in his orphaned nephew, Bobby, and have another mouth to feed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra was abusive towards his nephew and legal charge, Bobby, and eventually made him a cripple by beating him with a crowbar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby had to get by on crutches after his uncle beat him with a crowbar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra cold heartedly killed his crippled nephew by pushing him down the stairs and embalming him with tap water, in order to save money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story regarded a purveyor of Christian style funeral services, and the business he ran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobby somehow came back, with his cut off feet as physically separate entities, to wreck vengeance on his abusive and murderous uncle. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezra was a textbook penny-pincher. He beat his nephew for leaving the water tap dripping or the light on. He cut of his late nephew's feet to fit him in a Taiwanese coffin. He also stole a gold tooth from a corpse, embalmed with tap water, and otherwise cheated customers at his undertaking business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, the Crypt Keeper was shooting human skulls on a basketball net with mixed results.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby variously had the trappings of a ghost (briefly haunting the house) and a living corpse after he returned from the grave.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: RoboCop 2 (1990)", "title": "RoboCop 2", "date": "1990-06-22", "description": "Set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, the plot centers around the eponymous RoboCop as he becomes embroiled in a scheme by Omni Consumer Products to bankrupt and take over the city while also fighting the spread of a highly-addictive street drug and its leader, the cult-like Cain.", "collections": [ "Collection: Robocop" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop was a cyborg. Cain was also made into a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future Detroit that was a dangerous, crime ridden slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cain's gang was dealing the highly addictive drug Nuke in Detroit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop struggled with reconciling his human and machine natures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OCP megacorporation plotted to bankrupt the city of Detroit and then step in to take it over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cain was the leader of a drug dealing cult-like gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to think about what to do when a city is plagued with crime and how it became that way in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were given a view into the inner working of the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear power plant melted down near the Amazon Rain Forrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cain led a cult that was committing terrorist attacks in Detroit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were addicted to the drug Nuke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police force went on strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners' rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald Johnson vehemently objected to Dr. Juliette Faxx's plan to make death row inmates into cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a TV commercial advertising extremely powerful sunblock to use now that the ozone layer had been destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Juliette Faxx was made a cyborg out of Cain without his consent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x13", "title": "Korman's Kalamity", "date": "1990-06-26", "description": "Jim Korman, a cartoonist who works on the Tales from the Crypt comic, is put- upon by his shrewish wife Mildred to take experimental fertility pills. Later that night, an attractive policewoman, Lorelei Phillips, is saved from a rapist when a monster suddenly emerges from a washing machine and tears the rapist's head off. Seeing the same monster on an issue of Tales from the Crypt, along with other monsters that were sighted recently, Lorelei interrogates Jim, believing that he is somehow making his drawings come to life. Tom Woodruff Jr. performs the utility monsters.\n\nThe Cryptkeeper makes a reference to Tales from the Crypt starting out as a magazine at the beginning of the episode.\n\nDirected by: Rowdy Herrington. Story by: Terry Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The cartoonist Jim Korman's monster sketches coming to life owing to his taking of an experimental fertility drug constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the cartoonist Jim Korman's day-to-day work activities at a certain horror comic book studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mild-mannered Jim was dealing with his ill-tempered wife, Mildred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mildred was a stereotypical battle-axe wife to Jim. She stormed into his office and berated him in from out of colleagues for missing a dose of his fertility medicine, and twice angrily accused him of being unfaithful to her without evidence. Her instincts were, however, correct as she ultimately walked in on him arranging a date over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim was dealing with his ill-tempered wife nagging him over his alleged infertility and likewise alleged romantic infidelities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim was courting the attractive policewoman Lorelie behind his ill-tempered wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beat cop Lorelei was investigating the sudden and mysterious appearance of multiple monsters in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about a horror cartoonist whose monster sketches come to live and go about terrorizing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim won Lorelie's heart by drawing a romantic sketch of them, knowing full well it would become reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The unhappily married man Jim was vying to win the young policewoman's Lorelei's heart, and in the end he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim was taking experimental fertility pills at his wife's insistence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lorelei's would-be rapist died horribly at the hands of a grotesque monster. Although he (the rapist) did not make his intentions clear, he was labeled as a rapist in a newspaper headline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Bushmill laughed off Lorelei when she insisted that she was saved from the rapist by a monster from the washing machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of boys encountered a ghoulish monster while playing inside an abandoned warehouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim conjured up a monster version of his wife in order to get rid of his battle-axe wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x14", "title": "Lower Berth", "date": "1990-07-03", "description": "Enoch is a two-faced freak living at a traveling sideshow in the early 1900s, where he is abused by his caretaker, Mr. Sickles. One day, Enoch falls in love with the sideshow's newest attraction: Myrna, a 4000-year-old mummy which is said to be cursed.\n\nDirected by: Kevin Yagher. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through his body language, the two-faced man Enoch showed he was self-conscious about his grotesque physical appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two-faced man Enoch became smitten with a seemingly lifeless 4000-year-old mummy. Impossible as their love might seem, Enoch took up abode with her/it in a cave and they somehow had a child together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two-faced wretch Enoch was forced to live as a traveling sideshow freak by his cruel master, Mr. Sickles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Sickles uncovered that Dr. Cling stole the 4000-year-old Egyptian mummy, rather than won it playing poker against an archaeologist as the doctor originally claimed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead mummy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 4000-year-old Egyptian mummy Myrna came back to live after her cursed necklace was stolen (it's eyes flashed open).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 4000-year-old Egyptian mummy Myrna was said to be cursed such that anyone who took her precious gem laden necklace would lose their own \"family jewels\". The story blithely leaves us with the conundrum of what would happen to a female larcenist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two-faced sideshow freak Enoch longed to have a family, and in the end he got one: a 4000-year-old Egyptian mummy for a wife and a ghoulish baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against the person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wretch Enoch was subjected to a false imprisonment, and what one gathers were regular beatings at the hands of his master, Mr. Sickles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two-faced sideshow freak Enoch longed to have a family, and in the end he got one: a 4000-year-old Egyptian mummy for a wife and a ghoulish baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cling lied about winning the cursed mummy from playing poker with an archaeologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young girl took pity on the wretch Enoch by handed him her doll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Sickles ran Dr. Cling through with a pair of hedge clippers and tried to pin the killing on Enoch by leaving the blood covered instrument in the wretch's cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enoch brutally murdered his cruel master, Mr. Sickles, with a pair of hedge clippers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Feeley was escorted to Enoch and Myrna's cavern abode by two uniformed police officers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jetsons: The Movie (1990)", "title": "Jetsons: The Movie", "date": "1990-07-06", "description": "George Jetson is tasked with running a new Spacely Sprockets facility by his boss Cosmo Spacely. However, after he brings his family along to support him, they find out about the truth of the facility's location.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetsons:_The_Movie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid mining", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on Spacely Sprockets and Spindles opening a new mining colony on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the everyday affairs of the Jetson's as they settling in on mining colony on an asteroid after George got a promotion at his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a large space station connected with an asteroid mining operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was elated to learn that he'd been promoted to Vice President and assigned to oversee mining operations on an asteroid, and he resolved to make the best of this opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy really hit it off with Apollo Blue and they quickly became an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy really hit it off with Apollo Blue and they quickly became an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the asteroid mining facility was actually drilling into the Grungees' community, which was based in a city inside the asteroid. And George ultimately coerced Mr. Spacely into letting the Grungees run the facility and sell its products to Mr. Spacely's company at a fair price.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a romanticized view of corporate life the goings on at the Spacely Sprockets and Spindles company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and his overbearing boss, Mr. Spacely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jetson's wise cracking, mechanical maid Rosie the Robot among other humanoid robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Jane Jetson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jetson family dog Astro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane and Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane and Elroy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elroy and Judy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Elroy was disappointed when his father George didn't make it to see him score the winning basket at his \"space ball\" game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone got about in futuristic flying cars which doubled as spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elroy was into playing a futuristic version of basketball called space ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jetson's took their flying car to a nearby asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jetson's new neighbors welcomed them to their new lodgings on an asteroid with open arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The asteroid was populated by a race of sentient furballs known as the Grungees. The Jetson's encountered various aliens on the asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elroy and Teddy-2 became the best of pals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Spacely took a school bus style spaceship to the asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane and Rosie were watching the soap opera \"All My Androids\" on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Grungees lived in a city inside an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was confronted by his family and made to decide what was more important: them or his job as facility manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George took pleasure in defying his overbearing boss, Mr. Spacely, by pressing a big red button to halt sprocket production at the facility.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x15", "title": "Mute Witness to Murder", "date": "1990-07-10", "description": "After witnessing a brutal murder in the apartment across from her own, Suzy is rendered mute and is placed in the care of Dr. Trask. Unfortunately, not only is Dr. Trask the man who committed the crime in question, but once he discovers that Suzy recognizes him and knows what he's done, he attempts to use his power to have Suzy silenced forever.\n\nDirected by: Jim Simpson. Story by: Nancy Doyne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "muteness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "As the title suggests, a point of the story is to explore what might happen to a person if they become unable to speak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Suzy being rendered mute after witnessing a brutal murder through an apartment window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Trask strangled his wife with a cord and then went to elaborate lengths to silence the only known witness to his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is not clear what she was thought to suffer from, but Suzy was committed to a psychiatric ward in a straitjacket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to understand that the trauma of witnessing a murder rendered Suzy unable to speak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Trask clearly abused his position as head of the sanatorium in order to silence a woman who had witnessed him murder his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Trask had a chronic heart condition and had urgently to take pills if he became too excited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown an idea of what it might be like in a (private?) psychiatric ward of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Trask's overbearing wife's incessant nagging literally drove him to the point of murder, and beyond. Suzy's husband impotently tried to help her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suzy found herself in the custody and at the mercy of an unhinged doctor who wanted to silence her after she witnessed him murder his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mute Suzy was a stark contrast to Dr. Trask's overbearing wife, whose incessant nagging literally drove him to the point of murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Trask pointedly told Suzy she could unclench her nervous knees because rapes were kept to a minimum at his institution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suzy and Paul held a costume party to celebrate their wedding anniversary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul's big sister Dolores urged him to be skeptical about the care his wife was getting in the sanatorium.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solar Crisis (1990)", "title": "Solar Crisis", "date": "1990-07-14", "description": "To stop a solar flare from destroying the Earth, Steve Kelso is tasked to drop an artificially intelligent bomb on the Sun from the spaceship Helios. Arnold Teague, who believes the danger to be overstated, attempts to sabotage the mission so he can profit from the panic. Teague's agents on Earth clash with Kelso's father, Admiral \"Skeet\" Kelso, and his son, Mike.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Crisis_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered around a desperate mission to prevent a solar flare from destroying the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient bomb", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Helios crew dropped a sentient antimatter mega-bomb named Freddy on the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a large space station, named Skytown, in orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew commandeered the spherical-ish spaceship Helios to the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew commandeered the spherical-ish spaceship Helios to the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A panicked man on the street likened an impending solar flare hitting Earth to Armageddon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Kelso was seen off on his mission to the sun by his father Admiral \"Skeet\" Kelso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex Noffe was a \"biogenetically enhanced human\" who was breed and trained to have enhanced physical and mental abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby braved dangerous levels of ambient radiation levels in order to prevent the Helios mission from failing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike mentioned how solar flare crisis was bringing the whole world together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike was reunited with his grandfather Admiral \"Skeet\" Kelso at one point in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnold Teague used a hologram of himself to distract his pursuers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x16", "title": "Television Terror", "date": "1990-07-17", "description": "Tabloid news host Horton Rivers and his cameraman, Trip Anderson, investigate the Ritter House, an abandoned house which is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Ada Ritter, an old woman who had killed several old men for their social security checks and committed suicide. Horton and his crew get more than they bargained for when a chain of supernatural happenings do indeed begin haunting them, all aired on live TV.\n\nDirected by: Charlie Picerni. Story by: Randall Jahnson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted house", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the cynical television presenter Horton Rivers as he broadcasts live from an abandoned house that is haunted by the ghost of a notorious serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a behind-the-scenes look at a live television production from inside a haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The late boarding house owner Ada Ritter's killing of 12 elderly men for their social security checks is central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horton encountered the restless ghosts of some murdered elderly men and their killer inside the haunted house. The story climaxed with the ghost of Ada Ritter chainsawing open Horton's abdomen, and subsequent leaving of him dangling by his neck from outside a second story window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The television presenter Horton Rivers lost his life live on-air in the pursuit of media sensation and ratings. This is arguably a commentary on a tendency toward vulgarization in contemporary media.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "This is a story about some people ill-advisedly entering a haunted house and becoming afraid as they encountered ever-increasing terrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horton Rivers arrogantly disregarded the psychic's exhortations against entering the haunted house, and paid with his life because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The television crew generally hated their arrogant, over-bearing star, Horton Rivers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horton was notably arrogant. He asserted his own opinions loudly and denigrated those that disagreed. He said something smart to a female coworker about sleeping with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that the notorious serial killer Ada Ritter killed herself, presumably in her home.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Omega Cop (1990)", "title": "Omega Cop", "date": "1990-07-19", "description": "A man known as the Omega Cop takes it upon himself to go after a gang of slave traders. It was also released under the title John Travis: Solar Survivor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Cop" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows John Travis (a.k.a. the Omega Cop) as he almost single handedly takes out a gang of slave traders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Travis (a.k.a. the Omega Cop) took it upon himself to take out a gang of slave traders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 1999 when a series of solar flares which have scorched the Earth for the last 30 years have left the Earth in midst of an environmental disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoe watched as slave traders shot her father dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prescot mentioned in passing that the greenhouse effect was getting out of control as a result of all the solar flares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Travis brought the three slave girls to the closest thing he could find to a hospital to be treated by Dr. Latimer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Latimer was on the verge of blowing out his brains, but backed out in the end out of a lack of courage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Solar flare exposure resulted in a kind of radiation poisoning which caused the affected to degenerate into psychotic killers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x01", "title": "Mars Is Heaven", "date": "1990-07-20", "description": "An astronaut and his team land on Mars and discover they're not so far from home at all.\n\nDirected by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The center piece of the story is the speculation that Mars might be inhabited by a hostile telepathic alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Black speculated that if Mars was inhabited by a telepathic alien race, that race might naturally view the visiting spacefarers from Earth as invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that for the first time in history a mission of astronauts from Earth had traveled to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The telepathic Martians apparently played on the astronauts conscious or subconscious longing for departed loved ones and the days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts found on Mars their various departed loved ones and speculated briefly that they had entered some sort of heavenly afterlife. Alas, the telepathic Martians apparently played on the astronauts conscious or subconscious longing for people that had passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shortly after landing on Mars, the astronauts were reunited with what appeared to be their dearly departed family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "A center piece of the story is the speculation that Mars might be inhabited by a hostile telepathic alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon encountering familiar objects on Mars, the astronauts speculated that Mars was had somehow begun like, and followed an identical progression through history, as Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Because he was an unhappy orphan, one of the astronauts was seemingly immune to the alluring illusions of the Martians because he was an orphan and had no one in particular he longed to be with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts found on Mars their various departed loved ones and speculated briefly that they had entered some sort of heavenly afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians presumably assumed that the humans had come as invaders, and responded accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henley was reunited with his dearly departed grandpa, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henley was reunited with his dearly departed grandma, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Black was reunited with his dearly departed mother, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Black was apparently reunited with his dearly departed brother, Skip. By the time Black pieced together that Skip was actually a telepathic Martian with homicidal intentions, it was already too late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x17", "title": "My Brother's Keeper", "date": "1990-07-24", "description": "Siamese twin brothers Frank and Eddie have differing viewpoints about their condition. The relationship between them also becomes strained when the good- hearted, mild-mannered Frank doesn't want to be surgically separated from the crass and slovenly Eddie out of fear that the procedure could potentially kill them. However, when Frank finds love and Eddie resorts to murder, the former finally changes his mind.\n\nDirected by: Peter S. Seaman. Story by: Jeffrey Price.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is a window into the lives of the polar opposite conjoined twins Frank and Eddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a window into the lives of the polar opposite conjoined twins Frank and Eddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conjoined at the hip twins Frank and Eddie were quarreled constantly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank (kind-hearted, mild-mannered, and cautious) was pointedly contrasted with his conjoined at the hip twin brother Eddie (abrasive, slovenly, and reckless).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Frank in his efforts to woo his love interest, Marie. They went on a date to see the symphony and followed it up with dinner. However, Frank's conjoined at the hip twin brother, Eddie, made for a terrible third wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank and Marie's burgeoning love ended tragically when Frank's conjoined twin buried a meat cleaver in her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank was faced with deciding whether to go through with a risky surgery to be separated from his abrasive, conjoined at the hip twin brother, Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank, fearing for his own life, refused to undergo the separation process that his brother Eddie so desperately craved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conjoined twins Frank and Eddied consulted an eccentric German physician about getting separated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie could not lay idly by as her love interest's conjoined twin was being rode by a whip wielding, leather clad prostitute whilst handcuffed to the bedpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie hired a prostitute to ride him like a wild stallion. Marie was also revealed to be a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank confided in his conjoined twin, Eddie, that he might get lonely should go through with their plan to be surgically separated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie got hammered at Frank and Marie's dinner date, which caused Frank too to become intoxicated, so that he lost his inhibition and made a move on Marie. In general, Eddie was never far from the bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Without much in the way of foresight, Eddie dispatched his conjoined twin's lover by burying a meat cleaver in her back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, a police detective arrived at the hospital to collect Eddie on a murder charge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x02", "title": "The Murderer", "date": "1990-07-27", "description": "A psychologist visits a prisoner who lost his mind because of everyday noises.\n\nDirected by: Roger Tompkins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The center piece of the story was a main character who, by example, tried to start a movement against all manner of technological communication devices but in particular those that made noise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problematic usage of mobile communication devices in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert Brock inspired a movement that was a reaction to the widespread use of distracting noisy gadgets, including portable communication devices, that in his view plagued society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychologist Dr. Fellows visited an interned patient who had lost his mind because of everyday noises from technological gadgets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychologist Dr. Fellows proposed to help his patient Albert Brock but instead ended up being influenced by Brock into taking an anti-technology stance against communication devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human safety need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert was fed up with the constant clamor and distraction brought about by electronic gadgets which were ubiquitous in society. He longed for peace and quiet. The story concluded with Albert's psychologist, Dr. Fellows, desiring the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert was fed up with the constant clamor and distraction brought about by electronic gadgets which were ubiquitous in society. He took it upon himself to start a movement against all manner of electronic communication devices, but in particular those that made noise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The videophone was featured as something of a novelty, albeit a nuisance, in this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Fellows proposed that Albert should have used democratic processes to further his agenda but Albert acknowledged that he was a minority and stated that he therefore had to resort to direct, and illegal, action.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "protest by civil disobedience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Fellows proposed that Albert should have used democratic processes to further his agenda but Albert acknowledged that he was a minority and therefore had to resort to direct, and illegal, action.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Fellows' son called him on his lapel phone, asking about his allowance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert singled out in his words \"larger than life in your own living room commercials coming at you from all directions\" in one of his various rants on technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert and Agnes Brock had contrasting view, to say the least, when it came to the use of electronic gadgets in daily life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police tactical unit arrived on the scene of Albert's rampage against electronic gadgets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e2x18", "title": "The Secret", "date": "1990-07-31", "description": "Theodore, a 12-year-old orphan, is finally able to leave the orphanage he lives in when he is adopted by a rich, childless couple known as the Colberts. Unknown to Theodore, his new parents harbor a dark secret. However, unknown to the Colberts, Theodore has a dark secret of his own.\n\nDirected by: J. Michael Riva. Story by: Doug Ronning.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the orphan boy Theodore as he is adopted by the enigmatic Colberts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a vampire couple, known as the Colberts, adopting an orphan boy for the purpose of feasting on his sweet blood. But little did they know they brought home a little more than they could chew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a vampire couple, known as the Colberts, adopting an orphan boy for the purpose of feasting on his sweet blood. But little did they know they brought home a little more than they could chew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "major", "motivation": "The orphan boy Theodore being a werewolf with a taste the blood of his new vampire parents was the big reveal of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Theodore was held captive in a sumptuous room with all the things a boy might seemingly ever desire: toys and desserts for every meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theodore was adopted by a rich, childless couple known as the Colberts. As the Colberts later revealed themselves to be two bloodthirsty vampires, it is somewhat ambiguous whether they were also husband and wife or merely posing as such. The theme, alas, is topical whichever way we choose to interpret matters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a life-changing stroke of good fortune", "level": "major", "motivation": "The orphan boy Theodore got all the material things he had ever imagined wanting, but found that without human companionship it was all vapid and meaningless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "material possessions aren't everything", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theodore got all the material things he had ever imagined wanting, but found that without human companionship it was all vapid and meaningless. He dreamed of his old companions at the orphanarium, and played with Tobias the butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unknown to Theodore, his new parents harbored a dark secret: they were vampires. However unknown to the Colberts, Theodore had a dark secret of his own: he was a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening scenes are set in a steretypical orphanage for boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The joyless orphanage director Miss Hagstead was fleetingly juxtaposed with her good-natured assistant, Miss Heather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Colberts were betrayed their ultimately not so faithful servant, Tobias.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobias took pity on Theodore at the last minute, and made a desperate bid to free the boy form his vampire captors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man-servant Tobias double-crossed his vampire masters by trying to escape with little Theodore before blood-meal time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobias agreed to serve the Colberts in exchange for ever-lasting life, according to Mrs. Colbert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobias \"couldn't imagine anything more tedious and boring\" than ever-lasting life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with a self-confident Theodore returning to his old orphanarium and proclaiming that, because he was now aware of his werewolf powers, things were going to change around there.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x03", "title": "Touched with Fire", "date": "1990-08-03", "description": "A retired insurance man and his colleague are convinvced an old woman is about to be murdered and seek to prevent it.\n\nDirected by: Roger Tompkins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone was languishing in the oppressive summer heat. The retired insurance man Mr. Foxe was convinced that more murders were committed at 102 Fahrenheit than at any other temperature. The story follows Mr. Foxe and his colleague Mr. Shaw as they take it upon themselves to prevent Annabelle, a cantankerous neighborhood housewife, from getting murdered during a heatwave. Alas, Annabelle's husband returned home from the bar in something of a rage and fatally bludgeoned her with his longshoreman's hook. Mr. Foxe's thermometer read 102 degrees at the time of the murder, thus lending credence his theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that more murders are committed during heatwaves, reaching a peak at 102 degrees Fahrenheit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Mr. Shrike fatally bludgeoning his cantankerous wife, Annabelle, with a longshoreman's hook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annabelle lashed out in anger at everyone around her. In the end, Annabelle's husband came home in something of a rage and fatally bludgeoned her with his longshoreman's hook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annabelle's quarrel with her stevedore husband culminated with him fatally bludgeoning her with a longshoreman's hook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Foxe and Mr. Shaw believed Annabelle was so outlandishly cantankerous that she was destined to be murdered when the temperature reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Shrike was evidently brought to his wits end by his wife's overbearing nature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flatliners (1990)", "title": "Flatliners", "date": "1990-08-10", "description": "Five medical students attempt to find out what lies beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments that produce near-death experiences.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatliners" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Five medical students conducted clandestine experiments that produce near-death experiences in themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among the five medical students, Nelson was particularly motivated to conduct the near-death experiments by a desire to find out what happens after death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson was racked with guilt over having accidentally killed a boy he had bullied as a child. Dave felt guilty for having picked on a girl during his school days and he went to apologize to her as an adult. Rachel lived for 20 years thinking that she'd been responsible for her father's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe made secret video recordings of his sexual exploits with multiple beautiful women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel grew up with the trauma of having witnessed her father shoot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was taking videos of himself sleeping with women without them knowing about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nelson had bullied Billy Mahoney when they were kids. Dave had picked on Winnie Hicks when they were in school together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel's deceased father, who might have been a hallucination, asked Rachel to forgive him for having failed her in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anne broke up with Joe after discovering videos he's taken of himself sleeping with other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel's father had shot himself dead when she was only five.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel's father was a heroin addict.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x04", "title": "The Black Ferris", "date": "1990-08-10", "description": "Two young boys become convinced the carnival that just came to town is evil.\n\nDirected by: Roger Tompkins. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human childhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two young boys Hank and Pete uncovered the sinister plot of a carnival worker and his accomplice. They got into various stereotypical kid things along the way, including Hank getting grounded, and Hank and Pete sneaking out from their respective homes at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody took Hank seriously when he kept alleging that the \"orphan\" boy Joseph was really the sinister carnival worker, Mr. Coogar, in child form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were not subject to the normal process of aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story was a magic Ferris wheel that aged its rider when rotated clockwise, and reverse aged them when rotated counterclockwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Coogar, a sinister carnival worker, reverse aged his body to that of a child by the simple expedient of riding a Ferris wheel in the counterclockwise direction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Coogar died of rapid aging in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The carnival man Mr. Coogar transformed himself into a child, preyed on Mrs. Foley's sympathy, and made off with her jewelry at the earliest opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured a carnival along with tow of its workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Coogar played on Mrs. Foley's sympathy by pretending to be an orphan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank was chided by his father chided for showing up late to dinner for the third time in a week, and for making seemingly wild accusations against the carnival worker Mr. Coogar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank's mother listened on as he told a seemingly tall tale at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Walterson worried that their young son's seemingly overactive imagination was going to get him into trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Walterson worried that their young son's seemingly overactive imagination was going to get him into trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived at the strange scene of Mr. Coogar aging rapidly as he went round and round on the magical Ferris wheel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Watchers II (1990)", "title": "Watchers II", "date": "1990-08-16", "description": "An uplifted golden retriever teams up with a military man to slay a murderous, humanoid monster. genetically enginLoosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean Koontz, it is the sequel to the 1988 film Watchers.", "collections": [ "Collection: Watchers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchers_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The concerns a golden retrieved, named Einstein, that has been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A golden retrieved, named Einstein, was augmented with human DNA, resulting in it developing human level intelligence. Dr. Steve Malceno genetically engineered a murderous, humanoid monster that was known as \"The Outsider\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was a fugitive from the law. He went on the run together with Barbara and the intelligent golden retriever Einstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hideous, genetically engineered, humanoid creature was going around slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hideous, genetically engineered, humanoid creature was going around slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Steve Malceno genetically engineered an intelligent dog and a murderous monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives were investigating a string of grisly killings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul briefly, but pointedly mourned the grisly killing of his ex-wife Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A genetically engineered monster, known as \"The Outsider\", turned on its creator, Dr. Steve Malceno, and slaughtered him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x05", "title": "Usher II", "date": "1990-08-17", "description": "A librarian vows revenge and builds a murderous replica of Poe's House of Usher.\n\nDirected by: Lee Tamahori. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story takes place in the year 2125. Society had enacted a prohibition on creative works that stimulated the imagination, including the writings of Edgar Allen Poe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stendahl was very fond of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. He went so far as to build a replica of Poe's House of Usher, and forcibly cast government investigators as some of the stories victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stendahl exacted revenge on a handful of investigators from the government agency that was responsible for burning his extensive library, by taking their lives in manners inspired by the macabre writings of Edgar Allen Poe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Investigators from the \"Moral Climates\" government agency determined that Stendahl's subversive mansion was to be dismantled and burned to the ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stendahl made android replicas of Garrett and some of the other government investigators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In an act of revenge, Stendahl took the lives of various government investigators in manners inspired by the macabre writings of Edgar Allen Poe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bride of ReAnimator (1990)", "title": "Bride of Re-Animator", "date": "1990-09-08", "description": "Doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain as they attempt to create a living woman from dead tissue. It is a sequel to the 1985 film Re-Animator and the second entry in the Re-Animator film series. Like its predecessor, it is loosely based on the serialized story \"Herbert West–Reanimator\" by H. P. Lovecraft. It is the second installment in the Re-Animator film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: ReAnimator Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_Re-Animator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Herbert and Dan as they attempt to create a living woman from dead tissue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Herbert attempted to create a living woman from dead tissue much like Dr. Frankenstein of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The corpses Herbert and Dan revived from the dead always seems to turn into crazed zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were attacked by crazed reanimated corpses at various points in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan and Francesca were in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert recalled aloud how Dr. Carl Hill had tried to take steal the credit for the corpse reanimating serum that Herbert had invented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain were conducting mad scientist type experiments about reviving the dead and also on creating new life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police detective Lt. Leslie Chapham was investigating the \"Miskatonic Massacre\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert exposed Lt. Leslie Chapham for being a wife beater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disembodied head of Dr. Carl Hill was lurking around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francesca accused Herbert of blasphemy after it became apparent that he'd played God by creating a woman from dead tissue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herbert and his \"Bride of Frankenstein\"-like assemblage of dead tissue brought to life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Goodfellas (1990)", "title": "Goodfellas", "date": "1990-09-09", "description": "Goodfellas (stylized GoodFellas) is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is an adaptation of the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodfellas" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw how Henry grew up to become a mobster, a mob boss, and a drug kingpin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were numerous murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was a big deal about being loyal to Paulie and the mob, each other, spouses etc. - in the end Henry ratted on everyone to save his own skin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Karen got married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry started moving drugs mid-story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry had a mistress, which made his marriage turbulent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the luxurious life of being moderately rich from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen was jealous of Henry's mistresses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were various cases where people deliberated whether to betray their cronies in order to save their own skin - in the end Henry ratted on everyone to save his own skin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "mistress, Sandy, snorted a lot of powder. Later every other person seemed to be on drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Karen had a complicated relationship but seemed to genuinely love each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "father beat Henry for missing school", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mother disapproved of Henry looking like a gangster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Karen were dating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry wanted nothing better than being a gangster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Karen argue with her Jewish mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what prison might be like for wise guys.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hardware (1990)", "title": "Hardware", "date": "1990-09-14", "description": "A self-repairing robot that goes on a rampage in a post-apocalyptic slum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future where everything is irradiated, presumably from a human caused release of radiation, and people live in a dreary slum surrounded by wastelands that some scavenge for useful pieces of technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mo and Jill were in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mo and Jill were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-repairing, killer cyborg Mark 13 ran amok in a post-apocalyptic slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-repairing, killer robot Mark 13 ran amok in a post-apocalyptic slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ambient radiation was known to me making people sick and causing people to have abnormal offspring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mo had a robotic right hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill was metal sculptor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mo an old drone head to Jill as a Christmas present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government passed an emergency population control bill that involved sterilizing people who had high levels of radioactivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lincoln peeped on Mo and Jill making passionate love through his telescope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mo spoke with Shades over just such a device, albeit a bulky one.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x01", "title": "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II", "date": "1990-09-24", "description": "Picard is rescued from the Borg as the Enterprise races to save Earth. A great number of Starfleet ships are destroyed by the lone Borg ship, although an away team finally rescues Picard. Data interfaces with the half-Borg Picard and finds a way to shut down the Borg ship. Guest star Elizabeth Dennehy as Starfleet Commander Shelby.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg :: The Borg launched an invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity face down the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "that Picard and Humanity can be saved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "collectives always have a vulnerable spot that can be exploited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: The Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew preparing for Borg assault", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker fills Picard's shoes on the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew had to accept that Captain Picard, whoo'd been assimilated by the Borg, was as good as dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg turned Picard into a cyborg and assimilated him into their collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Shelby :: Riker and Shelby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Borg are here", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg offer order at cost of freedom", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I Come in Peace (1990)", "title": "I Come in Peace", "date": "1990-09-28", "description": "A rule-breaking vice cop becomes involved in the investigation of mysterious drug-related murders on the streets of Houston, Texas. The film is was also released under the title Dark Angel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Come_in_Peace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detective Jack Caine and his new FBI agent partner Special Agent Arwood were investigating a string of drug-related murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detective Jack Caine and his new FBI agent partner Special Agent Arwood were investigating a string of drug-related murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial Talec was going around murdering people and harvesting their endorphins, which he plotted to sell as an illicit drug to his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story starts off with a police sting on a big time heroin dealer before switching gears to be about an alien who is harvesting peoples endorphins to sell as an illicit drug among his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Caine and his girlfriend Diane Pallone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Pallone were in a somewhat rocky, but on the whole loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set during the Christmas season. Christmas music could be heard and stereotypical decorations were shown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Caine didn't cope well with his partner on the force Ray getting shot dead in a sting gone bad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Caine wanted to make the white collar drug dealer Victor Manning pay for having murdered his partner on the force Ray.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990)", "title": "Prayer of the Rollerboys", "date": "1990-10", "description": "A young rollerblader infiltrates a rollerblading gang to save his kid brother, who is himself a member of the gang, from falling into a life of crime.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_the_Rollerboys" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in an gang infested, crime riddled, poverty stricken Los Angeles in the wake of \"The Great Crash\": an economic catastrophe triggered by the greed of previous generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in an gang infested, crime riddled, poverty stricken Los Angeles in the wake of \"The Great Crash\": an economic catastrophe triggered by the greed of previous generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary Lee ran the Rollerboys gang, which was was nearly running Los Angeles, like the mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narcotics-kingpin Gary Lee had a monopoly on the mist trade in Los Angeles. Miltie started dealing the drug Myst for the Rollerboys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Griffin infiltrated the Rollerboys gang in an effort to get his kid brother Miltie to leave the gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los Angeles was overrun by gangs, principally the Rollerboys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rollerboys gang turned out to be heavily-armed white supremacist conglomerate with designs on eliminating the weak people, which included but was not limited to all non-whites, from society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Griffin and Casey fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narcotics-kingpin Gary Lee's master plan was to eliminate all the weak people from society by getting them hooked on the sterility inducing narcotic that his gang was flooding the streets with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown various people who were addicted to the designer drug mist, including Griffin's kid brother Miltie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was trying to bust the Rollerboys criminal gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 13-year-old orphan boy Miltie found a home with the Rollerboys gang, or so he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 13-year-old orphan boy Miltie found a home with the Rollerboys gang, or so he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin resented his deceased father for being a drunk who'd failed him and his little brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two law enforcement officers delighted in surveilling Griffin while he got it on with Casey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young narcotics-kingpin Gary Lee was rumored to be the great-grandson of Adolf Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Griffin betrayed his childhood neighbor become drug king-pin Gary Lee by infiltrating his gang and selling him out to the police.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x02", "title": "Family", "date": "1990-10-01", "description": "While the Enterprise is going under repairs at Earth, Captain Picard visits his brother's family in France, Lt. Worf 's adoptive human parents come to see him aboard the ship and Dr. Crusher gives her son Wesley a personal holo- recording left by his late father shortly after the boy's birth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Picard's, the Crushers, and the Worf's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard vs. Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Picard :: Robert was envious of his brother Jean-Luc's success in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie Picard/Rene Picard, Beverly/Wesley, Helena Rozhenko/Worf :: Marie/Rene and Beverly/Wesley and Helena/Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Picard/Rene Picard, Jack Crusher/Wesley, Sergey Rozhenko/Worf :: Robert/Rene and Jack/Wesley and Sergey/Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley of his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Robert Picard :: Picard and Robert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about Atlantis Project", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie Picard, Beverly, Helena Rozhenko :: Marie/Rene and Beverly/Wesley and Helena/Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Picard, Jack Crusher, Sergey Rozhenko :: Robert Picard/Rene Picard, Jack Crusher/Wesley, Sergey Rozhenko/Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard returned to his family vineyard to contemplate his future direction in life in the aftermath of having been assimilated by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard returned to his family vineyard to contemplate his future direction in life in the aftermath of having been assimilated by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard contemplated leaving Starfleet to run the Atlantis Project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rene Picard, Wesley, Worf :: Rene to Robert Picard, Worf to parents, Wesley to Jack Crusher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in fight with Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how to raise Rene, Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena Rozhenko, Sergey Rozhenko :: Worf's parents about discommendation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Rene to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf embarrassed about his discommendation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf embarrassed about his discommendation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was evidently concerned that his stoic image would be compromised by having his kind and loving parents visit the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helena Rozhenko, Sergey Rozhenko :: Worf's parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley watched a touching holographic recording made for him by his long deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly reflected back on her relationship with her long dead husband, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Picard/Marie Picard, Sergey Rozhenko/Helena Rozhenko :: Robert and Marie Picard, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Jack's holomessage to Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Picard :: Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard w.r.t. Atlantis project", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Picard :: Robert Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie Picard :: Picard welcomed by his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie Picard :: the Picard's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Rene Picard :: Picard and Rene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert's pride prevent him from reconciling with his brother Picard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was sought out to lead a project that would see the creation of a new subcontinent in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Syngenor (1990)", "title": "Syngenor", "date": "1990-10-03", "description": "Norton Cyberdyne provides high-tech military technology and their latest super weapon is \"Syngenor\" (SYNthesized GENetic ORganism). A prototype breaks loose and starts leaving a trail of bodies. As bodies pile up other Syngenors emerge from the basement and a battle rages between the monsters and the corporate humans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Norton Cyberdyne corporation genetically engineered \"Syngenor\" (SYNthesized GENetic ORganism) supersoldiers, and they got loose and ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Norton Cyberdyne corporation genetically engineered \"Syngenor\" (SYNthesized GENetic ORganism) supersoldiers, and they got loose and ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A roving pack of genetically engineered, supersoldier monsters, known as \"syngenors\", were going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A roving pack of genetically engineered, supersoldier monsters, known as \"syngenors\", were going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Norton Cyberdyne corporation planned to make a killing by selling their genetically engineered \"Syngenor\" supersoldier monsters to the U.S. military, which, the corporate executives presumed would soon see use in a global war that they expected to be predominantly fought in the Middle East.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the nefarious goings on at the Norton Cyberdyne corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Valentine and Nick Cary fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan Valentine came home to find that her uncle Ethan Valentine had been brutally slain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Nick Cary was investigating the shady goings on at the Norton Cyberdyne corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was satisfied to have uncovered that Paula Gorski had had Susan's uncle murdered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x03", "title": "Brothers", "date": "1990-10-08", "description": "Data is summoned by his creator Noonien Soong who is still alive, and they are joined by Lore .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Lore, Soong Type Android :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noonian Soong/Data, Noonian Soong/Lore :: Data and Lore and Soong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data and Lore had to come to terms with the fact that their creator, and de facto father, had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore envied and resented Data over Data being their creator's favorite among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noonian Soong, Jake Potts :: Soong about deactivating Lore; Jake about making his brother have to live in a bubble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noonian Soong/Data, Noonian Soong/Lore :: Soong/Data and Soong/Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data could not grieve for Soong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noonian Soong :: Soong at sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wille/Jake, Data/Lore :: Wille/Jake; Data/Lore suggested", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noonian Soong :: Soong explained that he had created Data and Lore because of a desire to continue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker, Troi, Beverly :: Riker and Troi give Jake a hard talking to after he pulls an ill-conceived practical joke on his brother, Willie; Beverly with Willie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data from bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore at Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly for little Willie Potts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore to Data and Soong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data of Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Lore :: Data and Lore to Soong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data used a series of cascading force fields to take over the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data outsmarts Enterprise crew and commandeers ship to visit his father", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x06", "title": "Touch of Petulance", "date": "1990-10-12", "description": "A man travels back from the future to dissuade his younger self from killing his wife.\n\nDirected by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The old Jonathan shot dead his wife before traveling back in time in order to dissuade his younger self making the same mistakes he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young Jonathan understood from the old Jonathan that he'd better do things like tell his wife he loves her, in order to prevent the marriage from going down the drain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old Jonathan shot dead his wife before traveling back in time in order to dissuade his younger self making the same mistakes he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old Jonathan shot dead his wife before traveling back in time in order to dissuade his younger self making the same mistakes he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the old Jonathan somehow traveling back in time from the year 2025 to dissuade his younger self from murdering his (their) wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-fulfilling prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old Jonathan traveled back in time to dissuade his younger self from murdering his wife. But in so doing, the old Jonathan inadvertently supplied the young Jonathan with the pistol that the young Jonathan would presumably use to do the fated deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old Jonathan told the young Jonathan about how his marriage was destined to go badly should he fail to do something about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young Jonathan made a heartfelt proclamation of his love for Alice at the dinner table. Alice reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old Jonathan pointedly declined to drink at dinner. After dinner, he chided his younger self for drinking too much, leaving the viewer to ponder whether the old Jonathan had hit the sauce one too many a time at some point.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x04", "title": "Suddenly Human", "date": "1990-10-15", "description": "Picard must help a human boy, raised by aliens, to decide his fate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono feels more at home with aliens than with humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard struggles with how to raise Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talarian :: the Talarians had a strange and severe attitude to child rearing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Endar :: Picard and Endar battle for custody of Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Endar/Jono :: Endar and Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jono was torn about whether to return to life with his adoptive father or stay with his fellow humans aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans could not stand idly by and let Jono be abused, as they saw it, by his rough-and-tumble alien foster parents. Jono had trouble getting along with Picard because the latter did not approve of obnoxious loud music, hammocks, and high pitched alien humming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono's choice to stay or leave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children's rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Can Jono be allowed to choose for himself?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard in negotiating with Talarians for Jono on behalf of the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Endar :: Endar to Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono to his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Jono :: Picard and Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono living with Humans aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono living apart from his adoptive father Endar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Jono :: Picard and Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono though human habits such as glove-less handshaking was objectionable. Humans thought Talarian noise making and child abuse was objectionable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono was torn about whether to return to life with his adoptive father or stay with his fellow humans aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jono :: Beverly suspected Jono had Stockholm Syndrome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Endar had adopted the human boy Jono.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Endar was erroneously accused of abusing his adoptive son, Jono.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Jono :: Picard and Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Endar, Jono :: Endar at Jono having been taken from him; Jono at various points", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard toward Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jono and the other boys uttered ritual chants in honor of their fallen compatriots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard toward Jono", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono with loud music", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how a woman could never outrank a man in Talarian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jono :: Jono to Endar", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x07", "title": "And the Moon Be Still as Bright", "date": "1990-10-19", "description": "During an expedition to Mars, an archaeologist turns against his crew in defense of an extinct Martian race.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It is ambiguous whether the archeologist simply went mad and murdered his fellow humans with vengeance for the Martians as a pretext, or whether the vanquished Martians somehow posthumously orchestrated the events. Either way, murdered natives of Mars an their seeming desire for retribution are a key component of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is that humans had once arrived on Mars and, one way or the other, unwittingly destroyed the ecosystem that sustained a native civilization on the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that humans had traveled through space in order to explore Mars but had ended up inadvertently, perhaps by spreading chicken pox virus, exterminating the native civilization there. It feature a later expedition that had come with the, perhaps hypocritical, mission to establishing a colony while somehow honoring the civilization that had once been.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is ambiguous whether the archeologist simply went mad and murdered his fellow humans with vengeance for the Martians as a pretext, or whether the vanquished Martians somehow posthumously orchestrated the events. Either way, murdered natives of Mars an their seeming desire for retribution are a key component of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spender deduced that a prior mission to Mars had inadvertently transmitted the chicken pox virus to the native inhabitants, resulting in their extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, the Martians had nothing to do with the strange series of events. Spender said \"we humans have a talent for ruining big beautiful things\". He displayed contempt for some of his fellow crewmen and ultimately went on a killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an expeditionary crew landing on Mars with the intent of colonizing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archeologist Spender sucker-punched a fellow crewman whom he thought was behaving in a disrespectful manner towards the Martian civilization, which humanity had caused the extinction of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spender and Captain Wilder had a complicated relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer remarked that the only reason there wasn't a hotdog stand on the Moon is because it was too far out of the way, and as such would not be commercially viable. His point was that society is too quick to spoil the natural beauty of things, like the Moon, for profit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x05", "title": "Remember Me", "date": "1990-10-22", "description": "After an apparent failure of a warp-field experiment, people begin to disappear from the Enterprise with only Dr. Crusher remembering that they ever existed.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly in bubble universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An experiment gone wrong resulted in the creation of a collapsing warp bubble universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly about the veracity of her own memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly in bubble universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Traveler had the ability to alter reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly vs. warp bubble universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: imaginary crew assumed Beverly was insane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly was at a loss to explain why her fellow crew members were disappearing from the Enterprise one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly consoled Galen over the recent passing of his wife, Patricia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley over having trapped his mother in a warp bubble universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and the imaginary crew thought Beverly was losing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly said explicitly that she applied \"deduction\" to figure out what's going on inside warp bubble universe. In fact, she used abductive reasoning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Galen Quaice/Beverly :: Quaice and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly at Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley at Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler in coming to save Beverly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x08", "title": "The Toynbee Convector", "date": "1990-10-26", "description": "The reclusive Stiles, world famous for being the first time traveler, is interviewed on the day his past self came to the future, and plans to confess all to an eager reporter.\n\nDirected by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a man who allegedly traveled in time to the future and changed the, otherwise apocalypse-bound, world by bringing back news of marvels to come.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stiles considered that, by bringing hope to the world, he inspired society to reform its ways and narrowly avert environmental disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-fulfilling prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story is the idea that a man traveled to the future and brought back news of marvels, and that this in turn caused society to change its ways and reform itself into that very marvelous future that would otherwise never have come about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stiles said that the world he lived in when young was doom-bound in various ways, most of which were related to environmental destruction. In his television report about the 1990s, the journalist Roger Shumway described how ecological destruction had bringing society to the brink, highlighting such issues as smog alerts and oil spills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stiles said that the world he lived in when young was doom-bound in various ways, most of which were related to environmental destruction. In his television report about the 1990s, the journalist Roger Shumway described how ecological destruction had bringing society to the brink, highlighting such issues as smog alerts and oil spills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Toynbee Convector was a single occupant contraption built by the reclusive scientific genius Craig Bennett Styles. For the greater good of human-kind, Styles duped the public into believing that it was a working time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world Stiles had brought about by telling tales of a marvelous future featured a utopia-like society in which civilization had found a balance with nature and appeared to be entirely at peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger Shumway, a television journalist, was granted an exclusive interview with the scientific genius and savior of humanity Craig Bennett Stiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stiles staged bringing back photographs from a marvelous age 100 years in the future to spur present society to change its ways and reform itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The utopian society of the year 2100 was based on the lie that Stiles had, a century prior, traveled to their time and brought back news of the marvels to come. This spurred the decaying society of the year 2000 to build the world of 2100 with confidence. In the end, Roger choose to perpetuate the lie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Roger choose to perpetuate the lie on which the prosperity of his society was founded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People living in the 1990s had had no hope in a bright future until Stiles perpetrated his noble hoax to save society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon was colonized, Stiles mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humanity had sent manned rockets to Alpha Centauri, Stiles mentioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x06", "title": "Legacy", "date": "1990-10-29", "description": "Tasha Yar 's sister Ishara seeks to restore order on their conflict-ridden colony world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data by Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Ishara Yar :: Data and Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data in Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data in Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-deception", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard concluded that Ishara was able to dupe them on account that everyone, Picard included, wanted to see something of their dearly departed friend Tasha in her sister Ishara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishara Yar :: Ishara felt at home aboard the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard refuses to trade weapons for hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Ishara Yar :: all for Tasha; especially Data and Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonists of Turkana IV :: civil war raged on Turkana IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasha/Ishara Yar :: Tasha and Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard with warring factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonists of Turkana IV :: the colony was without a governmental authority", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data spoke of how friendship is bound up with people being around each other on a regular basis; or in his words: “friendship is sometimes less an emotional response and more a sense of familiarity”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data chose to shoot Ishara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of Natasha's fellow crew members held a funeral service on the holodeck in her honor. Data was particularly hard hit by her loss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew with hostages on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the rape gangs! woe the rape gangs!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hayne :: Turkana IV inhabitants as exemplified by Hayne", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x09", "title": "Exorcism", "date": "1990-11-02", "description": "A woman plans to expose her nemesis as a witch to the public and most importantly to heir inner circle of friends.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the two neighbors, Elmira and Clara, vying for the presidency of their ladies lodge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elmira was convinced that Clara used witchcraft to cause Elmira misfortunes. Clara made no secret of studying the dark arts, though she didn't seem to believe in the supernatural aspects of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elmira was convinced that her neighbor, Clara, was a full-blown witch. Elmira blamed Clare for causing her various misfortunes by means of witchcraft. Whether Clara actually practiced the black arts was left open, but she at minimum used Elmira's fears to her advantage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two neighbors, Elmira and Clara, vying for the presidency of their ladies lodge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara cultivated for herself an image that she practiced the black arts. Among other things, she ordered a tome on white and black magic by Albertus Magnus, knowing full well that word of her acquisition would reach her rival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Clara played on Elmira's superstitious nature by cultivating an image that Clara herself was a powerful witch. This was in an effort to prevail over Elmira in the ladies lodge election for president. Elmira became paranoid and made a fool of herself just as Clara had intended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two neighbors, Elmira and Clara, vying for the presidency of their ladies lodge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and Elmira Brown were married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara whipped out a voodoo doll resembling Elmira as Elmira spoke at the ladies lodge meeting. Elmira quickly fell into a swoon. It was left unclear whether this was because of voodoo magic or the witch resistance potion she drank or merely psychological effects.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990)", "title": "Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor", "date": "1990-11-05", "description": "An alien from outer space bites a bio-researcher on the hand and turns him into a monster. Its first victim is the guard at the laboratory he's working in. The guard's daughters are getting worried that their father hasn't called them and they go to the lab, where they meet their worst nightmare. It is also known as The Deadly Spawn II.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphosis:_The_Alien_Factor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "A bio-researcher was transformed into a hideous monster after being bitten by a little alien monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Sherry and her older sister Kim to destroy a creature that was running amok in the Talos corporation laboratory area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Sherry and her older sister Kim to destroy a creature that was running amok in the Talos corporation laboratory area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Sherry and her older sister Kim to destroy a creature that was running amok in the Talos corporation laboratory area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Talos corporation was involved in biological weapons research that was expressly forbidden by the United Nations Germ Warfare Pact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of bio-researchers were studying a small, green alien creature in their company laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kim barged in on Sherry making out with her boyfriend on the sofa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of bio-researchers were studying a small, green alien creature in their company laboratory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x07", "title": "Reunion", "date": "1990-11-05", "description": "Worf 's ex-girlfriend returns, and along with Picard , the two mediate a Klingon power dispute and Worf discovers more family.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf and Klingons generally and the Klingon abhorrence of the use of poison in assassination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard walking a fine line", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf was coming to terms with the tragic passing of his lover, K'Ehleyr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard regarding getting involved in Worf's Klingon affairs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "major", "motivation": "The long standing feud between the House of Mogh and the House of Duras reared its ugly head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duras, Gowron :: Klingon politicians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K’mpec assassinated by poison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf left with Alexander after K'Ehleyr murdered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard not taking sides in Klingon dispute", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander was having trouble dealing with the untimely passing of his mother, K'Ehleyr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Ehleyr/Alexander Rozhenko :: K'Ehleyr and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/K'Ehleyr :: Worf and K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf knocked up K'Ehleyr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf faced with the prospect of having to raise Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf fights Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Ehleyr :: K'Ehleyr at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf for Duras", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Duras", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x10", "title": "The Day It Rained Forever", "date": "1990-11-09", "description": "Three old men in a dusty old town wait for the day when it will rain. They have waited for a long time.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a woman who plays the harp well enough to dazzle three old men, and perhaps well enough to make it rain in the desert, possibly on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Terle had an unwavering confidence that rain would come to his parched desert town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three old men were desperate for the rain to come to their desert town, possibly on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blanche's background story involved choosing music over romantic relationship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x08", "title": "Future Imperfect", "date": "1990-11-12", "description": "Riker finds himself sixteen years in the future, his memory of the interim erased by a dormant virus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in Barash's simulated fantasy world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barash :: Barash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker was made to believe he was 16 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in Barash's simulated fantasy world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Riker and Barash were alone in a large cave, and that the reality of their experience had been generated by sophisticated “scanner”technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in captors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker apparently woke up in the future with no memories of what had transpired in the interim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baarsh :: Barash was left in a cave by his parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Riker in a holodeck fantasy inside an even larger fantasy world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barash's Species :: Barash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker takes Barash back to the Enterprise with a view to letting him live in Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Min Riker :: Riker and pseudo-wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at being decieved by Barash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Barash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Barash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future Geordi had eye implants instead of his characteristic VISOR.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x11", "title": "The Long Years", "date": "1990-11-16", "description": "Astronauts come to the aid of a family stranded on Mars 20 years ago.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John had been so lonely after his family succumbed to disease on Mars that he built android replicas of them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John had been so lonely after his family succumbed to disease on Mars that he built android replicas of them all. Apparently the androids were lonely when John died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "John had been so lonely after his family succumbed to disease on Mars that he built android replicas of them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was living on the Red Planet together with android replicas of his wife and two children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "John so dearly missed his son, Tom, that he built an android replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "John so dearly missed his daughter, Marouerite, that he built an android replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Astronauts came to the aid of a family stranded on Mars 20 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and his family were the last remaining remnant of a failed Mars colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The androids Tom and Marouerite lived as if they were really brother and sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The androids Cora and Marouerite lived as if they were really mother and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The androids Cora and Tom lived as if they were really mother and son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After succumbing to a heart attack, John was buried on the same slope where he himself had laid his family to rest 20 years prior.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: It (1990)", "title": "It", "date": "1990-11-18", "description": "Seven kids, the losers club, work together to defeat a mysterious evil in the form of a clown who is killing children in their little town. 30 years later as they are adults, the evil comes back and must be confronted once again.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(miniseries)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "when seen as an allegory for coping with traumatic experiences in childhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the clown took various shapes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the seven kids did", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "throughout", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "both discussed and illustrated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were stereotypical bullies and one big allegorical bully that were stood up to", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "together they were indomitable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the losers' club", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of the seven kids had them to varying extents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "each of the adults in one way or another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "various trajectories and choices were featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "various were interrupted by the call to regather", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Ben and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople turned a blind eye to the rampant bullying that was going on around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly's abusive father and Eddie's overprotective mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "the kids as kids and then as adults", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "they built a dam and defeated an ancient evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a parenting theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "especially one guy had", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "superficial but present, bit of a triangle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stanley's wife found him dead by his own hand.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x09", "title": "Final Mission", "date": "1990-11-19", "description": "Wesley sets off on his final mission with the Enterprise accompanied by Picard , but they become stranded on a desert planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard takes charge in the desert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Captain Picard, Wesley, and Dirgo as they trek across a desert moon with scarcely any provisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard takes charge in the desert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Wesley about Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "the reckless freighter captain who finally gets himself killed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Wesley :: Picard and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Wesley, and Dirgo found themselves stranded on a desert moon with very little in the ways of supplies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dirgo :: Dirgo's loyalty to Picard in question", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being injured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard sustains grave injury in the desert with little hope of rescue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gamelan :: A radioactive space garbage scow was on collision course with the Gamelan homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a stray artificial object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A radioactive space garbage scow was on collision course with the Gamelan homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirgo :: Dirgo to his tiny vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Dirgo, Wesley/Dirgo :: Picard and Wesley with Dirgo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Wesley :: Picard and Wesley at Dirgo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "compare approaches of Wesley and Dirgo in getting water from fountain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dirgo :: Dirgo about insisting he be called captain of a tiny ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly worried sick about Wesley being lost in the desert", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inhabitants of Lambda Paz :: fountain makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly at Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Wesley :: Picard and Wesley with Dirgo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lambda Paz :: Picard and friends crash landed on a barely habitable moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay late for meeting because he lost track of time while conversing with a holographic Einstein.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Predator 2 (1990)", "title": "Predator 2", "date": "1990-11-21", "description": "Set ten years after the events of the first film, in Los Angeles, the film focuses on the Predator, a technologically advanced alien hunter, and the efforts of a disgruntled police officer and his allies to defeat the malevolent creature. It is the second installment of the Predator franchise, serving as a sequel to 1987's Predator.", "collections": [ "Collection: Predator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Predator is an extraterrestrial hunter with infrared vision that uses active camouflage and has been hunting humans for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator was on safari in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Mike Harrington led LAPD team investigate two rival gangs mired in a drug war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Mike Harrington resented federal investigator Agent Keyes for coming in and taking over his ongoing investigation of two area drug gangs. Agent Keyes didn't much care for Mike either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator used a kind of super camouflage that made it practically invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in Los Angeles in 1997 in the midst of an oppressive heat wave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predator had infrared vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two rival gangs, one Colombian, the other Jamaican, fight it out in the streets of Los Angeles over control of the cocaine market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two rival gangs, one Colombian, the other Jamaican, fight it out in the streets of Los Angeles over control of the cocaine market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sympathetic magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Willie, the boss of the Jamaica Voodoo Posse gang, killed a rival gang member in Voodoo ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike took young Detective Jerry Lambert under his wing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike resented Agent Keyes for coming in from the outside and taking over his investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike paid a visit to the grave of his recently murdered friend and partner Detective Danny Archuleta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing muggers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mild mannered man pulled a gun on some ruffians who were attempting to mug him on the subway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predators took off from Los Angeles in their spaceship at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Running Against Time (1990)", "title": "Running Against Time", "date": "1990-11-21", "description": "A man travels back in time to to stop President John F. Kennedy's assassination.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100529/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "David traveled back in time to stop President John F. Kennedy's assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "David traveled back in time to stop President John F. Kennedy's assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Hendryk Koopman build a special chamber in the basement of a university physics building that he used to send David (and later Laura and himself) back in time to the year 1963.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The John F. Kennedy assassination is core component of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "DAvid and Laura were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "David traveled back in time to prevent his brother Chris from dying in the Vietnam War and in the end he succeed in this effort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David reflected fondly on his times together with his brother Chris who had died fighting in the Vietnam War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Hendryk Koopman building a time travel chamber in the basement of a university physics building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prof. David Rhodes asserted that President Kennedy would have pulled the United States out from this war had he not been assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Johnson was shown a documentary that was made of him after his death. He burned the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David went back in time to stop John F. Kennedy from getting assassinated, but ended up himself getting charged with the crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e4x12", "title": "Here There Be Tygers", "date": "1990-11-30", "description": "A group of explorers land on a distant planet and discover a virtual paradise.\n\nDirected by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story was the idea that the space explorers had stumbled upon a virtual paradise, yet one of them in particular was bent on destroying it for the sake of mining metals. It was implied that financial interests on Earth would likely do the same, and so the remaining explorers came up with the idea to lie about the planet being safe in order to keep more humans from coming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around a group of space explorers who discover a planet that caters to the every desire of the pure of heart. The planet evidently felt pain when Chatterton started drilling into it. Driscoll speculated that the planet was alive, and moreover that its purpose was to make people happy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The explorers discovered that they could make certain supernatural things, like flying, happen by absentmindedly thinking it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of space explorers sent from Earth to prospect on a new far-flung planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chatterton was notably money grubbing and would not see the beauty and magic of the planet for his want to extract minerals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Driscoll and the other explorers, with the notable exception of the prospector Chatterton, marveled at the planet's natural beauty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the men dreamed of flying and became elated when he suddenly found that he could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Adam and Eve creation myth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Driscoll likened the strange planet to the Garden of Eden.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x01", "title": "Columbo Goes to College", "date": "1990-12-09", "description": "Criminology professor D.E. Rusk threatens to expel spoiled fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman for cheating by stealing the final exam. In a variation of Leopold and Loeb, the two students decide to kill Rusk. They fake a message to lure him away from the university just when Columbo will be giving a guest lecture to his class. While sitting at the lecture, they monitor the parking garage using a miniature TV camera and shoot Rusk by his car with a remote-controlled gun, both devices being hidden in their pickup truck's engine compartment. With an airtight alibi, the boys then plant evidence to make it look like the professor was killed because of a Mafia exposé he was working on.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo tricks the murderous duo by letting them \"overhear\" details of a car owned by a suspect. After the murder weapon is found in the car, he reveals it is actually his wife's car. Because only they could know which car it was, they must have planted it and must be the murderers.\n\nDirected by: E.W. Swackhamer. Story by: Frederick King Keller, Jeffrey Bloom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman hatched the following scheme to knock off their professor before he exposed them as the cheaters: They arranged to shoot him in the head using a remote controlled gun while attending a lecture, thus securing an seemingly ironclad alibi. One gathers that they would have gotten away with their crime had the guest lecturer not been the tenacious Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman hatched the following scheme to knock off their professor before he exposed them as the cheaters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the criminology professor D.E. Rusk taken out in a mob hit, or were some of his own students behind it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman were good buddies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is mainly set on a college campus, and follows the two frat brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman as they try to cover up having murdered their professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justin Rowe was expected to become a big-time lawyer, like his father. It was in part for this reason that Justin stooped to murder to avoid getting expelled from college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman went to elaborate lengths to pin the murder of Professor Rusk on the ex-con Dominic Doyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "major", "motivation": "The frat brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman resorted to murder to avoid getting expelled for conspiring to cheat on Professor Rusk's final exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fraternity brothers Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman cohabitated in the same dorm room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Foreshadow by a prank and central to the murder plot was the technology of transmitting TV signals and remote controls using only relatively small hand-held devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prof. D.E. Rusk was a criminology professor. He was shown giving a lecture, and later confronting two students over a stolen test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Redman admonished his son, Cooper, for knocking up three different girls in the past 18 months. Justin Rowe was under pressure from his father to become a big-time lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper was adamant that the abortion was Trish's idea, not his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper was in the habit of surreptitiously listening in on his father's telephone calls and reading his mail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Rusk was posthumously outed for having had an affair with the basketball coach's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gaggle of journalists were outside of June's residence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Rusk teared up while discussing her tragically departed husband with Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin conversed with his mother at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rowe family maid announced that there was a very important call for Justin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-con Dominic Doyle was shown struggling to get back on his feet. He was shown living in relative squalor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain America (1990)", "title": "Captain America", "date": "1990-12-14", "description": "Steve Rogers becomes Captain America during World War II to battle the Red Skull, becomes frozen in ice, and is subsequently revived, whereupon he saves the President of the United States from a crime family that dislikes his environmentalist policies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America_(1990_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve became the ultimate American hero: Captain America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "President Kimball pushed for an aggressive new pro-environmentalist legislation that culminated in an environmental protection treaty being ratified by the community of nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve woke up in 1993 after having been frozen in Alaskan ice for 50 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Skull led a powerful Italian-based, international criminal organization that was forcefully opposing President Kimball's new pro-environmentalist policies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and his wartime girlfriend Bernice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was transformed into what was described as a supersoldier with the strength and speed of a world-class athlete. However, nothing much was made of his soldiering in the film. Also the Nazi's created a Fascist supersoldier out of the child prodigy Tadzio de Santis (a.k.a. Red Skull).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain America penetrated a Nazi compound and kicked some Nazi ass in an effort to prevent a prototype intercontinental ballistic missile from being launched at the White House.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's mother saw him off before leaving to fight in World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain America was sent to penetrate a Nazi compound during this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Kimball was fighting hard to pass new legislation to deal with acid rain, plastic pollutants, toxins in the environment, and other pollutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red Skull and his hitwoman daughter, Valentina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Sam Kolawetz was trying to track down Captain America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve, an American soldier who woke up in 1993 after being frozen in ice since 1943, was puzzled to find a reporter driving Volkswagen and using a Japanese made tape recorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was reunited with his wartime girlfriend Bernice after 50 years of being apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice and her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice and her daughter Sharon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon lost her senses upon see her just murdered mother being zipped up in a body bag.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fatal Sky (1990)", "title": "Fatal Sky", "date": "1990-12-21", "description": "A newspaper reporter and a TV presenter vie to get to the bottom of a recent report of a flying saucer landed in Norwegian forest.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a newspaper reporter and a TV presenter as they investigate a strange occurrence over a Norwegian forest that they suspect was a flying saucer or something of the like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "NATO was covering up a flying saucer crash in Norway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The flashy, image conscious newspaper reporter Jeff Milker and the TV presenter George Abbot were exposed a NATO cover up of a UFO crash in Norway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George casually had a cigarette on a passenger flight to Norway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory of cattle mutilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was of the opinion that aliens were behind some cases of cattle mutilation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur claimed that aliens abducted him and collected his sperm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x10", "title": "The Loss", "date": "1990-12-31", "description": "An unknown force captures the Enterprise and causes Deanna to lose her empathic powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi struggled mightily after losing her empathic powers on which she so depended to navigate life. This was paralleled by the two-dimensional being who were short one whole dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with losing a special ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi struggled to continue serving as the ship counsellor after losing her empathic powers. The 2D beings lacked a third dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "two-dimensional being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise encountered a swarm of 2D life forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi loses confidence in her ability to be ship counsellor after losing her empathic powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "two-dimensional space", "level": "major", "motivation": "2D beings never had the pleasure of experiencing a third dimension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. cosmic string", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi was faced with the stark reality that she might have to perform her duties as ship counsellor without the help of her telepathic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi was faced with having to perform her job as ship counsellor without the use of her telepathic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The idea that 2D beings and 3D being perceive the world so differently that communication becomes difficult was illustrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi lost her telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi about being able to do her job without her empathic powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet mourned the death of her husband, Marc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "cosmic string :: the cosmic string was described as a 1D version of a black hole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at Brooks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at Brooks", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brain Twisters (1991)", "title": "Brain Twisters", "date": "1991", "description": "College students who participate in a professor's brain experiments turn into violent murderers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0235245/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The college students who participated in Dr. Philip Rothman mind altering experiments experienced the strange side effect that they became violent killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detective Frank Turi was investigating a string of unexplained murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detective Frank Turi was investigating a string of unexplained murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with a mother badgering her young son to stop playing his video game and join her for dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with a mother badgering her young son to stop playing his video game and join her for dinner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion for Flesh and Blood (1991)", "title": "Invasion for Flesh and Blood", "date": "1991", "description": "Bloodthirsty alien monsters run amok in New Jersey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116647/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien monsters were going around tearing people from limb to limb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien monsters were going around tearing people from limb to limb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Golden Slayer robot to stop the alien monsters from killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A humanoid robot was uploaded with Sandra's mind and instructed to kill all the alien monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that the alien monsters were actually intelligent and had come to Earth to eradicate all humans - they saw humans as being an evil presence on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra and Riggs detonated a thermonuclear bomb in the first alien monster's underwater lair. The film concluded with the nuking of New Jersey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura was raped at knife point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra's husband beat her until she was bloodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra used a shotgun to shoot her husband first in the groin and then in the forehead out of vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two young women snorted some lines of coke and one of them concluded that doing so is better than sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young man snuck into a young woman's house and secretly recorded her while she was reading in her underwear. He later recorded his friend getting it on with a young woman, unbeknownst to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra's mind was uploaded into a robot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Golden Slayer robot transformed into a spacecraft at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Vegas in Space (1991)", "title": "Vegas in Space", "date": "1991", "description": "Three male space travelers must become women in order to complete a secret mission on the all-female planet Clitoris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegas_in_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants posed as Earth showgirls to complete a secret mission on the all-female planet Clitoris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on the all-female planet Clitoris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants were transformed into women after ingesting sex change pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants were sent on a mission to retrieve the Empress Nueva Gabor's stolen gems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants flew to the distant all-female planet Clitoris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants traveled outer space in the spaceship Intercourse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pleasure planet Clitoris was populated by female humanoid aliens of various colors, including red, blue and green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Empress Nueva Gabor and her sister Queen Veneer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Velour chastised her daughter Babs over her bad behavior.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Daughters of the Dust (1991)", "title": "Daughters of the Dust", "date": "1991-01", "description": "Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash and is the first feature film directed by an African- American woman distributed theatrically in the United States. Set in 1902, it tells the story of three generations of Gullah (also known as Geechee) women in the Peazant family on Saint Helena Island as they prepare to migrate to the North on the mainland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_the_Dust" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in Crow law era America", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown how some Black people lived on their former plantation island in 1902, Georgia, America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the main characters were relatively recently freed slaves or family thereof; the story gradually revealed something about the slave uprising and mass suicide at Igbo Landing; we heard many times about slave ships coming to America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story featured many typical little problems within the Peazant family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eli and Eula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nana argued with various granddaughters about leaving the island", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "the whole family struggled with the decision to leave their poor lives on the island and move to the mainland", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eula had been raped and worried Eli might not accept the unborn child as his", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "granddaughters vs. Nana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nana's old fashioned superstitions and wisdoms were not much appreciated by her granddaughters and Nana felt she would not fit in on the mainland", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the freeing of slaves some generations earlier was mentioned (older characters recalled being slaves)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iona and St. Julian", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x11", "title": "Data's Day", "date": "1991-01-07", "description": "Data gets dancing lessons from Dr. Crusher in preparation of Chief O'Brien 's wedding as the Enterprise brings Ambassador T'Pel to the Romulans for negotiations.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: the entire episode is seen from Data's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data puzzled by basic human emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise transporting Vulcan ambassador", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Keiko O'Brien :: O'Brien/Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Miles O'Brien :: Data vs. the couple", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien, Keiko O'Brien :: O'Brien/Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Keiko O'Brien :: O'Brien/Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko was having second thoughts about marring Miles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcan ambassador was actually a Romulan in disduise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko was having second thoughts about marring Miles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data at barbershop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly had a secret passion for tap dancing, we learned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data quoted the Holmsian fallacy: \"once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Spot :: Data and spot", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Eve of Destruction (1991)", "title": "Eve of Destruction", "date": "1991-01-18", "description": "A nuclear armed prototype android named EVE VIII goes amok while being field tested by the military in a big city.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_of_Destruction_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The EVE VIII military android was created to look and sound exactly like her creator, Dr. Eve Simmons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Jim McQuade was tasked with eliminating this unstoppable machine: The EVE VIII military android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eve Simmons and Colonel Jim McQuade were forced to work together to track down and dispatch the dangerous EVE VIII military android even though they couldn't stand each other. and often quarreled over what was the best course of action to take.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Eve Simmons created the EVE VIII military android in her own image.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The EVE android was armed with a nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The EVE VIII military android was described as a dangerous female terrorist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The EVE VIII military android was damaged during a bank robbery and went haywire as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eve Simmons and her young son Timmy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eve Simmons harbored some dark childhood memories about her alcoholic father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Eve Simmons harbored some dark childhood memories about her alcoholic father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The EVE VIII military android ran off with Timmy while he was visiting his father, William Simmons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Terror Within II (1991)", "title": "The Terror Within II", "date": "1991-01-18", "description": "The last human colony struggles to survive underground, beneath a land of nightmarish mutants who seek to destroy them. But when the mutants break inside humanity's final stronghold, the battle for survival pits the human colonists against their deadly invaders miles below the Earth's surface. It is the sequel to the 1989 film The Terror Within.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Within_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where a weaponized, human-made virus has left almost all world's population dead. Some of last survivors struggle to find a vaccine for the virus while at the same time being besieged by killer mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The unlucky survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic were besieged by murderous humanoid mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows what is perhaps the last human colony as they seek to produce a vaccine for a deadly covert biological war released virus, while simultaneously trying to not all get killed by wasteland roaming murderous mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hideously disfigured, murderous mutant was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Jennifer were mutually besotted. Kyle and Robin had the hots for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A human-made virus mutated some of its carriers into murderous mutants that reproduced by inseminating normal human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening crawl text explains how \"covert biological warfare\" resulted in the release of a virus \"so devestating that only a handful of humans survived.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and his trusty companion, the dog Butch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer and her brother Aaron were being stalked by a hideous mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer pointedly mourned the death of her brother, Aaron, who died at the hands of a hideous mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dewitt peeped on Sharon and Jamie as they made passionate love in her quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaba and her clans members nearly succeeded in sacrificing the newly impregnated female, Jennifer, to the mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David ran Elaba through the eye to get back at her for killing his dog and nearly sacrificing his pregnant lover to a hideous mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer gave birth to a mutant baby just weeks after becoming pregnant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x12", "title": "The Wounded", "date": "1991-01-28", "description": "A rogue Starfleet Captain jeopardizes the Cardassian peace treaty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell toward Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell with killing all Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard with Cardassians over how to handle Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell toward Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: O'Brien toward Cardassians aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: should O'Brien relay the prefix codes to the Cardassian ship or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maxwell attacked the Cardassians on but circumstantial evidence of their presumed mischief making", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: O'Brien to Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian :: actions of Federation see from Cardassian point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew and Cardassians put differences aside in order to stop Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Macet :: O'Brien and Gul Macet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell was trying to expose a covert Cardassian military program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin Maxwell :: Maxwell for Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Benjamin Maxwell :: O'Brien and Maxwell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Maxwell was determined to expose a covert Cardassian military base building program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians welcomed aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians welcomed aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Steel and Lace (1991)", "title": "Steel and Lace", "date": "1991-01-30", "description": "A robotics scientist takes revenge on the man who brutally raped his sister, and the man's five friends who provided the man with the alibi he needed to get off the hook for the crime.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_and_Lace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolved around Albert hatching a plot to murder, one by one, the six men who he held responsible for his sister's tragic suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Albert built an android replica of his suicided sister, Gaily, and made it murder, one by one, the six men who he held responsible for her tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert used an android replica of his suicided sister to murder, one by one, the six men who he held responsible for her tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the stereotypically sleazy, cutthroat businessman Daniel Emerson running his company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel Emerson was a stereotypically sleazy, cutthroat businessman who cared about nobody but himself and treated everyone like crap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Albert was devastated by his sister Gaily's tragic suicide, and went about to get revenge on six men who he held responsible. He also built an android replica of Gaily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel Emerson and his five friends were being hunted down, one by one, by a killer android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robotics scientist Albert created an android replica of his tragically suicided sister, Gailey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A jury found Daniel Emerson not guilty of rape due to insufficient evidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaily threw herself off a building to her death in the aftermath of the man who'd brutally raped her was found not guilty in a trial by jury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaily threw herself off a building to her death in the aftermath of the man who'd brutally raped her was found not guilty in a trial by jury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel Emerson was tried for the rape of Gaily Morton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig's friends held a moment of silence for him after he was brutally murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby tried to betray his friend Daniel by ratting him out to the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Six sleazy friends were distressed when they started getting murdered one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Dunn was investigating a series of brutal murders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x13", "title": "Devil's Due", "date": "1991-02-04", "description": "A powerful mythic figure from a millennium ago returns to enslave a planet in accordance with a contract. However Picard is convinced she is an opportunistic charlatan. Guest star Marta DuBois as Ardra.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ventaxian :: Ardra's parlor tricks were assumed to be the work of the devil by the Ventaxians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ardra easily duped the religiously-minded Ventaxians into taking seriously that she might be the “Devil” of their mythology. This was pointedly contrasted with Captain Picard’s scoffing skepticism of her claim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ardra appealed to religion to facilitate exploiting the Ventaxians for their resources", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ventaxian :: The Ventaxians enjoyed neo-luddist utopia of sorts until Ardra showed up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ventaxians signed deal with the devil to get neo-luddist utopia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra plotted to scam the rather gullible Ventaxians by impersonating their devil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra attempted to exploit the Ventaxians for their resources", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra fulfilled an ancient Ventaxian prophesy about the end times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra claimed to be the devil to the Ventaxians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra apparently fulfilled the Ventaxian prophesy about the End Times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Acost Jared :: The Ventaxians enjoyed neo-luddist utopia of sorts until Ardra showed up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ardra tried to con a superstitious people into being her slaves for a thousand years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard coached Data at playing the part of Ebenezer Scrooge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard explains to Data about acting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data talks of the power of fear", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ardra :: Ardra at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ardra was put on trial with Data as judge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ancient Ventaxians nearly polluted their planet to death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data about being impartial judge at trial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ardra rains down signs from the heavens on Ventaxians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard denies Ardra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vextaxian society emerged under a central authority from disorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Acost Jared :: Ardra instilled the fear of the lord in Jared among others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ardra was put on trial with Data as judge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x14", "title": "Clues", "date": "1991-02-11", "description": "The crew, with the exception of Data , is rendered unconscious for 30 seconds after going through a localized wormhole . However, various clues suggest they were unconscious for an entire day.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data was ordered by Picard to lie and then not to lie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and others to Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone curious to explain anomalies, like how Beverly's plants exhibited two day's growth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data defied his duty to Picard to save the Enterprise from destruction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paxan :: Paxans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paxan :: Paxan xenophobia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paxan xenophobia toward outsiders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data treated differently by Paxans on account of him being an android", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paxans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The enigmatic Paxans had cloaked their entire home world in an effort to hide themselves from other civilizations in the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise apparently passed through a wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Picard shows Guinan his Dixon Hill holodeck world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paxans to Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at reflection in mirror", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not of This World (1991)", "title": "Not of This World", "date": "1991-02-12", "description": "An electricity eating alien creature arrives in a quiet town via a meteor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_2000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "being that feeds on electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature that feeds on electricity fell to Earth from space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature that feeds on electricity fell to Earth from space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature that feeds on electricity was going around terrorizing the people of a small town of Liberty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature that feeds on electricity was going around terrorizing the people of a small town of Liberty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy was very attached to his grandpa and helped the old man fight the stop the alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Linda and her young son Billy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grandpa and his adult daughter Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some visiting Japanese played a game of baseball against the Liberty town team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy's grandpa was a practicing physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "panspermia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grandpa asserted that spore carrying meteors had originally seeded life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw people singing Amazing Grace at a Sunday church service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Tom was trying to get to the bottom of some strange reports of a creature roaming around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Yamamoto admitted to having trouble taking orders from a woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x01", "title": "Camille", "date": "1991-02-14", "description": "Lister helps Kryten to break his programming so that he can lie and insult. Later, when Kryten rescues a mechanoid named Camille, the sole survivor from a crashed spaceship, she appears to be his perfect mechanoid partner. However, Rimmer and Lister also see their fantasy women when they see Camille. Secrets, lies and broken hearts ensue, along with an ending similar to Lister's favourite film, Casablanca.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten. The pleasure GALF in the guise of the Kryten-like humanoid robot Camille.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could only speak the truth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on Kryton's perceived defect of only being able to speak the truth, which he was striving to overcome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists came across a being, a \"pleasure GALF\", who appeared to each one as their ideal romantic partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Lister, Rimmer, and Cat saw in the pleasure GALF the person they most desire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten and the pleasure GALF blob fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer said he was not good at smalltalk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It transpires that Cat's ideal partner is, of course, Cat himself. This touches on the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Casablanca was about how lying can be noble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The GALF was in fact married, we heard, yet it started dating Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister explained how lying is a vital part of the psychological defense system of human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat made a number of thinly veiled jabs at this franchise after Cat walked in on Lister taking in an episode of \"Tales of the Riverbank: The Next Generation\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten and Camille concurred in a stereotypical android sort of way that they'd fallen in love at first sight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the pleasure GALF was in fact a genetically engineered being that had been created to be everyone's perfect companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The episode concludes with Lister telling Kryten that Lister having successfully taught Kryten to lie could be \"the start of a beautiful friendship\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In its true form, the pleasure GALF was nothing other than a throbbing, green blob with a single eye. Moreover, Lister drew a direct comparison to the iconic blob of the Steve McQueen film \"The Blob\" (1958).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x15", "title": "First Contact", "date": "1991-02-18", "description": "Riker is hospitalized during a botched pre-first contact mission. Xenophobia results in increasing hostility toward his presence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Malcorians struggle to decide whether to open relations with the Federation or keep to themsleves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard takes pains to familiarize the Malcorians with the Prime Directive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "isolationist elements in Malcorian society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Malcorians worried that contact with the Federation would endanger the continuation of their culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krola :: Krola with liberal Malcorian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcorian :: Riker among Malcorians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker was being kept in an alien Hospital and attended by alien doctors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Krola :: Picard and Krola", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanity's place in the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conventional Malcorian wisdom said that they were (perhaps metaphorically) the at the center of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise visit Malcorians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lanel :: Lanel at Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Malcorians were introduced to the organization of numerous planetary sovereignties known as the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Malcorians had a world government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker surgically altered to look like a Malcorian", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x02", "title": "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health", "date": "1991-02-20", "description": "Wade Anders is a former security consultant, and now host of the popular America's Most Wanted-esque crime show CrimeAlert. One day, he gets an unexpected visit from his rival, the chain-smoking newscaster Budd Clarke, whom he blocked from becoming the CrimeAlert host. Clarke has resented that he was snubbed in favor of Anders, but now, he has got some leverage that he hopes will get Anders out of the CrimeAlert chair: a porn video that Anders starred in many years ago. Clarke plans to go public with the tape unless Anders resigns from the show. Anders decides to kill him rather than be disgraced by a scandal. He palms a pack of Clarke's cigarettes, which he doctors with a few drops of alkaloid poison nicotine sulfate. Anders then pays two visits to his production office, once that night and again the next morning - so a surveillance tape there will show him at the office all day. Anders then drives to Clarke's house, and switches a cigarette pack for the poisoned pack. Once Clarke takes one of the poisoned cigarettes and dies, Anders makes it look like Clarke had a heart attack at his desk.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo can prove that the surveillance tape was fabricated, because the trees and bushes visible in front of the office appeared to have been trimmed in the morning, but had supposedly grown again by the evening. The fact that Clarke's dog scratched Anders' car, making distinctive marks because of its missing claw on one of its paws, provides further evidence that Anders had indeed visited Clarke's house before.\n\nDirected by: Daryl Duke. Story by: Sonia Wolf, Patricia Ford, and April Raynell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The TV show host Wade Anders eliminated his chain-smoking blackmailer by slipping him a cigarette that was laced with a fatal dose of nicotine sulfate. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The newscaster Budd Clarke told Wade Anders in no uncertain terms that he'd expose Wade for having made a porno film back in the day unless Wade handed his TV presenter spot over to Budd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The newscaster Budd Clarke told Wade Anders in no uncertain terms that he'd expose Wade for having made a porno film back in the day unless Wade handed his TV presenter spot over to Budd. So Wade killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did the chain-smoking newscaster Budd Clarke did from heart failure, or was foul play afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a behind-the-scenes look at the top rated network television show \"Crime Alert\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The successful TV presenter Wade Anders was hiding that he'd done the pornographic film \"Holly does Houston\" some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The TV show host Wade Anders eliminated his chain-smoking blackmailer by slipping him a cigarette that was laced with a fatal dose of nicotine sulfate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade Anders hosted a TV show the focus of which was on capturing dangerous fugitives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title of the story alludes to the murder victim being a chain-smoker. The chain-smoker Budd Clarke having apparently died of heart failure was a wake up call to Columbo to quit smoking cigars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade Anders having starred in the porn video \"Holly does Houston\" was a key novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Budd Clarke took measure to secure the spot as host of the wildly popular America's Most Wanted-esque crime show CrimeAlert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amazement at a new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was bemused by aspects of personal computers. He, for instance, was surprised that you could print whatever was being displayed on scree by the simple expedient of pressing the \"Print Screen\" button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo picked up his Basset hound from the groomer. The victim had a young Retriever that he didn't normally leave outside all night.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x02", "title": "DNA", "date": "1991-02-21", "description": "A mysterious derelict spacecraft containing extremely advanced technology, perhaps alien, docks with Red Dwarf. On board they discover a DNA modifier, a genetic altering machine that can metamorphose organic life, but havoc ensues as Lister gets turned into a chicken and then a hamster, Kryten becomes human, and a curry monster is created from Lister's vindaloo.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew discovered a machine that could transform any one living thing into any other by means of rewriting its DNA. Central to the plot was a machine that could transform any one living thing into any other by means of rewriting its DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mechaniod Kryten was transformed into a human and got to experience what life was like in that form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mechanoid Kryten described his having been transformed into a human as his \"greatest dream come true\", but he quickly came to lament his circumstance, after getting a taste of what it is like to be made of flesh and blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mechanoid Kryten learned that being human wasn't all it was cracked up to be and he soon longed to be a bucket of nuts and blots again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten became an endless stream of commentary on the human condition after he turned human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat knowingly jeopardized the mission to blow dry his hair in the event that he'd look his best should they encounter any aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists explored an ancient and derelict spacecraft that had a distinct organic look about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew were being terrorized by a half-man, half mutton vindaloo curry monster toward the end of the episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew inadvertently created a half-human, half mutton vindaloo curry creature using the derelict ship's Genetic Modifier machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew were being terrorized by a half-man, half mutton vindaloo curry monster toward the end of the episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew used the Genetic Modifier machine to transform Lister into a pint-sized RoboCop like cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A genetic resequencing left Lister half his normal height.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is natural", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister talked about how things ought to stay as nature intended (except for diseases) or something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten complained about the human emotions he had as a human.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x03", "title": "Justice", "date": "1991-02-28", "description": "The crew pick up an escape pod bearing a woman's name. There is also the possibility it may in fact be a deranged bio-mechanical killer on his way to \"Justice World\", a deep space penal station. They decide to go to \"Justice World\" to discover the contents of the pod. Things become worse when a justice scan reveals that Rimmer is guilty of the radioactive disaster that wiped out the entire crew of Red Dwarf, equal to 1,167 separate counts of second-degree murder, and he is promptly convicted and sentenced.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pivoted around the eponymous \"justice\" meted out to Rimmer after his mind was probed for \"guilt\", mistaking his sense of guilt for criminal guilt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew visited the ancient and derelict space prison colony Justice World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was recovering from what was evidently a bad case of the space mumps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister worried that his grotesquely swollen head would hurt his chances with a soon-to-be dethawed human female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew contemplated waking Barbara from her 3 million year long cryogenic sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer spoke of some psychotic, half-crazed, mass-murdering, super-strong androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew briefly contemplated whether or not it was worth the risk to open the cryogenic stasis pod. The problem was that it container one of either a human female (good from the crew's point of view) or a murderous, super-strong android (bad from anyone's point of view).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer's slide show bored Kryten to the point where Kryten's intelligence circuits melted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ancient and derelict space penal colony Justice World looked much like a futuristic space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew were mind probed upon entering the Justice World space penal colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister confessed to having stolen cars and the furnishing from a hotel room an adolescent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was convicted on 1,167 separate counts of second degree murder by the Justice World computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In lighting Rimmer's jail cell bed sheet on fire, Lister committed a wanton act or arson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer, and anyone else in his jail cell for that matter, was subject to the following punishment: if you try to commit a crime, then the same consequences will happen to you. Lister put this to the test by lighting Rimmer's bed sheet on fire, and was immediately lit on fire himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the mind probe had detected Rimmer's sense of guilt over having caused the deaths of 1,167 fellow crew-members some 3 million years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Justice World computer presided over Rimmer's dramatic retrial for 1,167 separate counts of second degree murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat said he had a body that made men sweat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nothing ventured nothing gained", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister quoted this aphorism in response to Kryten voicing the old android saying \"If you don't gosub a program loop, you'll never get a subroutine\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Xtro II: The Second Encounter (1991)", "title": "Xtro II: The Second Encounter", "date": "1991-03-01", "description": "A grotesque alien creature from a parallel universe runs amok in an underground government facility. It is the second installment in the Xtro film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Xtro" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtro_II:_The_Second_Encounter" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a grotesque alien creature from a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people inside an underground government facility were terrorized by a grotesque alien creature from a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a grotesque alien creature from a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists succeeded in sending some people to a parallel universe, but the only person to return was the unwilling host to a grotesque alien creature. Those who survived the aftermath sent the creature packing back from whence it came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of government scientists were working on a huge machine to transport people to a parallel universe and back again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Summerfield held a bitter grudge against Shepard over something that transpired in Texas, although the details were never spelled out. Dr. Julie Casserly pointedly accused Summerfield of resenting Summerfield and he did not deny it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mystical aura", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zunoski concluded that Dr. Summerfield was a \"sick man\" based on an inspection of the surly doctor's aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Julie Casserly briefly rekindled her relationship with the ex-lover Ron Shepherd.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x04", "title": "White Hole", "date": "1991-03-07", "description": "Holly has her intelligence briefly restored to an IQ of 12,368, but a side effect of this is that her run-time is reduced to minutes. Holly promptly switches herself off, leaving Red Dwarf with no lighting or maneuvering capability. It's back to basics for the crew and they must resort to their own resourcefulness to survive.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye & Paul Jackson. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly became super intelligent because of an accident, but at the cost of an exponentially reduced life span.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had only one day to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "Through a miscalculation that left her with a five digit IQ, Holly found herself with herself with scarcely minutes left to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "white hole", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the crew saving their skins by knocking a planet into a \"time spewing\" white hole. It was also explain how a white hole is the opposite of a black hole in so far as a white hole spews matter out while a black hole sucks it in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a talking toaster that was preoccupied with making people toast to an unusual degree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The talking toaster's raison d'être was to make toast for the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was encouraged to follow the example of Captain Lawrence Oates and sacrifice himself for living crew members, but unhesitatingly demurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister explained that Holly, despite having an IQ of 12,368, was lousy at pool. Lister effectively played pool with planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten said if he could travel back in time, he'd go back to last Tuesday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer heard Kryten speaking at an unusually slow pace after stepping into a localized time distortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time passing at different rates for different people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten observed that Rimmer spoke at an unusually fast pace after Rimmer inadvertently stepped into a localized time distortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Lister, the toaster was out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat noted that he wouldn't sacrifice himself, but happily he would happily sacrifice Rimmer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x16", "title": "Galaxy's Child", "date": "1991-03-11", "description": "The Enterprise accidentally kills a space creature, and the crew rush to save its unborn offspring. Meanwhile, Geordi meets the engineer he fell in love with and finds to his shock, she's nothing like the woman he encountered on the holodeck . Guest star Susan Gibney as Dr. Leah Brahms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The space whale was fired on in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi simulated Leah on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Junior's Species :: space whale", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard over having killed space whale", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi/Leah Brahms :: Geordi and Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi rejected by Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi/Leah Brahms :: Geordi and Leah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Leah Brahms :: Geordi and Leah about the engine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: There is controversy about whether Geordi is sufficiently honest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leah Brahms :: Leah about Geordi being a creepy bastard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Geordi's creepy Leah Brahms simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leah Brahms :: Leah at Geordi on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard tried to avoid violence but in the end ordered the space whale to be fired upon, in self-defense. The consequences of this action were troublesome to say the least.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x05", "title": "Dimension Jump", "date": "1991-03-14", "description": "The crew meet a parallel dimension version of Rimmer. Arnold \"Ace\" Rimmer is a dashing daredevil test pilot for the space corps, and he has been assigned to test-pilot a ship that can travel through dimensions, so he can meet different versions of himself. He enters our dimension to meet our Rimmer, the weaselly cowardly version, who has gone on a fishing holiday with the rest of the crew.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a parallel universe in which Rimmer was successful and well liked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rimmer resented that his parallel universe self had gotten all the breaks in life and had made something of himself as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meeting his more successful parallel self, Rimmer must ponder what it would have been like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer met a more successful parallel version of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parallel Rimmer was smart, courageous, empathic and everything normal Rimmer was not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer had to deal with the fact that nobody liked him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew tried to go on a fishing trip without taking their wet blanket crew-mate Rimmer, but he ended up going anyway to their annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Casanova stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parallel Rimmer was irresistible to men and women alike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly became bashful around Parallel Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Child Rimmer had been hanged upside down in a tree by some \"friends\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Child Rimmer's mother found him hanging upside down from a tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faster than light travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parallel Rimmer was congratulated for having just broken the light barrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parallel Cat was a human church chaplain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Cat's leg was crushed he was more concerned about the unfashionable damage to his accoutrements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were several jokes regarding parallel Rimmer's hypothetical homosexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister commented on how amazing it was that a tiny difference could have such an enormous impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew crash-landed on such a world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Guyver (1991)", "title": "The Guyver", "date": "1991-03-18", "description": "The film tells of a young man who discovers an alien artifact called \"The Unit\" which changes him into an alien-hybrid super monster soldier called \"The Guyver\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guyver" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The primary novelty of the film is the Guyver unit: a protective suit of armor of alien origin that increases its human wearer's innate powers by a hundred fold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean, Mizuki, and Max were battling the humans that had mutated into Zoanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean and Mizuki fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zoanoid aliens were living on Earth in the guise of human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mizuki Segawa broke down in tears upon being informed that her father Dr. Tetsu Segawa had been killed. She was later consoled at her apartment by first Agent Reed and then her love interest Sean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that an alien race known as the Zoanoids had come to Earth a long time ago and there created mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fulton Balcus confidently asserted that the next step in the human evolutionary process would see everyone mutate into Zoanoid warriors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x17", "title": "Night Terrors", "date": "1991-03-18", "description": "The Enterprise is trapped in a rift. The crew succumbs to REM sleep deprivation, while Deanna has a recurring nightmare.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stuck in Tyken’s Rift, Troi had trouble sleeping due to nightmares and the rest of the crew became dysfunctional due to a lack of REM sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew paranoid from lack of REM sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew terrified from lack of REM sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. Tykan's Rift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Riker, Beverly :: Picard on the turbolift; Riker with snakes in his bed; Beverly in the morgue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the unknown", "level": "major", "motivation": "fear stemming from mystery surrounding Tykan's rift phenomenon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew to get out of Tykan's Rift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew and aliens to get out of Tykan's Rift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens talking to us in our dreams", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyken's Rift Aliens :: Tykan's Rift aliens communicate to Troi in her dreams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone was losing their grips on reality owing to lack of REM sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "hallucinations abounded owing to lack of REM sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data helped Troi to interpret her bizarre dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bussard ramjet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the Tykan's Rift aliens were in a spacecraft of this kind seeing as they ejected hydrogen gas through their Bussard collectors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrus Hagen :: Betazoid survivor was in a catatonic state", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Keiko O'Brien :: O'Brien and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: O'Brien was jealous of Tom Corbin over Keiko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko had to deal with Miles' suspicions over her and Tom Corbin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Riker, Beverly :: Picard, Riker, Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew from lack of REM sleep", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillespie, Miles O'Brien :: Gillespie in Ten Forward at Picard; O'Brien at keiko", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e4x06", "title": "Meltdown", "date": "1991-03-21", "description": "Kryten uses a prototype \"matter paddle\" to teleport the crew to a nearby planet with an S3 (or Earth-like) atmosphere. They discover the planet has been visited by humans years previously, who populated the planet with \"wax droids\" – animated waxworks of famous characters from Earth's history including Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Gandhi, Winnie the Pooh, Mother Teresa and Elvis Presley, who have now gone berserk, and are at war.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten discovered a prototype, hand-held \"matter paddle\" that was subsequently used to teleport the crew to the nearest planet with a breathable atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "While exploring an Earth-like planet, the crew encounter animated waxwork versions of such historical figures as Hitler, Elvis, some or another pope, Al Capone, Mussolini, Richard III, Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, Pythagoras, Caligula, Rasputin, Ghandi, Saint Francis of Assisi, John Paul Sartre, and Mother Teresa. An animated waxwork copy of Hitler led the evil faction in the war that was taking place on the planet S3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew went to a planet populated by waxwork android copies of both exalted and reviled figures from Earth history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The animated waxwork copies of some of the most revered figures from Earth history were pitted against their Hitler-led evil counterparts in a war of mutual annihilation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The war on planet S3 ended with both factions wiping each other out down to the last man hanks to Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "While exploring an Earth-like planet, the crew encounter animated waxwork versions of such historical figures as Hitler, Elvis, some or another pope, Al Capone, Mussolini, Richard III, Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, Pythagoras, Caligula, Rasputin, Ghandi, Saint Francis of Assisi, John Paul Sartre, and Mother Teresa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly made a brief appearance in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An exasperated Lister confronted Rimmer about Rimmer's annoying habit of telling tedious personal anecdotes to the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer fondly reminisced over a game of Risk that he'd played as a 17-year-old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer and Kryten encountered to hostile \"Gappa\" giant bird-lizard creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat pooh-poohed Lister's plan for how to escape from their jail cell on account that Cat would have to wear gray out of season.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pythagoras was fixated on triangles to Einstein's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister mentioned that Caligula had slept with his own mother and sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister mentioned that Caligula had consumed his own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer put the animated waxwork figures under his command through a grueling basic training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer led the virtuous animated waxwork figures to their deaths in a pitched battle against their evil counterparts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat and Lister were waiting to be tortured, hanged, or put against the wall, they thought.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x18", "title": "Identity Crisis", "date": "1991-03-25", "description": "Geordi transforms into an alien creature with strong instinct to return to its planet of origin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi transforms into bioluminiscent creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi, Susanna Leijten :: Geordi and Suze over their impending fates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chameleon-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chameleons of Tarchannen III :: the bioluminiscent aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Susanna Leijten :: the group of old friends is being decimated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: vector analysis investigation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Geordi working to solve the mystery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Suze after metamorphosis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Suze after metamorphosis", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x19", "title": "The Nth Degree", "date": "1991-04-01", "description": "After an encounter with an alien probe Barclay experiences great leaps in confidence and intelligence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay does from feeling inferior to his colleagues to being a super intelligent being", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay into super intelligent being", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cytherian :: Summoner aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay acquired super genius level intelligence in the wake of the Enterprise encountering an alien probe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay with shyness etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind-computer merging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay ended up becoming inseparably merged with the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay became rather arrogant towards his crew mates, as he gained super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay from holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cytherian :: Summoner aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay is taking ineffective counseling for this purpose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay discovered he was great at everything from acting to general relativity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "should Barclay be disconnected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After having his intelligence drastically increased through an encounter with a Cytherian probe, Barclay spent an entire night debating the finer points of Grand Unification with a holographic Albert Einstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay played the part of Cyrano de Begerac so aptly that he brought tears to Beverly's eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space telescope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argus Array :: subspace telescope", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay at Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay played Cyrano de Begerac in amateur theater with Beverly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "should Barclay be disconnected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Barclay integrated with the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi from Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew at super intelligent Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: audience as demonstrated by Riker to Barclay after cringe-worthy performance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay late for meeting because of Einstein", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x20", "title": "Qpid", "date": "1991-04-22", "description": "Q returns to test Picard 's love for an old flame.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Vash :: Picard and Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard was evidently worried that having his brash old lame Vash aboard the Enterprise would reflect poorly on how he was viewed by the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vash demonstrated she was more than able to fend for herself in the castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "God-like Q looked down his long nose at Picard and the other humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Vash :: Picard and Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard vs. helping Vash or giving in to Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard gave a formal lecture about an archaeological site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Vash/Q :: Picard/Vash/Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Vash :: Picard and Vash were to be executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to make Q stop the fantasy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Guy of Gisbourne :: Guy was jealous of Picard over Vash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard from Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash :: Vash hold up in castle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash :: Vash in castle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf smashes mandolin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash was plotting to plunder some Taguan ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise was hosting the Federation Archaeology Council's annual symposium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was mortified to have his brash former love interest Vash running around the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x03", "title": "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star", "date": "1991-04-29", "description": "Rock star Marcy Edwards has been the live-in lover of high-priced murder lawyer Hugh Creighton for several years. He learns that she is having an affair with someone else and throws her out of his house. However, Marcy blackmails Creighton into letting her stay, at least until he comes up with the $5 million she is demanding in exchange for not filing a palimony suit against him or exposing his unconventional practice methods. Creighton's response is to drug the champagne in her beach house and wait until she shows up there with her current lover. Having previously ensured that Marcy cannot drink by lacing her tea with disulfiram, Creighton waits until her new lover is passed out, then strangles her. Her lover awakens and flees the scene. Creighton enlists his associate, Trish Fairbanks, to help him concoct an airtight alibi, but when she finds out what he has done, she blackmails him into a full partnership in the firm, wisely going the extra mile by creating a contingency plan to ensure that killing her is not an option for Creighton. Columbo cracks the case, despite the existence of a speed-camera ticket which appears to exonerate Creighton completely.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Due to shadow angles in the picture of the speeding ticket, Columbo can prove that Creighton's face was just a flat cut-out mask and that Fairbanks must have been driving Creighton's speeding vehicle, and breaking his alibi. Also, marks on Edwards neck matched the gloves found in the gardener's truck that had been stolen, parked on a particular street where an unusual type of tree grows, and returned. The windshield wiper wells on Fairbanks' car collected the berries and droppings of these trees, proving that Creighton parked her car on that street and also drove the truck there.\n\nDirected by: Alan J. Levi. Story by: William Read Woodfield.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The celebrated lawyer Hugh Creighton, who had never lost a case, decided to murder his blackmailing lover, the former rock star Marcy Edwards, according to this seemingly foolproof stratagem: He strangled her in their bed with her drugged lover snoozing by her side, to pin it on the lover, and arranged a likely alibi for himself by having his assistant get issued speeding ticket while wearing a mask of his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hugh murdered Marcy, who saw herself as his wife on account of having lived with him for many years, even though they were not actually married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hugh found himself blackmailed into retaining his lover, Marcy, and murdered her, only to find himself in the same situation again with his assistant blackmailing him over the murder and intent on marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the former rock star Marcy Edwards killed by a lover in a drunken rage, or was the lover perhaps being framed by Marcy's much older partner?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh found himself blackmailed into retaining his lover, Marcy, and murdered her, only to find himself in the same situation again with his assistant blackmailing him over the murder and intent on marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh Creighton was a celebrity lawyer who had never lost a case. He was shown defending a client on a murder charge in a dramatic courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh found himself blackmailed by his assistant, Trish. Lt. Columbo was told off by his boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcy and Trish both revealed themselves as greedy people who wanted a sexual relationship with Hugh for the sake of the wealth and position that would come with it. Marcy tried to blackmail her lover, Hugh, out of a substantial part of his fortune when he abruptly terminated their relationship because of her cheating. Hugh's subordinate, Trish, threatened to out him as the murderer unless he made her a partner at his law firm and also married him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The private eye confronting Hugh with incontrovertible evidence of Marcy's infidelity triggered a series of events that culminating with Hugh taking Marcy's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Hugh Creighton went to elaborate lengths to kill his younger girlfriend, and pin the deed on her rock musician lover with a shady past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo met with a Japanese gardener whose van the murderer had briefly purloined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Creighton laced Marcy's tea with disulfarm, a drug he habitually took himself to stave of his own cravings for the joy juice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcy Edwards had paraphernalia from her days as rock singer displayed in her bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The private eye secretly recorded Marcy banging her secret lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high-priced lawyer Hugh Creighton was shown defending a client on a murder charge in a dramatic courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high-priced lawyer Hugh Creighton urged the jury to consider that the eyes of his client were not those of a man who could murder his own mother, but rather those of a loving son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh feigned to lament the death of his live-in lover Marcy when Columbo brought him news of her murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's superior on the force compelled him to break regulations under pressure from the high-profile lawyer, Hugh Creighton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The private eye Sam Marlowe planted a hidden camera in Hugh's home to catch Hugh's live-in lover cheating on him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x21", "title": "The Drumhead", "date": "1991-04-29", "description": "A witchhunt ensues for suspected Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise . Guest star Jean Simmons as Rear Admiral Norah Satie.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Norah Satie :: Satie with witch-hunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Satie and Picard at odds over what makes for strong evidence against Simon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Norah Satie's investigation into a possible sabotage aboard the Enterprise was guided by her own deep seeded prejudice against the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satie launches witch-hunt for Romulan conspirators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satie imagines elaborate Romulan conspiracy aboard the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norah Satie :: Satie in convicting Simon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to a fair trial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard was outraged at the way Simon was subjected to a drumhead trial, rather than a fair trial, by admiral Satie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norah Satie :: Satie in convicting Simon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satie was fine with fabricating evidence to get her man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satie with witch-hunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Satie was conducting a witch-hunt-like tribunal on the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Satie was conducting a witch-hunt-like tribunal on the Enterprise. In particular, Simon Tarses was grilled under oath by Satie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon was wrongfully accused by Admiral Satie of being a Romulan spy and having sabotaged the warp engine because he was found to be a quarter Romulan and having lied about this fact. When he defended Simon, Picard was also interrogated by Satie who implied that his might be a traitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard refused to confine Simon to his quarters based solely on Betazoid intuition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norah Satie :: Satie throws temper tantrum in courtroom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Satie was proud of her father who had been a judge of some noteriety.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x22", "title": "Half a Life", "date": "1991-05-06", "description": "Lwaxana Troi finally finds love, but discovers her man must undergo a ritualistic suicide. Guest star David Ogden Stiers as Timicin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timicin was expected and pressured to commit suicide at the age of 65.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana, Timicin :: Lwaxana and Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timicin's life work was to revive his people's dying sun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with a maximum age limit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timicin's society had an age limit of 65, upon which people were expected and required to kill themselves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timicin vs. Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin about that ritual suicide is not the only way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin's life work to revive a star unfulfillled", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana, Timicin :: Lwaxana and Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stellar rejuvenation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timicin tried to rejuvenate his home star", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Timicin :: Lwaxana and Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timicin was under pressure to commit suicide at the age of 65, but felt reluctant to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana found someone to settle down with in Timicin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana and the humans thought Timicin’s people’s habit of ritual suicide at 65 was both peculiar and offensive. And Lwaxana nearly convinced the humans that they could not stand idly by while Timicin was pressured, as they saw it, into committing ritual suicide as per the customs of his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfering in the internal affairs of other powers for humanitarian reasons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana implored Picard to intervene and stop Timicin from going back to his people and committing suicide in accord with his traditions there. Picard decided that he could not interfere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kaelon :: the dialogue towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi :: Lwaxana and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timicin :: Timicin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timicin to Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kaelon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Betazoid ability to communicate telepathically was featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x23", "title": "The Host", "date": "1991-05-13", "description": "Dr. Crusher falls in love with Odan, only to discover that Odan is a symbiote, which is implanted into Riker after his original host dies. Odan continues peace negotiations using Riker as a temporary host.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly, Odan :: Beverly and Odan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly transplanted Odan's symbiont into Riker after Odan was mortally wounded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "it was actually a reconciliation between three peoples: the Peliar Zellians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peliar Zellian representatives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the question of what does it mean to be a person when you are just a receptacle for a bug alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odan mediates between Peliar Zellians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pursuing a relationship with a trill inside the body of a woman was a step too far for Beverly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly/Odan :: Beverly and Odan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about accepting Trill host implant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Troi :: Beverly and Troi in yoga studio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly drew the line when Trill was implanted into a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peliar Zellians over depleted magnetic field", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peliar Zellian Betan :: Peliar Zellian Betan moon was experiencing global warming", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peliar Zellian Alphans and Betans lived on moons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher transplanted a symbiont from one host to another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker offering his body for Trill implantation", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Knight Rider 2000 (1991)", "title": "Knight Rider 2000", "date": "1991-05-21", "description": "In the year 2000, conventional handguns have been banned, with law enforcement carrying non-lethal \"ultrasound\" pistols. Nationwide budget changes have resulted in the adoption of cryonic suspension over standard incarceration for convicted criminals. Following the assassination of a mayor in San Antonio, his replacement demands a solution, which is found in the form of the \"Knight 4000\", a car that will become the next generation of the Knight Industries' supercar KITT.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_2000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware, and nearly indestructible car KITT.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of corrupt cops were working secretly rearm criminals so the city will give the police their guns back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Shawn McCormick was motivated by a desire to make \"the bastard\" who'd shot her in the head pay for his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of corrupt cops who were supposed to have destroyed a cache of confiscated handguns were involved in a nefarious plot to sell them on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nationwide budget changes had resulted in the adoption of cryonic suspension over standard incarceration for convicted criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nationwide budget changes had resulted in the adoption of cryonic suspension over standard incarceration for convicted criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Set in the year 2000, conventional handguns have been banned, with law enforcement carrying non-lethal \"ultrasound\" pistols.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that capital punishment had been banned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of corrupt cops plotted to sell confiscated handguns on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "KITT and the new KITT 4000 could drive themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russell Maddock confessed to having lost faith in human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jeffrey Glassman performed a lifesaving procedure on Officer Shawn McCormick after she was rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael was hit pretty hard by the passing of his boss and former mentor Devon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Miller came to deeply regret having been inadvertently involved his the shooting of his partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was able to impersonate Watts' voice using KITT's car phone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Plymouth (1991)", "title": "Plymouth", "date": "1991-05-26", "description": "The residents of a radiation poisoned mining town emigrate to a new colony on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of Plymouth, Oregon, established a mining colony on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Addy and are Gil we in love on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Addy as she discovers she is pregnant on the Moon. This is problematical for a variety of reasons, including it being unknown whether her baby will develop properly, since she is the first woman ever to have gotten pregnant on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An accident involving radiation left the town of Plymouth a dead zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Addy and her young son Eugene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Addy and her teenage daughter Hanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abby was a small town physician practicing her craft on a Lunar colony..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Addy welcome her uncle Wendell to the Moon colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young boys Eugene and Simon were paling around.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x24", "title": "The Mind's Eye", "date": "1991-05-27", "description": "The Romulans brainwash Geordi to carry out a covert mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romulans used technology to mentally condition Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Klingon special envoy was dealing with a rebelling colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi mentally conditioned to assassinate Klingon special envoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "what is the burden of proof for concluding the Klingon is a spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: the efficacy of Geordi's mental conditioning was tested on Romulan version of the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Klingon special envoy was dealing with a rebelling colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at counseling with Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kell :: We saw Klingon feasting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kell requests of Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at end with Troi", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x25", "title": "In Theory", "date": "1991-06-03", "description": "Data participates in a romantic relationship with a fellow crew member.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Jenna D'Sora :: Data and Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data's ability to have a relationship is explored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data's ability to have a relationship is explored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data's ability to have a relationship is explored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Jenna D'Sora :: Data and Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark matter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise was dispatched on a mission to explore mysterious dark matter nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data about break up with Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Jenna D'Sora :: Data and Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenna D'Sora :: Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data for Jenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Spot :: Data and spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "dark matter nebula", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x01", "title": "Loved to Death", "date": "1991-06-15", "description": "Aspiring screenwriter Edward Foster has a crush on his neighbor, aspiring actress Miranda Singer. After failing to get Miranda to notice him, Edward finally gains her affection with a potion given to him by his woman-hating landlord. Eventually, Edward begins to regret his choice after Miranda's newfound obsession with him becomes too much for him to handle.\n\nAlso starring Kathleen Freeman as the next door neighbor.\n\nDirected by: Tom Mankiewicz. Story by: Joe Minion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edward longed to be with the aspiring actress Miranda, but (as alluded to in the title) came to deeply regret it when he got his wish, and Miranda wouldn't stop fawning over him every waking moment. Not even after death had failed to do them apart. The Crypt Keeper explicitly spelled out this theme in his introductory remarks. And cracked wise about it in his closing remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was initially head over heels and besotted with an actress, named Miranda, who lived in his apartment building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aspiring writer Edward, who'd recently quit his job at a hat shop, was struggling to write his first screenplay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward fell in love with a fellow tenant in his apartment complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward saw in Miranda the dream lover from the screenplay he was struggling to write.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Edward failed utterly to win Miranda's heart by conventional means, he used a love potion that he got from the building superintendent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Edward failed utterly to win Miranda's heart by conventional means, he used a love potion that he got from the building superintendent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clingy girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda fawned over Edward every waking moment after he used a love potion on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "At his wits end, Edward tried to dispatch his overly clingy love interest, Miranda, by lacing her champagne with a radioactively green glowing poison. However, it was Edward who ended up drinking the lethal brew when Miranda casually switched their glasses with his best intentions in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda looked down her nose at Edward, an undistinguished aspiring screenwriter who somehow had the audacity to barge into her apartment. She flatly told him to come back when he was rich and successful. She disdainfully stood him up for the drinks she had invited him for. She spoke arrogantly on the phone many times, and referred to herself in third person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Even though Edward inadvertently saw Miranda disrobe in the laundry room, he remained hidden and watched her for longer than what can be accounted as appropriate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reclusiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the landlord Mr. Stronham never left his apartment, judging from his deathly pale complexion and the way he interacted with his tenants via a door installed video camera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda was a B-movie actress whose high point, one gathers, was a starring role in \"Bimbo Beach Patrol\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The apartment building landlord Mr. Stronham knew intimate details about his tenants, presumably from video surveilling them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At his wits end, Edward tried to dispatch his overly clingy love interest, Miranda, by lacing her champagne with a radioactively green glowing poison. However, it was Edward who ended up drinking the lethal brew when Miranda casually switched their glasses with his best intentions in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devastated by her lover Edward's sudden death, Miranda jumped from her window to her death - the viewer learns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Edward realizing that he was fated to spend eternity in a \"Heaven in the Clouds\" after world in the company of his clingy, sex-starved, and now horribly disfigured lover, Miranda. Although never spelled out, one viewing of the story is that this was Edward's punishment for having obtained Miranda's love through unscrupulous means in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Edward's water faucet wouldn't come on we realized that the landlord was being stereotypically reluctant to react regarding the issue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x02", "title": "Carrion Death", "date": "1991-06-15", "description": "Earl Raymond Diggs, a murderer that has recently escaped prison, is running for the Mexican border. He is pursued by a state trooper that ends up slapping the handcuffs on him. Diggs manages to kill the trooper, but the trooper manages to swallow the key before dying. With no other options to remove the cuffs, Diggs is forced to drag the trooper's corpse across the desert to freedom, all the while being stalked by a hungry vulture.\n\nDirected by: Steven E. de Souza. Story by: Steven E. de Souza.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped death row inmate Earl Raymond Diggs trekked across the desert first while being pursued by a very determined motorcycle cop, and later handcuffed the very same law enforcement officer's dead body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the escaped death row inmate Earl Raymond Diggs on his trek across a desert (much of the way handcuffed to a dead motorcycle cop) to the Mexican border, and freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped death row inmate Earl Raymond Diggs was pursued across a desert by a determined motorcycle cop. In his monologue, the Crypt Keeper was dressed up as a motorcycle cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped death row inmate Earl Raymond Diggs was determined to trek through the desert to reach the Mexican border, just as the motorcycle cop was determined to apprehend him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The motor cycle cop went above and beyond the call of duty because he had a personal desire to see Earl brought to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with a gun toting Earl fleeing a small town bank with bags on money in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl escaped from death row hours before his scheduled execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl was on death row for having brutally murdered three nurses, and spoke of having gotten away with murdering five other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl was on death row for having brutally murdered three nurses, and spoke of having gotten away with murdering five other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misogyny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl, a convicted serial killer of women, quipped to himself about not being able to live with women, and not being able to fit more than one of them at a time into an automobile trunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was incapacitated and stuck in the middle of nowhere", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl was stuck in the desert, handcuffed to a dead motorcycle cop. In a desperation move, Earl tried to hack off the dead cop's hand, but hacked off his own by accident.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x03", "title": "The Trap", "date": "1991-06-15", "description": "Lou Paloma, an obnoxious, egotistical, mean-spirited deadbeat who cannot hold down a job, is horribly in debt, and is both unfaithful and abusive (verbally and physically) to his wife, Irene ropes her and his brother, Billy, into a plan to fake his own death, collect his life insurance money, and escape to a new life in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, Lou is unaware that both his long- suffering wife and brother, who have developed an attraction to one another, are planning to double-cross him.\n\nMichael J. Fox, who directed this episode, plays the prosecutor, and James Tolkan plays a policeman investigating the \"murder scene\".\n\nDirected by: Michael J. Fox. Story by: Scott Alexander.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Irene (Lou's wife) and Billy (Lou's brother) pointedly double-crossed Lou by keeping all the $500,000 in life insurance money for themselves, and marrying behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou and Irene Paloma. The story centers around Irene seemingly going along with Lou's plan to fake his own death, with the help of his coroner brother Billy, collect his life insurance money, and start new lives in Rio de Janeiro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou and Irene were struggling to pay the bills, leading Lou to come up with the idea of faking his own death to cash in on his $500,000 life insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou and Irene were struggling to pay the bills, leading Lou to come up with the idea of faking his own death to cash in on his $500,000 life insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou twisted his coroner brother Billy's arm into helping him fake his own death. Billy repaid the favor by taking up with his more than willing wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around Lou, Irene, and his coroner brother Billy prematurely cashing in on Lou's $500,000 life insurance policy by elaborately faking his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gullible police detective took at face value that Lou had been stabbed and beaten to death. A complicated chain of subsequent events led to Lou being convicted for his own murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene (Lou's wife) and Billy (Lou's brother) couldn't keep their hands off one another from the moment Lou faked his own death. They had a steamy make-out session on top of Irene's undeceased husband's coffin, from within which he was listening to the lovemaking noises with perplexity. Lou goaded his wife, Irene, into beating him over the head with a fire iron by confessing to having had sexual intercourse with her best friend, Betty LaRue, in the back room of a beauty bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene (Lou's wife) and Billy (Lou's brother) used Lou's faking his own as an opportunity to indulge in their romantic desire for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene (Lou's wife) and Billy (Lou's brother) used Lou (brash, prideful, and obnoxious) faking his own death as an opportunity to eliminate him from their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou got fired from his pizza delivery job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou's mother wept hysterically at his funeral, and subsequently went insane with grief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou's mother wept hysterically at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou's funeral was attended by only his mother, wife, brother, and a gullible police detective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gullible Sgt. McClaine accepted that Lou was dead at face value.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith (Lou, in fact) was dumbfounded when nobody believed he was really Lou Paloma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith (Lou, in fact) was tried for Lou's (his own) murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prosecutor made a convincing case against Mr. Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Smith (Lou, in fact) was fried in the electric chair in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou's mother thought herself Eleanor Roosevelt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng4x26", "title": "Redemption", "date": "1991-06-17", "description": "Worf leaves the Enterprise to fight on behalf of Gowron in a Klingon civil war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Kurn :: Worf and Kurn want to redeem their father's soiled reputation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard mediates between rival Klingon factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Kurn :: Worf and Kurn want to redeem their father's soiled reputation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingon civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingon civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: social stability of the Klingon empire vs. Worf's honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard balancing Federation and Klingon nterests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Kurn :: Worf and Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: social stability of the Klingon empire vs. Worf's honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf torn between Human and Klingon worlds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard shows leadership in dealing with Worf and Klingons generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lursa, B'Eto :: Duras Sisters had Picard over for tea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurn :: Kurn at Worf", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x04", "title": "Abra Cadaver", "date": "1991-06-19", "description": "Years ago, Carl Fairbanks and his brother Martin were medical students. Carl played a prank on Martin which unexpectedly gave him a stroke and paralyzed one of his hands. In the present day, Carl becomes a successful surgeon whereas Martin's paralysis limits him to a medical research job. Martin gets his revenge by injecting Carl with an experimental serum that stops Carl's heart but keeps his brain alive, essentially trapping Carl in his own body.\n\nNote: Based on the story \"Dead Right!\" renamed for television\n\nDirected by: Stephen Hopkins. Story by: Jim Birge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "practical joking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to two ill-considered practical jokes that the Fairbanks brothers carried out on each other in turns, and that each ended up causing the other heart attacks. Martin tricked Carl (Martin's brother) into thinking that Carl was trapped inside his own paralyzed body and about to be autopsied. This morbid prank was Martin's way of getting back at Carl for his having pulled a prank on Martin back in their medical school days that left Martin partially paralyzed, costing him a career as a surgeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Martin carrying out a morbid prank on his bother Carl to get back at him for having inadvertently cost Martin a career as a surgeon many years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on Martin carrying out a morbid prank on his bother Carl to get back at him for having inadvertently cost Martin a career as a surgeon many years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story was seen from the perspective of Carl as he was in a paralyzed state, yet somehow conscious. The title of the story alludes to Carl's active brain being trapped inside his all but dead body as an apparent result of some voodoo magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin becoming partially paralyzed on the left side of his body, most notably his hand, cost him a career as a surgeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The medical researcher Martin resented his brother, Carl, for having become a successful surgeon. Carl having played a prank on Martin back in their medical school days that cost Martin a career as a surgeon made the pill particularly hard for Martin to swallow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with having to give up on a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin dreamed of becoming a surgeon, but on the eve of graduation his hopes were suddenly dashed by his brother's ill-considered practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "To Carl, and the viewer, it undoubtedly appeared that Martin had gone insane with pent up resentment and was now sadistically homicidal towards his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl and Martin were both physicians in the present (medical students in the first few scenes).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A zombie themed practical joke left Marty with the bejesus scared out of him, to say the least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly confronted her superior, Carl, questioning his as to whether their relationship was over. Carl neglected to give her a straight answer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty displayed stereotypical voodoo paraphernalia to Carl, claiming to have incorporated aspects of this black art into his medical research. Martin's research had, he alleged, been inspired by voodoo rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The medical researcher Martin developed a glowing, green serum that mimicked bodily death, while the brain was kept alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl joked about being turned on by a female corpse in the morgue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is briefly led to believe that a bunch of corpses had risen as zombies before we understood that it was all a practical joke.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Rocketeer (1991)", "title": "The Rocketeer", "date": "1991-06-21", "description": "Set in 1938 Los Angeles, California, The Rocketeer tells the story of stunt pilot Cliff Secord who stumbles upon a hidden rocket-powered jet pack that he thereafter uses to fly without the need of an aircraft. His heroic deeds soon attract the attention of Howard Hughes and the FBI, who are hunting for the missing jet pack, as well as the Nazi operatives that stole it from Hughes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocketeer_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "jet pack", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story is built around an experimental rocket-powered jet pack that can be used to fly without the need of an aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff and Jenny fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of FBI agents were working to recover a Howard Hughes designed experimental rocket-powered jet pack before the Nazis got their hands on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The movie star Neville Sinclair turned out to be a Nazi spy who's been tasked retrieve a Howard Hughes designed experimental rocket-powered jet pack for the Third Reich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The movie star Neville Sinclair was shown working on the set of his latest swashbuckling film. Jenny was an aspiring actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news report made mention that Hitler had assured the Western powers that he was not amassing troops at the Czech border.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stunt pilot Cliff Secord had an undeniable passion for flying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motor sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The career stunt pilot Cliff planned to enter a national competition with his Gee Bee Model Z airplane before it got destroyed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x05", "title": "Top Billing", "date": "1991-06-26", "description": "Barry Blye, a struggling actor with a dull and drab appearance, is fired by his agent, dumped by his girlfriend, and evicted from his apartment. Desperate for work, Barry attempts to receive the lead role in a strange production of Hamlet, but is turned down by director Nelson Haliwell, who instead gives the part to his handsome rival, Winton Robbins. In a rage, Barry kills Winton to get the part, only to discover that he's actually to, in a literal sense, play the part of the long-deceased Yorick.\n\nDirected by: Todd Holland. Story by: Myles Berkowitz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "acting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned two actors arguing about acting and then getting out-acted by escaped lunatics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and Winton had a longstanding rivalry. In the story there were competing for \"top billing\" in a strange production of Hamlet. Winton was successful and did not need the lowly Hamlet role, but decided to take it form Barry anyway to \"prove a point\", as it were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry was explicitly described as a loser character. He had no job, was evicted from his flat, lost his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry was out of a job, couldn't pay his bills, got evicted from his flat and lost his measly possessions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is unclear what the little actor group of mental patients suffered from in the end, but it was clear that it was not for nothing they had been locked up in a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry was an unsuccessful actor with little to look forward to in the way of a future career in the industry. He a total loser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "According to Barry, he should not be judged and dismissed because of his commonplace appearance, because his acting skills were sublime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The struggling actor Barry strangled Winton with a rope after Winton won the audition for an important role in a strange production of Hamlet. It turns out that the little theater group wanted to slaughter Barry for his skull and nothing else. The mental patients killed all the worked at the home for the criminally insane where they were incarcerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry was dumped by his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry was dropped by his agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Already down on his luck, Barry returned home to find his girlfriend, Lisa, moving out with a little help from her new and handsome boyfriend. On the bright side, she did leave him some chicken in the fridge.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)", "title": "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", "date": "1991-07-01", "description": "The film follows Sarah Connor and her ten-year-old son John as they are pursued by a new, more advanced Terminator: the liquid metal, shapeshifting T-1000, sent back in time to kill John Connor and prevent him from becoming the leader of the human resistance. A second, less advanced Terminator is also sent back in time to protect John. It is the sequel to the 1984 film The Terminator, as well as the second installment in the Terminator franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terminator was a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a shapeshifting T-1000 Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the near future, actually in 2029, robots were in the process of exterminating humans from the face of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor sent the Terminator back in time from the year 2029 to protect his child self from a T-1000 Terminator, which had also been sent back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor was being hunted down by the T-1000 model Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Sarah Connor versus the T-1000 model Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Los Angeles of 2029 was a post atomic horror wasteland in which humans were in a desperate war for survival against machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor and John Connor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained that the Skynet computer defense system became intelligent and initiated a nuclear conflagration in an effort to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Skynet autonomous computer defense system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a strong point made about Miles Dyson developing a new type of computer chip that was destined to lead to a nuclear war and robot take over of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fate of humanity rested on John Connor not getting killed and leading a resistance movement against robot exterminators of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that a computer defense system became intelligent and initiated a nuclear conflagration in an effort to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah Connor was being held at a mental institution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone dismissed Sarah as a lunatic because she was telling people about the rise of the machines scenario that was looming for the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah contemplated how good a father the Terminator was to John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was teaching the Terminator the importance of not killing so many people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Terminators had the ability to mimic voices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terminator had himself lowered into a vat of molten steel in order to prevent his components from being used to build Skynet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skynet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x06", "title": "Dead Wait", "date": "1991-07-03", "description": "Red Buckley, a thug with naturally red hair, offers to work for Duvall, a plantation owner on a tropical island gripped in civil war. Red teams up with Duvall's mistress, Katherine, in order to steal Duvall's prized possession: a highly valuable black pearl. Red later double-crosses Katherine, only to be double-crossed himself by a mysterious priestess.\n\nDirected by: Tobe Hooper. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red was, in fact, out to steal a precious black pearl and perhaps some other valuables.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious priestess was a voodoo practitioner, it was made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious priestess explained that in her culture the color red, such as was manifest in Red's naturally red hair, symbolized life itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red double-crossed Katherine, only to be double-crossed himself by the mysterious voodoo priestess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red and Katherine were both lusting for the wealth they would steal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a tropical island nation in the backdrop of a revolutionary war. Duvall and others had to urgently leave the plantation because the revolutionaries were rapidly advancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red took up with Duvall's mistress, Katherine, not long after Duvall hired Red to work on his plantation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man and mistress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plantation owner Duvall and his black mistress, Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katherine carried on with Red under the nose of her lover, Duvall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mysterious priestess used a voodoo doll to dispatch with Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duvall was dying from a nasty water worm infestation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Red used his red king to take Katherine's black queen in flagrant violation of the rules of chess, and with strong sexual overtones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is recurringly shown the stereotyped voodoo culture of a tropical island people through the eyes of the rogue Red Buckley. Most notably, he was bemused by the fact that the color red, such as was manifest in his naturally red hair, was regarded as a symbol of life itself in their culture.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x07", "title": "The Reluctant Vampire", "date": "1991-07-10", "description": "Donald Longtooth is a vampire with a conscience. He eschews the tradition of killing mortals, instead satiating his need for blood by working as the night watchman at a blood bank. When Donald overindulges on the blood supply, the blood bank's owner, Mr. Crosswhite, realizes that his business is literally being sucked dry and threatens his employees with mass layoffs to avoid bankruptcy. Seeing that he must return to his old ways in order to replete his \"embezzlement\", Donald tries to solve his quandary by attacking dangerous criminals, all whilst struggling with the romantic advances of the blood bank's secretary, an investigative police detective, and vampire hunter Rupert Van Helsing.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Terry Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns an eponymous bloodsucking creature of the dark that was unusually peaceful for his kind. Donald Longtooth pilfered blood from the blood bank where he worked as night watchman, because his moral scruples prevented him from obtaining the vital fluid in the traditional fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally was besotted with Donald. The blood bank nightwatchman Donald Longtooth and secretary, Sally, fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donald was purloining and gorging himself on the crimson liquid stock of the blood bank where he toiled as a nightwatchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The compassionate, gentle vampire Donald Longtooth reluctantly resorted to satiating his bloodlust the old fashioned way in order to save many of his colleagues at the blood bank, where he worked as nightwatchman, from getting laid off from their jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The blood bank owner Mr. Crosswhite tried to coerce his vampire nightwatchman into increasing the bank's blood inventory by nefarious means, made improper advances at the secretary, and threatened his employees with mass layoffs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police force, aided by Van Helsing, were chasing the killer of assorted criminals. Other vampiric murders were discussed now and then. Van Helsing refereed to serial murders that followed an obvious pattern: two pinpricks on the carotid artery and sever blood loss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Crosswhite pretended his blood bank was on the brink of bankruptcy in order to motivate his employees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald and his trusty rodent, Leopold. An old lady was mugged while walking her dog at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The struggling blood bank owner Mr. Crosswhite made it clear to the bank secretary Sally that he'd find a way to keep her employed, if she dated his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Crosswhite clearly harassed Sally sexually by implying, on at least two separate occasions, that she might be able to keep her job if she would sleep with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald intervened, needlessly perhaps, to save an old lady from being robbed in an alley while she was walking her mutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police force, aided by Van Helsing, were chasing the killer of assorted criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald lit some candles with the wave of his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love kindled by danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally was apparently turned on by Donald because she knew, and had known for many years, that he was a vampire. She longed to become a creature of the dark herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vampire Donald Longtooth justified murdering petty criminals, which he did to replenish the dwindling stocks at the blood bank where he worked, by claiming that doing so would \"clean up the streets\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x08", "title": "Easel Kill Ya", "date": "1991-07-17", "description": "Jack Craig, an artist and recovering alcoholic with a temper who can't seem to sell any of his work, ends up accidentally killing a neighbor. Finding inspiration, Jack photograph the corpse, paints the scene, and sells the painting to Malcom Mayflower, a collector of morbid artwork who promises to pay him large sums of money for similar paintings, which leads Jack down a dark and dangerous path.\n\nDirected by: John Harrison. Story by: Larry Wilson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central theme of the story is that novel art can be created by an artist being pushed into a dark emotional place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the struggling artist Jack painting the death scenes of his murder victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "One component of Jack's many problems was that he was a recovering alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "One component of Jack's many problems was that he had temper tantrums. In the opening scene, Jack fantasized about bashing in an old female patron's head in with a hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack struggled to make ends meet with his mostly commonplace paintings, while staying off the hooch and managing his anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack ended up committing several murders in order to inspire himself to create very dark, but incredibly valuable, paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Sharon had some romantic intrigues and did the nasty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story lead up to the following ethical dilemma for Jack: should he let his lover Sharon die, or should he go out and kill someone innocent so he could produce a masterpiece and get enough money to hire the brain surgeon that could save her?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack tried to kill an innocent man in order to save his lover Sharon, but through an ironic twist of fate he ended up killing the one brain neurosurgeon that could have saved her and then through a further twist of fate he found that she had died anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was commissioned to paint morbid scenes of death by his wealthy patron, Malcolm Mayflower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seemed at first that Jack was dismissive with Sharon's attempts at flirting with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack threw a cup at his disagreeable neighbor below who wouldn't stop playing loud music, and accidentally killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctors tried to save Sharon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police investigator holding a bloody paintbrush tapped Jack on the shoulder to have a word.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm spoke in glowing terms of Jack's morbid paintings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bill and Teds Bogus Journey (1991)", "title": "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey", "date": "1991-07-19", "description": "Bill and Ted are murdered and replaced by evil android versions of themselves from the future. It is the second film in the Bill & Ted franchise, and a sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin reprise their roles.", "collections": [ "Collection: Bill and Ted Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Ted%27s_Bogus_Journey" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "In 2691, former gym teacher turned terrorist Chuck De Nomolos hatched a nefarious plot to alter the history of what he considers to be a foolish and frivolous society by sending evil robot replicas of Bill and Ted back to the late 20th century to prevent the originals from winning the San Dimas Battle of the Bands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two androids Evil Bill and Evil Ted were sent back in time to kill Bill and Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two androids Evil Bill and Evil Ted were sent back in time to kill Bill and Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Bill and Ted's band, Wyld Stallyns, winning the Battle of the Bands competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and his girlfriend Joanna. Ted and and his girlfriend Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were best pals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were guided through the afterlife by the Grim Reaper who later joined their rock band.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were guided through Heaven and Hell by the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and his girlfriend Joanna. Ted and and his girlfriend Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted used Rufus's time-traveling phone booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The music of Bill and Ted's band, Wyld Stallyns, had created a utopian future society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's father John Logan had found a young a beautiful wife in Missy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Missy had become Ted's stepmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted met and were subsequently killed by their evil android doubles Evil Bill and Evil Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being killed by their android replicas, Bill and Ted experienced the world as ghosts before the Grim Reaper whisked them off to Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being killed by their android replicas, Bill and Ted experienced the world as ghosts before the Grim Reaper whisked them off to Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's father John was a police captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's ghost briefly took possession of his father John, and Bill John's colleague at the police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghosts of Bill and Ted visited a new age séance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted met the Devil in Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Bill was horrified at the prospect of receiving a kiss from his grotesque granny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted suffered several punishment during their stay in Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted played a high stakes games of Battleship and Clue with the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two diminutive aliens, that later merged into one large alien, helped Bill and Ted by fashioning for them robotic replicas: Good Bill and Good Ted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Good Robot Bill and Good Robot Ted were robotic replicas of Bill and Ted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy IV (1991)", "title": "Final Fantasy IV", "date": "1991-07-19", "description": "The game's story follows Cecil, a dark knight, as he tries to prevent the sorcerer Golbez from seizing powerful crystals and destroying the world. It is the fourth main installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game was released under the title Final Fantasy II in North America.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It is up to the dark knight Cecil and his party to prevent the sorcerer Golbez from seizing powerful crystals and destroying the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of magical spells is a key component of the game play and story plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil asked \"Why are we robbing crystals from innocent people?\" to which his airship crewmen replied \"That's our duty\". Cecil followed through on his orders to do so, but was later demoted from his post as captain of the Red Wings by the king for openly questioning what they had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil lamented the fact that he'd led a mission to rob the Water Crystal from innocent people of Mysidia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron became the most powerful nation in the world owing to its mighty fleet of airships. Later, Cecil and his party member acquire an airship which the come to depend on to travel about the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysidian sage Tellah disapproved of his daughter Anna running off with the prince of Damcyan. Cid and had a daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysidian sage Tellah was enraged to find out that his daughter Anna had ran off to Damcyan to marry Prince Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward mourned the tragic death of his lover Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tellah pointedly mourned the tragic death of his daughter Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna's ghost came back to say goodbye to her lover in life, Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna's ghost came back to say good bye to her lover in life, Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his fellow Red Wings comrade Kain had a falling out after Cecil was discharged from his post as Red Wings captain by the king for questioning his orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tellah was determined to make Golbez pay for taking his daughter's life. Edge vowed to avenge Rubicant's turning of his parents into monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black mage Palom and his twin sister the white mage Porem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black mage Palom and his twin sister the white mage Porem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toroian city ruled by eight female clerics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inhabitants of Slivera were notably diminutive in stature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his party must defeat the Dark Elf to obtain the Crystal of Life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prince Edward was a harp playing bard at heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tellah admitted to having lost himself in hatred in his pursuit of Goblez. Zeoramus was the incarnation of Zemus' hatred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elemental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his party must defeat the Four Fiends: the incarnations of the four elemental forces of earth, fire, air, and water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysidia elder interpreted an ancient Mysidian legend to mean that the dark knight Cecil was the savior the world had been waiting for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The underworld was populated by dwarfs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edge's father turned monster bid farewell to his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edge's mother turned monster bid farewell to her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kain pointedly betrayed Cecil and his party by stealing from them the Dark Crystal. Although, it is later revealed that he's been under the control of Golbez and was therefore not acting of his own free will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mysdians wished really hard for the space whale (the Ship of Light) to appear, and so it did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his party must travel to one of the Blue Planet's two moons in a high-tech, galleon shaped spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his party must travel to one of the Blue Planet's two moons in a high-tech, galleon shaped spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Phaeton hypothesis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lunerian Fusoya spoke of how a \"planet between Mars and Jupiter was about to be shattered\" and that \"the people who escaped by ships headed for the Blue Planet... but they went to the Moon instead.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Moon people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecil and his party encountered a man on the Moon who was from a race of people called the Lunerians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about all the different peoples of the Blue Planet teaming up to defeat the Giant of Babil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a dramatic plot twist, the evil sorcerer Golbez was revealed to be none other that the dark knight Cecil's brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wedding was held for Cecil and Rosa at the very end of the game.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x09", "title": "Undertaking Palor", "date": "1991-07-24", "description": "Jess, Norm, Aaron, and Josh, a group of kids aspiring to be horror filmmakers, break into the local mortuary in order to see a real dead body. However, they soon stumble upon a sinister conspiracy of murder and greed, overhearing a conversation between the town's pharmacist, Mr. Grundy, and local mortician Sebastian Esbrook, revealing that the two have been killing townspeople with poisoned medicine so they can split the profits of the funerals. When it's tragically discovered that Josh's father was a victim of Grundy's tainted medicine, the boys plan to expose Grundy and Esbrook by taking the law into their own hands, hoping to film evidence of their murderous dealings.\n\nDirected by: Michael Thau. Story by: Ron Finley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "After they broke in to a mortuary, one of the boys became witness to a conversation in which plans to commit murder most foul for profit were outlined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pharmacist and a mortician had joined forces to turn a quick buck in the following way: The pharmacist would surreptitiously poison the prescriptions of prospective rich and religious people in the community, counting on their families to hastily make use of the mortician's most expensive, and lucrative, undertaking services.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pharmacist and a mortician had joined forces to turn a quick buck in the following way: The pharmacist would surreptitiously poison the prescriptions of prospective rich and religious people in the community, counting on their families to hastily make use of the mortician's most expensive, and lucrative, undertaking services.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of four boys, who seemed to be in their early teens, as they uncover a nefarious plot by the town's undertaker and pharmacist to poison affluent people in the community and then profit from arranging their funerals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh sat crying on his porch after his dad had died during the night. Putting two and two together, they quickly understood that his asthma medication had been poisoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boys were initially challenging themselves to face their fears by entering a scary ass mortuary and shake hands with a dead body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started out with Josh accepting Jess's challenge to make a horror film depicting someone shaking hands with a dead body. The plot soon moved away from Josh fulfilling his potential as a filmmaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The undertaker took a disturbing amount of pleasure in his work of preparing dead bodies for burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron swiped a \"Playpen\" porno mag from the local pharmacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that the pharmacist Grundy had eliminated his wife by means of poison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x10", "title": "Mournin' Mess", "date": "1991-07-31", "description": "Dale Sweeney, a sleazy, down-on-his-luck news writer, is currently investigating several bizarre murders of the homeless. Sweeney soon discovers that the murders may be related to the Grateful Homeless Outcasts and Unwanted Layaway Society (G.H.O.U.L.S.), a mysterious organization whose charitable façade hides a horrific secret.\n\nDirected by: Manny Coto. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story featured beings called \"ghouls\" which, if defined in the traditional sense, are some kind of monstrous beings connected with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. The ghouls in this story displayed both characteristics in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghouls in this story were sufficiently human that they could blend in with human society and not be suspected. They could also have sex with humans. The viewer must then ponder whether when they start munching away at humans, that counts as cannibalism or not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dale was investigating what appeared to be a serial murderer of homeless people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dale was a sleazy, down-on-his-luck news writer who found more than he bargained for during the course investigating several mysterious murders of homeless people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable organization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sinister Grateful Homeless Outcasts and Unwanted Layaway Society (G.H.O.U.L.S.) organization used a charitable façade to hide its true mission: supplying ghouls with the corpses of homeless people for their ghastly feasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown through the homeless man Robert's eyes what it might be like to eek out an existence on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heavy drinking was central to Dale's storyline. The newspaper editor sarcastically urged Dale to \"buy an alcohol powered generator\" so that he could \"urinate into it every morning and have enough electricity for the whole day\", when he excused his being late to work on account of his electricity having been cut off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his intro, a chef's hat wearing Crypt Keeper was preparing a recipe from his \"Betty Croaker\" cookbook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Dave's conquests got offended when he told her to get out of there in the morning, and that his promise to spend the day with her had merely been Jack Daniels talking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bachelor Dale had a one night stand, and seduced a woman to get a \"scoop\" on her. He picked up both women with ease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dale was fired from his job with some glee and little fanfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief scene of a man of the cloth presiding over a recently murdered homeless man being laid to rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first hobo victim tried to scare off the killer by professing himself a former middleweight boxer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x11", "title": "Split Second", "date": "1991-08-07", "description": "Liz Kelly, a beautiful but loose barmaid, marries Steve Dixon, the wealthy manager of a lumber camp who provides her a comfortable lifestyle. The marriage soon turns sour when Steve becomes violently jealous of anyone who even looks at his new wife. Liz eventually brings him over the edge when she begins seducing another lumberjack, Ted, in order to relieve her perpetual boredom.\n\nDirected by: Russell Mulcahy. Story by: Richard Christian Matheson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story hinges on Liz, the wife of Steve, being sexually loose to her jealous and violent husband's great displeasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point was made about Liz' seducing of one the lumberjacks under her husband's employ stemming from the boredom that came with living in a logging camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story hinges on Liz, the wife of Steve, being sexually loose to her jealous and violent husband's great displeasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve saw a rival in any man who looked even sideways at his wife. She, for her part, loved having men fight over her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve clearly had anger issues. He flew off the handle at anyone who got anywhere near his new wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz seduced the young lumberjack Ted to her jealous and violent husband's great displeasure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is at a lumberjack camp, and the viewer is shown a slice of life there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve tried as he might to keep his new wife, Liz, under his thumb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lumberjacks got back at their wrathful boss in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve sought vengeance for what he incorrectly thought was a cuckolding. The little group of lumberjacks got their own back by tying their awful boss and his awful wife up in logs and having their blinded new colleague unwittingly chainsaw them into pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liz was forcible propositioned by a man at the bar. Liz coerced one of the lumberjacks under her husband's employ to be her sex monkey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted was briefly seen getting used to moving around after he lost the use of his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve made a disapproving remark about environmentalists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime of passion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve committed what any reasonable person would consider blatant assault in fits of jealous blind rage, on two occasions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x12", "title": "Deadline", "date": "1991-08-14", "description": "Charles McKenzie, a newspaper journalist who has nearly ruined his career after many years of alcoholism, swears to give up drinking in order to get his old job back. He soon meets a young woman, Vicki, and the two begin having a fling. With Vicki's influence helping him along the way, Charles is offered his job back if he can bring in a murder story. Upon hearing the owner of a diner murder his wife in the diner's kitchen, Charles believes he has his story, at least until he discovers who the wife is.\n\nDirected by: Walter Hill. Story by: Mae Woods.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the washed up crime reporter Charles McKenzie as he tried to get back into the newspaper business by breaking a murder story worthy of the front page.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles was under immense pressure to come up with a \"scoop\", and in particular a murder story, for his old newspaper where he had provisionally been hired back. When he failed at every turn he nearly went back to the bottle. Charles later strangled his lover in a desperate attempt to get a scoop. The viewer is left to ponder if Charles went completely insane and had been committed to an insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charles was under immense pressure to come up with a \"scoop\", and in particular a murder story, for his old newspaper where he had provisionally been hired back. When he failed at every turn he nearly went back to the bottle. When he thought he witnessed a murder he jumped on the opportunity to take notes before phoning the cops. When the victim stirred, he swiftly re-killed her himself despite finding that she was his own lover. He was then seen in a strait-jacket presumably interned in an institution for the nutty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was an alcoholic of many years and the story follows his attempt to give up the bottle and piece his life back together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles was an alcoholic of many years and the story follows his attempt to give up the bottle and piece his life back together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Vicki first had what they mutually agreed would be, more or less, a one night stand. Then they had, again what they mutually agreed, was many more one night stands together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles and Vicki had a passionate fling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "While he tried to keep it down, it was pretty obvious that Charles became besotted with Vicki and although she kept seeing him she kept insisting that she did not have any deeper feelings for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles overheard the owner of a diner violently kill his own wife in the diner's kitchen - or so he thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charles ended up strangling his lover, Vicki, to death because he was under immense pressure to come up with a good scoop for his old newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender Mike was the closest thing the recovering alcoholic Charles had to a friend. He refused to serve Charles booze when Charles was on the brink of having a relapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a moocher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mildred chewed out Charles when he showed up at her door in search of a handout for the umpteenth time. But she gave him $500 in cash all the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikos flew into a rage and strangled his unfaithful wife, Vicki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Charles' new lover Vicki was in fact married to the diner owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A heated argument between Nikos and his wife ended with him strangling her to the brink of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikos was described by Charles as having flown into a jealous rage and strangled his own wife. Charles, however, had his self-interest in mind when characterizing Nikos as having been purely motivated by jealousy. It was left somewhat open as to whether Nikos' rage was sparked by this powerful emotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikos was immediately regretful over having flew into a rage and apparently strangled his wife to death. Charles was perhaps driven insane by remorse over having strangled his lover (this is left open to speculation).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikos was adamant that his wife was going around sleeping with \"bums\" and \"winos\" to humiliate him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end it is revealed that the narrator, Charles, had all along been straight jacketed and confined to an insane asylum cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The washed up crime reporter Charles McKenzie had moments to choose, and he chose to strangle his lover to death in a bid to resurrect his career in the newspaper business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The washed up crime reporter Charles McKenzie had moments to choose, and he chose to strangle his lover to death in a bid to resurrect his career in the newspaper business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vicki was in the habit of sleeping with \"bums\" and \"winos\", according to her husband.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x13", "title": "Spoiled", "date": "1991-08-21", "description": "In a meta-layered spoof of daytime soap operas, Janet, a housewife who is obsessed with the soap opera There's Always Tomorrow and watches the program religiously, is annoyed that her doctor husband, Leon, is more obsessed with experimenting on a rabbit than spending time with her. When her TV loses picture at a crucial moment in the show, Janet calls in a cable man named Abel, to have cable installed. Inspired by There's Always Tomorrow's no- nonsense main character, Fuschia Monroe, Janet begins a steamy affair with Abel while Leon is distracted with his work. When Leon catches the two of them in the act, he soon wonders if he could try his experiment on human subjects.\n\nDirected by: Andy Wolk. Story by: Connie Johnson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet began a steamy affair with the cable guy when her husband was too busy with his research to pay her any attention. The star of There's Always Tomorrow's Fuscia Monroe was described as going after whatever and whomever she fancied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "head transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the aggrieved doctor getting his own back on his two-timing spouse by switching her head's place with that of her lover on their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon was too preoccupied with his groundbreaking medical research to fulfill his husbandly duties to Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet was sex starved and sick of being ignored by her doctor husband, so she started a steamy affair with the cable guy, Abel, that went on for roughly two weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon was a big shot surgeon and scientist who was, in his basement, developing a new anesthetic that could keep the brain sedated and alive long enough to be entirely transplanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The housewife Janet turned to the cable guy to fulfill her carnal needs because her husband was consumed with his groundbreaking medical research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inattentive male partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon was too preoccupied with his groundbreaking medical research to fulfill his husbandly duties to Janet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper donned an argyle sweater vest and cracked some golf puns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet and her neighbor Louise bonded over folding laundry and while discussing soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet and her neighbor Louise bonded over folding laundry and while discussing soap opera.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers II (1991)", "title": "Trancers II", "date": "1991-08-22", "description": "Jack Deth must prevent Dr. E.D. Wardo and his army of trancers from murdering the ex-pro baseball player Hap Ashby. Meanwhile, the surprise appearance of Jack's 23rd century wife in present day Los Angeles puts a strain on his marriage to Lena. It is the third film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novel premise of the film is that by the 23rd century it is possible to send someone's consciousness back in time, but only down their genetic line, so that their consciousness inhabits one of their ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Lena Deth were happily married in 1991 Los Angeles. But things got complicated when his wife form the 23rd century sent her consciousness back in time in the body of a teenage girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack, Jack's wife in 1991 Lena, and Jack's wife from the 23rd century traveled back in time in the body of a teenage girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The arrival of Jack's wive from the 23rd century put a strain on Jack and Lena's relationship, but in the end Jack and Lena's love for one another prevailed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack felt torn between his Lena (his wife in 1991) and Alice (his wife in the 23rd century come back to the year 1991 in the body of a teenage girl).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old McNulty's consciousness was sent back in time to 1991 Los Angeles and into the body of the 15 year old girl McNaulty. Likewise, Jack's 23rd century wife Alice's consciousness was sent back into the body of a teenage girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. E.D. Wardo traveled back in time and created an environmental organization, called Green World, that served as a cover for his \"transer farm\" (i.e. an army of zombie-like people who do his bidding).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hap Ashby was trying to avoid getting killed by the army of \"trancers\" that Dr. E.D. Wardo had raised for exactly that purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toward the conclusion of the story Jack chose to stay in 1991 with his loving wife Lena rather than go back to the 23rd century where he had a position on the legislative council waiting for him. Being in this position was described by McNaulty as \"bing like king of the universe\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. E.D. Wardo spoke of the planet being polluted with chemicals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack used his \"long second\" wristwatch to slow time down to a crawl all around him for a period of 10 seconds from his point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was in possession of a \"long second\" wristwatch to slow time down to a crawl all around him for a period of 10 seconds from his point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was stuck inside Dr. E.D. Wardo's asylum-like facility for teenage girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack rescued Alice from Dr. E.D. Wardo's asylum-like facility for teenage girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curly confided in Alice how he'd come to work in a \"loonie bin\" because he'd been in and out of them for most of his life, but he insisted that he wasn't crazy, even thought he clearly was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The recovering alcoholic Hap Ashby turned back to the bottle once he found out that some \"trancers\" were out to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lena warned Jack that she \"wasn't the sharing type\" when she caught him fooling around with his other wife Alice and then stormed off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Hap Ashby drunk at the wheel of Jack's Corvette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "give them a finger and they'll take the whole hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A homeless man who was given a charity hot dog requested that there be relish and mustard put on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw homeless people living on skid row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "For pro baseball pitcher Hap Ashby got loaded, dressed up in his old uniform, drove drunk down to skid row, and organized a game of pick up ball with the local drunks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. E.D. Wardo was getting his mental patients addicted to the scrib 78: the crack of the 23rd century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After some deliberation, Jack and his wife Alice determined that it was okay for them to make out even though her consciousness was inhabiting the body of a teenage girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and his 23rd century wife Alice bid their final farewell before she returned to her time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice returned to the future in a booth-like time machine, called a TCL chamber.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e3x14", "title": "Yellow", "date": "1991-08-28", "description": "In 1918, during World War I, General Kalthrob's son, the cowardly Lieutenant Martin Kalthrob requests a discharge from the army. Martin's father mentions that while he can't discharge his son, he agrees to transfer him away from the front if he completes a specific mission. Unfortunately, Martin's cowardice prevents him from warning the men under his command that German troops are approaching, and he leaves them all to die while he runs for his life. After the dying Sergeant Ripper exposes Martin's actions and labels him \"yellow\", Martin is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death by firing squad. The night before Martin's execution, General Kalthrob tells his son that he has swapped the bullets with blanks, so that Martin can survive the planned execution and escape to a new life, provided that he faces death with dignity.\n\nNote: This is the only episode of the entire series to run longer than 30 minutes. It is also the first episode featured that was produced as part of the failed Two-Fisted Tales spinoff. Director Robert Zemekis used this episode to pay homage to Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film Paths of Glory, which also starred Kirk Douglas and featured some similar themes. Father-and-son actors Kirk and Eric Douglas portray father and son on screen.\n\nDirected by: Robert Zemeckis. Story by: Jim Thomas and John Thomas & Gilbert Adler and A. L. Katz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cowardice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the \"yellow\" Lieutenant Martin Kalthrob being condemned to death by his father, General Kalthrob, for cowardice on the battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "General Kalthrob sorely wanted his son, Lieutenant Martin Kalthrob, to be a courageous model of a soldier. The general was devastated when his son proved to be a yellow-bellied coward. He summarily condemned his son to be shot by a firing squad and tricked him into facing it with heroic dignity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is General Kalthrob dealing with his son, Martin, being a disgrace to the uniform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told from the point of view of an American division, fighting in the trenches on the Western Front of this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown gruesome aspects of trench warfare in the World War I era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown American soldiers trying their best to survive in the trenches of the Western Front.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Condemned to death for cowardice by his own father, Martin faced the firing squad with a brave face only because the dad assured him that he secretly loaded the rifles blanks. It was only at the last moment when Martin realized he father lied to him in order that he might die with dignity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "When trying to send his son on a mission to repair the telegraph line, the General Kalthrob was taken aback to learn that his son was a yellow-bellied coward. The viewer is made to ponder if General Kalthrob ordered his own cowardly son to be shot by a firing squad to show his men that he was not playing favorites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Kalthrob recognized that his son's yellow-bellied antics was a cancer in his army unit, and dealt with him accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Convinced that the firing squad would have only blanks in their chambers, Martin conducted himself with poise and dignity as a man in uniform ought to at his moment of death. Little did he know that this was just what his father had intended and that the rounds presently to be fired at Martin were very much live and lethal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seems Martin was eternally wrestling with this dilemma and coming up with \"flee\" despite the betrayals it necessitated, and the social stigma it entailed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin was found guilty of cowardice, by his own father of all people, in a hastily arranged tribunal and sentenced to death by firing squad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Kalthrob gazed up at a crucifix in a bombed out Catholic church prior to visiting his condemned son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Catholic priest blessed Martin before his execution.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Until the End of the World (1991)", "title": "Until the End of the World", "date": "1991-09-12", "description": "Set at the turn of the millennium in the shadow of a world-changing catastrophe, the follows two lovers as they are pursued across the globe, in a plot involving a device to record memories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_End_of_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claire and Sam fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry invented a kind of memory recorder that he used to let his blind wife see recordings of other people's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henri built a special device that enabled his blind wife, Edith, to see memories that'd been recorded from the brain of his son and also Claire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire involved herself with a couple of bank robbers by carrying their stolen cash to Paris in exchange for a cut of the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire spoke to her friend Makiko over a futuristic video pay phone. In general, multiple people communicated over futuristic, albeit bulky videophones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eugene was working on a novel which he completed by the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam used his father's memory recorded to record places and people around the world to show his blind mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had a rocky relationship with his father, Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry made it his life's work to make a device that would enable his blind wife to see the recorded memories of other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry pointedly mourned the passing of his beloved wife, Edith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was having a hard time getting over the death of his young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry repurposed his memory recorder into a dream recorded in the tail end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire became hopelessly addicted to viewing recordings of her own dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film closed with Claire working aboard a small space station in orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 964 Pinocchio (1991)", "title": "964 Pinocchio", "date": "1991-09-14", "description": "A young, homeless woman takes under her care a memory-wiped sex slave cyborg who'd been thrown out by his owners for failure to maintain an erection. The film was released in the United Kingdom as Screams of Blasphemy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/964_Pinocchio" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a mind-wiped cyborg, named 964 Pinocchio, who falls under the care of a young, homeless woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a mind-wiped cyborg, named 964 Pinocchio, who falls under the care of a young, homeless woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young woman Himiko was living on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Himiko shoplifted food from a supermarket, and an assortment of supplies from a hardware store.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x01", "title": "Redemption II", "date": "1991-09-23", "description": "A fleet of 23 Federation ships blockades Romulan support to the Duras family, resulting in Gowron's installation as Chancellor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard initially did not assign Data command of a ship, but after Data questioned him about the omission, Picard gave him command of the Sutherland. Data's first officer aboard the Sutherland was extremely bigoted against his new android captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard mediates between rival Klingon factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Kurn :: Worf and Kurn want to redeem their father's soiled reputation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Kurn :: Worf and Kurn want to redeem their father's soiled reputation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingon civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingon civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data's team must cooperate to achieve their mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Kurn :: Worf and Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lursa, B'Etor :: Lursa and B'Etor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Toral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf refused to kill the young usurper to the Klingon chancellorship when the rightful chancellor commanded him to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon :: Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Klingon feasting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Christopher Hobson :: Data and Hobson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data steps up and asks Picard to grant him command of a ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data among prejudiced Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data's choice in whether to take action against possible Romulan incursion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Data :: Picard and Data in their respective leadership roles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurn :: Kurn at Gowron", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gowron was accused of rewriting the Klingon history books", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mindwarp (1991)", "title": "Mindwarp", "date": "1991-09-28", "description": "In post-apocalyptic 2037, a young woman is banished from the comfortable confines of a sealed biosphere and must navigate her way in a desolate wasteland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindwarp_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in the year 2037, after the loss of the ozone layer has left most of the planet a desolate wasteland scattered with highly radioactive \"Death Zones\", except for several areas that still flourish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Inworld spent all their time plugged in via implants in their necks, living through virtual reality fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Inworld spent all their time plugged in via implants in their necks, living through virtual reality fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutant people lived underground because the Earth's surface was largely uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the human population has been reduced to Crawlers, mutated cannibalistic underground dwellers who have lost their intelligence and speak only in grunts and mine garbage dumps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judy and Stover were held captive by the Seer and his mutant followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the Seer turned out to be Judy's father, and moreover, he insisted that he must impregnate her to save the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Seer and his mutant followers were consuming human flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers from the mushroom clouds shown at the film's opening that it is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future when it was hazardous to be on Earth's surface in part because of high ultraviolet radiation levels owing to the ozone layer having been blown away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Inworld spent all their time plugged in via implants in their necks, living through virtual reality fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy's mother was so into the Inworld virtual reality system that she didn't even remember Judy's name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stover showed Judy how to survive in the desolate wasteland that was the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stover deflowered Judy in a night of passionate lovemaking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Seer plucked out young Claude's eye, hurled her into an industrial meat grinder, and then everyone ritually drank her blood from human skulls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy's father tried to coerce her into having babies with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judy was really into Stover until he got infected with parasites that turned him dangerously insane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x02", "title": "Darmok", "date": "1991-09-30", "description": "Picard must learn to communicate with an alien captain who speaks in metaphors before a dangerous beast kills them both. Guest star Paul Winfield as Dathan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Dathon :: Picard and Dathon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Children of Tama :: the alien's metaphorical language was radically different from anything yet devised on Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard and Dathon spoke different languages but had to find a way to communicate in order to defeat the electromagnetic beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "the alien's metaphorical language was radically different from anything yet devised on Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Dathon :: dangerous beast conflict", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard said", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Dathon :: Picard and Dathon mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Dathon :: Picard and Dathon vs. electromagnetic beast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "universal translator used to try to communicate with aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dathon :: Dathon gave his life in an effort to establish communication with Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: safety first with Riker's handling of the situation on the surface", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electromagnetic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electromagnetic Beast of El-Adrel :: Electromagnetic Beast of El-Adrel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard grieved for his new comrade, Dathon, who'd died battling the electromagnetic beast on the planet El-Adrel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Dathon :: electromagnetic beast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dathon :: Dathon to Picard with the fire", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x03", "title": "Ensign Ro", "date": "1991-10-07", "description": "After an attack on a Federation outpost, Picard is sent to locate a Bajoran terrorist, with the help of Ensign Ro Laren.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Maquis were terrorists in the eyes of the Federation and freedom fighters in the eyes of the Ro Laren and the Bajorans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro to Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajoran terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Riker about how to handle Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro about her Bajoran roots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Kennelly was perpetrating a conspiracy all along", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the third moon of Valo I", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kennelly made a deal with Bajoran terrorists to supply them with arms, in flagrant violation of the Prime Directive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren/Guinan :: Ro and Guinan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker initially objected to Ro wearing a special earring while dressed in uniform, but he came to accept it after finding out that wearing one was an important part of Bajoran culture. He also found it peculiar to learn that Bajorans put their first names after their surnames.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Ro Laren :: Riker and Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orta :: Bajoran terrorist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against ex-convicts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew against Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro's demeanor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian :: Cardassians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x04", "title": "Silicon Avatar", "date": "1991-10-14", "description": "The crew, with the help of a scientist whose son lived on Data's home world, attempt to communicate with the Crystalline Entity .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila against Crystalline Entity for killing her son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: Crystalline Entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: Crystalline Entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crystalline being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: Crystalline Entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila Marr at Crystalline entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard was faced with the prospect of having to kill the Crystalline Entity in to save the Enterprise and its crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard was faced with the prospect of having to kill the Crystalline Entity in to save the Enterprise and its crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila with killing Crystalline Entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila for Crystalline entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to exist of a genocidal people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the murderous, but perhaps unique in the universe, spaceborne being known as the Crystalline Entity be allowed to exist?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise crew made efforts to communicate with the crystalline life form using a special wave frequency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crystalline Entity :: crew made effort to see the situation from the entity's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Kila Marr :: Kila and Data must cooperate in their investigation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila harbored feelings of animosity toward the android Data since his brother Lore had aided and abetted the entity that killed her son. Her attitude is to be considered prejudiced on account that there is no indication she would have resented Data had he been a flesh and blood person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila/Renny :: Kila and Renny", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr had lost her son in an attack by the Crystalline Entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logarithmic scale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data pointedly suggested using a logarithmic scale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila to dead son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila at crystalline entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people waiting in cavern while entity wreaks havoc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kila Marr :: Kila", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data duplicated Renny's voice", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991)", "title": "Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees", "date": "1991-10-21", "description": "Some bees implant a man with a special bee television that enables him to see the world from a new perspective.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_or_the_Discovery_of_Television_Among_the_Bees" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the film is, above all else, a condemnation of the killing of civilians with smart bombs that took place during the Gulf War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the film is, above all else, a condemnation of the killing of civilians with smart bombs that took place during the Gulf War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The use of poison gas in World War I was touched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The use of poison gas in World War I was touched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Maker was living with his wife Melissa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Maker recounted the story of Cain and Abel. He also rambled about the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Maker visited the site of the Trinity nuclear test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Maker was told the the Mesopotamian bees had come to Basra by way of a cave that led to the center of the Earth, and that at the center of the Earth there was a planet that Jacob would one day visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob Maker died in a cave and experienced life in a strange afterworld.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x05", "title": "Disaster", "date": "1991-10-21", "description": "The Enterprise is without power, trapping Picard in a turbolift with three children and trapping others in various locations. Command of the bridge falls to Counselor Troi , who feels ill-prepared.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi forced to make life or death decisions in the face of uncertainty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Picard :: Data and Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi forced to make life or death decisions in the face of uncertainty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the members of each respective team must cooperate in order to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi in command on the bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "major", "motivation": "separate saucer section and leave or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data removes his own head to save Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "the members of each respective team must cooperate in order to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi in command on the bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: O'Brien at Keiko in Ten Forward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro under Troi's command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "quantum filament", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about children before accident", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "children on elevator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "all three isolated groups", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise children presented science projects at Captain Picard Day", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein: The College Years (1991)", "title": "Frankenstein: The College Years", "date": "1991-10-28", "description": "Two college students revive Frankenstein's monster.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein:_The_College_Years" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster got a taste of college life after being revived from a 150 or so years of lying dormant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster got a taste of college life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two college roommates, named Mark and Jay, who revive Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a college student and a professor as they compete to find a serum that prevents organ rejection upon transplantation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films opens with a scene of Professor Lippzigger dancing around in a lab coat in his basement laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral service was held for Professor Lippzigger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster became a kicker on the college football team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aspiring med school student Mark was working on improving Victor von Frankenstein's organ rejection prevention serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "College dorm roommates Mark and Jay harnessed the power of electricity to revive Frankenstein's monster in a basement laboratory. The monster referred to an electrical discharge as its \"mama\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating an explosion at Professor Lippzigger's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things got a bit hot and heavy between Jay and Aadi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x06", "title": "The Game", "date": "1991-10-28", "description": "Wesley visits the Enterprise , but finds the crew addicted to a mind-altering computer game. Guest star Ashley Judd as Robin Lefler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the video game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley/Robin Lefler :: Wesley and Robin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley, Robin Lefler :: Wesley and Robin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley, Robin Lefler :: Wesley and Robin mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone on the Enterprise gets addicted to a mind control video game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: the game, but also Troi about chocolate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "video game addicted people were pretty much zombies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley and Robin Lefler faced the inexplicable adversity of the rest of the crew behaving weirdly around them and in a threatening way. They soon realized that the threat stemmed from an addictive video game that made its players try to push the game on others. In the end it was revealed that the game was a plot perpetrated by nefarious aliens who wanted to take over the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "gamers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "entire crew tried to get Wesley to play the game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew-members became mind controlled one by one except for Wesley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly, Wesley :: Beverly with Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "stellar physicists and planetary evolution team must learn to work together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Etana Jol :: Etana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew face Enata", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi with chocolate fudge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley and Robin initially had no idea why everyone aboard the Enterprise was acting strangely, but they soon put two and two together, realizing it was owing to a new game that had grown popular among the crew members.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x07", "title": "Unification I", "date": "1991-11-04", "description": "Spock is reported to have defected to the Romulans. Picard and Data travel to Romulus on a cloaked Klingon vessel to investigate.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Sarek and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock was thought to have been a spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcan/Romulan :: Vulcan and Romulan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Spock and Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock's loyalty to Vulcans in question", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: various in Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek about Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Romulan underground movement fought against the oppressive rule of the Romulan senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard confided in Data that he \"felt the effects\" of Sarek's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gowron was literally rewriting Klingon history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klim Dokachin :: the Zakdorn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock was thought to have defected from the Federation to the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek to Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zakdorn Klim Dokachin took a supercilious attitude toward his job as a space junk yard quartermaster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x08", "title": "Unification II", "date": "1991-11-11", "description": "Spock attempts to unify the Vulcans and Romulans in peace, but falls into a Romulan trap.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock was cultivating an underground movement on Romulus to oppose the oppressive government there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vulcan/Romulan :: Vulcan and Romulan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spock was helping a social movement get going on Romulus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Sarek and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek/Spock :: Sarek and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Spock :: Picard and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock with his cowboy diplomacy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarek :: Sarek at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "undercover on Romulus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock in Romulan politician", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock with his cowboy diplomacy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the young unification politicians and the old guard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock lamented the death of his father, Sarek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock was a role model for Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard commiserated with Spock over the death of Sarek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans face Romulan invaiding force", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock with the cowboy diplomacy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock :: Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard surgically altered to look like a Romulan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird (1991)", "title": "And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird", "date": "1991-11-15", "description": "Two brothers attempt to invent a fully mobile robot with advanced artificial intelligence to help their mother with household chores.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_You_Thought_Your_Parents_Were_Weird" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the Carson brother, Josh and Max, as the mobile, helper robot they invent becomes inhabited by the consciousness of their deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Carson brothers, Josh and Max, invented a mobile, helper robot (named Newman) that became inhabited by the consciousness of their deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about two grieving brothers whose recently deceased father's consciousness inhabits a helper robot they'd built in an effort to put things right with his family. The inventor father son team of Walter and Dwayne Kotzwinkle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah was and her two adolescent sons Josh and Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah was struggling to support her two adolescent sons, John and Max, owing to her husband having died unexpectedly two years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The consciousness of Matt Carson inhabited the Carson family mobile, helper robot in an effort to set things right in the wake of Matt's unexpected death two years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah was reunited with the consciousness of her dearly departed husband, Matt, which was inhabiting the family mobile, helper robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Carson brothers, Josh and Max, as they invent a mobile, helper robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josh resented his deceased father for leaving the family in financial turmoil in the wake of what everyone presumed was his suicide. However, the consciousness of his father set the record straight while inhabiting the family helper robot: His death was an accident, not a suicide. As a result, Josh got over his resentment toward his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each Carson brother, Josh and Max, was coming to terms with the death of their father two years prior in their own way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inventor Walter Kotzwinkle uttered the phrase \"that's by boy\" twice about his inventor son Dwayne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Carson brothers, Josh and Max, rivaled with the father and son inventor duo of Walter and Dwayne Kotzwinkle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TV reporter Alice Woods was working to get a scoop on the Carson brother's mobile, helper robot story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh and Beth used a ouija board to communicate with the consciousness of Josh's recently deceased father and also with Einstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was helping a high school teacher teach a computer programming class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth's teen crush on Josh was reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth was head over heels for Josh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Carson's consciousness in the mobile, helper robot Newman set the record straight: Matt didn't commit suicide, rather he died driving off the road while trying to avoid hitting a skunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah was hard enough up for money that she accepted half of her sons' $1000 in contest winnings. Sarah told her two sons that they'd need to sell the house because they could no longer afford it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The consciousness of Matt Carson in the Carson family mobile, helper robot said his goodbyes to his wife and sons before returning to what one gathers was Heaven at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x09", "title": "A Matter of Time", "date": "1991-11-18", "description": "An apparent historian from the 26th century visits the Enterprise , while they help a planet prevent a nuclear winter . Guest star Matt Frewer as Berlinghoff Rasmussen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: if Picard does nothing and thousands must die, take action and millions might die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rasmussen traveled to the Enterprise from the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: if Picard does nothing and thousands must die, take action and millions might die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Berlinghoff Rasmussen played himself off as a time traveler from the 26th century as part of an elaborate plot to steal Enterprise technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 20th conman Berlinghoff Rasmusen hatched a schemed to return to his own time with a cache of stolen 24th century technology. This he would use to amass a great fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard contemplated breaking it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew at Rasmussen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rasmussen butter up the Enterprise crew as part of a ploy to steal their advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Berlinghoff Rasmusen :: Rasmussen to Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penthara IV :: impact lead to nuclear winter on Penthara IV", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rasmusen was astonished to find Data listening to four separate musical compositions at the same time. Data explained that he was capable of distinguishing between as many as 150 simultaneously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi remains on surface in spite of danger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Berlinghoff Rasmusen :: Rasmussen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Beverly, Geordi :: crew about knowledge of future", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard lost it with Rasmussen in readyroom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: crew to Rasmussen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew helped to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on Penthara IV enough to prevent nuclear winter-like conditions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dollman (1991)", "title": "Dollman", "date": "1991-11-27", "description": "A tough as old boots, 13-inch-tall space cop pursues his disembodied head nemesis to the South Bronx.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollman_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 13-inch-tall space cop Brick Bardo found himself in a gang infested neighborhood in the South Bronx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The South Bronx neighborhood residents were as giants to the 13-inch-tall space cop Brick Bardo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 13-inch-tall space cop Brick Bardo and his disembodied head nemesis Sprug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a gang infested South Bronx neighborhood that was plagued by endemic street crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A street gang was causing all sorts of trouble for the law abiding people of the South Bronx neighborhood the gang members called home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brick Bardo was working as a policeman on his home planet of Arturos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brick Bardo lost patience with a man who was holding a number of people hostage at gunpoint in a laundromat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villain Sprug was a disembodied head that floated around with the aid of a thruster device of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sprug traveled 10,000 light years to Earth in a flying saucer type spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brick Bardo pursued the criminal Sprug 10,000 light years from their homeworld of Arturos all the way to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debi ran a small time drug pusher off the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debi was as raising a young son named Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debi was raising her young son, Kevin, on her own, and was struggling to pay rent and buy food on the salary she was earning from her job at the toxic waste processing planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin played with the 13-inch-tall space cop's spaceship, and invited his school friend over to see the alien for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debi was working shifts at a toxic waste processing plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin brought his classmate over to his apartment to see the 13-inch-tall man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)", "title": "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", "date": "1991-12-06", "description": "After the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis leads the Klingon Empire to pursue peace with their long-time adversary the Federation, the crew of the USS Enterprise must race against unseen conspirators with a militaristic agenda. It is the sixth feature film based on Star Trek, and a sequel to the 1966–1969 Star Trek television series. Taking place after the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, it is the last film featuring the entire cast of the original series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard star ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons were left with 50 years to live on their home world in the wake of a massive industrial explosion on their moon Praxus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "The destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis led the Klingon Empire to pursue peace with their long-time adversary the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis led the Klingon Empire to pursue peace with their long-time adversary the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace process", "level": "major", "motivation": "The destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis led the Klingon Empire to pursue peace with their long-time adversary the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk hated Klingons because, among other things, they killed his son David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a giant space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chancellor Gorkon and Azetbur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the Klingon expressed concern that joining the Federation would spell an end to Klingon culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The transporters abode the Enterprise and Klingon Bird of Prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A direct torpedo hit threw out the artificial gravity aboard Gorkon's Klingon Bird of Prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk was put on a show trial by the Klingons on the charge of assassinating Chancellor Gorkon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and McCoy were sentenced to hard labor on the mining asteroid Rura Penthe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gorkon's assassins wore magnetic boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and McCoy plotted their escape from the asteroid gulag Rura Penthe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk came to regret not having taken Gorkon at his word, and more generally he came to see the folly of hating all Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martia was a shapeshifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valeris betrayed Kirk, Spock, and the Federation by conspiring with a Klingon faction to sabotage the peace process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock mind-melded with Valeris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Klingon Bird of Prey that could fire while cloaked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Worf defended Captain Kirk at a show trial by on by the Klingons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Critters 3 (1991)", "title": "Critters 3", "date": "1991-12-11", "description": "Some Critters run amok inside an apartment building. It is the third installment in the Critters franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Critters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Critters ran amok inside an apartment building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was uncovered that the Critters were of alien origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annie was disappointed in her father over his complacent approach not only to parenting, but also to life in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clifford was bummed out from two years of raising his kids without their mother who had passed on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three youngsters faced various problems as they fought for their lives against the Critters. Josh had a turbulent relationship with his stepfather, but then felt bad when the Critters killer the old man. Annie and Johnny had to deal with life together with their bummed out single dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Briggs was hoping his stepson Josh would follow in his footsteps and one day become a ruthless landlord like him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clifford was a bummed out, complacent single dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien bounty hunter's spaceship was shown in a flashback scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Menges was spouting wild speculations about aliens being on Earth. For example, he claimed that the government had discovered an alien graveyard in the Grand Canyon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie and her kid brother Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny and his bummed out dad Clifford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ruthless landlord Briggs had come to the apartment building to evict Clifford and his kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clifford was more interested in watching \"moronic situational comedies\" on television, than caring for his kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh lamented having wished his stepfather dead after it was discovered that the man had been killed by the Critters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Menges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw John and his mother briefly at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991)", "title": "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", "date": "1991-12-14", "description": "Some seemingly benevolent time travelers arrive in Japan looking for help to alter the past to make it so that Godzilla had never existed. It is the 18th film in the Godzilla franchise, and is the third film in the franchise's Heisei period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._King_Ghidorah" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film explores how a dinosaur living on a secluded island in the South Pacific was mutated into Godzilla in 1954 after a hydrogen bomb test on the island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some time travelers from the year 2204 traveled back to 1991, and subsequently 1944, in an effort to alter history to make it so that Godzilla had never existed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some time travelers from the year 2204 traveled back to 1991, and subsequently 1944, in an effort to alter history to make it so that Godzilla had never existed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The iconic giant dinosaur-like monster Godzilla. The three headed dragon-like monster King Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla and King Ghidorah rained down destruction across Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear proliferation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many warnings were made about the dangers of nuclear weapons, power generation, and waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The science fiction writer Kenichiro Terasawa was writing a book about Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some were quick to jump to the conclusion that an unidentified object that appeared in the sky over Japan was in fact an alien spaceship. It turned out to be a flying saucer shaped time machine carrying back some human visitors from the 23rd century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers visited a South Pacific island in 1944 in the middle of a battle between the United States and the Japanese in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers appeared in holographic form to Japanese deputation that came to make contact with them outside of their time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers used a flying saucer-like vehicle to travel from the year 2204 to 1991 and subsequently 1944.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Godzilla was created as a direct result of a 1954 H-bomb test in the South Pacific.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers were accompanied by the M-11 android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The commander of the Lagos garrison of the Japanese Army expressed pride in his nation in the lead up a battle with American forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers teleported the dinosaur that would become Godzilla from its home on Lagos Island to a location on the bottom of the Bering sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers warned the Japanese about the dangers of nuclear waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emmy (with the assistance of the M-11 android) converted King Ghidorah's carcass into a cyborg which she controlled from within in the final showdown against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time travelers flew around in a futuristic aircraft that had elements of both a jet and a helicopter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenichiro Terasawa was surprised when the time traveler Emmy ultimately revealed that she was his distant descendant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x04", "title": "Death Hits the Jackpot", "date": "1991-12-15", "description": "Down-on-his-luck photographer Freddy Brower wins a $30 million lottery. But he wants to keep the money a secret from his wife Nancy, who is divorcing him, so that she cannot make a claim for the money. Freddy goes to his uncle, wealthy jeweler Leon Lamarr, who offers to pretend that the lottery ticket is his own until Freddy's divorce is finalized. Unfortunately, that is where Freddy's luck runs out: he does not know that Lamarr has recently gone bankrupt, and is also having an affair with Nancy. Lamarr decides to kill Freddy to keep the lottery winnings for himself. He schedules a Halloween costume party at his house, during which he sneaks out to Freddy's apartment, knocks him out, undresses him, then drowns him in his bathtub. Nancy calls Lamarr during the party pretending to be Freddy.\n\nFinal clue/twist: The night of the murder, Brower was taking care of a friend's chimpanzee. Columbo learns that the chimp liked to handle shiny objects, and finds the chimp's fingerprints on a medallion that was part of Lamarr's Halloween costume, proving that Lamarr was at Brower's apartment that night. When confronting Lamarr, Columbo calls Nancy in to thank her for her \"cooperation\" and to let her know she will be the sole beneficiary of the winnings. Columbo knew Lamarr would think Nancy has implicated him, so Lamarr not only confesses to the murder, but reveals Nancy's involvement in the crime.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Jeffrey Bloom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The well-off jeweler Leon Lamarr drowned his nephew, Freddy Brower, in Freddy's own bathtub and made it look like a slip and fall accident. He did this to keep a $30 million lottery windfall he rightly owed Freddy. To secure an airtight alibi, Leon arranged for a lavish costume party to be held at his mansion on the night of Halloween. He dressed up as George III and slipped out to pay Freddy a fated visit with none being the wiser. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo and another meddlesome primate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The already well-off jeweler Leon Lamarr drown his nephew in a bathtub to keep from having to pay out a $30 million lottery windfall he rightly owed the nephew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns Leon Lamarr drowning his \"favorite nephew\" Freddy Brower in the bathtub to maintain possession of a $30 million lottery windfall that rightly belonged to Freddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did Freddy Brower perish in a bathtub slip and fall accident, or was a greedy uncle perhaps involved?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spendthrift photographer Freddy Brower won $30,435,885 in the lottery. He planned to take up residence in Switzerland and buy a fancy sports car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns Leon Lamarr drowning his \"favorite nephew\" Freddy Brower in the bathtub to maintain possession of a $30 million lottery windfall that rightly belonged to Freddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Leon Lamarr was secretly carrying on with his nephew's estranged wife, Nancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Leon Lamarr maintained a sexual relationship with his nephew's estranged wife, Nancy, and he also make her an accomplice in the nephew's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leon and Martha Lamarr held a lavish Halloween costume party at their mansion. Martha was elated to find out that Leon had apparently won the lottery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freddy took measures to ensure that a $30 million windfall did not factor into his divorce settlement with Nancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freddy was a photographer by trade, and was shown developing chimp photos in a darkroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leon held an exclusive millionaires-only Halloween costume party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freddy was chimp-sitting for a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leon shed alligator tears for his \"favorite nephew\" Freddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nancy told Columbo that she \"didn't feel a great loss\" for her estranged husband, Freddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leon alleged that Freddy's drinking problem may have led to his apparent bathtub slip and fall accidental death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freddy was laid to rest in the Christian tradition. Freddy's friends held a spontaneous wake for him after the funeral service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-proclaimed poet Trish read a poem, presumably of her own composition, at Freddy's funeral.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Neon City (1991)", "title": "Neon City", "date": "1991-12-16", "description": "In a near-future where the world has suffered extensive ecological damage, a group of people set out from the wastelands to reach a refuge known as Neon City.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future ecologically destroyed world, and follows a small group of people who attempt to reach a refuge known as Neon City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future ecologically destroyed world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Reno got over a mutual hostility and ended up felling passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a serial killer among the group of people seeking to reach Neon City who was pretending to be a doctor. By the time they'd gotten to Neon City, he murdered, one by one, more of the party members than not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was a remorselessly murdered a number of people in demented fashion, and raped Reno without showing a modicum of regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderous mutant raiders roamed the lawless wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zandar's experiments were said to have blown a hole in the ozone layer that kept getting bigger and bigger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was the closest thing that passed for a physician in the godforsaken, ecologically destroyed wastelands around Neon City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom forced himself upon Reno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly distressed Reno described to Harry how she'd been \"rented out\" to adults as a twelve-year-old child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While Zander had invented an intensified for the common laser in an effort to end all war, it was ultimately used to destroy the ecology of the entire Earth. Tom likened his invention to gunpowder and the atom bomb in so far as he claimed that the inventors of those weapons also said they'd invented them for good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Annie was reunited with her father in Neon City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Annie was reunited with her father in Neon City.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timescape (1991)", "title": "Timescape", "date": "1991-12-21", "description": "Timescape, released on video as Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, is an American science fiction film about a group of mysterious tourists who visit a sleepy town. It is loosely based on the 1946 novella \"Vintage Season\" by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore (writing as Lawrence O'Donnell).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timescape_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was raising Hillary as a single dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben was raising Hillary as a single dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of tourists from the future paid a visit to a small town to witness it getting struck by a large meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben from the future was raving about a meteor being about to hit the town, but people thought he was mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben teamed up with a time traveling version of himself to save his daughter's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hillary was taken away from Ben against her wishes and sent to live with the town judge and his wife. Ben protested to the legal authorities of the town and scheduled a hearing with a view to regaining custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff locked up Ben from the future for ranting and raving about an imminent meteor strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sitting by the fireplace, Ben wistfully thumbed through some photos of his dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zeiram (1991)", "title": "Zeiram", "date": "1991-12-21", "description": "An alien bounty hunter and her AI partner come to Earth to do battle with the alien creature Zeiram.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeiram" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien bounty hunter Iria came to Earth to apprehend the alien monster Zeiram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bounty hunter Iria had an AI partner named Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien creature Zeiram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irai and Bob battled the alien monster Zeiram with the help of the two electric company employees Kamiya and Teppei.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kamiya and Teppei were teleported to a place called \"the Zone\" which was a replica of their town that was inhabited by a grotesque alien monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iria wore a special combat suit that functioned to generate little invisible shields whenever projectiles came her way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Zeiram was actually a forbidden biological weapon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Naked Lunch (1991)", "title": "Naked Lunch", "date": "1991-12-27", "description": "An exterminator comes under the delusion that he is a secret agent as a result of exposure to an insecticide. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the world through the eyes of a man who'd come under the delusion that he was a secret agent, who's boss was a giant talking beetle, as a result of exposure to an insecticide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill came under the delusion that he was a secret agent who was working under the orders of a giant talking beetle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill's giant talking beetle superior was a hallucination, as was the insectoid double agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant talking beetle was telling Bill what to do. Later Bill came under the influence of an outright insectoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill was under the influence of assorted mind-altering substances throughout the film. Bill's wife Joan was a drug addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The writings that Bill had sent back to his literary colleagues from a city located somewhere in North Africa were being compiled into a novel. Bill discussed some aspects of writing with his author acquaintance Tom. The story concludes with Bill telling some border guards that he is a writer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill accidentally shot dead her drug addicted wife early on in the story. Tom and Joan Frost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill returned home to find his wife having sex with their mutual friend on the sofa. Bill followed the giant talking beetle's instructions to seduce Tom's wife Joan, a doppelgänger of his dead wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While Bill maintained that he shot his wife dead accidentally in the process of attempting to shoot a drinking glass off her head, the giant talking beetle asserted that Bill had been programmed to pull the trigger. In any case, Bill fled to a city located somewhere in North Africa in the immediate aftermath of the killing, making this theme at least topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill took on a young, male lover, named Kiki, during his stay in a city located somewhere in North Africa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill came to the conclusion that his former physician, Dr. Benway was, in fact, the secret mastermind of a narcotics operation for a drug called \"black meat\" which was supposedly derived from the guts of giant Brazilian centipedes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill encountered a look-alike of his recently killed wife Joan in Tom's wife of the same name.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x01", "title": "The Earthmen", "date": "1992-01-03", "description": "Two expedition teams went to Mars were never heard from again. A third discovers why.\n\nDirected by: Graeme Campbell. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate that humans and, for example, Martians might fatally misunderstand each other due, for example, the Martians having telepathic abilities that humans do not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of space explorers sent from Earth to find out the fate of two previous expeditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. X thought that Captain Williams hallucinated the other humans into existence because Martians were telepathic and could do such things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians were naturally telepathic and had a society which reflected that fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured numerous purple-tinted, telepathic Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a brief speculation of what a Martian loony bin might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were several notable scenes regarding Captain Williams and his men's attitudes towards one and other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. X took out Captain Williams and his crew with a directed energy handgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. X took his own life in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x10", "title": "New Ground", "date": "1992-01-06", "description": "Worf tries to be a father to his son, Alexander, while the Enterprise helps to test a new propulsion technology.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf must raise an unruly Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf tells Alexander about it at length", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "soliton wave stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "soliton wave experiment has unforeseen consequences for distant planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf's son Alexander was having trouble adjusting to life aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was balancing caring for Alexander as a single father with his work duties aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf must discipline Alexander for stealing a lizard model and lying about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi hypothesized that Alexander's misbehaving in school was bound up with his inability to come to terms with the fact that his mother, K'Ehleyr, had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander at Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf encourages Alexander to embrace his Klingon heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the rhino and gilbos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf threatened to send Alexander to a Klingon school where he would learn some discipline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf had to deal with his unruly son Alexander.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf late for meeting with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the endangered species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf reflected back on his childhood days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf late for meeting with Picard because of parenting issues.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x02", "title": "Zero Hour", "date": "1992-01-10", "description": "Children are enlisted by invaders with a game that will help conquer the Earth.\n\nDirected by: Don McBrearty. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate about the shape an alien invasion might take. At the titular \"zero hour\" aliens were going to invade and, along with impressionable young children, destroy all adult humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to hypothesize that children disagree with the tyrannical ways of adults, to such an extent that they would willingly cooperate with invading aliens in order to wipe out all the adult humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mink explained everything to her mom but wasn't believed, and so the alien invasion went ahead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary initially dismissed her young daughter Mink's talk of an imminent alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Children were running around playing games, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed as if Mink had an imaginary friend, named Drill, throughout most of the story. It turned out that Drill was real, and a space alien to boot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mink's father said goodbye to her as he drove off to work in his yellow sports car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace on Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news anchor gave an update about the goings on at the World Peace Conference. The viewer is left to presume that war was a thing of the past in this near future world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary spoke to her sister, Helen, over a video display in her home office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Henry cowered in a storage room as the alien invasion got going.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Freejack (1992)", "title": "Freejack", "date": "1992-01-17", "description": "A race car driver is transported to the year 2009 by a man who plans to upload the mind of a wealthy man into his body. intoIt is a loose based on the 1959 science fiction novel Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freejack" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was transported to New York City of the year 2009 moments before he was about to die in a spectacular 1991 Formula One race car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian McCandless, was revealed to have died and sought to install his computer backed-up personality into Alex's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was transported to New York City of the year 2009 moments before he was about to die in a spectacular 1991 Formula One race car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex woke up 18 years in the future, found his old girlfriend, and they eventually rekindled their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian McCandless had a copy of his mind uploaded to a computer before he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the all-powerful McCandless Corporation was running the New York City of 2009 and perhaps more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and his ruthless bounty hunter Vacendak cultivated a mutual respect for one another, and in the end Vacendak helped him in his moment of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was enthusiastic about driving race cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motor sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was a Formula One race car driver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of surgeons were about to use their \"lomotomizer\" gizmo on Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth of 2009 had lost its ozone layer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor quipped that he wouldn't get his bounty on Alex should Alex drink any Hudson River water with the implication that the body of water was badly polluted. Other comment were made about the environment being polluted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that most people in 2009 New York City suffered from poor physical health in part as a result of rampant drug use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Most of the people in the New York City of 2009 lived in abject poverty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lives of the affluent few were contrasted with those of the huddled masses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian McCandless' uploaded mind inhabited a virtual reality environment on the 200th floor of the his skyscraper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x03", "title": "The Jar", "date": "1992-01-17", "description": "A farmer purchases a strange creature in a jar from a carnival sideshow, but becomes a danger when he finds out it's a fake.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was lowly Charlie using the spellbinding jar he purchased at a carnival to become the talk of the town, and the ongoing center of attention. People now ventured from afar to visit his humble shack. It is conceivable that Charlie's obsession with the jar was in part due to him overcompensating for his not being able to control his flagrantly unfaithful wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each townsperson saw what they wanted to see in the strange jar. For instance, Juke feared that the jar held the remains of a helpless kitten that his mother had forced him to drown in the river in his childhood. The bereaved Mrs. Tridden, by contrast, was adamant the body of her dead baby was in the jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie coped with his partner, Thedy, openly running around town with another man. Charlie and Thedy lived together, but whether they were married or not is unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thedy was carrying on a barely concealed affair with Tom Carmody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thedy carried on shamelessly with Tom Carmody right under her partner Charlie's nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Charlie being outed for killing his romantic partner and putting her severed head on display in the titular jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked wife stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thedy took pleasure in humiliating her meek husband in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople were fascinated about the contents of the titular jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie insinuated that Tom was jealous of him over his newfound fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juke expressed sorrow over having drown a kitten in his youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The carnie used his considerable talents to persuade Charlie into paying a whooping $40 (a considerable sum for Charlie) for a worthless jar with some mysterious goo-like like contents.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x04", "title": "Colonel Stonesteel and the Desperate Empties", "date": "1992-01-24", "description": "A young boy and his friend Colonel Stonesteel combat the end of summer doldrums by engaging in an elaborate hoax involving an ancient mummy that whips the whole town up in a frenzy.\n\nDirected by: Randy Bradshaw. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boredom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Stonesteel came up with the idea to pull a prank on the town, to combat his and Charlie's end of summer doldrums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Young Charlie had a special friendship with the elderly Colonel Stonesteel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Charlie and the titular old man Colonel Stonesteel perpetrated an elaborate hoax involving an ancient mummy that whipped their whole town up in a frenzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the adventures of a 12-year-old boy, who, bored over summer vacation, became a participant in an elaborate hoax that whipped his whole town into a frenzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead mummy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole town was made to believe that an Ancient Egyptian mummy was alive and on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie, a 12-year-old boy, resolved to be the world's greatest writer when he grew up. The story concluded with Charlie, now an adult, having realized his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie, a 12 year old boy, resolved to be the world's greatest writer when he grew up. The story concluded with Charlie, now an adult, having realized his dream. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local sheriff scoffed at notion that reading the hieroglyphic characters on the mummy's breastplate would bring it to life. But he was left shaking in his shoes when just that appeared to transpire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a media scrum about the escaped mummy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x11", "title": "Hero Worship", "date": "1992-01-27", "description": "Data saves the life of an orphaned boy, who begins to emulate him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data emulated by Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy coped with being the lone survivor of the Vico disaster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered around Timothy coming to grips with the sudden and unexpected deaths of his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data as a role model to Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy thought he was responsible for destroying the Vico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Timothy :: Data and Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy pretends to be an android to escape from his guilt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data of Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy's parents died on the Vico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Timothy :: Data and Timothy as android", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timothy was left traumatized by the unexpected and tragic death of his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timothy :: Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data and Timothy were painting in Data's quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppressed emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timothy took on the persona of an emotionless android in the aftermath of his mother's tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew toward Timothy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Timothy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x05", "title": "The Concrete Mixer", "date": "1992-01-31", "description": "Invaders from Mars land in an idyllic American town... and are welcomed with open arms, while also learning the true nature of the American way of life.\n\nDirected by: Eleanor Lindo. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main point of the story was to show how the totalitarian, militaristic, imperialistic an powerful society of the Martians succumbed to the culturally far more appealing patterns of life in contemporary America, much in the way that blue jeans and rock n' roll sometimes said to have conquered the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is premised on some invaders from Mars, bent on conquering Earth, landing in an idyllic town in the Midwestern United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians had a strict military order with severe censorship on disapproved literature. They were likely meant to be a reflection of the contemporary Soviet Union as seen through American eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian invader Ettile Vyre proceeded in trepidation, fearing a possible human hero likely named \"Rick\" would somehow thwart their invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians' invasion of Earth failed because all the Martians were seduced by the frivolous life available in the idyllic American town where they had happened to make landfall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on some invaders from Mars, bent on conquering Earth, landing in an idyllic town in the Midwestern United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian invaders struggled to comprehend the customs and hedonistic culture of the residents of the idyllic American town where they had made landfall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with the Martian Ettil Vyre awaiting his execution for refusing to go along on a mission to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian Ettil Vyre was swayed when his wife was brought in to witness his impending execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian Ettil Vyre had a heart to heart talk with his young son the night before Ettil left to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian invaders made the voyage to Earth in an gray, oblong vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Ettil communicated telepathically with his wife, Tylla, who was back on Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)", "title": "Tetsuo II: Body Hammer", "date": "1992-02", "description": "A Japanese salary man finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo_II:_Body_Hammer" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Tomoo's gradual transformation into a rage consumed, walking metal weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tomoo was determined to make the thugs who ran off with his son pay for their crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomoo and his wife Kana were at the heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Tomoo's inner rage fueling his metamorphosis into a gruesome metal weapon of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomoo's wife Kana was kidnapped and held hostage by a gang of thugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomoo inner rage was bound up with his having repressed the memory of having witnessed, when he was still a young boy, his father blow his own mother's brains out in a bizarre sex ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "It a surprise turn of events, it turned out that Tomoo's antagonist Yatsu was actually his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomoo's young son was whisked away by a couple of thugs before his very eyes. There was a flashback scene to Tomoo as a boy spending time with his deranged father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kana's young son was whisked away by a couple of thugs before his very eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of thugs ran off with Tomoo and Kana's young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The overweight man in a lab coat who was experimenting on Tomoo was literally named Mad Scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Tomoo and Young Yatsu witnessed their father blow their mother's brains out in a bizarre sex ritual involving the mother sucking on a handgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Tomoo murdered his father in a fit of rage after witnessing his father blow his mother's brains out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomoo had repressed the memory of having witnessed, when he was still a young boy, his father blow his own mother's brains out in a bizarre sex ritual.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x12", "title": "Violations", "date": "1992-02-03", "description": "An alien traveling aboard the Enterprise telepathically molests Troi and invades the minds of Beverly Crusher and William Riker .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ullians were telepathic historians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jev was portrayed as a cold blooded serial (mind) rapist without any empathy for his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tarmin/Jev :: Tarmin and Jev", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ullian :: Ullians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi about the psionic rape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi was psionically violated by Jev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ullians communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulians were memory archaeologists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko had a dream in which she was writing out Japanese kanji characters with a brush in the traditional fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard careful not to accuse the Ullians without evidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jev :: Jev the Rapist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to Ulians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tarmin :: Tarmin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tarmin, Inad :: Ulians in the merits of their psychic research", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jev :: Jev the Rapist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jev :: Jev the Rapist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi by psychic rape", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x06", "title": "The Utterly Perfect Murder", "date": "1992-02-07", "description": "A man was tormented by bullies in his youth. Fifty years later, he finally returns to get his revenge.\n\nDirected by: Stuart Margolin. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Doug intended to kill Ralph in revenge for childhood bullying he suffered at Ralph's hands five decades ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug intended to kill Ralph in revenge for childhood bullying he suffered at Ralph's hands five decades ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug was tormented by memories of being bullied as a child, and plotted revenge even five decades later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug was unable to let go of the past. He was tormented by memories of being bullied as a child, and plotted revenge even five decades later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug's wife made him breakfast the morning after his 60th birthday party bash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Ralph and the other boys tried to goad Doug into hurling a rock through one of Old Man Wiley's windows. This Doug had to do to get into Ralph and the boys' club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug changed his mind about killing Ralph in the end because he saw that time had treated Ralph poorly. Ralph was a tottering old man who scarcely remembered Doug.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost World (1992)", "title": "The Lost World", "date": "1992-02-09", "description": "The film follows six intrepid explorers who risk life and limb to reach a secluded region of Africa where dinosaurs still exist. It is based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A party of six explorers found a secluded region of Central Africa where dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A party of six explorers found a secluded region of Central Africa where dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A party of six explorers journeyed deep into Africa where they found a secluded region where dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Summerlee organized and led an exploratory expedition to Central Africa to prove his rival, Professor Challenger, wrong in his contention that he'd found a secluded land where dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Challenger and Summerlee were both stereotypically haughty, British professors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The junior reporter Edward Malone went on the expedition to Central Africa out of a self-expressed desire to make a name for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The junior reporter Edward Malone explicitly stated that he wanted to go on the expedition to Africa because he wanted a challenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Summerlee expedition member Edward Malone was a junior reporter for the London Gazette, but he did very little in the way of journalism on the trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny Nelson stood up to Professor Summerlee when he insisted that she couldn't join his expedition team on account that she was a woman, and she ultimately got her way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experienced wildlife photographer Jenny Nielson accompanied the Summerlee expedition as its official photographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tribe of skeleton painted men sacrificed some people to the carnivorous dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romance was in the air when Edward Malone and Malu were together, and Malu bid him farewell with a more than friendly kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x13", "title": "The Masterpiece Society", "date": "1992-02-10", "description": "The Enterprise helps a far-flung eugenic human colony avoid destruction, but upsets its delicate balance by ending 200 years of isolation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The titular masterpiece society was a colony where every individual had been genetically engineered for a predetermined role. Its members regarded themselves as a perfect community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi/Aaron Connor :: Troi and Connor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "colonists maintained strict genetically engineered caste system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin wanted nothing to do with the Federation vs. conor was lukewarm vs. Scientist who welcomed them with open arms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Conor vs. Hanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "one faction of the colonists wanted nothing to do with the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Moab IV colonists maintained a strict genetically engineered caste system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi contemplated leaving Enterprise to be with Conor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Riker discuss whether the Prime Directive applies since the colonists are Human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in redundancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The removal of any one individual from an isolated genetically engineered society stood to doom the society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "colonists maintained strict genetically engineered caste system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: should the drew violate the Prime Directive and grant asylum to the colonists?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hanna Bates :: Hanna wants to leave the colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a passing astronomical object", "level": "major", "motivation": "stellar core fragment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "one faction of the colonists wanted to leave the colony at great cost to the colony's well being", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colonists were genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "utopian experimental colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi was effectively blind without his VISOR device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron Conor :: Conor about the colonists not being top dogs in the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "colonists lived in an environmentally controlled domed city", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young man's playing of Chopin to a small audience was interrupted by a small earthquake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "liberal and conservative", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron Conor :: colonists to landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron Conor, Martin Benbeck :: Aaron Conor and Martin in their society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "colonists maintained strict genetically engineered caste system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron Conor and his fellow colonists were proud of the society they had constructed to a fault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron Conor and many of his followers refused to leave the colony that they were so proud of even though not doing so meant certain death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a predetermined life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hanna Bates coped with having her role in life decided before birth, as was the custom on her space colony.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x07", "title": "Let's Play Poison", "date": "1992-02-14", "description": "A teacher vows revenge after witnessing his star pupil's death due to bullying.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Pittman. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Howard witnessed the tragic death of his favorite student who was being chased by bullies. He decided to avenge himself on all children by being tyrannical in the classroom. The students then decided to avenge themselves on him, and bring about his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an elementary school teacher and his star pupil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Howard's pet pupil was bullied because of his bookish appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Howard was killed by students who were fed up with his tyrannical ways of running a classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Howard was devastated when his pet pupil, Michael, died tragically in a bullying incident at school. He kept Michael's pencil case as a memento, and was working on a scratchboard etching of the boy around the time of his own demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in elementary school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a portrayal of the type of bullying that might have transpired in a contemporary elementary school classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael was tormented by bullies at school. Mr. Howard's elementary school students coped with his reign of terror in the classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Howard clearly drank too much, and his intoxicated state of mind undoubtedly contributed to his demise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x05", "title": "No Time to Die", "date": "1992-02-15", "description": "Columbo attends the wedding of his police officer nephew Andy Parma. While Andy is showering, his new bride Melissa Hayes, a fashion model, is abducted from the bridal suite. Andy enlists Columbo's help in catching the kidnapper. Melissa has been kidnapped by Rudy Strassa, a sadistic psychopath who intends to kill her once he consummates \"their marriage\". This episode is based on the 87th Precinct novel So Long As You Both Shall Live by Ed McBain, although not credited as such. Uncharacteristically dark, this is the only episode in which no murder occurs and in which Columbo does not meet the criminal.\n\nDirected by: Alan J. Levi. Story by: Ed McBain, Robert van Scoyk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crime against the person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The sadistic lunatic Rudy Strassa abducted Melissa on her wedding night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned Rudy Strassa's unwholesome infatuation with the fashion model Melissa Hayes. He abducted her on her wedding night, and held her captive, declared her marriage invalid, and planned to marry her himself before slitting her throat from ear to ear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Melissa was held captive my a sadistic lunatic who was intent on slitting her throat from ear to ear, after consummating what he considered to be their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo led a police investigation to rescue his nephew's new bride from the clutches of a sadistic lunatic who was hellbent on slitting her throat from ear to ear after forcibly marrying her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy was devastated by the revelation that his bride had been kidnapped on their wedding night, and worked closely with his fellow law enforcement officers to effect her rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melissa was held captive my a sadistic lunatic who was intent on slitting her throat from ear to ear, after consummating what he considered to be their marriage. She took such measures to escape her captivity as applying vinegar to the rusted hinges of a door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Columbo and his nephew, Andy, as they team up to rescue Andy's new bride from the clutches of a sadistic lunatic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy and Melissa's wedding night was ruined when a sadistic lunatic kidnapped Melissa just minutes before the happy couple were to consummate their holy union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sadistic lunatic Rudy Strassa abducted Melissa and intended to have his way with her before slitting her throat from ear to ear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with Andy and Melissa's wedding party. Columbo reminisced about waltzing with Mrs. Columbo at their wedding reception which the viewer learns had been held in an Italian restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melissa bid her mother a good night at the wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex Varrick was a professional photographer. He was the official photographer at Andy and Melissa's wedding. Columbo noted that Alex's white chinagraph pencil's were very handy for marking up photographs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x14", "title": "Conundrum", "date": "1992-02-17", "description": "The crew's memory is erased, and they discover they are being manipulated into being the key part of a war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about following his orders to destroy the Lysian base", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about following his orders to destroy the Lysian base", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if we all lost our memories", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise crew had to regroup after everyone lost their memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker, Ro Laren :: Riker and Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each Enterprise crew member, except for Data, was subjected to a total memory wipe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false flag operation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satarran's faked a Lysian attack against the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf upon finding out he was not the captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Ro Laren/Troi :: Riker/Ro/Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf after he found out he wasn't captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro dressed down by Riker in turbolift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lysian/Satarran :: Lysians and Satarrans", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x01", "title": "Holoship", "date": "1992-02-20", "description": "Rimmer is abducted by holograms of superior intelligence, and taken to a space vessel which is itself holographic. There Rimmer has a physical presence and twice-daily sex is a health requirement but emotional attachment is bad manners. Rimmer applies to join the crew, feeling that this is his chance of becoming an officer and getting a life. To do this he must pass an exam against a fellow hologram, which is complicated when he discovers his opponent is Nirvanah Crane (Jane Horrocks), a female hologram who's fallen for him.\n\nDirected by: Juliet May. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The protagonists watch a film in which someone sacrificed themeself for love. Rimmer's subsequent adventure with the holograms lead up to a parallel conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The protagonists watch a film in which someone sacrificed themeself for love. Rimmer's subsequent adventure with the holograms lead up to a parallel conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer had an opportunity to be an officer and a somebody, a great aspiration of his.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The holograms made no bones about that they thought themselves superior to flesh-and-blood people, the Red Dwarf crew most pointedly, in every way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer saw himself as a hopeless, half-witted, hideous failure in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly made only a brief appearance in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists were discussing the merits and demerits of some old black and white romantic sob-story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer thought it absurd that Jesus didn't apply his knack for magic tricks in show-business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer and Lister had an argument about love that began with some romantic sob film and ended with Jesus Christ and his \"love thy neighbor\" variety of this emotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer quipped about killing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that the crew spent most nights playing strip poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned Rimmer's peculiar friendship-like relationship with his fellow crew mates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open sexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loveless, guilt-free casual sex was the norm on the hologram people's ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer described himself as \"a sad and lonely guy\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer lamented that he was a failure in his parents' and brother's eyes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e5x08", "title": "The Martian", "date": "1992-02-21", "description": "A couple living on Mars encounter their dead son, with very mixed reactions.\n\nDirected by: Anne Wheeler. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "La Farge and Anna were astonished when their son, Tom, who'd been dead for 5 years, returned home in the middle of the night. Anna was overjoyed and welcomed Tom without question. La Farge immediately came to suspect that something was amiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "La Farge and Anna were struggling with having lost their son, Tom, some 5 years prior. They kept a photo of Tom on their bedroom dresser as a constant reminder of him. Imagine their surprise when Tom showed up at their home in the middle of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on a presumably married couple being reunited with their long-dead son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna was reunited with her long-dead son, Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "La Farge was reunited with his long-dead son, Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a telepathic Martian that manifested itself, willingly or unwillingly, as the dearly departed children of various human colonists of the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place on Mars in a small colony that resembled a stereotypical Midwestern United States town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea that Martians are telepathic and can appear in the guise of people we long to see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anna had trouble moving on from Tom's death. This made her susceptible to believe that the alien masquerading as Tom was in fact the real article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x15", "title": "Power Play", "date": "1992-02-24", "description": "Troi , O'Brien , and Data are possessed by entities who want control of the ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard negotiated with the disembodied prisoners who held much of his crew hostage in Ten Forward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The disembodied prisoners complained of ill-treatment at the hands of their captors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew face disembodied prisoners having taken hostages in Ten Forward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew to rescue hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko O'Brien :: hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prisoners of Mab-Bu VI :: disembodied prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mab-Bu VI moon :: disembodied prisoners were imprisoned on moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard with prisoners for hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face disembodied prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard volunteering as hostage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Keiko O'Brien :: Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko's husband Miles was possessed by a malevolent alien being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien, Keiko O'Brien :: Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko O'Brien :: Keiko at O'Brien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prisoners with disembodied and kept on prison moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prisoners to hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "prisoners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko O'Brien :: prisoners at prospect of returning to moon; hostages", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x02", "title": "The Inquisitor", "date": "1992-02-27", "description": "The Inquisitor is a time-traveling android who acts as judge, jury and executioner to those who have led worthless lives, and thus erases them from history. The Red Dwarf crew are next to appear before this judge to justify their existence. It does not look good for our crew of slobs, failures and misfits.\n\nDirected by: Juliet May & Grant Naylor. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "An android, known as the Inquisitor, was traveling around erasing those who'd led worthless lives from history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supreme judge being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each crew-member was made to justify their existence before the Inquisitor: a time traveling android who acted as judge, jury and executioner to those who'd led worthless lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story was that the Red Dwarf protagonists were space bums who had lead entirely worthless lives and would be judged for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly made only a brief appearance in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agamemnon's pursuit of Helen of Troy of the Iliad was mentioned and, outrageously, attributed to the Virgil's Aeneid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat saw his self-described \"beautiful ass\" as a gift to the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister crossed paths with a version of himself who'd never gotten a chance to exist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten went back in time to sacrifice himself somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The purpose of existence, according to the self-appointed judge of all people, was to to lead a worthwhile life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While interrogated by the Inquisitor they crew members, save for Cat, expressed shame over the worthless lives they'd lived.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)", "title": "Memoirs of an Invisible Man", "date": "1992-02-28", "description": "The film is loosely based on Memoirs of an Invisible Man, a 1987 novel by H.F. Saint.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_an_Invisible_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A laboratory mishap left Nick completely invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A laboratory mishap left Nick completely invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was on the run from the CIA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and Alice were crazy for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was phoning in bets on college basketball games while passing an evening at a classy bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick encountered a distraught man on the street who was rambling about having been fired from his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was visibly annoyed when George's friend tried to put the moves on Alice her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x16", "title": "Ethics", "date": "1992-03-02", "description": "Worf becomes paralyzed—and suicidal—and Dr. Crusher consults a risk-taking researcher to save his life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf wanted to end his life after becoming paralyzed in a freak accident. This was a source of much controversy among his family, friends, and fellow crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor assisted suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf wanted to end his life after being paralyzed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf suffered a total paralysis and wished to take his life as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf wanted to end his life after becoming paralyzed in a freak accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Toby Russell accused of violating the Hippocratic Oath with her risky treatments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toby Russell :: Worf's surgery; Toby Russell's risky medical treatments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Riker :: Worf and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans, Beverly and Riker in particular, could not stand idly by while Worf committed ritual suicide according to his people's custom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon :: Worf's Klingon view of ritual suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to commit suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toby Russell used risky experimental medical procedures on injured crewmen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life with a handicap vs. death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf contemplated suicide rather than living as a invalid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf's ego prevented him from wanting to live on as an invalid after he became paralyzed in a freak accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Crusher and Dr. Russell struggled to cure Worf from his paralyzed condition due to a crushed spinal cord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: crippled Worf contemplated suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Toby Russell :: Beverly and Toby Russell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toby Russell gave risky medical treatments to the survivor of the USS Denver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in redundancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Almost every vital function in the Klingon body, we learned, had a built-in redundancy in case any primary organ or system ever failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew for Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker towards Worf in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander at Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assisting in suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker was faced with the decision of whether or not to help Worf end his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accepting reliance on others", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf seriously contemplated suicide in the aftermath of becoming paralyzed in a freak accident, because he didn't want to be a burden to those around him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x03", "title": "Terrorform", "date": "1992-03-05", "description": "Kryten and Rimmer crash land on a \"psi-moon\", an artificial planetoid which terraforms itself to match the inner psyche and subconscious of anyone who lands on it. Kryten is trapped under wreckage from the crash, and Rimmer finds himself alone and taken prisoner by manifestations of his own inner demons. Lister, Cat and Holly arrive to rescue them, They find themselves trapped in an environment shaped by Rimmer's bizarre, self-loathing mind.\n\nDirected by: Juliet May. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew became trapped on an artificial planet that had transformed itself to match the inner psyche and subconscious the psychologically troubled hologram Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer's brooding and self-loathing nature was explored. Kryten revealed that underlying Rimmer's self-loathing were such factors as having been despised by his parents, an inability to form meaningful relationships with people, general cowardice, not being liked by anyone, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personification of a concept", "level": "major", "motivation": "The artificial planetoid conjured Rimmer's various neuroses into being. These included his self-loathing, self-doubt, and loneliness. Personifications of his self-respect and self-confidence were later conjured into existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terror is in the title and the conflict of the story stemmed from various aspects of Rimmer's psyche, notably his various fears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story took place within Rimmer's nightmare which was shaped by his own insecurities and self-loathing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten lied to Rimmer by telling him that he was a \"damn good friend\" as part of a desperate attempt to escape from the planetoid. The story ended with insincere proclamations of friendship which restored Rimmer's self-confidence, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly chimed in from time to time with unhelpful suggestions on how to escape from the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew became trapped on an artificial planet that had transformed itself to match the inner psyche and subconscious the psychologically troubled hologram Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was faced with the tall order of having to boost Rimmer's self-esteem in order to escape from the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was paralyzed with fear when he thought a tarantula was rummaging around in his boxer shorts. We understand that he had a general fear of suchlike crawlers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that Rimmer had planted the Space Corps flag on a newly discovered planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was oiled up in preparation to be subjected to various tortures at the hands of the demonic looking \"Unspeakable One\" creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer quickly corrected his crew member's mistaken notion that he was going to sacrifice himself to help them escape from the planetoid, by explaining that he was simply going of to find a good place to cower in for awhile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer made no objection to Kryten's assertion that he was a general coward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was damaged and didn't remember anything about how it happened, and his short term memory was damaged. Also his short term memory was damaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Rimmer's self-loathing was in part due to his realization that nobody liked him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lawnmower Man (1992)", "title": "The Lawnmower Man", "date": "1992-03-06", "description": "A scientist experiments on an intellectually disabled greenskeeper in an effort to give him greater intelligence. The experiments give him superhuman abilities, but enhance his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawnmower_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Angelo boosted the intelligence of the intellectually disabled greenskeeper Jobe to superhuman levels through the use of a combination of psychoactive drugs and virtual reality cognitive performance enhancing training exercises.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film made much of the this newly emerging technology: Dr. Angelo made extensive use of virtual reality to boost Jobe's intelligence, and Jobe ultimately uploaded his mind to a virtual environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intellectually disabled greenskeeper Jobe has his intelligence boosted to superhuman levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe got pretty full of himself after acquiring superhuman intelligence. He at one point asserted \"I am God here\" in reference to his virtual reality domain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe used the lab equipment to enter the VSI mainframe and become a digital being, leaving his body behind like a husk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe used the lab equipment to enter the VSI mainframe and become a digital being, leaving his body behind like a husk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Angelo used virtual reality in combination with psychoactive drugs to teach a chimp to use an assault rifle in a battlefield setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Angelo's wife walked out on him because he was neglecting their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caroline walked out on her husband, Dr. Angelo, because all he could think about was his research project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carla and her young son Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold hit his young son Peter upside the head over a minor indiscretion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold hit his young son Peter upside the head over a minor indiscretion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe, who was living on the grounds of a Catholic church, was shown cleaning an altar and voicing prayers in empty repetition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe and Peter faced off against one another in a virtual reality based racing game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe was living under the care of the cruel Catholic priest Father Francis McKeen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe lost his virginity to Marnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe and Marnie all over each other, but Jobe accidentally erased her mind while two were engaged in a passionate bout of virtual reality mediated cybersex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marnie's mind was accidentally wiped while she was engaged in a bout of virtual reality mediated cybersex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Angelo was surprised to find that Jobe could sometimes sense his thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe thrashed Peter's abusive father to death by manipulating a lawnmower using his the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After having his intelligence dramatically boosted, Jobe began killing people who'd wronged him in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spontaneous human combustion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Goodwin asserted that this phenomenon was a real thing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Return to the Lost World (1992)", "title": "Return to the Lost World", "date": "1992-03-09", "description": "A group of intrepid explorers return to a dinosaur roaming remote African plateau in answer to a plea for help from its native inhabitants. It is a sequel to the film The Lost World, which was released the same year.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_the_Lost_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A group of explorers returned to a remote African plateau where dinosaurs still roamed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A group of explorers returned to a remote African plateau where dinosaurs still roamed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "land exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A party of six explorers journeyed to a remote Africa plateau where dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professors Challenger and Summerlee were feuding the whole time on account that Challenger had recently discredited one of Summerlee's theories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tribe inhabiting a remote African plateau came into conflict with oil drilling, Belgian colonialists who were in possession of government charter granting them access to the land's resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tribe inhabiting a remote African plateau came into conflict with oil drilling, Belgian colonialists who were in possession of government charter granting them access to the land's resources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Challenger used his newly invented high-explosive \"Challengite\" to prevent a volcanic eruption from destroying the whole plateau and everyone on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newspaper man Edward Malone was in India reporting on tiger skin smuggling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Malone was reporting some Afghan \"savages\" who were smuggling forbidden tiger skins over the Indian border.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experienced wildlife photographer Jenny Nielson snapped a picture of a parrot on the expedition to a remote African plateau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professors Challenger and Summerlee agreed to put their bitter rivalry aside for the sake of saving a secluded African tribe from Belgian colonialists, but then the ended up quarreling the entire time anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Palulu was convinced that his tribe was cursed after the Belgian colonists killed a sacred dinosaur in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Summerlee remarked about how their scientific tools must seem miraculous to the secluded African tribes people who'd come to regard him and his party members as gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Challenger and Summerlee were both stereotypically haughty, British professors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Summerlee, a geologist by training, was adamant that Professor Challenger's plan to prevent a volcanic eruption by detonating a high-explosive in its core would never work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Malone and Jenny Nielson shared a passionate kiss toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The feuding professors Challenger and Summerlee shook hands and buried the hatched at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Challenger said he would destroy the formula for the high-explosive he'd invented, even though he succeed in using it to prevent a volcanic eruption, because it was too dangerous in the wrong hands.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x04", "title": "Quarantine", "date": "1992-03-12", "description": "After investigating an abandoned biological research complex on an ice planet, Lister, Cat and Kryten return to Red Dwarf only to find Rimmer has taken over the ship. While Rimmer orders them into quarantine for three months, he himself is slowly taken over by an electronic holo-virus that corrupts his holographic form, giving him telekinesis, hex vision, and many other powers, and turning him completely insane.\n\nDirected by: Grant Naylor. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer clearly didn't fit in as none of his coworkers would do anything he suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things quickly came to blows when Lister, Cat, and Kryten were cooped up in the quarantine room all together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "First Dr. Lanstrom and later Rimmer went dangerously insane after becoming infected with the psi-virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly was unable to open the cargo bay doors at a critical moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A demented hologram of Dr. Lanstrom emerged from a stasis pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lanstrom's theory that such attributes as inspiration, charisma, sexual magnetism, and luck were transmitted by viruses was proved true when exposure to the viral strain Felicitus Populi resulted in Lister being extremely lucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat made a quip about needing to be taken to the hospital on account of having a terminal case of sexual magnetism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A dangerously insane Rimmmer was sporting a red and white checkered dress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A psi-virus infected Dr. Lanstrom hologram was shooting red beams from her eyes. Later, Rimmer acquired the same ability after becoming exposed to the same virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten stated that exposure to the psi-virus made Rimmer capable of telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A psi-virus infected Rimmer sent an axe flying into Kryten back using the power of his mind alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister tried a serum that made him reliably lucky for three minutes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Howards End (1992)", "title": "Howards End", "date": "1992-03-13", "description": "Howards End is a 1992 romantic drama film based upon the novel of the same name by E. M. Forster (published in 1910), a story of class relations in turn- of-the-20th-century Britain. The film — produced by Merchant Ivory Productions as their third adaptation of a Forster novel (following A Room with a View in 1985 and Maurice in 1987) — was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics. The screenplay was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, directed by James Ivory, and produced by Ismail Merchant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howards_End_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in late modern Britain", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everything about the film was stereotypically early 20th century British - likely more so than the book.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story centered around contemporary sexual norms, especially extramarital affairs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Wilcoxes were very conservative, in particular with respect to women's rights; The Schlegels were the opposite and Suffragette supporters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margareth and Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wilcoxes burned Ruth's informal last will to leave Howard's end to Margaret", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret and Henry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "esp. Margaret and Henry; the Bast's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen and Paul briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pianist explained about Beethoven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bast suspected her husband of infidelity; Mr. Bast and Helen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacky, Leonard, Helen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We must ponder how serious a crime was Charle's manslaughter of Leonard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x17", "title": "The Outcast", "date": "1992-03-16", "description": "Riker falls in love with an androgynous person after rescuing some others trapped in \"null space.\"", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker/Soren :: Riker and Soren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the J'naii persecuted gendered people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender neutral being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "J'naii :: J'naii had only one gender", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfering in the internal affairs of other powers for humanitarian reasons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker violated the Prime Directive in an effort to save Soren from lobotomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about saving Soren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soren was like a gay guy in 80s society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming out of the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soren of the genderless race known as the J'naii paid a heavy price for openly identifying as a female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation tolerance vs. J'naii intolerance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "J'naii persecuted gendered people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some humans, Riker foremost, could not stand idly by while the J'naii persecuted the gendered members of their culture that were seen as sexual deviants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans, and especially Riker, had trouble accepting that the J'naii eschewed gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single-gender society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The J'naii were a genderless people who reproduced asexually.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf at the poker table", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Troi :: Troi assures Riker his relationship with Soren will not damage their friendship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker requests of Federation on behalf of Soren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soren and other sexual deviants were considered a threat to order in J'naii society", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Duplicates (1992)", "title": "Duplicates", "date": "1992-03-18", "description": "A married couple uncover a top secret research program to replace people's memories with those of deceased people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104154/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Marion Boxletter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a top secret project store the memories of dying people on floppy disks and transfer them in new bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a top secret project store the memories of dying people on floppy disks and transfer them in new bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a top secret project store the memories of dying people on floppy disks and transfer them in new bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explored memory the idea of whether people are more than the totality of their memories. The conclusion was that people who'd lost their memories still retained their emotional attachments to things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Marion's love persisted even after all their memories had been wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder to what extent Bob and Marion are still themselves after their memories had been erased and replaced with those of other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the secret project to kidnap people, wipe their minds, and implant in them the memories of dead people was somehow connected with the U.S. government. The reason being that a U.S. government official strolled into the institute where this research was taking place and acted like he owned the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sandberg police department was involved the secret project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two scientists were transferring performing mind transfers in order to better understand the nature of human memory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Bob and Marion's love for one another persisted even after all their memories had been wiped. This came as a revelation to Dr. Randolph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion was ultimately reunited with her young son, who was presumed dead at the start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob was ultimately reunited with her young son, who was presumed dead at the start of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x05", "title": "Demons & Angels", "date": "1992-03-19", "description": "An experiment with a machine – a Triplicator – that can make duplicates of an object goes wrong, causing Red Dwarf to explode. The crew escape aboard Starbug but find that the Triplicator has made two copies of Red Dwarf in place of the original. One of these copies has extracted the \"good\" qualities of the former vessel, and the other has extracted the \"bad\" qualities. The crew board one, first meeting angelic versions of themselves, then to the other, meeting their demonic versions.\n\nDirected by: Juliet May & Grant Naylor. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a machine, called the Triplicator, that was capable of making two imperfect copies of a given material object: one copy is imbued with all the good properties of the original, the other with all the bad properties. In the episode an experiment gone wrong with the Triplicator resulted in the production of two copies of Red Dwarf in place of the original: one exquisite with an enlightened crew, the other decrepit with a vulgar crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were \"triplicated\" into their good selves, their evil selves, and their normal selves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew first encountered enlightened versions of themselves, and later despicable versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fire compromised the Red Dwarf computer Holly's ability to communicate using coherent phrases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew briefly found themselves in this predicament: If Lister and Cat were eliminated, then Rimmer and Kryten could commandeer the Starbug to safety; otherwise they'd all perish in seven minutes time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat found spiritual pursuits a distraction from clothes, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spiritual strive towards higher ideal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enlightened versions of the crew were engaged in the pursuit of spiritual and intellectual fulfillment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enlightened versions of the crew were driven by a common desire to attain a higher spiritual and intellectual level of development.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evil Rimmer threatened to beat Lister half to death and then \"have\" him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote controlled person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The despicable versions of the crew used a spinal implant to manipulate Lister's body against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "turn the other cheek", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enlightened Rimmer's immediate reaction to Lister having stabbed the enlightened Lister in the heart was to furnished Lister with a fresh knife with which to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aboard the Starbug, it seemed everyone but Kryten had merely minutes to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enlightened versions of the crew were likened to hippies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was equipped with a remote control implant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x18", "title": "Cause and Effect", "date": "1992-03-23", "description": "The Enterprise becomes stuck in a causality loop, but the crew retain some memory of previous instances. Guest star Kelsey Grammer as Morgan Bateson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time loop", "level": "choice", "motivation": "temporal causality loop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly and others aboard the Enterprise experienced deja vu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The feelings of deja vu experienced by Beverly and others at each of the various iterations of the time loop made them feel like something was gravely wrong, and as a result they struggled with whether to trust their feelings or shrug them off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise stuck in time loop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise stuck in time loop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew members, Beverly most notably, were at a loss to explain their uncanny sensations that events were repeating themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charting unknown territory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "exploration of the Typhon Expanse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about command decision", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e5x06", "title": "Back to Reality", "date": "1992-03-26", "description": "The crew take Starbug down into the watery depths of an ocean to investigate the wreck of the SSS Esperanto. They find that the ship's crew have committed suicide, then escape to try and avoid attack from a sea monster, the \"Despair Squid\". The crew suddenly wake up to find they are not who they think they are; Red Dwarf and Starbug did not exist, and they have in fact been playing a virtual reality computer game for four years.\n\nDirected by: Juliet May & Grant Naylor. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew came to understand that Red Dwarf and Starbug did not exist, and they had in fact been playing a virtual reality computer game for the past four years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew woke up from a virtual reality game to find that they were not who they thought they were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew fell into despair and ultimately tried to take their own lives in the aftermath of getting exposed to ink from the Despair Squid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is suddenly revealed that the previous five seasons of Red Dwarf tales were in fact a VR game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each crew member of the SSS Esperanto had committed suicide in a different way. Kryten was going to use his last bullet to shoot not only himself in the head, but also Lister, Rimmer, and Cat, whose heads were all lined up like ducks in a row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew seemingly discovered they were other people than they thought they were, and more over they were polar opposites of who they thought they were. Cat discovered he was ugly, the nice guy Lister that he was an amoral, high-ranking fascist, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf computer Holly alerted the crew they they were hallucinating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew investigated the wreckage of a ship called SSS Esperanto on an ocean-covered moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Kryten, Rimmer blamed his own parents for Rimmer's failings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew woke up from a virtual reality simulation to find themselves in a dreary fascist state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer speculated about a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a parody of fascism explicitly dubbed fascism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat was devastated to discover he was a poor, ugly wretch with zero fashion sense and a terrific overbite.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x19", "title": "The First Duty", "date": "1992-03-30", "description": "Wesley is questioned over a Starfleet Academy flight-training accident. Guest star Ray Walston as Boothby.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Locarno pressures Nova Squadron members to cover up space maneuver botchrequlting in squadron member death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley chooses to be honest about his role in the accdent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nova Squadron members regretted having attempted to pull off a dangerous flying maneuver that resulted in the death of their fellow squadron member, Joshua Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Beverly :: Beverly and Picard etc. trust Wesley but get sorely disappointed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley by the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Locarno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Locarno thought himself so good that his team should attempt the “Kolvoord Starburst” maneuver. He failed and caused the death of a team member instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Locarno discusses it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley betrayed Locarno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Brand suspect the kids but can't prove it in court", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley and other students in Locarno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's team", "level": "major", "motivation": "Locarno took pride in Nova Squadron and encouraged his fellow members to do likewise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "perjury", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nova Squadron members comitted perjury on the stand when questioned about the circumstances surrounding the death of Joshua Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas Locarno :: Locarno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard reminisced with grounds keeper Boothby about his time as a Starfleet cadet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly in Wesley over lies and more lies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas Locarno :: Locarno", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas Locarno :: Locarno as Nova Squardon leader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly at Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Albert grieved for his adolescent son, Joshua, who died tragically while attempting to pull of a stunt flight maneuver.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x20", "title": "Cost of Living", "date": "1992-04-20", "description": "Deanna 's mother, Lwaxana , arrives to marry a man she has never met. Worf has difficulty rearing Alexander, which is exacerbated when Lwaxana takes the boy under her wing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf raising rebellious Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a traditionalist father, Worf, and his nonconformist son, Alexander, as they struggle to find a way to coexist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko, Troi/Lwaxana :: Worf/Alexander, Troi/Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf in Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework vs. play", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was having trouble getting Alexander to focus on his schooling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Alexander to figure out whether he should follow in the strong work ethic of his people or embrace Lwaxana's care free ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf felt that Alexander's embracing of Lwaxana's care free ways constituted a betrayal of Klingon customs and traditions. The prudish Campio was appalled to learn that his bride-to-be Lwaxana insisted upon a nude wedding ceremony, as was the Bajoran custom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework shirking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander didn't want to do his homework", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Lwaxana indulges in hedonisic desires on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi :: Lwaxana and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Enterprise stopped an asteroid from hitting Tessen III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Campio :: Lwaxana and Campio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Campio :: Campio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betazoid :: Betazoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi and Lwaxana exchanged thoughts telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Campio :: Lwaxana and Campio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf fathering Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander late", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana thought she had found someone to settle down with in Campio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander was late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x21", "title": "The Perfect Mate", "date": "1992-04-27", "description": "Picard forces himself to resist the charms of a female empathic metamorph, who is sent to marry an alien leader as a peace offering. Guest star Famke Janssen as Kamala.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Kamala :: Picard and Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kamala had no rights in her society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about saving Kamala from a life of slavery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kamala had been arranged to marry Alrik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly argued that Kamala was little more than a slave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kamala :: Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Kamala :: Picard and Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a predetermined life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kamala :: Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Valtese and Kriosians were aboard Enterprise for reconcialiation ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfering in the internal affairs of other powers for humanitarian reasons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard ultimately refused to break the Prime Directive in order to spare Kamala from an arranged marriage to a boring old guy that she objected to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard struggled to keep his romantic feeling for Kamala to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard wrestling with himself about sleeping with Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard wrestling with himself about sleeping with Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kriosian, Valtese :: arranged marriage normal for Kriosians and Valtese", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valtese/Kriosians :: Valtese and Kriosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valtese and Kriosians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kamala was being what other people wanted her to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Par Lenor and his associate Qol hatched a half-baked plot to take possession of a valuable \"cargo\" that was being transported by the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several people in Ten Forward became jealous when Kamala directed her flirtations elsewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "entire male crew over Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kamala's stasis cocoon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kamala :: Kamala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kamala was expected to be chaste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to Kamala", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Split Second (1992)", "title": "Split Second", "date": "1992-05-01", "description": "A hard-boiled police detective obsessively hunts down the mysterious serial killer who killed his partner several years prior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Second_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "major", "motivation": "In in a post-global warming London of 2008, heavy rainfall has left large areas of the city horribly flooded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the hard-boiled and highly cynical police detective Harley Stone and rookie partner Dick Durkin as they track down a presumed serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two police detectives were on the trail of what the thoughts was a serial killer, but what turned out to be a large, bloodthirsty, and possibly demonic creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The killer turned out a large, bloodthirsty, possibly demonic creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up the the hard-boiled and highly cynical police detective Harley Stone and rookie partner Dick Durkin to kill a bloodthirsty creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The highly cynical police detective Harley Stone and rookie partner Dick Durkin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a horribly flooded London of 2008 under perpetual night owing to \"undreamed-of levels of pollution\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The forty days and nights of torrential rain that left London horribly flooded was attributed to global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Previously undreamed of levels of pollution left London in a state of perpetual twilight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The horribly flooded London of 2008 was swarming with rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hard-boiled and highly cynical police detective Harley Stone and his love interest Michelle McLaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harley Stone shared a passionate kiss etc. with his love interest Michelle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x22", "title": "Imaginary Friend", "date": "1992-05-04", "description": "A child's imaginary playmate takes on real form and threatens the well-being of the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien entity struggled to understand why the child Clara needed to follow the rules set out by the adults around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clara and her imaginary friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picardologue at end makes it point of story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picardologue at end makes it point of story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara Sutter :: Clara had Isabella as an imaginary friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara Sutter :: Clara dealing with all the on the move parenting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabella might have been a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isabella's childhood imaginary friend turned out to be an incorporeal alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara had an imaginary friend, Isabella, that turned out to be quite real and had various ghost-like attributes. She could make herself visible or invisible and perpetrated a few mischiefs like a poltergeist. She was later revealed to be a spaceborne alien entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara Sutter :: Clara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel Sutter/Clara Sutter :: Sutter and Clara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "on the move parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel Sutter :: Clara had to move around a lot owing to her father's work", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sutter was raising Clara as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "FGC 47 Lifeform :: Isabella", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara Sutter :: Clara forbidden to go to restricted areas and Isabella pressuing her to do so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isabella :: Isabella was jealous that Clara had other friends and she wanted Clara ll to herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isabella :: Isabella at Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at ghost in closet", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x23", "title": "I Borg", "date": "1992-05-11", "description": "The Enterprise rescues a Borg survivor, and Picard plans to use him as a weapon against his nemesis by exposing him to a computer virus .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hugh grappled with the concept being an individual separate from the Borg collective mind from which he'd recently become disconnected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: kill Hugh to eliminate the Borg threat to humanity or allow him to develop his individuality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi/Hugh :: Geordi and Hugh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard weighs merits and demerits of exterminating Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to exist of a genocidal people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard weighed the merits and demerits of exterminating the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard must decide whether to have compassion for Hugh or kill all Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh :: Hugh finds a friend in Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard ultimately has mercy on Hugh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guinan :: Picard challenged Guinan about the ethics of killing all Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugh, Borg :: Hugh and his non-individuality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "there is an opportunity to annihilate the Borg using a Trojan Horse attack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "diversity through individuality vs. unity through collective consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: The Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "the computer virus was to the Borg as a weaponized bio-virus would be to mankind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Geordi :: Picard and Geordi about treatment of Hugh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans vs. Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi to Hugh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard plotted to annihilate the Borg to prevent them from assimilating the people of the Federation into their collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh :: Hugh doesn't know how to handle his newly found individuality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Guinan :: Picard and Guinan over past happenings with Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh :: Hugh to Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Hugh :: Geordi and Hugh", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guinan :: Guinan for Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh :: Hugh in Geordi", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x24", "title": "The Next Phase", "date": "1992-05-18", "description": "A transporter accident traps Geordi and Ensign Ro out of phase; while the others plan their funeral they must find a way to reverse the process and save the Enterprise from destruction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi, Ro Laren :: Geordi and Ro were ghosts aboard the Enterprise for all intents and purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi and Ro were ghosts aboard the Enterprise for all intents and purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro interpreted the strange predicament that she and Geordi found themselves in through the lens of her religion, whereas as Geordi was inclined to seek a scientific explanation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro thinks she is a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro worried about not belonging on Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro about not having many friends aboard the Enterprise, but she found out otherwise at her eulogy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and the crew grieved for Geordi and Ro, who were presumed to have died from the result of a transporter mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro about her apparent death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan cloak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: Geordi and Ro thought to have been killed in transporter mishap", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans helped above and beyond the call of duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi explained that he was using logic to understand his predicament, while Ro jumped directly to mysticism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien 3 (1992)", "title": "Alien 3", "date": "1992-05-22", "description": "Set right after the events of Aliens (1986), Ripley and an Alien organism are the only survivors of the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco's escape pod's crash on a planet housing a penal colony populated by violent male inmates. It is the third installment of the Alien franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A vicious alien creature was stalking Ripley and some penal colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A vicious alien creature was stalking Ripley and some penal colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien creature used human surrogates to complete its development from a juvenile to adult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ripley and some penal colonists were terrorized by a dangerous alien creature with acid for blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in an all-male space penal colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Weyland-Yutani corporation plotted to capture the alien creature and turn it into biological weapons. This was at great risk to society, apart from the biological weapons, because there was a good chance it would get loose on Earth and paracitize everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an isolated space prison where the inmates were pretty much left to fend for themselves. They made for themselves a little religious community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ripley threw herself into molten lead to prevent the Weyland-Yutani corporation executives from getting their avaricious hands the dangerous alien queen that was paraticizing her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The penal colonists self-organized a little religious community for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ripley jumped into vat of molten led to stop the Alien Queen gestating inside her from being taken back to Earth. If it did ever reach Earth, it's offspring was bound to paracitize everyone on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley's story about a dangerous parasitic alien with acidic blood was not initially believed by the prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley was revived from cryogenic stasis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley sobbed upon learning that a young girl she had rescued died while in cryogenic stasis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley activated what was left of the android Bishop in order to get some information about how one of the alien creatures got aboard their trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clements told Ripley that he used to be a morphine addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The monk-like prisoners initially wondered whether they were being haunted by the Alien creature as part of some sort of religious punishment for their misdemeanors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. public safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley thought it was too dangerous to let the rescue team land on the penal colony, but Clements wanted to let them come so that he could escape.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Seedpeople (1992)", "title": "Seedpeople", "date": "1992-05-28", "description": "The visiting geologist discover that the inhabitants of Comet Valley are being replaced by alien duplicates: each is a perfect copy of the person replaced, but devoid of human emotion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedpeople" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spacefaring plants", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring seeds had hitched a ride to the Comet Valley community on a meteor and began to takeover the townspeople. The taken over people acted utterly emotionless thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring seeds had hitched a ride to the Comet Valley community on a meteor and began to takeover the townspeople. The taken over people acted utterly emotionless thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deputy Sheriff Brad Yates was investigating reports of unusual goings-on in the fields and other such strange happenings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom boarded at his ex-girlfriend Heidi's bed and breakfast during his stay in Comet Valley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was making romantic overtures to his ex-girlfriend, Heidi, in spite of the fact that she was no somewhat involved with the town Deputy Sheriff, Brad. Tom and Brad didn't get on well as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone except for Tom dismissed old Doc Roller as a crackpot for claiming that plants from outer space were going around taking people over. Doc, however, was proved right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom noticed the people of Comet Valley turning utterly emotionless one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Doc Roller were doing everything they could to exterminate some alien plant monsters that were going around taking people over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heidi's sort-of boyfriend Brad was jealous over her ex-boyfriend Tom was staying at her bed and breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The geologist Tom Baines was sent to Comet Valley to study a meteor that'd been discovered there. Notably, Tom explained the difference between a meteorite and a meteor while presenting some slides to the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Kim was under the care of her aunt, Heidi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Still Not Quite Human (1992)", "title": "Still Not Quite Human", "date": "1992-05-31", "description": "The story, which has a darker tone than the previous films, features the human-looking android, Chip, embarking on a mission to rescue his father, who has been kidnapped by a ruthless tycoon in order to acquire his knowledge of android technology.", "collections": [ "Collection: Not Quite Human" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Not_Quite_Human" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to the android Chip and his friends, who included the android Bonus, to rescue his father from the clutches of the nefarious Dr. Berrigon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Chip and his friends to rescue his father, Dr. Carson, from the clutches of the nefarious Dr. Berrigon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Berrigon had Dr. Carson kidnapped and replaced with an identical-looking android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Berrigon held Dr. Carson captive inside his mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip was able to move metal objects at a distance using his magnetic finger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip ran down a mail delivery truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carson made a fool of himself on stage while speaking at a robotics conference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle swiped a well-to-do man's wristwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Kate Morgan and her fabulously wealthy aunt, Mildred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Mildred was stereotypically filthy, sticking rich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Berrigon was ordering around his burler Bundy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chip battled a humanoid-shaped robot that shot laser beams from its eyes en route to rescuing his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Carson met his android duplicate Bonus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x25", "title": "The Inner Light", "date": "1992-06-01", "description": "A space probe creates a telepathic tether and causes Picard to experience, in twenty-five minutes, a lifetime as a married man on a world that was destroyed a millennium ago.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard lived out complete life on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Eline :: Picard and Eline", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kataan sun was dying", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard learned to stop worrying and make the most of life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "How could Picard tell whether he was transported to an alternate world or whether he was just crazy?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Eline :: Picard and Eline", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a life-changing event", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard suddenly found himself in an alternative life on an alien planet, and had to come to terms with his new circumstances as he lived out his life there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kataan people made a space probe to share their culture with others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard upon waking up aboard ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Batai son of Kamin :: Picard and son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Meribor :: Picard and daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kataan people to stop planet from drying up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After spending a lifetime trapped on an alien planet inside his mind, Picard got a Ressikan flute, which he had learned to play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, as Kamin, uncovered that government knew truth about drought all along, but had decided to keep it secret from the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batai son of Karmin :: Picard's son in choosing his path in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard mourned the passing of his wife, Eline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard mourned the passing of his old friend, Batai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Batai :: Picard and Batai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about taking initiative to fight drought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about drought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about drought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard working to prevent disaster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meribor :: Meribor to Picard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng5x26", "title": "Time's Arrow", "date": "1992-06-15", "description": "A 500-year-old artifact is uncovered on Earth: Data 's severed head. The Enterprise investigates alien involvement in Earth's past and Data fulfills his destiny.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew travel back to 19th century San Francisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data was complacent about finding out he will die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanity's place in the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain explained how earth is the only place in the universe capable of supporting life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "they initially put duty before saving Data but then rationalize going after him anyway somehow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain, Jack London :: Mark Twain and Jack London", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data to 19th century folk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Devidian :: Devidians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain :: Data meets Twain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data took comfort in the supposed fact that he would travel back in time to the 19th century to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After having discovered his own severed head, Data considered that he was destined to die and thus reminded Picard that “one cannot cheat fate”.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bad Channels (1992)", "title": "Bad Channels", "date": "1992-06-25", "description": "An alien takes over a radio station a radio station with the intention of capturing female humans, by using radio broadcasts.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Channels" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone dismissed the shock jock Dan O'Dare's desperate pleas over the airwaves for help in stopping an alien from collecting a number of beautiful women as an outlandish publicity stunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a not so typically day on the job for a radio shock jock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien took over a radio station with designs of collecting a number of human females.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone dismissed the shock jock Dan O'Dare's desperate pleas over the airwaves for help in stopping an alien from collecting a number of beautiful women as an outlandish publicity stunt, but he was being genuine in his requests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "CWN news correspondent Lisa Cummings was reporting on the strange happenings that followed people sighting a UFO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"air head\" Bunny exemplified this stereotype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People summarily attributed sightings of an alien spacecraft flying in the night sky as weather balloons, Air Force activity, and weird lights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Earl Hickman was investigating reports of an alien having appeared in the area, and some subsequent disappearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien was accompanied by a small, humanoid, helper robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien used some special device to shrink women down to 12 inches in height.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien transported women from remote locations into glass tubes at its location.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien snatched the waitress Cookie from Peanut's truck stop, shrank her down to 12 inches in height, and held her captive inside a glass bubble. He did the same with three other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan and Lisa shared a passionate kiss and embrace after they killed the alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien landed in spacecraft that was discernible only as circle of blinking lights of various colors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x01", "title": "None but the Lonely Heart", "date": "1992-06-27", "description": "Howard Prince is a sociopathic criminal who routinely marries rich elderly widows, then poisons them and leaves them to die while he steals their money. Deciding to murder one more victim before going on the run, he manages to successfully charm Effie Gluckman, who is excited to have his company. Eventually, Howard discovers that someone is on to him, since he soon gets a series of notes from someone that knows what he is doing and warns him to stop, or else risk facing dire consequences.\n\nTom Hanks, who directed this episode, makes a cameo appearance as the video dating service owner. Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard also makes a cameo appearance as the gravedigger.\n\nDirected by: Tom Hanks. Story by: Donald Longtooth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Howard had, it seemed, perfected the art of seducing rich old women, conning them out of their fortunes and murdering them. Not satisfied with a retirement fund of $2,000,000, Howard insisted on seducing one last rich old widow before hightailing it out of the country despite hearing that the authorities were hot on his heels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard was a serial poison murderer of rich old women that he married first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eligible young Howard used his charms to win the heart of Effie, an elderly widow of independent means. Little did Effie know that Howard was in the habit of marrying rich elderly women, conning them out of their fortunes and then murdering them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "It would seem that Howard thought he was being blackmailed. As it were, the ominous messages he received came from an adoring fan who longed to meet Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Howard committed four ancillary murders of people he most likely believed to be the blackmailer. Howard was a serial poison murderer of rich old women that he married first.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured two lonely old widows, as the titles alludes to, of independent means who were seduced by the gold digger Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The widow Effie talked of seeking (male) companionship in her old age. She was presumably typical of Howard's other victims in this respect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard's victims were so in love with him that they could not remain in their graves without him, but had to walk the Earth as re-animated corpses for his sake somehow. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Christian funeral rite for Howard's wine loving first victim seen in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard soliloquized about fine wine to his first victim in the story, before administering the lethal poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard feigned to be impotent when he first courted Effie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard recited Matlida's favorite lines from \"To His Coy Mistress\" by Andrew Marvell as he coldly waited for the poison to take effect on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly widow Effie's loyal butler, Stanhope, took an immediate dislike to her new suitor, Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One scene picks up with Effie and Howard returning home to her mansion from having tied the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x02", "title": "This'll Kill Ya", "date": "1992-06-27", "description": "Diabetic scientific researcher George Gatlin discovers that he has been injected with H-Cell-24, a deadly experimental virus cell, in lieu of his insulin. As H-Cell-24 has no antidote, George learns that the virus will cause tumors to grow all over his body and kill him in a matter of hours. After hearing what he believes to be evidence that his lab partners, Sophie Wagner and Pack Brightman, have purposely injected him with the virus in a plot to kill him, George vows to use what little time he has left to get revenge on his colleagues.\n\nDirected by: Robert Longo. Story by: A. L. Katz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and his partners were conducting research into an experimental virus-cell hybrid that somehow showed the potential to be a panacea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Sophie had a steamy and complicated sexual relationship going on despite working together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had only one day to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "George showed his true colors after being tricked into thinking he was injected with an experimental virus-cell hybrid that would cause him to die horribly within hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "George killed his business partner Pack because he though Pack had \"murdered\" him by injecting him with a viral cell that would kill him within hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "George killed his business partner Pack because he though Pack had \"murdered\" him by injecting him with a viral cell that would kill him within hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Sophie were torn between affection and loathing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper revealed his talent for woodworking to his viewers. He proudly presented a bookshelf for his \"die-brary\", a stand for his \"big scream TV\", and a gallows for when he is \"hanging out watching the noose\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was a diabetic and required regular injections of insulin into his biceps.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x03", "title": "On a Deadman's Chest", "date": "1992-06-27", "description": "Danny Darwin, the hard-partying front man of the heavy metal band Exorcist, announces at the band's latest show that his best friend, guitarist Nick Bosch, has gotten married. Danny fears that Nick's wife, Scarlett, is attempting to break up the band, giving him a burning hatred for her. His groupie, Vendetta, also hates Scarlett, and helps Danny calm down by letting him visit Farouche, a mysterious tattoo artist who ends up giving him a tattoo of Scarlett on his chest. Things quickly become surreal when the tattoo seems to develop a life of its own and won't go away, even after Danny murders the object of his hatred.\n\nDirected by: William Friedkin. Story by: Larry Wilson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danny became evermore unhinged as the story progressed. At first he was perturbed by best friend's bothersome new wife and the prospect of the band breaking up. Later he was driven insane by a mysterious and neigh unremovable tattoo of the woman in question. The tattoo drove him so mad (one may speculate that it contained hallucinogenic Voodoo toxins for example) that he used a piece of broken mirror to slash the skin off his entire upper torso and rid himself of it when he thought it had taken the form of a dragon-like creature and burst out from inside his chest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was another story in the series about the hard life of hard rock entertainers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny and Nick were on the brink of having a disastrous falling out over Nick's new wife, whom Danny could not abide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was being pressured by his new wife, Scarlett, to quit his already successful rock band, thinking it was only a matter of time before the band imploded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vendetta was Danny's enamored groupie and appearances gave that they slept with each other regularly although the relationship was unlikely to be exclusive on either side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny murdered Scarlett, seemingly in no small part egged on by frustration, or even madness, induced by the tattoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farouche explained that he could make the skin tell its own story, or something along those lines. He was therefore able to reveal truths about the past (and possibly the future) that were otherwise unknown to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A doctor, presumably dermatology surgeon, was seen tending to Danny's freshly unbandaged skin-graft that failed to remove the oh-so offensive tattoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mysterious tattoo artist Farouche was shown plying his trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny was in visible agony as Farouche applied a tattoo to his chest using traditional tools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny battered his groupie lover, leaving her a bloody mess.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project Shadowchaser (1992)", "title": "Project Shadowchaser", "date": "1992-07-02", "description": "A gang of armed, super android led terrorists take the president's daughter hostage in a hospital skyscraper. It is the first installment in the direct- to-video film series Project Shadowchaser.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Shadowchaser" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The super android terrorist leader Romulus was a central novelty of the film. There was also an android duplicate of the president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to the ex-con Desilva and a team of FBI agents to rescue the president's daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The president's daughter, among other people, was being held hostage by a gang of armed, super android led terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An Agent Trevanian team of FBI agents were working to free some hostages that were being held by a gang of armed, super android led terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The president's daughter, among other people, was being held hostage by a gang of armed, super android led terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychopathic android Romulus and his creator Kinderman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Desilva behaved in a notable heroic manner in his efforts to free a number of hostages from the clutches of an armed gang of super android led terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Desilva to free a bunch of hostages from the clutches super android Romulus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackson was pestering Naomi to go out on a date with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Desilva was mistakenly revived 24 months in to his cryonic imprisonment and pardoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Desilva was mistakenly revived 24 months in to his cryonic imprisonment and pardoned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The president's daughter looked down her nose at Desilva until she realized he'd been a quarterback for the New Orleans Saints.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kinderman shot the president dead right in front of his daughter, Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kinderman shot the president dead as part of an elaborate plot to made the United States \"great again\", or so it seemed as in a twist ending it turned out that he'd actually shot an android duplicate of the president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An android duplicate of the president was sent to deliver a $50,000 payment to terrorists in exchange for the release of the president's daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x04", "title": "Seance", "date": "1992-07-04", "description": "In a noir-themed tale, Alison Peters and Benjamin Polosky are a pair of con artists who attempt to swindle rich tycoon Presco Chalmers out of his fortune with an elaborate story. When they accidentally end up killing him, they instead attempt to trick the fortune out of his blind and spiritual wife by acting as her medium and holding a mock séance.\n\nDirected by: Gary Fleder. Story by: Harry Anderson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the illicit activities of Alison and Benjamin as they try to enrich themselves at the expense of their latest mark, the wealthy businessman Presco Chalmers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with a mock séance, Alison and Benjamin's favorite trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the con artist duo Alison and Ben as they attempt to swindle the wealthy tycoon Mr. Chalmers out of his fortune with an elaborate story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alison and Benjamin ended up murdering their mark Presco Chalmers, quite unintentionally. Although it's ambiguous whether Alison and Benjamin would have been convicted for murder, Alison was holding him at gunpoint when Presco fell down the elevator shaft to his gory death. Furthermore, neither Alison nor Benjamin called the authorities to see what could be done for poor Presco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alison and Ben tried to blackmail Presco with some incriminating photos they threatened to show to his wife. Little did they know that, by an ironic twist of fate, said spouse was in fact blind. Presco laughed in their faces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alison and Presco were two notably greedy hoodwinks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corpse of Mr. Chalmers appeared at the séance to take revenge on Alison and Benjamin. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper feigned to be a stereotypical film noir private eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the opening scene, the swindler Benjamin expressed misgivings about coning an old lady out of her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin impersonated a lawyer as part of his and Alison's con game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben led Mr. Chalmers to believe that the father of Mr. Chalmers robbed $200,000 from a Wilmington bank in 1901.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alison seduced Mr. Chalmers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chalmers scored with a young woman who he mistakenly believed to be his cousin. He used the term \"kissing cousins\" with incestuous overtones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The married man Mr. Chalmers scored with an attractive young woman, whom he believed to be his cousin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Chalmers sought to converse with her recently departed husband at a séance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Chalmers reacted to her husband's death and later attended a séance to communicate with him from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Chalmers was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The corpse of Mr. Chalmers appeared at the séance to take revenge on Alison and Benjamin in flamboyantly gruesome fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alison and Ben tried to blackmail Presco with some incriminating photos they threatened to show to his wife. Little did they know that, by an ironic twist of fate, said spouse was in fact blind. Presco laughed in their faces.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier (1992)", "title": "Universal Soldier", "date": "1992-07-10", "description": "The film tells the story a former U.S. Army soldier who was killed in the Vietnam War in 1969, and returned to life following a secret military project called the \"Universal Soldier\" program. However, he finds out about his past even though his memory was erased, and escapes alongside a young TV journalist. Along the way, they have to deal with the return of his archenemy who had lost his sanity in the Vietnam War, and became a psychotic megalomaniac, intent on killing him and leading the Universal Soldiers. It is the third installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film are a bunch of regenerated dead soldiers that a rogue military unit uses as supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "CNA reporter Veronica Roberts was working to expose Colonel Perry's rogue, secret supersoldier program to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Luc and Sargeant Scott's military service in Vietnam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rogue military group was secretly running a supersoldier program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Perry had his supersoldiers after Luc and Veronica for the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luc had had his memory wiped and spend much of the film on a journey trying to understand about his past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films opens with a U.S. Army team fighting in this war to secure a small Vietnamese village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc had had his mind wiped. The Universal Soldiers all had had their minds wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Scott needlessly killed two Vietnamese villagers in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dead soldiers were revived from the dead shortly after dying in the line of duty and turned into supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorists were holding about thirty people hostage on the Hoover Dam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Universal Soldiers were called on to free a number of hostages from the clutches of terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soldiers recently killed in the line of duty were cryogenically preserved, and later revived and turned into supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc's bullet wound automatically healed itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc read the Surgeon General's warning message on Veronica's package of cigarettes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc was reunited with his parents after a 25 year separation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Universal Soldiers were able to perform super human feats of strength after getting injected with a green serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength formula", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Universal Soldiers became super strong when injected with a bright green serum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x01", "title": "The Lonely One", "date": "1992-07-10", "description": "A woman ventures out amid a serial killer's rampage and finds herself walking home alone at midnight.\n\nDirected by: Ian Mune. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a little town in which a serial killer, nicknamed \"The Lonely One\", was running amok. Three women were discussing their fears (or lack thereof) of becoming the next victim. The story ends with the implication that Lavinia was about to be murdered by him in her own home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lavinia mocked Francine and Helen for being on edge about going out at night while a serial killer was on the loose. Lavinia was overcome with terror as she took a shortcut through the ravine while walking home alone at midnight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows three friends (Lavinia, Francine, and Helen) who went out for a night on the town while a serial killer was known to be on the prowl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "With an air of bravado, Lavinia insisted on going out for a night on the town while a serial killer was known to be on the prowl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia, a self-described \"old maid\", didn't exactly deny feeling lonely living alone in a big house when her friend Francine asked her about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Because a serial killer was on the loose, Officer Kennedy offered to escort Lavinia through the ravine shortcut on her walk home after an evening out with friends. Lavinia refused, citing that Officer Kennedy himself could be the serial killer for all she knew. Although the identity of the killer was left open, Officer Kennedy must be considered a suspect, as the killer was waiting for Lavinia in her home shortly after Officer Kennedy mysteriously disappeared from the ravine area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia and Francine stumbled on the body of their friend, Elizabeth, in the ravine. Their reactions couldn't have been more different: Lavinia was content to shrug it off and have a night out as planned, while Francine was shaken up and felt the evening should be called off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Lavinia's friends suggested that she was so bold because she had a death-wish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia decided to face her fears by walking through the ravine alone in the middle of the night. She bit off a bit more than she could chew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x05", "title": "Beauty Rest", "date": "1992-07-11", "description": "Helen, an aging model, ends up losing a commercial deal to her younger roommate, Joyce. When she learns that Joyce is also participating in a rigged beauty pageant, Helen attempts to knock her unconscious with sleeping pills to take her place and revive her own career, but accidentally causes her to overdose. At the pageant, Helen eventually murders her rival Druscilla. She is soon named the winner and gets her big break, only to learn that the pageant, including the grand prize, has a rather macabre \"autopsy\" theme.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Hopkins. Story by: Donald Longtooth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the aging model Helen as she resorts to murder in a last ditched effort to jump start her career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aging model Helen as she resorts to murder in a last ditched effort to jump start her faltering career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen overdosed her roommate, Joyce, on sleeping pills and made it look like a suicide. Helen fatally strangled her beauty contest rival, Drucilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around Helen, an aging model who's ethical scruples lead her to murder her way to being crowned winner of a macabre beauty pageant, instead of sleeping her way there in the traditional fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trading sex to get ahead in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolved around Helen, an aging model who's ethical scruples lead her to murder her way to being crowned winner of a macabre beauty pageant, instead of sleeping her way there in the traditional fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "position in exchange for sexual favors", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder about people in the entertainment industry getting selected for jobs because they had sex with someone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen murdered both Joyce and Drusilla in order to become the winner of a beauty pageant instead of either of them. By an ironic twist of fate, the winner of the contest was, unbeknownst to Helen, designated to be killed and have their innards pulled out for public display in the most gruesome fashion. So ironically, Joyce had arguably (albeit without intending to) saved her two competitors from a fate worse than death and ended up dead for it herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was resentful towards Joyce for getting all the breaks that Helen didn't get. Helen thought Joyce did it by sleeping around. Druscilla thought presciently the same about Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging model Helen was envious of her younger roommate Joyce's growing success in the entertainment business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A theme of the story is spelled out in the beginning when Helen asks the viewer what part of a woman they like best, ending with the suggestively incredulous option that it could be the brain. The story concluded with Helen's innards being put on public display with some message related to it's what's on the inside that counts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen auditioned for the role of \"Ball Buster\" perfume commercial spokeswoman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen was incensed when her agent, Archie, informed her that she'd been passed over for the job of \"Ball Buster\" perfume commercial spokeswoman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging model Helen was envious of her younger roommate Joyce's growing success in the entertainment business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging model Helen and the young model Joyce were friends and roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen tried to knock Joyce unconscious with sleeping pills to take her place in a beauty contest, but accidentally administered to Joyce a lethal overdose, and hastily made it look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Druscilla proclaimed herself above exchanging sexual favors to get ahead but had apparently blackmailed George by threatening to sue him for sexual harassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Druscilla proclaimed herself above exchanging sexual favors to get ahead but had apparently blackmailed George by threatening to sue him for sexual harassment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen tried to put Joyce to sleep by mixing some sleeping pills into get coffee. Accidentally she gave her a lethal overdose instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Honey I Blew Up the Kid (1992)", "title": "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid", "date": "1992-07-17", "description": "An inventor's young son is accidental exposure to his new industrial-sized growth machine, causing the toddler to gradually grow to enormous size. It is the second installment of the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Honey I Shrunk the Kids" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_I_Blew_Up_the_Kid" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The toddler Adam grew in size from seven, to 50, to ultimately over 100 feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Diane Szalinski had to deal with the fact that Wayne had accidentally enlarged their toddler to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Diane had to care for their giant toddler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was infatuated with Adam's babysitter Mandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and his teenage son Nick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne invented a matter-expanding ray machine, and accidentally used it on his toddler son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Disneyfied depiction of what might happen when a loving father inadvertently uses his matter expanding ray on his toddler son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane saw Amy off to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and his 7 foot tall baby brother Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick asked his mother Diane for some advice about girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy left home to go to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick enjoyed playing his electric guitar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne used his old shrinking machine to shrink down two police officers in size. he later used the same machine to shrink his gigantic wife and child down to normal size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Szalinski family dog Quark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Constance Winters reported from the site of a giant toddler wreaking havoc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and Mandy were shrunken down to be thumb-nail sized at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x02", "title": "The Happiness Machine", "date": "1992-07-17", "description": "An inventor manages to create a machine that can make people happy.\n\nDirected by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leo's \"happiness\" machine turned out to be an escape from reality device, much like television. The point of the story was that such things are bad, and that we must instead enjoy life as it is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that we should enjoy what we have, take the good with the bad, and never fantasize about things that never were, like Leo tried to do by encouraging people to emerse themselves in his television-like \"happiness\" machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a husband whose family, and especially the wife, were bothered by his sudden obsession with inventing a happiness machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo dedicated himself to building a \"happiness\" machine. The machine was blue, about the size of a dumpster, and designed for a single occupant. The occupant, when shut up inside the contraption, was presented with a cavalcade of pleasant sensory inputs, such as flashing lights and a slideshow of world travel destinations. This, Leo reasoned, would be enough to make anybody happy. In the end, however, Leo came to believe that true happiness was to be found in home, family, and taking life as it is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "too much television is bad for society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that Leo's becoming emersed in his television-like \"happiness\" machine was detrimental to his family life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns a husband whose family are bothered by his sudden obsession with inventing a happiness machine. The wife mentioned that he had barely spoken to his children in two weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns a husband whose family are bothered by his sudden obsession with inventing a happiness machine. The wife mentioned that he had barely spoken to his children in two weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lena interacted with her young son, Saul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lena interacted with her young daughters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x06", "title": "What's Cookin'", "date": "1992-07-22", "description": "Married couple Fred and Erma are the owners of a failing restaurant with a squid-only menu. One day, Fred and Erma's luck is soon changed when Gaston, a mysterious drifter who works as the restaurant's janitor, gives them some steaks that turns out to taste delicious, so much so that the restaurant gets a huge boost in both sales and popularity. However, Fred discovers that Gaston's steaks are made of the flesh of his landlord, Chumley, who Gaston killed and butchered. The sight leaves Fred to be torn between going to the police or allowing more people to be killed so they can be put on the menu and save the restaurant.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Adler. Story by: A. L. Katz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title is an allusion to the man flesh that was \"cookin'\" in Fred and Erma's no longer failing restaurant. The story hinged on them turning their business around by killing people to clandestinely serve up the meat in the guise of \"beef\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious drifter Gaston was a little bit too helpful when he killed off Fred and Erma's bothersome landlord. He offered to kill more people and put them on the menu. Then he tried to kill Fred himself. But Fred and Erma turned the tables on him and killed, and served up, Gaston instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred's determination to make a go of his and Erma's wildly unpopular squid-only restaurant put a strain on their marriage. That all changed, however, when they switched to serving a delicious type of meat in the guise of steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Chumley was a regular at the diner and gave Fred updates on the murder investigation. In the end he joined in Fred and Irma's cannibal restaurant business venture to turn an extra buck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred and Erma was dreading the imminent insolvency of their squid-only restaurant business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fred and Erma had pretty much their entire net worth tied up in their failing squid-only restaurant business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erma pointedly pre-empted any unwelcome romantic overtures from Gaston by waving her handgun under his nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred, Erma, and the sheriff all noted with abject greed how much money they stood to make out of offing people to peddle their flesh as steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The upstanding citizen Fred was (albeit briefly) struggling with the moral dilemma of whether to go to the police or not, after Gaston revealed the truth about the meat he was serving up from the freezer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Chumley decided to make some extra cash by becoming part owner of Fred and Erma's secret cannibal restaurant. He therefore gleefully stood by as Fred and Erna slaughter and serve up Gaston.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)", "title": "Mom and Dad Save the World", "date": "1992-07-24", "description": "An alien emperor's plan to destroy the Earth is delayed when he decides that he wants to marry a certain California housewife.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mom_and_Dad_Save_the_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to at ordinary California married couple of twenty years to prevent Emperor Tod Spengo from blowing up the Earth with his \"Super Death Ray Laser\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Tod Spengo planned to use his \"Super Death Ray Laser\" to destroy the Earth, leaving his home planet of Spengo the greatest planet in the Universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Dick and Marge Nelson as their 20th-anniversary weekend goes awry when Emperor Tod Spengo whisks them away to his planet with designs on making Marge his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dick and Marge were held captive by the evil, but very stupid Emperor Tod Spengo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Tod Spengo was determined to make Marge his wife, but she wanted nothing of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The married couple of 20 years Dick and Marge rekindled their love in the process of stopping the evil, but very stupid Emperor Tod Spengo from making Marge his wife and also blowing up the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Tod Spengo planned to use his \"Super Death Ray Laser\" to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick and his teenage son Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick and his teenage daughter Stephanie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge and her teenage daughter Stephanie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge and her teenage son Stephanie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Raff's son Sirk, the White Bird, and his daughter Semage. Alan and Stephanie Nelson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick and Marge were flown away to the distant planet Spengo in their own automobile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "canine-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Tod Spengo's palace was guarded by diminutive, humanoid hounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marge was waited on by diminutive, humanoid fish maidens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick was hooked up to a machine that printed out his stream of consciousness out onto a running ticker tape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emperor Tod Spengo injected Marge and General Afir with what he presumed was truth serum, but what was in fact only water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dick and the rebels crashed Emperor Tod Spengo's wedding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x07", "title": "The New Arrival", "date": "1992-07-25", "description": "Dr. Alan Goetz, an arrogant and snobbish child psychologist, learns that his radio show is on the verge of cancellation. In an attempt to boost his sagging ratings, he decides to do a series of episodes from the home of regular caller Nora, a strange woman who wants help for her deeply disturbed daughter, Felicity.\n\nDirected by: Peter Medak. Story by: Ron Finley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "psychology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alan was a child psychologist, and fancied himself one of the finest. His motto was \"good psychology beats bad behavior\", but in a moment of desperation he strangled the problem child, exclaiming \"the only way to beat bad behavior is with worse behavior\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alan was a child psychologist, and fancied himself one of the finest. His motto was \"good psychology beats bad behavior\", but in a moment of desperation he strangled the problem child, exclaiming \"the only way to beat bad behavior is with worse behavior\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan was a child psychologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story was more or less Alan's desperate gambit to retain his job after he got news that he was about to be fired as a radio show talker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured the radio entertainment industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "major", "motivation": "The going hypothesis up until the end was that the strange woman, Nora, suffered from a kind of delusion that she was also the problematic child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Nora was living a double life as her own daughter. It was revealed to be otherwise in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "In addition to the Crypt Keeper being his ordinary cackling self, the troublesome child proved to be some sort of ghoulish apparition underneath its mask.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although the situation proved to be different in the end, we were presented with the relationship details of Nora and her misbehaving daughter whom Alan promised to help with his psychology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "The child psychologist Alan arrogantly boasted of how \"good psychology beats bad behavior every time\" before entering the house of the troubled child that would be his undoing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan and his assistant. Alan's producer, and Alan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The problem child Felicity had taken to banging her head on the walls \"really hard\", according to her mother, Nora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two women were murdered and the house was littered with old corpses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nora spoke of General MacArthur in the context of this war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x08", "title": "Showdown", "date": "1992-08-01", "description": "After killing Texas ranger \"Tracker\" Tom McMurdo, Billy Quintaine, a remorseless gunslinger on the run from the law, wanders into a saloon and proceeds to get his comeuppance when the spirits of all of his past victims come back to haunt him.\n\nNote: This episode was originally produced for the failed Two-Fisted Tales spinoff.\n\nDirected by: Richard Donner. Story by: Frank Darabont.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The gunslinger Billy Quintaine found himself in a saloon of the dead, among the victims of his past revolver duels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown gunslingers and other trappings of the wild, wild west.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gunslinger Billy Quintaine was taken aback by the realization that he'd perished in a gun fight and was actually a ghost with a reputation for haunting a certain, long ago abandoned saloon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with the outlaw Billy Quintaine evading the Texas ranger Tom McMurdo and his posse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The outlaw Billy Quintaine bested the Texas ranger Tom McMurdo in an impromptu duel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "live by the sword die by the sword", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of inhabitants of the strange afterlife depicted in the story spoke of how those there had \"lived by the gun and died by the gun\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tour guide explained how the saloon was haunted by the outlaw Billy Quintaine's ghost, much to Billy's surprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy expressed some regret about the innocent snake oil peddling quack he had accidentally killed with a stray bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The quack that dealt Billy a hand of poker dealt him five aces of spades to prove some sort of a point, presumably about cheating. He then convinced Billy to try a tonic meant to give him an edge in gunslinging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy began a game of poker with the snake oil salesman Cornelius Bosch but aborted it after finding he had been dealt five aces of spades.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "Unforgiven (1992)", "title": "Unforgiven", "date": "1992-08-03", "description": "Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film starring, directed, and produced by Clint Eastwood, and written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job, years after he had turned to farming. The film co-stars Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unforgiven" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to two different pursuits of revenge. In the first, the closely-knit prostitutes of a frontier town brothel put a $1000 bounty on the head of the cowboy (and his friend) who cut up the face of one of their own, leaving her disfigured and without a proper livelihood. In the second, the reformed outlaw William Munny sought sweet revenge against the town sheriff who beat Munny's long-time partner in crime to death during the course of a brutal interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown gunslingers, frontier town brothels, and other trappings of the wild, wild west.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the closely-knit prostitutes of frontier town brothel as they seek to avenge one of their own getting permanently disfigured by a patron. The viewer is shown a window into their lives, including the dangers they faced on the job, their low status in society as exemplified by the sheriff writing them off as property of the brothel owner, their using of deodorant powered before sex to presumably suppress the stench that came from not taking regular baths, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Little Bill ruled over the frontier town with an iron fist. Much of the story concerned Little Bill's efforts to thwart bounty hunters from taking the lives of the two cowboys that he'd let off with a slap on the write for mutilating a local brothel woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reformed outlaws William Munny and Ned Logan reunited for one last score.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brothel worker Delilah Fitzgerald was left with disfiguring scars to her face by Quick Mike's knife attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old friends William Munny and Ned Logan reunited for one last score. The grizzled, old gunslinger William Munny ultimately warmed up to cocky the Schofield Kid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legendary outlaw William Munny had given up the booze and was living an honest life on a small pig farm with his two young children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "William Munny's dearly departed wife was never far from his thoughts. He gazed wistfully at his departed wife's photograph, and later laid flowers at her grave. He refused Delilah's offer of freebie sex on account that he was \"married\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quick Mike didn't take kindly to Delilah laughing at him for having a small \"third leg\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Little Bill spared the bullwhip on Quick Mike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Schofield Kid alluded to William Munny having pulled off a notorious train robbery some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Munny had given up drinking, that is, until Little Bill brutally killed Munny's best friend, Ned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Munny sought the $1000 bounty out of a desire to give his two young kids a leg up in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Munny was single-handedly raising his two children on a humble pig farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Clyde had three pistols with only one arm to shoot them. It came to light that the Schofield Kid was near-sighted in a time and place where spectacles were apparently not an option.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "English Bob was an exponent of monarchy. He asserted without solicitation how a monarchic system would do the republican United States some good in the way of maintaining a strong social order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wimpy writer W.W. Beauchamp was gathering material for a biography of English Bob among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Munny confided in Ned that he was scared to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It took William Munny three days of lying around barely conscious in the barn to recover from the beating that the Sheriff Little Bill inflicted on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William Munny took pity on his victim Quick Mike as Mike lay dying in the sun, assuring Mike's men they were safe to give the dying man a drink of water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Little Bill bullwhipped Ned Logan in an effort to get the names of Ned's accomplices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Schofield Kid, overwhelmed from having shot a man dead in cold blood at point blank range, declared that he would never kill again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a woman transforms a man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reformed outlaw William Munny credited his wife with having cured him of \"drink\" and \"wickedness\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cocksure Schofield Kid had a mental breakdown after shooting Quick Mike's accomplice dead while the man was relieving himself in the outhouse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x09", "title": "King of the Road", "date": "1992-08-08", "description": "Sheriff Joe Garrett is confronted by Billy, a cocky hoodlum and street racer who has learned that Joe himself was once a legendary street racer known as \"Iceman\", and attempts to challenge him to a race. The stakes are raised significantly when Billy kidnaps Joe's daughter in order to blackmail him into racing him. Left with no other options, Joe is forced to come out of retirement and participate in one last race to save his daughter's life.\n\nNote: The \"Two-Fisted Tales\" comic book cover shown in the episode is a spoof. This tale came from the script for the film Two-Fisted Tales that was \"based\" on the comic book series of the same name along with the Tales from the Crypt stories \"Yellow\" and \"Showdown\". Warren Zevon provides the soundtrack for this episode.\n\nDirected by: Tom Holland. Story by: Randall Jahnson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The cocky speedster Billy wouldn't be satisfied until the legendary street racer Joe \"Iceman\" Garrett came out of retirement to race him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The fixture of the community Sheriff Joe Garrett had a dark secret: He was once a notorious street racer, and, moreover, never faced justice over having killed a teenager while behind the wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cocky speedster Billy blackmailed and otherwise coerced the legendary street racer Joe \"Iceman\" Garrett into coming out of retirement to race him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe warned his daughter, Carey, that Billy was only using her, but she didn't listen to her regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe warned his daughter, Carey, that Billy was only using her, but she didn't listen to her regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Joe Garrett was shown doing some mundane sheriff things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cocky speedster Billy wouldn't be satisfied until the legendary street racer Joe \"Iceman\" Garrett came out of retirement to race him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around the dangerous, but very cool pastime of illegal street racing. In his youth, Joe killed a teenager while behind the wheel in a street racing crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe found that Billy had upped the ante on him by kidnapping and threatening to kill Joe's daughter, Carey, lest Joe agree to the race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper feigned to be rehearsing together with his theater group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper feigned to be rehearsing together with his theater group.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x03", "title": "Tomorrow's Child", "date": "1992-08-14", "description": "A couple's child is born in another dimension, and they must deal with the complex reality of this unusual situation.\n\nDirected by: Costa Botes. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A couple giving birth used a novel technology to transport their baby out of the mother's womb. Due to an unfortunate malfunction, the baby ended up garbled in a higher dimensional space. It ended up appearing as a blue pyramid in our usual three dimensions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a married couple in the future, who have a very unusual baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns taking care of, loving, and nurturing a baby that has accidentally been born with a very unusual appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a couple struggling with loving their new baby, and one another, despite the baby's unusual appearance as a blue pyramid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Polly's was born as a blue pyramid. She resolved to be a good mother to it nonetheless, but in the end she couldn't take it anymore and agree to be transported into a higher dimension to take care of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story begins with an anxious couple being on their way to hospital in order to have a child delivered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Wolcott, a physician, delivered Polly's baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polly turned to the bottle to cope with her baby being born as a small, blue pyramid. She was twice shown drinking hard liquor alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Polly were owners of a self-driving hovercraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x10", "title": "Maniac at Large", "date": "1992-08-19", "description": "Margaret, a meek librarian in an inner-city library, learns that a serial killer is loose in the area, and begins believing that she will be the killer's next victim. To make things worse, head librarian Mrs. Pritchard forces Margaret to work late one night. Left alone after closing time in a library that is usually frequented by suspicious characters and not knowing exactly who the serial killer is, Margaret's paranoia ends up overwhelming her.\n\nDirected by: John Frankenheimer. Story by: Mae Woods.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a serial killer on the loose as alluded to in the title.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fear of the notorious serial killer, and being frequently disheveled by unsympathetic oddballs at the library where she worked, caused Margaret to become evermore unstable until she finally flipped out and stabbed her boss, Mrs. Pritchard, to death in a paranoid delusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the mild-manner librarian Margaret becoming consumed with the idea that she'd be the serial killer's next victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the mild-mannered Margaret repeatedly stabbing her stern and unsympathetic boss, Mrs. Pritchard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret became even more fearful when she was left alone for various reasons, notably when Mrs. Pritchard went out and the security guard had abandoned his post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Margaret became increasingly paranoid that there was a serial killer lurking outside the library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of delinquent teens were admonished for defacing a public library table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The security guard lamented over how Mrs. Pritchard refused to let area homeless people sleep in the library until such time as the serial killer was caught.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Pritchard had the police investigating the theft of five typewriters from the public library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Jamison briefly investigated the theft of five typewriters from the public library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "metaphysics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karma came back to get the mean-spirited Mrs. Pritchard. She was brutally murdered not long after asserting that if you put out negativity, as she did constantly, then negativity would come back to haunt you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pipkin asserted that the notorious serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie was a necrophilia to boot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret choose not to help the desperate but scary looking stranger that was banging away on the library door late at night. She was afraid he might be the notorious serial killer that was at large in the neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Margaret and Mrs. Pritchard both exchanged complaints about the drunk, incompetent and lazy security guard they had at the library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The security guard Grady had some hard booze stashed in the library basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The security guard Grady made a pass at Margaret in the library basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Pritchard mentioned that Grady, the boozed up, lazy, and incompetent security guard was neigh impossible to get rid of through official channels. She hinted that she had \"her own ideas\" for how to deal with him instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender in crime statistics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a point made about how surprising it would be should the serial killer turn out to be a female.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x04", "title": "The Anthem Sprinters", "date": "1992-08-21", "description": "While visiting Dublin, an American writer is caught up in a local Irish tradition called \"anthem sprinting.\"\n\nDirected by: Wayne Tourell. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in post-war Europe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what life was like in Dublin through the eyes of an American writer. He became caught up in a local tradition known as \"anthem sprinting\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an American writer (perhaps the greatest in the world) seeking inspiration in Dublin, Ireland. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an American writer (perhaps the greatest in the world) seeking inspiration in Dublin, Ireland. In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores an unusual Irish \"sport\": Making it out of the cinema first after the film ends and before the national anthem (an Irish idiosyncrasy) begins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a friendly bet between Douglas, an American writer, and an Irish barkeep on a local Irish tradition called \"anthem sprinting\". Douglas wagered a first edition of \"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man\" by James Joyce against the barkeep's autographed playbill from the opening night of Sean O'Casey's play \"The Plough and the Stars\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"anthem sprinting\" custom was inherently a protest against the forced standing for the national anthem during the closing credits of movies at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "McGavin was extremely moved by the singing of Deanna Durbin, which reminded him of his dear departed grandmother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x11", "title": "Split Personality", "date": "1992-08-26", "description": "Small-time swindler Vic Stetson ends up experiencing car trouble outside a bizarrely designed mansion. Letting himself inside so he can use the phone, he meets the mansion's occupants: reclusive twin sisters April and June Blair. After learning that they are worth a combined $2 billion, Vic creates Jack, a twin brother of his own, so he can trick both twins into dating and marrying him in a plot to steal their combined inheritance. However, Vic soon gets a nasty surprise when he discovers that the twins harbor a dark and dangerous secret.\n\nDirected by: Joel Silver. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The bigamist Vic tricked April and June into marrying him in a plot to steal their combined $2 billion inheritance. Vic also swindled the black jack playing old man in the casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy identical twins April and June Blair fell victim to a swindler's bigamist designs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy identical twins April and June Blair fell victim to a swindler's bigamist designs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with April and June collaborating in cutting their mutual, bigamist, husband down the middle with a chainsaw. This way they'd get a half each, and wouldn't have to share.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bigamist Vic tricked April and June into marrying him in a plot to steal their combined $2 billion inheritance. Marrying just one and getting half wasn't enough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bigamy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic contrived to commit bigamy in order to get his hands on a two billion dollar fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper's sketch was blackjack themed. An old man played blackjack at the casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old man at the black jack table tried to renege on bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The swindler Vic feigned to take compassion on an old man who claimed to have mistakenly bet the money to pay for his boy's operation on a hand of black jack. But this was just a prelude to scamming him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic recounted part of his strange tale to the prostitute who shared his silken pink sheet lined bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth pronounced Vic and April husband and wife. Later that evening, the same man pronounced the impostor Jack (actually Vic) and June man and wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth pronounced Vic and April husband and wife. Later that evening, the same man pronounced the impostor Jack (actually Vic) and June man and wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that April and June had murdered their architect father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic feigned to have some sort of extraordinary perception that told him the next card up would be a two.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x12", "title": "Strung Along", "date": "1992-09-02", "description": "Retired puppeteer Joseph Renfield, who used to make children laugh with his signature character Koko the Clown, is offered a chance to revive his act for a tribute to the golden age of television. Due to his age, his young and dominant wife, Ellen, suggests that Joseph hire someone to help with the performance. Ellen introduces Joseph to her friend David, an animatronic puppeteer, as his new assistant. However, a game of deception soon begins when love letters are found in Ellen's dresser, leading Joseph to question if Ellen is unfaithful to him.\n\nDirected by: Kevin Yagher. Story by: Yale Udoff.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Joseph falling victim to his wife Ellen and her lover's plot to eliminate him and make it look like he died of natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on an aged puppeteer with a heart condition, named Joseph, falling victim to a plot by his conspicuously younger wife, Ellen, and her lover to eliminate him and make it look like he died of natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "performance art", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired puppeteer Joseph Renfield was eagerly preparing to perform his act on a tribute show to the golden age of television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sinister Koko the Clown marionette was telling the aged puppeteer Joseph what to do. In the end, Koko brutally murdered Joseph's wife and her lover to avenge their taking of Joseph's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired puppeteer Joseph Renfield took on the up-and-coming animatronic puppeteer David as his apprentice, not knowing David was his wife's lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen conspired with her lover, David, to dispatch her aged husband in a way that made it look like he died of natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen conspired with her lover, David, to dispatch her aged husband in a way that made it look like he died of natural causes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aged puppeteer Joseph Renfield had a weak ticker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Koko preached vengeance to Joseph when they were discussing what to do about Ellen's assumed infidelity. Koko seemingly came alive in order to avenge its fallen master, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellen and David plotted to stage the killing of Ellen by the puppet Koko the Clown come to life in order to scare Joseph to death, and indeed they succeeded in doing so. But then the real Koko came to life and killed Ellen and David in the very way in which they had staged her murder in the first way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper was having himself stretched out on the rack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen tried to force Joseph into choosing between her and his new assistant David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Koko the Clown marionette steered Joseph away from filing for a divorce against his unfaithful wife in favor of a more sinister option.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops arrived on the scene of the grisly murders in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ventriloquism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although it was never spelled out, it appeared that ventriloquism was involved in order to make the puppets, or Koko at any rate, appear to have voices of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived to investigate the mysterious murder of Ellen and her lover that, incredulously, had been perpetrated by a puppet clown named Koko briefly come alive to avenge its master.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellen used \"acting classes\" as a pretext to go off on assignations with her secret lover instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x13", "title": "Werewolf Concerto", "date": "1992-09-09", "description": "In an Agatha Christie-style mystery, a group of guests at a hotel discover that one of them has been gruesomely killed, and suspect that there may be a werewolf lurking in the nearby woods. When a mudslide blocks off the only road out, the hotel manager, Antoine, hires Lokai, a werewolf hunter who vows to find and exterminate the beast. But before he can do so, Lokai must figure out just who the werewolf is.\n\nDirected by: Steve Perry. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "werewolf", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Lokai in his efforts to dispatch the eponymous werewolf that was preying on the patrons of an isolated hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hotel patrons being serially preyed upon by an area werewolf constitutes the premise of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Even though the perpetrator was known to be a werewolf, the three slayings that took place at the hotel where the story is set were described as murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Bailey went into hysterics upon being informed of her husband's brutal slaying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mercedes and her husband were among the hotel patrons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hertz was posthumously outed as a Nazi war criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Hertz was posthumously outed as a Nazi war criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lokai transformed into a werewolf under the light of the full moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Janice revealed herself to be just such a creature of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The suave werewolf hunter Lokai made a play for his fellow hotel patron, Janice Baird, not knowing she was a vampire. Lokai and Janice flirted unsubtly, and agreed to an assignation in her bathtub.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x05", "title": "By the Numbers", "date": "1992-09-11", "description": "A man reminisces about his childhood and his drill sergeant father.\n\nDirected by: Wayne Tourell. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a father who pushed his son to an insane degree by acting like a army drill sergeant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a father who pushed his son to an insane degree by acting like a army drill sergeant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The abusive father told his son not to move a muscle then, through an ironic twist of fate, stumbled on a towel and drowned in the pool in front of his son who didn't dare move a muscle to aid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the context of the story it's not clear whether the unorthodox behavior of the father was considered child abuse of the criminal kind, but it is arguable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a writer who was seeking inspiration for his next novel. In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the story, a man recollected how his disciplinarian father raised him as if he were a military cadet. Later in life, the man struggled with the effects of this harsh upbringing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that the son might grow up to murder his abusive father. In the event, said father perished by misadventure instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e4x14", "title": "Curiosity Killed", "date": "1992-09-16", "description": "Jack and Cynthia, an elderly couple who hate each other, are camping in the woods with fellow elderly couple Harry and Lucille, who are more tolerable of one another. Wanting to repay Jack for saving his life in the military, Harry and Lucille let him in on the secret: they are planning to create a potion that will allow them to become young again. Harry, Lucille, and Jack also attempt to keep the secret from the bitter and overbearing Cynthia, who wants to use it for her own means.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Stanley Ralph Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The four main characters all felt their years and were desperate to become younger again when they realized they had a chance to do so. Cynthia in particular was bitter because she felt she had given the best years of her life to Jack and had nothing to show for it. The sentiment was somewhat reciprocated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two elderly couples as they spend some time together camping in the woods. Jack and Cynthia were constantly at each other's throats, while Harry and Lucille were more tolerable of one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old married couple of Jack and Cynthia quarreled like one, as the saying goes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forty-five yearly of marriage left Jack and Cynthia bitter and resentful toward one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly men Jack and Harry were friends dating back to the time they spend fighting in the war together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia poisoned her husband Jack's youth potion out of spite once it became clear he was not going to share it with her. Jack died a quick, but horrible death after imbibing the lethal brew (as did Harry and Lucille). Harry had earlier exhumed the badly decayed corpse of his first wife, Emma, who he'd done in with a six-inch blade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The four main characters, and also the dog, all enjoyed the magic youth restoring nectar to varying extents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly couple of Harry and Lucille prepared a magic youth restoring nectar. They planned to share the magic nectar with Harry's old friend Jack, but Jack's resentful wife Cynthia ensured they all died horribly before they had the opportunity to enjoy the nectar's benefits. Taking the nectar for herself, Cynthia regained her youth and beauty, only to be mauled to death by a dog that'd regained its vitality by licking the left over nectar from the very glass Cynthia had used.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shrew character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia was a stereotypically unpleasant, ill-tempered, scolding, nagging, and aggressive wife to Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry shared the youthenizing nectar with Jack to repay him for having saved his life in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the old couples vicious mutt was chained at the campsite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cynthia's nosiness about the youth restoring nectar indirectly led to her demise. It is unclear as to whether the story title refers to this or something else.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x06", "title": "The Long Rain", "date": "1992-09-19", "description": "An army spaceship crash lands on a planet where it always rains, and they seek out the only known shelter that exists.\n\nDirected by: Lee Tamahori. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Four men battled the elements on an alien planet where it always rained, and deadly electricity was (literally) in the air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative habitable celestial body", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four men were exploring a planet on which it has rained ceaselessly for 10 million years, give or take a million.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The leader of the group struggled to keep up morale, at least so that his men wouldn't kill themselves out of despair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The leader of the group struggled to keep up morale, at least so that his men wouldn't kill themselves out of despair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story starts out at the site of a crash landed futuristic spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boltz questioned the plan to colonize the \"puddle\" of a planet on which they had crash landed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the men was driven mad by the ceaseless torrential rains.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x01", "title": "Time's Arrow, Part II", "date": "1992-09-21", "description": "The Enterprise crew follow Data to San Francisco of the 1890s. The crew deals with Samuel Clemens (and run into Jack London), while trying to find a way to prevent aliens from interfering with 19th-century Earth. Guest star: Jerry Hardin as Samuel Clemens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew travel back to 19th century San Francisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Devidian :: Devidians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data was complacent about finding out he will die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain :: Samuel Clements on the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain, Jack London :: Mark Twain and Jack London", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data to 19th century folk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and others pretended to rehearse a Shakespeare play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Twain :: Data meets Twain", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x07", "title": "The Dead Man", "date": "1992-09-26", "description": "Odd Martin becomes friends with Miss Weldon, who seems to be fine with the fact that he's dead.\n\nDirected by: Costa Botes. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undead being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is Odd Martin, an odd man who believes himself to be \"dead\" following a drowning accident. He suggested that he did not have a pulse, and he refuted the idea that he meant \"dead\" simply as a metaphor for being dead inside. It is never made clear whether he was right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Weldon was the only person who felt compassion towards Odd Martin. They were both somewhat picked on by the people around them, and came to develop a sense of camaraderie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the peculiar courtship and sudden marriage of John \"Odd\" Martin and Miss Weldon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miss Weldon proposed that Odd should stop telling people he was dead because, in her view, his problem was simply that he lacked the companionship of a good woman. Although Odd kept insisting that he was, indeed, dead, he seems to have concurred regarding the rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odd Martin and Miss Weldon tied the knot in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerns the peculiar courtship and sudden marriage of John \"Odd\" Martin and Miss Weldon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odd Martin described drowning, and believed himself to be dead despite walking around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Weldon promptly adopted the cat that Odd Martin was on his way to drown in a burlap sack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff twice oversaw the moving of Odd Martin's supine body from a roadside parking spot to the comparative safety of the sidewalk. One gathers that this was a daily occurrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reverend Polk found it peculiar that he had not been asked to preside over Odd Martin and Miss Weldon's marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Simpson ran a small town barbershop.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x02", "title": "Realm of Fear", "date": "1992-09-28", "description": "Barclay must overcome his fear of the transporter to solve a mystery.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay of going through the transporter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: episode was building toward Barclay's display of courage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay had therapy with counselor Troi and resolved to overcome his irrational fear of teleportation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay about going through the transporter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay was fearful of using the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay fretting over his various imagined ailements", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "transporter :: the episode revolved around Barclay's attitudes toward using the transporter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay about his hypochondria run wild", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien :: O'Brien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay mustered up the courage to go through the transporter and grab a parasite of some kind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Barclay :: Geordi and Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi was notably understanding of Barclay as Barclay worked through his fear of going through the transporter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x08", "title": "Sun and Shadow", "date": "1992-10-03", "description": "A film crew descends on a Mexican town, but one of the locals has had enough with the interlopers who belittle their way of life.\n\nDirected by: Larry Parr. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "manners", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ricardo explained that his ire stemmed in no small part from the film crew's lack of manners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ricardo was exceedingly proud and chafed at being the unconsulted subject of the director's artistry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ricardo was upset about the smug attitude of the director who treated the town as if he owned it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "A film crew from the United States was shooting a television commercial in a picturesque Mexican village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The director, Lazlo, coped with Ricardo interfering in his filming of a television commercial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indecent exposure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The director alleged that Ricardo was guilty of indecent exposure but the police officer noted that Ricardo, with his pants down, still exposed less skin than the actresses nearby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricardo was proud of his son for showing courage and pride, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricardo and Maria Reyes expressed their love for one another in words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police officer, named Esteban, refused to arrest Ricardo for indecent exposure.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x03", "title": "Man of the People", "date": "1992-10-05", "description": "A psychic ambassador uses Deanna 's mind to influence the outcome of his mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alkar sacrifices multiple women to achieve his diplomatic goals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alkar sacrifices multiple women to achieve his diplomatic goals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi was jealous of Alkar's other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alkar was mediating a dispute on Rekag-Seronia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at Alkar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alkar justified using Troi as a receptacle for his negative emotions by maintaining that it was for the greater good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi becomes obsessively infatuated with Alkar to the point of madness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alkar telepathically projected his negative emotions into young women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natives of Rekag-Seronia :: The Rekag-Seronians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rekag-Seronians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker pleaded with Troi to exercise a modicum of self-restraint in the name of decency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi wears a sexy dress and seduces a young ensign right under Riker's nose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor vs. next of kin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard authorizes the autopsy against Alkar's wishes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker took Troi aside and gave her a stern talking to over her recent wild behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lumerian :: Alkar's race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lumerians were telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi rapidly aged because Alkar projected his negative emotions into her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how can the crew prove Alkar was guilty of using Troi as a receptacle for his negative emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi/Ves Alkar :: Troi and Alkar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi in counseling session with Ensign Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi, Sev Maylor :: Troi; Alkar's alleged mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ves Alkar :: Ves Alkar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi with her fancy dress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alkar justifies the women's deaths by arguing it is necessary to prevent war on Rekag-Seronia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi rapidly aged from Ves Alker using her as a receptacle for his negative emotions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x09", "title": "Silent Towns", "date": "1992-10-10", "description": "A man is stranded on Mars during an evacuation, and desperately seeks out someone, anyone, else who may still remain.\n\nDirected by: Lee Tamahori. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When Walter returned to town from working in the mountains, he realized that he was likely the only person on Mars who missed the sudden mass evacuation to Earth. He eventually managed to establish telephone contact with a woman who had stayed behind. But upon meeting her in person, he was so utterly repulsed by her personality and physical appearance that he chose to make a break for it and spend his remaining days in solitude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter desperately sought out human contact after discovering himself to be all alone on Mars. Genevieve was equally lonely. In the end, Walter decided he'd rather be alone than spend his days with Genevieve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genevieve saw in Walter her future husband. Walter, by contrast, saw in Genevieve an obnoxious blob of a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genevieve made plain to Walter her desire to marry him. She prepared a romantic candlelit dinner among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a couple frontier town on the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genevieve was left agog, aghast and, one may conjecture, heartbroken when her presumptive fiancée, Walter, hightailed it despite the fact that she was most likely the last woman on the whole planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x04", "title": "Relics", "date": "1992-10-12", "description": "The Enterprise investigates a vessel that crashed on the surface of a Dyson sphere 75 years ago. An undegraded pattern is found in the transporter buffer, that of Mr. Scott . Feeling out of place and obsolete, Scotty agrees to return to his vessel with Geordi to help restore the logs, and they become the only hope when the Enterprise is accidentally pulled inside the sphere.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Dyson sphere", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise discovered a Dyson sphere out in the depths of space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty woke up 75 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty/Geordi :: Scotty and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty lost confidence in his engineering abilities aboard the futuristic Enterprise-D", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty aboard Enterprise-D", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty, Geordi :: Scotty to original Enterprise; Geordi to Enterprise-D", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty simulating original Enterprise bridge on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard urges Geordi to help Scotty to make a meaningful contribution aboard the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Scotty :: Picard and Scotty spoke fondly of the old days while immersed in a holodeck simulation of the original Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: old Enterprise simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty for Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty was en route to retirement planet when he crashed on Dyson sphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: crew at Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: Scotty stored in transporter patter buffer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty :: Scotty with nothing useful to do", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Geordi :: Picard and Geordi toward Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Geordi :: Picard and Geordi v Scotty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Geordi :: Picard and Geordi toward Scotty", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Critters 4 (1992)", "title": "Critters 4", "date": "1992-10-14", "description": "In the year 2045, the last Critters known to exist in universe run amok on an abandoned space station. It is the fourth installment in the Critters franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Critters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_4" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and RSS Tesla crew members battled two Critters aboard an abandoned space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Critters were of alien origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The last known Critters in the universe ran amok on an abandoned space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie woke up on a space station in the year 2045, over 50 years after he'd accidentally fell inside a preservation capsule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The TerraCor corporation was attempting to acquire the last known Critter eggs for some nefarious purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Intergalactic law forbade Charlie from destroying the last two remaining Critter eggs known to exist in the universe on account that doing so would cause their extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie woke up over 50 years in the future after having accidentally fallen into a preservation capsule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of the salvage ship RSS Tesla found a Critter containing pod floating in deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The salvage ship RSS Tesla was flying around in deep space.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers III (1992)", "title": "Trancers III", "date": "1992-10-14", "description": "Jack is tasked to put an end to the maniacal Colonel Daddy Muthuh's US government sponsored trancer training program. It is the fourth film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack bounced around in time from 1992 to 2247 to 2005 and back again to 2247, but not in space as all the locations were Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Muthuh led a secret military project to create an army of drugged up super soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Muthuh led a secret military project to create an army of drugged up super soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Muthuh led a secret military project to create an army of drugged up super soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw 1992 Los Angeles bedecked with Christmas things in celebration of the holiday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jack working in 1992 Los Angeles as a private investigator who specialized in catching cheating spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a shotgun toting man try to hold up a liquor store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Lena were going through a messy divorce at the start of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Lena were going through a messy divorce in 1992 Los Angeles. Jack then visited 2005 Los Angeles to find that Lena had remarried and was raising a young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruthie was heard saying that she wasn't going to waste plasma on a trooper who wasn't going to make it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lena was raising a preteen daughter in 2005 Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack arrived in 2247 Los Angeles to find his people had formed an underground movement and were fighting in a desperate war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two brothers eagerly signed up for and participated in Colonel Muthuh's secret legion of drug fueled super soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack, among other people, traveled to the future in a booth-like time machine, called a TCL machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x10", "title": "Downwind From Gettysburg", "date": "1992-10-17", "description": "Walter Bynes has created a robotic duplicate of Abraham Lincoln. If one can believe it, the night of its public unveiling is marred by a killer named Booth who plans to assassinate the robot.\n\nDirected by: Chris Bailey. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman Booth \"assassinated\" an animatronic Abraham Lincoln to make a name for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The infamous murder of America's 16th president was a central topic in this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the wanton destruction of an animatronic Abraham Lincoln.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norman Booth admitted to having, as a 10 year old boy, broken a turtle's shell with a brick and watched the poor creature die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x05", "title": "Schisms", "date": "1992-10-19", "description": "Several members of the crew are abducted and experimented on while they sleep.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Solanogen-based Lifeform :: Riker abducted on multiple occasions by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Solanogen-based Lifeform :: Riker experimented on multiple occasions by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Several crew member, but most notably Riker, suffered from insomnia and related problems which caused them to become erratic and underperform. It turned out that extradimensional aliens had been abducting them through artificial space rifts at night in order to perform gruesome experiments on their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "subspace aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Solanogen-based Lifeform :: subspace aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker takes the risk of being willingly abducted to gather information about the aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker takes the risk of being willingly abducted to gather information about the aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker and others reliving the alien experiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew members were having difficulty accounting for their having lost track of time and their negative emotional responses to ordinary objects. It later became apparent that all of this was to be explained as a result of crew members having been repeatedly abducted by aliens form another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker had his arm severed and reattached in course of bizarre alien experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data with poetry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew stir up repressed memories of alien abductions with the help of a holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: table reconstruction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker overslept and missed meeting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data recited his new poem \"Ode to Spot\" at a poetry reading.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew in reconstructing table on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Spot :: Data and Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker overslept and missed a meeting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x11", "title": "Some Live Like Lazarus", "date": "1992-10-24", "description": "A couple who've had to endure the groom-to-be's domineering mother for 40 years are uncertain how to proceed onward when she finally dies.\n\nDirected by: Peter Sharp. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Roger was torn between his domineering mother and his childhood love, Anna. Anna demanded that Roger kill his mother so that they could be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger's domineering mother was in the way of him being together with his childhood love, Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger's domineering mother, who ran his life completely, was in the way of him being together with his childhood love, Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Anna fell deeply in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is possible that 60-year-old Roger finally did in his domineering mother. In Anna's dream, Roger killed his mother in three different ways: he smothered her with a pillow as she lay in bed, hanged her in a tree, and ran her through with a steak as though she were a vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a scene from Roger's childhood, Roger's domineering mother stopped him in his tracks from playing childhood games with Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna wooed Roger in her backyard badminton court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenagers Roger and Anna became instantly besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenagers Roger and Anna became instantly besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger's mother bluntly refused to be introduced to his lover, Anna, saying that she did not \"meet girls who wait on tables\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was torn between his domineering mother and his childhood love, Anna. When Anna demanded that he kill his mother, as he had once promised to do, he tried to take his own life instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x06", "title": "True Q", "date": "1992-10-26", "description": "Q reveals a secret about a young woman from Kansas who is visiting the Enterprise . Guest star: Olivia d'Abo as Amanda Rogers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Amanda and Q had virtual god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda resists using Q powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard decided to tell Amanda the truth about the Q's intentions for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The god-like Q thought himself above humans and encouraged Amanda to do likewise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda at Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amandauses her Q powers to take short cuts in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda about Q and Human worlds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood aspirations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda aspired to become a scientist when she grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tagrans learned about the value of environmentalist the hard way by polluting their atmosphere to the breaking point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tagran :: Tagrans polluted their atmosphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda's parents were mysterious killed by a tornado.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly/Amanda Rogers :: Beverly took Amanda under her wing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda's father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda's mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda in the gazebo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda abused her Q powers in the eyes of the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda couldn't bear the sight of Riker eating with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Q :: Picard and Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda by Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly a woman in science for Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda experienced what it was like to have near god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda at Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly and others for Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda tried to be humble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly and others toward Amanda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda took the easy route to finishing those experiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda Rogers :: Amanda to deceased parents", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x12", "title": "The Handler", "date": "1992-10-27", "description": "A mortician has made a career of punishing his enemies in his morbid workplace. His time, however, is up.\n\nDirected by: Peter Sharp. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers around the mortician Mr. Benedict by desecrating the corpses of those whom he held grudges against. He fashioned a \"cake coffin\" for the rotund Mrs. Shellmund in retaliation for her having once rebuffed his romantic overtures. He pumped Mr. Wren's corpse full of black ink because he had been a big racist in life. He replaced Edmund Worth's buff body with 40 bricks. Mr. Benedict, who was not the gym type, was presumably jealous that he didn't have a hot body, like Edmund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mr. Benedict had taken it upon himself to desecrate the corpses of various people in order to mete out what he considered ironic punishments for their wicked behavior in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Benedict had taken it upon himself to desecrate the corpses of various people in order to mete out what he considered ironic punishments for their behavior in life. In an meta-ironic twist of fate (possibly), after Mr. Benedict happened to murder a person who he found to be not dead in the morgue, supernatural shadowy figures of otherwise unknown nature, attacked him and administered some sort of ironic punishment by burying pieces of him underneath all the tombstones of people he himself had victimized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rotund Mrs. Shellmund had over-indulged in deserts during the course of her life, according to Mr. Benedict. He particularly cited her love of cream tarts, chocolate eclairs, parfaits, and sundaes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wren, recently departed, had despised all minorities. The mortician Mr. Benedict took it upon himself to punish Mr. Wren by pumping the racist's corpse full of black ink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. McNamara barged into a cheap motel room and found his wife in delicto flagrante with Edmund Worth. It didn't end well for Edmund.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Benedict did in Mr. Merriwell Blythe by injecting him with an unidentified, clear liquid (possibly embalming fluid).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Supernatural shadowy figures of otherwise unknown nature, attacked him and administered some sort of ironic punishment on Mr. Benedict.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x13", "title": "Fee Fie Foe Fum", "date": "1992-10-28", "description": "A prankster goes too far in tormenting his wife's grandmother.\n\nDirected by: John Reid. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom coveted the box of cash that Grandma was keeping in her bedroom. He hatched an elaborate plot to kill her and take it for himself and his wife, but the plan completely backfired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Liddy Barton were living off of her grandmother's good will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddy (and her lazy husband Tom) were living off of her grandmother's good will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom terrorized Grandma in her own home by taking measures to make her think that he planned to grind her bones in the trash compactor. She got him back in kind and with interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandma wanted freeloading Liddy and Tom out of her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandma wanted freeloading Liddy and Tom out of her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandma thought with some justification that Tom planned to off her and steal her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandma thought with some justification that Tom planned to off her and steal her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom led Grandma to believe that he'd disposed of her house pets in the trash compactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was looking for a job, albeit halfheartedly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandma chided Liddy for marrying Tom, asserting that she'd have her own place to live had she chosen a more responsible man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miserliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandma was being tight with her money from Tom's point of view. Grandma, however, had her reasons for refusing to help out Tom and Liddy with their finances. Namely, she considered them to be moochers and wanted them out of her house above all else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom returned early from his and Liddy's intended vacation because he had forgotten his fishing lures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x14", "title": "Great Wide World Over There", "date": "1992-10-29", "description": "Cora Gibbs lives on an isolated farm, but thanks to her nephew finally has the chance to connect with the outside world.\n\nDirected by: Ian Mune. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the core of the story was Cora's and Mrs. Brabbham's feelings of isolation from the rest of the world owing to their raging illiteracy. It came to light that Mrs. Brabbham ventured out to her mailbox each morning to collect the same tattered old letters. This was to give the appearance that she was regularly receiving mail from her loved ones. In reality she lived by herself in an old farmhouse, where one gathers she was deeply isolated and alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora's nephew, Benjy, spent the summer with her at her at Tom's farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Receiving mail was evidently a point of pride in the rural community where the story is set. It was in this context that Cora was eager to outdo her solitary neighbor, Mrs. Brabbam, when it came to getting letters stuffed in her mailbox. Cora was initially gleeful when the mail started flooding in. But she ultimately took pity on Mrs. Brabbam after it came to light that Mrs. Brabbham had been faking getting mail for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora was determined to upstage her solitary neighbor, Mrs. Brabbam, by receiving the most mail out of the two of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illiteracy in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a rural community where illiteracy was extent. Benjy wrote letters for Cora because she couldn't even read her own name. The story concluded with Cora receiving a simple letter from Benjy that included a drawing of a pencil together with the word \"pencil\". This, coupled with Benjy's assurance in the letter that he would write Cora very week, suggests that he intended to teach her how to read through their future correspondences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cora's husband, Tom, was kicking around the house. He was unenthusiastic about the letter writing project but grudgingly put his carpentry talents to use in its employ. His demeanor thawed somewhat when he saw the joys reading brought to his humble home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjy bid a sentimental farewell to his aunt, Cora, after spending the summer at her farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora came to regret one-upping Mrs. Brabbam when it came to receiving lots of mail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cora's husband built a magnificent white mailbox for her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rbt1985e6x15", "title": "The Tombstone", "date": "1992-10-30", "description": "A woman thinks the hotel she and her husband are staying in is haunted. The tombstone in her room would surely give anyone cause for concern.\n\nDirected by: Warrick Attewell. Story by: Ray Bradbury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-raybradburytheater1985.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Walter and Leota Bean spending a night in a hotel room that was being used to store a black marble tombstone. Leota was spooked by the presence of the tombstone. Walter, by contrast, was content to put it out of his mind and get some much needed shuteye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leota was spooked by the presence of a black marble tombstone in the middle of her and Walter's hotel room. She reasoned it meant that someone was buried under the floor and would return to haunt them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leota refused to accept that the tombstone in her and Walter's hotel room was merely being stored there for future use. Instead, she reasoned that it was connected to a spirit, and put flowers on the \"grave\" to appease the spirit. Walter, by contrast, was content to put the tombstone out of his mind and get some much needed shuteye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Whetmore carved a tombstone and accidentally misspelled the name Whyte as White. Concerned more than anything with not being wasteful, Mr. Whetmore killed a random stranger with the name of Mr. White, and sold the tombstone to his widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Whetmore carved a tombstone and accidentally misspelled the name as Whyte as White. Concerned more than anything with not being wasteful, Mr. Whetmore killed a random stranger with the name of Mr. White, and sold the tombstone to his widow. Mr. Whetmore's killing a man ostensibly to avoid letting a good tombstone go to waste is makes for an odd state of mind to say the least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leota accused Walter of orchestrating the placement of a tombstone in their hotel room as a weird kind of practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leota thought she heard a ghost in the hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Whetmore carved a tombstone and accidentally misspelled the name as Whyte as White. He subsequently killed a random stranger with the name of Mr. White, and sold the tombstone to his widow. Mr. Whetmore's killing a man ostensibly to avoid letting a good tombstone go to waste is makes for an odd state of mind to say the least.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x07", "title": "Rascals", "date": "1992-11-02", "description": "A transporter malfunction turns Picard , Keiko , Ro and Guinan into children, who become the ship's only hope when they are left aboard while the adult crew are forced to perform dangerous labor by Ferengi pirates.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had a second childhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Ro Laren, Guinan, Keiko O'Brien :: Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko were youthenised", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a group of kids come through", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Ro Laren, Guinan, Keiko O'Brien :: Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko were youthenised", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "is Picard in a child's body still Picard?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "away team was youthenised in freak transporter accident", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a life-changing event", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko were suddenly transformed into much younger versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "adult in the body of a child's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in opposing Ferengi takeover of the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "DaiMon Lurin took over the Enterprise and forced its crew to toil in the mines of Ligos Seven in the name of profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guinan/Ro :: Guinan and Ro as children in bed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with losing a special ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became painfully obvious to Picard that he could no longer function as ship captain after his body was reduced to that of 12-year-old child in a transporter mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko being in the body of a little girl put a strain on her and Miles' marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien/Keiko O'Brien :: Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guinan's advice to Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro encourages Guinan to partake in the jumping on of beds and pilow fighting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard not quite the same in the eyes of the crew when he is in the body of a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to young Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard not quite the same in the eyes of the crew when he is in the body of a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi describing how they would all be worked to death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in stepping down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi about slave labor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x08", "title": "A Fistful of Datas", "date": "1992-11-09", "description": "Data 's mind is connected to the ship's computer, which creates unforeseen effects on the holodeck .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Deadwood program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf faces Eli Hollander on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and friends vs. holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data noticed that Geordi was growing a beard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard played his Ressikan flute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Worf :: Picard and Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly was directing a play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie Meyers :: Annie at Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: a fistful of Datas on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Annie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander nags Worf into playing together on the holodeck", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x09", "title": "The Quality of Life", "date": "1992-11-16", "description": "Data observes self-guided \"tools\" used at a mining station display signs of sentience, and fights for their preservation, even risking Captain Picard's life on the ground that it is unacceptable to kill one sentient being to save another.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data must decide whether to side with his orders or with protecting the exocomps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data discovered that the exocomp autonomous tools had become sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data advocates for exocomp rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a discussion with Data, Beverly defined life as that which \"enables plants and animals to consume food, derive energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surroundings and reproduce\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farallon's self-interest make her very reluctant to recognize the exocomps as being sentient in spite of Data's evidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data takes a principled stand on exocomp rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farallon :: Farallon wiil do whatever it takes to master particle fountain technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engineered trans-orbital structure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Farallon was using the planet Tyrus 7A as a testing ground for a fledgling technology, known as a \"particle fountain\", that, if successful, would mine the planet from orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Exocomps :: Data and exocomp point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew generally prejudiced against exocomps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farallon :: Farallon wiil do whatever it takes to master particle fountain technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data took pains to test the exocomps for sentience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data about exocomp rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beards were discussed at the poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker complemented Geordi on his new beard, pointing out that \"The beard is an ancient and proud tradition\". Worf added that the beard is a symbol of courage to Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly challenges the men to shave their beards", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The “exocomps” stopped following their human operators’ instructions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "exocomps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "exocomps for Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "exocomps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x06", "title": "A Bird in the Hand ...", "date": "1992-11-22", "description": "Given a deadline to pay his debts, or else, chronic gambler Harold McCain plants a bomb under the Rolls-Royce of his uncle, professional football team owner Big Fred. The bomb is set to explode when the engine is started. However, someone else gets to Big Fred before Harold's bomb does by stealing the gardener's pickup truck and running him over while he is jogging. Harold tries to remove the bomb before it kills someone else, but cannot get near the Rolls-Royce due to police and security on the premises. When the gardener tries to move the Rolls-Royce out of the way of the TV camera crews, the bomb explodes, killing the gardener. Columbo investigates and discovers clues that link Harold to the car bomb, but Harold denies any involvement and tries to divert suspicion away from himself. Fred's wife Dolores, appears traumatised at losing her husband but has a good time as Fred's team's owner, but after Harold tries to squeeze her for money, he is shot dead in his cabin, making it appear obvious who is responsible.\n\nFinal clue/twist: The TV news tape shows Harold closing his eyes before the Rolls-Royce exploded, thus proving that he knew there was a bomb under the car. Columbo discovers that Harold's alarm was set to 8 pm, not 8 am. Harold had spent the entire night at a casino, where he won $5,000 and had breakfast; then he had a haircut and went to Dolores's house, which Columbo proves with recently cut hairs found inside Harold's hat that was in Dolores' den. Dolores shot Harold and moved his body to his cabin, but left Harold's hat at her house. Before Harold planted the bomb, Dolores moved the Rolls-Royce onto the driveway so the gardener could not drive his truck in. Dolores then sent the gardener to the back of house so that he would not see her steal his truck and run Big Fred over. Harold suspected Dolores was involved and was implying blackmail when he asked her for money. When Dolores demands that Columbo prove it, he replies, \"I don't have to prove it, ma'am. One in the hand is better than two in the bush,\" and arrests her for Harold's murder.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Jackson Gillis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dolores came up with a straightforward way to murder her husband: She stole a truck and ran him over while he was jogging in a dangerous location. She later came up with a slightly more intricate yarn to rid herself of Harold when he tried to blackmail her: She shot him and moved his corpse to a cabin he owned, then made it look like a burglary gone awry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dolores purloined a truck and ran over her disagreeable husband while he was jogging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dolores murdered her nephew-in-law to stop him from blackmailing her regarding her recent spouse murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main event of the story is Dolores killing Harold in order to rid herself of a blackmailer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harold was waist deep in gambling debts and out to get money any way he could from Dolores and Big Fred. Dolores murdered her husband to gain control of his sports empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with investigating Big Fred's death in an apparent hit-and-run accident, and later Big Fred's nephew Harold's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold had amassed more debts than he could pay off, at the poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dolores dispatched her husband, Big Fred, by running him over and took over his business empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Big Fred bluntly denied his prodigal nephew Harold's request for money to pay an urgent debt. Harold reacted by attempting to take his uncle out with a jury-rigged car bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "The handsome playboy Harold tried to seduce his aunt-in-law, Dolores, ad get her to give him money. But she saw through his charade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold was waist deep in debts and out to get money any way he could from Dolores and Big Fred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avunculicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold tried to take out his uncle, Big Fred, with a jury-rigged car bomb. Unfortunately for Harold his aunt beat him to it and succeeded merely in blowing up the gardener.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold was into poker but not very good at it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred owned a pro-football team of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold accidentally killed the gardener instead of Big Fred, with his jury-rigged car bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold smooched his aunt-in-law, Dolores, behind his uncle's back. There was an implication that they were, or had been, lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dolores acted traumatized in the wake of her husband's death in an apparent hit-and-run accident that she was in fact behind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dolores shed alligator tears for her nephew-in-law, Harold, who she in fact shot to death in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dolores' attorney took exception to some of Columbo's questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold tried to murder Big Fred with a car bomb but succeeded in blowing up the gardener instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wicked City (1992)", "title": "The Wicked City", "date": "1992-11-27", "description": "The film tells fictional story of conflicts and relationship between demon- like creatures and humans in 1990s' Hong Kong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_City_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "impostor living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Reptoids shapeshifted to appear as humans and were living secretly among them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Reptoids shapeshifted to appear as humans and were living secretly among them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taki and Ken were buddy police detectives who were part of a secret, and elite anti-Reptoid taskforce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the two police detective partners Taki and Ken as they go about their anti-Reptoid taskforce business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shudo was importing the addictive and harmful drug \"Happiness\" into the Wicked City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Taki and his Reptoid love interest Gaye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gets the idea that general and mutual enmity existed between the humans and the Reptoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The powerful Reptoid Daishu telekinetically moved sugar cubed into his interrogator's coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daishu and his evil son Shuto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time rewind ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shudo used his powers to make the time backward to an age when humans were more easy to control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken was transformed into a Reptoid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy V (1992)", "title": "Final Fantasy V", "date": "1992-12-06", "description": "Final Fantasy V[a] is a fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square in 1992. It is the fifth main installment of the Final Fantasy series.\n\nSynopsis: The game begins as a wanderer named Bartz investigates a fallen meteor. There, he encounters several characters, one of whom reveals the danger facing the four Crystals that control the world's elements. These Crystals act as a seal on Exdeath, an evil sorcerer. Bartz and his party must keep the Crystals from being exploited by Exdeath's influence and prevent his resurgence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_V" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story above all else follows a team of heroes led by the wanderer Bartz in their efforts to stop the evil sorcerer Exdeath from taking over and ultimately destroying the cosmos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bartz' world would rot away over time should the heroes fail to save the crystals of Water, Fire, and Earth from being shattered. This objective dominated the first half of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galuf remembered nothing more than his name upon walking up at the sight of a recently crashed meteor. After much consternation, his memory was later dramatically completely restored upon meeting his granddaughter, Krile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the the heroes Bartz, Leena, Faris, and Krile to prevent the evil sorcerer Exdeath from plunging the cosmos into chaos and ultimately nonexistence. The turtle Guido spelled this out with his words: \"Barts, Faris, Krile! The fate of the entire world is in your hands.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The use of magical spells is a key component of the game play and story plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galuf beloved his young granddaughter Krile, and she reflected back on him time and again after his tragic passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Leena and her estranged pirate sister Faris warmed up to each other over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Tycoon entrusted his daughter, Princess Leena, to protect the Elemental Crystal from a certain evil spirit who was about to return to plunge everything into darkness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "European dragon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Tycoon flew away from the castle on the back of a winged dragon to check something at the Wind Shrine. Leena later befriended this dragon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party stumbled upon a den of stereotypical \"shiver me timbers\" pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The feminine Princess Leena was juxtaposed with her rough-and-tumble, pirate sister, Faris, at certain points early on in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartz recalled how his father didn't want him to be burdened with knowledge of the crystals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartz fondly recalled his green haired mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Siren briefly stole the souls of Bartz' mother, Lenna's father, and Krile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartz confessed to being \"kind of afraid of heights\" while perched atop the summit of North Mountain. This was later revealed to have stemmed from a childhood incident in which he fell from the roof of a house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Karnac Minister was of the opinion that the party members were werewolves on account that they'd walked out from a crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid and his grandson Mid helped the party by teaming up to get the Karnak steamship back in working order, and later upgraded the party's airship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party discovered a flying galleon that was built by the ancients, and subsequently used it to go about the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party came into possession of a sailing ship that could not only fly, but also dive in the sea like a submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartz visited the double plot grave of his mother and father. Lenna and Faris watched their father King Tycoon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party was teleported from Gohn to somewhere under Crescent Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A bard in the rural town of Istory resolved to live quietly in is village making songs until the pain of losing his lover ebbed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ronkans used the Earth Crystal to make their city float aloft in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xezat knowingly gave his life to disable Exdeath's shield antenna so that the party could enter Exdeath's compound. Gilgamesh self-destructed to kill Necrophobe and give the party a chance to meet Exdeath in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Galuf expressed a desire to avenge Zeza's death by taking the fight to Exdeath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krile pointedly mourned her grandfather Galuf's death after he perished battling Exdeath. She mourned his death a handful of times thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bartz blushed when he saw Faris in her princess dress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Lenna cut out the life-saving tongue of the last dragon in the world to save her gravely ill mother?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Galuf attested to Siren that he'd risk his life for his fellow party members on account that they were his friends. Bartz assured Krile that he was her friend at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Mothra", "date": "1992-12-12", "description": "The film follows Battra and Mothra's attempts to stop Godzilla from destroying Yokohama. It is the 19th film in the Godzilla franchise, and is the fourth film in the franchise's Heisei era.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Mothra" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Godzilla ravaging Yokohama was the Earth's way of making humans pay for having wrought havoc on the environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "The treasure hunter Takuya Fujito was coerced into teaming up with his ex-wife, the archaeologist Masako Tezuka, to explore a remote Pacific island, and they ultimately rekindled their love for each other and got back together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The iconic kaiju Godzilla descended on the city of Yokohama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The iconic kaiju Godzilla descended on the city of Yokohama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The treasure hunter Takuya Fujito was apprehended by the authorities for stealing an ancient artifact from an ancient ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Masako Tezuka was sent to explore a remote Pacific by the Japanese government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Masako Tezuka was sent to explore a remote Pacific by the Japanese government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masako made it clear that she had yet to receive any alimony payments from her ex-husband Takuya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadbeat parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Takuya was called out by his ex-wife for not having made any alimony in support of his young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of diminutive female humanoids, called Cosmos, shared their knowledge of Mothra with the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A diminutive pair of humanoid females told of an antediluvian civilization that was destroyed by Nature for having tried to control Earth's climate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masako and her young daughter Midori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Takuya and his young daughter Midori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Mothra flying out into space to interfere with the trajectory of a giant asteroid that on course to collide with Earth in the year 1999.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In addition to denuding the Earth, the Marutomo Corporation took two diminutive humanoid females captive and planned to use them in an advertising campaign.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x10", "title": "Chain of Command, Part I", "date": "1992-12-14", "description": "Captain Jellico is assigned command of the Enterprise , while Picard is sent on a covert mission into Cardassian territory. Guest star: Ronny Cox as Edward Jellico.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker among others at Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edward Jellico :: Jellico's leadership style compared to Picard's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Edward Jellico :: Jellico's leadership style compared to Picard's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jellico established a firm chain of command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Edward Jellico :: Riker and Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker with working under Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Edward Jellico :: Riker and Jellico must learn to work together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an intransigent person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jellico takes a hardball approach to negotiating with Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "metagenic weapon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker with Jellico's orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Jellico :: Jellico", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fortress (1992)", "title": "Fortress", "date": "1992-12-18", "description": "The story takes place in a dystopian future. The main character in the movie and his wife are sent to a maximum security prison because they are expecting a second child, which is against strict one-child policies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story in set in a 2017 United States where a draconian one-child policy is in place, and offenders are jailed in a private maximum security, subterranean prison run by the ruthless Men-Tel Corporation. Also people were tattooed with barcodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brennick and his cell mates resolved to escape from the ruthlessly run private prison where they were being held or die trying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown prisoners living under draconian conditions is a futuristic privately run maximum security prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Every inmate was implanted with an \"Intestinator\": a small, oval device lodged in the intestine that can be used to induce crippling pain in the implantee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder about where or not corporations should be entrusted to run prisons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main story line concerned Brennick's efforts to free himself and his wife from a maximum security prison, and, moreover, their struggle to have second child in a United States where a draconian one-child policy is in place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prison Director Poe tried to force Karen into divorcing Brannick and marrying him, but she was repulsed by Poe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A claustrophobic inmate freaked out when he saw the tights confines of the maximum security prison where he was to be housed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mindwipe punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that one of the prisoners had had his mind wiped for trying to escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that abortion had been made illegal in the United States by the year 2017.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Misbehaving inmates were \"intestinated\" (i.e. a small device implanted in their was activated, causing them to double over in pain).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This reason was given as a justification for the strict one-child policy law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Brennick and Karen Brennick explicitly proclaimed their love for one other, but not much was made of them being in love, per se.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "D-Day was a computer geek with Coke-bottle glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "D-Day hacked into the Zed-10 sentient computer and gave it a virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison director Poe viewed an interactive holographic map of the prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Zed-10 was initially monitoring the day-to-day activities at the prison, but later took over the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a quite pointless plot twist, Prison Director Poe and his men were revealed to be cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zed-10 computer informed Brennick that the Men-Tel Corporation does not engage in any negotiations during hostage situations, and proceeded to shoot Brennick's hostage dead on the spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brennick took on the Zed-10 sentient computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Karen giving birth to her and John Brennick's baby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x11", "title": "Chain of Command, Part II", "date": "1992-12-21", "description": "Picard , having been captured, is tortured by a sadistic Cardassian interrogator (played by David Warner).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prisoners of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard's treatment as prisoner of war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard tutored first hand in the psychology of torture by Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard dehumanised by Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian military indoctrinated people in the virtues of military rule, as did Madred his daughter, and with parallels to indoctrinating Picard into seeing five lights where there were only four", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Edward Jellico :: Jellico and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew that Picard was alive and Picard to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We heard that the Cardassian military dictatorship turned their society from anarchy into something where at least people had food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian :: Cardassian political order - the military had brought order into chaos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madred :: Gul Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Cardassians were spying on one another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard vs. Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madred :: torture of Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madred :: Gul Madred", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madred :: Madred at older by who stole his eggs as a child; humanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jellico established a firm chain of command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Edward Jellico :: Riker and Jellico on the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jellico takes a hardball approach to negotiating with Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jellico in dealing with Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Jellico :: Jellico considers Picard's life to be expendable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard stays for Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edward Jellico :: Jellico", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scent of a Woman (1992)", "title": "Scent of a Woman", "date": "1992-12-23", "description": "The story of a preparatory school student who takes a job as an assistant to an irritable, blind, medically retired Army officer. The film is a remake of Dino Risi's 1974 Italian film Profumo di donna, adapted by Bo Goldman from the novel Il buio e il miele (it) (Italian: Darkness and Honey) by Giovanni Arpino and from the 1974 screenplay by Ruggero Maccari and Dino Risi. The film stars Al Pacino and Chris O'Donnell, with James Rebhorn, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Gabrielle Anwar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scent_of_a_Woman_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank wanted to take his own life after a weekend of wild merrymaking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie refused to snitch in spite of having every incentive to do so; he could also have left Frank to his fate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank seemed honorable but he cheated and lied several times and in the end admitted that Charlie had taken the high road where he himself had not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Frank was blind and was not coping well with it but seemed to come to terms with it towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie was willing to risk his own life to stop Frank's suicide; Charlie also was willing to give up all his career prospects by not snitching on his classmates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie refused to compromise on his ethical principles because he had integrity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frank several times clearly felt his years weight on him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie had some traditional high school concerns about friendships, money and popularity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was clearly a womanizer, we learned a few times over", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was a war veteran and not happy, although beynd that his role in society was not much discussed", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prototype (1992)", "title": "Prototype", "date": "1992-12-23", "description": "Prototype, also known as Prototype X29A, is a 1992 post-apocalyptic science fiction film. Set in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles of 2057, a crippled ex- soldier soldier becomes a killing machine that can interface with any computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hawkins was transformed into a killer cyborg-type thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles of 2057.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chandra was being hunted down by a crippled ex-soldier soldier turned killer cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conspicuously wheelchair-bound ex-soldier Hawking longed to be able to walk again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hawkins longed to be with Chandra, but she didn't feel the same way. This was especially the case after he was transformed into a killer cyborg type thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandra had a port on the nape of her neck that enabled her to immerse herself in a virtual reality desert landscape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandra encountered a computer simulation of her long deceased father in a computer simulated desert environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chandra encountered a computer simulation of her long deceased father in a computer simulated desert environment that was indistinguishable from reality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nemesis (1992)", "title": "Nemesis", "date": "1992-12-26", "description": "A disillusioned cop is tasked by the LAPD commissioner to go on a dangerous mission. But could the commissioner be a cyborg with designs on replacing all humans with cyborg duplicates? It is the first installment in the Nemesis film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Nemesis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(1992_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The hero of the story is the disillusioned cyborg cop Alex Rain. There was a cyborg conspiracy to replace all humans with cyborg duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an android conspiracy to replace human leaders with synthetic duplicates. The antagonists were completely synthetic and the protagonists were cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the disillusioned LAPD cop Alex Rain as he is tasked by the commissioner for one final, but perilous mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex Rain was a glass-half-empty, burned out cop who came to whether there was any point to having cops around anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people initially characterized as cyborg terrorists turned out to be a band of cyborg freedom fighters who were working to foil a cyborg conspiracy to replace all humans with cyborg duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex's heart was implanted with a bomb to ensure his obedience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was stigmatized for being a \"speed loader\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x01/02", "title": "Emissary", "date": "1993-01-03", "description": "A new crew is assigned to a former Cardassian space station: Deep Space Nine. It is a joint Federation/Bajoran force, with Commander Sisko in charge, but his life is dramatically changed when he is declared the Emissary to the Prophets by a Bajoran priest.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "wormhole aliens not understanding the human experience of time, human corporality, death, and other aspects of being human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "wormhole aliens discussed with Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bajorans were impoverished from recent Cardassian occupation and the Federation sent aid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians and Bajorans want to control the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bemjamin had lost his wife, Jennifer, in the Battle of Wolf 359 against the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin with memories of his deceased wife Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bemjamin and Jadzia discovered the first stable wormhole known to exist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans against the Borg; the Cardassians attacking Deep Space Nine when it was barely operational", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wormhole, a phenomena that while exotic was readily explicable by Federation science, held a deep religious significance to the Bajoran people who regarded it as supernatural. This led to conflict between the scientifically minded Federation crew and the religious Bajorans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dax switched from the male body of Curzon to the female one of Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human perception of time", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wormhole aliens were unacquainted with the notion of the arrow of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin trying to communicate with the wormhole aliens about the nature of time and episodic memory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin raising Jake alone on space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir motivated to come to space station by the prospect of adventure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was acquainted with the former host of Jadzia's Trill symbiont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake simulated fishing pond on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was bitter toward Picard for his role in the Battle of Wolf 359", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo thought the answer to where he came from might lie inside the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "wormhole aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Picard part ways with a firm handshake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard bids farewell to O'Brien in the transporter room", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin talked about baseball with the wormhole aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x03", "title": "Past Prologue", "date": "1993-01-10", "description": "A Bajoran terrorist with ties to Kira arrives on Deep Space Nine and is pursued by the Cardassians. Garak is introduced.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Katharyn Powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The notorious Bajoran terrorist Tahna Los of the Kohn-Ma band sought asylum aboard the space station. Kohn-Ma was seen as a band of freedom fighters by the Bajorans and a criminal terrorist organization by the Cardassians and the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira was introspecting about her loyalties to The Kohn-Ma terrorist organization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tahna Los in Bajor independence movement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira trusted Thana Los that he was honest in having renounced his terrorist ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thana Los betrayed Kira's trust and vice versa; Duras sisters betrayed Thana Los", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira between Bajor, the Federation and the terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira's was tested", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira to Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk to Tahna Los", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian worried about Garak being a Cardassian spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Tahna Los discussed the future of Bajor and their dependence on the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians and space station people were united by a common interest in catching the terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajoran criminal Tahna Los' request for asylum considered by command crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nira and Thana Los flew into wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin put Kira in line for going over his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thana Los threatened to explode a bomb and destroy all six colonies on Bajor Eight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak played coy with Bashir over whether or not he was a Cardassian spy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x04", "title": "A Man Alone", "date": "1993-01-17", "description": "Odo is accused of the murder of a Bajoran murderer.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Gerald Sanford & Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An angry mob wanted to lynch Odo. Odo wanted to throw Ibudan off space station without due process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "was there enough evidence Odo to charge Odo with Ibudan's murder?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ibudan faked his own death as part of an elaborate plot to make it look like Odo had murdered him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko felt unfulfilled since her botany skills were unneeded on space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko about finding something to do with her life aboard the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multicultural community", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space station school brought children from different cultures together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiculturalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the school bringing kids from different cultures together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Curzon Dax's friendship transcended Dax's transplantation into Jadzia; Jake and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was accused of the murder of a Bajoran murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko's marriage was strained by their move to space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia with Bashir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Curzon Dax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi appalled at the notion of a woman teacher", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ibudan cloned himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monogamy vs. single life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo's ode to single life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ibudan murdered in a holosuite simulated massage parlor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin disciplined Jake for pulling pranks with Nog on the Promenade", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was accosted by an angry mob who called him \"freak\" and \"murderer\". In this situation he met with prejudice because he looked deformed, rather than because of his foreign origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was thought to have shapshifted in order to commit the murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko tried to convince Rom to let Nog join the school by explaining that he'd learn about other cultures and it would be an advantage in business", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x05", "title": "Babel", "date": "1993-01-24", "description": "A mysterious virus plagues the station, causing speech distortions and eventually death.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Sally Caves & Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Bashir raced to find a cure for a mysterious disease that was spreading uncontrollably on the space station. The disease was caused by a man-made virus and robbed those infected of the ability to speak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans designed an aphasia causing virus to use against the Cardassians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin found out that Jake had only 12 hours to live owing to the aphasia virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajorans designed an aphasia causing virus to use against the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tech support occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An overworked Chief O'Brien was attempting to repair numerous malfunctions throughout the station, including most of the station's food replicators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Brien was overworked getting the space station operational", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira kidnapped scientist in order to save everyone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possible danger of the deadly, man-made virus reaching Bajor was entertained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark greedily demanded hazard pay for helping on ops when everyone else was incapacitated by the aphasia virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin stuck with Jake through his disease", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x12", "title": "Ship in a Bottle", "date": "1993-01-25", "description": "Barclay accidentally awakens Prof. Moriarty on the holodeck , who uses the powers at his disposal to coerce the crew into finding a way to allow him to leave the holodeck. Guest star: Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Was Dr. Moriarty sentient or was he merely a hologram?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "did Moriarty have the same rights as flesh and blood people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "epic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "James Moriarty/Regina Bartholomew :: Moriarty and Regina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "holodeck was used to simulated very realistic people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard was unaware that he was inside a simulated reality of Moriarty's design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: Sherlock Holmes program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty wanted to escape the confines of the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The episode concluded with crew pondering whether they too may be unknowingly living in a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty's 19th century point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty, Regina Bartholomew :: Moriarty and Regina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard among others face Moriarty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck gone wild", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: from Moriarty's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: Moriarty to get off the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data commented on the use of logical reasoning as he solved a mystery in Sherlock Holmes fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moriarty claimed that he could free himself from his virtual prison by the power of his own will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Moriarty :: We learned that Moriarty had been bored to tears in storage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: possibility of using to transporter to free Moriarty from the holodeck was discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Moriarty felt he was betrayed by Picard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x06", "title": "Captive Pursuit", "date": "1993-01-31", "description": "O'Brien befriends an alien from the Gamma Quadrant who is being hunted.\n\nDirected by: Corey Allen. Story by: Jill Sherman Donner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tosk bloodsports were morally objectionable to humans, who felt they could not stand idly by while such things go on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "O'Brien took Tosk under his wing and helped him become familiar with the ways of the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hunters hunted Tosk all the way to the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tosk declined asylum in favor of dying with honor in the hunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tosk was being hunted down for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles in Tosk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hunters, an alien race, were hunting Tosk, another alien race, for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tosk betrayed Miles by trying to steal the weapons from the station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles skirting orders to help Tosk escape hunters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Brien and Tosk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was accused of sexual harassment by the Dabo girl Sarda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chameleon-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tosk disguised himself in shuttle by changing color to look like wall", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tosk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles pleaded with Tosk to accept asylum with the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Brien risked his life to help Tosk live to fight another day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfering in the internal affairs of other powers for humanitarian reasons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sisko discovered that The Tosk were bread and trained to be prey in The Hunters' ritualistic blood sport. He was implored to intervene but ultimately decided that he could only do so if the Tosk applied for asylum, which they would not since it was their whole raison d'etre to be prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bussard ramjet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Brien described how a \"ramscoop\" could be used to capture stellar gases and convert them into usable fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tosk was engineered to be hunted by hunting aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x13", "title": "Aquiel", "date": "1993-02-01", "description": "Geordi falls for an alien Starfleet officer who is suspected of murder. Guest star Renée Jones as Aquiel Uhnari.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi with Aquiel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aquiel was strongly suspected of murdering her coworker on the relay station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bio-mimicking life form", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Coalescent Organism :: coalescent organism", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Aquiel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi at Aquiel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aquiel was strongly suspected of having murdered Lieutenant Rocha, although her innocence was proved in the end, thanks to Geordi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Aquiel as she faces strong suspicions of having murdered Lt. Rocha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi torn between siding with the weight of the evidence against Aquiel on the one hand and with his trust in Aquiel on the other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel Uhnari :: Aquiel felt uneasy being cooped up all alone in the relay station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel Uhnari/Shianna :: Aquiel and sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sororal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel Uhnari :: Aquiel for her sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel Uhnari :: Aquiel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel telepathically connected with Geordi in the traditional Hallian fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel telepathically connected with Geordi in the traditional Hallian fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hallian :: Hallians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard had to deal with an international crisis between the Federation and the Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aquiel Uhnari :: Aquiel on space station", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x07", "title": "Q-Less", "date": "1993-02-07", "description": "Q and Vash arrive on Deep Space Nine. However, Vash has realized the annoyance of Q and wants him to leave her alone.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Hannah Louise Shearer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vash and Quark tried to sell plundered artifacts in auction. Vash would choose profit over science every time, she said. Quark was lectured by Odo about the pointless accumulation of material possession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q bids Deep Space Nine a visit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q at Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to settle down vs. to keep on trekking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Vash give up her life of adventure for a quiet life on Earth with a cushy job at the Daystrom Institute?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark auctioning looted artifacts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disgraced archaeologist Vash had some to Deep Space nine to auction off artifacts that she'd found in the Gamma Quadrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q dumped Vash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash, Q, and Bashir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crystal turned into a living creature in space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vash came to Deep Space nine to auction off some artifacts that she'd taken from the Gamma Quadrant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x14", "title": "Face of the Enemy", "date": "1993-02-08", "description": "Deanna is involuntarily recruited to assist in the transport of Romulan defectors across the border.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "patriotism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romulans for the Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stefan DeSeve defected from the Romulan Empire to the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people can change", "level": "major", "motivation": "The defector DeSeve changed his political views and came back to the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi/Toreth :: Troi and Toreth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stefan DeSeve :: DeSeve for having gone to the Romulans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "DeSeve was suspected of being a Romulan spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "N'Vek :: N'Vek gave his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "N'Vek confided in Troi that he was a part of an underground movement that was working to undermine the Romulan senate. He urged Troi to help him arrange the escape of thousands of Romulan dissidents who feared for their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi tried to intimidate Toreth by reminding her that she is a member of the Tal Shiar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi upon finding herself on a Romulan warbird", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi as Tal Shiar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi surgically altered to look like a Romulan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x08", "title": "Dax", "date": "1993-02-14", "description": "Jadzia Dax is accused of a murder committed by her symbiont in another lifetime.\n\nDirected by: David Carson. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "was there enough evidence to convict Jazdia of treason?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "who had the rights to try Dax?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Was Jadzia responsible for the actions of her antecedent, Curzon?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what constitutes Dax' personhood?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia's symbiont former host was the prime suspect in a long unsolved murder case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin's friendship with both Curzon and Jadzia Dax; Curzon Dax kept his promise with his old friend the general not to expose him as a traitor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curzon in extramarital affair with Enina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia about protecting the reputation of friend's wife by accepting blame for a murder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Curzon Dax was the prime suspect in a thirty-year-old murder cold case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia was accused of treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir pestering Jadzia for a date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curzon Dax and Enina Tandro had an affair in the general's absence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enina Tandro and Ilon Tandro", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x15", "title": "Tapestry", "date": "1993-02-15", "description": "An accident kills Picard , and he finds an afterlife with Q analyzing his past choices.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard technically also had a third chance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard was made to reflect on his youthful indiscretions, but in the end he did not regret them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard was not happy wearing a blue uniform", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard learns that one need to risk taking chances to get ahead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about past actions as a Starfleet cadet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about bar brawl with Nausicaans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you have to take chances to get ahead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard learned that he would never have risen to the rank of captain had he taken a cautious approach to live in his youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard thrown back in time to his Starfleet cadet days", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Cortan Zweller :: Picard with Cortan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cortan Zweller :: Cortan to Nausicaans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Marta Batanides :: Picard and Marta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard about learning to enjoy the moment, rather than worrying too much about the consequences of every little action", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Marta Batanides :: Picard and Marta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the gambling, the drinking, and the women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to his friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about how to handle Nausicaans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nausicans and Cortan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Cortan accuses Picard of being fast friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Picard was cocksure of himself and got run through the heart in bar fight because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cortan Zweller :: Cortan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x09", "title": "The Passenger", "date": "1993-02-21", "description": "A sinister criminal is hiding in the mind of someone on Deep Space Nine, but Bashir struggles to understand how it works.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Morgan Gendel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kobliad murderer/scientist Rao Vantika sought to extend his life by transferring his mind into Bashir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kobliad murderer/scientist Rao Vantika sought to extend his life by transferring his mind into Bashir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and George Primmin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira with Bashir in shuttlecraft; Odo with George Primmin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rao Vantika and Bashir's minds both inhabited Bashir's body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "release the tractor beam or everyone dies!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir boasted of his achievements in medicine to Kira in the shuttlecraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993)", "title": "Babylon 5: The Gathering", "date": "1993-02-22", "description": "Commander Sinclair is the prime suspect when a Vorlon ambassador is nearly killed by an assassin shortly after arriving at the Babylon 5 space station. It is the first of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Gathering" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Babylon 5 space station serves as a neutral venue for discussing and resolving issues between the five major spacefaring races of the galaxy, the humans, Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and Vorlons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea that the Babylon 5 space station serves as a neutral venue for discussing and resolving issues between the five major spacefaring races of the galaxy, the humans, Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and Vorlons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Babylon 5 space station was set up as a neutral venue for discussing and resolving issues between the five major spacefaring races of the galaxy, the humans, Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and Vorlons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot centered on an attempted to assassinate Ambassador Kosh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair was being framed for the attempted assassination of Ambassador Kosh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Ambassador Kosh's would-be assassin was a shapeshifting Minbari man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lethal mating practice being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair warned a human male that Arnasian woman eat their mates after sexual intercourse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo lost some money at a casino gaming table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fleet of Vorlon ships came to Babylon 5 to pick up Sinclair for extradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair was to be extradited to the Vorlon homeworld and tried for the attempted assassination of their ambassador.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Benjamin Kyle was treating a poisoned Vorlon ambassador in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurel mentioned taht she'd served on a Mars colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta read a businessman's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attempt was made on Ambassador Kosh's life using poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi learned that Del Varner had been smuggling forbidden technology into Narn space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and his love interest Carolyn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair held himself responsible over his team being lost in the Earth-Minbari War and it was tearing him up inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair led G'Kar to believe that he's placed a nano-sized location monitoring device inside G'Kar's digestive tract.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x16", "title": "Birthright, Part I", "date": "1993-02-22", "description": "Worf is told on Deep Space Nine his father is alive, and being held prisoner by the Romulans . Meanwhile an engineering experiment accidentally results in Data 's first dream. Guest star: James Cromwell as Jaglom Shrek.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Noonian Soong/Data, Mogh/Worf :: Soong/Data and father/Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Noonian Soong/Data :: Soong/Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data about dreams etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of interpreting Data's bizarre dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was struggling to find some meaning in his enigmatic dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noonian Soong :: Soong at Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf refused to believe that anybody of his house, the House of Mogh, would allow themself to be taken as a prisoner of war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about his father being a coward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interest in antiques", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi wanted to visit a Katarian antique shop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian Bashir :: Bashir about Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf smashes a glass table", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1993)", "title": "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "date": "1993-02-28", "description": "A team of explorers sets on a voyage to the Earth's core, following an earlier attempt years before.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth_(1993_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avenger crew passed through the lava chamber of an active volcano and entered in a subterranean world over 100 kilometers below the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avenger crew passed through the lava chamber of an active volcano and entered in a subterranean world over 100 kilometers below the Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avenger vehicle could travel in any environment from air, to water, to solid rock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris saw off his uncle Jim who embarked on a voyaged into the Earth and was never to be seen again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some lip service was paid to the Avenger crew members having to spend six months cramped together inside the confines of their subterrene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wentworth felt humanity was rushing headlong into oblivion in part because of pollution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wentworth felt humanity was rushing headlong into oblivion in part because of overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avenger subterrene was fusion powered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avenger subterrene had a holographic navigation system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avenger crew used a special walk man-like device to communicate with a being that lived beneath the surface of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Yeti", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A yeti that had been banished from Tibet to the inner Earth joined the Avenger crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avenger crew encountered a race of antagonistic troglodytes living beneath the surface of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how the high priests of Atlantis had used a craft to descend into a volcano shortly before the demise of their city. They thereupon lived deep within the Earth and even built there a library.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x17", "title": "Birthright, Part II", "date": "1993-03-01", "description": "Worf , now a prisoner, tries to teach the Klingon refugees the ways of the warrior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf insists the Klingon detainees need to keep their cultural heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf raised awareness of importance of cultural heritage among Klingon youth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about his father being a coward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romulan commander for Klingon captives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Ba'el :: Worf loving the Klingon/Romulan hybrid Ba'el was an abomination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "everything was going pretty well in the prison camp until Worf started causing trouble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was disgusted to learn that some Klingons in the prison camp had married Romulans, and worse yet produced hybrid offspring. In general, Worf expressed disapproval of the Klingon prisoners fraternizing with Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf accepted to be executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indefinite detention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons were being held in a prison camp with no reasonable hope of being freed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf vs. Romulan prison camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf playing with Klingon children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mogh/Worf :: Worf and father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toq :: Klingon teens stuck in prison camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons in Romulan society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tokath :: Tokath to his captives", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Fire in the Sky (1993)", "title": "Fire in the Sky", "date": "1993-03-12", "description": "Local investigators suspect foul play when an Arizona logger is abducted by extraterrestrials. The film is based on Travis Walton's book The Walton Experience, which describes an extraterrestrial abduction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_the_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film tells Travis Walton's account of being abducted by extraterrestrials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "State and local authorities were investigating the mysterious disappearance of Travis Walton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "People, law enforcement officers especially, were reluctant to believe Travis' fellow loggers when they claimed that Travis had disappeared into thin air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travis' fellow loggers had to deal with being accused of foul play, possibly murder, in the wake of his mysterious disappearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travis was abducted and experimented on by space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike was shown playing with his two little girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Katie Rogers had an up and down relationship, and Mike ultimately walked out on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David Whitlock went to a church to ask the Lord for forgiveness for what he and his fellow loggers had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan was fretting when his brother Travis went missing under mysterious circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Travis were described as best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Action News Phoenix reporter pestered Mike for information about Travis' disappearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Travis' colleagues described the spaceship that took Travis as \"sort of\" saucer shaped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens pitilessly subjected Travis to a traumatic, excruciating experiment in which a gelatinous substance was shoved into his mouth, and with his jaw clamped open, a device was inserted into his neck and he was forced to endure an ocular probe while fully conscious during the experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Frank Watters dismissed Travis' story about being held on an alien spaceship for five days as an elaborate hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis' friends and family were worried while he was missing for a span of five days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis returned from the alien spaceship in a catatonic state and later had a mental breakdown at a gathering to celebrate his safe return and was found hiding under a small table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of ufologists were poking around trying to find out as much as they could about Travis' abduction by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis experienced a weightless environment aboard the alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)", "title": "American Cyborg: Steel Warrior", "date": "1993-03-14", "description": "In a near-future where people are sterile, an android assassin tries to kill a woman who was able to give life to a fetus, but a mercenary cyborg vows to protect her.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cyborg:_Steel_Warrior" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follow Mary and Austin as they are stalked by the Terminator-like android assassin Killer Cyborg Assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Austin Cyborg was true to his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was the only woman who was able to conceive, and the story follows her efforts to get her fetus (the last hope for humanity) to the safety of the so-called \"Europe artificial womb\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was being stalked by a remorseless android assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future where people are sterile and subjugated by artificial intelligences they'd created, and the said artificial intelligences were working to prevent the last known fertile woman on Earth from bringing her fetus to term. Despite being called “cyborgs”, some of the antagonists appeared to be entirely synthetic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Austin Cyborg fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary carrying her fetus in a transparent cannister of some sort, and the film end with the dramatic transfer of the fetus into the better \"European artificial womb\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Austin Cyborg assaulted a man in drag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary was taking the RZB pill for sustenance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carp attempted to rob Mary at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that women couldn't conceive owing to high ambient radiation levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Austin crossed paths with a band of mutant cannibals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Austin crossed paths with a band of radioactive cannibals.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x10", "title": "Move Along Home", "date": "1993-03-14", "description": "Quark is forced to play a game by the Wadi, a newly encountered species, and the lives of the crew depend on the outcome.\n\nDirected by: David Carson. Story by: Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sisko and company stuck in a maze in the Wadi game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deep Space Nine had the distinction of making first contact with a Gamma Quadrant species known as the Wadi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was repeatedly forced to make life and death decisions involving his friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, Kira, Bashir, and Jadzia trapped inside the Wadi game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wadi delegates were eager to to gamble with their gemstones at the dabo wheel in Quark's bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the birds and the bees", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin tells Jake about the birds and the bees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin tells Jake about the birds and the bees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin refused to abandon Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark convinced Odo it was better adopt a high reward high risk strategy when playing the game", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x11", "title": "The Nagus", "date": "1993-03-21", "description": "Quark is named as the head of the Ferengi Alliance by Grand Nagus Zek, but he is now surrounded by enemies.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: David Livingston.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake spend some quality time together; Rom and Nog; Zek and Krax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Ferengi trumpeted avarice a virtue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "protecting kids from bad influences on children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin concerned about Nog being a bad influence on Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles teaching unruly students in schoolroom; Benjamin and Rom with their sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom conspired to assassinate his brother Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of being in power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark learns being Grand Nagus is not all fun in games", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom jealous of his brother Quark's achievements in business", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek choose Quark to succeed him as Grand Nagus so he could retire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek devised elaborate test of his son's loyalty", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x18", "title": "Starship Mine", "date": "1993-03-29", "description": "Thieves attempt to steal trilithium from the Enterprise during a Baryon sweep at the Remmler Array , and Picard alone must thwart them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard takes it upon himself to thwart space burglary of Enterprise by terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelsey and her associates plotted to make off from the Enterprise with a fortune in trilithium resin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces Enterprise space burglars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise was burglarized by what were believed to be terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise was burglarized by what were believed to be terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "horseback riding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard was an avid equestrian and liked to relax with some horseback riding on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard went back to get his saddle rather than talk with Hutchinson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "landing party after being taken hostage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data studied Hutchinson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calvin Hutchinson :: Hutchinson to landing party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard tried briefly to negotiate with the terrorists-or-thieves who were burglarizing his starship while holding people hostage on Arkaria Base.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x19", "title": "Lessons", "date": "1993-04-05", "description": "Picard becomes involved with a woman who is serving on the Enterprise , but he must send her into a dangerous mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Nella Daren :: Picard and Daren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard wrestles with whether to send Daren on dangerous mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Nella Daren :: Picard and Daren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Daren made beautiful music together - she with her portable piano and he with his Ressikan flute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Nella Daren :: Picard and Nella Daren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nella Daren :: Nella and the fire storms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nella Daren :: Nella and the fire storms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Nella", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf reported that the firestorms on Bersallis III had changed their speed and heading and began to move towards the outpost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard feared that he'd sent his love interest, Nella, to her death on the firestorm ravaged planet Bersallis III.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: RoboCop 3 (1993)", "title": "RoboCop 3", "date": "1993-04-18", "description": "Set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, the plot centers around RoboCop as he vows to avenge the death of his partner Anne Lewis and tries to save Detroit from falling into chaos, while evil conglomerate OCP, run by its villanious CEO, advances its tyrannical program to have the city default on its debts.", "collections": [ "Collection: Robocop" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop was a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future Detroit that was a dangerous, crime ridden slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OCP megacorporation plotted to gain control of Detroit by forcing the city to default on its debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to think about what to do when a city is plagued with crime and how it became that way in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Homeless people in Detroit took up arms against their corporate overlords. They were later joined by the Detroit police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were given a view into the inner working of the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little girl Nikko, who was computer whiz kid, helped the rebels disarm a menacing police attack droid and later helped RoboCop defeat Kanemitsu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "RoboCop was whizzing around in a special jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were three identical sword wielding, martial arts androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gentrification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A corporate stooge suggested to the Japanese CEO that he ought to start small by gentrifying Detroit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x12", "title": "Vortex", "date": "1993-04-18", "description": "Odo discovers he might not be the only one of his kind when a visitor from the Gamma Quadrant claims he can contact Odo's people.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Sam Rolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo interested in the possibility of others like him living in the Gamma Quadrant on the other side of the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo on the space station; Croden discussed living as as a newcomer in the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo the lone changeling on space station; Croyen and his daughter to begin new life on Vulcan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ah-Kel wanted to take vengeance against Croden over the murder of his twin brother Ro-Kel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was the lone member of his species aboard space station; Ah-Kel after the murder of his twin brother Ro-Kel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens wanted to extradite Croden", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo about whether to violate orders and set the prisoner free", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien society clearly had some kind of oppression going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo trusted Croden to take him to changeling colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Croden and his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Croden for Odo and a bit vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo transformed himself into an egg-like object", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Freaked (1993)", "title": "Freaked", "date": "1993-04-24", "description": "A redneck mad scientist is determined to mutate a former child actor into the ultimate circus freak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaked" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ricky was transformed into hideously mutant who looked like his normal self his right side, and a hideous gremlin-like monster on his left side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slimy corporation Everything Except Shoes (E.E.S.) was marketing the toxic fertilizer Zygrot 24 in South America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's antagonist Elijah C. Skuggs is a redneck, mad scientist who was determined to create the ultimate circus freak through the use of the toxic chemical Zygrot 24.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's antagonist Elijah C. Skuggs is a redneck, mad scientist who was determined to create the ultimate circus freak through the use of the toxic chemical Zygrot 24.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elijah held Ricky and the other freaks captive at his rundown old circus located in South America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ricky and Julie fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that the former child actor Ricky had gone from being one of America's sweethearts to a name that made children scream in terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky and Ernie took an antic filled flight to South America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky and Ernie crossed paths with a group of environmentalists protesting the toxic fertilizer that Ricky had been hired to sell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The redneck mad scientist Elijah transformed Ricky into a hideous circus freak by rubbing the toxic fertilizer Zygrot 24 all over Ricky's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky communicated telepathically with his 12-year-old fan boy Stuey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bearded Lady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pipe smoking, bespectacled worm-man Worm. The cow-man Cowboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "canine-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dog-man Ortiz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An FBI task force raided Elijah's compound to save Ricky and his fellow circus freaks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x13", "title": "Battle Lines", "date": "1993-04-25", "description": "The spiritual leader of Bajor, Kai Opaka, travels with Sisko on a trip to the Gamma Quadrant but is stranded with him on a world where the dead are resurrected.\n\nDirected by: Paul Lynch. Story by: Hilary J. Bader.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vendetta", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was an escalating cycle of hate and violence between the Ennis and the Nol-Ennis on the prison moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zlangco toward Nol-Ennis; Shel-la toward Ennis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to endure eternal torment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The prisoners' Dantean torment was to have to fight each others to the death over and over forever, on a prison moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "prisoners' lesson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ennis and Nol-Ennis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prisoners came to despair their immortality because they were trapped fighting an eternal war where casualties revived from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin tried to mediate and end to the war between Ennis and Nol-Ennis but he ain't no Jean-Luc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Oraka had a long discussion about the violence inside Kira and whether or not she took pleasure in all that she had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kai Opaka felt she was brought to the prison moon to mediate healing process between Ennis and Nol-Ennis prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira mourned the death of the priestess Kai Opaka.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir was excited by the prospect of studying the prisoners revived from the dead because he might acquire the medical knowledge of how to make people immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "shuttledcraft crash landed on Nol-Ennis penal colony moon", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x20", "title": "The Chase", "date": "1993-04-26", "description": "Picard tries to solve an ancient genetic mystery uncovered by his archaeological mentor, and faces stiff competition. Guest star: Norman Lloyd as Richard Galen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the primordial humanoid revealed that all the major humanoid races were descended from his stock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manipulation of evolution on a planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Primordial Humanoid revealed that all the major humanoid races hailed from a space seeding project orchestrated by the Primordial Humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "all the humanoid races must cooperate to unravel the mystery of the primordial humanoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "major", "motivation": "the primordial humanoid race left a message encoded in humanoid dna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "about the quest for decoding the primordial humanoid dna encoded message", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "major", "motivation": "Primordial Humanoid :: humanoid seeders of life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The primordial humanoid revealed that all the major humanoid races were descended from his stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renowned archaeologist Professor Galen came to the Enterprise in an effort to tempt his former star pupil Picard into joining him on an important archaeological expedition. Among other things, Galen mentioned Heinrich Schliemann's discover of the City of Troy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Galen/Picard :: Galen and Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard left a promising career in archaeology on the table in favor of pursuing a career in Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard turning back on Galen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was passionate about archaeology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon :: Klingons killed all life on planet by burning up atmosphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans about Romulan supremacy at conclusion of episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pursuing one's dream vs. advancing one's career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Captain Picard leave the Federation to go on an archaeological adventure for the ages with his old mentor Professor Galen?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various humanoid species to solve puzzle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard mourned the passing of his mentor Galen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "DNA encoded message", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that a message can potentially be encoded into a species' DNA and expected to survive for many generations.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Wars (1993)", "title": "Robot Wars", "date": "1993-04-28", "description": "The year is 2041, and a hotshot mech pilot must stop mech hijackers from provoking global war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drake piloted the giant, humanoid robot MEGA-1 and in so doing defeated the mechanized scorpion piloting General Wa-Lee in epic battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "One main novelty of the film is the Mega-Robotic Assault System-2 (or MRAS-2 for short), a giant and well-armed passenger vehicle that looks like a mechanized scorpion. It was being used to conduct tours for civilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Set in the year 2041, the Western bloc super-state called the North Hemi is in some sort of competition with an Eastern bloc super-state known as the Eastern Alliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "By 2041 a proliferation of toxic gas had left large parts of North America uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Dr. Leda Fanning was not happy when violent rocking motions of the MRAS-2 mechanized scorpion, of which she was a passenger, caused her to drop and break her valuable specimens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The journalist Annie was investigating some suspicious goings on in a perfectly preserved 20th-century town that was abandoned during the toxic gas scare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pyramid-shaped structure was being used to store toxic waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stumpy claimed he was claustrophobic in order to avoid doing an undesirable task.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film ended with Drake and Leda admitting their attraction to each other and sharing a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x14", "title": "The Storyteller", "date": "1993-05-02", "description": "O'Brien is recruited to save a Bajoran village from destruction by a mysterious cloud creature.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Kurt Michael Bensmiller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin mediated a territorial dispute between the Paqu and the Navot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin mediated a territorial dispute between the Paqu and the Navot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin mediated a territorial dispute between the Paqu and the Navot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Dal'Rok beast was a fiction aimed to unite the villagers in a common cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paqu and the Navot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sirah was convinced that the arrival of Miles fulfilled an ancient prophecy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "the fearsome Dal'Rok threatened the villagers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Varis Sul was willing to give her life to keep the disputed territory under Paqu control", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog horsing around on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog at Varis Sul", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog played a prank on Jake related to Odo's slime bucket", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the villagers of the coming of the Dal'Rok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog and Varis Sul", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog became infatuated with Varis Sul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x21", "title": "Frame of Mind", "date": "1993-05-03", "description": "Riker finds himself prisoner in an alien mental institution, which resembles scenes from Beverly's play.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker was charged with murder and confined to an alien asylum for the criminally insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the criminally insane", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Riker was considered criminally insane and we saw how he was treated in an alien mental institution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker just wanted to get the hell out of the insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "it was made impossible for Riker to prove his innocence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker supposedly had a mental illness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker was held against his will in an insane asylum where efforts were made to manipulated him into thinking he was a convicted murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in that insane assylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker resorted to screaming his lungs out at one point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "minor", "motivation": "deep in the dark recesses of Riker subconscious mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker performed in Beverly's play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about whether he committed the murder of which he was accused", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker mad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker locked up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker was being manipulated into believing that he was a convicted murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage fright", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An overly nervous Barclay gave a cringe worthy performance in his role as the titular character in Edmond Rostand 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x15", "title": "Progress", "date": "1993-05-09", "description": "Kira has to deal with a stubborn farmer (Brian Keith) who refuses to leave his home even though it is slated for demolition.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mullibok was a farmer who refused to leave his farm that was expropriated by Bajoran government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "development of energy sources on moon to benefit Bajoran people vs. Mullibok wanting to stay in his home on the moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mullibox was prepared to die rather than leave his farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira about evicting her friend Mullibox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government expropriation of land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajoran government wanted to expropriate Mullibox's farm in order to develop an energy source on the moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog greedily plotted to profit from selling a plot of land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira to Mulibox", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog sought to profit from selling a plot of land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mullibox and pitchfork wielding yokels", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x22", "title": "Suspicions", "date": "1993-05-10", "description": "Dr. Crusher risks her career to solve the murder of Ferengi scientist Dr. Reyga and vindicate his research.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Reyga, Beverly :: Reyga and Beverly in proving Reyga's metaphasic shielding worked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The scientist Dr. Reyga was not taken seriously by his peers for the simple reason that he was Ferengi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Regya was testing an experimental spacecraft that could fly within a star's corona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor vs. next of kin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly performs and unauthorized autopsy on Reyga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reyga, Beverly :: Reyga and Beverly in proving Reyga's metaphasic shielding worked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Beverly :: Beverly and Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reyga :: Reyga with his metaphasic shield", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reyga :: Reyga with his metaphasic shield", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly performed an autopsy on her friend Dr. Reyga in direct violation of Captain Picard's orders in an effort to prove that he did not commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Reyga risked his life to prove that the metaphasic shield he'd invented could enable a spaceship to fly safely withing the corona of a star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferengi society were dismissive of Dr. Reyga’s science", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "scientists in studying metaphasic shield", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reyga :: Reyga", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists were envious of Dr. Reyga for having invented metaphasic shielding, and tried to take credit for his idea.d", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how to prove Reyga was murdered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to visiting scientists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Carnosaur (1993)", "title": "Carnosaur", "date": "1993-05-13", "description": "Loosely based on the 1984 John Brosnan novel of the same name, it follows characters Doc Smith and Ann Thrush in their efforts to thwart Dr. Jane Tiptree's plan to exterminate the human race with a lethal virus and replace them with her own genetically created dinosaurs.", "collections": [ "Collection: Carnosaur" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnosaur_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A genetically engineered Deinonychus was going around slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A genetically engineered Deinonychus was going around slaughtering people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brilliant but troubled scientist Dr. Jane Tiptree succeeded in reverse engineering dinosaurs from chickens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brilliant but troubled scientist Dr. Jane Tiptree genetically engineered dinosaurs from chickens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brilliant but troubled scientist Dr. Jane Tiptree engineered a lethal airborne virus that impregnated its female hosts with dinosaur embryos. Her objective was to eliminate the human race by unleashing the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of environmental activists tried to stop the Eunice Corporation from operation a rock quarry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some environmental activists were opposed to the Eunice Corporation running a quarry on ground that used to be part of an ancient dinosaur migration route.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eunice Corporation was engaging in all sorts of shady practices in an effort to profit from genetically modified foods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jane Tiptree nearly succeeded her plan to give dominion of the Earth back to the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Fowler was investigating a series of grizzly killings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three teens went on a drunken, off-road joyride in a jeep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eunice Corporation was trying to skirt government regulations by making its genetically modified foods available for sale without first putting them through the necessary tests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Fowler and his loving wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader of the environmental activists was an old hippie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jane Tiptree thought humanity irredeemable and plotted to give dominion of the Earth back to the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After a virus started making women give birth to live dinosaurs, a plan was concocted to perpetuate the human species by means of artificial wombs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Body Snatchers (1993)", "title": "Body Snatchers", "date": "1993-05-15", "description": "The plot is centered around the discovery that people working at a military base in Alabama are being replaced by perfect physical imitations grown from plantlike pods. The duplicates are indistinguishable from normal people except for their utter lack of emotion. It is loosely based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Snatchers_(1993_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "spacefaring plants", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod plants hatched a nefarious plot to replace everyone in the world with utterly emotionless replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spacefaring pod plants hatched a nefarious plot to replace everyone in the world with utterly emotionless replicas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marti had a rocky relationship with her father, Steve, but being hunted down by pod people brought them closer together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were getting replaced by giant pod emerging from duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people around Marti were getting replaced with utterly emotionless replicas, one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformist dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pod people were endeavoring to make a world devoid of individual desire and interpersonal conflict. This manner of conformity they contended was the only solution to the world's manifold problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marti resented her new stepmother, Carol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marti tried her best to protect her bratty kid stepbrother, Andy, from getting replaced by an emotionless replica, but ultimately failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Andy was horrified to see his sleeping mother get replaced by a duplicate that'd emerged from a giant pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set on and near a military base in Alabama, and there was no shortage of military personnel going about their business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marti befriended Jenn soon after arriving at a military base in Alabama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenn was a stereotypical rebellious teenager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marti and Jenn walked in on Jenn's passed out drunk, alcoholic mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Collins blew his brains out to prevent the pod people replacing him with an utterly emotionless replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Marti and Tim, a young military chopper pilot, shared a passionate kiss at night among the trees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x16", "title": "If Wishes Were Horses", "date": "1993-05-16", "description": "Deep Space Nine is put in jeopardy when the crew's thoughts manifest themselves, and such figures as Rumpelstiltskin appear.\n\nDirected by: Robert Legato. Story by: Nell McCue Crawford & William L. Crawford.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "space station inhabitants thoughts manifested into reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was keen about the need for human imagination, but Odo felt it a waste of time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rumpelstiltskin aliens sought to understand space station people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "imaginary subspace anomaly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rumpelstiltskin aliens came to covertly observe people on space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian about imaginary Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and imaginary Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was playing baseball in the holosuites. Buck Bokai and Benjamin discussed their mutual love of baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian at Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia recommends Julian take a high pitch sonic shower to help him get over his infatuation for her; Julian with imaginary Jadzia coming on to him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia meets the Jadzia from Julian's dreams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and imaginary Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework vs. play", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake had to choose between doing his homework and going to play baseball in the holosuites with Buck Bokai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark schemed about shady business oriented ways to make money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space station people's imagination becomes reality and they get distracted as a result", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia assured Julian he had the right to imagine whatever he wanted about her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Jadzia from Julian's mind conjured into reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rumpelstiltskin offered to save the space station if Miles sacrificed his child", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x23", "title": "Rightful Heir", "date": "1993-05-17", "description": "Worf experiences a crisis of faith, and travels to a Klingon holy site where the mythic figure Kahless returns to lead the Klingon people.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The long dead Klingon religious figure Kahless was clones by a group of Klingon monks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Kahless :: Worf meets Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon monks worshipped Kahless as a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was feeling empty until he visited a Klingon monastery and took up the faith of his forefathers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon priests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon priests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prophet Kahless being cloned by Klingon monks was considered an abomination by some.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kahless :: Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "cloned Kahless and mythical Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf experienced a loss of faith in the Klingon religion he was raised in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gowron :: Gowron", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons to Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kahless (clone) :: Kahless lacked the leadership qualities that were expected of him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kahless (clone) :: Kahless lacked the leadership qualities that were expected of him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf stayed Gowrons hand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was late for duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x17", "title": "The Forsaken", "date": "1993-05-23", "description": "The Federation ambassador from Betazed, Lwaxana Troi, visits the station, and develops an affection for Odo.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Jim Trombetta.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo in his solitary shapeshifter life and alien inhabiting the space station computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo ashamed of his shapeshifter biological functions; Lwaxana of her hairdo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana chasing Odo around the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo from Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and the unruly space station computer system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana was privy to Odo's life as a shapeshifter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana was looking for a man and became infatuated with Odo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana was unable to mind read Ferengi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Ferengi turned out to be impervious to Lwaxana's telepathic mind probing powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo hating parties and such", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo at prospect of liquefying in front of Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana accused Quark of stealing her family heirloom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana and her antics aboard the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo complained about human courtship from an outsider perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo reflected in the elevator about his time in a Bajoran laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana with getting old", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x24", "title": "Second Chances", "date": "1993-05-24", "description": "Riker encounters a duplicate of himself created by a transporter malfunction stranded on a planet. \"Thomas\" vies for Deanna's affections.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there are two Rikers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of Wills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There wasn't room enough on the Enterprise for both William T. Riker and his jaded clone of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Riker sacrificed having a relationship with Troi in order to pursue a career in Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker, Thomas Riker :: Riker meets Thomas Riker and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Tom lost 10 years on the planet and was eager to catch up while Riker had forsaken the love of his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Thomas Riker :: Troi and Thomas Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Thomas Riker :: Riker on Riker action", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Thomas was jealous or William over Troi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker sees his dark side in Thomas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Thomas Riker :: Riker gives Thomas Riker a trombone in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Thomas Riker :: Riker and Thomas Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker/Thomas Riker :: Riker and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Riker about his clone Will Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Thomas has trouble integrating with people on the Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker for Thomas Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rikers at the poker table", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Thomas Riker by Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Thomas Riker :: Riker and Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transporter :: transporter mishap stranded Thomas Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Thomas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas Riker :: Tom Riker as contrasted with Will Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi to Tom Riker", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x18", "title": "Dramatis Personae", "date": "1993-05-30", "description": "A Klingon ship comes through the wormhole and explodes. A mutiny is considered.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira led successful mutiny against Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira plotted to betray Benjamin over handling of alleged smugglers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira convinced Dax and other station members to side with her in mutiny against Benjamin; mutiny aboard Klingon vessel; power struggle on Saltah'na homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The space station crew's minds taken over by telepathic archive from Odo's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kira over handling of alleged smugglers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Quark were left to sort out why everyone had lost their ability to communicate coherently.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "power struggle on Saltah'na homeworld resulted in the ultimate demise of their entire race", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Miles after mutiny by Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "smuggler was accused of smuggling arms to the Cardassians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jurassic Park (1993)", "title": "Jurassic Park", "date": "1993-06-09", "description": "The film is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, located off Central America's Pacific Coast near Costa Rica. There, billionaire philanthropist John Hammond and a small team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. When industrial sabotage leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park's power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors and Hammond's grandchildren struggle to survive and escape the perilous island.", "collections": [ "Collection: Jurassic Park", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Hammond and his team of scientists used dinosaur DNA recovered from indide amber to genetically engineer real, living dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were trapped in an a theme park full of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it was ethical to use genetic engineering to reintroduce dinosaurs into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dinosaurs were genetically engineered using DNA extracted from amber preserved blood with a little frog DNA to fill in the missing gaps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various discussion on dinosaur evolution were had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various aspects of genetic engineering were discussed, including including the insertion of a \"kill-switch gene\" into dinosaurs that when activated would result in the death of the host.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Hammond and his grandson Tim Murphy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Hammond and his grandson Lex Murphy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Alan Grant, who was admittedly not fond of children, had to deal with John Hammond's first giddy then later terrified grandchildren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ian Malcolm explained how a butterfly flapping its wing in Peking can result in rain over Central Park when it would other wise have been sunny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dennis Nedry attempted to cash in by smuggling dinosaur genetic materials out from the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie Sattler an Ian Malcolm essentially accused John Hammond of playing God wit nature by genetically engineering dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x19", "title": "Duet", "date": "1993-06-13", "description": "A visiting Cardassian, Marritza, may in fact be the notorious war criminal Gul Darhe'el, butcher of Gallitep Labor camp, and Kira is determined to bring him down.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin tormented over holding Marritza without evidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marritza was accused of having committed terrible war crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira and other Bajorans wanted Marritza's blood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marritza was accused of running a labor/concentration camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marritza was accused of running a labor/regular concentration camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was sorely tempted to punish Marritza for the crimes of which she accused him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans hated the Cardassian Marritza, who was known as the \"butcher of Gallitep Labor camp\", and essentially wanted to lynch him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marritza felt responsible for the crimes committed at concentration camp and went to elaborate lengths to be punished", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marritza described a Machiavellian philosophy of control", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian file clerk altered himself to look like Darhe'el", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marritza boasted of his efficient running of labor/concentration camp.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x25", "title": "Timescape", "date": "1993-06-14", "description": "The Enterprise is caught in temporal stasis, and on the brink of destruction by a Romulan ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time slow down", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Data, Geordi, Troi were astounded to see that time had slowed to nearly a halt upon returning to the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quantum Singularity Lifeform :: the quantum singularity lifeform", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew takes risk by helping crippled Romulan vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew vs. time distortion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew experienced localized time distortions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human perception of time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data scientifically testing the aphorism \"a watched pot never boils\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise encountered a strange black hole inhabiting life form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard's hand was rapidly aged when he put it inside a localized time distortion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds91x20", "title": "In the Hands of the Prophets", "date": "1993-06-20", "description": "Friction escalates when Vedek Winn arrives on Deep Space Nine and discovers schoolteacher Keiko O'Brien is teaching about aliens in the Bajoran wormhole.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "orthodox Bajorans objected to teaching scientific facts about the wormhole in the space station school", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion in public education", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The orthodox Bajorans insisting that the wormhole was inhabited by their gods was a thinly veiled reference to the American creationism in the schools debate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keiko advancing a rational explanation for the wormhole which the Bajoran religious leaders thought blasphemous was a central conflict in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin made a big fuss about how one can see things from different perspectives, claiming wormhole aliens were legitimately prophets to the Bajorans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Conflict arose between the secular Federation and Bajoran religious fundamentalists over things like education in schools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multicultural community", "level": "major", "motivation": "The secular Federation struggled to live intermingled with Bajoran religious fundamentalists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neela expected to be caught for assassinating religious leader but ready/ordered to sacrifice herself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Religious fundamentalists bombed the space station school and made an assassination attempt on a religious leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami used school issue as a way to expand her power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko teased Miles about his interest in Neela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake had heart to heart talk about the trial of Galileo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira after realizing her religious leader stooped to orchestrated assassination plot against her rival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles possibly to Neela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko taught students about wormhole in a lesson", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng6x26", "title": "Descent", "date": "1993-06-21", "description": "The crew encounter a group of Borg acting individually, and Data briefly experiences emotions. Professor Stephen Hawking makes a guest appearance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anger", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data experiences the emotion of blind rage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data took vengeance out on Borg drone and enjoyed it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data learning hatred and loathing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg drones were learning to act as individuals for the first time in their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was grappling with the uncomfortable realization that he had taken pleasure in inflicting violence upon others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "transwarp conduit :: transwarp conduit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking :: Data meets Newton, Einstein, and Hawking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data and the Borg drones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Geordi :: Data and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "During a poker game, Stephen Hawking made a quip about the precession of the perihelion of Mercury and Data offended Sir Isaac Newton by trying to explain to him how Einstein's Theory of Relativity enabled one to appreciate said joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It worried Data that he felt pleasure after killing the Borg on Ohniaka III.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Borg's penchant for turning people into cyborgs and assimilating them into their collective consciousness was discussed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lifepod (1993)", "title": "Lifepod", "date": "1993-06-28", "description": "Eight guests and crew of an exploded spaceship struggle to survive in an escape pod while they await rescue.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifepod" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eight people were left to survive as best they could aboard an escape pod while they awaited rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The efforts of the escape pod people to survive were compromised by uncertainty over whom among them had sabotaged the exploded spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone on the escape pod suspected everyone else of having sabotaged the exploded spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spaceship en route to Earth suffered a critical malfunction and everyone was left to scramble to escape pods. The film is mainly set aboard and escape pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the crew of a spaceship were shown celebrating Christmas Eve in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the exploded spaceship was returning to Earth from some great distance away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Venus", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rena spoke of having lived in a subterrenean settlement on Venus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q-Three had a robotic left arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Venusian colonists were considered to be terrorists by some.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terman feigned being blind for virtually the entire film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terman snapped the neck of a critically injured man who had only 12 hours to life to extend the oxygen supply for the rest of the people on the escape pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayvene's face became covered in blisters after prolonged exposed to radiation in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayvene's face became covered in blisters after prolonged exposed to radiation in space.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 12:01 (1993)", "title": "12:01", "date": "1993-07-05", "description": "A man finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. It is an adaptation of Richard Lupoff's short story \"12:01 PM,\" published in the December 1973, issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12:01_(1993_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The morning after receiving a strong electrical shock at precisely 12:10 AM, Barry found the events of the previous day were repeating themselves with him being the only one who realizes that the world is stuck in a time loop. This went on for several days with Barry changing the course of events each time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry was head over heels for his scientist colleague Lisa Fredericks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry's colleagues initially dismissed his adamant claims that they were all stuck in a time loop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "The morning after receiving a strong electrical shock at precisely 12:10 AM, Barry found the events of the previous day were repeating themselves with him being the only one who realizes that the world is stuck in a time loop. This went on for several days with Barry changing the course of events each time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry and his work buddy Howard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police briefly investigated Lisa's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry's mother called him to check up on his love life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry embarrassed his colleague by asking him whether the hole in the ozone layer was attributable to his hairspray usage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two research scientists used a particle accelerator to make a particle go faster than the speed of light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speed of light limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how a particle moving faster than the speed of light would travel backwards in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was was arrested and spend the night in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry had the pleasure getting the better his mean boss several times.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Arcade (1993)", "title": "Arcade", "date": "1993-07-20", "description": "A group of teenage friends become trapped in a virtual reality video game.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is a virtual reality game, called Arcade, that used a murdered boy's brain cells in order to make the game's villain more realistic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows some teenagers who become trapped inside a virtual reality video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some teenagers became trapped in a virtual reality video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenagers in the film were eager to test the Vertigo/Tronics company's new virtual realty game, but got more than they bargained for when they became trapped inside of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex encountered a creepy computer simulated version of her mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Coneheads (1993)", "title": "Coneheads", "date": "1993-07-23", "description": "A family of conical-shaped headed space aliens become stranded on Earth and try to blend in with the locals as they await rescue.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coneheads_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows three conical-shaped headed space aliens as they attempt to live undetected among the \"bluntskull\" inhabitants of Earth until such time as a rescue vessel can be sent to retrieve them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Coneheads adapted to life in American and ultimately came to love it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Remulakian conical-shaped headed space alien trio of Beldar, Prymaat, and Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follow the trials and tribulations of the husband and wife alien couple Beldaya and Prymaat as they accustom themselves to life in America after becoming stranded on Earth. The Coneheads' neighbors Larry and Lisa Faber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is show the day to day family life of a conical-shaped headed alien married couple and their teenage daughter as they lived secretly as humans in Paramus, New Jersey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prymaat and her teenage daughter Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beldar and his teenage daughter Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie and Ronnie were high school sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie and Ronnie were high school sweethearts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beldar was tasked to conquer Earth, enslave the native \"bluntskulls\", and convert it into a refueling station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hard-hearted United States Immigration and Naturalization Service officer Gorman Sneedling was borderline obsessed with rooting out illegal immigrants and sending them back to their various countries. He and his assistant Turnbull were pursuing the Coneheads throughout a large part of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with the Coneheads' spaceship crashing into the Atlantic ocean. Toward the film's conclusion, Beldar led a fleet of Remulakian spacecraft in what he made to seem would be a conquest of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prymaat unexpectedly became pregnant when she and her husband, Beldar, were awaiting rescue after becoming stranded on Earth. She gave birth to the baby and they pair raised her in Paramus, New Jersey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Coneheads befriended their neighbors the Fabers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beldar's driving student, Gladys, made a pass at him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beldar became pals with his neighbor Larry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beldar thought that the figure of 144,000 cited by two agents posing as Jehovah's Witnesses for the number of people who would survive the end of the world was a bit high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Commissioner Sneedling and Agent Turnbull posed as Jehovah's Witnesses in order to gain access to the Coneheads' house. The touched on the Jehovah's Witnesses take on the Christ's Second Coming in the course of their subsequent conversation with the Coneheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beldar defeated a vicious beast, known as the Garthok, after the Remulakian Highmaster sentenced him to fight it as a punishment for having capped his teeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain collar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Commissioner Sneedling and Agent Turnbull were fitted with special collars that induced excruciating pain in them at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beldar initially disapproved of his teenage daughter running around with the overweight screwball Ronnie, but he ultimately warmed up to the guy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg Cop (1993)", "title": "Cyborg Cop", "date": "1993-08-06", "description": "An ex-DEA officer travels to an unnamed Caribbean island to locate his brother, who, unbeknownst to him, has been transformed into a killer cyborg . It is the first installment in the Cyborg Cop film series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Cop" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story concerns the megalomaniacal Professor Joachim Kessel's creation of a K3 prototype cyborg assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Jack as he goes to an unnamed Caribbean island in search of his younger brother Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "After something of a rocky start, Jack and Cathy really hit it off and the two fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Joachim Kessel was a brilliant but troubled scientist who had developed a technique to turn any soldier into a virtually indestructible cyborg. Kessel's assistant Dr. Stechman wore a lab coat and spoke with a distinct German accent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The DEA agents, and brothers, Jack and Philip freed a young female hostage by the simple expedient of riddling her panicked captor with bullets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stereotypical journalist Cathy went to an unnamed Caribbean island to do a story on voodoo, but ended up getting mixed up in a situation involving heroin smuggling and killer cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Kessel dealt large quantities of heroin in order to fund his pioneering work in the area of creating killer cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare about his time in a combat setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Frankie was counting on Philip adopting him, but then Philip went and got himself turned into a killer cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Callan refused to risk the lives of three helicopter pilots to save the life of Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police captain and his men were on Jack's heels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sympathetic magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy had traveled to an unnamed Caribbean island to do some investigative reporting on voodoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Joachim Kessel boasted of being \"the greatest scientist on Earth\" and was generally rather full of himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x01", "title": "Descent, Part II", "date": "1993-09-20", "description": "The Borg are being led by Lore. Data falls under his control by being fed negative emotions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "kill all humans utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lore's dream was to kill all humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data/Geordi :: Data and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Lore, Soong Type Android :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore was pure evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data learning hatred and loathing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore exploited Borg drones for his own twisted purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data betrayed Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data/Lore :: Data and Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data and landing party face Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg :: Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg's penchant for turning people into cyborgs and assimilating them into their collective consciousness was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore experimented on Geordi and Borg drones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data had to think twice about performing risky experiments on Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data and Borg brethren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore :: Lore to was like a cult leader to rogue Borg drones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lore, Data :: torture of Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Lore :: Lore envied his brother Data for being the favorite son. Data envied Lore for his ability to experience emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi of Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Geordi", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x01", "title": "The Homecoming", "date": "1993-09-26", "description": "Quark gives Kira a Bajoran earring he claims was sent as a message from a Cardassian mining planet.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Jeri Taylor and Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kira arranged to free Li Nalis without governmental approval", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Li Nalas was worshiped as a hero on Bajor for shooting an unarmed Cardassian leader who was in his underwear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajoran extremist faction known as \"The Circle\" considered the Bajorans to be superior to all other species, and was actively attempting to expel all non-Bajorans from Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Miles going on jail break mission; Li Nalas as Bajoran hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin advised Jake on his first date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the birds and the bees", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin talked to Jake about dating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake worried about his first date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake on his first date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Li Nalas couldn't find a moments peace on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Li Nalas shunned the attention he received as a returning war hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark took seven shares of the profits for every one share he allotted to Rom, even though Rom had done the lion's share of the work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajoran extremists spray painted their logo on a space station corridor wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was talking baseball with Jake and Jadzia.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x02", "title": "Liaisons", "date": "1993-09-27", "description": "Worf and Troi reluctantly play host to two Lyraan ambassadors, while Picard crashes in a shuttle with another Lyraan. He is rescued by a human female who exhibits strange behavior.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iyaaran :: Iyaaran diplomats were puzzled by the most basic Human behaviors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voval, Byleth, Loquel :: Iyaaran diplomats wish to understand Human behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Iyaaran diplomats study Human emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three Lyraan ambassadors were sent to the Enterprise to learn about human culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Conflict arose when the Lyraans thought it’d be a good and unoffensive idea to clandestinely abduct Picard and subject him to a peculiar psychological experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loquel :: Loquel indulged himself a little too much at the buffet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna :: Anna at Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Byleth provoked Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard help captive by Anna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loquel :: Loquel indulges in every pleasure that comes his way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Byleth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf to Byleth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf tried his best to refrain from blowing up on an inconsiderate and abrasive ambassador who Worf was responsible for showing around the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x01", "title": "Death of Some Salesmen", "date": "1993-10-02", "description": "Judd Campbell is a conniving salesman who cheats people out of their money by selling them expensive burial plots for a fake cemetery. When he ends up arriving at a wrong address, he finds new victims in the form of Ma, Pa, and Winona Brackett, a strange family of rednecks with a fortune buried in their basement. Unfortunately, the Bracketts have developed a burning hatred for salesmen after being swindled once too often, and Judd ends up getting more than what he bargains for when he tries to swindle them.\n\nDirected by: Gilbert Adler. Story by: A. L. Katz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Judd reveled in the craft of pursuing people to part with their purses. His avarice became unmistakable in the end when he was strung along with the promise of hidden loot in the basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pa and Ma Brackett had been hoodwinked by a salesman in the past, and now amused themselves by taking cruel and ironic revenge on any such person that has the audacity to knock on their door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The swindler Judd got more than he bargained for when he tried to cheat a rural couple out of their money by offering them an expensive burial plot in a fake cemetery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pa and Ma Brackett were united by their shared animus toward traveling salesmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pa Brackett and his hideous daughter Winona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ma Brackett and his hideous daughter Winona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pa and Ma Brackett had brutally murdered a number of traveling salesmen that had come knocking on the door of their rural home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "The swindler Judd Campbell spent much of the story at the mercy of a family of deranged rednecks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winona was self-conscious about her grotesque physical appearance the centerpiece of which was a pronounced hunchback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ma and Pa Brackett tested Judd's self-professed love for their hideous daughter, Winona, by arranging to see whether he would kill her and escape his captivity in their home when given the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judd reveled in the craft of pursuing people to part with their purses and maidens to part with their virtue. In the end he got a taste of his own medicine, and Pa told him \"it wasn't a lie, just salesmanship!\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "yokel stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pa and Ma Brackett were stereotypical U.S.A. country bumpkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judd bedded Stella under false pretenses and then left her first thing in the morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A captive Judd narrowly avoided exchanging wedding vows with Winona in a hastily arranged ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Pa Brackett was a preacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winona seemingly snapped her father's neck in a fit of rage, but it was actually just a ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shotgun wedding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judd found himself in a situation where he would be brutally murdered by a rural couple unless he married their hideous daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x02", "title": "As Ye Sow", "date": "1993-10-02", "description": "Believing that his wife, Bridget, is cheating on him, businessman Leo Burns hires G.G. Devoe, a sleazy and dubious detective, to spy on her. Soon after, Devoe gathers evidence that leads Leo believe that Bridget is indeed having an affair with local priest John Sejac. With his imagination running wild, Leo resorts to drastic measures to fix his dilemma.\n\nFeaturing cameos from Adam West and Miguel Ferrer.\n\nDirected by: Kyle MacLachlan. Story by: Ron Finley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leo's suspicion of his wife ultimately lead to himself being shot \"in the dick then in his ear\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo arranged for the priest to be shot \"in the dick then in his ear\" in front of Leo's wife as Leo believed they were having an affair. Leo later found himself in the place of the priest hearing confession and learned that his suspicion was unfounded. But through an ironic twist of fate, the hired assassin showed up just then and shot Leo in lieu of the priest in the prescribed manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because she wouldn't sleep with him, Leo believed his wife to be cheating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Because she wouldn't sleep with him, Leo believed his wife to be cheating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo hired a private investigator that failed to find any dirt on Leo's wife. Leo therefore went to another private investigator that obligingly presented some phony evidence and a story that Leo swallowed all too eagerly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evidence against his wife was absurdly weak yet Leon jumped on any explanation for why his wife wouldn't sleep with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo thought that the local priest was a hypocrite who cuckolded him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was married to a woman 24 years his junior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was convinced his wife was cheating on him and it was eating him up inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, playing a talk radio host, comforted a cannibal caller who was concerned about the growing popularity of vegetarianism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The second private investigator Leo hired also dabbled in contract killing. On Leo's request, an assassin was sent to shoot the priest in the dick and in the ear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Leo, a traditionalist of sorts, found himself at odds with a reform-minded Catholic priest who felt the Church needed to keep up with the times when it came to divorce, premarital sex, and contraception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo hired a hitman to kill a cuckolding priest who Leo thought was sleeping with his wife. The hitman shot Leo dead in the church in a case of mistaken identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story touches on various aspects of the catholic faith, including the act of confession and the Church's disapproving of divorce, premarital sex, and contraception.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x03", "title": "Forever Ambergris", "date": "1993-10-02", "description": "Washed-up combat photographer Dalton Scott is told by his boss that he is losing his edge. After visiting his protégé, up-and-coming photographer Isaac \"Ike\" Forte for dinner, Dalton grows enamored with Ike's beautiful wife, Bobbi. When Dalton and Ike are sent to Central America alongside a group of mercenaries for an assignment, the former cooks up a deadly scheme to send the latter into a village ravaged by biological weapons, where Ike eventually ends up contracting a virulent disease that causes him to rapidly decay, in an attempt to steal Bobbi from him.\n\nAlso starring Titus Welliver.\n\nDirected by: Gary Fleder. Story by: Scott Rosenberg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dalton was a has-been and his desire for another turn in the limelight was such that he betrayed a loyal friend and stole his work, in order to get there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dalton was a past-his-prime war photographer who had designs on using his protégé to rise back to prominence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ike and Bobbi, a young married couple, were madly in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dalton betrayed his friend and protégé, Ike, and stole Ike's photos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dalton and Ike were professional war photographers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dalton and Ike were fast friends, or so it seemed up to the point where Dalton betrayed Ike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bobbie was so enraged by how Dalton had treated Ike that she deliberately infected herself with a deadly, gruesome, disease just so that she could pass it to Dalton and have a posthumous revenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ike went to photograph a village in an unspecified war-torn Central American country that had been ravaged by some biological weapon. It didn't go well. as the weapon left behind a biological agent that made people melt and fall to pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dalton an Ike made ends meat by photographing warfare, and the scenes of inhumanity that go along with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ike and Bobbi were madly in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ike and Bobbi were madly in love, but Dalton fancied he could steel the girl away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Though Ike was on death's threshold and might possibly have been contagious, Dalton shot him dead in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dalton peeped on Ike and Bobbi as they made hot, steamy love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobbi lamented Ike's horrible death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x02", "title": "The Circle", "date": "1993-10-03", "description": "The Circle attempts to topple the Bajoran government, but there is more to the situation than meets the eye.\n\nDirected by: Corey Allen. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Bajoran provisional government faced a coup at the hands of the Circle insurgents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political polarization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Bajorans were split among the provisional government and \"The Circle\" insurgents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Circle terrorist group was kidnapping and branding people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajoran extremist faction known as \"The Circle\" considered the Bajorans to be superior to all other species, and was actively attempting to expel all non-Bajorans from Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Circle extremist group wanted to expel aliens from Bajor. Their slogan was \"Bajor, for Bajorans\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajoran provisional government vs. Circle insurgents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various station people bidding farewell to Kira in her quarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira in monastery and with the orb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira held by Circle terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin led rescue mission to save Kira from hands of Circle terrorists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winn Adami and Jaro Essa revealed nefarious plot to rule Bajor at episode conclusion", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x03", "title": "Interface", "date": "1993-10-04", "description": "Geordi tries to rescue his mother's starship via a remotely controlled probe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was about Geordi not being able to accept that his mother was really gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi hopes his mother is still alive in the gas giant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "denial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi refuses to believe his mother is dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi used the virtual reality suit to place himself inside a simulated environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Silvia La Forge/Geordi :: Silvia and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-deception", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi was in denial over his mother having died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality suit", "level": "major", "motivation": "interface suit :: interface suit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi encountered a “subspace” being living deep inside the gas giant planet Marijne VII.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi to find his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data to Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Geordi :: Data and Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data helps Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi lamented he didn't reply to his moms letters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data helping Geordi return to the Raman", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Intruder (1993)", "title": "Alien Intruder", "date": "1993-10-05", "description": "Commander Skyler and his crew of space convicts embark on a dangerous mission into uncharted deep space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Intruder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Commander Skyler's secret reason for commandeering a mission to G Sector was that he had an obsessive desire to be with Ariel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent that Commander Skyler had been driven dangerously insane by a desire to be with the siren-like woman Ariel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Skylar enticed some convicts to join his crew by allowing them access to a series virtual reality worlds where they could live out their sexual fantasies with any woman they chose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Skylar enticed some convicts to join his crew by allowing them access to a series virtual reality worlds where they could live out their sexual fantasies with any woman they chose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although it was never spelled out, one gathers from the film's title that the mysterious siren-like woman Ariel was of extraterrestrial origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Skyler selected his crew from among the the New Alcatraz maximum security space prison convicts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the U.S.S. Presley salvage space vessel, and its sister ship the The U.S.S. Holly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Skyler led a mission into an uncharted region of G Sector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was pointedly mentioned how Maxwell had been sober for three years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Skyler counted a loyal android, named Marlon, among his crewmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young woman in the 1950s era virtual reality setting deliberately blew up her grandfather's gas station knowing full well that he was still in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd explored his sexual fantasies in a Wild West themed virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in post-war America", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the space convicts explored his sexual fantasies in a stereotypical 1950s era virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space convicts were bantering at the poler table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually transmitted disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lloyd freaked out upon finding out that it might be possible for him to contract an STD from having sex with the virtual reality women.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x04", "title": "Food for Thought", "date": "1993-10-06", "description": "The Great Zambini, an abusive and mentally unstable circus performer with psychic abilities and a passion for cooking, attempts to read the mind of his wife and assistant, Connie, as she can already read his. When he is finally able to read Connie's mind, he does so just as she is in the middle of an affair with the show's fire-eater, Johnny, causing Zambini to go insane with jealousy.\n\nAlso starring Phil Fondacaro.\n\nDirected by: Roman Flender. Story by: Larry Wilson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zambini was unhinged and extremely jealous of his wife's attentions. When he telepathically sensed that she was cheating on him he responded by lighting the cuckolder on fire and letting him burn to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie had psychic abilities that enabled her to read Zambini's mind. Zambini manifested his own ability to read minds toward the end of the story and through it learned that Connie was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie was under the thumb of her abusive and mentally unstable husband, Zambini. He coerced her to perform fellatio as he gorged himself on chocolates, controlled her social interactions, and gave her a black eye at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie lived in fear of her abusive and mentally unstable husband, Zambini, who threatened her with violence and gave her a black eye at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie lived in fear of her abusive and mentally unstable husband, Zambini. He controlled her social interactions and threatened her with violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie took up with the fire-eater, Johnny, to the ire of her jealous and abusive husband, Zambini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zambini doused the fire eater in a flammable liquid and set him ablaze. Connie got revenge by arranging for Zambini to be eaten by a gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zambini doused the cuckolding fire eater in a flammable liquid and set him ablaze. Connie got revenge by arranging for Zambini to be eaten by a gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper played the role of a sadistic dentist in his sketch. He derived distinct satisfaction at the prospect of carrying out a dental procedure on an unwilling patient using a power drill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two identical twin sisters, who were fused at the chest, were an attraction at the circus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The midget Emmet tormented the caged gorilla by pelting it with peanuts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about Zambini enjoying the various dishes he cooked up in his trailer. He also gorged himself on chocolates while receiving a blow job from his wife, Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny took compassion on the caged gorilla by chiding the midget for tormenting it. He later handed the gorilla a pity banana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie was grief-struck by the sight of the charred body of her lover, Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zambini used Connie's telepathic abilities to put on a show at the circus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x01", "title": "Psirens", "date": "1993-10-07", "description": "Two hundred years after investigating the SSS Esperanto, the crew awake from suspended animation aboard Starbug with amnesia, and find that their mothership Red Dwarf is missing. Chasing a faint vapor trail which may lead to their mothership, the crew travel through an asteroid field containing lost and crashed spaceships. The asteroid field is inhabited by \"psirens\", genetically engineered creatures that telepathically lure the ship's crew onto the asteroids so that they can suck out their brains.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew encountered a race of GELFs know as the Psirens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on the crews attempts to resist the various lures of the Psiren aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew couldn't tell what was real from the various Psiren telepathically mediated illusions they were being subjected to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological siren", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Psirens were a parody on the sirens of Greek mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug. The crew discovered what they described as a spaceship graveyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was annoyed at his overgrown nails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister believed he could play the guitar. Others demurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister suffered from amnesia and was not at all amused to be reminded of his offensive and uncouth personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Once again, the crew was stranded in space with limited oxygen, water, and battery supplies. We also heard recollections from the final hours of the victims of the Psirens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was remarkably deluded regarding his ability to play the guitar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister asserted that the Psirens were genetically engineered life forms that lured unsuspecting travelers to their deaths like \"Ulysses in the ancient Turkish legend\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Psirens (in their true form) resembled grotesque fly-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prirens used telepathy to alter the perceptions of their victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister encountered a Psiren that had taken on his form that was virtually indistinguishable from himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Psiren appeared to Kryten as his maker Professor Mamet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Demolition Man (1993)", "title": "Demolition Man", "date": "1993-10-08", "description": "John Spartan is a risk-taking police officer, who has a reputation for causing destruction while carrying out his work. After a failed attempt to rescue hostages from evil crime lord Simon Phoenix, they are both sentenced to be cryogenically frozen in 1996. Phoenix is thawed for a parole hearing in 2032, but escapes. Society has changed and all crime has seemingly been eliminated. Unable to deal with a criminal as dangerous as Phoenix, the authorities awaken Spartan to help capture him again. The story makes allusions to many other works including Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, and H. G. Wells's The Sleeper Awakes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demolition_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Life in San Angeles of 2032 was peaceful and harmonious, and the people content.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "San Angeles was made into an ultra-safe place to live by making illegal all types of behavior deemed immoral or unhealthy, such as smoking, cursing, and engaging in sexual intercourse the old fashioned way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Sergeant Spartan and Simon Phoenix woke up from cryogenic preservation 36 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The San Angeles police were trying to apprehend the psychopathic career criminal Simon Phoenix who was on the loose and wreaking havoc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in 2032 in San Angeles: a megalopolis formed from the merger of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Scraps preferred to live in underground ruins and keep their personal freedoms, rather than conform to the socially oppressive life on the surface in San Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Spartan failed spectacularly in his bid to free a busload of hostages from the clutches of the psychopathic criminal Simon Phoenix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Sergeant Spartan and Simon Phoenix were sentenced to lengthy terms in a cryo-penitentiary for their respective roles in a hostage situation that ended badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Sergeant Spartan and Simon Phoenix were sentenced to lengthy terms in a cryo-penitentiary for their respective roles in a hostage situation that ended badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Huxley's police cruiser went into autodrive mode when she verbally instructed it to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Huxley felt bored in the crime-free San Angeles of 2032 and longed for the good old day of the late 20th century when crime was rampant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Huxley was fascinated with the pop culture of late 20th century America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Spartan was told that smoking is bad for people in response to his request for a cigarette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of 2032 San Angeles were disgusted at the notion of engaging in carnal sexual intercourse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Spartan and Lieutenant Huxley made an abortive attempt to share a sexual experience that involved donning sexual feeling conveying headsets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cryo-prisoners were implanted with career oriented skill knowledge that would help them transition back into society after release. Sergeant Spartan, for example, was surprised to find that he knew how to knit sweaters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Spartan and Lieutenant Huxley fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x03", "title": "The Siege", "date": "1993-10-10", "description": "Sisko and Li Nalas help stop Deep Space Nine from being commandeered by the Bajorans, while Kira and Dax try to put an end to the Circle by presenting evidence that Minister Jaro is being backed by the Cardassians.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Bajoran provisional government faced a coup at the hands of the Circle insurgents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and his crew held the fort when space station invaded by Circle insurgents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "people staying to defend space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Li Nalas gave life to save adversary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami and Jaro Essa set nefarious plot to rule Bajor into motion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political polarization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans were split among the provisional government and \"The Circle\" insurgents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko wanted Miles to evacuate space station together with her and Molly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socioeconomic issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was enraged that he had to stay on space station due to escape vessel overbooking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia feared spiders in the caves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom sold Quark's seat aboard the escape vessel to a Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark tried to profiteer during the space station evacuation by over booking seats on the escape vehicles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x04", "title": "Gambit, Part I", "date": "1993-10-11", "description": "The Enterprise crew investigate the apparent murder of Captain Picard during an archaeological trip. Riker is kidnapped by mercenaries and finds Picard working as part of their crew.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker, Troi :: command crew for the murder of Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker for the murder of Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew at Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The command crew had difficulty accepting that Captain Picard was really dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baran's methods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baran had each of his crew members implanted with a special kind of pain implant, called a neuro servo, that he could activate at will by the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baran and his band of space pirates were plundering Romulan archaeological sites in search of the Stone of Gol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "tense relations among Baran's crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Tallera, Vekor, Narik :: crew at Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker at Yranac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran not opposed to using pain implants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tallera, Vekor, Narik :: renegade crew of Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran with pain implant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was passionate about archaeology.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x05", "title": "People Who Live in Brass Hearses", "date": "1993-10-13", "description": "Billy DeLuca, a thief with an unusual taste for butter and butter products, is released from prison after serving a 2 year sentence for embezzlement. With the help of his mentally challenged brother Virgil, Billy sets out to get revenge on Earl Byrd, the jolly ice cream man who had reported him to the police, by robbing the ice cream warehouse where he works. Unfortunately, the dim-witted Virgil manages to screw up every step of Billy's plan along the way.\n\nDirected by: Russell Mulcahy. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Virgil were out to avenge themselves on the jolly ice cream man who had reported Billy to the police and landed him in prison for two years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on Billy and his mentally challenged brother Virgil taking revenge on an ice cream vendor over his role in landing Billy in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virgil was dimwitted to the point of probable mental retardation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Virgil murdered people and, in the end, were murdered in return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "The great plot-twist was that the ice cream man was actually two conjoined identical twins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Virgil were out to rob the ice cream man of the vast fortune he had squirreled away over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Billy and Virgil were out to rob the ice cream man of the vast fortune he had squirreled away over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ice cream man Mr. Byrd was juxtaposed with his conjoined twin: Mr. Byrd was jovial, approachable, and an excellent business man. His conjoined twin preferred to have as little as possible to do with other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper monologue was American football themed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy was taken aback to see his brother Virgil's corpse. The ice cream man was devastated when his conjoined twin was shot in the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The jolly ice cream man struggled to fend off Mrs. Grafungar, who tried to ensnare him with tales of her purple body suit and offers of a green bean and potato chip casserole dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene featuring kids buying ice cream from an ice cream truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embezzlement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy had spent two years in prison for selling inventory for his own personal profit while employed as an ice cream truck man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x02", "title": "Legion", "date": "1993-10-14", "description": "Chasing the vapour trail of Red Dwarf into a gas nebula, Starbug is taken over by a tractor beam which takes it to a space station. There the crew discover Legion, a highly intelligent, sophisticated and cultured lifeform conceived out of an experiment by a group of famous scientists. It is Legion who modifies Rimmer's holo-projection unit, enabling him to become a \"hardlight\" hologram (his jacket goes from red in \"softlight\" to blue in hardlight), as a result he is able to touch, feel, eat, and experience pain – but still being made of light, cannot be physically harmed. They learn that Legion is composed from the minds of each member of the crew, combined and magnified, and as such they are sustaining his very existence with their presence. Legion will not allow them to leave and continue the search for Red Dwarf.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Legion character was composed from the combined minds of each member of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Legion character was composed from the combined minds of each member of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Legion decided to keep the crew captive in seemingly luxurious conditions. The crew demurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer and Lister were poking fun at Rimmer's disgustingly untidy character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew tried to work together in the cockpit despite their various insurmountable disagreements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer surrendered with conspicuous rapidity to the oncoming comet-like object.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lot of rambling talk about food. Especially Mimosian cuisine, which was supposedly advanced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew tried to use Mimosian cutlery, which was a spaced up version of chopsticks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer lied to Legion about he and the crew spending their nights critiquing the works of Caravaggio in a failed bit to impress the mysterious entity. He additionally extolled the virtues of what turned out to be a light switch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sculptures were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Legion was composed of both biological and mechanical components.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wishing or wanting something really hard makes it happen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the end, a device was acquired, the efficacy of which was contingent upon ones strength of belief in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antimatter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Legion warned the crew never to let antimatter chopsticks touch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Legion lived on a large, futuristic space station located somewhere in deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten forced Legion to manifest himself in the image of Kryten in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A \"suction beam\" locked onto the Starbug and forced it down to the space station.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x04", "title": "Invasive Procedures", "date": "1993-10-17", "description": "A plasma storm leads to the evacuation of most of the station, but a Trill refugee has his own plans.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: John Whelpley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark betrayed space station crew by aiding terrorists; Odo asserted that Quark would betray his brother Rom if it suited his interest; Curzon kind of betrayed Benjamin; Mareel ultimately betrayed Verad after Benjamin's urging her to do so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Verad not coping well with his failure to get a Trill symbiont", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Verad about wanting to unite with Trill symbiont and accomplish great things in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Verad wanted become more than he was", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Verad had a raging inferiority complex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons take over space station while it was manned by a skeleton crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Verad tried to steal Jadzia's Trill implant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin ended his friendship with Curzon when he refused to be re-implanted into Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rejection made Verad into a criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin had to decide whether to shoot his old friend Verad or led his new friend Jadzia die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Curzon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Verad became a different person after being implanted with the Trill symbiont", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia agreed to give Verad her Trill so long as crew was left unharmed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Verad was callous toward others including his girlfriend Mareel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mareel rejected by Dax or something", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x05", "title": "Gambit, Part II", "date": "1993-10-18", "description": "Picard and Riker help mercenaries collect archaeological artifacts to prevent an ancient Vulcan weapon falling into the wrong hands.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tallera :: Tallera secretly wants to take over Vulcan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard/Arctus Baran :: Picard and Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free inquiry vs. obedience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data dressed Worf down in the ready room over excessive questioning of orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baran had each of his crew members implanted with a special kind of pain implant, called a neuro servo, that he could activate at will by the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baran and his band of space pirates were plundering Romulan archaeological sites in search of the Stone of Gol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data in the captain's chair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Riker, Tallera, Vekor, Narik :: crew at Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about Vulcan history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Riker :: Picard and Riker on enemy ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tallera :: Tallera", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran not opposed to using pain implants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tallera, Vekor, Narik :: renegade crew of Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctus Baran :: Baran with pain implant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard was passionate about archaeology.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x06", "title": "Two for the Show", "date": "1993-10-20", "description": "In an homage to Strangers on a Train, Andy Conway, a talkative, workaholic husband, is informed by his wife Emma that she is having an affair and wants a divorce. In a rage, Andy stabs Emma to death and cuts her into pieces. He is investigated by Officer Fine, a police officer with his own marital issues. After stuffing Emma's remains in a suitcase, Andy boards a train to get rid of the evidence. When Andy discovers that Fine is on board the same train, the two men get caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse.\n\nDirected by: Kevin Hooks. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around Andy trying to dispose of his murdered wife's remains. In a surprise twist at the denouement it is revealed that Officer Fine had managed to dispose of his own spouse and spousal remains by cleverly pinning the murder on Andy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I murdered someone in a fit of rage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy went into a blind rage and stabbed his wife to death when she unexpectedly informed him that she was leaving him for someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy and Officer Fine had both killed and chopped up their respective wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Fine was investigating Andy. Two uniformed cops accompanied him at the denouement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy flew into a rage and killed his wife, Emma, after she dropped the news that she was leaving him. Officer Fine had killed his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emma had been cheating on Andy before she demanded a divorce and got stabbed to death for the trouble. It turned out that Emma was having an affair with none other than Officer Fine's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Officer Fine went to elaborate lengths to frame Andy for the murder of Officer Fine's wife. Specifically, Officer Fine manipulated Andy into boarding a train with the chopped up body of Andy's own wife in a luggage box. Officer Fine, having boarded the same train with the chopped up body of his wife in another luggage box, ultimately forced Andy into opening Officer Fine's luggage box to reveal its ghastly contents in the presence of other police officers. The story ended on the implication that Andy would be arrested for the murder of Officer Fine's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, donned in a suit and tie, was on stage telling wise-cracks to a dead quiet audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Officer Fine framing Andy for the murder of Fine's own spouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma demanded a divorce and got stabbed to death for the trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Fine alleged that a man enjoying a meal on the train dining car was in fact trafficking drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma having had an affair with Officer Fine's fine was a revelation of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A significant portion of the story unfolded during a journey on a passenger train bound for Chicago. In particular, Andy ate a meal on the dining car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x03", "title": "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", "date": "1993-10-21", "description": "Starbug narrowly wins a battle with \"rogue simulants\", but the \"simulants\" have infected Starbug with a computer virus and the ship is locked on a collision course with a volcanic planet. Kryten attempts to fight the virus, with the battle taking the form of an old wild west movie in his digital mind. The virus overtakes him, so Lister, Cat and Rimmer enter Kryten's wild-west dream using an artificial reality video game in attempt to help Kryten come up with an antidote.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister, Rimmer, and Cat entered into Kryten's Wild West themed dream my means a virtual reality system they'd recently salvaged. Lister was playing a racy film noir style virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew fought a computer virus from inside Kryten's Wild West themed dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was mocked for having sex with the female characters in the virtual reality games he was playing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The virtual reality game character Loretta described herself as a serial killing femme fatale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer tried to surrender to the Rogue Simulants without hesitation. He later admitted to being a coward who was always scared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rogue Simulants were described as being bio-mechanical in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An outlaw on horseback introduced himself to Kryten as the personification of death from inside Kryten's dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personification of a concept", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Death incarnate was accompanied by his three brothers, the personifications of war, famine, and pestilence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was a booze-hound old sheriff in his Wild West themed dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point of the story was Lister's preoccupation with having virtual sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The four horsemen of the apocalypse from Christian mythology were featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humanity despising Rogue Simulants upgraded the Starbug and gave the crew a head start to make exterminating them all the more pleasurable.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x05", "title": "Cardassians", "date": "1993-10-24", "description": "Garak investigates the identity of a Cardassian boy, Rugal, abandoned on Bajor, who has been raised by a Bajoran.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Gene Wolande & John Wright.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rugal feels more at home with Bajorans than with Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Proka adopted the Cardassian boy Rugal; Kotan tried to regain custody of Rugal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing after social upheaval", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bajor coming to terms with the legacy of Cardassian domination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rugal was wished he wasn't born a Cardassian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rugal was at the center of a custody battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans and Miles expressed prejudice against Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajorans who adopted Cardassian children prejudiced them against their own Cardassian species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rugal about whether to stay with adoptive father or return to Cardassia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rugal and the Cardassian orphans on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proka to Rugal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Proka adopted the Cardassian boy Rugal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles with Cardassian stew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian atrocities on Bajor were alluded to", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kotan went on about family loyalty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian orphans on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Proka raising a Cardassian son on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rugal was permitted to decide whether he wanted to live on Bajor or return to his home world", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x06", "title": "Phantasms", "date": "1993-10-25", "description": "Data experiences strange dreams, while the Enterprise has issues with its new Warp-core. But all is not as it seems.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data was seeking meaning in his nightmares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data was seeking meaning in his nightmares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data's dreams a strange window into the android mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data's dreaming", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was at a loss to explain his invisible space parasite induced nightmares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data could record his dreams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Sigmund Freud program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Sigmund Freud :: Data meets Freud", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Freudian psychoanalysis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freud analyzed Data on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Spot :: Data and Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at prospect of attending Starfleet banquet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: many by nightmares and Troi at being stabbed by Data in the turbolift", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x07", "title": "House of Horror", "date": "1993-10-27", "description": "Arling, Henderson, and Waters are three pledges of a fraternity on probation who are bullied into submission by sadistic pledge master Les Wilton. As the final part of their initiation, the trio are challenged to get to the top floor of the Cougher House, an abandoned house rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a murderer with a hacking cough. However, when two of the pledges fail to return, Les decides to head up to the top floor of the house in order to look for them himself, only to learn that a local sorority harbors a sinister secret involving the house.\n\nDirected by: Bob Gale. Story by: Bob Gale.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns the stereotypical American frat antics of some stereotypical American college frat students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "initiation rite", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned the stereotypical hazing rituals of some stereotypical American college frat houses. In a surprise twist it turned out that the sorority's final initiation rite involved the killing and devouring of human flesh, for they were all ghouls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most of the story took place in a supposedly haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cannibalistic female frat students revealed that they had ghastly visages and were, in fact, \"ghouls\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the degradation some younger students were subjected to by their peers in a stereotypical American frat house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humiliating initiation rites that the frat pledges were subjected to was tantamount to bullying. For example, Les compelled Arling to lick doggy doo from the sole of Les' sneaker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fraternity boys experienced fear to varying degrees inside the supposedly haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, adorned in formal court attire, feigned to preside over a trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist it was revealed that the haunting and serial murder was all stage acted by a sorority whose members were secretly flesh eating cannibalistic ghouls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A $100 incentive was enough to get some people to investigate the haunted house against their better judgement after events such as the defenestration of a mysteriously severed arm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x04", "title": "Emohawk: Polymorph II", "date": "1993-10-28", "description": "Starbug is attacked by an advanced Space Corps enforcement probe, for looting from derelict ships. The crew manage to escape by entering GELF space but Starbug crashes on a moon. Lister must marry the GELF chieftain's daughter in exchange for an oxygen breathing unit. The crew escape with the engine part during Lister's honeymoon, but the GELF chieftain sends his pet, a polymorph, after them to retrieve his new son-in-law.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dangerous shapeshifting creature ran amok aboard the Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment as a deterrent to crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten opined that harsh sentencing, death in particular, needed to be applied in frontiers regions to maintain order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister asserted that things would never work out between himself and the GELF chieftain's daughter on account that they were both Aires'.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew crash-landed on a moon inhabited by a GELF tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was married to the GELF chieftain's daughter against is will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The GELF chieftain's daughter tried to force herself upon Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister escape from new GELF bride shortly after the pair retired to their honeymoon hut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat made vain remarks about his hair and attire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister struggled with the decision of whether to marry, wedding night implied, a repulsive GELF in order to save himself and his fellows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat turned into Duane, a person so nerdy that he couldn't get into a sci-fi convention.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x07", "title": "It's All in the Game", "date": "1993-10-31", "description": "Wealthy socialites Lauren Staton and Lisa Martin conspire to murder their abusive, two-timing lover Nick Franco. Lisa lures Nick into his apartment, but Lauren commits the actual murder by shooting him and then fleeing. Lisa stays behind in the apartment, keeping the body warm for several hours with an electric blanket until Lauren returns to the complex and begins talking with the building manager. While they're in the hallway, Lisa fires a shot into the air, then flees through the patio in disguise, making it seem like the murder happened right then. During the whole investigation, Lauren takes all the heat from Columbo to protect Lisa, even going so far as to romance him.\n\nFinal clue/twist: When Columbo discovers that Lisa was the only person Nick had talked to by phone in the ten days prior to his death, Columbo searches her apartment and comes across a photograph of her posing next to a one-of-a- kind antique chair similar to the one that Lauren had posed with in another photograph he had also seen. Upon comparing the two photos side-by-side, he concludes that it was the same chair, and same location, in both photos, indicating to him that Lisa and Lauren might actually know each other. He brings Lisa in for questioning and has Lauren watch behind a one-way mirror. As it turns out, Lisa is Lauren's daughter, and when Lauren sees Lisa being loudly interrogated by Columbo's associates, Lauren breaks down and offers to confess on the condition that Columbo let Lisa go. Lauren admits to the murder, but refuses to name Lisa as her accomplice. When Columbo learns that Lauren's motive was to avenge Nick's cheating as well as his physically attacking Lisa with a razor, Columbo rips up the photo evidence implicating Lisa, deciding not to charge the daughter as she heads back to Rome. This is one of two episodes (the other being \"Forgotten Lady\") in which Columbo allows a murderer to go unpunished.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Peter Falk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lauren Staton and her daughter, Lisa Martin, carried out this seemingly foolproof plan to murder their abusive, two-timing, mutual lover Nick Franco: Lauren shot Nick dead in his apartment one night with Lisa on hand. After fleeing the scene, Lauren had Lisa wrap the body in an electric blanket to keep it warm and then wait around. Lauren went back to Nick's apartment complex late that same night under the pretense of paying him a visit. Having \"forgotten\" her key, she asked the building manager to let her in Nick's apartment. Lisa fired a shot into the air once Lauren and the building manager were within earshot, and then hightailed it out of there with the electric blanket, leaving behind only the warm body. In this manner, Lauren secured for herself a seemingly airtight alibi. One gathers that Lauren would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo. Lisa, on the other hand, was let off scot-free.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lauren Staton and her daughter, Lisa Martin, conspired together to murder their mutual lover Nick Franco in part to avenge his abusive, two-timing ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lauren Staton shot her lover, Nick Franco dead to avenge not only his cheating on her with her own daughter, but also for having disfigured the daughter with a razor blade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story led up to the following dilemma for Lt. Columbo: Should he do his duty and capture the two murderesses, or should he look the other way on account of the victim having been an abusive man? He settled for (the half-measure) of letting the younger of the women go free.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the international playboy Nick Franco shot dead in a burglary gone wrong, or could one or two of his lovers have been behind it?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was cheating on Lauren, not knowing that the other woman was Lauren's own daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lauren, the murderess, flirted shamelessly with Columbo when she sensed that he was hot on her trail. Columbo seemingly succumbed to her feminine wiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the story was that Lauren and Lisa were not secret lesbian lovers, as the viewer had been led to believe, but rather that Lauren was Lisa's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick had physically abused his lover, Lisa, and threatened to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick Franco had seduced Lisa and, upon hearing about her wealthy Beverly Hills mother, proceeded to seduce the mother as well. All to bankroll his excessive gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo embarked on a steamy series of romantic dates with the woman he suspected of murder. It is left open whether he had genuine feelings for her, behind Mrs. Columbo's back, or merely did it as a ruse to solve his case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lauren was distressed about her daughter being threatened by Nick Franco and decided to murder him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick Franco was an international playboy type who carried on with a mother and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was carrying on with both Lauren and her daughter, Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lauren and Lisa argued that they killed Nick because he would otherwise kill Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa feared that her abusive boyfriend, Nick, would kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren threw a lavish house party at her mansion that featured live instrumental music and a singalong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's presence at Lauren's mansion was announced by her stereotypically attired maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was known to take pleasure in excessive gambling, sometimes in Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren feigned to be broken up by Nick's murder when, in fact, she was his killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren watched from her window as Columbo poured a bowl of water for his Basset hound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren shot Nick dead in his apartment and, with the help of her daughter, made it look like a burglary gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren made up a story that Nick left her party early to join a poker game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lauren gave Columbo a big smooch among other things as part of her plot to seduce the detective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a suggestion that Lauren and Lisa were lesbian lovers. In fact, they were mother and daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x06", "title": "Melora", "date": "1993-10-31", "description": "Bashir tries to help Ensign Melora Pazlar, the first Elaysian to join Starfleet, adjust to \"normal\" gravity.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Evan Carlos Somers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Melora proved that she was a productive colleague in spite of being wheelchair bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the disabled in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Melor could do her work just fine dangnammit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Melora took pains not depend on others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Melora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Melora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark tried to bribe his assassin not to kill him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melora had a zero-g love nest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a high gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melora was from a planet with low gravity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accepting reliance on others", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained to the independent minded Melora how everyone on the space station depended on everyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melora would not really be able to go home after treatment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Melora discussed this point", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Melora discussed the feasibility of having a long distance relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melora had an anti-gravity device installed in her room", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fallit Kot came to space station to kill Quark over a past betrayal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "assassin holding people hostage on shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir pointed out to Melora that she was reluctant to let people get close to her, especially him", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x07", "title": "Dark Page", "date": "1993-11-01", "description": "A psychic breakdown puts Lwaxana Troi in a coma, and Deanna works to save her life. Features a young Kirsten Dunst , playing the little girl Hedril.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana at Kestra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana/Troi, Lwaxana/Kestra :: Lwaxana/Troi and Lwaxana/Kestra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "telepathy vs. speech", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana over being a negligent parent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cairn, Betazoid :: Both the Cairn and Betazoids communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both the Cairn and Betazoids communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cairn, Betazoid :: Both the Cairn and Betazoids communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans not comfortable sharing unfiltered thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana to Troi and Kestra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cairn are somewhat befuddled by this human habit of communicating with sounds produced in the larynx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Speculative interpretations of Lwaxana's dreams were made.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana tries to teach Cairn verbal communication", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ian Andrew Troi/Troi :: Ian and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi with Hedril", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with deaf people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana was teaching Cairn how to communicate using verbal language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi at Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi toward Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana :: nightmares", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi to Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Freudian psychoanalysis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data interpreted Lwaxana's dreams in the manner of Dr. Freud.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x08", "title": "Well Cooked Hams", "date": "1993-11-03", "description": "In a turn-of-the-century tale, inept magician Miles Federman blames his assistant Greta on a failed show and fires her. Shortly after, Miles is met by another magician, Franz Kraygen, who invites Miles to see his own show. Miles is left astonished when Kraygen demonstrates his most famous illusion: the Box of Death. When Kraygen refuses to tell Miles how he pulls off the trick, Miles kills him and steals the prop for his own show. When Miles attempts to perform the trick himself, he is unaware that the Box of Death has been sabotaged, leading to tragic consequences.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Andrew Kevin Walker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The inept stage magician Miles Federman killed Zorbin The Magnificent (or so he thought) and stole his act. A very well-disguised Zorbin avenged this treacherous act by duping Miles into performing a magic trick that would see Miles die a gruesome and humiliating death on stage. Zorbin revealed himself to Miles as he lay dying to Miles' disbelief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the ambitious but comically inept stage magician Miles Federman as he stoops to underhanded means to make a success of himself. The old stage magicians Zorbin and Kraygen were also featured along with their acts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was lousy at stage magic himself, so he tried to kill two other stage magicians, Kraygen and Zorbin who were secretly one in the same person, and steal their acts. He was upstaged and tricked into causing his own death by the two supposed victims, who had both (unbeknownst to Miles) survived their respective attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' ineptitude in the stage magic profession ate at him to the point that he committed murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was strung along with the promise of money from supposed film revenue, as he attempted \"The Box of Death\" magic trick. Zorbin had concocted his scheme partially with the motivation to film the death of Miles and profit handsomely form the royalties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a stereotypical French outfit wearing Crypt Keeper took a break from his French lesson, which was playing on a reel-to-reel audio tape recorder, to introduce a tale about an ambitious stage magician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inept stage magician Miles Federman stole the acts of two other magicians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x05", "title": "Rimmerworld", "date": "1993-11-04", "description": "The crew return to the wreck of the simulants' battleship to salvage for food supplies but are confronted by a surviving simulant who threatens to kill herself and the crew. Rimmer, who has been diagnosed with a tense nervous disorder, escapes in a pod which has no steering, and is whisked away through a worm-hole and crashes on a planet. The crew follow Rimmer through the worm- hole, but due to its effects arrive at the planet 600 years after Rimmer arrived, only to find the planet is populated with thousands of Rimmer clones.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer was dealing with a stress related nervous disorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Rimmerworld was a planet populated by Rimmer clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Rogue Simulant, which appeared to be constituted of both biological and mechanical parts, tried to kill the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten used a handheld gizmo to teleport himself and the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew inadvertently teleported themselves back one week into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew encountered themselves upon inadvertently traveling a week into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer passed through a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer experienced the passage of 600 years owing to the effects of time dilation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer crash-landed on such a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer briefly found himself stranded on a deserted desert planet. He used the terraforming equipment on his ship to transform it into a more livable world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer lamented that his female clone would not be able to take him as her lover on account that she would technically be his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An imprisoned Rimmer spoke of how his clones were power hungry backstabbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat preferred death to having flames clash with his attire trimmed with peach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew used a handheld teleportation device to escape from the Rimmerworld dungeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer compared himself to Robinson Crusoe after getting lost in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer used some rockets he found in order to terraform \"Rimmerworld\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer briefly found himself stranded on a deserted desert planet. He used the terraforming equipment on his ship to transform it into a more livable world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x07", "title": "Rules of Acquisition", "date": "1993-11-07", "description": "Quark represents Grand Nagus Zek in a plot to establish a Ferengi business presence in the Gamma Quadrant. Pel, a young Ferengi, teams up with Quark and they learn that to do business in the Gamma Quadrant they must contact the Keremma, a member race of the Dominion.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Hilary J. Bader.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zek, Quark, and Pel greedily conspired to corner the tula berry market to get a foothold in the Gamma Quadrant door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pel disguised herself as a Ferengi male in order to be taken seriously; Rom and the other Ferengi dismissed Jadzia's space poker skills because she was a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ferengi women kept naked in the home and not allowed to have careers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pel demonstrated that she could do business just as well as any man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pel at Quark; Zek was enamored with Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pel at Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark about the business acumen of Ferengi women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zek, Quark, and Pel trying to engage Dominion in business dealings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia and Kira expressed an assortment of reactions toward sexist Ferengi comments directed their way. One gathers that the comments were a normal part of Ferengi culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pel at Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was jealous of new waiter Pel's cunning and tried to fire him multiple times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pel kissed Quark when Quark believed her to be a Ferengi male", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x08", "title": "Attached", "date": "1993-11-08", "description": "Reclusive aliens imprison Picard and Dr. Crusher on charges of espionage, and experimental implants linking their minds telepathically cause them to face their latent feelings for each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Kes tried to manipulate the Federation in order to gain an advantage over the Prytt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "one Kesprytt faction was xenophobic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "platonic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Beverly :: Picard and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became telepathically linked with someone else", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Beverly :: Picard and Beverly can hear one another's thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "one Kesprytt faction was xenophobic and isolationist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker and Kes arguing about how to approach the Prytt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mauric :: visiting dignitary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "When push came to shove it was obvious that the Kesprytt were not *sniff* civilized enough yet to join the federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kesprytt :: Kes and Prytt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kesprytt used device to link Picard's mind with Beverly's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Beverly bonded over each others thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contempt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker and aliens mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Beverly :: Beverly and Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Prytt were spying on each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly's fear of heights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kes sought membership in the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation demanded global unification of the Kesprytt as a precondition to membership.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x09", "title": "Creep Course", "date": "1993-11-10", "description": "Nerdy bookworm Stella Bishop is tricked by Reggie Skulnick, a charismatic jock, into giving him the answers for their upcoming Egyptology test. Little does Stella know, that Reggie is in league with their Egyptology instructor, the pompous Professor Finely. In exchange for Finley giving him the answers to the test himself, so he can pass the course and keep his football scholarship, Reggie brings Stella to Finely's home and tricks her into becoming a virgin sacrifice for Ramseth, a long preserved mummy in search of his lover.\n\nDirected by: Jeffrey Boam. Story by: William Gaines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "undead mummy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The centerpiece of this story was the mummified Ramseth who became both animated and amorous whenever a particular horn was blown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns some students of Ancient Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned some Egyptology students and their professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Finley and Reggie nearly tricked Stella into becoming the next sacrificial victim of the mummy Ramseth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella (four-eyed, bookworm, nerdy) was juxtaposed with Reggie (a stereotypical jock who played football).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella was the stereotypical bespectacled school bookworm who studied diligently and learned swiftly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reggie was the stereotypical school jock who was unable to prosper in any scholastic pursuits and preferred to whittle away the hours doing brainless sports instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reggie strung Stella along with promises of romance but then callously betrayed her by throwing her into a mummy's tomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stella had something of crush on Reggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reggie charmed Stella into doing on a study date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Finely clandestinely administered to Reggie an Ancient Egyptian poison that made his organs ooze out of his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reggie charmed Stella into conspiring with him to purloin the questions for their Egyptology course midterm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ramseth, a dusty mummy, excerebrated Professor Finely in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reggie tried to blackmail Professor Finley, not knowing that it was the professor who held all the cards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Connors came to collect Stella at the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e6x06", "title": "Out of Time", "date": "1993-11-11", "description": "Starbug enters an artificial fog containing devices that create false realities. Persevering through it, the crew find what it is hiding – a time machine. Shortly after, they meet their future selves, from fifteen years later. The crew learn that their future selves are incredibly corrupt and amoral through abuse of the time drive, to experience the \"very best\" of history. In the end, the two Starbug craft engage in a space battle to end all space battles.\n\nDirected by: Andy de Emmony. Story by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The future crew traveled back in time to copy components from the time drive aboard the present Starbug. The present crew traveled back in time, albeit briefly, to the year 1421 - the rub being that they didn't go back to Earth, but rather deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "The present crew came into conflict with their amoral, power and wealth seduced future selves. The story culminated with the crew engaging their future selves in a dramatic space battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer appointed himself morale officer in a misguided effort to raise everyone's spirits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer pointedly vented his feelings about how much he hated everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Strangeness ensued when the Starbug flies into a region of space filled with \"unreality pockets\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten became convinced that Lister was a 3000 series android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten forced Lister to be his butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "\"My knees have turned to jelly,\" said Cat at the prospect of meeting his future, presumably exalted self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future Lister was a brain in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The future versions of the crew spoke of having socialized with the Hitler family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future Rimmer insisted that there was noting Lister could do to avoid becoming a disembodied brain in the future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Philadelphia Experiment II (1993)", "title": "Philadelphia Experiment II", "date": "1993-11-12", "description": "A secret government experiment gone wrong results in an alternate reality where Nazi Germany won the Second World War. The film is the sequel to The Philadelphia Experiment (1984).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a secret military project to make a technology that would enable nuclear armed airplanes to be teleported directly into enemy territory and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and his young, baseball playing son Benny. Dr. William Mailer went back in time to explain the fate of the Phoenix his Nazi scientist father Dr. Friedrich Mahler in his broken German, but the father claimed he had no son, and shot Mailer dead on the spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "major", "motivation": "David suddenly found himself in a grim alternate timeline where Nazi Germany had conquered much of the United States and enslaved its population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nuclear armed stealth bomber was inadvertently sent 50 years back in time to 1943 Nazi Germany. David went back in time to make sure the Nazis didn't use it to change the outcome of the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that David, who'd been transported form 1943 to 1984 and lived his life until 1993 there, struggled with everyone he grew up with being either dead or living in retirement homes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny was excitedly preparing for his Little League opening game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was living alone with his young son Benny and was facing financial hardship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was living under financial hardship because his business was slowly failing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Professor Longstreet, David's recurring hallucinations were stress induced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that 15 million people died when the Nazis nuked Washington, D.C., in 1943.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government engineer William Mailer successfully \"beamed\" (i.e. teleported) a model aircraft from one end of the room to another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jess led a Nazi resistance movement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x08", "title": "Necessary Evil", "date": "1993-11-14", "description": "When Quark is shot, Odo re-opens a five-year-old murder case of Mr. Vaatrik who was a Cardassian collaborator.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo motivated to solve unsolved murder by a desire for justice that he speculated was endogenous to his species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving innocent lives vs. compromising one's ethical principles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo covered up Kira's murder of Vaatrik's husband in order to save Bajorans from summary execution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was pressured to make pronouncements with scant evidence and refused", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the Bajorans living under a brutal Cardassian occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom was itching for his brother Quark he succumb form his gunshot wound so her could takeover the bar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the mining complex was some kind of Gulag labor camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaatrik accused Kira of having had an affair with her husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom were involved with Vaatrik in some money making scheme. Rom hoped Quark would die so he could get ownership of the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "not entirely clear who felt what in the end but the idea was implied", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x09", "title": "Force of Nature", "date": "1993-11-15", "description": "A pair of scientists show that warp drives are harming the fabric of space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova killed herself to prove warp drive was destroying the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation was made to know that their rampant use of warp drive was destroying the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The siblings Rabal and Serova were responsible for sabotaging spaceships to preserve the fabric of space in a heavily traveled space corridor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation being able to use warp drive vs. aliens environment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova in proving warp drive was destroying the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova in proving warp drive was destroying the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova suicide for the cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Data :: Geordi and Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi/Serova :: Geordi and Serova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rabal/Serova :: Rabal and Serova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rabal mourned the death of his sister, Serova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Serova :: Nobody believed Serova about her claims about the ill-effects of using warp drive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data at Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova with proving warp drive destroyed the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Serova :: Serova with proving warp drive destroyed the fabric of space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data/Spot :: Data and Spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi when Serova was proven right", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi when Serova was proven right", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi gets lesson in humility, physics", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Knights (1993)", "title": "Knights", "date": "1993-11-17", "description": "Set in a desolate future, a band of cyborg marauders go around preying on humans for their blood. It is a sequel to the 1989 film Cyborg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A band of cyborg marauders were preying on human desert squatters for their blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nea sought to avenge the slaughter of her family by the cyborg marauders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nea mother pleaded with her to flee from the cyborgs with her baby brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The primitive squatter camp people presumed that the marauding cyborgs were demons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x10", "title": "Came the Dawn", "date": "1993-11-17", "description": "\"Norma\", a criminal hitchhiker stranded on the side of the road in a thunderstorm, catches a ride with Roger, a seemingly timid rich man who invites her to stay in his cabin while the storm clears up. As she prepares to rob Roger's cabin of its valuables, Norma learns that Roger already has a woman in his life, and that he and this woman are closer than she thinks.\n\nDirected by: Uli Edel. Story by: Ron Finley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Norma had just avenged herself on her cheating husband and planned on teaching Roger a lesson as well, thus avenging herself on mankind on the behalf of all woman-kind. Roger, it transpired, had a second persona who was a jealous vengeful female similar to Norma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norma unceasingly remarked on how men were unfaithful and untrustworthy. She had just avenged herself on her cheating husband and planned on teaching Roger a lesson as well because Roger was hitting on her despite being taken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger in his alternate persona were women who stooped to spouse murder to get back at their unfaithful (ex-) partner. It was suggested that Norma might have doing the same thing before absconding with Dave's pickup truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger encountered an attractive young woman on the roadside and invited her to spend the night with him at his home, oblivious to the possibility of her harboring ill-intentions -- intentions that she, indeed, had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger in his alternate persona were women who stooped to spouse murder to get back at their unfaithful (ex-) partner. It was suggested that Norma might have doing the same thing before absconding with Dave's pickup truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it tuned out that Roger had a deranged, female alter ego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norma had stolen Dave's truck. Norma planned to rob Roger blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper quipped about in-fright entertainment on a stereotypical passenger flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Affluent Roger with his hipster habits and expensive jewellery was compared and contrasted with Norma who stole coins out Roger's glove compartment and could not afford a hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma's body language conveyed her overt disinterest in Roger's plot summary of the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was into Italian opera. He played opera on his car radio, and later while entertaining Norma in his home. At dinner, he recounted the plot of the opera Norma to his house guest of the same name, disinterested in it as she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was implied that Norma planned to murder Roger after tying him to the bed in a sex game. Roger instead murdered Norma, albeit in his other persona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma went back into Roger's house to steal a diamond necklace, instead of fleeing while she had the chance. This move sealed her fate as another victim of Roger's deranged alter ego.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Official Denial (1993)", "title": "Official Denial", "date": "1993-11-20", "description": "An alien abducted man is enrolled into a secret government project to communicate with the sole surviving member of his alien captors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Denial" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul's fixation with UFOs put a serious strain on his marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul was abducted by Gray aliens. In general, it was explained by a general that military was covering up the fact that people were being regularly abducted and experiments on by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul befriended a Gray alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Annie's marriage was falling apart because of his obsession with UFOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military was hiding from the public that they'd shot down an alien spaceship and recovered one of its Gray alien occupants alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it might be like for military people to cover up the shooting down of an alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Annie's marriage was falling apart because of his obsession with UFOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military was hiding from the public that they'd shot down an alien spaceship and recovered one of its Gray alien occupants alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that the Gray aliens were really humans from the future, implying that humans would evolve into Gray alien-looking beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul initially didn't want to bring a baby into this veil of tears we call a world, even though his wife Annie was 37 and wanted to have a child very much. But in the end, Paul had a change of heart, they had a baby, and named it Hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military shot down a strange alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the Gray aliens were regularly abducting people and performing experiments on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tabloid journalist Michael Novado was investigating rumors of a UFO crash and government cover up there of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Spaulding made clear that he had the option to use tactical nukes on the alien spaceship, if necessary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A handful of government officials wore radiation suits when they examined the alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul reluctantly revealed to his therapist that he'd had a hypnotist regress him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some scientists discovered that the alien spaceship was propelled by fusion generated magnetic pulses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gray alien Dos spoke to Paul telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gray alien Dos spoke to Paul telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gray alien Dos explained that his species was genetically engineered, but to what end was not made precise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Fools Crow and his uncle the Wisdomkeeper of his Native American tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wisdomkeeper was a Hollywood Native America wise man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x09", "title": "Second Sight", "date": "1993-11-21", "description": "A mysterious woman, Fenna, catches Sisko's eye during their fleeting meetings.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Mark Gehred-O'Connell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Fenna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gideon ultimately sacrificed himself on the altar of science to save his wife Nidell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stellar rejuvenation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gideon was working on rejuvenating a star before it went supernova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone annoyed at pompous terraformer Gideon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "marital strife was the source of Nidell's astral projections", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gideon and Nidell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fenna was the astral projection of Nidell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gideon's ego-maniacal boastings annoyed people of and drove his many wives mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gideon was extremely proud of his achievements in terraforming, art, and writing and let everybody know about them without solicitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin, Gideon, and Nidell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin mourned the death of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake mourned the loss of his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake had a heart-to-heart talk about Jake's weird dream", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gideon boasted of his achievements in terraforming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia teased Benjamin about it being hard to have a man-to-man talk with a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia teased Benjamin about it being hard to have a man-to-man talk with a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenna seems to have been that wife's repressed libido or something", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fenna met Nidell", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x10", "title": "Inheritance", "date": "1993-11-22", "description": "Data encounters a woman claiming to be his \"mother\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer/Data :: Juliana and Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Juliana Tainer, Soong Type Android :: oh my God, Juliana was an android!", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data came clean with Juliana about her being an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data, Juliana Tainer :: Data with the mother he didn't know he had, Juliana with Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data with the fact that he had a mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer :: Juliana abandoning Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer :: Data and Juliana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer :: Juliana at Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer :: Was the android still Juliana Tainer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Juliana Tainer :: Data and Juliana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliana grieved for her dearly departed husband, Noonien Soong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "trust Datas calc etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliana confided in Data that she was \"very proud\" of what he'd accomplished in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Juliana Tainer :: Juliana and Soong both wanted a son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Soong had transferred the flesh and blood Juliana's mind into the body of an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Fourier series", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data noted that Juliana's blinking is determined by \"the Fourier system\". Presumably he used Fourier analysis to discover that her blinking followed a predictable pattern of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data doesn't tell Juliana she's an android", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data briefly mourned the death of his android daughter, Lal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data doesn't tell Juliana she's an android", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg 2 (1993)", "title": "Cyborg 2", "date": "1993-11-24", "description": "The film takes place in 2074, years after the original film, and follows Cash Reese, a new cyborg developed for corporate espionage and assassination. The film is a direct sequel to Cyborg (1989).", "collections": [ "Collection: Cyborg" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cash was a modified cyborg created by Pinwheel for corporate espionage and assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pinwheel Robotics plotted to eliminate the entire board of directors of their only competitor using a cyborg as a suicide bomber to precipitate a hostile takeover of the company and obtain a monopoly over the cyborg market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colton and the very human-like cyborg Cash fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colton took on a Pinwheel Corporation assassin in a no-holds-barred cage-style fight.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x11", "title": "Oil's Well That Ends Well", "date": "1993-11-24", "description": "Con artist Jerry and his man-hating girlfriend Gina believe that no one can top them when it comes to extortion. The two begin planning their next caper by tricking a quartet of Southern investors into thinking that there is oil buried underneath a local cemetery. Before long, the growing costs for digging up the supposed oil begin causing everyone to begin double crossing and backstabbing everyone else, leading to an explosive conclusion.\n\nNote: This episode also features a cameo by John Kassir in his only on-screen appearance of the entire series. The Crypt Keeper is also seen playing the official Tales from the Crypt pinball machine in the intro, and watches the episode itself on VHS during the outro.\n\nDirected by: Paul Abascal. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The lovers Jerry and Gina hatched a plot to swindle a quartet of Southern investors out of a large sum of money, or so Jerry led Gina to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gina disregarded Jerry's advice to leave town with the $20,000 they'd already obtained through con artistry. Gina instead resolving to tempt their luck by going back to swindle even more money out of the same marks, leading to death of all involved. Jerry secretly plotted to con Gina out of her life savings. The shady investors were all in on subverting the law to profit from the apparent discovery of oil under a local graveyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jerry and Gina were partners in crime, and lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Gina getting backstabbed by her lover, Jerry. Instead of swindling a quartet of investors, as Gina and Jerry had agreed, Jerry turned on Gina at the last moment. He revealed to her that he'd been in cahoots with the investors all along. The real plan was to steal her life savings. Gina, however, had other designs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Gina quoting this aphorism before taking out her backstabbing boyfriend, Jerry, and herself in a blaze of glory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper took a moment away from playing a \"Tales from the Crypt\" pinball machine to introduce the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The waitress Jo slapped a patron across the face for groping her derrière. Gina shut down the same patron when he made an advance on her at the restaurant bar counter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misandry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As part of her con, Gina feigned being jaded against men from years of working for oil company executives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry spent the night with the waitress Jo after walking out on Gina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gina proclaimed her undying devotion to Jerry and expressed it physically by sucking him off behind a tombstone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry seemingly shot Larry to death for talking too much at the onset. He tried, together with four investors, to betray and murder Gina but she turned the table and killed them all, and herself, instead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x10", "title": "Sanctuary", "date": "1993-11-28", "description": "The Skrreea, displaced humanoid farmers from the Gamma Quadrant, claim Bajor as Kentanna, their legendary homeland.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Gabe Essoe & Kelley Miles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bajoran government did not permit Skrreea refugees to settled on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Skrreea were matriarchal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cultural differences, mostly on account of Skrreans being matriarchal, threatened a variety of conflicts when Skrrean refugees were taken aboard DS9. In particular, Jake and Nog are attacked by a gang of upset Skrreans because of a practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skrreea were matriarchal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Skrreea were in search of some kind of magic planet from their prophecies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans were reluctant to allow Skrreean refugees settle on Bajor even though the Skyrreeans, who were farmers, could have helped the Bajorans overcome a famine that was prevailing on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "individual Bajorans afraid of immigrants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Haneek and Tumak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin managed Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was upset because the Varani mesmerizing his customers was costing him profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog sprayed several Skrreea boys with a foul smelling vapor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skrreea kids vs. Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog discussed Jake's date with a dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haneek's son Tumak died in a firefight with the Bajorans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varani mesmerized his audiences with his fluting in Quarks bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skrreea spoke an incomprehensible language for a time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haneek was married to both Gai and Cowl", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x11", "title": "Parallels", "date": "1993-11-29", "description": "Worf finds himself randomly shifting between alternate realities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf was flung from one multiple reality to the next", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All the realities Worf was passing through taken as a whole constituted a multiverse of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf was at a loss for how to explain all the changes from jump from one reality to the next", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf was at a loss for how to explain all the changes from jump from one reality to the next", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf didn't know what to make of his reality changing from one moment to the next, as he unwittingly surfed the multiverse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: the disheveled Riker who was being hunted down by the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf didn't want to celebrate his birthday", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Troi :: Worf and Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about winning the fighingt tournament", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at his surprise party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf about birthday party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space telescope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Argus Array :: subspace telescope", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in an achievement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was rather proud of himself for having taken first place in a martial arts competition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x12", "title": "Half-Way Horrible", "date": "1993-12-01", "description": "Roger Lassen, the ruthless president of a chemical company, discovers that his key partners are being murdered one by one. He is also told that the FDA have contacted his company, which is currently developing a new long-lasting preservative known as Xenthion-B, to announce that they are considering suspending the preservative's release because of the murders. Thinking back to when he and his friends traveled to Brazil on a business trip, Roger remembers that he offered his best friend, Alex, as a human sacrifice in exchange for receiving samples of the plant Xenthion-B is created from an indigenous tribe. Concluding that Alex is the one responsible, Roger is suddenly visited by his undead former friend, who reveals that the actual killer may be closer to Roger than he thinks.\n\nAlso starring Cheech Marin and Costas Mandylor\n\nDirected by: Gregory Widen. Story by: William Gaines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turned on Alex being out to take revenge on Roger because Roger having left him to a fate worse than death in the Brazilian jungle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger exchanged his best friend to an Amazonian tribe for a plant extract that would be the basis for a revolutionary and highly profitable food preservative.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex placed Roger under a voodoo curse in an act of retribution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex placed Roger under a voodoo curse in an act of retribution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger left his best friend to a fate worse than death in the Brazilian jungle to get his hands on a valuable plant extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A glowing blue plant extract that formed the basis for a revolutionary preservative was a main novelty of the story. Apples treated with the preservative two years prior were found to be as fresh as the day they were picked. It worked on humans, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger left his best friend, Alex, to a fate worse than death in the Brazilian jungle. Six years later, Alex returned in a quasi-zombified state to confront Roger over the betrayal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Roger had a deranged and murderous split personality evoked by voodoo magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was turned into a zombie-like being by exposure to a bluish plant extract with astonishing preservative properties. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger cut a deal with an Amazonian tribe to let them sacrifice Alex. Unbeknownst to Roger, Alex survived the ordeal and came back as a zombie, and used voodoo magic to make Roger murder Dan and Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex had placed a voodoo curse on Roger that allowed Roger's evil side to escape his conscious control and perform several murders. This underpinned the entire plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger ritually sacrificed his best friend, Alex, in the Brazilian jungle to fulfill his side of a deal with an Amazonian tribe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed police detective was investigating the brutal murder of Roger's business partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voodoo doll", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was disturbed to find that someone had left a voodoo doll of him in his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enigmatic Dr. Beneloy took measures to remove Roger's voodoo curse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger accused Collins of framing him as the murderer, before murdering Collins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e5x13", "title": "Till Death Do We Part", "date": "1993-12-08", "description": "Johnny Canaparo is a gigolo involved with \"Ruthless\" Ruth Sanderson, a wealthy and powerful middle-aged woman with heavy connections to the Mafia. When Johnny begins a forbidden affair with waitress Lucy Chadwick, Ruth finds out about the liaison and orders Johnny to kill Lucy himself, leaving Johnny to mentally debate what to do about the situation, and which woman he chooses to have in his life.\n\nDirected by: W. Peter Iliff. Story by: W. Peter Iliff.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that an older woman is having a prettier younger woman killed because she slept with the older woman's lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Johnny and Lucy were young and in love. But their love ended in tragedy: Johnny reluctantly execution style murdered Lucy to save his own skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated with Johnny execution style murdering his lover, Lucy, in an act of self-preservation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny reluctantly followed the order to execution style murder his lover, Lucy, to avoid facing the wrath of his hard-boiled gangster sugar mamma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny, a young and handsome playboy, was under the thumb of his hard-boiled gangster sugar mamma, \"Ruthless\" Ruth Sanderson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on Johnny's gangster sugar mamma, Ruth, catching him with a beautiful young cocktail waitress. She took it poorly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth was a mobster boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruth reacted badly when she discovered that her young boyfriend was sleeping with a cocktail waitress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his monologue, the Crypt Keeper did play-by-play commentary for a \"World Scaries\" game between the \"Fright Sox\" and \"Boo Jays\" baseball clubs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy was a waitress who fell for the wrong customer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny was sexually assaulted by Ruth since she made him fear for his life when she demanded smooches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mob boss Ruth had several goons. Johnny may or may not have been one of the goons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (1993)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II", "date": "1993-12-11", "description": "The film features the fictional monster character Godzilla, along with Baby Godzilla and the mecha character Mechagodzilla. Despite its Japanese and English titles, the film is not a sequel to the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It is the 20th film in the Godzilla franchise, as well as the fifth film to be released during the franchise's Heisei era.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Mechagodzilla_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Azusa cared for a baby Godzilla-saur that hatched from a 65 million year egg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla ran amok across Japan; Kyoto in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant robot Mechagodzilla was controlled by three people from the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Azusa took pity on Baby Godzilla when the G-Force brass saw it only as a tool to be used to lure Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an ESP school for children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Mechagodzilla used helium-3 as a fuel source, implying that it was powered by nuclear fusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla's controllers were flying and hovering around the enormous robot. Aoki built a mechanical Pteranodon that up to two people could sit on and fly around.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Body Melt (1993)", "title": "Body Melt", "date": "1993-12-15", "description": "The residents of a quiet Melbourne suburb become the unknowing test subjects for a new dietary supplement pill with terrible side effects.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Melt" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vimuville dietary supplement pills were designed to produce the ultimate healthy human, but they caused horrible side effects, including madness, mutations, and ultimately rapid, body-wide cellular degeneration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A shady corporation was rushing a dietary supplement pills with horrible side effects to market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carrera was a crazy scientist who'd created a pill with horrible side effects in his effort to synthesize a formula designed to produce the ultimate healthy human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police detectives Sam Phillips and Johnno were investigating a some mysterious deaths that were occurring in a quiet Melbourne suburb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The buddy police detectives Sam Phillips and Johnno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Cheryl Rand. Thompson and Angelica Noble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elloise and her mother bolted out of their home to get help when Thompson dropped to the floor and began decomposing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cheryl and Brian were happily expecting their first child until such time as Cheryl's placenta ejected itself and killed Brian. Cheryl perished soon there after when he abdomen exploded.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghost in the Machine (1993)", "title": "Ghost in the Machine", "date": "1993-12-29", "description": "The consciousness of a deceased serial killer continues in the killer's murderous ways from inside a powerful computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Machine_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is primarily about a serial killer, known as \"The Address Book Killer\", who continues plotting murders after he dies and his mind get transfered to a computer network in a freak occurrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A serial killer continued plotting murders after he died and his mind got transfered into a computer network in a freak occurrence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The single mother Terry and her baggy clothes wearing, hip hop music listening to teenage son Josh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the mind uploaded serial killer hacking himself from one computer network to another. The computer expert Bram Walker was known for having infected the IRS with a herpex virus that sent everyone a 5-cent refund on their taxes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josh was doing stereotypical things that people in their early teens might have done in the 1990s: wore around extra baggy clothes to look cool, listened to hip hop, went to the arcade with his pal, paid his babysitter for her to button down her shirt, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terry and her teenage son Josh were being stalked by the uploaded consciousness of a serial killer known as \"The Address Book Killer\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry was raising a teenage son on her own because the father had walked out on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine was pestering her daughter, Terry, to get back in the dating game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh's grandmother Elaine took an active interest in helping to raise him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Munroe family dog Axle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This explanation was given for how the serial killer's consciousness came to inhabit a computer: an MRI was making a precise record of the electrical activity in his brain at the moment of his death, and, by chance a passing storm caused a power surge in the hospital computer that transfered the impression of his mind into a much more powerful computer where it was possible for his mind to somehow become activated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Terry had been arrested for shoplifting back in the 1970s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terry had a dream about attending Frank's cremation ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh and his pal Frazer played an ahead of the times, multi-person shooter virtual reality game at the local arcade.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg 3: The Recycler (1994)", "title": "Cyborg 3: The Recycler", "date": "1994", "description": "The film is set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world where a once thriving age of man and cyborgs has come to an end. It is the direct-to-video sequel to Cyborg 2 (1993).", "collections": [ "Collection: Cyborg" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_3:_The_Recycler" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world where cyborgs are hunted down by \"Recyclers\" for their parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story cyborgs being hunted down for their parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "While conventional wisdom dictated that cyborgs couldn't become pregnant, the cyborg Cash had to come to grips with the astonishing fact that she was with child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg prostitute Elexia openly revealed that she'd been with 51,227 men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cash and Evans went on a brief but risky journey to reach the supposedly mythical city of Cytown - the last haven for cyborgs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x11", "title": "Rivals", "date": "1994-01-02", "description": "Quark feels threatened when a charming swindler, Martus Mazur, opens a competing bar (Club Martus).\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jim Trombetta & Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "problem gambling in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "people ended up loosing everything", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everything went Miles way in the final space tennis match", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark and Martus Mazur over space bars; Miles and Julian over space tennis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark tried to profiteer from the Julian and Miles feud by taking bets on their space tennis matches. The rogue Martus Mazur tried to con old lady out of her money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martus Mazur tried to swindle Alisa out of her inheritance, but it was Alisa who conned Martus in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scams against the elderly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martus Mazur tried to swindle an old lady out of her savings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gambling device fundamentally altered the laws of probability so that extremely improbable events became commonplace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark tried to drug Julian so he would lose space squash match in order to win a bet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian's smugness about his space squash prowess infuriated Miles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "An infuriated Miles refused to give up playing space squash with Julian even though he was no match for the good doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story involved a purple handheld gambling device which could alter chance and give winners good fortune, but bestow bad luck on losers. An alien named Cos died of happiness when he won playing this game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x12", "title": "The Alternate", "date": "1994-01-09", "description": "A scientist, Dr. Mora Pol of the Bajoran Science Institute, finds a life-form in the Gamma Quadrant that may be related to Odo.\n\nDirected by: David Carson. Story by: Jim Trombetta and Bill Dial.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo became various amorphous blobs and the origin of his shapeshifter roots explored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo meets his old mentor Mora Pol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo traveled through the wormhole with Doctor Mora in search of his shapeshifter compatriots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo resented his old mentor and life in the lab", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo traveled through the wormhole with Doctor Mora in search of his shapeshifter compatriots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "episode culminated in Odo and Mora Pol setting aside their differences", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake quarreled over the boy's direction in life; Mora Pol was like a father to Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework vs. play", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake wanted play but Benjamin put his foot down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homework shirking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake didn't want to do his homework", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weld Ram discovered silicon-based life form on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo complained being a laboratory specimen on Bajor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x08", "title": "Butterfly in Shades of Grey", "date": "1994-01-10", "description": "Domineering radio host Fielding Chase faces a crisis when his ward, 25-year- old Victoria Chase, decides to spread her wings and leave for New York. Chase is a national celebrity thanks to his call-in radio show and while Victoria works as his producer, his affection for her runs deep. An ex-employee, the homosexual Gerry Winters, has been encouraging Victoria and has even found a literary agent for her book. Chase decides to kill Winters. He first instructs Winters to call him at a certain time. Exactly at that appointed hour, Chase drives to Winters's house and sneaks inside. Winters makes the phone call, unaware that Chase is actually behind him in the same room. Once the phone goes to Chase's answering machine, Chase picks up an extension in another room of Winters' house and begins speaking with him. At that point, Chase enters the next room and shoots Winters, then makes it look like Winters was shot by a gay lover.\n\nFinal clue/twist: A cell phone is a key to Columbo's solution of the crime. Chase claimed that after hearing the murder on his phone at his mountain home, he started to drive to Winters's house, then quickly realized he should call 911 and used his cell phone. But, Columbo realizes, there is no cell coverage on the part of the mountain road near Chase's house, where his car would have been.\n\nDirected by: Dennis Dugan. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fielding Chase shot dead his ex-employee, Gerry Winters, in a premeditated act and went to elaborate lengths to frame the victim's gay lover for the murder. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been the pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fielding Chase sabotaged his adult daughter's literary career out of love for her. He at one point said to Columbo: \"I love that child, as if she were my own flesh and blood\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the known homosexual Gerry Winters shot dead by a gay lover, or was the lover perhaps the target of a frame up?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Fielding Chase sabotaging his daughter's career as a writer out of a desire to keep her under his wing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Fielding Chase sabotaging his daughter's career as a writer out of a desire to keep her under his wing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Chase Fielding was a radio show host. Significant portions of the story are set in his studio, and much was made of him exposing the scandalous behavior of prominent politician live on air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Fielding Chase went to elaborate lengths to pin Gerry Winter's murder on Winter's gay lover, the actor Ted Malloy. Fielding took pains to leave a handkerchief with traces of actor's pancake makeup at the scene of the crime, and also left traces of the same makeup on the murder weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victoria was making efforts to get out from under her foster father Fielding's wings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fielding Chase selfishly wanted to keep his now grown up daughter attached to himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria has some dealings with a literary agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase mentioned ozone layer depletion in one of his radio broadcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase insinuated that Sally's tonsillitis had something to do with the polluted lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding disapproved of his foster daughter, Victoria, having anything to do with his homosexual, ex-employee Gerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria was briefly consoled by her father over Gerry's tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A memorial service was held for Gerry Winters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A director flipped out on Columbo for inadvertently ruining a scene he was shooting of a lady dying tragically in a back alley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase confronted Senator Madison live on air with allegations that the senator had carried on an affair with a 17-year-old girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase confronted Senator Madison live on air with allegations that the senator had carried on an affair with a 17-year-old girl, something that was clearly inappropriate to the conservative audience of the loud mouth radio host.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo advanced the idea that radiation from cell phones can cause brain tumors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase owned up to having \"short temper\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amazement at a new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was astonished to learn that you could pick up literally hundreds of TV stations with a satellite dish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victoria got upset after her father's dubious mudslinging and threatened to leave the radio program where they both worked as responsible editors somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fielding Chase was caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proved to conceal a laser-focused mind. This was pointedly illustrated when Chase spoke the words \"I may have misread you\" to Columbo after being exposed as the murderer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x12", "title": "The Pegasus", "date": "1994-01-10", "description": "Riker 's former Captain boards the Enterprise to retrieve the USS Pegasus . Picard investigates the circumstances of its loss and finds that there has been a cover-up . Features Terry O'Quinn as Admiral Eric Pressman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker confronts his past actions as first officer on the Pegasus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker's duty to Pressman vs. his duty to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Pressman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker chooses to reveal the truth about what happened on the Pegasus in the end and stood up for what is right", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans race to recover the interphasic cloak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about his past actions on the Pegasus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about his past actions on the Pegasus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Pressman justified abandoning the Pegasus crew by maintaining that they were \"a bunch of mutinous cowards\" who were \"too blinded by fear\" to comprehend Pressman's noble objective. In reality, the crew mutinied in a last ditched effort to prevent Pressman from violating the Treaty of Algeron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation ran a covert program to develop an \"interphasic\" cloaking technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Erik Pressman :: Pressman in contrast with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Erik Pressman :: Pressman in contrast with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker in contrast to Pressman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik Pressman :: Riker used to consider Pressman as a role model", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about advancing his career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honesty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker comes clean about what happened on the Pegasus in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation kept interphasic cloaking technology secret", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Pegasus was the product of a secret Federation program to build a spaceship that could pass through solid matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "interphasic cloak also made a ship invisible", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Captain Picard Day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard treaded the thought at Captain Picard Day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Pressman insinuated that nobody would be calling Riker \"Ensign Babyface\" anymore now that Riker was sporting a beard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Picard Day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker for Pressman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik Pressman :: Pressman to Pegasus crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pressman had run a covert Federation program (the Pegasus project) to develop interphasic cloaking technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Pegasus spaceship could travel through solid matter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: TekWar: The Movie (1994)", "title": "TekWar: The Movie", "date": "1994-01-17", "description": "Police officer Jake Cardigan has been framed by an unknown enemy and imprisoned in suspended animation for dealing in \"Tek\" and for the murder of his fellow officers. After serving only four years of his 15-year sentence, Cardigan is released where he finds his wife and son are gone. As he sets off to track them down, his former partner, Sid Gomez, reveals that his release was arranged by Walter Bascom, the head of the Cosmos Security. In return for his help in locating a missing scientist, Bascom agrees to help Cardigan clear his name.", "collections": [ "Collection: TekWar Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111385/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is centered on \"Tek\": an illegal, addictive, mind-altering digital drug in the form of a microchip that creates a simulated reality in the mind of the user.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former police turned private investigator Jake Cardigan worked for Walter Bascom to locate a missing scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The convicted Tek dealer Jake agreed to help Bascom locate a missing scientist with the understanding that Bascom would pull some strings to get Jake's name cleared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warbride led an environmental revolutionary group that was fighting to overthrow the TekLords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and his former lover turned environmental revolutionary Warbride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake completed a four year, three month, and 27 day sentence in cryogenic incarceration for dealing in Tek and for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake completed a four year, three month, and 27 day sentence in cryogenic incarceration for dealing in Tek and for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cowgirl and Wild Side hacked into to a computer system to establish a communication link between Jake and his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake tried to reach out to his young son Danny, but Danny didn't want anything to do with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The level 10 android Beth helped Jake track down a missing scientist. Other androids also appeared in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake's estranged wife met him to tell him that she didn't want him to have anything to do with their son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Beth professed her love to Jake and forcibly kissed him even though Jake was still into his estranged wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake used a special lifelike mask to make himself look exactly like Sonny Hokori.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x13", "title": "Homeward", "date": "1994-01-17", "description": "Worf 's human foster brother violates the Prime Directive to save a doomed primitive race.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Nikolai Rozhenko :: Worf and Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard, Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai flagrantly violated the Prime Directive in saving the Boraalans; Picard staunchly opposed his choice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Nikolai Rozhenko :: Worf and Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Nikolai Rozhenko :: Picard was in favor of abiding by the Prime Directive and letting the Boraalans perish, Nikolai felt compassion and saved the them, while Worf became severely agitated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Nikolai Rozhenko :: Worf and Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boraalan :: Boraalans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Nikolai guided the Boraalans to the promised land in a holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Nikolai Rozhenko :: Worf and Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf torn between duty to Starfleet and friendship to Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atmospheric dissipation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boraalan :: Boraalan atmosphere suddenly dissipated away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai to Boraalans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai to Boraalans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai saving people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard's indifference toward the deaths of the people on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai about leaving Starfleet to live with colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko, Dobara :: Nikolai and Dobara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vorin :: Vorin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vorin :: Vorin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf/Nikolai Rozhenko :: Worf and Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf interpreted holodeck glitches as omens to the Boraalans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai in beaming Boraalans aboard Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a life-changing event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vorin discovered that he had, in fact, been transported from his old primitive life onto a spaceship. Unable to cope with this change, Vorin killed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Worf :: Picard and Worf at Nikolai", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikolai Rozhenko :: Nikolai at beginning against Picard's orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned Vorin's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vorin spontaneously took his own life in despair after realizing that he and his people were living in a holodeck simulation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x01", "title": "Midnight on the Firing Line", "date": "1994-01-26", "description": "When the Narn attack a Centauri colony, Londo and G'Kar nearly come to blows. Meanwhile, raiders are attacking transport ships near the station.\n\nDirected by: Richard Compton. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Centauri and the Narn were mired in a bitter intergenerational conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Centauri and the Narn were mired in a bitter intergenerational conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo had a personal vendetta against the Narn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri and the Narn conflict was driven by either vengeance or irredentism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Babylon 5 essentially functions as the United Nations but in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hotly contested election was held for the Earth Alliance presidency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and his nephew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Centauri and the Narn hated each other because of an age-old and ongoing war between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winters was a telepath and experienced telepathic visions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international sanctions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova chaired a council meeting and vote in support of sanctions against the Narn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo had a premonition of his own death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned as a possibility IPHO: didn't catch it. justify", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sneak attack tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A sequence of historical sneak attacks was mentioned by Sinclair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi would have been forced to kill Londo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babylon 5 space station introduced.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x13", "title": "Armageddon Game", "date": "1994-01-30", "description": "O'Brien and Bashir help two warring races, the Kellerans and T'lani, erase all knowledge of a deadly biological weapon, but are not trusted to keep what they have learned a secret.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Morgan Gendel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "choice", "motivation": "were the alien's justified in killing Miles and Julian just because they had knowledge of how to build the biological weapons?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "were the alien's justified in killing Miles and Julian just because they had knowledge of how to build the biological weapons?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Lani and Kellerun agreed to eliminate biological weapons stockpiles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Lani and Kellerun agreed to eliminate biological weapons stockpiles in order to avoid mutual annihilation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir and Miles went through the motions of bonding while escaping from the Kelleruns although the latter kept his distance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space station crew mourned over Miles' and Bashir's assumed deaths in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko was distressed over hr husband Miles' assumed death in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir reminisced together with Miles about Bashir's past loves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko and Miles love for one another discussed at length", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles contracted the harvester infection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Bashir thought they would die waiting to be rescued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practitioner vs. theorist", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles the engineer vs. Bashir the scientist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir's love for bachelor life was criticized by Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monogamy vs. single life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir's love for bachelor life was criticized by a happily married Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin telling Keiko about Miles death in the line of duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir choose a career in Starfleet over his lover in college", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles with Bashir being grandiose and melodramatic", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x14", "title": "Sub Rosa", "date": "1994-01-31", "description": "Dr. Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral, and takes on an unusual family tradition.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beverly, Ronin :: Beverly and Ronin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ronin was a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien Ronin was thought to have been a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly attended the funeral of her grandmother Felisa Howard on Caldos II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly about her grandmother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anaphasic Being of Sub Rosa :: Ronin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Felisa Howard/Beverly :: Felisa Howard and Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The antagonist made every appearance of being a ghost and a component of this story was the more scientifically minded protagonists’ reluctance to accept that superstitious notion. In the end, Ronin was revealed to be an “anaphasic lifeform” which needed a corporeal lifeform to take physical form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ronin/Beverly :: Ronin/Beverly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly in her grandmother's house", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felisa Howard was described as a healer and had been an inspiration for Beverly to go into medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly faces Ronin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly to Picard about resigning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative geoengineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation had installed Caldos with a planetary weather control system, and seismic stabilizers to prevent earthquakes from occurring on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Caldos colony was said to be power by fusion systems.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: APEX (1994)", "title": "A.P.E.X", "date": "1994-02", "description": "A group of scientists explore the past using robotic probes known as the A.P.E.X or \"Advanced Prototype Exploration units\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.P.E.X." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is about a team of time traveling scientists who alter the timeline by mistakenly introducing a deadly virus in the year 1973.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a post-apocalyptic 2073, humanoid robots were going around exterminating people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the alternate timeline 2073, humanity was in a desperate war of survival against an army of humanoid robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A time travel accident in 1973 resulted in a deadly virus decimating humanity in an alternate timeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas found himself in an alternate timeline 2073 where humans were in a desperate war of survival against an army of humanoid robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nicholas found himself in an alternate timeline 2073 where humans were in a desperate war of survival against an army of humanoid robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists traveled in time by walking through specially generated portals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and father and their young son were driving through the Mojave Desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother and father and their young son were driving through the Mojave Desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas and Natasha Sinclair. A badlands woman was surprised to find that her husband had disappeared into thin air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicholas and alternate timeline Natasha (real timeline Natasha being Nicholas' wife) fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the timeline being restored and Nicholas and Natasha happily expecting with child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994)", "title": "Trancers 4: Jack of Swords", "date": "1994-02-02", "description": "A time travel mishap results in Jack being sent to a kingdom of the technological level of medieval Europe in a another dimension. It is the fifth film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers_4:_Jack_of_Swords" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A TCL chamber mishap resulted in Jack being sent to a kingdom of the technological level of medieval Europe in a another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set largely in a kingdom in another dimension that is patterned after a stereotypical medieval European realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trancers who took over the realm of Orpheus nourished themselves by the draining life of force from indigenous Orpheans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trancers who took over the realm of Orpheus nourished themselves by the draining life of force from indigenous Orpheans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospero rebelled against his father Lord Caliban and his life force stealing ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about a band of nobles that are ruthlessly oppressing their peasants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Orphean people and their trancer overlords were baffled by the advanced technology, such as a futuristic gun, that Jack was carrying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jack travel back to the 23rd century upon completing a trancer hunting mission in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack's \"long second\" wristwatch worked in reverse in the realm of Orpheus: When he pushed the button on his watch he was slowed down in time relative to those around him for ten seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had a wristwatch that slowed down time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Jack travel back to the 23rd century in a TCL Chamber after completing a mission. In this film, the TCL chamber was a time machine shaped like a robot's head that can be temporally displaced into the future but not the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A seer foresaw Jack's coming to the realm of Orpheus and penciled some very detailed sketches of Jack prior to his arrival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Jack musing over whether or not he'd ever be able return to his own dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A seer assured Jack that it was Jack's destiny to run to the top of a cliff and get struck by lightning. And sure enough the events transpired as the seer foretold.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x02", "title": "Soul Hunter", "date": "1994-02-02", "description": "A badly damaged ship is brought into the station, and the strange alien inside is identified as a Soul Hunter — an immortal race who can sense death and supposedly steal someone's soul.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the soul", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter captured souls of culturally significant people when they died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter was obsessed with capturing the souls of culturally significant individuals upon their deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter went mad about collecting the souls from living people to atone for some past error.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The notion of whether a person's essence exists as a soul was raised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was going to have her soul extracted from her living body by the Soul Hunter. IPHO: maybe you mean about people facing death in general?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter species members could sense when people were going to die.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Machine (1994)", "title": "Death Machine", "date": "1994-02-04", "description": "A disgruntled mad scientist lets loose his killer T. Rex-like mechanical contraption on those who had wronged him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Machine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The controversial megacorporation Chaank Armaments was involved in illegal weapons projects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Dante let loose his mechanical T. Rex contraption on Cale after she fired him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"Death Machine\" was a mechanical T. Rex-like killer robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Dante unleashed a mechanical T. Rex-like robot on Cale and her companions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Dante was a deranged inventor who unleashed his ultimate creation, a mechanical T. Rex-like contraption, on those whom he felt had wronged him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack Dante didn't take getting fired from his job as a weapons designer very well. He quickly thereafter let loose his ultimate weapon, a mechanical T. Rex-like contraption, on his superior, Cale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The controversial megacorporation Chaank Armaments was illegally transforming cryogenically preserved, injured war veterans into cybernetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale and her men stumbled on some cryogenically preserved war veterans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that the Chaank Armaments corporation had been mind wiping injured war veterans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack Dante had hacked into Sonic Health's network to get some dirt on Cale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale was haunted my memories of her baby getting chewed up in her sink disposal unit while she was distracted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale was hiding that her baby had gotten chewed up in her sink disposal unit while she was distracted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x14", "title": "Whispers", "date": "1994-02-06", "description": "While preparing the station for upcoming peace talks, O'Brien discovers that the crew have been hiding information from him and giving orders behind his back. O'Brien begins to suspect everyone on the station is gradually being altered or replaced by an unknown force.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Paul Robert Coyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "people were weird from replicat Miles' point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles was informally accused of being an enemy agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "was the Miles replicant any less Miles than Miles?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles replicant believed he was the real Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mistrust lead to various complications, not the least between Miles and Keiko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles replicant by space station crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles replicant loved Keiko but not vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles replicant and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Miles replicant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Miles replicant", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x15", "title": "Lower Decks", "date": "1994-02-07", "description": "Junior officers buck for promotion as one of them is assigned the dangerous task of helping a Cardassian spy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa, Sam Lavelle, Taurik :: Junior officers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito dies in the line of duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Junior officers competing to look good in the eyes of the senior staff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendly competition in groups", "level": "major", "motivation": "The junior officers were competing for an ops position.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito volunteers for dangerous mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito about what happened in Nova Squardon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The junior officers grieved for one of their own, Sito Jaxa, who'd died at the hands of the Cardassians while on a risky covert mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito about what happened in Nova Squardon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Lavelle, Taurik :: Junior officers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joret Dal :: Joret Dal betrays Cardassian government in the name of doing what he thinks right", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Interactions between senior and junior officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa about secret mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Lavelle's effort to get on his superior officer Riker's good side by pointing out their shared Canadian ancestry blew up in his face when it turned out that Riker was from Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito about her role in the Nova Squadron incident", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard grieved for his junior officer Sito Jaxa who'd died at the hands of the Cardassians while on a risky covert mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam Lavelle :: Sam after asking Riker about Canada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa :: Sito to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker to Sam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sito Jaxa, Sam Lavelle, Taurik :: young ensigns", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x03", "title": "Born to the Purple", "date": "1994-02-09", "description": "Londo's career is in jeopardy when a beautiful slave seduces him and steals a sensitive computer file. Garibaldi investigates an unauthorized use of a restricted communications channel.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Seth Green. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "knowledge is power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Trakis spelled it out and sought, Sinclair used his for good, Garibaldi compassionately refrained from taking advantage of his, the telepath used for good", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adira Tyree had to choose between hurting Londo and saving her skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adira Tyree betrayed Londo and Trakis in an effort to gain her freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The slave girl Adira Tyree was the property of Trakis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adira Tyree was the slave of Trakis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and the slave girl Adira Tyree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo let go of the slave girl Adira Tyree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "contrast slave girl with snarling Narn misandrist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair mediated a dispute between the Narn and the Centauri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova grieved for her late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova spoke with her dying father over the intercom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia felt overwhelmed by others thoughts in a diplomatic meeting, read the erotic thoughts of Londo, and the mind of Trakis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adira Tyree used a device to probe Londo's mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Knight Rider 2010 (1994)", "title": "Knight Rider 2010", "date": "1994-02-13", "description": "A man uses the downloaded mind of his lover as an AI for his muscle car.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_2010" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jared was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The smuggler Jake didn't always get along with his marshal brother Will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hanna accidentally downloaded her mind into a crystalline solid-state memory unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Hanna fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where a dome has been placed over Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was arrested for smuggling Mexicans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Will visited their father Zeke shortly before he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hanna used a futuristic headset to enter into a virtual reality world from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hanna appeared to Jake in the form of a hologram.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x15", "title": "Paradise", "date": "1994-02-13", "description": "Commander Sisko and Chief O'Brien are stranded on a planet, Aurelius, where their leader, Alixus, rejects technology, even when it means the death of others.\n\nDirected by: Corey Allen. Story by: Jim Trombetta and James Crocker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orellius colonists make a community for themselves without the use of advanced technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Orellius colonists made a community for themselves without the use of advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alixus ran a textbook totalitarian community down to the hell-box punishments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alixus was running a little neo-luddist cult. Her followers were not free to leave, conformity of thought was demanded, and people who behaved badly were put in the punishment box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "colonists didn't want to leave even after Alixus' was exposed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "The threat of starvation and cruel punishment knit the community together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alixus committed to writing some gloomy views human nature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Disobedient Orellius colonists were put inside \"hell-boxes\" and left out in the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the box for dissenters to protect the community", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin in the hell box", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles reminisced over having discovered he had a knack for engineering in the heat of a confrontation with the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternative medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alixus insisted on trying to cure Meg using berries and leaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alixus lied to her followers by orchestrating a crash landing on a planet that was ideal for her technology free colony", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: TekWar: TekLords (1994)", "title": "TekWar: TekLords", "date": "1994-02-14", "description": "When Inspector Winterguild is found in a coma, Bascom has Beth Kittridge search computer records which show that the last thing Winterguild saw while in the Cyber-Matrix was the image of TekLord Sonny Hokori's long-dead sister, Tora. Cardigan traces the computer virus that caused the image to a computer hacker who is under TekLord Hokori's orders. It is only a matter of time before the virus attacks the entire city's Cyber-Matrix.", "collections": [ "Collection: TekWar Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekLords" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former police turned private investigator Jake Cardigan worked for Walter Bascom to prevent a criminal organization from releasing an economy crashing computer virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonny Hokori's criminal gang hatched a plot to extort money and influence from the powers that be by releasing an economy crashing computer virus that simultaneously attacked physical beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth's colleague raised the question of whether a computer that was programmed to experience emotions would have the equivalent of a human soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake met his ex-wife to discuss custody of their son Danny. The film concluded with Jake's ex-wife telling him that she didn't hate him anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Danny saw Kate through her coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Danny saw Kate through her coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny visited her comatose mother in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake spent some quality time with his son Danny in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Sid used special lifelike masks to make themselves look exactly like certain criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonny and his digitized mind of his long-dead sister Tora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tora Hokori's mind was uploaded into a computer and she appeared in the outside world in hologram form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The digitized mind of Tora Hokori manifested itself in the world in the form of a hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The digitized mind of Tora Hokori attempted to transfer itself into an android body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x16", "title": "Thine Own Self", "date": "1994-02-14", "description": "Data loses his memory after retrieving radioactive fragments on a planet's surface and endangers the humanoid settlement he encounters, while Deanna studies to become a bridge officer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi takes test to become command level officer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barkonian :: Barkonians were in the middle ages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Data :: Data wandered down to a village from the mountains not knowing who he was or how he got there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "the villagers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi sends virtual Geordi to his death to stop ship from exploding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker cheating to help Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barkonian :: Barkonians were in the middle ages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi sends virtual Geordi to his death to stop ship from exploding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data :: Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was carrying a radioactive material that made the unsuspecting Barknoian villagers sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data was carrying a radioactive material that made the unsuspecting Barknoian villagers sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the townsfolk at Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the four elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data discusses with villagers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi's test site", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garvin/Gia :: Garvin and Gia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data :: Data with local family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data challenged Barkonian scientific dogma", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "townsfolk panic about Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garvin :: Garvin to Gia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gia :: Gia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talur :: teacher for Data's science", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "villagers of Data", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi, Data :: Troi with the exam, Data with disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gia was saddened by the death of her self-described best-friend, Data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi has to order Geordi to his death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disoriented and amnesiatic Data was taken care of by some villagers even though some expressed concern that he might be from a mysterious race of Ice Men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logical reasoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data objected that Talur was reasoning by analogy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x04", "title": "Infection", "date": "1994-02-16", "description": "Dr. Franklin gets a visit from old friend and mentor, xenoarcheologist Dr. Hendricks. He wants Franklin's help to analyze hi-tech organic artifacts he found on a dead world. But the artifacts seem to have a will of their own, and start to manipulate Hendricks' assistant.\n\nDirected by: Richard Compton. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Ikarrans invented cyborg things that summarily exterminated them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Ikarrans invented cyborg things that summarily exterminated them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Ikarrans invented cyborg things that summarily exterminated them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological machinery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vance Hendricks brought hi-tech organic artifacts he found on a dead world to Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ikarrans had a notion of genetic purity that Sinclair and Franklin found reminiscent of Nazi ideals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A series of brutal alien invasions had left the Ikarrans paranoid of outsides. They designed a a biological agent to destroy \"impure\" Ikarrans, but based that idea idea of purity on ideology rather than biology. This had disastrous consequences for Ikarran civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extinct interstellar civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien civilization on Ikarra VII civilization killed itself off as a result of having developed organic technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "that", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vance Hendricks and Nelson Drake planned to sell the organic technology that Drake discovered to corporations for top dollar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair prepared to sacrifice himself to save Babylon 5 from cyborg thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ikkarans invented some sort of semi-sentient bioweapons that were programmed to kill any non-genetically pure Ikarrans. The weapons turned on the Ikarrans and killed them all because of a fanatical notion of genetic purity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vance Hendricks was a passionate archaeologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan made this point to Franklin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dying Sun was mentioned as the fate of Earth civilization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x16", "title": "Shadowplay", "date": "1994-02-20", "description": "Odo and Dax investigate why a village's residents are disappearing.\n\nDirected by: Robert Scheerer. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "holographic Yaderan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "were the holographic Yaderan people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of what the simulated people knew was in fact a simulation inside a larger reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "it was revealed to the simulated people that they were in fact holograms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "the mastermind behind the simulation created it after he suffered lost all his family and friends in a Jem Hadar attack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake pondered his professional future and about whether he really wanted to enter Starfleet Academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin encouraged Jake to find his first job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles told of his disapproving dad and Jake worried about his", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo's abilities were somehow important to the simulated little girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Jadzia tried to help the holograms figure our why they were disappearing one by one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake worried Benjamin would be disappointed if he didn't join Starfleet Academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake did an engineering apprenticeship with Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kid getting a first job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin told a 15-year-old Jake to straighten up and get a job, like his buddy Nog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was proud of Jake when Jake expressed an interest, albeit a lukewarm one, in following in his father's footsteps by pursuing a career in Starfleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was initially disappointed in Jake deciding against a pursuing a career in Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia discussed something to do with sex and love with Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Bareil Antos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo with Taya pestering him to demonstrate his shapeshifting abilities", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: TekWar: TekLab (1994)", "title": "TekWar: TekLab", "date": "1994-02-21", "description": "Jake Cardigan and Sid Gomez attend a gala at the Tower of London which marks the start of a campaign to restore the British monarchy. The festivities are disturbed, however, when the aging Prince Albert is found murdered and the sword Excalibur stolen. Prince Richard accepts the support of the Monarchist Party to become King but the thief who stole Excalibur vows Richard will never reach the throne. Suspecting the involvement of Tek gangs, Sid and Jake follow the sword's trail to Westminster Abbey and are taken prisoner and they soon discover that the Monarchist Party is supported by the TekLords and with them, Prince Richard plans to reign over an evil Tek empire.", "collections": [ "Collection: TekWar Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111387/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former police turned private investigator Jake Cardigan worked for Walter Bascom to track down the stolen sword Excalibur and to find out who murdered Prince Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of criminals stole the the sword Excalibur from the Tower of London in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on the theft of sword Excalibur, and the legend of Camelot was repeatedly discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of \"Tek kid\" recovering junkies retreated into a King Arthur fantasy world in order to escape from their hard reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Steward arranged for his father Prince Albert to be murdered so that his could ascend to the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Stewart murdered his own father Prince Albert in order that he might ascend to the throne of England, and on top of that reign over an evil Tek empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Stewart arranged for his father Prince Albert to be murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Winger was an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard took Jake into a Camelot virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw \"Tek\" addict panhandlers on the streets of London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Bascom's people hacked into a camera so that they could spy on Prince Richard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard held a clandestine meeting where the attendees appeared as holograms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x17", "title": "Masks", "date": "1994-02-21", "description": "The Enterprise finds an ancient library that recreates its civilization by taking possession of Data and transforming the ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "polytheism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "space Egyptians worshipped many gods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "D'Arsay :: space Egyptians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The D'Arsay sun goddess Masaka struck some kind of divine balance with her counterpart the D'Arsay moon god Korgano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Ancient Egyptian stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "D'Arsay :: D'Arsay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Egyptians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ancient alien archive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space Egyptians archive integrated itself with the Enterprise computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was left to make sense of how it could be that the Enterprise was transforming into a strange alien habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The culture and mythology of the D'Arsay was reminiscent of Ancient Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "understanding by metaphor", "level": "major", "motivation": "In order to control the D’Arsay archive, Picard had to impersonate the moon God and chase away the Sun God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise is transformed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data as Ihat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The D'Arsay space library probe reconfigured the Enterprise into an alien habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data was sculpturing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x05", "title": "The Parliament of Dreams", "date": "1994-02-23", "description": "Sinclair's old flame, Catherine Sakai, arrives during a weeklong festival when humans and aliens demonstrate their religious beliefs. An old enemy sends an assassin to kill G'Kar.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Religious festival celebrating toleration held on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious toleration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A festival celebrating religious toleration was held on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair and Catherine Sakai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Du'Rog hired an assassin to do away with G'Kar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair and Sakai, G'Kar to some extent IPHO this theme was not featured. proof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Du'Rog arranged to have G'Kar killed because G'Kar had humiliated him in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar was tortured by Tu'Pari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar had a spat of paranoia when he found out an assassin was after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo explained some aspects of the polytheistic religion of his people before passing out drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain collar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar had a pain collar applied to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x17", "title": "Playing God", "date": "1994-02-27", "description": "A proto-universe threatens to destroy the station and Bajor. Dax has a field docent (a Trill candidate initiate), named Arjin, whom she helps find his voice — to discover what he wants from life and from joining.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jim Trombetta.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arjin was prompted to ponder this; Jake was busy pondering about his future career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arjin was looking to be joined with a Trill symbiont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia insisted that Arin needed a purpose in life if he wanted any chance of getting a Trill symbiont implant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arjin and Jadzia reflected upon their pasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A proto-universe was expanding into real universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia being proud of not being a hard-ass like Curzon in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia gave field training to Trill host initiate Arin during his stay aboard space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic encounter with another universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expanding proto-universe posed a dire threat to Bajoran system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "rapidly expanding proto-universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arjin couldn't deal with Klingon haute cuisine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles tasked to eliminate Cardassian vole infestation aboard space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles tasked to eliminate Cardassian vole infestation aboard space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin had to decide between destroying the proto-universe along with life inside it and allowing Bajor to be destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin had to decide between destroying the proto-universe along with life inside it and allowing Bajor to be destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake confided in Benjamin about his love for a dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin scolded Jake for falling in love with a dabo girl", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x18", "title": "Eye of the Beholder", "date": "1994-02-28", "description": "Deanna investigates the suicide of a crewman and uncovers a murder that took place during construction of the Enterprise .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Walter Pierce :: We saw Pierce murder his lover after finding her in the arms of another man. In a parallel development, Troi killer Worf under similar circumstances in her dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Pierce had murdered his lover after finding her in the arms of another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Daniel Kwan :: Troi over having killed Worf, also Daniel Kwan before he committed suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Troi, Worf :: Troi and Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter Pierce was really a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew, especially Riker, were left searching for answers in the wake of Daniel Kwan's sudden and unexpected suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Troi :: Troi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel Kwon :: Daniel Kwon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and the crew were shocked by Daniel Kwon's suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter Pierce :: Pierce rejected by Marla Finn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter Pierce :: Pierce at Marla Finn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: Riker about that he could have done more to prevent Kwon's suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel Kwon's death was mourned by the crew, especially by Riker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel Kwon :: Daniel Kwon was in a deranged state of mind immediately before he committed suicide", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Island City (1994)", "title": "Island City", "date": "1994-03-02", "description": "In the future, humanity develops a \"fountain of youth\" drug, but as many people around the world begin to take it, most begin to mutate into a barbaric proto-humanoid state. The few people immune to this side-effect of the drug band together and live in a futuristic city while the mutants live in the vast wasteland outside its gates. In an effort to save the human race and understand what went wrong, the city sends out research missions in fortified vehicles to bring back mutated humans for research, and to rescue healthy humans. The film focuses on one such squad of soldiers and scientists.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_City_(1994_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future where a genetically engineered \"fountain of youth\" injectable drug is a reality. There is only one problem: most people who take the drug transform into brutish, caveman-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where everyone is living hold up in a highly fortified city on account of brutish, caveman-like mutants being all over the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where everyone is living hold up in a highly fortified city on account that most people in the world had mutated into brutish, caveman-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Sammy Helding was reunited with her lost in the wastelands for 32 years sister Helen. It was up to Sammy to familiarize Helen with the social norms of the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Connie and her son Ty were worried to death about the man of the house Andy having gone missing in the wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sammy was joyfully reunited with her sister lost in the wastelands for 32 years Helen. Connie was reunited with her lost in the wastelands husband at the conclusion of the film. Ty was reunited with his lost in the wastelands father at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated that the \"fountain of youth\" drug had been genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie and Ty Sealle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ty used a virtual reality headset to speak with Abraham Lincoln on the White House lawn and to explore his sexuality with a bikini clad woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sammy and her cantankerous husband Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Michael Mendi was adamant that he would kill 50 mutants to save the life of one human. His commander Col. Tom Valdoon wasn't so sure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg 23's doctor ordered him to take two hours of R&R owing to low energy levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie's teenage son Ty was spending all his time in a virtual reality world to escape from that reality that his father was missing in the wastelands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ty went virtual reality fishing with a simulation of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Col. Tom Valdoon awkwardly declined Helen's request for a dinner date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg 23 was one of some 42 test tube created clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Greg 23's various clones was jealous of him because of how high he'd risen in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Greg 23's various clones was jealous of him because of how high he'd risen in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nerdy clone Greg 23 and half-mutant soldier Lt. Michael Mendi became friends because they both saw themselves as outsiders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x06", "title": "Mind War", "date": "1994-03-02", "description": "A rogue telepath with exceptional powers takes refuge on Babylon 5, and two PSI Cops arrive to capture him. Catherine Sakai heads to Sigma 957 to survey it for Quantium-40, ignoring G'Kar's grave warnings.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Seth Green. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talia Winters, Jason Ironheart, and the Psi Cops ability to read minds telepathically was featured at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talia Winters, Jason Ironheart, and the Psi Cops ability to read minds telepathically was featured at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason became some sort of God-thing out in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fifth columns", "level": "major", "motivation": "Psi Corps was accused of by being a fifth column by Jason Ironside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason Ironheart had telekinetic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Jason Psi Corps was aiming to assert control over all society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psi Corps offered safety in exchange for being able to read peoples minds.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x07", "title": "The War Prayer", "date": "1994-03-09", "description": "A racist group is terrorizing aliens on Babylon 5, stabbing and branding them. Meanwhile Londo has trouble with two young Centauri who want to break tradition by ignoring their arranged marriages, and instead marrying for love.\n\nDirected by: Richard Compton. Story by: D. C. Fontana.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A racist group of Humans terrorized aliens on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A racist group of Humans terrorized aliens on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A racist group of Humans, who were motivated by xenophobia, terrorized aliens on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Centauri couple wanted to break with tradition by ignoring their respective arranged marriages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Centauri couple had to choose between breaking with the Centauri tradition of following through on their arranged marriages and following their passion to be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Centauri couple. Ivanova and Malcolm Biggs until such time as it became apparent he was a hate-monger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was reluctant to permit young Centauri couple to break with tradition and forsake their arranger marriages, but ultimately he was convinced to let them be together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Centauri couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova and Malcolm Biggs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone around me changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova found out that her old flame Malcolm Biggs was an influential member of a hate group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova reflected on her choice of career over a relationship with Malcolm Biggs 8 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Members of the hate group used high-tech camouflage that made them look invisible through the blending in with their surroundings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x08", "title": "And the Sky Full of Stars", "date": "1994-03-16", "description": "Sinclair is kidnapped and interrogated by two men determined to prove he betrayed Earth during the Battle of the Line.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair was interrogated inside an elaborate simulation of the Babylon 5 habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair struggled with memories of his time in the war, waking up in cold sweats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair was subjected to various tortures by his interrogators, and also was make to recall tortures he had suffered in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair's interrogators tried to convince him he had suppressed memories of a time in the war when he betrayed his countrymen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair was accused of having committed treason against his countrymen during the war. Benson committed treason so that he could repay his gambling debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benson got into debt gambling a the Babylon 5 casino and committed treason to get out of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fifth columns", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair's interrogators insisted that the Minbari were trying to conquer Earth through a fifth column.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair held a captive in his own mind during interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair's interrogators make him second guess whether or not he had committed treason during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Knight Two's memory was wiped as a result of Sinclair striking him while engaged in the virtual reality machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin burned notes rather than have them used for biological weapons research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair woke up on an empty Babylon 5 and made attempts to ascertain what had happened to everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested as a possibility that they were still in a virtual reality environment at the episode's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin explained to Delenn how in the war he had destroyed his notes rather than turn them over and have them used for biological weapons research.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x18", "title": "Profit and Loss", "date": "1994-03-20", "description": "Quark is reunited with his former Cardassian lover, Natima Lang, but she is engaged in dangerous political intrigue with her students Rekela and Hogue: they want to reduce the political power of the Cardassian military.\n\nDirected by: Robert Wiemer. Story by: Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Natima Lang and her students were declared fugitives for being past of a resistance movement against the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark upon Natime", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was reunited with his former Cardassian lover Natima", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was head over heals for Natima but she held back her feelings at first", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was all over his old flame Natima.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Natima", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians persecuting dissenters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark urged Natima to give up on her political aspirations and stay at space station with him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title alludes to Quark having long ago betrayed his ex-lover, Natima, over a sum of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cardassian government considered Natima Lang and her students to be terrorists, but Natima and company saw themselves as fighting for their freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garath spoke for the state against the individual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin didn't like be ordered to handover alleged terrorists to the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Natima", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x19", "title": "Genesis", "date": "1994-03-21", "description": "A routine medical treatment inadvertently creates a virus that begins to de- evolve the Enterprise crew while Picard and Data are on an away mission. This is the first and only episode to be directed by Gates McFadden, who plays Dr. Crusher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "devolution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the crew devolve into various animals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard and Data faced a ship full of zombie-like devolved creatures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The enterprise crew members devolved into various more primitive creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of animal instincts in humans", "level": "major", "motivation": "devolved people displayed idiosyncratic animal instincts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard, Troi, Riker, Worf, Beverly, Barclay :: the crew, but Picard in lemur in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay :: Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alyssa Ogawa :: Ogawa's pregnancy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard with Klingon targ running around", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data, Soong Type Android :: Data immune to the effects of de-evolution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Data :: Picard and Data vs. Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker :: caveman-Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard carries on in spite of his fears", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: lemur-Picard of beast-Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker devolved to a caveman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x19", "title": "Blood Oath", "date": "1994-03-27", "description": "Jadzia Dax honors an oath made by Curzon Dax to three Klingons (Kor, Koloth, and Kang), and goes with them on a crusade against their sworn enemy \"the Albino\" who murdered their firstborn children as revenge for stopping his raid on a Klingon colony.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Andrea Moore Alton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia Dax, Kor, Kang, and Koloth swore a blood oath to get vengeance on The Albino for killing their first born sons using a genetic virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingons were dishonored by The Albino killing their first born sons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Klingons were notably bloodthirsty and reveled in going on a violent and dangerous quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Curzon's friendship with Klingons was carried on through Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "age weary Klingons sought death in battle; Kor was a Klingon warrior past his prime", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "to what extent was Jadzia still the old Curzon Dax?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "A former host of Jadzia's Trill symbiont was a friend of the Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation people did not understand Klingon moral codes and did not approve of Jadzia going on a bloody quest for vengeance. She jeopardized her position by insisting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons sought death in battle and reminisced about past glories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia felt an obligation to Curzon's Klingon friends to go on mission to kill The Albino", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping a promise when circumstances have changed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia deciding whether she was honor bound to keep her oath from a past life to kill The Albino", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons were intent on leveling the playing field before facing The Albino in the compound", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x20", "title": "Journey's End", "date": "1994-03-28", "description": "Wesley considers his future, as the Enterprise is ordered to remove Native American colonists from a planet that is about to fall under Cardassian jurisdiction. Guest star Richard Poe as Gul Evek. Final appearance of Eric Menyuk as The Traveler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation must resettled the space Native Americans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement for peoples' own good", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether it is right for the Federation to forcible resettle the Native American colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard ordered to move colonists by force, but feels torn by compassion to let them stay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about resettling the natives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley flunks out of Starfleet to go on a hippie adventure with The Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Traveler had the ability to alter reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley dropped out of Starfleet to go galavanting around the galaxy with The Traveler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley spurned it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard was sent on a mission by the Federation to forcibly resettle a colony of Native American descendants to a new planet against their will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard negotiated with the Cardassians over the fate of a group of Indigenous American descendants who'd taken up home on a planet that had recently been yielded to the Cardassians as part of a treaty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Native Americans are a traditional people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Native Americans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley grappled with the path he wanted to take in life and ultimate gave up a career in Starfleet in favor of traveling the galaxy an alien known only as The Traveler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "special interest group issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder the extent to which the Federation and the Cardassians were justified in booting around the Puebloan settlers on Dorvan V.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly/Wesley :: Beverly and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision quest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lakanta took Wesley on a vision quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "space Native Americans to their planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Traveler taught Wesley how to stop time by using the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Cardassians over space Native Americans planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beverly :: Beverly at Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Native Americans left Earth to found a colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The descendants of Native Americans living on Dorvan V decided to fight the Cardassians for owner ship of the planet rather than be evacuated to another world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Alyanna Nechayev :: Picard and admiral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Captain Picard be shamed on account that his ancestor Javier Maribona Picard had persecuted the Native Americans?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler/Wesley :: The Traveler and Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about his ancestor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard about what his ancestors did to the Native Americans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Traveler :: Traveler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley :: Wesley late for party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wesley showed up late for his own welcome party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "videogame: Final Fantasy VI (1994)", "title": "Final Fantasy VI", "date": "1994-04-02", "description": "Final Fantasy VI, also known as Final Fantasy III from its initial North American release, is a 1994 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sixth main entry in the Final Fantasy series.\n\nSynopsis: Set in a world with technology resembling the Second Industrial Revolution, the game's story follows a group of rebels as they fight to undermine an expansionist and powerful empire.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI" ], "source": "./notes/stories/videogame/videogame-final-fantasy.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the game's story lies a conflict between a characteristically good band of resistance fighters and a characteristically bad empire in the first half of the game, and the malevolent tyrant Kefka in the second half of the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a rebel organization, known as the Returners, as they oppose a dangerous and expanding empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The introduction of magic to an industrial society and the devastating ramifications thereof is central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The much featured character Terra was the product of a union between a human woman and the Esper (a magical being) Maduin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Terra's struggles to fit into the world of human beings. Being half-human and half-Esper, she didn't quite fit it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the half-human and half-Esper Terra not quite fitting in in the world of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonists Gesthal and Kefka lusted to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Kefka went increasingly mad after being infused with magical powers. In the end it became apparent that he'd descended into nihilism as a result of his madness and ultimately tried to destroy all of existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Terra couldn't remember who she was or where she came from after the slave crown was removed, and she spent a significant portion of the game finding out about her past. Rachel lost all her memories after taking a bad fall in a cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set 1000 years after the \"War of the Magi\" had \"reduced the world to a scorched wasteland\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A \"slave crown\" was used on Terra to render her into a mindless soldier of the Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "South Figaro's wealthiest citizen betrayed his fellow townspeople by secretly helping the Empire to seize the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "South Figaro's wealthiest citizen informed on his town to the Empire for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kefka poisoned the Doma Castle water supply during a siege, resulting in the agonizing deaths its inhabitants save for Cyan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyan's wife and only child were casualties in the siege of Doma Castle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dashing King Edgar was a caricature playboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One subplot followed how Sabin found his own path in life after losing the crown of Figaro to his brother Edgar on a coin toss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyan vowed to make the Empire pay for having poisoned his wife and child in particular, and the people hold up in Doma Castle in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story made light of Cyan's anxiety around using machines at various junctures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Phantom Train carried off the spirits of Cyan's deceased wife and child to the after world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Locke expressed regret over having left his love interest, Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Locke struggled to get over the death of his former love interest, Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people should stick to their own kind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Esper folk isolated themselves from humanity after the \"War of the Magi\" because, according to the Esper Ramuh, humans and Espers could not coexist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celes' performance at the opera house was rudely interrupted by the Ultros.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Esper Maduin fathered a child with a human woman in flagrant violation of the Esper injunction against fraternizing with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of the backwater hamlet of Thamasa initially shunned the party because they were strangers. The innkeeper, for instance, at first offered the party a room for the night in exchange for the exorbitant fee of 1500 GP, but then reduced the price to a mere 1 GP after the part earned the trust of the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seasickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Locke got sick over the rail on the ship ride to Crescent Island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Strago initially disapproved of his young granddaughter, Relm, joining the party in their perilous quest. Cid considered himself as a kind of grandfather to Celes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that the ancestors of the Thamasa townsfolk were once persecuted for practicing magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly unhinged Kefka gleefully uttering the words \"Hate......hate......HATE!!\" is a subtle indication that he was consumed with hatred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terra laid a reef at General Leo's grave site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar briefly led the Crimson Robbers under the false identity of Gerad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Relm was reunited with her beloved grandfather Strago at the base of the Tower of Fanatics. The feral boy Gau returned to his father's cabin, only to be rejected by the old man, who'd grown senile with time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katrain and Duane were expecting with child amid difficult circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabin shed tears upon being reunited with his old sensei Duncan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Strago excitedly regaled his old friend, Gungho, with the story of how he defeated the dreaded monster Hidon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his dream, Cyan was consumed with troubled over having failed to defend Doma and protect his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyan said \"I must leave the past behind.\" in regard to his failing to protect his kingdom and the lives of his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sabin and Cyan discovered the feral boy Gau, who subsequently joined the party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gau briefly reunited with his senile old father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II (1994)", "title": "Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II", "date": "1994-04-16", "description": "In the backdrop of Earth's polluted future, a female FBI agent removes Danner, a pleasure android from an asylum to coerce him into helping her hunt down the criminal psychopath Plughead. It is the sequel to the 1990 cult classic movie Circuitry Man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plughead_Rewired:_Circuitry_Man_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The backdrop of the film is an Earth so polluted that people had to take refuge in subterranean government-controlled environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The backdrop of the film is an Earth so polluted that people had to take refuge in subterranean government-controlled environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follow an FBI agent as she attempts to track down the deranged criminal Plughead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain Plughead's head was covered in computer ports which he used to assimilate information into his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Plughead was forcing a captive scientist to help him illegally manufacture longevity chips - special computer chips that extend life by ten years when implanted in the body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pleasure android Danner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI agent Kyle and the pleasure android Danner fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI agent Kyle and the pleasure android Danner fell passionately in love. Leech and Norma fell for each other in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Plughead hatched an elaborate plot to mind control world leaders into doing his bidding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening text explained that people were living underground in government-controlled environments because the surface of the Earth was extremely polluted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danner was told that his memories of his old lover were fake, and had been implanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monitoring implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Convicts were implanted with tracking devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle and Danner were teleported to Brazil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plughead maniacally uttered a desire to life forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danner had spent his last 12 years contemplating about whether he should talk his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle pointedly betrayed Danner by turning him over to Plughead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norma was reunited with her fully grown daughter Kyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plughead's longevity chips had a secret mind control function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A convict wept over the apparently dead body of his partner in crime, Rock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lifeforce Experiment (1994)", "title": "The Lifeforce Experiment", "date": "1994-04-16", "description": "A scientist attempts to capture a man's life force at the moment of the man's death.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110351/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Dr. MacLean's efforts to capture a dying man's life force in a storage device at the moment of his passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ken was dying from chronic myophocytic leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the eccentric scientist Dr. MacLean as he experiments with capturing the life force of a dying person inside a battery-like device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Dr. MacLean hooked up Niki to his machine, she was able to communicate with either of Ken or her twin sister from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. MacLean used a talking computer to hypnotize people and read their thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. MacLean hooked up a machine to Jessica's brain and extracted visual representations of her thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. MacLean expected that his life force capturing technology would be used for both good and evil ends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr, MacLean explicitly identified Ken's life force with his soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with some loved one's holding a funeral for Ken.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Guyver: Dark Hero (1994)", "title": "Guyver: Dark Hero", "date": "1994-04-20", "description": "A man who is host to a special suit of armor of alien origin tries to come to grips with why it makes him kill evildoers. It is a sequel to the 1991 film The Guyver.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyver:_Dark_Hero" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The primary novelty of the film is an alien suit of armor called the Guyver unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean was on a mission of self-discovery to find out why the alien suit of armor to which he was an unwilling host was compelling him to kill evildoers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zoanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of archaeologists unearthed an extraterrestrial spaceship that was organic in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean and Cori fell for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father and daughter archaeologist duo of Dr. Marcus and Cori Edwards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zoanoid infiltrated Cronos Corporation was scheming to gain possession of the Guyver unit, a powerful weapon which they intended to use for some or another nefarious purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zoanoid aliens were living on Earth in the guise of human beings. In particular, Cori's archaeologist father turned out to be a Zoanoid alien in disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lion's share of the film is set at an archaeological dig in a Utah cave. There a team of archaeologists discovered incontrovertible evidence of an ancient alien visitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Guyver was portrayed as a Batman-like vigilante in a news report.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a werewolf sighting in Utah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The father and daughter archaeologist team of Dr. Marcus and Cori Edwards were excavating a Utah cave in which ancient cave painting had been discovered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cori expressed an interest in this woodland ape of lore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cori expressed an interest in studying crop circles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean confided in Cori about how \"all the stories\" she \"ever heard about werewolves or bigfoot\" could be traced to the Zoanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x09", "title": "Deathwalker", "date": "1994-04-20", "description": "Na'Toth attacks an alien woman that has just arrived on the station, claiming that she is the Dilgar war criminal Jha'dur — known as Deathwalker. And Talia is hired by Kosh to oversee some rather strange negotiations.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Seth Green. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Na'Toth took a vow to kill the Deathwalker Jha'dur out of vengeance. Deathwalker had a vendetta against world in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Were the Deathwalker's criminal medical experiments excused by her using the results to develop an immortality drug?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Deathwalker's life's work was a serum that retarded the aging process and cured disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "kill some so that others can live forever?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair and others, administer justice or let Deathwalker go", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Deathwalker used a drug to maintaining her youthful appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Deathwalked committed unethical medical experiments on sentient beings during the Dilgar War, and used the results to develop an immortality drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Deathwalker committed unethical medical experiments during the Dilgar War that constituted war crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The different alien civilizations argued over whether the Deathwalker should be tried for her crimes, and if so who had authority to put her on trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "A number of different alien political entities were vying to hand out their own version of justice to the Deathwalker for her crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia and Abbut were reading others minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Franklin discussed how Dilgar civilization was done in when their sun wet nova.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: No Escape (1994)", "title": "No Escape", "date": "1994-04-21", "description": "In a dystopian future, a former Marine serves life imprisonment on an island inhabited by savage and cannibalistic prisoners.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Escape_(1994_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band of convicts, called the Insiders, were trying to escape from the open prison island where they were being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made about Robbins being the kind of guy who took orders from no man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where prisoners are being exploited for profit in a private run international prison system. However, the ramifications of having such a system were not at all explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films starts out with Robbins getting accustomed to his new surroundings in a Level 6 maximum security prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The warden addressed a group of newly arrived prisoners as a greenish, holographic head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robbins was imprisoned for life for murdering his commanding officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The warden sentenced a prisoner to be \"lashed\" ten times with an electrical shocker gizmo of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey had been sent to prison for his role in the \"Weinberg Kidnapping\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was banished from the Insiders' village for having twice fallen asleep at his post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Insiders held a most shabby party to celebrate Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men who'd died defending the Insiders' village were ceremonially cremated on a funeral pyre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-Marine Robbins was torn up inside over having followed an order that resulted in the needless deaths of 342 women and children. Dysart expressed deep regret over having made a bomb that was used to kill 50 people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robbins befriended young Casey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Merek was planning to use Casey's dead body for food to feed his gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father confided in Robbins that Father had Hodgkin's Disease and had only a month or two left to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father confessed to having murdered his wife and covered it up by making it look as if she'd committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-Marine Robbins had traumatic flashbacks about an attack on civilians that he'd participated in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-Marine Robbins confided in Father about how he'd participated in an attack on civilians that left 342 women and children dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brainscan (1994)", "title": "Brainscan", "date": "1994-04-22", "description": "A young horror film enthusiast gets more than he bargains for when he tries out a mysterious video game that purports to let its players experience what it is like to murder someone in a highly realistic fashion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainscan" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Kimberly were two teenagers in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Kimberly were two teenagers in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael had a big crush on the typical girl-next-door type Kimberly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Kyle were high school best buddies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Trickster duped Michael into committing a sadistic murder and then pressured Michael to kill the two witnesses - one of which, who was in fact his best friend Kyle, he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Hayden was investigating two grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end it turned out that Michael's strange experience of having committed two grisly murders had merely transpired inside of a highly realistic virtual reality game. The titular game was described as the ultimate experience in interactive terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that the Trickster was none other than the evil part of Michael. So it was the case that Michael had been battling his evil side all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael recorded the typical girl-next-door Kimberly inside her bedroom from his window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and his friend Kyle were a big fans classic horror films, and were members of their school's Horror Club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael was sent to the principal's office over having played an obscene film during a meeting of the school Horror Club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the 16-year-old Michael had a strained relationship with his father, who had left Michael to live at home in an otherwise empty mansion while he was away on business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police contemplated that they might have a serial killer on their hands.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x20", "title": "The Maquis, Part I", "date": "1994-04-24", "description": "Federation colonists reject a treaty with Cardassia and take matters into their own hands, forming a terrorist group called 'The Maquis'.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman and Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor and James Crocker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation/Cardassian treaty hung in the balance of how Benjamin handled the Maquis terrorist attack on Cardassian vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis were terrorists in the eyes of the Cardassians and liberators in the eyes of the Federation colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin raised possibility that Cardassian vessel may have been carrying weapons colonists; to Sakonna attempted to arrange a long term arms deal with Quark to supply the Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation colonists in territory seeded to Cardassian Union wanted to belong to the Federation and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin refused to support his old friend Calvin Hudson in joining the Maquis cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin refused to support his old friend Calvin Hudson in joining the Maquis cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Calvin Hudson reminisced about the good old days on New Berlin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark at Sakonna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calvin Hudson betrayed his old friend Benjamin at the end of the episode by defecting to the Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira chided Jadzia for dating an alien whose brain was visible", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x21", "title": "Firstborn", "date": "1994-04-25", "description": "Worf attempts to convince his son Alexander to embrace his warrior heritage. Guest star James Sloyan as K'mtar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and future Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf of Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: future Alexander wanted present Alexander to have a more focused upbringing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: future Alexander over his choices in early life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: future Alexander tries to impress the need for cultural heritage on present Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander in Klingon world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Alexander Rozhenko :: Worf and future Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood aspirations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander wished to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Klingon warrior when he grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf at Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf in Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon :: Klingon vs human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander mourned the tragic death of his mother, K'Ehleyr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of an unknown future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander and Worf worried about Alexander becoming a total looser when he grows up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: future Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander about his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander Rozhenko :: Alexander about wanted to live up to Klingon expectations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Alexander simulates Klingon battling on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander travels back in time to set himself straight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf fathering Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf mourned the tragic death of the mother of his young son, K'Ehleyr.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x10", "title": "Believers", "date": "1994-04-27", "description": "An alien couple comes to Dr. Franklin with their terminally ill son. The child could be cured by a simple operation, but the parents' religion specifically forbids it. Meanwhile Ivanova escorts a damaged starliner through Raider territory.\n\nDirected by: Richard Compton. Story by: David Gerrold.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "M'Ola and Tharg's son Shon needed surgery to save his life but it was forbidden under their religion and they would not permit it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor vs. next of kin", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin wanted to perform a life saving surgery on Shon but his parents forbid it on religious grounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin wanted to perform a life saving surgery on Shon but his parents forbid it on religious grounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien couple’s religious ideology which prohibited medical treatment for their child Shon was contraposed with Franklin’s scientific and medical outlook by which helping Shon trumped religious concerns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. medicine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers a conflict between Franklin and an alien husband and wife who, for religious reasons, forbade Franklin from preforming a life-saving surgery on their dying child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent's right to make decisions for their child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Shon's parents have the right to refuse him a life saving surgery?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shon's parents petitioned various alien diplomats for help but were frustrated with all the bureaucracy and diplomatic indifference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin and Sinclair in different ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shon suffered from a life threatening illness that was easily curable with surgery but the surgery was not permitted under his religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shon and his parents believed that is soul would leave his body if he was given a life saving surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "M'Ola and her ill child Shon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tharg and his ill child Shon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin lied to comfort aliens, about Shon's condition and about the pet egg placebo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair invoked the good of Babylon 5 and the universe as an excuse not to rule in favor of Franklin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair asserted religion was needed to find meaning in life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x21", "title": "The Maquis, Part II", "date": "1994-05-01", "description": "Federation colonists reject a treaty with Cardassia and take matters into their own hands by planning to destroy a weapons depot at the Cardassian Bryma colony.\n\nDirected by: Corey Allen. Story by: Rick Berman and Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Maquis were terrorists in the eyes of the Cardassians and liberators in the eyes of the Federation colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Maquis were terrorists in the eyes of the Cardassians and liberators in the eyes of the Federation colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation/Cardassian treaty hung in the balance of how Benjamin handled the Maquis terrorist attack on Cardassian vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calvin Hudson betrayed his old friend Benjamin by defecting to the Maquis; Cardassians betrayed Dukat by leaving him to die in the hands of his Maquis captors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation was accused of smuggling arms to colonists; Cardassians smuggled weapons into demilitarized zone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Calvin Hudson effectively ended their friendship over Hudson joining the Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation colonists in territory seeded to Cardassian Union wanted to belong to the Federation and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin refused to support his old friend Calvin Hudson in joining the Maquis cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin refused to support his old friend Calvin Hudson in joining the Maquis cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin headed a mission to rescue Dukat from the Maquis when the Cardassians left him for dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calvin Hudson wanted revenge against the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat kidnapped by Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin for Dukat and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat explained how the verdict is known in advance in the Cardassian system of justice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x09", "title": "Undercover", "date": "1994-05-02", "description": "Irving Krutch, a crooked insurance investigator, enlists the help of Columbo to solve a series of murders that starts when two men, each of whom possesses a piece of a photograph, kill each other in a burglary gone wrong. Some years back a group of four men robbed a bank, but all of them were killed by the police in a shootout after they were caught in a car accident. But before they died, they hid their loot somewhere which can only be found through the assembled photograph. Columbo must go undercover to recover some of the pieces, solve some murders to get some others, and all the while trying to figure out what Krutch might be after. Burt Young has a cameo as a small time hood and Columbo does comic relief in the roles of a mob wise guy and a gang boss.\n\nThis episode is based upon the 87th Precinct novel Jigsaw by Ed McBain, although not credited as such. This installment thus departs from the usual format by not revealing the culprit until the end of the show. Unlike the previous episode based on McBain source material, No Time To Die, this features a regular character from the 87th Precinct series, Arthur Brown, played by Harrison Page.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Ed McBain;, Gerry Day.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy search for hidden loot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The insurance investigator Irving Krutch, as well as a number of other people, murdered each other in attempts to get hold of fragments of a photo that reportedly would show where $4 million in loot was stashed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Columbo went under cover as an Italian mobster. Cheesy music inspired by The Godfather was played.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Why did two shady characters murder each other over a fragment of a photo?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Whilst investigating the murder of two people by each other, several more murders occurred in and around Columbo's attempts to crack the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The comic interactions between Columbo and his various colleagues, especially Sergeant Brown, were at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story followed a race between the police, an insurance guy, and various mobsters to uncover the location of some $4 million of loot from a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human in danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was only mildly apprehensive about putting his life on the stake by posing as an Italian mobster, but his boss ordered him to go armed. Columbo, uncharacteristically, got into scuffles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo interviewed a woman who ran an art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The buxom prostitute Dorothea mistook Lt. Columbo for a john when he came knocking on her door.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x22", "title": "Bloodlines", "date": "1994-05-02", "description": "DaiMon Bok returns to exact revenge on Picard , by trying to kill the son Picard never knew he had. Guest star Lee Arenberg as DaiMon Bok.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok against Picard over the Battle of Maxia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok with taking revenge on Picard over the Battle of Maxia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Jason Vigo :: Picard and Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Jason Vigo :: Picard and Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bok :: Bok for Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard faces Bok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard at Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a life-changing event", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard suddenly found out that he had a son, and struggled to come to terms with his newfound role as a father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard/Miranda Vigo :: Picard and Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Vigo :: Miranda was left to raise Jason alone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason Vigo :: Jason was diagnosed with Forrester-Trent Syndrome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Ferengi appeared inexplicably out of thin air and spooked Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard, Jason Vigo :: Jason and Picard of Miranda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "charitable volunteering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Miranda had volunteered with Camorite orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck :: Picard and Jason went rock climbing on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulsar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise passed within a light year of a class four pulsar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason Vigo :: Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard mistakenly thought he had unknowingly abandoned his son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Vigo/Jason Vigo :: Miranda and Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Vigo :: Miranda at Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda Vigo :: mother was involved in charitable volunteering on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason Vigo :: Jason bored with Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard and crew to Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard to Jason", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x11", "title": "Survivors", "date": "1994-05-04", "description": "There is an explosion in one of the fighter bays just days before the president is to visit Babylon 5. A dying man implicates Garibaldi, which is just what the head of presidential security wants to hear, as she blames him for her father's death.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: Marc Scott Zicree.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garibaldi was falsely accused of trying to assassinate the president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Major Lianna Kemmer held a grudge against Garibaldi and pursued a personal vendetta against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi told Sinclair how he turned to drinking during some hard times on Europa, and turned to the bottle again while he was on the lamb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi had an alcoholic relapse and turned back to drinking during a time of hardship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi somehow blamed himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Sinclair help his friend Garibaldi while he was on the run from the law or turn him in to Earthforce Security forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi was pursued as a fugitive by Earthforce Security forces on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi grieved for his late friend, Frank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lianna Kemmer ultimately apologized to Giribaldi for pursuing a vendetta against him and they made their peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lianna Kemmer ultimately apologized to Giribaldi for pursuing a vendetta against him and they made their peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi got hammered at the seedy alien bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi got hammered at the seedy alien bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi stayed loyal to Earth in spite of everything that happened to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x22", "title": "The Wire", "date": "1994-05-08", "description": "In order to save Garak's life, Bashir must unravel some of the secrets in the Cardassian's past.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir worried about Garak's health", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garak was driven to activate his pleasure stimulating implant because life on the space station away from Cardassia was so depressing for him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak was hiding about his possibly shady past from Bashir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak became addicted to the equivalent of space-anti-depressants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak became addicted to the equivalent of space-anti-depressants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir struggled with an a drug addicted Garak who was unwilling to take treatment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Cardassians justified spying. Garak wanted privacy about his drug addiction. Bashir wanted to look at Garak's medical records without permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain stimulating implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak had a pleasure inducing cranial implant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Garak discussed the literary merits and shortcomings of a great Cardassian epic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak expressed remorse over having been exiled for having taken pity on Bajoran children during the Cardassian occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cardassian regime spied on everyone, controlled the literature, and put implants in people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak tried to betray Tain but Tain ended up having beaten him to the punch; Bashir felt betrayed by Garak not confiding in him about the truth about his past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak told a tall tale to Bashir about having betrayed his old friend in the Obsidian Order Elim", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: TekWar: TekJustice (1994)", "title": "TekWar: TekJustice", "date": "1994-05-09", "description": "Jake Cardigan is arrested for the murder of his ex-wife's husband. He confesses and refuses to assist his lawyer, Eugene Leopold, in his own defense. A quick scan of the police files show that he is covering for the real killer, his own son, Danny Cardigan. A re-examination of forensic evidence soon proves that neither Jake nor Danny are responsible for the murder. Jake Cardigan and Sid Gomez realise that Tek Lord Sonny Hokori is responsible and vow to bring him to justice.", "collections": [ "Collection: TekWar Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111386/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was tried by jury for the murder of his ex-wife's new husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was tried by jury for the murder of his ex-wife's new husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hotshot teenage lawyer Eugene Leopold defended Jake on the charge of murder in a court of law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake tried to take the rap for a murder that he thought his young son Danny had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The TekLord Sonny Hokori hatched a nefarious plot to have Jake either cryogenically suspended for life or killed out of vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Winger was an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was facing life in cryogenic suspension, if found guilty in his trial for the murder of Bennett Sands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was facing life in cryogenic suspension, if found guilty in his trial for the murder of Bennett Sands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Winger arrested Jake for murder and then testified against him in a court of law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Centra hacked into a computer system that allowed Jake's associates to communicate with Jake from inside his jail cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accepting reliance on others", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake's partner and friend Sid implored Jake to accept help from his friends in order to avoid getting sentenced to life in cryogenic suspension for a murder he didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TekLord Sonny Hokori and his girlfriend Valkyrie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny appeared as a witness at Jake's murder trial by holographic projection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonny Hokori wore a life-like mask to hide his hideously burned and scarred face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonny Hokori used some sort of technology, perhaps a holographic projector, to make himself look exactly like Jake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something was going on between Jake and Beth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x23", "title": "Emergence", "date": "1994-05-09", "description": "The Enterprise becomes an emergent intelligence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keystone City Emergent Lifeform :: the holodeck came alive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "the holodeck came alive and became an entity with some right to existence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the holodeck came alive and became a weird kind of alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck :: the holodeck came alive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "the holodeck came alive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew face holodeck entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew struggles to communicate with the holodeck after it became sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew struggled to figure out how the holodeck went haywire and took control of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "understanding by metaphor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew and the holodeck, which had become sentient, communicated through metaphors and symbolism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data played the part of Prospero in the Tempest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard coached Data in the role of Prospero.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x12", "title": "By Any Means Necessary", "date": "1994-05-11", "description": "An accident in the docking bays starts a series of problems on Babylon 5, when a Narn freighter is destroyed and one of the workers is killed. The dock workers demand better conditions or they'll go on strike. And G'Kar has to get a replacement G'Quan-Eth plant for an important religious ceremony.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: Kathryn M. Drennan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The docking bay workers went on strike for better working conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The docking bay workers went on strike for better working conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A renowned mediator negotiated on behalf of management against the blue collar workers. G'Kar and Londo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neither the management negotiator nor the strikers would concede an inch in the negotiation. The same situation unfolded with G'Kar and Londo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar needed a flower from Londo's room to perform a pagan prayer ritual but Londo was reluctant to give it up because he looked down on paganism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "The workers and Garibaldi's security forces shook and made up after Sinclair resolved the worker's strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cargo bay worker grieved for his friend who'd died in an accident on the job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar was attached to his traditional prayer ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polytheism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo characterized G'Kar's prayer ritual as pagan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x23", "title": "Crossover", "date": "1994-05-15", "description": "Kira and Bashir accidentally cross into the Mirror Universe, where a Klingon- Cardassian alliance rules. A century before, James T. Kirk had made a similar crossover, affecting human and galactic history. Terrans are slaves on the station.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Kira find themselves in a savage mirror universe upon passing through wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Julian held in the mirror universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir and Kira found themselves in a parallel universe where good is bad and bad is good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir and Kira found themselves in a parallel universe where good is bad and bad is good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are shown there is a fine line between someone leading a life of good versus a life of pure evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira meets evil mirror universe Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "mirror Kira wanted to rule Bajor in the normal universe; mirror Garak plotted to take mirror Kira's spot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cardassian/Klingon union conquered and enslaved the Terrans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mirror Kira interested in only herself and exhibited an erotic interest in her normal universe counterpart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian/Klingon alliance in mirror universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cardassian/Klingon alliance had conquered and enslaved the Terran and Vulcan peoples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "mirror Kira; mirror Odo in running the mines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mirror Quark was tortured during an interrogation conducted by mirror Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira with Bashir in shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir was forced to toil in a mine on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mirror Kira exhibited a sexual passion for Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira from Bashir; Kira from mirror Kira", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x24", "title": "Preemptive Strike", "date": "1994-05-16", "description": "Lieutenant Ro graduates from advanced tactical training, and is sent by Picard to lure Maquis terrorists into a trap. Guest star Richard Poe as Gul Evek.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro betrayed Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro to Federation and Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro to Federation and Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro was sent on a mission to infiltrate a group of Bajoran terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on one's point of view).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ro felt at home among the Maquis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bajoran/Cardassian :: Maquis and Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro about having betrayed the Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro feels at home among the Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ro was forced to take a side in the Federation/Maquis conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren/Macias :: Ro and Macias", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macius/Ro Laren :: Macias and Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Macias :: Macias to Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard in Ro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren :: Ro and other Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro grieved for the old man Macia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ro Laren/Macias :: Ro and Maquis", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x13", "title": "Signs and Portents", "date": "1994-05-18", "description": "A Centauri noble comes to Babylon 5 to transport an important Centauri relic in Londo's possession back to the homeworld. And a mysterious man visits all the alien ambassadors asking them an unusual question.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cultural symbols as a unifying force in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eye was an ancient Centauri relic that served as a symbol of imperial power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Kiro wanted to seize the imperial relic obtained by Londo and use it to advance his own position on power in the Centauri government. Alien ambassadors Londo and G'Kar wanted for power for themselves and their respective species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Centauri and Narn rivalry was featured through the conflict between Londo and G'Kar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Kiro wanted the Eye for the glory that it brought. Londo wanted to the Centauri to return to their former state of glory and power in the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar wished death upon the Centauri race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair was haunted by memories of his days in the war and sought out answers to some questions that left him puzzled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Raiders were space pirates that preyed on shipping lanes around Babylon 5 and ran a black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prophetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Ladira saw the Shadow vessel destroy the raider vessel before it happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Ladira foresaw the possible destruction of Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994)", "title": "Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics", "date": "1994-05-19", "description": "A made-for-television film consisting of two stories by Rod Serling. The film was co-produced by Serling's widow Carol Serling. Reportedly, she found the two pieces in a trunk in the family's garage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [ "tz1994a", "tz1994b" ], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone:_Rod_Serling%27s_Lost_Classics" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [] }, { "story-id": "tz1994a", "title": "The Theatre", "date": "1994-05-19", "description": "A young woman sees scenes from her past and future on the screen whenever she goes to the cinema.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Melissa watched the scene of her own death unfold before her eyes on a movie theater screen during a film screening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melissa was reluctant to tie the officially tie the knot with her fiancée James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melissa's fiancée James worked as a physician in a hospital. In \"Where the Dead Are\": Dr. Ramsey was a practicing surgeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James accused his fiancée Melissa of being afraid to commit to their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melissa watched scenes of her own past unfold before her eyes on a movie theater screen during a film screening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melissa's fiancée James didn't take her seriously when she told him she'd witnessed a vision of her own death until it was too late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The moral of the story, according to the closing narration, is that we should live each day to the fullest because we never know which day might be our last.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "though she was adamant later, Melissa was clearly distressed at seeing things that no one else saw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James was disheveled after Melissa died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz1994b", "title": "Where the Dead Are", "date": "1994-05-19", "description": "An American Civil War era physician searches for the secret to immortality.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise", "Collection: The Twilight Zone Films", "Collection: movie: Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Wheaton discovered a method to revive the dead and was using it to keep the inhabitants of a small island community alive well beyond their alloted years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life in late modern times", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a depiction of what it might have been like to live in New England in the years after the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "When people understood that they could live on indefinitely they became obsessed with it to such an extent that they held Dr. Wheaton hostage and cut off his legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly Dr. Wheaton was being cared for by his adult niece Susan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Wheaton had lost both legs from the knee down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ramsey had grim flashbacks to his time as a Union Army surgeon in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a grim depiction of a Union Army surgeon working on or near an American Civil War battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is treated to an appendectomy performed to narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ramsey interviewed Dr. Wheaton who was renowned for hist nasty demeanor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wheaton's niece remonstrated in a letter about her unnaturally extended life. The island zombies did also not seem altogether happy with their lot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pulp Fiction (1994)", "title": "Pulp Fiction", "date": "1994-05-21", "description": "Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary. Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, it tells several stories of criminal Los Angeles. The title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_Fiction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nihilism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "American nihilism: the story demonstrates human life is banal, arbitrary and random.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent worries about loyalty while he looks after his bosses wife; Butch double-crossed Marsellus but later saved him from the perverts; Vincent and Jules were sent to execute a group of treasonous drug dealers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsellus was betrayed by drug dealers, and Butch. Vincent stayed loyal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marsellus wanted revenge on Butch, on drug dealers, and on the perverts who raped him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of how a little crime syndicate may operate, with hit men and a mob boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The killing of Marvin is treated differently than the rest and a concern for the law is apparent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "the relationship between Butch and Fabienne was featured at length; the restaurant robbers a bit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with a side-story in which a couple were discussing robbery of banks, liqueur stores, and restaurants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trading of narcotics was intermittently topical but not overall significant to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent was tempted with his bosses wife, but stayed constant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility of Mia's infidelity (with a henchman who was thrown out the window or with Vincent) was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mia overdosed after mistaking Vincent's heroin for cocaine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marsellus and Mia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Butch and Fabienne seemed genuinely besotted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent and Marsellus got trapped in a bdsm dungeon were Marsellus was raped", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marsellus was furious after his rape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jules found religion and gave mercy to Ringo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jules found religion after numerous shots at point-blank range miraculously missed him", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x24", "title": "The Collaborator", "date": "1994-05-22", "description": "A Bajoran secretary named Kubus, who aided the Cardassian occupation forces wants to return home from exile. Vedek Winn engages in a power play to become Kai against Vedek Bareil.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Gary Holland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Winn Adami conspired to rig the Bajoran election so she could grab power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira and Bareil Antos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos hid Kai Opaka's involvement in the Kendra Valley massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kubus Oak was accused of treason for having willingly collaborated with the Cardassians during the occupation of Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajorans were holding an election for the leader of their world government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira in her lover Bareil Antos' innocence over being involved in the Kendra Valley massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos was accused of being involved in the Kendra Valley Massacre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "suspicion of Bareil Antos being implicated in the Kendra Valley massacre disqualified him from running for public office", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "election for world government leader was being held on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of war collaborators", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kubus Oak was not allowed to return to live out his old age on Bajor because he had collaborated with the Cardassians during the occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira in her lover Bareil Antos' innocence over being involved in the Kendra Valley massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kubus Oak was prohibited from being allowed to return to his homeworld Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos saw his own death in a vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos saw his own death in a vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kubus Oak had signed warrants that sent Bajorans to work in forced labor camps", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tng7x25-26", "title": "All Good Things...", "date": "1994-05-23", "description": "Picard finds himself being transported between three time periods thanks to Q , with a spacetime distortion that threatens to destroy reality growing larger in the past, and smaller in the future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-tng.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Picard/Geordi, Picard/Data, Picard/Beverly, Picard/Worf :: old Picard's old friends come to help him in his time of need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew to Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "multiple timelines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard :: Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q, The Q :: Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Picard's old friend in him, especially Geordi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geordi :: Geordi in Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in younger Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker/Worf :: Riker and Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf :: Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beverly dressed Picard down for giving orders to her crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: old man Picard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard :: old Picard in spite of disbelief", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the origin of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q brought Picard back in time and discussed life on Earth starting out from some ignoble goo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x14", "title": "TKO", "date": "1994-05-25", "description": "Garibaldi is surprised when an old friend comes to Babylon 5 to fight in the mutai — a savage alien fighting arena. Meanwhile Ivanova has trouble dealing with her father's death.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ivanova grieved for her late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Susan Ivanova and Andrei Ivanov.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Susan Ivanova participated in the Jewish shiva funeral rite to help come to terms with her father's recent passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walker Smith sought glory and prestige in the ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Walker Smith. Sinclair and Susan Ivanova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Judaism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Ivanova's and Rabbi uncle visited Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova for father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan Ivanova and Rabbi Koslov.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walker Smith was fighting to prove himself in an alien no-holds-barred fighting ring sport called \"Mutai\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jewish shiva funeral rite was held for Susan Ivanova's deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova reminisced over her father neglecting to show her enough love during her childhood.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: CyberTracker (1994)", "title": "CyberTracker", "date": "1994-06-01", "description": "A fugitive Secret Service agent joins a terrorist (or freedom fighter) group that is determined to overthrow a newly instituted computerized justice system.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberTracker_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "machines in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder the extent to which computer algorithms should be used to determine the guilt of accused criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cybercore corporation had merged with the United Stated government and was responsible to implementing an inflexible computerized justice system that featured android executioners called \"Trackers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Secret Service agent Eric went on the run after Senator Dilly framed him for the murder of a young woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric went on the lamb after being framed for murder and was actively trying to avoid getting apprehended by the killer android that were sent to get him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Union of Human Rights group was considered a terrorist organization by the government for violently opposing the newly instituted computerized justice system, but from their point of view they were fighting a tyrannical regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where android executioners mete out justice on convicted criminals as determined by computer algorithms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A sleazy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Dilly framed Eric for the murder of a young woman. A man was executed for murder while he was in the midst of protesting his innocence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An android executioner shot dead a computer justice system convicted murderer in accordance with Penal Code 120067.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Dilly trying to sway public opinion in favor of the newly instituted computerized justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric was on a first name basis with the Agnes 4000 AI unit that was installed in his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric reflected back on a time when he was still with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Eric's wife expressed her disapproval of Eric serving as a bodyguard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People communicated over somewhat bulky videophones in a manner that emphasized the novelty of the devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monitoring implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric was implanted with a tracking device that his new friends removed the hard way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Connie broke down after all her terrorist (or freedom fighter) friends perished in a firefight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric and Connie fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x25", "title": "Tribunal", "date": "1994-06-05", "description": "O'Brien is declared guilty of an unspecified crime and later \"tried\" at a tribunal held on Cardassia Prime.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Bill Dial.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles was put on a trial where the verdict was known in advance by the Cardassians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles was put on a trial where the verdict was known in advance by the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflicting systems of jurisprudence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation versus Cardassian systems of jurisprudence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles was wrongfully accused of having aided and abetted Maquis terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the imprisonment of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keiko was worried sick about her husband Miles after he was taken to a prison on Cardassia Prime and subsequently sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles found himself trapped in the Cardassian police state-like justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko set out on a vacation together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cardassian order vs Federation freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles held against his will by the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko was deeply concerned over Miles being held by the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles reluctantly went on holiday with Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workaholism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was reluctant to go on holiday and even took his work with him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles during his processing and interrogation by the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian was surgically altered to look like Raymond Boone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was impersonated using voice identification technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles' racism against Cardassians was raised at his trial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds92x26", "title": "The Jem'Hadar", "date": "1994-06-12", "description": "Sisko, Jake, Nog, and Quark go camping on a Gamma Quadrant world, but are captured by mysterious soldiers called the Jem'Hadar and meet a force, the Dominion, to rival the Federation.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin takes Jake on a camping trip in the Gamma Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Quark on camping trip", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Quark held captive by Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark insisted on Benjamin reappraising his negative opinions of Ferengi on account of humans having had WMDs and concentration camps in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation faces The Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was pestering Benjamin about letting him use space station monitors to advertise merchandise to triple his profits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark had a difficult time with the bugs on the camping trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was working on a science project", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin's love of nature on camping trip contrasted with Quark's hate thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark accused humans of double standards in this respect", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x15", "title": "Grail", "date": "1994-07-06", "description": "A man comes to Babylon 5 asking the alien ambassadors for information that can help him with his quest to find the Holy Grail, while a Downbelow gangster gives security problems by mindwiping all who oppose him.\n\nDirected by: Richard Compton. Story by: Christy Marx.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aldous and Jinxo were obsessed with finding the Holy Grail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aldous and Jinxo found purpose in life in their respective quests to find the Holy Grail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deuce's gang was after Jinxo over the repayment of debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Holy Chalice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldous was on a quest to find the Holy Grail of Christian lore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "A courtroom was featured numerous times for whatever reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldous and Jinxo were obsessed with finding the Holy Grail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jinxo was convinced that he was cursed, i.e., jinxed, and was the cause of the destruction of the first four Babylon space stations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldous took up searching for the Holy Grail in an effort to find purpose in life. Jinxo didn't know what to do with his life after having seen the first four Babylon space stations destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plaintiff was in court over the bug-eyed alien's ancestors having abducted his ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Judge unable to try Deuce without a witness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aldous' reason to become a seeker was bound up with the death of his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jinxo expressed guilt over having been the only survivor of the destruction of each of the first four Babylon space stations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mirriam Runningdear had her brain wiped and needed to relearn everything from scratch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "What appeared to be an insectoid ambassador revealed itself to be a brain wiping creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth Alliance judge Wellington presided over a civil suit between two people in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x16", "title": "Eyes", "date": "1994-07-13", "description": "Sinclair's decisions of the last year catch up with him, when an internal affairs investigator arrives to test the crew's loyalty to Earth Force with the help of a telepath. And Lennier shows great interest in Garibaldi's attempt at assembling a 1990s motorcycle.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair and Ivanova considered Colonel Ari Ben Zayn efforts to mind scan telepaths a violation of rights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Ari Ben Zayn attempted to use telepaths to achieve political and police purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Ari Ben Zayn used his authority to pursue a witch hunt against Sinclair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Colonel Ari wanted vengeance against Sinclair because Sinclair was chosen over him to command Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova was forced to confront her memories of her mother's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova was haunted over her mother's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Ari Ben Zayn resented Sinclair for getting opportunity to advance his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair was secretly resented by Colonel Ari for having been chosen to command Babylon 5 over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair and Colonel Ari Ben Zayn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harriman Gray spoke with Ivanova about finding purpose in life. Garibaldi said his motorcycle building project provided him with some purpose in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lennier were excited by Garibaldi's project to assemble a 1990s gasoline powered motorcycle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The motorcycle was described by the computer as a symbol of masculinity in the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was a matter of pride and honor for Ivanova when it came to her right to not have her thoughts read.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Girabali were investigating the possibility of smugglers smuggling arms into Mars Colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova had flashbacks about her mother's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova grieved for her late mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova grieved for her suicided mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Extremist independence movements on Mars Colony and other off world colonies were mentioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x17", "title": "Legacies", "date": "1994-07-20", "description": "A Minbari war cruiser comes to Babylon 5 to display the body of a recently dead Minbari leader, while Ivanova and Talia battle for the fate of a young girl with newly discovered telepathic powers.\n\nDirected by: Bruce Seth Green. Story by: D. C. Fontana.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attitude towards the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Minbari warrior clan put their unique funerary customs on display on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair and Ivanova upset about telepath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alisa Beldon experienced what it was like to have her mind flooded with other peoples thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alisa Beldon explored how to deal with her newly emergent telepathic powers. Telepathy in Minbari culture explored and Psi Corps stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alisa Beldon had to choose from among joining Psi Corps, becoming the matriarch of a future race of Narn telepaths, and living a religious life among the Minbari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Minbari had a warrior clan and a religious clan that were at odds with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elaborate funeral was held for a Minbari war hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn explained to Neroon that his failure to follow the wishes of deceased Minbari war hero's wish to be cremated would bring dishonor upon him and the Star Riders, if he were exposed. Neroon wished to honor fallen Minbari war here with a fancy funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alisa Beldon decided to go live among the Minbari and be a bridge between her people and the Minbari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minbari diplomat threatened war over missing body of Minbari war hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Neroon came to respect one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Neroon came to respect one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova felt that orphan Alisa Beldon should have a say in whether she should go to Psi Corps but Talia Winters felt otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alisa Beldon was living as an orphan and shoplifter on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x18", "title": "A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 1)", "date": "1994-07-27", "description": "Strange signals start coming from Epsilon 3, the planet below Babylon 5. A science ship is sent to investigate, but is fired upon by a defense system on the planet. Meanwhile Garibaldi worries about a lover he left back on Mars, when fighting breaks out there.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garibaldi was desperate to find out whether his ex-lover Lize Hampton was safe on Mars after a civil war broke out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethnic hatred spilled over into a civil war on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mars colonists rebelled against their Earth rulers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi worried about his ex-lover Lize Hampton who he left behind on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi for his ex-lover Lize Hampton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary-scale machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet Babylon 5 was in orbit around turned out to be a mesh of fusion reactors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair and Ivanova tried to get to the bottom of what was going on on the strange planet that Babylon 5 was orbiting around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly Minbari Draal wished to go to \"the sea\" to find purpose and meaning in his final years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo went on at length about the enmity that existed between the Centauri and the Narn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo tried to gain an insight into human culture by studying the traditional children's song \"The Hokey Pokey\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia bent rules for Garibaldi in trying to locate his ex-lover Lize Hampton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair successfully oversaw a diplomatic negotiation between Dalenn and Londo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi reflected on his past decision to leave Lize Hampton on Mars colony to take his current position on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The makers of the planetary-scale machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x19", "title": "A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 2)", "date": "1994-08-03", "description": "The situation heats up when an Earth Force heavy cruiser arrives to \"protect earth's interests\", and the fusion reactors on Epsilon 3 start going out of control, and may blow up the planet and Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Draal willingly merged with the planetary-scale machine to prevent the planet it was in from destroying itself and Babylon 5 with it. Delenn explained the important of making a self-sacrifice when she bid farewell to her mentor Draal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The elderly Minbari Draal decided to end his life by merging with the planetary-scale machine because he felt it would give purpose to his otherwise boring life and also help the people of Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Draal and Londo agreed to go to the planet together knowing that they would both return alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi worried about his ex-lover Lize Hampton who he left behind on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi worried about his ex-lover Lize Hampton who he left behind on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lise Hampton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair clashed with Captain Ellis Pierce over how to handle the crisis about the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary-scale machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet Babylon 5 was in orbit around turned out to be a mesh of fusion reactors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The different factions on Babylon 5, such as the Centauri and the Narn, and a species of alien were jockeying to get their fair share of whatever was down on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethnic tensions between Martian colonists and Earthlings led to a civil war erupting on Mars. Garibaldi assaulted a Martian bigot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi assaulted a Mars colonist for expressing offensive racist views in a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars colonists rebelled against their Earth rulers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tensions between the Centauri and Narn were featured through the rivalry that played out between their ambassadors. Martians and Earthlings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi explained that he was afraid to commit to Lise Hampton back in his younger days on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair clashed with Captain Ellis Pierce over how to handle the crisis about the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The makers of the planetary-scale machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x20", "title": "Babylon Squared", "date": "1994-08-10", "description": "Babylon 4 reappears at the same place it disappeared four years earlier, and Sinclair and Garibaldi lead an expedition to evacuate its crew. Meanwhile Delenn is summoned by the Grey Council. They inform her that they have selected a new leader: her.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Babylon 4 space station was skipping around in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zathras gave his life to be remembered for bringing peace to the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn refuses leadership duty because of what she felt was a higher calling to stay on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was left to piece together what was going on when the Babylon 4 space station became became mysteriously trapped in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was thought to be Delenn's destiny to have to leave Babylon 5 and serve as leaded of her people's council. Zathras told Sinclair that Sinclair had a destiny and should not risk losing his life to save Zathras. Delenn described humanity as having a “great destiny” awaiting it among the stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi played a practical joke on Ivanova over breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pilot of the vessel Alpha 7 died from a form of rapid aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Garibaldi bonded over small talk in their shuttle. and Ivanova featured together more than a bit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zathras spoke of a great war that had killed everyone and still threatened the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zathras was hoping to be remembered and honored for having brought peace to the galaxy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x21", "title": "The Quality of Mercy", "date": "1994-08-17", "description": "Dr. Franklin investigates an unlicensed medical practitioner in Downbelow, while Londo takes Lennier on a tour of Babylon 5's seedier locales. And in the brig, a convicted murderer waits for his sentence to be carried out — the death of personality.\n\nDirected by: Lorraine Senna Ferrara. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karl Mueller was a psychopathic killer beyond the capability of society to handle. Apart from other insanities, Karl Mueller was portrayed as a man who had absolutely no feelings for his victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karl Mueller having his mind wiped was akin to an execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Rosen couldn't make it as a medical doctor but found purpose in life in the practice of alternative medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Rosen killed Karl Mueller to save her daughter Janice Rosen's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laura Rosen was dying of Lake's Syndrome and estimated she had tow to three years to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mindwipe punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Convicted murdered Karl Mueller was sentenced to have his mind wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia Winters entered into the mind of the psychopath Karl Mueller on a court order prior to his mind being wiped. In other words, telepathy was a feature of the judicial system used on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia Winters entered into the mind of the psychopath Karl Mueller on a court order prior to his mind being wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl Mueller was put on trial for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to have his brain wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quackery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin was initially convinced that Laura Rosen was a crank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Rosen was remorseful that she violated the oath she took as a doctor by taking Karl Mueller's life to save her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando kindled Lennier's interest in gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando took Lennier under his wing and mentored him in th way of being a slimy diplomat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice Rosen and Laura Rosen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura Rosen regretted taking Karl Mueller's life in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A judge found Karl Mueller guilty of murder and sentenced him to have his mind wiped.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg Cop 2 (1994)", "title": "Cyborg Cop 2", "date": "1994-09", "description": "It is up to a hard-boiled cop to stop a cyborg army from subjugating humanity. It is the second installment in the Cyborg Cop film series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Cop_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The death row inmate Jesse Starkraven was kidnapped by government agents, converted into a cyborg, but then rebelled against his makers, and subsequently led a small \"army\" of his brethren on a killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the hard-boiled cop Jack Ryan as he seeks to avenged the murder of his partner, who was shot dead in cold blood by the notorious criminal Jesse Starkraven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the hard-boiled cop Jack Ryan as he seeks to avenged the murder of his partner, who was shot dead in cold blood by the notorious criminal Jesse Starkraven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "An \"army\" comprising about half a dozen cyborgs made a bid to subjugate humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the hard-boiled cop Jack Ryan to stop a small \"army\" of cyborgs from subjugating humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops raided a cocaine distribution plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack freed a helpless female hostage from a deranged, knife wielding drug dealer the only way he knew how: by force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse Starkraven landed himself on death row for having shot dead a cop in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse Starkraven was sentenced to death for having murdered a cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack briefly consoled Gloria about her died in the line of duty husband, Mike.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timecop (1994)", "title": "Timecop", "date": "1994-09-16", "description": "The story follows a federal agent as he fights time travel crime and investigates the politician's plans. It is the first installment in the Timecop franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the federal agent Max Walker as he fights time travel crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to Max to stop time travelers from altering the timeline by their actions in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max worked for the Time Enforcement Commission: a secret government agency that was established to stop people from going back in time and changing the timeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max and Melissa Walker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Max worked as a federal agent for the Time Enforcement Commission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The power hungry Senator McComb was determined to become President of the United States by hook or by crook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator McComb was running for the office of President of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man from the future robbed a convoy of Confederate soldiers of some gold bullion they were transporting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man traveled back in time to steal some gold bullion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A 1929 Wall Street banker had jumped out of a window to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Atwood was sentenced to death by a judge in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of 2004 had voice activated self-driving cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max couldn't get over his wife's death and traveled back in time to prevent it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator McComb's minions were traveling back in time to steal money to fund McComb's presidential election campaign.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A VR headset wearing, tech savvy guy's VR fantasy with a naked woman was interrupted by Max.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The McComb of 2004 traveled back to advise his 1994 self how to get rich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Max's young son running out of the family home front door to greet Max.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x01", "title": "The Search, Part I", "date": "1994-09-26", "description": "Sisko takes the new USS Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to find the mysterious leaders of the Dominion and avert a war, while Odo is drawn by instinct towards his home planet in the Omarion Nebula.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans united to confront the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans united to confront the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Romulans united to confront the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar were poised to takeover space station and overrun Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo meets his changeling brethren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo felt left out and slighted when Benjamin relieved him of his petty command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo meets his shapeshifter people at last", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo felt unwelcome among humanoids and sought out his homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake discuss finally feeling at home living on space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo at prospect of liquefying in Quark's presence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "USS Defiant was equipped with Romulan cloaking technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo vs Quark in ship dorm", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo wanted privacy when rooming with Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo didn't like following orders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x02", "title": "The Search, Part II", "date": "1994-10-03", "description": "Odo begins to connect with his fellow Changelings as Sisko attempts to negotiate peace with the Dominion.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and major Alpha Quadrant races united to confront the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and major Alpha Quadrant races united to confront the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alpha Quadrant alliance granted unusual concessions when negotiating peace treaty with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alpha Quadrant alliance negotiating peace treaty with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The peace treaty negotiations were conducted in an elaborately simulated reality perpetrated by the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Dominion had imperialistic ambitions in the Alpha Quadrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar were poised to takeover space station and overrun Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo meets his changeling brethren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo learned that he belonged with his friends on space station rather than with his people the Changelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo meets his shapeshifter people at last", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin in trusting the founder Borath in negotiating peace treaty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo wanted to go home to be with his shapeshifter people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dominion played a divide and conquer strategy against the Alpha Quadrant alien races", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo had to choose between staying with his shapeshifter brethren and his space station friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin confided in Jake about his reservations about how the peace treaty negotiations with the Dominion were going", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Changelings wanted to conceal knowledge of their homeworld from the solids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo left other shapeshifters in order to help his Federation friends", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cosmic Slop (1994)", "title": "Cosmic Slop", "date": "1994-10-09", "description": "A film consisting of three Twilight Zone-like stories about the destiny of the world's minorities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109487/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": The United States government held a referendum to decide on whether to accept a space alien offer to exchange advanced technology for all black citizens (30% of the nation's population as stated in the story) with no assurances as to their ultimate fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": The blacks of the United States were forcibly banished from the nation by the majority white population. In general, the plight of living as a black person in the United states was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": The wealth gap between black and white America was on display. In particular, a newscaster stated that the gap between black and white salaries was widening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": The conservative African American politician Gleason Golightly was an Uncle Tom who'd spent his entire life enriching himself by undermining blacks in America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": The Catholic priest Father Carlos is the story's protagonist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": The Catholic priest Father Carlos' was tasked by his diocese to get people of a Puerto Rican community to stop venerating a pagan deity and obey church orthodoxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": Father Carlos was under heavy pressure from the diocese cardinal to oversee moving a popular pagan statue to a museum, but the priest was reluctant to move the statue because it was bound up with his cultural heritage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": The statue of a saint was stolen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": A statue of a saint turned real and issued blessings out of a crack house to all comers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": The devout catholic Father Carlos had a mental breakdown when a pagan statue came to live and announced itself to him to be the god Oshun, rather than as the Virgin Mary as he expected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": Tang and her lazy, unemployed boyfriend T-Bone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": Tang was selling blood and participating in clinical trials to support herself and her unemployed boyfriend T-Bone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": The story concludes with T-Bone explaining to Tang that she hadn't become anything in life exactly because she'd been told all her life that she wouldn't amount to anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": Space aliens came to Earth in battleship-like flying saucer spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": Space aliens offered the United States government advanced technologies in exchange for all the nation's black people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cold fusion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": Space aliens offered this technology among others to the United States government in exchange for all the nation's black people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": Gleason and Gail Golightly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interracial couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Space Traders\": Lenny, an African America, was forcibly separated from his white girlfriend after it was decided by referendum that all black people would be given to space aliens in exchange for advanced technologies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": The white cardinal made a racist remark about Puerto Ricans being thieves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"The First Commandment\": We saw a man dealing crack in front of a crack house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": T-Bone was complacent about being unemployed and claimed there were no jobs out there for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": Tang and her boyfriend T-Bone were hard up for money and both mentioned suicide at different points in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illiteracy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In \"Tang\": T-Bone could not read the note that came with the gift sniper rifle, and had to have Tang read it for him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x03", "title": "The House of Quark", "date": "1994-10-10", "description": "Quark lies about killing a Klingon, Kozak, and is then forced to marry the widow, Grilka, founding his own 'House of Quark'.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Tom Benko.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "D'Ghor made a most dishonorable bid to wrest control of Kozak's family's assets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles consoled Keiko after she decided to close the space station school; Kozak and his widow Grilka; Quark was forced to marry Kozak's Grilka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing the demise of a personal enterprise", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark went to elaborate lengths to keep his bar from going out of business. Keiko was worried that she might need to close down her school on the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles tried to make Keiko feel better in her time of need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark came through in the end and faced down D'Ghor in a fight to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark came through in the end and faced down D'Ghor in a fight to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko about what to do with her life after her school closed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko about what to do with her life after her school closed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark worried about although it later turned out to be different schemes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark to help his unwanted wife get inheritance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko's life choice about leaving the space station to pursue her career in botany", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark exploited the death of a Klingon to get customers to come to his bar. D'Ghor coveted Grilka's estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko cultivated bonsai trees as a hobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark versus D'Ghor in bath'leth battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kozak had squandered much of his family wealth in gambling debts and unwise investments, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was arranged to marry Grilka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark wanted albeit not as much as he wanted gold", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko agreed to keep a long distance relation relationship so she could pursue her botany work", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Companion (1994)", "title": "The Companion", "date": "1994-10-13", "description": "A companion android goes haywire and holds its lover captive in their mountain cabin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109464/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gillian found her perfect match in the very human-like android Geoffrey until such time as he went haywire and held her captive in their mountain cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The romance novelist Gillian stayed in a quaint mountain cabin so she could concentrate on writing her next novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things got pretty serious between Gillian and a very human-like android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The romance novelist Gillian fell passionately in love with a very human-like android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gillian found her ideal man in a the very human-like android Geoffrey until he went haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gillian was held captive in a mountain cabin by her very human-like android lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gillian's very human-like android went haywire and held her captive in their mountain cabin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillian was interviewed by a holographic TV show host.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillian caught her boyfriend red-handed with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillian's mountain cabin was powered by a fusion generator of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey was in an abusive relationship with her partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gillian's friend Charlene disapproved of Gillian getting into a romantic relationship with an android.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x04", "title": "Equilibrium", "date": "1994-10-17", "description": "A secret from Dax's past could mean the end of the current host's life.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Christopher Teague.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia is plagued by disturbing hallucinations that allude to the dark past of her Trill symbiont", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "hospital staff were covering up the fact that all Trill had the potential to be implanted with symbionts and not just the few", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Renhol was willing to let Jadzia die in order to cover up that her hospital transplanted a Trill into the wrong host many years ago in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was confronted with aspects of the dark past of her Trill symbiont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir accompanied their friend Jadzia to the Trill homeworld in her time of need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was acting out of character by threatening her friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was going to die because her Trill symbiont implant was going to be rejected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir worried over Jadzia being terminally ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin cooked New Orleans cuisine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of doctors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia confided in Bashir about her latent fear of doctors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yolad Belar shared memories of his deceased brother Joran Belar", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Puppet Masters (1994)", "title": "The Puppet Masters", "date": "1994-10-21", "description": "A trio of American government agents attempt to thwart a covert invasion of Earth by mind-controlling alien parasites. It is based on Robert A. Heinlein's 1951 novel of the same title.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Slug-like neural parasites from outer space plotted a covert invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "major", "motivation": "Slug-like creatures from outer space were attaching themselves to people's backs, taking control of their victims' nervous systems, and manipulating those people as puppets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Slug-like neural parasites from outer space plotted a covert invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam as an agent under the direct supervision of his father Andrew, who was running a secret branch of the CIA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew Nivens was in charge of the secret branch of the CIA that was responsible for combating the space neural paratites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and Mary fell passionately in love with each other in the course of stopping space neural parasites from taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People assumed a UFO over Iowa was a flying saucer, but they were wrong: it was a hive full of alien neural parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reports of a flying saucer landing in rural Iowa were dismissed in the news as a hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The exobiologist Mary and her colleague were dissecting one of the alien parasites in a laboratory setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government agents described how a starting population of 1000 human co-opting neural parasites that were doubling every 12 hours would number in excess of 250 billion within two weeks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x05", "title": "Second Skin", "date": "1994-10-24", "description": "Kira is kidnapped by Cardassians, surgically altered to look Cardassian and told she is actually an undercover Cardassian agent.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cardassians concocted elaborate plot to convince Kira she was really an undercover Cardassian agent who had lost all her memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Obsidian Order kidnapping Kira was a roundabout way to expose Tekeny Ghemor's treasonous involvement with political dissidents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira kidnapped by the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tekeny Ghemor pretended to be Kira's real father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian political dissidents were organizing against the sinister Obsidian Order", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira altered to look like a Cardassian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia with Quark", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994)", "title": "Alien Nation: Dark Horizon", "date": "1994-10-25", "description": "A television film made as a continuation of the Alien Nation television series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation:_Dark_Horizon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores issues surrounding refugee space aliens integrating into American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George worked as detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George were close friends in addition to being partner detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Newcomer space alien immigrants experienced were despised by a certain element of society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Ahpossno were rivals for Cathy's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People expressed hostility and resentment toward the Newcomer alien immigrants who had settled in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were prejudiced against the Newcomer aliens. In particular, Susan's neighbor kindly requested that she keep her Newcomer children in the house while some prospective buyers toured her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan went through some ups and downs in their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt won Cathy's heart in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A greenish, phallic shaped alien spacecraft was en route to Earth to pick up the Newcomer aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and her 13-year-old daughter Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man deliberately infected George's wife and daughter with a dangerous virus to get back at George for having busted his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Newcomer aliens generally believed that cutting a flower released its soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert proudly announced that he and May got engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Newcomer alien Ahpossno was puzzled over why advertising was necessary seeing as people already know what they want.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George stayed by his unconscious wife and daughter's bedsides in the hospital after they were deliberately infected with a dangerous virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George lost his composure several times while Cathy (his love interest) and Ahpossno were cozying up in his presence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan's neighbor popped over to kindly request that she keep her Newcomer children in the house while some prospective buyers toured her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy remarked that, according the the theory of Darwinian evolution, humans had evolved from apes while taking a stroll through a zoo with Ahpossno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Albert and May tying the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf1x22", "title": "Chrysalis", "date": "1994-10-26", "description": "The Centauri and Narns quarrel about a Narn outpost in a quadrant adjacent to Centauri space, when Londo gets an offer to take care of the problem. Meanwhile, Garibaldi tries to find out what his informant stumbled upon that got him killed.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Centauri and the Narn were quarreling over a territorial matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri and Narn diplomats were quarreling over a territorial matter. Sinclair tried to settle a political dispute between the Centauri and the Narn over a Narn military outpost in Quadrant 37.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri and Narn quarrel over control of Quadrant 37.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo got an offer to take care of the problem in Quadrant 37, but he got more than he bargained for in the long run.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn refused to stand in the way of a prophesy she believed in from being fulfilled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Catherine Sakai got engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair and Catherine Sakai got engaged.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stargate (1994)", "title": "Stargate", "date": "1994-10-28", "description": "The plot centers on the premise of a \"Stargate\", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The film's central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film's central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings had interfered in the development of the Ancient Egyptian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One of the main novelties of the film is the discovery an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One of the main novelties of the film is the discovery an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ra turned out to be a powerful alien in human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the language industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The linguist Daniel Jackson was tasked to translate mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphs that'd been uncovered in Giza in 1928. Later, it was up to Jackson to learn the language of the Ancient Egyptian resembling humans who were inhabiting the planet in a distant galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "After passing through the Stargate, Colonel O'Neil and his party found themselves stuck on an arid desert planet at the other side of the universe with slim hopes of returning home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ancient Egyptian resembling people of the planet Abydos worshiped the god Ra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the film is set on the arid desert planet Abydos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackson and Sha'uri fell passionately in love, and in the end Jackson decided to stay behind on the arid desert planet Abydos in order to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans who Ra and his overseers were forcing to mine the mineral that is used in the alien technology overthrew his tyrannical rule over them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with a Stargate being uncovered at an archaeological dig in Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel O'Neil was torn up inside on account that his kid son had accidentally shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Egyptologist and linguist Jackson learned the variation of Ancient Egyptian spoken by the people of the far-flung desert planet Adydos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tribal chieftain Kasuf presented his beautiful daughter Sha'uri to Jackson as a gift.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ra's spaceship fit in as the capstone of the Giza Pyramid replica located on the adir desert planet Abydos.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x06", "title": "The Abandoned", "date": "1994-10-31", "description": "Quark purchases a salvaged ship from the Gamma Quadrant and discovers an infant on board.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: D. Thomas Maio and Steve Warnek.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Founders were suspected of having genetically engineered the Jem'Hadar to be loyal soldiers of The Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo tried to show Jem'Hadar orphan he didn't need to be a warrior, but the orphan wanted to be one anyway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar orphan torn over where to call his home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar orphan living aboard space station away from his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and the Dabo girl Mardah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and the Dabo girl Mardah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin pined for the days when Jake was a baby boy and invited Jake's girlfriend to dinner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accelerated growth rate therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar orphan grew up a baby to adult at lightning speed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and the Dabo girl Mardah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "public safety vs. human rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jem'Hadar orphan's presence on the space station posed a threat to the people living there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jem'Hadar orphan's were particularly bloodthirsty because they had literally had this attribute encoded into their genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugs for military use", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Changlings used drugs to control an army of Jem'Hadar supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Founders were suspected of having genetically engineered the Jem'Hadar to be loyal soldiers of The Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo complained being a laboratory specimen on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Jem'Hadar orphan was genetically engineered to mature at an accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo used his quarters as a personal playground for exploring his shapeshifting abilities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mardah had a falling out with her relatives owing to her being a Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar orphan was genetically engineered to be addicted to drug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo familiarized Jem'Hadar orphan with the basic operation of the holo suites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Okalar was high roller alien at Quark's bar; Mardah told Benjamin that Jake was skilled Dabo player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake dealt with Benjamin nosing around in his love life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake with Benjamin nosing into his love life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin disapproved of Jake dating a Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira felt awkward about intruding on Odo in his room", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mardah had a falling out with her relatives owing to her being a Dabo girl", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x01", "title": "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime", "date": "1994-10-31", "description": "Geraldine Ferrett, a shameless and unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer, is arrested for having an illegal license plate in the remote town of Stueksville. She discovers that the town's court system is nightmarishly backwards, presided over by three identical judges who sentence people to torture and even capital punishment for petty crimes. Her public defender, Austin Haggard, tries to get each of the judges to assign Geraldine to public service, but he may have ulterior motives.\n\nDirected by: Russell Mulcahy. Story by: Ron Finley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story features the popular notion of a hell-like environment in which sinners are punished in a ironical manner that supposedly befit the crime. Specifically: Geraldine and Austin had, in life, been unscrupulous lawyers. They were therefore made to function, eternally, as lowly defense attorneys in a Kafkaesque courthouse full of perverse laws and sadistic judges. The experience drove Austin to jump at the opportunity to commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geraldine was an ambulance chasing lawyer. Austin was a defense attorney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man couldn't get a pacemaker because Geraldine sued the manufacturer into bankruptcy. This illustrates that the law should not be too quick to take the individual's side in lawsuits, because the wrongful conviction of an innocent company can also cause harm to society. A point of the story was to feature lawyers, such as Geraldine and Austin, who unscrupulously yet within the confines of the law exploit people who have found themselves in legal predicaments of one sort or another. The viewer is made to ponder whether unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyers simply parasites on society or do they have a role to fill?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stueksville justice system meted out draconian punishments for petty criminal offenses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geraldine objected on legal grounds to the corporal punishments, such as lashings, maimings, and the stocks, that were meted out by the judges in Stueksville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three identical looking judges were notorious for handing down harsh sentences for petty criminal offenses. They appeared to have a sadistic streak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geraldine, an ambulance-chasing lawyer, was thrice hauled in before a judge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experience of Stueksville drove Austin to jump at the opportunity to commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy vs. justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three justices differed in their opinion regarding the propriety of administering justice with some degrees of leniency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geraldine was eventually sentenced to the electric chair, only to be beaten to it by her meek defense attorney who rushed at it to strap himself in.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x02", "title": "Only Skin Deep", "date": "1994-10-31", "description": "Recently coming off of a bad relationship, Carl Schlag, an accountant with a history of violent and abusive behavior, tries and fails to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend at a Halloween party. After striking out with her, Carl meets Molly, a mysterious, masked woman dressed as a body bag, at the party. Carl ends up returning with Molly to her home for a romantic encounter. The next morning, however, Carl discovers that Molly is more unhinged than he is.\n\nDirected by: William Malone. Story by: Dick Beebe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a surprise twist it was revealed that Molly was not wearing a mask at all but had, in fact, been born with the bloodless, noseless, face of a ghoul out of some horror story. Her disfigurement was, more or less directly, the motive for the murder that was the centerpiece of the story: She desired healthy people's faces as trophies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl's ex and Molly respectively struggled to rid themselves of Carl who remained overly enamored and became somewhat violent when they, at different times, had made clear that the relationship was over. Linda mentioned she might have to seek a restraining order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist it was revealed that Molly liked to kill men and preserve their faces in a display cabinet. Presumably she generally did so after seducing and making wild whoopee with them, like she did with Carl who became her most recent victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl got more than he bargained for when, after their agreed one night lovefest, he proclaimed his passionate devotion to Molly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Carl's struggles with controlling his anger. He had a history of abusing his romantic partners. In another scene, Molly rallied Carl to channel his pent up rage into her as they made whoopee on the floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper was playing poker together with a couple of his skeleton buddies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl and Linda were ex-lovers, now antagonistic, who argued about their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl briefly, but belatedly, realized that he was drugged and helpless in the hands of a woman who intended to kill him to take his face as a trophy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl and Bob had been buddies as Bob was able to beseech Carl, albeit with limited success, to behave himself at the party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl and Molly met at a Halloween costume party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda confronted her ex-lover, Carl, over the physically abuse he subjected her to when they were a couple.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x03", "title": "Whirlpool", "date": "1994-10-31", "description": "In a rather repetitive tale, Rolanda, a struggling artist for Tales from the Crypt, ends up being berated and fired by her boss, Vern, after presenting a particularly awful story. She returns to the office later that night and kills Vern in a drunken rage. After she is caught and gunned down by police when leaving the scene, only to wake up in her bed as if nothing has happened, Rolanda discovers that she is caught in a time loop, destined to relive the same day and the same tragic outcome over and over again, no matter how many times she tries to prevent it.\n\nDirected by: Mick Garris. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time loop", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rolanda was doomed to repeat her fateful final day of life ad infinitum. Somehow, and to some extent, she was aware of what was going on and tried to change it, to no avail. Only the manner of her death changed from day to day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rolanda was doomed to repeat her fateful final day of life ad infinitum. Somehow, and to some extent, she was aware of what was going on and tried to change it, to no avail. Only the manner of her death changed from day to day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The climax of Rolanda's fateful day was when she murdered her callous editor boss and subsequently got killed by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The climax of Rolanda's fateful day was when she murdered her callous editor boss and subsequently got killed by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is insinuated that the repeating day began after Rolanda got drunk and shot her callous ex-boss because he had fired her earlier that same day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although it is never made clear, the tortuous cycle of repeats began shortly after Rolanda had just committed the mortal sin of murder and gotten killed by the police. We must ponder the interpretation that she was suffering a run-of-the-mill ironical punishment in the afterlife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the publishing industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rolanda was a writer for Tales from The Crypt, and the story largely took place in this magazine's offices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rolanda was doomed to repeat the fateful day of her firing from the Tales from the Crypt comic book publishing unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police showed up to kill Rolanda more or less on the murder scene. Later she got executed by a firing squad of police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rolanda, a comic book artist, received criticism from her editor Vern, who pointed out that her drawings lacked a certain \"edge\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fed up with his the incompetence of employee Rolanda, Vern decided to go to apartment and blow his brains out in front of her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x01", "title": "Points of Departure", "date": "1994-11-02", "description": "Captain John Sheridan takes command of Babylon 5 after Sinclair is reassigned, a rogue Minbari warship is on the loose, and the truth behind the end of the Minbari War is revealed.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "various Minbari for events during the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minbari thought theirs were going to humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minbari professed belief in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minbari warriors wanted to die with honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Minbari yakked on about the fulfillment of a prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan in new command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various Minbari a little bit for events during the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan exhorted in his speech", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova with Garibaldi in a coma", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1994)", "title": "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", "date": "1994-11-03", "description": "A telling of the Frankenstein tale that is considered the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, despite several differences and additions in plot from the novel.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley%27s_Frankenstein_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was much talk of Victor Frankenstein's work on reviving the dead using electricity as being against the laws of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The centers around Victor Frankenstein as he endeavors to revive a patchwork of stitched together corpses using the power of electricity and its aftermath. He later revived from the dead the head of his wife on the body of another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and Elizabeth were engaged to be married, and were ultimately united toward the end of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and Elizabeth were passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The initially innocent and kind creation of Victor Frankenstein became a vengeance consumed killer after being treated with cruelty again and again by the people he encountered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster had to live as an outcast on account that he was horribly scarred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster vowed revenge on his creator, Victor Frankenstein, and subsequently went about killing everyone near to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein and the hideous and pitiful monster of his own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and his best friend Henry Clerval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor was obsessed with raising a dead man to life, although he later came to regret his work, after he succeed in creating a grotesque and flawed undead being. Captain Walton was obsessed with reaching the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelty of electricity in connection with its potential to bring life to dead tissue was much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polar exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Walton was leading an expedition to the North Pole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When asked why it was worth risking life and limb to reach the north Pole, Captain Walton answered that the names of himself and his crewmen \"would live on forever\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Elizabeth was adopted into Baron Alphonse Frankenstein's home after she'd lost both parents to Scarlet fever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Baron Alphonse Frankenstein and his son Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein's monster referred to his maker Victor Frankenstein as his father after Victor had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor and his step-sister Elizabeth fell in love and eventually married. Their relationship as brother and sister, however, was not much explored. For the purpose of the plot they were effectively a couple who were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor attended university lectures in Ingolstadt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor was described as having been \"hungry for knowledge\" since he was a boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cholera was spreading like wildfire in Ingolstadt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. the public good", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When faced with the choice, Victor elected to continue with his research into conquering death over his fiancée Elizabeth. However, the pair later reunited and got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor came to regret his decision to reanimate a corpse (actually a patchwork of multiple dead people) upon seeing the grotesque and flawed outcome of his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor and Elizabeth lived briefly and happily as husband and wife before the monster murdered Elizabeth. A young peasant and his wife were struggling to survive the winter until Frankenstein's monster helped them to secure their winter food supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Grandfather was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educating a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A peasant mother was teaching her young daughter how to read.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The peasant family left a Christmas present addressed to \"the Good Spirit of the Forest\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The murder of his beloved grandson Willie left Baron Alphonse Frankenstein bedridden with grief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster demanded that Victor create a female companion for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster was forced to live a sad and lonely existence on account of his hideous physical appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor and Elizabeth were married in a ceremony held at their family manor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor didn't take it well when the monster ripped out his wife's heart right before his very eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reanimated from the dead Elizabeth committed suicide by setting herself on fire. Frankenstein's monster immolated himself on his maker's funeral pyre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankenstein's monster's various acts of kindness were repaid with acts of cruelty upon it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x07", "title": "Civil Defense", "date": "1994-11-07", "description": "Deep Space Nine is progressively locked down after O'Brien, Jake and Sisko accidentally activate an automated Cardassian security program. The program's counter-insurgency measures keep escalating until it initiates an auto- destruct. Gul Dukat beams on board, but is unable to stop the self-destruct sequence.\n\nDirected by: Reza Badiyi. Story by: Mike Krohn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Miles and Jake accidentally initiating an automatic space station counter insurgency protocol when fooling around with its central computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake make desperate bid to escape from space station ore processing facility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "space station computer goes haywire and tries to kill everyone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "major", "motivation": "space station computer was programmed to keep Bajoran laborers from revolting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak at Dukat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira with Gul Dukat on the space station bridge", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1994)", "title": "Trancers 5: Sudden Deth", "date": "1994-11-09", "description": "Jack is back for one more round with the trancers. Jack Deth must attempt to find his way home from the other-dimensional world of Orpheus, where trancers making up the ruling class (before Trancers 4, that is). Unfortunately, Jack's quest to find the mystical Tiamond in the Castle of Unrelenting Terror may be thwarted by the return of Caliban, king of the trancers and once thought dead. It is the sixth film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers_5:_Sudden_Deth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A TCL chamber mishap resulted in Jack being sent to a kingdom of the technological level of medieval Europe in a another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set largely in a kingdom in another dimension that is patterned after a stereotypical medieval European realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospero rebelled against his father Lord Caliban and his life force stealing ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shaleen and Prospero fell passionately in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyra wanted to be with Jack more than anything but she was too obedient for Jack's taste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trancer Prospero accused Jack of having internalized that trancers are subhuman in order to rationalize his role in life as a trancer hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack encountered a hostile version of himself inside the Castle of Unrelenting Terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trancers inhabiting the realm of Orpheus nourished themselves by the draining the life of force from people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shaleen let her lover Prospero drain some of his life force so that he might nourish himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shaleen interpreted an eclipse of the sun as a portent that her village was about to be attacked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucius sought vengeance against Shaleen for her having previously blinded him in one eye in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prospero ran his evil father, Lord Caliban, through with a sword at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x04", "title": "Operation Friendship", "date": "1994-11-09", "description": "Nelson DeMears is a meek, nerdy, and friendless computer programmer who is regularly taken advantage of by his co-workers. When he returns to his apartment after work one day, he is enthusiastically greeted by Eddie, the crass and cocky imaginary friend he's had since childhood. Eddie encourages Nelson to come out of his shell and meet some new people, particularly his new neighbor, Jane. After being encouraged to take Jane to dinner, Nelson and Eddie learn that she is a psychologist. Fearing that he will be forced out of Nelson's life if the relationship continues, Eddie does everything in his power to get Nelson to call the relationship off.\n\nDirected by: Roland Mesa. Story by: Rob Ross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nelson, a meek computer nerd, had an alter ego, Eddie, that was assertive and flamboyant. At the end of the story, the Eddie-persona defenestrated the Nelson-persona in a melee, and their life and fortunes changed accordingly: Nelson-cum-Eddie became a superstar at the office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson and his neighbor, Jane, became lovers, to Eddie's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson learned that Jane was a psychologist. The plot turned on this fact as it caused Eddie to confront Nelson with an \"it's her or me\" ultimatum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson was a meek and nerdy loner. His alter ego, Eddie, was an assertive and outgoing people's person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Nelson, a meek computer nerd, was taken over by his assertive and ambitious alter ego, his childhood imaginary friend Eddie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddie feared that he would be forced out of Nelson's life if Nelson's relationship with Jane continued to blossom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood imaginary friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson retained his brash imaginary friend from childhood, Eddie, even in adult life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson and Eddie were best friends of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson was a stereotypically meek computer nerd who was pushed around and exploited at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelson's co-worker as well as Nelson's alter ego, Eddie, were both stereotypically dumb-jock type characters who relied on charisma and intimidation to get ahead at the office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper pulled up a pair of eyeballs while angling on a riverbank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nelson very nearly let Eddie cajole him into smothering Jane with a pillow after they (Nelson and Jane) had just made whoopee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane went all out to seduce Nelson. She asked him out, knocked on his door dressed in revealing clothes, cooked him dinner, and outright propositioned him after proclaiming her amorous predisposition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack took credit for writing the accounting software, which Nelson had, in fact, developed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie peeped on a buxom woman in her bedroom through his telescope.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x02", "title": "Revelations", "date": "1994-11-09", "description": "Franklin takes extreme measures to save Garibaldi; Delenn emerges from her chrysalis; Sheridan's sister arrives for a visit; Londo's dealings with Mr. Morden become even more complex; and G'Kar returns from his travels with a dire warning.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan was torn up over his wife's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan introspected about his late wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "bickering aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin and Sheridan took risk for Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin had to take extreme measures to revive Garibaldi from a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn becoming some sort of human-alien-butterfly hybrid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan thought he was responsible for wife's death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan talking to sister about late wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin had to take extreme measures to revive Garibaldi from a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin using device on Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo is probably doing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi's subconscious was scanned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn becoming half human and Sinclair going to Minbari homeworld", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x08", "title": "Meridian", "date": "1994-11-14", "description": "Dax falls in love with Deral who will soon disappear because he is a member of Meridian, a planet that phases between dimensions every 60 years.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Hilary J. Bader and Evan Carlos Somers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia was willing to leave her life on Deep Space Nine behind in order to be with her love interest, Deral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia was willing to leave her old life behind for Deral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark tried to make a holographic sex slave out of recordings of Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human romantic relationship choice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Jadzia leave her old life behind in order to be with her love interest, Deral?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiron at Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira told Tiron that Odo was her lover in order to keep Tiron from hitting on her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia and Deral; Tiron at Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark stood to reap in the profit by making a simulation of Kira for Tiron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money can't buy love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiron thought he could buy Kira's love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Odo discussed his past attempts to eat humanoid food; Meridian natives relishing corporeal life in the Gamma Quadrant before returning to the other dimension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meridian natives became beings of pure consciousness when their homeworld periodically vanished into another dimension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meridian natives welcomed Defiant crew by holding a feast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark with his valued customer Tiron", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark tried to make a simulation of Kira in the holo suites for illicit purposes without her permission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia to Benjamin and Miles when she prepared to leave with Deral to another dimension", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deral lamented the loss of his spouse", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Watchers III (1994)", "title": "Watchers III", "date": "1994-11-16", "description": "An intelligent golden retriever helps a team of ex-Military convicts escape from a murderous creature known as the Outsider. It is loosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean Koontz.", "collections": [ "Collection: Watchers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchers_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The golden retriever Einstein had been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered creature, known as the Outsider, was stalking a team of ex-Military convicts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of ex-Military convicts were being stalked and killed by a genetically engineered creature, known as an Outsider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The golden retriever Einstein had been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence. The genetically engineered killer creature known as the Outsider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the military convict Gomez had fought in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young South American boy befriended the human level intelligent golden retriever Einstein.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x05", "title": "Revenge is the Nuts", "date": "1994-11-16", "description": "Arnie Grunwald is the sadistic and psychopathic head caretaker at a home for the blind. He routinely goes out of his way to abuse the home's patients, Samuel, Armelia, and Osgood, by lining the walls with razor blades, walling off the bathrooms, spilling marbles on the floor, and unleashing his guard dog Bruno on them. When Shelia, a new patient, arrives at the home, Arnie agrees to tone down the borderline inhumane conditions at the home if she sleeps with him. Refusing to do so, Shelia teams up with the other patients and Arnie's abused brother Benny to ensure that Arnie gets his much deserved comeuppance.\n\nNote: This episode's plot is adapted from Blind Alleys which was told in Tales From The Crypt #46 while using the title of the Vault of Horror story listed above.\n\nDirected by: Jonas McCord. Story by: Shel Willens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about four blind protagonists stuck in a home with a sadistic caretaker who exploited and harassed them. They eventually broke free and turned the tables on their tormentor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about four blind protagonists stuck in a home with a sadistic caretaker who won't let them leave. They struggled to escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story built up to Shelia and the other victims finally turned the tables on Arnie and subjected him to some of the very same tortures he had often inflicted on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnie Grunwald had several sadistic games he played on the inmates in his \"home for the blind\". For example, he poured marbles out on the floor in front of their feet, menaced them with his vicious rottweiler, and one gathers made them walk through a narrow passage lined with razor blades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benny was under the thumb of his older brother, Arnie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnie sought to coerce Shelia into having sex with him by means of threats of various kinds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arnie Grunwald wantonly neglected the welfare of those under his care at a home for the blind. He forced the residents to cohabitate in a filthy common room without much in the way of proper sanitation, and denied them adequate nourishment at one point, the other sadistic tortures notwithstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheila was given an ultimatum by the caretaker of the home for the blind to which she'd been newly admitted: Either sleep with him at his beckon call or else live under the same inhumane conditions as the other residents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnie and Benny kept a rottweiler named Bruno and used it to menace the inhabitants of their \"home for the blind\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny accused Arnie of having killed their mother by scattering marbles in front of her feet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x03", "title": "The Geometry of Shadows", "date": "1994-11-16", "description": "Londo continues to seek prestige and power back home; a group of Technomages visit the station; and Ivanova is forced to settle a dangerous dispute among the Drazi population.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "bickering Drazi handled by Ivanova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ivanova tried with Drazi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Drazi killing each others over colored sashes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was caught up in a cloak and dagger game among the Centauri elite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "technomages used science but it seemed like magic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi struggled with", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of a promotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova learned that it is not an unqualified improvement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan pondered if there was more than science to the technomages.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek Generations (1994)", "title": "Star Trek Generations", "date": "1994-11-18", "description": "Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise-D joins forces with Captain James T. Kirk to stop a villain from destroying a planet. It is the seventh film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the first to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard star ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a device that stops fusion in a star", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Soran plotted to stop fusion in the Veridian star which would result in the deaths of over 200 million people on Veridian IV. Lursa plotted to conquer the Klingon Empire using Dr. Soran's super weapon that worked by stopping fusion in a star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data wished to become more human by experiencing emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Soren was prepared to sacrifice over 200 million people in order that he might live on in eternal bliss in the Nexus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk hadn't transitioned well into retirement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space dock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-B departed on its maiden voyager from a large docking structure in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk elected to risk tearing the Enterprise-B apart in an effort to transport the crew of a doomed ship aboard the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-B was nearly destroyed in a space \"energy ribbon\" of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-D crew simulated themselves on a sailing ship at sea on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geordi's VISOR.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data failed to see the humor in Worf falling into the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-D received a distress call from a space observatory in the Amargosa star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data confided in his friend Geordi about his desire to become more human. Geordi and Data were paling around overall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data had Geordi put an \"emotion ship\" into his positronic brain so that he could experience human emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data went bonkers after getting his emotion chip activated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard mourned over the deaths of his brother Robert and nephew Rene, who both died in a fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were the last of my family line", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The death of Rene left Picard as the last in a long line of distinguished Picards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Klingon Bird of Prey decloaked off the Enterprise-D port bough.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data was overwhelmed with feelings of remorse over his inappropriate actions on the Amargosa observatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data confided in Picard that he felt fear while under fire onboard the Amargosa observatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-D transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk and Picard lived their dream lives inside the Nexus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk gave his life one to stop Soran from stopping fusion on the VEridian star and in so doing taking the lives of over 200 million people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data and Spot the cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mosquito (1994)", "title": "Mosquito", "date": "1994-11-21", "description": "Man-sized, mutant mosquitoes terrorize the visitors and staff of a United States state park.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Man-sized, mutant mosquitoes were going around a state park sucking the blood out of everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Man-sized, mutant mosquitoes were going around a state park sucking the blood out of everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Man-sized mutant mosquitoes were running amok in a state park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and his girlfriend Megan's trip to a state park took a wrong turn when a bunch of man-sized, mutant mosquitoes started going around killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien spacecraft crashed in a state park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mosquito sucked the blood of a crashed spacecraft's deceased extraterrestrial pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of wanted bank robbers were hiding out in the state park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc Parks speculated that radiation from a meteor caused ordinary mosquitoes to mutant into that man-sized ones that were terrorizing him and his party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x09", "title": "Defiant", "date": "1994-11-21", "description": "Commander William Riker shows up unannounced and Kira shows him the Defiant, where he reveals his true motives for coming to Deep Space Nine.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira held aboard Defiant by Thomas Riker and his Maquis terrorist friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis rebel Tomas Riker infiltrated the Federation and made of with one of their prized starships: the Defiant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war due to diplomatic miscalculation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Cardassian Union risked going to war over Maquis terrorist incident", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira accused Thomas Riker of being driven by a desire to step out from William Riker's shadow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone agreed that the Maquis were terrorists, but the story followed Tom Riker who likened his mission to Kira's freedom fighting of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Riker about his clone Will Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Riker was sick of living in the shadow of his goody two shoes clone Will and decided to go down his own path in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir prescribed a break from work for Kira after she snapped on the job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Thomas Riker pretending to be William Riker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat lamented to Benjamin that he was going to miss his son's 11th birthday", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira was overworked; Gul Dukat was embarrassed in front of Obsidian order", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira with too many requests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin negotiated to have Tom Riker handed over to Cardassian custody in return for saving the Defiant and its crew", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: New Eden (1994)", "title": "New Eden", "date": "1994-11-23", "description": "A prisoner is banished to a barren desert planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110653/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a barren desert planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adams used his engineering knowledge to help a ragtag band of scavengers set up a functioning community on a barren desert planet. In particular, he made a contraption that purified dirty water, allowing the scavengers to grow crops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lily was raising the orphan Luke as her own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adams and Lily fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A futuristic spaceship unceremoniously dumped some prisoners on a barren desert planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Adams and Lily tying the knot in the presence of their community members.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x06", "title": "The Bribe", "date": "1994-11-23", "description": "Martin Zeller, a newly appointed and highly moralistic fire marshal, approaches Puck, the sleazy owner of \"The Naked Experience\", a strip club where his daughter Hiley anonymously to Puck and orders him to shut down the club. When he returns home, Hiley mentions that, due to budget cuts at her school, her college scholarship is getting revoked. In an effort to get enough money to send his daughter to college, Martin ignores his morals and returns to Puck, who bribes him with a dangerous offer.\n\nDirected by: Ramón Menéndez. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Martin Zeller compromising on his moral principles to get the money he needed to pay his daughter Hiley's college tuition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martin Zeller wanted only the best for his daughter, Hiley. When Hiley's college scholarship was revoked through no fault of her own, Martin set aside his moral principles to get the money to pay her tuition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Puck, the owner of a seedy strip club, bought off the fire inspector Martin Zeller to the sum of $60,000. Martin had at first refused the bribe, but set aside his moral objections when he learned that his daughter was in dire need of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Zeller, a seemingly incorruptible fire marshal, reluctantly accepted a $60,000 bribe from the fire code violating owner of a seedy strip club, because Martin needed the money to pay his daughter's tuition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Zeller was devastated when confronted with news that his daughter perished in a nightclub fire that Martin himself orchestrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Zeller orchestrated the arson of what he mistaken though to be an empty strip club. When he learned that he had in fact cause the deaths of numerous people, including his own daughter, he was so filled with remorse that he shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin Zeller's story arc ended tragically with him blown his brains outs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hiley eloped to get married with the chauvanistic nightclub manager, Bill, who had taken and circulated nude photos of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "By orchestrating the arson of Puck's nightclub, Martin accidentally killed a lot of people as well as his own daughter. Devastated, Martin then shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, decked out in an Uncle Sam style costume, gave a political pun-filled stump speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The campaigning Crypt Keeper explained that he had some skeletons in the closet, as well as a vampire or two, and a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron stormed out on Hiley in the midst of a heated argument about their future together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick Ciola, a retired fire marshal, required supplementary oxygen on account of his having permanently seared lungs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bic had a pathological fascination with ants and other bugs, and a pyromaniacal obsession with fire to boot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zeller manipulated Bic into burning down the strip club, leaving scores dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hiley eloped with Bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puck made clear that he would prostitute his employees to Martin in exchange for the other not shutting his business down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bic was shown giggling as he tormenting an ant with a magnifying glass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After giving him $60,000 as a bribe, Puck told Martin that Martin had just made a deal with the devil.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x04", "title": "A Distant Star", "date": "1994-11-23", "description": "Sheridan launches a dangerous operation to rescue an Earth exploration ship, captained by his friend, when it is stranded in hyperspace; Delenn's authority within the Minbari is questioned as a result of her transformation.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: D. C. Fontana.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone going in after Maynard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Babylon 5 got a visit from an Explorer type ship. Maynard voiced the opinion that Sheridan was better made to be out there exploring space, than cooped up in a station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the unknown", "level": "minor", "motivation": "talk about strange shapes in hyperspace", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan lamented the bureaucracy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan lamented the bureaucracy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn did", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x10", "title": "Fascination", "date": "1994-11-28", "description": "Lwaxana Troi pursues Odo during the Bajoran Gratitude Festival as members of the crew suddenly become infatuated with one another.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and James Crocker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana's psychic influence caused people aboard the space station to bring their unconscious desires for others to the surface", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana at Odo; Kira and Bareil Antos; Jake at Kira; Bareil Antos at Jadzia; Jadzia at Benjamin; Kira and Bashir; Quark at Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keiko returned to space station to visit Miles; Dabo girl broke up with Jake because she was moving away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo with Lwaxana; Kira with Jake; Bareil Antos with Kira; Benjamin with Jadzia; Keiko with Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana at Odo; Jake at Kira; Kira at Bareil Antos; Jadzia at Benjamin; Quark at Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko and Molly came back from working off of the space station for an extended period to visit Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was brooding over Keiko planning to extend her off space station work for seven extra months", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko trying to maintain their marriage while she worked off the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was dumped by his Dabo girl girlfriend; Kira was feeling down after getting dumped by Bareil Antos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "a web of love on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially Miles and Keiko but others to some extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana was looking for love and became infatuated with Odo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko pursuing her botanical stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin consoled Jake over his break up with his girlfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana was unconsciously projecting her infatuous emotions onto other people aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake about the Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajorans held a religious festival aboard the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles thought Keiko might be having an affair with her colleague on Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana was unconsciously projecting her infatuous emotions onto other people aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles because paranoid and accusatory after his suspicious were roused that Keiko might be having an affair with a colleague.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bionic Ever After? (1994)", "title": "Bionic Ever After?", "date": "1994-11-29", "description": "Steve and Jaime are about to get married. However, something is happening to Jaime; it seems like her bionics are failing and no one knows what's wrong with her. As Rudy discovers Jaime's bionics have been deliberately infected with a computer virus, an old friend of Steve's is being held prisoner by terrorists in Nassau and Steve, needing to take his mind off Jaime, offers to go and help.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Six Million Dollar Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_Ever_After%3F" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bionic man Steve Austin and bionic woman Jaime Sommers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Jamie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Jamie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jamie was having second thoughts about marrying Steve and eventually called off the wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Kimberly went to Nassau to stop some terrorists from launching a nuclear armed Scud missile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of terrorists took a U.S. Ambassador and a tennis star as hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Kimberly were sent of a mission to rescue a U.S. Ambassador and tennis star who were being held hostage by terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The terrorists were involved in arms dealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Jamie Sommers refused to discuss Kimberly's frame of mind with Oscar on the ground that it would be a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie could hear people talk well outside of an ordinary human's earshot because of her bionic ear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie could hear people talk well outside of an ordinary human's earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic eye to zoom in on a nuclear armed Scud missile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie coped with the reality that her bionics were breaking down and worried that she couldn't keep up with Steve's expectations for her to beat him at racket ball. However, in the end it turned out that her bionics were fine and it was just a computer virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic legs to jump onto a water tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kimberly and her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Technicians in full radiation suits were sent to investigate for fallout around the nuclear armed Scud missile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve bent a gun barrel with his bionic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his bionic legs to run down a truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Steve and Jamie being pronounced husband and wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x07", "title": "The Pit", "date": "1994-11-30", "description": "Martial artists Felix Johnson and Aaron Scott recount how their latest bout in the ring ended in a draw. While they are accepting of the draw and of each other, their domineering managers and trophy wives, former fighters Aubrey and Andrea, absolutely despise one another, and take their anger out on their respective husbands. Fight promoter Wink Barnum hears about the intense rivalry both women have, and settles an agreement to enlist their husbands in a televised, no-holds-barred fight to the death. Felix and Aaron, not fond of the idea, hatch a plan of their own.\n\nDirected by: John Harrison. Story by: John Harrison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Although ostensibly about Felix and Aaron, the real focus in the story was on Aubrey and Andrea's vociferous loathing for one and other. Each wife could not stand to be outdone by the other. In the end they ended up fighting each other in a Malaysian rules death match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Felix and Aaron were under the thumbs of their domineering and aggressive wives, Aubrey and Andrea. But in the end they managed to turn the tables on the two women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Felix and Aaron were under the thumbs of their domineering and aggressive wives, Aubrey and Andrea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns two female and two male martial arts experts. The end goal was to have the two men compete in a (more or less) Malaysian rules death match that would end only with surrender or unconsciousness. In a surprise plot twist, the two women were made to fight in place of the men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Felix and Aaron were friendly with each other and did not relish having to face off in \"Malaysian rules death match\", which practically meant weapons allowed and anything-goes until only one man is left standing. Although death was not an inevitable outcome, it was clear that they both recognized the career ending peril of such a competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "major", "motivation": "The martial arts prizefighters Felix and Aaron hit on a plot to rid themselves of their controlling managers, who happened to be their wives as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aubrey and Andrea were eager to endanger the lives of well-beings of their respective husbands when the prospect of money and fame was dangled under their noses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aubrey and Andrea were eager to endanger the lives of well-beings of their respective husbands when the prospect of money and fame was dangled under their noses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper sang pun-filled Christmas carols as he decorated his Christmas tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aubrey or Andrea were discussing why they had given up their own careers in order to live off their husbands. One of them mentioned that their own earnings prospects would be a third of that of their husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felix and Aaron were rivaling martial artists. However, it was soon made clear that they were rather friendly with each other and that it was, in fact, only their respective wives who had strong feelings about the rivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aubrey had a submissive, young, blond man on the side.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x05", "title": "The Long Dark", "date": "1994-11-30", "description": "A cryonic exploration vessel from a hundred years ago approaches Babylon 5, bringing with it a deadly creature and a human from the past.\n\nDirected by: Mario Di Leo. Story by: Scott Frost.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "monster was indeed ferocious", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "monster was rather beast-like", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amis suffered from according to Garibaldi, also Garibaldi a bit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mariah grieved for her late husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mariah woke up from cryonic stasis a hundred years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin and Mariah almost embarked upon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mariah had been in for a hundred years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mariah over lamented her had died husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various thought the monster was ghost stories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Amis discussed their experiences fighting in the Earth-Minbari War.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x08", "title": "The Assassin", "date": "1994-12-07", "description": "Happy housewife Janet McKay finds her day disrupted by Simone, William, and Todd, a trio of CIA operatives who break into her home. The agents explain that they are searching for her husband, whom they believe is Ronald Wald, a former assassin gone AWOL, in an effort to kill him. They explain to Janet that they must kill her as well, to silence any witness. However, the agents are unaware that Ronald is actually closer to them than they think.\n\nWilliam Sadler appears in the Crypt Keeper's scenes as the Grim Reaper (reprising his role from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey), who partakes in a winner-take-all game that is encored with Sadler as a different character in Bordello of Blood.\n\nDirected by: Martin von Haselberg. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a gang of CIA assassins who sought to find and execute a comrade that had gone AWOL some years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a gang of CIA assassins who sought to find and execute a comrade that had gone AWOL some years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janet was a seductive blonde female with a submissive streak in the bedroom, and a model of a traditional house wife. It was therefore a rather surprising plot twist when she revealed herself to be Ronald Wald, a macho spy and assassin who had gone under cover by (evidently) undergoing extensive surgery to change her gender, and marrying a hunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeremy and Janet McKay were in a blissful marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out that a loved one was not the person I thought they were", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Janet, a seemingly mild-mannered house wife, was shocked when a trio of CIA agents insisted that her husband was a former assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the viewer learns that Janet was hiding from her husband that she'd undergone extensive surgery to change her gender, and had formerly been a CIA assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seemingly mild-mannered housewife Janet was terrorized in her home by a trio of CIA assassins who were looking for her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, The Crypt Keeper conversed with his unwelcome dinner guest: the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet and and Jeremy, who were in an idyllic marriage, proclaimed their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone posed as a Los Angeles Police Department officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Janet serving her would-be assassins for dinner. This was made clear by Janet picking out part of a human foot from the meat she'd roasted in the oven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy told Janet he had bought a new paddle near the end (pun not intended) and planned to use it on her end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A seemingly terrified Janet worked up remarkable poise when she seduced and turned the tables on her would-be executioner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x06", "title": "Spider in the Web", "date": "1994-12-07", "description": "An old friend of Talia Winters is murdered by what appears to be an agent of a Martian resistance movement.\n\nDirected by: Kevin G. Cremin. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mars vs. Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talia was devastated when her old friend died (then Garibaldi moved in).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bureau 13 was postulated as the perpetrator of all mischief", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bureau 13 turning people into cyber zombies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Free Mars rebels engaged in terrorism (or freedom fighting depending on the point of view) and there was political assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "an assassin worked to prevent independence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "can be used during negotiations and in investigations etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi reciprocal with Talia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abel Horn was called a Cyber Zombie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abel Horn's mind was programmed somehow", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political neutrality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan said Babylon 5 is neutral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were concerns that FuruteCorp was secretly planning to finance an armed revolt against the Mars Provisional Government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan discussed trust with Garibaldi (individuals not organizations)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talia and Garibaldi engaged in some reminiscing", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (1994)", "title": "Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla", "date": "1994-12-10", "description": "The fearsome space monster SpaceGodzilla rampages across Japan. It is the 21th film in the Godzilla franchise, as well as the sixth film to be released during the franchise's Heisei era.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._SpaceGodzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant, mole-like robot MOGUERA was piloted by a trio of military personnel who used the machine to battle with Godzilla and SpaceGodzilla. The human piloted giant robot Mechagodzilla was sent out into space to intercept SpaceGodzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla. SpaceGodzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "SpaceGodzilla, and to a lesser extent Godzilla, rampaged around Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki was visited by two tiny, fairy-like girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki established a telepathic like to Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki took pity on Godzilla, insisting that he had feelings in the same way that people do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuki swore to kill Gozilla to avenge the death of Yuki's good friend during a pervious Godzilla rampage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuki was consumed with a desire for revenge and could only think about killing Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki levitated a bed that she was strapped onto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Land Mogura vehicle could burrow in the ground like a mole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "SpaceGodzilla was spawned from Godzilla cells that had been exposed to intense radiation from a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military mind controlled Godzilla using their psychotronic generator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was spelled out at the end of the film how SpaceGodzilla's coming was a warning to people to stop polluting the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was spelled out at the end of the film how SpaceGodzilla's coming was a warning to people to stop polluting the Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Oblivion (1994)", "title": "Oblivion", "date": "1994-12-14", "description": "Set in the year 3031 on a frontier planet light years away from Earth, a bizarre gang of futuristic desperadoes have their sight set on turning the tumbleweed town of Oblivion into their own private playground.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion_(1994_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a caricature of what it might have been like to live in a tumbleweed town that was being terrorized by a band of desperadoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Eye was driven by a desire to rule the town of Oblivion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conflict avoiding, nice guy Zach ultimately grew a backbone and sent a gang of futuristic desperadoes packing, and in so doing saving the townspeople of Oblivion from their tyranny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "band of outlaws", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gang, led by the reptilian Red Eye, was terrorizing the townspeople of Oblivion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some tavern patrons, including cowboy Siamese twins, were playing this game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Oblivion town deputy was a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the \"native\" Buteo exhibited several Hollywood Indian characteristics: he wore stereotypical Native American clothing, was stoic, spoke with a monotone cadence, and had straight long hair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buteo spoke of his desire to take revenge on Red Eye for having killed his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buteo's family had been killed by Red Eye and his gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story's main villain, Red Eye, was a reptilian alien of some kind, although his reptilian-ness was never once commented on, nor did it factor into the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc was a raging alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc drank himself stupid one night and was stuck in bed the next morning with a zinger of a hangover as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for the Oblivion town marshal, Zed Stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack quoted these words before making Red Eye and his gang member's pay for having terrorized the townspeople of Oblivion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x09", "title": "Staired in Horror", "date": "1994-12-14", "description": "Clyde Beaudreaux is a fugitive on the run for murder. After being chased by a mob of angry townspeople led by the town sheriff toward a dead end near a large house, he begs for help from the house's owner, Lilian Charbonnet, a seemingly senile old woman. Once he is let inside, the sheriff tells Lilian, through the door, that Clyde is wanted for the killing of a shopkeeper, but Lilian does not tell him that Clyde is inside. Once the sheriff leaves, Clyde discovers that Lilian has suddenly become younger when after going upstairs, where she reveals that her jealous husband put a curse on the house's staircase, aging any man and de-aging any woman that travels up it.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Hopkins. Story by: Teller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clyde expressed his disgust and contempt for Lilian and her advanced age. In fact, Lilian had been cursed to be old downstairs and young upstairs in their house. When Clyde ascended the stairs, he got a taste of his own medicine. In the end, Clyde foolishly hid in the attic, where he grew so old he could no longer move.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clyde was on the run after committing murder, and tried to evade the sheriff searching for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lilian explained that her husband had once caught her in flagrante delicto with another man, upon which he had attacked the man and she had shot her husband. With his dying breath he had placed a curse upon her. She was cursed to be old when downstairs and young when upstairs in their house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sheriff was searching for Clyde.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clyde and young Lilian became somewhat besotted with each other. Lilian must have known what would happen when she went up into the attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were not subject to the normal process of aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "People in Lilian's house aged rapidly as they ascended the stairs, and turned gradually young again as they descended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, donned in full beatnik garb, recited a groovy poem in front of some beatnik skeletons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lilian explained that her husband had once caught her in flagrante delicto with another man, upon which he had attacked the man and she had shot her husband. With his dying breath he had placed a curse upon her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lilian explained that her husband had once caught her in flagrante delicto with another man, upon which he had attacked the man and she had shot her husband. With his dying breath he had placed a curse upon her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to the sheriff, Clyde robbed a man by the name of Chappy Hardy at the local convenience store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff and his men were out to round up Clyde on a murder charge. According to the sheriff, a man died after being beaten and robbed by Clyde. Thus, Clyde was on the hook for murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x07", "title": "Soul Mates", "date": "1994-12-14", "description": "Londo's three wives arrive on the station; Delenn seeks Ivanova's help in adjusting to her new human characteristics; and Talia's ex-husband, a fellow Psi Corps telepath, arrives on the station with an intriguing story.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: Peter David.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo and three wives, Talia and ex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo's three wives were walking stereotypes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talia vs. ex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talia staying or leaving the corps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo vs. two wives, Talia and ex husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "PsiCorps experimenting to create super telepaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo mentioned his rising star", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mariel accused of doing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn said something about soul companions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Timov gave blood to save husband she despises", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tammy and the T Rex (1994)", "title": "Tammy and the T-Rex", "date": "1994-12-21", "description": "Tammy and the T-Rex is a 1994 American science fiction Horror comedy film directed by Stewart Raffill and written by Raffill and Gary Brockette.\n\nSynopsis: The brain of a high school girl's boyfriend is implanted into the body of a robotic Tyrannosaurus rex by a mad scientist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_and_the_T-Rex" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high school sweethearts Tammy and Michael didn't let Michael's brain being transplanted into the body of a robotic T Rex be an obstacle to their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around the high school sweethearts Tammy and Michael remaining true to one another even after Michael's brain had been transplanted into the body of a robotic T Rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Tammy and Michael not letting the fact that Michael's brain had been transplanted into the body of a robotic T Rex be an obstacle to their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tammy had a gay best friend who was always by her side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gunther Wachenstein, the film's primary antagonist, was a textbook mad scientist who was obsessed with transplanting peoples' brains into robot bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea of Michael's brain being transplanted into the body of a robotic T Rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gunther Wachenstein mentioned on occasion that his brain transplantation experiments were motivated by a desire to make people live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy attended a cheer leading practice at her local high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy's ex-boyfriend Billy was wildly jealous that she was now involved with Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After his brain was implanted in a robotic T Rex, Michael wrought vengeance on some of his old high school tormentors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town sheriff and his two bubbling deputies were investigating reports of a T Rex on the loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy had some passing interactions with her doting father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy had some passing interactions with her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy's mother and father were happily married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy couldn't accept that Tammy had moved on and found a new boyfriend in Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael was mauled by a lion after a brief chase. After his brain was implanted in a robotic T Rex, Michael tore some of his old high school tormentors to pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tearful Tammy thought it was \"all her fault\" that Michael was mauled nearly to death by the lion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tearful Tammy thought it was \"all her fault\" that Michael was mauled nearly to death by the lion, but her best friend Byron comforted her, saying that she can't \"blame herself for love's passion\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael's legal guardian Uncle Bob was asleep in a chair beside a comatose Michael in the hospital room. Uncle Bob later gave a tearful eulogy at Michael's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael's legal guardian Uncle Bob was asleep in a chair beside a comatose Michael in the hospital room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy was visibly down in the dumps over her boyfriend Michael's death while attending a wild party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Black and his son Byron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Michael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A whiskey bottle holding Uncle Bob admitted to everyone at the funeral that he was \"just a drunk\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest or reverend presided over Micheal's burial at the cemetery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Tammy took Michael's brain home to her bedroom and hooked it up to her computer, speakers, and video camera, allowing Michael to speak and see.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x10", "title": "In the Groove", "date": "1994-12-21", "description": "Gary is an abrasive, hot-tempered shock jock who works in a small radio station inherited by his hateful sister Rita. According to the will of Rita and Gary's mother, Rita isn't allowed to fire her brother for bringing in low ratings, instead demoting him to the graveyard shift. Rita also assigns Gary a new partner, Valerie, who helps his ratings skyrocket. Trying to take the show in a new direction, Gary accidentally gets his show cancelled when he goes against his late mother's will and furiously defames her on the air. Deciding that Rita has gone too far, Gary resorts to murder in order to get his show back. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.\n\nDirected by: Vincent Spano. Story by: Jack Temchin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary had a turbulent relationship with his sister Rita, who was also his boss at the radio station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary had a turbulent relationship with his sister Rita, who was also his boss at the radio station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary had serious mommy-issues regarding his late mother, who he said had been extraordinarily controlling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary snuck into his sister Rita's bedroom intent on stabbing her to death. Alas, it was all a ruse: She was waiting in bed holding a gun, with which she shot him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary complained that his late mother was trying to control him even from beyond the grave. Indeed, she had somehow got him tied up in a restrictive radio station contract together with his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary resented his sister, Rita, over her having inherited the family radio station. The feeling was mutual. Each hatched a plot to off the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary, a radio talk show host, became besotted with his new on-air partner, Valerie. Valerie reciprocated. However, Gary was unaware that Valerie was plotting his downfall in cahoots with his sister. Rita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary was openly bitter at his sister, Rita, over her having been places in charge of the family radio station over him. He was likewise bitter toward his deceased mother for orchestrating it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Rita hired Valerie as part of an elaborate plot to shoot her brother, Gary, dead and make it look like a case of killing in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around Gary, host of a smutty radio call-in show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploring one's sexual fantasies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary's radio call-in show explored different men and women's sexual fantasies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper tried to bribe a motorcycle cop out of issuing him a speeding ticket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper discretely handed a $20 bill to a motorcycle cop in order to avoid receiving a speeding ticket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Through her brother Gary we indirectly learned something about Rita and their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary began an affair with his new radio show partner, Valerie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary made some risque jokes that implied his mother was trying to partake in sexual activities with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary blew a fuse once or twice on the air. Valerie later convinced him to speak about \"anger\" and he ended up talking about his feelings of resentment towards his late mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A caller to Gary's radio show spoke live on air of an unfaithful partner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x11", "title": "Surprise Party", "date": "1994-12-28", "description": "Ray Wells drives out to the countryside in order to claim a burned house owned by his late father, Des. During the drive, Ray reminisces on his father's last moments, where Des reveals that he intends to give the property to charity. Furious about claiming what is rightfully his, Ray murders his father and burns his will. When Ray arrives at the house, he unexpectedly discovers a party going on inside, but soon learns however that both the house and the partygoers share a horrible legacy.\n\nDirected by: Elliot Silverstein. Story by: Tom Lyons and Colman deKay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The partygoers squatting at Ray's house turned out to be undead beings awaiting his arrival in order to exact vengeance for being burned alive many years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray murdered his dying father to prevent him from giving his house to charity, rather than letting it go Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray asphyxiated his father on his deathbed to prevent him from giving his house to charity, rather than letting it go Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray asphyxiated his father on his deathbed to prevent him from giving his house to charity, rather than letting it go Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "The partygoers squatting at Ray's house turned out to be undead beings awaiting his arrival in order to exact vengeance for being burned alive many years ago. Since they had never gone out to look for Ray's father, one presumes they were tied to the house which was also where they had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The party-goers squatting at Ray's house turned out to be undead beings awaiting his arrival in order to exact vengeance for being burned alive many years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the restless dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deceased partygoers could not find peace until Ray paid the ultimate price for this father's crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray became besotted with one of the partygoers despite her boyfriend kicking up a fuss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Des had, some years prior, burned the countryside house to the ground, resulting in the deaths of a dozen or so partygoers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Des burned down his house, resulting in the deaths of a dozen or so partygoers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper introduced the story after wiping out on a treacherous run. He later make closing remarks from the comfort of a ski lodge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray's father pondered his legacy as he lay on his death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was about to get busy with a chick at the party when her jealous boyfriend burst in and started wailing on Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was about to get busy with a chick at the party when her jealous boyfriend burst in and started wailing on Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was about to get busy with a chick at the party when her jealous boyfriend burst in and started wailing on Ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray insisted that he shot Frank in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans interacting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set at a mysterious party at an old country house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Vampire Vixens from Venus (1995)", "title": "Vampire Vixens from Venus", "date": "1995", "description": "A trio of hideous aliens from Venus land on Earth, assume the form of beautiful women, and go about draining the life force out of unsuspecting human males.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114824/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Venusian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a trio of hideous, humanoid aliens from the planet Venus, who, in the guise of beautiful women, go about draining the life force from unusupecting human males.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the film is that three aliens are going about the Chicago area draining the life force out of unsuspecting human males.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An inept police investigator Detective Oakenshield and his new partner, Jack, were investigating the unexplained disappearances of numerous area men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Oakenshield and Shampay fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three space aliens landed on Earth in a futuristic spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trio of aliens traveled to Earth from their homeworld of Venus to prey upon unsuspecting human males.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Each of the three alien visitors to Earth wore a universal translator on their wrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police officer socked a cooperative detainee in the face for no apparent reason, and his fellow officer immediately followed suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One police officer relayed a rumor about woman about being abducted by space aliens to a fellow officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Oakenshield fell instantly in love with Shampay, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A shirtless man attempted to mug Detective Oakenshield and his love interest Shampay at knife point.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project Metalbeast (1995)", "title": "Project Metalbeast", "date": "1995-01", "description": "A group of scientists attempt to create a perfect soldier by injecting the subject with the blood of a werewolf. When the experiment goes wrong, the subject is cryogenically frozen for 20 years. The only member of the original team to survive is a Colonel, who gives the victim a synthetic skin to create a metal-skinned killing machine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Metalbeast" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "werewolf", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A man-eating werewolf with silver-bullet proof, metallic skin was running loose inside a government research facility. AT the start of the film, a werewolf was shot dead and its blood extracted for some secret purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things didn't quite go according to plan when Colonel Miller's tried to create an unstoppable killing machine for the military by injecting a man with werewolf blood and then grafting on the said man silver-bullet proof, metallic skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Miller oversaw a secret program to see whether werewolf blood could be used as a serum to create supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man-eating werewolf with silver-bullet proof, metallic skin was running loose inside a government research facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After injecting himself with werewolf blood, Butler was able to hear Miller's heart beat at a distance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A freshly injected with werewolf's blood Butler raped the X hematologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Butler spent 20 years in cryonic suspension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ramon was ridiculed for refusing to work in the institute kitchen until it was sprinkled with holy water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some colleagues were shooting the breeze over a game of low-stakes poker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Debbie hacked into an encrypted FBI database.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x11", "title": "Past Tense, Part I", "date": "1995-01-02", "description": "A transporter accident sends Sisko, Bashir, and Dax three centuries into Earth's dark past to a time just before the Bell riots, a violent civil disturbance in opposition to Sanctuaries which are controlled ghettos for the dispossessed.\n\nDirected by: Reza Badiyi. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gabriel Bell became a martyr for the social inequality movement in America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is largely set in a fenced-off ghetto full of down and out people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir were living on the streets of 21st century San Fransisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sanctuary areas in San Francisco created for homeless people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Twenty-first century century San Fransisco, and the United States more generally, was in a depression by all appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "a transporter mishap sends Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir were sent three centuries into Earth's past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "A transporter mishap sent Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir three centuries into Earth's past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "jobs were hard to come by in early 21st century San Fransisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir get a first hand view of 21st century social problems in San Fransisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin spear headed a social movement to end poverty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia living life as a socialite in contrast to Benjamin and Bashir living on the streets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir trapped in government bureaucracy getting processing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir at the plight of the homeless in San Fransisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biddle Coleridge took six administrators hostage at the city office", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "administrators held hostage by sanctuary residents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "sanctuary people resorted to taking hostages in order to end their plight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Webb was caring for his injured son Danny Webb inside a derelict building", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x12", "title": "Doctor of Horror", "date": "1995-01-04", "description": "Richard and Charlie are two bumbling security guards who work in a morgue. After discovering mad scientist Dr. Orloff attempting to steal a corpse, the doctor explains to the guards on how he believes, if done in just the right way, souls can be extracted from the recently deceased, having been stealing bodies in his quest to obtain one. After Orloff pays the two guards a large amount of money to steal and later dump corpses for him, Charlie begins having doubts about whether what they're doing is right or not, prompting Richard to decide that Charlie must have quite a soul himself.\n\nDirected by: Larry Wilson. Story by: Larry Wilson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vengeance from beyond the grave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie returned from the dead to settle a score about his purloined soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on Dr. Orloff and his maniacal obsession with proving that, unbeknownst to medical science, the soul resided as a tiny gland within the human body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Orloff was convinced that the soul resided as a tiny gland within the human body. His maniacal dedication to validating his theory led him to serially purloin bodies for dissection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two morgue security guards, Richard and Charlie, as they take on a side hustle of peddling corpses to a local mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners in crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two morgue security guards, Richard and Charlie, as they take on a side hustle of peddling corpses to a local mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Charlie turned to body snatching to make a quick buck without a second thought. Richard later greedily tried to intimidate his benefactor into giving him a raise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie increasingly had misgivings over his role in supplying Dr. Orloff with bodies, dead or otherwise, for his abominable experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie returned from the dead. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Orloff was driven by a desire to discover the seat of the soul inside the human body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is left to conclude that Charlie lost all morality once his soul was separated from his body. Charlie's soul shone with a blindly bright light as a sign of his virtuousness. He became evil after Dr. Orloff excised his soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the hapless Charlie's struggle with his conscience over assisting in depriving people of their souls for monetary gain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was remorseless and greedy as he assisted in Dr. Orloff's unholy pursuits. Charlie, by marked contrast, had a strong conscience despite his lack of wits. This was pointedly made clear when we saw his extracted soul shine blindingly bright, and Dr. Orloff commented on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Andrews showed little patience with two unmotivated security guards, Richard and Charlie, under his charge at the morgue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Andrews fired Richard and Charlie on the spot for losing Mrs. Myers body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard took a macabre interest in cutting up bodies whether dead or alive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x12", "title": "Past Tense, Part II", "date": "1995-01-09", "description": "Sisko assumes the role of a pivotal historical figure, Gabriel Bell, in order to restore the timeline.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gabriel Bell became a martyr for the social inequality movement in America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be impoverished", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is largely set in a fenced-off ghetto full of down and out people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir were living on the streets of 21st century San Fransisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sanctuary areas in San Francisco created for homeless people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "choice", "motivation": "21st century San Fransisco and America more generally was in a depression by all appearances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin spear headed a social movement to end poverty in America", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "a transporter mishap sends Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir were sent three centuries into Earth's past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "A transporter mishap sent Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir three centuries into Earth's past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Preston negotiated with sanctuary residents to release six administrators they held hostage at the city office", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "administrators held hostage by sanctuary residents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, Jadzia, and Bashir get a first hand view of 21st century social problems in San Fransisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "sanctuary people resorted to taking hostages in order to end their plight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "jobs were hard to come by in early 21st century San Fransisco", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Biddle Coleridge was violent, bloodthirsty and sadistic. He wanted to harm hostages for no other reason than to cause them harm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Webb and Danny Webb participated in some quality hostage taking time", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x13", "title": "Comes the Dawn", "date": "1995-01-11", "description": "Colonel Parker and Sergeant Burrows are a pair of veterans of Operation Desert Storm who have traveled to Alaska to do some illegal grizzly bear poaching. The soldiers meet local game warden and fellow veteran Jeri Drumbeater, who takes them to an abandoned weather station supposedly used as a hibernation site for bears. Instead, the hunters find themselves becoming the hunted when the station turns out to hold a nest of ravenous vampires.\n\nDirected by: John Herzfeld. Story by: William Gaines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vampire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Jeri commanded a hoard of bloodthirsty vampires. Jeri turned the vampires loose on two poachers, one of whom resolved to wait them out until sunrise, somehow not realizing that their northern location was in the midst of period of 24-hour darkness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poaching", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Parker and Sergeant Burrows traveled to Alaska with designs on poaching a grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeri held a grudge against her fellow Gulf War veterans Colonel Parker and Sergeant Burrows over physical injuries she suffered at the hands of friendly fire. To exact her revenge, she set on them the hoard of bloodthirsty vampires under her command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeri led the poachers to believe that grizzly bears were hibernating inside the abandoned weather station. In reality, it was all a ruse. The weather station was home to a colony of bloodthirsty vampires that were under Jeri's command. Her plan all along was to unleash the vampires on the poaches, and so she did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two hunters in their efforts to poach a grizzly bear. They planned to sell its gall bladder on the black market for a pretty penny. In the end, however, it was the hunters who became the hunted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeri was horribly scarred from friendly fire she sustained in the Gulf War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper confronted a beach bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Burrows shot the barkeeper dead (apparently) in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three American veterans of the Gulf War spoke of their experiences fighting the Iraqi Army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeri asserted that grizzly bears and brown bears were endangered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeri was romantically involved with the bartender lady, Mona.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x01/02", "title": "Caretaker", "date": "1995-01-16", "description": "While searching for a missing Maquis ship with a Starfleet spy aboard, USS Voyager is swept away to the Delta Quadrant, more than 70,000 light-years from home, by an incredibly powerful being known as the \"Caretaker.\"\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway destroys the Array and with it their only way home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crewmembers were left to confront the harsh reality that they might never again see Federation space, once it became apparent they’d been catapulted to a distant region of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "future Harry for Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "underground Ocampan civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctoc being a hologram was much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Tuvok about the Maquis, then Kes and Neelix to Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Caretaker was motivated by guilt to care for the Ocampa and something about Tom in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humankind controlling its own destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Caretaker came to lament that the Ocampans had become completely dependent on his overseeing of their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Caretaker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Caretaker interacted with the Voyager crew in a simulated environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "discussed but seemingly thrown out the window", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Caretaker inadvertently destroyed the Ocampa planet atmosphere, leaving the Ocampans to have to live underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the caretaker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna flipped out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Tim betrayed Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark nearly blackmailed Harry Kim into buying trinkets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway about getting crew home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ocampan home world, once a lush and green environment, was desert from pole to pole. The Voyager crew found a remnant of Ocampan civilization living in large underground cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix stay behind to rescue Janeway team", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and hers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a cause", "level": "minor", "motivation": "to Maquis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ocampans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix astonished by transporter technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Betazoid", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x14", "title": "99 & 44/100% Pure Horror", "date": "1995-01-18", "description": "Luden Sandelton, the meek and mild-mannered president of the Dermasmooth soap company, decides that the company's latest advertising campaign is a failure. To that end, he ends up firing the person who designed the artwork: Willa, his greedy, unfaithful, and narcissistic wife, who has a penchant for gory artwork. Upon learning that she has been fired and that her work is being universally panned, Willa goes on a psychotic rampage, getting her own deadly ideas to rectify the situation.\n\nDirected by: Rodman Flender. Story by: Rodman Flender.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa, an artist, and Luden, a soap company president, were in a troubled marriage. Willa was only interested in Luden for his wealth and the chances he offered for advancing her career in art. Both Willa and Luden had been unfaithful to each other. When Luden fired Willa from her role as soap product art designer, she beat him senseless with an oversized bar of soap after he rebuffed her demand for a divorce. It was all downhill for their relationship from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa was carrying on with her young lover, Tom, behind Luden's back. Little did she know that Luden had her under surveillance to protect himself in the advent of a divorce. It came to light the Luden had been unfaithful to Willa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "While Willa designed product cover art for her husband's soap company, her true desire was to gain recognition for her gory paintings depicting nude figures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa despised her meek husband, whom she had married only for his money, and was gleefully unfaithful to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa longed to be recognized for her gory brand of painting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa beat her husband senseless with an oversized bar of soap, rolled him up in a carpet, drove him to a factory, dumped him in a vat of chemicals, and made bars of soap out of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I murdered someone in a fit of rage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa beat her husband nearly to death with an oversized bar of soap after he axed her art career and rebuffed her demand for a divorce. She subsequently finished him off in a mode deliberate manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa turned her murdered husband's corpse into soap and used it in the shower to wash herself. By an ironic twist of fate, the chemicals in the late husband's body turned the soap into a deadly corrosive substance, and Willa died gruesomely. One of the murdered husband's eyes peered out from the lethal cleaning product.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Willa dumped husband's body in a vat of chemicals and made soap out of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vengeance from beyond the grave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though the precise mechanics are left somewhat ambiguous, Luden knowingly or unknowingly, naturally or supernaturally, got back at his murderer, Willa, when the soap she had made out of his corpse literally melted her body. This is one interpretation of the events in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "track and field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper performed a track and field themed sketch. He shot putted a human skull, and was later impaled by a javelin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willa was terminated from her role as product cover art designer at the soap company. She didn't take it well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willa demanded a divorce after her husband dismissed her from her role at his soap company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willa suggested Luden fire someone upon hearing that sales were down at the soap company. Little did Willa think it would be her head on the chopping block.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mutant Species (1995)", "title": "Mutant Species", "date": "1995-01-19", "description": "An army lieutenant is transformed into a mutant monster after becoming exposed to a a biological agent so terrible that the military tried to dump it on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113881/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque mutant monster was running amok in a remote wooded area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Trotter, Carol-Anne, and her little brother Jordie to stop a grotesque mutant monster that was running amok in a remote wooded area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter Hollinger transformed into a grotesque mutant monster after becoming exposed to a \"mutating strain of DNA\" that had been developed by the military as a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is premised on the notion that the military secretly developed biological agent so dangerous that it had to secretly dumped on the Moon. When the rocket carrying the said biological agent crashed in a remote wooded region, the military covered it up with the help of Senator Roberts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the army grunt Trotter as he tries to destroy a mutant monster that is running amok in a remote wooded area. Army Team A was called into a remote wooded area to recover a very dangerous biological agent containing cannister from a rocket which had crashed there. When they failed, Army Team B was sent in to clean up the resulting mess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol-Anne were minding their own business homesteading on government land together with her teenage brother, Jordie, when they had to suddenly join forces with the army grunt Trotter to stop a rampaging mutant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A helicopter came out of nowhere to pick up General Devro from his young granddaughter's birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When asked what he would do for his country by a commanding officer, Trotter emphatically responded that he would do anything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An area man was convinced that the military was covering up a flying saucer crash in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rocket Icarus was carrying a biological weapon so nasty they tried to send it to the Moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter Hollinger gradually mutated into a grotesque creature after becoming exposed to a biological weapon so dangerous that the United States government tried to dump it on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Roberts accused Mr. Frost of this abomination on account that Mr. Frost had wantonly designed a mutating strain of DNA that could be used to transform people into non-thinking killing machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trotter made a failed attempt to destroy the rampaging mutant monster by exploding it with a neutron bomb. Curiously, the resulting explosion was only large enough to obliterate a small house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Frost developed a \"mutating strain of DNA\" containing DNA from dangerous predators with a view to using it to transform soldiers into \"non-thinking killing machines\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x03", "title": "Parallax", "date": "1995-01-23", "description": "Voyager is trapped in a quantum singularity's event horizon, and Captain Janeway must decide between Lt. Carey and former Maquis B'Elanna Torres to be the new chief engineer.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Jim Trombetta.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Captain Janeway, a Federation officer, and Chakotay, a commanding officer of a rebel faction, agreeing to integrate the officers under their respective commands, and work together to make their way back to the safety of Federation space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Maquis crews", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay vs. Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inflexible education system", "level": "major", "motivation": "According to B'Elanna's, Starfleet Academy was unsuccessful in cultivating her great talent because their system “didn't give anyone a chance to breathe”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "space time distortion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Carey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor’s ego made him refuse to treat each and every minor medical problem that popped up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and B'Elanna must infer which is the real Voyager and which is the reflection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix described an event horizon as \"a very powerful energy field surrounding\" a collapsed star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna reflected on her anger management issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "who will get the promotion to be chief engineer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna broke a guy's nose in three places", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was treated like crap by the crew", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Carnosaur 2 (1995)", "title": "Carnosaur 2", "date": "1995-01-24", "description": "The film is about a team of technicians who go to the Yucca Mountain nuclear mining facility to investigate problems concerning power and communications. They discover that the facility has been overrun by cloned dinosaurs. It is the sequel to the 1993 film Carnosaur.", "collections": [ "Collection: Carnosaur" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnosaur_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A biotech firm had been working with fossilized DNA and genetic experiments found a way to recreate dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some people trapped in an abandoned desert facility were fighting for their lives against dinosaurs. In the end, an excavator wielding Jesse single handedly dispatched a fell grown Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A biotech firm had been working with fossilized DNA and genetic experiments found a way to recreate dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "A biotech firm had been working with fossilized DNA and genetic experiments found a way to recreate dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert facility turned out to be a secret repository for nuclear waste, including weapons grade plutonium and dozes of abandoned weapons grade nukes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people in the facility who were besieged by dinosaurs had to also be careful to not set off the dozens of weapons grade nukes that were being stored there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe stopped his orphaned nephew from stealing a load of dynamite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse was shaken up over the sight of his uncle being torn to pieces by a wild animal that ultimately turned out to be a dinosaur.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e6x15", "title": "You, Murderer", "date": "1995-01-25", "description": "In this unique tale, Lou Spinelli, the corpse of a former criminal-turned legitimate businessman who, thanks to plastic surgery, bears a striking resemblance to Humphrey Bogart, reminisces on the set of circumstances that left him dead, but still able to see, hear, and feel everything around him. The story, shown entirely from Lou's point of view, involves a plot of greed, lust, and murder involving his best friend, Oscar Charles, his wife, Betty, and his lover, Erica, in a morbid homage to classic film noir.\n\nNote: There are numerous references to Bogart's films and career, especially his famous line \"Here's looking at you, kid.\", throughout the episode.\n\nDirected by: Robert Zemeckis. Story by: A. L. Katz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told from the point of view of a man, named Lou, who died but was somehow still able to see and sense the world around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou and his wife, Betty, hated each others guts. Lou described Betty as a \"monster\" wife who was determined to punish him no matter what he did. Betty, for her part, hatched a plot together with her lover to murder Lou.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty had been having an affair with her husband Lou's best friend for about a year. Lou, for his part, was romantically involved with his coworker, Erica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty improvised by bludgeoning her husband, Lou, with a lamp stand when her original plan for doing him in went awry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou was betrayed by his wife, Betty, and his friend, Oscar. Betty and Oscar arranged to kill Lou in his own home and then run off together with his money. Lou expected as much from Betty, but was pained to learn that Oscar was involved in the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lou was surprised when his surgeon and friend, Oscar, tried to kill him and run off with Lou's own wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "After dying, Lou found himself in a peculiar afterlife-existence as an awareness in his own corpse. He commented ceaselessly on how his experiences differed from his a priori expectations, which had involved white lights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Oscar Charles, a plastic surgeon, made Lou look like Humphrey Bogart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty and Oscar planed to make Lou's killing look like a suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment in the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou speculated that his peculiar after-life existence was some sort of punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lou wrongly thought that his wife and friend wanted to kill him for monetary gain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x08", "title": "A Race Through Dark Places", "date": "1995-01-25", "description": "Psi Cop Alfred Bester returns to Babylon 5, searching for an underground railroad helping rogue telepaths to escape the Corps; his arrival sparks discord among the command staff as they realize that an insider is helping the railroad.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone v Psi Corps, commanders v budget squeeze on quarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "mental battles and what not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various about helping rebels or siding with PsiCorps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "persecute telepaths to protect the public?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "PsiCorps experimenting to create super telepaths and other nefarious deeds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psi Corps prisoner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn invited Sheridan to dinner hoping that the interaction would help her to better understand human culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan standing up to bullying from central bureaucracy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x04", "title": "Time and Again", "date": "1995-01-30", "description": "Investigating a planet just devastated by a polaric explosion, Janeway and Paris are engulfed by a subspace fracture and transported in time to before the accident.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: David Kemper.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "using the new power source", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the rescue attempt caused the explosion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the episode was a metaphor for nuclear power, they even had atom logos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Tom debate informing aliens their planet will explode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of environmental activists plotted to sabotage the power plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A temporal anomaly whisked Captain Janeway and Tom Paris one day into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom threatened to eat one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom takes a bullet in the gut to save kid's life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry urged to by Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aspiring reporter Latika planned to write up about the strange appearance of Janeway and Tom in his school journal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom took a bullet for kid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the poleric energy protestors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the energy source that powered alien civilization was a ticking time bomb", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x13", "title": "Life Support", "date": "1995-01-31", "description": "Bashir's ethics are put to the test as he keeps Vedek Bareil alive long enough to help Kai Winn complete negotiations for a peace treaty with Cardassia.\n\nDirected by: Reza Badiyi. Story by: Christian Ford and Roger Soffer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "peace process", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Winn Adami and Bareil Antos were negotiating a peace treaty with the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vedek Bareil refused to follow Bashir's medical opinion for treatment of his medical condition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira lost her lover Vedek Bareil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos risked his life to complete peace negotiations with the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos risked his life to complete peace negotiations with the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog came to a better understanding about respective species' various disgusting customs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira had comforted Bareil who was on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir replaced Bareil Antos' brain with artificial components piece by piece", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "was Bareil Antos the same person after parts of his brain were replaced with artificial components?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos was on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was brought back to life long after my death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir brought Vedek Bareil back to life after he suffered clinical death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake went on a date with Leanne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog had a falling out after Nog ruined Jake's date with Leanne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog after getting into a fight on their double date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira lost her lover Vedek Bareil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor vs. next of kin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira urged Bashir to proceed with further brain replacement in Bareil Antos after he lost consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog made some disparaging remarks about women to Jake's chagrin while the pair were out on a double date.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x09", "title": "The Coming of Shadows", "date": "1995-02-01", "description": "Centauri Emperor Turhan comes to Babylon 5 for a state visit, prompting extreme behavior from both G'Kar and Londo. Garibaldi encounters a group called \"the Rangers\".\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri vs. Narn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri vs. Narn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Centauri were like the Roman aristocrats of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo torn between being good or grabbing for power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar plotted, some Centauri actually did assassinate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "emperor and Earthlings tried but to no avail, G'Kar almost believed in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and other Centauri had high ambitions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar wanted much vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a predetermined life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Centauri emperor complained about briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "humans and Minbari tried to little avail", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x05", "title": "Phage", "date": "1995-02-06", "description": "An organ-harvesting species known as the Vidiians steal Neelix's lungs, leaving him to die.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Timothy DeHaas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix with lungitis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vidiians had to harvest organs to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes comforted Neelix after the theft of his lungs left him at Death's door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway having to choose between killing alien and letting Neelix stay paralyzed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A horrible plague had been spreading among the Viidians for approximately two millennia with no signs of abating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor gave holographic lungs to Neelix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "somebody about Neelix's cooking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor coping with being understaffed and unappreciated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "donating an organ to save a life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes wanted to donate a lung to save Neelix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holographic lung transplant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vidiians used an advanced medical gizmo to effectively teleport organs directly out of living humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was jealous of Tom over Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes had to deal with Neelix's paranoia over her relationship with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was enthusiastic about pulling his weight aboard Voyager by being the ship's cook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x14", "title": "Heart of Stone", "date": "1995-02-06", "description": "When Kira's life is put in jeopardy, Odo expresses the depth of his feelings for her. Meanwhile, back on the station, Nog requests a letter of recommendation to Starfleet.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo confessed his love to what he thought was Kira but it turned out to be a shapeshifter disguised as Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog was ashamed at the prospect of turning out to be like his father Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog wished to pursue a career in Starfleet so he wouldn't end up wasting his talent working in a bar like his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog wished to pursue a career in Starfleet so he wouldn't end up wasting his talent working in a bar like his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo refused to leave Kira impostor in her time of need when she was becoming encased in crystal in the cave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kira impostor took for granted that it was only a matter of time before she became encased in crystal and died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Growing up on Deep Space Nine led Nog to discover that running a business, as was the norm in Ferrengi culture, was not the only path one could take in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was incapacitated and stuck in the middle of nowhere", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kira impostor was trapped in a cave by a rock that was slowly expanding all around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog was ashamed of his father Rom and wanted to enter Starfleet so as to not end up like him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo at Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo used his shapeshifting abilities to shield Kira from a cave in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood aspirations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog wanted to pursue a career in Starfleet, instead of in business, as his family expected of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a sycophant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog tried to butter up Benjamin in an effort to get a recommendation letter to Starfleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira impostor ordered Odo to leave her for dead in the cave", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x10", "title": "Gropos", "date": "1995-02-08", "description": "Babylon 5 plays host to 25,000 EarthForce marines, known as \"ground-pounders\", led by General Richard Franklin, Stephen's father.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin and general dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin and general dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "choice", "motivation": "general was there to strike preemptively and the morality of this was questioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "generals, captains, lieutenants, corporals, sergeants, privates...", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Franklin believed that all aliens were a threat to humanity. Stephen accused him of murdering aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dodger beat up ruffians and sought whatever pleasure she could get with Garibaldi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Dodger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dodger explained tearfully to Garibaldi, what it was like in the Earthforce Marines, and many stereotypical situations of military life were shown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pecking order", "level": "minor", "motivation": "various formal and informal pecking order's were conspicuously demonstrated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "general in Franklin briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin explained this oath to his father General Richard Franklin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were explosions and people died in the wake of the arrival of 25,000 Earthforce Marines on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi was shaken up by the passing of his casual love interest, Dodger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin worried about the status of his father and the possibility he died was discussed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x06", "title": "The Cloud", "date": "1995-02-13", "description": "The crew enter a nebula to collect samples before realizing it is a living organism, but not before doing it injury.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living space cloud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a living nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gaseous being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a living nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway setting examples and such", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "the nebula and whatnot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom's recreational activity on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway with new Maquis crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay taught Janeway about the animal guide beliefs of his Native American forefathers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a sycophant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway was not having it when Neelix told her she looked beautiful and shamelessly inquired if that was a new color of lipstick she was wearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway whines about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the unknown", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix to Janeway about new lipstick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in coffee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway said \"there is coffee in that nebula\", thus determining their flight path based on her craving for this beverage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was enthusiastic about pulling his weight aboard Voyager by being the ship's cook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Neelix", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x15", "title": "Destiny", "date": "1995-02-13", "description": "Despite Trakor's Bajoran prophecy of destruction, Sisko assists in a joint scientific venture with the Cardassians to open communications through the Bajoran wormhole.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: David S. Cohen and Martin A. Winer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yarka claimed the arrival of Cardassian scientists on the space station was prophesied by Trakor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace process", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cardassian scientists cooperate with space station crew on scientific study of wormhole to promote peace between their peoples", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cardassian scientists were sent to cooperate with space station crew on a scientific study of the wormhole, in order to promote peace between their peoples.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was torn between her Bajoran faith in stopping Cardassians from entering space station and duty to Benjamin to permit it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira viewed the arrival of the Cardassian scientists and comet as the fulfillment of prophesy, but Benjamin took a more mundane interpretation of the events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian scientists cooperate with space station crew on scientific study of wormhole to promote peace between their peoples", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "rogue comet seen by Kira as fulfillment of ancient Bajoran prophesy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia discussed her interest in Cardassian classical literature with the visiting Cardassian scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "female Cardassian scientists were convinced that women made better scientists than men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was prepositioned by Gilora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in redundancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles explained to an unimpressed Cardassian scientist of how Starfleet code sometimes required secondary backup systems be installed as a safety against the failure of a first line of back ups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male brutishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian female scientist argued Cardassian males were boneheaded angry brutes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gilora at O'Brien", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x11", "title": "All Alone in the Night", "date": "1995-02-15", "description": "During a Starfury flight, Sheridan is kidnapped by an unknown alien race. Delenn is summoned by the Grey Council to hear her fate.\n\nDirected by: Mario Di Leo. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn and Lennier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn is now different from both Minbari and humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was abducted and experimented upon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was abducted and experimented upon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan took risks for Narn who tried to kill him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan acted the part", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn thought she might never come back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan was briefly stranded in his cockpit in outer space before being picked up by an alien ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan as part of alien experiment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Franklin discussed the baseball playoffs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x07", "title": "Eye of the Needle", "date": "1995-02-20", "description": "A micro-wormhole is discovered that leads to the Alpha Quadrant, and the crew make contact with a Romulan ship on the other side.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Hilary J. Bader.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew's hope soared with the initial finding of a micro-wormhole, suggesting a potential means for them to return to Federation space. Alas, their hope proved forlorn, and the micro-wormhole ended up serving only as a stark reminder that they would likely never see home again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew of getting a message home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew and Romulans must establish trust through visual link", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor as self-aware or mindless program featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor from crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a micro-wormhole the Voyager crew hoped to use to get home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "broken wrist man at The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes for The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photographic memory ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The EMH (The Doctor) stated that he suspected Kes had eidetic memory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan offers to go through transporter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan was from the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway reminds Harry that transporting through the wormhole would alter the timeline", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x16", "title": "Prophet Motive", "date": "1995-02-20", "description": "Quark discovers that Grand Nagus Zek has written a new virtuous and benevolent set of the Rules of Acquisition, which would put an end to the traditional Ferengi ways.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark was disgusted by Zek's founding of the Ferengi Benevolence Association and doubled down on his avaricious ways. Rom greedily embezzled money from Zek. Zek disavowed his benevolent ways in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "wormhole aliens devolved Zek to be a paragon of benevolence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "wormhole aliens devolved Zek to be a paragon of benevolence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Golden Rule", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ferengi Grand Nagus Zek (i.e. the embodiment of avarice) adopted a love thy neighbor approach to life to Quark's astonishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark and his greedy Ferengi way of life were challenged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark assumed Zek was losing his mind when Zek proposed a law code based on kindness and generosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek saw the folly of his greedy ways and became a paragon of benevolence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom when Quark needed to stay in his quarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir upon finishing as runner up in the prestigious medical award", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "wormhole aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human perception of time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wormhole aliens discussed linear time with Quark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir was so confident he would win prestigious medical award that he began writing his acceptance speech before the winner was announced: he lost.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x12", "title": "Acts of Sacrifice", "date": "1995-02-22", "description": "G'Kar attempts to rally support for his people from Sheridan and the Earth Alliance; Ivanova goes to great lengths to secure an alliance with a new race.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Narn and Centauri irreconcilable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Narn and Centauri irreconcilable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan tried to mediate between Narn and Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human shields in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar claimed civilians were killed without provocation, Londo that they were used as living shields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was lonely after he outgrew old friendships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of a promotion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo found that success made him isolated and lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lumati delegate Correlilmurzon explained to Ivanova that they must have sex in order to finalize their deal. Ivanova felt that this was highly inappropriate, but swallowed her pride and came up with a ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens thought inequality and poverty was a good evolutionary strategy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo and Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo and Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo and Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova with expectation to have sex to seal a bargain", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x08", "title": "Ex Post Facto", "date": "1995-02-27", "description": "Tom Paris is convicted of murder on an alien world, and his punishment is to witness the murder from the victim's perspective every 14 hours.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Evan Carlos Somers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom’s murder conviction rested in large part on controversial visual evidence derived from the optic nerve of his alleged victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of Tom being wrongfully convicted for the murder of Tolen Ren. In the end, it is revealed that Tom had been framed for the crime by Tolen's wife Lidell and a Banean physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddell Ren and her husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddell Ren and her husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddell Ren cheated on her husband with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "scientist and Liddell Ren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted memory punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was made to relive his alleged crimes through eyes of his victim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddell Ren and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liddell Ren and her old crotchety husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lidell Ren was complicit in her husband's murder by a Banean physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom with calculations, Lidell Ren with her husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that, on Banea, lethal injection used to be the penalty for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tolen Ren hosts Tom and Harry for dinner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lie detector", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok used", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lidell Ren and Neeka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom tells Liddell Ren smoking is bad for your health", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the Benean doctor was involved in smuggling data to the Numiri, a people with whom the Baneans were at war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind-melded with Tom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x17", "title": "Visionary", "date": "1995-02-27", "description": "Exposure to radiation causes O'Brien to jump five hours into the future for brief periods, as Deep Space Nine hosts Romulan and Klingon delegations.\n\nDirected by: Reza Badiyi. Story by: Ethan H. Calk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles could see five hours into the future and foresaw his own death and destruction of space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "exposure to radiation causes O'Brien to jump five hours into the future for brief periods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles traveled five hours into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles met his future self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles glimpsed his own corpse in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation hosts Romulans delegations on space station to discuss alliance against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation hosts Romulans delegations on space station to discuss alliance against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation hosts Romulans delegations on space station to discuss alliance against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles risks dying from radiation poisoning to travel three hours into to the future to save space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of darts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Bashir enjoyed a game of darts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons plotted to sabotage Federation/Romulan diplomatic talks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "O'Brien was afflicted with radiation sickness after getting a minor dose of the stuff.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x13", "title": "Hunter, Prey", "date": "1995-03-01", "description": "The command staff races against time – and EarthForce – to find a missing doctor who has information on President Santiago's assassination.\n\nDirected by: Menachem Binetski. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "professor was on the lam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "professor would have been assassinated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fifth columns", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was some kind of internal government agency war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin respected and trusted his old teacher implicitly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "professor feared for his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan admired Vorgon spaceship which was organic and seemed to act on its own volition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan admired Vorgon spaceship which was organic and seemed to act on its own volition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan sought to understand the Vorgon ambassador Kosh, a problem that hinged on the physiological differences between their races.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Demolitionist (1995)", "title": "The Demolitionist", "date": "1995-03-10", "description": "A murdered female police officer is brought back to life by a cold-hearted scientist to serve as \"The Demolitionist\", the ultimate crime-fighting weapon in a city overrun by criminals and internal corruption.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demolitionist" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The primary novelty of the film concerns the bringing back to life of a murdered female police office. The film explores both the use of nanomachines to achieve this feat and her coming to terms with the fact that she was essentially returned from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mad Dog Burne's street gang was running amok in the city, committing crimes, bribing city officials, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a city mired by corruption: Mayor Eleanor Grimbaum was involved in various shady dealings, Police Chief Higgins was paid off by Mad Dog Burne's gang, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film is set in a city that was mired in street crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The murdered police officer Alyssa Lloyd was revived from the dead, and enhanced with nanomachines, to wage war on the criminals of the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The synthetic solution of nanomachines that coursed through Alyssa's veins ensured that her injuries, such as lacerations, healed almost instantly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The callous scientist Professor Jack Crowley revived Alyssa from the dead using nanomachines, and thereafter monitored her as part of his ongoing scientific research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alyssa's veins coursed with a synthetic solution of nanomachines that functioned to rapidly regenerate damaged cells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recently revived from the dead Alyssa avenged her own murder at the hands of Mad Dog Burne. Mad Dog wanted to \"rip the tits off of\" Mayor Eleanor Grimbaum for having had his brother fried in the electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Father McKenzie urged the reprobate Burne brothers to repent in the moments leading up to what was expected to be their execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Burne brother were both sentenced to get the chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Burne brothers acted nonchalant in the face of being a short time away from being executed, side by side, in the chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mad Dog Burne and his brother were casually watching a monster movie in their prison cell just moments before they were scheduled to be executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a city where all guns had recently been banned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mad Dog Burne robber a bank at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Mad Dog Burne perpetrated bank robbery quickly turned into a hostage stand off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police Chief Higgins planned to negotiate the release of some hostages in a bank robbery gone awry, but Alyssa barged in and attempted to free the hostages the old fashioned way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A recently revived from the dead Alyssa Lloyd made a token effort to arrest Mad Dog Burne for the crime before killing him in a most gruesome manner.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)", "title": "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe", "date": "1995-03-11", "description": "It's Gamera to the rescue when a plutonium carrying ship crashes into a floating atoll, resulting in the release of giant, menacing birds. It is the ninth installment in the Gamera film series, serving as a reboot of the franchise, and is the first entry in the franchise's Heisei period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera:_Guardian_of_the_Universe" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant pterosaur-like creature Gyaos attacked Japan. The Japanese military also mobilized to fight Gamera, although it turned out that Gamera was helping them to defeat Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant pterosaur-like creature Gyaos attacked Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The accidental release of plutonium into the ocean resulted in the wakening of giant, flying, dinosaur-like monsters. Mayumi and Naoya deduced that an ancient civilization genetically engineered Gyaos and it destroyed them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Asahi's hunch that the Gyaos were genetically engineered was proven correct when a scientific analysis revealed it was genetically perfect and had only one chromosome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gamera needed the school girl Asagi's strength to defeat Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mariner explained that a \"dead sea\" would result from anything happening to a ship off the coast of the Philippines that was transporting over a ton of plutonium. He more over explained that inhaling a millionth of a gram would cause cancer in almost any organism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asagi discussed with a man about how the legend of a sunken continent could have spread all over the Ancient World, which might have led to some ancient sources naming the continent Atlantis, and others the Continent of Mu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lost continent of Mu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asagi discussed with a man about how the legend of a sunken continent could have spread all over the Ancient World, which might have led to some ancient sources naming the continent Atlantis, and others the Continent of Mu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayumi, a newspaper reporter, risked her life by opening a helicopter door to snap a clear shot of one of the Gyaos monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asagi and her father Naoya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asagi's hunch that the Gyaos were genetically engineered was proven correct when a scientific analysis revealed them to be genetically perfect and have only one chromosome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayumi, a newspaper reporter, risked her life by opening a helicopter door to snap a clear shot of one of the Gyaos.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x09", "title": "Emanations", "date": "1995-03-13", "description": "Harry Kim is transported to an alien world at the same time as a dead woman's body arrives on Voyager.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hatil expected to commit ritual suicide by his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vhnori notions of afterlife on asteroid explored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hatil about possibility of no afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ptera coped with a growing conviction in here that there was no god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry held by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry couldn't tell Vhnori about what he saw in afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hatil contemplated suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space vacuole appeared in Engineering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ptera upon waking up in the afterlife, i.e., sickbay", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x10", "title": "Prime Factors", "date": "1995-03-20", "description": "A race that could shorten Voyager's journey with a transportation device will not share its technology.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: David R. George III and Eric A. Stillwell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "applied by aliens on the Federation for a change", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway about Prime Directive in reverse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sikarians were a stereotypically hedonistic race who put a high value on indulging themselves with entertainments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens to crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sikarians were in possession of technology that enabled a person to be instantaneously moved over a distance of up to 40,000 light years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway in conflict with alien government over acquiring transporter technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sikarians believed stories to be an essential part of every person's being. Voyager crew traded The Federation library in exchange for spatial trajector technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway with being tempted by alien leader and Harry to a lesser degree with sexual temptation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok risks court martial to achieve Janeway's goal of getting Voyager home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "something with Tuvok betraying Janeway's trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "marquis and Starfleet in teaser", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alastria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Gath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway offered the Sikarians a library of the Federation's finest literature if they would only help Voyager reach home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The atmospheric musical machine interface reader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space folding travel technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The highly-advanced Sikarians were in possession of a space folding teleportation device that enable them to travel up to 40,000 light years in the wink of an eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaret wanted the story collection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew bonding in opening segment", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tank Girl (1995)", "title": "Tank Girl", "date": "1995-03-31", "description": "The film is set in a drought-ravaged Australia, years after a catastrophic impact event. It follows the antihero Tank Girl as she, Jet Girl, and genetically modified supersoldiers called the Rippers fight \"Water & Power\", an oppressive corporation led by Kesslee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 2033 in the aftermath of a decade-long, civilization collapsing drought. The little remaining water was controlled by the tyrant Kesslee and his Water & Power corporation, which subdued the population by monopolizing the water supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monopolies in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tyrant Kesslee and his Water & Power corporation monopolized what was left of the population's water supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tyrant Kesslee and his Water & Power corporation monopolized what was left of the population's water supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tank Girl spit in the face of authority at every opportunity, and would bow down to nobody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was made about portraying Tank Girl as a feminist icon figure who was perfectly able to take care of herself, and was quick to face down men, and anyone else for that matter standing in her way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tank Girl was bold and unabashed as opposed to her demure side sidekick Jet Girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the year 2033 in the aftermath of a decade-long global drought that was caused by a catastrophic comet impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 10-year-old girl Sam was sculpting a strange creature out of clay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kesslee used a special device that extracted all the water from someone when jabbed into them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Small tried to force himself upon Jet Girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tank Girl and Jet Girl boldly escaped from their confinement at the brutal Water & Power corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Che'tsai used a special gadget to translate his spoken language into English as he spoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 10-year-old girl Sam was being cultivated to work as a prostitute at the desert sex club Liquid Silver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tank Girl rescued the 10-year-old girl Sam from a pedophile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kesslee had a robotic left arm up to the elbow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T-Saint led a small rebel army of genetically engineered, human-kangaroo hybrid supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T-Saint led a small rebel army of genetically engineered, human-kangaroo hybrid supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T-Saint led a small rebel army of genetically engineered, human-kangaroo hybrid supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T-Saint was reluctant to believe that Tank Girl and Jet Girl weren't Water & Power corporation spies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kesslee subjected Tank Girl to various sadistic tortures. Kesslee slid young Sam down a pipe and began to slowly fill it with water to drown the her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Kesslee was revealed to have a holographic head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kangaroo men howled in grief upon finding the dead body of their maker, Johnny Prophet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jet Girl grew a backbone and stood up to Sergeant Small in the end by shooting him in the head.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x11", "title": "State of Flux", "date": "1995-04-10", "description": "Janeway and the other senior officers attempt to flush out a spy who is sending information to the Kazon.\n\nDirected by: Robert Scheerer. Story by: Paul Robert Coyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Kazon spy was revealed to be Chakotay’s confident, Seska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seska and Carey were suspected of being Kazon spies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "why giving tech is wrong", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay in role over Seska investigation and also purloined blow of mushroom soup", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway in dealing with Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazon distress call", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay about Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter replicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the amzingness of this technology was briefly the topic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misery loves company", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay quoted this aphorism in response to Tuvok observing how odd it was that Tuvok's failure added to his own gave Chakotay some solace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seska about doing anything to get home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay at end about being naïve", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x18", "title": "Distant Voices", "date": "1995-04-10", "description": "Julian Bashir is subjected to a telepathic attack by an alien seeking a restricted substance.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with having to give up on a dream", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir came to terms with having given up on his tennis career and become a doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A telepathic attack on Bashir caused him to age at an accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir was anxious about his 30th birthday because he felt it a passage from youth to middle age", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir coming to terms with giving up on tennis and becoming a doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "ashir had to overcome his own mental fantasy in order to awake from coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir coming to terms with giving up on tennis and becoming a doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir had to overcome his own mental fantasy in order to awake from coma", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jabara tearing Bashir's mind to pieces", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jabara telepathically entered into Bashir's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jabara telepathically entered into Bashir's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jabara telepathically entered into Bashir's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir pulled through in spite of all the obstacles put in front of him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir reflected on playing tennis as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the figment of Odo in Bashir's mind was extremely fearful of the alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the figment of Odo in Bashir's mind was extremely fearful of the alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the figment of Miles in Bashir's mind was a coward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Garak sharing lunch together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir said this in initial conversation with Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak and Bashir we debated Cardassian totalitarian political organization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Android Affair (1995)", "title": "The Android Affair", "date": "1995-04-12", "description": "A physician falls in love with the very android she is tasked to use as a guinea pig in an experimental surgery.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112360/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The android William wanted to stop being a medical guinea pig droid and start living a fulfilling life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The android William became the love of Karen's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Karen and the android William fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film confronts the viewer with this question: Should androids with human hearts be used as guinea pigs in experimental cardiological surgeries?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karen was a talented heart surgeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Fiedler was watching pornography using a set of 1990s era virtual reality glasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android William pointedly savored a meal of human food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William sought out his old android-living-secretly-as-a-human friend Thomas for help, but Thomas didn't really want anything to do with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Thomas was living secretly among humans, working as an accountant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel divulged that he was attracted to \"bad boys\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent cryogenically preserved himself the intention of being revived once a cure for his fatal heart condition was discovered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x19", "title": "Through the Looking Glass", "date": "1995-04-17", "description": "Sisko is convinced by \"Smiley\" O'Brien from the Mirror Universe to assume the role of the dead Captain Sisko.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin was abducted to a savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The oppressed Terrans were fighting a desperate rebellion against Cardassian/Klingon Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The oppressed Terrans were fighting a desperate rebellion against Cardassian/Klingon Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles (mirror) abducted Benjamin to a savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was abducted to a savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was filled with fresh memories of his departed wife when he came to know her double from a parallel universe was still alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennifer (mirror) was convinced by Benjamin that freedom better than working for the Klingon/Cardassian Union; Miles (mirror) explained how he escaped from the mines because he wanted to be free", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jennifer Sisko (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "meeting Jennifer Sisko (mirror) reminded Benjamin of his love for the real Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin may have had to kill Jennifer (mirror) in order to save the other rebels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin might have had to oppose his mirror universe wife Jennifer because she was a Klingon/Cardassian Union agent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jennifer Sisko (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira (mirror) exhibited a sexual passion for her servant girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira (mirror) had random miners executed in an effort to increase productivity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles O'Brien (mirror) was forced to toil in space station mines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was married to Jennifer in the mirror universe and while having an affair with Jadzia (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bisexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira (mirror) flirted with both men and women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Bashir (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin (mirror) had a mistress.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x12", "title": "Heroes and Demons", "date": "1995-04-24", "description": "The holographic doctor must rescue crew members who were turned to light energy in a Holodeck simulation of Beowulf.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Naren Shankar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Beowulf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor faces Graendel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "photonic life form", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor faces Graendel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Freya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "photonics of Graendel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a Viking feast.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x20", "title": "Improbable Cause", "date": "1995-04-24", "description": "Garak's tailor shop is bombed, forcing Odo to investigate who is trying to kill the Cardassian exile – and why.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Robert Lederman & David R. Long.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garak felt betrayed by his former mentor Tain once Garak discovered that Tain had plotted to assassinate him; Tain insinuated that Odo betrayed his shapeshifter brethren by turning his back on them; Garak appeared betray Odo by switching affiliations to the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak's space station colleagues didn't know whether to trust him or not because he was a pathological", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak risked his life to save his former mentor Tain from being assassinated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Obsidian Order Cardassians plotted to assassinate Garak and others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak kept pointing out differences between the Federation and Cardassia way of seeing things", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak was the former protégé of Tain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Garak discussed the literary merits of one of Shakespeare's plays over lunch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tain plotted a first strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak discussed with Bashir about the importance of taking one's time when eating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak discussed theater with Bashir in the teaser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inhospitable environment dwelling being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yalosian ambassador needed corrosive air in order to come aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x14", "title": "There All the Honor Lies", "date": "1995-04-26", "description": "Sheridan nearly loses his command after he kills a Minbari in self-defense. Ivanova is placed in charge of a gift shop selling Babylon 5 merchandise.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Peter David.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sinclair was accused of murder with but one potentially biased witness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores how clan loyalty was paramount to the Minbari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Minbari honor included not lying but clan loyalty could trump that", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan risking his career in order to find out about his late wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Minbari named Ashan called Delenn a \"freak\" and refused to speak to her on account of her being half-human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo put his neck out for Vir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vir had existential pangs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minbari could lie but only out of duty to clan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier did some kind of self sacrifice at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan's lawyer Guinevere Corey consulted him on what he could and could not legally do with his prisoner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lumati delegate thought humans beneath him and his race and treated them accordingly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Village of the Damned (1995)", "title": "Village of the Damned", "date": "1995-04-28", "description": "Ten women in a quiet Californian coastal town simultaneously become pregnant with brood parasitic aliens. It is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name which in turn was based on the 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_the_Damned_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children of Midwich used mind control to force people to do things against their will. In general, the townspeople came to fear the children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It gradually became apparent that the children were brood parasite aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It gradually became apparent that the children were brood parasite aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan and Barbara Chaffee. Frank and Jill McGowan. Reverend George and Sarah. Each couple had to deal with the wife giving birth to a child with pale skin, white-blond hair, cobalt eyes, and fierce a intellect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if every woman suddenly got pregnant at the same time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ten women of the quiet coastal town of Midwich found themselves to be pregnant following a mysterious event which saw everyone suddenly fall unconscious at a 10AM one day and regain consciousness at 4PM.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children manifested an innate ability to read the minds of all the humans, although Alan learned how to block their ability to do so to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The children routinely controlled people to do things against their will, most notably commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent that the brood parasite aliens had designs on supplanting human beings as Earth's apex species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town minister Reverend George was shown doing his various religious duties, including the baptizing of a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Midwich sheriff and his men, and later state highway patrol men, were shown dealing with the mysterious going on in the quiet coastal of Midwich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town physician Dr. Alan Chaffee was shown doing things a small town doctor might do, like consult with a patient in his doctor's office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government epidemiologist Dr. Susan Verner was studying the Midwich children. In particular, she secretly preserved the corpse of a stillborn alien baby for research purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill mourned her tragically departed husband who'd perished in a fiery automobile wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral service was held for Jill's tragically departed husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A virgin gave birth to a stillborn alien baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of ten Midwich women who suddenly found themselves to be pregnant contemplated aborting the fetuses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ten women who suddenly found themselves to be pregnant all gave birth together in a barn on the same night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reverend George was shown baptizing one of the Midwich babies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various Midwich parents were shown caring for their strange babies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nine babies grew into children in what one gathers was only a matter of days or weeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The children mind controlled the school janitor into throwing himself off the school rooftop to his death, and later the town reverend into blowing his brains out with a shotgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The outcast child David was the only one of the nine brood parasite alien child to show a modicum of compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was shunned by the other children on account that his predetermined mate had been born stillborn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan detonated a bomb inside a briefcase in the children's classroom as a last ditched effort to destroy them, knowing full well he would not survive the attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Jill driving off with his young son David - the last surviving alien child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The City of Lost Children (1995)", "title": "The City of Lost Children", "date": "1995-05", "description": "The children of a dreary city under the pall of perpetual night are being kidnapped by a strange man who is determined to experience their dreams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Lost_Children" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human self-actualization need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krank longed to be able to experience having dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Uncle Irwin was a disembodied brain that was living inside a fish tank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a carnival strongman, named One, as he attempts to rescue his kid brother, Denree, from the clutches of a strange man who wishes to experiences the boy's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krank was abducting orphans for the purpose of experiencing their dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krank was had grown aged prematurely on account that he was unable to dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krank had created six child-minded adult clones who served as his assistants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krank was using a dream-extracting machine that he'd invented to steal dreams from children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "One was worried sick about his abducted kid brother, Denree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy had a Santa nightmare. Krank terrified a group of young children by barging in on them in the middle on the night dressed in a most creepy Santa Claus costume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a cyborg cult called the Cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pair of old lady Siamese identical twins, collectively known as \"The Octopus\", were leading a criminal gang of orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pair of old lady Siamese identical twins, collectively known as \"The Octopus\", were leading a criminal gang of orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pair of old lady Siamese identical twins, collectively known as \"The Octopus\", were leading a criminal gang of orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One helped a criminal gang of orphans to steal a heavy safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The who was too afraid of the world to leave his submarine complained about not being able to remember important things about his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of Krank's six clones were wondering whom among them was \"the original\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story depicts the lives of some orphans who'd joined a criminal gang in order to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some orphans who'd joined a criminal gang to survive were shown doing mischievous things that kids do.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x13", "title": "Cathexis", "date": "1995-05-01", "description": "A shuttlecraft with Chakotay and Tuvok aboard is attacked; Chakotay is left brain-dead, while Tuvok begins acting strangely. An unknown force begins controlling crewmembers.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Relations among the crew members broke down when nobody could know which crew member the entity was inhabiting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom, then B'Ellana, then Tuvok to some extent were suspected of harboring a malevolent alien entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew struggled to regain control of Voyager from the malevolent, incorporeal entity Komar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent incorporeal entity, known as Komar, was loose on Voyager, serially possessing the vessel’s crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Governess Janeway and that household head in teaser", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna grieved when an attack by an unknown entity left Chakotay brain-dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark matter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Voyager crew stumbled on a dark matter nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay made use of his medicine wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom about Dr. Brown", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out-of-body experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay describes at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway enjoying holonovel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Neelix discuss extensively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind-melded with Kes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x21", "title": "The Die is Cast", "date": "1995-05-01", "description": "Garak reluctantly tortures Odo for information to prove his loyalty to his former mentor, Enabran Tain, as a joint Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order attack on the Founders in the Omarian Nebula is underway, without Starfleet's involvement.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garak between Cardassians and Federation; Odo revealed he had a desire to return to live among the Founders under pain of torture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak reunited with his former mentor Tain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak felt betrayed by his former mentor Tain once Garak discovered that Tain had plotted to assassinate him; Tain insinuated that Odo betrayed his shapeshifter brethren by turning his back on them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians and Romulans united in a preemptive strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Authoritarian aspects of both the Cardassian and Romulan systems of governance were touched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak had to choose between torturing Odo and disobeying his mentor Tain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Eddington sabotaged the cloaking device under orders of Star Fleet Admiral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tain plotted a first strike against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak employed a device that prevented Odo from shapeshifting during an interrogation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak and Tain reminisced over Garak's abilities to extract information during interrogations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was tortured in an interrogation presided over by Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Founders were about to be wiped out by Cardassian and Romulan first strike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Founders helped their enemy, but fellow shapeshifter, Odo escape from the Cardassians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x15", "title": "And Now for a Word", "date": "1995-05-03", "description": "An ISN news crew spends 36 hours on Babylon 5 to film a documentary, capturing a snapshot of life on the station as well as the progress of the Narn-Centauri war.\n\nDirected by: Mario Di Leo. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A seemingly biased report was being made aware of Babylon 5 life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "diplomats were yelling at each other etc. etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the whole episode illustrated well enough how wars can come about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Narn explained past Centauri colonialism at length and Londo defended it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian colonist terrorist uprising was briefly touched upon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Narn accused Cantauri of transporting WMDs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar likened what the Centauri did to his people to The holocaust.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x10", "title": "Strange Bedfellows", "date": "1995-05-08", "description": "Graham McVeigh is a thoroughbred ranch owner, and he is tired of his brother Teddy being in constant debt to mob bookie and restaurateur Bruno Romano. He decides to kill Teddy and frame Romano for the crime. To do so, Graham makes Teddy take a big loss at the race track by drugging his own horse so that it loses, leaving Teddy in deeper debt to Romano. Graham then disguises himself and goes to Romano's restaurant, where he sets mice loose in a bathroom. While Romano is distracted setting traps for the mice, Graham calls Teddy from a restaurant phone so that the phone records will suggest Romano called to set up a meeting. Graham and Teddy then drive out to a secluded section of road. Under the pretense of getting fresh air, Graham gets out, walks around the car, steps up to Teddy's window and shoots him, then rides home on a folding bike he stashed in the trunk. The next day, Graham invites Romano to come out to the ranch, ostensibly to pay Teddy's debt. When Romano looks at a briefcase containing the money, Graham shoots him, switches Romano's revolver for the identical murder gun, and makes it look like self-defense. Romano's boss Vincenzo Fortelli becomes involved, exerting pressure on McVeigh. To solve the crime before Fortelli takes matters into his own hands, Columbo must work with the gangster.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo invites McVeigh to dinner at Romano's restaurant. McVeigh accepts the invitation, but Columbo does not turn up. After the last dinner guests leave, McVeigh quickly suspects that it is a set-up and that Fortelli and his men are planning an ambush. Fearing for his life, McVeigh contacts Columbo who says that he never invited him to the restaurant but quickly makes his way there. After Columbo arrives, Fortelli threatens to kill McVeigh unless he confesses to murdering Teddy. McVeigh denies it at first, but fearing for his life even more, he eventually gives in and confesses to the murder. He also reveals where he hid the gun and Columbo has two officers quickly locate it. After McVeigh is arrested, Columbo reveals that the whole confrontation was staged to get McVeigh to confess and Fortelli is impressed - as he and Columbo had both planned the set-up.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Lawrence Vail.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Graham came up with the following elaborate scheme to rid himself of his debt-incurring brother Teddy: Graham carefully staged circumstances so as to implicate a mobster, Romano, then simply shot the brother dead and hightailed it on a folding bike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is premised on Graham killing his no-good gambling brother, Teddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Graham had had enough of his embarrassing liability of a brother Teddy and therefore killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Who had shot dead Teddy McVeigh, a debt incurring gambler? Was it gangsters, or his own brother?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham had looked out for his debt-incurring gambler brother, Teddy, many times but had finally had enough. He therefore murdered Teddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruno Romano was a mobster, and his boss Vincenzo Fortelli was an Italian mafia boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the mobster Vincenzo Fortelli was determined to take revenge on Graham McVeigh over the killing of a henchman, should the law fail to bring Graham to justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham McVeigh shot his brother dead in cold blood and took elaborate measures to pin the crime on the mobster, Bruno Romano. He then shot Bruno dead to make it more difficult to solve the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Teddy McVeigh had lost quite a lot of money over the years from betting at the track.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teddy McVeigh was roughly $200,000 in debt to the mob bookie and restaurateur Bruno Romano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo was in bad shape from having eaten a batch of spoiled clams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being informed of his brother's death, Graham exhaled wistfully and soon thereafter leaned against a tree trunk in a most sorrowful manner. This was all a show as Graham was his brother's killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of the horse race being fixed. Graham somewhat fixed the race by drugging Teddy's horse, leave the thoroughbred lethargic and slow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruno's restaurant had a mouse problem, or so Graham wanted everyone to believe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincenzo was upset about the slaying of his henchman Bruno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincenzo treated his servants with condensation at the dinner with Columbo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x14", "title": "Faces", "date": "1995-05-08", "description": "B'Elanna Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves by the Vidiians.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Jonathan Glassner and Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna more or less came to accept her Klingon side after the ordeal of being split into two persons, one Klingon and one human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need our darker side in moderation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna discovered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna of being half Klingon as a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viidians about needing to harvest organs to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok with spicy plomeek soup", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna human-half", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vidiians used an advanced medical gizmo to effectively teleport organs directly out of living humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was enthusiastic about pulling his weight aboard Voyager by being the ship's cook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulan at B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x22", "title": "Explorers", "date": "1995-05-08", "description": "Sisko builds a replica of an ancient Bajoran space vessel and with Jake attempts to prove that the Bajorans developed interstellar travel before Cardassians.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Hilary J. Bader.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake build a solar sail spacecraft and fly it all the way to Cardassia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar sail spaceship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake build a solar sail spacecraft and fly it all the way to Cardassia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake flew a rickety solar sail spacecraft all the way to Cardassia in imitation of the Bajorans of old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir was self-conscious about having finished second to Elizabeth Lense in Star Fleet graduating class", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake bonded over talks about creative writing and women while on solar sail spacecraft voyage; Bashir and Miles got drunk together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Cardassians wanted to suppress knowledge that Ancient Bajorans had mastered interstellar space travel and flew to Cardassia Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir had a chip on his shoulder the size of a saucer section over having finished second in his class", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was offered a scholarship to study creative writing in New Zealand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir reflected back on his Starfleet Academy days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was offered a scholarship to study creative writing in New Zealand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake sparked an international incident between the Bajorans and the Cardassians when they tried to prove that the Ancient Bajorans had mastered interstellar space travel. This was a sensitive matter for the Cardassians as a success would mean they'd have to accept the accomplishments of the Ancient Bajorans that they'd long ago dismissed as \"fairy tales\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake about his creative writing talent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake in his creative writing talent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin thought it was time for a change and grew a goatee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was initially disappointed in Jake for not wanting to accompany his dad on solar sail spacecraft voyage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Benjamin discussed Benjamin's future romantic plans; Jake planned to meet his ex-girlfriend who was visiting aboard the space station", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x17", "title": "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum", "date": "1995-05-10", "description": "Sheridan discovers a connection between his late wife and the mysterious Mr Morden, and makes enemies of everyone around him when he has Morden detained. Elsewhere, the Nightwatch is formed on the station.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan is struggling with having lost his wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan struggled with having lost his wife in a space accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan clearly needed closure over his late wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo's deal with the Shadows is discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unlawful detention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan detained the Shadow spy without a good cause and Garibaldi resigned over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "this expression was used wrt. to Sheridan's skulduggery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin discussed his faith \"Foundationism\" which involved a monotheistic god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack mentioned Germany's Enigma machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Heatseeker (1995)", "title": "Heatseeker", "date": "1995-05-15", "description": "A kickboxing champion is compelled to enter a mixed martial arts tournament in which all the other participants are cybernetically enhanced.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113278/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is about a 100% human kickboxing champion who competes in a mixed brutal martial arts tournament in which the other competitors are all cybernetically enhanced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world's cyber companies showcased their cyborg martial artists in a brutal one-on-one fighting tournament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 100% human kickboxing champion Chance O'Brien proved himself superior to machines by winning an all-cyborg (except for him) mixed martial arts fighting tournament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Sianon corporation kidnapped Chance O'Brien's fiancée, Jo, to compel him to fight in their cyborg mixed martial arts tournament. The idea here is that Chance was the world's greatest human kickboxer, and the corporation was counting on their cyborg defeating Chance in battle to raise their stock price.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 100% human kickboxer Chance fought in an otherwise all cyborg fighting tournament for the sake of his manager turned fiancée, Jo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To the kickboxer Chance it seemed that his manager fiancée, Jo, had betrayed him by leaving him to train his greatest rival, but, in fact, she was being compelled to do so by the Sianon corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Newly engaged, Chance and Jo made proclamations of love to one another over a romantic dinner in Rome.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x15", "title": "Jetrel", "date": "1995-05-15", "description": "A member of the Haakonians, a race warring with the Talaxians, arrives on Voyager, much to the dismay of Neelix, whose family was killed by a weapon of mass destruction this particular individual devised.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: James Thomton and Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores how the Haakonians unleashed a weapon of mass destruction on Rinax, killing over 300,000 Talaxian colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jetrel for designing WMDs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jetrel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes comforted Neelix after he was diagnosed with the terminal illness incipent metremia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix with incipent metremia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix with what happened on Rynax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix was ashamed of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix about his cowardly actions on Rynax getting out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix and Jetrel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Tuvok were shooting pool in the teaser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok bit off more than he could chew in pool", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix spoke on the suffering engendered by the WMD use", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x23", "title": "Family Business", "date": "1995-05-15", "description": "Quark returns to his home planet to confront his mother after hearing from the Ferengi Commerce Authority that she broke the law by earning profit.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark's mother was charged by Ferengi authorities with the crime of running a business for profit, which was the exclusive right of Ferengi males. Ferengi females were also expected to serve dinner and refrain from wearing clothes and traveling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka was forbidden to have a career in business because she was a female", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka excelled in business in spite of being female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark versus his mother Ishka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka excelled in business in spite of being female", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka challenged Ferengi prevailing wisdom by making raking in huge profits for a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark was astonished to discover that his mother was a skilled business woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Quark; Ishka and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Rom had contrasting view on the role of females in Ferengi society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Ishka were being audited by the Ferengi Commerce Authority", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and his mother Ishka quarreled over her pursuing profit at the expense of family honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was concerned about family honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka broke a Ferengi stereotype by proving that women could be successful at business. This she did as a point of pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin delighted in cooking Hungarian food, while Quark's mother, by contrast, did not like cooking one bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake tired to set up Benjamin with Kasidy Yates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy Yates flirted over coffee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was ecstatic to learn there was a baseball league on Cestus III.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x16", "title": "Knives", "date": "1995-05-17", "description": "Londo is reunited with an old friend, only to be caught in the middle of Republic agendas. An alien life form invades Sheridan's body.\n\nDirected by: Stephen L. Posey. Story by: Larry DiTillio.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo's friend gave his life to save his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan contemplated the possibility that he was going insane", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "London was exceptionally loyal to his friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Franklin were concerned for Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Newfound as well as ancient Centauri imperial ambitions were topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo fought to the death with his old friend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo fell out with his old friend because of politics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sneaky Centauri politics were topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "some ghostlike alien possessed Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo and Vir discussed Centauri opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo discussed his past loves with a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin thought Sheridan was under too much stress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo's friend was concerned about family honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Garibaldi played some baseball.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy1x16", "title": "Learning Curve", "date": "1995-05-22", "description": "Tuvok trains several Maquis members who have not fully integrated into the Voyager crew.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "group bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok with cadets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok was put in charge of getting several Maquis crew members up to speed in Starfleet protocols. When the trainees responded poorly to Tuvok's harsh command style, he initially doubled down in his ways. Only after much reflection and bonding with the trainees did Tuvok learn the value of adapting his leadership style to fit the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "cadets to Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "the students", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok became a more flexible and adaptable person in the course of training a group of lackluster Maquis cadets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Voyager's bio-neural gel packs malfunctioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how Janeway spends her time on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok made failed attempt to bond with Dalby over billiards", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "biocomputer failures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flee to fight another day", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok urged Crewman Dalby to consider that it is retreat is often preferable to “going out with phasers firing”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok went above and beyond the call of duty in rescuing Gerron who would have otherwise died from a plasma leak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok goes back to save Gerron", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway in victorian fantasy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x24", "title": "Shakaar", "date": "1995-05-22", "description": "Kai Winn needs Kira to convince her former resistance leader, Shakaar, now a farmer on Bajor, to return soil reclamators needed elsewhere in Rakantha, which used to be Bajor's most productive agricultural region.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: Gordon Dawson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Winn Adami wanted Shakar to return soil reclamators for the good of Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami was accused of lusting to rule Bajor by Kira and Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira with having to convince her old friends to return the soil reclamators to the Bajoran government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira with having to convince her old friends to return the soil reclamators to the Bajoran government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad government exports while the people are starving", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conniving leader of the Bajoran government Winn Adami planned to export luxury good while ordinary Bajorans struggled to subsist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winn Adami warned strive over soil reclamators could lead to civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shakaar resolved to run against Winn Adami in upcoming election", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira performed prayer rights in remembrance of her departed lover Bareil Antos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of darts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles went on an unprecedented winning streak at darts in Quark's bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Furel choose to go through life with only one arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "rebel farmers deliberated on where to fight their pursuers or continue to run and chose the former option", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira to Winn Adami", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira was sent to mediate and Winn approached Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was in the zone playing darts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and old friends remembering fallen comrades over dinner and drinks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira reflected fondly over her days as a resistance fighter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: White Dwarf (1995)", "title": "White Dwarf", "date": "1995-05-23", "description": "In the year 3040, New York medical student Driscoll Rampart is completing his internship on Rusta, a rural planet which due to it being tidally locked to its primary, is divided into contrasting halves of day and night with the halves separated by a wall. The two sides are involved in a civil war: The day side containing a Victorian-styled colony is at odds with the night containing a medieval kingdom. The differences between the two cultures leaves Rampart in a state of wonder. Rampart arrives from Earth for a six-month stint at the Light Side clinic run by Dr. Akada. Rampart's ambition is to eventually set up a private practice in Manhattan on Park Avenue.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Dwarf_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "tidally locked planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a tidally locked planet, named Rusta, in orbit about a white dwarf star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the medical student Dr. Rampart as he undertakes a six-month internship at a medical clinic on a far-flung, rural planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rampart came all the way from Earth to do a six-month internship at a clinic on a rural planet in orbit around a white dwarf star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A badly hungover Dr. Rampart called on his stagecoach driver to pull over so that he could puke on the side of the road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The up and coming, New York medical student Dr. Rampart arranged for himself a six-month internship on the rural, war-mired planet of Rusta to pad his resume.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day at school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young girl was sent off to attend school for the first time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Never the Shifter assumed the form of one of Dr. Rampart's old flame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Never the Shifter probed the depths of Dr. Rampart's psyche and there found memories of Rampart's old flame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The identical twin girls XuXu and XaXa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two young twin girls XuXu and XaXa were consoled in the wake of their parents having gotten slaughtered by raiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guv'ner Twist had a reputation for being a panicky hypochondriac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A space alien, named Osh, lived among the human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A woman was executed in the Keep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "canine-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Osh's trusted companion Morgus was a 99 different language speaking humanoid being with dog-like characteristics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady X was an immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal Lady X wasn't happy about being only 500 years though serving her 5000 year prison sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Akada saved Dr. Rampart from a pummox (a puma-like cat native to the planet Rusta) that had strayed into the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability related to own body", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Akada manifested a strange ability to take people's lives just by screeching at them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The clinic doctors used special rubber surgical gloves that enabled them to perform something akin to \"psychic surgeries\" on their patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Never the Shifter was worried that his mother would never take him home from the clinic where he was being teated for his shapeshifting condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the canine humanoid Morgus was in the process of devolving into a grotesque creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the people on the day side of a tidally locked planet were mired in a civil war with the people on its dark side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After a minor diplomatic effort, a peace treaty signed between two warring factions on a tidally locked planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x18", "title": "Confessions and Lamentations", "date": "1995-05-24", "description": "A deadly plague threatens the Markab race with extinction, leaving Franklin in a race against time to find the cure before even more species are infected.\n\nDirected by: Kevin G. Cremin. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "faith vs. medicine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Markab put everyone on Babylon 5 at risk with their stubborn refusal to see the Drafa Plague, of which they were carriers, in a practical light. They instead maintained that the plague was a form of divine punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Markab thought the disease was a punishment for immorality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markab and Franklin disagreed vehemently about what to do", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn and Lenar took a great risk in going to aid the Markab in their isolation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was violence against the Markab implying that they could be sacrificed in order to save everyone else", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various racist remarks were uttered, especially by the bartender at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Franklin was working to find a cure for a deadly disease that was discovered among the Markab on Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markab civilization had been all but wiped out by a contagious disease with a 100% lethality rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "In response to the deadly plague, Sheridan issued orders placing Babylon 5 under quarantine and segregating the Markab for their own protection. The Markab governing authorities had forbade Lazarenn from revealing the existence of the deadly plague, out of concern that doing so would lead them being voted out of office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan learned Minbari eating rituals and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Markab caused quite a commotion by carrying with them to Babylon 5 a contagious disease with a 100% lethality rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn dealt with lost Markab girl", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)", "title": "Johnny Mnemonic", "date": "1995-05-26", "description": "The fill follows a man with a cybernetic brain implant designed to store information. It is based on the 1981 story of the same name by William Gibson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professional data smuggler Johnny had a cybernetic implant that enabled him to carry 160 gigabytes of data in his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a dystopian world dominated by megacorporations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pharmaceutical corporation PharmaKor was suppressing the cure for a lethal disease that was said to be affecting half the world's population, because treating the disease was far more profitable than curing it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny and Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "J-Bone led the Lotek resistance movement against the megacorporate world system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ralfi had a transgendered bodyguard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny hacked into a PharmaKom system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were using futuristic virtual reality gear to interface with computers and navigate online.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human tough decision", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Johnny undergo a risky brain surgery in order to retrieve the cure for a lethal disease that afflicting half the world's population?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Galaxis (1995)", "title": "Galaxis", "date": "1995-06-01", "description": "The fate of a space heroine's people depends on her retrieving a powerful Inca crystal from Earth. It was also released under the name Terminal Force.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kyla, who was the leader of an alien rebel army, sought the Eye of the Inca crystal to increase his sphere of influence in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stereotypically virtuous heroin Ledera was trying to save her people from the aggressions of the stereotypically evil villain Kyra and his rebel army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two stereotypical police detectives were on the trail of Victor Menendez and his fellow gangsters for most of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Star Wars-esque spacecraft were flying around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens scenes of Ledera and her people fighting a desperate war of survival against the forces of Kyla and his rebel army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Terminator-like droid was loose in the Sentarian compound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two stereotypical police detectives were investigating a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Menendez and his fellow gangsters sought the Eye of the Inca crystal in recompense for monies owed to them by Jed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack played a high stakes game of poker together with some criminals of Chinese origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ladera traveled back in time to contemporary Earth in an effort to obtain the Eye of the Inca crystal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold (1995)", "title": "Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold", "date": "1995-06-02", "description": "A finalist for Plaything Magazine's Centerfold of the Year grows to be 60 feet tall after drinking an experimental beauty-enhancing serum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_60_Foot_Centerfold" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "he main novelty of the film is a beautiful female model who grows to be 60 feet tall after drinking an experimental serum that was supposed to make people more beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is a beautiful female model who grows to be 60 feet tall after drinking an experimental serum that was supposed to make people more beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging model Angel Grace turned to Dr. Lindstrom to make her look more youthful in order that she might be selected as Plaything Magazine's Centerfold of the Year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super growth therapy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Lindstrom developed an experimental blue serum that was supposed to make people more beautiful, but instead made them grow to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Angel Grace was into Mark, be he only feigned interest in her for selfish reasons. Meanwhile Mark's assistant Wilson was infatuated with Angel. In the end, Wilson socked Mark in the face, and won Angel's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was three beautiful female models rivaling to be Plaything Centerfold of the Year.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wilson was really into the 60 foot tall woman Angel Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark was going model shoots for Plaything Magazine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging model Angel Grace took an experimental serum in an effort to look more beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lindstrom was experimenting with a beauty serum in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plaything Magazine's founder Bob Gordon and his insanely jealous girlfriend Rosita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Plaything Magazine's founder Bob Gordon had a love interest, named Rosita, who became intensely jealous whenever he was around beautiful female models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty brushed off Mark when he asked her out for a drink. Wilson was a bit dismayed to be the object of a 60 foot tall woman's romantic affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lindstrom and his staff were contending with a giant rat that had taken up home in his clinic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Lindstrom was running a beauty clinic Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Substantial efforts were made to remove the giant rat that had taken up home in Dr. Lindstrom's clinic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gas station attendant claimed that he'd been abducted by an alien named Reggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tabloid reporter was investigating a supposed flying saucer sighting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tabloid reporter was investigating reports of a giant woman on the outskirts of Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad sunburn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the characters ended up with a bad sunburn after having fallen asleep on the beach.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x25", "title": "Facets", "date": "1995-06-12", "description": "Jadzia Dax deals with feelings of inferiority as she encounters past hosts in a Trill Zhian'tara ceremony which is able to transfer the memories of former hosts into another recipient.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia participates in the Zhian'tara ceremony to meet her Trill implant's former hosts and her confidence is shaken by what she finds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia participates in the Zhian'tara ceremony to meet her Trill implant's former hosts and her confidence is shaken by what she finds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia participated in the Zhian'tara ceremony to meet her Trill implant's former hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia concerned she wouldn't measure up to the former hosts of her Trill symbiont", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "in this case uncle Quark of Nog joining star fleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia in front of past selfs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog preparing for Star Fleet exams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "studying for a test", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog was preparing to take the Starfleet entrance exam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia stands up to Curzon and gets him to leave Odo's body", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and her past lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark allowed his body to be used as a vessel for a female past life of Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was took pride in his son Nog's impending acceptance into Starfleet Academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was reunited with his old friend Curzon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was pulling for his son Nog to get accepted into Star Fleet academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom quarreled over Nog's future", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the whole Trill body swap thing was reminiscent of seances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curzon commented on Benjamin's new goatee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curzon felt remorseful over having been mean to Jadzia in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curzon confessed his love for Jadzia to her", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Memory Run (1995)", "title": "Memory Run", "date": "1995-06-16", "description": "The year is 2015 and a corrupt and powerful corporation functions as the government. In this future world, a man finds himself in the body of the woman he's been framed for the rape and murder of. It is based on the 1968 novel Season of the Witch, published by Jean Marie Stine under her former name Hank Stine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Run" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a dreary near-future where a corrupt corporation rules over the land with an iron fist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "An underground resistance movement, known as \"The Union\", was actively trying to over throw the Life Corporation regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporatocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future where the corrupt Life Corporation has taken over the government, ended democratic elections, and rules over the land with an iron fist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andre woke up to find himself in the body of the woman he'd been framed for raping and murdering. The story follows Andre, now called Celeste, as he tries to get his body back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Life Corporation elites were perpetuating themselves by implanting their mind's into the bodies of younger \"donor\" bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Munger somehow \"implanted\" Andre's mind into the body of a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre was framed for the rape and murder of Josette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre was framed for Josette's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andre was framed for Josette's rape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A corrupt Life Corporation official destroyed evidence that Andre was innocent of Josette's rape and murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brainwaves", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Life Corporation officials studied Andre's brainwave patterns in real-time on a computer display.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Life Corporation officials used a headband device of some kind to create a video out of Andre's memories Josette's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Life Corporation officials excised exculpatory evidence from Andre's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celeste had a pain implant, called a Goad, drilled into the base of her skull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Munger helped Celeste to escape her confinement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celeste wept after her fellow captive Alice died when Alice's pain implant malfunctioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabriel uttered a proclamation of love to Crystal as the pair made passionate love together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Life Corporation used bluish force fields to protect buildings from Union \"terrorists\" and also to confine Dr. Munger to a Al-Z-Boy-style chair.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds93x26", "title": "The Adversary", "date": "1995-06-19", "description": "Ambassador Krajensky informs newly promoted Captain Sisko that there has been a coup on Tzenketh. A Changeling hides on board the Defiant and sabotages the ship.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Crew members were mistrustful of one another when a changeling impostor was discovered to be aboard the Defiant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Changelings tried to turn factions against each others in the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was a shapeshifting saboteur aboard the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin initiated an auto destruct rather than concede defeat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was faced with having to decide which Changeling was the real Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was promoted to captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Cassidy Yeates flirted with having a long distance relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was wracked with guilt over having killed a fellow Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo seemed to feel slightly guilty about opposing and killing another shapeshifter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake took pride in Benjamin's promotion to captain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy planned to watch some old World Series games together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Judge Dredd (1995)", "title": "Judge Dredd", "date": "1995-06-30", "description": "The film takes place in 2080 and depicts a dystopian world and the crime- ridden metropolis Mega-City One. Following an unspecified disaster that turned Earth into a \"cursed\" wasteland, the survivors established a corps of Judges whose role combines that of police, judge, jury and executioner. The film follows Judge Joseph Dredd, one of the most dedicated Street Judges who had been framed for murder by his own half-brother, the hardened criminal Rico.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film takes place in the crime-ridden, vegetationless megacity Mega-City One where a corps of Judges serve as police, judge, jury and executioner with little to no oversight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film takes place in 2080 and is set in the metropolis Mega-City One: a vegetationless megacity consisting of skyscrapers as far as the eye can see.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in the crime-ridden metropolis Mega-City One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set is a vast, futuristic city and follows a corps of Judges whose role combines that of police, judge, jury and executioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge Dredd was framed for murder by his own criminal half-brother, Rico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Judge Dredd and his evil brother Rico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film takes place in the 2080s following an unspecified disaster that left much of Earth an uninhabitable wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film takes place in futuristic megacity where flying cars are a mundane reality of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Known hacker Herman Ferguson had on his police record the illegal tampering with city droids, computers, cash machines, and taxi robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rico's large humanoid combat robot henchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Dredd was convicted for premeditated murder of the news reporter Vartis Hammond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The news reporter Vartis Hammond was torn over whether he should exposes the wrongdoings of the Council Judges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tribunal found Judge Dredd guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to be imprisoned for life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Dredd and Herman made a jail break from the Aspen penal colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Dredd and Rico were the results of an experiment in genetic engineering intended to create the perfect Judge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rico nearly succeeded in makes multiple clones of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Dredd hurled his own brother, Rico, off the Statue of Liberty to his death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Species (1995)", "title": "Species", "date": "1995-07-07", "description": "A motley crew of scientists and government agents try to track down Sil, a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid, before she successfully mates with a human male. It is the first installment in the Species film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Species" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seductive human-alien hybrid Sil used her ravishing looks to lull men into a false sense of security before killing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid Sil's efforts to successfully mate with a human male.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of sending information out into space", "level": "major", "motivation": "SETI scientists received two replies from an alien source to a transmission that they'd sent out into space. The first contained information about how to create an endless supply of fuel. But one gathers it was a ruse, because the second message contained instructions for how to splice alien DNA with human DNA. When scientists followed these instructions, the result was a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid that scientists feared would mate with human males and produce offspring that could eliminate the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sil was driven by an instinct to procreate her kind my mating with a peak physical human male specimen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Laura Baker speculated that the human-alien hybrid Sil was a biological weapon sent to Earth by a species who thought humans were like an intergalactic weed. Whatever the case, it was apparent that Sil's offspring had the potential to eliminate the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female seeking to find a superior mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid Sil as she instinctively seeks out a peak human male with whom to mate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how in 1974 SETI researchers sent a message with information about Earth and its inhabitants into outer space from the Arecibo Observatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-described empath Dan Smithson manifested an innate ability to state the obvious about virtually an situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sil developed into a 12-year-old girl in 3 months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Physical damage to Sil's body healed almost instantly. For instance, her thumb grew back almost immediately after she scissored it off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura and Chris had the hots for each other and they eventually made love in Laura's hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sil was explicitly described as being a psychopath, and indeed, she showed no hint of any ability to understand the suffering she was making other people go through. In one example, she acted extremely callously to a woman who'd she kidnapped and seemed unable to understand the source of the woman's distress.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Suspect Device (1995)", "title": "Suspect Device", "date": "1995-07-11", "description": "A man discovers that he's a nuclear bomb containing cyborg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspect_Device_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mild mannered office worker Dan Jericho was dumbfounded upon finding out that he was a nuclear weapon implanted cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dan Jericho turned out to be a cyborg that was implanted with a 1 megaton nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dan Jericho turned out to be a cyborg that was implanted with a 1 megaton nuclear bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dan Jericho was on the run from a CIA special unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cyborg Dan Jericho met his maker Dr. Charles Flint who explained to Dan that Dan was a cyborg implanted with a nuclear bomb that could be programmatically activated to detonate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cyborg Dan Jericho was implanted with a 1 megaton nuclear bomb. In the end, the nuke inside Dan detonated, killing himself, his maker, and a number of nefarious CIA-connected higher ups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan and Kristen Jericho.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the cyborg Dan Jericho was genetically engineered flesh on the outside and circuits and microchips (and a 1 megaton nuclear bomb) on the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Flint had implanted Dan with some of Dr. Flint's own memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Jericho was shocked when the woman he had memories of of being his wife didn't remember him. It turned out that Dan had been implanted with those memories.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)", "title": "Nemesis 2: Nebula", "date": "1995-07-21", "description": "A cyborg bounty hunter named Nebula travels back in time to terminate a genetically engineered superhuman female. It is the sequel to the 1992 film Nemesis.", "collections": [ "Collection: Nemesis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_2:_Nebula" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was a genetically engineered superhuman female with a very muscular physique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Alex as she is hunted down to be terminated by a cyborg named Nemesis from 100 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baby Alex was transported 120 years back in time to East Africa in 1980 to protect her. The cyborg Nemesis was sent back 100 years in time to terminate adult Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was being hunted down by the bounty hunting cyborg Nemesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Resistance scientists genetically engineered a superhuman female in the hopes that she would ultimately bring about an end to cyborg rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens in a future where humans have lost the Cyborg Wars and they are now slaves to the cyborg masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rebel fighter was holding Emily and another woman for ransom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily crossed Alex by flying off without her to save room for some gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily flew off in an ultralight airplane loaded up with gold instead of taking Alex as she'd promised.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Waterworld (1995)", "title": "Waterworld", "date": "1995-07-28", "description": "The setting of the film is in the distant future. The polar ice cap has completely melted, and the sea level has risen over 7,600 m, covering nearly all of the land. The plot of the film centers on an otherwise nameless antihero, \"The Mariner\", a drifter who sails the Earth in his trimaran.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterworld" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The primary novelty of the film is that it is set in a distant future by which time sea levels have risen so high that virtually all continental land is submerged under seawater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where human activity in a past age had left the polar ice caps completely melted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story, a lone drifter known only as the Mariner, was a mutant with gills and webbed feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was as a mother to young Enola.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a distant future when the Earth is almost completely covered in ocean and a remnant of human civilization live on ramshackle floating communities known as atolls, having long forgotten about living on land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "People believed that there was a mythological place, called Dryland, somewhere in the endless ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mariner and his companions were being pursued by a gang of pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Many of the ramshackle floating community members reviled the Mariner for his being a mutant with gills and webbed feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mentally unstable drifter tried to force himself upon Helen against her will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mariner shared a passionate kiss with Helen toward the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Virtuosity (1995)", "title": "Virtuosity", "date": "1995-08-04", "description": "A disgraced police detective is released from prison on the condition that he apprehend a sadistic, serial murdering android.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuosity" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the disgraced LAPD lieutenant Parker Barnes as he works to apprehend the psychopathic android whose personality contains elements of the deranged killer who'd murdered Parker's own wife and child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Important portions of the film took place in a virtual reality environment that was essentially indistinguishable from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's antagonist is a sentient, self-evolving neural network, named SID 6.7, who quickly managed to transfer itself into an android body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Being an amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history, the SID 6.7 virtual person (in the body of a self-regenerating android) repeatedly delighted itself in inflicting pain and suffering on others, especially Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SID 6.7 virtual person, being an amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history, showed no feelings or understand for the human beings he was sadistically killing, after he managed to transfer himself into an android body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that SID 6.7's android body self-repaired itself by means of silicon-based nanotech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SID 6.7 sentient computer program came to inhabit a self-regenerating android body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "SID 6.7's android body kept regenerating itself after sustaining physical damage, such as bullet wounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The VR amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history SID 6.7 transfered itself into an android body and went on a killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SID 6.7 virtual reality amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history was conceited and generally full of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parker was driven by a desire to avenge the murders of his wife and young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parker grieved again and again over his murdered wife and daughter and was generally torn up over the incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A public announcement was made on the street by a greenish, holographic head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The virtual reality prostitute Sheila 3.2.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monitoring implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parker was implanted with a rice grain-sized locater implant. Unbeknownst to him, however, was that it also contained a deadly neurotoxin that could be released at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison and her young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "SID 6.7 took a bunch of nightclub patrons hostage for fun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "SID 6.7 crashed a brutal mixed martial arts fighting event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew Grimes spoke of how few people controlled most of the wealth in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a televised political debate about closing the borders of the United States to immigrants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hysterical woman stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison briefly went into hysterics upon learned that her young daughter, Karin, was being held by a sadistic, serially killing android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison was worried to death over her young daughter, Karin, being at the mercy of a deranged and murderous android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to defuse a ticking time bomb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was up to Parker to stop a time bomb from blowing Madison's young daughter, Karin, to pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that SID 6.7's android body was able to regenerate itself after sustaining physical damage on account that it was made of silicon-based nanotech.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Harrison Bergeron (1995)", "title": "Harrison Bergeron", "date": "1995-08-13", "description": "A second American Revolution has resulted in the United States becoming a dystopic egalitarian society. The year is 2053. It is loosely adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 dystopian short story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people forced to be average dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people with above average abilities, be they mental or physical, were forced to wear handicap items, including intelligence dimming headbands and heavy weights for certain athletes. In general, citizens were pushed to strive to be of equal wealth, intelligence, athletic prowess and social status to all around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the society in which it was mandated that all people be equal in all things was being secretly managed by a cabal of ruling elites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harrison and Philipa fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harrison struggled to understand how he and the other ruling elites could justify their being mentally exceptionally in a society where citizens were pushed to strive to be of equal wealth, intelligence, athletic prowess and social status to all around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained that after the second American Revolution started during an ongoing economic depression that was a result of a combination of technological advancement and a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor. Harrison made a bid to start a third American Revolution in an effort bring about an end to the dystopic egalitarian society that the United States had become.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison was held back a grade several times because his grades weer consistently too high. In general, he didn't fit in because he was smarter than everyone else - that is until he was recruited into the ruling class. Harrison's arranged wife to be Elsa, by contrast, didn't fit in because she was of lower than average intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison and Hazel Bergeron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison made a failed bid to have a heart to heart talk with his father George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison played chess with his younger brother Garth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a society where marriages were decided by computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was described how new technologies made it so that by the year 2018 only 15% of the American population had jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison and Wang opposed executing a man who'd committed a minor traffic violation: he was put to death in the chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment as a deterrent to crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Klaxon was in favor of using the death penalty on people who'd committed minor crimes on account doing so served as a deterrent to others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the second American Revolution started during an ongoing economic depression that was a result of a combination of technological advancement and a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "economic downturn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the second American Revolution started during an ongoing economic depression that was a result of a combination of technological advancement and a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison lost his virginity to Philipa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Klaxon described television as the thread that holds together the fabric of society. In general, the ruling elites were filling up the airwaves with television programming that was calculated to dumb down the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President McCloskey threatened a country with a nuclear strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Philipa was John Klaxon's own daughter. But even that did not stop him from having her lobotomized when she tried to run away from the National Administration Center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison shot himself dead on live television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrison was iffy about going through with a mandatory operation akin to a lobotomy in order to permanently lower his intelligence. Philipa was lobotomized for trying to escape from the National Administration Center.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not Like Us (1995)", "title": "Not Like Us", "date": "1995-08-15", "description": "Two aliens posing as beautiful human beings take up residence in the small American town Tranquility.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Like_Us" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two aliens, who called themselves Janet and John, took up residence in a small American town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet and her domineering brother John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet and her domineering brother John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the aliens had come to Earth to perfect their experiment cosmetic surgery procedures on human guinea pigs so that they could make themselves more beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita was caring for her young son and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita had enough of living in the middle of nowhere and decided to take the kids and leave her husband Sam, who was committed to living in the town for his research, for the summer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita had enough of living in the middle of nowhere and decided to take the kids and leave her husband Sam, who was committed to living in the town for his research, for the summer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita and her young daughter Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and his young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and his young daughter Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jones' and their family dog Albert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vicky was making a hard push to land John after his wife left with the kids for the summer, but John didn't bite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the aliens had come to Earth to use human beings, who were considered to be animals under alien law, as guinea pigs in their cosmetic surgery experiments.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde (1995)", "title": "Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde", "date": "1995-08-25", "description": "The story takes place in modern times and concerns a bumbling chemist who tampers with his great-grandfather's formula, accidentally transforming himself into a beautiful businesswoman who is hellbent on taking over his life. The story takes place in modern times and concerns a bumbling chemist who tampers with his great-grandfather's formula, accidentally transforming himself into a beautiful businesswoman who is hellbent on taking over his life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Ms._Hyde" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard's female alter-ego Helen tried to sabotage his relationship with his fiancée Sarah, but things turned out alright for Richard and Sarah in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a parodized view of what it is like to develop a perfume for market at a major fragrance company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard periodically transformed into his female alter-ego Helen and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Sarah overcame various obstacles, including his female alter-ego Helen trying to sabotage their relationship, and they affirmed their love for one another by the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard's female alter-ego Helen was a cutthroat, business-minded woman who was determined to do anything it took to make it to the top of the major fragrance company where Richard was employed as a chemist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Richard to stop his evil female alter-ego Helen from taking him over completely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humble and bumbling chemist Richard was contrasted with his cutthroat, do anything to make it tot he top, female alter-ego Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was humble and kind-hearted in contrast with his evil female alter-ego Helen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the development of a new perfume at a major fragrance company, and involves rivalries, sleeping to make it to the top, an overly demanding CEO, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard picked up the notes from his great-grandfather's experiments from his slightly daffy aunt, Agatha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard transformed into a woman after injecting himself with an estrogen enhanced chemical serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annoyed by Pete's affections, Helen tricked him into splashing his face with acid, and later electrocuted him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard's estranged fiancée, Sarah, was outraged when he showed up out of the blue in an orange dress, and went so far as to call his wearing of the said dress a \"perversion\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard punched his cousin Larry square in the nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver Mintz attended the launch of a new perfume together with his wife, Mrs. Mintz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver, a married man, was about to sleep with his subordinate Helen, but she backed out at the last moment when she began to revert into Richard.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x01", "title": "The 37s", "date": "1995-08-28", "description": "A group of humans from the 1930s are found in stasis on a seemingly abandoned planet, including the lost Amelia Earhart.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story advances a tongue-in-cheek explanation for the real-life, mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on their final attempt to circumnavigate the globe by air: it was space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway met Amelia Earhart", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew found Amelia Earhart cryogenically preserved on planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "first the car then the frozen people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of humans from the 1930s were revived from stasis on a seemingly abandoned planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew about whether to stay on cozy planet or continue voyage home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amelia Earhart and Janeway both leader figures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Captain Janeway led away team encountered this aviation pioneer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Morse code", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Having recreated an antique car radio, Tom Paris picked up an old fashioned AM signal that turned out to represent the old SOS message, a Morse code concept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the 37s on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew to Janeway about staying on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom jumped at the opportunity to tinker around with a 1936 Ford truck that the Voyager crew had discovered floating around in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "cryogenic people waking up in future", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars colonization discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "frozen people and crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned briefly", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wasp Woman (1995)", "title": "The Wasp Woman", "date": "1995-08-29", "description": "An aging model injects herself with a wasp hormone extract that can reverse the aging process. It is a remake of the 1959 film of the same name which was written and directed by Roger Corman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wasp_Woman_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice was running a major cosmetics corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging model Janice Starling turned back the clock by injecting herself with an experimental wasp hormone extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cosmetics corporation owner Janice Sterling injected herself with an experimental age reversing wasp hormone extract after she was asked to stop modeling for her own skin care line products.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging model Janice used an experimental age reversing wasp hormone extract to make herself look 21 again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alec became increasing concerned by his girlfriend Janice's strange behavior, only to find out that she'd been periodically transforming into a wasp creature, after having injected herself with an age reversing experimental wasp hormone extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice periodically transformed into a half-human/half-wasp creature after injecting herself with an experimental age reversing wasp hormone extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janice periodically transformed into a half-human/half-wasp creature after injecting herself with an experimental age reversing wasp hormone extract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alec's love for his girlfriend Janice remained steadfast even as her behavior became increasingly strange.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zinthorp was experimenting with wasp hormones in his laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alec confronted his girlfriend Janice over her jealousy of the young fashion model Caitlin that Alec needed to photograph as part of his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alec worked as a fashion model photographer at the Starling cosmetics corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janice dreamed herself catching her boyfriend Alec cheating on her with a young model. Later she hallucinated Alec making out with her assistant Mary. Janice serially cheated on her boyfriend Alec.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young model Caitlin was all over her photographer Alec to his great distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fashion industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young model Caitlin posed for a fashion model shoot first in studio and later on the beach.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x02", "title": "Initiations", "date": "1995-09-04", "description": "Chakotay encounters a Kazon youth who is on an initiation rite: to earn his name by killing an enemy or be killed in the attempt.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans could not stand idly by and let a Kazon follow his ancestral customs when those customs involved murder. Chakotay came up with a ruse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kar proved courageous by the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kar pressured to kill Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rite of passage into manhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kar must kill a man to be recognized as an adult", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay refuses to kill Kar at his own peril", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy vs. rule of law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay debates values with Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ayala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kar accused of even though he was brave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Kar toughed it out on a rugged yet habitable moon while they awaited rescue. They, for instance, spent the night sheltering inside a cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Kar crash-landed on a moon that was being used for military training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay with his medicine bundle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix wanted more responsibility on the ship", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Not of This Earth (1995)", "title": "Not of This Earth", "date": "1995-09-05", "description": "A space alien comes to Earth looking to get blood from the human race. It a remake of Roger Corman's 1957 film of the same name (which Corman had already remade in 1988).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_of_This_Earth_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson was actually an alien who sustained itself on human blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien race to which Mr. Johnson belonged was doomed unless he found a cure to a fatal blood disease that was afflicting all its members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson always communicated telepathically with other members of his alien race, and sometimes projected his thoughts into the minds of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson was a space alien who came to Earth in search of a cure fora disease that was afflicting his race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda and the police officer Jack fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson was a space alien who had come to Earth in search of a cure for a deadly disease that was afflicting his race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson complained about being given an excessive amount of forms to fill out at the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle was a hematologist of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson mind controlled Dr. Rochelle into working round the clock without sleep to find a cure to the blood disease that was afflicting Mr. Johnson's race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson learned that Amanda was not happy in her job as a hospital nurse by reading her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy was hitting on Amanda to her annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating a string of murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective assumed that the blood drained wizen bodies Mr. Johnson had left behind were the victims of a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy went to skid row to pick up three downtrodden homeless people to bring back to Mr. Johnson's house with the promise of a free meal at Mr. Johnson's request. Mr. Johnson summarily drained them all of blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Johnson speculated that newly emerging autoimmune viruses were Nature's way of fighting back against humans, and, indeed, his own alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle's mind started to go after he stayed awake for over a day and a half working on a cure for Mr. Johnson's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rochelle's mind started to go after he stayed awake for over a day and a half working on a cure for Mr. Johnson's disease.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Screamers (1995)", "title": "Screamers", "date": "1995-09-08", "description": "Scientists create a futuristic weapon with the purpose of destroying all enemies. The situation changes when their invention becomes a threat to everyone, including the inventors. It is based on Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story \"Second Variety\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamers_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Screamers are self-replicating, blade-wielding, burrowing robots that while originally built to kill enemy combatants, went about trying to kill everybody after having acquired sentience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The year is 2078 and a group of former miners, known as The Alliance, is fighting a multi-planet encompassing war against their former company, the New Economic Bloc mining corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The backdrop to the story was that New Economic Bloc mining corporation pushed the Berynium it was mining as a solution to an ongoing energy crisis even after it had become apparent that the substance was a dangerous source of radiation and pollution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Screamer self-replicating killbots evolved to become sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Screamer self-replicating killbots evolved to become sentient.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Screamers androids were virtually impossible to distinguish from human beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Hendricksson and his team were fighting for their lives against the Screamer sentient killbots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Commander Hendricksson took it upon himself to negotiate a peace with the rival New Economic Bloc forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Berynium that was being extracted from the ground by the New Economic Bloc had turned out to be dangerously radioactive. Commander Hendricksson and others smoked special cigarettes to neutralize the deadly ambient radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained in the intro scroll text that the mining of Berynium had \"unleashed lethal doses of pollution.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained in the intro scroll text how the New Economic Bloc mining corporation had conducted nuclear bombing raids against Alliance rebels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hologram of Secretary Green relayed a message to Commander Hendricksson and his team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things got hot and heavy between Commander Hendricksson and Jessica until such time that Hendricksson realized that she was a Screamer killbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the film concludes with Commander Hendricksson departing from the killbot infested planet Serius 6B in a one-person spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x03", "title": "Projections", "date": "1995-09-11", "description": "The Doctor becomes delusional after an accident, causing him to believe that he is a flesh-and-blood person and his time on USS Voyager is a holodeck program.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor about who and what to trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor became delusional and concluded he was a real person living in a holodeck simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor from Barclay's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor experiences", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "major", "motivation": "maybe everything was a figment of The Doctor's imagination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor in Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "everything was going crazy with The Doctor towards the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it was asserted that Doc was as valuable as a human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes joking warned The Doctor that Neelix might get jealous if ever he got wind of their fraternizing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes mused about the meaning of life to The Doctor at the episode conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor was all alon for a while", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Seven (1995)", "title": "Seven", "date": "1995-09-15", "description": "Seven (stylized as SE7EN) is a 1995 American crime thriller film was directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey and John C. McGinley. The film tells the story of David Mills, a detective who partners with the retiring William Somerset to track down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as a motif in his murders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the serial killer used the seven deadly sins from Christianity as his theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw the everyday lives of some police investigators trying to solve a series of murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centered on a serial killer trying to complete his masterpiece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "young David Mills in contrast with near retiring William Somerset", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and William became fast friends despite their initial friction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard the fate of various people who had found them selves captive and at the mercy of John Doe for extended time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film seemed to lead up to the conclusion in which David was manipulated into killing John Doe in an outburst of vengeful wrath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "particularly David and Tracy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tracy was pregnant and deliberated on whether to tell David", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the lawyer was said to be corrupt; Somerset mentioned police taking bribe from the press", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Doe explained that he wanted his work to be puzzled over for ages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David very briefly seemed to deliberate before he extra judicially executed John Doe", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x04", "title": "Elogium", "date": "1995-09-18", "description": "Space-dwelling life-forms cause Kes to enter the Ocampan fertile phase called Elogium, putting pressure on her relationship with Neelix when she wants to have his child.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Jimmy Diggs and Steve J. Kay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "deciding whether to be a parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes and Neelix agonized over whether to have children and the ramifications of becoming parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes felt pressure to procreate because her fertility window was closing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with puberty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes entered into the Ocampa equivalent of human puberty after having been exposed to a swarm of space dwelling life forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix was jealous of Tom over Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes had to deal with Neelix's paranoia over her relationship with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix to become a father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew encountered swarms of organisms that were equipped with flagella-like tails.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix at getting kicked out of sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor chased Neelix out of sickbay for pestering him about Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "sent Kes into heat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some space protozoa were sexually attracted to Voyager which resulted in aggressive behavior from other protozoa. This was likened to mating behavior amongst more familiar creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager described iin terms of being such astarship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes had them about eating the beetles", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x05", "title": "Non Sequitur", "date": "1995-09-25", "description": "Harry Kim wakes up in 24th century San Francisco with no record of him on Voyager.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry woke up in 24th century San Francisco. This was a time before Voyager had left on its original mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Libby and others thought Harry was mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Libby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Libby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom for Harry who had woken up in the 24th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ankle bracelet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry made to wear one after hearing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's Starfleet hearing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "time rift thing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom to Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's colleague was disappointed in Harry because he forgot his presentation slides at home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cosimo suggested that it might be Harry’s “fate” to remain in an idyllic alternate timeline where he worked at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco and even had a girlfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x06", "title": "Twisted", "date": "1995-10-02", "description": "A region of space distorts the interior of Voyager.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Arnold Rudnick and Rich Hosek.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew had to navigate a region of space that caused Voyager's interior to continually reconfigure itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes about surprise party, Neelix about jealousy, then that alien being upsetting the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "inversion field alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor of French bimbo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inaction vs. futile action", "level": "minor", "motivation": "discussion in the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was jealous of Tom over Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes had to deal with Neelix's paranoia over her relationship with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay made efforts to contact his spirit guide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x01/02", "title": "The Way of the Warrior", "date": "1995-10-02", "description": "A Klingon fleet arrives on its way to expand the Klingon Empire at the expense of the Cardassians in the face of the Dominion threat, and Worf is brought to DS9 to negotiate.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf was brought onto the space station to deal with Klingon visitors who, with their Klingony ways, were causing trouble amongst the more human-like species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf torn between Klingons and Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf torn between Klingons and Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians and Federation against Klingon Empire; Alpha Quadrant powers agree to unite against The Dominion in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians and Federation against Klingon Empire; Alpha Quadrant powers agree to unite against The Dominion in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians invaded by Klingon Empire; Space station people braced for attack from Klingon armada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians invaded by Klingon Empire; Space station people braced for attack from Klingon armada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon Empire planned to conquer Cardassia and perhaps The Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was stripped of all his Klingon accolades by Gowron except for his honor; Worf questioned the honor of the House of Martok; Gowron asserted Worf's Federation friends were without honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf pondered resigning from Star Fleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf pondered resigning from Star Fleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dominion tried to turn the Klingons against the Cardassians and Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok sought glory in battle over the Cardassians and Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok sought glory in battle over the Cardassians and Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Changelings thought to have infiltrated Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin ordered risky decloaking in order to scan Cardassian ship for survivors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy take their dating to the next level", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy contemplated having long distance relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira felt silly about having a good time in the holosuite with Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia tried to instill Kira with the value of having a good imagination in holosuite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of darts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Miles tried to recruit Worf into their darts club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia with two hunks in holo suite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak wondered why Klingons had become racist against the Cardassians after they assaulted him in Quark's bar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy contemplate taking a trip to Cestus III to watch a baseball game.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Strange Days (1995)", "title": "Strange Days", "date": "1995-10-06", "description": "Set in the last two days of 1999, the film follows the story of a black marketeer of recordings that allow a user to experience the recorder's memories and physical sensations as he attempts to uncover the truth behind the murder of a prostitute.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is an illegal electronic device that records memories and physical sensations directly from the wearer's cerebral cortex onto a MiniDisc-like device for playback.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a 1999 Los Angeles in which street crime is rampant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenny relationship with Macy straddled the line between deep friendship and love. In the end, the two shared a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lenny was unable to get over his ex-girlfriend Faith, even though she told him straight out that she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Macy was into Lenny, but he saw her more as a friend until the very end of the film at which point they shared a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Society in turn of the millennium Los Angeles was going to hell in a hand basket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story build up to the two friends Lenny and Macy falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "An undercurrent of the film is endemic racism in the LAPD. In one pointed incident of this, two LAPD police officers pulled over a black rap star for no reason, and then shot him execution style after the rapper for minimal insubordination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The social activist rapper Jeriko One had been forming citizen groups and was the leader of a movement aimed at curtailing the excesses of the LAPD and more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme in the film is the experiencing of other peoples memories of physical sensations of being intimate and having sex. Most notably, Lenny was borderline addicted to re-experiencing his past intimate experiences with his ex-girlfriend, Faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with three men perpetrating an armed robbery of a Chinese restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A caller to a radio call in show was convinced that the rapture was going to happen on New Year's eve 1999. Other remarks were make over the course of the film about the world ending at the turn of the millennium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lenny was peddling illegal memory recordings on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lenny purchased a pornographic memory recording of two young women getting it on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wheelchair-bound man jacked in to a memory recording of a man running on the beach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iris was working as a prostitute. Prostitutes were depicted working the streets in multiple scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philo was a sleazy a music industry mogul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The former LAPD cop Max Peltier was working as a private eye to make supplement his pension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prostitute Iris was brutally raped and murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aspiring singer Faith and her music industry mogul boyfriend Philo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philo was a control freak who was having his girlfriend, Faith, followed to make sure she was keeping out of trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mace was a single mother to her young son Zander.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zander's father was in prison on drug charges, leave Mace to take care of him as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An LAPD cop shot a famous rapper dead execution style in the midst of what might have been a routine traffic stop. Macy was beaten black and blue by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faith and Max engaged in consensual sex in which Max handcuffed Faith to a bed and brought her nearly to the point of unconsciousness by tightening a belt around her neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max pointedly betrayed his best friend Lenny by trying to frame Lenny for Philo's murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the police officers who was responsible for the execution style murder of a social activist rapper blew his own brains out after he was exposed for the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lenny was determined to find out who's raped and subsequently murdered the prostitute Iris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of society vs. personal gain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Lenny trade the only existing copy of a recording of an LAPD execution style murder of a black man in exchange for the release of his ex-girlfriend or should he release it to the public for the betterment of society?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x07", "title": "Parturition", "date": "1995-10-09", "description": "Neelix and Tom Paris fight over Kes, but are sent on an away mission together.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Tom Szollosi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix was exceedingly jealous of Tom over Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom, Kes, Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes about Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes had to deal with Neelix's paranoia over her relationship with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom over Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom with Kes in opening", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human empathy for babies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix were fawning over a disgusting reptile infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix foraged for food and sheltered in a cave after crash landing on a barely habitable planet known as “Planet Hell”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry played the clarinet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "reptohumanoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix about being jealous", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x03", "title": "The Visitor", "date": "1995-10-09", "description": "An elderly Jake Sisko relates the story of how he lost his father to a temporal displacement accident.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "future Jake told the story of how his father was lost in temporal displacement accident", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake's obsession with figuring out how to get Benjamin out of subspace spelled the end of his marriage with Korena and writing career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake gave up living his life because of the obsession", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly Jake shared with the aspiring writer Melanie the story of why he'd given up on writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake took his father Benjamin for dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake over Benjamin being lost in time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "adult Jake was happily married to Korena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "was Jake a mentor to Melanie with respect to creative writing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melanie praised Old Jake over his literary achievements.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1995)", "title": "Alien Nation: Body and Soul", "date": "1995-10-10", "description": "A seemingly human-Tenctonese hybrid child is involved in a sinister experiment with a Newcomer scientist disguised as a human. It is the second television movie produced to continue the story after the cancellation of Alien Nation television series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation:_Body_and_Soul" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores issues surrounding refugee space aliens integrating into American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George worked as detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George uncovered a secret CIA enabled program to develop an implosion weapon that was said to be 100 times more dangerous than nuclear warheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A seemingly human-Tenctonese hybrid child was discovered, and her origins explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and the Newcomer alien Cathy worked on overcoming physiological barriers to having a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and the Newcomer alien Cathy worked on overcoming physiological barriers to having a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "A subgroup of Newcomer aliens strongly disapproved of humans entering into romantic relationships with their kind, and they protested on the streets about it. It was also mentioned about how the Newcomer aliens were hated by human \"Purists\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George were close friends in addition to being partner detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George uncovered a secret CIA enabled program to develop an implosion weapon that was said to be 100 times more dangerous than nuclear warheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Noble prize winning geneticist Dr. Karina Tivoli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The LAPD detectives Matt and George were investigating a couple of murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Susan Fransisco worried that their teenage son had become radicalized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt was self-conscious about his inability to satisfy his alien girlfriend in the bedroom, and he reluctantly agreed to attend a class that taught humans how to copulate with Newcomer aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily called out her brother Buck for being a human hating bigot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was discussed how some of the Overseers were prosecuted for war crimes in the wake of the Newcomer aliens having arrived on Earth as refugees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cathy asserted that the Giant and the girl shared the same soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and his teenage daughter Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and her teenage daughter Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George spoke with his teenage son Buck over the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was concerned about the lack of females in her teenage son Buck's life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x19", "title": "Divided Loyalties", "date": "1995-10-11", "description": "Lyta Alexander returns to Babylon 5 with news that one of the command staff may, unknowingly, be a sleeper agent for the Psi Corps.\n\nDirected by: Jesus Trevino. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we pondered whether Ivanova could be subjected to scan in spite of her objection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone suspected everyone of being the secret agents for a while.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova objected to telepathic scans ostensibly out of privacy concerns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talia trusted Ivanova implicitly, Lyta pondered who she could trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova was betrayed by her friend and lover Talia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talia betrayed all her friends on Babylon 5 and her lover Ivanova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freedom of the press", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn compared information distribution systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn flirted with Sheridan, Ivanova flirted with Talia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn and Sheridan tried to learn more about one another's cultures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova had an affair with Talia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "this expression was used to explain what was going on", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x04", "title": "Hippocratic Oath", "date": "1995-10-16", "description": "Bashir assists a rogue group of Jem'Hadar led by Goran'Agar attempting to overcome their genetic addiction to Ketracel White. Goran'Agar is able to survive without the White and enlists the aid of Bashir to try to understand why.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Nicholas Corea and Lisa Klink.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "medical assistance to the enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Miles argued over whether to escape or stay and help the Jem'Hadar find a cure for their drug addiction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles wanted to escape from Jem'Hadar and Bashir wanted to help them overcome their drug addiction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir and Miles held captive by the Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Harad were genetically engineered by the founders to be loyal super soldiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar escapees were experiencing withdrawal symptoms because they were trying to get off drugs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Odo clashed over Odo's approach to law enforcement on the space station; Miles and Bashir over what to do about the Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "being captive of Jem'Hadar put a strain on Julian and Miles' friendship to the extend that they had to cancel their weekly darts game after escaping", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugs for military use", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Changlings used drugs to control an army of Jem'Hadar supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo shapeshifted into a bag during an undercover investigation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles complained about Keiko to Bashir with homoerotic overtones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Miles bonding over guy talk in the shuttle craft", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x20", "title": "The Long, Twilight Struggle", "date": "1995-10-18", "description": "The Centauri war machine rolls on toward the Narn homeworld, unknowingly aided by the Shadows, while the remains of the Narn fleet plan a last-ditch counter- attack.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonialism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri were to Narn as Europeans were to Africa etc. in the 17-19th oppression Centauri were clearly set on oppressing the Narn once again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Centauri conquered and enslaved Narn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Centauri flattened Narn cities and killed countless civilians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Narn were bombarded from orbit with mass drivers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness to quicken the end of the war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo justified Centauri aggression in this way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar told Londo that the NArn would teach the Centauri this lesson once again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar sought sanctuary with Sheridan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x05", "title": "Indiscretion", "date": "1995-10-23", "description": "Forced to bring along Dukat on a personal mission to investigate the fate of the Ravinok, Kira discovers the real reason her old enemy wants to accompany her.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Toni Marberry & Jack Treviño.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat about having to kill his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat had to kill his daughter Ziyal to save his family from suffering persecution at the hands of the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat about whether to kill his illicit daughter to protect himself and his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira and Dukat about needing to know the fates of their friends and family from the Ravinok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajoran Kira went on a mission with her Cardassian nemesis Dukat. They spent much of the episode discussing their backgrounds, with an emphasis on cultural differences and (perhaps) putting them aside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Dukat had to cooperate on mission to investigate the wreck of the Ravinok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kasidy accused Benjamin of being afraid of commitment when he lacked enthusiasm over the prospect of her living aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy considered taking their relationship to the next level", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "move fast or take it slow in a romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was cloven over whether or not to should welcome Kasidy to life together with him aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat went on mission to murder his own daughter Ziyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy considered taking their relationship to the next level", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajor and Cardassia had to learn to get along was a theme raised repeatedly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin explained the importance of strengthening Bajoran/Cardassian ties by cooperating on the mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was accused of having cold feet by Kassidy and his friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moving in together", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy considered taking their relationship to the next level", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira mourned for her fellow resistance movement member, Lorit Akrem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was shaken up over the passing of his mistress, Tora Naprem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira develops respect for Dukat and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake had a heart to heart with Benjamin over his fear of commitment to Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajoran prisoners were used for slave labor in mining", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x21", "title": "Comes the Inquisitor", "date": "1995-10-25", "description": "The Vorlons send an \"Inquisitor\" to Babylon 5 to test Sheridan and Delenn's readiness to lead the Army of Light. The Narns onboard the station begin to challenge G'Kar's leadership.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "G'Kar formed a resistance movement on the station to combat the Centauri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn proved herself ready to die for Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was accused of thinking she was divinely ordained", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was made to doubt some of her cherished superstitions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "both Delenn and Sheridan were sadistically tortured to teach them a lesson", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was made to demonstrate this virtue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was convinced that a unique destiny and very consequential awaited her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "inquisitor posed seemingly metaphysical questions to this effect", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vir for abetting genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vir for abetting genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar sought to buy weapons on the black market", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the historical figure was really an alien", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn that Jack the Ripper was abducted by aliens and given perpetual life to atone for his sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn that Jack the Ripper was abducted by aliens and given perpetual life to atone for his sins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x08", "title": "Persistence of Vision", "date": "1995-10-30", "description": "The crew experiences hallucinations brought on by an alien that put them into a trance-like state.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew experiences intense memories of sexual desires past and present, Tom about his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway on the holodeck, Kes with Neelix, B'Ellana about Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck goes haywire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway about that holohunk and her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien was telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor orders Janeway to play on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "A telepathic alien put Voyager crew members into a trance-like state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien was telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and hers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male protectiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix over Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom derided by his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Burleigh at Janeway", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x06", "title": "Rejoined", "date": "1995-10-30", "description": "Dax is reunited with Lenara Kahn, whose previous host was the wife of one of Dax's former hosts, Torias Dax, and the two struggle with their feelings for one another.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Lenara Kahn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia had to choose between live without Lenara Kahn and exile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lenara Kahn contemplated suffering exile and losing her career to be with Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia effectively had a past life as Lenara Khan's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia grappled with her feelings for Torias Dax's ex-wife Lenara Kahn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia played the role of the husband in her relationship with Lenara Kahn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bejal was to Jadzia and Lenara Khan as parents were to Romeo and Juliet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia apologized to Lenara Khan for not listening to her about acting too recklessly and dying in an accident in previous life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was reunited with Lenara Kahn, the widow of one of her Trill symbiont's former hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was tempted to rekindle her past life's love with Lenara Kahn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia over having mistreated Lenara in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lenara was reluctant to rekindle her relationship with Jadzia even though she desired to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Lenara struggled with whether to pursue a relationship and Jadzia bid farewell to Lenara at episode conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia wooed Quark's bar patrons with a magic show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bejal disapproved of his sister getting romantically involved with Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jadzia had heart to heart talk about her predicament with Lenara Khan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia bids a teary eyed farewell to Lenara Kahn", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf2x22", "title": "The Fall of Night", "date": "1995-11-01", "description": "The command staff are caught between a rock and a hard place when Sheridan agrees to give sanctuary to a Narn warship, while EarthForce attempts to placate the increasingly aggressive Centauri Republic. The Nightwatch begins to expand their influence on the station.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Nightwatch evoked thoughts of Gestapo, NKVD etc. The Nightwatch was expanding its influence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth spinelessly wanted a non-aggression pact with Centauri and not to upset them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of religious claims", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Vorlon were actually our Angels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan demonstrated this virtue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Centauri belligerence was featured and imperial ambitions were implied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Centauri conquered and enslaved Narn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "the nightwatch turned people into spies and informants but Ivanova was incorruptible", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan risked his job to defend refugees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan displeased his superiors in order to defend refugees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar felt brief hope for his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keffer about his ghost ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova discussed her career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova turned down a career shortcut", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keffer with his ghosts", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x09", "title": "Tattoo", "date": "1995-11-06", "description": "Chakotay encounters non-humans who have the same tattoo on their foreheads that he has.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Larry Brody.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "story of Chakotay coming to accept his Native American roots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that aliens had visited the Native Americans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay chooses Starfleet over following in his father's footsteps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor had little compassion for the sick while Kes had too much", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor programmed a simulated flu for himself in an effort to better understand his human patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolopak and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Chakotay was intent on leaving his father and his ancestral lands behind for what he felt were bigger and better things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay had flashbacks of being out in the forest with his father as a young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw The Doctor, who was hitherto unable to get sick, experiencing what it was like to have a cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew members were left to find their way around the ship after its layout had mysteriously changed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sky Spirit people used", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sky Spirit complained about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay recalled speaking to his departed father in his vision quests.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x07", "title": "Starship Down", "date": "1995-11-06", "description": "The USS Defiant becomes trapped in a planet's radiation-filled atmosphere after battling with the Jem'Hadar.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: David Mack and John J. Ordover.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Benjamin both learned to soften up a bit in leadership roles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "O’Brian advised Worf to \"loosen up on the reins\" and Worf took this to heart. The story concluded with O’Brian’s sage remark regarding balance: \"You can give them a little slack, but you can't take your hands off the reins.\" Meanwhile, Kira had found it hard to relax around Captain Sisko but was delighted when the latter showed a friendly streak and invited her to join him to watch a baseball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Benjamin both learned to soften up a bit in leadership roles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira took care of Benjamin when he was critically wounded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was profiteering from a Federation trade deal with the Karemma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark instilled in Hanok an appreciation for gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Hanok discussed profit to be made from selling arms to both Federation and the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Hanok held common passion for salesmanship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin ordered Julian to seal off the bulkhead thus sacrificing Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "engineers with Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a pedantic authority figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was being unreasonably knitpicky of the Defiant engineers under his charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Defiant crew became imperiled after getting trapped in a radiation-filled atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin invited Kira to join him for some baseball in the holosuites.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x01", "title": "Matters of Honor", "date": "1995-11-06", "description": "The Babylon 5 crew is presented with a new weapon with which to fight the growing Shadow threat. An official from EarthForce comes to the station to investigate Lt. Keffer's recording.\n\nDirected by: Kevin G. Cremin. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo is regretting his bargain with the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and friends up against shadow ships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan risked much to help rangers in need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "alliances were noted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Minbari had it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "galactic master race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn told about ancient aliens that ruled the galaxy, the shadows being one of these", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x10", "title": "Cold Fire", "date": "1995-11-13", "description": "An Ocampan helps Kes with her mental abilities as the crew encounter a being who appears to be the Caretaker's female counterpart.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Anthony Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind attack ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes attacked Tanis telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susperia of Ocampa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ocampa claimed Kes belonged with them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tanis had psychokinetic powers and considered himself far above humans, who did not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes to develop mental powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nacene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager had according to Ocampa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway showed mercy on Suspiria after subduing the powerful being with a special toxin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway grants to Suspiria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes moved a cup and made its contents boil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes over almost killing Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes late for work in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suspiria to Janeway for murdering the other Caretaker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The telepathic nature of Kes' society was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The telepathic nature of Kes' society was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind-melded with Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes showed up late for work in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was teaching Kes how to shut out the cacophony of other people's thoughts that was flooding her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tanis trained Kes to be able to conjure up and wield fire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x08", "title": "Little Green Men", "date": "1995-11-13", "description": "Quark, Rom, Nog, and Odo are accidentally thrust back in time to Roswell, New Mexico, Earth, in 1947.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Toni Marberry & Jack Treviño.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, Nog, flung back in time to 1940s Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, Nog, were flung back in time to 1940s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark held that the Ferengi were superior to 20th Humans for various reasons, including Humans having developed atom bombs, smoked tobacco, and only having developed a market economy in the past 5000 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans were savages with nuclear weapons and cigarettes from the point of view of the Ferengi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans were savages with nuclear weapons and cigarettes from the point of view of the Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark smuggled contraband goods and tried to establish economic empire of his own on 20th century Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, Nog, time traveling to 1940s Earth turns out to be the explanation for the Roswell UFO event", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, Nog, time traveling to 1940s Earth turns out to be the explanation for the Roswell UFO event", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans were savages with nuclear weapons and cigarettes from the point of view of the Ferengi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, and Nog held captive on Roswell military base", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog went off to Starfleet Academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a life-changing stroke of good fortune", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark stumbled on a once in a lifetime chance to make huge profits by selling products to Humans in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark warned American general about the perils of atom bombs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff Carlson and Faith Garland", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark made a spirited sales pitch to American general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans were curious about how Quark's universal translator worked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo shapeshifted in to a German Shepherd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark threatened Roswell military base upper brass about selling weapons to the Soviets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark, Rom, and Nog were subjected to the threat of torture during interrogation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog bluffed interrogators that a Ferengi invasion of Earth was imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom accompanied his son Nog on his flight to Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom travel back in time together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Nog", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x02", "title": "Convictions", "date": "1995-11-13", "description": "A series of random bombings rocks the station and threatens the crew and the ambassadors. A group of monks from Earth arrives on the station.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Terrorist bombings on Babylon 5 lead to civilian fear and stifling security measures. Sheridan dealt with a terrorist bomber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "freedom on Babylon 5 was compromised by security measures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were zealous space monks of various species, we were shown that the human monks could in fact be useful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "monks came from earth to study alien faiths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan gave himself up to delay the terrorist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collective punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Centauri killed 500 Narn for every Centauri that was slain by a Narn. The Centauri threatened to punish G'Kar's entire family for his infraction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there were zealous space monks of various species", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Centauri and Narn hatred for each others was featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Centauri oppression of Narn was discussed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (1995)", "title": "Xtro 3: Watch the Skies", "date": "1995-11-14", "description": "A group of Marines encounter a hostile space alien on a remote Pacific island. It is the third installment in the Xtro film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Xtro" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtro_3:_Watch_the_Skies" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Marines find incontrovertible evidence of a government cover up of a UFO crash while dispatched to a remote Pacific island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Marines encountered a hostile humanoid alien while dispatched to a remote Pacific island, ostensibly to diffuse bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about a team of Marines that discovered the military covered up a 1955 UFO crash in Arizona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with a 1950s era newsreel report about a nine-year-old boy who perpetrated a flying saucer hoax that \"got the whole country in an uproar\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with a 1950s era newsreel report about a nine-year-old boy who perpetrated a flying saucer hoax that \"got the whole country in an uproar\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erica Stern met Lieutenant Kirn in a cheap motel room to discuss printing his story about a government cover up of a UFO crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirn narrated how he's chosen the Marines over his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the Marines related in some detail the story of the lost colony of Roanoke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The group of Marines befriended a grizzled old man who'd been living alone on a remote Pacific island for 40 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space alien could conceal itself by blending in with its surroundings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the alien taking off in its peanut-shaped spacecraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghost in the Shell (1995)", "title": "Ghost in the Shell", "date": "1995-11-18", "description": "The film is set in 2029 Japan, and follows Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public- security agent, who hunts a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. The narrative incorporates philosophical themes that focus on self-identity in a technologically advanced world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "By 2029, people had augmented or even completely replaced their body parts with cybernetic parts. The story's heroine Major Kusanagi was, for example, composed almost entirely of cybernetic parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Section 6's efforts to track down an infamous hacker known only as the Puppet Master.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the story is that the Project 2501 computer program became sentient and, thus, able to recognize his own existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "major", "motivation": "The term \"ghost\" is recurringly used in the film to the consciousness inhabiting the body, and the viewer is made to ponder whether it might be possible for a computer brain could generate such a \"ghost\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People used \"thermoptic camouflage\" to blend into their surroundings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A diplomat of a foreign country made a failed bit to help a programmer named Daita defect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Kusanagi and others accessed the Internet and other networks via por ton the nape of the neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the former junta leader Colones Malles was seeking political asylum. The Project 2501 intelligence requested political asylum on the ground that it was a sentient being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in diversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Kusanagi asserted that \"A system where all the parts react the same way is a system with a fatal flaw.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A garbage man was implanted with false memories of being in the middle of going through a divorce, and, moreover, that he might never be able to see his daughter again as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A garbage man was implanted with false memories about his own past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The question of whether Major Kusanagi would remain herself in some sense after merging with the Project 2501 intelligence was raised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Kusanagi and the Project 2501 intelligence combined themselves into a single, new entity which had aspects of both their personalities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Toy Story (1995)", "title": "Toy Story", "date": "1995-11-19", "description": "Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated buddy comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The feature film directorial debut of John Lasseter, it was the first entirely computer- animated feature film, as well as the first feature film from Pixar. The screenplay was written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow from a story by Lasseter, Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft. The film features music by Randy Newman, and was executive-produced by Steve Jobs and Edwin Catmull. It features the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, and Erik von Detten.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the toys prevailed when they united, at Andy's house, then Sid's house, then in the moving van", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Woody felt like he was old and obsolete next to Buzz", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "through perils and shared adventure, Woody and Buzz went from enmity to comradery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buzz and Woody", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw stereotypical childhood games and activities for two different boys: Andy and Sid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Woody vs. Buzz", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Woody and Buzz had to bury the hatchet in order to work together to get home to Andy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "when faced with a shared enemy, Sid, Buzz and Woody had to unite despite being enemies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy and his mom briefly at intervals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid was cruel and sadistic to both his toys and his sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid and his sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid was apparently scared straight from his toy-torturing ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Woody tried to explain the situation to the other toys but they wouldn't believe him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sid and dog", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x11", "title": "Maneuvers", "date": "1995-11-20", "description": "Kazon Nistrim board Voyager and steal a transporter module in an attempt to unite the Kazon sects.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway determined to recover stolen technology from Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay appears to betray Janeway and Seska's betrayal of Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love-hate relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seska and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay about how he could have let Seska in his confidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common interest unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazon sects to get technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seska claimed to have impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA against his will", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway went with her gut and pursued Chakotay, even though doing so went against her better judgement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay over Seska defection", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cullah fantasized about being the most powerful Magh in the quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two rival Kazon sects were mired in a bitter blood feud.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x09", "title": "The Sword of Kahless", "date": "1995-11-20", "description": "Worf, Dax and a revered Klingon Dahar master, Kor, search for the Sword of Kahless to unite the Klingon Empire.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Richard Danus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cultural symbols as a unifying force in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf, Jadzia and Kor went on a quest for the Sword of Khaless to unite Klingon Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor and Worf both wanted to use the Sword of Kahless to take power over the Klingon Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor boasted that statues of him would be erected and songs about him would be sung upon returning to homeworld with the Sword of Khaless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor and Work became drunk on the thoughts of the power that would come from ruling the Klingon Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor told stories about the Klingon heroes of old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf fawned over the Klingon Dahar master Kor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons in Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor and Worf (toward the end) over taking possession of Sword of Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor chided Worf for not having taken vengeance on a foe when he had the chance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kahless was discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Kor developed Messiah complexes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor, Worf, and Jadzia were all agog at the prospect of going on a journey to find the Sword of Kahless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an unusually fancy force field in the cavern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf berated by Kor for showing mercy to a foe in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Kor quarreled over whether having spared Toral's life was an honorable act or not; Worf insisted the Sword of Kahless deserved to be treated with honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor reveled in telling the stories of his past adventures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf confided to Jadzia about his struggles in early life as a Klingon being raised by Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf thought it might be his destiny to rule the Klingon Empire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x03", "title": "A Day in the Strife", "date": "1995-11-20", "description": "The Babylon 5 crew makes contact with a strange alien probe. G'Kar's standing among the Narn is threatened from without and within.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri oppression of Narn was at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri and Narn hatred for each others was featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "G'Kar was challenged as the leader of the Narn resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Narn life under Centauri rule was painted in bleak colors and sparked outrage aboard Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin was stressed out, especially with the questions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar wanted to give himself up for his people and family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "that genocidal space probe would have destroyed entire species it deemed threatening", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan stood up to a loudmouth, G'Kar to another kind of bully", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin took too much stims", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin tried to abstain with limited success", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Na'Far implied that G'Kar was refusing to cooperate out of personal pride.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x12", "title": "Resistance", "date": "1995-11-27", "description": "A mission to acquire Telerium goes wrong causing Tuvok and B'Elanna to be captured and believed to be with the resistance.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin J. Ryan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the imprisonment of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A delusional Caylem was trying to break his wife out of prison when in reality she'd died in custody years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Caylem to dead wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Caylem to dead daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway to Caylem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caylem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caylem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mokra Order", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mokra Order brutally treated the Alsaurians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and B'Elana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caylem proved he was not a coward", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager with Mokra Order about prisoner release", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Caylem the lam", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway came clean to Caylem about his wife being dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the mentally ill in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town fool Caylem was ridiculed and ostracized by his fellow twonspeople.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x10", "title": "Our Man Bashir", "date": "1995-11-27", "description": "Bashir plays a 1960s secret agent in a holosuite, when Garak unexpectedly intrudes, but his help is needed when the DS9 computer uses the holosuite to store the patterns of other crew members during a teleporting accident.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Robert Gillan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir and Garak partake in an elaborate James Bond inspired holosuite program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir personae", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hippocrates Noah thought mankind corrupted and in need of being destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Bashir and Garak to stop the evil genius Hippocrates Noah from destroying the world in a global flood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Defiant crew had their minds transfered into holosuite computer after a transporter complication", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hippocrates Noah created a lased-based global earthquake generating machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hippocrates Noah plotted to destroy mankind by triggering some kind of global flood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir roused by holosuite valet Mona Luvsitt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak warned Bashir they may need to kill friends to save themselves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir got upset when Garak stormed in to his virtual reality fantasy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir got upset when Garak stormed in to his virtual reality fantasy. More generally, we learn that there are laws against interrupting someone's virtual reality program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir played the role of a British spy during the Cold War.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x04", "title": "Passing Through Gethsemane", "date": "1995-11-27", "description": "A kindly monk finds himself assailed by strange objects and previously hidden memories. Lyta Alexander returns to Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: Adam Nimoy. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mind wiping was like an evolved version of the death sentence and both were discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mindwipe punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "this was used in lieu of the death sentence and its morality questioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we were asked whether the guilt for the crime was wiped away with the former personality or stuck to the soul", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the monks and most humans were clearly some kind of Christians as Jesus was mentioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we were asked to what extent the mind wiped person was a different person than before", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monasticism", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were a number of monks in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "the monk imitated Jesus and met his death willingly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "monk found out he was a convicted murderer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "victim's family wanted more vengeance than the law meted out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edward was killed by one of his many victim’s family members, who had taken the law into his own hands and tracked down Edward in order to see justice done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "head monk discussed forgiveness with Sheridan along with a powerful demonstration at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the monk told Garibaldi about blood on the walls but was initially disbelieved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "for a while we thought the monk might be going mad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the head monk was worried about the younger monk", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", "date": "1995-12-09", "description": "The world hangs in the balance as Godzilla begins to nuclearly meltdown. It is the 22nd installment in the Godzilla franchise, and is the seventh and final film in the franchise's Heisei period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Destoroyah" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla. The mutated crustacean Destroyah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows humanity's efforts to prevent a rampaging Godzilla from nuclearly melting down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla was going to explode, and in the process vaporize everything on face of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity's only hope to stop Godzilla from catastrophically melting down was to use the notorious \"Oxygen Destroyer\" weapon of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenkichi was of the opinion that his deceased father would have been ashamed of him for not having become a preeminent scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenkichi and Yukari Yamane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yukari was working as an on site television news reporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miki explained that her ESP ability had weakened in the time since she'd received training at an ESP school in the United States.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Heat (1995)", "title": "Heat", "date": "1995-12-15", "description": "Heat is a 1995 American crime film written, produced, and directed by Michael Mann, starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer. De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a seasoned professional at robberies, and Pacino plays Lt. Vincent Hanna, an LAPD robbery-homicide detective tracking down Neil's crew after a botched heist leaves three security guards dead. The story is based on the former Chicago police officer Chuck Adamson's pursuit during the 1960s of a criminal named McCauley, after whom De Niro's character is named. Heat is a remake by Mann of an unproduced television series he had worked on, the pilot of which was released as the TV movie L.A. Takedown in 1989.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_(1995_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the film centered on Neil's decisions to walk away from heists, or proceed with them depending on \"the heat\" he was under", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil and Eady; Vincent and Justine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw various ideas of what it might be like in the LAPD and related departments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent was a driven police officer who wanted to see right done", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to rob a bank and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil and his crew robbed a number of bank-like institutions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neil and crew were chased and tailed by the police but knew how to deal with it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent neglected his wife for his job; Neil in spite of tough talk, risked everything for Eady in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were minor incidents of revenge, but in the end Neil blew everything because he wanted to get back at Waingro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Waingro betrayed Neil; Charlene stayed loyal to Chris; Neil thought that Eady had betrayed him outside the hospital", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "story came back to how Neil and Vincent came to appreciate each other's situation and intelligence - in the end the clasped hands", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justine cheated on Vincent in order to get closure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent's step-daughter tried to kill herself in his bathtub", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Caged Heat 3000 (1995)", "title": "Caged Heat 3000", "date": "1995-12-19", "description": "A woman is sent to an all-female prison asteroid for a crime that she didn't commit.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112613/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is set in a brutal, all-female prison asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is show a certain view of what an all-female prison colony might be like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was sent to a brutal all-female penal colony for a crime that she didn't commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Orion Penal Colony prisoners were divided along racial lines with one gang of white prisoners quarreling with another gang of white prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films opens with a futuristic spaceship dropping off Kira at the Orion Penal Colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira was subjected to some sort of electrical shock torture punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man in charge of torturing disobedient prisoners made it clear that he took particular pleasure in his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A male prison official disrobed himself before compelling a female prisoner to whip his bare buttocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female prisoner was raped in the shower by a prison official. A prison official fondled Kira while she lay unconscious in an isolation chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prisoner Daly was a lawyer who was working to try and free herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Orion Penal Colony warden was running for public office.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 12 Monkeys (1995)", "title": "12 Monkeys", "date": "1995-12-29", "description": "A time traveler from the future attempts to prevent a deadly virus from proliferating around the world. It is inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film La Jetée.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Prisoner James Cole was sent back in time from 2035 on a mission to prevent a deadly virus from proliferating around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A human-made virus was destined to wipe out 5 billion people and render the surface of the Earth uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future where the surface of a severely depopulated Earth had been rendered uninhabitable by a deadly plague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The psychiatrist Kathryn was highly reluctant to take Cole seriously when he explained to her that he had come from the future to gather information about a apocalyptic plague that was going to spread around the world in 1997. Cole's cell mate Jose was sent back to the First World War and we learned his raving about having been sent from the future were also disregarded by his contemporaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Kathryn's point of view a dangerous mental patient, Cole, had abducted her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leland Goins' assistant used the distinguished virologist's lab to get a virus that he deliberately used to wipe out the better part of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeffrey was severely mentally ill. Moreover, mental illness tropes recurred throughout duration of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scientist so hated the world that he deliberately spread a virus with the goal of annihilating the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cole was sent back to the 1990s from 2035 to secretly collect information related to a deadly virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After traveling back in time, Cole was summarily placed in a stereotypically old fashioned insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole was summarily arrested by the police and confined to an insane asylum against his will upon arriving in 1990.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey Goines and his band of animal rights activists were fanatically opposed to animal testing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole and Jose were mistakenly sent back to the First World War at one point in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole was mistakenly sent back in time to the middle of a First World War trench battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police investigator suggested to Kathryn that she was suffering from this condition after she defended her abductor Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radio reports followed the developing story of a boy trapped in a well that turned out to be an elaborate childhood prank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Leland Goines and his deranged son Jeffrey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Cole confront a small band of animal rights activists. Later they let all the animals out of the Philadelphia zoo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police hotly pursued Kathryn and Cole in 1995 Philadelphia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a pimp try to forcibly coerce Kathryn into working under him, but Cole wasn't having it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole told the child version of himself to \"watch it\" before he attempted to shoot dead Dr. Leland Goins assistant at the Philadelphia airport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole and Kathryne became besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Species (1996)", "title": "Alien Species", "date": "1996", "description": "A seemingly invincible alien armada descends upon the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115506/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of people as they get caught up in a full scale invasion of Earth by genocidal space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Chambers and his colleague Carol Nelson were ridiculed for investigating the possibility that aliens were behind a spate of recent UFO sightings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space aliens launched a full-scale invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, humanoid alien creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, humanoid alien creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Culver and his deputies were investigating strange happenings going on in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hostile armada of seemingly invincible flying saucers descended on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Denise's father wasn't \"taking any back talking\" from her and insisted that she come inside the house before the storm hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space aliens plucked Denise straight out of her bedroom window and whisked her away in their ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel Roberts of Channel 6 News grilled Sheriff Culver over whether two strong explosions had anything to do with some UFO sightings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Chambers and his beloved granddaughter Stacey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aaron was being held for having murdered a man in a bar fight, although Aaron was adamant that he'd killed the man in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max hacked into the aliens computer system to disable their shields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien attack ships were equipped with stereotypical green force fields.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x11", "title": "Homefront", "date": "1996-01-01", "description": "Sisko and Odo are brought to Earth when it's suspected Changelings are infiltrating Starfleet.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin visits his father Joseph on Earth; Benjamin and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin convinced Federation President to implement invasive blood testing protocol for high level Star Fleet commanders and their families, but Joseph refused to go along with it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo put his shapeshifting abilities on display for Star Fleet officers; Changeling infiltrated Star Fleet headquarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin in charge of preparing for a Dominion invasion of Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was concerned about his grandfather Joseph Sisko's health", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Changeling Odo was looked on with suspicion, and he endured some disparaging remarks, while he was on a mission in San Fransisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who refuses to take care of their health", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake worried when Joseph refused to treat his medical conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo objected to his belongings being moved three inches", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog had difficulty fitting in at Star Fleet Academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earthlings became fearful after a Changeling terrorist bombing and many consented to give up some of their cherished freedoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog longed to join an elite the cadet unit Red Squad.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation: Millennium (1996)", "title": "Alien Nation: Millennium", "date": "1996-01-02", "description": "The plot follows human detective Matthew Sikes and his Tenctonese partner George Francisco as they investigate a mind-altering Tenctonese artifact being used to lure followers into a deadly cult. It is the third television film produced to continue the story after the cancellation of Alien Nation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation:_Millennium" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores issues surrounding refugee space aliens integrating into American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George worked as detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan Francisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan had to cope with their materialistic teen daughter Emily and their anti-social teen son Buck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and Cathy were living as an interspecies couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cult was using a Newcomer alien simulated reality device in an attempt to reach a higher plane of existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young Newcomer alien Buck didn't fit in with humans and joined a cult to find acceptance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two con artists started a cult with the goal of swindling their followers out of all their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two con artists started a cult with the goal of swindling their followers out of all their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan was coping with her very materialistic teen daughter Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buck was a brooding, troubled, anti-social teen who joined a cult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George were close friends in addition to being partner detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some people were running around claiming that the world would come to an end at the turn of the millennium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt and George were investigating a new and dangerous drug, called Super Nova, that was going around on the streets of Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was sympathetic toward his teen daughter's desire to purchase luxury items, like an expensive keyboard with a midi connector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily, and to a lesser extent George, were being pointedly materialistic. Emily \"needed\" one luxury item after another. Susan criticized George for purchasing things he didn't even really want, like a trampoline that he bought and never used.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things were getting pretty hot and heavy between Emily and Randy until it because apparent to Emily that he was only trying to shag her to win a bet with a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason Webster's wife and daughter died from being struck by a drunk driver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily and her love interest Randy made beautiful together with Emily on the keyboard and Felix on the clarinet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck's parents fretted when he went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Cathy proclaiming to Matt that she loved him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x12", "title": "Paradise Lost", "date": "1996-01-08", "description": "As Sisko and Odo prepare for a Dominion invasion, they discover a plot to place the Federation under military control.\n\nDirected by: Reza Badiyi. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leyton tried to make Earth a police state in order to stop The Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Odo uncovered how Leyton was leading a conspiracy to take over Star Fleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leyton tried to rule Earth as a police state in order to stop The Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leyton's tough decision was to break the law for the sake of humanity as he saw it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin visits his father Joseph on Earth; Benjamin and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Changelings infiltrated Earth; Benjamin accused of being a shapeshifter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Federation preparing for a Dominion invasion of Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog had difficulty fitting in at Star Fleet Academy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was concerned about his grandfather Joseph Sisko's health", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leyton mentored Benjamin when he was a young Star Fleet officer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)", "title": "Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace", "date": "1996-01-12", "description": "It is up to the founder of virtual reality and his pluck band of runaway teenage hackers to stop the \"Lawnmower Man\" from taking over the world. It is a sequel to the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnmower_Man_2:_Beyond_Cyberspace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The virtual reality city people were jacking into is a main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four runaway teens joined forces with the founder of virtual reality Dr. Benjamin Pierce to save the world from Jobe's diabolical scheme to become the false savior of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The corporate tycoon and virtual reality entrepreneur Jonathan Walker resorted to underhanded means to get his Congressional approval for his corporation's revolutionary, but possibly dangerous Chyron chip technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe hatched a diabolical plot to force everyone in the world to live in cyberspace where he would rule over them as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe fancied himself as a sort of god to his numerous followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Benjamin Trace teamed up with his former love interest, Dr. Cori Platt, initially to stop the Virtual Light Institute from launching a potentially dangerous virtual reality technology, and later to stop Jobe from taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to the old flames Dr. Benjamin Trace and Dr. Cori Platt rekindling their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and the other runaway teens were hackers by trade. For example, Jade into a phone listing to find Dr. Cori Platt's phone number. Jobe hacked into a subway system's computer system to send a train car careening into the one that Dr. Benjamin Trace and the runaway teens were riding. Jobe hacked into Los Angeles' computer systems and caused much chaos in the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobe came to think of him self as a god and tried to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man spoke to a woman who was presumably his wife over a video payphone. Dr. Cori Platt spoke to the corporate tycoon Jonathan Walker via a videophone in her car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shawn insisted that his pet dog Harvey did not stink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inventor of virtual reality Dr. Benjamin Trace, who was living secluded from society, told a group of runaway teens that \"technology consumes the soul\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "data privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The virtual reality entrepreneur Jonathan Walker used his technology to clandestinely look up \"all the contributors to fundamental religions over the past five years\" and \"all hypocritical Democrats making over 300,000 a year\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The runaway teens Travis and Jade were siblings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were shown looting shops after Jobe crashed Los Angeles' various computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jobe pretended to be Peter's friend to get the information he needed to advance his plan for world domination, and in the end Dr. Benjamin Trace called Jobe out for his act of betrayal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Jobe patched things up at the conclusion of the story and became friends as they'd been in former years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x13", "title": "Prototype", "date": "1996-01-15", "description": "The crew finds and reactivates a robot's body which was adrift in space only to find themselves in the middle of a war when B'Elanna is abducted.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Nicholas Corea.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager came across two warring factions of mechanical men and Janeway was implored to intervene but ultimately refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna helped the mechanical man but the conclusion was that sometimes you get burned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a race of mechanical men turned on their makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the mechanical men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the mechanical men turned on their makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we are made to think of the consequences of creating intelligent weapons systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "mechanical men in war with other mechanical men", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "the mechanical men's right to exist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pralor betrayed B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having to destroy one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna rued destroying the mechanical man Pralor on whom she'd worked so hard to reactivate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The voyager crew versus the mechanical men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that both warring factions of robots had overthrown and exterminated their respective creator races, known collectively as “the builders”.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "how to prevent them from going haywire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Automated Unit 3947 first tried to get B'Elanna to assist in the construction of a prototype robot by being nice before coercing her into doing it with threats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna for mechanical men reproductive rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna at getting mechanical man working", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for sleep", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x14", "title": "Alliances", "date": "1996-01-22", "description": "Janeway attempts to form an alliance with the Kazon to improve Voyager's standing in the Delta Quadrant.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "choice", "motivation": "moral of story at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Trabe and Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Trabe and Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway about deciding to form an unholy alliance with Kazon and Trabe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway about handing over technology in exchange for alliance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "alliance with the Kazon was discussed at length", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Trabe oppressed the Kazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cullah to Trabe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "trusting in Kazon failed miserably", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hogan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay mourned the loss of his former Maquis compatriot and friend Kurt Bendera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ridiculous Kazon demand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway tried to negotiate a temporary alliance with the treacherous Kazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cullah to female leaders", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x15", "title": "Threshold", "date": "1996-01-29", "description": "Tom Paris breaks the transwarp threshold in the Shuttlecraft Cochrane, designed to reach warp 10, but there are some peculiar side effects.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Michael De Luca.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom in his motivation to break the warp speed limit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom transforms into lizard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was for a while", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom evolved into a future human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom underwent a rapid form of evolution that saw him transform into a reptilian-like being that was supposed to be what was in store for the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bad coffee and whatnot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In attempting to achieve Warp 10, infinite velocity, and occupy every point in space simultaneously, Tom was something of an Icarus figure. He narrowly avoided a brain haemorrhage from subspace stress, but turned into a lizard (and mated with the captain).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom about living up to father's expectations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom wants to fly mission with 2% chance of death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom traveled at infinite velocity and was simultaneously at all places in universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix vs. the smart people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas betrayed to Voyager crew to the Kazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck used to test theory", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x13", "title": "Crossfire", "date": "1996-01-29", "description": "Odo's hidden feelings for Kira surface when the visiting Bajoran First Minister, Shakaar Edon, begins to court her.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira and Shakaar Edon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo for Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo loved but Kira loved Shakaar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo jealous of Shakaar Edon over his relationship with Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo was jealous of Shakaar Edon over his relationship with Kira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo at Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo found it very difficult to express to Kira that he loved her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo let go of Kira in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was initially just friends with both Odo and Shakaar; Quark advised Odo about how to handle the situation with Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "someone was planning to assassinate First Minister Shakaar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Odo discussed how to keep an ordered life on a chaotic space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark complained about Odo being too noisy in his quarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira said that one does not capitulate with terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo caught Ojuy Gel scrawling political graffiti on a wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo shapeshifted himself a belt and later used his shapeshifting abilities to halt a turbolift in free fall", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo trashed his room in a violent rage", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x05", "title": "Voices of Authority", "date": "1996-01-29", "description": "Ivanova and Marcus go searching for the First Ones with the help of Draal. Sheridan comes under the scrutiny of the Nightwatch as well as Babylon 5's new \"political officer\".\n\nDirected by: Menachem Binetski. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ivanova went in search of ancient and powerful allies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The ministry of Peace is a front for the fascist policies of President Clark. The Nightwatch evoked thoughts of Gestapo, NKVD etc. The Nightwatch was expanding its influence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zack was torn between nightwatch and regular duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were various complications between nightwatch leader and sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan dodged advances by nightwatch woman who in turn had to tell Zack off", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw civil liberties curtailed in the name of order", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan felt sleeping with nightwatch woman was inappropriate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind-computer merging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova somehow merged into Draal's machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack and the nightwatch woman both had their advances rejected", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demagoguery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nightwatch leader engaged in rabble rousing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack tried to stand up to Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi was briefly stressed out by requests", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x16", "title": "Meld", "date": "1996-02-05", "description": "Crewman Lon Suder murders an Engineering crewman for no apparent reason. Tuvok mind melds with him to ascertain his motive.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok advocated executing Lon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lon Suder was called a sociopath, and he had killed merely for the pleasure of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok and Lon struggled to repress their violent urges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lan and Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor attributes murder to this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story involved a lengthy debate about how to treat the cold hearted killer Lon. Keeping him in the brig for the remainder of a decades long journey hardly seemed appropriate. Execution was mooted and rejected. He was put under indefinite house arrest in his quarters, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor tested DNA in order to find clues as to who the murderer might be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom offered to make a pool game with Harry \"interesting\" by betting one week's worth of replicator rations on the outcome of the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "vigilante Tuvok wanting to kill Lon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind melded with Lon Suter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of pool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom offered to make a pool game with Harry \"interesting\" by betting one week's worth of replicator rations on the outcome of the game.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x14", "title": "Return to Grace", "date": "1996-02-05", "description": "Dukat seeks Kira's help in regaining his rank in the Cardassian Empire.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: Tom Benko.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat wanting to restore his reputation after having been ostracized by the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat wanting to restore his reputation after having been ostracized by the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat and his illegitimate daughter Tora Ziyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat felt remorse about his daughter and maybe about the war crimes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira convinced Dukat that his warship was no place to raise his daughter so Kira took her to live on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat started a resistance movement against the Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira was off on to attend a diplomatic conference; Dukat was discouraged when Cardassian government decided to pursue a diplomatic resolution to a dispute with the Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat chided Kira about the men she fell for", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira advised Ziyal that she needed to hate the Klingons to go to war with them; Kira explained to Dukat how she used to live on hatred of the Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat tried to convince Kira life as a rebel was preferable to administration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat briefly fantasized over getting retribution on his political opponents", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x06", "title": "Dust to Dust", "date": "1996-02-05", "description": "The \"Conspiracy of Light\" is jeopardized when Bester comes to Babylon 5 to find a dealer of the telepathy-inducing drug Dust, one who has made G'Kar's acquaintance…\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "protagonists worried about telepath Bester reading their minds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bester thought lack of freedoms was a price that should be paid for security against various forces", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tought police, leader cult, etc. were discussed. The Nightwatch tried to clamp down on what they considered \"seditious material\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "the dust drug was in fact a government project", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nazi-like Centauri expansion was featured, and protested against.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dust drug was traded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "dust addiction was talked about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Centauri vv. Narn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bester made some kind of point about this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "outraged aliens might no longer appease Centauri but situation mirrored run-up to WW2", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn and Sheridan mediated in discussion between Centauri and their next victim", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bester and Garibaldi skirted the edges of torture as they intimidated their prisoner", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar talked about honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of religious claims", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voron appeared as Narn angel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A court sentenced G'Kar to 60 days in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A court sentenced G’Kar to 60 days in prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nemesis 3: Prey Harder (1996)", "title": "Nemesis 3: Prey Harder", "date": "1996-02-06", "description": "A amnesiac, genetically engineered superhuman female with a very muscular physique battled cyborgs from the future in 1998 East Africa. It is the third entry in the Nemesis film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Nemesis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_3:_Prey_Harder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was fighting cyborgs in 1998 East Africa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was a genetically engineered superhuman female with a very muscular physique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex woke up in the middle of nowhere not remember what had happened to her or even who she was. The rest of the story follows Alex as she tries to piece together her past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genetically engineered superhuman female Alex had the unique ability to procreate and start a new breed of genetically enhanced humans capable of wiping out the cyborg threat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyborgs from the year 2077 had traveled back in time to 1988 East Africa to kill Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex and Johnny's mutual infatuation culminated in a light kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was united with her half-sister.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x17", "title": "Dreadnought", "date": "1996-02-12", "description": "A highly advanced Cardassian AI missile that had been reprogrammed by B'Elanna Torres is found in the Delta Quadrant.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Gary Holland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sentient bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sentient bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sentient bomb could not be diverted from blowing up its target even after the war had ended", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we are made to think of the consequences of creating intelligent weapons systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and weapon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Voyager crew to stop a sentient missile from destroying its target.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna over role in creating bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna, Tuvok, Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient bomb", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian made bomb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ensign Wildman about naming baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the difficulty of picking a name for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor and expecting mother both", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas had betrayed the Voyager crew to the Kazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x15", "title": "Sons of Mogh", "date": "1996-02-12", "description": "Cast out of Klingon society because of Worf's dishonor, his outcast brother, Kurn, asks Worf to kill him.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "assisting in suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf was torn over whether or not to help Kurn die with honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kurn planned to regain his honor by committing suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kurn argued that Worf had brought dishonor upon the House of Mogh by neglecting to take vengeance on Gowron; Kurn planned to regain his honor by committing suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kurn found a reason to go on living in readying the Klingon Empire for a future war against the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "minefields in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation uncovered that the Klingons were laying space mines around Bajoran territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf discouraging Kurn from taking his own life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the point of the story was that Klingons have a coherent yet alien take on suicide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Kurn both struggled with belonging in the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Kurn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin denied Kurn what he took to be his right to commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia were training in some classical Klingon fighting techniques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia in the holosuite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amnesia was used to cure Kurn from suicide, but left him without any knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kurn had his memory wiped so that he could go on with life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x07", "title": "Exogenesis", "date": "1996-02-12", "description": "Franklin and Marcus investigate an outbreak of parasitic aliens in Down Below. Ivanova is tasked with determining whether Lt. Corwin is suitable for the \"Conspiracy of Light\".\n\nDirected by: Kevin G. Cremin. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "centipede like things attached themselves to peoples' spines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "down and out people volunteered because they wanted purpose, at least so Duncan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova tried to soften up Corwin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical assistance to the enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin was repeatedly called upon to help his captors treat further victims", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "strange triangle drama", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Corwin thought he might have one with Ivanova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "strange triangle drama, Ivanova did not like attention and Corwin was uncomfortable", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Crossworlds (1996)", "title": "Crossworlds", "date": "1996-02-14", "description": "A college student is drawn into a battle to save the world from a villainous warlord from another dimension who is extending his dominions into other dimensional realms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossworlds" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It fell squarely on the shoulders of the nondescript college student Joe to save the world from being overrun by the forces of the trans-dimensional warlord Ferris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is black and white in the story: Joe and the resistance army are the good guys, and the villainous warlord Ferris and his minions the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The college student Joe quickly found himself bound up with Laura, a representative from a resistance army that was battling the evil warlord Ferris on fronts in multiple different dimensions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "On more than one occasion, Joe found himself in a strange, reddish valley that was understood to be in located in another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe went from getting shut down by a woman at a college party to being the savior of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baked into the cake of the film is that Earth is located in one of many different worlds, or universes, that exist in different dimensions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villainous warlord Ferris was busy extending his dominions into other dimensional realms, in particular the dimension containing Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main idea of the film is that a special scepter, when combined with Joe's heirloom crystal, is a tool that can be used to open doorways into other places, and even other dimensions. For example, A.T. used the scepter to open up a door that led from a museum display room to a seashore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and her two pals attended a stereotypical college party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and his two college pals, Stu and Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe's mother left a burdensome message for him on his answering machine, picked him up from the police station, and was reluctantly revealed some information about his father's mysterious background.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police officers showed up to arrest Joe on a hit-and-run charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was arrested for being to perpetrator of a hit-and-run.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ferris moved objects around his office and restrained A.T. with ropes using the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura shed a tear for her presumed dead comrade A.T.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villainous trans-dimensional warlord Ferris killed his own loyal henchman without compunction when the henchman failed his mission to retrieve the scepter. This was one of Ferris' borderline psychopathic acts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the film concluded with Joe and Laura sharing a romantic kiss, although there was little to no build up to this moment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project: ALF (1996)", "title": "Project: ALF", "date": "1996-02-17", "description": "Project: ALF (also known as Project: ALF, Part 2) is a 1996 American made-for- television science fiction film directed by Dick Lowry which serves as a sequel to the final episode \"Consider Me Gone\" of the 1986–1990 sitcom ALF. It was broadcast in the U.S. by ABC and in Canada on CHCH-TV on February 17, 1996. The film was released on DVD in 2005.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ALF" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The furry, three foot tall, wise-cracking alien ALF.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw some routine, and some fanciful goings on at the United States military base where ALF was being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two Air Force scientists abducted ALF from a military base for his own good and went on the run from Colonel Gilbert Milfoil and his men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States military was secretly holding the wise-cracking space alien ALF at Edwards Air Force base. Dr. Dexter Moyers claimed that NASA was covering up the presence of alien spacecraft flying about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Dexter Moyers was a leading authority on and author about UFOs. He was driven by a desire to prove that aliens exist to vindicate himself as he'd fired from NASA for claiming he's seen a UFO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Gilbert Milfoil claimed that an alien flying saucer was once kept at Area 51.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Rick Mullican mentioned in passing that the military was developing a vaccine in connection with a biological warfare project of some sort.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x18", "title": "Death Wish", "date": "1996-02-19", "description": "The crew encounter a member of the Q Continuum seeking to end his immortal life.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Shawn Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "order in society vs. human rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quinn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The god-like alien Quinn came to despair his immortal existence and wanted to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q Continuum denied Quinn what he took to be his right to take his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Q in Quinn's opinion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q Continuum would not permit Quinn to be executed because it would upset their social order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quinn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway bribed by Q for quick trip home in return for favorable judgement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quinn lamented he had nothing to life for", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quinn sought aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q versus Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Bang", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quinn transported himself and Tuvok back to the birth of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ginsberg was a hippie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "understanding by metaphor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Q Continuum was only comprehensible to human intellect by way of metaphors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q comments upon", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x16", "title": "Bar Association", "date": "1996-02-19", "description": "Rom creates a union for Quark's employees and goes on strike.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Barbara J. Lee & Jenifer A. Lee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark's employees reacted to his greedy ways by going on strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rom created a union for Quark's employees and went on strike to Quark's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark exploited his workers and they made a union", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers' rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark exploited his workers and they made a union", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unions in the workplace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rom created a union for Quark's employees and goes led a strike to Quark's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom did not like opposing his brother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom stood up to his older brother Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom with Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom at Quark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom rallied the strikers with the motto there is strength in unity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and strikers negotiating a resolution to the labor dispute", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom took it upon himself to lead a strike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf complained being robbed of his tooth sharpener.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajoran Time of Cleansing where Bajorans abstain for various worldly pleasures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frool cracked and begged for mercy when the Ferengi Commerce Association official confronted the strikers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Bashir cultivated their friendship in sickbay and the brig", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x08", "title": "Messages from Earth", "date": "1996-02-19", "description": "A startling revelation leads Sheridan and Delenn on a dangerous mission into Earth Alliance space. The Nightwatch expands its influence over Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan went up against his own people for their own good", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nightwatch evoked thoughts of Gestapo, NKVD etc. The Nightwatch was expanding its influence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zack was torn between Nightwatch and friends on Babylon 5", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi complained about not having a vacation for three years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar found something inside himself (and there was an angel)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan recalled his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan refused destroy earth ship even in self defense", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x19", "title": "Lifesigns", "date": "1996-02-26", "description": "The Doctor helps a Phage-ridden Vidiian woman.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor with Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "it's what's on the inside that counts", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danada was good on the inside", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "short and sweet life vs. long and miserable life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danara preferred to live for a short time in a virtual healthy body rather than a long time in her real-life, physical virus stricken one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a suicidal person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor with Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline in the workplace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay about handling an insubordinate Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Danara Pel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom's insubordination escalated to a point that he assaulted Chakotay and was taken to the brig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danara explained prejudice against her to The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sickly Danara transferred her personality into a healthy virtual body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sickly Danara transferred her personality into a healthy virtual body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna at having piece of brain taken", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom with Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disobedient person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly disgruntled Tom made it crystal clear to Chakotay that he had a problem with Chakotay being his commander.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor by Danada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "donating an organ to save a life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna donated part of her brain to save Danara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor about his love for Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor availed himself of Tom's holodeck simulated 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in professing his love to Danara", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Jonas conspired with Seska of the Kazon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor wooed Danada on the Holodeck.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x17", "title": "Accession", "date": "1996-02-26", "description": "A famous Bajoran poet, Akorem Laan, who disappeared over 200 years ago appears from the wormhole and convinces Sisko that he is the true Emissary.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Jane Espenson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "caste system", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Akorem Laan was somewhat taken aback to discover the Bajorans had given up their caste system; space sharia involved a caste system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Akorem Laan claimed that he came to put Bajor back on the right path in fulfillment of ancient prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Akorem Laan urged the Bajoran people to return to their savage religious ways of old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a controversy over who of Benjamin or Akorem Laan was the true prophet of the wormhole aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "a pregnant Keiko returns to the space station to visit Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Akorem Laan tried to make a society in which filthy lower caste people could be pushed off of bridges with impunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira decides to resign her post to sculpt birds", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Bashir playing the Battle of Britain holosuite game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Bashir missed one another's company when Keiko came back for a visit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a family issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles missed hanging out with his pal Bashir while spending time with his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was relieved to step down as emissary of the prophets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Akorem Laan came from 200 years in the past to find his world mired in sin and depravity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Akorem Laan wanted to reestablish a religiously inspired cast system based government on Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keiko returned to the space station an expecting mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar sail spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Akorem Laan arrived on a Bajoran lightship powered by solar sails", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo confronted Kira about the contradiction in faith he assumed she was grappling with. Dr. Bashir explained Benjamin's religious vision in terms of neuroscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Akorem Laan arrived on the space station from 200 years in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x09", "title": "Point of No Return", "date": "1996-02-26", "description": "When President Clark declares martial law throughout the Earth Alliance, the command crew must find a way to stop Nightwatch from taking over Babylon 5. Londo receives a prophecy from Emperor Turhan's widow when she visits the station.\n\nDirected by: Jim Johnston. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-coup", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the president dissolved the senate etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the coup turned into a civil war because of general Hague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone had to take sides", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the importance of the chain of command was emphasized", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nightwatch tried to use martial law in order to take over Babylon 5, and to purge politically undesirable people in USSR fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Morella prophesied that both Londo and Vir were destined to become emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan did not like his orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zack proved loyal to babylon 5, the nightwatch to the president", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Morella prophesied that both Londo and Vir were destined to become emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lady Morella’s prophesy left Londo convinced that he was destined to become emperor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Command (1996)", "title": "Star Command", "date": "1996-03-11", "description": "A team of Space Corps trainees must step up to the task when their seasoned captain dies while they are on a dangerous mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Command_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a not too distant future where a unified Earth is exploring and colonizing the galaxy. One of its earliest colonies, the planet Cynosura, has declared independence and is attempting to establish its own sphere of influence as Earth's rival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of Space Corps trainees had to step up to the task of completing their dangerous mission after their seasoned captain died in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space Corps and the Cynosurans were flying about in futuristic spaceships. Much of the story is set aboard the trainee vessel the D.R.S. Surprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large space station was show in orbit around some or another planet at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in a not too distant future where a unified Earth is exploring and colonizing the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth and Cynosuran diplomats were negotiating over who had legal rights to an ideally habitable world named Meraz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The highly successful and powerful Edward Vallis was not impressed with his C average Star Corps trainee son Tully Vallis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Cynosuran officer tortured a Star Corps pilot to death in a failed bid to get some information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tully Vallis used a VR headset to indulge in his sexual fantasies. A captured Star Corps pilot was mercilessly tortured in a virtual reality environment - he felt the pain in real life, however.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ken Oort was studying about a battle from this war involving Robert E. Lee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The helper robot Arty which was reminiscent of the robot Johnny 5 from the film Short Circuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ensign Phillip Jackson hanged himself in his quarters shortly before he was to be put to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was unified under a global democratic government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A critically injured Ensign Yukiko Fujisaki was placed into cryogenic suspension.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x20", "title": "Investigations", "date": "1996-03-13", "description": "Neelix tries to flush out the traitor on board who has been colluding with the Kazon Nistrim.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Jeff Schnaufer and Ed Bond.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Michael Jonas betrayed his crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom took a great personal risk to expose the traitor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix to Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Jonas gave secrets to Kazon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom about leaving Voyager to serve on merchant vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom pretended to be disgruntled on the job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Jonas was revealed to be a traitor thanks to Neelix's investigative journalism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Jonas was exposes as a Kazon collaborator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freedom of the press", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway tried to discourage Neelix from pursuing the traitor and reporting on it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor explicitly discussed the issue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix kindled in The Doctor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x21", "title": "Deadlock", "date": "1996-03-18", "description": "Attempting to evade the Vidiians, a duplicate Voyager is created after it passes through a spatial scission.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the duplicate Voyager crew was from a parallel universe for all intents and purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway for parallel Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway on Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ensign Wildman mourned the loss of her new-born child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway and the crew grieved for Harry Kim and little Naomi Wildman, who were presumed to have died when Voyager's hull ruptured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ensign Wildman had a baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager and its crew were duplicated as a result of passing through a space-time rift. The rest of the story concerns the duplicate crews efforts to merge the ships and themselves back together again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "who was the real Harry at conclusion of episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway destroyed Voyager to foil the Vidians and save the parallel Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vidiians used an advanced medical gizmo to effectively teleport organs directly out of living humanoids.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Special Report: Journey to Mars (1996)", "title": "Special Report: Journey to Mars", "date": "1996-03-25", "description": "In the year 2005, a cable news network broadcasts the expected landing of a United States manned mission to Mars.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116719/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common interest unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of the world were united by a pioneering United States manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A cable news network broadcast a manned mission to Mars to billions of people all around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A manned mission to Mars was broadcast live on cable news.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Slader's body was invaded by \"nanotech machines\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astronauts Susan and Charlie, who went on a risky spacewalk together, were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the IRC corporation conspired with extreme right wing European political parties to sabotage a pioneering United States manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven astronauts and a science journalist traveled to Mars on the spacecraft Destiny.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x10", "title": "Severed Dreams", "date": "1996-04-01", "description": "President Clark tries to seize control of Babylon 5 by force, forcing Sheridan and the command crew to take arms against their own government. Delenn confronts the Grey Council.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone had to take sides", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Babylon 5 staff had to decide with which side their loyalty lie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the coup turned into a civil war because of general Hague", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fascist president instituted martial law on Earth and threatened Babylon 5. People were afraid to speak freely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "rebel lieutenant regretted killing former friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "rebel lieutenant regretted killing former friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-coup", "level": "major", "motivation": "the president dissolved the senate etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Centauri and the Narn hated each other because of an ongoing war between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan had a tête-à-tête with his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn accused the gray council of isolationist tnedency", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x22", "title": "Innocence", "date": "1996-04-08", "description": "Tuvok crash-lands on a moon and finds children who have been abandoned.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Anthony Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans believed that the children on the moon were being mistreated, but it transpires that they were in fact just normal backwards-aging aliens in the final stages of their lives preparing for a rebirth or something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok with children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "the children come to understand they must die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "children over the beast", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok and children vs. morrok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drayans said they were in spite of having spaceships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Drayans were born old and died young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok educated the children in Vulcan self-control of emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Drayans were born as adults and died as children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the children about the boogeyman, i.e., the morrok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok with children at some points in story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew with Drayans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drayan moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacred ground", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the moon considered sacred and off limits to foreigners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok discussed with the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Drayan children were afraid of the Morrok, a monster of Drayan lore that was said to come at night to snatch people who've died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok vulc-splained", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok discussed with the children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drayans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Drayans had insulated themselves from other cultures to avoid the influence of those who might lead them down the path of technological development.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x18", "title": "Rules of Engagement", "date": "1996-04-08", "description": "Worf accidentally destroys a civilian ship during battle and faces a hearing to determine whether he should be extradited to the Klingon Empire.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "to what extent was Worf guilty and was there sufficient evidence?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf had to live with the consequences of having fired at unidentified vessel or risk having his own ship being destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf faced an extradition hearing in which the Klingon Empire sought to have him tried in Klingon court on the charge of destroying a civilian transport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf had nothing to hide he said", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles tried to explain how difficult it is to be in command while on the stand", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf's extradition case was premised on the idea that only Klingons could judge Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was asked about his status as an outcast of the Klingon Empire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was accused of negligence in the destruction of a Klingon civilian vessel in the heat of a battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ch'Pok made a passing remark to Benjamin about the presumption of innocence being an interesting feature of the Federation justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf admitted to welcoming a confrontation with Klingon fleet in order to get vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral T'Lara presided over Worf's extradition hearing aboard Deep Space Nice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x11", "title": "Ceremonies of Light and Dark", "date": "1996-04-08", "description": "Delenn tries to organize a Minbari religious ceremony to help the command crew and the ambassadors to adjust to their new situations. Remnants of Nightwatch attempt to undermine Sheridan's control of Babylon 5. Londo confronts Lord Refa.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "conflict happened because of what is now a civil war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "a soldier hated Minbari and the Centauri hated the Narn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "platonic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier loved Delenn but not romantically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan loved Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a space funeral for fallen comrades in arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo engaged in traditional Centauri politics with poison etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the psychology of torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a soldier described how he liked to torture Minbari", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi struggled with password reset and station AI", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn had a ritual that would help heal people inside", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova mentioned her love for Tallia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi mentioned he was afraid all the time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo laced Refa's drink with a potentially lethal bipartite poison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x19", "title": "Hard Time", "date": "1996-04-15", "description": "O'Brien's mind has been altered to create memories of being incarcerated for 20 years on an alien world on charges of espionage and sedition.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Daniel Keys Moran and Lynn Barker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "implanted memory punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles was implanted with memories of having been imprisoned for twenty years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles feeling as if he had lived through 20 years of incarcerated under harsh conditions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles over having killed his cell mate Ee'char unjustly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Miles coming to terms with the death of his late friend and cellmate, Ee'char.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles in alien prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles over having killed Ee'char in prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles getting accustomed to life back on the space station after a lengthy incarceration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles getting accustomed to life back on the space station after lengthy incarceration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko tried to help Miles adjust to live on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles felt alienated from former friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles over having killed Ee'char in prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' imprisonment under harsh conditions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles thought about killing himself to spare others his wrath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the prisoners were left to starve for stretches of time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian talked Miles out of phasering himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was convicted of espionage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x12", "title": "Sic Transit Vir", "date": "1996-04-15", "description": "Vir faces calamity when his fiancée – whom he has never met – arrives on the station, and his \"work\" as the Centauri ambassador to Minbar is revealed.\n\nDirected by: Jesus Trevino. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir's fiancee had been brought up to see Narn as little more than animals. As Vir was clandestinely helping the Narn, this became a central point of contention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir's fiancee came aboard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan loved Delenn, Vir's fiancee discussed Vir coming to love her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir for persecuted Narn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir helped Narn at risk to his career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir helped Narn escape persecution", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vir's fiancée, who was Centauri, had been brought up to see Narn as little more than animals. As Vir was clandestinely helping the Narn, this became a central point of contention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn tried to make it work", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Vir defended Vir's fiancee,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Centauri mass murder of Narn was discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan interpreted Ivanova's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn in Sheridan's quarters", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x01", "title": "Fatal Caper", "date": "1996-04-19", "description": "Lord Mycroft Amberson, a wealthy, elderly man with a weak heart, adds a stipulation to his will. The stipulation mentions that his two sons, the womanizing Justin and the greedy Evelyn must locate their long-lost brother, Frank, within a certain amount of time, or else risk having their inheritance be given away to charity.\n\nDirected by: Bob Hoskins. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greedy heir", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned a rich but disillusioned father who sought to disinherit his two wretchedly immoral sons. The sons fought both him and with each other to get their hands on the inheritance. In the end, a third sibling had their father murdered and claimed the inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft Amberson and his three miscreant male progeny fought over the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft Amberson's three miscreant male progeny fought over the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fiona was Lord Mycroft's new lawyer and turned out to be as greedy and scheming as his sons. Indeed, she was actually his youngest son in disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft's oldest son was obsessed with having sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft's sons maneuvered to do in one and other. Evelyn impaled Justin with a pointy ended candle stick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft had a clever scheme to do in his two ill-bread sons. He tricked the older into murdering the younger, and then scared the older one to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fiona (formerly Frank) orchestrated the cold blooded murder of her/his father to gain an inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft's three sons each schemed against the others to ensure it was he who inherited the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fiona (formerly Frank) pretended to side with each of Lord Mycroft's two sons, but in the end played them against one another, and backstabbed all three on her way to inheriting the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was no love loss among Lord Mycroft's two sons, Justin and Evelyn. They disapproved of each other's lifestyles, and each was perfectly willing to leave the others dead to secure inheriting the family fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "The youngest son had gone through elaborate lengths, presumably plastic surgery, in order to pass as a stunning blond woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper made a quip about having all sorts of skeletons in his closet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn was scared literally to death by the sight of his apparently risen from the dead father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Mycroft had a weak heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a brief scene of Lord Mycroft's funeral procession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin presided over a séance, ostensibly to communicate with his recently deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The family lawyer Redmond simply shot Lord Mycroft dead in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x20", "title": "Shattered Mirror", "date": "1996-04-22", "description": "Sisko attempts to rescue Jake after he is lured into the war-torn Mirror Universe by his mother's living counterpart.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin traveled to the savage mirror universe to rescue Jake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake reunited with a parallel universe version of his deceased mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin traveled to mirror universe to rescue Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and mirror Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin traveled to savage parallel mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin traveled to a parallel universe populated by evil versions of him and his colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "mirror universe people were preparing to defend Terok Nor from Alliance invasion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "mirror Bashir delighted in torturing mirror Kira; mirror Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mirror Bashir at mirror Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mirror universe Julian used a pain inflicting device on mirror universe Kira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin over his departed wife Jennifer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake missing his old friend Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mirror Jennifer took a phaser shot for Jake", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x13", "title": "A Late Delivery from Avalon", "date": "1996-04-22", "description": "A traveler arrives on the station, claiming to be a character out of the Arthurian legends. Sheridan and Ivanova try to gain recognition of the station's new status among the alien governments.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McIntyre thought he was this legendary king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arthur and G'Kar heroically thwarted criminals and worked for the just", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arthur wanted justice for the wronged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "McIntyre adopted the Arthur persona", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "McIntyre did not recall his old life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi went up against the post office", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucratic dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi's travails with the post office were exaggerated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "price inflation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi found prices went up because of the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it was suggested that King Arthur might have been abducted by Vorlons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was implied that security was not too pleased with Arthur taking things into his own hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur reminded Stephen that he was bounded by this oath to do no harm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x02", "title": "Last Respects", "date": "1996-04-26", "description": "Yvonne, Dolores, and Marlys Finger are three sisters who bicker with one another constantly. Left in charge of their late father's struggling curiosity shop, they discover a monkey's paw in a box of items. Thinking that they have found a way out of their financial troubles, Marlys and Yvvone use it to wish for riches. But their riches are not without tragic consequences.\n\nDirected by: Freddie Francis. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The central theme throughout the story is that there is a monkey's paw that grants three wishes to its owner, but rarely so in a manner that leaves them pleased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was written on the monkey's paw that it is prone to punishing greedy wishes harshly. Unfazed, its various owners invariably used some of their wishes to obtain wealth one way or the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns three sisters and their internecine bickering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "One sister shot the younger sister dead in order to collect on an insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the three sisters' failing curiosity shop, and their reluctance to go against their late father's wishes by reforming the business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three sisters came into possession of a mysterious monkey's paw that granted three wishes to its owner, each at a terrible cost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yvonne came to regret having ever wished for £1,000,000 when it came true through the fulfillment of her younger sister's life insurance policy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver. Through the magic of the monkey's paw, the youngest sister was returned to life in a zombified form of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three sisters, but one of them in particular, cared for their elderly and mentally enfeebled mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for an elderly relative", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three sisters were caring for their senile, elderly mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One sister shot the younger sister dead in order to collect on an insurance policy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Yesterday's Target (1996)", "title": "Yesterday's Target", "date": "1996-04-28", "description": "A trio of amnestic time travelers, each with a unique psychic power, must complete a dangerous mission.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118205/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul, Jessica, and Carter were sent back in time 30 years on a mission to prevent the creation of a covert government agency that investigated psychic activities from being formed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul had the psychic ability to move material objects around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jessica had the psychic ability to see into the near future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carter had the psychic ability to start fires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul, Jessica, and Carter spent the film gradually recollecting who they were and where they'd come from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a covert government agency that investigated psychic activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote viewing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winstrom had the ability to get information about people, such as their whereabouts, merely by handling their personal effects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica used her precognitive ability to foresee the outcomes of roulette roulette wheel spins, and tried to use it to her advantage to make some quick cash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica read a waitress' mind about what was on the menu. Young Roland read Paul's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica was addicted to prescription medication.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holden and his wife Brenda were trying hard to have a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara was crushed to learn from her doctor that she might never be able to have a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Jessica shared a passionate kiss shortly after they remembered that they were actually married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, Paul turned out to be Holden's son.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x23", "title": "The Thaw", "date": "1996-04-29", "description": "The crew finds aliens mentally connected to a computer that has created a being that feeds on their fear.\n\nDirected by: Marvin V. Rush. Story by: Richard Gadas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew discovered a nightmarish virtual reality world that was ruled by an evil clown who thrived on keeping those trapped there in a state of mortal terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Several Voyager crew members found themselves trapped in strange simulated place full of madmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were trapped in a nightmare", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry Kim and a trio of aliens were being held hostage in a nightmarish, circus-themed virtual reality world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "An evil clown held Harry Kim hostage in the nightmarish, circus-themed virtual reality world over which he ruled as a tyrant. It was up to Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew to get him, and three aliens, out alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway kills clown guy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Voyager crew to free those trapped in an initially utopian virtual reality world that had turned into a living nightmare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "clown guy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the wish to live", "level": "major", "motivation": "the simulated characters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "man banging the roof when Harry played Oboe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry played the clarinet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kohl settlement destroyed by solar flare", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok characterized fear as “the most primordial of all biological responses”.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x21", "title": "The Muse", "date": "1996-04-29", "description": "While Odo assists a pregnant Lwaxana Troi, Jake falls under the spell of a mysterious woman, Onaya.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: René Echevarria and Majel Barrett- Roddenberry.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake found a muse to inspire his creative writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana coped with her husband Jeyal leaving her and threatening to take the baby; Odo and Lwaxana got married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lwaxana and Jeyal vying for custody of their unborn son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana's marriage broke down because of cultural differences in expectations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onaya killed artists so that they would be immortalized; Jake wished to be remembered for his writing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onaya killed artists so that they would be immortalized; Jake wished to be remembered for his writing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Lwaxana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on the mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Onaya fed off of the creative energy generated by Jake's very imaginative brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo married Lwaxana to save her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lwaxana and her husbands Odo and Jeyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was looking forward to taking a trip with Jake and Cassify, but Jake had other plans; Jeyal and his unborn son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana pregnant with son and expecting to soon deliver", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo played shapeshfting hide and seek with Lwaxana and shapeshifted her a blanket", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was amused at the notion of writing on paper", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Lwaxana are married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was pained to hear about Kira's involvement with her new lover", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana remarked how she could communicate telepathically with her unborn baby. Quark complained that Lwaxana was telepathically making his customers sad. Onaya was described by Bashir as being telepathic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lwaxana remarked how she could communicate telepathically with her unborn baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Onaya served as a muse to Jake and other writers from ancient times.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x14", "title": "Ship of Tears", "date": "1996-04-29", "description": "Bester returns to Babylon 5 with secret information about a weapons supply ship and proposes an alliance.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bester was there and saved other telepaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone facing the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and hated Bester make common cause against the Shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn explained that she let millions of Narn die because probably billions would have died if she had interceded", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "the shadows obviously abducted people and operated on them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bester looked down his nose at non-telepaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We understand that Earth news was now tightly controlled by the fascist president.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bester described his genetically matched marriage as practical and loveless", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Secrets Lies (1996)", "title": "Secrets & Lies", "date": "1996-05", "description": "Secrets & Lies is a 1996 drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it stars Marianne Jean- Baptiste as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her family history – only to discover that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, is a working-class white woman with a dysfunctional family. Claire Rushbrook co- stars as Cynthia's other daughter Roxanne, while Timothy Spall and Phyllis Logan portray Cynthia's brother and sister-in-law, who have secrets of their own affecting their everyday family life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_%26_Lies_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia and Hortense; Cynthia and Roxanne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maurice and Cynthia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maurice was a passionate photographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Roxanne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maurice and Monica", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maurice and Monica professed love in bed; Roxanne and Paul professed their love briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "in-law relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cynthia and Monica had a turbulent relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hortense was driven by a desire to know her biological ancestry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maurice's former business partner showed up and begged for charity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maurice's former boss obviously drank to excess", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maurice's former boss begged for money; Cynthia accepted charity from Maurice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roxanne and Hortense", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hortense discovered that her biological mother was in fact white", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cynthia mourned her dad. Hortense mourned her mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Barb Wire (1996)", "title": "Barb Wire", "date": "1996-05-03", "description": "Set in the year 2017, a foxy nightclub owner with an independent streak who moonlights as a mercenary get drawn into a movement that is resisting a fascist government that had taken hold across much of the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb_Wire_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The year is 2017 and the story set during the middle of the Second American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative future event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The year is 2017 and the story set during the middle of the Second American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barb's catchphrase \"don't call me babe\" sums up the air of female independence that she exuded throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barb was helping a group of spirited resistance members against the now-fascist United States government in their effort to get a defector scientist across the border to Canada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The resistors were trying to prevent the fascist-like Congressional Council from using a new bioweapon called Red Ribbon to end the ongoing Second American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Congressional Council, with their Nazi-like uniforms and anti-democratic ways, ruled much of the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed young woman was subjected to an electrical shock torture of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barb and her alcoholic, blind, civil war veteran younger brother, Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police Chief Willis and his men trashed Barb's nightclub among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police Chief Willis was investigating a double homicide that had occurred at the harbor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie had turned to the bottle after being blinded while fighting in the civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Axel Hood explained to his former love interest Barb about how he was now married to Cora D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barb shared a romantic kiss with her former love interest Axel Hood shortly before he awkwardly introduced her to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Congressional Council fascists used a special machine to extract crude images from people's brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barb wept over the corpse of her electrocuted to death little brother, Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The junkyard gang leader Big Fatso plotted to sell a pair of contraband pair of contact lenses on the black market.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x03", "title": "A Slight Case of Murder", "date": "1996-05-03", "description": "Famous mystery novelist Sharon Bannister is repeatedly pestered by her nosy neighbor Mrs. Trask, who wants advice to see if her own writing is any good as Sharon's. One day, Sharon is held at gunpoint by her jealous husband Larry, who accuses her of cheating on him with Mrs. Trask's son, Joey, leading to a suspenseful game of cat and mouse between all parties.\n\nDirected by: Brian Helgeland. Story by: Brian Helgeland.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a mystery writer who falls foul of an intricate plot by one of her fans and imitators. The imitator was trying to write novels of her own but finally settled for killing Sharon and stealing her latest work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sharon's soon-to-be-ex-husband had an elaborate plot to get rid of his wife and make it seem like she had simply gone missing. Alas, he completely botched it. Mrs. Trask connived to have her son, Sharon and Sharon's estranged husband all kill each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon's estranged soon-to-be-ex husband showed up in her house intent on murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon Banister struggled with telling her nosy neighbor, Mrs. Trask, in a polite way to stop pestering her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon's soon to be ex-husband, Larry, showed up at her house with intentions on killing her to avoid an unfavorably settlement in their pending divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon, a renowned author with best-selling novels, was visibly irritated by the frequent visits paid to her by her neighbor and admirer, Mrs. Trask.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper, adorned in wizard attire, made astrological prognostications and interpreted someone's horoscope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Trask's son had a crush on Sharon fueled by phony love letters planted by his own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon called the police because she thought a prowler was sneaking about her mansion with malevolent intent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharon and Larry were separated and in the process of finalizing their divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Trask troubled her adult son, Joey, to deliver a tin of gingerbread men to Sharon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Trask tried to take out Sharon, and possibly her own son, with a tin of poisoned gingerbread men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry mistakenly thought Sharon had been sleeping with Mrs. Trask's idiot son, Joey.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zone 39 (1996)", "title": "Zone 39", "date": "1996-05-04", "description": "A soldier guarding a remote border output struggles to cope with isolation and the death of his beloved wife.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_39" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo was so devastated over the untimely death of his wife that he began to hallucinate her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo conversed with possibly tranquilizer-induced hallucinations of his dearly departed wife, Nova Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo conversed with possibly tranquilizer-induced hallucinations of his dearly departed wife, Anne. Leo also hallucinated the possibly suicided guard at the border outpost where Leo was stationed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo gradually pieced together that the government was hiding from the public that a chemical spill had contaminated the water table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Industrialists of some sort were responsible for a chemical spill that had contaminated the water table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film's opening text explains that the film is set in the aftermath of a 40 year war between the Federated Republics and the New Territories Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A VR helmet wearing soldier was being trained in a virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo speculated that a certain man had died from being exposed to a chemical weapon on account of the man's E-cel count.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo made a proclamation of love to a hallucination of his dearly departed wife, Anne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was convinced that Paget went crazy and killed himself because he couldn't cope with his isolation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x24", "title": "Tuvix", "date": "1996-05-06", "description": "A transporter accident merges Tuvok and Neelix into a new person.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human rights issue", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvix' right to live", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvix balanced the rationality of Tuvok and emotionality of Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "is one semi-stranger worth two friends?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need a balance between rationality and emotionality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvix was an amalgam of the emotion driven Neelix and the reason driven Tuvok. He struggled to find a balance between these two extreems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok and Neelix into Tuvix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes with Neelix and Janeway with Mark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes Neelix Tuvix and to a small extend Tuvok's wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was adamant that as a physician he could do no harm and on this ground he refused to take Tuvix's life against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvix at end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry played the clarinet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok cultivated orchids as a hobby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Tuvok debated taking pleasure in the beauty of the nature on the planet where they were foraging for food.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x22", "title": "For the Cause", "date": "1996-05-06", "description": "Sisko learns that his girlfriend Kasidy might be a Maquis smuggler.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Mark Gehred-O'Connell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sisko by Kasidy; Garak worried Ziyal was plotting to betray him; everyone by Eddington who was a secret Maquis agent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sisko was torn between Kasidy and his duty to Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis terrorists are seen from their point of view. Kasidy smuggled medical supplies for the Maquis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak at Ziyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "was the circumstantial evidence enough to justify spying on Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddington stated that he choose duty every time, later we learn he's the opposite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak was struggling with layers of suspicion in his mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake had heart to heart talk over Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was pondering how to write a good story. In particular, he was considering how to describe a smell he hadn't before encountered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x15", "title": "Interludes and Examinations", "date": "1996-05-06", "description": "The Shadow War begins in earnest, and it falls to Sheridan to rally a force against the Shadows. He requests help from Kosh, which brings profound consequences. Franklin deals with his stim addiction.\n\nDirected by: Jesus Trevino. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone facing the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the shadows threatened the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin faced up to his problem in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan tried to organize resistance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin took drugs to keep up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the shadows sowed chaos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "it seems in this episode this was true only to a lesser extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo's lover returns", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was distraught when his love interest Adira turned up dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi tried to help Franklin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "unclear but Franklin at least took the first step", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan dreamed of his dad", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doctor Who (1996)", "title": "Doctor Who", "date": "1996-05-12", "description": "The Eighth Doctor takes on the Master in San Fransisco on the turn of the millennium, 31 December 1999.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor used the iconic TARDIS to travel time and space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth was going to be torn inside out by midnight on New Year's Eve 2000 unless the Doctor succeeded in closing the Eye of Harmony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Grace Holloway was a practicing cardiologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "device bigger inside than outside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TARDIS is telephone booth sized on the inside, and big enough for a handful of of people to get about comfortably on the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor used the TARDIS to bring Grace and Chang Lee a two days back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor spoke of how the Master was losing his life force.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x25", "title": "Resolutions", "date": "1996-05-13", "description": "Janeway and Chakotay must adapt to life quarantined on a planet after they contract an incurable disease.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with living in a new environment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay more or less accepted that they they would have to live out their days alone on the alien planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew to Janeway and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were socially isolated for an extended period of time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay were faced with the prospect of having to live together on an idyllic, but uninhabited Delta Quardant planet for the rest of their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew did to save Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay were faced with the prospect of having to live together on an idyllic, but uninhabited Delta Quardant planet for the rest of their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and crew vs Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew to Janeway and less to Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "contact Vidiians or go on their merry way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay orders the ship away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway to find cure, crew to persuade Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stranded on a planet with Janeway, Chakotay revealed his notable talent for carpentry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway demonstrated a penchant for gardening by cultivating Talaxian tomatoes and commenting on tomato bugs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x23", "title": "To the Death", "date": "1996-05-13", "description": "Sisko and the Defiant crew join forces with the Jem'Hadar to stop a group of Jem'Hadar renegades from gaining power.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Jem'Hadar made common cause to destroy take-you-anywhere gateway rather than let it fall into the hands of Jem'Hadar rebels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Jem'Hadar made common cause to destroy take-you-anywhere gateway rather than let it fall into the hands of Jem'Hadar rebels", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans and Jem'Hadar in spite of mutual contempt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar leader Omet'iklan compared with Benjamin, especially over Worf mess hall fight aftermath", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar accused Federation of cowardice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar purported to be and then Federation people outshone them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar prided themselves on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Defiant crew in Jem'Hadar guests and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar were loyal to The Founders a fault; Weyoun 4 obeyed Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band of rogue Jem'Hadar were using an Iconian gateway to teleport themselves over vast distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles discussed with Jadzia in teaser", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar and Federation discussed reasons for living several times, wine and women was one of the answers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugs for military use", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dominion controlled their Jem'Hadar soldiers by keeping them supplied with the drug Ketracel-white.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo with regard to the Federation or the Founders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin took a dagger for Jem'Hadar boss", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar soldier discussed having been genetically designed to wage war with Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was annoyed at being fawned over by Jem'Hadar and Weyoun who all considered him a god", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x16", "title": "War Without End (Part 1)", "date": "1996-05-13", "description": "Jeffrey Sinclair returns with a mission vital to the survival of the station: traveling back in time to steal Babylon 4.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they traveled in time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "various but Garibaldi and Sinclair in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was no shortage of it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan in particular knew he would die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn with Sinclair watching from the sidelines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Minbari had some prophecy or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sinclair to Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo wanted vengeance", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stepford Husbands (1996)", "title": "The Stepford Husbands", "date": "1996-05-14", "description": "It is the third in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Stepford Wives" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Husbands" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the Davidson's as they moved from a big city to the seemingly idyllic American town of Stepford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Struggling author Nick Davidson felt dejected because his novel was a colossal failure and he needed to rely on his wife to pay the bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Davidson's worked through some major issues they were having in their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the use of personality altering medication", "level": "major", "motivation": "The husbands of Stepford heavily medicated into being stereotypically idea husbands to their wives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick became good buddies with his new neighbor Gordon but it was never the same after Gordon was heavily medicated into be the perfect husband. Also Jodi reunited with her old college friend Caroline and Caroline pushed her into putting Nick into treatment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x04", "title": "Escape", "date": "1996-05-17", "description": "During World War II, Lieutenant Luger, a German POW stuck in a British prison camp, leads an attempt to escape from the camp. When he and his companions are caught, Luger shamelessly rats out his fellow prisoners in exchange for additional privileges during incarceration. Learning that one of the men he betrayed is alive and in recovery, Luger attempts to silence him before another team of escapees he joins together with finds out about his treason.\n\nDirected by: Peter MacDonald. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns German prisoners in a British camp, and their various plans for escaping that camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a British prisoner of war camp during the final days of the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The British commander despised Lt. Luger for having betrayed his own countrymen during an escape attempt. Luger would rather sit out the war in comfort in a British prison camp than face the perilous journey and ardor of rejoining his own front lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "The British commander despised Lt. Luger for having betrayed his own comrades during an escape attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the British commander Major Nicholson's plot to exact vengeance on a German traitor on behalf of three Germans the betrayal had lead to the deaths of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The British commander despised Lt. Luger for having betrayed his own countrymen during an escape attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A German escapee had survived and appeared in the prison camp infirmary, unconscious and bandaged to the top of his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Luger slit the throat of a fellow prisoner or war in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Nicholson was using the prisoners of war under his charge to manufacture coffins in a violation of the Geneva Conventions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy2x26", "title": "Basics, Part I", "date": "1996-05-20", "description": "Seska and the Kazon-Nistrim take control of Voyager and maroon its crew on a primitive planet.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forced fatherhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay for his apparent son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolopak and Chakotay, Chakotay and baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seska and baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder about whether efforts should be made to rehabilitate the psychopathic killer Lon or whether he should simply be punished for his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay in Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lon Suter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teirna was a walking bomb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the midst of battle, Voyager used a holographic double of the ship as a decoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with the Voyager crew members setting out in search of food, water, and anything else that might aid their survival on the planet where they'd become newly stranded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Females were treated as second class citizens in Kazon society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gardening", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While imprisoned, Lon Suder took an interest in floriculture, and began breeding orchids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lon Suder was called a sociopath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teirna removed a tiny needed from his secret toenail compartment, poked himself with it, and subsequently blew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay goes on vision quest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kazon vs. Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with the Voyager crew members setting out in search of food, water, and anything else that might aid their survival on the planet where they'd become newly stranded. The planet featured prehistoric elements.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x24", "title": "The Quickening", "date": "1996-05-20", "description": "Bashir tries to free the population of a Gamma Quadrant world in the Teplan system of an engineered disease left by the Dominion 200 years previously.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Naren Shankar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir objected to Trevan performing euthanasia on sufferers of the blight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor assisted suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bashir objected to Trevan performing euthanasia on sufferers of the blight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jem’Hadar had deliberately infected the Teplan people with a contagious disease, known as the “blight”, as a punishment for defying Dominion rule. This act resulted in the effective collapse of the Teplan civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian was devastated by his failure that resulted in several peoples' painful deaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bashir arrogantly presumed that he could cure the Teplan people of a hitherto incurable disease called “the blight” within a week, and was humbled when he failed to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ekoria put up with much pain for the sake of her unborn child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bashir worked to find a cure for a deadly disease, known as the “blight”, that was afflicting the Teplan people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir helped Ekoria give birth to her baby before she succumbed to the blight", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x17", "title": "War Without End (Part 2)", "date": "1996-05-20", "description": "Jeffrey Sinclair returns with a mission vital to the survival of the station: traveling back in time to steal Babylon 4.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they traveled in time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor Londo was distraught", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan in particular knew he would die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo wanted vengeance until he didn't want it again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn with Sinclair watching from the sidelines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sinclair was assured by Zathras that Sinclair had a special and very consequential destiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "they were told to go back and enjoy their time", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x05", "title": "Horror in the Night", "date": "1996-05-24", "description": "Jewel thief Nick Marvin is double crossed by his partner, T, and hides out in a nearby hotel after being shot in the shoulder. Once inside, Nick is haunted by many disturbing visions and occurrences inside the hotel, and is repeatedly visited by Laura, a beautiful woman that only he can see who seems to have ulterior motives.\n\nDirected by: Russell Mulcahy. Story by: John Harrison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "T shot Nick in the back, trying to make off with their loot. Alas, Nick shot back at him and absconded with said loot, upon which T started searching for Nick with vengeance in mind. Nick hallucinated (or otherwise encountered) a woman who, in some versions of it all, was trying to get back at him for one thing or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "T shot Nick in the back, trying to make off with their loot. Alas, Nick shot back at him and absconded with said loot, upon which T started searching for Nick with vengeance in mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and T spent nearly the entire story coping with their respective gun shot wounds to the chest. Nick hallucinated a great deal as a consequence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners in crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and T were in cahoots and (seemingly with some routine) executing insurance heists on the behalf of a jewelry shop owner. Then they betrayed one another, as well as their employer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and T were in cahoots and (seemingly with some routine) executing insurance heists on the behalf of a jewelry shop owner. Then they betrayed one another, as well as their employer. Nick absconded with the loot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each of Nick and T had designs on taking the briefcase of stolen jewels for themself. Nick succeeded in doing so for a time, but in the end T (and their jewelry shop owner accomplice) tracked him down and shot him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick took refuge in a rundown hotel, which, in one possible viewing of the story, happened to be haunted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, a spacesuit wearing Crypt Keeper and his \"skeleton crew\" were about to blast of for a little \"space hacksploration\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insurance fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and T were in cahoots and (seemingly with some routine) executing insurance heists on the behalf of jewelry shop owners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura said that Nick being a bad man turned her on.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Arrival (1996)", "title": "The Arrival", "date": "1996-05-31", "description": "A radio astronomer discovers evidence of intelligent alien life and quickly gets thrown into the middle of a conspiracy that turns his life upside down.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrival_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky's discovery of an alien signal from the star Wolf 336 and its strange aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens originating from the star Wolf 336 were secretly terraforming Earth as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zane and his ultimately loving girlfriend Char.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "After detecting an alien signal originating from the star Wolf 336, the radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky found himself at the center of a vast government conspiracy that turns his life upside down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The view is shown the radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky at work searching the skies for alien messages throughout a significant portion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens originating from the star Wolf 336 were secretly terraforming Earth as a prelude to colonization. Zane interrupted a man who was giving a seminar about terraforming Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens originating from the star Wolf 336 were secretly terraforming Earth as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zane came off as a stereotypical raving conspiracy theorist at times when he would go on about space aliens trying to raise the Earth's temperature to not only kill off humans but also to make the planet hospitable for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens originating from the Wolf 336 star system were in the process of secretly greatly exacerbating anthropogenic climate change by releasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases from giant factories, located in various third world countries. Ilana discussed the realities of global warming with Zane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilana went to bed in a hotel room crawling with scorpions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humanoid aliens used a special alien technology disguise themselves as humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zane didn't know whether to believe in his girlfriend when she told him that she wasn't part of a vast conspiracy to eliminate him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x06", "title": "Cold War", "date": "1996-05-31", "description": "Cammy and Ford are a loving couple who try to make a living as criminals. Their ineptitude with a life of crime leaves them trying to rob a bank that turns out to be abandoned, and then failing to rob a convenience store when a band of Asian criminals beat them to it. Having had enough of Ford's ineptitude and attitude towards her, Cammy decides to leave him. She meets the attractive Jimmy Pickett in a bar and brings him home, but is soon reminded why she and Ford are perfect for each other.\n\nDirected by: Andrew Morahan. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living corpse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford were variously called ghouls and zombies but did not quite have the conventional attributes of either. They appeared as ordinary humans, with ordinary human minds, but seemingly could not die whatever wounds they sustained. The wounds did not heal, however, and towards the end they had grotesque ghoul-like appearances. They ate ordinary food and did in no way feast on human flesh. The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central theme in the story with a twist was that Cammy and Ford were two unkillable undead beings that were nonetheless exceptionally vary of sustaining injuries as they would, apparently, have to \"live\" for eternity with those injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford were unkillable undead beings who rued and lamented ordinary human beings didn't understand them. As their bodies did not heal, they were notably wary of sustaining physical injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford ran afoul of a vampire who got the better of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ford several times implored assailants not to injure his face. It was later revealed that he was unkillable, but would have to live eternally with any injuries he sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners in crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford were a Bonny-and-Clyde-like couple, but also undead unkillable beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central component of the story was Cammy's decision to (once again) leave Ford for being inept, reckless, condescending and domineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford, as well as partners in crime, were lovers on-and-off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ford made a condescending remark about \"others\", by which he meant \"the living\", which was mistakenly taken as a racial slur by the black vampire he was addressing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Excitement filled Ford as he prepared to rob a certain bank. However, his enthusiasm quickly turned to disappointment when he discovered that his chosen target had shut down, with plans for the space to be converted into a laundromat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cammy and Ford tried to hold up a convenience store at gunpoint, but they stormed the location to find that a trio of Asian criminals already carrying out the robbery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x07", "title": "The Kidnapper", "date": "1996-06-07", "description": "Danny Skeggs, a simple-minded and delusional pawn shop owner, meets Teresa, a heavily pregnant homeless woman whom he takes in. Over time, the two begin developing a bond, but whereas Teresa only sees Danny as a friend, Danny falls in love with her. Danny becomes insanely envious when Teresa's child is born, so he sets out to get rid of the child in the hopes that Teresa will love him. When Teresa becomes too overwhelmed with emotion to respond to his advances, Danny races to find the baby and return it to her.\n\nDirected by: James H. Spencer. Story by: John Harrison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "child abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story was that Danny orchestrated the abduction and selling of Teresa's baby so that Teresa would be his. In the denouement he tried to snatch a random other baby to give back to her. Alas, the baby he went for turned out to be Teresa's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teresa was seen taking care of her newborn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny and Teresa cohabited as a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny fell so obsessively in love with Teresa that he orchestrated the abduction of her baby, thinking she'd turn to him for comfort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny fell so obsessively in love with Teresa that he grew dangerously jealous when her affection turned to her newborn child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teresa fell to pieces in the wake of her infant getting abducted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of tennis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper was on the tennis court, and dressed the part, in his sketch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Though not spelled out in detail, one must imagine that Teresa had somehow been abused by her former partner and the father of her unborn child since she ran away despite being heavily pregnant and having hardly a penny to her name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "For a while Danny and Teresa were both like expecting parents, although technically only Teresa was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teresa, a woman in the later stages of a pregnancy, was of no fixed abode until Danny welcomed her into his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be pregnant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown, in one scene, Teresa navigating the challenges of being in the advanced stages of a pregnancy while living on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective warned Danny that Teresa may never get her baby back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human empathy for babies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny mused at some length about the effect babies have on people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x25", "title": "Body Parts", "date": "1996-06-10", "description": "Quark is diagnosed with a terminal disease, Dorek's Syndrome, and given a week to live.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Louis P. DeSantis & Robert J. Bolivar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko expecting their baby to be delivered by Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to Quark to decide between taking his own life or being ostracized by the Ferengi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reproductive surrogacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira served as a surrogate mother for Miles and Keiko's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark and Rom tried to macabrely profit from Quark own impending death by selling his body on the futures exchange. Brunt chastised Quark for having gone soft on being a ruthless businessman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom comforting his brother Quark after being diagnosed with Dorek Syndrome and later helped Quark get out of his predicament with Brunt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko had Kira as surrogate mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thinking about one's accomplishments in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark thought his had been an abysmal failure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was given under a week to live upon being diagnosed with the terminal disease Dorek Syndrome and later was going to be killed by Garak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark given under a week to live upon being diagnosed with the terminal disease Dorek Syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom coped with his brother Quark being diagnosed with Dorek Syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark displayed a recognizable kind of honor in refusing to break a contract.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's community", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark prided himself on following Ferengi traditions regarding contracts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak and Quark simulated Quark's murder in the holosuites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "station crew helping Quark get back on his feet after he lost everything", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x08", "title": "Report from the Grave", "date": "1996-06-14", "description": "Elliot, a paranormal researcher, invents a machine that is able to collect thoughts from the dead. Trying to read the thoughts of maniacal serial killer and hypnotist Valdemar Tymrak, Elliot turns the device far too high and ends up killing his girlfriend Arianne. Elliot becomes determined to resurrect Arianne at any cost, but discovers that Tymrak's ghost is working against him.\n\nDirected by: William Malone. Story by: William Malone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elliot, unable to accept his girlfriend's tragic death, cobbled together an elaborate contraption to return her from the world of the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Elliot mourned the death of his girlfriend, which he had caused, so that he resolved to bring her back from beyond the veil. When she died again later, he committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot and Arianne were both research partners and lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maniacal serial killer and hypnotist Valdemar Tymrak was briefly returned from the world of the dead. Elliot recounted the man's exploits at length to his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot unintentionally caused his girlfriend Arianne's death while he was trying to punish her for stealing his research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot and Arianne were paranormal researchers of a non-ESP variety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot so loved his departed lover, Arianne, that he brought her back from the dead so they could be together again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elliot invented a special apparatus that detected thoughts from dead bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a fit of anger upon discovering that she had been stealing his research, Elliot turned up the power on his device to max, killing his girlfriend Arianne. He instantly regretted the deed and ran to help her, but it was too late. He couldn't get over it, and ultimately slit his wrist with a straight razor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "farming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper, dressed as a farmer and speaking in a rural accent, showed off his green thumb in his sketch. He was growing \"Artie-chokes\", \"scare-its\", and \"terror-nips\" in his lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The details are left vague, but we gather that Valdemar Tymrak had been a hypnotist that could make his victims perform obscene acts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were oblique references to an existence after death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although people came back to life in a corporeal form, they could also have a ghost-like quality. For example, Arianne had apparently appeared outside Elliot's second story bathroom window to draw a heart on the pane as he lay bleeding to death in the bathtub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Elliot slitting his wrist with a straight razor in the bathtub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm did a wellness check on his grieving friend, Elliot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Baker informed Malcolm of Elliot's suicide in most dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds94x26", "title": "Broken Link", "date": "1996-06-17", "description": "Odo collapses and is taken to the infirmary. Bashir discovers Odo is losing his ability to maintain solid form.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: George A. Brozak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Founders made Odo into a humanoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was losing his ability to shapeshift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo felt obligated to face justice with the Founders over having killed a changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was bedridden for the better part of the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo had killed another shapeshifter in self-defense in defense of his colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo had killed another shapeshifter in self-defense in defense of his colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was torn between Federation and his people, albeit not so much any more", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira coping with sneezing fits caused by her being pregnant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak was prepared to give up his life and that of his crew in order to save the Alpha Quadrant from Dominion domination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak was prepared to give up his life and that of his crew in order to save the Alpha Quadrant from Dominion domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chalan Aroya was hitting on Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingons did not want to return some Cardassian colonies that they'd conquered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira was expecting Keiko and Miles' baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shapshifter made her feeling about wanting to get revenge on the Cardassians very clear to Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo amongst the humanoids", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x09", "title": "Smoke Wrings", "date": "1996-06-21", "description": "Advertising executive Jacqueline ends up hiring Barry, an ex-convict, into her firm despite his lack of knowledge in advertising. Barry shows off a strange device he carries that is able to hypnotize people and plant suggestions into their heads, hoping to increase product sales. What Jacqueline doesn't know is that Barry, in exchange for not being sent back to jail, is in league with her enraged ex-partner Alistair Touchstone, who seeks revenge against her after she stole his company from him.\n\nDirected by: Mandie Fletcher. Story by: Lisa Sandoval.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alistair was orchestrating the main events of the story by blackmailing Barry into causing problems for Jacqueline and her company. Alistair was seeking revenge for being dumped as her business partner. Or so it seemed, anyway, until an incongruous final twist revealed that it was all in Barry's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story was an electronic device that could \"hypnotize\" people into accepting suggestions of varying complexity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story was a device that could \"hypnotize\" people into accepting suggestions of varying complexity. The precise nature of the mechanics underpinning this process was not made clear but it involved making people vastly more suggestible by artificial means, much like in many other fictional hypnosis scenes in fiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacqueline was flirting shamelessly with some of her employees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacqueline was having a clandestine affair with Frank but did not let that stop her from sacking him. She flirted with Barry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "advertising in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned an ad company that was trying to come up with a motif for one of its corporate clients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporate executive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jacqueline was the president of her company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned an ad company that was trying to come up with a motif for one of its corporate clients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alistair was orchestrating the main events of the story by blackmailing Barry into causing problems for Jacqueline and her company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barry and Frank were competing for control over the Chalmers Chocolates marketing project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper parodied Don Vito Corleone, from the Godfather film franchise, at a meeting of the Five Families.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank was summarily dismissed by Jacqueline when he threw one temper tantrum too many. He took poorly to the experience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry showed a take-charge attitude on his first day at the marketing firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry killed Jacqueline while he was under the influence of the mind control gizmo. In the end this turned out to be all a figment of his imagination, and caused him to fall out form a window to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived at the office to arrest Barry for murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Independence Day (1996)", "title": "Independence Day", "date": "1996-06-25", "description": "The film focuses on disparate groups of people who converge in the Nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by an extraterrestrial race of unknown origin. With the other people of the world, they launch an all-out counterattack on July 4—Independence Day in the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film concerns humanity's efforts to repel an attack by powerful aliens who intend to exterminate everyone and take the Earth for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film pointedly culminates with the countries of the world joining forces to defeat a seemingly invincible alien armada that was hellbent on exterminating the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space aliens launched a full scale assault on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of a faction of the government having kept secret that an alien spaceship had been recovered in 1947 and was being held at the Area 51 military base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of the world found themselves united in a desperate war of survival against a formidable alien armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prospects for humanity did not look good when a multiple alien saucers, each fifteen miles wide, destroyed Earth's major cities, but in the end it was the human race that prevailed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven Hiller married his loving girlfriend, and ultimately wife, Jasmine. President Whitmore and his loving wife, First Lady Marilyn Whitmore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown through the experiences of the Marine F/A-18 pilot Captain Steven Hiller what it might be like for an individual military personnel to have to fight against overwhelming odds to defeat an enemy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of SETI scientists were astonished at the sight of an alien signal that had originated from somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An enormous alien mothership was in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "City-sized, saucer-shaped alien spacecrafts took positions over Earth's major cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David played a game of chess with his father, Julius, on an outdoor chess table nearby New York's Central Park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mass panic erupted in major cities around the world once it became apparent that the giant alien flying saucers constituted an attack force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The area drunk Russell was ridiculed for insisting that he'd been abducted by space alien. But it was he who had the last laugh when an armada of alien flying saucers descended upon the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Thomas J. Whitmore was in a loving relationship with his wife, First Lady Marilyn Whitmore; then she died. Steve Hiller tied the know with his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow, in a secret military base while the Earth was under attack by a formidable alien armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Hillier was in a loving relationship with his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow, and the pair married shortly before he set off on an extremely dangerous mission to destroy the alien mothership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MIT-educated satellite engineer David Levinson and his ornery, Jewish stereotyped father Julius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Whitmore consoled his young daughter after the passing of her mother (his wife).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "First Lady Marilyn Whitmore got a chance to say goodbye to her young daughter before dying from internal bleeding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmine and her young, bright-eyed son Dylan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Marine F/A-18 pilot Steven Hiller had been rejected multiple times by NASA in response to his applications to be a spaceshuttle pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien city-sized spaceships were protected from oncoming missiles by greenish force fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David got airsick on Air Force One.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Brackish Okun speculated that the aliens communicated via telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Whitmore authorized a nuclear attack on one of the city-sized alien saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and Jasmine tied the knot in a crack ceremony held in an Area 51 bunker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vietnam War veteran Russell Casse was an alcoholic former fighter pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russell Casse yelled \"up yours\" before sacrificing himself by crashing his missile-equipped jet into an saucer' vulnerable point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that a crashed alien spaceship with three alien occupants was recovered in Roswell in 1947. And moreover that the ship and its occupants had been kept at Area 51 ever since.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Nutty Professor (1996)", "title": "The Nutty Professor", "date": "1996-06-28", "description": "University professor, Sherman Klump, develops a miraculous, but experimental, weight-loss pharmaceutical, and hoping to win the affection of the girl of his dreams, tests it upon himself.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Nutty Professor" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutty_Professor_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obesity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The obese Sherman Klump developed a weight-loss pharmaceutical that he took to transform himself into a fit man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a parody of a university campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump and Carla Purty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump invented a miraculous, but experimental, weight-loss pharmaceutical that worked by rewriting DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump had low self-confidence because of his weight. This was contrasted with his super confident alter ego Buddy love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The obese Sherman Klump took a drug that instantly transformed him into an athletic man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The kind and warm Sherman Klump turned into a brash and cocky jerk when in the form of his alter ego Buddy Love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Sherman Klump learned that he didn't need to be Buddy Love to win Carla Purty's heart, instead all he had to do as be his warm and kind hearted self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "The kind and warm Sherman Klump turned into a brash and cocky jerk when in the form of his alter ego Buddy Love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially awkward professor Sherman Klump invented a miracle weight-loss pharmaceutical that he took to transform himself into a fit man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The obese Sherman Klump explained how people treated him differently when he was in the form of his alter ego Buddy Love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump had a nightmare in which he was a giant fat man unintentionally terrorizing his city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x10", "title": "About Face", "date": "1996-06-28", "description": "In Victorian England, Reverend Johnathan, a corrupt and adulterous priest, discovers that he is the long-lost father of twin daughters: the beautiful and gentle Angelica and the angry and deformed Leah. Deciding that having a family would be good for his image, Johnathan decides to adopt the girls as his own, but Leah, in a murderous rage, vows to kill their father for abandoning them.\n\nDirected by: Thomas E. Sanders. Story by: Gilbert Adler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious hypocrisy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Reverend Jonathan had made a literary career out of preaching good Christian morals, yet he unapologetically had sex with any pretty young girl he could lay his hands on, behind his wife's back. They both discussed how their fortune would be ruined if his behavior became publicly known.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful, gentle Angelica was compared and contrasted with her and ugly, vengeful Leah. They held polar opposite attitudes toward their long-lost father. Angelica wished for all three to live as a happy family. Leah, by contrast, blamed the father for abandoning them and was consumed with hatred for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and his two daughters, Angelica and Leah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and his wife Sarah maintained a marriage of convenience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan was reviled by his wife and others for having wild sex with every pretty woman that entered his household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leah cut the throat of Miss Prichard after Miss Prichard had extramarital sex with Jonathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jonathan rung his wife's neck when he found her standing over Miss Prichard's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jonathan was serially unfaithful to his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jonathan and Sarah repeatedly commented on how their fortunes rested on Jonathan's image as a virtuous Christian, and that they would be ruined should news of his serial adultery become public knowledge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in what was probably Victorian England.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leah harbored an intense hated her father, Reverend Jonathan, for what she took as him having abandoned her and her twin sister. This hatred consumed Leah, and she ultimately attacked him with a dagger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leah was covered in grotesquely protruding red veins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leia was consumed with hatred over her sinful father's philandering ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the life of a morally bankrupt priest, Reverend Jonathan, who invited into his home the twin daughters he conceived in an unholy union some 16 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The adolescent girl Angelica (beautiful, gentle, and loving) was pointedly contrasted with her conjoined twin sister Leah (ugly, wrathful, and consumed with hatred).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conjoined twins", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were lead to believe that Angelica and Leah were normal twins, but in a final twist it was revealed that they were in fact shared one body and were represented by a face on each side of the same head. The precise physiognomy went unexplained but there was no other evidence that they represent something supernatural.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the crime of adultery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although there was no particular implication that Jonathan's infidelity was criminal, Leah at one point explicitly called him an adulterer and attacked him. She clearly thought he deserved death as a punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reverend Jonathan rather disingenuously assured a young woman that their sinful union made it possible for God to truly love her. Leah chastised her father, Reverend Jonathan, for his manifold sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper sang the blues songs on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan said that there are few things worth dying for except honor, and the glory of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with a flashback scene of a young woman giving birth to an abomination that made her de facto midwife shriek in terror.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x11", "title": "Confession", "date": "1996-07-05", "description": "A serial killer is on a rampage in a nearby city, decapitating women and taking their heads as trophies. Horror screenwriter Warhol Evans is labeled as the prime suspect when he is found washing his hands near the latest crime scene. He is interrogated by famed detective Jack Lynch who attempts to label him as the killer, but Evans doesn't go down without a fight, trying to turn the interrogation around.\n\nDirected by: Peter Hewitt. Story by: Scott Nimerfro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns police inspector Jack Lynch interrogating screenwriter Warhol Evans as a suspected serial killer of women. In fact, Jack was revealed as the serial killer, and a collector of decapitated heads to boot. Jack and Warhol had long heated arguments about the psychology of serial killers. They were both experts on the subject owing to their respective profession, and Jack's hands on dabbling in the activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warhol was an expert on serial killers and associated sleaze which he had researched extensively for his writing, or so he maintained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned a police inspector interrogating a suspect at his police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Warhol maintained his innocence throughout the interrogation, and became upset when told he might me detained indefinitely because one of the victims had been married to an army person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Crypt Keeper played an optometrist in his sketch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack accused Warhol of being impotent, and therefore a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack accused Warhol of being into bondage, and therefore a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace disgruntlement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack, despite being an alleged \"genius\" at his job, was recently passed over for a promotion. It was suggested that this might have turned him into a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indefinite detention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warhol became upset when told he might me detained indefinitely because one of the victims had been married to an army person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack threatened to hold Evans indefinitely as a suspected terrorist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devil worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warhol faced up to having purchased a copy of \"The Satanic Scriptures\" by Alan Katz, but maintained that he did so solely for research purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Records showed that Warhol had rented video tapes in involving human sacrifice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Records showed that Warhol had been looking up scenes of bestiality on the internet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "necrophilia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Records showed that Warhol had rented video tapes in involving necrophilia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Records showed that Warhol had rented 2,012 pornographic video tapes in the past five years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack boasted of being a ten pin bowling champion. It later dramatically revealed that Jack was transporting the severed head of one of his victims inside his bowling ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack speculated that Warhol was \"dealing with class issues\" in response to some remarks Warhol made about \"no talent film school brats who are born and raised with a silver spoon up their ass\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x12", "title": "Ear Today… Gone Tomorrow", "date": "1996-07-12", "description": "Glynn Fennell, a gambling safecracker who suffers from impaired hearing after a beating in prison, finds himself getting entangled in a deadly game between crime boss Malcom Lawson and his exotic wife, Kate, who turn out to implant animal features into human bodies in an effort to boost his subordinates' abilities. Eventually, Glynn is given the auditory system of an owl, but Glynn's new condition soon displays some unusual side effects.\n\nDirected by: Christopher Hart. Story by: Ed Tapia.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Kate was intent on running off with a large sum of money from her husband's safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm and Kate's marriage was fueled in part by a common interest in surgically augmenting people with animal abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glynn would have never ended up half-owl had he kept his gambling under control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glynn was hard up to pay a gambling debt he owed to a high-level gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glynn was surgically implanted with an owl's auditory system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the expert safe cracker Glynn Fennell at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was about to have Glynn killed but was implored to stay his hand by Kate. The story ended with Kate and Malcolm about to have their surgeon murder Glynn to purloin his auditory system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gangster had Glynn tied down to a snooker table spread-eagle and beat over the abdomen with a cue. This was in regard to coming to an equitable arrangement over an unpaid debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate urged her gangster husband, Malcolm, to spare Glynn's life in what seemed to be an act of compassion. In reality, it was all an act as Kate and Malcolm were in cahoots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate seduced Glynn. Little did Glynn know that her husband, Malcolm, was watching on with an air of approval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm watched in secret as his wife undressed Glynn and played pelvic pinochle with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An eccentric doctor implanted Glynn with the auditory system of an owl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glynn heard Kate's heart race after she took a drag from her cigarette. His subsequent advice to her to give up smoking was not well received.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glynn was surgically implanted with the auditory system of an owl. In the end, he partially transformed into an owl for reasons unexplained. Kate had been surgically implanted with feline parts, including vertical slit eyes. This ended up rewarding her with nine lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Glynn partially transforming into an owl: His head spun around and his face fell off to be replaced with a beak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The final dialogue suggested that Malcolm and Kate were testing out implanted animal organs on innocent people and then killing those people in order to steal the implanted organs, if the procedure was otherwise successful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate explained to Glynn that she craved sex to an extreme degree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996)", "title": "Gamera 2: Attack of Legion", "date": "1996-07-13", "description": "It's up to Gamera to save the world from a colony of beetle-like creatures that fell to Earth from outer space. It is the 10th entry in the Gamera film series, as well as the second film in the franchise's Heisei period, serving as a direct sequel to the 1995 film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_2:_Attack_of_Legion" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese military mobilized to protect the nation from a colony of beetle-like aliens, known collectively as Legion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The queen Legion beetle-like creature, which rivaled Gamera in size, left a path of destruction in its wake on its way from Sapporo to Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A colony of beetle-like creatures fell to Hokkaido from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A colony of beetle-like creatures that fell to Hokkaido from outer space were poised to overrun the entire Earth. The fate of humanity was left in the hands of Gamera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The colony of silicon-based beetle-like creatures, known as Legion, fell to Hokkaido from space, causing wide destruction across Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A console operator quipped that the government had better not alert the public about the incoming meteor storm he was detecting because it would start a mass panic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minami's colleague was surprised to learn that the World Wide Web contained a website dedicated to information about Gamera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Midori Honami lived with professor father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Multiplicity (1996)", "title": "Multiplicity", "date": "1996-07-17", "description": "The film is about a man able to duplicate himself by machine, each duplicate developing a different personality, causing problems. It was based on Chris Miller's short story 'Multiplicity', published in National Lampoon magazine, Spring 1993.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplicity_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is premised on the overworked construction worker Doug Kinney having three clones, each developing its own distinct personality, to help him balance his work and family life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story made much of Doug Kinney interacting with his three clones, each developing its own distinct personality, that were living in a small suite on his property.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family dispute", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing tension between Doug and his wife, Laura, over her returning to her career as a real estate agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what life might be like for a husband and wife who are trying to balance working with raising two kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Doug and Laura Kinney and their ups and downs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workaholism", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of the Doug clones was obsessed with his work at the construction company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug went to elaborate lengths to hide his three clones from his wife, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work-life balance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film explores Doug's, and to a lesser extent his wife Laura's, struggles to balance a bust work life with the demands that come with raising two kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doug and Laura were in a loving marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad day", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with Doug having the worst of all days at his construction job, only to be followed by trouble on the home front.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug was so stressed out with his demanding job as a foreman at a construction company that he jumped at the chance to make a clone of himself to help out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An overworked Doug missed his young daughter Jennifer's graduation from the Campfire Girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura was caring for her young daughter Jennifer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura was caring for her young son Zack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug attended his young son Zack's American football game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug and his first clone, named Two, briefly deliberated over who was the real Doug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug and his first clone, named Two, briefly deliberated over who was the real Doug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura complained to one of Doug's clones that it was as if Doug had multiple personalities. If fact, the reality was that each Doug clone had its own distinct personality, and she was under the mistaken belief that they were all the same Doug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Each of Doug's three clones surreptitiously slept with his wife against Doug's direct orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doug became violently seasick while yachting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The workaholic Doug clone callously fired his unreliable subordinate Vic to Vic's surprise and dismay. Later, the workaholic Doug clone was himself fired from his job.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tftc1989e7x13", "title": "The Third Pig", "date": "1996-07-19", "description": "In an animated edition of The Three Little Pigs, narrated by the Crypt Keeper himself, the Big Bad Wolf slaughters Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig, leaving the third pig, Dudley, accused of the murders and found guilty by a rigged jury of wolves. With the ghosts of his dead brothers helping him escape, Dudley plans to take revenge on the Big Bad Wolf by using a laboratory once owned by a mad scientist to create a zombie pig.\n\nNote: This is the only animated episode in the series. Its animation was provided by Nelvana, who also produced the animated spinoff Tales from the Cryptkeeper.\n\nDirected by: Bill Kopp & Pat Ventura. Story by: Bill Kopp.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromthecrypt1989.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brainy and diligent pig Dudley was compared and contrasted with his two witless, binge-drinking, chain-smoking brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"third pig\" Dudley opened his home to his two lazy, good-for-nothing brothers, Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig. When the Big Bad Wolf ate Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig, Dudley was wrongfully sentenced to death by frying for the murders. However, the ghosts of Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig freed Dudley on the condition that he avenge their deaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig took zero initiative to find jobs, opting instead to mooch off of their diligent brother, Dudley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dudley unleashed a Frankenstein-like \"zombie pig\" on the Big Bad Wolf to avenge his brothers' murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dudley created a Frankensteinan \"zombie pig\" by combining occult forces with science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dudley created a Frankensteinan \"zombie pig\" monster. After realizing his mistake, Dudley resolved to destroy his creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dudley took on the mantle of a mad scientist and created an inhuman monster à la Dr. Frankenstein.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is presented by the Crypt Keeper, a cackling, wisecracking cadaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his sketch, the Crypt Keeper denied Dracula a position on the Tales from the Crypt writing staff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being hardworking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By stark contrast with his two witless brothers, Dudley was a hardworking Joe, and had bought a wolf-proof house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working hard vs. taking it easy in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By stark contrast with his two witless brothers, Dudley was a hardworking Joe, and had bought a wolf-proof house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley opened his home to his two lazy, good-for-nothing brothers, Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig, in their time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drinky Pig was a drunkard who lived in an old whisky keg. He couldn't put down the bottle even as he was chased by the Big Bad Wolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was arrested by stereotypically lazy, doughnut eating cops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his two good-for-nothing brothers, by an all-wolf jury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was found guilty of murder by an all-wolf jury. The judge sentenced him to death by frying (into bacon).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his two brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley was visited by the ghosts of his recently eaten brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley ultimately expressed regret over having created the \"zombie pig\" monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dudley pig was treated poorly by the two no-good siblings he had charitably taken in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrived late to Dudley's house and didn't bother with any investigation but simply arrested Dudley since he was on the scene. Dudley was tried by a court that wasn't interested in fact finding but simply wanted to convict him quickly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Circuit Breaker (1996)", "title": "Circuit Breaker", "date": "1996-07-23", "description": "A family of three is travelling in space, when they encounter a spaceship with one survivor. They discover the rest of the people on the ship were killed, and the survivor turns out to be an emotionally unstable android programmed without morals. The film is also known as Inhumanoid.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhumanoid" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katrina was terrorized by a deranged and emotionally unstable android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged and emotionally unstable android Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Foster and Katrina Carver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Katrina and her young daughter Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Foster and his young daughter Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged and emotionally unstable android Adam fell madly in love with Katrina, but Adam killing her daughter and husband was something of a turn off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Katrina to stop a deranged android who'd killed her husband and young daughter in a misguided effort to earn her love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard a beat up rental spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katrina and Foster mourned the loss of their young daughter who was killed by a deranged android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Katrina had been addicted to prescription medication and had a relapse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Subliminal Seduction (1996)", "title": "Subliminal Seduction", "date": "1996-08-03", "description": "A video game programmer and his wife discover that the company he works for is hatching a nefarious plot to distribute subliminal message containing CD-ROM games.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_Seduction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "major", "motivation": "A nefarious corporation plotted to distribute subliminal message containing video games around the world. The corporation was able to mind control anyone who played their games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Compu Tech Com corporation developed subliminal message containing video games that they planned to use to mind control large segments of the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darrin and Deb Danver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Compu Tech Com corporation developed subliminal message containing video games that they planned to use to mind control large segments of the population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The video game programmer Darrin started a new six figure job at the Compu Tech Com corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw various people play simple CD-ROM era video games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deb was somewhat taken aback to find out that the Compu Tech Com corporation expected the wives of their employees to work in the home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrin was playing roulette at a Las Vegas casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry was mind controlled into blowing his brains out in a men's room stall. Darrin stopped his mind controlled wife, Deb, from throwing herself off of the Hoover Dam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrin was mind controlled into cheating on his wife Deb with Angie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brainwaves", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deb examined a female subject's brainwaves as part of a psychological experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deb placed a female subject under hypnosis before subjecting her to a series a smell tests for her academic research.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from LA (1996)", "title": "Escape from L.A.", "date": "1996-08-09", "description": "The rogue Snake Plissken is conscripted by the theocratic totalitarian government of the United States to extract top-secret material from Los Angeles, which has, by this time, been converted into an open air prison. It is the sequel to the 1981 film Escape from New York.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_L.A." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's antihero Snake Plissken was the kind of guy who wasn't looking to make any friends and called no man mister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future United States where Los Angeles served as a massive open air prison where convicted were basically left to fend for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where the United States is a totalitarian state, ruled by a theocratic president for life. In this future United States, citizens who partake in such things as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, red meat, firearms, profanity, atheism, non-Christian religions, and extramarital sex are stripped of citizenship and banished to the open air prison that is Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where the United States is ruled by a theocratic president for life who has banned such \"immoral\" things as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, red meat, firearms, profanity, atheism, non-Christian religions, and extramarital sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snake was made to believe that he'd been implanted with a genetically engineered virus, called the Plutoxin 7 virus, that would kill him within ten hours, unless he completed his mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snake was sent to retrieve the remote control to a super weapon that consisted of a series of satellites capable of rendering all electronic devices anywhere on the planet useless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A now theocratic totalitarian United States was on the verge of being invaded by the combined forces of an alliance of third world nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Snake remorselessly pushing a button that was calculated to set civilization back 500 years by rendering all electronic devices anywhere on the planet useless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the introductory narration about how Los Angeles had become ravaged by crime in the late 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the introductory narration about how a presidential candidate predicted that God would destroy a morally corrupt Los Angeles with a massive earthquake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative future event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the introductory narration about how \"the Big One\" (i.e. an earthquake measuring 9.6 on the Richter scale) destroyed Los Angeles, leaving the land mass on which the city lay separated from the North American continent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Peruvian Revolutionary Cuervo Jones somehow used a holographic system to brainwash the President's daughter into stealing her father's remote control to a super weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snake was shown video footage of the President's daughter hijacking the government plane Air Force Three and made a demand that people rise up and demand an end to her father's regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snake punched through the face of the President's hologram. Snake later used a hologram of himself to trick the President and his men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative submarine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snake commandeered a futuristic, nuclear powered, one-person submarine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The revolutionary Cuervo Jones presided over a pitiful gladiatorial spectacle as if he were a Roman emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snake was surprised to find his old partner in crime, Jack \"Carjack\" Malone, living as a woman crime boss under the name of Hershe Las Palmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President had his revolutionary daughter, Utopia, strapped into an electric chair shortly after her capture.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solo (1996)", "title": "Solo", "date": "1996-08-23", "description": "A suspersoldier android comes to desire more from life than the slaughtering of enemy combatants. The film is based on the 1989 novel Weapon by Robert Mason.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the android supersoldier Solo as he comes to question his \"kill all enemy combatants\" programming directives and gets more and more in touch with his softer side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the android supersoldier Solo as he comes to question his \"kill all enemy combatants\" programming directives and gets more and more in touch with his softer side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The supersoldier android Solo formed a bond of trust with his maker, Dr. Bill Stewart. In the end, the android mourned Bill's death at the hands of some enemy black ops soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The supersoldier android Solo sought more out of life than the be a killing machine for the military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flaw in the supersoldier android Solo's programming led him to develop a conscience and compassion. Solo went on to cultivate his human side (e.g. he learned to laugh, and joke, and mourn) as he helped a group of peasant farmers defend themselves from guerrilla insurgents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A community of peasant farmers were caught up in the middle of a conflict between the United States military and a band of guerrilla insurgents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Madden led a black ops mission into a Central American jungle to retrieve the supersoldier android gone good Solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android supersoldier Solo repeatedly struggled to make sense of such human behaviors as a boy risking his life to save a family member, someone bluffing to trick a friend, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "From the black ops soldiers' point of view, the supersoldier android Solo was a dangerous foe to be tracked down and apprehended. A supersoldier android version of Colonel Madden attacked the peasant village at the very end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android supersoldier Solo's vision was overlain with pertinent information about his surroundings, including which people on a battlefield were enemy combatants and which were non-combatants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Catholic priest Father Cerna was an integral member of his village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The villagers made a decision to stay a fight the rebels rather than go on the run.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Solo pointedly mourned the killing of his maker, Dr. Bill Stewart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After studying human ways, the android supersoldier made explicit use of a bluff to defeat the even more powerful supersoldier android Improved Solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Solo was puzzled about why a boy had risked his life to save a family member.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Island of Dr Moreau (1996)", "title": "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "date": "1996-08-23", "description": "A mad scientist secretly genetically engineers human-animal hybrid creatures on a remote island. It is the third major film adaptation of the 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Dr._Moreau_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The primary novelty of the film concerns Dr. Moreau's creation of a wide variety of human-animal hybrids via the introduced human DNA into animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau had secluded himself on a remote island so that he could experiment with creating his human-animal hybrid creatures in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was as a father to the cat-like woman, Aissa. He adored her greatly, and she grieved pointedly when he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau had created a community of uplifted animals by introducing into them human DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Montgomery sabotaged Edward's efforts to flee from Dr. Moreau's island of horrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was as a god to his human-animal hybrid creations. The human-animal hybrid Hyena-Swine ultimately killed Dr. Moreau and came to think of himself as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau's human-animal hybrids, led by Hyena-Swine, rebelled against him and killed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Montgomery's behavior became increasingly erratic to the point where he went completely bonkers and destroyed all the serum used to keep the human-animal hybrids from regressing into beasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many of Dr. Moreau's human-animal hybrid creations longed to be human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-like woman Aissa was disgusted to find herself slowly reverting back into a savage beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded at sea", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plane crash survivor Edward Douglas was adrift at sea in a small, inflatable boat for four days before being rescued by a passing ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Montgomery explained that animal rights activists had driven Dr. Moreau to seclude himself on a remote island where he could conduct his abominable experiments on animals in peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was careful to graft on to the chest of each of his human-animal hybrid creations a radio controlled pain buzzer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau was allergic to sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau made it clear that he was making human-animal hybrids by introduced human DNA into animals, but nothing much else about genetic engineering was followed up on in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-like woman Aissa wept as her creator's body burned on a funeral pyre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Moreau's experiments with creating human-animal hybrids was motivated by a dream to create the perfect human being that was incapable of harming others.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x01", "title": "Basics, Part II", "date": "1996-09-04", "description": "The crew must learn to survive on the inhospitable planet as the Doctor, Crewman Suder and Paris attempt to regain control of the ship.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Suder and briefly Chakotay and The Doctor to some extent also Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Suder and briefly Chakotay and The Doctor to some extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Suder and The Doctor on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lon Suder", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story concerns the Voyager crew taking proactive measures to ensure their survival on the Pliocene-era-like planet where they'd become newly stranded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "primitive aliens perplexed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor doesn't care what they do to him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "betentacled cave slug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay jumped over lava to save alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay rubbed two sticks together to start a fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "betentacled cave slug", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lon Suder was called a sociopath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unknown parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay came to believe he was the father of Seska's baby, although in the end it turned out that this was not so.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x02", "title": "Flashback", "date": "1996-09-11", "description": "Tuvok experiences brain-damaging flashbacks to his service on the Excelsior. He and the captain attempt to find the reason for the flashbacks, believed to be a suppressed memory, through a joint mindmeld.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok became infected with a brain virus that messed around with his memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok about letting child drop from cliff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok suffered a brain memory virus induced complete mental breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. affliction", "level": "major", "motivation": "the virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok vs. old ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "major", "motivation": "young Tuvok was overly rational aboard Sulu's ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok and Janeway both experienced flashbacks to their childhoods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "young Tuvok pondered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sulu entered Klingon space to save Kirk and Spock", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok denied experiencing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was enthusiastic about pulling his weight aboard Voyager by being the ship's cook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok had repressed the disturbing memory of girl falling from cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind-melded with Janeway.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Humanoids from the Deep (1996)", "title": "Humanoids from the Deep", "date": "1996-09-14", "description": "A military experiment gone wrong results in the creation of five killer fishmen. It is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name by Roger Corman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanoids_from_the_Deep_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-fish hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "United States Army scientists inadvertently created five killer man-fish hybrids in an attempt to transform five Death Row inmates into the perfect amphibious soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "United States Army scientists injected five Death Row inmates with a \"genetic code\" taken from different species of fish that resulted in them mutating into man-fish hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five mutant man-fish hybrids were terrorizing the town of Harbor Shores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five mutant fishmen were terrorizing the town of Harbor Shores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "United States Army scientists inadvertently created five killer man-fish hybrids in an attempt to transform five Death Row inmates into the perfect amphibious soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a United States Army secret project to create mutate five Death Row inmates into the perfect amphibious soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Placard carrying protesters were chanting \"Leave the fish alone.\" outside of a cannery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade lost his teenage daughter Kim to the fishmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Barnes was investigating the disappearances of a number of community members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade didn't approve of his teenage daughter running around with the environmentalist activist Matt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade lost his teenage daughter Kim to the fishmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Canco Industries was polluting the ocean with the very toxic chemicals that the mutant man-fish hybrids needed to flourish.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x03", "title": "The Chute", "date": "1996-09-18", "description": "Tom Paris and Harry Kim are trapped in a prison. Tom gets stabbed trying to protect Kim, leaving him to try to find an escape plan alone. Simultaneously, Voyager is trying to find a way to prove their innocence.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Clayvon C. Harris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and Harry were trapped in a doggy dog world dungeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "is it better to cooperate in a society or have each person work for themself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Akritirians dumped criminals into an unguarded, lawless, godforsaken space station and let them fend for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and Harry found themselves in a brutal prison where inmates had to fend for themselves to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry could do little to help his friend Tom, whose condition was progressively deteriorating from the result of a stab wound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Harry in dungeon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry struggled to maintain control of himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "prisoners in dungeon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vel and Piri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry worried Tom was losing it in the dungeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry; prisoners fighting for food", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Each prisoner was implanted with a microchip called \"the clamp\" that induced aggression and gradually drove them insane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry tossed in deep space dungeon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Voyager crew captured two terrorists who were fighting for some or another just cause.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Game (1996)", "title": "Death Game", "date": "1996-09-21", "description": "In the near future, teenagers are kidnapped and forced to fight cyborgs for the entertainment of the wealthy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Game_(1996_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some wealthy people were in the habit of kidnapping teenagers and forcing them to fight to the death in one-on-one gladiatorial combats. The hero of the story, and LAPD detective named Jack, had to fight a big muscular fighter to the death toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cyborg Grepp was going around killing people at Tristan's command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack almost singlehandedly freed a number of teenagers who were being held captive and made to fight for their lives for the entertainment of the wealthy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An LAPD detective named Jack was investigating the disappearance of a teenager, although very little was made of him being on the police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Becca alerted Jack and Hawk of her fear of heights shortly before falling into a pool of acid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tori was reunited with her little brother after Jack freed her from her captivity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x04", "title": "The Swarm", "date": "1996-09-25", "description": "Voyager encounters a swarm of ships while trying to take a shortcut through a space belonging to a hostile species, while the Doctor begins to experience memory loss.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes lectured Zimmerman about it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager with swarm aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "first The Doctor offered to reboot, then Zimmerman-tech sacrificed his matrix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor experienced a serious memory loss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doc lost his memories just before an important operation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some idiot for B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimmerman and The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor attempted to sing \"O, soave fanciulla\", a duet from Act 1 of the Earth opera La boheme by Puccini, on the holodeck with a holographic re-creation of Giuseppina Pentangeli.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rubbers Lover (1996)", "title": "Rubber's Lover", "date": "1996-09-28", "description": "A pair of deranged scientists conduct gruesome, mind-altering experiments on their unwilling test subjects.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber%27s_Lover" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged scientists Hitotsubashi and Shimika subjected unwilling subjects to extremely painful and torturous experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows the deranged scientists Hitotsubashi and Shimika as they conduct experiments on human test subjects in an efforts to uncover a link between a mind-altering drug and some unspecified psychic power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows the deranged scientists Hitotsubashi and Shimika were conducting bizarre and torturous experiments on human test subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitotsubashi and Shimika subjected unwilling participants to various gruesome tortures in the name of investigating a possible link between a certain mind-altering drug and psychic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kiku was held hostage and experimented on by Hitotsubashi and Shimika.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hitotsubashi and Shimika's test subjects became highly addicted to the experimental, mind-altering drug they were being given. In the end, Shimika himself became addicted to the drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man on an experimental, mind-altering drug hallucinate dust mites crawling all over him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x01", "title": "Apocalypse Rising", "date": "1996-09-30", "description": "Starfleet assigns Sisko to expose the Changeling infiltrator in the Klingon Empire.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "shapeshifters infiltrate Klingon Empire; Odo adapting to life as a humanoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo struggled with finding purpose in life and fulfillment in his work after losing his shapeshifting abilities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf spoke of the honor that would be incurred with the successful completion of his mission to expose Gowron as a Changeling; Klingons vying to receive Order of the Bat'leth and the honor that came with it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo struggled with finding purpose in life and fulfillment in his work after losing his shapeshifting abilities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and his crew altered to look like Klingons; Julian offered to alter Odo to have a human face but he declined", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Kira had a heated argument about who was in charge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf wanted have songs written in his glory", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira with Miles and Keiko's baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf explained to avoid eye contact and keep distance from Klingons", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x18", "title": "Walkabout", "date": "1996-09-30", "description": "Franklin continues his walkabout through Down Below. A replacement Vorlon arrives on the station. Sheridan is determined to score a victory against the Shadows using his newfound advantage.\n\nDirected by: Kevin G. Cremin. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin tried to stay clean and worried about Singer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan grieved for his Vorlon friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin explained to Garibaldi that quitting his job and doing the \"walkabout\" was about figuring himself out somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin tried to sort himself out", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin found out the singer girl was terminally ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan uses telepaths against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan faces the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin discussed his faith \"Foundationism\" which involved a monotheistic god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin struggled to overcome his", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Truckers (1996)", "title": "Space Truckers", "date": "1996-10", "description": "The story concerns John Canyon, one of the last independent space transport entrepreneurs. Bad times have forced him to carry suspicious cargo to Earth without asking questions. During the flight, the cargo turns out to be a multitude of virtually unstoppable killer robots.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Truckers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the independent space trucker John Canyon and his companions to stop an army of genetically engineered, biomechanical super warriors from running amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where \"space truckers\" transport goods to and from various colonies all around the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the independent contract hauler (i.e. space trucker) John Canyon's Pachyderm 2000 model space truck. The space pirates commandeered a spaceship shaped something like a real pirate ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cincy and Mike fell head over heels for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space truck stop waitress Cindy promised to marry John Canyon in exchange for a ride to Earth to see her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space truck stop waitress Cindy was desperate to get to Earth to see her mother, and the pair were ultimately reunited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike came between John Canyon and her reluctant fiancée Cindy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Neptune", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A corporation had a base on Neptune's moon Triton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was made apparent that a Mars colony was exporting square pigs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Canyon docked at a space truck stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Canyon and his fellow riders were abducted by a peg-legged, cyborg captained band of space pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Canyon and his fellow riders were held captive by space pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nabel stated that he's used genetic engineering to create his army of biomechanical super warriors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pirate captain Nabel showed John and Mike some instruments of torture and threatened to use one of the to cut off certain appendages of theirs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Fermat's Last Theorem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg pirate captain ran a proof of this theorem through his head in a manner of seconds as a demonstration of his superior intellect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy reluctantly agreed to sleep with the pirate captain in exchange for the freedom of herself and her companions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pirate captain Nabel expressed a desire to use an army of cyborg warriors to get back at his old boss E.J. Saggs over Saggs' having tried to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exponential growth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the cyborg warriors acted in waves of first one, then two, then four, then eight, and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Canyon apologized to Mike for having been jealous of his fiancée, Cindy, showering Mike with her romantic affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cindy's mother had been cryogenically preserved for twenty years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "E.J. Saggs was the president of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth president E.J. Saggs gleefully stated that government had finally been privatized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike vehemently refused to take a briefcase full of cash from the Earth president in exchange for his silence about the president's cyborg invasion plan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x05", "title": "False Profits", "date": "1996-10-02", "description": "The crew encounters the Delta Quadrant terminus of the Barzan wormhole...and the two Ferengi from \"The Price\" now posing as gods on a nearby planet.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: George Brozak.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol exploit a Bronze Age people for economic gain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol use religion as a means of exploiting a lesser advanced people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol exploited a Bronze Age people for economic gain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway argued she had the authority to depose Arridor and Kol from their seat of power on the Takarian homeworld, because the Federation was responsible for the cultural contamination caused by their arrival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol fraudulent claim to be the Holy Sages prophesied in Takarian sacred scripture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to see the world through the eyes of a Bronze Age people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol fraudulent claim to be the Holy Sages prophesied in Takarian sacred scripture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol use advanced technology to trick a Bronze Age people into thinking them gods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol traveled through a wormhole to reach the Takarian homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter replicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arridor and Kol proliferated matter replicator technology on the Takarian homeworld", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x02", "title": "The Ship", "date": "1996-10-07", "description": "While exploring in the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko, Dax, Worf, and O'Brien see a Jem'Hadar warship crash on a planet's surface.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Pam Wigginton & Rick Cason.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sisko-Vorta diplomatic impasse happened because of lack of trust and therefore people died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was the space station crew, Benjamin and Miles especially, coming to terms with the death of young Crewman Muniz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A Sisko-Vorta diplomatic impasse happened because of lack of trust and therefore people died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kilana's mutual mistrust resulted in the deaths of Muniz and a Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles tended and befriended the mortally wounded Muniz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf wanted to tell Muniz the truth that he was going to die. Miles, on the other hand, wanted to keep Muniz's spirits up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone was cracking a bit under pressure in their own peculiar way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew nearly cracked under the pressure of being hold up in crashed ship under attack by Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Muniz", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian unwittingly became accessory to Quark's shenanigans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf urged Miles to put Muniz out of his misery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin explained that capturing the ship had been worth a few dead comrades", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x19", "title": "Grey 17 Is Missing", "date": "1996-10-07", "description": "Garibaldi investigates an abandoned level of the station. Delenn is installed as head of the Rangers, but Neroon doubts her worthiness.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus essentially sacrificed himself for Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus in heroic duel with Minbari warrior master and Garibaldi faces a monster", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus did", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi was debating something with a mystic crackpot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan uses telepaths against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frnaklin, while suffering withdrawal symptoms, was generally brooding after the events of bbf3x18 where he had some sort of life crisis and tried to find himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin struggled to overcome his", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x06", "title": "Remember", "date": "1996-10-09", "description": "B'Elanna experiences vivid dreams.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genocide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Regressives were deported and executed by the Enarans in a program of genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human rights issue", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Regressives were deported and executed by the Enarans in a program of genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Regressives were deported and executed by the Enarans in a program of genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of remembering history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "message of episode was to not forget about the genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "dream B'Elanna between family and boyfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "father of dream B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jareth and dream B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jareth and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Regressives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Korenna Mirell betraying her lover and keeping secret her role in covering up genocide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enaran elites and Regressives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jareth and dream B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enaran communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enaran communicated telepathically. In particular, the old man taught Janeway how to play a musical instrument telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna in confronting genocidal killer of the Regressives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Jessen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enaran goverment covered up a genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "regressives were said to be", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "event management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix worked all afternoon to organize a party to welcome a group of aliens aboard Voyager. He enthusiastically arranged everything down to the last detail, and played host during the party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janewway was fascinated with the Enaran leader's traditional Enaran musical instrument.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "dream B'Elanna started cheering with the crowd", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x03", "title": "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places", "date": "1996-10-14", "description": "Worf finds himself attracted to Grilka, Quark's ex wife, when she visits the station.\n\nDirected by: Andrew J. Robinson. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia/Worf/Grilka/Quark; Keiko/Miles/Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark at Grilka; Worf at Grilka; Jadzia at Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko; Quark reunited with his ex wife Grilka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reproductive surrogacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was the surrogate mother for Miles and Keiko's baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian was working on a cure for Kira's sneezing caused by her pregnancy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Miles resisted acting out on their sexual desires for one another", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was jealous of Quark because the Klingon female Grilka was interested in Quark, rather than himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira and Miles developed a proximity infatuation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was tempted to be unfaithful to Keiko over Kira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was challenged to a fight to the death by Thopok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf singing Klingon opera; Worf and Jadzia debating the finer points of Klingon opera", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote controlled person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf used a gizmo to remotely control Quark in fight to the death", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x20", "title": "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place", "date": "1996-10-14", "description": "A delegation of religious leaders comes to Babylon 5 to visit Brother Theo and to provide assistance to Sheridan. Londo sets a plan in motion to rid himself of Lord Refa.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were various religious leaders advising Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vir's loyalty to Londo was strained", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vir wrestled with whether to betray G'Kar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Narn were pleased to get their hands on Refa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "black pastor discussed with Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "telepath used on Vir, Sheridan organized telepaths against the Shadows", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x04", "title": "Nor the Battle to the Strong", "date": "1996-10-21", "description": "Dr. Bashir has been away at a conference and Jake Sisko has accompanied him to research a profile he is writing about the doctor. Returning in a runabout, they get a distress call from a Federation colony under Klingon attack.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Brice R. Parker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake in war zone and in his writing says Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake was incorrectly credited with being courageous in war, Bashir justly so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake worried about his own cowardice and a cowardly soldier had shot himself, by contrast with Julian; ensign who shot himself in the foot to avoid going to battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jake proved to be a hero by the end of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Jake treated the wounded in a war zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bashir was performing triage in a war zone medical emergency room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was writing a profile of Julian Bashir and about life in a war zone after the Klingon attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin worried about Jake being in danger in a war zone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin worried about Jake being in danger in a war zone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake over running from battle like a coward when the going got tough", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin discussed how Jake grew up so quickly with both Jadzia and Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira trying to overcome caffeine addiction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and other medics made tough choices when treating wounded people after the Klingon attack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake wanted to be in some dramatic heroic situation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Burke died on the battle field talking with Jake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x05", "title": "The Assignment", "date": "1996-10-28", "description": "Keiko returns from a journey and informs O'Brien that she is really an entity that has taken possession of his wife's body.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: David R. Long & Robert Lederman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles' wife Keiko became possessed by a malevolent incorporeal entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles doing naughty things on space station to save Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "malevolent entity threatened to kill Keiko and Molly if Miles didn't do what it wanted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles' wife Keiko possessed by malevolent incorporeal entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko returned to the space station to visit Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' wife Keiko possessed by malevolent incorporeal entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark expressed disappointment in his brother Rom for adopting human customs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pah-wraith in Keiko's body commented on the various demerits of the corporeal form", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom trusted Miles to the point of taking the fall for Miles' sabotage", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf3x22", "title": "Z'ha'dum", "date": "1996-10-28", "description": "Sheridan's wife, who supposedly died four years ago, tries to convince Sheridan to come to Z'ha'dum and meet his opposite number. Londo receives important news about his political future. The Shadows move against Babylon 5 itself.\n\nDirected by: Adam Nimoy. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan jumped to his death in order to change a disastrous timeline", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan's supposedly late wife interrupted him and Delenn in the middle of the night", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan's late wife came back just as he was over her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan decided trust his late wife (but it was a double ruse)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "war against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorlon sought order and cooperation whereas the shadows sought chaos and competition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn and others grieved for Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn grieved for her love interest Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn and others went to Z'ha'dum to find Sheridan or get closure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin reveals the history of the Vorlons and Shadows, and how the Shadows use conflict to help guide the younger races to be stronger and better and to evolve and grow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some nonsense about who Sheridan really was in the afterlife", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x07", "title": "Sacred Ground", "date": "1996-10-30", "description": "Kes is left comatose after contacting an energy field around a rock.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Geo Cameron.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story leaves open whether Kes’ recovery was explainable by science, or could only be attributed to the acts of supernatural spirit beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway about the limits of science", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the limits of science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway taught a lesson she won't soon forget in the limitations of science", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix stayed by Kes' side while she was in a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway in monastic challenge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway risked her life to save Kes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix stayed by Kes' side while she was in a coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway to complete quest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay talked about his vision quests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway had a psychedelic-like experience after getting bitten by a snake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x06", "title": "Trials and Tribble-ations", "date": "1996-11-04", "description": "Darvin, a disgraced Klingon spy, travels back in time. The DS9 crew must prevent him from altering the timeline.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler & Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin travels back in time to visit the original Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arne Darvin hatched an elaborate plot to travel back in time and kill Kirk out of a desire for vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribbles on Enterprise and Space Station K-7", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arne Darvin wanted to kill Kirk in the past so that he wouldn't be an outcast from the Klingon in the present", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "DS9 staff at quaint 23rd century technology; women crew-members wearing skimpy uniforms; Miles and Julian unfamiliar with old fashioned equipment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tribble :: crew vs. Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and others meet the great Captain James T. Kirk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arne Darvin was a Klingon surgically altered to look Human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf explained how Klingon's from Kirk's era had genetic engineering away their cranial ridges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf explained how Klingon's from Kirk's era used genetic engineering to remove their cranial ridges.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Miles discussed the possibility that Watley was his grandmother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tribble :: Tribbles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia commented on Spock being a hunk and 23rd century males", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's team", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotty started a bar fight when a Klingon boasted that the Enterprise was worthy of being hauled off as garbage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x01", "title": "The Hour of the Wolf", "date": "1996-11-04", "description": "Ivanova, Delenn and Lyta travel to Z'ha'dum to search for Sheridan, while G'Kar ventures out to search for Garibaldi. Londo finds that the political climate on Centauri Prime has worsened under the rule of Cartagia, the insane emperor.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn and others grieved for Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn grieved for her love interest Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the despotic emperor expressed himself about rule", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova and Delenn over loosing Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "the alliance against the shadows was fracturing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "the emperor fancied himself a budding god", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was telepathy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and co over whether to obey a madman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn and others went to Z'ha'dum to find Sheridan or get closure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "war against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The emperor imagined himself becoming a god.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x08", "title": "Future's End, Part I", "date": "1996-11-06", "description": "A 29th century timeship causes a time paradox when it accidentally sends itself and Voyager to two different periods in 20th century Earth.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "future point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "1996 seen from 300 years hence, Harry about non-interactive stories, Janeway at the computer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A 29th century timeship accidentally sent Voyager and its crew back to 1990s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A 29th century timeship accidentally sent Voyager and its crew back to 1990s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager was mistook for a flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rain was searching for aliens for the SETI institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was up to the Voyager crew to stop the tech genius Henry Starling from commercializing 29th century technology on 20th century Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Rain shared a passion for cheesy sci-fi films that were decidedly classical in the context.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and B'Elanna were picking up a soap opera transmission from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starling used technology he obtained from a crashed Federation starship from the future to bootstrap the computer revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starling risked flagrantly violating the Temporal Prime Directive to expand his business empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starling as high powered CEO", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Braxton was living as a vagrant on the streets of 1996 Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 20th century tech magnate Henry Starling plotted to travel to the 29th century, obtain advanced computer technology by hook or by crook, and then commercialize it in his own time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x07", "title": "Let He Who Is Without Sin...", "date": "1996-11-11", "description": "Worf and Dax vacation on the pleasure planet, Risa, and encounter unexpected dangers.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "traditionalist conservatism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fullerton lead the New Essentialist movement which was dedicated to restoring traditions and morality on Risa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf and Pascal Fullerton wanted to restore traditional Federation values on Risa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf vacation on Risa; Julian and Leeta break up; Jadzia and Arandis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf go on a vacation to the Risa pleasure planet; Julian and Leeta ended their relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf quarreled incessantly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fullerton and conservative protesters wanted social change on Risa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fullerton warned that moral decay of the Risan would lead to their downfall and conquest by the Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia was frustrated with Worf for trying to control her behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf vacation on Risa pleasure planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was jealous of Arandis over Jadzia, and Julian of Rom over Leeta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was upset about insufficient romantic steadfastness from Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf/Jadzia/Arandis; Julian/Leeta/Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was upset about insufficient romantic steadfastness from Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia, Worf, Julian, Leeta, and Quark take a vacation to Risa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Risa planetary weather control system sabotaged by Worf and New Essentialist movement members", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf described his childhood as the only Klingon boy on Galt colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf regretted having killed a childhood friend albeit accidentally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf explained that he needed to exercise self-restraint more than other Klingons and that's why he's such a prude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf regretted having broken the neck of a childhood friend albeit accidentally.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x02", "title": "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?", "date": "1996-11-11", "description": "G'Kar and Marcus continue searching for Garibaldi, pursued by agents of the Centauri. Sheridan tries to return to \"life\" with the help of the mysterious being Lorien.\n\nDirected by: Kevin James Dobson. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn grieved for her love interest Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn grieved for her love interest Sheridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "some kind of super \"first\" alien appeared in Sheridan's afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn especially seemed to despair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was in some sort of limbo right before the afterlife we seem to have been told", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn for Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "the emperor gave G'Kar to Londo for vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "war against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar anticipated being tortured by the emperor, Garibaldi was slightly tortured", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation: The Enemy Within (1996)", "title": "Alien Nation: The Enemy Within", "date": "1996-11-12", "description": "Detective Matthew Sikes and his Tenctonese partner George Francisco investigate a group of Tenctonese called the Eenos. The subplot involves Tenctonese binnaum Albert Einstein and his new bride May attempting to have a child (with George's help). It is the fourth television film produced to continue the story after the cancellation of Alien Nation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation:_The_Enemy_Within" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores issues surrounding refugee space aliens integrating into American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George worked as detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George were close friends in addition to being partner detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan Francisco were having trouble in the bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and Cathy took their interspecies relationship to the next level by shacking up together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "George in particular, and the Newcomer aliens in general, were bigoted against the Eenos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "moving in together", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Matt and Cathy as they take the next step in their relationship by shacking up at Matt's apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eenos lived among the Newcomer aliens as outcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows George and Susan's troubles in the bedroom. Susan felt George was losing interest in having sex with her, and she dabble with getting involved with a coworker. George, for his part, jumped at the chance to impregnate his friend Albert's wife which was a normal custom among the Newcomer aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "George came to see that he'd long been bigoted against the Eenos and he ultimately changed his ways and even had some Eenos' people over to his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a man who got pregnant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Newcomer alien Morris was pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George asked Emily about an upcoming \"father and daughter day\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and Buck spoke here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emily helped her brother Buck in his search for a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George lashed out his son Buck for lacking focus and direction in his life and for not being able to find a job. But in the end George apologized to Buck for being too hard on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and Emily spoke here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the Eenos had turned to eating the flesh of their own to survive at some point during their enslavement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a toxic waste processing plant that was serving as a major source of tax revenue to the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan considered sleeping with her colleague Rick, who was showing romantic interest in her, but she changed her mind after her George started making an effort to be a better husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mutant race of Newcomer aliens was created.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x09", "title": "Future's End, Part II", "date": "1996-11-13", "description": "Janeway must prevent the destruction of the solar system by a 20th century entrepreneur who has acquired the timeship.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to the Voyager crew to stop the tech genius Henry Starling from commercializing 29th century technology on 20th century Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unchecked ambition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry Starlin about being so greedy to risk destroying the solar system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A 29th century timeship accidentally sent Voyager and its crew back to 1990s Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Rain not meant to be", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Starlin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antigovernment militia movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Tom held captive by such guys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rain Robinson was working in Earth's SETI program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Rain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Video footage of Voyager flying above Los Angeles declared a UFO hoax by news organizations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starling risked flagrantly violating the Temporal Prime Directive to expand his business empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Starlin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the future captain refused to send Voyager crew home for fear of changing their future", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x08", "title": "Things Past", "date": "1996-11-18", "description": "Sisko, Odo, Dax and Garak are found unconscious. While Bashir attempts to revive their bodies, the four wake up during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor several years earlier.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo regretted unjust killings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo relived his past involvement in the execution of three innocent Bajorans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo would not permit the injustice of three innocent people being executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, Jadzia, Garak, and Odo were accused of having committed a terrorist act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo made Thrax think twice about whether accused Bajorans were guilty of bombing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, Odo, Jadzia, and Garak mysteriously find themselves in alternate reality on the space station 7 years in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo hid his past involvement in the execution on three innocent Bajorans on space station 7 years prior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sisko, Odo, Dax, and Garak were left to figure out what had happened to them after they'd become trapped in a reality of Odo's own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cardassians cracked down on Bajoran dissenters on the space station.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x03", "title": "The Summoning", "date": "1996-11-18", "description": "Zack gets a lead on rescuing Garibaldi from his unknown captors. Delenn faces opposition from the League of Non-Aligned Worlds when she tries to reorganize the Army of Light.\n\nDirected by: John McPherson. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Vorlon, the Shadows and some other \"first\" aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan came back and united everyone in the nick of time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "choice", "motivation": "G'Kar was tortured at length by the emperor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the emperor was exceedingly sadistic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "major", "motivation": "cowardly alien allies argued for appeasement of the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "war against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcus is a virgin but has an infatuation on someone", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x10", "title": "Warlord", "date": "1996-11-20", "description": "Kes is controlled by an alien warlord named Tieran.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tieran was a run of the military dictator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tieran insists that power is the best aphrodisiac", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tieran took over Kes' body and later Ameron's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "lusty holodeck scenariowith holo-babes and holo-hunks in teaser and Tieran feasting etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A modern trope pertaining to Kes overcoming the male domination of Tieran was much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiernan was 200 years old and planned to live on indefinitely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tieran in body of Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes as Tiernan dumped Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes was about to drive Tiernan mad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Nori have lesbian kiss", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tieran planned to marry Ameron while in the body of Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tieran planned to marry two partners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes was offered power", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tieran went from living on the streets of Ilari to being its ruler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tieran in body of Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tough upbringing contributed to making Tieran the ruthless warlord that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiernan became a Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my partner switched gender", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nori and Tiernan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996)", "title": "Carnosaur 3: Primal Species", "date": "1996-11-21", "description": "The film follows a military team as they try to capture several genetically reconstructed dinosaurs. It received negative reviews. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Carnosaur 2, and the final installation of the Carnosaur series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Carnosaur" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnosaur_3:_Primal_Species" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film are the carnosaurs: genetically reconstructed replicas of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An elite team of army commandos and Marines battled genetically reconstructed replicas of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The carnosaurs were genetically reconstructed replicas of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elite team of army commandos and Marines were sent on a dangerous mission to capture three escaped carnosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorists hijacked a truckload of living frozen biological material instead of uranium as they'd planned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops mistook a wanton terrorist for a drug smuggler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Wilson mistook the terrorist for a drug smuggler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about the military operation to recover the carnosaurs being classified.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Proudfoot had a problem taking orders from \"some woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The army commandos and the Marines on the carnosaur catching mission settled their rivalry with an arm wrestling match.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek: First Contact (1996)", "title": "Star Trek: First Contact", "date": "1996-11-22", "description": "The crew of the USS Enterprise-E travel back in time from the 24th century to the mid 21st-century in order to stop the cybernetic Borg from conquering Earth by changing their past. It is the eighth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the second to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_First_Contact" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard grappled with having been assimilated by the Borg. He had nightmares and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg had a hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Picard and his crew worked to stop the Borg from assimilating the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise-E crew traveled back in time to the mid 21st century in an effort to prevent the Borg from assimilating the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a Borg attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise-E.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg got on the Enterprise-E and started assimilating everyone aboard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent that Picard's judgment was compromised by his desire to get back at the Borg for them having assimilated him six years prior. Lily even compared him to Captain Ahab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how the Enterprise-E crew traveled back to Earth at a time shortly after World War 3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-E transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-E crew were beside themselves at being able to meet warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data experienced a variety of human emotions, like anxiety at the prospect of encountering Borg drones, because of his emotion chip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people may not always live up to their reputations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was somewhat taken aback to find that warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane was a reckless drunk of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard and Lily hid from the Borg in a holodeck simulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane shunned attention and was put off when Georgi and other were fawning over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnetic boots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard and Worf used magnetic boots to walk outside on the Enterprise-E hull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zefram Cochrane was never far from his flask.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vulcans landed on Earth and made first contact with humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x09", "title": "The Ascent", "date": "1996-11-25", "description": "Forced to crash land on a desolate planet, Odo and Quark learn they lost their communications system, replicator, and most rations in an explosion.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo and Quark while climbing a mountain; Jake and Nog find a way to cohabitate in peace", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo and Quark after desperate situation on mountainside; Jake and Nog make amends following a failed attempt at being roommates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo and Quark; Jake and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "After crash landing on an uninhabited planet, Odo and Qua ascended to the top of a snow-capped mountain with little in the way of equipment and provisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo relished the opportunity to finally bring Quark to justice for alleged crimes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake was eager to move out from his father Benjamin's quarters; Rom eager for his son Nog to arrive home from Starfleet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake moved out to live with Nog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog as roommates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog can't get along as roommates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog couldn't get along as roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake going through a rebellious teenage phase", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was disappointed in Rom for adopting the human custom of drinking root beer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark justly named Odo a misanthrope", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was slothful", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark half joked about eating Odo after he died", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x04", "title": "Falling Toward Apotheosis", "date": "1996-11-25", "description": "As the first step toward ending the war, Sheridan decides to act against the new Vorlon ambassador. G'Kar faces torture at the hands of Cartagia.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "relentless enemy in war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "war against the shadows", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor thought he was a God much like Caligula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Vorlon, the Shadows and some other \"first\" aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan had a spirit battle, and it cost him many years of his life to return from the dead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar was tortured at length by the emperor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Vorlon would destroy Centauri homeworld", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x11", "title": "The Q and the Grey", "date": "1996-11-27", "description": "Q visits Voyager with a proposal for Janeway as civil war breaks out in the Q Continuum.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Shawn Piller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q wanted to have a child with Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being wiped out by more powerful aliens", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q continuum war caused unproliferated supernova explosions across galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "two factions in Q Continuum cosmic war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway with Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q at Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway, Q, Female Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "understanding by metaphor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway understood the Q cosmic war through a Civil War metaphor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "supernova chain phenomenon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "chain of supernova explosions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female Q thought her race of god-like beings was above copulating with humans, but Q begged to differ.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tykho Moon (1996)", "title": "Tykho Moon", "date": "1996-11-28", "description": "The dictator of a dusty, Paris-like Moon colony is dying of a mysterious illness, and his only hope of survival is to find the mysterious organ donor Tykho Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tykho_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a dusty Moon colony that is a crude replica of a dilapidated, chaotic Paris divided by a wall reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dying Moon colony dictator Mac Bee was obsessed with living for eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The elderly Moon colony dictator Mac Bee was dying of a mysterious illness the symptoms of which were a blue stain on the face and blue blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anikst couldn't remember anything about his past and had had t relearn everything. He spoke of how he'd woken one day with his head wrapped in bandages and upon unraveling them, noticed two scars on either side of his head with the implication being that he'd been the subject of some crude memory erasing surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lena and Anikst fell passionately in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Glenbarr ultimately succeeded in his mission to assassinate each and every member of the Mac Bee political family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mac Bee had a nightmare of a funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eva and her two diseased sons, Alvin and Edward. Konstatine confronted his mother demanding to know who his father was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon colony dictator Mac Bee and his son Edward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glenbarr was posing as an American photo journalist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boys were lined with with coins in hand to pay to peep on Lena and Anikst as they make love in their tent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mac Bee and Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The assassin was promoting his novel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)", "title": "Adrenalin: Fear the Rush", "date": "1996-11-29", "description": "The film is set in an alternative future in 2007, where the Russian Federation has collapsed and Eastern Europe is in disarray. Out of this chaos an unknown virus covers the earth and eventually the United States.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenalin:_Fear_the_Rush" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that a 100% lethal virus of mysterious origins had proliferated around much of the world and was on the verge of spreading across the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a team of police officers as they pursue a deadly virus carrying humanoid creature through the sewers of Boston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a grotesque, human-like creature of some kind with superhuman speed and strength lurking about the sewers of Boston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of Boston police officers had six hours to track down a maniacal (probably mutant) killer that was lurking in sewers. If they failed, the killer would explode and spread a deadly virus that it harbored all over Boston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The city of Boston was put under quarantine in an effort to prevent a deadly virus from proliferating across the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained in the opening narration about how a total breakdown of government control left the Russian Federation and much of Eastern Europe in utter disarray and anarchy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films opens with scenes of Eastern Europe descending into anarchy in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned in the opening narration about how pollution played a role in the total economic and moral collapse of the Russian Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reference was made to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned in the opening narration about how wide spread crime played a role in the total economic and moral collapse of the Russian Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned in the opening narration how the failure of governments had caused devastating ethnic conflicts that had escalated to the point where thousands were dying each week.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned in the opening narration about how the United States had locked up their recent immigrants in quarantine camps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that special passports that were needed to leave a quarantined city of Boston were available on the black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Delon was desperate to escape from a quarantined Boston together with her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deranged, human-like, psycho killer was had a taste for human flesh.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x12", "title": "Macrocosm", "date": "1996-12-11", "description": "Voyager answers help from a mining colony about a viral outbreak that manages to sneak onto Voyager through the transporter, leaving only Janeway and the Doctor to stop it.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a \"macroviral\" outbreak on Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor vs. macroscopic virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor worked to find a cure for a strange macroscopic virus that was proliferating uncontrollably aboard Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tak Tak language, though also containing speech had an important component of ritualistic gestures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mars Attacks (1996)", "title": "Mars Attacks!", "date": "1996-12-13", "description": "Martians launch a full-scale invasion of Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Attacks!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martians descended on Earth in a formidable armada of flying saucers and ultimately launched a full-scale assault on the planet's nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Large-headed, green Martians made a bid to conquer the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Martians arriving on Earth and the President's science aides even set up a first contact meeting with the Martian ambassador and his minions, but it turned into bloodbath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The President and some of his trusted advisors kept on chalking up the Martians' acts of hostility to cultural misunderstandings. In one such example, they interpreted the Martian ambassador disintegrating a dove with his ray gun as a sign that the Martians consider the dove to be a symbol of war, instead of a symbol of peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The divorces Byron and Louise were rekindling their relationship. Professor Donald Kessler's disembodied head and Nathalie's head on the body of a chihuahua fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mixed messages from the Martians (i.e. they insisted that the came in peace but committed a massacre and made other attacks) left the President struggling over whether to continue engage peacefully with the Martians or to launch a counter attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mixed messages from the Martians (i.e. they insisted that the came in peace but committed a massacre and made other attacks) left the President struggling over whether to continue engage peacefully with the Martians or to launch a counter attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians launched a full-scale invasion of the United States, and Earth more generally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians came to Earth in standard fare flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An armada of Martian flying saucers was shown traveling from Mars to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Decker failed in his bid to convince the President to classify evidence of an armada of flying saucers heading to Earth as top secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Dale and First Lady Marsha Dale. The Norris'.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was playing craps in a Las Vegas casino while the President made his announcement that aliens were en route to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President's advisors arranged a formal event aimed at establishing diplomatic relations with the Martians, but it turned into a bloodbath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The First Lady Marsha Dale and her disinterested teenage daughter Taffy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Dale and his teenage daughter Taffy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara pointedly accused Art of being a greedy business man. Also Art's cowboy hat was studded all the way around with metal dollar signs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "GNN reporter Jason Stone covered the first contact event between the Martians and the United States government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara participated in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer was show the young army private Billy-Glenn Norris leave him family home and go fight the Martians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians abducted both the variety show host Nathalie Lake and Professor Donald Kessler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glenn Norris and his two sons, Ritchie and Billy-Glenn. Byron spoke over the phone with his two boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ritchie had a close bond with his senile, but adorable grandmother Florence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandma Florence was absent minded and generally confused about the goings on around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The retired boxer Byron explained of how he'd found Allah and given up eating pork.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A special contraption was used to translate the Martians' vocalizations into English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians removed Nathalie's head from her body and later attached it to the body of a chihuahua. The Martians surgically detached Professor Donald Kessler's head from his body and he kept on live just fine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "head transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians switched the heads of Nathalie and her pet chihuahua.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy-Glen's family attended his funeral service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy-Glen's family members were crying at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Louise chided her two sons, Neville and Cedric, for skipping school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young brothers Neville and Cedric skipped school to play video games at the arcade. Ritchie lost his older brother, the army private Billy-Glen, in a Martian perpetrated massacre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "skipping school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young brothers Neville and Cedric skipped school to play video games at the arcade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-canine hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martians used their technology to put the head of a woman on a chihuahua's body, and the head of a chihuahua on a woman's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear missile was launched at one of the Martian flying saucers, but the Martians handled the threat without much ado.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ritchie and his grandmother Florence were each awarded the United States Medal of Honor for their heroic stopping of the Martian invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996)", "title": "Nemesis 4: Death Angel", "date": "1996-12-23", "description": "A very muscular, cybernetically-enhanced human female accidentally assassinates the cyborg son of a major crime syndicate head. It is the fourth installment in the Nemesis film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Nemesis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_4:_Death_Angel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in 2080 New York City where humans and cyborgs coexist in an uneasy truce. The hero of the story, Alex, was a cybernetically-enhanced assassin who was taking out a lot of cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex was working as a cybernetically-enhanced assassin for her boss Bernardo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex killed a cyborg Catholic priest while he was in the middle of hearing her confessional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hit was put out on Alex after she assassinated the cyborg son of a major crime syndicate head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tokuda never forgot how he'd once been gang raped by a bunch of heavy metal androids in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was haunted by a mysterious woman in black who Alex interpreted to be an angle of death. In the end, the Woman in Black turned out to be a mere cyborg assassin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x10", "title": "Rapture", "date": "1996-12-30", "description": "An accident causes Sisko to have prophetic visions.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: L.J. Strom.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin becomes obsessed with finding lost Bajoran city and neglects his command obligations and his health", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin fancied himself a religious prophet to the Bajorans and attributed his discovery of lost Bajoran city to a vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life with a handicap vs. death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin declined a life saving operation so that he could keep seeing visions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kasidy was apprehensive over whether Benjamin would welcome her back after she served a six month prison sentence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation entertaining accepting Bajorans as a member", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin risked his life so that he could keep seeing visions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "After much consideration, Benjamin decided to trust his visions, against Admiral Whatley's better judgement, and advise the Bajorans to delay accepting membership in the Federation. Benjamin’s unlikely discovery of the ancient ruins was interpreted as a miracle by the Bajorans, even the most skeptical among them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin prophesied that the Bajorans joining the Federation would cause undue harm. The prophesy held that only the prophet could find the lost Bajoran city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prophetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin experienced transcendent prophetic visions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake urged Benjamin to let Julian perform life saving operation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "informed consent in medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian refused to go against Benjamin's wishes to forgo life saving surgery without the consent of his closest relative Jake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war plunder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians returned art that they had plundered from the Bajorans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of Bajoran archaeologists started a formal excavation at the site of a lost lost city that Benjamin had discovered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark Planet (1997)", "title": "Dark Planet", "date": "1997", "description": "The year is 2638 and two Earth factions mired in a destructive war launch a joint mission to reach a planet on the other side of a wormhole that might be capable of sustaining human life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116030/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common interest unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that the commanders of the warring Alphas and Rebels factions had put their differences aside in a bid to move some remnant of humanity to another planet before all Earth life was destroyed in a biotechnological catastrophe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alphas and the Rebels were engaged in a destructive war for control of Earth and probably other parts of the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "A joint Alpha and Rebel forces mission was sent to investigate reports of a habitable planet on the other side of a wormhole, and much build up was placed on the passing through of the said space anomaly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative habitable celestial body", "level": "major", "motivation": "A joint Alpha and Rebel forces mission was sent to on a mission to investigate reports of a habitable exoplanet on the other side of a wormhole. After many twists and turns, the planet was found and determined to be suitable for human colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biotechnological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed at the film's conclusion that the whole purpose of the Benedict's mission to find a new home for humanity on account that all life on Earth would soon perish in a biotechnological cataclysm. The nature of the cataclysm is elaborate: A viral organism that was produced quite accidentally when Rebel chemical agents mingled with Alpha biological weapon materials was poised to destroy all life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that the Rebel faction had mutants in their ranks. The Rebel general Brendan confided in Ensign Hawke that she was a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that some Alphas were genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard an unnamed futuristic spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Winter picked up Ensign Hawke from a prison compound on Jupiter's moon Callisto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Jupiter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alphas had a prison complex on Jupiter's moon Callisto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There hadn't been an hour in the past five years that Ensign Hawke hadn't thought about his departed wife, Cassian, who'd perished while attempting to traverse a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Salera was able to read the thoughts in the minds of the people around her, including Captain Winter's thought that he was going to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone thought that Ensign Hawke had courageously given his life to save the crew, but he somehow survived against all odds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rebel general Brendan had reservations about going on a joint mission with the enemy Alphas, and was slow to trust in Ensign Hawke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Winter used a small cylindrical device on General Brendan that make her feel intense pain whenever Winter spoke the word \"pain\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Brendan was tortured nearly to death by Captain Winter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the Rebel faction had used chemical agents on the Alphas in their defense of Mauritania.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the Alpha faction had used biological weapons on the Rebel faction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x11", "title": "The Darkness and the Light", "date": "1997-01-06", "description": "Someone is killing Kira's friends off and she might be next.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira's former resistance cell members were being murdered one by one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is Kira dealing with the murders of her old resistance cell compatriots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Silaran Prin hunts down Shakaar resistance cell members because he was disfigured in one of their bombings; Kira tries to take justice into her own hands by pursuing the suspects implicated in the murder of her resistance cell compatriots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a killer was after Kira and her friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira fancied herself a freedom fighter during the Cardassian occupation, but Silaran Prin considered her to be a murderous terrorist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira's former resistance cell members were being murdered one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian advised Kira on her use of herbal remedies and sedatives to help with her pregnancy induced sneezing fits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira pregnant with Miles and Keiko's baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silaran Prin was disfigured in a Shakaar resistance cell bombing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "spies were mentioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killer microdrone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silaran Prin employed a small drone to kill", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira decided to do some extra-judicial killing", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x13", "title": "Fair Trade", "date": "1997-01-08", "description": "Voyager approaches the edge of Neelix's knowledge and a trading station.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix did a favor for a friend and then found himself covering up drug-trade, murder and contemplating theft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix was concerned about betraying Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix and Wixiban came into conflict with a drug dealing gangster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix choosing between Voyage crew and Wixiban", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix and Wixiban", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix wants to stay on the ship with friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became accessory to a friend's crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wixiban dragged Neelix into it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wixiban was looking at a 50 year stretch in cryostasis for his role in smuggling a narcotic onto the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wixiban was looking at a 50 year stretch in cryostasis for his role in smuggling a narcotic onto the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway vs. station master about arresting Chakotay and Tom on flimsy evidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was a drug smuggler", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The station was completely monitored and the master was going to spy on communications.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "punishment as a deterrent to crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The station captain gave 50 years of cryostasis to anyone convicted of a petty drug violation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wixiban and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People who were caught breaking the law on the space station were given notably harsh sentences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human idea about life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix learned the crew valued him for more than what services he provided them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x14", "title": "Alter Ego", "date": "1997-01-15", "description": "The crew enjoys a luau on the holodeck and Tuvok discovers an unusual hologram.\n\nDirected by: Robert Picardo. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lonely Marayan became obsessed with Tuvok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marayan looking for love while stationed on lonely outpost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marayan not happy with Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry tried to distance himself from a holodeck character with whom he'd fallen in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok denied Marayan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being romantically rejected by Tuvok, Marayna took control of Voyager’s computer and shut down the ship’s engines, imperiling the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The holodeck character Marayna coming to life and escaping her virtual reality confines is a key component of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry became jealous of Tuvok after Tuvok developed an interest in the Luau holodeck babe that Harry was into.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marayna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry, Marayan, and Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "inversion nebula causes ship trouble", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marayna, who was apparently a holodeck character, took over Voyager and shut down the engines to the peril of its crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok discussed with Harry", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x01", "title": "Tikka to Ride", "date": "1997-01-17", "description": "The crew find themselves resurrected due to the time paradox resulting from the battle with their future selves. The time paradox also results in a greatly upgraded and much larger Starbug. However, the curry supplies have gone missing, and so Lister devises a sneaky plan which involves swapping Kryten's head, once again utilizing the time machine, and which ultimately results in the crew getting mixed up in the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, in 1963.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All the problems of the story stemmed from a time paradox as the crew were battling with future versions of themselves. Upon traveling in time to restore his curry supplies, Lister got mixed up in the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, in 1963.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew went back in time and accidentally prevented the assassination of JFK.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew traveled back in time convinced John F. Kennedy to assassinate himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with John F. Kennedy assassinating himself in Lee Harvey Osborne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister tried to explain their time travel predicament but the cameras couldn't take the paradoxes and exploded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister said he was a curry-oholic. Subsequent events seemed to support this statement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten's other head expressed a wish to experience certain human emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Having removed his guilt-chip, Kryten now lacked compassion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Power had corrupted JFK in an alternate reality where he survived the assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten served a dead person to Cat and Lister, making the latter, at least, a cannibal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rest of the crew were annoyed at Lister's obsession with curry and administered a well-deserved beating towards the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Listen mentioned how humankind had mastered fusion power before the close of the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the alternate timeline, the President Hoover was said to be controlled by the mafia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the alternate timeline, the mafia were said to have been trafficking cocaine into the United States from Cuba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John F. Kennedy lamented his womanizing ways.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nirvana (1997)", "title": "Nirvana", "date": "1997-01-24", "description": "The film tells the story of a virtual reality game designer who discovers that the main character of his game has achieved sentience due to an attack by a computer virus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimi was shocked when the main character (a guy named Solo) of the virtual reality game he was programming became self-aware and started pleading with Jimi to terminate his miserable existence (bad things happened to him inside the game, including multiple deaths). The rest of the film follows Jimi's efforts to terminate Solo, and in so doing spare him further suffering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtual reality game character Solo was pleading with his programmer (i.e. his creator) Jimi to terminate his miserable existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the film is set inside a life-like virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtual reality game character Solo realized he was a character in a game with no hope of escape soon after having achieved sentience. As a result, he asked his programmer to terminate his miserable existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shortly after achieving sentience, the virtual reality game character Solo decided that he'd rather have his existence terminated than have to suffer such fates as having to die multiple deaths, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Solo spoke with a woman over a bulky, pay-phone-like videophone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of \"liquid marijuana\" and coke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ratzenberger implanted a Joystick with mechanical eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of cyber-punks were going around killing people and harvesting their organs to sell to an unnamed multinational corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimi and his friends hacked into an Okamoto Star company server in an effort to terminate Solo's miserable existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimi got into a confrontation with some members of the Yakuza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Jimi came to understand why his ex-girlfriend Lisa had left him, and felt at peace with himself about it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x02", "title": "Stoke Me a Clipper", "date": "1997-01-24", "description": "Daredevil pilot Ace Rimmer, fatally wounded after rescuing Princess Bonjella, travels from his own dimension into the dimension where Starbug is cruising. His intention is to try and bring out courage in the cowardly version of himself aboard Starbug, and then recruit Arnold Rimmer as his replacement, so that after his death another Rimmer will carry on the legacy of the interstellar space hero.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rimmer hologram is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story began with a parody on heroic antics in a medieval setting. The story continued with another parody on heroic antics involving Ace Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contrasted the heroism of Ace Rimmer with the cowardice of Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contrasted the heroism of Ace Rimmer with the cowardice of Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The king was peeved at the readiness with which the queen accepted Lister's challenge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister enjoyed a VR story in which he shagged the king's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister enjoyed a VR story in which he shagged the king's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister fought a king's champion to the death in VR.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned for Rimmer at his funeral. What they didn't know was that it was Ace Rimmer who'd died and that Rimmer had been passing himself off as Ace the whole time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ace Rimmer was heroically fighting stereotypical Nazis at the start of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was playing the role of Lister's faithfully servant in the medieval-themed VR simulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew held a funeral for Rimmer, but what they didn't know was that it was actually Ace Rimmer who'd died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x12", "title": "The Begotten", "date": "1997-01-27", "description": "When Quark discovers an infant Changeling, it has a profound effect on Odo. Meanwhile, Kira goes into labor.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira, Miles, and Keiko took joy in the arrival of their baby; Odo taking an infant Changeling under his wing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mora Pol and Odo wangling over their past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo had resented his de facto father's treatment of him when he was young, but came to understand his father's actions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mora Pol and Odo reconcile after years of resentment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo takes a baby Changeling under his wing and teaches it how to shapeshift", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo takes a baby shapeshifter under his wing; Mola Pol fancied himself a guardian-like figure to Odo during Odo's formative period", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira gives birth to Keiko and Miles's baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mora Pol advocated performing unethical experiments infant Changeling; Odo meets his old mentor Mora Pol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "put as starting point for thinking about experiments on infant Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Mora Pol were brought closer together in the process of raising the infant Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles behaved how a stereotypically awkward expecting father would when the surrogate mother of his child went into labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Mora Pol in raising infant changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The infant Changeling was learning to understand the solids, and Odo wondered what it might be like to have a human body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Kieko participated in a Bajoran birthing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo resented Mora treating the infant Changeling like a laboratory specimen; Odo was treated as a specimen by Mora when he was first discovered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo mourned the tragic death of the infant Changeling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shakaar Edon comes to the space station to witness his girlfriend Kira give birth to Keiko and Miles's baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo complained to Julian of having Alvanian spine mites but it turned out to be a pinched nerve", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin explained to Odo that if he doesn't make more progress with raising the infant Changeling that Starfleet would take it away", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x05", "title": "The Long Night", "date": "1997-01-27", "description": "Sheridan continues putting the pieces in place for his final strike against the Shadows and the Vorlons, while Londo and Vir make the final preparations for assassinating Emperor Cartagia.\n\nDirected by: John Lafia. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Vorlon, the Shadows and some other \"first\" aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan orated about unification", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emperor thought he was a God much like Caligula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Vorlon would destroy Centauri homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo plotted to kill the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar was tortured at length by the emperor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivana wanted to be at the big battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivana did not need or want anyone to protect her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo expressed to Vir", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x15", "title": "Coda", "date": "1997-01-29", "description": "Janeway appears to be trapped in a time loop with different events, but all ending in her death.\n\nDirected by: Nancy Malone. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Devil is an alien", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Janeway got trapped in a time loop and ended up repeating the same day over and over with minor variations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew, especially Chakotay, mourned Captain Janeway's apparent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway died multiple times in the time loop scenario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway and Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway may have been a ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway tried to take Janeway to the afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien devil tried to convince Janeway to accompany him to hell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway got trapped in a time loop and ended up repeating the same day over and over with minor variations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway to get back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor proposed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out-of-body experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage fright", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay was nervous about performing at the ship's talent show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway, although one of her was unconscious", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of an aspect of human civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien posing as Captain Janeway's father was seemingly trying to escort her to the afterlife, much like how an angle might urge a departed soul to “walk toward the light”. In reality, however, the alien was trying to coax her “spirit” away so that he might feed on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mind-melded with Kes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x03", "title": "Ouroboros", "date": "1997-01-31", "description": "Lister, Cat and Kryten stumble upon a tear in the fabric of space that leads to another dimension. There they meet a parallel version of Lister's old girlfriend, Kristine Kochanski, who becomes stranded on Starbug. Meanwhile Lister discovers the truth about himself and who his parents were.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on the crew encountering versions of themselves from a parallel dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "A version of Lister's ex-girlfriend from a parallel dimension was after a sample of his sperm with which she intended to artificially inseminate herself. The story also delved into their back story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel paradox", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story began and ended with some nonsense about Lister being his own father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew met their holographic selves from a parallel dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alternate reality Lister was a hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew tried to navigate through a space storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lister of the year 2155 was heartbroken over having gotten a Dear John letter from his girlfriend, Kochanski of the year 2155.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat referred to himself as the most gorgeous creature on the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was jealous (much as a stereotypical lover) at Kochanski over Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten and Kochanski were both vying for Lister, but for different reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten and Kochaski put aside their differences and made up in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister dressed in a pink dressing gown and was called Priscilla queen of deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was back from some much needed R&R.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kochanski described Lister's loser characteristics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was heartened to realize that he'd not been abandoned as a baby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x13", "title": "For the Uniform", "date": "1997-02-03", "description": "Michael Eddington returns and Sisko becomes obsessed with catching him.\n\nDirected by: Victor Lobl. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin obsessed with capturing Eddington and bring him to justice for his treason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was possibly consumed by a personal grudge with Eddington", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was possibly consumed by a desire to bring Eddington to justice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eddington saw himself as a freedom fighter, but Benjamin saw him as leader of a terrorist organization. Benjamin wiped out a Maquis colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin destroyed the atmosphere of Maquis planet to force inhabitants to leave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin destroys atmosphere of inhabited planet to capture Eddington", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin rendered Maquis planet uninhabitable by destroying its atmosphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin went on mission to capture Eddington and bring him back to be tried for treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin accused Eddington of having betrayed him and the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddington used biogenic weapons in an attack on the Cardassians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x06", "title": "Into the Fire", "date": "1997-02-03", "description": "At the height of the Shadow War, Sheridan stages a final showdown between the Vorlons and the Shadows at Coriana 6.\n\nDirected by: Kevin James Dobson. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the whole shadow war business was about the importance of coming together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "ie. the Vorlon vs. the Shadows philosophies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo and Vir assassinated the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy vs. rule of law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shadows vs. the Vorlon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "many aliens banded together to defeat Shadows and Vorlon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "nukes were used and a planet killer was on the way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "regicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and Vir assassinated the emperor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo grieved for his murdered mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo took vengeance on Morden and his Shadow guards for killing Londo's Mistress", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x16", "title": "Blood Fever", "date": "1997-02-05", "description": "Vorik passes on the Pon farr to B'Elanna.\n\nDirected by: Andrew Robinson. Story by: Lisa Klink.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna/Tom/Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vorik at B'Elanna and B'Elanna at Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorik about the ponn far", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorik and B'Elanna struggled to keep their sexual urges in check while under the pon farr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Vorik struggle with pon farr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorik was just like a teen with his first ponfar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor recommended to Vorik to cure his pon farr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna was faced with the posibility of having to have sex with Vorik so that he would not die of the Pon farr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually distinguished being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcan Vorik entered into the heat that comes toward the end of the seven year mating cycle characteristic of his species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vorik, B'Elanna flipped out at Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sakari were nearly destroyed by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Vorik", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pon farr crazed Vorik became violently jealous of Tom over B'Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prudishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom about not having sex with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x04", "title": "Duct Soup", "date": "1997-02-07", "description": "Kryten gets fussy and jealous thinking that Lister likes Kochanski better than him. When the primary power goes off and they get stuck in a room, they have no choice but to climb into the small ventilation ducts which wind round Starbug in order to escape. Whilst inside the ducts they discover a lot about each other, including the fact Lister is claustrophobic.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten planned an elaborate ship crisis in an effort to keep Lister separated from Kryten's rival for Lister's attention, Kochanski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister struggled with his fear of being in confined spaces as he and the crew navigated the Starbug's narrow air ducts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adjusting to her new life on Starbug with no bath, poor food, and squeaking pipes in her sleeping quarters left Kochanski on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister dismissed that he might be gay after briefly considering it as a possibility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister reflected wistfully upon his childhood at the orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharing personal stories while they were hold up in the Starbug's air ducts brought the crew closer together in a time of danger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kochanski explained how and why she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was brief talk about turning to cannibalism in desperation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and his ex-girlfriend Kochanski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The was some friction between the crew members while they were cooped up in the ventilation ducts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x14", "title": "In Purgatory's Shadow", "date": "1997-02-10", "description": "Worf and Garak journey to the Gamma Quadrant to investigate a coded Cardassian message.\n\nDirected by: Gabrielle Beaumont. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak went on dangerous mission to rescue his old mentor Enabran Tain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat came to space station to cehck up on his daughter Tora Ziyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf, Julian, Garak, and Martok held captive in Jem'Hadar asteroid prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space station first line of defense against Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia was angry at Worf because he neglected to tell her that he was going out on dangerous mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of Jem'Hadar were flying around in hollowed out asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Martok were abducted and replaced by shapeshifters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat disapproved of Tora Ziyal dating his rival Garak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak made his peace with his father Tain on Tain's deathbed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia worried about Worf going on dangerous mission into Gamma Quadrant; Tora Ziyal waiting on pins and needles for Garak to come back through the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar held Worf, Julian, Garak, and Martok in prison asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak's father Enabran Tain had died in prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x07", "title": "Epiphanies", "date": "1997-02-10", "description": "Garibaldi resigns his position. Bester returns with the news that Earth Alliance plans to isolate and discredit Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bexter did everything for his ex who was in a cryo chamber", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bexter and ex, Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baxter was featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi about leaving", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "several but Garibaldi and G'Kar prominently", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bexter's ex was in a cryo chamber", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x17", "title": "Unity", "date": "1997-02-12", "description": "Chakotay answers a call for help on a planet and finds himself in the middle of a shoot-out between two groups of people. Meanwhile, the Voyager crew discovers an abandoned Borg ship.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay in Borg collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Borg collective consciousness had its utopian aspects, but it also had a dark side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay about helping the Borg colonists", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay in Borg collective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay was assimilated into the Borg collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "liberated Borg besieged by bad guy Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay mourned the loss of Ensign Kaplan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x05", "title": "Blue", "date": "1997-02-14", "description": "Starbug is traveling through a rather uninteresting region of space and the crew are bored and begin to nitpick at petty areas of their lives. Meanwhile Lister finds, much to his own surprise and disgust, that he is missing Rimmer, and even having romantic dreams about him returning. Kryten's solution is to take him on a ride called \"The Rimmer Experience,\" which recounts outrageously fictionalised events from Rimmer's diaries.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Kim Fuller & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister reminisced about some of the fun times he and Rimmer spent together before Rimmer died. This led to Lister developing a new appreciation for his old \"friend\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister reminisced at length about some of the fun times he and Rimmer spent together before Rimmer died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story concerned Lister coming to terms with the fact that his old friend/rival Rimmer was dead and never coming back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister dreamed that he very nearly kissed Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew explored a virtual reality simulation of Rimmer's bizarre psyche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was jealous of Kochanski over Lister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "golf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer, Lister, and Kryten played golf on some planetoid in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer had made a song about how great he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was annoyed with Kochanski ostensibly because her presence was increasing his workload.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x15", "title": "By Inferno's Light", "date": "1997-02-17", "description": "Gul Dukat aligns the Cardassians with the Dominion. The station must deal with a Changeling infiltrator.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulan and Klingon Empires unite to thwart Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant; prisoners from hostile alien races join forces to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Federation and Romulan and Klingon Empires unite to thwart Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant; prisoners from hostile alien races join forces to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "space station first line of defense against Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf, Julian, Garak, and Martok held captive in Jem'Hadar asteroid prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf defeated five Jem'Hadar warriors in fights to the death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorta explained how Worf was motivated to fight to the death by archaic longing for honor and the Jem'Hadar displayed honor as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vorta explained how Worf was motivated to fight to the death by archaic longing for honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak had to overcome his claustrophobia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of Jem'Hadar were flying around in hollowed out asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Martok were abducted and replaced by shapeshifters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tora Ziyal waiting on pins and needles for Garak to come back through the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak's claustrophobia manifested itself when he was working in a confined space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar warrior refused to kill Worf in fight to the death out of respect for Worf's never quit attitude", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Changeling impostor tried to trigger a supernova of Bajoran sun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat renounced Ziyal as his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar held Worf, Julian, Garak, and Martok in prison asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak ruminated about his daddy briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak's father Enabran Tain had died in prison.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x08", "title": "The Illusion of Truth", "date": "1997-02-17", "description": "The command crew take a chance when an ISN reporter arrives on the station, claiming that he wants to do an objective and truthful story on Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Furst. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. The government controlled the media.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the reporters produced biased war propaganda in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The reporters purported to be objective journalists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was upset by Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "journalist claimed the poor on BB5 were exploited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "journalist claimed the poor on BB5 were an exploited underclass", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "journalist complained about the conditions in down-under", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x18", "title": "Darkling", "date": "1997-02-19", "description": "The Doctor tries to graft other personalities into his program, but the resulting 'upgrade' causes him to develop an evil alternate personality.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "if it ain't broke don't fix it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor tried to improve his program with disastrous consequences even though he was already a perfectly good doctor by all accounts save for his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes over leaving Voyager to adventure around with Zahir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor reprogrammed himself to with the aim of improving himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the geniuses The Doctor incorporated into his programming had good and evil inclinations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor accidentally created an evil split personality. This evil version of the Doctor attempted to murder an alien, and succeeded in temporarily paralyzing B'Elanna. Note that “out of control AI” is not used here on account that the Doctor is actually a human personality that was copied into a machine and tweaked, rather than conventional AI.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes and Zahir", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor struggled to come to grips with the fact that his programming imbued in him both good and evil inclinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor faced his evil self", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes about leaving Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna being tortured b The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in torturing B'Elanna in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with The Doctor reciting this oath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tropical Resort holo-program", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The itinerant by nature Mikhal aliens lived to travel around the Delta Quadrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gandhi and Lord Byron on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was at the mercy of a mad person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor, who had gone dangerously insane, was going to torture B'Elanna in Sickbay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x06", "title": "Beyond a Joke", "date": "1997-02-21", "description": "Searching for a new head for Kryten, which exploded due to build-up of negative thought after an incident involving ketchup added to lobster, the crew encounter a rogue simulant on a deserted ship. The simulant kidnaps Kryten and commissions one of his own droids, Able, to fix him up, but Kryten and Able discover they are brothers, the same model, and Able helps Kryten escape. Kryten then discovers from Able a disturbing secret about their creator.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Robert Llewellyn & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew explored the \"Pride and Prejudice Land\" in virtual reality world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kochanski introduced Lister and Cat to simulated reality version of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten complained to his shipmates about how they didn't appreciate the hours he put into to preparing their meals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mechanoid Able was addicted to the circuit board corrupting narcotic \"otrazone\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Rogue Simulant composed of both biological and mechanical parts was after the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten and Able discovered that they were brothers of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Able sacrificed himself to save the crew from being killed by the Rogue Simulant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister breathed fire after eating an overly spicy Kryten prepared meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was jealous of Lister spending time with others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten explained that he felt his efforts went unappreciated by Lister and the rest of the crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x16", "title": "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?", "date": "1997-02-24", "description": "Julian Bashir is selected to become the model for a Long-term Medical Hologram, until a family secret is revealed.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jimmy Diggs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian's parents had his DNA illegally resequenced to enhance him both cognitively and physically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian was hiding that his DNA was illegally resequenced to enhance him both cognitively and physically", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Richard and Julian at one another's throats over years of pent up tensions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian's parents had his DNA illegally resequenced to enhance him both cognitively and physically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Bashir agrees to take responsibility for Julian being genetically engineered by accepting a two year prison sentence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amsha Bashir pays a visit to his son Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Julian at one another's throats over years of pent up tensions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Richard part on good terms after Richard agrees to take the fall for Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom overcame his shyness with talking to Leeta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard went to prison for Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian resented his parents for having genetically engineered him as a boy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a mentally disabled child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard and Amsha struggled with raising a mentally challenged Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and his parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Amsha made the decision to illegally genetically augment their dimwitted son Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian's parents had had his DNA illegally resequenced to enhance him both cognitively and physically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimmerman fancied holographic simulation as a veritable form of immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimmerman was constructing a holographic duplicate of Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom, Leeta, and Zimmerman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimmerman at Leeta; Rom and Leeta; Rom and Zimmerman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian was mortified to host his parents aboard the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark consoled Rom when they thought he blew it with Leeta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "whether would doctors be replaced by machines was discussed initially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "stations crew with Zimmerman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was furious over Zimmerman trying to steal his girlfriend Leeta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leeta about leaving job as a dabo girl to become a cafe proprietor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leeta about leaving job as a dabo girl to become a cafe proprietor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pathological lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard appeared to exaggerate his own accomplishments and future opportunities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Richard", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x09", "title": "Atonement", "date": "1997-02-24", "description": "Delenn must return to Minbar and justify her relationship with Sheridan to her people, and makes an important discovery in the process. Sheridan sends Marcus and Franklin to Mars.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan with Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream walking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn entered the Dreaming, a dream-like state of consciousness, with others and found out about things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn in her anger started the Minbari-Earth war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar got a new eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak expressed loyalty to Garibaldi, Lennier expressed to Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some Minbari expressed concern about racial purity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth demonization of BB5 was noted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn met her old mentor in a dream", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of human souls having merged in the past with human ones.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x19", "title": "Rise", "date": "1997-02-26", "description": "Voyager helps a planet with asteroid problems. Tuvok and Neelix crash-land on the planet and attempt to fix a maglev space elevator.\n\nDirected by: Robert Scheerer. Story by: Jimmy Diggs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orchestrated asteroid bombardment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nezu bombarded Etanian homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix wanted to be liked by Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix called out Tuvok for disrespecting him over the years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok in command on space elevator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Etanians believed the asteroid bombardment was natural, stepping up to the task Neelix operated space elevator in effort to impress Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok on space elevator", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contempt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok at Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "landing party trying to get space elevator working", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space elevator", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party used space elevator to escape from the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix to Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway was in for a penny and a pound to help the aliens who were being bombarded by asteroids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok vs. jerk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok about the need to not be a jerk others and Neelix about finding out the Tuvok understand emotions more that he expcted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok opposed Neelix's plan because it was based on Neelix's \"funny feeling\" rather than reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok about the need to not be a jerk others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok reflected on how it was important for him not to be a condescending jerk to other people around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sklar betrayed the Nezu by aiding the Etanian invasion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x07", "title": "Epideme", "date": "1997-02-28", "description": "The crew come across a frozen supply ship, the Leviathan, with one survivor: Caroline Carmen, one of Lister's former crushes. She revives in the middle of the night, as a zombie; she has been dead for a long time, and infects Lister with the dreaded Epideme virus. Lister tries talking with the virus directly through a communication link (Epideme is a sentient, self-aware organism) but Epideme refuses to let Lister live. Drastic action must be taken if Lister is to survive.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Lister becoming infected with the wise-cracking Epideme virus. This virus had been developed by humans to replace the nicotine patch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister got a virus-cum-parasite, Epideme, that was going to absorb his knowledge and turn him into a zombie in 48 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was paid a late night visit by a now zombified version of one of his former love interests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kochanski belted Lister for making a pass at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient Epideme virus asked what gave Lister more right to exist than it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten whined to Lister about Lister liking Kochanski more than him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister suggested amnesia as a reason Miss Carmen might not remember him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister described Kochansky in nerd stereotypes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister jokingly complained about being sexually harassed by the zombie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was going to blow himself up in order to destroy the Epideme virus. We briefly though Kochanski severed her own arm for the same reason.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e7x08", "title": "Nanarchy", "date": "1997-03-07", "description": "Lister tries to cope with the loss of his arm. Meanwhile Kryten searches for his nanobots – incredibly advanced microscopic robots, which can alter forms of matter at the sub-atomic level – so that he can rebuild Lister's arm. Kryten finds the nanobots in Lister's laundry basket, and also discovers that it was the nanobots who stole the mothership Red Dwarf in the first instance. Kryten gets the nanobots to rebuild both Red Dwarf and Lister's arm. Red Dwarf makes an appearance, but with one problem – its size.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Paul Alexander, James Hendrie & Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Lister coping with having lost his left arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Kryten's nanobots reconfigured the Red Dwarf vessel into a planetoid. Kryten's nanobots reconfigured Lister to have the physique of a bodybuilder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceship Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was reunited with the Red Dwarf computer Holly toward the end of the episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Cat conversed over a game of checkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was installed with an artificial arm, albeit briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew were placed in suspended animation before departing for the voyage back to the vessel Esperanto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kochanski explained to Kryten that he should back off and let Lister cope by himself, for Lister's own good. Kryten reluctantly acceded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten explained that Lister had a lot of pent up anger that repeatedly caused him to punch Kryten in the nose with the new prosthetic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nanobots turned Lister's formerly corpulent physique into that of a bodybuilder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Honey We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)", "title": "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves", "date": "1997-03-18", "description": "An inventor accidentally shrinks himself, his wife, brother, and sister-in-law with his electromagnetic shrink ray. It is the third installment in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Honey I Shrunk the Kids" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_We_Shrunk_Ourselves" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Szalinsky brothers and their wives accidentally shrunk themselves down to each be three quarters of an inch tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne Szalinski reassembled his old electromagnetic shrink ray with the intention of reducing in size a giant Tiki Man statue that his wife had been urging him to throw away. But it wasn't long before the Szalinski brothers and their wives found themselves shrunken down because of the ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane was getting frustrated with her eccentric inventor husband Wayne's antics, but in the end they made right, and she resolved not to sweat the little things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Szalinski brothers were running a company together. The Szalinski brothers accidentally shrunk themselves down to each be three quarters of an inch tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a Disneyfied depiction of what might happen when some kids think they're at home alone for the weekend without parental supervision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shrunken Salinski parents got to see first hand what trouble their kids got up to while the kids believed they were at home without parental supervision for the weekend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Salinski children thought they had the house to themselves for the weekend, and did stereotypical things that kids might do in such a situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother-in-law and sister-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne Szalinski and Patricia Szalinski. Gordon Szalinski and Diane Szalinski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane and Adam Szalinski. Patricia and Mitchell Szalinski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne and Adam Szalinski.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Szalinski Labs scientists making all sorts of wacky inventions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne had invented a portable phone that was powered by a solar powered helmet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny and her little brother Mitchell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitchell came to spend the weekend at his uncle Wayne's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny came to spend the weekend at his uncle Wayne's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny held at party for some of her girlfriends at her uncle's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Szalinsky brothers and their wives where attacked by a cockroach while shrunken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitchell was taking medication for his potassium deficiency.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam stood up to Ricky and his party crasher friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane was at her wits end with her eccentric inventor husband Wayne, but after a mishap that left them both shrunken and in danger for an extended period of time, Diane lightened up and resolved not to sweat the little things anymore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x20", "title": "Favorite Son", "date": "1997-03-19", "description": "Harry Kim is drawn to a planet that is nearly all women.\n\nDirected by: Marvin V. Rush. Story by: Lisa Klink.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry with polygamous women on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lethal mating practice being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Taresian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry found himself on a planet populated by polygamous women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the alien women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "women to Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry by Siren vampires", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien women polygamous", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry on planet of horny women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bondage sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "woman was ready for with Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry over being responsible for B'Elanna being injured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry had", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "in space before Harry saved the day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry about attacking the Nasari ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry transformed into an alien", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x17", "title": "A Simple Investigation", "date": "1997-03-31", "description": "Odo falls in love with a woman, Arissa, involved in the Orion Syndicate.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo and Arissa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo and Arissa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arissa was being hunted down on the space station by two Finnean assassins", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the gangster stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Orion syndicate aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Orion Syndicate pursuing Arissa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arissa had her memories replaced and stored in a crystal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arissa had her memories replaced and stored in a crystal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo reluctant to have full sex with a woman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Orion Syndicate was running a prostitution and hacking ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa couldn't remember Odo after her true memories were restored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa confided in Odo about how she'd slid into selling her body in the past and had found it hard to get out from that way of life owing to the easy money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo explained to Arissa how he didn't need a bed to sleep in because he just reverts to a gelatinous state in a bucket; Odo shapeshifted into a beam in order to foil Finnean assassins", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian, Jadzia, and Miles played a James Bond style program in the holo-suites", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo confided in Julian about feeling lonely", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa was surgically altered to appear Human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Arissa bid farewell after her memories are restored", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian, Jadzia, and Miles played a James Bond style program in the holo-suites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa had a neural interface in her skull that she used for hacking computers, and virtual reality prostitution in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa pretended she was looking for her daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Arissa discussed how they had both done shameful things in their past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arissa worked as a virtual reality prostitute in the past; Julian was interrupted in holo-suites whilst playing with a hot blonde", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x18", "title": "Business as Usual", "date": "1997-04-07", "description": "Quark becomes involved with a group of arms dealers, led by his cousin Gaila.\n\nDirected by: Siddig El Fadil. Story by: Bradley Thompson and David Weddle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "arms trade", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark resorted to selling weapons on the black market after his financial ruin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark about taking the money and 28 million dying as a result", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark illegally selling arms get out of bankruptcy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hagath and Gaila were itching to profit from selling arms to two opposing sides in a war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark felt guilty about selling arms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "would you kill 28 million people for nice amount of gold-pressed latinum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles taking care of Yoshi while Keiko was away for work", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark fell out with Jadzia over his unethical behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hagath expected unwavering loyalty from his associates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hagath ranted about betrayals", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x21", "title": "Before and After", "date": "1997-04-09", "description": "Shortly before her death in the future, Kes begins to travel backwards in time, with a portion of events occurring in the Year of Hell.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes traveled back in time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes lost her memories as she traveled back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned the loss of Captain Janeway and B'Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes gave birth on the shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Andrew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was torn up over the passing over his girlfriend, B'Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Linnis, Kes and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes and Linnis", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tropical lounge briefly featured", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x19", "title": "Ties of Blood and Water", "date": "1997-04-14", "description": "Tekeny Ghemor arrives on Deep Space Nine and reveals that he is dying.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Edmund Newton & Robbin L. Slocum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira forgave Tekeny on his deathbed for having ordered an attack on her resistance comrades that killed her father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tekeny Ghemor diagnosed with Yarim Fel Syndrome", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira's father of sorts was diagnosed with Yarim Fel Syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tekeny Ghemor and Kira had a father and daughter type relationship; Kira has flashbacks of her father on his deathbed; Tekeny Ghemor longed to see his daughter Illiana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira mourned for both her biological father and Tekeny Ghemor (who was as a father to her in life).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extradition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat wanted Tekeny Ghemor extradited to Cardassia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun explained how he was but one in a line of Weyoun clones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira hoped Tekeny Ghemor would lead a political movement to overthrow the Cardassian government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tekeny felt almost like a grandfather to Kira's almost son", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x20", "title": "Ferengi Love Songs", "date": "1997-04-21", "description": "At the end of his rope, Quark returns home and discovers Moogie has a secret lover.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rom vs. Leeta; Ferengi males vs. Quark's mother and Ferengi women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta were engaged to be married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark moved back home to live with his mother when he felt depressed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek; Rom and Leeta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was crestfallen after his business license was revoked, denying him the opportunity to make profit. Ishka and Zek were carrying on as stereotypical profit hungry Ferengi do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brunt was morally outraged at the prospect of a Ferengi female earning profit; Ishka pushed for equal rights for Ferengi females", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka was forbidden to have a career in business because she was a female", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "tensions between Rom and Leeta in the lead in to their wedding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom set about learning Bajoran customs in preparation for marrying Leeta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quarks bar was shut down because of a Cardassian vole infestation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prenuptial agreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom called off his marriage with Leeta when she refused to sign a prenup agreement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom consoling Quark after he was blacklisted by the Ferengi Commerce Authority", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom by Leeta; Ishka by Zek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek was suffering from dementia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brunt tired to wrest control of Ferengi government", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x10", "title": "Racing Mars", "date": "1997-04-21", "description": "Franklin and Marcus arrive on Mars to begin coordinating with the resistance. The rift between Sheridan and Garibaldi grows wider.\n\nDirected by: Jesus Trevino. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi thinks Sheridan suffers from", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mars resistance movement was in full swing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "BB5 braced for attack from Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "major", "motivation": "the resistance captain was found to have one on him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin annoyed by Marcus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Earth government controlled all thought and had to be resisted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova made smugglers choose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "resistance captain showed Franklin picture of his daughter", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x22", "title": "Real Life", "date": "1997-04-23", "description": "The Doctor creates a family on the holodeck.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: Harry 'Doc' Kloor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor with his holo-family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor with his holo-family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misfortune unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "someone made the point to get Doc back on the holodeck in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor's purpose for simulating a family was to improve himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and his virtual reality wife, Charlene, mourned the tragic loss of their young daughter, Belle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor with his holo-children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Belle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Jeffrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overprotective parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor was overprotective of his simulated children, and refused to let them take any risks in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Charlene", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor programmed a holo-family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "protecting kids from bad influences on children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons on Jeffrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey and Belle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Belle's suffering of a serious brain injury left The Doctor and his holo-family wracked with heartache.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Belle with brain injury", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom with Neelix's casserole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was perusing B'Elanna's Klingon romance novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the astral eddies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlene and Belle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlene and Jeffrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes remarked about how The Doctor must have been very proud of his holo-family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey rebelled by embracing Klingon culture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffrey was late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x21", "title": "Soldiers of the Empire", "date": "1997-04-28", "description": "Martok, Worf, and Dax go on a mission aboard a Klingon ship to search for the B'moth.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "group morale", "level": "choice", "motivation": "featured is the importance of good morale in a workplace or in the military", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martok and Worf speak of glory that will come from leading Klingon Imperial Defense Force mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingons aboard warbird desire to regain their honor in the wake of a number of consecutive losses in battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf go on dangerous mission together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Command hierarchy important part of interactions aboard Klingon the warbird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok had to balance need to up crew morale with completing mission to find the B'moth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf to Martok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf to Martok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons' alien morals were pointed out and Jadzia understood them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Klingons' alien morals were pointed out and Jadzia understood them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok about whether or not to cross Cardassian border to rescue possible survivors aboard the B'moth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf accused Martok of cowardice and challenged him for control of Klingon vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "visual impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martok refused to get an artificial eye out of pride. This was important because his monocular vision compromised his prowess in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Work fought Martok in fight to the death for command of Klingon vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf allowed himself to lose fight to the death with Martok to help Martok regain his Klingon confidence", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x11", "title": "Lines of Communication", "date": "1997-04-28", "description": "Franklin and Marcus attempt to persuade the Mars Resistance to assist Sheridan in opposing President Clark. Delenn learns of the Drakh and of increasing caste tensions on Minbar.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Earth government controlled all thought and had to be resisted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Mars colonists were fighting a war of independence. The resistance fighters bombed a hotel, resulting in the deaths of ten civilians and one combatant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Mars colonists were fighting a war of independence or a terrorist campaign (depending on the point of view).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Franklin forged alliance on Mars, Delenn failed to forge with aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "BB5 braced for attack from Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan set up his own propaganda room to counter Earth war propaganda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male protectiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn told Sheridann off for trying to protect her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn told Sheridann off for trying to protect her", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x23", "title": "Distant Origin", "date": "1997-04-30", "description": "A reptilian scientist trying to prove his heretical theories kidnaps Chakotay and draws the entire crew in conflict between his race's doctrine and the startling truth about its origin.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "antiscience in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The reptilian Galileo Forra Gegen was persecuted for his heretical scientific theories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The reptilian Galileo Forra Gegen was persecuted by religious authorities for his heretical scientific theories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent dinosaurs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw an intelligent offshoot of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The establishment opposed emerging scientific ideas on the origin of reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Forra Gegen was the reptilian version of Galileo Galilei, we understand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "they saw us as disgusting mammals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "the establishment vs. the scientist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "reptilian establishment advocated a creationist interpretation of the origin of reptilians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reptilian aliens were shocked to discover that they had evolved from mammals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forra Gegen, the Galileo of his reptilian people, was persecuted by the ruling elites for promoting science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "apostacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forra Gegen was prosecuted for heresy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forra Gegen was prosecuted for heresy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal conviction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forra Gegen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Voth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "the reptilians felt theirs was somehow threatened", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Forra Gegen in finding the origin of reptilians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kova Veer sold out the professor at the trial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay thought that the alien's purported scientific arguments for his race's various dogmas were ludicrous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Forra Gegen and Odala", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna, lizard student and professor's daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "voyager described as", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used by reptilians aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was playing hard to get with Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The saurian paleontologist Gegen theorized that his kind had descended from a species of dinosaur known as the hadrosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck used for palentological purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gegen used the knowledge that saurians shared 47 genetic markers with hadrosaurs to infer that they had a common evolutionary ancestor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x22", "title": "Children of Time", "date": "1997-05-05", "description": "An accident causes the crew to meet their own descendants - and presents them with an ethical dilemma.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Gary Holland and Ethan H. Calk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Defiant crew was poised to be tossed 200 years into the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Defiant crew was on the verge of being tossed 200 years into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "If Defiant crew did not preserve their descendants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "future Odo sacrificed 8000 friends for to save Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "future Odo confessed to Kira that he had always loved her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "if the Defiant went back to space station to save Kira's life, then 8000 people on the planet stood to wink out of existence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Defiant crew met their distant descendants from another time line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf's descendants wished to be killed by Work so that they could die with honor instead of winking out of existence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira mentioned prophets and prophecy and destiny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was shocked to learn that his alternate timeline self had eventually given up reuniting with Keiko and began a romantic relationship with the alternate timeline Rita Tannenbaum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingon hunter-gatherers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was asked to mercy kill his alternate timeline descendants", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo's trouble with telling Kira his feelings came to a head", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira argued that letting the colonists die would be cheating fate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x12", "title": "Conflicts of Interest", "date": "1997-05-05", "description": "Garibaldi begins working for a mysterious new employer. Sheridan comes up with a plan to counter President Clark's propaganda campaign.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Garibaldi-Sheridan falling out was featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi's old flame appeared", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi-Lise-Franz-William", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan tries to counter Earth war propaganda with his own news", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi had feelings for Lise but did not want to get hurt again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi helped reunite a client with his lost daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi did a good deed and undercharged for it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova discussed with Z-", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi's ex explained the situation with her ex husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi's ex explained that her husband had had an affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "something was said about telepaths on Earth being feared", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Edgars Industries was conducting research on how to deactivate the gene responsible for telepathic abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something was said about genetic engineering on telepaths.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Fifth Element (1997)", "title": "The Fifth Element", "date": "1997-05-07", "description": "Primarily set in the 23rd century, the film's central plot involves the survival of planet Earth, which becomes the responsibility of Korben Dallas, a taxicab driver and former special forces major, after a young woman falls into his cab. To accomplish this, Dallas joins forces with her to recover four mystical stones essential for the defense of Earth against the impending attack of a malevolent cosmic entity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the flying taxi cab driver Korben Dallas and the young woman Leeloo to save Earth from an impending attack by a giant living fireball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is a story of a battle between the virtuous and ancient superbeing Leeloo and a malevolent cosmic entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story builds up to and concludes with Korben Dallas and Leeloo falling passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent cosmic entity, which took the form of a ball of fire 1,200 miles in diameter, sought to destroy the Earth and everyone on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In 1914, the Professor was excitedly deciphering an inscription in an ancient Egyptian temple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There are multiple Star Wars-esque spacecraft featured in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting evil with evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest cautioned President Lindberg against opening fire on the malevolent cosmic entity, stating that \"evil begets evil\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is primarily set in a near future where flying cars are a mundane reality of life. Korben Dallas was a flying taxi driver by profession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where various different alien races coexist with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leeloo used a microwave-like device to synthesize a roast chicken in a matter of moments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korben Dallas' mother called him complaining of 17 unanswered messages, and went on to insist that he bring her along on a trip he'd won to go to the Fhloston Paradise planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some inept police officers were working to track down Leeloo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korben Dallas and Leeloo boarded an interstellar passenger flight from Earth to the Fhloston Paradise planet interstellar hotel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A montage of photos showing the human cost of Earth's various past wars brought Leeloo to tears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where Earth is ruled by a world government that is headed by the benevolent President Lindberg.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x24", "title": "Displaced", "date": "1997-05-07", "description": "Crew members are replaced one-by-one with aliens from an unknown race.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Lisa Klink.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew and Jarleth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nyrians of Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew in Nyrian habitat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna repeatedly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew members from Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna flipped out at Tom after Bathelt practice", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x23", "title": "Blaze of Glory", "date": "1997-05-12", "description": "An act of desperation by the Maquis could plunge the Federation into war. The Maquis have 30 cloaked missiles headed to Cardassia which will cause an outbreak of war in the alpha quadrant.\n\nDirected by: Kim Friedman. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and Michael Eddington put their differences to thwart apparent Maquis missile attack on Cardassian home world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis terrorists (or freedom fighters) were seen from their point of view. The Maquis apparently launched a missile attack on Cardassian home world in an act of terrorism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Eddington and Maquis apparently launched missile attack for no good military purpose, but out of revenge over having been crushed in war; Benjamin against Michael Eddington after being outsmarted by him yet again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "bitter enemies Benjamin and Michael Eddington cooperate to thwart apparent Maquis missile attack on Cardassian home world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "WMD equipped missiles were allegedly on their way to destroy a planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog wanted respect from Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog to unruly Klingons aboard space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake with Benjamin's squid with tube grub sauce pasta; Michael Eddington complained of the poor quality of replicated meals", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin prepared a squid with tube grub pasta dish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Eddington mourned the the deaths of his comrades who'd perished in the tunnels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Eddington felt he let down his Maquis comrades and it led to their utter defeat in the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Eddington and Rebecca Sullivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Eddington gave his life fighting Jem'Hadar to give time for his wife and others to escape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin respected Michael Eddington's loyalty to the Maquis cause in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddington worried about his wife being in peril we are disingenuously told", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddington and Rebecca Sullivan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x13", "title": "Rumors, Bargains and Lies", "date": "1997-05-12", "description": "Sheridan tricks the League of Non-Aligned Worlds into a new alliance. Delenn approaches Neroon in an attempt to end the Minbari civil war.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the religious and warrior castes hated and killed each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse psychology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan used to make aliens adopt his plan, Delenn might have done something similar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan with assorted aliens, Delenn with two factions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan used Babylon 5 much as a space UN", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Minbari had a civil war on their hands, the capital was in tatters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn felt guilty about the civil war mess", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennier lost part of his lunges in heroics", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x25", "title": "Worst Case Scenario", "date": "1997-05-14", "description": "B'Elanna Torres discovers a holodeck program where Chakotay and the Maquis rebel against Janeway.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An anonymously programmed, unfinished holodeck simulation concerning a Chakotay led mutiny became the talk of Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew were caught up in a holodeck program premised on a mutiny against Captain Janeway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay at Janeway and Seska at all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Tuvok argued over how to write a melodramatic holo-novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay led mutiny on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok and Tom in Seska's holo fantasy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seska had tampered with Tuvoc’s security training holodeck program in order to create a trap. Within the tampered program there was a holographic version of Seska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Tuvok collaborate on holo-novel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was possessive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway prescribed", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x11", "title": "A Trace of Murder", "date": "1997-05-15", "description": "Cathleen Calvert and her lover, crime scene investigator Patrick Kinsley, are weary of having to see each other on the sly. She will not divorce her husband, rich businessman Clifford Calvert, due to their prenuptial agreement. So the lovers scheme to get him out of the way by killing Howard Seltzer, an investment broker who is suing him, then framing Clifford for the murder. To do so, Patrick drives to Seltzer's house and tricks Seltzer into letting him inside by claiming that his car phone has died and that he has to make an urgent phone call. Patrick then shoots Seltzer and plants evidence to suggest that Clifford was responsible. Columbo's work is cut out for him, because Patrick is on the team handling the investigation.\n\nFinal clue/twist: At a restaurant, Columbo sees Kingsley move the artificial sweetener towards Cathleen Calvert when they all receive coffee. A few minute later, Columbo sees Kinsley open the front door of a car for Cathleen Calvert instead of the back door. Columbo realizes that despite their claims otherwise, the two knew each other. If they had never met, as they claimed to Columbo, Kinsley would not have known that Cathleen prefers the front seat because she easily gets car sick when sitting in the back, or that she takes artificial sweetener with her coffee. A wedding photographer's shot of the Calvert couple dancing also helps reveal that the cat hair found on Clifford's suit jacket was planted by Cathleen, while an earlier photograph shows that Clifford did not have cat hair on his suit jacket prior to dancing with Cathleen.\n\nDirected by: Vincent McEveety. Story by: Charles Kipps.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cathleen Calvert and Patrick Kinsley hatched a convoluted scheme to murder the investment broker Howard Seltzer in such a way so as to pin the crime on Cathleen's husband: Patrick went to Howard's home and shot him dead. They then planted evidence implicating Cathleen's husband. One gathers that they would have gotten away with their crime had it not been for the pesky Lt. Columbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cathleen, in cahoots with her lover, murdered her husband's arch-rival in an attempt to pin the crime on the husband in order to posses his vast fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "framing someone for a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cathleen Calvert and Patrick Kinsley hatched a convoluted scheme to murder the investment broker Howard Seltzer in such a way so as to pin the crime on Cathleen's husband: Patrick went to Howard's home and shot him dead. They then planted evidence implicating Cathleen's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Who had shot dead the investment broker Howard Seltzer. Was it a his arch-rival, or perhaps his money hungry wife and her lover?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story partly followed Clifford Calvert as he was being framed for murder. The man was unamused, to say the least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paramour and paramour", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the lovers Cathleen Calvert and Patrick Kinsley a they attempted to frame Cathleen's husband for murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathleen had an affair with Patrick behind her husband, Clifford's, back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cathleen, in cahoots with her lover, tried to frame her husband, Clifford, for murder in order to posses his vast fortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clifford Calvert worried that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would uncover that the investment firm where he served as CEO had submitted fraudulent financial information (overvalued assets and the omission of significant liabilities).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard thought Patrick was in dire need to make a phone-call and therefore, fatally, let him into the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stereotypically attired maid, Marlena, made Columbo's presence known to Cathleen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo pocketed a handful or two of the Godiva chocolates when Cathleen wasn't looking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The District Attorney went ahead, over Columbo's tepid protestations, with indicting Clifford for murder. Columbo questioned Clifford in the presence of Clifford's attorney.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)", "title": "The Lost World: Jurassic Park", "date": "1997-05-19", "description": "Taking place four years after the events of the original film, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) sends a team, led by Malcolm, to Isla Sorna, the second island InGen used to make the dinosaurs, to study the animals while coming into conflict with a team led by InGen to bring some of the dinosaurs back onto homeland.", "collections": [ "Collection: Jurassic Park" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World:_Jurassic_Park" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an expedition to an island full of dinosaurs that had been genetically engineered from DNA recovered from inside amber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "An expedition team got into trouble on an island populated by dinosaurs. Also a tyrannosaurus rex went on a rampage in San Diego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it was ethical to use genetic engineering to reintroduce dinosaurs into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian Malcolm and Sarah Harding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ian Malcolm's daughter Kelly Curtis stowed away in a trailer to be with her dad on the dinosaur island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition party members showed compassion for the dinosaurs and tried to stop rival expedition from capturing the beasts for display in a zoo. They also mended at baby tyrannosaurus' broken leg at great risk to themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an expedition to an island full of dinosaurs that had been genetically engineered from DNA recovered from inside amber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ian Malcolm had been ridiculed in the media for making public his story of having been taken to a dinosaur theme park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Hammond sought to redeem himself over the Jurassic Park fiasco by creating a wildlife reserve for dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Big-game hunter Roland Tembo was intent on taking down a tyrannosaurus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x24", "title": "Empok Nor", "date": "1997-05-19", "description": "O'Brien, Garak, Nog and an engineering team go to Deep Space Nine's abandoned sister space station, Empok Nor, to salvage components. The away team soon discover that all is not as it seems.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garak went murderously insane and started hunting down crew on Empok Nor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Cardassians had supplied some of their soldiers with psychotropic drugs which functioned to amplify their natural xenophobic tendencies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak went murderously insane after being exposed to xenophopic inducing biogenic compound", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassians experimented with psychotropic drug that induces xenophobia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak took pleasure in playing chess with Nog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak killed landing party members and strung up their bodies while under the influence of psychotropic drugs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian soldiers left in stasis on Empok Nor space station MO: for all intents and purposes this is just cryogenics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak and Miles", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog became a hostage of Garak", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x14", "title": "Moments of Transition", "date": "1997-05-19", "description": "The Minbari Civil War comes to its fiery conclusion. Bester makes an offer to an increasingly desperate Lyta. Sheridan is compelled to act against Earth after receiving horrible news from Ivanova.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Minbari warrior caste vs. religious caste", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lyta and Bester and telepath in Frnaklin's facility", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn made Minbari factions reconcile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Delenn and warrior both sacrificed themselves for Minbar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta was on hard times not being affiliated with anyone any more", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta considered deal with Bester", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta tempted by Bester and other shady opportunities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clarke committed, may have been committed on Minbar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan worried about Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness to quicken the end of the war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "warrior commander justified his actions thus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the senselessness of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some Minbari ruminated over this", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy3x26", "title": "Scorpion, Part I", "date": "1997-05-21", "description": "Voyager must pass through Borg space, only to discover a new alien race that is even deadlier than the Borg.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway's tough decision debated with Chakotay about forming an alliance with the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew made a reluctant alliance with humankind's mortal enemy the Borg to fight their common enemy: Species 8472.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager and Borg form unholy alliance against Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway was in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a leopard can't change its spots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay told the classic The Scorpion and the Fox fable – a story that is commonly understood to illustrate this aphorism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Species 8472 ships biologically regenerated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Voyager crew members were shaken up when Harry was critically injured in an attack by Species 8472.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were Borg nano-probes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used by Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes had premonitions that were confirmed by Chakotay while he was on the Borg cube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway with da Vincy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "da Vinci workshop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and da Vinci", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x15", "title": "No Surrender, No Retreat", "date": "1997-05-26", "description": "Provoked by President Clark's latest actions, Sheridan leads the White Star fleet against EarthForce to liberate Proxima 3.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan deftly cajoled Captain MacDougan and others to turn coat, appealing to their sense of right and wrong as they had been ordered to partake in an illegal blockade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "enemy commanders turned to Sheridan, some of their second officers mutinied", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "president Clarke or the constitution and human rights etc., both Babylon 5 and enemy commanders had to choose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "president Clarke or the constitution and human rights etc., both Babylon 5 and enemy commanders had to choose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Earth government control of opinion was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and his friend commanders had to oppose each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo called himself a patriot, G'Kar clearly is, Sheridan believes he is", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo made steps towards a reconciliation with G'Kar and was initially rebuffed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babylon 5 countered Clarke's propaganda", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo and G'Kar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar did in the past we are reminded", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo struggled to become a better person and friend", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mimic (1997)", "title": "Mimic", "date": "1997-06", "description": "An entomologist who uses genetic engineering to cross a mantis with a termite gets more than she bargains for when its progeny evolve into giant, man-eating insects. It is based on the Donald A. Wollheim's short story of the same name.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mimic Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Susan Tyler genetically engineered a cross between a mantis and a termite with the best of intentions, and even took pains to include in them a genetic \"kill switch\", but their progeny still got out of control and rapidly evolved into giant, man-eating, New York subway system inhabiting bugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan and Peter were a happily married couple who were trying to conceive a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan and Peter were in a loving marriage and were attempting to conceive a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The progeny of a genetically engineered cross between a mantis and a termite rapidly evolved into giant, man-eating, New York subway system inhabiting bugs that used mimicry to lure their human prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan and Peter and a handful of others were fighting for their lives against giant, man-eating bugs in the New York subway subway system and sewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cockroaches were spreading the deadly \"Strickler's disease\" all around Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cockroaches were spreading the deadly \"Strickler's disease\" all around Manhattan. The epidemic was quickly put to rest when a cockroach killing genetically engineered cross between a mantis and a termite was released into the island's sewer system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler used genetic engineering to cross a mantis with a termite in a calculated effort to create a cockroach killing super insect. She got more than she bargained for, however, when the insects progeny quickly evolved into giant, man-eating bugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and Peter dearly wanted a child, but were having trouble conceiving one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler explained how the giant bugs were using an evolutionary strategy by which they mimicked their human prey. She also explained about the workings of termite colonies to a couple of boys who'd come to her lab to sell her some bug specimens, and surmised that the giant bugs used pheromones to recognize their own kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old, immigrant shoe shiner Manny was taking care of the spoons playing, autistic boy Chuy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of kid were going around collecting bugs to sell to a local entomologist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Susan Tyler explained how her genetically engineered bugs managed to evolve over tens of thousands of generations within only three years, including developing the ability to mimic their human prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old immigrant man Manny clutched his crucifix when he found himself in the presence of a giant, man-eating bug.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x16", "title": "The Exercise of Vital Powers", "date": "1997-06-02", "description": "Garibaldi arrives on Mars to meet his new employer, William Edgars. Lyta helps Franklin to make progress with the frozen telepaths.\n\nDirected by: John Lafia. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "telepaths in society was a main topic of both storylines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi no longer to Sheridan, various turned against president Clarke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "Franklin investigated Shadow victim's implants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lise and William", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lise, William, Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and William tried to establish with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fifth columns", "level": "major", "motivation": "Psi-corps was described as a fifth column biding its time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was Williams’ contention that while Clark thought himself in charge the megacorporations were really calling the shots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Earth government control of opinion was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Following Captain MacDougan’s example from the previous episode, more commanders elected to switch sides rather than follow to unscrupulous and arguably illegal regime on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x25", "title": "In the Cards", "date": "1997-06-09", "description": "Jake wants to give his father a present to cheer him up, a 1951 Willie Mays baseball card, but runs into complications with a mysterious geneticist, Dr. Giger, and a Dominion ambassador group.\n\nDirected by: Michael Dorn. Story by: Truly Barr Clark & Scott J. Neal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "space station crew feeling somber owing the clouds of war with the Dominion gathering on the horizon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake tries to cheer up Benjamin by acquiring a baseball card for him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajoran government entered into nonaggression treaty negotiations with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog learned the art of negotiation in their efforts to acquire Willie Mays rookie card", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog took Jake under his wing and taught him how to trade so that Jake could acquire a coveted baseball card.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin felt the pressure from an impending Dominion invasion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias Giger made it his life study to conquer death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog discussed how humans of the 24th century had no need for money, implying that nobody wanted for material security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark running the auction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias Giger was a proponent of the possibly crackpotted “cellular ennui” theory of why people get old and die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "germophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elias Giger refused to shake hands with Jake because of germs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin explained how the Dominion was employing a divide and conquer strategy with Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog give Benjamin a 1951 Willie Mays baseball card to help cheer him up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x17", "title": "The Face of the Enemy", "date": "1997-06-09", "description": "Garibaldi is faced with the decision of whether or not to betray Sheridan. Franklin and Lyta arrive on Mars with their cargo of frozen telepaths.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garibaldi betrayed Sheridan, albeit involuntarily", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "William anted to control telepaths and Baxter mind controlled Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi no longer to Sheridan, various turned against president Clarke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan worried about his father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan was clearly in a torture cell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William had a weaponized virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clarke's propaganda was mentioned and featured in the end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds95x26", "title": "Call to Arms", "date": "1997-06-16", "description": "Faced with the realization that the Dominion are taking over the Alpha Quadrant, Sisko decides to mine the entrance to the wormhole with self- replicating cloaked mines, thus beginning the Dominion War.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dominion poised to overrun the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta; Worf and Jadzia; Odo and Kira; Garak and Tora", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romulans and Bajorans sign nonaggression treaties with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin with Vorta representative Weyoun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom with Leeta; Garak with Ziyal; Benjamin with Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta trying to reconcile their different customs; Worf and Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira both felt awkward about his love for her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin piqued that Jake got a new job as an official correspondent for the Starfleet News Service", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta planning their wedding ceremony; Work and Jadzia got engaged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom married Leeta and summarily sent her packing off the station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta got married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom fretted that marrying Leeta could be the biggest mistake of his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "self-replicating mines were deployed around the wormhole to prevent Jem'Hadar convoy from entering Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark looked down on Rom for both marrying Leeta and not fleeing the space station in the lead up to war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake became a Federation war correspondent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin refrained from risking everyone else to go back for Jake", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x18", "title": "Intersections in Real Time", "date": "1997-06-16", "description": "Sheridan is ruthlessly interrogated by the Earth Alliance.\n\nDirected by: John Lafia. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan was ruthlessly tortured the entire episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Sheridan was ruthlessly interrogated with the purpose of breaking his spirit, in Orwellian 1984 fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clarke wanted a public confession as part of his PR", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain collar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan was tortured with a pain collar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi betrayed Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan worried about his father", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: FaceOff (1997)", "title": "Face/Off", "date": "1997-06-27", "description": "An FBI agent and a terrorist, who are sworn enemies, assume each other's physical appearance.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face/Off" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story is that two sworn enemies (the FBI Special Agent Sean Archer and the terrorist Castor Troy) end up having their faces swapped and find themselves each living the life of the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the FBI Special Agent Sean Archer as he pursues his sworn enemy the terrorist for hire Castor Pollux.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Special FBI Agent Sean's career was putting a strain on his marriage to Eve, but in the end thing worked out them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI Special Agent Sean Archer reluctantly agreed to undergo a highly experimental surgery that would see him transplanted with the face of the maniacal terrorist Castor Troy. Soon thereafter Castor had Sean's face transplanted onto him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI Special Agent Sean Archer underwent a cocktail of experimental surgical procedures, including a face transplant most notably, in order to take on the physical appearance of his sworn enemy the terrorist Castor Pollux.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI Special Agent Sean Archer had a vendetta against Castor Pollux on account that Castor had shot dead Sean's young son six years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked character vs. virtuous character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The goody two-shoes FBI Special Agent Sean Archer was contrasted with the maniacal terrorist Castor Pollux. Castor pretty much spelled this out when he likened their struggle to \"the eternal battle between good and evil\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean and Eve rekindled their love for one another by the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The terrorist brotherly duo of Castor and Pollux Troy were causing trouble for the people of Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean and his wife Eve were both struggling with having lost their young son, Mike, who'd been shot dead by the maniacal terrorist Castor Pollux six years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The straight and narrow FBI Special Agent Sean Archer had a troubled relationship with his rebellious teenage daughter, Jamie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve and her rebellious teenage daughter, Jamie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Jamie had a nose ring and was involved in activities of which her parents disapproved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Castor and Pollux Troy plotted to set off a large bomb at the LA Convention Centre.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean-as-Castor experienced life in a harsh prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Castor-as-Sean was lauded as a hero for defusing a terrorist bomb that was about to destroy a large part of Los Angeles - a bomb that Castor himself had planted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl tried to force himself upon Jamie while the two were alone together in his car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sasha and her young son Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral for FBI Director Victor Lazarro was held in a Catholic church.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Men in Black (1997)", "title": "Men in Black", "date": "1997-07-02", "description": "Two agents of a secret organization, called the Men in Black, supervise extraterrestrial lifeforms who live on Earth and hide their existence from ordinary humans.", "collections": [ "Collection: Men in Black", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_(1997_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret government agency that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret agency outside government control that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens lived on Earth secretly from humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien ship in orbit around Earth was going to destroy the planet unless the Men in Black gave them a marble-like object which contained a galaxy within it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that people had been seeing flying saucers in the skies for decades, but there was a secret agency that was covering it all up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent J was training Agent K to become his replacement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Kay routed out a reptilian alien among some illegal immigrants crossing the US/Mexico border at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Men in Black used a mind wipe device on people who saw aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Kay showed Agent Jay a universal translator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bug alien arrived in Earth in a flying saucer, and then piloted a different flying saucer over Shea Stadium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The main antagonist in the film was a big insect-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Revealed at film's end was that our universe exists inside a marble that is used as a plaything in another much bigger universe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Contact (1997)", "title": "Contact", "date": "1997-07-11", "description": "A SETI scientist finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SETI scientist Ellie Arroway picked up an alien radio transmission emanating from the Ve star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing debate in the film that centered around whether or not science left any room for the belief in God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellie's life work was to search outer space for signs of intelligent life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ellie and Palmer Joss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film climaxed with Ellie traveling through a wormhole and meeting an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien made it clear to Ellie that her meeting him was the first in a series of small steps in the development of relations between humans and the aliens. Although it was left open that it was all her imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie's father Ted cultivated her interest in HAM radio communications and astronomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amateur radio", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie's father Ted cultivated her interest in ham radio communications and astronomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Ted raising Ellie as a single parent. The mother died from complications during childbirth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie's father died tragically while she was a young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prime numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie and her colleagues picked up a signal from space that they decoded as the sequence of prime numbers from 2 to 101.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie's astronomer colleague was blind and used a white cane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The radio radio transmission sent by the aliens contained instructions for building a massive machine that enabled the occupant of a spherical vessel to travel through a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Kitz contended in a Congressional hearing that the message from space was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the industrialist S. R. Hadden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hadden was dying from cancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy (1997)", "title": "Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy", "date": "1997-07-29", "description": "The plot introduces the idea that among the Tenctonese slaves, there was a resistance movement called the Udara who were implanted with hypnotic suggestions to act as sleeper agents. Now, here on Earth, someone has found a way to activate these sleeper agents, and send them out as assassins. It is the fifth and final television film produced to continue the story of the television series Alien Nation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien Nation Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation:_The_Udara_Legacy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores issues surrounding refugee space aliens integrating into American society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George worked as detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department. Buck joined the police academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the experiences of space alien refugees as they adapt to life in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt and George were close friends in addition to being partner detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan's marriage nearly fell apart after Susan revealed that she'd once been a member of the much maligned Udara resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "George and Susan's marriage nearly fell apart after Susan revealed that she'd once been a member of the much maligned Udara resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline followed a Newcomer alien who was running for the senate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buck decided to pursue a career in law enforcement after he'd spent his teenage years loafing around without any real direction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some people were resentful of the Newcomer aliens and despised that they were now free to run for public office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extremist Udara resistance movement used terrorist tactics to oppose their human oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer learns about the extremist Udara resistance movement. Some, as exemplified by George, considered them to be fanatical terrorists, while others, as exemplified by Susan, argued they had no choice but to use terrorist tactics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt and Cathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was proud of his son Buck for endeavoring to follow in his footsteps and become a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan opposed Buck joining the police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and Emily Francisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Emily Francisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck and Emily called out their parents for hiding from them that their marriage was falling apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several Newcomer aliens were mind controlled into committing headline grabbing crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George tried to talk a bomb equipped Newcomer alien from blowing himself up along with some hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police academy teachers cracking up, watching a video of their Newcomer alien students do training exercises to the sounds of simian utterances. In general, Buck faced racism at the police academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Larry hacked into a computer system to get secret mind control codes of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Buck enthusiastically decided to follow in his father's footsteps by endeavoring to become a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In George's view the Udara resistance movement fighters had taken this aphorism to heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan revealed to George to his astonishment and horror that she'd been a member of the much maligned Udara resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A government computer technician mentioned how there'd been a lot of welfare fraud committed by the Newcomer aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two politicians debated gun control laws at a debate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: One Eight Seven (1997)", "title": "One Eight Seven", "date": "1997-07-30", "description": "One Eight Seven (also known as 187) is a 1997 American crime thriller film directed by Kevin Reynolds. It was the first top-billed starring role for Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a Los Angeles teacher caught with gang trouble in an urban high school. The film's name comes from the California Penal Code Section 187, which defines murder.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Eight_Seven" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title alludes to Mr. Garfield, a mild-mannered substitute science teacher, transforming into a vigilante killer, who took the life of a delinquent student in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is mainly set at an urban high school with a serious gang problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the science teacher Trevor Garfield as he gets pushed too far by some delinquent students. Mr. Garfield was passionate about teaching. He tried mightily to get through to the mostly apathetic, and sometimes openly hostile students in his class. He ultimately lost his marbles and became a deranged killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law and order issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores gang related violence in the schools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The only thing Mr. Garfield ever wanted to do was teach. Rita was determined to graduate from high school and make something of herself. In the end, she gave a heartfelt speech at her graduation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield came into conflict with the Kappin' Off Suckers (K.O.S.) street gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield and Mrs. Henry started dating, but Mrs. Henry broke things off once Mr. Garfield's increasing derangement became apparent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield decided to take the law into his own hands and killed the delinquent youth Benny Chacon by way of a massive morphine overdose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cesar resolved to make Mr. Garfield pay for killing his friend and fellow gang member, Benny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield, a mild-manned substitute science teacher, gradually lost his marbles over the abuse he suffered in the classroom and turned into a vigilante killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield, a mild-manned substitute science teacher, gradually lost his marbles over the abuse he suffered in the classroom and turned into a vigilante killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before leaving to teach at the new school, Mr. Garfield asked the Lord for strength as he knelt at the foot of his bed below a crucifix affixed to his bedroom wall. A man remarked how at his First Holy Communion the boys were given black rosaries, and the girls white.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield had egg on his face when it became apparent that he was teaching in the wrong class. Later, Mr. Garfield reacted to being hit in the back by a balled up wad of paper as if it were a bullet - to his embarrassment and to the great amusement of his students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Childress was of the mind that Mr. Garfield's attacker ought to have been administered a Singapore-style caning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational illicit drug use", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marijuana use was endemic at the school. In particular, Mr. Garfield reprimanded a red eyed Cesar for coming to class high on the drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marijuana use was endemic at the school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illiteracy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesar being functionally illiterate became all too apparent when Mr. Garfield asked him to read aloud from the textbook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesar lifted Mr. Garfield's cherished watch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rita alleged that the reason she flunked her essay was because her English teacher was racist against Latinos. The N-word racial slur was leveled against Mr. Garfield on several occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesar's mother confided in Mr. Garfield that she didn't know how to handle her delinquent son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cesar physically abused his mother in front Mr. Garfield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Henry was deeply disturbed to find out first hand that a student hanged her beloved dog, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Henry was deeply disturbed to find out first hand that a student hanged her beloved dog, Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Chacon mourned the death of her gang-banger son, Benny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield was canned from his teaching gig, ostensibly for showing bad judgement in tutoring a female student at his house. In reality, the principal wanted Mr. Garfield out on account of Mr. Garfield's increasingly strange behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Garfield, by the end of the story, had a death wish and blew his brains out in an ill-fated game of Russian roulette with Cesar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Event Horizon (1997)", "title": "Event Horizon", "date": "1997-08-15", "description": "Set in 2047, the film follows a crew of astronauts sent on a rescue mission, after a missing spaceship, the Event Horizon, spontaneously appears in orbit around Neptune. Searching the ship for signs of life, the rescue crew learns that the Event Horizon was a test bed for an experimental engine that opened a rift in the space–time continuum and left our universe entirely, allowing a malevolent entity to possess the ship.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of the main novelties of the film is the starship Event Horizon: a spaceship with the ability to effectively travel faster than light by using its black hole engine to curve space around it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faster than light travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Event Horizon starship was equipped with a special \"gravity drive\" (i.e. a spacetime warping artificial black hole generating engine) that enabled the vessel to effectively travel faster than the speed of light", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions ran high when the rescue crew found themselves trapped aboard haunted starship with only a 20 hour supply of oxygen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the Even Horizon starship's gravity drive had opened a gateway to a hellish dimension outside the known universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Event Horizon starship was inhabited by a demon-like being or beings from a hellish dimension outside the known universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated that the first permanent colony on the Moon had been established in 2015.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated that commercial mining operations had begun on Mars in 2032.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic space vessel Lewis and Clark was dispatched to Neptune on a rescue mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experimental starship the Event Horizon had mysteriously disappeared on its maiden voyage to the Proxima Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stasis technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Weir woke up after having spent 56 days in stasis inside a large tube filled with liquid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Event Horizon starship engine worked by generating an artificial black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Weir explained how the Event Horizon starship made use of an artificial black hole to bridge two points in spacetime, and in so doing travel between the two points instantaneously. Although Dr. Weir used the them \"black hole\", this is the usual defining property of a wormhole, and thus the use of the \"traversable wormhole\" theme is justified.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Weir explained that the Event Horizon starship was the result of a secret government project to make a spaceship capable of faster-than-light travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Weir explained that the Event Horizon starship was the result of a secret government project to make a spaceship capable of faster-than-light travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lewis and Clark crew members briefly debated about whether or not the strange things they were seeing while aboard the Event Horizon were real or not, before coming to the determination that everyone was experiencing hallucinations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Weir relived Claire's bathtub suicide in the form of a hallucination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Miller expressed deep regret over having made a command decision to abandon a subordinate to his death. Dr. Weir lamented that he hadn't been there for his late wife, Claire, in her time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Miller blew himself up to save the lives of two subordinates.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x01", "title": "Scorpion, Part II", "date": "1997-09-03", "description": "Janeway and Tuvok work with the Borg and meet Seven of Nine as they collaborate on developing a weapon against Species 8472 in exchange for safe passage through Borg space.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg/human argument", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew made a reluctant alliance with humankind's mortal enemy the Borg to fight their common enemy: Species 8472.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager and Borg form unholy alliance against Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "nanoprobe torpedo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay decided to defy Janeway's command wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay decided to break Janeway's orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Voyager crew man a Borg nanoprobe torpedo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cube (1997)", "title": "Cube", "date": "1997-09-09", "description": "A handful of individuals are trapped in the titular cube as they cross industrialized cube-shaped rooms, some rigged with various booby traps designed to kill.", "collections": [ "Collection: Cube Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(1997_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "A handful of strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A handful of strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions ran high when a handful of strangers with contrasting personality types found themselves trapped together in a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a handful of strangers who found themselves trapped in a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cop Quentin became more and more unhinged as time went on to the point where he was basically scampering around the cube-shaped rooms of the maze killing people for no reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was speculated that the Cube was a forgotten perpetual public works project that no single individual of a shadow bureaucracy fully comprehended, but rather it kept going on because each person was working on their own little part without understanding the greater whole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In response to being asked about his purpose in life, Worth stated something to the effect that he was just a guy who worked in an office building. Quentin stated that his three kids were his purpose in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prime numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leaven initially hypothesized that any room marked with a prime number was trapped, but she later deduced that it was powers of prime numbers that marked the trapped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The free clinic doctor Holloway insisted that the mentally challenged man, Kazan, not be left behind even though it seemed he would be a liability to the group.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997)", "title": "The Sticky Fingers of Time", "date": "1997-09-09", "description": "Exposure to radioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test leaves a woman with a crude ability to hop around in time.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sticky_Fingers_of_Time" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and other so-called \"time freaks\" were hopping around from one time period to another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 1950s era writer Tucker blacked out and woke up in the year 1997.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker was writing a novel of the same title as the film. Tucker was had written an article about a hydrogen bomb test. Drew was struggling to write a novel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with the scene of a 1950s era hydrogen bomb test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Ofelia were shown living as a lesbian couple in 1950s America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker paged trough a book which had in it that exposure to radioactive fallout can lead to cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ophilia genetically engineered for herself a tail", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x02", "title": "The Gift", "date": "1997-09-10", "description": "Kes' mental abilities develop to a point where they endanger Voyager.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven with Borg and Kes on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "both Kes and Seven underwent in different ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven betrayed Janeway's trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a danger to those around you", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes was", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg vs. human", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven is remarkably prideful for an emotionless drone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of Nine was not accustomed to being an individual and demanded to be returned to the Borg Collective on multiple occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-actualization need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway refused to allow Seven to return to live with her fellow Borg in spite of Seven being adamant that she wished to be reunited with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes' telekinetic abilities grew at an exponential rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "humans are weak and yada yada yada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes to Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor's ethical dilemma about removing Seven's Borg implants against her will to save her life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes remarked that her telepathic abilities had never been stronger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x03", "title": "Day of Honor", "date": "1997-09-17", "description": "B'Elanna tries to observe the Klingon Day of Honor after the warp core is lost.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with having a bad day", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna was fed up over having a bad day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew to space paupers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "give them a finger and they'll take the whole hand", "level": "choice", "motivation": "space beggars not satisfied with provisions Voyager crew gave them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway to the space paupers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway lectured Seven about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of Nine felt everyone felt she was a threat to their safety", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway to beggars and to Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna displayed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love kindled by danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "B‘Elanna and Tom's feelings came out when they thought they were about to die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna with Klingon stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "B’Elanna and Tom found themselves floating aimlessly in space with limited oxygen left in their spacesuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna, a Klingon/Human hybrid, reluctantly observed the Klingon \"Day of Honor\" which saw her partake in various Klingon customs and rituals, including the eating of blood pie and being prodded with pain sticks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Borg had destroyed the homeworld of the space paupers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom expected to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Tom to B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven complained about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven had none", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna gave oxygen to Tom", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Falling Fire (1997)", "title": "Falling Fire", "date": "1997-09-19", "description": "Nothing could possibly go wrong when an attempt is made to nudge a massive, resource rich asteroid into Earth orbit.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129082/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eco-terrorist mastermind Lopez hatched a nefarious plot to crash a massive asteroid into Earth. This he characterized as \"an act of purification\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid mining", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea of moving a massive, resource rich asteroid into Earth orbit so that it could be mined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eco-terrorist mastermind Lopez and his disciples put a massive asteroid on a collision course with Earth in an effort to purify the planet by ridding it of human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A significant portion of the film is set aboard a most unique rotating wheel-type spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew tried to divert an asteroid into Earth orbit for mining purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crewman Daryl Bodin received a communication from his apathetic teenage son Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daryl and Marylin Bodin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylin informed her husband Daryl that she'd filed for divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship crew used nuclear warheads to deflect a massive, resource rich asteroid into Earth orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylin was sparring at a martial arts gym.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A virtual reality goggles wearing eco-terrorist was being tormented in virtual flames during an interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A virtual reality goggles wearing eco-terrorist was being tormented in virtual flames during an interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A martini drinking crewman Schneider was in the company of two holographic strippers in his quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship crew mourned the loss of their fellow crewman Anderson who drifted off into space to his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylin and Jimmy discovered 400 cryogenically preserved eco-terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crewman Bodin came into conflict with Captain Jackson over what in Bodin's view were unjustified risks that Jackson was taking to meet a mission deadline.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x04", "title": "Nemesis", "date": "1997-09-24", "description": "Chakotay helps fight in an alien war.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vori and Krahin made each other out to be horrible monsters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vori and Krahin made each other out to be horrible monsters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vori for Kradin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military indoctrination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Vori used powerful simulations to indoctrinate their soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Krahin cruelty in battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krahin cruelty in battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vori and Krahin in cycle of violence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Krahin had sent Vori civilians to extermination camps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay found Vori funeral rites puceuliar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "old people sent to die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a soldier was accused of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rafin felt responsible for the death of a slain compatriot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens worried about", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens had a taboo about dying face down", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay let the girl believe her uncle was still alive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cloned (1997)", "title": "Cloned", "date": "1997-09-28", "description": "A woman discovers that her tragically deceased young son has been cloned.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloned_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot centered on Norwest Bio having secretly cloned Skye Weston's son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norwest Bio secretly engaged in pioneering work in human cloning in violation of an international ban on the practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rick and Skye Weston were struggling to overcome the loss of their young son Chris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skye and Rick (to a lesser extent) were grieving over the loss of their young son Chris who'd died one year prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norwest Bio secretly engaged in pioneering work in human cloning in violation of an international ban on the practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Wesley Kozak was growing functioning human organs from individual cells. In fact, his pioneering work in human cloning was just an intermediary step toward achieve this greater goal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norwest Bio was incubating fetuses is special artificial wombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye was devastated upon finding out from her physician that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye used a futuristic version of the World Wide Web to investigate about the illicit cloning of her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Wesley Kozak was doing pioneering, albeit unethical, research in human cloning and human organ generation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Norwest Bio CEO fired Skye on the spot upon finding out that she'd taken steps to blow the whistle on illegal human cloning experiments he'd authorized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye pointedly reminded Dr. Wesley Kozak of his oath to \"do no harm\" above all else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Skye and Rick deciding to adopt a child.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x01", "title": "A Time to Stand", "date": "1997-09-29", "description": "Three months into the war, DS9 is still under Dominion control. Sisko and his crew are given a mission to destroy a vital Ketracel White facility deep in Dominion space using a captured Jem'Hadar ship. Jake is working for the Federation News Service. Odo is head of Terok Nor's security supported by the Vorta Weyoun.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the space station people adjusting to life under Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "seventh fleet had been wiped out and things were grim on space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak criticized Julian for letting his superior genetically engineered mind get to his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak criticized Julian for letting his superior genetically engineered mind get to his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak hypocritically complained about Julian being smug and superior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia about slaughtering a targ before the wedding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf plan their traditional Klingon wedding ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "self-replicating mines were deployed around the wormhole to prevent Jem'Hadar convoy from entering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Joseph Sisko worried about Jake serving as a war correspondent on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph Sisko criticized Benjamin for leaving Jake behind on the space station; Benjamin worried about Jake being in danger working as a war correspondent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was working as a war correspondent for the Federation News Service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun tried to manipulate Jake into writing war propaganda for the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun supplied Jem'Hadar soldiers with the drug they were genetically engineered to crave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Defiant crew blew up a Jem'Hadar hollowed out asteroid storage facility.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x05", "title": "Revulsion", "date": "1997-10-01", "description": "A hologram contacts Voyager and the Doctor is excited to meet another hologram.\n\nDirected by: Kenneth Biller. Story by: Lisa Klink.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven learning how to feel like she is part of the team and Dejaren could not fit in among his crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dejaren is a holographic slave serving his crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dejaren was like a crased axe murderer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The misanthropic hologram Dejaren murdered the entire crew of the vessel on which he served them as a slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "holograph being", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "treatment of Dejaren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Years of being treated like a sub-person turned the photonic being Dejaren into a psychopathic killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dejaren at disgusting organics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry at Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dejaren developed a hatred of all people in his society because of his life as a slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hologram Dejaren considered organic beings to be no better than \"filthy animals\" for treating him, and holographic people more generally, as slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "efforts made to help holographic guy get his ship in order", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok at his promotion ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna then Harry and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "germophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dejaren was fastidious about keeping his ship free of germs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven struggled with the ins and outs of human courtship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dejaren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spaceman (1997)", "title": "Spaceman", "date": "1997-10-06", "description": "The film tells of a man adjusting to life on Earth, with one problem: he has been trained only to be a killer since he was abducted as a toddler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceman_(1997_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman (a human being) was abducted by aliens at the age of four and assimilated into their warrior culture. The film follows Spaceman after he is marooned on Earth as an adult. This theme is topical as a major theme on account that he behaved as a stereotypical \"alien stranded on Earth\" character - his name is Spaceman after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman struggled mightily to adapt to his new life on Earth. In addition to being unacquainted with Earth customs, he struggled to function outside of the organized command structure that he'd known for practically his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman struggled mightily to adapt to his new life on Earth. In addition to being unacquainted with Earth customs, he struggled to function outside of the organized command structure that he'd known for practically his entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on a four-year-old boy getting abducted by aliens and assimilated into their warrior culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman was trained from childhood to fight people to the death. After getting marooned on Earth, he felt empty from no longer being able to engage in his preferred occupation and went about seeking a job that challenged him. He ultimately became a happy hitman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman formally applied at Mr. Lynch's barbershop to become a hitman. Mr. Lynch was running an underground hitman ring from his barbershop. Mr. Lynch dispatched one hitman after another to take out Spaceman - all failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spaceman engaged various people in what were fights to the death from Spaceman's alien point of view. Spaceman bested a plumber-become-hitman in a formal fight to the death. Spaceman ultimately bested a martial arts hitman in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman apprehended a shoplifter at the supermarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The supermarket manager took on Spaceman as an employee and taught him the ropes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown Spaceman's struggles with working in a grocery store environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young punk expressed his dislike of \"space fagots\" to Spaceman before trying and failing to beat him up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman encountered a man clad in a woman's pajama-style dress in the hospital psychiatric ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman was committed to a hospital psychiatric ward. He was counseled by staff and interacted with one of the other patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman was counseled by the hospital psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mobster Mr. Lynch was running a hitman ring from his barbershop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman was reunited with his mother at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things got hot and heavy between Spaceman and Sue at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman was reunited with his mother at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spaceman made a stereotypical street bully pay for picking a fight with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x02", "title": "Rocks and Shoals", "date": "1997-10-06", "description": "Sisko and his tired crew crash on a planet where they encounter a band of Jem'Hadar.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jem'Harad soldiers were loyal to Vorta and the Founders to a fault; Limara'Son regretted his disobedience to Remata'Klan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar went to their deaths willingly; Bajoran mystic hanged herself in protest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keevan betrayed his Jem'Hadar soldiers and sent them to their certain deaths in battle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin tried to make Remata'Klan question his unwavering loyalty to Keevas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keevas ruthlessly sent the Jem'Hadar soldiers to their deaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Jem'Hadar chose to died in battle with honer as opposed to Keevas who surrendered with a view to living out the war in a prisoner of war camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keevas thought for a while he was facing death. The Jem'Hadar went willingly to their deaths in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the space station people adjusting to life under Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After crash landing on an unfamiliar planet, Benjamin and his crew took shelter in a cave and surveyed the surrounding landscape for food and water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was working as a war correspondent for the Federation News Service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak and Nog taken captive by Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira questioned whether or not she was tacitly collaborating with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Odo began plotting a resistance against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keevan plotted to spend the war in a Federation prisoner of war camp", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jem'Hadar made brief use of theirs and then seemed to forget they had it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugs for military use", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keevas was nearly out of the Ketracel-white drug he needed to keep his Jem'Harad soldiers under control.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x19", "title": "Between the Darkness and the Light", "date": "1997-10-06", "description": "As Sheridan continues to suffer at the hands of EarthForce, Ivanova takes command of the fleet for their next engagement. Garibaldi tries to prove his innocence to the Mars Resistance.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth was now a clear cut dictatorship controlled by the fascist President Clark. Sheridan was ruthlessly interrogated with the purpose of breaking his spirit, in Orwellian 1984 fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garibaldi had been mentally conditioned to be bad and Lyta did party tricks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan was further tortured before being freed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "non-aligned aliens aligned with Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi took risks to free Sheridan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x06", "title": "The Raven", "date": "1997-10-08", "description": "Seven of Nine experiences Borg flashbacks as she attempts to become more human.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with living in a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven with her assimilation by the Borg as a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew negotiated safe passage through B'omar space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven toward Borg and Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meaning was sought in the raven dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven with the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven to Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager negotiated passage through the space of the isolationist and paranoid B'omar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonardo da Vinci's workshop was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven of the raven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in eating and drinking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix spoke of a \"certain satisfaction\" that comes with eating food that has been \"carefully prepared\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven recalled life with her parents before the Borg assimilation incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway showed Seven how to sculpt in Leonardo's workshop on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway discusses in da Vinci holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway explained to Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was taught that there is more to life than cold Borg efficiency.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x03", "title": "Sons and Daughters", "date": "1997-10-13", "description": "While on General Martok's ship Worf is reunited with his estranged son, Alexander.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf is reunited with his estranged son Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander accused Worf of having abandoned him as a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf had shipped off Alexander to live with his grand parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Alexander agree to bury the hatchet with Worf agreeing to be a better father and teach Alexander the ways of the warrior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander wished to prove himself by showing he had what it took to be a Klingon warrior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander joins Klingon Self Defense force presumably in effort to belong with his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and bonded over Alexander bat'leth training in the exercise chamber", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira, Odo, Quark, and Jake ploted a resistance movement against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia teased Worf about not following Klingon customs at their wedding ceremony in episode teaser", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was serving as a Federation war correspondent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat brought his daughter Tora Ziyal to stay on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf with Alexander not living up to being a capable Klingon warrior on the Klingon war bird", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf interfered to save Alexander from a fellow crewman much to Alerander's chagrin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a laughing stock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander was a laughing stock among his Klingon crew members", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tora Ziyal took up drawing flowers in an effort to bring people together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziyal made an elegant drawing of a flower in the style of Nanpart Malor, founder of a certain artistic movement on Cardassia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was remorseful over having sent Alexander to live with his grandparents as a child", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x20", "title": "Endgame", "date": "1997-10-13", "description": "Sheridan commands the final assault on President Clark's forces with the help of Garibaldi, Franklin, Lyta and the Mars Resistance. Marcus weighs a dangerous and vital decision.\n\nDirected by: John Copeland. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Markus stayed by Ivanova's side while she was in a coma after having gotten critically wounded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The final days of President Clark's fascist government were featured. He stilled controlled thought and opinion on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Babylon 5 deposed a bad president", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markus stayed by Ivanova's side while she was in a coma after having gotten critically wounded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth general talked about following orders", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan had to oppose his old friends and mentors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan sacrificed a few telepaths to defeat enemy ships", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Markus sacrificed himself to save Ivanova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus with Ivanova", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clarke turned space cannons on Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan was about to suicide ram the last weapons satellite in order to save Earth", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x04", "title": "Behind the Lines", "date": "1997-10-20", "description": "Sisko creates a risky plan to disable a critical Dominion sensor array able to see 5 sectors out, while on Terok Nor, Kira, Jake, Rom and Odo seek to undermine the Cardassian/Dominion Alliance.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo torn between joining the Great Link and helping resistance movement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira led the resistance on the space station against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo betrayed Kira personally and the resistance movement at large by entering into the Great Link", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo wished to deepen his connection with fellow Changelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo wished to deepen his connection with fellow Changelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo discussed the pleasures of shapeshifting into inanimate objects with the Female Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo confessed he that he was in still love with Kira to the Female Changeling", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and the other resistors were trying to get military actionable information out of a drunken Quark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf expressed concern to Benjamin over Jadzia's safety when she led a perilous mission into Dominion space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and the Female Changeling discussed the one and the many in reference to some sort of collective consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Female Changeling discussed the Great Link collective consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jadzia presided over a cannister ceremony thing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "self-replicating mine field deployed around wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was reluctant to leave command of the Defiant and take an administration job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the limits of language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Female Changeling discussed about feeling confined by language in communication with Odo", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x21", "title": "Rising Star", "date": "1997-10-20", "description": "Sheridan faces the consequences of his actions against Clark and EarthForce. Marcus makes the ultimate sacrifice. Delenn organizes the various races into a history-making Alliance.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth begins to recover after the tyranny of Clarke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "non-aligned worlds formed a new space UN", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth began the arduous process of healing with surprising swiftness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus died for Ivanova and she was upset", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova was grief stricken upon learning that her friend and comrade Marcus had sacrificed his life to safe hers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivanova about Marcus and Sheridan with Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan questioned about his choice to oppose Clarke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova was upset Marcus died to save her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bexter made a brief appearance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan was relieved to find his dad alive and well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn cuddled", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gattaca (1997)", "title": "Gattaca", "date": "1997-10-24", "description": "The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. The film centers on Vincent Freeman who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome genetic discrimination to realize his dream of going into space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a not too distant future world in which it was considered socially irresponsible to have non-genetically engineered children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a not too distant future world in which it was considered socially irresponsible to have non-genetically engineered children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The modification of people's DNA was at the heart of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people were systematically discriminated against based on their genetics. This was called \"genoism\" in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a future world in which potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. nurture", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were shown that people, Vincent Freeman in particular, could succeed in a world where genetic augmentation was commonplace in spite of having been born the old fashioned way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people were systematically discriminated against based on their genetics. This was called \"genoism\" int he film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent and Irene fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent overcame having a congenital heart defect to make it into outer space as an astronaut.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anton Freeman pursued his own brother Vincent in a murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent was selected to go a mission to Saturn's moon Titan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The real Jerome Morrow had broken his back and was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The real Jerome Morrow took up the bottle after becoming confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw two detectives investigate the murder of a Gattaca employee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The real Jerome Morrow confessed that he ended up in a wheelchair as a result of a failed suicide attempt. In the end, he burned himself up in his furnace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brothers Vincent and Anton's brotherly rivalry continued from childhood into adult life. In particular, they had a game where they would see who could swim farthest out into the sea before turning back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The real Jerome Morrow waited until he saw his friend Vincent into outer space before taking his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that certain diseases are genetically inherited. Also the film's title is based on the letters G, A, T, and C, which stand for guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x05", "title": "Favor the Bold", "date": "1997-10-27", "description": "Learning of thousands of Dominion reinforcements gathering in the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko initiates a plan to retake Deep Space Nine and secure the wormhole before the minefield is detonated.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo between Federation and Changelings; Tora Ziyal between Bajorans and Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tora Ziyal and Dukat had a falling out after she unsuccessfully pleaded with him to pardon Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia insisted that troop morale was at an all time low, and Benjamin agreed with her that they needed a victory to keep up morale", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Female Changeling discussed what it was like to have had carnal relations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin mentioned his father makes a fierce jambalaya; Jake got a secret message out of the space station to Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune favors the bold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin uttered this an old adage before a big showdown with a Dominion fleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun accused Rom of having committed an act of terrorism against the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Female Changeling expressed shapeshifter supremacist views about the solids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Female Changeling discussed the Great Link collective consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leeta worried her husband Rom would be executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark worked to safe his brother Rom from being executed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was prepared to go to his execution if it would help the war effort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom faced his possible execution with a brave face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat was working to remove self-replicating mines from around wormhole", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf4x22", "title": "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", "date": "1997-10-27", "description": "Reveals the effect that Babylon 5 will have on the universe for up to a million years into the future.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Furst. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "future point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what might posterity think of us scenario", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we were shown how people interpreted history to suit themselves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth engaged in war propaganda to justify expansion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "blessed Sheridan had sacrificed himself for humanity perhaps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth civilization destroyed itself with wars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bexter made a brief appearance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of remembering history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "once history repeated itself because we didn't remember it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "shadows vs. good guys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x07", "title": "Scientific Method", "date": "1997-10-29", "description": "The crew have unexplained illnesses as they are closely observed by unseen intruders.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Sherry Klein and Harry 'Doc' Kloor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "risk a few aliens to save millions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "risk a few aliens to save millions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aliens subjected the Voyager crew to nasty medical experiments in order to save millions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "the case was made that humans would have done the same", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway in particular did with her headache", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway accused aliens of", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started falling mysteriously ill one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were at a loss to explain why various members among them fell victim to unique ailments. Little did they know that their plight was on account of a group of cloaked aliens performing scientific experiments on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway flew into a binary pulsar at great risk to herself and her crew in order to to foil some hostile aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulsar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager came across binary pulsars and almost got crushed by their powerful gravitational field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna dressed down Seven for violating her orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix underwent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay aged rapidly until he looked like an old man. It was eventually determined that Chakotay was being used as a lab rat by alien medical experimenters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna vs. Seven", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x06", "title": "Sacrifice of Angels", "date": "1997-11-03", "description": "Sisko commands the Defiant and 600 Federation ships against a Dominion/Cardassian armada to retake Deep Space Nine. Damar has Kira, Jake, and Leeta arrested.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tora Ziyal betrayed Dukat and cost him what was otherwise a certain victory in the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo between Federation and Changelings; Tora Ziyal between Bajorans and Cardassians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was on the verge of sacrificing the Defiant to foil Dukat and the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tora Ziyal betrayed Dukat by helping resistors escape from prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Damar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Founders and the Great Link", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Female Changeling and Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat mourned the death of his daughter, Tora Ziyal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira, Quark, Leeta, and Jake plotted to plant a bomb as part of the resistance against the Dominion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x08", "title": "Year of Hell, Part I", "date": "1997-11-05", "description": "Voyager creates a new Astrometrics lab, which maps a new course that brings them into contact with a Krenim temporal ship that can erase things from history.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stress from being in danger", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager endured a running battle with many Krenim ships over a period of two months, suffering heavy damage and casualties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Annorax created a machine that he used to alter history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager faced Annorax and his history altering machine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor wrestled with after closing the hatch and allowing two people to die", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annorax at prospect of complete restoration of Krenim hegemony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annorax acquired the God-like power of manipulating timelines and thought he could use this to defeat his Empire’s enemies. Instead he ended up destroying his own people and embarked on a life-long quest to make amends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway among others aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was blinded from a chroniton torpedo blast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was distressed when his girlfriend B'Elanna was critically injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor's speech", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annorax kept a lock of his dearly departed wife's hair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annorax exterminated various alien races", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "aliens followed their commander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor explained", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "time altering machine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway refuses to split up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor gave a self-aggrandizing speech.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Troopers (1997)", "title": "Starship Troopers", "date": "1997-11-07", "description": "The story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military unit. Rico's military career progresses from recruit, to non-commissioned officer, and finally to officer, against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an insectoid species known as Arachnids. It is based on Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel of the same name.", "collections": [ "Collection: Starship Troopers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans were pitted in an all out war for survival against a non-technological, but intelligent insectoid species known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orchestrated asteroid bombardment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Arachnid aliens were directing meteors toward Earth, presumably in an effort to bring about an end to human incursions into their region of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans and the Arachnid aliens were mired in a war of mutual annihilation that was unfolding across multiple star systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation world government war propaganda and school indoctrination made people unable to grasp that the Arachnid aliens were provoked into attacking Earth by the intrusion of humans into their habitats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny's high school basically functioned as a recruiting station for the Federation military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows how the friendships of various high school students evolve as they graduate and sign up in the military to fight in an interstellar war against bug-like aliens. Johnny and Rico were high school pals. Johnny and Dizzy's relationship straddled the borderline of love and friendship. Johnny befriended the brash, but loyal fellow grunt Ace Levy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carmen was determined to become a spaceship pilot in the Federation military and even command a ship of her own one day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Johnny loved Carmen with all his heart, and even signed up to fight in a dangerous war just for the chance to be with her. And although she ultimately dumped him like a sack of potatoes, they cared deeply for one another throughout the duration of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Johnny and his fellow mobile infantry unit grunts as the go off into deep space to battle a species of insectoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation news network was running propaganda clips aimed at cultivating an irrational hated of the Arachnid aliens among the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were in an all out war for survival against a hostile Arachnid aliens, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation news network was running propaganda clips aimed at demonizing their Arachnid alien species, and other jingoistic news clips aimed at currying support for the war among the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown numerous futuristic military spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Rasczak stated how he'd explored \"the failure of democracy\" in his high school civics class. This was in the context of Earth being under the rule of a world government known as the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny's mother was anxious over him signing up to fight in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johny's father was dead set against Johnny signing up to fight in the war, but ultimately came to accept his son's decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Rico didn't want their sooner to be graduating from high school son, Johnny, to sign up to fight in the war, but they ultimately came to accept his decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is initially set in a futuristic Buenos Aires high school, and shows the lives of several high school seniors who are in the process of deciding on what do when they graduate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dizzy loved Johnny, and she even arranged to be transferred to his fighting unit just for the chance to be with him, but Johnny loved Carmen. Dizzy however, got her man in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny thanked Mr. Rasczak for teaching the best class he had in his senior year of high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An army recruiter had a bionic right arm. Mr. Rasczak had a bionic left hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl assessed Johnny's psychic ability by getting him to intuit the suit and number of playing cards. Johnny turned out to have no aptitude for this task, but Carl on the other hand did turn out to have psychic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rico and Ace Levy rivaled over who would become squad leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the Federation, male and women soldiers showered together without batting an eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carmen followed her heart and chose her career over her relationship with Johnny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporal punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squad leader Johnny was sentenced to ten lashes for incompetence that lead to the death of a team member during a training exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story in set in the 23rd century when Earth is governed by a world government known as the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set a future (the 23rd century) when humans encountered a hostile insectoid species while moving out into the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carmen and Zander docked at a large Federation space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny lost both his parents when in an Arachnid attack on Buenos Aires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Federation invasion force was deployed to the Arachnids' home planet of Klendathu. In general, the film is set in a future where humans have reached out to the stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny lost his friend, comrade (and later lover) Dizzy when she was impaled by an Arachnid fighter bug in the midst of a desperate battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child soldiers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "So desperate was the Federation, that it bolstered Johnny's unit with new recruits who were in their early teens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl read from the Brain Bug's mind that it was afraid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x07", "title": "You are Cordially Invited...", "date": "1997-11-10", "description": "Worf's plans for a traditional Klingon wedding hinge on Martok's demanding wife, Sirella, accepting Dax into their family.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf get married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf get married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf face cultural complications on the road to their traditional Klingon wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia tie the knot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia broke off their wedding", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was committed to having a traditional Klingon wedding ceremony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia refused to go crawling to Sirella to apologize for striking her at a drunken bachelorette party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sirella opposed Jadzia joining the House of Martok because she believed that bringing aliens into Klingon families would result in a loss of Klingon identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf have traditional Klingon wedding ceremony, which is just like human style but with different decoration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Alexander", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sirella believed that bringing aliens into Klingon families would result in a loss of Klingon identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia the morning after her bachelorette party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martok loved his wife Sirella in spite of her faults", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x09", "title": "Year of Hell, Part II", "date": "1997-11-12", "description": "A badly damaged Voyager hides in a nebula as a skeleton crew attempts repairs; meanwhile the Krenim commander proposes a compromise to Chakotay and Tom Paris.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stress from being in danger", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager was destroyed in a desperate confrontation with the Krenim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Annorax created a machine that he used to alter history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Annorax sought the perfect alteration of history for 200 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Annorax acquired the God-like power of manipulating timelines and thought he could use this to defeat his Empire’s enemies. Instead he ended up destroying his own people and embarked on a life-long quest to make amends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager faced Annorax and his history altering machine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "destroying one civilization to save ten", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway various suicide heroics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annorax kept a lock of his dearly departed wife's hair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor unsuccessfully relieving Janeway of duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was blinded from a chroniton torpedo blast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway expressed forcefully", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay conducted alternate history simulations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annorax about erasing wife from history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annorax was accused of when he said time itself was against him", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Kid (1997)", "title": "Star Kid", "date": "1997-11-13", "description": "A shy seventh grade boy's life is turned upside down when he stumbles on a sentient alien suit that endows its wearer with super powers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Kid" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Spencer and his bully-turned-friend Turbo to thwart an invasion of Earth by a race of ruthless insectoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth became the latest theater of war in an ongoing conflict between two alien races: the Trelkins and an aggressive race of insectoid conquers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the \"assault cybor suit\" - a prototype artificial intelligence equipped exoskeletal-suit from another galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer befriended the \"cybor suit\" artificial intelligence, which he named Cy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the seventh grader Spencer as he navigates any number of stereotypical teenage boy issues, including talking with girls, dealing with being bullied, coping with having a dad who works all the time, and becoming the owner of a special alien suit that endows its wearer with super powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien artificial intelligence Cy was repeatedly misinterpreted situations because it didn't understand things that were taken for granted in an American small town. In one of numerous examples, Cy did not stop to think that Spencer would have preferred to enjoy a real hamburger, rather than have Cy reduce it to its constituent nutrients and give it to Spencer in the form of a dry, brown ball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer and the alien artificial intelligence Cy formed a bond of friendship, and in the process Cy helped Spencer to become a more confident person. Spencer stood up to his bully Turbo and the two became friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The AI controlled \"assault cybor suit\" powered exoskeleton was made by the Trelkin Tenris De'Thar as a weapon in a bid to turn the tide of the war they were waging against the Broodwarrior aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seventh grader Spencer went from being a shy, socially awkward boy to being a confident and self-assured boy. This is pointedly evidenced by, among other things, Spencer going from being too shy to talk to his love interest, Michelle, at the start of the film to confidently striking up a conversation with her at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Spencer and his bully-turned-friend Turbo to thwart an invasion of Earth by the Broodwarrior insectoid aliens. The Trelkins were defending their home world from a Broodwarrior insectoid alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Broodwarriors were waging a war of conquest against the Trelkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was accosted and later chased by a schoolyard bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was too shy to talk with his love interest, Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown such scenes from a small town, American junior high school as a bully picking on an introverted student in the schoolyard, a science teacher giving a class about how bats use sonar to locate their prey, and a boy being too shy to talk with the girl he likes after class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The science teacher Mrs. Holloway was teaching her seventh graders about how bats use sonar to locate their prey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how tiger moths effectively jam the sonar of their bat pursuers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was pathologically shy around his love interest, Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Holloway confided in Spencer about how she'd overcome her fear of spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roland was having a hard time balancing his busy work life with being a single father to Spencer and Stacey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roland went driving around the neighborhood in search of his teen son, Spencer, after Spencer had snuck out of his room at night. Turbo's mechanic father chided him for fooling around with his customers' cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey was peeved when her always-busy-with-work father, Roland, didn't remember the name of the new guy she was dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer thrashed his tormentor, Turbo, with glee from the safety of his AI controlled exoskeletal-suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer confided in Cy that he'd missed his mother who'd died from an illness three years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer punched his tormentor, Turbo, in the face and they afterwards became friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was shown a video-like simulation of his tragically deceased mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey reluctantly admitted that he was glad her little brother, Spencer, was safe and sound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien spacecraft arrived to pick up Cy in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Broodwarrior Spencer battled was a member of an alien race of insectoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The head alien soldier gave Spencer a badge for his bravery and courage before their departure back to their home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When wearing the \"assault cybor suit\", Spencer performed such feats of strength as being able to pick up cars, twirl them around above his head, and then throw them like rocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"assault cybor suit\" enabled Spencer to run like the wind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial intelligence Cy met its creator, Tenris De'Thar, in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x08", "title": "Resurrection", "date": "1997-11-17", "description": "The Mirror Universe counterpart of Kira's dead love, Vedek Bareil, takes her hostage on Deep Space Nine as he is running from the evil Alliance of his universe.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) had to choose whether or not to give up his life of crime and settle down with Kira on Bajor in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira and Bareil Antos (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) tricked Kira into falling in love with him so he could steal sacred Bajoran orb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) arrival on the space station stirred up memories in Kira of her deceased former lover Bareil Antos; Bareil Antos (mirror) with his deceased former lover of five years in the mirror universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira, Kira (mirror), and Bareil Antos (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) over the thought of changing the crooked life he had led", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) came to space station from the savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) seduced and exploited Kira except then he turned coat on mirror Kira then turned back or something", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) developed a romantic interest in Kira, which was reciprocated, even though he was already involved with Kira (mirror).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) is introduced to Bajoran spirituality by Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space station crew briefly faced hostage situation when in ops when Bareil Antos (mirror) took Kira hostage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira meets her evil mirror universe self", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) anticipated having a lot of explaining to do when his girlfriend Kira (mirror) woke up from being phasered by him and discovered that he failed to steal the sacred Bajoran orb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Kira had a girl-to-girl about what girls want in a man or weird looking alien with transparent skull", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia accused Kira of being lookist when she didn't want to invite the guy with a a transparent skull to bachelorette party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia appreciated a transparent skull but Kira did not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bareil Antos (mirror) used Bajora orb to see into a future where he was settled down with Kira.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira (mirror) made a guard give her a sensual massage and alluded to a disrobed encounter to come", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x10", "title": "Random Thoughts", "date": "1997-11-19", "description": "Torres is arrested while visiting a world of telepaths where violent thoughts are a crime.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "thoughtcrime society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "aliens criminalized violent thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "violent thoughts a thing of the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna violent thoughts inspired others to do in violence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway thought the evidence against B'Elanna was rather flimsy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Mari", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Guill and his black market of violent thoughts. This was a guilty pleasure certain individuals indulged in. Some subsequently lost control and became violent for real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mari society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and others reveled in violent thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans assumed they had the right to privacy of thoughts on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok and that guy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mari communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was to have her violent thoughts removed from her brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mari considered imprisonment to be a barbaric form of punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was sentenced to have her memory wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mari used mind reading device on B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix with Talli", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom about B'Elanna being held for thought crime", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna thought she might be subjected to what amounted to a lobotomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a black market of violent thoughts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dead by Midnight (1997)", "title": "Dead by Midnight", "date": "1997-11-23", "description": "A man's personal identity comes into question when he finds out that his brain is implanted with false memories and that he is 38 percent machine.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131352/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was 38% cybernetic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Sarah fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret government agency revived Sam Ellis from the dead, turning him into 38 percent machine in the process, replaced his memories with false ones, called him John Larkin and set him up with a fake family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Jonas Reilly succeeded in reviving a man who'd died in an automobile accident from the dead by making him 38% cybernetic, and then implanting him with a lifetime of false memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was pretending to be John's wife as part of a government operation to stage managed John's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life was secretly stage managed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A secret government agency implanted John with false memories of the family they had him living with. This stage managed portion of John's life took place only toward the beginning of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John shot some hoops in front of the garage with two boys who were posing as his sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John had been implanted with memories of a life he'd never lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John yelled \"Why!!!\" at the top of his lungs upon being informed that Drake had had his wife and only child, a daughter, killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sarah Flint informed John that he was equipped with artificial lungs, an artificial heart, and an artificial stomach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sarah Flint informed John that he was equipped with artificial lungs, an artificial heart, and an artificial stomach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sarah Flint informed John that he was equipped with artificial lungs, an artificial heart, and an artificial stomach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sarah Flint informed John that he was equipped with an artificial brain among other organs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drake threatened to cut off Sarah's eyelids unless she provided him with the information he wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Sarah were on the run from government secret agents off and on throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was reunited with his biological daughter toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x09", "title": "Statistical Probabilities", "date": "1997-11-24", "description": "Bashir attempts to reintegrate genetically-engineered misfits into society, but they are asked by Starfleet to become a think tank when they provide insightful analysis of upcoming Dominion peace talks.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: Pam Pietroforte.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "best laid plans often go awry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian and the genetically engineered people learned that even the best laid projections can be wrong because of unaccounted for contingencies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the mentally ill in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian attempted to reintegrate three genetically-engineered mental patients into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "genetically-engineered mental patients make detailed projections about the future of war with the Dominion and trusted them completely but Benjamin was not so confident in their projections", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "surrender and accept Dominion rule versus losing 900 billion lives in war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian attempts to reintegrate three genetically-engineered misfits into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian discovers that genetically-engineered misfits Jack, Karen Loews, Patrick, Lauren, Sarina Douglas have special abilities useful to the Federation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genetically enhanced people thought they were smarter than everyone else, and looked down on other people. Miles was annoyed by Julian's smug genetically engineered sense of superiority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack, Karen Loews, Patrick, Lauren, Sarina Douglas were mental patients", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation predicted to lose war against Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lauren was infatuated with Julian; Sarina Douglas with Jack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack, Karen Loews, Patrick, Lauren, Sarina Douglasy committed treason by negotiating with the Dominion without Federation approval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Certain Starfleet officers expressed a distain toward genetically engineered people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian attempted to reintegrate three genetically-engineered misfits into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian attempted to reintegrate three genetically-engineered misfits into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack suggested they were going to have their heads cut open for experimentation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Allusions were made to the Eugenics Wars, an endeavour to breed a human race free of all the old human flaws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian mentioned the genetically-engineered misfits were paying for their parents' sin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "genetically-engineered misfits were kept from doing anything productive because of fear about their impact on society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peace process", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dominion and Federation entered into peace negotiation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you can't beat the odds in the long run", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian passionately argued that in the long run you can't beat the odds while playing dabo in Quark's bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and his augments learned that very small changes in their mathematical models resulted in very large differences in their model predictions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian was at the dabo table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarina Douglas had a secret crush on Jack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack accused Benjamin of refusing to surrender to the Dominion out of pride.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As a child, Sarina had undergone a banned treatment that resulted in her intelligence being boosted to beyond the genius level.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Resurrection (1997)", "title": "Alien Resurrection", "date": "1997-11-26", "description": "Set 200 years after the preceding installment Alien 3 (1992), Ellen Ripley is cloned and an Alien Queen is surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study and research on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the Auriga before it reaches its destination: Earth. It is the fourth installment of the Alien film franchise and the final installment in the main series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Resurrection" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ripley 8 and the mercenaries versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ripley 8 and the mercenaries versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Aliens parasitized human hosts in order to breed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some military scientists were breeding Aliens aboard their spaceship, but they escaped their enclosures and started killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some military scientists were breeding parasitic Aliens aboard their spaceship, but the creatures escaped their enclosures, and it was left to Ripley 8 and a band of mercenaries to destroy the ship before it reached Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone on Earth was as good as dead unless Ripley 8 and the mercenaries succeeded in stoping the USM Auriga from reaching the planet with its lethal Alien cargo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some military scientists created a clone of Ripley, named Ripley 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annalee Call turned out to be a very human-like android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military scientists used human subjects against their will as hosts for the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ripley 8 was cloned from a mixture of human and Alien DNA. As a result, she had enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and could sense the presence of the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some military scientists had created various half Ripley, half Alien monstrosities. Their crowning acheievement was the functional human/Alien hybrid Ripley 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw half human, half Alien monstrosities that were brought about by cloning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was set aboard the spaceship USM Auriga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Call revealed to Ripley 8 how the evil Weyland-Yutani corporation had gotten bought out by Walmart decades ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Call's mechanic Don was a motorized wheelchair bound paraplegic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley 8 had super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are made to ponder the extent to which the Ripley clone was actually Ripley. The clone had many of Ripley's memories, and identified with her, but was much more ruthless than the original.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military scientists accused the mercenaries of being terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley 8 encountered the half Ripley, half Alien monstrosity Ripley 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the USM Auriga pass Jupiter on its path back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man woke up from cryonic suspension to be told my Ripley 8 in no uncertain terms that he had an alien gestating inside him and that he was going die soon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ripley 8 and Call had a brief, but pointed exchange about whether live was worth living as a human/alien monster and robot, respectively.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x11", "title": "Concerning Flight", "date": "1997-11-26", "description": "Aliens steal several key components of Voyager, which are retrieved with assistance from a holographic Leonardo da Vinci.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Jimmy Diggs and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leonardo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leonardo da Vinci learned by the end about the importance of finishing the master works he had begun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "while the Doctor lamented the loss of his, Leonardo was happy without and there was a picture of a bird in a cage at the very end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonardo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robber aliens were patterned after pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "da Vinci began to question his nature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured Leonardo da Vinci manifested in a fictional future through the magic of science.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space pirate used a high-energy transporter beam to steal items of technological value from Voyager, including their computer core and the Doctor's mobile holo-emitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonardo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "da Vinci's workshop simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor when confined to sickbay without his mobile emitter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonardo da Vinci complained about the people of Florence", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moonbase (1997)", "title": "Moonbase", "date": "1997-12-06", "description": "A band of escaped criminals take over a waste disposal plant located on the far side of the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119700/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely set on a permanent waste disposal plant located on the far side of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Dana were old flames.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Dana rekindled their romantic relationship. There was something going on between the criminal mastermind Carl and his criminal gang member Mina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Washerman-Tobashi Industries claimed to be disposing of waste on the far side of the Moon, but they were really going about recovering some nuclear warheads that were hidden near the lunar surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stark and his bang of criminals made a daring escape from an off-world prison colony that one gathers was located at Earth's L4 Lagrange point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man was entertaining himself in his quarters with a large breasted, holographic stripper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Dana left the Moon in a futuristic space shuttle-like vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Dana left the Moon base in a futuristic space shuttle-like vessel that they intended to pilot back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deckert used a green tractor beam to capture the ship Dana was riding in as it approached the Moon base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Washerman-Tobashi Industries was secretly trying to recover some nuclear warheads that were hidden on the far side of the Moon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x12", "title": "Mortal Coil", "date": "1997-12-17", "description": "Neelix dies in an attempt to sample proto-matter from a nebula. Seven of Nine helps resuscitate him using Borg nanoprobes, but Neelix, having no memory of an afterlife of any kind, experiences a spiritual crisis.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix grappled with some existential questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix' great forest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix contemplated the meaning of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix about the existence of an afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven revived Neelix many hows after he died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disillusionment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix believed in the afterlife for nothing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix with godchild", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven failed to socialize at the party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision quest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay helped Neelix experience a vision quest in which Neelix met his dead sister in the Great Forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven failed at engaging The Doctor in smalltalk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay interpreted Neelix' vision quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay had to convince Neelix that he was important to them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven with Neelix's pungent foods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "godparent and godchild", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix found purpose in life in caring for his goddaughter Naomi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha and Naomi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix was pretending to root out monsters in Naomi's bedroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay requested that Neelix prepare a medicine bundle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix about his sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned the loss of Neelix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay talked Neelix out of suicide", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Open Your Eyes (1997)", "title": "Open Your Eyes", "date": "1997-12-19", "description": "The life of a young man who has it all is thrown into disarray after a car accident leaves his face horribly disfigured.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_(1997_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that César had been cryogenically preserved and was experiencing extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It tuned out that César had been cryogenically preserved and was experiencing extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was ultimately revealed that César had killed himself, been cryogenically preserved, and was now inhabiting a virtual reality world that amounted to his own personal hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The handsome young man César's life was turned upside down when his face was horribly disfigured in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "César and his best friend, Pelayo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "César and his love interest, Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "In César's virtual reality dream, he was involved with the beautiful young woman Sofia in spite of his face having been horribly disfigured in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In César's virtual reality dream, he was being held over having murdered his lover, Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "César's prison psychologist Antonio was trying his best to help César make sense of his strange predicament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It tuned out that César had been cryogenically preserved and was experiencing extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuria went bonkers when she discovered that her love interest César wasn't into her anymore. A newly disfigured César was devastated when it became apparent that Sofia wasn't interested in him anymore as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "César's ex-lover Nuria tried to crash her car with the intent of killing them both, because she couldn't accept that César didn't want to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuria was deeply disturbed over ex-lover César openly courting Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nuria took an overdose of pills and crashed her car with the intent of killing both herself and her ex-lover, César. César took his own live by overdosing on pills. The film concluded with César throwing himself off of a tall building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "César was being held in a psychiatric prison that was filled with stereotypically insane people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychologist Antonio was confronted by the reality that he was but a character in César's virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Life Extension company representative Duvernois explained that some of César's painful memories had been replaced by false, more pleasant ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should César choose to wake up from his virtual reality dream and live as a normal person in the real world or accept the man's offer to live in a virtual reality fantasy world for the foreseeable future?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one line of César's fragmented virtual reality dream, he got a face transplant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison psychologist Dr. McCabe was treating David.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Postman (1997)", "title": "The Postman", "date": "1997-12-25", "description": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic and neo-Western version of the disestablished United States in the then near-future year of 2013, sixteen- plus years after unspecified apocalyptic events, starting with the breakdown of society through “hate crimes and racially motivated attacks (by) a militia- like group” the same as the Ku Klux Klan led by Nathan Holn, progressing to war, followed by plagues, that collectively left a huge impact on human civilization and erased most technology.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic version of the disestablished United States in the then near-future year of 2013.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is about a drifter who inadvertent starts a movement to rebuild the United States, which had collapsed into numerous independent and disconnected hamlets, that is centered around the refounding of a national postal service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hope in a bright future is an overarching theme of the story. The reestablishment of the postal service gave the otherwise despairing people hope that thing were getting better. Indeed, according to the Postman, President Starkey's saying was \"Things are getting better, getting better all the time\". To top it all off the film concluded with the Postman and Abby named their newborn baby daughter Hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble lies in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Postman inadvertently bootstrapped a nation into being by lying to everyone that he was a representative of the Restored United States (a country that he made up on the spot) and that it was run by the noble President Starkey (a man who didn't exits), and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Postman and Abby fell in love and had a baby girl in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of the newly reconstituted postal service delivered the mail with pride, even in the face of Holnist attacks, and they were all proud to part of something again. The Holnists were loyal to General Bethlehem to a fault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of the newly reconstituted postal service, especially Ford, served with pride and felt good about belonging to a worthwhile endeavor. The scrawny Holnist told the Postman that he \"liked being a part of something\" (in reference to why he joined the Holnists) before he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of the newly reconstituted postal service, especially Ford, served with pride and felt good about belonging to a worthwhile endeavor. The scrawny Holnist told the Postman that he \"liked being a part of something\" (in reference to why he joined the Holnists) before he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Postman went from being a lowly drifter to being the leader of a movement to rebuild the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Holnist member Captain Idaho (a white man) pointedly accused his fellow member Woody of having some N-word in him. From the context, it is clear that Idaho considered Woody to be inferior to himself for this reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Holnist member Captain Idaho (a white man), and one gathers the Holnists in general, hated Black people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Postman sought to find a town somewhere west of Portland, called Saint Rose, that was in his words \"a paradise\" with \"electric lights\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Postman tried to convince Woody that it would be better to make a run for it together, rather than live under the tyranny of General Bethlehem. He quoted the phrase \"live free or die\" to Woody in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old lady Irene had to have a letter to her as she was blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Postman reluctantly impregnated Abby at her and her infertile husband and Michael's request.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abby and Michael were unable to conceive on account that a case of the \"bad mumps\" had left Michael impotent. Fortunate, the Postman stepped into to save the day, and impregnated Abby and her and Michael's request.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of a certain hamlet were devastated when the Holnists burnt an old American flag that the hamlet people had raised in hopes of restoring the nation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Postman was sent to negotiate a peace treaty with the Holnists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abby confided in the Postman that about how her impotent husband Michael had beaten her, telling her that it was her fault that they couldn't get pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Briscoe's eyes welled up with tears upon reading a letter from a sister whom he'd reckoned was dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Postman fought General Bethlehem in a one-on-one fight to the death. If the Postman won he would take over as leader of the Holnists, otherwise General Bethlehem would remain leader.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x10", "title": "The Magnificent Ferengi", "date": "1998-01-01", "description": "Quark mounts a rescue mission when his mother, Ishka, is captured by the Dominion and Grand Nagus Zek offers a reward for her return.\n\nDirected by: Chip Chalmers. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "ragtag band of Ferengi quarrel in rescue of Quark's mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark learns how it feels to be a hero by end of episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Rom mount a rescue of their mother Ishka when she is kidnapped by the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka is kidnapped and held captive by the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Rom were motivated to rescue their mother by the 50 bars of gold-pressed latinum reward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferengi team relies on their negotiating skills to arrange a prisoner exchange to free Ishka, instead of resorting to a risky rescue mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom worried about their kidnapped mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote controlled person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog jury-rigged a way to remote control Keevan's dead body in order to complete prisoner exchange", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Balancar were rigging syrup of squill prices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom was disturbed by the thought of his mother Ishka dating the Grand Nagus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: In The Beginning (1998)", "title": "Babylon 5: In The Beginning", "date": "1998-01-04", "description": "Fifteen years before the initial setting of the television series Babylon 5, Earth becomes involved in a deadly conflict with the just-discovered Minbari race. This war nearly leads to the extermination of the human race, but it is mysteriously halted at the last moment by the Minbari leadership for reasons that remain secret for over a decade. This near-destruction of the human race leads to the Earth Alliance commissioning the Babylon space stations as a means of preventing further wars. It is the second of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_In_the_Beginning" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that the galaxy is populated by five major spacefaring races: the humans, Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and Vorlons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a the build up to, and fighting of a bitter war between Earth and the Minbari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were in a desperate war against the Minbari that nearly saw the Earth itself destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the Earth president announcing that a neutral venue for discussing and resolving issues between the five major spacefaring races of the galaxy would be constructed in order to prevent future wars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various Earth and Minbari vessels were depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The human and Minbari were fighting a war across space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Minbari population is divided into three castes: the Worker caste, the Warrior caste, and the Religious caste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan Ivanov gave her brother her earring as a good luck charm before he left to fight in the Earth-Minbari war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Representatives of the humans and the Minbari met in secret to negotiate and end to their war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Minbari were prepared to commit wanton genocide against the humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan used tactical nukes to destroy the Minbari flagship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth president announced the construction of the Babylon space station at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x11", "title": "Waltz", "date": "1998-01-08", "description": "Sisko meets with the former Cardassian leader Gul Dukat, now a prisoner, as he awaits a war crimes investigation.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin relied on a dangerously insane Dukat to survive after finding himself stranded together with the madman on some far flung planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat was driven mad over guilt for the atrocities he oversaw during Bajor occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was driven insane out of a need for self-vindication over his harsh rule of Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was being held to be tried for war crimes. Dukat rationalized the atrocities he'd overseen on Bajor by claiming he was only following orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat in regard to his rationalizing the atrocities he oversaw on Bajor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was driven mad over guilt for the atrocities he oversaw during Bajor occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat held Benjamin captive in cavern out of a desire to get Benjamin's respect and approval", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf decided to abandon the search for Benjamin in favor of ferrying a Federation convoy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat whipped himself up into a violent desire to kill all Bajorans out of a desire for vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat made false efforts to bond with Benjamin while they seemingly awaited rescue in the cavern", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat mourned the death of his daughter, Tora Ziyal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin told Dukat that Dukat was innocence until proven guilty of being a war criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat justified his actions as ruler over Bajor with the excuse that he was merely following orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-justification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat rationalized the atrocities he'd overseen as Prefect of Bajor by maintaining that his superiors didn't allow him to rule Bajor with a \"softer hand\" as he wanted.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x13", "title": "Waking Moments", "date": "1998-01-14", "description": "The crew becomes trapped in a shared nightmare generated by alien technology. Only Chakotay, through his Native American spiritual capabilities, can save them.\n\nDirected by: Alexander Singer. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dream walking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A strange alien was visiting the Voyager crew members in thier nightmares.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens talking to us in our dreams", "level": "choice", "motivation": "dream walking aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentally distinguished being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A strange alien being was inhabiting the Voyager crew member's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of nightmares", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew subjected to terrorizing nightmares", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "major", "motivation": "nightmares revealed Harry's unconscious fears and desires", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started falling mysteriously ill one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew-members fell asleep one by one and the Doctor could not wake them up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens took over the ship in the dream world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucid dreaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay explained the principles of lucid dreaming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok upon showing up to work naked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew inside their nightmares", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom late for breakfast with B'Elanna; Tom and Harry both late for duty", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "With the crew being beset upon by nefarious aliens in their dreams, Chakotay used chemical stimulants to keep himself awake long enough to save the day. The story consequently ended with him falling asleep out of exhaustion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was late for breakfast with B'Elanna. Tom and Harry showed up late for duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x14", "title": "Message in a Bottle", "date": "1998-01-21", "description": "The Doctor's program is sent to an advanced Starfleet vessel via a vast ancient communications network, but he soon discovers that only he and the ship's own EMH remain to fight against Romulans who have taken over the ship and are attempting to return to Romulan space with it.\n\nDirected by: Nancy Malone. Story by: Rick Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Doc and Mark II, B'Elanna and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Doc and Mark II", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Doc and Mark II", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Doc faced Romulan take over of Prometheus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doc and Mark II", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and the crew what with letters home and all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway from her boyfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Mark II, B'Elanna and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna lectured Seven; Mark II was keen about manners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix gave two crewmemebrs heartburn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar communication network", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hirogen were thought to be using an ancient network of relay stations to instantaneously communicate over a large area of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew at contacting Starfleet at episode conclusion", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x01", "title": "No Compromises", "date": "1998-01-21", "description": "Sheridan is targeted by an assassin in the lead up to his inauguration as President of the Interstellar Alliance. At the behest of Sheridan, Captain Elizabeth Lochley arrives from Earth to take command of Babylon 5. A group of rogue telepaths come to the station looking for sanctuary.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lochley taking care of the station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were telepaths on the run", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "a killer was after Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan faced an assassin because of his notoriety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was a long list of assassinations quoted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar became increasingly interested in writing and found a particular penchant for speech writing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Osiris Chronicles (1998)", "title": "The Osiris Chronicles", "date": "1998-01-27", "description": "The story takes place several centuries in the future. Mankind has colonized the entire Solar System and beyond, and hardships such as war, disease, hunger, and overpopulation have been eliminated. However, boredom spread rapidly throughout the galaxy and as a result, interstellar war broke out. The two opposing factions were the Galactic Republic and the Rebels. While the Rebels eventually defeated the Galactic Republic because of their far greater numbers, the former were no better off; the aftermath of that war was a new Dark Age. Houses, plantations, and, more importantly, most books were destroyed in the war, and knowledge of interstellar travel was mostly lost, available only to a privileged few. Mankind, in the film, had made much progress, only to be rewarded with \"third world\" living conditions, despite people still possessing very advanced computers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warlord:_Battle_for_the_Galaxy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Justin Thorpe as he tries to rescue his kid sister Nova who'd been kidnapped and mentally conditioned by a race of advanced aliens know as the Engineers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Justin Thorpe being determined to rescue his kid sister Nova from her kidnappers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where Earth had established colonies in \"every system and sector\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Much of the film is set aboard the futuristic shark-like spacecraft the Osiris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where interstellar travel via spaceship is a mundane reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wally Price had an innate ability to read people's minds to varying degrees depending on the person. In some instances, he could read thoughts, while in others he could only sense empathic impressions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie had a chip on her shoulder because her mother had runoff on her when she was just four years old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Engineer aliens lived on a cloaked planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nova was kidnapped by a race of advanced aliens know as the Engineers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Lars Sorenson and his teenage granddaughter Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Lars Sorenson and his adult daughter Rula Kor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Osiris crew came down to the Engineers planet using the Osiris's teleportation system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Engineer aliens kidnapped Nova and mentally conditioned her into buying into their technophilic philosophy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie was not happy to have her mother Rula Kor waltz back into her live after having walked out on her when she was four years old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Osiris crew members were implanted with transmission devices before teleporting down to the Engineer aliens' homeworld.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x02", "title": "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari", "date": "1998-01-28", "description": "Londo suffers a heart attack and falls into a surreal dream, where he must face his greatest fear in order to survive. Lennier decides to leave Delenn's service and return to Minbar.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo had to say sorry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo deeply ashamed about his past actions especially wrt G'Kar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo felt no one cared about him, Lennier felt he was no longer of use to Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn was saying goodbye to Lennier with a feeling of forever", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier vainly with Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people expressed concern over Londo after he suffered a heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo's condition was due to various kinds of stress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was in some anteroom to the afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "London faced an intransigent customs officer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan, Delenn, Lennier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennier to become a ranger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the wish to live", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo contemplated whether he wanted to live", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x12", "title": "Who Mourns for Morn?", "date": "1998-02-04", "description": "Morn is killed in an ion storm and Sisko informs Quark that Morn left his entire estate to him. But Quark has a little competition.\n\nDirected by: Victor Lobl. Story by: Mark Gehred-O'Connell.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark, Larell, Hain, Krit, and Nahsk were all clamoring to get their hands on Morn's inheritance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were the space station crew members lamenting how they'd never fully appreciated Morn in life. He was presumed to have died in an ion storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inheritance fight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and the thieves fighting over Morn's estate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A band of thieves turned on themselves and got caught red handed with the gold as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "statute of limitations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morn got away with stealing some latinum because the statute of limitations had expired on his crime before the authorities caught wind of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark initially thought Krit and Nahsk were loan sharks trying to collect on Morn's loans", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x03", "title": "The Paragon of Animals", "date": "1998-02-04", "description": "Sheridan clashes with the various member worlds of the Alliance over the Declaration of Principles. An isolated world asks for the Alliance's help in defending themselves against Raiders. Garibaldi attempts to recruit telepaths for intelligence operations.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "space UN was doing it's thing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "telepaths were pressed into service by Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "is it right to use telepaths to spy in order to save lives or whatever?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space raiders oppressed some aliens on a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was some talk of what seems to amount to souls", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lita was in the mind of a guy who died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Sheridan discussed the possibly necessary application of force", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar, having found a penchant for writing, was put in charge of drafting a declaration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw into the mind of a guy when he died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x15", "title": "Hunters", "date": "1998-02-11", "description": "A transmission from Starfleet Command gets held at a Hirogen relay station and Janeway sets course to retrieve it.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and the crew what with letters home and all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway from her boyfriend and Harry from his parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "rekindled hope in case of people back home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis and B'Elanna in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna grieved for her fallen Maquis comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar communication network", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen were thought to be using an ancient network of relay stations to instantaneously communicate over a large area of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "there was in the relay station if that makes any sense", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom, sadly without anbojutsu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway's boyfriend moved on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in coffee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway spoke to Chakotay about the virtues of black coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hirogen captain wanted Seven's intestines to impress his fellow men and women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor got a bit full of himself at the prospect of being welcomed to the Alpha Quadrant as a hero.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x13", "title": "Far Beyond the Stars", "date": "1998-02-11", "description": "After Captain Swofford's ship, the Cortez, is destroyed, Sisko considers leaving Starfleet.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Marc Scott Zicree.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin, as Benny Russell, experienced the hardships that went along with being a black science fiction writer in 1950s New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in post-war America", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benny Russell experienced the hardships that went along with being a black science fiction writer in 1950s New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin as the 1950s science fiction writer Benny Russell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin considered stepping down from his position at Starfleet and leave it to others to make the tough decisions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin (as Benny Russell) was writing science fiction stories for a pulp magazine. He discussed the need for strong female characters and the use of \"it was all a dream\" plot device as a way to feature a black captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy; Benny Russell and Cassie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin mused about whether his reality was all a dream of Benny Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin (i.e. Benny Russell) slowly lost his mind over the prejudice he experienced with being a black science fiction writer in 1950s New York", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny Russell thinking he was really the black space station captain Benjamin Sisko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph Sisko comes to visits his son Benjamin on the space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Willie Hawkins at Cassie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy was shot dead by the police for breaking into a car. Benny Russell beaten to a pulp by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "corrupt New York cops beating Benny Russell and shooting Jimmy dead for breaking into a car", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the ability of a female to write science fiction was challenged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny Russell mourned the death of Jimmy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x04", "title": "A View from the Gallery", "date": "1998-02-11", "description": "As Babylon 5 comes under attack by an alien race, ordinary maintenance workers Mack and Bo work to keep the station running.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan, Lockley, and Franklin were all admired to some extent by the two engineers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the telepaths were prominently featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin lectured an engineer who had displayed some racism in med bay. The engineer did not seem atypical and presumably represented a portion of the population. Later, telepaths complained about racism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin described how he had and liked to help strangers in need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Franklin hard at work with patients in medlab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn contemplated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sphere (1998)", "title": "Sphere", "date": "1998-02-13", "description": "It is based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a team of experts as they go the the floor of the Pacific Ocean to investigate a newly discovered spacecraft, initially presumed to be of alien origin, estimated to have been there for nearly 300 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the crashed spacecraft was not alien as was original supposed, but rather was a super high-tech American vessel from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It gradually dawned on the surviving experts that the sphere had all along been manifesting their unconscious fears into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a perfect sphere with a gold-colored fluidic surface that makes the thoughts of anyone who goes inside it manifest into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voyage under the sea", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a team of experts who venture to the floor of the Pacific Ocean to investigate a newly discovered crashed spacecraft. There they stay for some days mostly cooped up inside a state-of-the-art underwater living environment located near the spacecraft. Due emphasis was placed on the perils of staying on the seafloor for an extended period of time, and true to form, most of them didn't make it back alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative diving suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experts wore special pressure suits that enabled them to amble about on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that it was an encounter with a black hole that resulted in the spacecraft crashing to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experts were shown a holographic reenactment of the spaceship crew encountering a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an ongoing rivalry between the mathematician Dr. Harry Adams and astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding over whom among them was the smarter of the two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fletcher was attacked and killed by a school of jellyfish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Beth had attempted to take her own life in the past but ingesting over 20 pills of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living isolated from civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman worried about the mental stability of the entity known as Jerry on account that it'd presumably been living inside the sphere in isolation for the past 300 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experts were attacked by a giant squid that turned out to be a manifestation of Harry's fears.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experts fears were manifesting into reality. For instance, Harry's phobia of squids manifested itself as a giant squid that attacked the experts' underwater living environment located near the spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experts couldn't tell what was real from what were manifestations of their various fears toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x16", "title": "Prey", "date": "1998-02-18", "description": "Voyager rescues a Hirogen survivor who tells them a new kind of prey is on the loose.\n\nDirected by: Allan Eastman. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the ongoing argument between Janeway and Seven about killing Species 8472 or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway decided to help injured Hirogen and Species 8472; Janeway about part of being human is having compassion for your enemies and a single act of compassion can put you in touch with your own humanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway to Hirogen and Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway with Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "helping species 8472 at great risk to crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen lived for hunting other species of sentient aliens as sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven disregarded her orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven becomes too individualistic for Janeway's hierarchy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Species 8472 united humans and Hirogen in a common cause", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen vs. Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was mentoring Seven on how to fit in with the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that Hunting was a central part of Hirogen society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x14", "title": "One Little Ship", "date": "1998-02-18", "description": "Dax, O'Brien, and Bashir board a Runabout, which is shrunken to four inches long as they investigate a rare subspace compression phenomenon.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia, Miles, and Julian and shrunken down to one inch in height in order to safely investigate a space anomaly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Defiant taken over by Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "first of command Kudak'Etan and second in command Ixtana'Rax locked horns over how to run the Defiant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergenerational conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "A new up-and-coming generation of Alpha Quadrant Jem'Hadar warriors were in the processing of replacing their older Gamma Quadrant Jem'Hadar antecedents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia, Miles, and Julian are shrunken down to one inch in height", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "first in command Kudak'Etan and second in command Ixtana'Rax locked horns over how to run the Defiant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ixtana'Rax felt his commander Kudak'Etan was inexperienced and incompetent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was prepared to self-destruct the Defiant with all hands onboard, rather than let the Jem'Hadar comandeer it back into Dominion space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf worked very long and very hard on his first poem and did not much appreciate being ridiculed by Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x05", "title": "Learning Curve", "date": "1998-02-18", "description": "Two Minbari Ranger trainees visit the station, Garibaldi investigates Lockley's background, and Zack investigates a murder Down Below.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A mafia-ike group tried to dominate Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "choice", "motivation": "ranger mentors and novices were there throughout", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "ranger novices made different choices about interceding when woman screamed; minor application to Lockley's past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "uninjured novice ranger questioned his choice to stay out of the fight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mafia guys wanted to use terrorism and challenge the monopoly on force of the Babylon 5 police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "mafia guy was described as a bully and ranger stood up to him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn was concerned about Sheridan's sentiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lochley had decided to remain with President Clark’s regime even as many other commanders abandoned it because it had become illegitimate, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockley locked wills with Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockley with Garibaldi, Minbari warrior caste people with religious caste people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the new telepath spies were briefly featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lockley thought the ranger were acting like a bunch of vigilantes out for vengeance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x17", "title": "Retrospect", "date": "1998-02-25", "description": "After experiencing unsettling hallucinations, Seven of Nine is hypnotized by the Doctor whose analysis reveals a trader might have extracted Borg technology from Seven without her consent.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "reliability of repressed memories in court", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven of Nine falsely accused Kovin of having violated her. A Tuvok led investigation proved that Kovin was innocent of the charge, although Seven of Nine was sincere in her accusation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone about what happened to Kovin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impartiality in the legal system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew made a point to be impartial in the investigation against Kovin but in practice they let their biases against Kovin filter in. In the end, their disliked of Kovin lead to wrongful accusations and his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven's violation was a euphemism for rape", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven over being violated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor used hypnosis to recover some of Seven's memories of her traumatic experiences with the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven thought of Kovin, Kovin thought of Janeway, Janeway thought of Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kovin was concerned about losing his reputation in the eyes of his customers because of the sex accusations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven to Kovin and discussed with Doctor repeatedly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven at Kovin and discussed with Doctor repeatedly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven toward Kovin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical psychological experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Doctor's guilt in influencing Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kovin was such a trader", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor used hypnotic regression on Seven to uncover false suppressed memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Kovin engaged in some tough bargaining", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway with Seven", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x15", "title": "Honor Among Thieves", "date": "1998-02-25", "description": "Starfleet Intelligence recruits Chief O'Brien to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate to find a Starfleet informant.\n\nDirected by: Allan Eastman. Story by: Philip Kim.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chadwick compelled Miles to betray Liam Bilby but Miles fessed up to Bilby with the truth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles torn over whether or not to follow Federation orders and betray Liam Bilby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Liam Bilby had mistakenly put his trust in Miles who had infiltrated Bilby crime ring", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liam Bilby led arms smuggling crime ring", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was sent on a secret mission to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "space station crew frustrated by all sorts of regularly occurring malfunctions that Miles wasn't around to fix while he was away on secret mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liam Bilby explained to Miles how he ought to have known Miles was an infiltrator because the good fortune Miles brought to Bilby was too good to be true", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mob guy had neural interface in his neck.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x06", "title": "Strange Relations", "date": "1998-02-25", "description": "The command crew are put in a difficult position when a unit of Psi Cops, led by Bester, comes to the station to arrest the colony of telepaths.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there is a telepath subspecies and they are sort of persecuted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lyta with telepaths and Psi Corps, Captain with Sheridan and Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi with BExter in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan hired former enemy captain in order to build bridges", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn and Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo reflected on his presumed fate to become emperor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark City (1998)", "title": "Dark City", "date": "1998-02-27", "description": "An amnesiac man who finds himself suspected of murder attempts to discover his true identity and clear his name while on the run from the police and a mysterious group known only as the \"Strangers\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Murdoch and Emma Murdoch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Emma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was the subject of a police manhunt for a large portion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a city in which it was always nighttime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Strangers were overseeing the implanting the inhabitants of Dark City with memories in an effort to understand human nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was the prime suspect in a string of ritualistic killings of prostitutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Strangers were experimenting with humans to analyze their individuality in the hopes that some insight might be revealed that will help their race survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Strangers turned out to be aliens inhabiting human corpses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "John routinely used his telekinetic powers. One example of this is when John recovered his wallet from behind a locked glass door by forcing it open with the power of his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was able to alter reality to his choosing by concentrating really hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "John woke up not knowing who he was and had to piece his life back together from scratch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Strangers had a hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Schreber ultimately betrayed his masters, the Strangers, by implanting John with the very memories John required to destroy them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x18", "title": "The Killing Game", "date": "1998-03-04", "description": "The Hirogen implant devices into the crew making them believe they are characters within the holodecks being used for hunts, all set in World War II Europe.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "French Resistance, paralleled in the crew vs. Hirogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Hirogen reenacting the French Resistance on the holodeck with themselves as occupying Nazis and the crew as the resistors constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the French Resistance", "level": "major", "motivation": "history theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some Voyager crew members were mind controlled into believing that they were living in France during the Nazi occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen for all intents and purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen lived for hunting other species of sentient aliens as sport. Having discovered the holodeck, they took pleasure in hunting down the French Resistence in an nelaborate scenario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and The Doctor face Hirogen takeover of Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karr had a master plan to use holodeck technology to save his civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen preyed on Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "German occupation of France reenacted on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "German occupation of France reenacted on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kapitan admired Praxitiles' masterpiece.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptographic cypher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Tuvok decoded an encrypted message sent from Allied High Command, and the general principles that make ciphers useful were rudimentarily explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social stagnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hirogen had once had \"a great civilization and an advanced culture\" but their obsession with hunting had led them to nomadic and predatory way of life, with few prospects as a civilization. The Hirogen captain wanted to change their societal course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A neural interface to connect people to holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway as Klingon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hirogen, a nomadic race who roamed the galaxy, lived for the thrill of hunting other species, sentient or otherwise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x19", "title": "The Killing Game", "date": "1998-03-04", "description": "The Hirogen implant devices into the crew making them believe they are characters within the holodecks being used for hunts, all set in World War II Europe.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social stagnation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Hirogen had once had \"a great civilization and an advanced culture\" but their obsession with hunting had led them to nomadic and predatory way of life, with few prospects as a civilization. The Hirogen captain wanted to change their societal course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Hirogen reenacting the French Resistance on the holodeck with themselves as occupying Nazis and the crew as the resistors constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "French Resistance, paralleled in the crew vs. Hirogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the rift in Hirogen ranks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen lived for hunting other species of sentient aliens as sport. Having discovered the holodeck, they took pleasure in hunting down the French Resistence in an nelaborate scenario.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen takeover of Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the French Resistance", "level": "major", "motivation": "history theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some Voyager crew members were mind controlled into believing that they were living in France during the Nazi occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen for all intents and purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karr had a master plan to use holodeck technology to save his civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "German occupation of France reenacted on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen preyed on Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "German occupation of France reenacted on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok suspected Seven was a German spy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna/Tom/the Kapitan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Kapitan laid into the German supremacy pretty hard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a Klingon feast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A neural interface to connect people to holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor vs. Hirogen doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nazi Kapitän voiced a short diatribe against the Jews.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hirogen, a nomadic race who roamed the galaxy, lived for the thrill of hunting other species, sentient or otherwise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x16", "title": "Change of Heart", "date": "1998-03-04", "description": "When Jadzia Dax is critically injured on an away mission, Worf must choose between saving his wife and completing their assignment.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Worf was torn between saving Jadzia and finishing his critical mission; Worf stayed with a gravely wounded Jadzia too long and Lasaran died as a consequence and he had information that could have saved millions of lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jadzia and Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf stayed with a gravely wounded Jadzia too long and Lasaran died as a consequence and he had information that could have saved millions of lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles became borderline obsessed with ending Quark's 270 Tongo winning streak", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf tended to his lover Jadzia when she was gravely wounded on a mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia expected that she was going to die from the injury she had sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being injured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jadzia gravely wounded", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and a gravely wounded Jadzia had to track through jungle to complete important mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia feigned being a bridezilla to Worf by trolling him about her honeymoon preferences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles told Julian he was determined to beat Quark at Tongo out of the need for a challenge and gives the same reason for his Kayaking hobby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia and Work bickered over minor point in shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and the Ferengi were at the Tongo table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian reflected somberly on having lost out on Jadzia to Worf.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x07", "title": "Secrets of the Soul", "date": "1998-03-04", "description": "Lyta becomes closer to Byron and the colony of telepaths, while Franklin investigates a secret from the Hyach race's distant past.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there is a telepath subspecies and they are sort of persecuted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there is a telepath subspecies and they are sort of persecuted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hyach committed genocide 800 years ago and are ashamed of it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Telepaths were beaten up by some people who were prejudiced against them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta and Byron", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "telepaths when their friend got beaten up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Franklin explained his passion for medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak was jealous over Lyta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak at Lyta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin and Hyach discussed to what extent they were still responsible for a past genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hyach woman felt guilty about ancestral crime", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x08", "title": "Day of the Dead", "date": "1998-03-11", "description": "Babylon 5 becomes part of the Brakiri \"Day of the Dead\" festival, in which people are visited by the deceased from their past. Famous entertainers Rebo and Zooty visit the station.\n\nDirected by: Doug Lefler. Story by: Neil Gaiman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various people had visits from departed loved ones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially Londo with late fiancee", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens had a once-in-200-year festival", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "comedians discussed what was funny to different species briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Captain Lochley's old friend had committed suicide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x09", "title": "In the Kingdom of the Blind", "date": "1998-03-18", "description": "Byron and the telepath colony bring an ultimatum to the Interstellar Alliance. Londo returns to Centauri Prime, with G'Kar as his bodyguard, and discovers intrigue and danger in the Royal Court.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo was playing cloaks and daggers in the Centauri imperial court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri for Narn; normals for telepaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the telepath community was in focus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron and Lyta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Babylon 5 acted as a space UN again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "turn the other cheek", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar declined to take revenge on the Centauri who whipped him to within an inch of death", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x10", "title": "A Tragedy of Telepaths", "date": "1998-03-25", "description": "The situation between the Alliance and the telepath colony continues to deteriorate when Bester arrives on the station. Londo and G'Kar discover an old friend in the Centauri Royal Court.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Centauri for Narn; normals for telepaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo was playing cloaks and daggers in the Centauri imperial court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the telepath community was in focus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Babylon 5 acted as a space UN again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo indicated perversities that had come about because of mindless obedience to a despot, such as people guarding an empty spot for 200 years without knowing why", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x17", "title": "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", "date": "1998-04-01", "description": "When Dukat reveals to Kira her mother, Kira Meru, did not die when she was three, but was actually his lover, Kira goes into the past using the Bajoran Orb of Time to find the truth.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira Meru became Dukat's mistress in order to improve her own and her family's lot in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira Meru became Dukat's mistress in order to improve her own and her family's lot in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira came to question her beliefs about the morality her mother's decision to serve as Dukat's mistress in order to help her family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira was shown that the Cardassian occupation was not as black and white as she had thought when seen from her mother's point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of war collaborators", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira accused Kira Meru of being a Cardassian collaborator and said she deserved whatever she gets. Basso Tromac was hated by his fellow Bajorans for having collaborated with the Cardassians in the rounding up of Bajoran comfort women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira Meru was taken from her husband Kira Taban to become Dukat's mistress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira remembering her mother who she thought to have died in a refugee center during the Cardassian occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira travels into the past to find out the truth about her mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira discovered that her father that kept secret that her mother served as a comfort woman to Dukat during Cardassian occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Caradssians had oppressed of Bajorans during the occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to live through a military occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajorans, and Kira's family in particular, were living through a brutal Caradssian occupation of Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira travels into the past to find out the truth about her mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira traveled into the past to find out the truth about her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bajoran women were taken and used as comfort women for the Cardassian soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with starvation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajorans in Cardassian refugee camp struggled to find enough food to survive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin warned Kira that she might alter the future by going back into the Bajoran past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira met her child self in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat developed a passion for Kira Meru", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x11", "title": "Phoenix Rising", "date": "1998-04-01", "description": "The standoff between the telepaths, the Alliance and the Psi Corps ends in blood and tragedy. Garibaldi confronts his nemesis.\n\nDirected by: David J. Eagle. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the telepath community and psi corps were in focus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Byron was eminently pacifist", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Byron's telepath community were oppressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bexter for Byron; Garibaldi for Bexter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byron had in fact done heinous deeds working for Bexter in the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leeta and Byron", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lost in Space (1998)", "title": "Lost in Space", "date": "1998-04-03", "description": "A family whose spaceship en route to a distant habitable planet goes off course and crash-lands on another planet inhabited by spider-like creatures. The plot is adapted from the 1965–1968 CBS television series of the same name (itself inspired by the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Robinson family became stranded on a distant planet with little prospect of making it home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows John and Maureen Robinson as they navigate some ups and downs in their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Professor John Robinson troubled relationship with his young prodigy son, Will, and their ultimate reconciliation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The husband and wife pair of John and Maureen Robinson rekindled their love for one another. Major Don West ultimately won Dr. Judy Robinson's heart with his numerous cheesy pick up lines and innuendoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story is that the population of Earth would immigrate to the distant habitable planet Alpha Prime before such time as the Earth became uninhabitable owing to pollution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, it was stated that the warring factions of Earth had put their differences aside, and banded together under one body to find a new world to colonize, as Earth was soon going to become uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, it was stated that terrorists calling themselves \"The Global Sedition\" were making some sort of trouble for the United Global Space Force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a mutant terrorist group that opposed the construction of the hypergate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robinson family set out to the habitable planet Alpha Prime on the futuristic spacecraft the Jupiter II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"hypergate\" ring in space, once constructed, would allow the population of Earth to be instantly transported and populate the new planet Alpha Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engineered space structure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hypergate, an enormous ring-like structure that functioned as an artificial wormhole, was being constructed out in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People appeared remotely as realistic holograms. the Jupiter II crew examined a 3D holographic star map.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor John Robinson and his cheeky teenage daughter, Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Maureen Robinson and her cheeky teenage daughter, Penny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Penny and her kid brother, Will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Penny rebelled by breaking curfew and had an independent streak in general.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Maureen Robinson and her boy genius son, Will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The year is 2058 and Earth was soon to be made uninhabitable due to the irreversible effects of pollution and ozone depletion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the ozone layer was down to 40%.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the intro, it was stated that Earth was short on potable water and breathable air with the implication being that this was owing to high levels of pollution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robinson family members were placed into \"cryosleep\" upon setting out from Earth to reach the habitable planet, Alpha Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robinson family set out from Earth to reach the distant planet, Alpha Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Judy Robinson didn't initially take kindly to Major West's numerous unsolicited romantic overtures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jupiter II's onboard robot when haywire and tried to destroy the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major West laid down some heavy game on Dr. Judy Robinson and ultimately won her heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Judy Robinson served as the Jupiter II vessel's ship physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will hacked into the CPU of the Jupiter II ship's onboard robot, bypassed its main operating system, and reprogrammed its subroutines to make it operable by remote control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor John Robinson apologized to his young prodigy son Will for not having been around more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robinson family encountered silicon-based spider-like creatures on the planet where they crash-landed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was inferred that the spider-like creatures lived in deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor John Robinson and Major West quarreled over who was taking orders from whom, until Professor Maureen Robinson stepped in and coerced them to be amicable with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adult Will constructed a time portal and sent Professor John Robinson through back to his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ten year old Will encountered his demented future self. Dr. Zachary Smith was dispatched by a spider-like creature version of his future self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will befriended the Jupiter II ship's onboard robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The future Dr. Smith had been transformed into a grotesque spider-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adult Will ultimately forgave his father, John, for not having been there for him, and the two reconciled at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x20", "title": "Vis à Vis", "date": "1998-04-08", "description": "An alien shuttle with a prototype propulsion system suddenly appears and requires assistance. Paris is restless and volunteers to help the pilot, Steth, repair the shuttle.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Robert J. Doherty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Steth surreptitiously switched bodies with Tom to Tom's great surprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling tied down in a relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom by B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom was trying to, also hints that Steth couldn't figure out what to do with his life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Steth swapped bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom in relationship with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was working on a vintage 1969 Chevy Camaro in a holographically simulated 1960s era car garage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom wasintoxicated on Trakian ale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom is shirking his duties", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor felt rather pleased with himself upon falsely deducing that Tom, who was training as a medic under him, was trying to live up to his abilities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x18", "title": "Inquisition", "date": "1998-04-08", "description": "Bashir is accused of unknowingly spying for the Dominion.\n\nDirected by: Michael Dorn. Story by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Luther Sloan falsely accused Julien of being a Dominion spy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luther Sloan was on a vendetta to convict Julian of spying evidence or not", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luther Sloan abused his authority as a Starfleet officer to pursue a personal vendetta against Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luther Sloan was obsessed with ruining Julian's life out of a belief that Julian was responsible for the death of his son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luther Sloan placed Julian in an elaborate simulated reality in order to test his loyalty to the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luther Sloan held a grudge against Julian stemming from the death of his son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luther Sloan made some bigoted remarks about genetically enhanced people to Julian who had himself been genetically augmented as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin stood by Bashir in his time of need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luther Sloan justified the existence of his law breaking secret extra-judicial organization with the argument that the ends justify the means", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luther Sloan deprived Julian of sleep in order to break him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it was raised that Section 31 was a rogue extra-judicial organization that had been spawned out from the Federation", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x12", "title": "The Ragged Edge", "date": "1998-04-08", "description": "Garibaldi's relapse into alcoholism jeopardises a covert mission to the Drazi homeworld. G'Kar discovers that he has become a religious leader to his people.\n\nDirected by: John Copeland. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "the alliance is at risk because of mysterious attacks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Franklin; Garibaldi and informant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar wanted to be left in peace but was convinced to do his social and moral duty instead", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Franklin took some new duty and G'Kar became a religious icon", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Species II (1998)", "title": "Species II", "date": "1998-04-10", "description": "The astronaut son of a senator is infected by an extraterrestrial organism during a mission to Mars and causes the deaths of many women upon his return. To stop him, the scientists who created the human-extraterrestrial hybrid Sil in the original Species try using a more docile clone of hers, Eve. The film is a sequel to Species (1995) and the second installment in the Species series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Species" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story was Patrick becoming a hyper-sexual, human-alien amalgam after getting exposed to alien DNA. Eve was also half-human and half-alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Cromwell theorized that an extraterrestrial organism had attacked and destroyed Mars in ancient times, and that alien DNA might remain on Mars to infect anyone who visited the planet in the future. His fears were realized when Commander Patrick Ross returned from an historic mission to Mars infected with just such DNA of alien origin. The rest of the film follows the efforts of a number of people to stop the alien DNA from proliferation over the Earth, killing everyone in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator Ross was initially proud of his son, Patrick, for having led an historic manned mission to Mars, but became ever more concerned by his son's abnormal behavior after his return to Earth. In the end, Patrick killed his father in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Patrick Ross led an historic manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Ross and his crew traveled to Mars and back in a NASA space shuttle that was connected to an long string of modules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Physical damage to Eve's body healed almost instantly. The same was true of Patrick after the alien DNa integrated into his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Cromwell was screaming \"I told him not to go!\" (referring to Commander Ross going to Mars) from inside a stereotypically drab insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick disregarded orders to refrain from sexual activity for ten days and had a threesome with two sisters Marcy and Lucy following a fundraiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hyper-fertile alien seed within Marcy and Lucy caused them both to experience accelerated pregnancies, culminating when half-alien children violently exploded from their abdomens. Laura and Patrick's girlfriend later both suffered the same fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick was horrified when a half-alien child exploded from his girlfriends abdomen shortly after the couple had sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick tried and filed to blow his head off with a shotgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patrick attempted to rape Darlene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve and Patrick established a crude telepathic link between them from a certain point in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An infused with alien DNA Patrick killed his father, Senator Judson Ross, in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that sickle-cell disease is genetically inherited.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x21", "title": "The Omega Directive", "date": "1998-04-15", "description": "Janeway undertakes the Omega Directive, an order to destroy Omega molecules, even if it means violating the Prime Directive.\n\nDirected by: Victor Lobl. Story by: Jimmy Diggs and Steve J. Kay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the omega molecule as power source", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the omega molecule as power source", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Keterer synthesized an omega molecule and blew up the place and Janeway made a point of Einstein and the atomic bomb and Allos with his experiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven of Nine, and the Borg more generally, believed the Omega molecule to be “perfect” in every way, and revered it as one might a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven desired to understand omega molecule", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway takes the safe way out and destroys the omega molecules", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven pondered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven when ordered to destroy the molecule", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway with Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway summarily recinded it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the molecule could have been made a weapon it was said", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway tried to keep Omega Directive secret and the crew gossiped", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway tried to keep the Omega Directive secret, but the crew gossiped about it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x19", "title": "In the Pale Moonlight", "date": "1998-04-15", "description": "Sisko asks Garak to help him get the Romulans to join the war against the Dominion.\n\nDirected by: Victor Lobl. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin supplies fake intelligence to Romulans in effort to draw them into the war against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin learned that his the road to hell was payed with good intentions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin supplies fake intelligence to Romulans in effort to draw them into the war against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin faked intelligence to get Romulans to join the war with good intentions but came to think that things had gone to hell although it works out in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin attempts to convince Romulans to join the Federation in the war against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin attempted to draw the Romulans into helping the Federation stop the Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin coped with having a guilty conscience over having faked military intelligence that resulted in the assassination of a Romulan senator and the entry of the Romulans into the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appeasement policy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Romulans had a non-aggression pact with the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jadzia grieved for her longtime friend Leslie Wong, a casualty of the war with the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian objected to supplying Benjamin with 85 liters of biomemetic gel that could be used to make biogenic weapons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Garak simulated a Dominion meeting to Romulan senator in holosuite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin with the Romulan senator", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x13", "title": "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father", "date": "1998-04-15", "description": "With a pair of trainee Psi Cops in tow, Bester pursues a murderous rogue telepath to Babylon 5.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Furst. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "all about the psi corps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "telepaths for normals and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "telepaths for normals and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bexter tutored younglings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harris had something akin to a split personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "girl wanted to sleep with Bexter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bexter stayed true to his absent wife in spite of temptation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space Corps members mourned their murdered colleagues.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brave New World (1998)", "title": "Brave New World", "date": "1998-04-19", "description": "A future dystopian society is challenged by a \"savage\" outsider. The movie loosely follows the plot of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were assigned to classes in descending order of intellectual and physical capacity: the society controlling Alphans and their helpers the Betans, the worker Deltans, Gammans and Epsilons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which promiscuity was every citizen's duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free love utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society that maintained stability and harmony in part through mass and frequent promiscuity by all citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ruling class indoctrinated everyone into willingly taking the happiness-producing drug called Soma in order to maintain a stable and harmonious society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The society controllers ensured that everyone was conditioned from birth to follow stability and harmony ensuring societal norms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which promiscuity was every citizen's duty and monogamy was strictly forbidden. This was contrasted the \"savages\" who generally practiced monogamy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Cooper did a solo performance of Romeo and Juliet, among other things, in an effort to introduce the concept of romantic love to a society where this concept had been hammered out of peoples heads. In general, we saw a society where people had been conditioned to completely disassociate love from the act of sexual intercourse, and people had copious amounts of loveless, but pleasurable sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne fell in love and had a child together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"savage\" John Cooper opened Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne indoctrinated minds such aspects of the human condition as the appreciation of literature and the feeling of being in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "We repeatedly saw children being conditioned both in and out of school. In one pointed example, children were brought in to play around dead bodies in an effort to condition them into thinking that dead is to be celebrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-scarcity economy utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society in which people seemingly wanted for no material and lived in luxury, safety, and unsettling harmony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Embryos were genetically engineered to have certain desirable traits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conventional approach to reproduction was strictly forbidden. Instead, embryos were developed to maturity in special cylindrical chambers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that a rational, scientifically enlightened world government in the aftermath of a war of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda and her adult son John Cooper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was abusing alcohol and the happiness-producing drug Soma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Cooper despised being a media sensation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x22", "title": "Unforgettable", "date": "1998-04-22", "description": "An alien female from a cloaked ship asks for Chakotay by name and requests asylum on Voyager from her people.\n\nDirected by: Andrew Robinson. Story by: Greg Elliot and Michael Perricone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kellin and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This happened first to Kellin and then to Chakotay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ramurans were forbidden by law to reveal anything about their existence to other races. They used technology, including cloaking devices and computer viruses, to hide themselves from others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay tried to decide whether Kellin could be trusted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien device was used to wipe minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay was using ancient writing implements", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kellin aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x20", "title": "His Way", "date": "1998-04-22", "description": "Bashir shows off a new Holosuite program of a martini lounge with a 1960s Vegas singer named Vic Fontaine who is very perceptive; and gives advice to Odo when Kira visits her ex-lover Shakaar.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of telling someone how you feel about them", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine counseled Odo on how to open up to Kira about his love for her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo had to work up the courage to make the first move on Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo had to work up the courage to make the first move on Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine was a self-aware holosuite character", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine holosuite simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "most of the way Odo's feelings were talked of as unrequited", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uptight character vs. laid back character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo learned from Vic Fontaine how to be less uptight", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "I think we were made to think about how Vic was treated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melissa and Ginger paid a visit to Odo and Vick Fontaine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workaholism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was accused of working too much", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x23", "title": "Living Witness", "date": "1998-04-29", "description": "A Kyrian museum curator 700 years in the future hopes a Voyager relic containing a copy of the Doctor can confirm their version of history.\n\nDirected by: Tim Russ. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kyrian historical account of Voyager encounter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Vaskans lived as virtual second class citizens on the home world that they shared with the Kyrians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kyrians accused the Doctor of having been complicit in the war crimes masterminded by Janeway. Alas, neither the Doctor nor Janeway had perpetrate any war crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quarren about history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager against Kyrians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway was regarded as an infamous war criminal among the Kyrians for having supposedly ordered the use of biogenic weapons on their people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor woke up 700 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quarren wanted to find out the ugly truth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Race relations between the Vaskans and the Kyrians reached a breaking point, culminating with the Vaskans rioting in the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two alien races, the Vaskans and the Kyrians shared the same home world with the one (the Vaskans) living under the heal of the other (the Kyrians).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holo-Janeway oversees genocide without a second thought", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holo-Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "guy was tortured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor on waking up in the future, he later went off towards Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway allegedly used against Kyrians", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x21", "title": "The Reckoning", "date": "1998-04-29", "description": "Sisko is called to Bajor when an ancient tablet addressing the Emissary is discovered at B'hala.\n\nDirected by: Jesús Salvador Treviño. Story by: Harry M. Werksman & Gabrielle Stanton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The prophets prepared Benjamin to bring the reckoning to Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the prophets planned an end of the world scenario on Bajor after which a golden age of a thousand year peace would come", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kira represented good and Jake evil", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, a.k.a. \"The Sisko\", was considered to be a prophet by the Bajorans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira confided in Odo how she didn't understand how people got on in life without faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war plunder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin accused of behaving like the Cardassians in carrying off an artifact", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira accused Winn of being jealous that the wormhole aliens had selected Benjamin to be their prophet over her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin with Jake being possessed by pah-wraith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Odo cultivate their romantic relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koral led an excavation of an Ancient Bajoran ruin. He explained how an ancient Bajoran civilization was buried and built over by succeeding civilizations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake go to visit Ancient Bajoran excavation site; Benjamin worried over Jake's well-being when he was possessed by a pah-wraith", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winn Adami said that failed harvests, earthquakes, and spacequakes (on space station) on Bajor were a divine punishment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Winn Adami accused Benjamin of having looted a 30,000 year old Ancient Bajoran tablet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x24", "title": "Demon", "date": "1998-05-06", "description": "Tom Paris and Harry Kim take a shuttle down to an extremely inhospitable planet to obtain fuel.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bio-mimicking life form", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Sliver Blood life form copied Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew risks going to demon planet to acquire fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew braved the harsh conditions of the ominously named \"Demon Planet\" as they searched for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was trying to be a more assertive person", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was trying to be a more assertive person", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "going to the demon class planet was a great risk pondered at length", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna urged Chakotay to let her go on the away mission to search for her lover Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor with squatters in his sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "bioformed Tom and Harry met real Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Standard affair sci-fi force fields we common in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor vs. Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry sees beauty in the barren planet", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x22", "title": "Valiant", "date": "1998-05-06", "description": "Jake and Nog come under attack by the Jem'Hadar and are rescued by a rogue Defiant class starship, the Valiant, under the command of Starfleet Red Squadron cadets.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Red Squad members, Tim Watters most notably, wrongly believed that they could do anything and went on a veritable suicide missing to attack Jem'Harad ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Tim Watters started popping pills to cope with the pressure he was under", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Squad members spoke of honor and how it was their duty to complete mission that had them in over their heads", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Squad members to Captain Tim Watters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Tim Watters leadership skills featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Tim Watters leadership skills featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Tim Watters became obsessed with completing his mission ever after it became apparent it was doomed to failure", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Red Squad members perceived themselves superior to other Starfleet groups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Tim Watters took an enormous risk to challenge an overpowering enemy in the Jem'Hadar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad day", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a frustrated Quark complained to Odo about having a bad day because of a broken drink replicator that nobody would fix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog delivers diplomatic request to Ferengi Grand Negus about forming alliance against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin rescues Jake and Red Squad members", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark with Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was doing journalism during the Red Squad mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorian Collins told Jake about what it was like to live on the Moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorian Collins was homesick for life on the Moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and Nog had a brief falling out of friendship while aboard the Valiant", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deep Impact (1998)", "title": "Deep Impact", "date": "1998-05-08", "description": "The film depicts the attempts to prepare for and destroy a 7-mile wide comet set to collide with Earth and cause a mass extinction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is that a roughly Mr. Everest sized comet is discovered to be on a collision course for Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner as she covers the biggest story in history: humanity's efforts to stop a giant comet from striking Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States and Russia sent a joint team of astronauts on a dangerous mission to fly out to intercept the comet and alter its course with nuclear bombs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear powered spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States and Russia worked together to construct the Messiah, an experimental nuclear powered vessel loosely patterned on the space shuttle, in orbit and a team of astronauts subsequently fly it out to intercept the comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Once it became apparent that the comet was going to strike the earth, the United States government selected 800,000 Americans by lottery to join 200,000 pre-selected individuals in underground shelters. Everyone else was written off for dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "All but a select few faced the prospect that they were going to die horribly once the comets hit Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown how the build up to an extinction level event cometary impact might unfold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Jenny and her estranged father as he tries to make things right between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A Mt. Everest sized comet careening toward Earth proved to be just the kick in the pants that Jenny her estranged father, Jason, needed to heal their toxic relationship. In the end, they pointedly embraced on the seashore and were subsequently obliterated by an oncoming 1,200 foot tidal wave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the teen lovers Leo and Sarah as they try to find a way to both survive the comet strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the teen lovers Leo and Sarah as they try to find a way to both survive the comet strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage amateur astronomer Leo Beiderman spotted an unusual celestial object in the sky during a star viewing party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that Mrs. Rittenhouse had taken to the bottle in the wake of her husband having had a series of affairs, and had subsequently \"stepped it up last summer\" after he son died of leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Rittenhouse met with the MSNBC reporter Jenny to give her the name of the woman that Mrs. Rittenhouse's husband was supposedly having an affair with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenny comforted her forgetful, rambling, down in the dumps mother, Robin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin didn't take it well when her husband left her for a much younger woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason and his conspicuously young new wife. Don and Ellen Beiderman. Chuck and Wendy Hotchner. Leo married Sarah in a desperate effort to make so that she's be able to join him in the safety of the government cave shelter by the time the comet hit Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the United States and Russia had kept secret from the public for 8 months that a massive comet was on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Messiah crew used nuclear bombs on the comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Beck explained that having revealed to the public that a massive comet was on a collision course with Earth before a plan was in place to deflect would have only resulted in panic in the streets. Later, news footage from Moscow showed a chaotic scene of people doing just that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young, up and coming astronaut Oren Monash openly expressed his conviction that the veteran astronaut Captain Tanner's was too old and over the hill to be useful to the mission, but the resourceful old captain proved him wrong, and they came to mutually respect one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Tanner spoke of Melville and Twain to crewman Monash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After getting off on the wrong foot, Captain Tanner bonded with crewman Monash by speaking to him about Melville and Twain while Monash lay in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human tough decision", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Sarah go to the government cave to take shelter from the comet strike or die together with her loving parents?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Messiah crew blew themselves up in a desperate bid to prevent a gigantic comet from hitting the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robin pointedly told her teenage daughter that she loved her, and urged her to go to the government shelter and save herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Messiah crew members bid their loved ones farewell shortly before blowing themselves up in a last ditched effort to prevent the comet from striking Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with President Beck giving a speech about how the world will rebuild from a disastrous cometary impact that killed millions and left vast swaths of North America, Africa, and Europe utterly destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crewman Monash was blinded while rigging nuclear bombs on the comet, and struggled ever so slightly to communicate with his wive a child over a video link because of it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x25", "title": "One", "date": "1998-05-13", "description": "Seven of Nine is left alone on Voyager when a nebula's deadly radiation forces the rest of the crew to stay in stasis and the Doctor's hologram projectors are disrupted.\n\nDirected by: Kenneth Biller. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven all alone aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven was terrified all alone aboard Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven about flourishing alone outside The Collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven and that imaginary alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew needs to traverse toxic nebula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew placed in suspended animation in order to traverse toxic nebula", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom in suspended animation chamber", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven alone on the ship and losing her mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven toward The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was mentoring Seven on how to socialize with the crew; Seven improves by conclusion of episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deadly levels of radiation forced the Voyager crew, save for Seven and The Doctor, to be put in stasis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x23", "title": "Profit and Lace", "date": "1998-05-13", "description": "Quark helps out when Zek's status as the Ferengi Grand Nagus is put in jeopardy by proposing equal rights for Ferengi females.\n\nDirected by: Siddig El Faddil. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Quark and Brunt opposed Zek's reforms about women being able to wear clothes in Ferengi society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek fought for equal career opportunities for Ferengi women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek fought for equal career opportunities for Ferengi women", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek fought for equal career opportunities for Ferengi women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zek signed into law that women could wear clothes and as a consequence compete with men in the labor market in Ferengi society", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Quark/Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek visit space station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark had sexual reassignment surgery and dressed up in his mothers clothes to impersonate her in order to fool Nilva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark was put into the shoes of a woman (literally) and experienced what it was list first had to be sexually harassed, and apologized to Aluura for having sexually harassed her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark learned what it was like to be predated on by men and apologized to Aluura for having sexually harassed her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark abused his position of authority over Aluura to try and get some umlaux", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark abused his position of authority over Aluura to try and get some umlaux", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ishka and Zek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark had sexual reassignment surgery and dressed up in his mothers clothes to impersonate her in order to fool Nilva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark(ina) discussed marketing of Slug-o-Cola with Nilva", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark with Nilva", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gargantua (1998)", "title": "Gargantua", "date": "1998-05-19", "description": "The people of Malau are terrorized by a giant, bipedal amphibian that came up out of the sea.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargantua_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and his young son Brandon were spending time on the island of Malau. The father giant, bipedal amphibian monster made a bee line to Malau to find its baby son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack had been raising his young son Brandon as a single father since his wife had passed away a year prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant, bipedal amphibian went on a rampage across the island of Malau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant, bipedal amphibian went on a rampage across the island of Malau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prolonged exposure to illegally dumped pollutants causes a family of ocean ridge dwelling amphibians to mutate to gigantic proportions and subsequently run amok on the island of Malau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon befriended a baby giant amphibian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandon was struggling go get over the death of his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local newspaper reporter Paul Bateman was covering the giant amphibian monster attacking Malau story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The American Jack Elway was pointedly, yet pleasantly surprised to discover that healthcare was free on the island Nation of Malau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that some companies had illegally dumped thousands of containers full of chemical pollutants into an ocean ridge somewhere off the coast of Malau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Ralph Hale was on Malau conducting geological research.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla (1998)", "title": "Godzilla", "date": "1998-05-20", "description": "In the film, authorities investigate and battle a giant monster who migrates to New York City to nest its young. A reimagining of Toho's Godzilla franchise, it is the 23rd film in the franchise and the first Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla ran amok in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla ran amok in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Nick and Audrey as they rekindle their relationship eight years after Audrey had walked out on him to pursue a career in journalism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Nick and Audrey falling in love again eight years after having gone through an abrupt breakup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Audrey was struggling to become a news reporter of renown in the highly competitive New York City journalism scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Godzilla was in fact a mutated iguana that had been exposed to fallout of a military nuclear test in the South Pacific.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The films opens with scenes of nuclear bomb tests, and it was revealed that Godzilla was spawned from fallout from a military nuclear test in the South Pacific.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Niko \"Nick\" Tatopoulos' study of the effects of radiation on wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone was rudely interrupted when an official from the U.S. State Department made him work on the Godzilla project instead. The paleontologist Dr. Elsie Chapman was tasked to work on the \"what are we going to do about Godzilla\" project.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The paleontologist Dr. Elsie Chapman speculated that Godzilla was some kind of lost dinosaur, but Nick dismissed this theory, deducing instead that it was a mutant created by nuclear testing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The television news anchor Charles Caiman and the aspiring journalist Audrey Timmonds was reporting on the big \"Godzilla is running amok in New York City\" story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and Audrey reminisced on he was an anti-nuclear activist in his younger years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Audrey considered herself a miserable failure in life for having not yet realized her dream of becoming a journalist of renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was at the site of the Chernobyl power plant nuclear meltdown. Such effects of the Chernobyl disaster as Chernobyl earthworms being 17% larger than they were before were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick correctly deduced that Godzilla reproduced asexually.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy4x26", "title": "Hope and Fear", "date": "1998-05-20", "description": "Paris and Neelix return from a mission with a passenger named Arturis who knows more than 4,000 languages. He manages to decode a message from Starfleet that could lead to a way home.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arturis against Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arturis' people assimilated by the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg had attacked Arturis' homeworld and assimilated all his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven couldn't decide", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew had newfound hope of getting home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew in getting back to Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven torn between Voyager and Borg Collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway worried that their new opportunity to go home was too good to be true", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jainway vs. Seven on the holodeck", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x24", "title": "Time's Orphan", "date": "1998-05-20", "description": "Molly O'Brien disappears in a vortex and reappears as an 18-year-old woman, but she is now feral, bringing great difficulty for her parents.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "institutionalizing a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko decide to send back Molly to planet or let her be taken to an asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feral children in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "efforts made to reintegrate a feral 18 year old Molly into her family and society as a whole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko; Worf and Jadzia babysitting Yoshi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keiko's daughter Molly goes missing in time and returns as a feral 18 year old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles' daughter Molly goes missing in time and returns as a feral 18 year old", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly fell into a time portal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko reintegrating Molly into society; Worf taking care of Yoshi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko reintegrating Molly into society; Worf with crying baby Yoshi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "18 year old feral Molly wished to return to the planet where she lived in a feral manner rather than live on space station with her estranged parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko with 8 year old Molly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teenage feral Molly met her 8 year old self inside a cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "it was decided not go back and get the original Molly because that'd effect the 18 year old Molly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Molly fell into a time portal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Keiko's daughter Molly goes missing in time and returns as a feral 18 year old", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x14", "title": "Meditations on the Abyss", "date": "1998-05-27", "description": "Lennier undergoes Ranger training aboard one of the White Star vessels, while secretly on a mission for Delenn and the Alliance. Meanwhile, the Drazi bug Londo's quarters and face the wrath of Vir.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan had to handle mistrusting aliens threatening the alliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "both Lennier and the trainees' stories had something to do with courage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "other trainee realized he was not cut out for the rangers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "other trainee realized he was not cut out for the rangers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennier for Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Lennier-Delenn-Sheridan love triangle was implied", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philosophy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar talked about what is God and what is truth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some talk about God and Franklin mentioned Foundationism - his faith of choice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is truth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar talked about what is God and what is truth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Truman Show (1998)", "title": "The Truman Show", "date": "1998-06-01", "description": "The Truman Show is a 1998 American satirical science fiction film directed by Peter Weir, produced by Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, and Adam Schroeder, and written by Niccol. The film stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, adopted and raised by a corporation inside a simulated television show revolving around his life, until he discovers it and decides to escape. Additional roles are performed by Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Ed Harris, and Brian Delate.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my life was secretly stage managed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We must contemplate the possibility that we all live in some sort of stage managed universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of open waters", "level": "major", "motivation": "Truman had had such a fear of water instilled in him that he couldn't even drive across a bridge", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Truman gradually overcame his fear of waters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Truman with his wife, before she cracked and left", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Truman's dad had been lost at sea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sylvia and Truman became besotted with each other even though they barely met", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "the complications all started with Truman wanting to go to Fiji and meet a girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Truman with his best friend from school discussing a variety of philosophical subjects", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human rights issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "the question was raised as to whether it was acceptable to raise Truman in that fake environment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Truman was encased in a hugely expensive artificial world right outside of Hollywood and we learn that it was all funded by product placement, i.e., ads for products", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw various Truman fans as if glued to their TV sets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw brief flashbacks to Truman with his dad who went missing at sea", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we saw Truman with his mom from time to time", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x15", "title": "Darkness Ascending", "date": "1998-06-03", "description": "Lennier risks his life to uncover the proof needed to implicate the Centauri in the attacks on shipping lanes. Lise arrives on the station and confronts Garibaldi about his relapse.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lennier went above and beyond", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi's wife Lise confronted him about his relapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "major", "motivation": "a huge war was being manufactured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "the alliance is ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta trying to find a telepath sanctuary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta searching fo telepath sanctuary", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x25", "title": "The Sound of Her Voice", "date": "1998-06-10", "description": "The Defiant picks up a distress call from Captain Lisa Cusak, whose escape pod has crashed on a remote planet following the destruction of her ship, the Olympia.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Pam Pietroforte.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lisa Cusak needed the companionship of the Defiant crew while she awaited rescue", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lisa Cusak stranded on inhospitable planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy experienced rising tensions in their relationship while on mission aboard the Defiant; Odo and Kira celebrate their one month anniversary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo and Kira celebrate their one month anniversary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lisa Cusak became friends with the DEfiant crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake used Quark as a model for the bad guy in a crime novel he was writing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo showed compassion on Quark by knowingly letting him get away with illegal sale of crystals to Nausicaan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Defiant crew mourned the death of their fellow crew member, Lisa Cusak.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x16", "title": "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder", "date": "1998-06-10", "description": "Sheridan and Delenn bring formal charges against the Centauri Republic, bringing the Centauri and the Alliance to the brink of war.\n\nDirected by: Goran Gajic. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a huge war was being manufactured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the alliance is ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zak and others with Garibaldi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "other aliens attacked Centauri on the station", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds96x26", "title": "Tears of the Prophets", "date": "1998-06-17", "description": "Starfleet Command begins an offensive against the Dominion, and Sisko is chosen to lead the invasion of Cardassia, but the Cardassian/Dominion Alliance has secretly reinforced their borders with unmanned orbital weapons platforms.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin between leaded Federation invasion of Cardassia and in so doing violating the will of the Bajoran prophets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Klingon Empire join forces with Romulas in war against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation and Klingon Empire join forces with Romulas in war against the Dominion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia contemplated having a baby; Jadzia dies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat wanted to get vengeance on Benjamin over the death of his daughter Ziyal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin acted as the holy prophet of the wormhole aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Jadzia; Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was in the dog house with Kira after having arrested a vedic for collecting money for earthquake victims on the promenade", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Quark commiserated over both having lost out on Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake eagerly joined the Defiant crew as a war correspondent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin reluctantly permitted Jake to accompany him on mission as a war correspondent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Defiant crew mourned the death of Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf stood by his lover Jadzia's bedside as she died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Julian bid farewell to their dear friend Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bajoran religious festival held", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons and Romulans for each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Quark both for Jadzia", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x17", "title": "Movements of Fire and Shadow", "date": "1998-06-17", "description": "As the war between the Alliance and the Centauri grows more intense, Sheridan must contend with rogue Narn and Drazi generals who want to take drastic action. Lyta and Franklin uncover a startling truth behind the Centauri campaign.\n\nDirected by: John C. Flinn III. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the alliance is ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone ganging up on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "other aliens attacked Centauri on the station", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta helping Centauri find bodies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Centauri civilization might be about to be destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things were going on around the emperor on Centauri.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The XFiles Fight the Future (1998)", "title": "The X-Files: Fight the Future", "date": "1998-06-19", "description": "The X-Files (also known as The X-Files: Fight the Future) is a 1998 American science fiction thriller film based on Chris Carter's television series of the same name, which revolves around fictional unsolved cases called the X-Files and the characters solving them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the FBI agents Mulder and Skully as they attempt to get to the bottom of a global conspiracy being perpetrated by an unnamed shadowy organization to prepare the way for Earth to be colonized by space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A shadowy organization with a global presence was preparing the way for space aliens to colonize Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Powerful space aliens were using a shadowy organization to spread a virus around the world as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intuition-trusting, paranormal-believing Agent Mulder was pointedly juxtaposed with his rational-minded, skeptical partner Agent Skully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much focus was placed on the relationship between the buddy FBI agents Mulder and Skully. In one subplot, Mulder was urging Skully to stay on the force when she wanted to quit the FBI and return to practicing medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A shadowy group staged a terrorist bombing of a Dallas building to cover up how a young boy and a fireman had really died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Efforts were made to discredit Dr. Kurtzweil by pinning the selling of naked pictures of children on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An enormous saucer shaped vessel of alien origin emerged from the Antarctic ice and flew off into the sky.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Watchers IV (1998)", "title": "Watchers IV", "date": "1998-06-30", "description": "Watchers IV (also known as Watchers Reborn) is the 1998 sequel to the 1988 horror film Watchers. It is loosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean Koontz.", "collections": [ "Collection: Watchers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchers_Reborn" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The golden retriever Einstein had been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The golden retriever Einstein had been genetically engineered to have human level intelligence. The genetically engineered killer creature known as the Outsider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Detective Jack Murphy as he investigates a series of brutal, mysterious slayings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, genetically engineered creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque, genetically engineered creature was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murphy and Grace fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Jack Murphy had lost his wife and son in a devastating fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Grace Hudson worked on a secret government project that resulted in the creation of a golden retriever with an IQ of 140 and a hideous, killer monster known as the Outsider.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Armageddon (1998)", "title": "Armageddon", "date": "1998-07-01", "description": "The film follows a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers sent by NASA to stop a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is that a close-knit team of oil well drillers must stop a Texas-sized asteroid on a collision course with Earth by intercepting it in space and detonating a nuclear warhead deep under its surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Harry Stamper's close-knit team of oil well drillers to stop a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminates with the surviving oil well drillers being celebrated as heroes for saving the world from an extinction level event asteroid impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry's having to go on a dangerous mission into space to save the world served as a the spark for him and his daughter, Grace, to bond and get over their past misgivings about one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace and A.J. were head over heels for one another, got engaged, and the film ended with scenes from their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was hitting golf balls at a ship full of Greenpeace activists from the safety of his oil drilling rig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry went after A.J. with a shotgun for having slept with his daughter, Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace accused her father, Harry, of trying to control her life after he ran off her boyfriend with a shotgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace and A.J. got engaged in the days before A.J. left on a perilous mission to outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United States government initially kept secret that a gigantic asteroid was on a collision course with Earth out of a concern that the public would go bonkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dan Truman explained that knowledge of a gigantic asteroid being on a collision course with Earth was classified to prevent rioting in the streets and \"total chaos\", among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear warhead was used to blow the asteroid into two pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that NASA had violated one of Harry's drill patent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rockhound confessed to having a \"small fear of flying\" moments before the fighter jet he was in took a sharp turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team flew two experimental space shuttled to an asteroid not far beyond the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rockhound made no secrets about his womanizing ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the oil well drillers paid a surprise visit to his four-year-old son before he left on the perilous mission to outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the president give the order to detonate the nuclear warhead or should he let the oil well driller do their job even after radio contact was lost?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living isolated from civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that spending 18 months alone on the Mir space station had taken its toll on Lev's mental health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Harry gave his life to prevent the giant asteroid from striking the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Grace and A.J. tying the knot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998)", "title": "Babylon 5: Thirdspace", "date": "1998-07-19", "description": "An enormous artifact of alien origin is discovered in hyperspace and is towed to Babylon 5 for investigation. It is the third of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_Thirdspace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vorlon had created the artifact out of a belief that they were equal in power to the gods. But the creation of the said artifact they came to regret on account that it opened up a gate to a parallel universe that was populated by a genocidal race of beings even more godlike than the Vorlon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vorlon discovered that Thirdspace is a parallel universe inhabited by a violent, telepathic alien species even older and more powerful than themselves that was hellbent on exterminating all life other than their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set about the gargantuan Babylon 5 space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Babylon 5 space station was home to aliens from around the galaxy. A violent, telepathic alien species from a parallel universe attacked the Babylon 5 space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A variety of futuristic spaceships were shown flying around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta mind scanned Alex to ascertain whether or not he's had an affair with Leo's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was convinced that Alex had had an affair with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta paid a visit to Dr. Franklin in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien artifact from outer space broadcast telepathic signals throughout Babylon 5, resulting in widespread violence across the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyta telepathically informed Captain Sheridan how to deactivate the gate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan uses a thermonuclear device to destroy the alien artifact.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Disturbing Behavior (1998)", "title": "Disturbing Behavior", "date": "1998-07-24", "description": "The story follows a group of high school outcasts who are horrified by their \"Blue Ribbon\" classmates are part of an elaborate mind control experiment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disturbing_Behavior" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The high school senior Steve Clark and his close friends watched as the students at their school turned into perfect goody two-shoes students one by one and worried that the same fate awaited them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the high school psychologist Dr. Edgar Caldicott was masterminding a secret program to mind control all the students into being ideal pupils and citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the high school senior Steve Clark as he get used to life at his new high school in the picturesque island community of Cradle Bay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what high school is like from the point of view of Steve and the trio of outcast stoners that he befriended.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve befriended the trio of outcasts Gavin, U.V., and Rachel shortly after starting at a new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Officer Cox pulled over Steve and Rachel and tried to arrest them without cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's father jokingly asked him if he was going to be nervous on his first day at at his new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's mother urged him to accept the mind control treatment to Steve's horror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A high school English teacher was telling a classroom full of disinterested students about the Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel assumed that it was steroids that'd made a jock freak out and go on a rampage in the supermarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The school janitor Dorian busied himself with catching rats that were inhabiting the school basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve confronted his younger sister, Lindsay, about her wearing of a bracelet from the \"Blue Ribbon\" clique of students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stoner U.V. was dealing pot at the high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve confided in Rachel about how his family had moved to Cradle Bay in the wake of his older brother Allen's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's family had moved to a new town in an effort to start a new chapter in life in the wake of Allen's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve recounted how his older brother Allen had shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The school janitor Dorian drove himself off a cliff to give Steve and Rachel a chance to escape from the mind controlled students and their parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and Rachel kissed toward the story's conclusion, but if was not as if the whole story was building up to it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: New Rose Hotel (1998)", "title": "New Rose Hotel", "date": "1998-09-09", "description": "The story follows two corporate extraction agents, who perform the new version of corporate espionage, grabbing scientists and engineers from rival firms. It is based on William Gibson's story of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rose_Hotel_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hosaka Corporation hired the corporate extraction specialists Fox and X to secretly persuade the paradigm-shattering, super-genius Hiroshi to defect to from the Maas Corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "X and Sandii fell in love in the process of X teaching her how to seduce the paradigm-shattering, super-genius Hiroshi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of a group located somewhere in Indochina that was synthesizing certain viruses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mr. Murder (1998)", "title": "Mr. Murder", "date": "1998-09-21", "description": "A mystery writer finds that a mysterious double is trying to take over his life. It is based on a horror novel of the same name by the best-selling author Dean Koontz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Murder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty Stillwater, the protagonist of the story, was a famous mystery novelist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfie was a genetically engineered clone of Marty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drew Oslett Jr. had a turbulent, albeit little featured, relationship with his father Drew Oslett, Sr. Drew Oslett, Jr. thought of himself as Alfie's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfie was a genetically engineered clone of Marty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty and his family were terrorized by his murderous genetically engineered clone Alfie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marty and Paige Stillwater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alfie, a genetically engineered clone of Marty, was under the mistaken impression that Marty stole his life and memories, and Alfie took steps to take over Marty's life as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Alfie having been genetically engineered so that his wounds healed right away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Marty's kid daughter being treated in the hospital after she'd made an ill-conceived attempt to rescue a tree-stranded kitten.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial womb", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfie was gestated in a red fluid fill, spherical chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfie was genetically engineered to reach physical adulthood in the span of a mere 10 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice and Emily Stillwater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marty and his two young daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paige and her two young daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stillwater was decorated for Christmas and Jingle Bells was playing in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were after Marty on the suspicion of murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were after Marty for a murder after finding several quarts of human blood let around his residence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genetic engineering somehow enabled Marty's clone to be telepathically linked to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a person with malicious intent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paige and her two young daughters fell into the clutches of M¥her husband Marty's murderous clone toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drew Oslett Jr. genetically engineered Alfie to be a supersoldier, but nothing much was made of him as being an actual soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was reported that the genetically engineered killer Alfie had assassinated up to 18 people, including a United States senator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police wrongfully suspected Marty of murder after having discovered him blood covered and with a smoking gun.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)", "title": "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms", "date": "1998-09-27", "description": "Following the events of the original Universal Soldier, the budget of the program has been cut by the government. However, under the orders of a CIA director, a gang of mercenaries take control of the new line of Universal Soldiers to use them in the diamond smuggling business. It is the second installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier_II:_Brothers_in_Arms" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film is a military program to harvest dead soldiers, re-animate and genetically enhanced them with the objective of creating an army of remorseless killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a secret military project to harvest dead soldiers, re-animate and genetically enhanced them with the objective of creating an army of remorseless killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fundamental to the film is a technology to recycle battlefield dead into cybernetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mind wiped Luc rekindled his relationship with his older bother, Eric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with Luc convalescing at his mother and father's home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with Luc convalescing at his mother and father's home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica Roberts was a news reporter by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc and Eric had both died fighting in this war, only to be re-animated and genetically enhanced as part of a secret military program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc had his memories of Veronica wiped after returning to the Universal Soldier facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Otto Mazur traded 50 supersoldiers to a shady foreign national in exchange for a briefcase full of diamonds. But immediately after consummating the deal, Mazur instructed his supersoldiers to open fire on the foreign national, and left with both the diamonds and the soldiers in his possession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc laid his older brother Eric to rest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x01", "title": "Image in the Sand", "date": "1998-09-30", "description": "With the Bajoran wormhole collapsed, Sisko struggles for a way to contact the Bajoran Prophets. Kira opens a Romulan military hospital, and a new Dax appears on the scene.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin, the prophet, had a vision from the wormhole aliens of a woman that he felt compelled to seek out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin confronts Joseph over the identity of the women in picture with Joseph; Benjamin and Jake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was thinking back to his step-mother and discovered that she was not his biological mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joseph reveals to Benjamin the identity of his real mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was thinking back to his step-mother and discovered that she was not his biological mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline followed Worf as he grappled with the tragic passing of his girlfriend, Jadzia. Joseph Sisko mourned for his dearly departed ex-wife, Sarah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joseph reveals to Benjamin the identity of his real mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles after a night of drinking blood wine with Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira trusted in Romulan envoy Kimara Cretak enough to advocate for her request to put a hospital facility on Bajoran moon, but Kimara Cretak used it as an opportunity to place weapons there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pah-wraith cultist tried to murder the holy prophet Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and Julian tried to be there for Worf as he grieved over Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassian leader accused of by Weyoun", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf lectured Nog about having a lack of courage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf desired glory in a battle as opposed to Nog who wanted save his own skin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benmjamin found out his biological mother was not the mother who raised him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was concerned about Jadzia's soul not getting into Klingon afterlife", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x02", "title": "Shadows and Symbols", "date": "1998-10-07", "description": "Sisko's quest leads him to the truth about his existence as Kira sets up a blockade of the Bajoran Moon, Derna, against the Romulans.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake; Joseph and Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin was on a quest to find the mysterious Orb of the Emissary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space station crew mourned for their comrade Jadzia who'd recently fallen in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf was coming to terms with the fact that his girlfriend, Jadzia, had died tragically in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf, Quark and others seek out battle with Cardassians in order that Jadzia may enter sto-vo-kor in the afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation ad Bajorans in dispute over Romulans arming Bajoran moon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira faced down Romulans with the future of the quadrant at stake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin became obsessed with finding the mysterious Orb of the Emissary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf with late wife Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien appeared to Benjamin in the guise of Sarah Sisko, and told him that he had fulfilled his destiny to become the prophet to the Bajorans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny Russell in insane asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny Russell was institutionalized after having had his science fiction stories rejected for publication", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All of Deep Space Nine may have been a figment of Benny Russell's imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Sarah Sisko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri was getting used to her new symbiont Trill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri was implanted with a Trill symbiont that gave her memories of the Trill's previous hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and his party wandered through desert in search of the Orb of the Emissary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and others go on dangerous mission to ensure that Jadzia gets into sto-vo-kor in the afterlife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Damar's drinking problem getting more out of control", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny Russell scribbled out on his insane asylum cell walls the story of Benjamin searching for the Orb of the Emissary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri had a fear of flying owing to one of her past lives having been in a spaceship crash", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira bluffed Kimara Cretak about keeping the blockade up in face of the attacking force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kimara Cretak was authorized to use force or diplomacy to end blockade, but preferred diplomacy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x12", "title": "Ashes to Ashes", "date": "1998-10-08", "description": "Funeral director to the stars Eric Prince, murders gossip columnist Verity Chandler when she attends his latest funeral, that of actor and war hero Chuck Houston. Chandler threatens Prince that her next exposé will be about him. (Two decades earlier, he stole a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star.) Prince bludgeons Chandler with a tool in his storage room, then hides the body in a compartment used for corpses. After the funeral, Prince takes the casket containing Houston's body to the preparation room, where he puts Chandler's body into the casket in its place. It next enters the cremation oven, and afterwards, the ashes are scattered by helicopter over the Hollywood hills. Prince then goes to Chandler's house and fakes evidence of her abduction. So that no one will become suspicious, he cremates Houston's body by piggybacking him onto another corpse scheduled to be cremated.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Houston suffered a war injury in which a distinctively- shaped piece of shrapnel remained stuck in his body for the rest of his life. It was made of a strong metal that was not affected by the flames of the cremation process. As Columbo said when confronting Prince, \"Perhaps you can explain how a piece of Mr. Houston's 50-year-old war record ended up in the urn of a leisurewear importer.\"\n\nSally Kellerman plays the dead man's widow, Liz Houston, and Catherine McGoohan, the real-life daughter of Patrick McGoohan, plays Rita, Prince's assistant.\n\nDirected by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: Jeffrey Hatcher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation, and cremated the body as part of an elaborate plot to get away with the crime. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had the pesky Lt. Columbo not been assigned to the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "he funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did the Hollywood gossip columnist Verity Chandler meet her end at the hands of the very cocaine traffickers that she was apparently writing a column about. Or was she perhaps surreptitiously cremated by a funeral director in an effort to stop her from publishing an exposé on his crooked activities?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "The funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation, and cremated the body as part of an elaborate plot to get away with the crime. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had the pesky Lt. Columbo not been assigned to the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hollywood gossip columnist Verity Chandler was murdered by a funeral director for threatening to publish an exposé on his crooked activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The funeral director to the stars Eric Prince was in the habit of stealing valuables from the bodies under his charge. Most notably, Prince had stolen a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The funeral director to the stars Eric Prince was in the habit of stealing valuables from the bodies under his charge. Most notably, Prince had stolen a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a window into the Eric Prince's life as a funeral director. He explained the process of cremation to Columbo in some detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for the actor and war hero chuck Houston. Later, the viewer was treated to another funeral featuring a tap dancing routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's Basset hound made a nuisance of itself at Verity Chandler's residence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The novelty of having a tap dancer perform at the funeral was commented upon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly unbalanced lady revealed to Columbo that she was seeing a doctor and was psychotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric Prince made it seem as if the gossip columnist Verity Chandler was killed by cocaine traffickers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x01", "title": "Night", "date": "1998-10-14", "description": "Voyager loses power traversing a dark region of space containing theta radiation.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in a void of nothingness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew was traversing an expanse of black nothingness that they projected would take about two years to cross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the toxic waste aliens were polluting the space of the nocturnal aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over environmental concern", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Malon were polluting the space of the nocturnal aliens with toxic waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploiting another society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emck polluted the nocturnal aliens' environment for financial profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppression of a technology to preserve an industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emck refused technology from Voyager that would cut toxic emissions because it hurt his profits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway was feeling guilty about her decision to stay in the Delta quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Emck polluted the nocturnal aliens' environment with toxic waste for financial profit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry entertained themselves with a holo-novel called Captain Proton, which was clearly a parody on low budget sci-fi from the early to mid 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nihilophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor diagnosed Neelix with having a fear of nothingness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway sought but was thwarted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix in the dark", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew in the void", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "toxic waste dumping", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x03", "title": "Afterimage", "date": "1998-10-14", "description": "Everyone who knew Jadzia Dax reacts strongly to Ezri Dax's presence, particularly Worf. Meanwhile Garak suffers from bad claustrophobic attacks.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri found it hard to fit in on the space station among Jadzia's old friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri found it hard to fit in on the space station among Jadzia's old friends", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garak struggled with claustrophobia and had an attack in his quarters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri's space sickness was caused by guilt; Ezri conjectured that repressed guilt was the cause of his claustrophobia; Garak felt guilty over breaking Cardassian codes and in so doing betraying his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically symbiotic beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri was getting used to her new Trill symbiont.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri was implanted with a Trill symbiont that gave her memories of the Trill's previous hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri figuring out whether to stay on space station as counselor or leave because of tensions with Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri with living up to Jadzia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir and Quark with Jadzia and Ezri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was jealous of Julian over his relationship with Ezri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf mourned the passing of his girlfriend, Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin encourages his old friend Ezri to stay on space station as counselor", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 30 Years to Life (1998)", "title": "30 Years to Life", "date": "1998-10-15", "description": "In a futuristic society where prison has been abolished, a 15-year-old is punished for a murder he didn't commit by being subjected to a process that ages him thirty years. As an older man he sets out to find the real killer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Years_to_Life_(1998_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Vinnie Dawson as he tried to prove his innocence after being wrongfully convicted of having murdered his stepfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a society where prison had been abolished and people were punished by being subjected to a process that rapidly ages them by a given number of years, depending on the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vinnie, a 15-year-old, was subjected to a process that ages him thirty years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vinnie Dawson, a 15-year-old, was punished for a murder he didn't commit by being subjected to a process that aged him 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vinnie Dawson was framed for the murder of his stepfather, and spent the bulk of the film trying to prove his innocence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vinnie and Darla fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things got pretty serious between Vinnie (a 15-year-old in the body of a 45-year-old man) and the twenty-something woman Darla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie was really into the virtual reality multi-player shooter game Dante's Inferno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie put on a futuristic headset to play the virtual reality multi-player shooter game Dante's Inferno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie's mother supported him even after he was convicted of having murdered his stepfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie was wrongfully convicted of having murdered his stepfather, whom he had a turbulent relationship with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie wanted to become a guitarist. The waitress Darla was actively pursuing a career in music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie and his stepsister Gweneth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gweneth's mother was romantically involved with Gweneth's fiancée Derek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie was convicted of first degree murder in a dramatic courtroom trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Vinnie's father had hanged himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vinnie was paling around with his teen friends Ben and Kyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some novelty about Darla webcasting her concert, and she made a point to say that it would help her get picked up by a record label.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gweneth and Derek were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nervous and trembling Vinnie lost his virginity to Darla in what turned out to be a night of passionate lovemaking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Derek cheated on his fiancée Gweneth with Gweneth's own mother Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Derek cheated on his fiancée Gweneth with Gweneth's own mother Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Vinnie's body being reverse aged from a physical age of 45 back to his original age of 15.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x02", "title": "Drone", "date": "1998-10-21", "description": "The Doctor's mobile emitter is damaged while beaming back from an away mission, merging with Seven of Nine's Borg nanoprobes and the DNA of a male Ensign to create a 29th century Borg.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Bryan Fuller and Harry 'Doc' Kloor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One sacrificed himself to save Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway contemplated what to do with the dangerous new drone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway contemplated what to do with the dangerous new drone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "One singlehandedly took on a Borg sphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "29th century Borg drone", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg drone One was getting accustomed to acting as an individual apart from the Borg Collective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "One driven to assimilate all knowledge he could get his hands on", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "One was like a child", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was saddened by the Borg drone One's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna mentioned on shuttlecraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inferiority complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven seemed to feel a bit to One", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x04", "title": "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", "date": "1998-10-21", "description": "Sisko must train his staff to play baseball when the Vulcans, led by Solok, challenge them to a game.\n\nDirected by: Chip Chalmers. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vulcan rationality was pitted against human emotion in a game of baseball", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and his senior staff bond through teamwork through preparing to play the Vulcans at baseball", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin settled long standing rivalry with Solok over a baseball game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Solok was prejudiced against humans and their emotionality and tried to prove Vulcan rationality was superior over a game of baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Solok and Benjamin got into serious rivalry over baseball game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin devastated Rom by throwing him off the team but made up for it by bring him back to bat in the top of the ninth inning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin trained his senior staff to play a baseball game against the Vulcans during a lull in the war with the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin coached Jake at baseball; Nog consoled Rom after getting cut from baseball team", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kasidy visits Benjamin on the space station; Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom and Leeta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy; Rom and Leeta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin with Solok", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Soldier (1998)", "title": "Soldier", "date": "1998-10-23", "description": "The film tells the story of a highly skilled soldier defying his commanders and facing a relentless and brutal genetically-enhanced rival soldier.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_(1998_American_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the battle-hardened Sergeant Todd as he defends a ragtag community of garbage planet colonists from a squad of brutal genetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The battle-hardened veteran of many wars Sergeant Todd struggled mightily to adapt to life in the peaceful Arcadia 234 garbage planet community that welcomed him as one of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a squad of genetically-enhanced soldiers wage war on a peaceful garbage-planet-dwelling community. The viewer is shown scenes of Sergeant Todd and his squad fighting in various combat settings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much emphasis is placed Colonel Mekum ordering the genetically-enhanced supersoldiers under his command to effectively use the peaceful colonists for target practice. Sergeant Todd had flashbacks of him and his squad shooting up civilians who were in their way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sergeant Todd was deed too dangerous to keep around, even though he was undeniably useful, and he was exiled after a dramatic deliberation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Sergeant Todd was an obsolete supersoldier who made a new life for himself, after his near lifeless body was unceremoniously dumped on a garbage planet that was home to a colony of outcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Todd was one of multiple orphaned infants who were mental conditioned from an early age to be highly disciplined soldiers dedicated to a wholly military routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it ain't broke don't fix it", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Church quoted this aphorism in response to Colonel Mekum wanting to replace Church's battle-hardened soldiers with untested, genetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was travel to and fro the Arcadia 234 waste disposal planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The P376 waste disposal ship unceremoniously dumped the presumed dead body of Sergeant Todd on the Arcadia 234 waste disposal planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world garbage dump", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Todd found himself on the Arcadia 234 waste disposal planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a multiple star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four suns were visible through the smoggy skies of the garbage planet Arcadia 234.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mace and his wife Sandra took Sergeant Todd into their home and nursed him back to health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra and her mute, young son Nathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mace and his mute, young son Nathan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Nathan, who was mute, had been traumatized by a snakebite he'd received as an infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arcadia 234 garbage planet colonists initially welcomed Sergeant Todd into their scrapyard community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arcadia 234 garbage planet community celebrated Christmas in a scrapyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The colonists voted to banish Sergent Todd from the community after it became apparent that he posed a danger to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Mekum resolved to reduce the Arcadia garbage planet to a cinder using one of the 15 \"planet killer weapons\" that were aboard the ship under his command.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998)", "title": "Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business", "date": "1998-10-24", "description": "Luc Devereaux and journalist Veronica Roberts travel to Canada to continue their attempts to expose the Universal Soldier secret military program. It is the third installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier_III:_Unfinished_Business" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film is a rogue military program to harvest dead soldiers, re-animate and genetically enhanced them with the objective of creating an army of remorseless killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a secret rogue military project to harvest dead soldiers, re-animate and genetically enhanced them with the objective of creating an army of remorseless killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fundamental to the film is a technology to recycle battlefield dead into cybernetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Veronica helped the mind wiped, amnesic, revived from the dead soldier Luc learn about who he'd been in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc had flashbacks to him time fighting in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of Holocaust survivors were to be paid $10 billion in reparations in gold bullion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Veronica, who was already a wanted woman, went on the run after the authorities mistakenly identified her as a hostage taker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The news reporter Veronica was working to expose the covert Universal Soldier military program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cyber-wealth forum being held in Toronto quickly turned into a hostage crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Luc had had his mind wiped. Dr. Gregor's memories were erased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc confided in Veronica that he was afraid of heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Walker created a powerful clone of Luc's brother, Eric, to assassinate both Luc and Veronica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc described feeling a sense of loss upon seeing his parents graves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc and the clone of his recently deceased brother, Eric", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eric clone was implanted with a bomb.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x03", "title": "Extreme Risk", "date": "1998-10-28", "description": "B'Elanna purposely puts herself into increasingly dangerous situations. Meanwhile the crew decides to build a new shuttlecraft, the Delta Flyer.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was B'Elanna falling into a deep depression as a result of her learning that her old Maquis comrades had been massacred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew excited working on the Delta Flier together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna felt guilty that she lived while all her Maquis friends died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna was nearly there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna guilty she lived when all her Maquis compatriots died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna with dangerous activities on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is suffering from a health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew, Chakotay especially, were helping B'Elanna get through a bout of depression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppressed emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was bottling up her emotions to her boyfriend Tom's consternation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "sort of what B'Elanna was doing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "both B'Elanna and Tom in different ways and degrees Major candidate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay assured B'Elanna Voyager was her new family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna's holodeck activities were spied on by command crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x05", "title": "Chrysalis", "date": "1998-10-28", "description": "Bashir falls for a genetically enhanced patient, Sarina Douglas, that he brought out of a catatonic state using an experimental medical procedure.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan West. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Julian for his patient Sarina Douglas; Lauren at Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarina Douglas over leaving her institution mates to be with Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian falls for a genetically enhanced patient, Sarina Douglas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian exhibited loneliness in the teaser when all his friends had plans and he was left with nothing to do, and in the end he was left with nothing to do after Sarina Douglas left", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the mentally ill in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian attempted to reintegrate three genetically-engineered mental patients into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Sarina Douglas; Kira explained how Odo had trouble expressing his feelings", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Bashir used his medical acumen to treat Sarina Douglas of her seeming mental problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarina Douglas learns how to come out of her shell and interact socially with others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian explained how he had had his DNA resequenced to make him smarter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian explained to Miles how he had worried about never be able to live a normal life, being genetically engineered, until he met fellow genetic engineeree Sarina Douglas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian explained how he had had his DNA resequenced to make him smarter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian put a strain on his friendship with Miles by missing their planned Thursday night out at the bar; Miles comforted Julian after his break up with Sarina; Sarina's friends from the mental institution wanted to stay together with her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian development an experimental procedure to use on Sarina Douglas and they had some hesitation about using it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As a child, Sarina had undergone a banned treatment that resulted in her intelligence being boosted to beyond the genius level.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x18", "title": "The Fall of Centauri Prime", "date": "1998-10-28", "description": "The fate of Centauri Prime is decided, between the weapons of the Alliance and the threats of the Drakh. Delenn and Lennier are stranded in hyperspace.\n\nDirected by: Douglas E. Wise. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Londo became slave to alien parasite in order to save his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Drakh on everyone; everyone on the Centauri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Londo and G'Kar featured in particular", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Centauri civilization might be about to be destroyed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things were going on around the emperor on Centauri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan worried about Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheridan worried about Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennier professed to Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Londo said Centari would isolate themselves", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x04", "title": "In the Flesh", "date": "1998-11-04", "description": "The ship encounters a training facility for an alien invasion of Earth.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Nick Sagan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "aliens looking at human society from without", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway debated with Seven about how to face the Species 8472", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Species 8472 exerted themselves, with difficulty, to learn about human culture so that they could infiltrate and destroy the federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "attack by species 8472 was discussed, and also the Borg, Humans from 8742 point of view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Boothby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway took the first step in the detante to build trust", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "this was an allegory for some cold war nonsense cf. sleeper villages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Valarie in a strange way", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "de-escalating a conflict", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans and Species 8472 made efforts toward negotiation a truce to their ongoing conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valarie in human culture", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew threatened Species 8472 with Borg nanoprobes", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x06", "title": "Treachery, Faith and the Great River", "date": "1998-11-04", "description": "A Vorta defector, Weyoun-6, gives Odo valuable information in exchange for asylum. Weyoun-7, the next clone in the series, pursues them. Meanwhile Nog engages in a series of barters to get a Graviton Stabilizer for Miles.\n\nDirected by: Steve Posey. Story by: Philip Kim.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 choosing Dominion and defecting to the Federation. Odo felt sympathy toward the Founders when he found out they were all dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 and Odo grappling with their allegiances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 defected from the Dominion to the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "major", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 turned his back on his own people and the Founders by defecting to the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 committed suicide in order to save the life of his god Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog made obtaining part for Miles as an entrepreneurial pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo coped with Weyoun fawning over him in the shuttlecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles was under much pressure to deliver a new desk for Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog explained to Miles that he should suck up to his boss in order to get the part he needed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo used his shapeshifting abilities to give Kira a soothing massage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 meets Weyoun 7", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun 7 accused Damar of drinking away his problems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyoun 6 and Weyoun 7", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "when Weyoun 5 died in a transporter accident he was succeeded by clones Weyoun 6 and Weyoun 7", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x19", "title": "The Wheel of Fire", "date": "1998-11-04", "description": "G'Kar deals with the 'cult of personality' that is forming around him. Delenn learns that she is pregnant. Lochley helps Garibaldi deal with his problems with alcoholism.\n\nDirected by: Janet Greek. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Garibaldi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan and others with Garibaldi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Psi corps had problem with rogue telepaths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frankling discussed God with G'Kar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheirdan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delenn is pregnant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "G'Kar was less than pleased with being a religious symbol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi was late.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: The River Of Souls (1998)", "title": "Babylon 5: The River Of Souls", "date": "1998-11-08", "description": "After a short absence from Babylon 5, Michael Garibaldi returns to the station to meet with a person in his employ. An archaeologist in search of a means of immortality brings his most recent find to Babylon 5 – an orb containing one billion souls of an extinct race. Within days, a Soul Hunter arrives claiming the orb was stolen from his people. With the assistance of the archaeologist, the souls break free from their captivity in the orb and bring havoc to the station. It is the fourth of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_River_of_Souls" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set about the gargantuan Babylon 5 space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Bryson spent his career searching for a means of immortality, and he finally though he found one in an orb containing one billion souls of an extinct race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Bryson was all-consumed with a desire to live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A large proportion of the one billion souls that the Soul Hunter aliens had mistakenly reaped before their time were hellbent on getting revenge over the mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an orb containing one billion souls of an extinct race. Garibaldi was convinced that the Soul Hunters were not really harvesting souls, but rather were preserving peoples' consciousnesses by means of some advance technology - the Soul Hunter disagreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Bryson recovered an orb containing one billion souls of an extinct race while on an archaeological dig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob was running a seedy holographic brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Clute solicited the services of a racy female hologram at a holographic brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob came into conflict with the Babylon 5 authorities when it came to light that Jacob was suing peoples' photographs without their consent as the bases for the sex holograms in his brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Robert Bryson raised the question of whether there is more to a person than the sum total of all their memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter aliens. The Ralga aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Babylon 5 space station was brought under threat by an armada of Soul Hunter vessels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter alien was initially adamant that he and his soul harvesting brethren were incapable of any error when it came to the matter of determining when someone was at the moment of death. As a result, he was dumbfounded to learn that he and his brethren had mistakenly taken the souls of an entire alien race before their proper time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Soul Hunter alien initially thought he and his brethren had done another alien race an honor by taking their souls from their bodies and storing the said souls in an orb, but he ultimately came to see that they were monsters for what they had done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x05", "title": "Once Upon a Time", "date": "1998-11-11", "description": "Neelix looks after Naomi Wildman when her mother is injured on an away mission.\n\nDirected by: John Kretchmer. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix and Naomi explored a holodeck simulation of The Forest of Forever fantasy land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Naomi and crew about Samantha stranded on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix was faced with deciding on how to break the bad news to Naomi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Naomi and mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children learning about death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix shared with Naomi the story of how he'd lost his entire family in case news returned that Naomi's mother had died in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nelix about his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "godparent and godchild", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix too it upon himself to spend time with his god-daughter as they awaited news about her mother who'd been critically injured while on a mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha, Tuvok, and Tom expected to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "trapped people leave last messages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor told Naomi a theory of how eukaryotic cells evolved as a bedtime story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elemental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naomi encountered the water elemental being Flotter while exploring the holodeck simulated Forest of Forever fantasy land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naomi encountered the tree-man Trevis while exploring the holodeck simulated Forest of Forever fantasy land.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x07", "title": "Once More unto the Breach", "date": "1998-11-11", "description": "Worf finds a battle assignment for Kor, an aging Klingon hero.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor explained to Worf that he was old and there was no place for him in Klingon society anymore and that he wanted Worf as help him die the death of a warrior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor was losing his mind on the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor explained he was old and there was no place for him in Klingon society anymore", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor wanted a glorious death in combat even more than other Klingons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kor wished to die an honorable death rather that in obscurity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok held a grudge against Kor over Kor having rejected Martok's application to become a Klingon officer for no good reason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor rose to prominence in Klingon society in large part because of his status in society while Martok, a man of common origins, had to struggle to advance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingon crewmembers revered the legendary Dahar master Kor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martok gloated to Kor about his losing his mind, but Kor pointed out to Martok the indignities of age that we all must face", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against someone of a different social class", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kor rose to prominence in Klingon society in large part because of his family name. Martok, by contrast, a man of common origins had to struggle against many prejudices in order to advance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kor showed contempt for commoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri discussed with Kira about her past life experiences of serving with Klingons. Ezri wished to set herself apart from her previous hosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martok rose to a high rank in Klingon military in spite of having been a commoner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark exhibited behavior toward Ezri that he had a crush on her and discouraged her from pursuing a relationship with Worf", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x20", "title": "Objects in Motion", "date": "1998-11-11", "description": "As G'Kar plans to leave Babylon 5 with Lyta, the crew thwart an assassination attempt on Garibaldi and Lise with the help of an old ally.\n\nDirected by: Jesus Trevino. Story by: Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "a hitman was after Garibaldi and he knew it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "G'Kar was upset about having groupies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi's wife was gravely wounded and he went a tad berserk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyta was there and did some stuff", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "major", "motivation": "there were emotional goodbye speeches", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garibaldi and Lise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars woman said Earth used bureaucracy to harass Mars", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi was kicking his nasty habit", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x06", "title": "Timeless", "date": "1998-11-18", "description": "Fifteen years in the future, Chakotay and Harry Kim attempt to prevent the Voyager from crash-landing on an ice planet.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry at being responsible for destruction of Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay and Harry travel back in time to alter history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was trying to change the past against Federation wishes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "use slipstream drive and get home vs. using conventional technology and getting home later", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven getting drunk at social gathering", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor woke up 15 years in the future buried inside a glacier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Tessa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "episode closed with a message from Harry Kim to Harry Kim", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x08", "title": "The Siege of AR-558", "date": "1998-11-18", "description": "Sisko and crew relieve Starfleet troops under siege by Jem'Hadar at a key communications outpost, AR-558, the largest Dominion communications array in the sector.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nadia Larkin and her unit had been besieged by the Jem'Hadar on the front lines for five months by the time Benjamin and his team arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and everyone while under siege by Jem'Hadar forces", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nadia Larkin and her men were at their wits end after five months on the front lines battling the Jem'Hadar; Vargas snapped while Julian treated his arm wound", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Benjamin and ever Nadia Larkin and her men were at their wits end after five months on the front lines battling the Jem'Hadar; everyone in the face of Jem'Hadar siege; Nog showed courage in going on mission in contrast to Quark who wanted him to stay in a safe place", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nadia Larkin and her men were at their wits end after five months on the front lines battling the Jem'Hadar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Nog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark worried about Nog when Benjamin sent Nog on patrol and came back wounded and had his leg amputated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassing family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog was embarrassed about Quark's cowardice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog, who was determined to fight bravely against the Jem'Hadar in the Siege of AR-558, didn't much like having his uncle Quark around urging him to stay out of harm's way as much as possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine was a self-aware hologram", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri remembered the memories of her previous hosts being in combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin was sick of seeing more casualty lists, and made a point to say the people who died were not just names on a list.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x21", "title": "Objects at Rest", "date": "1998-11-18", "description": "Sheridan and Delenn finally depart Babylon 5 for the IA's new headquarters on Minbar. Franklin leaves for his new posting on Earth. Garibaldi settles into his new corporate life. And Lennier makes a terrible choice and must face the consequences.\n\nDirected by: John Copeland. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the whole episode was people saying goodbye to each other almost for forever", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were teary eyed friendships everywhere and then Lennier betrayed Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delenn, Sheridan, Lennier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier for Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier resented Sheridan because of Delenn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier was deeply ashamed of himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennier said he would try and redeem himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn were in the center", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x07", "title": "Infinite Regress", "date": "1998-11-25", "description": "When Voyager brings aboard an advanced piece of Borg technology from a salvaged Borg cube, Seven of Nine begins to take on the personalities of the people assimilated by the cube.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Robert J. Doherty and Jimmy Diggs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven began to take on the personalities of the people assimilated by a Borg cube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens were attacking Borg with computer virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens trying to annihilate Borg with computer virus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and others with Seven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok in risking himself to save Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of Nine was experiencing symptoms that are stereotypically associated with multiple personality disorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternative medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor accused Tuvok of practicing Vulcan homeopathy on Seven", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x09", "title": "Covenant", "date": "1998-11-25", "description": "Dukat, now a religious leader, holds Kira hostage. Mika, one of Dukat's followers, gives birth to a half-Cardassian child.\n\nDirected by: John Kretchmer. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dukat led the Pah'wraith religious cult", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira maintained that the Pah'wraith cult was an instrument of evil while Dukat maintained the Pah'wraiths were the good guys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was the prophet of the Pah'wraiths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira held captive by Dukat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat found religion in the Pah'wraith cult; Odo lamented that he couldn't join Kira at her religious services", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for self-vindication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dukat was in part motivated by a desire to vindicate himself over the abuses he oversaw during Bajoran occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira was made to question her beliefs about whether the prophets were the good guys or the bad guys; Fala became disillusioned with the prophets and turned to worship the Pah'wraiths", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mika had Dukat's baby even though she was married to Benyan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat used religion to control and exploit cult members for his own purposes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo with Kira after she went missing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the happy Bajoran couple Mika and Benyan were surprised when she gave birth to a half Cardassian baby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the winners write history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat told Kira that the prophets had written Bajoran history so as to portray themselves as gods and vilify the Pah'wriaths", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "bbf5x22", "title": "Sleeping in Light", "date": "1998-11-25", "description": "Twenty years after the end of the Shadow War, Sheridan is approaching the end of his life and decides to gather together all his old friends one last time.\n\nDirected by: J. Michael Straczynski. Story by: J. Michael Straczynski.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-babylon5.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan knew he was days away from death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan clearly felt his years and a few other characters did too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sheridan's old friends grieved for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan re-united with old friends one last time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan and Delenn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheridan took farewell of friends before setting out never to return", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the idea was that Sheridan ran out of life force", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivanova did some thinking before taking over after Sheridan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garibaldi and his daughter exchanged banter", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x08", "title": "Nothing Human", "date": "1998-12-02", "description": "A wounded alien is brought on board from a stranded vessel and attaches itself to B'Elanna Torres.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jeri Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Can we conscientiously use data obtained through Nazi war-crimes?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "holodeck used to practice performing medical procedures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the cytoplasmic life form", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "the cytoplasmic life form parasitised B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moset's unethical humanoid experimentation on Bajor during Cardassian occupation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "the arguments for and against doing nasty medical experiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "informed consent in medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor struggled with whether or not to treat B'Elanna without her consent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor struggled with decising whether or not to help Moset in his evil experiments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions ran high between the Maquis crew members and the hologram of a notorious Cardassian scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Dr. Moset struggled to dislodge a parasitic alien from B’Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor giving his slide show", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor about being needed to be appreciated for one's accomplishments", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moset callously vivisected a holographic alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew at The Doctor's slide show", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was distressed when his girlfriend B'Elanna became incapacitated by an alien parasite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew and cytoplasmic life form aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor presented a self-aggrandizing slideshow on his achievements while aboard Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna hated Cardassians and was of the mind that they were all cold-blooded killers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x09", "title": "Thirty Days", "date": "1998-12-09", "description": "Tom Paris disregards orders by helping an aquatic world and is demoted to Ensign.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Scott Miller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Monean mining operation caused their world ocean to evaporate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "climate change and bureaucratic inaction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Monean bureaucracy was unable to face the challenge of climate change", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom violated orders by helping his Riga to blow up an oxygen mining facility that was polluting Riga's planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom introspecting about his relationship with his dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and his estranged father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom's father in Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "water planet to the core", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moneans lived in huge ball of water floating in space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was bored with life and was eager to help Riga explore the water planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom in the brig", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom violated Prime Directive by assisting Riga against their will", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Riga committed acts of eco-terrorism by sabotaging the refineries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solitary confinement as a punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom struggled in solitary confinement in the brig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom in the brig", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monean social problem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riga's consciousness was raised about the importance of protecting the environment by the end of the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom entertained himself with a holo-novel called Captain Proton, which was clearly a parody on low budget sci-fi from the early to mid 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Monean capital city", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delta Flier crew vs. electric ell-like sea creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delta Flier crew vs. electric ell-like sea creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "makers of the ocean planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "ocean planet was built by ancient aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riga and Tom vs. Monean government", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry for wrong sister", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "alien did not like", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway :: Janeway prepared to destroy Tom", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)", "title": "Star Trek: Insurrection", "date": "1998-12-11", "description": "The crew of the USS Enterprise-E rebels against Starfleet after they discover a conspiracy with a species known as the Son'a to steal the peaceful Ba'ku's planet for its rejuvenating properties. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the third to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Insurrection" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise-E.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ba'ku held a belief in the virtuousness of manual work and lived basically as Mennonites even though they were acquainted with advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ba'ku held a belief in the virtuousness of manual work and lived basically as Mennonites even though they were acquainted with advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and Anij. Riker and Troi rekindled their love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retarded aging effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ba'ku villagers had not aged a day since they settled on their planet some 300 years ago because of the presence of metaphasic particles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation was going to resettle the Ba'ku against their will because they wanted to get the resources on their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Was the Federation justified in relocate 600 Ba'ku villagers so that billions could benefit from the life extending metaphasic particles on the planet?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ru'afo and his Son'a brethren had been exiled by the Ba'ku in the past and he was seeking to avenge that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ru'afo wanted to use the metaphasic particles on the Ba'ku planet to make a technology that would stop him from physically aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data used an invisibility screen while he was observing the Ba'ku village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data went haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise-E transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An simulation of the Ba'ku village was discovered on a Federation holo-ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ba'ku villagers turned out to have fled from their homeworld to get away from what they perceived as the dangers of civilization destroying weapons of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ba'ku boy Artim, who had never seen advanced machines before, was instinctively prejudiced against Data. But in the end Data won him over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ba'ku boy Artim and his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Baku boy Atrim taught Data how to play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Picard attended a diplomatic ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ru'afo received some genetic treatments to help slow his physical aging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with the Baku reconciling with the Son'a exiles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x10", "title": "Counterpoint", "date": "1998-12-16", "description": "While passing through Devore space, Voyager is routinely searched for telepaths.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kashyk betrayed Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kashyk betrayed Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway's tough decision in trusting Kashyk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager was ferrying telepath refugees to safety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kashyk pretended to support the telepathic refugees", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Kashyk mutual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager granted to Kashyk", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in coffee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway and Kashyk enthusiastically indulged in coffee drinking while searching for the wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "telepaths suspended in transporter buffer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager sought one with the help of Kashyk and Torat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Kashyk in late night wormhole finding session", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kashyk played the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony throughout the ship in order to \"relax\" the crew. Later Janeway derived an epiphany from Tchaikovsky's Symphony Number Four.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a group of people being persecuted because they used telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Torat was a textbook pompous scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kashyk expressed a view that the concept of trust was unknown to telepathic races.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Faculty (1998)", "title": "The Faculty", "date": "1998-12-25", "description": "A motley crew of high school students discover that their teachers have been co-opted aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faculty" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a small town high school, and follows a number of stereotypical teen storylines: Casey was bullied, Delilah is looking to break big stories in the school newspaper, Zeke is an underachieving drug pusher, Stokley had trouble fitting in, and Stan quits the football team to focus on his studies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Casey and his friends watched in horror as the teachers and other students at their school became controlled by nefarious aliens, one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bug aliens attached themselves to human hosts, and controlled them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parasitic bug aliens from outer space were going around entering the teachers and students of a local high school, and controlling them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Casey and his friends to thwart the bug aliens' scheme to parasitize everyone in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a local high school football team practice, and later a where the team is playing and infecting opposing players with parasitic bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Furlong was teaching a high school science class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rumors were going around the high school that Stokley was a lesbian though it turned out she had a crush on Stan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zeke was selling drugs to his fellow students at the school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delilah and Casey were working on the school newspaper together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey was going around taking pictures for the school newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Delilah had exposed Mr. Tate's alcoholism in the school paper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey's mother raided his bedroom for drugs and porno, finding only the latter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey was lectured by his father for having gotten into trouble at school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey's parent Mr. and Mrs. Connor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens inspiring great people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey postulated that such sci-fi film directors as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Barry Sonnenfeld, and Roland Emmerich had gotten their ideas from aliens - or were perhaps themselves aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The high school football star player Stan took exception to Mr. Furlong having changed a \"D\" he'd scored on his biology test to an \"A\", saying that he'd worked hard for that \"D\" and wished people would let him be the \"D\" student that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a pointed incident at Zeke's house when the five teens became suspicious as to whether someone among them might be infected with an alien parasite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concludes with Stan and Stokley being an item. Delilah and Casey shared a kiss at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x10", "title": "It's Only a Paper Moon", "date": "1998-12-30", "description": "Nog struggles with PTSD and begins living with Vic Fontaine.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: David Mack & John J. Ordover.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog was faced with having to adapt to his new reality after having lost a leg in the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog's condition was due to his memories and fear of the war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an imaginary reliance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog overcomes his reliance on walking with a cane when he has a perfectly good prosthetic leg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nog retreated to a holo suite Las Vegas fantasy world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog went to the holosuites to listen to Vic Fontaine sing Nog's favorite song at Quark's expense", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nog explained to Vic about how he realized he was mortal after losing his leg in the war, and that was Nog's reason for retreating to the holo suite Las Vegas fantasy world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "sentient hologram Vic Fontaine complained to Nog of being tired after having his program run for an extended period of time; Miles and Nog discussed the sentience of Vic", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog had a perfect leg replacement but he used a cane for psychological reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog was confounded when Vic talked about being bigger than Elvis and was clueless as to the purpose of a cigarette lighter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rom concerned over Rom's wellbeing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nog accosted Jake in the holo suite night club", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beau Travail (1999)", "title": "Beau Travail", "date": "1999", "description": "Beau Travail (pronounced , French for \"good work\") is a 1999 French film directed by Claire Denis that is loosely based on Herman Melville's 1888 novella Billy Budd. The story is set in Djibouti, where the protagonists are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. Parts of the soundtrack of the movie are from Benjamin Britten's opera based on the novella.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Travail" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what people do in the French foreign Legion, throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Galoup and Sentain were at each other's throats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galoup at Sentain over the professional attention the latter received from their commander, Forestier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "we understand that there was a homosexual dimension to Galoup's feelings for Sentain and Forestier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw Galoup and his girlfriend from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galoup plotted to murder Sentain, almost succeeded, and was court-martialed for having done it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline in the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "black guy had to dig a pit as punishment for deserting his post; a few points were made about obedience", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (1999)", "title": "Babylon 5: A Call to Arms", "date": "1999-01-03", "description": "It is up to President Sheridan to stop the Drakh from destroying Earth. It is the fifth of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_A_Call_to_Arms" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set aboard the IAS Excalibur, the first in a series of prototype destroyers using technology reverse engineered from the Vorlon–Minbari technology of the White Stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "Significant parts of the story are set on the Babylon 5 space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Drakh aliens were hellbent on destroying Earth. Many other aliens were either involved in the plot or were hanging around in the background.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to President Sheridan to stop the Drakh from annihilating Earth. Dureena Nafeel's world destroyed by the Shadows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dureena Nafeel was determined to get revenge on the Drakh on account that they annihilated her people. The Drakh sought revenge for the part humans have played in defeating them in a past war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Sheridan was hopping around the galaxy in the prototype destroyer IAS Excalibur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dureena Nafeel was briefly abducted by the Thieves Guild that was lurking in the seedy underground of Babylon 5.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Dureena's homeworld had been destroyed by thermonuclear weapons in an attack by the Shadows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Anderson had a video call with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drake, a Mars citizen resentful of Earth's prejudice against Mars-born citizens, betrayed the people of Earth by supplying the Drakh attack fleet with information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Drakh contaminated Earth with biogenic plague Earth using a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Drakh contaminated Earth with a biogenic agent that would kill all life on Earth inside of five years unless a cure was found.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "President Sheridan convened a team of experts and set them to work on finding a cure for the plague that threatened to eradicate all human life on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x11", "title": "Prodigal Daughter", "date": "1999-01-06", "description": "Ezri goes to New Sydney to find O'Brien and uncovers some disturbing family secrets. Miles goes in search of the widow of Liam Bilby, Morica Bilby, whom he befriended in an undercover operation.\n\nDirected by: Victor Lobl. Story by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri had a strained relationship with her overbearing mother Yanas Tigan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri had a strained relationship with her overbearing mother Yanas Tigan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yanas Tigan disapproved of the path Ezri took in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yanas Tigan disapproved of the path Ezri took in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yanas Tigan to Norvo Tigan and Janel Tigan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri returned to her family abode and caught up with her brothers Norvo Tigan and Janel Tigan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Norvo Tigan and Janel Tigan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yanas Tigan meddled with Ezri's and Norvo Tigan's lives", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norvo Tigan murdered Morica Bilby to prove to his overbearing mother that he was capable of running the family business in keeping with the standards set by his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Orion Syndicate's influence in New Sydney society was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri discussed the difficulties that she was experiencing with having memories from eight past lives inside her head. In one pointed indident, Ezri called her mother by the wrong name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri's family owed favors to the mob", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norvo Tigan aspired to be a painter, but was highly critical of his own work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the visual arts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norvo was a talented young painter of landscapes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norvo Tigan", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Virus (1999)", "title": "Virus", "date": "1999-01-15", "description": "Based on the comic book of the same name by Chuck Pfarrer, it tells the story of a ship beset by a malevolent extraterrestrial entity that seeks to turn humanity into cyborg slaves.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(1999_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Everton's crew, or what was left of it, eventually mutinied against him because he'd lost all perspective and didn't see the dangers of staying on the cyborg infested Russian science vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sentient electrical energy being had turned the Volkov's crew (except for Nadia Vinogradova) into demented cyborgs, and subsequently went about doing the same to the tugboat Sea Star's crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent electrical energy being from outer space was inhabiting the machinery of the Russian science vessel Volkov.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A malevolent electrical energy being from outer space was inhabiting the machinery of the Russian science vessel Volkov.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The malevolent electrical energy being was going around killing people in a giant robot body that it was controlling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Foster and Nadia realizing that malevolent electrical entity sought to seize a British intelligence station from which it could seize control of the world's military forces and use them exterminate humanity. They sent the life form to the bottom of the sea rather than let it achieve its horrible end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew of the tugboat Sea Star nearly lost their lives while sailing through a typhoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tugboat Sea Star was captained by the alcoholic old man Robert Everton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A malevolent electrical entity attacked the Russian space station Mir.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x11", "title": "Latent Image", "date": "1999-01-20", "description": "The Doctor finds out that some of his memories have been blocked.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Eileen Connors, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor's right possibly violated in wiping his memory without his consent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor chose Harry's life over Ahni Jetal's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor over choosing Harry's life over Ahni Jetal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "major", "motivation": "who to operate on first: Harry or Ahni Jetal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor choosing Harry's life over Ahni Jetal's", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor after choosing Harry's life over Ahni Jetal", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "informed consent in medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor likened what Janeway’s wiping of his memories to a Doctor forcing a procedure on a patient against the patient’s will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor delighted in taking portrait photographs of his fellow crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical determinism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor posited it was determined at the start of the universe that he would choose to save Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor's memory was repeatedly wiped on Janeway's orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven of Nine had a late night chat with Janeway that touched on the nature of individuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway with the The Doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor said he choose to save Harry's life out of friendship; Janeway's friendship helped save The Doctor from madness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway compared The Doctor to a replicator, while B'Elanna would hardly call his personality subroutines a soul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Blair Witch Project (1999)", "title": "The Blair Witch Project", "date": "1999-01-25", "description": "The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It tells the fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The three disappeared, but their equipment and footage is discovered a year later. The purportedly \"recovered footage\" is the film the viewer sees.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While lost in a forest, three young filmmakers were haunted by the ghost of a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "three young filmmakers were lost in a forest and tormented by someone or something that, it transpired, sought their eventual death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "choice", "motivation": "three young filmmakers were lost in a forest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw a variety of attempts to keep spirits up in the little trio", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "chased by a witch and lost in the woods, all three people eventually lost their composures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "if the antagonist was indeed the Blair Witch, she was likely supernatural", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The legend involved a man who, prompted by the witch, abducted and murdered local children. The story seemed to end in the very basement where the murders had occurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the three young filmmakers were increasingly stressed out about getting lost during the trek, but tried to carry on filming nonetheless", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The trio came across a variety of ominous symbols and figures that we imagine were used in witchcraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x12", "title": "Bride of Chaotica!", "date": "1999-01-27", "description": "Paris' latest holodeck adventure The Adventures of Captain Proton takes an unexpected turn.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the photonics didn't realize material beings were possible", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Chaotica at Arachnia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Proton simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Proton holodeck simulation gone haywire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "photonic life form", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom entertained himself with a holo-novel called Captain Proton, which was clearly a parody on low budget sci-fi from the early to mid 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robbie style robot from Captain proton simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Chaotica was fond of his death ray", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arachnia betrays Doctor Chaotica over dropping the shields", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in coffee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway had severe coffee cravings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and friends in Chaotica holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x13", "title": "Gravity", "date": "1999-02-03", "description": "Tuvok and Paris crash on a planet stuck in a pocket of subspace, where they meet a female named Noss.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Jimmy Diggs, Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "young Tuvok at Jara and Noss at Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "young Tuvok and Tarrelian and Tuvok and Noss since Tuvok was married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom, Tuvok, and The Doctor did their best to survive after crash landing on a desert planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom, Tuvok, and The Doctor did their best to survive after crash landing on a desert planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noss rejected by Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Tuvok was told by his master that he must learn to control his emotions, especially his romantic attraction toward Jara. Tuvok repressed his romantic interest in Noss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "young Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "deserted planet where shuttlecraft crashed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew used translator in failed attempt to communicate with Noss", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok pointed out that Noss had been lonely on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok over wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppressed emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was accused of suppressing his feelings of love.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x12", "title": "The Emperor's New Cloak", "date": "1999-02-03", "description": "Quark and Rom cross into the mirror universe to rescue Grand Nagus Zek.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri Tigan (mirror) and Kira (mirror) were in a lesbian relationship; Ezri Tigan (mirror) flirted with Leeta (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark at Ezri Tigan in the mirror universe and Ezri Dax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri Tigan (mirror) and Kira (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Rom travel to a savage mirror universe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark and Rom travel to a parallel universe populated by evil versions of everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri Tigan (mirror) betrayed Kira (mirror) by helping Quark and Rom escape; Ezri Tigan (mirror) betrayed Quark and Rom in their bid to rescue Zek; Kira (mirror) killed Brunt (mirror) on a whim because she felt he was going to betray her; Worf felt he was betrayed by Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri Tigan (mirror) helped Quark and Rom escape execution and rescue Zek and betrayed Kira (mirror) in the process", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark at Bashir over Ezri, and Quark at Kira (mirror) over Ezri Tigan (mirror).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek was held hostage by Kira (mirror) in the mirror universe; Ezri Tigan (mirror) held captive by Julian (mirror)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom stole a cloaking device to exchange for Zek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark explained to Ezri Tigan (mirror) that he was risking his life to rescue Zek out of loyalty to the Grand Nagus", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zek urged Quark and Rom not to mention to their mother about his romantic involvement with Kira (mirror).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x14", "title": "Bliss", "date": "1999-02-10", "description": "A large organism telepathically deceives the Voyager crew into flying into its digestive chamber.\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole. Story by: Bill Prady.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "choice", "motivation": "crew quick to believe wormhole was real", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "telepathic wormhole entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-deception", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew was quick to believe they'd found a wormhole back to Earth, but it turned out to be a siren-like ship eating space monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew of getting home using the wormhole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Qatai's stated his life mission to kill wormhole entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven with Naomi", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew homesick", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven's problem", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven disobeyed various commands and Naomi had an incident with Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Qatai didn't trust his senses inside the wormhole entity; Seven at the end also", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven was at a loss to explain why her fellow crew members were so eagerly sending themselves to almost certain doom by flying Voyager into a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "wormhole entity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Qatai with killing the creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Qatai with killing the creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of an unknown future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was accused of worrying about returning to Earth", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x13", "title": "Field of Fire", "date": "1999-02-10", "description": "Ezri summons Joran, a homicidal Dax incarnation from her past, for help in understanding the mind of a serial killer loose on the station.\n\nDirected by: Tony Dow. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri summoned a past personality in order to help her solve a crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri faced her inner killer and concluded in the end that now she had to learn to live with him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri extensively consulted with the cold blooded killer Joran so that she could get into the way of thinking of a serial killer who was loose aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A serial killer was loose aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Miles regretted not having invited Hector Ilario to join them in the holosuite", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julilan, Miles, Ezri and others mourned over Hector Ilario who was murdered by a serial killer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: My Favorite Martian (1999)", "title": "My Favorite Martian", "date": "1999-02-12", "description": "A television news producer befriends a Martian who crash-landed on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Favorite_Martian_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about a Martian who crash-lands on Earth and subsequently gets into all sorts of hijinks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows the TV news producer Tim O'Hara as he plots to break the story of a Martian living in his house to the world, although he ultimately befriended the Martian and kept the story from the public. The ambitious TV news reporter Brace Channing tried to seduce Tim and steal his story about a Martian living in his house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian took the form of various humans after crash-landing on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tim befriended the Martian who'd taken up residence in his home and helped it to repair its spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martian wore an irreverent talking suit, named Zoot, that worked as his engineer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Tim and his camera operator Lizzy falling in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian was trying repair his spaceship so that he could fly back to the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian shrank its spacecraft down to the size of something that one could hold in the palm of one's hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian turned himself invisible at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scuffle ensued when the Martian broke into Tim's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian had some trouble fitting in on Earth. In particular, he slobbered Mrs. Brown's hand with licks upon greeting her for the first time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Martian levitated scoops of ice cream all over the place in a fit of ecstasy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brace Channing was hauled off by two black suit and sunglasses clad SETI goons and subsequently interrogated about aliens at the SETI facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TV news station head Mr. Channing and his reporter daughter, Brace Channing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lizzy and Zoot were shrunken down to pint-sized proportions. Tim and the Martian shrank themselves down to be small enough to fit inside a toilet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x15-16", "title": "Dark Frontier", "date": "1999-02-17", "description": "Janeway plans to steal a transwarp coil from a disabled Borg ship to shorten their journey home. Seven of Nine experiences memories of her past just before she and her parents are assimilated and plans to re-join the Borg collective. The Borg Queen incorrectly tells Seven of Nine that she is the only Borg to have ever returned to being an individual. (Picard/Locutus also returned to humanity.)\n\nDirected by: Cliff Bole\n\nTerry Windell. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven revisiting her troubled childhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven choose Voyager over the Borg Collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven chose to allow herself to be re-assimilated in order to spare the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew confront Borg sphere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven thought back to her troubled childhood with her parents chasing the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven's parents with the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven's parents made a life's work of studying the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "perpetual argument with the Borg (now through its queen)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of joining Borg Collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway goes through hell and high water for Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven experienced memories of her past just before she and her parents are assimilated by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Borg assimilated Species 10026 and plotted to do likewise to all humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven's parents in the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven's childhood", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military tactics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager carefully planned and executed an operation of some sort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven's parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and Erin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and Magnus", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x14", "title": "Chimera", "date": "1999-02-17", "description": "A Changeling, Laas, asks Odo to leave the station and join his search for other shapeshifters. Laas was with the Varalans and has learned to assume a space-faring creatures form.\n\nDirected by: Steve Posey. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo was tempted to leave Kira to found a new community of shapeshifters with Laas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Odo was tempted to leave Kira to found a new community of shapeshifters with Laas but elected to stay with Kira in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Laas was never accepted by the Varalans and felt as an outsider among humanoids in general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Laas experienced prejudice at the hands of humanoids and was deeply suspicious of them as a result. He went on to make Odo question the extent to which humanoids were deeply racist against shapeshifters. Odo worried that Laas would not be treated fairly by humanoids on space station after Laas killed a Klingon. A Klingon duo openly racist toward Laas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Laas made Odo question the extent to which humanoids were deeply racist against shapeshifters; Laas experienced prejudice at the hands of humanoids and was deeply suspicious of them as a result; Odo worried that Laas would not be treated fairly by humanoids on space station after Laas killed a Klingon; Klingon duo openly racist toward Laas; Kira explained that humans were uncomfortable around beings that were too different", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The shapeshifter Laas struggled to live among humanoids aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo again had to choose between shapeshifters and solids", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo met Laas who was one of the hundred infant changelings who were sent out to explore the galaxy; Laas shapeshifed into a spaceborne life form, a fire and a fog", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo was tempted to leave Kira to found a new community of shapeshifters with Laas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laas' relationship had failed because they couldn't have kids and his partner needed that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laas described about living as nature intended and wished to found a new colony of shapeshifters in tune with nature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laas explained how human humanoids had not yet evolved to the next level where consciousness exists independent of form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Laas entered into a state of shared consciousness", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laas had learned to assume the form of a space-faring life form", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x01", "title": "Back in the Red: Part I", "date": "1999-02-18", "description": "The nanobots have rebuilt Red Dwarf to its original design plans. In effect, the fresh new Red Dwarf is better than the old version of the ship the nanobots deconstructed in the first place – faster, more streamlined, containing more advanced technology, which was not included the first time round due to budget cutbacks. After crashing Starbug in the docking bay, they discover the nanobots have also resurrected the original crew complement of Red Dwarf who were killed in the radioactive disaster three million years previously, and who now have no memory of the incident or events following it. Lister tries to persuade the newly resurrected Arnold Rimmer to help him escape so that he can track down the nanobots to corroborate his story, but the only way for Lister to convince Rimmer is by helping Rimmer get promoted using a disc of confidential files left in the crashed wreckage of Starbug.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nanobots had rebuilt the Red Dwarf vessel and resurrected its crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was charged with having stolen the Starbug and placed in a holding cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer's ears perked up when Lister hinted that he knew how Rimmer could secure a promotion for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten boasted of the progress he'd made in mastering certain human emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was upset and couldn't concentrate on his book because of Lister's innate chattering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was confined to quarter awaiting trial and worrying that no one would believe his incredible story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat was so vain that even his internal organs were color coded, and his heart had a groovy beat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship psychiatrist thought Kryten was crazy in insisting he was a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer got his hands on a special luck virus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x17", "title": "The Disease", "date": "1999-02-24", "description": "Kim finds love when the crew encounters a Varro generational ship that needs assistance repairing its warp drive.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry and Derran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry fretted over violating direct order by getting involved with Derran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry forced to let go of Derran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry and Derran's love checked by institutional forces", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry and Derran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Varro dissidents wanted to leaved the generational starship at the cost of reducing the chance of everyone else reaching their objective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew and Varro crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Varro traveled in such a starship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Varro government forbade making contact or otherwise interacting with outsides.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Varro", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Derran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Varro dissidents wanted freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven compared love to a disease in a conversation with Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political asylum", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varro stowaway was considered for political asylum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "silicon parasites caused micro fractures on Voyager and Varro starship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was adamant to Janeway that he was in love and not suffering from a disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varro were paranoid about strangers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway extended shields at risk to themselves to protect Varro ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually transmitted disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Derran sexual transmitted to Harry what was initially thought by The Doctor to be a disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Varro led an underground movement on the generational starship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x15", "title": "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang", "date": "1999-02-24", "description": "The crew attempt to help Vic Fontaine when Vic's hotel is bought by mobsters Frankie Eyes and Carl Zeemo.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine's holosuite program was overrun by gangsters, and the crew tried to help him because they thought of Vic as a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew considered Vic Fontain a friend and tried to help him when his simulated lounge was overrun by gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin and Worf didn't initially consider Vic Fontaine to be a person, and weren't much interested in helping him in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The holosuite goes out of control and Vic's lounge is overrun by gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vic Fontaine's holosuite program was taken over by the mafia in order to launder money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic used to beat Frankie Eyes at stick ball when they were kids and they had been rivals ever since.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin pointed out to Kasidy that the Vic Fontain's 1960s era holosuite nightclub was historically inaccurate, because, being black, in reality they would not have been allowed inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin explained about how the Civil Rights movement was just in its infancy in 1962 America, and how black people had a lot of trouble getting around in that time and place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Escape from Mars (1999)", "title": "Escape from Mars", "date": "1999-02-25", "description": "The story concerns five astronauts who make the first manned trip to Mars in 2015.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows five enterprising astronauts as they make the first manned trip to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five astronauts went on a pioneering mission to Mars in order to lay the foundation for a human colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The five astronauts had to keep it together under various nail biting situations (e.g. a computer malfunction, a meteor shower, a breakdown of communications with Earth) in order to complete their mission of flying to Mars and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was hammered home about the first manned mission to Mars being overly commercialized. The spaceship was emblazoned with a corporate logo, Mars mission memorabilia was being peddled in news reports, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crew of five astronauts commandeered the space shuttle inspired spaceship Sagan to Mars and back. In the way of novelty it flew further than any previous manned vessel and was able to make a controlled landing on a runway-less Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The five astronauts struggled to overcome technical malfunctions on their spaceship in order to make it to Mars and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The five astronauts struggled to survive on the harsh Martian surface after a meteor shower hit their landing site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John had kept quiet that he was going through a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergei was in the habit of wearing his deceased father's medal for good luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Catholicism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the pope had publicly prayed for the Sagan crew to make a safe landing on the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lia wept shortly after being informed that her fiancée Robert had perished in an automobile crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John experienced a vivid hallucination of his estranged Stephanie while on the surface of Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mission co-commander John Rank was laid to rest by his fellow crew members under a simple cairn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x02", "title": "Back in the Red: Part II", "date": "1999-02-25", "description": "Lister, the Cat, and Kochanski are in big trouble aboard the resurrected Red Dwarf with the freshly resurrected Captain Hollister, and they find themselves standing trial for stealing and crashing a Starbug. Kryten is reprogrammed and has his factory settings restored, while Rimmer uses the confidential files and the luck and sexual magnetism viruses found in the wreckage of the Starbug to get himself promoted in the field.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "One subplot followed Rimmer's unscrupulous efforts to secure a promotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "One subplot followed Lister, Cat, and Kochanski's harebrained scheme to escape from the Red Dwarf brig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative love inducing effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story centered on Rimmer and the effect he had on women after infecting himself with the love virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister, Cat, and Kochanski were held on the charge of having stolen the Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The male mechanoid Kryten was frazzled upon being consigned to the female detention area on account that he lacked a certain male appendage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister, Cat, and Kochanski attended a hearing regarding their alleged theft of the Starbug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Hollister considered whether or not to use a psychotropic agent on Lister and company in an effort to get the truth out of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten was treated as someone who had a screw loose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer got his hands on a special luck virus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)", "title": "Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris", "date": "1999-03-03", "description": "A young girl forms a psychic bond with a parasitic creature known as Iris that feeds upon the hatred that she feels for the giant turtle monster Gamera, who had unwittingly killed Ayana's parents. It is the 11th entry in the Gamera film series, as well as the third film in the franchise's Heisei period, serving as a sequel to the 1996 film Gamera 2: Attack of Legion.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_3:_Revenge_of_Iris" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant monster Iris was the vehicle for Ayana's quest for vengeance against Gamera. Ayana's patents were inadvertently killed by Gamera during his previous feud with Gyaos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant monster Iris was fueled by Ayana's intense hatred of Gamera. Gamera also destroyed two Gyaos in Tokyo's Shibuya district at the cost of somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 human lives, causing the Japanese government to order Gamera's immediate destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant monster Iris wrought havoc in Japan. Flying Gyaos monsters were terrorizing Japan and the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant monster Iris wrought havoc in Japan. Flying Gyaos monsters were terrorizing Japan and the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ayana promised Iris she would never leave it all alone again after it became sad when she wasn't there. Ayana may have been lonely herself, because she was stuck, parentless in a small village.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x18", "title": "Course: Oblivion", "date": "1999-03-03", "description": "After Torres and Paris get married, subspace radiation causes the crew and their ship to disintegrate.\n\nDirected by: Anson Williams. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "which crew is the real Voyager crew?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew prepared a time capsule to ensure they would be remembered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew discovered they were actually a biomimetic facsimile of the real Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway determined to make it home, be it Earth or the Demon planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The facsimile Voyager crew faced with dying on the way to Earth versus dying on the way to demon planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between equally unappealing possibilities", "level": "major", "motivation": "The facsimile Voyager crew faced with dying on the way to Earth versus dying on the way to demon planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monogamy vs. single life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and B'Elanna discussed the merits and demerits of humans pairing off and mating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom mourned the loss of his girlfriend, B'Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew excited at prospect of being only two years away from Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna were married aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway decided not to kill aliens to survive at that Y-class planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was at a loss to explain why everyone was slowly, but inexorably, decomposing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x16", "title": "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", "date": "1999-03-03", "description": "While attending a diplomatic conference on Romulus, Bashir becomes an unwilling pawn of Section 31.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Romulan and Federation relations with a side order of Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian infiltrates the nefarious organization Section 31 which was itself spying on the Romulans; cloaks and daggers to go around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian in Sloan. Cretak in Julian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Section 31 was a big conspiracy theory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sloan invented Section 31 as a cover for his elaborate plot to seek vengeance on the assassin of his mentor Admiral Fujisawa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Sloan were tortured by Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian attended the conference on Romulus as an expert in biogenic weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans had some device that saved them the effort of torture.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x03", "title": "Back in the Red: Part III", "date": "1999-03-04", "description": "Lister, Kochanski, Cat and Kryten flee The Red Dwarf in a Blue Midget and try to find the nanobots to prove that their version events is true. Rimmer intervenes to try and save his own neck and messes things up for all of them.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main storyline follows Lister and friends as they attempt to escape from being imprisoned on Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and friends spent the better part of the story inside an elaborate simulated reality simulation of the real Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Hollister held a hearing to examine the fantastical story of Lister and his friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of administering truth telling inducing psychotropic drugs to Lister and his friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative love inducing effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was infected with a virus that made him irresistible to the oppose sex. In particular, Kochanski lusted after Rimmer, albeit briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Hollister admitted to having blackmailed his way to the captancy of Red Dwarf. Rimmer used the confidential information in his possession to blackmail an on duty officer into leaving his post.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat performed an elaborate dance routine with a view to impressing a female ground controller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and his friends were searching for Kryten's nanobots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blue Midget space shuttle had two retractable legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat made a quid about how gorgeous he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer briefly deliberated over whether he should stay on the Red Dwarf or take a chance at turning a new page in life by escaping with Lister and friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer lamented that he was stuck doing remedial work on the Red Dwarf will little hope of ever rising to the rank of officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer yearned to attain the rank of officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and friends came to realize that no one among them knew what this theory was about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and friends paused to ask themselves how they could be sure they were in the real world and not just another simulated reality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x04", "title": "Cassandra", "date": "1999-03-07", "description": "Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski have been sentenced to two years in \"The Tank\" on secretive Floor 13, for stealing and crashing a Starbug and abusing confidential information during their trial in virtual reality. Lister signs up the gang for the Canaries, thinking it is the prison choir and enticed by the list of privileges that go with it. Lister is unaware the Canaries is actually a convict army utilized for reconnaissance on uncharted planets. Their first assignment is to investigate an abandoned spaceship on an ocean planet, where they discover Cassandra, a computer that can predict the future. However, it spells bad news for Rimmer, when Cassandra predicts that he is going to die.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative prediction of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sentient computer Cassandra made numerous 100% accurate predictions about future events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the sentient computer oracle Cassandra prophesying numerous future events to Lister and friends, including the time and manner or Rimmer's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the sentient computer Cassandra that was capable of predicting future events with 100% accuracy. The sentient computer Holly came up with a fatally flawed plan to have Lister serve a mere fourteen weeks of his two year prison sentence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prophetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sentient computer Cassandra made numerous 100% accurate predictions about future events. The prophetic nature of the prophecies made, not to mention the parallel between the Cassandra computer and her namesake prophetess from Greek mythology both foreseeing their own deaths, makes this theme topical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rimmer was sweating bullets after the prophetic computer Cassandra predicted his imminent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and friends debated about whether or not it was possible to change the future. The story concluded with a pointed illustration that the future cannot be changed, when Lister fulfilled the the future event predicting computer Cassandra's prophesy that he would kill her - this happened in spite of his best efforts to avoid doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and friends were dispatched to an ocean moon to investigate an abandoned spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a lengthy conversation concluding that Rimmer's ignorance was an advantage for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister said he wanted to believe that he was in charge of his own life and destiny in the context of the future already being determined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Rimmer were adjusting to prison life or something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cassandra said that Lister would shoot Rimmer in the head after catching him making love to Kochanski.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x05", "title": "Krytie TV", "date": "1999-03-07", "description": "Kryten has been placed in the women's wing of the Tank, due to his lack of male genitalia. After making the mistake of revealing that he showers with the female prisoners, Kryten is reprogrammed by Kill Crazy, making him a ruthless and amoral entrepreneur. Kryten soon puts on \"Krytie TV\", a pirate entertainment show for the prisoners, where he goes into the women's shower room and films the exposed naked bodies of the female prisoners, including Kochanski. Rimmer and Lister have been given a retrial, and Kryten endangers their only chance of freedom when he sets up Lister by getting him to mess up governor Ackerman's sleeping quarters.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor & Paul Alexander.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Lister and Rimmer's attempt to get their prison sentences overturned, or so it seemed to Rimmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story concerned Kryten live streaming secret video footage of the female prisoners showering. Kochanski confronted Lister for having watched her in the shower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story presents a caricature of what it might be like to be incarcerated in a contemporary prison: the prisoners wore standard issue jumpsuits, Rimmer paid the consequences for snitching on a fellow inmate, the female prisoners took group showers, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kryten started a pirate entertainment show for the male prisoners which involved him live streaming video footage from female prisoner group showers. In the way of salesmanship, he gave the male prisoners a free preview of what was in store for them, before telling them they had to pay to watch more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The male mechanoid Kryten was painting his \"toenails\" together with Kochanski, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison movie night offering showed a stereotypical 1950s era flying saucer chasing people around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison movie night offering concerned giant invisible aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison movie night offering concerned an attack on Earth by giant invisible aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Try as they might, Lister and Rimmer couldn't peel their eyes away from live streamed video footage from the female prisoners group shower. They felt conflicted because on the one hand they risked losing their appeal to get out of jail if the got caught, but on the other they wanted to watch the women showering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister was pining for Kochanski.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x06", "title": "Pete: Part I", "date": "1999-03-07", "description": "Rimmer and Lister are not having a good time, frequently in and out of the captain's office for offences, each of which annoy Hollister more and more until he snaps and has them thrown in \"the hole\", a sparse prison cell inhabited only by an insane Welshman called Birdman and his pet sparrow, Pete. Meanwhile, the others return from a Canaries mission with a \"time wand\", a device that can manipulate time.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story presents a caricature of what it might be like to be incarcerated in a contemporary prison: Cat was beaten by the guards, Lister and his friends were forced to play basketball against the guards as a punishment, Rimmer coped with bad prison food, Lister and Rimmer were sent to \"the hole\" for two months, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and friends were stuck in the Red Dwarf prison and were trying to use a time manipulating device to escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer and Lister had played some sort of prank on Mr. Ackerman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Ackerman and his cronies were stereotypical sadistic prison guards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a game of basketball meant somehow to settle differences between prisoners and guards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister hypothesized that they were being fed the products of cloning experiments gone awry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a phallic blue device that essentially froze time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative time manipulating effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a phallic blue device that could transform things and people into past or future versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bird Pete was turned into a man-eating dinosaur by means of a phallic blue device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Lister and his friends being chased by a voracious Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer explained that his \"grandmother's buttocks deep fried in chip fat\" would taste better than his prison issue dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten had used the time wand to regressed a sparrow to be its dinosaur ancestor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x07", "title": "Pete: Part II", "date": "1999-03-07", "description": "Lister and Rimmer drive Captain Hollister ever closer to a nervous breakdown. Kryten discovers the time wand can regress a living creature back into what it evolved from, and turns Baxter and Kill Crazy into apes. He also accidentally regresses Pete, Birdman's pet sparrow, into a Tyrannosaurus rex which then goes on a rampage around Red Dwarf and eats the Birdman, along with the time wand. With the rest of the crew frozen in time, Rimmer, Lister, Kryten, Kochanski, The Cat and Holly attempt to find a solution before the freeze wears off.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor & Paul Alexander.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rampaging Tyrannosaurus rex was terrorizing the Red Dwarf crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the protagonists to stop a rampaging Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative time manipulating effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a phallic blue device that could transform things and people into past or future versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat scarcely appeared in this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten had inadvertently used the time wand to regress a sparrow into its dinosaur ancestor. Two Red Dwarf crew members inadvertently used the time want to regress themselves into their ape ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A few Red Dwarf crew member snapped to after having previously been frozen in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mentally troubled Captain Hollister conveyed that he was suffering from this disorder in the wake of having been given a massage by a baby Tyrannosaurus rex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was upset about his diminishing career prospects after he got caught bad mouthing the captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperviousness to physical damage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A tiny time-shift somehow made Lister and Rimmer briefly impervious to being beaten up by two bellicose crewmen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rd1988e8x08", "title": "Only the Good...", "date": "1999-03-07", "description": "An escape pod containing a genetically engineered virus that eats metal arrives on Red Dwarf and begins to destroy the ship. Left on Red Dwarf to die, Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten, Kochanski and Holly find their only chance at finding an antidote is to create a mirror universe where everything is opposite. Rimmer is sent into the mirror universe to find the antidote before Red Dwarf is destroyed. In the mirror universe, Rimmer finds what he has always wanted – he is no longer a lowly technician but the captain of the ship.\n\nDirected by: Ed Bye. Story by: Doug Naylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-reddwarf1988.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Kryten is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-man Cat is a main character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister and Rimmer had their jail cell inspected for contraband goods. A fellow inmate became Cat's prison \"bitch\" to Cat's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew were embedded in a military hierarchy and behaved accordingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is mainly set aboard the futuristic Red Dwarf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient computer Holly chimed in with a quip here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Hollister was in bed recovering from a bout of yellow fever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer expressed his desire to become an officer to Captain Hollister only to be told he wasn't officer material.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Talia had been resurrected by nanobots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer got into an argument with a cantankerous dispensing machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister tricked Kryten into giving a gift-wrapped tampon to Kochanski while she was on her period.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten planted contraband moonshine in Lister's jail cell to get back at Lister for having played a prank on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The metal eating virus was said to have been genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer found himself in a mirror universe where a variety of things were the opposite of what he was used to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposite world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and his friends crossed over into a mirror universe where many things were the opposite to what they were accustomed. For example, he was captain of Red Dwarf, and Cat was a brilliant professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer unwittingly French kissed his sister, Talia, or so we thought. Moments later it was revealed that she was, in fact, a sister in the ecclesiastical sense, i.e., a nun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer kicked the Grim Reaper in the gonads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer was visibly envious of the captain's success and who he falsely presumed was the captain's mistress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister and Kryten discussed the stereotypical view of how women behave while menstruating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The captain's presumed mistress acted stereotypically turned on by captaincy status.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wing Commander (1999)", "title": "Wing Commander", "date": "1999-03-12", "description": "Set in the year 2654, the story follows a crop of fresh Terran Confederation military recruits in their effort to thwart a hostile alien empire from exterminating the human race. The film is loosely based on the video game series of the same name.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire were fighting a Milky way galaxy spanning war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story is that the human race had reached out to colonize large swaths of the galaxy by the year 2654.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat-like Kilrathi aliens were seeking the complete eradication of the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot surrounds the efforts of a young crew to thwart a massive Kilrathi armada from destroying Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the film is that Terran Confederation spacecraft got around the galaxy by passing through black holes and quasars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Starship commanders and high ranking officers were constantly telling sometimes obedient, sometimes grumbling lower ranking ones what to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not a main novelty of the story, there were futuristic spacecraft a plenty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosie beat a fellow crew member at chess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Navcom units installed in selected Terran Confederation spacecraft were simulated minds that were used to navigate the passage through black holes and quasars. Navigating through such objects was beyond the abilities of ordinary humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christopher Blair had an innate ability to navigate through black holes and quasars by feel alone. It was mentioned that the first humans to explore and colonize space had developed an ability to feel magnetic fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Captain Taggart, some said the Pilgrims thought themselves as gods after they chose to abandon all things human. One gathers that the said Pilgrims ultimately perished in a previous conflict called the Pilgrim Wars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christopher and Jeannette had both grown up as orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young recruits Marshall and Rosie quickly hit it off and it wasn't long before they were in bed together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marshall was devastated when his lover Rosie died in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christopher and Marshall were fast friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The new recruits Marshall and Rosie had a gender-charged, but friendly rivalry going on between them. For example, Marshall made directed such statements as \"It's not bad for a girl\" toward Rosie. Rosie for her part insisted that a man named Dibble would not have died had he had \"the flying skills of a woman\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marshall and Rosie engaged in a friendly rivalry over which of men or women made better fighter pilots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kilrathi aliens were cat-like in appearance, but their cat nature was not explored in the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x19", "title": "The Fight", "date": "1999-03-24", "description": "Chakotay lies in sickbay as he attempts to communicate with aliens through hallucinations.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "choice", "motivation": "chaotic space aliens trying to communicate with Voyager crew by means of Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay feared both in the virtual boxing ring and in real life becoming like grandfather", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay faces Kid Chaos in the ring", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay couldn't distinguish fantasy boxing world from reality at times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor had an academic curiosity in Chakotay's experience of fear", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The laws of physics varied chaotically in chaotic space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "chaotic space aliens in Chakotay's mind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "chaotic space", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maquis Mauler and Boothby", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay in his opponent Kid Chaos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay risking his sanity", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay's vision quest morphed into a boxing match that he couldn't leave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor called attention to extreme brutality present in boxing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was leery about all the violence involved in boxing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay had a harmful gene suppressed as a child to stop him from hallucinating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision quest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay went on a vision quest to seek answers for why he was hallucinating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and his grandfather", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay went on a vision quest to seek answers for why he was hallucinating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "non-Euclidean space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager entered into a region of \"chaotic space\" where the usual laws of spatial geometry did not apply.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x01", "title": "Space Pilot 3000", "date": "1999-03-28", "description": "\"Space Pilot 3000\" is the pilot episode of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 28, 1999. The episode focuses on the cryogenic freezing of the series protagonist, Philip J. Fry, and the events when he awakens 1,000 years in the future. Series regulars are introduced and the futuristic setting, inspired by a variety of classic science fiction series from The Jetsons to Star Trek, is revealed. It also sets the stage for many of the events to follow in the series, foreshadowing plot points from the third and fourth seasons.\n\nDirected by: Rich Moore & Gregg Vanzo. Story by: David X. Cohen & Matt Groening.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a focus on Fry's relationship with his new friend Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender about being were dissatisfied with their careers and ended up finding work at Planet Express.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was a loser in both the 31st and 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was accidentally cryogenically preserved and woke up in the year 3000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was introduced to Bender the robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was accidentally cryogenically preserved and woke up in the year 3000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "New New Yorkers went about in flying cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was revealed to be Farnsworth's great-great-...-great uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "New New Yorkers flew around in jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide booth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender found themselves trapped in a suicide booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was administered a beating by two police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender escaped from the police in Farnsworth's inter-galactic spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry became an interplanetary delivery boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucratic dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The future assigned people careers and seemed all-in-all bureaucratic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry got dumped in the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future people saw Fry's idiosyncrasies as archaic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender visited the head in a jar museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Fry was destined to be a delivery boy when he was assigned the computer-determined permanent career of delivery boy - the same career he'd had 1000 years prior.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Progeny (1999)", "title": "Progeny", "date": "1999-03-30", "description": "A husband and wife become convinced that the wife is carrying an alien fetus her body.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeny_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story centers on a Sherry and her husband, Craig, finding out that Sherry was abducted by aliens and artificially impregnated so that she was carrying an alien fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Craig Burton was working as an emergency room doctor. Sherry went to see the gruff, mustached gynecologist Dr. David Wetherly when she started having problems with her pregnancy. Craig and Sherry were both seeing the therapist Dr. Susan Lamarche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Dr. Craig and Sherry Burton as they deal with Sherry becoming impregnated by space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Craig and Sherry Burton were initially happy to discover that Sherry was pregnant, but things went from bad to worse as it became more and more apparent that Sherry was carrying an alien fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherry was abducted by aliens and impregnated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space aliens abducted Sherry and artificially impregnated her for some unknown purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that Dr. Craig Burton's sperm count didn't even rate on the charts. For this reason, he was suspicious when his wife, Sherry, became pregnant. And his suspicious was well founded as it was later revealed that Sherry had been artificially impregnated by space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherry recalled in vivid detail her alien abduction and subsequent impregnation while under regression therapy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig was devastated to lean that his wife, Sherry, died after the alien fetus was extracted from her abdomen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Craig being in prison for having murdered his wife, Sherry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Matrix (1999)", "title": "The Matrix", "date": "1999-03-31", "description": "The film depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, the Matrix, created by thought-capable machines to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias \"Neo\", uncovers the truth, he \"is drawn into a rebellion against the machines\" along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Matrix" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality called the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Smith and others inside the Matrix existed as sentient computer programs. Neo and the other resistors had the ability to make virtual instances of themselves inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus recruited Neo into his group of freedom fighters who were determined to bring down the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing theme bound up with something about Neo being able to control the laws of physics inside the Matrix environment so long as he believed in himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo a computer hacker extraordinaire. Neo commented on how Trinity had hacked the IRS database. More pervasively, Morpheus and the resistors were constantly hacking into the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where intelligent machines had won a war against humans and were using them as living batteries to power their world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus and his resistance fighter were in a desperate struggle to put an end to intelligent machines using humans as batteries to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Smith gave Neo the choice to return to live a happy live inside the Matrix, having no memory of the harsh reality that it was just a fantasy world, but Neo chose to face reality and join Morpheus in his quest to overthrow the tyranny of the machines. Cypher spoke this aphorism in a conversation with Agent Smith in which Cypher expressed the desire to return from the real world into the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The experience of this phenomenon was attributed to a glitch in the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cypher betrayed Morpheus and the resistance fighters by selling out to Agent Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and others were able to seemingly violate the laws of physics in certain when inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus helped Neo elude capture by some men in black led by Agent Smith, although his effort ultimately proved to be unsuccessful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film started off with Neo seeking to know what the Internet rumors about \"the Matrix\" were all about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo learned jiu jitsu and kung fu by having the techniques uploaded into his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human battery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The intelligent machines kept unconscious humans in pods and used them to somehow generate electricity to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The intelligent machines used a combination of fusion power and human batteries to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo's boss at the software company inside the Matrix complained that Neo thought the rules somehow didn't apply to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned about how life inside the Matrix did not constitute a free mode of existence for humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x20", "title": "Think Tank", "date": "1999-03-31", "description": "Voyager is being chased by the Hazari when a think tank offers assistance.\n\nDirected by: Terrence O'Hara. Story by: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway could save Voyager by sending Seven to join the Think Tank aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew and Hazari join forces to defeat Think Tank", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Faustian bargain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens in teaser were done dirty by the Think Tank, suggested proposed in Seven bargain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a challenge in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "it was suggested Seven would get more of a challenge with the Think Tank", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven had opportunity to leave Voyager to explore Delta Quadrant with the Think Tank", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Think Tank aliens were particularly merciless in their dealings with aliens in need", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x02", "title": "The Series Has Landed", "date": "1999-04-04", "description": "\"The Series Has Landed\" is the second episode of the first season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 4, 1999. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Peter Avanzino. In this episode, several main characters, including Doctor Zoidberg, Amy Wong, and Hermes Conrad are first introduced, and the crew goes on their first mission. After completing their delivery a series of mishaps occurs which puts Fry and Leela's lives in danger and nearly leaves all of them trapped on the moon.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "An amusement park had been built and there was at least one farmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Future people saw Fry's idiosyncrasies as archaic, especially his excitement about the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team had to survive on the surface of the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg has troubles with human anatomy etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moon farmer and the Crushinator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and the Crushinator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Horrible Gelatinous Blob ate two men in Farnsworth's delivery service commercial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express ship crew delivered a package to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender the robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shotgun wedding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Moon farmer literally tried to force Bender into marrying his daughter the Crushinator at shotgun-point.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x03", "title": "I, Roommate", "date": "1999-04-06", "description": "\"I, Roommate\" is the third episode of season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 6, 1999. The episode was written by Eric Horsted and directed by Bret Haaland. The plot focuses on Fry and Bender's search for an apartment after deciding to become roommates and the various difficulties they have in finding a place that is acceptable to both of them.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender became roommates and experienced various difficulties in finding a place that is acceptable to both of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender finally cut his antenna so that he and Fry could share an apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender the robot. All My Circuits was a robot soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"All My Circuits\" robot soap opera was amply featured. For instance, Calculon had a dramatic wedding on the show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender reconciled and moved back in to Bender's apartment at the episode's conclusion. Calculon reconciled with his human friend in All My Circuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future people saw Fry's idiosyncrasies as archaic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnsworth was outraged with Fry and Bender once Fry ate his alien mummy jerky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender's neighbors complained about TV reception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender stayed up all night not drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x17", "title": "Penumbra", "date": "1999-04-07", "description": "Ezri searches for a missing Worf and Sisko makes plans to marry Kasidy Yates.\n\nDirected by: Steve Posey. Story by: René Echevarria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri worried about Worf after he went missing during a battle with the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri over Worf stemming from memories of her past life as Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri and Worf; Benjamin and Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri remembered her past life as Worf's wife Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri and Worf became involved in blatant violation of Trill custom and convention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri took great risks for Worf", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin proposes to Kasidy and they make plans to marry and settle down on Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prophets in the form of Sarah Sisko urged Benjamin to fulfill his destiny by not marrying Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Bajorans planned for Benjamin and Kasidy's wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin asked Jake to be his best man at the wedding.; Worf discussed his relationship with Alexander with Ezri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat changed his appearance to look Bajoran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Ezri captured by the Breen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prophets in the form of Sarah Sisko urged Benjamin to fulfill his destiny by not marrying Kasidy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x04", "title": "Love's Labours Lost in Space", "date": "1999-04-13", "description": "\"Love's Labours Lost in Space\" is the fourth episode in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 13, 1999. The episode was written by Brian Kelley and directed by Brian Sheesley. This episode introduces the recurring character Zapp Brannigan when he attempts to prevent the Planet Express crew from completing their mission. It also introduces the characters of Kif Kroker, Brannigan's aide, and Nibbler, whom Leela adopts as a pet.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Brian Kelley.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leila was struggling to find a lover who could accept her and her one big eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan fell madly in love with Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif and others with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew tried to save the animals on a doomed planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love out of pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela slept with Brannigan out of pity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Brannigan had a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg explained that Leila would stop feeling lonely after she dropped her eggs and they hatched.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy tried to set up Leila with the entity of pure energy M5438.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew to the doomed planet Vergon 6 on a mission to rescue the animals there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Planet Express Ship ran on dark matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender used his special robot bending power to try and escape from Brannigan's ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Nibbler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had trouble finding a date because she had one big eye.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x18", "title": "'Til Death Do Us Part", "date": "1999-04-14", "description": "Captured by the Breen, Ezri and Worf undergo mental torture. Sisko agonizes over his broken engagement.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezri and Worf; Sisko and Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wormhole aliens told Benjamin that his destiny did not involve marrying Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin wanted to marry Kasidy but against the will of the wormhole aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Ezri were held captive by the Breen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin struggled about with breaking off engagement with Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memories from past lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri remembered her past life as Worf's wife Jadzia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Jake had a heart to heart talk about Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben and Kasidy and all of Bajor discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Damar had a drinking problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream interpretation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri was convinced her nightmare had some meaning and tried to interpret it in metaphorical terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf accused Ezri of being unfaithful to him because she was uttering Julian's name in her sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf acted jealous about Ezri dreaming of Julian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat changed his appearance to look Bajoran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Pah'wraiths revealed Dukat's destiny to him. The wormhole aliens told Benjamin that his destiny did not involve marrying Kasidy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Thirteenth Floor (1999)", "title": "The Thirteenth Floor", "date": "1999-04-16", "description": "The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 science fiction neo-noir film written and directed by Josef Rusnak, and produced by Roland Emmerich through his Centropolis Entertainment company. It is loosely based upon Simulacron-3 (1964), a novel by Daniel F. Galouye, and a remake of the German tv-film World on a Wire (1973).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film follows Douglas Hall as he pieces together that the world of his experience is all just a big computer simulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that Douglas Hall was a simulated person in a simulated Los Angeles of the year 1999. This conclusion invites the viewer to ponder whether they themself might be a simulated person inside a giant simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story built up to Douglas Hall discovering that he was a simulated person who was living in a virtual reality version of 1999 Los Angeles. The 1937 bartender Jerry Ashton had an existential crisis upon realizing that he was a simulated person living inside a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The LAPD detective Larry McBain was going around investigating the murder of the computer genius Hannon Fuller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "One story line surrounded Douglas Hall being investigated for the murder of the computer genius Hannon Fuller. In the end, it turned out that someone from a higher reality had stabbed Fuller to death while downloaded into Douglas' body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The characters in the 1937 Los Angeles simulation became self-aware, and the bartender Jerry Ashton even came to realize that he was some sort of simulated person. In the end, it was revealed that all the people in 1999 Los Angeles were actually virtual people living in a simulated reality. It was left open as to whether the people of 2024 Los Angeles were flesh-and-blood people or were themselves virtual in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas Hall and Jane Fuller fell in love. In the end, Jane pulled him out of the 1999 Los Angeles simulated reality into her Los Angeles of 2024.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The simulated people experienced \"amnesia attacks\" after people from higher reality downloaded into their bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The simulated person Douglas confronted the presumably flesh-and-blood person Jane about whether she could truly love him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane's psychopathic husband David downloaded into Douglas and began attacking Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane's husband David was not happy upon downloading his consciousness into the body of the virtual person that Jane was in the middle of making passionate love to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Jane exchanging some endearing words with her father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x05", "title": "Fear of a Bot Planet", "date": "1999-04-20", "description": "\"Fear of a Bot Planet\" is the fifth episode in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 20, 1999. The episode was written by Heather Lombard and Evan Gore and directed by Peter Avanzino and Carlos Baeza. The episode focuses on a delivery the Planet Express Crew must make to a robot planet named Chapek 9. The robot inhabitants hate all humans and Bender decides to join them because he is tired of robots being treated like second class citizens. The episode is a light-hearted satire on racism, an idea reinforced by the title, a reference to Public Enemy's 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino & Carlos Baeza. Story by: Evan Gore & Heather Lombard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "kill all humans utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a delivery to a planet inhabited by robots that hate all humans and wished to exterminate mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Bender kill his friends like his robot comrades wanted him to?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew visited a planet of human hating robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender refused to kill Fry and Leela because they were his friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "official scapegoating in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robot elders used humans as a scapegoat to distract the robot public from their real problems, like a crippling lug nut shortage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a planet of robots, governed by a robot council of wise-robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot leaders lied to control their robot peasant mob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was advocating robot rights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela were put on a show trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg went to buy something full of parasites at the concession stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team attended a robot baseball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Globetrotters challenged Earth to a basketball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A computer judge found Fry and Leela guilty on the charge of being human and sentenced them both to tedious robot-type labor for life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x19", "title": "Strange Bedfellows", "date": "1999-04-21", "description": "An alliance is born between the Dominion and the Breen which will prove devastating for the Federation. Ezri and Worf are sentenced to death on Cardassia.\n\nDirected by: René Auberjonois. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri and Worf; Benjamin and Kasidy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Damar betrayed Weyoun 8 by helping Worf and Ezri escape with a message to the Federation that he will coordinate with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn with Dukat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami turned to the Pah'wraiths after being forsaken by the wormhole aliens in order to gain power over Bajor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pah-wraits and the prophets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami thought she was the holy prophet of the wormhole aliens. Kasidy performed a fertility ritual on behalf of the Emissary Benjamin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Worf and Ezri were held captive by the Cardassians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri and Worf quarreled while being held captive by the Jem'Hadar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and Kasidy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adami Winn briefly said to Kira that she wanted redemption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Damar was drinking a lot in his quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf told Ezri that there was no honor in self-pity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf and Ezri were scheduled to be executed for war crimes by the Cardassians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: eXistenZ (1999)", "title": "eXistenZ", "date": "1999-04-23", "description": "The plot of the film follows a game designer who finds herself targeted by assassins while playing a virtual reality game of her own creation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existenz" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the titular virtual reality game eXistenZ. People connect to the game via \"bio-ports\" in their spines, and once plugged in it is so realistic that the lines between where the game leaves off and reality begins hopelessly blurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allegra and Ted quickly ran into trouble distinguishing what was real from the goings on in the virtual reality game in which they were immersed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "major", "motivation": "Allegra and Ted were plugging in and out from multiple nested virtual reality worlds within worlds, never quite knowing in the end whether they'd made it back to the real world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative biotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near-future where biotechnological virtual reality game consoles known as \"game pods\" have replaced electronic ones. The game pods are grotesque biological organisms of some sort with umbilical cord-like connectors that plug into special surgically implanted \"bio-ports\" in the players' spines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ted reluctantly underwent a back alley surgical procedure to have a \"bio-port\" installed in his lower spine. This allowed him to connect to a highly realistic virtual reality game. In general, all of the virtual reality game enthusiasts in the film had \"bio-ports\" installed in their spines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gas station operator dropped down on his hands and knees before the world renowned game designer Allegra Geller upon realizing it was really her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world renowned VR game designer Allegra Geller was being targeted for assassination by a group of fanatics who were trying to prevent the \"distorting\" of reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The world renowned game designer Allegra Geller was shown testing her new virtual reality game, eXistenZ, to a focus group. Allegra encouraged an ambivalent Ted to plug into her latest virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A would-be assassin shot Allegra in the shoulder with a tooth shooting organic pistol that he'd managed to sneak though a security checkpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Cortical Systematics game company tried to steal the titular virtual reality game eXistenZ from their rival company Antenna Research, and also at one point used a double agent to try to get Allegra to defect from Antenna Research to their company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing an artificial person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted confronted Allegra about her needlessly shooting dead a virtual reality Chinese waiter who was pleading for his life, asking of her if she were going to kill him (Ted) next. In so doing, the viewer is made to ponder about whether it is okay to behave in a sadistic manner even in a simulated setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The titular eXistenZ virtual reality game was populated with realistic, but evidently non-sentient characters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x21", "title": "Juggernaut", "date": "1999-04-26", "description": "The crew responds to a distress call from Malon escape pods contaminated with radiation.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Malon dumping their toxic waste in other peoples' back yards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over environmental concern", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Malon were dumping their toxic waste in other peoples' back yards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna was taking meditation sessions from Tuvok in an effort to help control her anger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Malon bogeyman Dremk was in fact sabotaging the Malon freighter in a bid to put an end to the waste transport industry that caused him and others deadly theta radiation poisoning damage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "polluting space is metaphor for destroying Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Malon dumping their toxic waste in other peoples' back yards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew in preventing Malon freighter from spilling toxic waste", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna especially in efforts to prevent toxic waste skill", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager stops to help Malon freighter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malon crewman upon seeing the creature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway refrained from beaming Tuvok over to the Malon freighter as an act of trust in B'Elanna being able to complete the mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vihaar sabotaged Malon freighter to get revenge over mistreatment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sonic shower", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna soothed herself in sonic shower at episode conclusion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway about needing to have faith in B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malon space legend stuff", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x06", "title": "A Fishful of Dollars", "date": "1999-04-27", "description": "\"A Fishful of Dollars\" is episode six in the first season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 27, 1999. The episode was written by Patric Verrone and directed by Ron Hughart and Gregg Vanzo. Pamela Anderson guest stars as her own preserved head in a jar. This episode marks the first appearance of the character Mom, the series' recurring antagonist. The title of the episode is a play on name of the film A Fistful of Dollars.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart & Gregg Vanzo. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story seemed to be an indictment of contemporary consumerism, commercialism, industrialism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry became a billionaire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was nostalgic for the 20th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The anchovies had been fished to extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry ditched his friends then wooed them back with anchovies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "advertising in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People had adds projected into their dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People had add projected into their dreams and Fry suggested that was a step too far.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pamela Anderson's head in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A robot waiter malfunctioned while serving the Planet Express team at a pizza restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg apologies for his people having fished the Earth clear of anchovies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom the billionaire and her three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom's three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compound interest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was a billionaire thanks to compound interest on the 93 cents he had in his bank account 1,000 years ago.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x22", "title": "Someone to Watch Over Me", "date": "1999-04-28", "description": "Seven of Nine explores dating with some help from the Doctor.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven sought to experience more of what it means to be human via dating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven and The Doctor made a study of human courtship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor tutored Seven in the ways of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and William Chapman to a lesser extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor at Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kadi delegates came into conflict with various Voyager crew members, especially Neelix, because the Kadi expected the crew to be familiar with their various rather strict religious practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tomin visited Voyager as part of an official cultural exchange between the Kadi and the Voyager crew. Although Tomin was from a strict religious culture, he ended up trying various foods and drinks, and even ended up with a bad hangover. In an act of reciprocation, Janeway and Tuvok went to the Kadi homeworld to receive ceremonial towels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven needed a boyfriend", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor instructed Seven on the finer points of small talk in a barroom holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomin sampling Neelix's cooking to excess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor enjoying Seven's singing lessons a little too much for propriety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix struggled to keep a highly intoxicated alien named Tomin from getting into trouble at a Voyager party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven with Tomin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expressing feelings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Seven", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x20", "title": "The Changing Face of Evil", "date": "1999-04-28", "description": "The war reaches a crucial turning point when the Dominion retakes the Chin'Toka system, the only Allied foothold in enemy space. Meanwhile, Winn learns that Dukat plans to release the Pah-Wraiths, and Damar leads a revolt against the Dominion.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami became the prophet of the Pah'wraiths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami consulted Bajoran prophesies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami seeks Bajoran Armageddon by releasing the Pah'wraiths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami sought to rule over Bajor after armageddon; Winn was mad for power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dominion-Breen-Cardassian alliance seemed to be fraying due to pointed mistrust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Winn Adami and Dukat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kasidy and Benjamin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri at Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male protectiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin wanted to protect Kasidy against her wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kasidy told Benjamin it was not his place to protect her from danger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x07", "title": "My Three Suns", "date": "1999-05-04", "description": "\"My Three Suns\" is episode seven in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 4, 1999. This episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Jeffrey Lynch and Kevin O'Brien. The plot focuses on Fry as he becomes emperor of an alien world, only to find himself in need of rescue when the previous emperor is discovered to be not really dead.\n\nDirected by: Jeffrey Lynch & Kevin O'Brien. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rule by strength of arm", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Trisol succession was determined by assassination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lowly delivery boy Fry became the emperor of the planet Trisol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was a jerk to his friends and later regretted it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender had a secret passion for cooking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew ate a Bender prepared meal of excessively salty Neptunian slug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went on a mission to the Forbidden Zone in the Galaxy of Terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a trinary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Trisol was in a trinary star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Trisolians were blobs of water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trisol was a desert world inhabited by liquid water based beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Neptunian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elzar the Neptunian TV chef.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x23", "title": "11:59", "date": "1999-05-05", "description": "Janeway reminisces about one of her ancestors, Shannon O'Donnell from Indiana.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "role models", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway got disillusioned with her cherished role model Shannon O'Donnel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Henry to his bookshop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to settle down vs. to keep on trekking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Shannon O'Donnel settle down in the small town of Pottage Creek or keep driving across the the United States in her dilapidated station wagon?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Shannon and Henry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Millennium Gate tower was a self-contained biosphere that was to be constructed in Portage Creek, Indiana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gentrification", "level": "major", "motivation": "conflict between the old man and the arcology developers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Janeway shunned computers and urban development alike", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Janeway opposed construction of arcology on ground that the city would lose its heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sharon O'Donnel had lost her job in the aerospace industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shannon O'Donnel was a drifter who was driving cross country in a broken down station wagon to visit her cousin in Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "educational issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway learned how easily the history books can be wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry about choosing between accepting the developers offer and keeping his bookshop", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Neelix tried to one up each other on geographic trivia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharron lost her job due to downsizing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry and Jason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason spoke of his father being a single dad", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry at O'Donnel to varying degrees; man who got in car accident with O'Donnel didn't make her pay for damages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Janeway tried to organize to oppose developer effort to build Millennium Gate", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x21", "title": "When It Rains...", "date": "1999-05-05", "description": "Sisko orders Kira to train Cardassians in resistance tactics as Damar's rebellion gains ground; meanwhile, Bashir makes a shocking discovery about the disease that is ravaging the Founders.\n\nDirected by: Michael Dorn. Story by: René Echevarria & Spike Steingasser.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira had to work together with Cardassians in the resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Damar led a resistance against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gowron assumed direct command of Klingon forces so that he would get the glory that came from victory over the Dominion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira could do nothing to prevent her friend Odo from slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Section 31 were concealing cure for Odo's disease from Julian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezri at Julian", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dukat was blinded by the Pah'wraiths and cast out into the streets to beg by Adami Winn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x08", "title": "A Big Piece of Garbage", "date": "1999-05-11", "description": "\"A Big Piece of Garbage\" is episode eight in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 11, 1999. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Susie Dietter. Ron Popeil guest stars in this episode as himself. Nancy Cartwright also has a brief cameo as a Bart Simpson doll. Much of the episode is a spoof of the 1998 film Armageddon; however, instead of Earth being threatened by an asteroid, it is threatened by a giant ball of garbage.\n\nDirected by: Susan Dietter. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "waste management", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old New York launched a giant ball of garbage into space that came back to collide with New New York hundreds of years later.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "This episode was a criticism of wastefulness and carelessness with the environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Ogden Wernstrom had held a grudge against Farnsworth for a hundred years after Farnsworth gave him an A- on a quiz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a stray artificial object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant ball of garbage headed toward Earth and threated the lives of billions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnsworth and Wernstrom rivaled for a parody of a science award.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron Popeil's head MCed the symposium.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x24", "title": "Relativity", "date": "1999-05-12", "description": "Captain Braxton recruits Seven of Nine to stop Voyager being sabotaged.\n\nDirected by: Allan Eastman. Story by: Nick Sagan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven travels back in time to save Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway in time traveling Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "some garbed form of this dilemma was put forward in this episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "psychotic Braxton meets normal Braxton; Seven and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway was very excited about checking out her new vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven thought she had some rare disease", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pre-crime responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Braxton was arrested by a man form the future for a crime that future 29th century Braxton was destined to commit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "psychotic Braxton to some extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "psychotic Braxton", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x22", "title": "Tacking Into the Wind", "date": "1999-05-12", "description": "Kira masterminds a plot to steal the Breen energy dampening weapon and Worf instigates a power shift in the Klingon Empire.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira could do nothing to prevent her friend Odo from slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Odo with Odo slowly deteriorating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kira had to work together with Cardassians in the resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Damar led a resistance against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo shapeshifted into a pair of handcuffs and later into another changeling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cardassians were incompetent thought Kira and Breen alike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf faced off against Gowron in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The one known as the Female Changeling used Cardassians as human shields in an effort to turn the population against Damar and his resistance movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Section 31 were concealing cure for Odo's disease from Julian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martok initially thought it dishonorable to cast his oath of loyalty aside and challenge the leadership of his emperor, Gowron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martok refused Worf's idea for him to cast his oath of loyalty aside and challenge the leadership of his emperor, Gowron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)", "title": "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace", "date": "1999-05-15", "description": "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first installment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Pernilla August, and Frank Oz. The film is set 32 years before the original film, and follows Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi as they protect Queen Amidala in hopes of securing a peaceful end to a large-scale interplanetary trade dispute. Joined by Anakin Skywalker—a young slave with unusually strong natural powers of the Force—they simultaneously contend with the mysterious return of the Sith.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_I_%E2%80%93_The_Phantom_Menace" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good while others, like the Sith, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training. In particular, Qui-Gon Jinn identified that Anakin could see events before they happen and that was one reason why he was such a good pod racer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A Jedi theme is that all strong emotions lead to evil, i.e., \"the dark side\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead to the idea that the democracy and the senate were not up to the task of saving Naboo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead to the idea that the democracy and the senate were not up to the task of saving Naboo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Republic bureaucrats had wrested control of the levels of power from elected officials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "All Jedi fighting is based on having a feeling of knowing what will happen before it happens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, then Qui-Gon and Anakin, then Obi-Wan and Anakin. The Sith Master and Darth Maul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Naboo struggled with invading Galactic Republic who were bent on subjection and ultimately genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this universe people travel between stars regularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jar Jar Binks and the Guncans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embargo", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Galactic Republic blockaded Naboo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Naboo against the Galactic Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Qui-Gon was convinced that Anakin was born in fulfillment of a prophesy that held that one day someone would come and bring balance to the force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jedi had mind control powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jabba the Hutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying cars on were seen whizzing around on Coruscant. The pods in the pod race were essentially hovercars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shmi and Anakin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Guncan capital city Otoh Gunga.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jar Jar and Jedi's swam to the Guncan capital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "water planet to the core", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naboo was apparently water at the core.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin and his mother were slaves on Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin was Watto's slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anikin was conceived without any male involvement, we heard. Fans suggest that Darth Sidius conceived him through the force somehow but this is left unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tatoonie inhabitants apparently all had a weakness for gambling we were told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin wanted to be a Jedi among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "city planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coruscant was a planet completely cover by a city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater breathing gill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn used just such devices to swim to Jar Jar Binks' underwater city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Naboo joined forced with the Guncans to fight the Republic embargo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan used the power of his own mind to move a light saber to his hand in order to defeat Darth Maul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x09", "title": "Hell Is Other Robots", "date": "1999-05-18", "description": "\"Hell Is Other Robots\" is the ninth episode in the first season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 18, 1999, as the season finale of the first broadcast season. The episode was written by Eric Kaplan and directed by Rich Moore. Guest stars in this episode include the Beastie Boys as themselves and Dan Castellaneta voicing the Robot Devil.\n\nDirected by: Rich Moore. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender's friends were concerned with Bender and his abusing of electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender struggled with an electricity addiction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was addicted to electricity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and Fry's was central, little bit Leela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender, the robot devil, and an assortment of other robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Christian deadly sins were parodied with robot hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender joined the robot church and became obnoxiously religious.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Christian hell was parodied with a robot hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was goaded into \"jacking on\" by the speaker bot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disembodied heads of the Beastie Boys performed a concert at Madison Cube Garden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew on a mission to a gangster planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes eliminated the Planet Express saltwater cooler to Dr. Zoidberg's objection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender started tripping out after he was goaded into \"jacking on\" by the speaker bot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x25", "title": "Warhead", "date": "1999-05-19", "description": "The crew rescues a device with artificial intelligence embedded in rock, that then proceeds to take control of The Doctor and reveals itself to be a weapon of mass destruction.\n\nDirected by: John Kretchmer. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the sentient alien missile learned it could expand its programming to have higher goals than blowing up a military installation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "sentient alien missile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "sentient alien missile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "alien missile system could not be diverted from blowing up its target even after the war had ended", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "we are made to think of the consequences of creating intelligent weapons systems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient bomb", "level": "major", "motivation": "sentient alien missile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew encountered a malfunctioning, sentient warhead that was determined to carry out its mission despite its creators having long ago ordered it to stand down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew vs. sentient missile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager taken over by sentient alien missile", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "sentient alien missile blew it self up along with other 32 other sentient missiles to prevent them from hitting their targets", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry putting night shifts in the captain's chair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "does the sentient missile have the right to live?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was momentarily swept away by it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry felt like after cocking up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brinkmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway in standoff with the bomb towards the end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x23", "title": "Extreme Measures", "date": "1999-05-19", "description": "Bashir and O'Brien must get inside the mind of the man who holds Odo's cure.\n\nDirected by: Steve Posey. Story by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Section 31 agent Sloan committed suicide rather than divulge the cure to Odo's disease, because he was worried it might be sent to the Founders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and Julian had various discussion about and reflection on their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bashir and O'Brien conclude that they like each other more than they love their respective/prospective partners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benjamin questioned the ethics of Julian and Miles using illegal Romulan mind probes on Sloan to get needed information about a cure to Odo's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was slowly dying from a degenerative disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira with Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo and Kira", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo was on his death bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin considered Section 31 spreading a fatal disease to the Changelins tantamount to an act of genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bashir with Ezri", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julian and Miles entered into Sloan's dying brain to search for the cure to Odo's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sloan expressed regret to his family and friends over the secret life he had led.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy5x26", "title": "Equinox, Part I", "date": "1999-05-26", "description": "Voyager finds another Federation ship, the USS Equinox, under attack from flying nucleogenic lifeforms.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Equinox crew abandoned the Prime Directive in order to return to the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Equinox crew used aliens for fuel to return to Earth at breakneck speed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. human rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a social ethical dilemma we were perhaps made to ponder in general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Equinox crew abandoned the Prime Directive in order to return to the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Equinox crew about their dirty secret of using aliens as fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "nucleogenic alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Equinox crew went down the slippery slope from being curious scientists to killing sentient aliens for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stress from being in danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Equinox was on the brink of destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "nucleogenic alien not to be exploited for fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Equinox crew was punished for obeying Captain Ransom's unethical orders to use the nucleogenic aliens for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Equinox violated to get home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Equinox crew his dirty secret from Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was jealous of Max Burke over his past relationship with B'Elanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla shared with Chakotay that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom, B'Elanna, and Max Burke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Max Burke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor met his evil Equinox counterpart", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Ransom and his crew mourned the deaths of some fellow crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marla suffered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway vs. Ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Equinox crew succumbed to temptation to use nucleogenic aliens as fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some Equinox crewmembers, especially Marla over using nucleogenic aliens as fuel", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x24", "title": "The Dogs of War", "date": "1999-05-26", "description": "Sisko takes command of a new ship; Kira and Garak face a Dominion ambush on Cardassia.\n\nDirected by: Avery Brooks. Story by: Peter Allan Fields.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Damar led a resistance against the Dominion occupation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri and Julian fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark opposed progressive reforms instituted by Zek as Grand Nagus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalist conservatism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quark opposed progressive reforms instituted by Zek as Grand Nagus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and crew about getting to name their replacement for the Defiant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo considered Section 31's plan to kill all the Founders using a pandemic tantamount to genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Founders had been deliberately infected with some nasty disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin finds out that Kasidy is pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin finds out that Kasidy is pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin unexpectedly finds out that Kasidy is pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was consumed with avarice at the prospect of succeeding Zek as Grand Nagus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark chomped at the bit to succeed Zek as Grand Nagus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark and Rom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak reminisced in his childhood home.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ds97x25/26", "title": "What You Leave Behind", "date": "1999-06-02", "description": "Sisko leads the Federation/Klingon/Romulan alliance in the offensive on the Cardassian homeworld. Dukat and Winn journey to the fire caves to release the Pah'Wraiths, and Damar leads his people in a revolution in an attempt to overthrow their Dominion oppressors.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-ds9.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezri and Julian; Winn Adami and Dukat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cardassian rebels were putting up a resistance against Dominion domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julian and Ezri; Miles and Keiko; Benjamin and Kasidy; Kira and Odo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin and the Kasidy; Miles and Keiko", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kasidy was experiencing morning sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin finds out that Kasidy is pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak mourned the death of his childhood housekeeper, Mila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak reminisced in his childhood home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin fulfilled his destiny and ascended to live among the prophets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin fulfilled prophesy and ascended to live among the prophets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good and evil in religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Prophets were good in contrast with the Pah'wraiths who were evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kira and Odo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin sacrificed himself to defeat the Pah'wraiths and save the galaxy from their wicked influence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles was reluctant to tell his good friend Julian that he was planning to return to Earth after the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quark was consoled by Vic Fontaine in the holo suites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Garak expressed a wish to avenge the death of his childhood housekeeper Mila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dominion began executing a genocide on the Caradassian people. Section 31 perpetrated an attempted genocide on the Founders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odo decides to leave Kira and return to his shapeshifter people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake reminisces over his time on space station with Benjamin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Muppets from Space (1999)", "title": "Muppets from Space", "date": "1999-07-14", "description": "In the film, Gonzo attempts to discover his origins after having nightmares. After he and Rizzo the Rat are captured by government officials during his search, Kermit the Frog and the rest of the Muppet gang must save them. It is the sixth theatrical film in The Muppets franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muppets_from_Space" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Gonzo on his journey to discover his origins, and culminates with him finding out that he is really an alien from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the self-described \"one-of-a-kind freak\" Gonzo on his journey to look for other beings like himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gonzo was held at the COVNET top secret national security facility, whose mission was to investigate threats of extraterrestrial attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with Gonzo's alien kind arriving on Earth to pick him up and return him to his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The COVNET official K. Edgar Singer was convinced that the strange messages that'd been arriving from outer space were a prelude to an alien invasion. He subsequently took such measures to get on top of the situation as to have Gonzo kidnapped and interrogated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kermit the Frog and the other Muppets freed Gonzo from his captivity at the COVNET top secret national security facility. Rizzo the Rat and other rats escaped from a scientist who was performing various experiments on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody believed Gonzo when he told them that he'd been receiving messages from space aliens - not even his good friend Kermit the Frog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gonzo was denied entry into Noah's Ark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gonzo was rooming with Rizzo the Rat in the Muppet house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Piggy was starting a new job as a TV journalist, or so she claimed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gonzo made an appearance on the \"UFO Mania\" UFO-as-flying-saucer conspiracy TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The resident scientist of the Muppet house Dr. Bunsen Honeydew was a parody of a stereotypical mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of black suit and sunglasses wearing secret government agents came to kidnap Gonzo and take him to a secret government facility for questioning in about a possible alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Speaking to a small crowd, Sam Eagle boasted of there being \"no aliens here, only good, old-fashioned, hard-working Americans\". While Sam was referring to space aliens, his remark is clearly a thinly veiled reference to illegal immigrants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kermit the Frog and his crew used a special spray to turn themselves invisibility before sneaking past a COVNET security checkpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Piggy used a mind control spray on a COVNET security guard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gonzo's space alien brethren landed on Earth in a spaceship amidst a crowd of alien-happy spectators who were awaiting their arrival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gonzo told Kermit the Frog that Kermit was the best friend he could ask for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Gonzo had to decide whether he would return to his home planet together with his alien brethren or stay on Earth with the old friend Kermit the Frog and the other Muppets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deep Blue Sea (1999)", "title": "Deep Blue Sea", "date": "1999-07-28", "description": "Set in an isolated underwater facility, the film follows a team of scientists and their research on mako sharks to help fight Alzheimer's disease. The situation plunges into chaos when multiple genetically engineered sharks go on a rampage and flood the facility.", "collections": [ "Collection: Deep Blue Sea" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_Sea_(1999_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people trapped in the ocean facility were being terrorized by multiple genetically engineered sharks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film concerns a scientist who inadvertently creates intelligent mako sharks in the process of genetically engineering their brains. The genetically engineered sharks made a complex plan to escape to the open ocean from the facility that was their prison. In particular, the sharks manipulated people into flooding the ocean facility, so they (the sharks) could escape to through some weak mesh fences at the surface, bypassing the lower titanium walls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for an as yet uncurable disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Susan McCallister was genetically engineering mako sharks to have bigger brains as part of her research to help cure Alzheimer's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Susan McCallister's research into a cure for Alzheimer's disease inadvertently led to the creation of a pack of intelligent sharks that swam around killing everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parolee Carter Black acted in an indignant manner toward Russell Franklin solely because Russell was rich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russell Franklin spoke of how it'd taken him and his party a week to climb out from an avalanche.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The facility cook Sherman Dudley was shown at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The facility cook Sherman Dudley quoted several biblical passages, and pointedly clutched his crucifix in a moment of danger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Susan McCallister genetically engineered some mako sharks to have bigger brains, making them smarter and more deadly as an unintended consequence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Iron Giant (1999)", "title": "The Iron Giant", "date": "1999-07-31", "description": "Set during the Cold War in 1957, the film centers on a young boy named Hogarth Hughes, who discovers and befriends a gigantic metallic robot who fell from outer space. With the help of a beatnik artist named Dean McCoppin, Hogarth attempts to prevent the U.S. military and Kent Mansley, a paranoid federal agent, from finding and destroying the Giant. It is based on the 1968 novel \"The Iron Man\" by Ted Hughes (which was published in the United States as \"The Iron Giant\") and was scripted by Tim McCanlies from a story treatment by Bird.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Giant" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially isolated, nine-year-old boy Hogarth befriended the titular 50-foot tall metallic robot that'd fallen to Earth from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set during the Cold War shortly after the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit. It explores how people coped with the tensions that existed between the Soviet Union and the United States from the point of view of both small town people and the U.S. military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in post-war America", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film offers a view of what life might have been like for people living in a small American town in the 1950s at a time when Cold War tensions were running high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story are the nine-year-old boy Hogarth and his widowed mother, Annie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the titular 50-foot tall, humanoid patterned robot that crashed from outer space off the coast of Maine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The gentle giant robot from outer space was taken to be a threat by the military and they launched a full-scale attack on it. The townspeople commonly referred to the giant robot as a monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military mistook the gentle giant robot from outer space as a threat and attacked it. In so doing, they activated the giant robot's defense system, turning it into a war machine, after which it went into full rampage mode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The recently widowed Annie was working at a diner and renting a room in her home to help support her 9-year-old son, Hogarth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie confided in Dean that her son, Hogarth, was a lonely boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hogarth went to elaborate lengths to keep secret from his mother that'd he'd discovered and befriended a 50-foot tall robot from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean made sculptures out of scrap metal for a living.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two men were out hunting deer in the forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hogarth explained about death to the giant robot after it stumbled upon a dead deer in the forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant robot was evidently saddened by the sight of a deer that'd been shot dead by hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hogarth was convinced that the giant robot had an immortal soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The U.S. government agent Kent Mansley panicked and ordered the firing of a nuclear missile at the town in a desperate effort to destroy the giant robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should General Rogard order a possibly civilian killing nuclear strike on the town of Rockwell to destroy the possibly hostile giant robot from outer space?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant robot seemingly blew itself to smithereens by colliding with an incoming nuclear missile to save the town of Rockwell, its population, and the military forces nearby. However, the various pieces started reassembling themselves at the film's ultimate conclusion, implying that the giant robot was alive and well.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Furia (1999)", "title": "Furia", "date": "1999-08-09", "description": "Set in a post-apocalyptic future, a man resists a newly established harsh governing authority by painting anti-government graffiti. It is adapted from the science fiction short story \"Graffiti\" by Julio Cortázar.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furia_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future where a harsh ruling authority is trying to restore order to a fallen world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Théo and Elia fell passionately in love with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Théo was using graffiti as a way of protesting the harsh government that'd risen to power in this post-apocalyptic world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isolated people, like Théo, around the country were challenging the authority of the harsh regime that'd come to power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The harsh government had risen to power was unabashedly in the process of crushing any and all opposition to its authority.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Théo had a heart-to-heart conversation with his aging father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elia was taken captive by someone from the regime and tortured to death by him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elia was tortured to death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)", "title": "Universal Soldier: The Return", "date": "1999-08-20", "description": "A military owned experimental sentient computer goes rogue and turns the military's own band of supersoldiers against it. It is the fourth installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier:_The_Return" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film is a military program to recycle battlefield dead into cybernetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military sentient computer SETH went rogue and tried to take over the world with its massive army of supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Luc to prevent the sentient computer SETH from overthrowing humanity and taking over the world with its massive army of supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luc cared deeply for his adolescent daughter Hillary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon learning that the UniSol Program was scheduled to be shut down because of budget cuts, the military sentient computer SETH decided to take action by formulating a plot to overthrow humanity and take over the world with its massive army of supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fundamental to the film is a technology to recycle battlefield dead into cybernetically-enhanced supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "After something of a rocky start, Luc and Erin fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Universal Soldiers were controlled by means of special neural implants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unable to sleep Hillary asked her father why her mother had to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luc gazed wistfully at a photo of his dearly departed wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "KTXD reporter Erin Young was poking around for a scoop about the UniSol Program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squid boasted of having \"tweaked up\" SETH's human body with nanotechnology, making the body's muscle fibers fives times stronger and faster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military made the mistake of storing chemical weapons in the same facility that house the gone rogue sentient computer SETH.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Astronauts Wife (1999)", "title": "The Astronaut's Wife", "date": "1999-08-27", "description": "A woman's astronaut husband returns from space strangely altered.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astronaut%27s_Wife" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jillian's astronaut husband, Spencer, began acting in an increasing deranged manner after returning from a mission to repair a satellite. Alex and Natalie Streck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jillian's husband Spencer was possessed by a malevolent alien entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jillian and Spencer were expecting with twins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer's body was taken over by a malevolent alien entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jillian was working as second-grade elementary school teacher before she and her husband uprooted and moved to New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jillian confided in her younger sister Nan when Jillian's husband began acting strangely after returning from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natalie wept after her husband died of a stroke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natalie took her own life by electrocuting herself in the bathtub with a radio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A New York socialite curtly brushed Natalie off after Natalie let drop that she'd recently been teaching at an elementary school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Reese was terminated from NASA, told to see a psychiatrist, and was generally taken to be a raving lunatic for promulgating the notion that something was deeply wrong with Spencer - little did everyone know that he was on to something, as it turned out that an alien had taken over Spencer's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jillian struggled to bring herself to go through with her plan to take morning after pills to abort the twin fetuses in her womb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jillian dreamed of Spencer killing her sister as it happened in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were pointed moment when Jillian was in terror of her husband, Spencer, who'd been taken over by an malevolent entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer's body had been taken over by a malevolent alien entity that, at least according to Sherman Reese, was traveling space as a transmission at the speed of light.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x01", "title": "Equinox, Part II", "date": "1999-09-22", "description": "The crew of the USS Equinox attempts to elude the USS Voyager in order to exploit the nucleogenic lifeforms in a bid to return home.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway determined to hunt down Captain Ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay stood up to Janeway; Max Burke mutinied against Ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Ransom saw the error of his ways by the end of the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Ransom saw the error of his ways by the end of the episode; Janeway too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "nucleogenic alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Equinox crew went down the slippery slope from being curious scientists to killing sentient aliens for fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway at getting vengeance against Ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "nucleogenic alien not to be exploited for fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay wrestled with his conscience before confronting Janeway; Random with using nucleogenic aliens for fuel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ransom sacrificed himself in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay felt it was his duty to stand up to Janeway and not follow crazy orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Equinox crew abandoned the Prime Directive in order to return to the Alpha Quadrant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "Equinox crew used aliens for fuel to return to Earth at breakneck speed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Equinox violated to get home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew trying to communicate with neurogenic aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay to Janeway over her obsessive pursuit of Captain Ransom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor met his evil Equinox counterpart", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Max Burke", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway subjected Noah Lessing to torture in effort to get information", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "evil Doctor was extracting memories from Seven's mind", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x10", "title": "A Flight to Remember", "date": "1999-09-26", "description": "\"A Flight to Remember\" is episode ten in the first production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 26, 1999, as the first episode in the second season. This episode was written by Eric Horsted and directed by Peter Avanzino. Dawnn Lewis guest stars in this episode as LaBarbara Conrad. The episode is a direct parody of the 1997 film Titanic, while the title is a reference to Walter Lord's non- fiction book about the Titanic disaster A Night to Remember.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some stayed in lavish suites, some traveled in the bowels of the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ship Titanic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnsworth book the Planet Express team on a cruise on the space Titanic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender fell in love with the robo-Countess de la Roca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan at Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela, Brannigan, and Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender stated explicitly that his relationship with Countess de la Roca was star-crossed and in the end she was sucked into a black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various references to Bender and Countess de la Roca's mechanical natures were drawn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space Titanic got sucked into a black hole and the event horizon was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Countess de la Roca sacrificed herself to let the others, especially Bender, escape from the black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonardo DiCaprio's head was used to christen the space Titanic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg was accommodated aboard the space Titanic in a marble aquarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents pestered her to get married and produce grand children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents pestered her to get married and produce grand children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents pestered her to get married and produce grand children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan captained the space Titanic on its maiden voyage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bartender looked down on a penniless Bender at the bar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x02", "title": "Survival Instinct", "date": "1999-09-29", "description": "Three Borg from Seven's past appear, and ask to be completely separated from the Collective.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Ronald D. Moore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "ex-Borg drones had their minds filled with each others thoughts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven and The Doctor concluded it was more important for the ex-Borg to live a short but free lives, rather than long lives as Borg drones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A trio of ex-Borg drones were linked up in such a manner that all their thoughts were held in common.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "ex-Borg drones remained telepathically linked to their dismay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven over her role in mind linking the three ex-Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three Borg drones sought to be separated from the Borg collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural exchange", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew and space station aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was being pestered by Naomi", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x11", "title": "Mars University", "date": "1999-10-03", "description": "\"Mars University\" is episode eleven of the first production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 3, 1999 as the second episode in the second broadcast season of Futurama. This episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Bret Haaland.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnsworth felt that Gunther was better off as a genius, but in the end Gunther felt happy living a life with average intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monkey Gunther's electronium hat made him intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a parody university on Mars with stereotypical professors and frat houses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry enrolled at Mars University.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was a college drop out in the 20th century and became one again in the 31st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gunther had trouble fitting in because of his super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Gunther didn't like each other but were forced to be roommates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars had been colonized and a university founded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy visited her parents on Mars. Gunther was humiliated by his monkey parents running amok at parents night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy visited her parents on Mars. Gunther was humiliated by his monkey parents running amok at parents night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnsworth had pain seats in his university lecture hall classroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew on a mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnsworth explained that Mars had been terraformed so that it was now possible to breath the atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robots of Robot House.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x03", "title": "Barge of the Dead", "date": "1999-10-06", "description": "B'Elanna's shuttle is hit by an ion storm and she awakens to find herself among Klingons in the Barge of the Dead, on the way to Klingon Hell.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Ronald D. Moore and Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna in Klingon hell", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journey into the underworld", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna went on a sea voyage to Klingon hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna came to value Klingon religion by the end of her voyage into the underworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Miral claimed she was dishonored by her daughter B'Elanna; Klingon culture in featured in the episode more generally", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna came to appreciate her Klingon heritage", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna went to hell for Miral", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna about letting her mother know she appreciated her in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miral and B'Elanna also Janeway and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a near-death experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor described what happened to B'Elanna as a near-death experience", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna found out Klingon mythology is real", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor raised the possibility that B'Elanna's experiences of the Klingon afterlife emanated from her own imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x04", "title": "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy", "date": "1999-10-13", "description": "The Doctor adds daydreaming to his program, imagining himself as the Emergency Command Hologram (ECH) aboard Voyager; but aliens, tapping into his perceptions to observe the crew, prepare an attack when they believe that what they are seeing in the daydreams is real.\n\nDirected by: John Bruno. Story by: Bill Vallely.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor in his daydreams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "growing as a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor attempted to grow by including daydreaming into his programming and by training to become an Emergency Command Hologram", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "what those aliens were all about with their calculated risks etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor filed a formal complaint about to Janeway and she decided to explore the possibility of letting him serve as Emergency Command Hologram by the conclusion of the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor had romantic interactions with Seven, B'Elanna, and Janeway in his daydreams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor's daydreams got out of control and he lost his mind in the sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In his self-glorifying fantasy, the Doctor was performing the Italian opera aria, \"La donna e mobile\" to an ecstatic audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor had a daydream in which Janeway, B'Elanna, and Seven were rivaling over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor once he realized the crew became privy to his secret fantasies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor feigned to possess a powerful weapon known as \"the photonic canon\", and thus saved the day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor felt bad about people seeing his seedy fantasies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thrill Seekers (1999)", "title": "Thrill Seekers", "date": "1999-10-17", "description": "Thrill Seekers (also known as The Time Shifters) is a 1999 science fiction television film. In the film a TV news reporter discovers that people are traveling back in time to watch disasters as a form of entertainment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrill_Seekers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The premise of the film is that people are traveling back in time to watch deadly disasters for entertainment, but in so doing the future ends up getting altered in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The TV news reported Tom Merrick uncovered incontrovertible evidence that people from the future were traveling back in time to spectate deadly disasters for entertainment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point was hammered home about the seemingly deranged practice of traveling back in time to watch people die horribly in historical disasters was not so different from \"tuning into the six o'clock news\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was on the run from the FBI throughout the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"thrill seekers\" were people traveling back in time not only to watch people die horribly in disasters for kicks, but also for the sheer excitement that came with the possibility of not making it back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI agents Baker and Stanton were after Tom, who'd escaped from custody after being taken in for hijacking a passenger plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Tom and Elizabeth falling in love, and they shared a passionate kiss at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom worked to save his young son Kevin, who was living with Tom's ex-wife, from dying in a stadium fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was shown on his first day at work at the National Inquisitor TV news station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ship Titanic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that a man from the future had gone back in time to personally witness the sinking of the Titanic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom's son Kevin was more interested in playing his video game than he was in speaking with his dad, Tom, over the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Tom learned that the passenger flight he was on was destined to be involved in a mid-air collision, he took matters into his own hands to avert the impending disaster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom hijacked the passenger plan he was on to stop it from colliding with another plane in mid-air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Southern California was destroyed in a \"fusion meltdown\" in the year 2048.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Elizabeth deliberated over this conundrum: Should they interfere in history by preventing a stadium fire that was destined to take the lives of 11,000 people at the risk doing so might cause something even more terrible to happen?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and Elizabeth deliberated over this conundrum: Should they interfere in history by preventing a stadium fire that was destined to take the lives of 11,000 people at the risk doing so might cause something even more terrible to happen?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Tom and Elizabeth prevent a stadium fire that was destined to take the lives of 11,000 people at the risk doing so might cause something even more terrible to happen?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FBI buddy agents Baker and Stanton were after Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin's mother and step-father took him to see a hockey game at Copps Coliseum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin's mother and step-father were reluctant to let Kevin's father Tom back into Kevin's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin's mother and step-father took him to see a hockey game at Copps Coliseum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice hockey", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An eagerly anticipated hockey match was about to take place at Copps Coliseum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom broke down and wept upon seeing the dead body of his young son, Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom made amends with his estranged young son, Kevin, at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that a thrill seeking time traveler had gone back in time to witness people die horribly in the Hindenburg disaster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x05", "title": "Alice", "date": "1999-10-20", "description": "Tom Paris becomes obsessed with a salvaged alien shuttlecraft, which appears to have a mind of its own.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Juliann deLayne.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom was bewitched by an alien shuttlecraft, named Alice, with a mind of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "TTom was bewitched by an alien shuttlecraft, named Alice, with a mind of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom became obsessed with rebuilding a salvaged alien shuttlecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom tempted to leave Voyager with Alice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Alice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom fixing up the derelict spaceship was pretty much like the sterotypical American gearhead fixing up an old car in his garage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice manipulated Tom's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thought-controlled vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Alice ship had an interface that allowed its pilot to connect their mind to the ship's controls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was jealous of B'Elanna over Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x06", "title": "Riddles", "date": "1999-11-03", "description": "Returning from a diplomatic mission, Tuvok is attacked by a cloaked intruder and suffers neurological damage.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok and Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "choice", "motivation": "tension between the intellectual Tuvok and the emotional Neelix was feature", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "choice", "motivation": "tension between Tuvok wanting to be left to himself on the shuttlecraft and Neelix wanting to socialize; this theme was echoed throughout the episode", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tuvok suffered total amnesia and had to relearn everything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reclusive Ba'Neth used cloaking technology to hide themselves while they observed passers by through their region of space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok was frustrated by being less smart after waking up from coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok cowered net to chair during Ba'neth attack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok had a temper tantrum in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Naroq was curious to prove the existence of a mythical race of shadow people; The Doctor at Neelix playing Vulcan monastic chants in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok and Neelix merged in to Tuvix were much better at cooking, thought the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tukov choose to revert to his former rational Vulcan self instead of remaining as the new fun-loving Tuvok.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x12", "title": "When Aliens Attack", "date": "1999-11-07", "description": "\"When Aliens Attack\" is episode twelve in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 1999. This episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Brian Sheesley. The episode features an attack by aliens from Omicron Persei 8, when the planet's ruler Lrrr is outraged when the final episode of the Earth show Single Female Lawyer is interrupted by technical difficulties.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens from Omicron Persei 8 attack Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team filmed an episode of Single Female Lawyer for Lrrr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Fry encountered a gay beach bully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team flew to the beach in a flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A parody of military life involving a lot of bed making was featured after the Planet Express ship and its crew were conscripted into Brannigan's most expendable army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg lathered himself in butter at the beach, went for a scuttle into the sea, and got himself caught in a lobster trap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr and his alien brethren were reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender refused to fight against the aliens on pacifist grounds until his patriotism chip was activated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender took off his head and used it to take a photo of the Planet Express team and later had his patriotism chip activated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr disintegrated Presented McNeal with his death ray gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female independence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Single female lawyer, Jenny McNeal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan at Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reptilians of Omicron Persei 8 invaded Earth in flying saucers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: PeutEtre (1999)", "title": "Peut-être", "date": "1999-11-10", "description": "Peut-être (Maybe; Perhaps) is a 1999 French science fiction comedy film. After having sex with his girlfriend Lucie in a bathroom, Arthur discovers that a ceiling panel is a time portal to the Paris in the future, although it appears more like a sun-baked desert city by that point. There he meets an old man named Ako who turns out to be Arthur's son. Ako attempts to persuade Arthur to impregnate Lucie so that he can exist in this future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peut-%C3%AAtre" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film concerns the young man Arthur meeting his future children and grandchildren after passing through a time portal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The young man Arthur traveled into the future whereupon he met his future son, Ako, who was by then an old man. The story then follows Ako's attempts to persuade Arthur to impregnate his girlfriend so that Ako and his progeny can continue to exist in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur passed through a time portal to find himself 60 years in the future. Not only did he find the Paris of the future to be a sun-baked desert, but he also met his future son and grandchildren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal life and death dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Arthur impregnate his girlfriend or not? If he did, then his future son Ako and Ako's descendants would go on living happily in the future; otherwise they would cease to exist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ako was faced with the prospect of vanishing into thin air should he fail in his attempts to convince his son, Arthur, to impregnate his mother, Lucie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur and his girlfriend Lucie found themselves in a most strange predicament while attending a wild, all-night millennium party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ako traveled back in time to convince his father to impregnate his mother. If Ako failed, he and his descendants would cease to exist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur discovered a bathroom ceiling panel was actually a time portal and subsequently passed through it to find himself about 60 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ako introduced Arthur to his wife Marie-Jeanne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ako introduced Arthur to Arthur's future daughter. Rosemonde tried to keep her crazy, gun-toting father under control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ako briefly quarreled with his sister Madeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational illicit drug use", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The millennium party goes were shown smoking and snorting various street drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ako conversed with his granddaughter while tied up in a chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ako traveled back in time about 60 years and there met his mother, Lucie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Overcome with emotions, Ako wept as he danced with his mother, Lucie, at the millennium party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kader was initially surprised when the girl he was hitting on at the millennium party revealed herself to be (in her words) \"a boy\", but this was not ultimately a problem for Kader, and they hooked up after the party.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x07", "title": "Dragon's Teeth", "date": "1999-11-10", "description": "Voyager discovers a network of subspace passageways, but is forced to land on a planet after being attacked.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the conquering Vaadwaur race were themselves conquered", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vaadwaur used subspace corridors to attack and subjugate other alien races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vaadwaur civilization was destroyed in an attack on their homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gedrin disavowed the Vaadawaur ethic of conquest and helped Janeway escape in the end; Seven expressed remorse over reviving Gedrin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gedrin was in suspended animation for 900 years", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gedrin woke up 900 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gedrin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gedrin talked with B'Elanna of his admiration for the Klingon warrior spirit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gedrin helped Janeway after all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language change", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the current meaning of the Talaxian word \"Vaadwaur\" meant \"foolish\" in ancient Talaxian, but that now it meant somethign different. Likewise, Neelix and Gedrin noted how \"Talax-ilzay\" morphed into \"Talaxian\" over the centuries.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama1x13", "title": "Fry and the Slurm Factory", "date": "1999-11-14", "description": "\"Fry and the Slurm Factory\" is the thirteenth and final episode in the first production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 14, 1999. The episode was directed by Ron Hughart and written by Lewis Morton. Pamela Anderson guest stars as the voice of one of the Slurm party girls.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Slurm factory was an evil corporation that oppressed their Grunka-Lunkas workers and sold unhealthy Slurm cola to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sugar addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was addicted to Slurm cola.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Slurm creatures were slug-like beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternative medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy recommended that Bender try homeopathy to cure his stomach ailment, but Farnsworth dismissed it as crap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone having an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's friends tried to call attention to his addiction to Slurm cola.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon caught Monique cheating on him in an episode of All My Circuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon caught Monique cheating on him in an episode of \"All My Circuits\", the robot soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative handheld device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender used Farnsworth's F-ray flashlight to look inside various people and objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender used Farnsworth's F-ray (a play on X-ray) flashlight to look inside various people and objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg asked for a t-shirt that was larger around the thorax at the Slurm factory gift shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Slurms MacKenzie gave his life so that the Planet Express team could escape from the Slurm factory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x08", "title": "One Small Step", "date": "1999-11-17", "description": "Voyager is nearly hit by a mysterious subspace mass and the crew theorize that the debris of an ancient Earth–Mars ship is inside.\n\nDirected by: Robert Picardo. Story by: Mike Wollaeger and Jessica Scott.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space exploration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Kelly and Voyager crew went on a pioneering mission to Mars, and later explored a graviton ellipse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay and crew curious to investigate graviton ellipse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Kelly accepted he was going to die in a graviton ellipse once life support gave out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Delta Flyer crew trapped inside graviton ellipse", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Tom were history buffs on the first mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was puzzled by the human instinct to celebritize our heroes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven tried to convince Janeway that exploring the graviton ellipse was too risky, but Janeway was willing to take the risk; Chakotay took risk to recover module in the face of Seven's reservations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Twenty-first century astronaut John Kelly was a big New York Yankees fan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x01", "title": "I Second That Emotion", "date": "1999-11-21", "description": "\"I Second That Emotion\" is the first episode in season two of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 21, 1999. The episode was written by Patric Verrone and directed by Mark Ervin. The episode introduces the recurring sewer mutants, a society of humans who have been mutated by years of exposure to pollution and radioactive waste poured into the sewers from New New York.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "becoming a nicer person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender went from being a jerk to being an empathetic person after being installed with an emotion chip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela went looking for Nibbler in the sewers after Bender flushed him down the toilet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Bender were somehow mentally linked albeit one-way and he was a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was installed with an empathy chip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a society of humans who had been mutated by years of exposure to pollution and radioactive waste poured into the sewers from New New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was annoyed that Nibbler was getting more attention than him from the Planet Express team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor installed Bender with an empathy chip when it became apparent he was a jackass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was annoyed that Nibbler was getting more attention than him from the Planet Express team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender demonstrated his culinary abilities by baking a three tier birthday cake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon was diagnosed with inoperable cancer on \"All My Circuits\", the robot soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team encountered the supposed urban legendary beast El Chupanibre.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x09", "title": "The Voyager Conspiracy", "date": "1999-11-24", "description": "After assimilating Voyager's data from the past six years, through an enhancement to her Borg implants, Seven of Nine suspects the ship did not arrive in the Delta Quadrant by accident.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven went wild with dreaming up elaborate conspiracy theories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven went wild with hatching conspiracy theories based on flimsy evidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven downloaded ship data directly into her brain", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quality is more important than quantity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven learned that quality of information was more important than its quantity in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway brings Seven back to her good senses with impassioned soliloquy on their friendship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and Janeway in shuttle, Janeway and Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay in each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven at the high of her conspiratorial delusions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven at the hight of her conspiratorial delusions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a conspiracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay and Janeway both worried Seven's wild conspiracy theories were true", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Chakotay in each other", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x02", "title": "Brannigan, Begin Again", "date": "1999-11-28", "description": "\"Brannigan, Begin Again\" is the second episode in the second production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 28, 1999. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Jeffrey Lynch.\n\nDirected by: Jeffrey Lynch. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif had to put up with Brannigan. Fry and Bender saw Leela as a task master and mutinied against her with the help of Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan blew up the Space UN (Democratic Order of Planets) headquarters. After he lost his DOOP job, he then devised an ill-contrived plot to attack the Neutral Planet to get is back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political neutrality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan plotted to attack the Neutral Planet in an ill-contrived plan to get his job back. The neutral aliens had a prominent role in DOOP leadership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was frustrated with having to deal with her incompetent underlings Fry, Bender, and Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan and Kif lost their jobs and became beggars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan at Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan was court martialed for having blown up DOOP headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were anti-grav units for pillows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan demanded absolute loyalty from Fry and Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DOOP headquarters was a space station in orbit around the Neutral Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insectoid alien ate a lizard alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insectoid alien ate a lizard alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team made a delivery to the high-gravity world Stumbos IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a high gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team walked around with much difficulty on the high-gravity world Stumbos IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan was court martialed for having blown up DOOP headquarters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x10", "title": "Pathfinder", "date": "1999-12-01", "description": "Barclay gets over-involved with holographic recreations of the Voyager crew in his attempts to contact them. This episode also features Deanna Troi.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: David Zabel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay confessed he was obsessed with Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Barclay violated orders by continuing his efforts to contact Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Owen Paris", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who is overexerting themself", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay's boss with Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay desperate for one last attempt", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay violated orders by continuing his efforts to establish a communication channel between Starfleet and the Voyager crew so that they would be able to keep in regular contact with home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay when Troi popped in to visit him at his apartment; Barclay addressing Owen Paris", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay's holodeck addiction was brought up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay with holodeck addiction", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay and Troi's old friendship was pointedly featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay on holodecks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "holodeck featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay and his cat Neelix", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)", "title": "Godzilla 2000: Millennium", "date": "1999-12-11", "description": "Godzilla rampages around Japan as space aliens make a bid to take over the Earth. It is the 24th film in the Godzilla franchise, as well as the first film in the franchise's Millennium period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_2000" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular monster Godzilla. Godzilla battled the giant creature Orga on the streets of Shinjuku, Tokyo, at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular monster Godzilla wrought havoc in Tokyo among other locations in Japan. In the end, Godzilla saved Tokyo from the possibly even more horrible giant monster, Orga, before continuing its rampage through the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the independent researcher Yuji Shinoda and his preteen daughter, Io, as they run a Godzilla tracking network.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien spaceship that'd crashed to the bottom of the Japan Trench some 65 million years ago flew around Japan wreaking havoc after a group of well-intentioned raised it to the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of space aliens, who were never seen directly, made a failed bid to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla single-handedly prevented a crew of space aliens from either adding the Earth to its race's empire or terraforming it as a prelude to colonization - the story is unclear as to whether humanity would be subjugated or exterminated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The photographer Yuki Ichinose was determined to snap a good shot of Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuji Shinoda was raising Io as a single parent, although nothing much in the way of this storyline was developed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A high ranking Japan Self Defense Forces official boasted of having a new armor piercing missile that could penetrate any material, even Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Io spoke of balancing getting homework done with running a Godzilla tracking network together with her father, Yuji Shinoda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The independent researcher Yuji Shinoda discovered the secret to Godzilla's astounding regenerative ability: the giant monster was constituted of special \"Regenerator G1\" cells that instantly repaired themselves after being subjected to damaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens began to alter the oxygen content of atmosphere surrounding their spaceship in a failed bid to terraform the Earth as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x03", "title": "A Head in the Polls", "date": "1999-12-12", "description": "\"A Head in the Polls\" is the third episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 12, 1999. The episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Bret Haaland. Claudia Schiffer makes a guest appearance as herself. The title is a pun on the common phrase \"Ahead in the polls\".\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "An election for president of the world was being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head campaigned against two clones to become president of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Watergate scandal was parodied and Nixon was up to shenanigans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's disembodied head ran for president of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender hawked his body and Nixon bought it to run for president of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nixon technically became a cyborg after buying Bender's robot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was apathetic to politics and wasn't in the habit of voting. Also, there was a political apathy party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Twilight Zone episode where a single man survived a nuclear holocaust was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was briefly upset at the fate of caved in robot workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two clones, Jack Johnson and John Jackson, were campaigning to be president of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the political parties had been assimilated by brain slugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the political parties had been assimilated by brain slugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling a part of one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender hocked his body and quickly regretted it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bicentennial Man (1999)", "title": "Bicentennial Man", "date": "1999-12-17", "description": "A robot housekeeper grows more and more human-like over the course of his 200 year life. It is based on the 1992 novel The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg (which is itself based on Asimov's original 1976 novelette \"The Bicentennial Man\").", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicentennial_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is the humanoid robot Andrew and his quest to become a human being. He went from being a naive, metallic, humanoid robot to acquiring the ability to eat, feel emotions and sensations, and even have sexual relationships, resulting in him and Portia falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The NDR series robot Andrew is the main character in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Martin family robot housekeeper Andrew having no rights and being the property of the family. He was later granted his freedom, and ultimately declared to be a human being by the World Congress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew maintained a lifelong friendship with Amanda, whom he'd help raise from the time she was a little girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew became a bonafide android after receiving an upgrade midway through the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "According to Portia, society would never accept her having a sexual relationship with the android Andrew. Andrew petitioned the World Congress to recognize him as a human being so that he could marry Portia, but his effort failed. Portia and Andrew made a go of it in spite of that, and in the end their marriage was validated by the World Congress anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In living to be 200 years old, the robot-become-human Andrew saw everyone around him grow old and die, and in the end he decided to get an upgrade that would result in him, too, growing old and dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Portia initially refused to get romantically involved with the android Andrew on account that their love would not be accepted by society. In the end, however, they followed their hearts and lived together as a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Midway through the story Andrew presented Richard with all the money he had made from his clockmaking activities to ask for his freedom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Wendy Martin were happily married with two young daughters. Amanda and Frank tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and his two little girls, Amanda and the spoiled brat Grace. Later, a much older Richard and his adult daughter Amanda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wendy and her two little girls, Amanda and the spoiled brat Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda and her spoiled brat of an older sister, Grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The start of the film features the kid sisters Amanda and Grace doing such stereotypical kid thing as playing around on the beach, being fussy about eating dinner, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew showed a holographic presentation of the Three Laws of Robotics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard and Rachel discussed Andrew's surprising abilities over a game of chess. Andrew beat Portia at chess in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the birds and the bees", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard explained where babies comes from his child-like housekeeper the robot Andrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew was disturbed to hear that in the process of conception all but one of millions of sperm die. Richard went on to assure Andrew that while one does feel bad for them this was the natural way of things and that it was okay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew questioned Richard about why it is that jokes make people laugh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew took up carving wooden clocks and made a modest fortune from selling them. Later his built a beachfront, little wooden house for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kid Amanda taught Andrew how to play a due on the piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard sought council from the family lawyer, Bill Feingold. Amanda's son Lloyd grew up to become a lawyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda and Charles got married in a church packed with guests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda her unruly young son, Lloyd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda divorced Frank later in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying cars were zipping around the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda and her adult granddaughter, Portia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew took in a stray puppy and raised it himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Portia wept when her grandmother, Amanda, passed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew invented a variety of artificial organs that ended up being used by people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Andrew was heartbroken when Portia told him that she couldn't I \"invest my emotions in a machine\" and resolved to marry Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rupert Burns pointed out that the thought of Portia marrying another man made Andrew feel jealous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Andrew technically became a cyborg after being implanted with a central nervous system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The preservation architect Portia was restoring a stone sculpture of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Portia's parents threw an engagement party for her and her fiancée Charles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew twice petitioned the World Congress to recognize him as a human being.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x04", "title": "Xmas Story", "date": "1999-12-19", "description": "\"Xmas Story\" is the fourth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired as the eighth episode in the second broadcast season on the Fox network in the United States on December 19, 1999. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and directed by Peter Avanzino. John Goodman guest stars in this episode as Robot Santa. The plot of the episode focuses on the first Xmas that Fry spends in the future.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: David X. Cohen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Present day customs, such as clothes wearing, pine trees, and Santa Claus were parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela felt lonely on Xmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela shard their loneliness together over Xmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robot Santa terrorized New New York. Bender went to a robot liquor kitchen on Xmas to get charity liquor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robot Santa terrorized New New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team celebrated Christmas in the 30th century style.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conan O'Brien's head did a stand up comedy routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg got a crab-centric Xmas card from a family member, and he explained how he was cold blooded while skiing with Hermes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conan O'Brien's head did a stand up comedy routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was feeling nostalgic for 20th century Christmases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender volunteered at a homeless robot shelter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Galaxy Quest (1999)", "title": "Galaxy Quest", "date": "1999-12-25", "description": "The cast of a defunct cult television series called Galaxy Quest who are suddenly visited by actual aliens who believe the series to be an accurate documentary, and become involved in a very real intergalactic conflict.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-1990s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The actors from a defunct cult show Galaxy Quest actors were living off the fame they had accrued from being one the show 20 years on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Thermians assumed the Galaxy Quest actors were the characters they played on account that their race did not understand fiction and deception.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Galaxy Quest actors were subjected to rapid fans at a Star Trek-like convention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nesmith was nursing a bad hangover during his limousine ride to the alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Thermians were being hunted down by a race of reptilian aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food synthesizer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Thermians synthesized special meals for the Galaxy Quest actors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kwan teleported Nesmith up to the ship just in time before a rock monster got him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred and the Thermian woman. Jason Nesmith and Gwen DeMarco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rock being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nesmith fought a rock monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x11", "title": "Fair Haven", "date": "2000-01-12", "description": "The crew enjoys a respite inside a holodeck creation designed by Tom Paris, while Voyager faces the threat of an oncoming storm in space.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Robin Burger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom's 19th century Ireland holodeck world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway customized her holographic lover, Michael Sullivan, to her liking and struggled with the consequences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and Michael Sullivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Sullivan was Janeway's virtual lover", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Michael Sullivan character was not programmed to have a broken heart", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Michael Sullivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Sullivan was shouting her name from the treetops", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in early modern Ireland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom programmed an elaborate 19th century Ireland simulation on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fair Haven holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway broke up with Michael Sullivan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sullivan down in the dumps after Janeway left him after they spent a perfect day together at the lake", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager traversed a neutronic wavefront", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Supernova (2000)", "title": "Supernova", "date": "2000-01-14", "description": "Supernova is a 2000 science fiction horror film written by David C. Wilson, William Malone and Daniel Chuba and directed by Walter Hill, credited as \"Thomas Lee.\"\n\nSynopsis: A search and rescue medical ship crew in deep space discovers a potentially dangerous alien artifact form after responding to a distress signal.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_(2000_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sun going supernova", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the revelation that the nine-dimensional matter inside the alien artifact would make the blue giant star go supernova, and moreover that the resulting explosion would reach Earth within 51 years. This, the ship computer hypothesized, would either destroy life on Earth or \"enable humankind to achieve a new level of existence\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the 22nd century, faster-than-light traveling medical rescue vessel Nightengale 229. Another novel aspect of the ship is that it used rotation to generate gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and Kaela fell in love in the end. Danika and Yerzy were in love and longed to have children togehter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kaela was astonished to discover that the man who'd sent the distress call was her former lover, Karl. Karl's attempts to rekindle their relationship was central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Karl in his unsuccessful attempts to romantically reconcile with his former lover Kaela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that violent cartoons, such as Tom and Jerry, had been banned at some point in the 21st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship physician Dr. Kaela Evers was depicted treating crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faster than light travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The medical rescue vessel Nightengale 229 made a \"dimension-jump\" of 3,000 light-years to reach the ice moon Titan 37 in response to a distress call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the 22nd century when humanity has colonized some small portion of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benjamin played chess with the ship computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danika's lover assured her that they'd get approved to have a baby, suggesting that some population control measures were in place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danika longed to have a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Nick was a recovering \"Hazen\" addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nightengale 229 crew discovered a mysterious alien artifact that was found to contain nine-dimensional matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl's strength increased to well beyond that what is normal for a human male after he came into contact with the alien artifact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl acquired this ability after coming into contact with the alien artifact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nightengale 229 vessel was equipped with an advanced, but perhaps non-sentient onboard computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danika and her boyfriend Yerzy planned to have children together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rotational simulated gravity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nightengale 229 medical rescue vessel used rotation to simulate gravity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x12", "title": "Blink of an Eye", "date": "2000-01-19", "description": "Voyager is trapped in orbit about a planet with a space-time differential such that, while its inhabitants live through years, Voyager experiences mere minutes.\n\nDirected by: Gabrielle Beaumont. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative rise of civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager watched the alien civilization rise in fast forward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time passing at different rates for different people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Time moved faster for the people on planet surface than for the Voyager crew in orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager in orbit central to local alien's mythology and shaped rise of their civilization", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "local aliens interpreted Voyager in geosynchronous orbit as an earthquake causing star", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "local aliens sought to learn about Voyager and Voyager crew about the rise of civilization on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cleric scoffed at Kelemene for taking seriously the idea that the earthquakes plaguing their city might be the doing of a god once worshiped by their ancient ancestors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "some of the local aliens took the stars as being gods", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prime numbers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens transmitted prime numbers to Voyager in effort to communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor even had a kid on the planet", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x13", "title": "Virtuoso", "date": "2000-01-26", "description": "Visiting aliens who have never before encountered music become fascinated with the Doctor's Opera singing, and ask him to leave Voyager and join their society.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Raf Green.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor all caught up in his celebrity among the Qomar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor thought he was a virtuoso singer when he found a race of aliens that adored his music. Alas, they soon surpassed and grew bored with the Doctor who returned chastised to Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between job opportunities", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor about leaving Voyager to pursue musical career on Qomar homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor fancied himself a virtuoso and nearly abandoned Voyager to perform on a planet of super intelligent aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor among the Qomar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor about resigning his commission to stay on the planet with Vinka", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor learned the hard way about the fleeting nature of fame", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "everyone with both The Doctor and Qomar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Qomar nearly worshiped The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor at Tincoo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Qomar only opened their planet to outsiders once they wished to collect music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway begrudgingly grants The Doctor the right of self-determination", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor had some groupies bothering him in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor tried to say goodbye to Voyager crew", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x14", "title": "Memorial", "date": "2000-02-02", "description": "Chakotay, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, and Neelix begin to experience horrific flashbacks after an away mission.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of remembering history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew reflected on the importance of remembering the Nakan massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the Nakan massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "away team were convinced they committed atrocities while fighting in a war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom, Harry, Chakotay, and Neelix after coming back from away mission; later spreads to entire crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "crew over believing they committed Nakan massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The away team had vivid flashbacks of fighting on the battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "major", "motivation": "away team about massacre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "the obelisk that induced vivid memory-like visions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna helps Tom cope with his post-traumatic stress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nakan memorial makers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom watching TV while B'Elanna chats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom watching TV while B'Elanna chats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom watching TV while B'Elanna chats", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x05", "title": "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?", "date": "2000-02-06", "description": "\"Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?\" is the fifth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States as the ninth episode of the second broadcast season on February 6, 2000. The episode is a parody of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode \"Amok Time\" and, in part, Cyrano de Bergerac.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg and his home world was at the center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry mentored Zoidberg in how to court a female for mating purposes. Edna was looking for a romantic relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg went back to his planet to find a mate and engaged in a variety of courtship rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Zoidberg fought to the death over Edna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lethal mating practice being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Members of Zoidberg's species died after mating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lobster creature Edna became enamored with Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg challenged Fry to a fight to the death according to the ancient Claw-Plach ritual of his species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Amy took lazy slobs Fry and Bender to the gym.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was working on the bench press under reduced gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team transported Zoidberg back to his ancient home world so he could join in the mating frenzy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry mentored Zoidberg in how to court a female for mating purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg competed with other males of his species to woo females on the beach.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x15", "title": "Tsunkatse", "date": "2000-02-09", "description": "Seven of Nine and Tuvok are kidnapped while on shore leave, and Seven is forced to fight in a gladiatorial contest to the death. (Guest stars Dwayne Johnson.)\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Gannon Kenney.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "combat sports", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether gladiatorial combat is barbaric or something that falls within the limits of what might be labeled as healthy competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven was kidnapped and forced to compete in a mixed martial arts ring sport called \"Tsunkatse\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven of Nine", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven struggled with the prospect that she would have to kill her opponent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven of Nine and Tuvok kidnapped by Penk and made to fight continuously", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in violence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spectators, Voyager crew included, took pleasure in watvhing a violent combat sport called Tsunkatse. Seven was worried that she nearly lost her humanity in the ring, when she was overcome with bloodlust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven to fight for Tuvok's life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew take shore leave on Norcadia Prime", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad sunburn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Talaxian homeopathy failed him, Neelix sought out the Doctor to treat his sunburn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven confided in Tuvok that she felt guilty for what she had become in the arena", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hirogen took on Seven and trained her in the ways of hand-to-hand combat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory in battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hirogen wanted to die valorously", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven said she was", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x07", "title": "Put Your Head on My Shoulders", "date": "2000-02-13", "description": "\"Put Your Head on My Shoulders\" is the seventh episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 13, 2000. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Chris Louden. The episode focuses on a romantic relationship between Fry and Amy.\n\nDirected by: Chris Louden. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "head transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg put Fry's head on Amy's shoulder to keep him alive after his body got mangled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy bought a flying car and took it for a spin around Mercury with Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor the slick car salesman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy took getting dumped by Fry pretty well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lincoln and George Washington's heads were used to advertise cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy and Fry went for a spin around Mercury and Europa in her flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mercury", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy and Fry went for a spin around Mercury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malfunctioning Eddie blew up after hearing the price Amy was willing to pay to buy a flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg told everyone he was lonely. Leela felt lonely on Valentine's Day and she went to Bender's computer dating service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matchmaking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender pretended to run a computer matchmaking service.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x16", "title": "Collective", "date": "2000-02-16", "description": "Chakotay, Kim, Paris, and Neelix are taken hostage when the Delta Flyer is captured by Borg children in a derelict Cube.\n\nDirected by: Allison Liddi. Story by: Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven of Nine with Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway about using the pathogen on the Borg children in order to save the hostages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew attempt to secure the release of away party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "community of abandoned children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five Borg children had been left to tend to a Borg cube after all the adults died from a pathogen. They had a leader and seemed to get by, more or less.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adolescence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway said the Borg children they were arrogant and unpredictable and so they were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "anti-Borg pathogen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Borg's penchant for turning people into cyborgs and assimilating them into their collective consciousness was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg children; especially Borg newborn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay, Tom, Neelix and Harry held captive on Borg cube", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bluffing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix in poker", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg children rejected by Borg collective who deemed them to be irrelevant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg child leader pressured children to follow his wishes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway reiterated that she would use the pathogen", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Pitch Black (2000)", "title": "Pitch Black", "date": "2000-02-18", "description": "Pitch Black (titled The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black on its DVD re- release) is a 2000 American science fiction action horror film directed by David Twohy and co-written by Twohy and brothers Ken and Jim Wheat from a story conceived by the latter.\n\nSynopsis: The dangerous criminal Richard B. Riddick is being transported to prison in a spacecraft. When the spaceship is damaged by comet debris and makes an emergency crash landing on an empty desert planet, Riddick escapes. However, when predatory alien creatures begin attacking the survivors, Riddick joins forces with the surviving crew and other passengers to develop a plan to escape the planet.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Chronicles of Riddick Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_Black_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the efforts of the surviving crew and passengers of a crash-landed spaceship to get off a desert planet that was inhabited by hoards of man-eating creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the baked in perpetual daylight by three suns desert planet on which it is set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The surviving crew and passengers of the Hunter-Gratzner spaceship struggled to survive on the desert planet on which they crash-landed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carolyn and Johns took a calculated risk by releasing the dangerous criminal Riddick and accepting him into their party. They remained suspicious and mistrustful of him throughout the course of the film, but needed his help to survive on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the surviving crew and passengers of the Hunter-Gratzner spaceship trying to not get killed by the man-eating creatures that inhabited the desert planet on which they'd crash-landed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The desert planet was inhabited by grotesque, man-eating creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pointedly concluded with Riddick stated that \"he died somewhere on that planet\", meaning that he'd left his old life as an infamous criminal and murderer behind there, and was now a reformed man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story was that Riddick had surgically altered eyes that allowed him to see in the dark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic interstellar vessel Hunter-Gratzner was transporting 40 passengers in cryostasis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hunter-Gratzner spaceship was transporting 40 cryo-sleeping passengers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a trinary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three suns featured prominently in the desert planet sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Muslim preacher Imam and his three young acolytes were traveling to a place called New Mecca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tomboy Jack immediately took a liking to the hardened criminal Riddick and soon thereafter began to emulate him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The marooned Hunter-Gratzner crew and passengers pointedly discussed their fears, or lack thereof, of the vicious creatures that went flying around the desert planet at night, killing anything in their path.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick and the others were surprised to find that the teenager Jack was actually a girl who'd dressed as a boy and adopted a male persona to avoid attracting unwelcome attention. Jack generally behaved as a stereotypical tomboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandoning someone to save one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick forced Carolyn to choose between leaving her fellow marooned travelers for dead on the planet and escaping with him, and staying behind on the planet to die together with them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flowers for Algernon (2000)", "title": "Flowers for Algernon", "date": "2000-02-20", "description": "A mentally retarded adult is selected to undergo a surgical procedure that boots his intelligence to genius levels as it did for Algernon, a laboratory mouse who also underwent the same procedure. It is the second screen adaptation of Daniel Keyes' 1966 novel of the same name following the 1968 film Charly.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intellectually challenged man Charly underwent a surgical procedure that gave him genius level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental retardation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intellectually challenged man Charly underwent a surgical procedure that boosted his intelligence to genius levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mentally challenged man Charly was leading a contented life until such time as he underwent an intelligence boosting operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mentally challenged man Charly longed to be a normal member of society after he got an intelligence boosting operation. He found, however, that he didn't fit in any better when he was a genius than he did when he was mentally challenged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "student and teacher romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things got hot and heavy between Charly and his former teacher Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly's coworkers at the bakery were especially cruel to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was working as a teacher of the mentally disabled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly recollected a traumatic event surrounding his first crush.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two scientists performed an intelligence boosting operation on Charly and monitored him thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly was fired from the bakery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "EQ vs. IQ", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly's emotional development lagged behind his intellectual development..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genius Charly was mortified when a video of him from his mentally challenged days was shown to an audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice fixed Charly a coffee when he was nursing a hangover after a night of drinking and dancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly had flashbacks to some traumatic events he suffered in childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Genius Charly sought out his mother to ask her why she haten him when he was a mentally challenged child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly was deflowered by his former teacher Alice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charly was heartbroken went his pet mouse Algernon died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x06", "title": "The Lesser of Two Evils", "date": "2000-02-20", "description": "\"The Lesser of Two Evils\" is the sixth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox Network in the United States on February 20, 2000, as the 11th episode of the second broadcast season.\n\nDirected by: Chris Sauve. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bender and a robot that looked just like him, except for a goatee, called Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender met Flexo, a bending robot that looks just like him, except he had a goatee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was accused of being jealous of Flexo over the robot's friendship with Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A TV show featured an insectoid alien getting arrested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some stock brokers used jet packs as park of a performance the historical amusement park Past-o-Rama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team visited the historical amusement park Past-o-Rama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team delivered a atom of jumbonium to a planet on which the Miss Universe Pageant was being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob Barker's disembodied head hosted the Miss Universe Pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela didn't know whether to shoot Bender of Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "microbe-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An amoeba-like alien from Vega IV won the Miss Universe Pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a beauty pageant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x17", "title": "Spirit Folk", "date": "2000-02-23", "description": "Problems arise from running the holographic Irish village of Fair Haven non- stop, when a malfunction leads the holographic characters to become self- aware.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom's 19th century Ireland holodeck world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "townsfolk mistook holodeck occurrences as acts of black magic perhaps by fairies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fair Haven holodeck characters come to question their reality", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael Sullivan was Janeway's virtual lover", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Michael Sullivan; Harry and Maggie O'Halloran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in early modern Ireland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom programmed an elaborate 19th century Ireland simulation on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew vs. Fair Haven holodeck simulation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Michael Sullivan, and Harry and Maggie O'Halloran", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world was but a simulation from the Fair Haven people's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Michael Sullivan were from different worlds and tried to get along", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom transformed Harry's girlfriend into a cow as a practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway was reluctant to delete the Fair Haven holodeck characters, but B'Elanna advocated doing to in order to save Tom and Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway had to decide whether or not to tell the holodeck characters that they were part of a computer simulation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x08", "title": "Raging Bender", "date": "2000-02-27", "description": "\"Raging Bender\" is the eighth episode in the second production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 27, 2000 as the twelfth episode of the second broadcast season. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Ron Hughart. The story focuses on Bender becoming a professional robot wrestler.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bender joining the Ultimate Robot Fighting league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bender joining the Ultimate Robot Fighting league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela showed that she could kick as just as well as any man or green insectoid alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela introspected and confronted her old nemesis sensei Snog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela trained Bender for the fight against Destructor as a way to get revenge against her old sensei Snog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot prizefighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender participated in a robot fighting league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neural parasite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was assimilated by a brain slug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg wanted to see \"Planet of the Clams\", a film where crab-like creatures took over the Earth, at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "microbe-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old black and white film showed that an amoeba being from the Paramecium home world had won the Miss Universe Pageant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team went to see an \"All My Circuits\" feature film at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was assimilated by a brain slug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot fighting commissioner made Bender fight as The Gender Bender character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rich Little and George Foreman's disembodied heads called the Bender title fight against Destructor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snog asserted that Leela couldn't fight because she was a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snog used a special suit to control Destructor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team discussed films that were clearly parodies of classic films.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sensei Snog was an insectoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender had to fight to the death against Destructor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender had to fight to the death against Destructor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot fights were predetermined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was being a jerk to The Masked Unit at the movie theater.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x18", "title": "Ashes to Ashes", "date": "2000-03-01", "description": "A deceased crew member resurfaces, claiming to have been resurrected by an alien race who have since adopted her.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Ronald Wilkerson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lyndsay Ballrad was transformed into purple alien", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "did Lyndsay Ballard die or did she still live on as Jhet'leya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lyndsay torn between Voyager and alien family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry had a secret crush on Lyndsay from their early days on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Lyndsay Ballard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q'ret and Lyndsay Ballard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Lyndsay Ballard", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven with Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Voyager crew astonished when Lyndsay returned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was brought back to life long after my death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyndsay was revived from the dead by aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyndsay had some trouble and worried about her looks", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lyndsay would have had to take inoculations twice daily for the rest of her life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "this seems adequately to describe Lyndsay's life choice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Borg children made various sculptures as a recreational activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg children rebel against Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway about Lyndsay initially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lyndsay was revived from the dead by aliens", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: What Planet Are You From (2000)", "title": "What Planet Are You From?", "date": "2000-03-03", "description": "What Planet Are You From? is a 2000 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Michael Leeson, Garry Shandling, Ed Solomon, and Peter Tolan based on a story by Leeson and Shandling.\n\nSynopsis: A space alien is sent to Earth on a mission to impregnate a human female.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Planet_Are_You_From%3F" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a human-looking space alien who is sent to Earth on a mission to impregnate a human female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space alien Harold struggled to make sense of human society. In particular, he was seemingly incapable of understand what love is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A human-looking alien assume the name Harold Anderson and took a job at a Phoenix bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story much explores the the loving relationship between Harold and Susan with all its ups and downs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first half of the film follows Harold's concerted efforts to seduce a human female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold and Susan married after only one date, and central to the story was their efforts to have a baby. Roland's wife Nadine was giving him a hard time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold and Susan were having a difficult time conceiving a baby, but they ultimately did, and Susan later gave birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story was about the alien Harold testing out the repertoire of stereotypical techniques of seduction he'd learned on human females. Susan discussed with her girl friends some stereotypical things that women want from their men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea that a race of aliens were planning to takeover Earth from the inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biased sex-ratio society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space alien Harold was from a planet populated by only males who had \"advanced technology beyond the realm of human comprehension\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening scroll text explained there was no breeding among the human(oid) alien race of all males and that they reproduced through cloning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The passengers on a flight to Phoenix experienced an inflight emergency, but ultimately landed safely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federal Aviation Administration investigator Roland Jones stated that \"We don't want another Roswell on our hands.\" in the wake of an unexplained aerial phenomenon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold's coworker Perry was a stereotypically womanizing man. Although married, he was having sex with the office secretary, was a regular at the local strip club, went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting strictly to pick up women, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Perry made a quip about how television had normalized lesbian relationships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not much was made of it Susan was a recovering alcoholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan revealed to Harold that she was in the process of looking into multiple different world religion in an effort to find which one best connected with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan told to Harold, to his great dismay, that she was not going to have sex again until after she got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan had her girl friends over to her apartment to talk about her honeymoon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan engaged in stereotypical \"girl talk\" with her friends over chocolate cake and drinks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan briefly worried that she might not be able to conceive owing to her heavy drinking in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold slept with Perry's wife. Perry was running around with other women behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan confronted Harold over his apparent loss of interest in her after she became pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Perry were competing for a promotion at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Perry were competing for a promotion at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan's half-alien fetus developed at an accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and Susan exchanged presents in front of the Christmas tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan experienced labor pains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan have birth to a healthy baby boy at the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Graydon had Harold sent to the \"purification center\" to have any memories of his time on Earth excised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan's baby boy was half alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Harold and Susan reaffirming their marriage vows at a church ceremony in front of their loved ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and the other aliens traveled back and forth to Earth using some manner of interstellar teleportation device.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x19", "title": "Child's Play", "date": "2000-03-08", "description": "The family of Icheb, one of the Borg children, is found, but he is reluctant to rejoin them. Seven, too, is reluctant for him to leave the ship; and his parents are concealing the real reason for desiring his return.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Paul Brown.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Icheb about leaving Voyager for his family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Icheb torn over leaving his life on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb reuniting with his estranged parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb reuniting with his estranged parents", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guardian and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and her Borg foster children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Brunali homeworld was under continuous assault by the Borg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing a loved one to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb to foil the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb was biodesigned by his parents to contain a Borg killing virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven for Icheb and the Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven condemned and Icheb defended", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb was fascinated by astrophysics and was curious to explore the galaxy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leucon appeared to blame himself for Icheb being assimilated by the Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg children held science fair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven at Icheb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Icheb felt that it might be his destiny to be used as a weapon against the Borg.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mission to Mars (2000)", "title": "Mission to Mars", "date": "2000-03-10", "description": "Mission to Mars is a 2000 American science fiction adventure film directed by Brian De Palma, written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, and Graham Yost, and inspired by Disney's theme park attraction of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: When the first manned Mars exploration mission goes awry, a rescue mission is dispatched to return any survivors to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_to_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first half of the film depicts a pioneering manned spaceflight from Earth to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the film is that Mars had been inhabited by intelligent, red humanoid aliens some 100 million years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the film is that Martians had seeded Earth with complex life some 100 million years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is predicated on the notion that the so-called \"Face on Mars\", which is widely explained away as a case of facial pareidolia, is actually an artificial structure resembling a humanoid face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The happily married astronauts Woody and Terri went together on the rescue mission to Mars. Luke bid his wife Deborah farewell before departing on the first manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bobby was feeling sad that his astronaut father Luke was going to be away from home for a long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim was torn up over the tragic passing of his wife, Maggie. Terri watched helplessly as her fellow astronaut and husband, Woody, died in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A manned mission was sent to Mars as a prelude to colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mars II was a space shuttle inspired vessel that included a rotating habitat ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim ate some candied in zero G. Terri and Woody danced together in zero G.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rotating wheel type space station was depicted in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A grizzled and confused Luke had spent a year marooned on Mars by the time the rescue party had arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke was devastated that only he out of the crew of four on the first manned mission to Mars had survived the dust storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that an asteroid had done in the Martians some 100 million years ago.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x20", "title": "Good Shepherd", "date": "2000-03-15", "description": "Three crew members who are under-performing are taken on a mission by Janeway.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Dianna Gitto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway took it upon herself to take neglected crewmembers on an away mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway took it upon herself to take neglected crewmembers on an away mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway taking time to mentor junior crewmembers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fitting in at work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "junior crewmembers unfulfilled with their day jobs on Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "junior crewmembers aboard Voyager and parasitic bug alien on Delta Flyer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practitioner vs. theorist", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway the practitioner contrasted with Mortimer the theorist's approach to doing science", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tal with being an underachiever and Telfer with hypochondria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mortimer didn't want to bond with other crewmemnbers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mortimer was content to be on his own and not participate in the Voyager community", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer used his work time to develop elaborate astrophysical theories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tal Celes lacked confidence in her abilities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor diagnosed William Telfer with a textbook case of hypochondria", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer Harren smug, loner know it all", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "people thought Mortimer must be lonely", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline in the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer was insubordinate to Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crews with Tal Celes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disobedient person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crewman Harren used his work time to develop novel cosmological theories to Janeway's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "crew with Mortimer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer tried to be a hero by flying into the dark matter aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mortimer tried to be a hero by flying into the dark matter aliens", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x09", "title": "A Bicyclops Built for Two", "date": "2000-03-19", "description": "\"A Bicyclops Built for Two\" is the thirteenth episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 19, 2000.\n\nDirected by: Susan Dietter. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela entered into a relationship with the low-life jerk Alcazar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became besotted with the the low-life jerk Alcazar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was led to believe she was one of the last of a race of cyclopses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "America Online was mentioned and references were made to old modems and chat rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team used special suits to access the Internet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Internet was portrayed as a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Internet had ads all over the place when the Planet Express Team explored it using virtual reality suits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry enjoyed video games excessively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alcazar was a shapeshifter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Leela stay with the low-life jerk Alcazar in order to perpetuate their species?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team made a special delivery of popcorn to the people of Cineplex 14, and then flew to Cyclopia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shapeshifter Alcazar turned out to be an insectoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alcazar told Leela that they race had been destroyed in an attack by mole people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alcazar told Leela that they race had been destroyed in an attack by mole people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team arrived at Leela's wedding in a flying limo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alcazar expected Leela to do all the cooking and cleaning as her wifely duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x11", "title": "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", "date": "2000-04-02", "description": "\"How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back\" is the eleventh episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 2, 2000. The title references the 1998 film and popular novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: Bill Odenkirk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Central Bureaucracy was central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucratic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Central Bureaucracy was central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. Kafkaesque institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes had to navigate through the Central Bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sloppy character vs. tidy character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bureaucrat Morgan Proctor was turned on by Fry because of his slobbiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bureaucrat Morgan Proctor was turned on by Fry because of his slobbiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and bureaucrat Morgan Proctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposites attract", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bureaucrat Morgan Proctor was turned on by Fry because of his slobbiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry went on a mission to recover Bender's downloaded personality at the Central Bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team had to deal with pedantic bureaucrat Morgan Proctor taking over for Hermes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg inadvertently sent Hermes and LeBarbara to a forced labor spa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes had to be talked down from jumping off the Planet Express building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Fry break up with Morgan Proctor because she downloaded Bender's personality and sent it to the Central Bureaucracy?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x10", "title": "A Clone of My Own", "date": "2000-04-09", "description": "\"A Clone of My Own\" is the tenth episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 9, 2000. It marks the first appearance of the recurring character Cubert Farnsworth.\n\nDirected by: Rich Moore. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth lamented his old age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Cubert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Cubert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thinking about one's accomplishments in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth introspected about his life and accomplishments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "handing over the mantle before retirement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth created a clone, Cubert, to take over for him after he passed on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with a maximum age limit", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were hauled off by robots to a retirement world upon reaching the age of 160.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were the last of my family line", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth lamented that there was nobody to carry on his work after he was gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was called to a parody disciplinary hearing that turned out to be a surprise party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team flew to Mars for Professor Farnsworth's 150th birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team flew to Mars for Professor Farnsworth's 150th birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "microbe-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Dr. Streptococcus in the audience at Professor Farnsworth's 150th birthday party roast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was credited as being the inventor of the first robot capable of qualifying for a boat loan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth had invented a time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth had invented a universal translator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth had invented a dark matter engine that enabled space ships that could fly between galaxies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robots came to pick up Professor Farnsworth in a flying hearse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robots took old people to an artificial planet called the Near-Death Star.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timequest (2000)", "title": "Timequest", "date": "2000-04-13", "description": "Timequest is a 2000 science-fiction film directed by Robert Dyke and starring Victor Slezak as John F. Kennedy and Caprice Benedetti as Jacqueline Kennedy.\n\nSynopsis: A man travels back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequest_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot centers on a mysterious time traveler going back to 1963 to prevent President John F. Kennedy from being assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film explores what might have been had President John F. Kennedy not been assassinated in 1963.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, or in this case the his escaping assassination, is central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how John and Jackie Kennedy's relationship might have developed had he not been assassinated in 1963.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mysterious time traveler much admired Jackie Kennedy, and was also somewhat impressed with her husband John F. Kennedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story was that the mysterious time traveler who went back to warn John and Jackie Kennedy of John's impending assassination was none other than their own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that upon dying of natural causes at the age of 83, John F. Kennedy was laid to rest on the lunar colony that he'd made possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A controversial filmmaker claimed that the Kennedy family nefariously conspired to keep Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy's assassination secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of John F. Kennedy's \"constant affairs\", and he was depicted with a blond woman who resembled Marylin Monroe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John F. Kennedy abruptly put an end to this war after learning from the time traveler that 57,000 American soldiers would ultimately die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John F. Kennedy made an overture to Nikita Khrushchev avoid a nuclear holocaust by teaming up to explore space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An school teacher explained how Einstein's theory of time dilation was proved by placing atomic clocks in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie came to view James Kennedy's paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie Kennedy spoke of how it was supposed to have been her destiny that she lost her husband on the day of November 22, 1963.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x12", "title": "The Deep South", "date": "2000-04-16", "description": "\"The Deep South\" is the twelfth episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 16, 2000.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team walked around on the ocean floor with the help of Professor Farnsworth's suppositories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "merpeople", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team encountered a race of merpeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and the mermaid Umbriel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team found the fabled sunken city of Atlanta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Atlantis myth was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes had an irrevocable mandatory fishing license was issued by accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team dismissed Fry's sighting of a mermaid as a case of ocean madness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Zoidberg was in his element on the bottom of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Umbriel and her father the Colonel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x21", "title": "Live Fast and Prosper", "date": "2000-04-19", "description": "Con artists impersonate Janeway and Tuvok.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Robin Burger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "con artistry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew impostors swindled various Delta Quadrant aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "con artists betrayed various Delta Quadrant aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway, Tuvok, and Chakotay were falsely accused of having scammed people out of their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orek worked together with VOyager crew to catch swindlers even though he was mistrustful of them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix went out of his way to offer help and encouragement to Dela", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Tom reprogramming the holodeck on Tuvok as a practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was annoyed when Harry and Tom reprogrammed the holodeck on him as a practical joke.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x22", "title": "Muse", "date": "2000-04-26", "description": "Torres is stranded on a bronze-age planet after a crash in the Delta Flyer, where she helps a playwright adapt the story of Voyager to the stage. Also, Kim is missing in an escape pod.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the theater", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Classical theater was a mainstay on among Kelis' people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kelis wrote an anti-war play in effort to stop an imminent war with a neighboring state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom at his wits end with B'Elanna missing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Ancient Greek stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kelis people were patterned on the Ancient Greeks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelis writes anti-war play in effort to stop an imminent war with a neighboring state", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "major", "motivation": "the patron may have learned this life lesson from Kelis's play", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna's technology to Kelis' people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "the ruler of his city decided to send people to war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelis had a tight deadline for producing his play; Tuvok stayed awake for days trying to find B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a group of alien actors trying to produce a play in an amphitheater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Layna was jealous of B'Elanna over Kelis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x13", "title": "Bender Gets Made", "date": "2000-04-30", "description": "\"Bender Gets Made\" is the thirteenth episode in the second production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 30, 2000.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela spent a week blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had to choose between serving the mafia and helping Fry and Leela to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender joined the robot mafia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender joined the robot mafia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Neptunian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elzar the TV chef.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender fawned over TV chef Elzar was inspired by Elzar to become a chef himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender fawned over TV chef Elzar was inspired by Elzar to become a chef himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elzar arrived on stage in a jet pack. Customers arrived at Elzar's restaurant in jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police administered Fry a beating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was excited about meeting his idol chef Elzar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elzar was a professional chef with a glamorous restaurant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x23", "title": "Fury", "date": "2000-05-03", "description": "A much older and more powerful Kes returns to Voyager, and attempts to travel back in time to change her history.\n\nDirected by: John Bruno. Story by: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes to Voyager crew over them abandoning her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes upon her return to Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kes didn't fit in on Voyager or her on her homwworld among the Ocampa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "old Kes' problem was she now belonged nowhere", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes caused energy surge in warp core and traveled back in time to Voyager's past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes wielded formidable telekinetic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kes with Janeway and other members of the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway with Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes met her past self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok about making sense of temporal inconsistencies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok interpreted his experience of temporal inconsistencies as a kind of premonition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway encounters good Kes and bad Kes and shot bad Kes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kes changed her plan to take vengeance on Voyager crew at end", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x15", "title": "The Problem with Popplers", "date": "2000-05-07", "description": "\"The Problem with Popplers\" is the fifteenth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 7, 2000. The title is a reference to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode \"The Trouble With Tribbles\". The episode focuses on the Planet Express crew discovering what they think is fast food they call \"Popplers,\" but they turn out to be the young of the Omicron aliens, and the evil Lrrr seeks revenge.\n\nDirected by: Chris Sauve & Gregg Vanzo. Story by: Darin Henry & Patric M. Verrone Teleplay by Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans looked all alike, and even like orangutans, to the people of Omicron Persei 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Omicronians threatened to eat all humans, albeit settled for Leela, in retaliation for humans having their young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should they sacrifice Leela for the sake of Earth population?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr was hellbent on eating Leela to avenge the eating of his people's young ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band hippies had a rally outside of the Planet Express building protesting the eating of intelligent animals, popplers in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band hippies had a rally outside of the Planet Express building protesting the eating of intelligent animals, popplers in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr was hellbent on eating Leela to avenge the eating of his people's young ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender enjoyed cooking soda and capers for the Planet Express crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender cooked baking soda and capers for the Planet Express crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went on a mission to the planet of the Moochers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew’s budding poppler enterprise was snatched up by fast food chain owner Fishy Joe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Battlefield Earth (2000)", "title": "Battlefield Earth", "date": "2000-05-10", "description": "Battlefield Earth (also referred to as Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000) is a 2000 American science fiction action film based on the 1982 novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.\n\nSynopsis: The film follows a rebellion against the alien Psychlos, a brutal race of humanoid aliens who have ruled Earth for 1,000 years.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_Earth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story is about Jonnie Goodboy Tyler leading a rebellion against Earth's humanoid alien overlords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Psychlo humanoid aliens were using human slave labor to strip Earth of its minerals and other resources, especially gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans, led by Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, rose up against their Psychlo oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonnie Goodboy Tyler and other humans were imprisoned and enslaved by the Psychols.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terl's superiors consigned him to oversee the remote Psychol outpost known as Earth indefinitely as punishment over one or more unexplained incidents involving \"the Senator's daughter\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humans were savages from the point of view of the Psychols. In one pointed illustration of this Terl and Ker came to the mistaken conclusion that humans enjoyed eating live rats after watching their prisoner Johnnie eat one out of desperation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terl used a rapid-learning gizmo to endow Jonnie with knowledge of the Psychol language, the sciences, and a comprehensive knowledge of human history and literature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonnie was tutored in the Psychlo language by a talking holographic alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien hologram spoke of how the Psychols has exterminated his race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnie tried and failed to convince his cellmates of the truth of the proposition that all three angles of an equilateral triangle must be identical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnnie pointedly mourned the death of his cellmate Sammy, who was executed by Terl and Ker in a display of power and control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that District Manager Zete had been cutting workers' pay and pocketing the difference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonnie cautioned his fellow prisoners that radiation was poisonous to humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terl was betrayed by his deputy Ker. It went down like this: Terl and Ker conspired to illegally extract gold from Earth with 80% of the profits going to Terl, and 20% to Ker. Then Ker used incriminating video footage of Terl to try and stiff arm Terl into agreeing to reverse the percentages in his favor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a teleportation pad connecting Earth with the Psychlo home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A resistance movement fighter teleported to the Psychlo home world with a dirty bomb in hand and then set it off, resulting in the obliteration of the entire planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonnie embraced and kissed his love interest Chrissy in celebration after their Psychlo overlords had been defeated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x24", "title": "Life Line", "date": "2000-05-10", "description": "The Doctor's creator, Lewis Zimmerman, is dying in the Alpha Quadrant from a disease similar to the Vidiian phage. The Doctor's compressed matrix is transferred to Zimmerman's lab on the Jupiter station, to assist Mr. Barclay and Counselor Troi in attempting to treat the illness.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: John Bruno and Robert Picardo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lewis Zimmerman and The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lewis Zimmerman was humiliated that the holograms he create in his own image were scrubbing plasma conduits", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lewis Zimmerman had a few months to live; The Doctor was made to believe his primary matrix was degrading beyond repair", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor, Haley and Barclay grappled with the unpleasant reality that Lewis Zimmerman had only a few months to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor with Zimmerman and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Lewis Zimmerman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and Lewis Zimmerman", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor traveled to Earth to treat Zimmerman at great risk to himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zimmerman lived in holographic room", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Zimmerman finalized his last will and testament after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both The Doctor and Zimmerman acted like pompous bastards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "EMH1s scrubbing plasma conduits; Zimmerman requested to keep Hayley activated after his death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimmerman in his holographic room", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x14", "title": "Mother's Day", "date": "2000-05-14", "description": "\"Mother's Day\" is fourteenth episode in the second broadcast season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 14, 2000.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robots the world over celebrated Mother's Day by giving gifts to the CEO of Mom's Friendly Robot Company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom ordered the robots of Earth to refuse to do any work until she was made the planet’s ruler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom ordered the robots of Earth to refuse to do any work until she was made ruler of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was reunited with Mom after 70 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mother's Day lampooned for the Hallmark holiday that it is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom wanted vengeance on society and the Professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was explicitly said in regard to Mom over Professor Farnsworth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom was considered by all the robots to be their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robots the world over went on strike until such time as Mom was made ruler of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom and her three idiot sons. MO: knock up on account of Bender and Mom?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide booth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A suicide booth went on strike and refused to let a desperate man commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom's three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x25", "title": "The Haunting of Deck Twelve", "date": "2000-05-17", "description": "As Voyager travels through a nebula, all ship's power is turned off, giving Neelix an opportunity to tell the Borg children a ghost story.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix telling a space ghost story to the Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix and the Borg children discussed the good and bad aspects of fear", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "electromagnetic entity was taking over Voyager in Neelix's story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "electromagnetic space ghost", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is left to ponder whether Neelix had told the truth in the end after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix's space ghost story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix told a ghost story while trapped with the ex-Borg children during a power outage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew, as depicted in Neelix's story, was perplexed by a series of ship-wide malfunctions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "entity communicated with Janeway by using standard ship computer voice utterances", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a superstition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix portrayed an alien electromagnetic entity as a ghost to the Borg children in his story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix stayed to help Tuvok in spite of Tuvok discarding this as irrational and ordering him to go", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: In the Mood for Love (2000)", "title": "In the Mood for Love", "date": "2000-05-20", "description": "In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong romantic drama film written, produced, and directed by Wong Kar-wai. It tells the story of a man (played by Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Mood_for_Love" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chow and Su sort of fell in love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chow and Su were both cheated on by their spouses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chow and Su are in love but can't act on it because of being married to other people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chow and wife; Su and husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chow, wife, Su, husband", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chow debated writing a martial arts series, and then moving to Singapore", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x16", "title": "Anthology of Interest I", "date": "2000-05-21", "description": "\"Anthology of Interest I\" is episode sixteen in season two of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 21, 2000. This episode, as well as the later \"Anthology of Interest II\", serves to showcase three \"imaginary\" stories, in a manner similar to the \"Treehouse of Horror\" episodes of Matt Groening's other animated series The Simpsons.\n\nDirected by: Chris Louden & Rich Moore. Story by: Eric Rogers, Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giant Bender befriended Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and Zoidberg grew to each be 500 feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if an aspect of my personality was slightly different", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela experienced a what-if scenario where she was slightly more impulsive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A slightly more impulsive Leela murdered the Professor which led her to kill a number of other people to cover up her crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giant Bender versus Zoidberg over control of the city-playground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kill all humans utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Giant Bender came to Earth to live out his dream of killing all humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A newly impulsive Leela killing Professor Farnsworth to inherit his vast fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A newly impulsive Leela killing Professor Farnsworth to inherit his vast fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hanson disembodied heads gave a concert in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Al Gore's duties was to protect the timeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a void of nothingness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Al Gore, Matt Groening, a mainframe computer, Nichelle Nichols, and Stephen Hawking were consigned to a white void of nothingness outside the universe after they failed to prevent a rift in space-time. They promptly started a game of Dungeons & Dragons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy6x26", "title": "Unimatrix Zero, Part I", "date": "2000-05-24", "description": "Janeway, B'Elanna and Tuvok infiltrate a Borg Cube in an attempt to save Borg drones who are trying to develop individuality.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Janeway helped the Borg drones in sanctuary start a resistance movement to overthrow the Borg Queen's rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unimatrix zero was some sort of simulated sanctuary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway went through hell and high waters to try and save the unimatrix zero Borg drones from being killed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "away team infiltrating Borg cube with intentions of being assimilated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "away team infiltrating Borg cube with intentions of being assimilated", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway helped to free some Borg drones from the tyranny of the Borg collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg in unimatrix zero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and Axum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Auxum and Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Auxum on other side of the galaxy and met Seven in unimatrix zero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager stumbled on a Borg assimilated colony.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Titan AE (2000)", "title": "Titan A.E.", "date": "2000-06-16", "description": "Titan A.E. is a 2000 American animated post-apocalyptic science fiction adventure film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman and starring the voices of Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, Drew Barrymore, John Leguizamo, Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo, Ron Perlman and Tone Loc.\n\nSynopsis: A young man who has been given a mysterious map by his father finds that the fate of humanity rests on his shoulders.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_A.E." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It was up to a mysterious map possessing Cale, and to a lesser extent Akima, to save humanity from the genocidal Drej aliens. In the end they succeeded in vanquishing the Drej and creating a new Earth - the original Earth had been destroyed in a Drej attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is Project Titan: an invention that was designed to create an Earth-like planet. The story culminated with Cale and Akima activating the invention, resulting in the nearly instant creation of a new and beautiful Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot is that the Drej had destroyed Earth in an unprovoked attack. The story picks up 15 years after the attack when a remnant of humanity was living scattered across space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genocidal Drej aliens were trying to exterminate humanity. In general, the film is set in a future where humans interacted with a variety of alien races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Cale and Akima falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "It so transpired that Korso recruited Cale under the auspices that they'd work together to defeat the Drej, but Cale later discovered that Korso was in cahoots the Drej and had planned all along to betray Cale. Korso's first mate Preed betrayed him in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam entrusted his young son, Cale, with a mysterious ring shortly before Sam perished in the Drej attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the face of a genocidal attack on Earth by the Drej, Sam assured Young Cale that there was hope for humanity so as long as Cale had the ring Sam had given him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Any number of futuristic spaceships were depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in the year 3028 by which time humanity had mastered deep space travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale visited the New Bangkok space colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale visited the Tau 14 Salvage Station which was a space station build in an asteroid. Cale and Akima stopped at the New Bangkok space station to resupply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tau 14 Salvage Station chef was a cockroach-like alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cale and the other people in the Tau 14 Salvage Station cafeteria sound themselves floating about when one of the gravity generators broke down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Korso communicated with Akima via a holographic projection of her that emanated from his wrist watch. Cale watched a holographic message from his deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens in the story were generally pattered after earth animals: Gune was amphibian-like, Preed bat-like, Stith Kangaroo-like, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Drej were a pure energy-based alien species.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men (2000)", "title": "X-Men", "date": "2000-07-12", "description": "The film introduces Wolverine and Rogue into the conflict between Professor Xavier's X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Magneto. Magneto intends to mutate world leaders at a United Nations summit with a machine he has built to bring about acceptance of mutantkind but Xavier realizes this forced mutation will only result in their deaths.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants minority in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Magneto had the innate ability to manipulate magnetic fields, giving him the power to physically manipulate any metals in his vicinity. Jean Gray had an innate ability to more objects around with her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rogue couldn't touch anybody or else they would die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolverine's body automatically healed itself after any physical injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier had an innate ability to communicate with others telepathically and read people's minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mystique had an innate ability to alter her shape and voice to mimic any human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolverine made no bones about the fact that he didn't much care about the X-men community of mutants, and was content to find his own path in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rogue, who could not touch anyone lest they would die, longed to find a place where she could fit in and belong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder about the extent to which it is justifiable to restrict people’s liberties in the name of security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Magneto was made into a monster because of racism and the Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutant Magneto's experience in the Holocaust together with the racism and xenophobia he was subjected to in life make him loath humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Something was made of the fact the each mutant grew up thinking they were a weird freak until they found a home for people like them at Xavier's school. This was especially the case for Rogue in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea that mutants might be the next link in the chain of human evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with a scene depicting a young Magneto being separated from his parents in front of the entrance into the Auschwitz concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolverine participated in a cage fight for money in northern Alberta bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young mutant, named John, was shown manipulating a ball of fire in the palm of his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean Gray probed Wolverine's mind and found thoughts of her boyfriend Cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean Gray and Cyclops were officially an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier explained that Rogue drained the life force of anybody she touched.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier explained that Rogue drained the life force of anybody she touched.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutant persecutor Senator Kelly learned that mutants were not all threats to society like he thought they were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolverine and Cyclops were at each other's throats, and Cyclops suspected that Wolverine was interested in his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto plotted to use a special machine to turn world leaders into mutants by irradiating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Storm had an innate ability to manipulate the weather and create lightning storms, although she only manifested this power once toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rogue may have had a crush on Wolverine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an uncharacteristically selfless act, Wolverine gave rogue his life force in an effort to save her life at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier had hope that humanity would come to accept mutants as opposed to Magneto who as convinced that the mutants had to take over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Xavier and Magneto were old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a young girl pass through a wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Powerful energy beams emanated from Cyclops' eyes. Storm had the ability to shoot lightning bolt out of her hands.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)", "title": "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps", "date": "2000-07-18", "description": "After finding success with a DNA restructuring formula in the first film, University Professor Sherman Klump has created another formula which enables those who take it to find the Fountain of Youth.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Nutty Professor" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutty_Professor_II:_The_Klumps" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump developed a drug that made people young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump developed a drug that made people young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump and Denise Gaines. Papa Cletus Klump and Mama Anna Klump.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump and Denise Gaines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The personality of Sherman Klump's vanquished alter ego, Buddy Love, was still ingrained inside him and causes him to act out in the same crass manner Buddy does. Buddy Love was later accidentally incarnated after Sherman removed the \"Buddy Love gene\" from his person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherman Klump used a method to isolate genetic material to remove his \"Buddy Love gene\" despite his assistant Jason warning him of potentially catastrophic consequences for his health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need our darker side in moderation", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Shermal Klump came to accept that Buddly Love was a part of him and came to understand that the best thing to do was to learn how to control him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-canine hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Buddy Love was a combination of human and dog DNA and he manifested dog-like behaviors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set on a parody of a university campus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "The personality of Sherman Klump's vanquished alter ego, Buddy Love, was still ingrained inside him and causes him to act out in the same crass manner Buddy does. Buddy Love was later accidentally incarnated after Sherman removed the \"Buddy Love gene\" from his person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially awkward professor Sherman Klump invented a miracle drug that made people young again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump made various references that conveyed a sense he was concerned about his weight, such as he was on a diet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with sexual dysfunction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Papa Cletus suffered from erectile dysfunction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Papa Cletus Klump and Mama Anna Klump.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Papa Cletus Klump drank a youth serum and became middle aged again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump had a dream in which a giant asteroid collided with the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherman Klump had a heart to heart talk with his father Cletus about getting back together with Denise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hollow Man (2000)", "title": "Hollow Man", "date": "2000-08-04", "description": "Hollow Man is a 2000 science fiction horror film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin.\n\nSynopsis: A scientist volunteers to be the first human test subject for a serum that renders the user invisible. When his fellow scientists are unable to restore him back to normal, he eventually becomes violently insane and goes on a murderous rampage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Man" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film involves the scientist Sebastian Caine injecting himself with an experimental serum that renders its subject invisible and its unfortunate aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film surrounds the scientist Sebastian Caine's experience of what it is like to be invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Sebastian Caine losing all sense of morality once he became invisible and didn't need to worry about facing any consequences for his actions anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian became increasingly consumed with jealousy after finding out that his colleague Matt was carrying on with Sebastian's old flame, Linda, behind his back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian made continued efforts to rekindle his relationship with his old flame and current colleague, Linda, but she had already moved on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The co-workers at the lab Linda and Matt were having a relationship in secret behind the lab principal investigator Sebastian's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main characters Linda and Matt were head over heels in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientist Sebastian Caine had an over-inflated ego, routinely boasted to others about how much of a genius he was, and even referred to himself as God on two separate occasions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a stereotyped view of what it might be like for a team of scientists to work on developing an invisibility serum in a government lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Sebastian not being able to come to terms with the fact that his ex-girlfriend, Linda, wasn't into him anymore and had moved on to be with somebody else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian's engineering of the novel \"Serial Protein Caine 127\" protein was integral to the invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank chastised Sebastian for \"disturbing the natural order of things\" and went on to warn him that he would be \"severely punished for all eternity\" for experimenting with making animals invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientist Sebastian Caine explicitly referred to himself as God in connection with his pioneering achievements in developing a serum that rendered its subject invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientist Sebastian Caine dared to think himself as a god after having successfully turned himself invisible, but in the end he fell down an elevator shaft to what one presumes was his fiery death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about Sebastian hungering after a Noble Prize in recognition of his pioneering work on an invisibility serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sarah Kennedy called Sebastian an \"unethical bastard\" for his planning to vivisect a gorilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lead scientists on the team weighed the risks of proceeding to test the invisibility serum on humans before the animal testing was complete owing to a hard deadline imposed by the military. They ultimately resolved to proceed to human testing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An comfortably invisible Sebastian was peeping on Linda and other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda was disturbed by her ex-boyfriend Sebastian's creepy advances.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Cell (2000)", "title": "The Cell", "date": "2000-08-18", "description": "The Cell is a 2000 science fiction psychological horror film directed by Tarsem Singh in his directorial debut, and starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and Vincent D'Onofrio.\n\nSynopsis: A team of researchers use an experimental technology to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to locate where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cell" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot centered on the efforts of some federal agents and a child psychologist to find the latest kidnap victim of the recently fallen comatose serial killer Carl Rudolph Stargher before the victim died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Special Agent Peter Novak was racing to find out where a recently fallen comatose serial killer had hidden his latest kidnap victim before the victim died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The child psychologist Dr. Catherine Deane was recruited to enter into the dark dreamscape of a comatose serial killer's twisted psyche in an effort to find out the location of his latest kidnap victim in time before the victim died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is an experimental technology that enabled people to enter into the dreamscape-like psyches of comatose people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia Hickson was being held captive in a cell, thus the film title \"The Cell\", that was slowly filling with water. The police were racing to find and free her before the cell filled completely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a window into what the psyche of a schizophrenic person might be like through Dr. Catherine's experiences inside the mind of a comatose serial killer who was suffering from a form of this condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carl Rudolph Stargher was an exceedingly sadistic serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is interspersed with masochistic imagery. In one pointed example of this, the serial killer Carl Rudolph Stargher delighted in Dr Catherine tearing off his nipples and subsequently impaling him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stargher tortured Novak by slowly disemboweling him as Dr. Catherine watched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Stargher's father went to town on him with a belt and them applied to him a hot iron after the father found that Stargher had been playing with dolls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene of Stargher being baptized.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Happy Accidents (2000)", "title": "Happy Accidents", "date": "2000-08-24", "description": "Happy Accidents is a 2000 American romantic comedy film starring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio.\n\nSynopsis: A New York City woman with a string of failed relationships falls in love with a man who claims to be from the year 2470.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Accidents_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the relationship between the hopeless romantic Ruby and her new time traveler boyfriend, Sam, with all its ups and downs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby and Sam were head over heels in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby struggled over whether or not she should trust Sam when he told her that he was being faithful to her in spite of persuasive circumstantial evidence to the contrary, and also that he was a time traveler from the year 2470. The story culminated with Ruby assuring Sam that she trusted him in spite of him not being able to definitively prove his claims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human romantic relationship choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby struggled with whether or not to break up with her boyfriend Sam. She really loved him on the one hand, but he claimed to be from the future and kept pictures of other women that he couldn't explain on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby strongly suspected that Sam was cheating on her with a woman named Delancey, and Sam could not prove otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam was from the year 2470. He'd traveled back in time to save Ruby from being fatally hit by a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam reluctantly revealed to Ruby that he was a time traveler from the year 2470. In a surprise twist, it turned out that Ruby's therapist was a time traveler who'd taken up residence in the past to avoid being prosecuted for tax evasion in her own time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The therapist Maggie Ann Ford was counseling Ruby in regard to her relationship with Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruby and her girlfriends commiserated over their various failed relationships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruby started a teaching job at an elementary school, after getting fired from the call center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mystical aura", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's friend Jose saw \"good colors\" in Ruby's aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had taken the tragic death of sister pretty hard, and in his words \"kind of lost it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "meeting the parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Against all expectations, Sam made a good impression on Ruby's parents over dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam got stoned and made a charming fool of himself in front of Ruby's friends at dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmental issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A friend of Ruby's spoke of how the rain forests were disappearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physicist named Tab described this paradox while conversing with some acquaintances at a social function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physicist named Tab argued that time travel was impossible owing to the circular causation paradoxes it engenders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruby had a heart-to-heart talk with her mother over whether or not to break up with Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruby brought her new boyfriend Sam to meet her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ruby and her mother discussed her father's alcoholism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Maggie Ann Ford had traveled back in time to avoid being prosecuted for this crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Possible Worlds (2000)", "title": "Possible Worlds", "date": "2000-09-04", "description": "Possible Worlds is a 2000 Canadian film adaptation of the 1990 play of the same name by John Mighton.\n\nSynopsis: A mathematician falls in love with the same woman in multiple parallel realities, as a police detective tries to apprehend a brain stealing serial killer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_Worlds_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film explores the experiences of the mathematician George Barber as he falls in love with a woman named Joyce in multiple parallel realities. Hence the title \"Possible Worlds\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Inspector Berkley as he attempts to apprehend a serial killer who was stealing peoples brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A brain stealing serial killer was on the loose. It turned out to be a neuroscientist who was stealing brains for his experiments on consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "George fell in love with Joyce in multiple parallel realities. In one reality she was a scientist, in another she was a stockbroker, and in another she didn't seem to remember him from on moment to another. But he loved each version of her nonetheless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's disembodied brain was hooked up to a life-support system from a certain point in the story. Inspector Berkley was fascinated with the brain of a rat that was kept alive in a jar, and he took it back to his office for further observation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of placard bearing protestors were chanting \"ban animal testing\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was of the view that if you ever stop loving someone at some point, then it means that you never loved them in the first place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A building caretaker was adamant that the five lights he'd seen in the sky one night were from a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One version of Joyce confided in George about how her former fiancée had cheated on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When asked, George said that he didn't think there was such a thing as \"the soul\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x01", "title": "Unimatrix Zero, Part II", "date": "2000-10-04", "description": "Janeway, B'Elanna and Tuvok are assimilated by the Borg while attempting to save the group of drones who have developed individuality.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Mike Sussman, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Captain Janeway helped the Borg drones in sanctuary start a resistance movement to overthrow the Borg Queen's rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Borg individuals start uprising against Borg collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unimatrix zero was some sort of simulated sanctuary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and Axum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and Axum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Auxum on other side of the galaxy and met Seven in unimatrix zero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway helped to free some Borg drones from the tyranny of the Borg collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom with B'Elanna on away mission on Borg cube", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Borg Queen destroys whole cubes to get at single drones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Axum's talk with the Klingon ex-Borg drone Korok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway with Borg Queen about ending the civil", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x02", "title": "Imperfection", "date": "2000-10-11", "description": "When her cortical implant malfunctions, Seven of Nine needs a life-saving transplant.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven with her malfunctioning cortical node", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway and crew go through hell and high waters to find Seven a new cortical node; Icheb risked his life to give Seven his cortical node", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Icheb risks his life to save Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew members, Icheb most specifically, struggled with Seven being sick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "donating an organ to save a life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb donated his cortical node to Seven to save her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb wished to take Starfleet exams", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven disliked being a hospital patient and not being able to continue with his ordinary duties", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven frustrated with being stuck in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven assumed she was going to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Icheb calculates an 86.9% chance of success", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accepting reliance on others", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven learned to accept help from others in her time of need and encouraged Icheb to welcome help preparing for the Starfleet exams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix comforted Seven in her time of need", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna reassured Seven that she would be remembered after she died", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven confided to Janeway that she felt she failed to live up to the captain's expectations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven vis-a-vis Borg children", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven invokes with the Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Due to a malfunctioning cordial node, Seven was unable to use her regeneration alcove. For all intents and purposes, she became sleep deprived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse psychology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Doctor applies to Seven with the game", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway discussed killing a live drone to save Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven discussed about life after death with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x03", "title": "Drive", "date": "2000-10-18", "description": "The crew of Voyager enters the Delta Flyer in a sub-warp race, crewed by Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres, and events conspire to encourage Tom to propose to her.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna in conflict over Tom doing his racing instead of going on vacation with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna ended up decided to be married by episode's end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "interstellar racing event held in order to foster peace among hostile alien races", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sporting to promote peace", "level": "choice", "motivation": "sporting events are sometimes held up as a peacekeeping mechanisms; interstellar racing event held in order to foster peace among hostile alien races", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inattentive male partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom forgot he was supposed to go on vacation with B'Elanna and then canceled it at the last moment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clingy girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna felt Tom wasn't paying attention to her needs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendly competition in groups", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drag race pilots were involved in friendly competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for flying machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom was obsessed with the \"Delta Flyer\". Various alien racers were preoccupied with their own space vehicles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terrellians attempted to sabotage the drag race to prevent interstellar peace and the intermixing of alien races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry with Irina", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry fell for Irina but blew up his console and then tried to shoot him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna felt Tom was neglecting his boyfriend duties by canceling their vacation on short notice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motor sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a racing competition in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harrywas jealous of Joxom over Irina, and B'Elanna briefly of Seven over Tom.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x04", "title": "Repression", "date": "2000-10-25", "description": "Ex-Maquis crew members are attacked after a data stream arrives from Starfleet.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass mind control", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Teero issued latent hypnotic commands to Tuvok and the Maquis aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Teero issued latent hypnotic commands to Tuvok and the Maquis aboard Voyager", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager taken over by Maquis faction of the crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Bajoran Vedek Teero Anaydis was determined to bring the fight to the Cardassians to the point of fanaticism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager senior staff were baffled by a series of attacks against the ship's former Maquis crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok treated suspects rather harshly in spite of little evidence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom go to the cinema for a date", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "used as a 3d cinema", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom watched the decidedly classical sci-fi flick \"Creature from the Black Lagoon\" together with B'Elanna at the cinema.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "logic vs. gut feeling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok went against his Vulcan ways and trusted his hunches during an investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was something about trust and mistrust floating around in the background of this episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "data privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry objected to Tuvok reading his personal letters in the name of security", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "did Tuvok have the right to read peoples' letters?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bolian Maquis became paranoid about a conspiracy to murder Maquis crewmembers", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The 6th Day (2000)", "title": "The 6th Day", "date": "2000-10-28", "description": "The 6th Day is a 2000 American science fiction action film directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rapaport and Robert Duvall.\n\nSynopsis: In the film, a family man of the future is illegally cloned by accident as part of a vast conspiracy involving a shady billionaire businessman, and is thrust into a struggle to clear his name and protect his family from the conspirators who seek to keep the cloning a secret. The title refers to the Christian Genesis creation narrative, where God created mankind on the sixth day.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_6th_Day" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human cloning", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future when human cloning is possible, but strictly forbidden by law. The story itself follows the family man Adam Gibson getting cloned by a nefarious corporation and its action packed aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film confronts the viewer with the question of whether human cloning should be legal. In the film, anti-cloning activists thought it dangerous and possibly an abomination onto the Lord, while the cloning corporation Replacement Technologies tried to make the case for cloning. In the end, the Adam clone came to take a middle position on the issue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Adam clone teamed up with the real article to free Adam's wife and daughter from the clutches of a nefarious corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were Adam and Natalie Gibson. Dr. Griffin Weir and his terminally ill clone wife Katherine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Replacement Technologies was secretly cloning people left, right and center in flagrant violation of the human cloning prohibiting \"Sixth Day\" laws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Adam clone teamed up with the real article in order to rescue Adam's wife and daughter from the clutches of a ruthless billionaire CEO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The CEO of Replacement Technologies Michael Drucker was engaged in nefarious research into human cloning because he wanted to conquer death; in particular his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "familial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown just how much both the Adam clone and the real article loved Adam's wife and young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the anti-cloning activists contention that human cloning (and animal cloning for that matter) was an abomination onto the Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A star quarterback suffered a crippling injury on the field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam and the Adam clone beloved their young daughter Clara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Natalie and her young daughter Clara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank had a holographic, virtual \"girlfriend\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Adam clone wondered aloud about whether or not he had a soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future when holographic technology was pervasive in society. Hank, for example, kept a non-sentient holographic \"girlfriend\" cooped up in his apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam and Hank were best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Replacement Technologies henchmen made frequent use of futuristic, directed energy handguns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Griffin Weir proclaimed his love to his cloned wife, Katherine, while she lay on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Katherine clone was dying from cystic fibrosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Griffin Weir confronted the billionaire CEO Michael Drucker for having seeded Weir's clone wife with the cystic fibrosis that led to her premature death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The billionaire CEO Michael Drucker uttered \"I'm just taking over where God left off\" in reference to his plan to secure his immortality via human cloning not long before he fell through a glass rooftop to his horrible death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The billionaire CEO Michael Drucker hubristically proclaimed that he was \"just taking over where God left off\" in reference to his plan to secure bring an end to death via human cloning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Replacement Technologies corporation had developed a machine that downloaded memories from people's brains in such a manner that they could be shown as videos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Many of the clones had been genetically engineered to have congenital defects in order to give them short lifespans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious fundamentalist anti-cloning extremist Tripp assassinated the cloning company CEO clone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x05", "title": "Critical Care", "date": "2000-11-01", "description": "The Doctor's program is stolen and he is forced to work in an alien hospital, where he skillfully manipulates the system to provide ethical medical care.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Kenneth Biller and Robert J. Doherty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "medical triage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor would not refuse to treat patients just because they were poor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the episode featured a cold-hearted bureaucracy run amok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucratic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the episode featured a cold-hearted bureaucracy run amok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dralian healthcare system had haves and have-nots", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it was clearly stated that the present system had worked marvels for society as a whole", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "the overseer had a personal ethical dilemma: good of society vs. good of individual", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A computer known as the Allocator played a central role in regulating Dralian society, most notably its healthcare system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chellick got some kind of valuable life lesson when he was made to experience his healthcare system from the wrong tier", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor said he was programmed with the Hippocratic Oath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Allocator was a tyrannical supercomputer which the Dralians considered a deity and the ultimate authority. It dictated all decisions, including which hospital patients live or die, based on its cold, logical assessment of their societal importance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adultress alien was bored with her husband and expressed romantic interest in Gar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Tuvok psychologically tortured Gar in the brig", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus", "date": "2000-11-03", "description": "The Japanese military attempts to swallow up Godzilla inside an artificial black hole and keep it prisoner there for all eternity. It is the 25th film in the Godzilla franchise and the second film in the franchise's Millennium series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Megaguirus" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tokyo was the scene of death and mass destruction when the titular monsters Godzilla and Megaguirus (a giant prehistoric dragon fly of some sort) rampaged through its streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular monsters Godzilla and Megaguirus (a giant prehistoric dragon fly of some sort) rampaged through Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film was the plan was to tarp Godzilla inside an artificial black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese military developed an experimental satellite-based weapon that fires miniature black holes, called the Dimension Tide, to use on Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that Godzilla was attracted to Tokyo because of a secret, government run plasma energy project housed at a scientific institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the film intro, it was explained how the threat of nuclear weapons had drawn Godzilla to Tokyo back in the 1950s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained how the Japanese government deemed nuclear power plants to be unsafe after Godzilla came to the archipelago to destroy one back in the 1960s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative energy generation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Japanese developed \"plasma power\" as a clean energy source to replace nuclear power in the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A boy found a strange egg while mucking around on his summer vacation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A prehistoric dragonfly passed through a wormhole that was inadvertently created by the Japanese military when they were testing their black hole gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist explained that the strange insects were actually prehistoric dragon flies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Fighter Griffon flying vehicle could fly like a jet but also hover like a helicopter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x18", "title": "The Honking", "date": "2000-11-05", "description": "\"The Honking\" is the eighteenth episode in the second season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 5, 2000. The title references the 1981 film The Howling.\n\nDirected by: Susie Dietter. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became the robot equivalent of a wereworf: a were-car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became the robot equivalent of a wereworf: a were-car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was disappointed that were-car Bender tried to kill Leela instead of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superstition robot peasants were everywhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were robot ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "A robot was cursed to be a were-car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a robot werewolf curse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team spent a night in haunted castle and Bender became very fearful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender began to question his own sanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became the robot equivalent of a wereworf: a were-car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The original werecar was a demonic car built a thousand years earlier from parts of the most evil cars in history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender's uncle Vladamir left Bender his haunted castle in his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender learned that his uncle Vlad had died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x06", "title": "Inside Man", "date": "2000-11-08", "description": "A hologram of Reginald Barclay is sent to Voyager, supposedly to implement a dangerous plan to bring them home; but the hologram has been tampered with by some Ferengi, who are trying to steal valuable Borg nanoprobes from Seven of Nine.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Robert J. Doherty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Ferengi, in league with Barclay's ex-girlfriend Leosa, played an elaborate confidence trick on the Voyager crew in an effort to steal Seven of Nine's nanoprobes. Barclay was hustled by a dabo girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "holo-Barclay betrayed the trust of Voyager crew; Dabo girl betrayed poor Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay, and Voyager crew, and Harry at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "all but the Doctor were seduced by holo-Barclay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay with getting Voyager back to Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gegis and Nunk hatched nefarious plot to abduct Seven and profit from selling her Borg nanoprobes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Barclay forced to take vacation again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-deception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew left their guard down because they liked the prospect of getting home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay with Leosa the Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barclay by Leosa the Dabo girl", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Barclay hologram won the crew's trust through flattery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Red Planet (2000)", "title": "Red Planet", "date": "2000-11-10", "description": "Red Planet is a 2000 science fiction action film directed by Antony Hoffman, starring Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Tom Sizemore.\n\nSynopsis: A pioneering team of astronauts are sent to Mars as a prelude to colonization, as the Earth is dying from an ecological crisis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The central premise of the story is that the Earth was dying and the founding of a colony of Mars was the only hope for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key element of the plot is that humanity had seeded Mars with atmosphere-producing algae as the first stage of terraforming the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set a near future where Earth is in a state of ecological crisis and the only hope for humanity lies in the founding of a colony on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists were stalked by the advanced, but non-sentient military robot AMEE as they trekked across the surface of Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the opening narration that the Earth had become overpopulated by the year 2000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the opening narration that humanity had \"polluted and poisoned\" the Earth beyond the point where it could be cleaned up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MARS-1 crew departed on their mission to the Red Planet from a large space station situated in high Earth orbit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first part of the film concerned followed Commander Kate Bowman and her crew as they went on the first manned mission to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists flew to Mars in an experimental, fusion powered spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anthropomorphic, autonomous military robot AMEE went haywire and started stalking the protagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anthropomorphic, autonomous military robot AMEE went haywire and started stalking the protagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aging surgeon Bud Chantilas was of the mind that science \"couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions\" and had begun \"searching for God\" in his old age. The geneticist Quinn Burchenal challenged him on this point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After surviving a crash-landing, the protagonists found themselves on the surface of Mars without food, water, and oxygen. However, this challenge did not amount to much as they soon found the Martian atmosphere to be breathable, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reference to the MARS-1 spaceship being powered by a \"helium nuclear power cell\" suggests it ran on fusion power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Kate Bowman put out a fine in a weightless environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the astronauts unfurled a transparent scroll-like screen that when looked through at arm's length overlaid the Martian landscape with augmented reality data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three marooned astronauts were faced with the prospect of deciding which two of them would blast off to safety - the third man would me left behind on the surface of Mars to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate Bowman and Robby Gallagher started pursuing a romantic relationship on the voyage back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Much of the film concerned the provision-less protagonists as they walked across the surface of Mars to reach an old Russian probe's sample-return module which they would use to launch themselves into orbit and to safety. They overcame a violent ice storm among other things along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stranded astronauts overcame a violent ice storm on their way to reach an old Russian probe's sample-return module.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x07", "title": "Body and Soul", "date": "2000-11-15", "description": "During an emergency on a mission, The Doctor is forced to upload his program into Seven of Nine's Borg implants, allowing him to experience real sensations for the first time.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor was astonished by the experience of tastes, smells, emotions, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor was astonished by the experience of tastes, smells, emotions, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ranek's preconceptions about photonics were challenged by his experience with The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor enjoyed food and drink in Seven's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ranek invited Seven to view a pulsar cluster from the bridge and then put the moves on her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok in the pon farr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok was struggling to keep his sexual urges in check while under the pon farr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor wallowed in his own accomplishments in the body of Seven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lokirrim against photonics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor was astonished by the experience of tastes, smells, emotions, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Away team held captive aboard Lokirrim vessel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor wallowed in his own accomplishments while his program was uploaded into Seven's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ranek and Doctor-Seven and Jaryn", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor studying the origins of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in the body of Seven with Ranek", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ranek with The Doctor as Seven", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok mated with a holographic replica of his wife on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in the body of Seven having romantic moments with the captain and alien nurse", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Unbreakable (2000)", "title": "Unbreakable", "date": "2000-11-21", "description": "Unbreakable is a 2000 American neo-noir superhero thriller film written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright Penn, Spencer Treat Clark, and Charlayne Woodard. It is the first installment in the Unbreakable film series.\n\nSynopsis: A security guard named David Dunn survives a horrific train crash with no injuries, leading to him discovering that he harbors superhuman abilities. As he begins to grapple with this discovery, he comes to the attention of disabled comic book store owner Elijah Price, who manipulates David in order to understand him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbreakable_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Elijah had struggled for his whole life with a genetic disorder that made his bones easy to break.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative personal resilience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows David as he gradually discovers that he was immune to all disease, never got sick, and couldn't be physically hurt except by water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the boy Joseph discovering that his father, David, is a real-life superhero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is the relationship between David and his wife, Audrey, with all its ups and downs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and his son Joseph's efforts to determine whether David was actually a real-life superhero culminated with a newspaper article featuring a sketch of the anonymous hero whom Joseph recognized as his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed in the end that Elijah was an arch-villain and had been David's nemesis all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "major", "motivation": "David had an uncanny ability to see the crimes of those whom he touched. For example, he saw that a man was carrying a handgun after having merely brushed past him, and later saw Elijah's various acts of terrorism after having shaken his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art discussion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The comic book expert Elijah broke down the original sketch that was used as the basis for a famous comic book cover for a customer at his art gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Price encouraged Young Elijah to carry on in spite of his frail condition. Audrey cared for her young son, Joseph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David bench pressed about 340 pounds to his and Joseph's mutual astonishment. While this feat of strength is well within the bounds of what is possible for humans, the theme is topical since the story was exploring the possibility that David was a superhero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that David had faked a football career ending injury because his wife-to-be disliked the violence of the sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A sadistic janitor broke into a family's home, killed the father and held the wife and two children captive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that Elijah was ultimately confined to an institution for the criminally insane for having perpetrated three acts of terrorism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x08", "title": "Nightingale", "date": "2000-11-22", "description": "Harry Kim takes command of an alien ship that has lost its officers in an attack.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Robert Lederman and Dave Long.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry struggled in command of his first mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry struggled in command of his first mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry wished to use the command of the mission to advance his career", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Janeway debated to stay out or to help the Kraylor mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kraylor crew with Harry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry stopped to help Kraylor survivors of Annari attack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna indirectly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Icheb mistook B'Elanna's friendly social requests for romantic overtures", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Icheb learned about romantic relationships though his interaction with B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x17", "title": "War Is the H-Word", "date": "2000-11-26", "description": "\"War Is the H-Word\" is episode two in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 26, 2000. The episode parodies several war films and shows, including Starship Troopers, Star Wars and M*A*S*H.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender enlisted in the army so they could get a military discount on ham gum, but then got sent to war and had to join Brannigan's most expendable army. Leela went as well, and we saw many stereotypical military situations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan found himself strangely attracted to Private Lemon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head conquered the home world of a race of pink, sentient, ball-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a war between Earth and the bouncing ball planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head launched a war of aggression on a race of pink, sentient, ball-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ball-shaped being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head launched a war of aggression on a race of pink, sentient, ball-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry hid in a fox hole during an engagement with the bouncing balls of Shperion 1. He later tried to prove he was not a coward by saving Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry hid in a hole during an engagement with the bouncing balls of Shperion 1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leaders of Shperion 1 were floating brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nimbus flew to Spherion 1 launch an invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan thought that women were unfit to serve in the military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan demonized the bouncing ball aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x09/10", "title": "Flesh and Blood", "date": "2000-11-29", "description": "Voyager's hologram technology, which Janeway had previously donated to the Hirogen, has been modified to make the holographic \"prey\" more cunning, enabling the hologram characters to rebel against their new masters.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar\n\nDavid Livingston. Story by: Jack Monaco, Bryan Fuller and Raf Green.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The simulated prey became too capable and rebelled against their Hirogen creators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "what rights did the murderous sentient machines have?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor between Voyager or own kind", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor between organics and his holographic people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew in Hirogen and vice versa; holograms refrained from trusting in Janeway; The Doctor in trusting Iden with the Voyager weapon codes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen lived for hunting other species of sentient aliens as sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hirogen set up elaborate simulated hunting ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirogen hunted holographic prey and vice versa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The holograms felt that holograms the Delta Quadrant over were being oppressed by their alien masters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor and B'Elanna held captive by his holographic brethren", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between odious regimes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway had to choose between the murderous Hirogen and the murderous photonics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hirogen teaching how to hunt in the field", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "hologram leader Iden fancied himself the hologram messiah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hirogen in sickbay was terrified of being treated by The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor betrayed Voyager crew by giving Iden the codes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donik regretted creating the holograms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iden toward organics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kraylor and the Annari were fighting each other in what was described as an interplanetary war.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama2x19", "title": "The Cryonic Woman", "date": "2000-12-03", "description": "\"The Cryonic Woman\" is the nineteenth and final episode of the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 3, 2000, as the third episode in the third broadcast season. The plot incorporates a cryonics theme. Sarah Silverman does the voice of Fry's on and off girlfriend Michelle.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michelle woke up in the year 3000. Fry and Michelle later froze themselves and woke up in a wasteland in what appeared to be the year 4000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry's stereotypical loser attributes were on display.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michelle was being a jerk to Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry got a job as a cryogenic engineer and unfroze his old flame Michelle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michelle had trouble fitting in in the year 3000, in contrast with Fry who seemed to fit in just fine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle froze them selves and woke up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in what appeared to be the year 4000.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle mistakenly believed they had woken up a thousands years in the future in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and they assumed they'd need to battle street gangs to survive, but in the end it turned out they were just in modern day Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender got fired and had to look for new jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle took a spin on a flying scooter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society consisting of only children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Michelle woke up in a post-apocalyptic future with a society that appeared to consist of only children.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x11", "title": "Shattered", "date": "2001-01-17", "description": "Voyager is fractured into several time periods by an accident, and only Chakotay is able to move between them, in the process meeting old friends and old foes from the previous six seasons.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Mike Sussman and Michael Taylor.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a time distortion throws Chakotay different points into Voyager's past, depending his location on the ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay argued with various people about changing the past", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A time distortion threw Chakotay to different points into Voyager's past, depending his location on the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway about Chakotay; B'Elanna in Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway was saddened by Tuvok's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "tiny one with Seska", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Chaotica at Janeway; Seska at Chakotay", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Donnie Darko (2001)", "title": "Donnie Darko", "date": "2001-01-19", "description": "Donnie Darko is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and produced by Flower Films.\n\nSynopsis: The troubled teen Donnie Darko narrowly escapes a bizarre accident and has visions of Frank, a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume who informs him that the world will end in just over 28 days. Frank begins to manipulate Donnie to commit several crimes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hearing voices", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Donnie was a paranoid schizophrenic who was hearing a voice in his head that told him the world was going to end in under a month.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Donnie was experiencing recurring hallucinations of a man in a rabbit costume named Frank who was manipulating Donnie into committing crimes and telling him the world would soon end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Donnie was a paranoid schizophrenic who was seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication to manage his condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown through Donnie what it might be like for a paranoid schizophrenic to interpret the world around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donnie saw - or possibly hallucinated - a variety of bizarre things, including \"time spears\" that emanated from people's chests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were the high schoolers Donnie and Gretchen falling for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Donnie somehow going back 28 days into the past. Donnie had in the lead up to this event become very interested in the idea that he could travel in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Featured throughout the story was the everyday life of the Darko family: a borderline dysfunctional suburban American family of five.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donnie was a nonconformist high school student who had trouble fitting in with his peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, Donnie single-handedly prevented the world from ending by going back 28 days in time and sacrificing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one viewing of the story, much of the film took place in a \"Tangent Universe\" that was similar but not identical to the universe that the film started in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Donnie becoming convinced that the end of the world was nigh. How exactly the world would end was unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie's mother Rose was worried about his mental health.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie's father Eddie was detached from Donnie's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie and Rose Darko were raising three children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose flew her young daughter Samantha to Los Angeles to participate in a national talent show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie learned that his little sister, Samantha, was brokenhearted that he missed her school talent show performance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie confided in his psychiatrist that he didn't want to be alone. Then, he died alone in his bedroom at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown an idea of what high school might have been like in 1980s suburban America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie paid regular visits to his psychiatrist Dr. Thurman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The English teacher Karen Pomeroy was fried for having her students read Graham Greene's subversive short story \"The Destructors\" in her class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cherita Chen was completely and utterly socially rejected by her peers at high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie took compassion on the social reject Cherita Chen by assuring her that life would get better for her in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie committed an act of vandalism by planting his axe in the head of a statue that was prominently displayed on the school grounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating an act of vandalism that'd been committed at the school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Cunningham kept a large portrait of himself on display in his home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie set fire to the local motivational speaker Jim Cunningham's home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim Cunningham was arrested for being in possession of child pornography.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A couple of school bullies were harassing Cherita Chen and other students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donnie family members pointedly mourned his tragic death at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Gretchen and Rose exchanging glances and wave as if they'd know each other but could not remember from where.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Avalon (2001)", "title": "Avalon", "date": "2001-01-20", "description": "Avalon (Japanese: アヴァロン, Hepburn: Avaron), also known as Gate to Avalon, is a 2001 Polish-language Japanese science fiction drama film directed by Mamoru Oshii and written by Kazunori Itō.\n\nSynopsis: A player in an illegal virtual reality video game has her sense of reality is challenged as she attempts to unravel the true nature and purpose of the game.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that it is set in the highly realistic military-themed virtual reality shooter game \"Avalon\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Explained in the film's open blurb text was that young people were dealing with their disillusionment by playing a virtual reality war game. The heroine of the story Ash was one of these people. In the end, Murphy decided he'd preferred the \"reality\" of the game to the reality of the outside world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with scenes of civilians suffering in war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ash related the story of Odin drifting across the sea to a remote island where he was given a ring that granted him immortality and eternal youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ash discovered that the only way to exit the \"Class Real\" stage of the \"Avalon\" virtual reality game was to complete it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest recanted the story of how a dying King Arthur was taken by ship to the isle of Avalon to see the fairy Morgan le Fay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x02", "title": "Parasites Lost", "date": "2001-01-21", "description": "\"Parasites Lost\" is the second episode in season three of Futurama. Although the title is a play on John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the episode is a parody of the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 21, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "worm-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry's bowels were colonized by intelligent worm-like parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team made mini robot replicas of themselves to go inside Fry's body to eradicate a worm infestation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could travel around inside a human body", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team shrank themselves in size and went inside Fry's body to eradicate a worm infestation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel inside a human body", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team shrank themselves in size and went inside Fry's body to eradicate a worm infestation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela fell for Fry after worms had made him more intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry removed the super parasites from him in order to see if Leela loved him for who he really was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry's bowels were colonized by intelligent worm-like parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry stood up to the same bully twice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a stop at an interstellar truck stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pre/post-parasite Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parasites made Fry strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parasites made Fry smart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parasites made Fry able to regenerate when he was injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was being a loser again, until he got invested with super worms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x12", "title": "Lineage", "date": "2001-01-24", "description": "Now married to Tom Paris, B'Elanna Torres discovers she is pregnant. The Doctor tells her to expect a daughter; but B'Elanna's unresolved fear of the childhood traumas, which she suffered as a part-Klingon girl growing up among humans, makes her determined to remove her child's Klingon DNA.\n\nDirected by: Peter Lauritson. Story by: James Kahn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna did and now worries about her baby facing the same", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder when and to what extent is it okay to modify your baby?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna had had and worried about her daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and her father John", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna's father and she worried about Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "revealed as perhaps the underlying reason for B'Elanna's behavior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom discussed with Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor discussed about genetically engineering B'Elanna's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna recalled when she'd been bullied as a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "apparently B'Elanna felt guilty about making her father leave", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna violated The Doctor's right by secretly reprogramming him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna had angry outburst when she was pregnant; young B'Elanna flipped out when Dean put a worm in her sandwich", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x13", "title": "Repentance", "date": "2001-01-31", "description": "Prisoners are brought onto Voyager from a damaged alien vessel, and the crew must deliver them to their destination – for execution.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Mike Sussman and Robert J. Doherty.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The prisoners faced execution for their crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iko was a cold blooded murderer. Before the Doctor treated him, Iko suffered from some sort of mental defect that deprived him of a conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iko felt remorse for his crimes after his brain got fixed; Janeway claimed Seven blamed herself for the crimes of the Borg collective", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Iko about his murders and manifold crimes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in the internal affairs of other powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Janeway refrained from interfering with the harsh Nygean justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix' friend Joleg claimed to be innocent of the murder for which he'd been sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society in which victims sentence their own assailants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nygeans had institutionalized this practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix for prisoners; Seven and The Doctor for Iko after his brain got fixed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inequality in the justice system", "level": "major", "motivation": "minority was treated more harshly in justice system; Joleg explained how the rich can get off for their crimes by paying restitution while the poor go to prison", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the minority Benkarans were subjected to racial profiling by the Nygeans, and moreover they were treated more harshly in their common justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nygean justice system was rigged against the minority Benkarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Seven briefly held hostage in sickbay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brig cell was secured with a force field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven from cortical implant implantation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners' rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway chided the Benkarans for administering a beating to Iko, and prisoners were accustomed to only one meal a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benkaran prisoners were given one meal a day, and administered beatings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joleg got himself tangled up in a murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x01", "title": "Amazon Women in the Mood", "date": "2001-02-04", "description": "\"Amazon Women in the Mood\" is the first episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 4, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-only society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew ended up on a planet populated by a race of giant, muscular women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself with a superabundance of potential lovers and no competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry, Brannigan, and Kif were simultaneously delighted and horrified to learn they had come to a planet populated by a race of giant, sex-starved women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Amazonians worshiped what seemed like a society regulating central computer with its own agenda, but was actually a fembot behind a curtain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Amazonian women embodied any number of female stereotypes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of telling someone how you feel about them", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif was nervous to tell Amy how he felt about her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overbearing jerk", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Male visitors were obsessed with sex and acted like jerks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were sort of shown putative advantages and shortcomings of a women-only society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fembot spoke of moving to the Amazonian planet to escape from a planet ruled by menbots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan at Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg molted out of his shell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Amy went on a double date with Brannigan and Kif on a space station restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Femputer turned out to be not a computer facade with a fembot inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender flew the Amazonian planet to rescue Leela and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Kif was amphibian in nature by his crawling around on the snu-snu chamber ceiling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy with nervous phone calls from Kif. Kif from the Amazonians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Amazonians worshiped what seemed like a society regulating central computer with its own agenda, but was actually a fembot behind a curtain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x14", "title": "Prophecy", "date": "2001-02-07", "description": "Voyager encounters an ancient Klingon battlecruiser. The Klingons aboard it had set out long ago to find their savior, and they believe it to be Tom and B'Elanna's unborn child.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Larry Nemecek, J. Kelley Burke, Raf Green and Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Klingons searched the galaxy for their savior, believing it a certainty their would find him, because of an ancient prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "choice", "motivation": "B'Elanna's unborn daughter was believed to be the Klingon messiah", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "in the end, religion was warped so as to serve political interests", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuvok with Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna stressed from all the attention she was getting from Klingon religious fanatics", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon religious fanatics; it was written in the sacred scrolls that the kuvah'magh would be a man of honor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry with Klingon warrioress", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some Klingons were disappointed their savior was not to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom accepted a fight to the death", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x06", "title": "Bendless Love", "date": "2001-02-11", "description": "\"Bendless Love\" is the sixth episode in the third season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 11, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Swinton O. Scott III. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and the fembot Angelyne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender, Angelyne, and Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was wildly jealous of Flexo over fembot Angelyne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded Bender's bent up need to bend things, and other bending robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was thrown out of Planet Express and wandered around New New York pondering what to do with himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a robot strike at the bending plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot mafia was involved in the robot union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flexo and Angelyne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flexo and Angelyne were divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender lost his arms bending an unbendable girder to save Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and Flexo briefly engaged in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender pretended to be Angelyne's ex Flexo in an effort to assess whether she loved him or Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and his non-evil look-a-like Flexo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender assumed his relationship with Angelyne ought to be monogamous, and worried that Angelyne was cheating on him with Flexo, and in so doing he tested Angelyne’s fidelity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x15", "title": "The Void", "date": "2001-02-14", "description": "Voyager is pulled into a void, where the ships that have become trapped attack each other for food and resources.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Raf Green and Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the law of the Void", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the spirit of cooperation won out among the aliens trapped in the Void", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway various Void aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway tried to build trust by being generous to other Void aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language of musical notes", "level": "major", "motivation": "strange speechless aliens invented a language of musical notes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager and other alien ships trapped in the Void", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew and other aliens trapped indefinitely in the Void", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the overlookers justified spying on their allies by finding out they were going to betray the alliance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the overlookers spied on their allies", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Fantome enjoyed listening to opera music together in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Seven trying to communicate with Fantome by means of musical notes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven began preparing her own daily meals and even cooked dinner for the senior officers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x07", "title": "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", "date": "2001-02-18", "description": "\"The Day the Earth Stood Stupid\" is the seventh episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 18, 2001. The title of this episode is a play on the title of the 1951 science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: Jeff Westbrook and David X. Cohen Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Nibbler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry's loser attributes ended up saving the world from the flying brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of flying brains invaded the Earth and made everyone stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone suddenly turned stupid", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of flying brains invaded the Earth and made everyone stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of flying brains invaded the Earth and made everyone stupid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped in a work of fiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant brain trapped Fry and Leela in various classic novels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and Zoidberg colluded to win money (and a year's supply of dog food).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hypnotoad was hypnotizing people at the pet contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nibbler and Leela flew to Nibbler's homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry showed the disembodied heads of various US presidents to the Planet Express team.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x16", "title": "Workforce, Part I", "date": "2001-02-21", "description": "The Voyager crew is brainwashed into taking new jobs on an industrialized planet that has a severe labor shortage, leaving only Chakotay, Kim and Neelix (who were on an away mission) and the Doctor (who, in the absence of the crew, has become the Emergency Command Hologram) to save them.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Kenneth Biller and Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Voyager crew members kidnapped and implanted with false memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The kidnapped Voyager crew members had their memories selectively erased and replaced with false memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "workers in the industrial complex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Jaffen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew kidnapped and forced to work on alien planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline in the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven chided Janeway and Jaffen for fraternizing on the job", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with food poisoning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry with effects of the meat nectar", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom to B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna was thought to be an impending single mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay altered to look like an alien for his mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Jeffen with Janeway's cooking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Harry wrangled over who better to be in command", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x08", "title": "That's Lobstertainment!", "date": "2001-02-25", "description": "\"That's Lobstertainment!\" is the eighth episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 25, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg his uncle Harold Zoid wanted to become famous comedians. Calculon wished to win an Oscar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg and his uncle Harold Zoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story involved Zoidberg trying to make it as a comedian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg and Harold Zoid's lobster-like characteristics were highlighted in their comic routines, intentional or otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Zoid struggled as a washed up actor from the silent hologram era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Zoid struggled as a washed up actor from the silent hologram era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were lots of robot actors about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mechanical man and Zoidberg performed stand up comedy routines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg bombed at his stand up comedy routine and reached out to his uncle for advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Zoid was consigned to a dilapidated retirement home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Hollywood tour drove past Mel Gibson head's tiny house. Billy Crystal's head hosted the Oscars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x17", "title": "Workforce, Part II", "date": "2001-02-28", "description": "Chakotay and Neelix take jobs on the new planet, and try to rescue their amnesiac crewmates – who don't want to leave.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Kenneth Biller and Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crewmembers kidnapped and implanted with false memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The kidnapped Voyager crew members had their memories selectively erased and replaced with false memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "choice", "motivation": "workers in the industrial complex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "kidnapped Voyager crewmembers on planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew kidnapped and forced to work on alien planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway and Jeffen; Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "were their fake memories less valid than their real memories?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay altered to look like an alien for his mission", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway let Chakotay hideout at her apartment", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeffen and Janeway shacking up together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix guided B'Elanna in reacquainting herself with her former life aboard Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor and Harry wrangled over who better to be in command", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x05", "title": "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", "date": "2001-03-04", "description": "\"The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz\" is the fifth episode in the third production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 4, 2001 as the seventh episode of the third season. The episode was written by Dan Vebber and directed by James Purdum. Phil Hendrie guest stars in the episode as Free Waterfall Sr..\n\nDirected by: James Purdum. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "oil spills in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a dark matter spill on the penguin preserve on Pluto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of protesters banded together to protest the towing of a dark matter tanker past a penguin preserve on Pluto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender had a falling out of friendship after Bender was a jerk to him as captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender lost Fry's friendship because of being a big fat jerk with a smelly face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Penguins Unlimited was an environmentalism-centered activist group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender rebooted in penguin mode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew set out to tow a tanker full of dark matter past Pluto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Pluto", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a penguin preserve on Pluto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was jealous that Bender was made captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chain of command was mentioned in the captain's handbook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was abused by Bender when Bender became captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Authority went to Bender's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender drove the tanker equivalent of being drunk.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x18", "title": "Human Error", "date": "2001-03-07", "description": "Seven practices her social skills on the holodeck.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: André Bormanis and Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "developing one's social skills", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven worked on improving her social skills through holodeck simulations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Seven created a holographic Chakotay to explore romantic interaction with", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven woke up in holographic Chakotay's arms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven let go of holographic Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven went with duty and ended her romantic relationship with the holographic Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of letting loose", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven afraid of her emotions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven played the piano. The Doctor sang lullabies. Seven and Chakotay discussed Seven's musical pursuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven and holographic Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven developed her social skills on the holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven had the opportunity to have new cranial implants but they had to be serviced daily", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work-life balance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven was made to think about whether she should spend less time working and more time with social activities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "virtual Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and a holographic Chakotay enjoyed preparing dinner together on their date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven simulates baby shower for B'Elanna and Tom on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven and holographic Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was late for a duty shift.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven was late for a duty shift.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x04", "title": "The Luck of the Fryrish", "date": "2001-03-11", "description": "\"The Luck of the Fryrish\" is the fourth episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 11, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Chris Louden. Story by: Ron Weiner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and his brother Yancy had a sibling rivalry going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and his brother Yancy had a sibling rivalry going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became extremely lucky", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry found a seven leaf clover that his nephew Philip used to become extremely lucky, and became the first person on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry found a lucky seven leaf clover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender encountered a mutant in the ruins of New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's nephew was recognized as the first person to go to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a delivery room scene where Fry was born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and his mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and his commie fearing dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's dad was anticipating a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's dad was anticipating a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American football", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's mom was obsessed with college football.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's mom was obsessed with college football, often to the exclusion of any interest in her son and family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "centaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a centaur race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was nostalgic about his childhood in the 80s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was cast as a loser, especially in contrast to his brother Yansy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's nephew was the original Martian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the difficulty of picking a name for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started with choosing a name for Fry as a baby, and ended with Yansy naming his baby after Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's father made the basement of his family home into a fallout shelter full of guns and bananas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's father made the basement of his family home into a fallout shelter full of guns and bananas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x13", "title": "Murder with Too Many Notes", "date": "2001-03-12", "description": "Hollywood film composer and conductor Findlay Crawford has been mentor to a talented young composer, Gabriel McEnery, who has been ghostwriting most of Crawford's work for the last few years. Gabe even penned Crawford's last movie score, which won an Oscar. Crawford realizes he will be ruined and ridiculed if it ever becomes known. Aware that Gabe practices on the roof of a studio building, Crawford plots his murder. He promises Gabe will get to conduct the orchestra during a concert based on Crawford's \"own\" movie scores. While giving a toast, Crawford drugs Gabe, then takes his body up to his rooftop rehearsal place, which happens to be atop a trapdoor to a freight elevator. He makes it look like Gabe was there rehearsing; With the concert about to begin, Crawford starts the freight elevator, then makes it into the concert hall in time to begin conducting before the elevator reaches the top. When the elevator doors open, Gabe's unconscious body is pushed over the side and falls to his death, landing in front of a late-arriving couple.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo's first clue is that the victim did not cry out as he fell to his death: On the victim’s body, Columbo finds a cut on his hand in which dried blood reveals the presence of secobarbital, explaining why the victim did not scream as he fell to his death; he was unconscious. This explains why his shoes were two sizes too large and why his house key was missing: the victim couldn’t complain because he was unconscious. In Columbo's reconstruction of the Crime clues point to Crawford as the killer. Crawford confirmed just before that McEnery would have heard the elevator that threw him off the roof if he wasn’t unconscious.\n\nDirected by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: Patrick McGoohan, Jeffrey Cava.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford came up with the following scheme to rid himself of his young protégé, Gabriel McEnery, who threatened to reveal Findlay as a fraud: Findlay drugged Gabriel and placed his limp body on an outwards-opening trap door on top of a four-story building, and timed an elevator in such a way that the doors would open and push Gabriel over the edge while Findlay was on live TV. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had the pesky Lt. Columbo not been assigned to the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford liked basking in the fame he had acquired by exploiting his young protégé, Gabriel McEnery, so much that he murdered Gabriel in order to keep the arrangement a secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did Gabriel McEnery, a talented young composer, simply fall off a four-story building or was foul play (perhaps orchestrated and conducted by an embarrassed orchestra conductor) afoot?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford liked basking in the fame he had acquired by exploiting his young protégé, Gabriel McEnery, so much that he murdered Gabriel in order to keep the arrangement a secret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford was a famous composer of film scores, and notably of music accompanying movie murders, who had exploited and plagiarized his young protégé Gabriel McEnery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Findlay was a famous composer of film scores, and notably of music accompanying movie murders, who had exploited and plagiarized his young protégé Gabriel McEnery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the composing of film scores in a studio. The producer was present from time to time, as was various other key functionaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford, an Academy Award winning film score composer, murdered his ghost-composer out of desperation to keep the young man from outing him as a fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging film score composer Findlay Crawford was past his prime. Instead of riding off into the sunset, he took a talented young composer under his wing to serve as his ghostwriter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo barged in on late Gabriel's mourning girlfriend as she lay grieving in his bed. Gabriel kept a photo of Rebecca in his wallet, Sgt. Degarmo uncovered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo barged in on late Gabriel's mourning girlfriend as she lay grieving in his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Findlay Crawford's assertion that he drives better after a few Scotches evidently didn't instill Columbo with confidence. Did Columbo offer Findlay a drive home? No. Instead, the lieutenant escorted Findlay part way home on back roads at low speeds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo's use of a magnifying lens to examine the photo showed his advancing age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Columbo consulted a coroner in the morgue.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x09", "title": "The Cyber House Rules", "date": "2001-04-01", "description": "\"The Cyber House Rules\" is the ninth episode in season three of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 1, 2001. The title comes from the John Irving novel The Cider House Rules.\n\nDirected by: Susie Dietter. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela appealed to cosmetic surgery to go from having one big eye to two normal sized eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Adlai Atkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela went back to visit her old orphanarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela about being okay to only have one big eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela about being okay to only have one big eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela remembered her time as an orphan, and wished to adopt an orphan girl. Bender adopted a dozen orphans to scam the welfare system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was made to feel as an outsider when she was an orphan because she had one big eye, and likewise for the orphan girl with an ear on her forehead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became the adoptive father of a dozen children in order to get welfare money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children's rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became the adoptive father of a dozen children in order to get welfare money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became the adoptive father of a dozen children in order to get welfare money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela recalled how she was bullied at her old orphanarium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a blind guy who bullied Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was jealous of Adlai Atkins over Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg sprayed various people with ink.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became a robot parent to a dozen orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had a crush on Adlai Atkins when they were both children at the orphanarium.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x11", "title": "Insane in the Mainframe", "date": "2001-04-08", "description": "\"Insane in the Mainframe\" is the eleventh episode of the third season of the American animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 8, 2001. The episode was written by Bill Odenkirk and directed by Peter Avanzino. In the episode, Fry and Bender are admitted to an insane asylum for robots after being charged for their roles in holding up a bank. Fry's attempts to convince the asylum's staff that he is a human fail; he is eventually made to believe that he is a robot, and is deemed \"cured\" and released from the asylum. After being released, the Planet Express crew try to make him rediscover his humanity; these attempts fail, until Fry bleeds and realizes he is in fact, human.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Bill Odenkirk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender were sent to an asylum for insane robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry went mad and thought he was a robot after being locked up in the robot loony bin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was sentenced to go to a robot loony bin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of the criminally insane", "level": "major", "motivation": "We say how the robots were treated in a robot insane asylum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry thought he was a battle-droid and various robots were under the delusion that they were Napoleon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was sent to an insane asylum for robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender were administered a beating by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender were tried for bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flying police cruisers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberto held the Planet Express team hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg found out that his pension fund was empty because he had never paid into it, and Fry wasted his retirement money on lottery tickets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudicial attitude of superiority against someone less well off than one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judge Whitey was extremely elitist, and considered the theft of money to be the most heinous of crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hyper-Chicken represented Fry and Bender when they were charged with bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witness tampering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A witness stand seated Fry thought better of identifying Roberto as the real bank robber after a disguised-with-a-fake-beard Robert gestured at him with a knife from the spectator area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Bicorne hat wearing Bender utter the phrase \"Je suis Napoleon\" in jest while visiting Fry in the robot lunatic asylum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x19", "title": "Q2", "date": "2001-04-11", "description": "Q leaves his son (Q2) on Voyager to learn from the crew.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Kenneth Biller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "adolescence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway instructed Q in how to raise his son Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q and Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Q", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Q junior for Icheb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Voyager crew with Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway instructed Q in how to raise his unruly son Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "godparent and godchild", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q choose Captain Janeway to be Q Junior's godmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q Junior stripped over his Q powers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q lacked confidence in Q Junior whereas Janeway believed in Q Junior's ability to reform", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q and Janeway treated Q Junior harshly as a means of teaching him some discipline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q Junior with Icheb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "major", "motivation": "Q Junior took shortcuts to complete his designated tasks aboard Voyager; Q could have returned Voyager crew to Earth at end but purposely didn't in order that they might get their on their own", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway appealed first to the carrot before resorting to the stick when teaching Q Junior some discipline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q in Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The god-like being Q junior felt he was above operating simple machinery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Q and Q Junior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Janeway held back from telling Q Junior that he didn't have much of a chance to win at the trial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x20", "title": "Author, Author", "date": "2001-04-18", "description": "The Doctor writes a holo-novel to be published in the Alpha Quadrant, featuring characters who closely resemble – but do not flatter – the crew.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor's right to have his holonovel recalled was challenged by Ardon Broht", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "defamation of character vs. freedom of speech", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor's writing of a controversial holonovel raised the question of to what extent may we really express ourselves freely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor wrote a holonovel conveying exaggerations of the AI prejudices he had experienced aboard Voyager; published denied The Doctor's rights", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and The Doctor had conflicting ideas about what constitutes a good holonovel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor tried to show humans what it was like to be a hologram", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor decided to publish his holonovel in spite of disapproval from his crewmates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor agree to rewrite his holonovel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor's holonovel played out on holodeck", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an extraordinary accusation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor was not considered to be a person under Federation law, and had to fight for the right of ownership of his newly written holonovel in an arbitration hearing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical triage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "first chapter of holonovel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry's parents were proud of him for having at one point been put in charge of Voyager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor status as a person under Federation law was decided by an arbiter in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor took pride in getting his holonovel published", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor tried to draw attention to oppressed photonic brethren in the Delta Quadrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna's father reached out to repair they broken relationship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor status as a person under Federation law was decided by an arbiter in a courtroom setting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x13", "title": "Bendin' in the Wind", "date": "2001-04-22", "description": "\"Bendin' in the Wind\" is the thirteenth episode in season three of the animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 22, 2001. It guest-stars Beck as himself. Bender becomes a folksinger after being broken, and starts touring with Beck. The title comes from the Bob Dylan song \"Blowin' in the Wind\".\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender coped with being paralyzed from neck down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender lived as a paralyzed robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the disabled in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The moral of the story was that differently abled people could all be useful to society and had value, so much so that Bender mad a song about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became a folk musician after becoming paralyzed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was passionate about folk music in this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hippie movement was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender held a benefit concert for disabled robots like himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hippie stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were alien hippies at the concert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discovering a hidden talent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender discovered he had a talent for folk music. Zoidberg discovered he had a knack for puking up works beautiful pearls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender faced the can opener.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became Beck's head's new washboard player.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blob monster kicked the Planet Express team out of a concert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cars were hovering over Golden Gate Bridge. Beck traveled in a hover bus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x21", "title": "Friendship One", "date": "2001-04-25", "description": "The crew is sent on its first mission by Starfleet in nearly seven years: to find a lost probe sent by Earth in the 21st century that has ended up in the Delta Quadrant.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Michael Taylor and Bryan Fuller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "antimatter meltdown led to nuclear winter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of sending information out into space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Friendship One probe gave aliens knowledge of anitmatter which they inadvertently used to destroy their planet. Seven warned that the Borg would have assimilated Earth had they intercepted the probe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "B'Elanna and Brin were both pregnant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix mentioned his homeworld was annihilated by WMDs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Verin for Voyager crew whom he held responsible for destroying his homeworld", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway had to save the away team members taken hostage on the planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "In 2067, the Earth Space Probe Agency launched the great deal of technological information containing Friendship 1 probe in the hopes that it would reach other intelligent life in the galaxy. The Voyager crew discovered that it had, but with disastrous consequences, as the lesser advanced aliens who found it used the knowledge about antimatter contained in the probe to blowup their world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inherited liability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Were Voyager crew responsible for 300 year dead ancestor's actions?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crewmembers for radiation poisoned aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom, Neelix, and Joe Carey taken prisoner by Verin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otrin and Brin together with other aliens chose to trust the Voyager crew to help them counteract the radiation poisoning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative interstellar probe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Friendship One probe was sent from Earth to make contact with any intelligent life it might come into contact with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna quarreled over her going on a dangerous away mission while she was pregnant", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the alien scientist Otrin took on the challenge of becoming a leader to his people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway pointedly mourned the loss of Lieutenant Joe Carey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Voyager crew cared for some radiation poisoned aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x22", "title": "Natural Law", "date": "2001-05-02", "description": "Seven and Chakotay are stranded on a planet with primitive humanoids.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Kenneth Biller and James Kahn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chakotay and Seven worried about the consequences of getting help from the primitive aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "primitive point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "primitive aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ventu communicated without a formal language as we understand it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the primitive aliens lived in peace and harmony without the help of any real technology", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a pedantic authority figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom was administered a piloting test by the overly scrupulous examiner Kleg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seven learned to appreciate the beauties of nature when the Ventu girl took her to see the triple waterfall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the protectors of the Ventu", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom received a protracted lesson in not being too cocky", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x14", "title": "Time Keeps On Slippin'", "date": "2001-05-06", "description": "\"Time Keeps On Slippin\" is the fourteenth episode in season three of the animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 6, 2001. The title is from a lyric in \"Fly Like an Eagle\" by Steve Miller Band. Basketball and time-travel play a prominent role in this episode.\n\nDirected by: Chris Louden. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "An excess of chronitons make time skip forward randomly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was hard after Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stellar engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stars were moved around and destroyed using technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry failed to gain Leela's love and Bender failed to become a Globetrotter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Globetrotters landed on Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went to the Tempus Nebula to collect chronitons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marv Albert's head called the basketball game between the Globetrotters and the atomic supermen. Nixon's head gave Professor Farnsworth and Bubble Tate funding to build a gravity pump.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a parody on how professors act when encountering professors from rivaling institutions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x23", "title": "Homestead", "date": "2001-05-09", "description": "Voyager encounters a Talaxian settlement leaving Neelix with the difficult decision of whether to leave the crew.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Raf Green.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "resettlement vs. fighting for one's homeland", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix rallied a settlement of his Talaxian brethren to fight for the hollowed out asteroid habitat they called home rather than seek refuge elsewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Talaxians to their hollowed out asteroid habitat", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Neelix found his place among the Talaxians living in a hollowed out asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "major", "motivation": "A beleaguered community of Talaxians were living inside a hollowed out asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid mining", "level": "major", "motivation": "the aliens were engaged in asteroid mining", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talaxians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talaxians faced being resettled when the miners wanted their asteroid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talaxians about taking on miners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neelix learned he could be a leader among the Talaxians", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "distaste for attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was reluctant to dance and be the center of attention at the First Contact Day celebration", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dexa and Brax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway and Neelix negotiating with miners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix and Dexa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager crew to Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix with both Naomi and Brax", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dexa confided in Neelix about the death of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neelix wanted Tuvok to dance", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x15", "title": "I Dated a Robot", "date": "2001-05-13", "description": "\"I Dated a Robot\" is the fifteenth episode in the third season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 13, 2001.\n\nDirected by: James Purdum. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The opprobrium on dating robots was presumably an allegory of old fashioned views on masturbation and homosexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and a few other met actress Lucy Liu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lucy Liu's personality from movies was closed into an android body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and the Lucy Liu robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humdrum AD 3000 activities seemed exciting to Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team used special suits to access the Internet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Internet was portrayed as a simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela strolled around the World Wide Web as virtual people, where they passed two nerds arguing over Star Trek in a chatroom, observed an eBay auction, and visited a Napster-run celebrity dating service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing life in captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kidnappster victims had spent hundreds of years in tormented captivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy Liu asserted this right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "edge of the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team traveled to the edge of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "From the edge of the universe, the team were able to peak into the one parallel universe that there was. It was subtly different from the principal universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kidnappster CEO made a business out of kidnapping disembodied heads of famous people and cloning them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interracial couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender objected to humans dating robots, in tone that was reminiscent of white people objecting to whites dating blacks once upon a time, for example.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Internet crime in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kidnappster was making illegal copies of celebrities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mulholland Drive (2001)", "title": "Mulholland Drive", "date": "2001-05-16", "description": "Mulholland Drive (stylized as Mulholland Dr.) is a 2001 American neo-noir mystery film written and directed by David Lynch and starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Mark Pellegrino and Robert Forster. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"Rita\" remembered nothing after her car accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the illicit activities of some powerful gangsters whose boss wanted to influence a movie director to pick a specific actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were numerous murders and murder attempts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty was an aspiring actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Diane was dumped by Camilla, or maybe it was a counter-dumping, but then Diane goes nuts (and possibly the whole weird movie ties into this retrospectively)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Camille and Diane, and various alter egos perhaps", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty proclaimed her love for Rita; Diane was obsessively besotted with Camille", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mobster spat out his painstakingly procured gourmet espresso", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam and wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam's wife was cheating on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mobster hitmen were chasing Adam for a bit", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started with teenagers racing down the eponymous Mulholland Drive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty and Rita had a somewhat conspicuous tryst - the roundabout way in which they became intimate implies some social controversy although we saw no one else's reactions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane killed herself in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam introduce his mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane presumably felt bad about having hired a hitman since she killed herself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diane was jealous enough of Camille's fiancée to hire a hitman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x24", "title": "Renaissance Man", "date": "2001-05-16", "description": "The Doctor is forced to help aliens steal Voyager's warp core.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor must decide whether to obey Janeway's orders or save her life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Doctor outsmarted the Voyager crew again and again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Doctor went through hell and high water to free Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janeway's strange commands and odd behavior leads to crew questioning her; The Doctor was loyal to Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway held captive by the Overlookers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor sang \"Questa o quella\" with great enthusiasm and to full orchestral music accompaniment as he steered the Delta Flyer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna's baby due", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay challenged Janeway; the Overlooker selling spare parts stood up to his boss by clunking him on the head", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor disguised as B'Elanna from Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "voice duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor manifested the ability to duplicate the voices of various of his crew mates", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor makes a fool of himself with death bed confession", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in the cause of holograms", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor in B'Elanna's body kissing Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Overlooker assistant was treated disrespectfully by his superior", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor confessed all his regrets on his deathbed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Doctor was proud of being a hologram.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "voy7x25/26", "title": "Endgame", "date": "2001-05-23", "description": "In the future where it took Voyager 23 years to get home, Admiral Janeway devises a plan to alter history. As the crew enters a final showdown with the Borg, the two Janeways implement a risky plan to take out one of the six Borg Transwarp Hubs in the galaxy and simultaneously cross the transwarp threshold to get home.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman, Kenneth Biller and Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-voyager.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway went back in time to bring her crew home early without hope that she herself could be returned home", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway bringing Voyager home early", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway in effort to bring Voyager crew home early; Harry in taking risk to go into Borg infested nebula to access wormholes; Seven about playing it safe in her relationship with Chakotay", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway about bringing crew home or destroying the Borg's capacity to assimilate Alpha Quadrant aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Janeway about bringing crew home or destroying the Borg's capacity to assimilate Alpha Quadrant aliens", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway travels back in time in effort to bring Voyager home early", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway traveled back into the past with future altering repercussions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager crew itching to get home, especially Harry who was willing to risk a confrontation with the Borg in order to access wormholes", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Seven dating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chakotay and Seven dating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway violated Starfleet rules with a plan to bring Voyager home early.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Voyager reunion party", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway mourned the loss of those under her charge who'd not made it back from the Delta Quadrant. Seven contemplated Chakotay's fated death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway complained about crew being loyalty to Janeway", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero's return", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Voyager crew were celebrated as heroes upon their safe return from the Delta Quadrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway paid a Tuvok, who had lost his mind, regular Sunday visits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna gives birth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janeway met her future self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuvok was diagnosed with a Vulcan form of dementia", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Voyager found wormhole back to Earth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Janewway and Tuvok", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B'Elanna gave birth to daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and B'Elanna", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Harry opposed Admiral Janeway over going back in time to save Voyager crew", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind-computer merging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Janeway had a neural interface she used to interface with her ship", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chakotay by Seven again", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Evolution (2001)", "title": "Evolution", "date": "2001-06-08", "description": "Evolution is a 2001 American comic science fiction film directed by Ivan Reitman.\n\nSynopsis: A pair of college professors investigate a meteorite crash in Arizona. They discover that the meteorite harbors extraterrestrial lifeforms, which are evolving very quickly into large, diverse and outlandish creatures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is that some alien microbes hitched a ride to the Arizona desert on a meteor, began to evolve at an accelerated rate, and soon thereafter gave rise to complex creatures that seemed destined to overrun the entire Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the local college science professors Ira Kane and Harry Block as they study newly discovered, fast-evolving extraterrestrial microbes that had hitched a ride to Earth on a meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial microbes evolved into complex dinosaur-like creatures in just a handful of days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Ira and Allison falling in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown various stereotypical community college happenings: An apathetic Professor Ira Kane gave A's to nearly everyone in his biology class on their biology research projects, there was a wild college party, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira discovered that the extraterrestrial life was nitrogen-based and had DNA that consisted of ten base pairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "geology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Harry Block made a point that he was a representative of the U.S. Geological Survey when he went to sample a recently crashed meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brothers Deke and Danny Donald, two of Ira's dumbest students, put their heads together to come up with a clever way to destroy the fast proliferating extraterrestrial life forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira discovered that the extraterrestrial life forms reproduced asexually via mitosis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne was trying hard to become a firefighter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira and Harry took the military to court in a failed bid to stop them from completely taking over the project to study the extraterrestrial life that both Ira and Harry had discovered in the Arizona desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira and Harry led a fight against a flying dinosaur-like creature in a shopping mall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story climaxed with Ira and his party using Head & Shoulders shampoo to kill an immense amoeba-like blob that stood hundreds of feet tall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ira and his party had to take on an immense amoeba-like blob that stood hundreds of feet tall toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arizona Governor declared Ira, Harry, Wayne and Allison heroes in the immediate aftermath of their killing of the giant amoeba-like blob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arizona governor poo-pooed the military's plan to nuke the extraterrestrial life forms that had taken hold in the Arizona desert.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: AI Artificial Intelligence (2001)", "title": "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", "date": "2001-06-29", "description": "The film tells the story of David, a childlike android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was a childlike android that had the ability to love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder to what extent David should have the rights of a real boy. For example, should his company have the right to shut him down if his owners returned him? Also androids were being hunted down and publicly executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "All David wanted was to become a real boy so that his mother would love him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry Swinton bought an android boy David for his wife Monica Swinton to replace the son they thought would never come out from cryostatic preservation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monica and her android boy David. Monica and her biological son Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monica and Henry raised the android boy David until he became a danger to their real boy Martin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monica came to love David as she would a human boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Martin vied to be most loved by Monica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of humans were hunting down androids and executing them in public spectacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of humans were hunting down androids and executing them in public spectacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was an android boy in a human family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monica drove David to the forest and abandoned him there with only his AI teddy bear teddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and his AI teddy bear Teddy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Monica drove David to the forest and abandoned him there with only his AI teddy bear for company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin was placed it cryogenic suspension for 5 years after he had contracted a rare disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Monica faced the reality that her son Martin was cryogenically suspended because he had an incurable disease, and in all likelihood he would never be revived. But then to get great surprised he was cured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was jealous of Martin for the added attention he got from their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin resented David and played tricks on him to get him in trouble with Monica and Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin wore leg braces after his recovery from the rare illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David felt afraid after Monica abandoned him in the forest and at the circus when he was locked up in a cage awaiting execution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set in the 22nd century when rising sea levels from global warming have wiped out coastal cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the Earth two thousand years in the future when humans are extinct and Manhattan is buried under glacial ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people at the circus exhibited a vehement hatred of androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Flesh Fair circus audience members ultimately shown compassion for David and stopped him from being executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was rescued from being frozen in ice and revived by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David met his creator Professor Allen Hobby in a dilapidated and partially submerged Manhattan skyscraper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David met a copy of himself in a Manhattan skyscraper and summarily bashed its head in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotional overwhelm", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David jumped off a skyscraper into the sea, after discovering that he was a prototype of a mass produced android to be sold around the country.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jurassic Park III (2001)", "title": "Jurassic Park III", "date": "2001-07-16", "description": "A divorced couple trick Dr. Alan Grant into helping them find their son on an island off Central America's Pacific coast. It is the fourth film in the Jurassic Park franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Jurassic Park" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Alan Grant was tricked into leading an expedition to an island populated with genetically engineered dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The expedition team members were terrorized by dinosaurs on Isla Sorna. The boy Eric had survived alone eight weeks on the dinosaur island until he was found by Alan and the expedition parry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Amanda Kirby tricked Alan Grant into leading an expedition to rescue her son on an island full of dinosaurs. Ellie Sattler and her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and Amanda Kirby tricked Alan Grant into leading an expedition to rescue her son on an island full of dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Divorcees Paul and Amanda Kirby reunited in an attempt to rescue their son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it was ethical to use genetic engineering to reintroduce dinosaurs into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an expedition to an island full of dinosaurs that had been genetically engineered from DNA recovered from inside amber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent dinosaurs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The raptors were socially intelligent and even used language to communicate with one another. Dr. Grant ultimately communicated with them in their own language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric had been stranded on the dinosaur island for eight weeks before he was found by the Dr. Grant led expedition party. But the expedition party was itself stranded on the island as their airplane was destroyed in a Spinosaurus attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Amanda were divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda, and Paul to a lesser extent, regretted having let her son go a perilous vacation near an island populated with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda, and Paul to a lesser extent, regretted having let her son go a perilous vacation near an island populated with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Amanda were reunited with their son Eric who had become stranded on an island populated with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billy gave his life to save Eric from the flying dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ellie Sattler and husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness expedition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Grant led an expedition to rescue Eric who had become stranded on an island inhabited by dinosaurs. The expedition party itself became stranded on the island to everyone’s misfortune.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mimic 2 (2001)", "title": "Mimic 2", "date": "2001-07-17", "description": "Mimic 2 is a 2001 science fiction horror film, directed by Jean de Segonzac, with a script inspired by a short story of the same name by Donald A. Wollheim. The movie was a direct-to-DVD sequel to Mimic (1997), and was followed by Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003).\n\nSynopsis: It falls on an entomophilic school teacher to stop a murderous human mimicking cockroach-like bug.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mimic Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is that a genetically engineered cockroach had evolved into a quasi-intelligent, human mimicking creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The schoolteacher Remi loved all things bug and would never stop talking about the them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the schoolteacher Remi and two of her students to exterminate a giant, human mimicking cockroach-like creature that was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a giant cockroach-like creature going around ripping people's faces off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Detective Klaski as he investigates a handful of what appear to be grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Detective Klaski as he investigates a handful of what appear to be grisly murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remi taught her elementary school class about insects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elementary school student Sal read his report about bugs in front of his class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remi was creeped out when a flower-bearing and highly awkward Jason showed up unannounced at her apartment door. Remi brushed off her former student Nicky when he asked her out on a date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remi's love life suffered as a direct result of her extreme interest in all things bug. Her superior Morrie Deaver went so far as to claim that she was \"pathologically unable to sustain a proximate intrapersonal relationship\" owing to her fascination with insects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lincoln Trahn had sold endangered species on the black market. This somehow resulted in 200 species of arthropods going extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The youngster Sal did such youngster things as read a report he'd done on bugs in front of his class, go searching for bugs in a abandoned building, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nicky was being physically abused by his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zoology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The entomologist Remi Panos explained how the giant cockroach-like creature was using an evolutionary strategy by which it mimicked its only real predator: humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the giant cockroach-monster was a product of genetic engineering. In particular, it had evolved from a cockroach that had been spliced with ant and termite DNA.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Spirited Away (2001)", "title": "Spirited Away", "date": "2001-07-20", "description": "Spirited Away (Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し, Hepburn: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, \"Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away\") is a 2001 Japanese animated coming-of-age fantasy drama film. It was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film and Mitsubishi and distributed by Toho. The film stars Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takeshi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Takehiko Ono, and Bunta Sugawara. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi), a moody 10-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighbourhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits) of Japanese Shinto folklore. After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba (Natsuki), Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Japanese folklore", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is filled with gods, spirits, and ideas from traditional Japanese folk traditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chihiro was an insecure child taken to the magic land by her parents. She then had to put her fears aside, learn to work and face hardship in order to save herself and her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yubaba and the other denizens of the bathhouse were obsessed with getting treasure from customers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miyazaki has himself stated that elements of the story are a commentary on modern human greed in e.g. the bubble economy of 1980s Japan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again it was Chihiro's kindness and compassion that earned her the loyalty of allies who later helped her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "major", "motivation": "time and again it was Chihiro's kindness and compassion that earned her the loyalty of allies who later helped her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yubaba and her twin sister were sorceresses with various magical abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered on Chihiro's quest to save her parents whom she missed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered on Chihiro's quest to save her parents whom she missed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chihiro made friends with various spirits who later helped her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was some typically Japanese theme about working harmoniously at the bathhouse, pulling one's weight and fitting in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the stink spirit river god had been polluted with piles of human consumerist waste; Haku's background may have tangentially been the type of theme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we briefly saw interaction between Chihiro's parents", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jason X (2001)", "title": "Jason X", "date": "2001-07-24", "description": "Jason X is a 2001 American science fiction slasher film directed by Jim Isaac, written by Todd Farmer and starring Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, and Kane Hodder in his fourth and final cinematic appearance as Jason Voorhees. It is the tenth installment in the Friday the 13th franchise, the first one since 1993's Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.\n\nSynopsis: Jason is cryogenically frozen for 445 years and awakens in 2455, after being found by a group of students, whom he subsequently stalks and kills one by one.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_X" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Jason character referenced in the title was a zombie-like, machete wielding, hockey mask wearing, psycho killer who struck terror into the hearts of his mostly adolescent victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The zombie-like, machete wielding murdered Jason was going around on the spaceship slaughtering its occupants one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rowan was revived from cryogenic stasis in the year 2455 after having spent just over 450 years on ice. In the year 2455, she found that space travel was common place and the Earth had become uninhabitable among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people connected to me started dying one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The zombie-like, machete wielding murdered Jason was going around on the spaceship slaughtering its mostly adolescent occupants one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jason was transformed into a seemingly unstoppable cyborg killing machine by nanobots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rowan was revived from cryogenic stasis after she'd inadvertently frozen herself together with Jason in a cryo pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nanobots were used to reattach a young man's severed arm. Nanobots were used to reconstitute Rowan's cells. Nanobots transformed Jason into a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is mainly set aboard a futuristic, interstellar travel capable transport vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Jason was a notorious murdered who'd killed some 200 people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason was hard to kill in part because of his innate regenerative ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason had super human strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lowe plotted to sell Jason to an unspecified collector and use the money to pay off his debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Lowe humped a black leather clad student while she clamped his nipple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Kay-Em 14 fought wit Jason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kinsa and Stoney were stereotypical young lovers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth's oceans and soil had become incapable of supporting life by the year 2455.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason rudely interrupted two men who were playing a fully immersive virtual reality shooter game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship made a desperate bid to dock at the Solaris space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship was en route to Earth Two - a distant habitable planet that was marked as the new home for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tsunaron and the android Kay-Em 14 fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young lovers Kinsa and Stoney couldn't keep their hands off of each other, until Jason slaughtered Stoney before Kinsa's very eyes. Tsunaron and the android Kay-Em 14 had the hots for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason slaughtering Kinsa's lover Stoney before her very eyes left her traumatized and unstable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waylander blew himself up to give his fellow crew-members a chance of escaping from Jason.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Planet of the Apes (2001)", "title": "Planet of the Apes", "date": "2001-07-27", "description": "Astronaut Leo Davidson crash-landing on a planet inhabited by intelligent apes. The apes treat humans as slaves, but with the help of an ape named Ari, Leo starts a rebellion.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The apes enslaved the Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The senator gave General Thade the authority to declare martial law and exterminate all Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes hated Humans and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space station Oberon was in orbit of Saturn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Leo Davidson traveled over 2000 years into the future of a planet where apes ruled over Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a \"human rights\" movement akin to the animal rights movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Thade at Ari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karubi and Daena. The senator and Ari.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo explained that on Earth the only remaining apes were in zoos because of habitat destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Thade's father told him how apes were the slaves of Humans in the distant past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The apes had a creation myth that God breathed live into the first ape Semos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The apes prophesy of Semos returning was fulfilled when the chimp Pericles arrived on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghosts of Mars (2001)", "title": "Ghosts of Mars", "date": "2001-08-24", "description": "Ghosts of Mars (titled onscreen as John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars) is a 2001 American science fiction action horror film written, directed and scored by John Carpenter.\n\nSynopsis: A police officer is sent to a remote Martian mining outpost to transport a notorious prisoner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_of_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a colony on Mars in the second half of the 22nd century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that the spirits of ancient Martians were going around possessing human miner colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spirit possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spirits of long dead Martians were going around possessing humans who'd colonized the Red Planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a police detail on Mars as they attempt to pick up a notorious criminal from a mining camp jail and transport him back to the main Martian colony site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spirits of long dead Martians were going around possessing the Red Planet's new human colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melanie and the other police officers deliberated over whether to trust Williams' and the other criminals after they'd agreed to join forces to fight the possessed miners, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police officers (Melanie most notably) and the criminals (Williams most notably) set their mutual antagonisms aside in order to fight their common enemy: the possessed miners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police officers (Melanie most notably) and the criminals (Williams most notably) set their mutual antagonisms aside in order to fight their common enemy: the possessed miners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melanie and the criminal she'd been sent to apprehend, Williams, bonded over the course of fighting the possessed miners together, and ultimately came to like each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars had been 84% terraformed allowing for people to walk around on the surface without pressure suits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that the Mars colony was run by an all-female council known as the \"Matronage\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melanie recounted before a \"Matronage\" council the strange events that had taken place at Shining Canyon Mine on her mission to pick up and transport a notorious prisoner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about Commander Braddock and Officer Kincaid being lesbians. Kincaid, for example, was called a \"dyke\" by one of Williams' men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Williams, who professed his innocence, was wanted for the murder of six rail workers and a payroll courier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A miner slit his own throat to prevent being taken over by a Martian ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tres was a nitrous oxide addict. He accidentally macheted off his own thumb while high on the substance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uno tried to free his brother Williams from police custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Williams mourned the death of brother Uno who was killed in an altercation with the possessed miners.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)", "title": "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie", "date": "2001-09-01", "description": "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, known in Japan as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Japanese: カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉, Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu: Tengoku no Tobira, lit. Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door), is a 2001 Japanese animated science fiction film based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Hajime Yatate.\n\nSynopsis: A team of bounty hunters track down the perpetrators of what is assumed to have been a bioterrorist attack.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop:_The_Movie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the future in a big city on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story was that the Cherious Medical corporation had illegally manufactured a deadly nanomachine pathogen as a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a protein-based nanomachine human pathogen that mimics human lymphocytes and then breaks down into protein after death, making it undetectable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's main antagonist Vincent plotted to kill everyone on Mars by releasing a nanomachine pathogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot follows a small team of bounty hunters as they attempt to apprehend the bioterrorist Vincent, who plans to kill everyone on Mars by releasing a dangerous nanomachine pathogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vincent so loathed humankind that he plotted to kill everyone on Mars by releasing a nanomachine pathogen into the environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with some thugs holding up a convenience store at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jet tried to impress some of the finer points of shogi to a visibly uninterested Spike while the two played this game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A disheartened Faye explained that all her horses had lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a 5 million woolong bounty on the hacker Lee Sampson. Edward hacked into the Cherious Medical corporation computer system to check their trucking records.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hacker Lee Sampson was really into old-school, 20th century video games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificially enhanced dog Ein had human-level intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A jack-o-lantern wearing, trick or treating Edward knocked on the door of a red lipstick wearing, pink negligee clad man with blond flowing locks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent described how he \"shook with fear\" in his dream, and it was moreover the first time that he'd ever experienced this emotion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "an old man mistaken thought he'd been involved in the last battle of the battleship Bismarck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent was left with partial amnesia as a result of having been immunized with a test vaccine to stop the nanomachine pathogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a dream", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A butterfly hallucinating Vincent wondered aloud if the butterflies might be the real world, and the real world as others perceived it but a dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vincent confessed his love for Electra moments before his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary weather control system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faye used the Mars weather control system to make it rain all over the city.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Replicant (2001)", "title": "Replicant", "date": "2001-09-18", "description": "Replicant is a 2001 American science fiction action film directed by Ringo Lam, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michael Rooker.\n\nSynopsis: A recently retired police detective is recruited into a secret government program to track down his old nemesis, a notorious serial killer with a penchant for brutally murdering Seattle area mothers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the recently retired police detective Jake Riley in his efforts to track down a serial killer, known as Edward \"the Torch\" Garrotte, who was going around killing Seattle area mothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the recently retired police detective Jake Riley as he is recruited into a secret government agency that is using clones to somehow help track down terrorists and serial killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is the cloning of the notorious serial killer Edward \"the Torch\" Garrotte.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the deranged serial killer Edward \"the Torch\" Garrotte's efforts to manipulate his utterly naive clone into doing his bidding. In the end they engaged in hand-to-hand, martial arts style, one-on-one combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retired police detective Jake Riley took the replicant (an adult clone with the mind of a child) under his wing and ultimately became a father figure to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film shows Detective Jake Riley working on the force shortly before he retired and opened a boat repair shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A government agent explained that the secret program to clone people was part of an effort to capture terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retrocognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The replicant saw the murder that serial killer he was cloned from had committed upon visiting the house where the deed had been done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deranged serial killer Edward Garrotte had a troubled relationship with his elderly mother and ultimately killed her. Jake's mother was somewhat taken aback upon walking in on him in the process of undressing the replicant down to its underwear. Anne was caring for her young son Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The replicant (a newly cloned fully grown man with the mind of a child) had a sexual encounter with a prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A street prostitute mistook the replicant for a John.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prostitute took pity on the replicant and begged her pimp to stop beating him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was in a happy marriage with his wife Anne, although she hardly factored into the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake was playing a sports video game together with his young stepson, Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake's and his stepson Danny were playing a sports video game together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x01/02", "title": "Broken Bow", "date": "2001-09-26", "description": "Enterprise (NX-01) is launched, and Captain Archer finds himself in the middle of a Temporal Cold War involving Klingons and Suliban.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humans encountered new alien civilizations, like the Klingons and Suliban, and the first contact with the Vulcans was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer commanded the newly christened Enterprise on its first interstellar flight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and crew were eager to take the Enterprise out and explore space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer was determined to complete his mission without the help of the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans in Human affairs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons, Vulcans, Phlox, all had their idiosyncrasies taken somewhat seriously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans thought the Humans should stay home where they were safe and not gallivant around in a hostile galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and the Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans felt that humans were not ready to venture out into interstellar space on their own, and they warned the Star Fleet brass that they would fall on their faces, if they did so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol choose duty in trying to do what the captain would have wanted done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather and Tucker found a place in the Enterprise where there was zero gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather and Tucker found a place in the Enterprise where there was zero gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alien from the future confronted Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Archer and a young Jonathan Archer", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcan ambassador explained that it was better to let Klang die rather than return him home because he would face dishonor as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Transporter technology was still in an experimental stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the language industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi was lured away from her teaching duties by the prospect of being the first person to learn Klingonese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi was lured away from her teaching duties by the prospect of being the first person to learn Klingonese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was vegetarian and considered Humans to be impulsive carnivores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suliban wore garment that allowed it to blend in with its immediate environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suliban were genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suliban were genetically engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol helped Archer complete his mission against her better judgement when she took command of the Enterprise when Archer was injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Suliban cell ships merged into one large spherical spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "DNA encoded message", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is learns that a message can potentially be encoded into a person's DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was somewhat taken aback at the sight Archer and Tucker touching food with their hands and consuming flesh in flagrant violation of Vulcan custom and convention.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x03", "title": "Fight or Flight", "date": "2001-10-03", "description": "Ensign Sato faces her fears on an alien ship whose crew was murdered, while Lieutenant Reed tries to upgrade the ship's defense system.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer must decide whether to risk helping alien crew and put his crew in potential danger as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and his crew were eager to take the Enterprise out and explore space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer decides to help Axanar crew that may have needed help in spite of the risks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol argued recurringly that the alien ship was not responding because some cultures simply do not want to communicate, and that they should stay away from it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi lacked confidence in her abilities and considered returning to the university where she felt more in her comfort zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Enterprise crew make first contact with the androgynous Axanar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi did some kind of overcome-your-fears kind of introspecting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the language industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi spoke in gleeful terms about the prospect of visiting alien worlds and learning their languages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi was passionate about learning languages.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)", "title": "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra", "date": "2001-10-08", "description": "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a 2001 American independent science-fiction parody film directed by Larry Blamire.\n\nSynopsis: A scientist and his wife get mixed up with space aliens, a deranged scientist, a mutant monster, and a cranky living skeleton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Skeleton_of_Cadavra" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Dr. Paul Armstrong and his wife Betty in their search for the rare and powerful element atmosphereum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul made a big deal about being a dedicated scientist at every opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two humanoid aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis from the planet Marva had crash-landed on Earth and were searching for some atmosphereum to repair their spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis were stranded on Earth, which to them was alien and strange, with dubious prospects of getting back to their home planet of Marva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead skeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Skeleton of Cadavra was going around causing trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown 1950s era American culture through the lens of the two ostensibly emotionless space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis landed on Earth in a sleek, silvery rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative matter manipulating effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis used a special handheld device to transmute their alien spacesuits into ordinary 1950s era American outfits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Animala was part human, part four different forest animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis were puzzled mightily by the strange Earth custom of eating dinner at a table together with guests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens attempted to telepathically manipulate Betty into bringing them the atmosphereum. The Skeleton of Cadavra tried to manipulate Betty in a similar manner into bring him the atmosphereum containing meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Roger Fleming spoke aloud of how he planned to use the Skeleton of Cadavra to make himself the most powerful man in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis posed as ordinary Americans, but it wasn't long before Dr. Roger Fleming and the others sorted out their true identities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nefarious Dr. Roger Fleming tricked the naive space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis into working together to obtain the atmosphereum that Fleming needed to resurrect the Skeleton of Cadavra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a radioactive mutant space creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mutant creature ran off with Betty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mutant space creature had feelings for Betty to her dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After assuring Kro-Bar and Lattis that he'd share the atmosphereum with them, Dr. Roger Fleming callously took it all for himself to their astonishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emotionless emotion craving being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ostensibly emotionless space aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis learned to express themselves emotionally after spending some time stranded on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty's mind was opened when the space alien Lattis told her that the women on her planet do not clean up after their men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skeleton of Cadavra was attacked by a mutant creature at his own wedding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x04", "title": "Strange New World", "date": "2001-10-10", "description": "A storm traps an away team in a cave on an alien world, and pollen spores cause them to experience psychosis.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tucker went delusional inside cave and became convinced that T'Pol was plotting with rock monsters against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mistrust between T'Pol and landing party members leads to complications about being rescued from the surface of planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persecution complex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker went delusional inside cave and became convinced that T'Pol was plotting against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer wanted to rush down headlong to explore new planet, against T'Pol's better judgment, and they landing party became exposed to lethal pathogen as a result of his recklessness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and the crew attempted to contact new life on earth-like planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and crew attempt to contact new life on earth-like planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "The landing party fled to a cave to escape a violent windstorm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landing party members became paranoid and fearful inside the cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "substance intoxication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landing party became confused and paranoid under the influence of spores on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker dreamed up a deluded conspiracy theories under the influence of hallucinogenic compound found on planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rock monsters possibly inhabited a planet that the Enterprise crew explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker revealed his prejudice against Vulcans under the influence of space pollen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer playing with Porthos on planet surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Novakovich was beamed up from the planet fused with leaves using experimental transporter technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer appealed to Tuckers trust in Archer", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The American Astronaut (2001)", "title": "The American Astronaut", "date": "2001-10-12", "description": "The American Astronaut is a 2001 space Western musical film directed by and starring Cory McAbee.\n\nSynopsis: An interplanetary trader sets out to transport a boy to Venus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Astronaut" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonist Curtis was an interplanetary trader who was flying from planet to planet in the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a fictitious past in which humanity had colonized Venus, Ceres, Jupiter, and perhaps beyond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curtis' spacecraft was capable of flying about the planets of the solar system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curtis received a cloning device that was in the process of cloning a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biased sex-ratio society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Jupiter, and perhaps Ceres, was populated by only men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Venus was populated by only women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man performed a stand up bit in a Ceres bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blueberry Pirate was a renowned interplanetary fruit thief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blueberry Pirate was a dancer who was making a living performing out of a Ceres bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Curtis and his party came across a primitive space station constructed by Nevada State silver miners from the late 1800s.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: How to Make a Monster (2001)", "title": "How to Make a Monster", "date": "2001-10-14", "description": "A video game monster comes to life and stalks its developers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Make_a_Monster_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the point of the film was to to show how working in a cutthroat business environment can transform a fundamentally good person into a ruthless and selfish person. Case in point: the story follows the empathetic Clayton Software intern Laura Wheeler as she ultimately transforms into a ruthless and cold CEO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "competitiveness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows three computer programmers as they compete against each other to make the scariest video game monster in an effort to win a $1 million bonus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Drummond urged the three programmers under his charge to work together on the the video game they were developing, but the programmers hotly competing against each other in an effort to win a $1 million bonus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the development and playing of the first-person shooter game \"Evilution\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Drummond was a hardened, \"greed is good\" businessman who was ruthless in his efforts to enrich himself. In the end, the empathetic intern Laura became a hardened and ruthless CEO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the tech industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a team of three computer programmers as they attempt to develop a new video game featuring a very scary monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gruesome video game monster came to life and hunted down its developers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A gruesome video game monster came to life and hunted down its developers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hardened businessman Peter Drummond betrayed the Clayton Software development team under his charge by stealing a backup CD containing their unique video game monster with a mind to selling it to a competing company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Drummond was a hardened, \"greed is good\" businessman who was ruthless in his efforts to enrich himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura was using VR headset to fight the \"Evilution\" video game monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hardened businessman Peter Drummond laughed of intern Laura's idea for dom-com startup based on a giving people things as a secret Santas - Drummond insisted that a business had to play on people desire to want things, rather than give them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bug gave his life to save those of his friends in an ultimately unsuccessful to destroy the video game monster run amok.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x05", "title": "Unexpected", "date": "2001-10-17", "description": "Commander Tucker helps an alien crew fix their engines, has an \"interspecies encounter\" in a holodeck, and returns to find himself pregnant.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol tut-tutted as Tucker, to his dismay, learned that unprotected cavorting with a cute alien babe could leave him pregnant with said alien babe's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a man who got pregnant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tucker got pregnant after an encounter with an alien woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tucker shagged Ah'Len in flagrant violation all guidelines for exobiological hygiene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker has an interspecies encounter in a holodeck aboard an alien ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inhospitable environment dwelling being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xyrillians lived in a strange environment full of noise that made Tucker hallucinate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker spends three days on an alien ship to help them repair their engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker got pregnant after a one night stand with Ah'Len.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "when in Rome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox advised T'Pol to try and fit in on Enterprise by consuming Human foods, instead of the Vulcan ones she was accustomed to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship's artificial gravity went out when Archer was in the shower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cloaked ship was trailing the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Universal translator used to communicate with Xyrillian aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker shagged an alien babe Ah'Len.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ah'Len taught Tucker to communicate telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was irritable and experienced uncomfortable physical manifestations during pregnancy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x06", "title": "Terra Nova", "date": "2001-10-24", "description": "Enterprise is sent to learn what happened to an early Human colony called Terra Nova.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise crew stumbled on a lost Earth colony whose inhabitants had disappeared. we were told the story of Earth's first colony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Crew contemplated forcing the less advanced Novans to abandon their planet and come back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer wish for Novans to trust that he was acting in their best interest and Archer showed trust in Jamin by giving him his pistol. Jamin asked Archer to trust him as the tracked down a cliff wall to rescue a Novan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass radiation poisoning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some sort of space radiation destroyed wiped out the deep space Earth colony and its civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol discovered evidence that an asteroid impact triggered the civilization ending mass radiation poisoning on Terra Nova colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew discovered a lost Earth colony that had taken to living in caverns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew contemplated forcing the Novans to abandon their planet and come back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement for peoples' own good", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew contemplated forcing the Novans to abandon their planet and come back to Earth in order to save them from certain death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some sort of space radiation destroyed wiped out the deep space Earth colony and its civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crew contacts lost Earth colony that forgot they had Human origins and considered themselves to be Novans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew was giddy with excitement about the possibility of contacting a lost deep space colony and none so more than Malcolm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer risked his life to save a drowning Novan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis and T'Pol discussed about the mysterious disappearance of this aviation pioneer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nadet and Jamin were astonished by the medical technology used on the Enterprise to treat Nadet's lung cancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: KPAX (2001)", "title": "K-PAX", "date": "2001-10-26", "description": "K-PAX is a 2001 American-German science fiction-mystery film based on Gene Brewer's 1995 novel of the same name, directed by Iain Softley, starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack, and Alfre Woodard.\n\nSynopsis: A psychiatric patient claims to be an alien from the planet K-PAX. During his treatment, the patient demonstrates an outlook on life that ultimately proves inspirational for his fellow patients and especially for his psychiatrist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-PAX_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prot was institutionalized for claiming to be an extraterrestrial from the planet K-PAX. More generally, the film is set in a psychiatric hospital full of mentally ill patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of being someone one is not", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Prot being institutionalized after claiming to be an extraterrestrial from the planet K-PAX.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prot's psychiatrist Dr. Mark Powell went above and beyond the call of duty to help him get well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the psychiatrist Dr. Mark Powell's treating of his presumed delusional patient Prot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prot was committed to a psychiatric hospital that was filled to the brim with stereotypically mentally ill people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story was that Prot may have been an alter ego that Robert Porter, a man who'd attempted suicide in after his wife and child were murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "The possibility was left open that Robert Porter fell under the delusion that he was an extraterrestrial in response to his wife and only child having been brutally murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was left open that Prot might actually have been an alien from the the planet K-PAX, 1,000 light years away in the Lyra constellation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The surgical mask and rubber glove wearing mental patient Ernie was a stereotypical hypochondriac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Powell had some passing interactions with his young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel Powell had some passing interactions with her young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark and Rachel Powell were happily married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychiatrist Dr. Mark Powell criticized a colleague for being too quick to resort to the use of medication in treating mentally ill patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Powell hypnotically regressed Prot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Porter's wife had been brutally raped by a home invader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Porter's wife and young daughter had been brutally slain by a home invader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that Robert Porter had attempted to throw himself off into a perilous river to his death after having discovered the murdered bodies of his wife and young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark was inspired by Prot to reconcile with his own estranged son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark was inspired by Prot to reconcile with his own estranged son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyclical time universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Prot, The universe was destined to expand, collapse back on itself, and then expand again in a forever repeating process.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Impostor (2001)", "title": "Impostor", "date": "2001-10-27", "description": "Impostor is a 2002 American science fiction psychological thriller film based upon the 1953 short story \"Impostor\" by Philip K. Dick.\n\nSynopsis: A famous weapons designer is accused of being an alien designed \"replicant\" and goes on the run from the authorities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Spencer and Maya Olham as their lives are turned upside down after Spencer is for treason and accused of being a replicant of the real Spencer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that Spencer was not Spencer so to speak, but rather a replicant of the real Spencer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Not only were Spencer and Maya in love with each other, but a revelation of the story is that their replicats were in love with one another too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spencer was trying his best to evade a manhunt that was on for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Maya believe in Spencer when he told her that he was the real Spencer and not a replicant? This matter she grappled with over a significant portion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the Alpha Centauri aliens infiltrating Earth with human replicants. In particular, Spencer was suspected of being a Centauri planted replicant by the government, and so he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a hostile alien race from Alpha Centauri who were nevertheless not depicted directly in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in 2079, forty-five years after Earth was attacked by a hostile and implacable alien civilization from Alpha Centauri, and follows humanity's desperate struggle to survive continuing attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was reported that the Tolstoy Colony had been annihilated by the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien spaceship that had traveled all the way from Alpha Centauri was shown attacking Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that democracy had given way to a global military government in the wake of Earth being attacked by aliens from Alpha Centauri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was argued that the newly formed authoritarian world government on Earth was better suited to prosecute the war against the Alpha Centauri aliens, and ensure the survival of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was under the rule of a world military government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Force field domes were in place of Earth's cities to protect them from alien attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer played a lead role in designing a super weapon to use against the Alpha Centauri aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer spoke of the Trinity test and subsequent nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The medical doctor Maya was briefly shown working at the veteran's hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was somewhat taken aback when his longtime friend Nelson failed to stand up for him when the authorities insisted that Spencer was a replicant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hathaway asserted that there was one thing the Spencer replicant couldn't take of Spencer's: his soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer detained on this charge for being a spy of the Alpha Centauri aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spencer was implanted with a bomb inside his heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Spencer replicant was programmed to assassinate the chancellor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hathaway examined a hologram that showed the anatomy of Spencer's body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x07", "title": "The Andorian Incident", "date": "2001-10-31", "description": "Captain Archer, Commander Tucker, and Sub-Commander T'Pol are taken hostage by Andorians in a Vulcan monastery called P'Jem.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "espionage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Andorians forcefully objected to Vulcan espionage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Andorians exposed clandestine Vulcan efforts to spy on their activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Andorians exposed covert Vulcan efforts to spy on their activities from a monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol guided the crew on proper protocols for interacting with Vulcan monks, who the crew were curious to meet. Phlox shared insights about cultural diversity with T'Pol. Archer connected with the Andorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was giddy about the prospect of visiting a planet with an ancient Vulcan monastery on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcan monks hypocritically endorsed nonviolence in dealing with the Andorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Landing party held captive by Andorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is value in diversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox explained about the Vulcan motto \"infinite diversity in infinite combinations\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andorians held Archer and his landing party hostage inside Vulcan monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was interrogated under torture by Shran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm used the transporter at great risk in an effort to free captives held by the Andorians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The One (2001)", "title": "The One", "date": "2001-11-02", "description": "The One is a 2001 American science fiction action film directed by James Wong, written by Wong and Glen Morgan, and starring Jet Li, Delroy Lindo, Carla Gugino, and Jason Statham.\n\nSynopsis: A rogue agent travels to parallel realities in order for him to kill other versions of himself to become a mythical super-being known as \"The One\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_(2001_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the former interdimensional police officer Gabriel Yulaw as he seeks to hunt down all variations of himself in alternate universes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabriel Yulaw was being pursued by MultiVerse Authority agents across multiple alternative realities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of an agency to police the multiverse, called the MultiVerse Authority, were after one of their own who'd gone rogue and started hunting down all variations of himself in alternate universes. In one such alternate universe, the viewer is shown Gabe Law's experiences working as a police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the LAPD police officer Gabe Law as a version of him from another universe, Gabriel Yulaw, tried to hunt him down and kill him. In the end, Gabe used his martial arts skills to defeat Gabriel in an epic one-on-one fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The buddy police detectives Evan Funsch and Harry Rodecker were pursuing their former colleague Gabriel Yulaw across multiple alternate realities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-actualization need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabriel Yulaw endeavored to become a superpowered-godlike being called \"The One\" by the simple expedient of killing 124 versions of his other selves and absorbing their life energies. And while his motivation for doing so was never spelled out, one gathers that it was bound up with his desire to realize his potential.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabriel Yulaw could run at at least a 50 mph clip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate realities, President George W. Bush had introduced universal healthcare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabriel Yulaw was strong enough to wield motorcycles as weapons and push over a metal streetlamp pole with a single hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe Law and his wife T.K. Law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe was devastated when Gabriel shot Gabe's wife dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe revolved to kill Gabriel to avenge Gabriel's killing of Gabe's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "MultiVerse Authority agents interdimensionally traveled from one alternate universe to another by means of wormholes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x08", "title": "Breaking the Ice", "date": "2001-11-07", "description": "Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Mayweather extract a rare chemical on a comet while Sub-Commander T'Pol considers marriage to Koss.\n\nDirected by: Terry Windell. Story by: Andre Jaquemetton & Maria Jaquemetton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space exploration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and the crew were elated at the discovery of a new comet that was bigger than any comet humans had ever seen and went on to explore it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Vulcan's circumspect way of communicate personal matters with T'Pol lead to suspicion and conflict with the humans lead by Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and crew elated at the discovery of a new comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol had to choose between marrying Koss and fulfilling her obligation to serve aboard the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conflict in this story arose from mistrust between the crew and T'Pol on the one hand and Archer and Vanik on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol vis a vis Archer and maybe other crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer initially refused Vanik's offer for help in the rescue of Malcolm and Travis from comet surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm Reed and Travis Mayweather became stranded on the surface of a comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi explained the workings of their universal translator in answer to an elementary school student's question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker read T'Pol's private message and then apologized to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had been arranged to Koss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and crew answered school children's letters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x09", "title": "Civilization", "date": "2001-11-14", "description": "Captain Archer and an away team go undercover to a pre-industrial civilization in order to investigate an unexpected sensor reading.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer decided to interfere in Akaali internal affairs against T'Pol's better judgment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Crew make first contact with middle age era civilization against the better judgment of T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Riaan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox made landing party look Akaali in facial appearance. The Malurians wore a form fitting masks to appear like an Akaali.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer's universal translator broke down and he was unable to communicate with Riaan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer's universal translator broke down and he was unable to communicate with Riaan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x10", "title": "Fortunate Son", "date": "2001-11-21", "description": "The cargo ship Fortunate is damaged by Nausicaan pirates and Enterprise offers a helping hand, only to find the acting-captain has secret plans.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: James Duff.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan was on a mission to take vengeance on the Nausicaans because Nausicaan pirates had killed his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nausicaan space pirates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan and the freighter people had to adapt to a changing world where the Federation was taking jurisdiction of space and making them give up their old cowboy ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan justified torturing the Nausicaan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan was loyal to his family and he questioned Mayweather's loyalty to his spacer family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan and Mayweather discussed attachment to their \"spacer\" families and spaceship homes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer objected to the Nausicaan being tortured, presumably on humanitarian grounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan and Captain Keane tossing a football in a low gravity environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matthew Ryan and Captain Keane tossing a football in a low gravity environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather showed Matthew Ryan the Enterprise transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather bonded with Matthew Ryan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hollowed out asteroid habitat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nausicaan pirates had a lair inside an asteroid.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x11", "title": "Cold Front", "date": "2001-11-28", "description": "Captain Archer learns that Crewman Daniels is covertly helping to fight the Temporal Cold War against Silik and members of the Suliban Cabal.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Stephen Beck & Tim Finch.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daniels traveled back in time to get Archer up to speed about the Temporal Cold War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Archer welcomed a group of space pilgrims aboard Enterprise, Phlox enthusiastically went about learning all learning everything he could about their religious beliefs, and even participated in their rituals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer decided to trust Daniels about his time traveling claims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniels and Archer walked through walls with the help of a handheld device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silik was genetically engineered to have various abilities, like being able to live in outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious festival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space pilgrims attending the Borothan religious event called Agosoria.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x19", "title": "Roswell That Ends Well", "date": "2001-12-09", "description": "\"Roswell That Ends Well\" is the 19th episode in the third season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 9, 2001. The plot centers on an accidental time travel event that results in the main characters participating in the Roswell UFO Incident in 1947.\n\nDirected by: Rich Moore. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team traveled back in time to the year 1947.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the 1940s from a far future perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry killed his own grandpa and then became his own grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learn that the Planet Express team was responsible for the Roswell UFO incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learn that the Planet Express team was responsible for the Roswell UFO incident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was concerned that his grandfather was gay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express time went to see a supernova explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enos Fry was engaged to Mildred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enos Fry questioned his sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry had a one night stand with his grandmother Mildred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Roswell people examined Zoidberg's crustacean anatomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry accidentally got his grandfather Enos Fry vaporized in an atom bomb test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth accused Fry of being a perverted dope for sleeping with his own grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry slept with his own grandmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry a Leela rescued Zoidberg using jet packs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Vanilla Sky (2001)", "title": "Vanilla Sky", "date": "2001-12-14", "description": "Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe. It is an English-language adaptation of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes.\n\nSynopsis: The life of a young man who has it all is thrown into disarray after a car accident leaves his face horribly disfigured.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The handsome young man David's life was turned upside down when his face was horribly disfigured in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "In David's virtual reality dream, he was involved with the beautiful young woman Sofia in spite of his face having been horribly disfigured in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was ultimately revealed that David had nearly all along been cryogenically preserved and was experiencing extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was ultimately revealed that David had killed himself, been cryogenically preserved, and was now inhabiting a virtual reality world that amounted to his own personal hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's prison psychologist Dr. McCabe was trying his best to help David make sense of his strange predicament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "David's only real friend Brian was trying to help him cope with having become horribly disfigured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In David's virtual reality dream, he was being held over having murdered his lover, Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "In David's virtual reality dream, he and Sofia were in the throws of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film was that David had been cryogenically preserved and was experiencing extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie went bonkers when she discovered that her love interest David wasn't into her anymore. A newly disfigured David was devastated when it became apparent that Sofia wasn't interested in him anymore as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David confided to his psychologist that he was afraid of heights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's ex-lover Julie tried to crash her car with the intent of killing them both, because she couldn't accept that David didn't want to be with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie was deeply disturbed over ex-lover David openly courting Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison psychologist Dr. McCabe was treating David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie deliberately took her own life, and tried to take her ex-lover David with her, by driving off of a bridge. David took his own live by overdosing on pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's memories after the point when he woke up hung over and miserable on the curb were deleted by the Life Extension company as part of his treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychologist Dr. McCabe was confronted by the reality that he was but a character in David's virtual reality dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should David choose to wake up from his virtual reality dream and live as a normal person in the real world or accept the tech support guy's offer to live in a virtual reality fantasy world for the foreseeable future?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was being held in a psychiatric prison of some sort.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters AllOut Attack (2001)", "title": "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack", "date": "2001-12-15", "description": "The film places Godzilla in an antagonistic role, possessed by the souls of those that were killed during the Pacific War, while Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Baragon team up to defeat it. It is the 25th film in the Godzilla franchise and the third film in the franchise's Millennium era, as well as the 25th Godzilla film produced by Toho.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla,_Mothra_and_King_Ghidorah:_Giant_Monsters_All-Out_Attack" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular monsters Mothra (a giant moth) and King Ghidorah (a giant three-headed dragon-like creature) saved Japan from the rampaging Godzilla, itself a dinosaur-like creature of gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yokohama and other places were the scenes of death and mass destruction when the titular monster Godzilla rampaged around Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"BS Digital Q\" media outlet reporter Yuri Tachibana's following of the Godzilla attacking Japan news angle was central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the reporter Yuri as she convinces her admiral father, Taizo, of the truth of an ancient legend stating that the trio of sacred beasts Mothra, Baguron, and King Ghidorah would come to save Japan from Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the souls of those who were killed during the Pacific War were embedded within Godzilla and were lashing out due to modern Japan's denial of its past crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "major", "motivation": "The female reporter Yuri was struggling to be taken seriously in a male dominated media landscape. She ultimately ignored the instructions of her various male superiors at the \"BS Digital Q\" media outlet and pursue the Godzilla story against their wishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A biker gang cut the head off of an old statue to an area man's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter Yuri spoke of how she wished she'd been born a man on account that women are expected to do as they are told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Tachibana's daughter, Yuri, was dropped off at their home in the middle of the night after having drank heavily at an izakaya with her coworkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An evening of hanging out and playing table tennis from a small group of young adults came to an early end when Godzilla stomped on their house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Embodied inside Godzilla were the souls of those who were killed during the Pacific War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A salaryman attempted to hand himself on a tree using his own necktie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Japanese government had kept secret that the Japan Self-Defense Forces could do nothing to stop Godzilla during its initial attack on Tokyo back in the 1950s.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x03", "title": "A Tale of Two Santas", "date": "2001-12-16", "description": "\"A Tale of Two Santas\" is the third episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 23, 2001.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Bill Odenkirk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "misfortune unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry concluded the story by saying that fear of Robot Santa makes everybody come together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry concluded the story by saying that fear of Robot Santa makes everybody come together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "major", "motivation": "New New York went on lock down in preparation for the arrival of Robot Santa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Robot Santa rampage through the streets of New New York in keeping with a 30th century Christmas tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter Cronkite's head was delivering the news as a TV new anchor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a delivery of children's letters to Robot Santa's compound on Neptune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Neptunian extraterrestrial", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robot Santa used Neptunians as his elves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was sentenced to death in the Magnicutioner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela stood up to Robot Santa who was bullying his Neptunian workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robot Santa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)", "title": "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius", "date": "2001-12-21", "description": "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 American computer-animated science fiction comedy film produced by Nickelodeon Movies, O Entertainment and DNA Productions, and distributed by Paramount Pictures.\n\nSynopsis: A schoolboy with super-genius intelligence must save all of the parents of the world from a race of egg-like aliens known as the Yolkians.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Neutron:_Boy_Genius" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The egg-like Yolkian aliens abducted all the adults in Retroville with the intention of sacrificing them to a gigantic three-eyed alien chicken.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 8-year-old boy Jimmy and his pals were going around doing stereotypical childhood things. Jimmy snuck out at night to go to an amusement park with his friends, got in trouble with his parents for having made a mess in the house, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of sending information out into space", "level": "major", "motivation": "By launching a communications satellite into space in the hopes of contacting alien life, Jimmy unwittingly supplied the Yolkians with the information they needed to abduct all the adults of Retroville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Jimmy and his friends to rescue the Retroville adults from their Yolian alien abductors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 8-year-old boy Jimmy and his school pals banded together to rescue the Retroville adults from their Yolkian alien abductors. In the end, and without any help from adults, the kids defeated the Yolkians and saved theirs parents from being sacrificed to the Yolkian god Poultra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy came to understand over the course of the film that he loved his father, Hugh, and never wanted to be without him again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jimmy came to understand over the course of the film that he loved his mother, Judy, and never wanted to be without her again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy was at times self-conscious about his small stature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy's sidekick Carl was a textbook nerd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugh and Judy Neutron were happily married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy's parents warned him to not talk to strangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy's parents warned him to not talk to strangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and Cindy rivaled here and there over who between them was the smartest kid in school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in elementary school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy did a show-and-tell about his shrink ray in front of his classmates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tardiness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Fowl chided Nick for having shown up late to class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy had invented a shrink ray.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Fowl was shrunken down to be about one inch in height. Jimmy shrank himself to be small enough to fit through a letter slot in a door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy was flying around by means of a jet pack that he'd invented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy had a trusty robotic pet dog, named Goddard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "using tough love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy's parents decided to ground him for having messed up the house after some deliberation on the matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yolkian aliens were traveling in outer space by means of futuristic chicken-shaped spacecraft. Jimmy oversaw the construction of a small fleet of fusion-powered spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Retroville kids partied for an entire day and night after it became apparent that all the adults had gone missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and his pals examined a holographic map of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceships Jimmy and his pals flew to the planet Yolkus were said to be equipped with fusion engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Jimmy and his pals fly to the planet Yolkus in an effort to rescue their parents even though there was a 5% chance they would all die or stay on Earth and leave their folks for dead? After some deliberation on the matter, they decided to take their chances and attempt the rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Jimmy and his pals fly to the planet Yolkus in an effort to rescue their parents even though there was a 5% chance they would blow up on the way? After some deliberation on the matter, they decided to take their chances and attempt the rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick told a ghost story while sitting around the campfire with the other children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Retroville parents had had mind control devices attached to their heads by the Yolkians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yolkians had every intention of ritually sacrificing the Retroville parents to their god Poultra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and his pals make a break from the Yolkian prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy cried while in jail because he felt it was all his fault that the Retroville parents had been abducted by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and his pals traveled to the distant planet Yolkus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick ran in abject terror from the gigantic three-eyed alien chicken Poultra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy and his pals took on a gigantic three-eyed alien chicken toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gigantic three-eyed alien chicken Poultra went berserk and started attacking everyone toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy used a special ray gun to expand himself to be about the size of a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy used a special ray gun to expand himself to be about the size of a planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jimmy came to regret having wished for \"no more parents\" after the Yolkian aliens came to Earth and whisked all the Retroville adults off to their home planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Project Viper (2002)", "title": "Project Viper", "date": "2002", "description": "Project Viper is a 2002 science-fiction thriller starring Patrick Muldoon, Theresa Russell, Curtis Armstrong and Tamara Davies that debuted as a Sci Fi Pictures TV-movie on the Sci Fi Channel. It was directed by Jim Wynorski under the pseudonym \"Jay Andrews\".\n\nSynopsis: A blob creature of human design runs amok in a rural community.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Viper" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Project Viper was a secret government project to develop a hybrid organism composed of human genes and computer chips that could adapt to any environment, particularly that of the planet Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a human-made blob creature composed of human genes and computer chips, designed to adapt to any environment, particularly that of the planet Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A blob monster was running amok in a rural community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of a rural community were being attacked one by one by a human-made blob monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Morgan was investigating a some strange goings on in his rural community, and also booted a stereotypical slimeball lawyer out of town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "major", "motivation": "A scary, charcoal gray, often be-tentacled blob creature invaded a sleepy rural community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rogue police officer and his wife tried to steal the second Project Viper experimental prototype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A townsman was dying from leukemia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the Project Viper experimental organism had been designed to terraform Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sheriff kicked a stereotypical slimeball lawyer out of town for allegedly trying to swindle the townspeople out of their money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike and Nancy briefly contemplated if the super oxidizing organism that was the fruit of the top secret Viper Project might not just overrun the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was uncovered that high levels of radioactivity in the town's water supply had led to a high than normal rate of cancer among the townspeople.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Teknolust (2002)", "title": "Teknolust", "date": "2002-01", "description": "Teknolust is a 2002 film written, produced, and directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson who, at the time of production, was working in the art department at University of California, Davis. It stars Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Davies.\n\nSynopsis: A scientist creates a trio of clones of herself.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teknolust" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of Rosetta creating three part DNA, part computer clones of herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rosetta, Sandy, and the three clones we all struggling to find love to varying degrees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ruby and Sandy fell in love in the end, as did Rosetta and Agent Hopper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three clones Ruby, Olive, and Marinne lived together inside a microwave as sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosetta was experimenting with \"self-replicating automatons\" in a scientific equipment laden university lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosetta combined her own DNA with microscopic \"self-replicating automatons\" to create clones of herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosetta's three clones were part her DNA and in some fashion part computer, making them technically cyborgs. However, their cyborg natures was not at all explored in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy's mother assured him that he'd one day find the right girl, and in the end he did in Ruby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men who'd had their Y chromosomes pilfered by the three female clones were left impotent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Hopper was investigating a possible bio-terrorist plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FBI operative Agent Hopper was investigating a possible bio-terrorist plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosetta discussed the morality of patenting DNA sequences with a colleague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Rosetta had lost her parents and siblings to a virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An itinerant preacher was urging people to prepare for life in the hereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosetta lost her virginity to Agent Hopper in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x18", "title": "Anthology of Interest II", "date": "2002-01-06", "description": "\"Anthology of Interest II\" is the 18th episode of Futurama's third season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 6, 2002. This episode, as well as the earlier \"Anthology of Interest I\", serves to showcase three \"imaginary\" stories.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: Lewis MortonDavid X. CohenJason Gorbett & Scott Kirby.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "gluttony", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became a fat human blob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hedonism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had no self-control whatsoever as a human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like if real life were more like a video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wizard of Oz was parodied in Leela's tale of interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of letting loose", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender encouraged the scientists to let loose and party hedonistically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nintendians invaded Earth for quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela choose to be a wicked witch instead of going home to live with her dirt poor family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The head of Richard Nixon signed a treaty with Donkey Kong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg lacked courage in Leela's tale of interest.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x12", "title": "Silent Enemy", "date": "2002-01-16", "description": "Ensign Sato tries to find out what Lieutenant Reed's favorite food is, while Captain Archer deals with a secretive and aggressive alien first contact.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We were shown that what seemed obvious to humans, such as answering a call and not attacking randomly for no reason, may not be so for an alien species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly private individual", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hoshi tried to get information out of Malcolm about what his favorite food is, but he was reluctant to reveal private information about himself to others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew stalked by powerful aliens trying to take over the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and Malcolm decided to prove they could refit the cannons just as well as the Jupiter station engineers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm misinterpreted Hoshi's inquiries about his favorite meal as a sign of being hit on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alien starship has an invisibility cloak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Tucker argued over taking shortcuts with setting up phases cannons that might put the ship in jeopardy. Archer reflected to Tucker that he had rushed the initial departure of the Enterprise from Earth at great risk to the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer discussed Malcolm with Malcolm's mom and dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer discussed Malcolm with Malcolm's mom and dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker got dumped like a sack of potatoes by his girlfriend because of the long distance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker got dumped like a sack of potatoes", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon 5: The Legend Of The Rangers (2002)", "title": "Babylon 5: The Legend Of The Rangers", "date": "2002-01-19", "description": "As the Shadow War ended, hundreds of civilizations were devastated. It is up to the Interstellar Alliance, with the help of the Rangers, to rebuild what the great war had destroyed and to hold peace among the worlds of the Interstellar Alliance. It is the sixth of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Babylon 5 Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Legend_of_the_Rangers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set aboard the futuristic battle cruiser Liandra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanoid aliens from multiple races are featured throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Martell was training at a Minbari staff martial art.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Martell was put on trial by Minbari council for having retreated in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Martell and his crew escort a group of diplomats to a certain planet where a conference was being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that a team of archaeologists excavated a billions of years old alien city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm used a special holographic device to make himself appear as G'Kar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Martell roughs up, and threatens to kill, a detained ambassador in an effort to get information about an enemy ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x13", "title": "Dear Doctor", "date": "2002-01-23", "description": "Doctor Phlox and Captain Archer must decide the fate of two species suffering from an evolutionary pandemic.\n\nDirected by: James A. Contner. Story by: Andre Jaquemetton & Maria Jaquemetton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Valakian were desperate to find a cure for a pandemic caused by their genetics, and that Phlox estimated would render them extinct within two centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer had to decide whether they intervene to save one intelligent species on the planet at the possible future expense of another intelligent species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox didn't want to cure the pandemic afflicting the Valakians on the ground that it would be interfering with the natural unfolding of nature, and with it the rise to prominence of the Menk hominids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew find alien civilization with two different hominid species coexisting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer makes efforts to help the Valakians in their search for a cure for the pandemic afflicting them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox thought Elizabeth Cutler was romantically interested in him, and she was, but she had to clear up that she wasn't interested in becoming his fourth wife in a polygamous marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Denobulans, Vulcans, and Humans were all compared, especially with regard to mating rituals and bodily contact throughout the Phlox and Elizabeth Cutler storyline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was remarked how on Earth only one species of hominid survived the evolutionary process, while on the alien world two had survived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew find alien civilization with two different hominid species coexisting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Valakian were desperate to find a cure for a pandemic caused by their genetics. The Enterprise offered to aid in searching for a cure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew, especially Elizabeth Cutler, thought the Menk were oppressed, but the Menk saw themselves in more of a symbiotic relationship with the Valakian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was feeding Porthos cheese again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was teaching Hoshi the Denobulan language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the language industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was teaching Hoshi the Denobulan language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi was using the universal translator with some difficulty to community with the Valakians and the Menk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox explained to Elizabeth Cutler how Denobulans were polygamous by nature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x14", "title": "Sleeping Dogs", "date": "2002-01-30", "description": "Ensign Sato, Lieutenant Reed and Sub-Commander T'Pol attempt to help an unresponsive Klingon ship escape the crushing pressures of a gas giant.\n\nDirected by: Les Landau. Story by: Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and the crew took risks to help stranded Klingons and got nothing but ingratitude for their efforts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew confronted with Klingons notions of honor, duty, the warrior mentality. They were also confronted with unappealing Klingon cuisine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an inhibition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi plucked up the courage to volunteer for a dangerous away mission to investigate a vessel trapped inside the atmosphere of a gas giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon crew felt that being crushed to death in the atmosphere of a gas giant was a dishonorable way to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the common cold", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm was battling a cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew dropped out of warp to explore a class 9 gas giant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Voices of a Distant Star (2002)", "title": "Voices of a Distant Star", "date": "2002-02", "description": "The story follows the lives of two close childhood friends, a boy and a girl, who get separated once the girl is sent into space to fight in a war against aliens. As the 15-year-old girl goes deeper and deeper into space, the texts she sends take longer to reach the Earth; the film simultaneously follows her battles and the boy's life as he receives her texts over the years.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_a_Distant_Star" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the near future when Earth has colonized space out as far as the moons of Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mikako traveled eight light-years on the spacecraft carrier Lysithea to the fourth planet of the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mikako and Noboru's love for each other transcended time and space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mikako and Noboru were both lonely without each other after she left Earth on an eight light-year voyage to the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 16-year-old Mikako didn't age on her eight light-year voyage to the Sirius star system, and, as a result, her old schoolmate on Earth was a 25 year old by the time she reached her destination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The schoolgirl Mikako was recruited into the UN Space Army to fight in a big war against a group of aliens called the Tarsians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a number of futuristic UN Space Army spacecraft, including the spacecraft carrier Lysithea..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans had encountered a group of aliens called the Tarsians on the planet Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mikako piloted a giant mecha robot, called a Tracer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mikako traveled on the spacecraft carrier Lysithea past Mars, Jupiter and Pluto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doppelgänger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mikako encountered her doppelgänger on the fourth planet in the Sirius star system of all places.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2009: Lost Memories (2002)", "title": "2009: Lost Memories", "date": "2002-02-01", "description": "2009: Lost Memories (Korean: 2009 로스트메모리즈; 2009 Loseutumemorijeu) is a 2002 South Korean science fiction action film directed by Lee Si-myung, adapted from the 1987 novel Looking for an Epitaph by Bok Geo-il.\n\nSynopsis: It is 2009 in an alternate timeline where the Korean Peninsula is still part of Imperial Japan due to a time travel incident in 1909.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009:_Lost_Memories" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alternate history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film presents an alternate timeline where the Empire of Japan emerged from the Pacific War with its colonial empire intact, and explores what contemporary Korea might have been like under Japanese colonial rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores life in Seoul in an alternate future where Imperial Japan has annexed the Korea Peninsula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the Hureisenjin rebels as they fight to free Korea from being a colony of the Empire of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the Japanese right-wing nationalist Inoue traveling back in time to the year 1909 to prevent the assassination of Resident-General of Korea Ito Hirobumi. This he did knowing it would trigger a series of events resulting in Imperial Japan coming out of World War II with its colonial empire intact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Japanese Bureau of Investigation agent Masayuki Sakamoto, as he comes to learn about, and ultimate value his Korean roots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Korean nationalist Hureisenjin rebels were seen as criminal terrorists by the Japanese authorities and a band of people opposing Japanese imperial rule by some portion of the indigenous Korean population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Japanese Bureau of Investigation agents Masayuki Sakamoto and Shojiro Saigo as they investigate a terrorist organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the relationship between Masayuki Sakamoto and his partner at the Japanese Bureau of Investigation Shojiro Saigo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were the buddy cops Masayuki Sakamoto and Shojiro Saigo finding themselves on opposite sides of a Korean/Japanese conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masayuki Sakamoto increasingly came to see over the course of the film that not everything was hunky-dory with the Korean Peninsula being a colony of the Japanese Empire. In the end, he traveled back in time and set things right from his point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the alternate timeline, World War II ended with Berlin getting nuked instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inoue traveled back in time to 1909 to prevent Ito Hirobumi from being assassinated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Knowledge that the timeline had been altered was limited to only the highest levels of Japan's government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shojiro Saigo beloved his kid daughter Keiko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuriko was shown caring for her young daughter Keiko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shojiro Saigo traveled back in time in the end in an effort to prevent his wive Yuriko from winking out of existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masayuki Sakamoto was ashamed that his father had been a corrupt cop, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chief Takahashi set up Masayuki Sakamoto on a murder charge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Agent Shojiro Saigo help his fellow agent and longtime friend Masayuki Sakamoto evade the law or should he turn Sakamoto in?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Shojiro Saigo let his friend and partner on the force Masayuki Sakamoto escape, rather than let him be captured by the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Korean nationalists despised their Japanese overlords. In particular, the boy Minjae, who'd father died fighting the Japanese, rhetorically asked Sakamoto whether he knew how many Koreans died because of \"you guys\" (i.e. the Japanese colonial authorities).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Minjae gazed wistfully at photos of his deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masayuki Sakamoto mourned the death of young Minjae.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x15", "title": "Shadows of P'Jem", "date": "2002-02-06", "description": "Sub-Commander T'Pol is recalled to Vulcan. During her final away mission, she and Captain Archer are kidnapped, leading to another confrontation between Vulcans and Andorians.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans turned away from the human alliance because of the actions of the Andorians. T'Pol was recalled from Enterprise by Vulcan authorities in protest for Human actions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Andorians objected to being spied on by the Vulcans yet spied on the Vulcans themselves without compunction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of a rebel faction resisting the recognized Coridanite government held Archer and T'Pol hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol bonded while being held hostage by Coridanite rebels. Archer bonded a bit with T'Pol, both deliberately and then by being taken hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Members of a rebel faction forcefully resisting the recognized Coridanite government held Archer and T'Pol hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol were held hostage by a rebel faction resisting the recognized Coridanite government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol stepped in front of a plasma bullet to save Archer and Archer suggested that it was not the first time she had sacrificed herself in service of the Enterprise. T'Pol went above and beyond at the end and it was implied that she had done so time and again in service of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew negotiated with the Coridanite rebels in order to free Archer and T'Pol who were held hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crew favored negotiating with rebels to free Archer and T'Pol, but the Vulcan captain Sopek took the initiative and raided the compound where they were being held.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and the crew diverted from their course to visit the alien world of Coridan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran helped rescue Archer in order to make good on a debt he felt he owed to Archer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rollerball (2002)", "title": "Rollerball", "date": "2002-02-08", "description": "Rollerball is a 2002 remake of the 1975 science-fiction film of the same name. Directed by John McTiernan, it stars Chris Klein, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn, and Naveen Andrews.\n\nSynopsis: Two \"rollerball\" superstars discover that the powers that be are putting players lives at risk to increase the sport's popularity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular sport Rollerball was an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles and a metal ball that had taken the world by storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and Marcus uncovered that the rollerball promoter Alexi was deliberately arranging to put player lives at risk in order to increase the popularity of the sport, and his profits as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and his fellow rollerball teammate Aurora were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan and his rollerball teammate Aurora were besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists Jonathan and Marcus were rollerball teammates and also best buddies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonathan was into burning rubber on the freeway in fancy sports cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aurora was self-conscious about a conspicuous facial scar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x03", "title": "Love and Rocket", "date": "2002-02-10", "description": "\"Love and Rocket\" is the third episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 10, 2002. The show is a Valentine's Day-themed episode that centers on Bender's relationship with the artificial intelligence of the Planet Express Ship. The subplot involves Fry trying to express his feelings for Leela thorough the use of Valentine's Day candy. The episode parodies 2001: A Space Odyssey.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Planet Express ship at Bender. Fry was trying to convey to Leela how much he loved her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and new Planet Express ship personality became an item. Leela mentioned about her breakup with Shawn. Amy mentioned Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a parody on people in a heterosexual relationship not getting along well due to stereotypical gender attributes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was unfaithful to Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender backed out of his relationship with Planet Express ship after she became serious about their future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clingy girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Planet Express ship was clingy to Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Planet Express ship coped badly with Bender dumping she/it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "HAL going haywire and trying to kill everyone in 2001: A Space Odyssey was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express ship behaved as a living being after being installed with a HAL-like AI.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express ship was run by a HAL-like AI.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Planet Express Ship was jealous of the fembots that Bender was running around with behind her engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inattentive male partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was an inattentive boyfriend to Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered a shipment of love heart candies to Omicron Persei 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry gave Leela his oxygen supply.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x16", "title": "Shuttlepod One", "date": "2002-02-13", "description": "After finding debris from Enterprise, Lieutenant Reed and Commander Tucker are stranded in a shuttlepod far from help.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "optimist vs. pessimist", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Reed and Tucker contrasted these two general outlooks on life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Reed and Tucker disagreed about how to spend their time in the shuttlepod but had to learn to get along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm and Tucker while stranded in shuttlepod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm and Tucker were stranded in a shuttlepod and they thought the prospects of being rescued were nil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was pessimistic about his a Tucker's prospects of being rescued and accepted that he was going to die, in contrast with Tucker who held out hope of getting rescued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "major", "motivation": "Reed's desire to leave messages to his survivors and posterity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reed and Tucker thought back to their time in Starfleet Academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reed fantasized about T'Pol finding him courageous, the Tucker showed him up by trying to sacrifice himself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Malcolm reflected on the presumed loss of the Enterprise crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm expressed regret that he didn't let his family and friends get more close to him in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Malcolm drunk in the shuttlepod talking about T'Pol's good looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker tried to shoot himself out of the airlock to give Malcolm a better chance of surviving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm had an erotic dream involving T'Pol.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x02", "title": "Leela's Homeworld", "date": "2002-02-17", "description": "\"Leela's Homeworld\" is the second episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 17, 2002. \"Leela's Homeworld\" was written by Kristin Gore and directed by Mark Ervin. The episode reveals Leela's true origin as a mutant who was abandoned by her parents so she could have a better life. She was disguised as an alien, as it is illegal for mutants to live on the surface.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: Kristin Gore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela coped with being an orphan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela discovered that her parents were mutants, and not aliens as she had been led to believe all her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "waste management", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewers were polluted with green, glowing toxic waste. Also, Bender was polluting the sewers with regular kinds of waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a wide range of quasi-human mutants. Leela met her mutant parents and found out that she herself was a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mutants were discriminated against on account of their hideous looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela met her mother and father for the first time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with an institutionalized social stratification", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Life at an orphanage was depicted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela's parents Turanga Morris and Turanga Munda.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x17", "title": "Fusion", "date": "2002-02-27", "description": "Enterprise encounters a crew of emotional Vulcans; Sub-Commander T'Pol experiences an illicit mind meld, with unsettling results.\n\nDirected by: Rob Heddon. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "we need a balance between rationality and emotionality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol was overwhelmed with emotions when she ceased her nightly meditations at the behest of a band of visiting Vulcan dissidents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol was overwhelmed with emotions when she ceased her nightly meditations at the behest of a band of visiting Vulcan dissidents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A band of emotion embracing Vulcans were eager to get to know the Enterprise crew and explore their customs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol get overwhelmed from releasing her suppressed emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppressed emotion", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol had suppressed emotions that were coming close to the surface according to with Vulcans who embraced their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol went bonkers after ceasing her nightly meditations and her suppressed emotions came to the surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kov had a falling out with his father, and the father was dying and wished to talk with his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kov with his estranged father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "major", "motivation": "Visiting Vulcans openly explored their emotional sides and encouraged T'Pol to do the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was actively suppressing her emotions in contrast with the Vulcans who embraced their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was excited to explore the Arachnid Nebula, which he had been interested in since his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually distinguished being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kov explained the seven year Vulcan mating cycle to Tucker and Malcolm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kov's father told him that he had brought shame on 15 generations of their family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker reminisced to Kor about the first time he went to a school dance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol experienced a mind meld.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x10", "title": "Where the Buggalo Roam", "date": "2002-03-03", "description": "\"Where the Buggalo Roam\" is the tenth episode in season three of the animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 3, 2002. The title is a reference to the movie \"Where the Buffalo Roam\".\n\nDirected by: Patty Shinagawa. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "indigenous rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wong's tricked the Native Martians into selling Mars for one lousy bead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martians patterned after Native Americans rustled the Wong family's buggalo and kidnapped Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Martians were patterned after stereotypical Native Americans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif felt a need to prove his manliness to Amy's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wong's tricked the Native Martians into selling Mars for one lousy bead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif felt a need to prove his manliness to Amy's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif in contrast with Branigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wong family with Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wong family owned the entire western hemisphere of Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team visited the Wong ranch on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy and the buggalo Betsy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg took the liberty of fertilizing Mr. Wong's caviar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chameleon-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif had a camouflage instinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif vis-à-vis Amy's ex's friends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Time Machine (2002)", "title": "The Time Machine", "date": "2002-03-08", "description": "The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film loosely adapted by John Logan from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells and the screenplay of the 1960 film of the same name by David Duncan.\n\nSynopsis: A 19th century New York inventor constructs a machine that enables him to travel into the distant future; once there, he discovers that mankind's descendants have divided into two species, the primitive and passive Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is Alexander's inventing of a time machine contraption that he uses to travel into Earth's distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Alexander traveled 800,000 years into Earth's future to find that humankind had divided into two distinct species: the primitive and passive Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander beloved his departed fiancée Emma and spend a considerable portion of the film trying to figure out a way to go back in time and save her. Mara became Alexander's new love interest in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mole people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks were quasi-nocturnal human offshoots that lived underground and feared fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Morlocks lived entirely underground, save for their expeditions to hunt the Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "it's the future that matters not the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Alexander came to accept that he could not go back in time and save his fiancée Emma, instead resolved reshape the future by destroying the Morlocks, and in so doing give the Eloi hope for a bright future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alexander couldn't accept that his fiancée Emma had died, and resolved to go back in time to save her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander, an associate professor of applied mechanics and engineering at Columbia University, was shown teaching a class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander proposed to Emma and she accepted. Immediately thereafter a would-be mugger shot her dead before Alexander's eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man mugged Alexander and Emma at gunpoint moments after Emma accepted Alexander's hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander interacted with his housekeeper Mrs. Watchit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander's good friend Philby was there for Alexander after Emma died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A despondent Alexander realized that any attempt to save his fiancée Emma would result in her death through other circumstances. The Morlock leader explained that this was owing to some manner of temporal paradox or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander encountered a sentient holographic librarian named Vox 114.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexander blamed himself for his lover Emma getting shot dead by a mugger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In 2037, Alexander saw a commercial for the Lunar Leisure Living colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Eloi lived in health and harmony with no metal tools and no word for \"stolen\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The accidental destruction of the Moon by lunar colonists had render the Earth virtually uninhabitable at some point in the near future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philby wondered if humankind would ever \"go too far\" in response to hearing about Einstein's theories. Alexander exclaimed \"You were right, Philby. I did go too far.\" after learning that lunar colonists had accidentally shattered the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vox 114 shared his appreciation of science fiction literature with Alexander.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vox 114 was a holographic artificial intelligence librarian at the New York Public Library in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Morlocks had a caste system which featured mindless hunters and a ruling elite of telepaths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Morlock leader read Alexander's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Morlock hunters were little more than fierce ape-like monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fierce, ape-like Morlock hunters were at one point hunting down terrified Eloi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vox 114 explained how the complacent Eloi had no knowledge of the past and no ambition for the future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Panic Room (2002)", "title": "Panic Room", "date": "2002-03-09", "description": "Panic Room is a 2002 American thriller film directed by David Fincher. The film stars Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart as a mother and daughter whose new home is invaded by burglars, played by Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and Dwight Yoakam. The script was written by David Koepp, whose screenplay was inspired by news coverage in 2000 about panic rooms.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_Room" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a recently divorced mother, Meg, and her adolescent daughter, Sarah, as they attempt to wait out a trio of home invaders in a secret room, specially designed to be invulnerable to attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of criminals plotted to steal a fortune in U.S. bonds from a secret safe in what they thought to be an empty condo. However, the condo having been recently moved into by a mother and her young daughter, complicated their heist to no end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Med and Sarah were terrorized in their new condo by a trio of burglars. They would have stood no chance had it not been for the fortunate presence of a secret room, specially designed to be invulnerable to attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Three burglars were lusting to make it away from the condo with the fortune in U.S. bonds that lay hidden there in a secret room. Their not being content to divide up the fortune equally led to mistrust and infighting that ultimately doomed their enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Meg and Sarah were in mortal fear of the home invaders. Their only chance was to stay hunkered down in a secret room, specially designed to be invulnerable to attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores family breakdown from the adolescent girl Sarah's point of view. Sarah was resentful toward her father over the divorce, and felt abandoned by him. Sarah also pointedly held herself together in the face of a home invasion by a trio of burglars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Burnham was the only one of the three burglars with anything resembling a conscience. He urged his two accomplices to take the carrot approach to get Meg and Sarah to leave the \"panic room\" on multiple occasions. He also took pity on Sarah in the midst of her medical crisis, and gave her a life saving insulin injection. In the end, Burnham risked capture by going back to the condo to save the family from the wrath of his sadistic accomplice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meg and her adolescent daughter, Sarah, were adjusting to life in the immediate wake of Meg's divorce. Specifically, the pair were spending their first night in a new condo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah's bitterness toward her father over the divorce was evidenced by her cursing of him (\"Fuck him.\") and his new wife (\"Fuck her, too.\").", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meg said \"It's disgusting how much I love you.\" to her adolescent daughter, Sarah, in a moment of crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the burglars quipped that Junior was in for seven years bad luck as a result of breaking a mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Early on in their ordeal, the burglars urged Meg and Sarah to trust them that the pair would be left unharmed so long as they cooperated with their demands. Meg and Sarah thought better of it after briefly considering the offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After some time in the panic room, Meg reassured Sarah that she was okay being in such a confined space. They subsequently conversed on the subject of premature burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insulin injection brought Sarah back from a state of diabetic shock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen went to the condo after receiving a desperate call for help from his ex-wife, Meg. Once on the scene, he urged Meg and his daughter, Sarah, to stay locked in the titular \"panic room\", even if it meant he suffered further physical harm at the hands of the burglars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meg dealt with two cops that came knocking at 4 AM. The police arrived at the condo to clean up the mess in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to crack a safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Burnham used a powerful drill, among other special tools, to forcibly open the safe hidden in the titular \"panic room\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x17", "title": "A Pharaoh to Remember", "date": "2002-03-10", "description": "\"A Pharaoh to Remember\" is the seventeenth episode in the third season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 10, 2002. The episode's title references the title of the 1957 film An Affair to Remember.\n\nDirected by: Mark Ervin. Story by: Ron Weiner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender's friends, Fry in particular, threw a funeral party for him to help cheer up the robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be remembered", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender worried he was doomed to fade away into obscurity and tried to do something so that people would remember his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender sought fame and a legacy to leave behind after he was gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bender trying to do something so that people would remember his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Ancient Egyptian stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew members were enslaved by space Egyptians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "egocentrism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was totally self-centered and wanted everyone to appreciate his self-perceived greatness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ancient Egyptian religion was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team mourned Bender at his mock funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew members were enslaved by space Egyptians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered a giant sandstone block to people of the planet O'Cyris IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The theory that aliens gave the Ancient Egyptians technology was parodied. In this case, it was the Ancient Egyptians who gave the aliens how to build pyramids and travel in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "narcissism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pharaoh Bender had a gigantic monument of himself built.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil (2002)", "title": "Resident Evil", "date": "2002-03-15", "description": "Resident Evil is a 2002 science fiction action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. It is the first installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name. The film was initially titled Resident Evil: Ground Zero but was retitled after the September 11 attacks.\n\nSynopsis: An amnesiac heroine and a band of private commandos attempt to contain the outbreak of zombie creating virus at a secret underground facility.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about a group of people trying to escape from an underground facility that is infested with flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about a group of people trying to escape from an underground facility that is infested with flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heroine of the story Alice woke up with amnesia at the start of the story and gradually regained her memories thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the Umbrella Corporation's conduction of illegal genetic research, leading to the creation of a virus, known as the T-virus, that turned people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, that turned people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, that turned people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The secret underground facility was controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence, known as the Red Queen. Notably, it adopted the persona of a young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Queen artificial intelligence once manifested itself as a hologram of a young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt searched for information about his sister, only to find her zombified body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt was a bit shaken up after Alice bashed in his zombified sister's skull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Not wanting to be torn to pieces by zombies, Spence put a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger, only to discover it was out of bullets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x20", "title": "Godfellas", "date": "2002-03-17", "description": "\"Godfellas\" is the 20th episode in the third production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 17, 2002. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Susie Dietter. It features Bender becoming the god of a tiny civilization, and explores various religious issues. The episode won the first Writers Guild of America Award for animation.\n\nDirected by: Susie Dietter. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being lost in space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was doomed to drift through space forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was doomed to drift through space forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry refused to stop searching for Bender ever though Leela implored him to give up hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry refused to stop searching for Bender ever though Leela implored him to give up hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tiny humanoids, called Shrimpkins, who lived on Bender's body worshiped the robot as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry pointedly grieved for his friend Bender who was presumed to be lost in space forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the pirate stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space pirates raided the Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Lilliputian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tiny humanoids, called Shrimpkins, who lived on Bender's body worshiped the robot as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became the god of a race of tiny humanoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Shrimpkins destroyed themselves in a nuclear war on Bender's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Shrimpkins engages in a war of faith on Bender's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christian religion was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew was attacked by space pirates while traveling in interstellar space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender learned that answering the prayers of the Shrimpkins only made things worse for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender met some kind of god-like being that was probably the remains of a space probe that collided with god.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x18", "title": "Rogue Planet", "date": "2002-03-20", "description": "Enterprise finds a sunless solitary planet with a small group of aliens who are hunting \"wraiths\", an indigenous telepathic and shape-shifting species.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rogue planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crew stumbled on a rogue planet and went to investigate it. T'Pol speculated that the planet was once gravitationally bound to a star but had been thrown out from its orbit. T'Pol described how life on the planet was distributed in a number of oases unlike on Earth. Also the landing party was in total darkness on the planet surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eska took pleasure in hunting on rogue planet and had done so for generations. Malcolm enthusiastically went on safari with a party of Eska hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wraith communicated telepathically with Archer. In general, the wraiths read the minds of those around them an assumed the form of what people wanted them to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eska were surreptitiously tracking down a sentient, telepathic, shapeshifting alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eska were hunting a species of shapeshifter indigenous to the rogue planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer explained how the shapeshifter appeared to him as the embodiment of his idea of the perfect woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crew explained how humans had outgrown the barbarism of killing animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew stumbled on a rogue planet and sent a landing party down to scientifically investigate it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol explained that Vulcans, unlike Humans, were valued for their achievements rather than their looks.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x19", "title": "Acquisition", "date": "2002-03-27", "description": "A group of Ferengi hijack Enterprise, but Commander Tucker, Captain Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol resist the pirates in order to win back their ship.\n\nDirected by: James Whitmore, Jr. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Enterprise is taken over by a band of Ferengi looking rob the ship's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A band of profit hungry Ferengi took over the Enterprise with intentions of robbing the ship's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer sowed mistrust among Ferengi raiders and it lead to them failing to complete their objective of robbing the ship's vault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krem was looking down upon for his lack of business acumen by his cousin and superior, Ulis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was relieved to find Porthos safe and sound after the Enterprise was raided by Ferengi pirates.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Clockstoppers (2002)", "title": "Clockstoppers", "date": "2002-03-29", "description": "Clockstoppers is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Jonathan Frakes and produced by Gale Anne Hurd and Julia Pistor.\n\nSynopsis: A teenager comes into possession of a wristwatch that when activated speeds up its wearer's molecules to the point where the world appears in standstill.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockstoppers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time freeze", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is a time freezing wristwatch and Zak's using thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zak had a strained relationship with his father, Dr. Gibbs, feeling that he was putting science ahead of family. They did, however, reconcile in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zak had a strained relationship with his father, Dr. George Gibbs, feeling that he was putting science ahead of family. They did, however, reconcile in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Quantum Tech Corporation CEO Henry Gates plotted on using the time freezing wristwatches the company had developed to clandestinely dominate the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were the high school students Zak and Francesca falling head over heels for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were the high school students Zak and Francesca falling head over heels for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a wristwatch that when activated sped up its wearer's molecules to the point where the world appears in standstill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gibbs told his students that not being able to be seen when traveling sufficiently fast relative to other people is a basic example of Einstein's theory of relativity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small group of high school students were shown learning about Einstein's theory of relativity in a classroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a scene of Dr. Gibbs teaching Einstein's theory of relativity to a small class of high school students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Zak interacted with his mother, Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Kelly interacted with her mother, Jenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Zak briefly quarreled with his younger sister, Kelly,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Kelly interacted with her father, Dr. Gibbs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Jenny Gibbs were more or less happily married with two teenage children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl Dopler aged about 20 years after tested out a prototype time speeding up wristwatch. Dr. Gibbs likewise aged prematurely after trying out the wristwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Meeker was an aspiring DJ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak used his time speed up wristwatch to help his best friend Meeker win a DJ contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak quipped that \"with such awesome power comes awesome responsibility\" to Francesca after the two played some practical jokes with the help of his time freezing wristwatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak and Francesca moved a peeing dog into a police woman's cruiser as a practical joke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zak was arrested for having stolen a van.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were on Zak's tail toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gibbs characterized the Quantum Tech Corporation people as terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gibbs inadvertently reversed aged his colleague Earl Dopler back into a teenager.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x21", "title": "Future Stock", "date": "2002-03-31", "description": "\"Future Stock\" is the 21st episode in the third production season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 31, 2002 as the ninth episode in the fourth broadcast season.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Aaron Ehasz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Cutthroat businessman and CEO Gordon Gekko take over Planet Express and try to gut it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko wanted to advance his career by running Planet Express into the ground and getting out with lots of kickbacks. Gordon Gekko inspired Fry to try and climb the corporate ladder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone wanted to be rich on their stock. Gordon Gekko wanted to get rich by taking over Planet Express and gutting it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Fry chose friendship over riches to his friends' collective dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko froze himself after being diagnosed with bone-itis in the 1980s and was revived and became CEO of Planet Express.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko took Fry under his wing and taught him how to be a corporate stooge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko taught Fry the ins and outs of how to be a corporate sleezeball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko taught Fry the importance of maintaining an image.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth woke up not knowing where he was twice on stage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom and her three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom vs. the Planet Express team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were Jewish robots holding a bar mitzvah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko cryogenically preserved himself in the 1980s after being diagnosed with bone-itis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stock brokers were flying around using jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon Gekko forgot to cure his bone-itis.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x20", "title": "Oasis", "date": "2002-04-03", "description": "Captain Archer and an away team find a mysterious crew apparently alive on a ship that crash-landed years ago.\n\nDirected by: Jim Charleston. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Stephen Beck.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ezral's crew were all simulated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker had a crush on Liana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ezral felt at home living on his wrecked ship with his daughter, but felt bad about keeping here there secluded from society, and decided to leave together for her sake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer explained coffee etc. to D'Marr. Tucker explained pets and ice cream to Liana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezral expressed remorse at having gotten his crew killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezral expressed remorse at having gotten his crew killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maya disapproved of her daughter Liana fraternizing with the Enterprise crew, especially Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ezral and Liana were living alone on a wrecked ship and simulated their deceased crew-members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Landing party visited a ghost ship and experience/discuss fear to various degrees.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x16", "title": "A Leela of Her Own", "date": "2002-04-07", "description": "\"A Leela of Her Own\" is the sixteenth episode in the third season of the animated series Futurama. The episode is an homage to A League of Their Own. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 7, 2002. Bob Uecker provided the voice of himself, Tom Kenny provided the voice of Abner Doubledeal, and Hank Aaron guest starred as himself and Hank Aaron XXIV.\n\nDirected by: Swinton O. Scott III. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became a role model for girls and women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "equal career opportunities for women", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was the first woman in major league Blurnsball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was the Blurnsball player worst ever. Hank Aaron's descendant was formerly considered to be the worst Blurnsball player ever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was passionate about becoming the first woman to play professional Blurnsball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insectoid husband and wife opened a pizza shop near Planet Express headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The head of Bob Uecker called a Blurnsball game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was hostile to his new immigrant neighbors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was hostile to his new immigrant neighbors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leaving one's old life behind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An insectoid immigrant couple left their old planet to start a pizza business in New New York.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x22", "title": "The 30% Iron Chef", "date": "2002-04-14", "description": "\"The 30% Iron Chef\" is the 22nd episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 14, 2002. Bender aspires to be a cook for the Planet Express crew, but the meals he produces are awful. One day, Bender overhears the crew complaining about one of his meals and is overcome by feelings of worthlessness and self-pity.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Jeff Westbrook.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Plants mysteriously died whenever Bender cooked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was crushed to discover the Planet Express team hated his cooking. Helmut Spargle failed as a TV chef and faded into obscurity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender wanted to be a good cook in spite of lacking certain fundamental requirements such as a sense of taste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Bender's inability to understand human taste because he was a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was framed by Zoidberg and accused of breaking the Professor's bottle with a spaceship in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender sought to get vengeance on Elzar for having ruined the career of his cooking mentor Helmut Spargle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg was racked with unbearable guilt over having framed Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth dumped his Bender cooked brunch into a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Washed up TV cook Helmut Spargle mentored Bender in the ways of cooking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha Stewart's head judged a cooking contest between Bender and Elzar.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x11", "title": "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", "date": "2002-04-21", "description": "\"Where No Fan Has Gone Before\" is the eleventh episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 21, 2002. Set in a retro-futuristic 31st century, the series follows the adventures of the employees of Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company. In this episode, the Planet Express team and most of the main cast of Star Trek: The Original Series face a court-martial after visiting the forbidden planet Omega 3.\n\nDirected by: Patty Shinagawa. Story by: David A. Goodman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The incorporeal alien Melllvar held the Planet Express crew and Star Trek actors captive on his planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melllvar held the Planet Express crew and Star Trek actors captive on his planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Star Trek actors had to put up with annoying fans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obsessive fan", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Star Trek actors had to put up with annoying fans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The episode was centered around the Star Trek franchise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Star Trek actor heads were featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew traveled to the Omega system in search of banned Star Trek tapes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan court-martialed the Planet Express crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melllvar pitted the Planet Express crew against the Star Trek actors in a battle to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melllvar's mother came to get him in the middle of the fight to the death he had arranged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical revisionism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The powers that be forbade any mention of Star Trek and people pretended it never was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had an abortive tryst with William Shatner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melllvar was 34 and living in his parent's basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan court-martialed the Planet Express crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x21", "title": "Detained", "date": "2002-04-24", "description": "Captain Archer and Ensign Mayweather find themselves imprisoned in a Suliban internment camp run by the Tandarans.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and Mayweather find themselves imprisoned in a Suliban internment camp run by the Tandarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Suliban were being held by Tandarans in an interment camp even though they were non-combatants in the war with the Suliban Cabal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Suliban were being held by Tandarans in an interment camp even though they were non-combatants in the war with the Suliban Cabal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Tandarans were prejudiced against Suliban minority group and interred them when they got into a war against the Suliban Cabal. Maywearther called out Sajen for being prejudiced against non-Suliban.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grat had Archer's and Mayweather's DNA tested to ensure they were not actually Suliban shapeshifted into Human form. The Suliban were said to be shapeshifters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners' rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was denied the possibility of contacting his ship to inform them he and Mayweather were interred in a Tandaran prison. Suliban internees treated harshly by Tandarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danik and Narra held in interment camp by the Tandarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox surgically altered Malcolm to appear as a Suliban.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan (2002)", "title": "Spider-Man", "date": "2002-04-29", "description": "The film centers on an outcast teen genius named Peter Parker, who develops spider-like superhuman abilities after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider. After his foster father/uncle is murdered by an armed felon, something of which he felt partially responsible, a guilt-ridden Parker is later driven to use his new abilities for a nobler purpose, as the hero/vigilante Spider- Man, to atone for his uncle's murder. The rest of the film focuses on Parker's efforts to balance his personal life as he graduates from high school and becomes a freelance photographer, while also struggling with his studies, his friendship with his childhood best friend Harry Osborn, his growing feelings for his former high school crush Mary Jane Watson, and his dual life as Spider-Man. It is the first installment in the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a secret crush on his neighbor Mary Jane Watson since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a secret crush on his neighbor Mary Jane Watson since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired the strength of a man-sized spider after being bitten by a genetically engineered super spider. This enabled him to scale building walls and be generally super strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had arachnid-quick reflexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "After graduating from high school, Peter moved to New York City and started fighting street crime. He ultimately ended up coming into conflict with the super villain Green Goblin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman Osborn made Oscorp the biggest supplier to the United States military. Also Oscopr held a \"Unity Festival\" in Times Square.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry started dating Mary Jane even though he knew his friend Peter had had a crush on her for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman Osborn's alter ego Green Goblin", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-man fought street crime, saved baby from a burning building, and so on and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Norman Osborn had the evil alter ago the Green Goblin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry Osborn had a tortured relationship his super villain father Norman Osborn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and his beloved Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter took on the disgruntled genius Norman Osborn (a.k.a. Green Goblin).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a battle going on inside Norman Osborn between his normal self and his evil Green Goblin alter ego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got an extraordinary ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Parker suddenly found himself with a variety of spider-like superhuman abilities after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peer and Harry were bulled a bit by a couple of fellow students on the class trip to a Colombia University science lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some Colombia University scientists were genetically combining ordinary spiders into super spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben and May Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sixty-eight year old fired electrician Ben Parker's efforts to find a new job owing to his lack of computer skills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was living with Aunt May and Uncle Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter used his newly found super fast reflexes and super strength to humiliate his high school bully Flash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter planned to make his way to New York City after graduation to pursue a career in photography.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter entered a cage fight against Bonesaw McGraw in an effort to win $3000 in prize money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt May mourned the death of her husband Ben who had been shot dead in a car jacking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first half of the film depicted Peter Parker's life in high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry and Mary Jane became an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Green Goblin put Peter in a situation where he had to choose between saving his love Mary Jane on the one hand, and a cable car of kids on the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Green Goblin used an Oscorp designed exoskeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Harry were friends. Peter offered his friendship to Mary Jane at the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry swore on his father's grave that Spider-man would pay for having killed his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Mary Jane proclaiming her love for Peter, but Peter told her he could only offer her his friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben shared exactly this aphorism with Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter sold photos of Spider-Man to the Daily Bugle tabloid newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter mourned the death of his uncle Ben who had been shot dead in a car jacking.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x22", "title": "Vox Sola", "date": "2002-05-01", "description": "A strange, symbiotic alien creature boards Enterprise and starts kidnapping members of the crew.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Fred Dekker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A parasitic, web-spinning, alien boards Enterprise and starts kidnapping members of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hoshi struggled to communicate with the freaky web alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kreetassans found it exceedingly offensive when crew put food into their mouths in public. The Kressians drew a strong association between eating and mating, and did both activities in private by custom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of privacy preferences", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kreetassans found it exceedingly offensive when crew put food into their mouths in public. The Kressians drew a strong association between eating and mating, and did both activities in private by custom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox refused to hurt the creature even to save the crew. Hoshi preferred to try to free Archer and other crew members trapped in the creature by communicating with it, while T'Pol and Malcolm preferred using violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A first contact attempt with the Kreetassan was botched due to recurring linguistic and cultural misunderstandings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi beat herself up over failing to communicate with the Kreetassans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi beat herself up over failing to communicate with the Kreetassans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather was enthusiastic about watching a classic French film at the ship's movie night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker bribed Archer with a taped game of water polo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x23", "title": "Fallen Hero", "date": "2002-05-08", "description": "Enterprise finds itself under attack while transporting a controversial Vulcan ambassador.\n\nDirected by: Patrick Norris. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer about whether to turn over the ambassador to the Mazarites or risk losing the Enterprise with all hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "V'Lar was slow to put her trust in Archer and vice versa, but in the end V'Lar showed her trust in Archer by following his plan to stall for time by having her go to sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ambassador V'Lar was T'Pol's role model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mazarite criminal run government expelled Vulcan ambassador V'Lar when it became clear she was going to be instrumental in overthrowing their rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "V'Lar was on a mission to Mazar to expose rampant government corruption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol wanted crew to go have sex on Risa in order to improve efficiency.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x24", "title": "Desert Crossing", "date": "2002-05-08", "description": "Commander Tucker and Captain Archer are invited to a desert planet by a man named Zobral, only to discover that he has ulterior motives.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zobral appealed to Archer for aid in his seemingly just insurgency, but he was labeled a terrorist by the Torothan government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer ultimately declined to take a side in the conflict between the Torothan government and Zobral's people. T'Pol pointed-earedly pointed out that Archer would have to come up with \"some directives of his own\" in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Archer and Tucker trekked through the desert with little water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zobral claimed that his people were oppressed by the Torothan government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Torothans had recently abolished a formal caste system but attitudes in society remained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign customs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker also reluctantly participated in a rough and tumble ball game that was played among Zobral's people, because Zobral would have been offended otherwise. They were also less than pleased with the cuisine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker went to experience desert people hospitality after accepting Zobral's invitation to a feast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Terrorism as such was only mentioned as a reason for why Zobral was hunted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker visited Zobral on a planet that was primarily desert with only a few lakes and rivers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer forced Tucker to drink the last of Archer's water when Tucker was suffering from heat exhaustion in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zobral told Archer the galaxy needs more men like him who will answer distress calls when they can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zobral insisted on repaying the favor Archer paid him by insisting he be his guest at his desert planet dwelling.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)", "title": "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones", "date": "2002-05-12", "description": "Set ten years after the events in The Phantom Menace, the galaxy is on the brink of civil war, with thousands of planetary systems threatening to secede from the Galactic Republic. After Senator Padmé Amidala evades an assassination attempt, Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker becomes her protector, while his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi investigates the attempt on her life. Soon, the trio witness the onset of a new threat to the galaxy, the Clone Wars.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_II_%E2%80%93_Attack_of_the_Clones" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good while others, like the Sith, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A Jedi theme is that all strong emotions lead to evil, i.e., \"the dark side\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anakin's whole story is that he falls to the dark side because of his intense emotions and tragic upbringing. Note his mother died under tragic circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this universe people travel between stars regularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "An army of clones had been created.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clones were genetically engineered soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Republic is split in two by a civil war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general story is that democracy falls to dictatorship due to ever spreading corruption and bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Padme had to go into hiding because assassins were after her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme struggled with whether to let themselves love each other though it would imperil both their careers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general story is that democracy falls to dictatorship due to ever spreading corruption and bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The general story is that democracy falls to dictatorship due to ever spreading corruption and bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin took bloody vengeance on his mother's killers and Boba Fett had vengeance in his mind when he held his father's severed head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jar Jar Binks and the Guncans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "city planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coruscant was a planet completely cover by a city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO. There were tons of robot soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin commandeered a flying car on Coursant. There were flying cars whizzing around on Coruscant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jango Fett had a jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boba Fett hired a changeling to assassinate Padme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ocean world Kamino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin went to rescue his mother Shim on Tatooine after he dreamed she was in peril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was prophesied that someone, perhaps an apprentice like Anakin, would come along and bring the Force back into balance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This Jedi power was amply featured. For example, Anakin levitated a pear from Padme's plate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin was proud and arrogant in his abilities to a fault. Anakin called out Padme for her sense of aristocratic pride when she expressed annoyance at the prospect of having to travel without her retinue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This Jedi power was amply featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jedi had mind control powers. For example, Obi-Wan mind controlled a drug dealer to go home from a nightclub and reevaluate his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jango Fet and his cloned son Boba Fett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jango Fet and his cloned son Boba Fett and other clones too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accelerated growth rate therapy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clones had been genetically engineered to grow fast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wotto sold Shmi Skywalker to another owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin reacted to his mother's death by slaughtering her captors and their families.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin wouldn't forgive himself for not reaching his mother in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin became consumed with hatred after his mother's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Count Dooku was planning to build a Death Star late into the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan and Anakin were coming into conflict from time to time over how to proceed with their mission.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x25", "title": "Two Days and Two Nights", "date": "2002-05-15", "description": "Enterprise finally arrives for shore leave on Risa. While there, the crew experience more than they are later willing to admit.\n\nDirected by: Michael Dorn. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "one night stand", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi had a one night stand with Ravis, while Tucker and Malcolm tried their best to pick up an an alien bar, but failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer some of the crew took a much needed vacation on Risa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi and Ravis got the hots for one another and had a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer brought Porthos along on his trip to Risa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keyla claimed to Archer that her family had been killed by the Suliban.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning languages", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the difficulties involved in learning languages were on display in Hoshi's discussions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi went to Risa to learn new languages.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent1x26", "title": "Shockwave, Part I", "date": "2002-05-22", "description": "Enterprise is recalled to Earth after the crew is blamed for the accidental destruction of a colony world. En route, it is hijacked by Suliban and Captain Archer is trapped in the future.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet scorching atmospheric conflagration", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer burned up an entire world by accidentally igniting their atmosphere, but fortunately it wasn't his fault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was down on him self for having accidentally ignited the atmosphere of an alien colony, resulting in the deaths of 3600 inhabitants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was down on him self for having accidentally ignited the atmosphere of an alien colony, resulting in the deaths of 3600 inhabitants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer traveled in time and found out that the real culprits were time travelers engaged in a temporal cold war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol told Archer and Tucker about a matriarchal alien colony in the teaser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer lamented having to deliver the bad news to alien homeworld that he had accidentally ignited the atmosphere of one of their colonies, resulting in the deaths of 3600 of their people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Especially Hoshi said that she would stand by Archer no matter what, and the rest of the crew stood by Archer after the Enterprise was recalled to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Suliban ships use cloaking devices.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Minority Report (2002)", "title": "Minority Report", "date": "2002-06-19", "description": "Set in the year 2054, a specialized police department, called PreCrime, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by psychics called \"precogs\". It is loosely based on the 1956 short story \"The Minority Report\" by Philip K. Dick.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "pre-crime responsibility", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder the ethics of putting people away for murders that they are predicted to commit by special people who receive ore or less reliable visions of the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a police department, known as PreCrime, that stops murderers before they act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trio of \"precogs\" saw murders being committed before they happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a police department, known as PreCrime, that stops murderers before they act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "John grappled with the loss of his young son Sean, who was abducted from a public swimming pool and presumably murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical determinism", "level": "major", "motivation": "One revelation of the film is that people can change their future once they become aware of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "major", "motivation": "One revelation of the film is that people can change their future once they become aware of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "PreCrime Captain John Anderton became a fugitive from the law after the precogs determined that he would commit a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard and Sarah Marks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard walked in on his wife fooling around with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was taking drugs the possession of which could land him six months in the slammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John became a drug addict in the wake of his young son's disappearance and subsequent separation from is wife. We learned that Agatha's mother, Anne Lively, was a drug addict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "advertising in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ads in this society were personalized to a potentially disturbing degree. For example, a public advertisement addressed John by name and urged him to purchase something.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was chased by police with jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John turned to the back alley doctor Dr. Solomon P. Eddie when he needed to get transplanted with a new pair of eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that John and Lara divorced soon after their young son was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw John interacting with his young son Sean in a John's dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the trio of \"precogs\" formed a hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Convicted would-be murderers were imprisoned in a benevolent virtual reality. Additionally, John visited a sleazy shop in which people were indulging in various fantasies inside personal virtual reality pods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John seemingly uncovered that Sean's killer was a serial child murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was momentarily overcome with a raging desire to make pay the man he was manipulated into believing was his young son's murderer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The director of the program to apprehend would-be murderers was himself exposed as a would-be murderer by the very program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crow killed himself in an effort t ensure his family's financial well-being. Lamar deliberately shot himself dead at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Men in Black II (2002)", "title": "Men in Black II", "date": "2002-07-03", "description": "Five years after the retirement of Agent K from Men in Black, a secret New York City-based agency that monitors and regulates extraterrestrial life residing on Earth, Agent J—K's former partner and hand-picked replacement—is called to investigate the murder of an alien, Ben, at his pizzeria.", "collections": [ "Collection: Men in Black" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_II" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret government agency that monitored extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret agency outside government control that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens lived on Earth secretly from humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent J reunited with his former partner and mentor Agent K.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black used a mind wipe device on people who saw aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent J and Agent K saved the world from being annihilated by the Light of Zartha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent J was lonely without his old partner Agent K.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worm-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The night crawler aliens were said to be worms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MiB car could also fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was strongly suggested that Agent K was the father of the long-lost alien princess Zarthan Laura.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Eight Legged Freaks (2002)", "title": "Eight Legged Freaks", "date": "2002-07-17", "description": "Eight Legged Freaks (originally titled Arach Attack, under which it was released in some parts of Europe and other countries around the world) is a 2002 monster comedy action film directed by Ellory Elkayem and starring David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, and Scarlett Johansson.\n\nSynopsis: A colony of spiders are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to mutate into gigantic, monstrous creatures and attack a small American mining town.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Legged_Freaks" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's main novelty consisted of giant, mutant spiders going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows some townspeople as their town is overrun by a hoard of giant, mutant spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The raving conspiracy theorist Harland had his own conspiracy-themed pirate radio show, and was trying to get the other townspeople to buy into his far-fetched ideas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris was courting Sheriff Sam over the course of the film and in the end he got her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Sam and Deputy Pete led the response against the giant spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The adolescent boy Mike and his mother Sheriff Sam were at the heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "toxic waste management", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to consider about the problem of toxic waste in society when mismanagement of this pollutant resulted in the creation of a hoard of giant, man-eating spiders. The mayor was using the mines as a toxic waste dump without the consent of the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The adolescent boy Mike was really into spiders and went to visit his friend Josh's spider farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The adolescent boy Mike used his knowledge of spiders to help save the town from being overrun by a hoard of giant arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh spoke of how orb-weaver spiders fill their prey with digestive acids so that they can \"drink them from the inside out\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh spoke of orb-weaver spider mating practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a side plot concerning Sheriff Sam and her rebellious teenage daughter Ashley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ashley quarreled with her little brother Mike when Mike insisted he had to make a call while she was speaking on the telephone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The townspeople debated over whether they should sell the mines and relocate; the mayor was pushing everyone to do so, but some wished to stay in the town they'd come to know and love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the townspeople opposed selling their land and relocating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mayor insisted that Chris felt guilty for not being around when Chris' own father died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma refused to feed her cat Zeek cat food, preferring instead to lavish it with tuna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Pete and Emma Willis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deputy Pete was crying like a baby in the wake of Emma having left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Ashley was going through a \"bad girl\" phase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not much explored, Sheriff Sam had gotten pregnant at the age of 16 and was raising two kids on her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Sam initially considered Mike and Chris to be delusional with their talk of giant spiders, but her skepticism waned upon witnessing a giant orb-weaver attempting to abduct her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan was adamant that the spiders were an invading force from outer space, and he at one point convinced the authorities that this was so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Chris had assaulted Sheriff Sam's ex-lover on account that the said ex-lover was cheating on her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The heavy smoker Gladys came to see smoking as a \"dangerous habit\" after being involved in a cigarette triggered explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt Gladys was rescued by her nephew Chris after she was abducted by a male orb-weaver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Sam initially attributed Mike's believing in giant spiders to the junk he watched on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eccentric extraterrestrial enthusiast Harlan broadcasted his theory that various missing pets around town had been abducted by space aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Trancers 6 (2002)", "title": "Trancers 6", "date": "2002-07-23", "description": "In a return to the original film's premise, Jack Deth is back – traveling back in time and into the body of his own daughter, Josephine, on a mission to save her life and save the world from the most lethal Trancers yet. Jack/Jo must adapt and survive, avoiding many assassination attempts by more powerful and dangerous zombie-like Trancers than he's ever faced before. It is the seventh and final film in the Trancers series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Trancers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trancers_6" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was sent back in time and into the body of his own daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack was sent back in time and into the body of his own daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Castle and Shauna Wilder were secretly raising a trancer army to use to take over the world and institute a new world order of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was made apparent that Jack's daughter had been living as a vegetarian until such time as his consciousness came to inhabit her body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a security guard reminded Josephine reminded her that smoking was the leading cause of death for women under 30.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack (in Josephine's body) used a \"long second\" wristwatch to slow time down to a crawl for everyone around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Malvern was experimenting on a meteor in a laboratory that was filled with bubbling beakers of different colored liquids and other such things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Mr. Castle was an alien.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)", "title": "Cube 2: Hypercube", "date": "2002-07-29", "description": "Cube 2: Hypercube (stylized on-screen as Cube2: Hypercube) is a 2002 Canadian independent science fiction horror film, directed by Andrzej Sekuła, written by Sean Hood, and produced by Ernie Barbarash, Peter Block, and Suzanne Colvin. It is the second film in the Cube film series and a sequel to Cube.\n\nSynopsis: Seven individuals find themselves trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms that in their totality constitute a hypercube.", "collections": [ "Collection: Cube Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_2:_Hypercube" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "a person's true character is revealed in a time of crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seven people trapped in the hypercube all seemed reasonably normal enough at first, but each revealed their true colors under the stress of trying to escape their near hopeless predicament: Simon, for example, turned into a psycho who'd kill anyone to save his own skin, while Kate never lost her sense of compassion for others, especially the blind teenager Sasha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the efforts of seven captives as they try to escape from a vast assemblage of brightly lit, cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seven strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions ran high when seven strangers with contrasting personality types found themselves trapped together in a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that the seven strangers were trapped inside a vast four-dimensional cube, or hypercube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key component of the story was that the hypercube somehow contained multiple parallel universes, and the seven strangers were from but one on these parallel realities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenager Sasha struggled to get around in the hypercube owing to her being blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Maguire had hanged himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind teenager Sasha was at times crippled with fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry speculated that the unconscious man had been tortured owing to markings on the man's palms that resembled cigarette burns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Paley had dementia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hypercube captives encountered various parallel reality versions of themselves. In on instance, Jerry watched a parallel version of himself die horribly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sasha turned out to be a notorious computer hacker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate took compassion on blind teenager Sasha and helped her keep up with the party as they made their way through the hypercube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When a knife-wielding Simon accused his fellow captive Mrs. Paley of being an undercover spy, Sasha countered by claiming that it might be Simon himself who they shouldn't trust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sasha speculated that their captors had placed her and her fellow captives inside the hypercube to \"watch us (them) squirm\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Time ran at different rates in some rooms of the hypercube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gravity in some hypercube rooms pointed in the opposite direction to the gravity of adjacent rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon waned to get back at Kate for having elbowed him in the eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon revealed that he was a private investigator who'd been hired to enter the cube to rescue Becky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Julia began to develop romantic feelings for one another after getting trapped in the hypercube together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Max and Julia aged rapidly to their deaths while trapped in a time dilated room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cypher (2002)", "title": "Cypher", "date": "2002-08-02", "description": "Cypher (also known as Brainstorm and Company Man), is a 2002 Canadian science fiction spy-fi thriller film starring Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu.\n\nSynopsis: An unemployed accountant turned corporate spy gets more than he bargains for when his new assignment takes an unexpected turn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the mild-mannered, unemployed accountant Morgan Sullivan as he becomes a corporate spy under the employ of the nefarious Digicorp corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The corporate spy Morgan Sullivan struggled at times over whether to trust his possibly rival corporate spy Rita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Digicorp's use of corporate spies to steal information from their competitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Digicorp used drugs in combination with subliminal messaging to brainwash the hero of the story into believing in his new identity: a mild-mannered accountant from the suburbs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Morgan Sullivan came to understand that his identity and memories were false, and that he was actually another man named Sebastian Rooks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to and culminated with Morgan and Rita falling for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unemployed accountant Morgan Sullivan became a corporate spy because he was bored with his quiet suburban live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morgan's wife Amy was pressuring him to take a job at her father's company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morgan treated himself to a single malt scotch on the rocks on his flight to Buffalo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The convention goers were drugged up and subsequently bombarded with subliminal messages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Digicorp tried to \"jack in\" to the Sunway Systems computer system on multiple occasions according to Virgil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virgil had a chip on his shoulder on account that his job of figuring out when people were lying had recently been taken over by a machine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Signs (2002)", "title": "Signs", "date": "2002-08-02", "description": "Signs is a 2002 American science fiction mystery thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and produced by Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Sam Mercer.\n\nSynopsis: A former Episcopal priest discovers a series of crop circles in his cornfield, and slowly discovers that the phenomenon is a result of extraterrestrial life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signs_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A humanoid alien was terrorizing the Hess family in and around their isolated farmhouse. This was just one small front in an alien invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film confronts the viewer with the idea that crop circles are being made by extraterrestrials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explored how the close knit Hess family came together in the wake of Colleen Hess dying tragically in a traffic accident. Her husband Graham lost his faith, their two young children struggled to understand why she had died, and Graham's younger brother Merrill moved to their farm to be there for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham and his relationship with his young son Morgan was explored throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham and his relationship with his young daughter Bo was explored throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham and his younger brother Merrill were coordinating to protect Graham's young kids (and themselves) from nefarious space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Merrill had moved to the farm to help care for his young niece, Bo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Merrill had moved to the farm to help care for his young nephew, Morgan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morgan and his kid sister Bo were caught up in all the goings on surrounding the alien invasions, and the apparent arrival of aliens on their farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how Graham, a former Episcopal priest, lost his faith after his wife died tragically in a traffic accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Graham was having a hard time accepting that his wife was really gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story shows an alien invasion unfolding from the vantage point of an isolated family farm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morgan suffered from asthma and had a bad attack on night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The former minor league baseball player Merrill was evidently a bit torn up inside over never having made it to the majors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray expressed regret for having caused Colleen's death and Graham's subsequent losing of his faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The local police officer Caroline Paski visited the Hess house a couple of times to investigate the strange goings on there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hess children were coming to terms with that their mother had died and was never coming back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man on television stated that the crop circles had been dismissed as hoaxes in the 1980s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The television news showed alien spacecrafts in the nigh sky above Mexico City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A local man showered Merrill with praise for for having hit a record breaking 507 foot home run in the minor leagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morgan speculated that those in power would respond to an airborne attack by the invading aliens with nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Graham was shown together with his dearly departed wife in a series of short flashback scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The former Episcopal priest Graham who'd lost his faith was shown donning his priestly garb once again at the conclusion of the film, suggesting that he'd found his faith again.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)", "title": "The Adventures of Pluto Nash", "date": "2002-08-16", "description": "The Adventures of Pluto Nash is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Ron Underwood.\n\nSynopsis: The retired smuggler Pluto Nash gets into trouble with the mafia after refusing to sell his wildly popular nightclub on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Pluto_Nash" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the year 2080 on a colony on the Moon called Little America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot surrounded Pluto Nash coming into conflict with the mafia after he refused to sell the mobster Rex Crater his popular nightclub on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the smuggler-turned-entrepreneur Pluto Nash making a success of his newly purchased dilapidated nightclub on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the film was that the mobster Rex Crater was none other than Pluto Nash's clone. Tony had cloned his beautiful wife and was totally uninterested in which of the pair was the real article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with a classic confrontation between Pluto Nash and his evil, monster clone Rex Crater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminated with a classic confrontation between Pluto Nash and his evil, monster clone Rex Crater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy was out drinking to celebrate his impending divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto Nash had an obsolete, but loyal android bodyguard named Bruno.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto Nash spoke with Rex Crater's henchman over a futuristic videophone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bribery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto Nash called out Dr. Mona Zimmer for accepting his bribe to overlook that he and Dina didn't have the proper papers needed to undergo cosmetic surgery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto, Dina, and Bruno stole a hovering limousine to its holographic chauffeur's protestations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hovering limousine Pluto, Dina and Bruno stole was operated by a holographic chauffeur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto, Dina and Bruno stole a hovering limousine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A spacesuit wearing Dina was enjoying herself, bounding about on the lunar surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto examined a cryogenically freeze dried chihuahua.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto Nash was retired smuggler who dealt in animals, clothing and drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Pluto Nash had formerly smuggled drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While nothing much came of it, Dina was clearly into Pluto Nash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Felix Laranga got caught using loaded dice at the craps table in a Moon Beach city hotel/casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pluto Nash's mother Flura informed Pluto that Rex Crater had associates linked to human cloning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The small time smuggler Felix Laranga was a big fan of Pluto Nash. He had Pluto sign his helmet, and blew Pluto's cover at the hotel/casino by informing everyone within earshot that Pluto was in the room.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Simone (2002)", "title": "Simone", "date": "2002-08-23", "description": "Simone (stylized as S1m0ne) is a 2002 American science fiction film written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Rachel Roberts, Jay Mohr, and Winona Ryder.\n\nSynopsis: A fading director creates a virtual actress to star in his films and attempts to keep her non-human nature a secret as she becomes more and more famous.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the fading film director Viktor Taransky as he takes the desperate measure of secretly inserting a virtual actress into his films in an effort to get the recognition he feels that he deserves. In Taransky's own words, \"I wanted recognition\" he said in regard to his motives for perpetrating this hoax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fading film director Viktor Taransky resorted to an elaborate hoax in an effort to change his fortunes after having suffered ten years of \"abject failure in the film industry\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viktor Taransky's using of a virtual actress in his films was a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "The divorcees Viktor and Elaine rekindled their relationship over the course of the film, and in the end they got back together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Viktor was advised by his precocious young daughter Lainey about this career and relationships over the course of the film, and he tried as he might to show he cared for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fading film director Victor Taransky fooled the world into thinking the virtual actress who was starring in his hit films was a real woman, and he took elaborate measures to keep her virtual nature a secret as pressure from the media for her to make public appearances mounted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole world instantly came to adore the new star actress Simone - the only thing the public didn't know was that she was nothing more than a piece of software.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the virtual actress Simone - a non-sentient piece of software that when presented on screen was indistinguishable to the public from a real actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociotechnological issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder about the ramifications on society of using software to simulate such realistic likeness of human beings that the general public mistakes them for the real articles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fading film director Viktor Taransky resorted to an elaborate hoax in an effort to change his fortunes after having suffered ten years of \"abject failure in the film industry\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stereotypical diva actress Nicola was livid that she didn't have the biggest trailer on the set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The virtual actress Simone's supreme acting abilities were the subject of discussion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor's ex-wife Elaine was also his producer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor and Elaine were divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank had an inoperable brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine and her kid daughter Lainey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Things didn't work out between Elaine and her new boyfriend Kent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone performed on stage in holographic form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor grew tired of his virtual actress Simone overshadowing him in the press and resolved to ruin her career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor made a provocative film exploring this practice and released it in Simone's name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone was laid to rest in a mausoleum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The authorities apprehended Viktor and charged him with the murder of Simone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor was charged with having murdered Simone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viktor's lawyer encouraged him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of Simone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While being interrogated, Viktor Taransky offered to confess to fraud for his clandestine use of a virtual actress in his hit films.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x01", "title": "Evergreen", "date": "2002-09-18", "description": "A rebellious teenage girl and her exasperated family move to a gated community with a stringent emphasis on conforming to certain norms and a unique way of dealing with troubled youths.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Jill Blotevogel.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the Winslow's as they move to a gated community with stringent rules in a last ditched attempt to get the rebellious teen of the family Jenna on the right path in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a problematic family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Winslow's were coping with the rebellious teen of the family Jenna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jenna was as a prisoner in the gated community of Evergreen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Joyce Winslow were sufficiently concerned with their rebellious teen daughter's welfare that they up and moved their family to a special gated community with very strict rules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joyce and her rebellious teen daughter Jenna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and his rebellious teen daughter Jenna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jenna and Julie Winslow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Evergreen gated community teens were forced to wear uniform like outfits. Jenna's tattoos, piercings, and colorful hair dye was removed, presumably to make her the same as everyone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "In order to enjoy the security of the Evergreen gated community the residents had to give up some of their freedoms. In particular, they had to conform to certain social norms and pass security checks at the gate. The Evergreen gated community leader argued that a new policy of inspecting all vehicles entering the community needed to be inspected to keep everyone safe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie was of that opinion that her father's heart attack had been caused by smoking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Evergreen gated community residents voted in favor of executing Logan for missing curfew multiple times under the rationale that they'd saved more people than they'd lost by \"tossing out a few bad apples\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie betrayed her sister Jenna by alerting the Evergreen authorities to Jenna's escape plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that the rebellious boy attacked a guard with a hunting knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenna and Logan were executed for their rebellious ways.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x02", "title": "One Night at Mercy", "date": "2002-09-18", "description": "An up-and-coming medical doctor suffering from severe headaches encounters a suicidal patient claiming to be Death looking to take a break from his life's work.\n\nDirected by: Peter O'Fallon. Story by: Christopher Mack.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Death temporarily quit his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Death was depressed, attempted suicide, and quit his job because he had had enough of eternity - presumably either because of boredom or the toll that 4.5 billion years of reaping souls might take on a being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Dr. Jay Ferguson at work in his hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dark and brooding Death was depressed from 4.5 billion years of reaping souls. Dr. Jay Ferguson diagnosed Death as being depressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As no one died anymore, Jay extrapolated that there would be overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay longed for a world without dying but found that it was not, in fact, a good world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Death tried to hang himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the plague", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Death spoke of the Black Death spreading across Europe in the 14th century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay spoke to his mother in a vision of her on her deathbed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x01", "title": "Shockwave, Part II", "date": "2002-09-18", "description": "As a group of Suliban take over Enterprise, Captain Archer tries to return to the 22nd century.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer tries to return to the 22nd century from the post-apocalyptic 31st century in which he found himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Suliban took over the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was mildly tortured by the Suliban.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi had to overcome her claustrophobia and crawl around in the Enterprise air ducts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x03", "title": "Shades of Guilt", "date": "2002-09-25", "description": "A Caucasian man finds himself being mistaken for an African-American man after refusing to save a college professor from being attacked and killed by skinheads.\n\nDirected by: Perry Lang. Story by: Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After refusing to help a black man, Matt (a white man) turned black himself and experienced the racism (both overt and subconscious) in his society first hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end, a white man had become a better person from walking in a black professor's shoes for a bit, the narrator explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt, a white man, transformed into a black man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt, a white man, refused to help a black man in need, and was punished by the fates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt, a white man, had pangs of guilt because he had left a black man to be beaten to death by skinheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt, a white man, came to the conclusion that having left a black man to be beaten to death by skinheads was the wrong thing to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A black college professor was beaten to death by skinheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Matt took compassion on the black man who was being beaten by skinheads the second time around whereas the first time around his compassion for the black man was pointedly absent. The Narrator summed up Matt's action with these words: \"A simple lesson in compassion courtesy of The Twilight Zone\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt might have thought he was about to be carjacked by the black college professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After briefly acting racist, Matt turned black and experienced racism for himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Initially, Matt was confused as inexplicable wounds began to appear on his body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x04", "title": "Dream Lover", "date": "2002-09-25", "description": "A graphic novelist suffering from a severe case of writer's block struggles to determine what is illusion and what is reality after bringing his ideal woman to life.\n\nDirected by: Peter O'Fallon. Story by: Frederick Rappaport.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Andrew drew and fantasized about his perfect partner, then she sort of became real, but then maybe she had in fact dreamed up Andrew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew was struggling to complete the sequel to his New York Times best selling graphic novel, Sleepless City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andrew was struggling to complete the sequel to his New York Times best selling graphic novel, Sleepless City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Andrew was shocked to discover that he was merely a figment of Sondra's imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew was said to be lonely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew objected to Sondra seeing another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew and Sondra quarreled over a few petty little things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sondra choosing the cable guy over Andrew left him bitter and angry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man who appeared to be Andrew's literary agent appeared to be pressuring him to finish the sequel to his New York Times bestselling graphic novel - in fact it was Sondra's agent pressuring her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andrew was jealous to find Sondra fraternizing with the cable guy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x02", "title": "Carbon Creek", "date": "2002-09-25", "description": "Sub-Commander T'Pol relates the tale of a Vulcan crew stranded on Earth in the 1950s.\n\nDirected by: James A. Contner. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Dan O'Shannon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Mir and Stron initially wished to avoid contaminating 1950s Earth culture at all cost, but ended up helping them out of a sense of compassion when the miners were trapped in an explosion and when Jack couldn't pay his tuition to enter college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans made first contact with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans were mildly baffled at all things human, for example: nuclear war, pool, and kissing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in post-war America", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans visited a 1950s American town with all the trappings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans argued whether to help the trapped miners and risk revealing their technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vulcans learned compassion form humans, especially Mestral. At the end T'Mir felt compassion for Jack and helped him get into college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans, especially Mestral, were interested in learning about Human culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maggie and Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans secretly lived amongst Carbon Creek inhabitants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the killing of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans discussed killing animals for food briefly and with distaste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vulcans discussed whether humanity would wipe itself out with nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vulcans visited Earth and taught humans how to make velcro.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mestral and Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stranded Vulcans contemplated eating a deer in conflict with their vegetarian ethic in order to survive after having crash landed on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie was raising her son Jack as a single parent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x05", "title": "Cradle of Darkness", "date": "2002-10-02", "description": "A woman goes back in time to 1889 Austria in a desperate attempt to rewrite history by assassinating Adolf Hitler in his infancy and preventing World War II from ever taking place.\n\nDirected by: Jean de Segonzac. Story by: Kamran Pasha.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned going back in time to kill Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to treat people that pose a risk to society through no fault of their own", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It would seem a point of the story was to ask whether it is okay to kill an innocent baby that you think will grow up to be the historical Hitler (as it happens, she killed the wrong baby).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the wickedness of this historical arch-villain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "By killing baby Hitler, Andrea inadvertently created the very monster to society that she'd attempted to do away with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned the care of baby Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "folk belief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klara Hitler used a key was used as a charm to ward off evil spirits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois and Klara Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois carried on an affair with the housekeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A comment was made about how men always promise to marry you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois spoke disparagingly of the Jews (and the Gypsies).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial supremacism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alois spoke of the supremacy of the Aryan race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x06", "title": "Night Route", "date": "2002-10-02", "description": "An English professor juggles preparing for her wedding and convincing her friends and family she is being followed by a mysterious bus that started haunting her after she and her dog narrowly avoided being hit by a car.\n\nDirected by: Jean de Segonzac. Story by: Jill Blotevogel.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melina said she might be dead and in denial about her own passing because her life was so good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Melina and Adam were planning their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the bus driver was a manifestation of the Grim Reaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was about Melina rethinking her life and all the opportunities she missed because she was introverted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adam pointedly assured Melina that he loved her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina was haunted by a mysterious bus, memory loss, and sudden wounds manifesting from nowhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina said she had been so lonely before meeting Adam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina struggled with gaps in her memory (note: this is separate from the world seemingly changing around her).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Melina was a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina and her pet dog Vigo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Melina's mother was helping her prepare for her upcoming wedding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x03", "title": "Minefield", "date": "2002-10-02", "description": "Enterprise snags a cloaked mine and Lieutenant Reed and Captain Archer race to disable it during first contact with the Romulan Star Empire.\n\nDirected by: James A. Contner. Story by: John Shiban.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was prepared to sacrifice his own life for the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Malcolm be sacrificed to ensure the safety of all? The Romulans thought so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was prepared to sacrifice his own life for the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving a friend vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Romulans ordered Enterprise to leave their region space or face destruction, but they couldn't leave before disabling a space mine that had pinned Malcolm's leg to the ship's hull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm felt that it was inappropriate to fraternize with superior officers but Archer didn't share his view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm bonded while defusing a space mine which had attached itself to Enterprise's hull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to defuse a ticking time bomb", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm had to defuse a mine on the Enterprise hull.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly private individual", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer with Malcolm being overly private.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm suggested to Archer that he wasn't disciplined enough in his leadership of Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulan ship was cloaked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of open waters", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm explained that a fear of water, drowning specifically, made him join Starfleet instead of following in his family tradition of serving in the navy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Scorcher (2002)", "title": "Scorcher", "date": "2002-10-04", "description": "Scorcher is a 2002 science-fiction disaster film directed by James Seale and starring Mark Dacascos, John Rhys-Davies, Jeffrey Johnson, Tamara Davies, Mark Rolston, G.W. Bailey, Thomas F. Duffy, and Rutger Hauer.\n\nSynopsis: A group of scientists discover, after a disastrous nuclear accident, that the Earth's tectonic plates are shifting and creating immense pressure that will destroy the Earth in a fiery global eruption, and a few top scientists must find a way to stop it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorcher_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "volcanic cataclysm", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about preventing a looming volcanic cataclysm of, quite literally, Earth shattering proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The troubled relationship between Julie her father Dr. Sallin was much featured, and was the similarly troubled relationship between Colonel Beckett and his teenage daughter Faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Beckett led a team of military men, along with two scientists, on a mission to detonate two nuclear bombs in an abandoned Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julia held a grudge against her illustrious scientist father Dr. Sallin because he hadn't been there for her in her childhood. Colonel Beckett had a troubled relationship with his teenage daughter on account that he was always away because of his work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julie scientist father Dr. Sallin were in a bitter feud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nuclear weapons were both the cause of and solution to the Pacific plate moving out of place, leaving the Earth's core exposed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chinese inadvertently exposed the Earth's core during a nuclear test with potentially catastrophic consequences for life on the planet. This was mentioned at the start of the story but not followed up on in any way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chinese inadvertently exposed the Earth's core during a nuclear test with potentially catastrophic consequences for life on the planet. This was mentioned at the start of the story but not followed up on in any way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Beckett grieved for a fellow soldier who'd died in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faith and her mother Tara tried to escape from Los Angeles together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Beckett called his wife Tara to let her know that arrangements had been made to evacuate her and their daughter from a soon to be nuked Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Beckett recited a Christian prayer over dead body of a fellow soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tara was abducted and tormented by a psychotic religious fanatic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A deranged religious fanatic was convinced that the return of the Lord was nigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psycho religious fanatic guy didn't like that he had a horribly burn scarred face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julie was annoyed when one of the soldiers on her team made a pass at her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x07", "title": "Time Lapse", "date": "2002-10-09", "description": "An orderly suffering from blackouts discovers his condition is the result of a police officer using his body to prevent an assassination attempt on the President of the United States and the First Daughter.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Zack swapped bodies back and forth with a comatose police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fisk in Zack's body had been shot in the head and was out to kill the guy who did it - or at least prevent him from assassinating the president's daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was concerned by her fiancée Zack's puzzling behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fisk in Zack's body prevented an assassination attempt on the President of the United States and the First Daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fisk in Zack's body said \"that son of a bitch I just shot put me in a coma\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack thought he had blackouts at first, but it turned out that a comatose police officer had been taking over his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack bought a plastic gun from some Chinese gangsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police appeared a couple of time and the comatose patient perhaps in the Secret Service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nurse Maria was treating a comatose patient in a hospital setting.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x08", "title": "Dead Man's Eyes", "date": "2002-10-09", "description": "An emotionally distraught widow obsessed with bringing her dead husband's murderer to justice discover she can see his life and the events surrounding his death through his eyeglasses.\n\nDirected by: Jerry Levine. Story by: Frederick Rappaport.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurel was devastated after her husband Nick was killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the aftermath of a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurel re-iterated that she wanted justice for her murdered husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurel was not content with the justice the judge meted out but wanted death for the man who murdered her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious pair of glasses let Laurel see through her late husband's eyes and relive his final moments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laurel and Becca were best friends, or so Becca let it be believed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Laurel gradually break down and go mad as she came to realize that she had murdered her own husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Becca entreated Laurel to leave her murdered husband and all the emotional baggage that came along with it behind her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurel accused Becca of having carried on an affair with her husband Nick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a judge sentence a man to prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a judge judging and some lawyers advocating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stanley accused Nick of having embezzled from their shared company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laurel confided in her best friend Becca that she'd been off the booze and pills for 16 weeks. It also came to light that she's been in and out of rehab in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x04", "title": "Dead Stop", "date": "2002-10-09", "description": "Heavily damaged by the Romulan mine, Enterprise is repaired by an unmanned and automated sentient alien repair station.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew visited a fully automated repair space station. Curiously, the repair station used a collection of humanoid brains to function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer had reservations over making a deal with an automated repair station computer to repair the Enterprise for a mere 200 liters of warp plasma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew used an automated repair space station to repair their ship but it went haywire and tried to kill them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter replicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The automated repair space station used matter replicators. In particular, the system replicated Tucker a catfish dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew, especially Hoshi, dealt with the death of Mayweather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative healing device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox used a dermal regenerator on Malcolm.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x09", "title": "The Pool Guy", "date": "2002-10-16", "description": "A pool cleaner working for a wealthy couple starts suffering from recurring nightmares involving a man who approaches him, tells him to wake up, and guns him down.\n\nDirected by: Paul Shapiro. Story by: Hans Beimler.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "implanted memory punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turned out that Ritchie, a convicted murderer, had been sentenced to experience being shot dead more than 47 times in his own dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ritchie was being executed over and over again for having committed a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ritchie and his roommate Lenny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Ritchie was hooked up to a machine that placed him inside a recurring nightmare that he couldn't distinguish from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye for an eye justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The murdered Ritchie was sentenced to be murdered 47 times over in a dream-like environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point was driven home that working 20 years as a \"pool guy\" is not a happy life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ritchie pay a visit to his physician after he woke up from a nightmare with an unexplained wound on his chest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Anna Rosoff mentioned that she'd diagnosed Ritchie as being depressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A husband came home to find his martini drinking, bikini clad wife making out with the pool cleaner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ritchie was not going to be able to cover his share of the rent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x10", "title": "Azoth the Avenger Is a Friend of Mine", "date": "2002-10-16", "description": "A boy beset by abuse from the neighborhood bullies and his alcoholic father learns a valuable life lesson about vengeance and courage after willing his favorite barbarian superhero to life.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Craig stood up to some basketball court bullies with the help of Azoth the Avenger. Azoth the Avenger gave Craig the courage he needed to stand up once and for all to his ill-tempered and abusive father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Craig as he finds the courage to stand up to his ill-tempered and abusive father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig was being bullied by his abusive father as well as some neighborhood teenagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a family issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig was being raised by his ill-tempered and abusive father, Darrell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig was being raised by his ill-tempered and abusive father, Darrell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fictional character come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig conjured the comic book hero Azoth the Avenger into being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "The comic book hero Azoth the Avenger protected Craig from his abusive father as well as from neighborhood bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Craig, under the tutelage of Azoth the Avenger, grew a backbone and stood up once and for all to his ill-tempered and abusive father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Azoth was a stereotypical hero character. The Narrator called Craig a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wicked husband stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Darrell was stereotypically nasty to his notably compassionate wife, Lorraine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorraine and her young son Craig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We believe the father's bad temperament was made worse by his drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrell was ill-tempered and abusive toward his wife Lorraine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrell and Lorraine Hansen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Dungeons and Dragons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig's father was vehemently opposed to him playing this board game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrell was disappointed that his son didn't stand up to three bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Craig explained cars, airplanes, electricity, to Azoth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darrell said Craig was living in a fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seems Craig had the power to send people back and forth to the comic book fantasy world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x05", "title": "A Night In Sickbay", "date": "2002-10-16", "description": "The Captain's beagle, Porthos, becomes ill from an alien pathogen, and Captain Archer frets in Sickbay waiting for him to recover.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Porthos becomes ill from an alien pathogen and Archer frets in Sickbay waiting for him to recover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer resented having to apologize to the Kretassans on account that Porthos had urinated on their sacred tree: to Archer a tree was a tree, but to the Kretassans at lest one tree was regarded as sacred. In other happenings, Archer was surprised to hear from Phlox that the Denobulans practiced polygamy and did not keep animals as pets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was distressed over Porthos having picked up an alien pathogen while visiting the Kretassan home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox suggested that Archer consider getting involved with T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox suggested to Archer that Archer was besotted with T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressing one's romantic desires", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox confronted Archer about the possibility that Archer was repressing his sexual desire for T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox explained about the polygamous customs of his species to Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox discussed his relationship with his sons with Archer in Sickbay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x11", "title": "The Lineman", "date": "2002-10-23", "description": "A lineman gradually discovers everything comes with a price after being struck by lightning, gaining the ability to hear other people's thoughts, and using his newfound powers for personal and financial gain.\n\nDirected by: Jonathan Frakes. Story by: Pen Densham.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After being struck by lightning Tyler became able to hear thoughts of nearby people, which he used to enrich himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyler was besotted with his cute blond boss Shannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyler was struck by lightning while working on the telephone wires; he became \"charged\" somehow and measured his capacity with a multimeter several times; he stuck his head in a microwave oven in order to enhance his powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyler and Buddy were best buds, and had been so since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler complained that his ability could be troublesome but being at higher altitudes, for example, helped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The doctor mentioned amnesia while diagnosing Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler descried that his married doctor had gotten the secretary pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler could sue for seven figures if he accused his boss of negligence, but he rather liked his cute blond boss and passed up the opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler's friend's dad had taken to the bottle after Tyler's friend's mother died. Tyler himself ended up hitting the sauce pretty hard in an effort to dampen his psychic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler's friend had emotional thoughts about when Tyler's friend's mother died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shannon spoke of her ex-husband using his divorce lawyers to get back at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing it fair vs. taking an advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shannon contended that it was unfair of Tyler to use his mind reading powers to make a killing on the stock market, but Tyler disagreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shannon was afraid of commitment but Tyler acted as if they were an item - they were clearly dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler hubristically proclaimed that he had the power to change anything. Events proceeded to show him that this was not so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler became upset when he saw Shannon kissing another guy five seconds after dumping Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After sticking his head in the microwave, Tyler though he might be able to make Shannon love him but it didn't quite seem to work. Tyler also telepathically controlled one restaurant employee to touch her own nose, and another to touch his own throat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind attack ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After sticking his head in the microwave, Tyler inflicted some sort of psionic pain on a couple of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human physiological need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator made a comment about how humans are hardwired to find food, shelter, and sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator summed up the lesson Tyler was supposed to have learned with his turn of phrase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A physician twice revived a lightning struck Tyler from after the point of clinical death in a hospital emergence room setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shannon felt responsible for Tyler getting electrocuted while he was working on a power line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler won roughly $1500 playing poker in what was probably a den for illegal gambling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tyler was driving recklessly down in street in broad daylight with a half-full (or half-empty) bottle of hard liquor in hand.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x12", "title": "Harsh Mistress", "date": "2002-10-30", "description": "A talentless wannabe rock musician gains talent, wealth, and international stardom at a surprising price tag after purchasing a classic guitar with dark powers and an equally dark past.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "haunted object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Corey used the word \"haunted\" to describe the guitar and it certainly had a will of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corey's role model Bobby McCain killed himself, as did someone else who had had the same guitar, we heard. In the end Corey killed himself in an automobile wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pertained to the music making industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Corey was an aspiring guitarist who wanted to become a rock star. Corey looked up to the legendary, suicided rock guitarist Bobby McCain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the beginning, Corey was a poor aspiring guitarist who dreamt of becoming great.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the beginning, Corey was a poor aspiring guitarist who dreamt of becoming great.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The guitar became jealous of Ashley and strangled her. It was also jealous of another guitar that Corey had picked up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "short and sweet life vs. long and miserable life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Corey's voice ended with the saying \"live fast and die young\" applied to himself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x13", "title": "Upgrade", "date": "2002-10-30", "description": "A housewife juggles moving into a new house with her dysfuctional family, fantasizing about the life she wants to live, and preventing her seemingly idyllic fantasies from becoming reality.\n\nDirected by: Joe Chappelle. Story by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the people around me changed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Annie became evermore befuddled as the people in her family seemingly kept changing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip and Annie MacIntosh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annie was initially at a loss to explain why her family members were getting seamlessly replaced by other, better people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an ordinary family as they settle in at a newly moved into home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annie wished she had a perfect family and home, but regretted it once her imperfect family members started getting replaced by perfect ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the family members in the story were just simulated characters in a little girl's computer game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator spelled out the idea that we might simply all of us be characters in some game and liable to be replaced at a whim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The MacKintosh family dog Zonk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage siblings Sean and Tess were quarreling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie had an idea of what a perfect family would be, but when she got it, she realized that it was not so perfect after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie and her teenage son Sean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie and her teenage daughter Tess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip and his teenage son Sean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip and his teenage daughter Tess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie had some conversations were her friend Yasmine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x06", "title": "Marauders", "date": "2002-10-30", "description": "Captain Archer barters for deuterium from a mining colony plagued by Klingon marauders, who are seeking deuterium as well.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer taught the colonists how to stand up to Klingon bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer taught the colonists to stand and fight the Klingon bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer stayed to help the aliens overthrow their Klingon oppressors even though he was not obligated to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marauding Klingon soldiers were preying on the members of a mining colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer bartered for deuterium from a mining colony plagued by Klingon marauders.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 28 Days Later (2002)", "title": "28 Days Later", "date": "2002-11-01", "description": "28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror drama film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Alex Garland, and starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns and Brendan Gleeson.\n\nSynopsis: Four survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic cope with the destruction of the lives they once knew while evading those infected by the virus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People infected by the \"Rage\" virus quickly turned into mindless zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The four survivors were left to fend for themselves in a Great Britain overrun with roving bands of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows four survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic as they try to survive in a Great Britain now populated by roving zombies and at least one one band of soldiers hold up in a fortified mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about Britain being completely and utterly overrun by voracious, human-flesh eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus called \"Rage\" having utterly decimated the population of Great Britain, and in all likelihood the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three survivors became trapped in a fortified compound run by former soldiers that served as a microcosm of the social breakdown of a society. Overwhelmed by the pandemic and resulting hoards of roving zombies, the soldiers let their respect of the rule of law fall to the wayside and behaved in a most barbarous fashion. For example, they went about luring female survivors of the pandemic into sexual slavery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three survivors were held against their will by the former soldiers in a fortified mansion. They made efforts to end their captivity after it became apparent that the two females among them were to serve as the soldier's sex slaves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jim and Selena's romantic feelings for one another boiled over throughout the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small band of of animal right's activists forcibly freed a \"Rage\" virus infected chimp from a government facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jim lamented that he'd lost both parents and his sister to the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank beloved his young daughter Hanna and did everything in his power to protect her from the zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hanna had to come to grips with the fact that the soldiers shot her virus infected father to death and that he was not coming back.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x14", "title": "To Protect and Serve", "date": "2002-11-06", "description": "An idealistic young police officer dedicates himself to doing whatever it takes to protect a prostitute and family friend from the vindictive ghost of the pimp he was forced to shoot and kill in the line of duty.\n\nDirected by: Joe Chappelle. Story by: Kamran Pasha.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prostitution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a prostitute, her pimp, and a policeman who shot the pimp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rigo kept looking for vengeance from beyond the grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rigo, Carla, and Eric all seemed to have become telephoning ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eric was a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rigo had a rather hubristic soliloquy just before he got shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carla peddled her affections on the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rigo may have posthumously killed Carla and Eric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haunted by ghosts, Eric committed suicide in an alleyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric was called a Galahad for coming to a woman's rescue and then trying to stay and protect her further.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eric's partner insisted, perhaps incorrectly, that Eric's problems stemmed from feelings of guilt over having shot a man dead while in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x15", "title": "Chosen", "date": "2002-11-06", "description": "A destitute man sets out to unearth what he believes to be a conspiracy after the arrival of two persistent evangelists coincides with several disappearances and a potential nuclear Armageddon.\n\nDirected by: Winrich Kolbe. Story by: Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story ended with a suggestion that the worthy had been saved just before Armageddon. A bum handed Vince a note about the end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vince was in debt up to his ears had little prospect of finding a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vince had no money, no job, and his girlfriend had recently left him because he was such a loser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "An escalating nuclear crisis among the superpowers led the world ending in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vince witnessed the people around him turning into what seemed to be religious nuts one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that the missionaries were actually aliens who were saving some \"chosen\" people before the world ended in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The missionaries somehow knew that Vince had multiple DUIs on his police record.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vince was trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend who'd dumped him like a sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leah had recently dumped her boyfriend Vince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vince at one point theorized that people around him were being abducted by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "generosity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Despite being broke, Vince bought food and porn for his handicapped neighbor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crazy bum told Vince that the missionaries were in fact aliens in disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Homeland Security officer told Vince to be careful who he lets into his home. Vince then barricaded himself there with a shotgun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "angel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "With an apparition of wings, it was notably suggested that the missionaries were in fact angels saving the worthy just before Armageddon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two missionaries were thought to be from some weird proselytize self-improvement cult.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x07", "title": "The Seventh", "date": "2002-11-06", "description": "Sub-Commander T'Pol is reactivated as a Vulcan intelligence agent, reawakening a dark secret from her past.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol and Archer were struggling with whether to apprehend a possibly innocent, framed, and persecuted man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "confronting an old ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol over having shot and killed Jossen sixteen years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol felt guilty over having shot and killed Jossen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol had suppressed her memory of shooting Jossen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-female bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer bonded with T'Pol on mission to capture the Vulcan fugitive Menos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Menos smuggled dangerous biotoxins that were used to create transgenic weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was a matter of honor that T'Pol was tasked to apprehend the Vulcan fugitive Menos, who has previously eluded her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Menos was surgically altered to look Pernaian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was indecisive when left in command of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker found that being Captain was not all fun and games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was taking in a water polo match in his quarters.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x08", "title": "Crimes of the Hot", "date": "2002-11-10", "description": "\"Crimes of the Hot\" is the eighth episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 10, 2002. The episode was written by Aaron Ehasz and directed by Peter Avanzino. Al Gore guest stars as his own preserved head in a jar, his second appearance in the series. The episode tackles the topic of global warming as the Planet Express crew is sent to retrieve Earth's yearly ice supply in order to keep the planet cool. When they are unable to retrieve the ice, the Earth is forced to search for other ways to solve their global warming problem. In 2003, the episode was nominated for an Environmental Media Award.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Aaron Ehasz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth was threatened by anthropogenic/robopogenic global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender took up saving the Earth from global warming as a cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was prepared to sacrifice himself to stop global warming and encouraged other robots of the world to follow his example.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ethical dilemma centered around sacrificing sentient robots to save humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "changing the orbit of a planet around its star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The threat of global warming was thwarted by moving the Earth into a more distant orbit around the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space mirror", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Wernstrom built a space mirror to help cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sun gun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Wernstrom modified his space mirror to fire a gigantic electromagnetic pulse at the Galapagos Islands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth President Richard Nixon's head held a party for all the robots of the world. Al Gore's head hosted a scientific conference on global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid mining", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went on a mission to mine Haley's comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went on a mission to mine Haley's comet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A middle aged Professor Farnsworth and Mom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth felt guilt over having caused global warming with his gas guzzling robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robots, mechanical men for the most part, were found to be the cause of global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth vied with Professor Wernstrom over how to solve the global warming problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "climate change and bureaucratic inaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth government just dropped an ice cube in the ocean every now and then, postponing the problem of global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a parody on a scientific convention, and parodical professor rivalry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x16", "title": "Sensuous Cindy", "date": "2002-11-13", "description": "A magazine writer whose fiancée believes in not having sex until after marriage interacts with a woman from a virtual reality simulation who wants him all to herself.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ben was being more or less stalked by a virtual reality woman whom with he'd had a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Spurned, Cindy stalked Ben by trapping him in an elevator among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chastity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha was apparently saving herself for marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Ben and his saving her self for marriage fiancée Samantha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben became entangled with a lover who he'd encountered in a virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben cheated on his fiancée Samantha with a seductive virtual woman. In a surprise twist, it turned out that a seemingly faithful Samantha had done the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben and his fiancée Samantha were in what was by all appearances a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben tried to live without sex for six months and turned to VR porn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male lasciviousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story had two sex crazy male characters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fantasy romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The virtual reality seductress Cindy was some sort of male fantasy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha was saving herself for marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clingy girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sensual Cindy became a stereotypically clingy girlfriend who stalked Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben working as a writer at a racy magazine publisher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben expressed regret over having broken his vow of chastity to his fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Samantha and Cindy was surprising and conspicuous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sensuous Cindy was stalking Ben in the aftermath of what to Ben was a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sensuous Cindy was obsessed with being with Ben, but he didn't want anything to do with her after they had a brief romantic encounter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x17", "title": "Hunted", "date": "2002-11-13", "description": "Members of an elite special forces team living in a futuristic utopia that is free of violence and criminal activity sets out to track down and execute a vicious creature responsible for the deaths of several civilians.\n\nDirected by: Patrick Norris. Story by: Christopher Mack.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the city dwellers were all androids whose ancestors had overthrown humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an elite special forces team as it attempts to track down and execute a vicious, forest-dwelling creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the story is that the city dwellers were all androids whose ancestors had overthrown humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began and ended with Lt. Jeffrey Freed conversing with his wife Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly was singing \"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star\" to her \"newborn\" son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kreetor had taken it upon himself to kill all the cyborgs that had risen up and taken dominion over the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various characters were upset when various other characters were killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x08", "title": "The Communicator", "date": "2002-11-13", "description": "After an away mission, Lieutenant Reed discovers that his communicator was lost on a pre-warp planet; he and Captain Archer are then captured trying to retrieve it.\n\nDirected by: James A. Contner. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew needed to retrieve a communicator that Malcolm lost on a pre-warp world in order to not contaminate their culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm were detained by soldiers who accused them of being enemy spies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm were prepared to be executed rather than reveal they were aliens to the inhabitants of a pre-warp world and risk contaminating their culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm were discovered to be aliens by the inhabitants of a pre-warp civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pre-warp aliens were impressed by all the communicator left by Malcolm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearance altering technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm surgically altered to look like the pre-warp aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm was disappointed in himself over having lost a communicator on a pre-warp world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather quipped that Tucker could use his invisible right hand to steal his neighbors popcorn at movie night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was studying a cloaked Suliban cell ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm pretended to be genetically engineered super soldiers while under interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Malcolm were sentenced to the gallows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was beaten back and blue in the course of an interrogation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x07", "title": "Jurassic Bark", "date": "2002-11-17", "description": "\"Jurassic Bark\" is the seventh episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 17, 2002. The plot revolves around Fry, who finds a fossilized version of his dog Seymour from before he was frozen. Fry seeks to have his pet brought back to life. The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award, but lost to The Simpsons episode \"Three Gays of the Condo\".\n\nDirected by: Swinton O. Scott III. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and his pet dog Seymour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was depicted as a 90s guy with a go nowhere job and no future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was jealous about Fry's dog Seymour. Fry and Seymuor?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was jealous about Fry's dog Seymour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone was commenting about \"The Stupid Ages\" that gave birth to Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry reminiscing about his days as a pizza delivery boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Seymour was about to be revived 988 years after its death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was shown delivering a pizza to I.C. Wiener at the cryogenics facility and getting himself frozen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry lead a protest to get his dog back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was practicing stage magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's parents went to look for him after he went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's parents went to look for him after he went missing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x18", "title": "Mr. Motivation", "date": "2002-11-20", "description": "A toy doll with a sinister personality encourages a timid pharmaceutical employee to stand up to his business manager and take control of his life.\n\nDirected by: Deran Sarafian. Story by: Steven Aspis, Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A talking, toy doll encouraged the timid pharmaceutical employee Charlie to stand up to his overbearing boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in a stereotypical office and turned a conflict between a timid employee and his overbearing boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pharmaceutical company manager Rick plotted to commit an elaborate fraud related to a prescription drug recall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropomorphic object come to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was given a strange, talking doll for his birthday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie stood up to his overbearing boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie's boss Rick was a bully and a criminal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie finally stood up to Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "major", "motivation": "After a life time of caving in, Charlie finally stood up to his bully of a boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick mistakenly thought that Charlie was trying to blackmail him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A secretary hit on Charlie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x19", "title": "Sanctuary", "date": "2002-11-20", "description": "A sports agent and a real estate agent stranded in a modern version of the Garden of Eden struggle to keep their idyllic world from crumbling when an injured motorcyclist with a working cell phone arrives.\n\nDirected by: Patrick Norris. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott and Marisa found themselves stranded in and around an idyllic lakeside mansion after having both independently wandered into a forest off the side of a busy roadway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Adam and Eve creation myth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a strange retelling of this ancient myth with Scott playing the role of Adam, Marisa that of Eve, and Rikki that of Satan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott and Marisa tried but ultimately failed to resist the temptation presented by Rikki, to use the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was an ambitious sports agent who one gathers was trying to make it all the way to the top.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marisa had seemingly enough of her fiancée Paul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricki described the man she was talking with on her cell phone as her boyfriend, Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott worried that the star basketball player he was representing would leave him and sign with a rival sports agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott had a tense discussion with his wife on the phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott and Marisa undertook a tryst or two despite having partners of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott and Marisa seemed besotted without each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It appears that Rikki was the snake in the garden of Eden, which is often equated with Satan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott mellowed out a bit when he got a break from being a high-profile sports agent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x09", "title": "Singularity", "date": "2002-11-20", "description": "Enterprise charts a course through a trinary star system to investigate a black hole, and the crew find themselves suffering from a condition similar to OCD.\n\nDirected by: Patrick Norris. Story by: Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone became really obsessed with one thing they were doing, including Archer with writing his speech, Tucker with modifying the captain's chair, Hoshi with cooking for the crew, Phlox with treating Mayweather for a headache, and Malcolm with his alert system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone around T'Pol became strangely obsessed with the particular tasks they were working on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "A trinary star system with a black hole was emitting radiation that made the Enterprise crew members become obsessed with trivial matters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew were curious to investigate a black hole inside a trinary star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi took became obsessed with cooking for the crew when she took over for Chef.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disciplined leadership vs. flexible leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm called Archer's comparatively lax command style into question and took matters into his own hands to improve discipline aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x20", "title": "Future Trade", "date": "2002-11-27", "description": "A man with a dead-end job at a big-box store and a dysfunctional family learns that leading the privileged life isn't everything he hoped it would be after trading his future for that of a man with a trophy wife.\n\nDirected by: Bob Balaban. Story by: Clyde Hayes.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin repeatedly suspected that his new life was too good to be true, and so it turned out to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin was sick of working at his low paying sales job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the grass is always greener on the other side", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people who came to the Future Stock company thought that other peoples lives would be better than their own, but as Martin found out this is not necessarily so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin traded his nagging wife for a foxy, trophy wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martin was on cloud nine in the presence of his new trophy wife, Francesca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Though it wasn't literally wishing this time, Martin obviously wanted a hot wife, big house, good job etc. and got more than he bargained for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francesca was carrying on an affair with Edwardo behind Martin's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin confessed to being a bit jealous of her wife's paramour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminated with Martin's trophy wife poisoning him and then having him dumped in the swimming pool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francesca used curare laced wine to dispatch her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martin had abused hurled at him from downstairs by an angry and overbearing wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x21", "title": "Found and Lost", "date": "2002-11-27", "description": "A troubled businessman receives an opportunity to go back in time, revisit his past, and make another attempt to win the heart of the young woman he once loved.\n\nDirected by: Vern Gillum. Story by: Bill Mumy, Frederick Rappaport.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sean wistfully pondered his childhood and choices he didn't make.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sean came to deeply regret not only having surreptitiously sold his father's prized 1927 New York Yankees team-signed baseball, but also having chosen a life in the business world over being with his high school sweetheart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean was shown running that highly successful coffee chain that he'd founded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "The businessman Sean was only interested in money, and used the \"greed is good\" mantra in an interview.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean came to deeply regret not only having surreptitiously sold his father's prized 1927 New York Yankees team-signed baseball, but also having chosen a life in the business world over being with his high school sweetheart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a second chance at life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concludes with Sean being given the opportunity to go back in time and make things workout with his old flame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean chose a career in business over his high school sweetheart in the first unfolding of his life. But when given the chance to do it all over again, Sean choose to be with his high school sweetheart over an extremely successful career in the coffee business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sean was visited by what one gathers was the ghost of his high school sweetheart. In the end, Sean found himself in the past and took the initiative to ensure that things would work out with his high school sweetheart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having injured someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story pivoted on Sean's remorse for having broken his dad's heart by selling a trophy baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean came into possession of the very 1927 New York Yankees team-signed baseball that he'd stolen from his father as a teenager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean made a failed bid to reconcile with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean was shown interacting with his father in an old home video.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean's parents were shown interacting in an old home video.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean paid the woman he had just slept with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reporter alleged that Sean was too alone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x10", "title": "Vanishing Point", "date": "2002-11-27", "description": "After her first trip through the transporter, Ensign Sato finds herself becoming incorporeal, with the crew believing she has perished.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hoshi became invisible, much like a ghost, in the aftermath of her first trip through the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hoshi overcame her fear of teleportation by stepping on to the alien transporter in order to save Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "A transporter malfunction rendered Hoshi the transporter was the source of all trouble in this story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi was fearful of using the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi about whether she was really turning into a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker felt guilty over having let Hoshi go first thought the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker felt guilty over having let Hoshi go first thought the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew mourned Hoshi's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer contacted Hoshi's father to deliver the bad news that she had died in a transporter mishap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Morse code", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi used Morse code to communicate with Archer, after she was turned invisible.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solaris (2002)", "title": "Solaris", "date": "2002-11-29", "description": "Solaris is a 2002 American science fiction drama film written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, produced by James Cameron and Jon Landau, and starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone. It is based on the 1961 science fiction novel of the same name by Polish writer Stanisław Lem.\n\nSynopsis: A clinical psychologist arrives on a space station orbiting a mysterious planet to find that people from the memories of the crew are being conjured into reality.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(2002_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious influence bound up with the titular Solaris planet conjured a version of Chris Kelvin's dearly departed wife, Rheya, into reality. However, Chris came to understand that it was not Rheya as she was in live, but rather Rheya as he remembered her. In the end, the said influence conjured Chris' earthly home into existence, presumably just as he had remembered it, implying that it was constructed using the contents of his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder to what extent was the Rheya replica was the the same as the Rheya who'd killed herself some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin reflected back on his time together with his dearly departed wife, Rheya, throughout the film. At the same time, he was confronted by replicas of Rheya while aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin's love for his dearly departed wife Rheya was much explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is almost entirely set on a rotating wheel space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin encountered replicas of his dearly departed wife, Rheya, while aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin reflected back on his meeting of Rheya and their subsequent courtship throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin was ferried to the Solaris space station in a futuristic, interstellar capable spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin was ferried from Earth to the distant planet Solaris in a futuristic spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the real Rheya had killed herself some years prior. The Rheya replica committed suicide by overdosing on pills. Gibarian had killed himself according to Dr. Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Kelvin lamented that his wife Rheya had taken her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Snow replica explained that he'd killed the real Snow in self-defense.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Equilibrium (2002)", "title": "Equilibrium", "date": "2002-12-06", "description": "Equilibrium is a 2002 American science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, and starring Christian Bale, Emily Watson, and Taye Diggs.\n\nSynopsis: An enforcement officer in a future city-state comes to question why feelings and artistic expression are outlawed and citizens take psychoactive drugs to suppress their emotions.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future totalitarian city-state where feelings and artistic expression are outlawed and citizens are compelled by law to take emotion suppressing drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows John Preston as he comes to question why experiencing emotions of any kind is banned in the totalitarian city-state of which he is a citizen and law enforcement officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story John Preston started helping an underground resistance movement that was trying to overthrow the ruling totalitarian regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Preston was leading a law enforcement division that was going around busting people for so-called \"sense-crime\" in a city-state where emotion was strictly forbidden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future totalitarian city-state the inhabitants of which are required to take psychoactive drugs to suppress their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformist dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future totalitarian city-state in which people were made to lead virtually identical lives, individual expression was harshly discouraged, and sameness and unity trumpeted as the highest ideals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the totalitarian city-state Libria had been established by survivors of this hypothetical war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "television as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Out-and-out propaganda was broadcast on giant video screens throughout the totalitarian city-state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Preston and his apparently loyal-to-the-state young son, Robbie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Preston and his young daughter, Lisa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robbie and his little sister Lisa spoke at the breakfast table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John pointedly took compassion on a condemned puppy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Preston was slow to trust his newly assigned partner on the state police force Andrew Brandt, and for good reason as Brant ultimately turned on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Preston was briefly overcome by the sight of a beautiful day shortly after discontinuing use of emotion-suppressing psychoactive drugs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama3x12", "title": "The Route of All Evil", "date": "2002-12-08", "description": "\"The Route of All Evil\" is the twelfth episode in the third season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 8, 2002. In the episode, Dwight and Cubert form their own delivery company in an attempt to impress their fathers.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Hermes had to figure out what to do after their sons Cubert and Dwight got suspended from school. H.G. Blob and Brett Blob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight started a delivery company to rival that of their fathers'.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight started a space paper route business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was bringing an ale to term in his compartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight were being bullied at school by a blob named Brett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight used their brains to outwit school bully/blob Brett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight were being bullied at school by a blob named Brett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight were dumping newspapers in a crater on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brains vs. brawn", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight used their brains to outwit school bully/blob Brett.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender were brewing an ale inside Bender and Leela told Cubert that alcohol was bad for people under the legal drinking age and good for those above it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were expensive apartments on the sun.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x22", "title": "Gabe's Story", "date": "2002-12-11", "description": "A deliveryman suffering from consistent bad luck sets out to challenge fate after getting into a car accident, hitting his head, and gaining the uncanny ability to see the events surrounding his bad breaks where he sees a mysterious man in a jumpsuit.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Dusty Kay.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gabe found out that his fate was being mediated by a fate bureaucracy which determined what peoples' fates should be, and worked tirelessly to ensure there would be no deviations from them. Gabe successfully arm twisted the bureaucracy into rewriting his fate. The fate bureaucracy was not normally seen by people and was therefore akin to the fates of Greek mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe's marriage with Nancy was falling apart before his eyes until such time as he took control of his own fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe and his wife were up to their ears in expenses that he could not afford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw strange things no one else could see", "level": "major", "motivation": "Only Gabe could see the strange guy in an orange jumpsuit who was responsible for mediating out his fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hard up for cash, Gabe and his friend hatched a plot to steal some electronics equipment from the company where Gabe worked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe, a man who couldn't catch a break in life, challenged the bureaucracy of fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe discovered the reasons for his consistent bad luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personally irresponsible character", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was that Gabe needed to shape up and take charge of his life - also take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else for his misfortunes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe was dissatisfied with barely scraping as a deliveryman. In the end, he took matters into his own hands and started a deliver company of his own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe reluctantly turned to crime as he was on the verge of losing his family because of money trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a predetermined life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gabe was astonished to discover that his life was unfolding according to the scripts of a write who'd been tasked to mead out his fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe faced a mildly Kafkaesque company bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe and his adolescent daughter Linda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roxanne was a writer who was task with writing the fate of Gabe among other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe argued that he was a victim of bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Gabe's daughter played the violin it sounding like a cat being strangled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gabe naturally assumed that his \"writer\" was God, but was corrected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The man in the orange jump suit set up Gabe to take the fall for breaking a valuable vase.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x23", "title": "Last Lap", "date": "2002-12-11", "description": "A young man takes his terminally ill childhood friend to a local racetrack for a final ride in his GT street racer that results in unexpected consequences for both men.\n\nDirected by: Brad Turner. Story by: Rob Hedden.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a man terminally ill with cancer who comes to accept his impending death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy was afraid to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a man terminally ill with cancer who comes to accept his impending death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy was haunted by his childhood friend Marco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marco and Andy went joyriding in Marco's GT street car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy felt responsible for Marco dying in a fiery car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy felt that it was him who should have died in the fiery car wreck, rather than his childhood friend Marco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andy mourned the loss of his childhood friend Marco who died in a fiery car wreck, but he was puzzled why nobody else seemed to care that Marco had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy chastised his sister Jami for not giving a crap about Marco's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's parents confronted him over what they perceived as his strange behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's parents confronted him over what they perceived as his strange behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Andy's parents were worried about what they perceived as him acting strangely in the wake of Marco's death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x11", "title": "Precious Cargo", "date": "2002-12-11", "description": "While answering a distress call, Commander Tucker is kidnapped along with a demanding alien princess.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and Princess Kaitaama became besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Princess Kaitaama treated Tucker like one of her subjects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer went out of his way to help the Retellians repair their malfunctioning stasis pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer showed exceptional hospitality by inviting the Retellians to dinner at his table and this was commented upon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Princess Kaitaama were unable to understand one another because of a language barrier until he got his universal translator working.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker needed the universal translator to communicate with Princess Kaitaama.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Kaitaama was kept in stasis while she was being transported by the Retellians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Kaitaama was kidnapped for ransom by a pair of Retellians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Princess Kaitaama had to wait it out in a swamp while awaiting rescue by Enterprise. They failed to find dry kindling but didn’t let that stop them from making whoopee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was taken aback by the regal condescending manner of Princess Kaitaama.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)", "title": "Star Trek: Nemesis", "date": "2002-12-13", "description": "The crew of the USS Enterprise-E are forced to deal with a threat to the United Federation of Planets from a clone of Captain Picard named Shinzon, who has taken control of the Romulan Star Empire in a coup d'état. It is the tenth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the fourth and final film to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Nemesis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise-E.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Soong's prototype of Data was discovered and reassembled. Data's androidness was also amply featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Data and his prototype B-4.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard met his younger clone Shinzon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Romulan's cloned Picard with a view to replacing the original.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard and his crew were dispatched on a diplomatic mission to Romulus and Remus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shinzon rose from being a slave in a mine to the Romulan Praetor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how the Romulans had basically subjugated and enslaved their planetary neighbors, the Remans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. nurture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two genetically identically Picard's grew up in markedly different circumstances and one ended up being good and the other evil as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shinzon plotted to kill everyone on the earth by using a special weapon of mas destruction that turned people into stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shinzon plotted to kill everyone on the earth by using a special weapon of mas destruction that turned people into stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shinzon harbored an intense hatred of humankind and plotted to kill all humans on the earth using a special weapon of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for personal development", "level": "major", "motivation": "Picard made some point about Shinzon having it in him to develop into a better person, but Shinzon insisted that he was what years of toiling in the mines had made him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Picard gave a toast at Riker and Troi's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worf was hung over on Romulan ale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Troi got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tidally locked planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data explained how the same face of Remus always faced its sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Reman ship uncloaked in front of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shinzon asked a female subordinate to kill someone as a test of her loyalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scimitar transported B-4 and Picard over from the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Troi got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Troi used her telepathic ability to somehow communicate with Shinzon's henchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Romulans joined forces with the Federation to prevent Shinzon from annihilating the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Romulans joined forces with the Federation to prevent Shinzon from annihilating the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Data gave his life to blow up Shinzon's ship and save the earth from being annihilated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The command crew mourned the death of their longtime crew member and friend Data at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space dock", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise was shown being repaired in a giant space dock in orbit around the earth at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)", "title": "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla", "date": "2002-12-14", "description": "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (ゴジラ×メカゴジラ, Gojira tai Mekagojira, released in Japan as Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla) is a 2002 Japanese kaiju film directed by Masaaki Tezuka, written by Wataru Mimura, and produced by Shogo Tomiyama. It is the 27th film in the Godzilla franchise and the fourth film in the franchise's Millennium period.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_Against_Mechagodzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Godzilla was terrorizing the people of Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant bio-mechanical robot Mechagodzilla was used by the Japan Self-Defense Forces to defend the Japan from a rampaging Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the relationship between Dr. Yuhara and his young daughter Sara who was struggling to get over the recent passing of her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Mechagodzilla was a giant, bipedal, dinosaur-like robot that was piloted from within by a human controller.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla was a bio-mechanical robot that incorporated the skeleton of a dead godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Akane Yashiro considered herself to have failed her unit and country over having panicked and misfired the maser-cannon during a Godzilla attack. She spend the better part of the film brooding over the event.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Akane Yashiro regretted having accidentally knocked a vehicle down a mountain, where it and its occupants are crushed by Godzilla. She subsequently brooded over it for the rest of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lieutenant Akane Yashiro was torn up inside over having been responsible for the deaths of a number of her fellow soldiers, and brooded over it for the duration of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara was having trouble coming to terms with the death of her mother. She spoke of how she wished she could bring her mother back to life, and kept a houseplant as a comfort item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Yuhara was balancing his scientific research with raising his young daughter Sara as a single father. He also tried to help Sara get over the passing of her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a massive loss of comrades", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Akane Yashiro mourned the deaths of a number of her fellow soldiers whose deaths she'd inadvertently caused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yuhara had a crush on Akane, although nothing much came of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Akane brushed off the various awkward passed that Dr. Yuhara made at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Yuhara explained that Mechagodzilla was installed with DNA computers what worked in base 4.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara stated that it was the use of the H-bomb the first attracted Godzilla to Japan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x12", "title": "The Catwalk", "date": "2002-12-18", "description": "The Enterprise crew takes refuge inside one of the warp nacelles to avoid an inescapable neutronic storm.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew had to hunker down inside one of the warp nacelles to avoid an inescapable neutronic storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Takret militiamen took over Enterprise while searching for deserters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew batten down the hatches in preparation for the passing of a deadly neutronic storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew had to hunker down inside one of the warp nacelles to avoid an inescapable neutronic storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox worried about his slugs and there were close-ups of Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer fixed morale by helping a girl with her crossword puzzle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi spoke with Archer about her claustrophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise crew was set to explore a planet replete with flora and fauna in a binary star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Takret deserters took refuge on Enterprise when the were under pursuit by Takret militiamen.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x05", "title": "A Taste of Freedom", "date": "2002-12-22", "description": "\"A Taste of Freedom\" is the fifth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 22, 2002. The episode was directed by James Purdum and written by Eric Horsted. The plot centers on Zoidberg's experience with the concept of freedom on Earth.\n\nDirected by: James Purdum. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg's people conquered Earth, imposed order, and took away everybody's freedoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free inquiry vs. obedience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg's right to free speech was violated, and the his people came to Earth and turned it into a dictatorship to teach everyone a lesson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were celebrating their various freedoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg felt at home on Earth because of the freedoms he had there as compare with his home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg was prosecuted for desecrating the Earth flag by eating it. People were patriotic over their freedoms and flag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Zoidberg stand idly by and watch his Decapodean people enslave the people of Earth whom he had come to know and love?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg's people conquered Earth and ran it as a dictatorship, but the people of Earth valued their various freedoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Decapodeans invaded Earth after Zoidberg was found guilty of desecrating the Earth flag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nudism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team engaged in nude hot tubbing on Freedom Day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Supreme Court justice heads were linked with high speed telepathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg was put on trial for desecrating the Earth flag.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The war veteran lawyer had seven wives and at least one husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bisexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The war veteran lawyer had seven wives and at least one husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head presided over a Freedom Day celebration. There were Supreme Court justice heads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Decapodeans attacked Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg was defended by a rugged, individualist lawyer when he was put on trial for having desecrated the Earth flag.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x24", "title": "The Path", "date": "2003-01-08", "description": "A dissatisfied tabloid magazine writer gradually becomes obsessed with relying on a fortune teller who provides her with uncannily accurate predictions about where her life is headed.\n\nDirected by: Jerry Levine. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ali was working as a tabloid journalist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ali became utterly reliant on the coffee house fortune teller Kneigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ali ended up not being able to make a decision without first consulting the fortune teller Kneigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ali was dissatisfied at her job writing for an outlandish tabloid journal and sought employment with more respectable publishers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ali became so preoccupied with having Kneigh read her future that she spent whole days waiting for him at the coffee shop and panicked when she missed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kneigh could see bits of people's futures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ali walked in on her boyfriend sleeping with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ali walked in on her boyfriend sleeping with another woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ali showed a notable lack of sympathy for Kneigh as he lay dying in the street, rather she was only concerned about him not being able to tell her fortune anymore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x25", "title": "Fair Warning", "date": "2003-01-08", "description": "A flower shop employee finds herself struggling to convince people a troubled pet store employee suffering from dissociative identity disorder is stalking her.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tina was told buy a guy's projection that the guy would kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's conscience was somehow projecting itself in the guise of George himself to warm Tina that a love obsessed George was going to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tina was in a happy relationship with her boyfriend Ryan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's conscience projected itself in order to warn Tina about George's nefarious intentions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "George's conscience projected itself in order to warn Tina about George's nefarious intentions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryan left Tina to attend band practice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The remote projection of George's conscience creeped out Tina by telling her that's he'd fallen in love with her at first sight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was obsessed with Tina and tried to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was obsessed with Tina and tried to kill her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Henley was investigating Tina's allegation that George was stalking her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tina's friend Gwen helped Tina with her stalker situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ryan gallantly came to Tina's defense and said he'd have a man-to-man with the creepy guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tina said on the phone that she might be hallucinating the threatening encounters with George.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x13", "title": "Dawn", "date": "2003-01-08", "description": "Commander Tucker is fired upon by an Arkonian ship and is then stranded on a planet with his attacker.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: John Shiban.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tucker and Zho'Kaan built up a bond of trust in the course of working together to survive on a desolate moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer cooperated with the Arkonian captain to coordinate the search for Tucker and his Arkonian attacker. Tucker and Zho'Kaan had to work together to survive on a desolate moon until such time as they could be rescued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and Zho'Kaan had to work together to survive on a desolate moon until such time as they could be rescued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and Zho'Kaan had to find a way of communicating to survive in spite of not speaking a common language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and Zho'Kaan built up a bond of trust in the course of working together to survive on a desolate moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Zho'Kaan were able to communicate in sickbay with the help of the universal translator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arkonians loathed the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Its All About Love (2003)", "title": "It's All About Love", "date": "2003-01-10", "description": "It's All About Love is a 2003 English-language Danish romance-drama film written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg.\n\nSynopsis: A husband and wife resolve to save their relationship as the world is entering into an ice age.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_All_About_Love" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows John as he rekindled his relationship with his estranged, figure skating superstar wife Elena. As the title suggests, the story is above all a story about love and how it is the most important thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows John as he rekindled his relationship with his estranged, figure skating superstar wife Elena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the figure skater Elena's entourage making a trio of Elena clones with which they plotted to replace her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Elena was a superstar figure skater. In addition to her performing on ice, the viewer is shown the sheltered and stage managed sort of life that she lived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in 2021 and the whole world is creeping into a new ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John went to New York to get his estranged wife, Elena, to sign divorce papers, but they quickly abandoned this plan after rekindling their love for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elena was disturbed upon being introduced to her three clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's older brother, Marciello, spoke to John over a cell phone from the doomed passenger liner he was flying on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John wept while cradling the just died from exposure body of his wife, Elena.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x01", "title": "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch", "date": "2003-01-12", "description": "\"Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch\" is the first episode in season four of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 12, 2003. The episode was written by Bill Odenkirk and directed by Wes Archer. The plot centers on Kif and Amy's relationship; Kif is suddenly impregnated so he returns to his homeworld to give birth. The episode was generally well received by critics.\n\nDirected by: Wes Archer. Story by: Bill Odenkirk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy was reluctant to move into together with Kif and mother his children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela impregnated Kif, although Amy was considered to be the parent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela impregnated Kif, although Amy was considered to be the parent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kif returned to his home world Amphibios 9 to give birth to his offspring in the same pond where he was born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif struggled in his long distance relationship with Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was like a father and Kif a mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nimbus holoshed malfunctioned and the simulated characters went on a murderous rampage. It was mentioned Brannigan got slapped with three paternity suits the last time the holoshed went haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew was put into hibernative naptosis during the long trip to Nigel 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered a giant pain killer to the headache suffering hive mind on Nigel 7.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hoverboard", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents converted her \"party board\" (a.k.a. a hoverboard) into an ironing board after she got pregnant with Kif's offspring.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "Robot Stories (2003): The Robot Fixer", "title": "Robot Stories (2003): The Robot Fixer", "date": "2003-01-20", "description": "A mother comes to see her comatose son in a new light.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story climaxes with Bernice finally coming to accept that her comatose son will inevitably die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story climaxes with Bernice finally coming to accept that her comatose son will inevitably die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice stayed by her comatose son's bedside, filling his hospital room with the sorts of toy robots that he loved to play with in his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice stayed by her comatose son's bedside, filling his hospital room with the sorts of toy robots that he loved to play with in his childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Bernice as she cares for her comatose son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice's daughter, Grace, was trying to make her understand that Wilson was never going to revive from his coma and that it was time to pull the plug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental disappointment in a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice was initially ashamed that her son had not been more successful in life, but ultimately came to appreciate him for who he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulling the plug on a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice ultimately authorized having the plug pulled on her comatose son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bernice desperately scrambled around to fill her comatose son's hospital room with the sorts of robots he'd enjoyed playing with in his childhood, clinging to the idea that doing would result in his reviving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bernice made off from the hobby shop with an expensive toy robot collectible.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Stories (2003)", "title": "Robot Stories", "date": "2003-01-20", "description": "Robot Stories is a 2003 American independent anthology science fiction comedy- drama film written and directed by Greg Pak. The film consists of four stories in which human characters struggle to connect in a world of robot babies and android office workers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [ "movie: Robot Stories (2003): My Robot Baby", "movie: Robot Stories (2003): The Robot Fixer", "movie: Robot Stories (2003): Machine Love", "movie: Robot Stories (2003): Clay" ], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Stories" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Stories (2003): Clay", "title": "Robot Stories (2003): Clay", "date": "2003-01-20", "description": "A dying sculptor must choose whether or not to transfer his consciousness to a digital world before he passes away.", "collections": [ "Collection: movie: Robot Stories (2003)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "digital afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where it is normal for people to have their consciousness transferred to a digital world before they die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main character John coped with having a year left to live owing to an incurable lung infection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature vs. artifice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The dying clay sculptor John ultimately refused to transfer his consciousness into a digital world, because he wanted to keep using his physical senses to make sculptures. John could not love the digital copy of his wife in the same way that he loved the original. In the end, John choose to die rather than become part of an artificial reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sculpture", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clay sculptor John was working on finishing a one last project before he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "John's wife had died in the past but her consciousness lived on with him in the form of a virtual hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how John loses his connection with his wife after her consciousness is transferred into a digital world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between John and the digital clone of his deceased wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's physician diagnosed him with an incurable lung infection, and gave him one year to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The consciousness of John's deceased wife appeared in his home in holographic form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John's son urged him to continue his sculpting work in the digital after world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly man John entered into a virtual reality setting in the guise of his younger self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John confided in Helen that he felt he didn't deserve her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Stories (2003): Machine Love", "title": "Robot Stories (2003): Machine Love", "date": "2003-01-20", "description": "A friendly android is rejected by his fellow office workers.", "collections": [ "Collection: movie: Robot Stories (2003)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about the android Archie being socially rejected at his new workplace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Archie being shunned at his place of work on account that he was an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with the Archie and another office android falling passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores with it might be like to have an android working in an otherwise ordinary office place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archie's boss gave him a cold welcome to his new job at the office.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robot Stories (2003): My Robot Baby", "title": "Robot Stories (2003): My Robot Baby", "date": "2003-01-20", "description": "A married couple care for a robot infant.", "collections": [ "Collection: movie: Robot Stories (2003)" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "becoming like what you oppose", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story climaxes with Marcia realizing that she'd inadvertently followed in her own mother's footsteps and become a terrible mother herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia and Ray were looking forward to adopting a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia and Ray were shown balancing their work lives with caring for their robot baby. Young Marcia hid in the closet as her parents shouted at one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcia struggled mightily to care for her robot baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is a toaster-sized, egg-shaped robot that was programmed to behave like a human baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Marcia was told by her mother to never fall in love, get married, and have children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marcia went to see her handyman father about tampering with her robot baby's electronics to make it less of a hassle to care for.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "columbo1971e10x14", "title": "Columbo Likes the Nightlife", "date": "2003-01-30", "description": "When Vanessa Farrow defends herself against an assault by her ex-husband, mobster Tony Galper, she accidentally kills him. Her boyfriend, Los Angeles rave promoter Justin Price, whose new club Galper was backing, helps Vanessa dispose of the body, but the events are secretly photographed by tabloid photographer Linwood Coben, who offers Price the negatives and prints for $250,000. Price agrees to pay, but when they meet, Price kills him and makes it look like a suicide.\n\nFinal clue/twist: Columbo points out that one of the koi tanks built into the dance floor at Price's club contains fewer fish and must be less deep than the other tanks. Columbo has ground-penetrating radar used to find Tony's body hidden under the tank. In the last line of the series, Columbo remarks to a Galper \"enforcer\" that \"Tony was sleeping with the fishes.\" (Homage to \"the Godfather\" movie series)\n\nDirected by: Jeffrey Reiner. Story by: Michael Alaimo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-columbo.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to murder someone and get away with it", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Justin Price came up with the, rather uninventive, scheme to rid himself of the blackmailer Linwood Coben: Justin strangled Linwood to death in Linwood's apartment and staged the scene so it would appear to be suicide. Lt. Columbo wasn't fooled for a second.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story begins with Vanessa Farrow accidentally causing her ex-husbands death as she was defending herself against assault. In gender-stereotypical fashion, she then turns hysterical and calls her current boyfriend who arrives with a harebrained scheme to conceal the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Justin Price murdered his blackmailer, Linwood Coben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Justin Prince killed Linwood because Linwood threatened to reveal Justin had covered up Vanessa's having accidentally killed her ex-husband in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Justin Price killed to ensure an investment into his club would go ahead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did Linwood Coben really hang himself, or had he been killed? Also, what's with the Italian mafia showing up?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justin Price ran a rave club backed by the mobster Tony Galper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony Galper was a mobster and, when he died, goons from New York arrived to \"keep an eye\" on the investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justin Price helped his girlfriend, Vanessa Farrow, dispose of her ex-husband's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vanessa Farrow had, in self-defense, caused her ex-husband's death and therefore called her boyfriend to help her dispose of the body. They did so by hiding it beneath a fish tank in the floor of a rave club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linwood Coben was a paparazzi photographer-cum-blackmailer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony confronted his ex-wife, Vanessa, and slapped her around a bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Columbo quickly concluded that Linwood Coben had not hanged himself from the side of a building, as the murderer wanted it to seem like he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When Lt. Columbo noticed that one of Justin's koi tanks had too few gallons of water per fish-inch, Columbo quickly deduced that the murdered mobster Tony Galper was, almost literally, sleeping with the fishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony made a quip about dropping by to see how his alimony payments were being spent, after barging his way into his ex-wife's home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony couldn't handle the sight of a portrait photo of his ex-wife with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony attacked his ex-wife, Vanessa, in a jealous rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linwood Coben, a tabloid photographer, secretly photographed the minor celebrity Vanessa Farrow in her home from the safety of a nearby tree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x26", "title": "Another Life", "date": "2003-02-05", "description": "A celebrated hip-hop artist with a privileged life and a loving family experiences confusing visions that plague him to the point where the thin lines separating fantasy from reality start to blur.\n\nDirected by: Risa Bramon Garcia. Story by: Amir Mann & Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the revelation that down-and-out Dwayne was suffering from the delusion that he was a celebrated hip-hop artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin was recording a rap album.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin and Jasmine Gardens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin came from nothing to become a celebrated hip-hop artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The accused cop killer Dwayne was beaten black and blue by his police detective interrogators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin had flashbacks to an incident when he had been apprehended and tortured for a crime he was innocent of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although it was not spelled out, the viewer is confronted with Marvin being harassed by the police because of his skin color.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw American police at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw hip-hop music be produced in a studio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin and his loving wife Jasmine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dwayne stood accused of having killed a police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin briefly played a fantasy-themed, sword fighting video game with his young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to maintain an image", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin was initially reluctant to see a psychiatrist out of concern that word of him having done so would soil his reputation in the rap game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin went to see Dr. Sinclair about the strange visions he was having.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sinclair theorized that a repressed memory was causing Marvin to have strange visions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin twice complained that he was stressed over the production of his new rap album.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmine had some fleeting interactions with her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin was raising his young.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discipline of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin disciplined his young son for running around with a toy gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator said the only thing troubling Marvin was the fear of failing and falling back to what had been.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x27", "title": "Rewind", "date": "2003-02-05", "description": "A compulsive gambler discovers a way to beat the local casino owner after being gifted with a tape cassette recorder with the power to go back five minutes in time.\n\nDirected by: Kevin Bray. Story by: James Crocker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time rewind ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonah came into possession of of tape cassette recorder that rewound time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jonah is gambling at poker throughout much of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonah was a textbook compulsive problem gambler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a magic tape cassette recorded that rewound time for up to five minutes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonah's compulsive gambling got in the way of he and his wife April's plan to settle down and open a restaurant in Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of poker", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonah was trying to win big, playing poker at the casino.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x14", "title": "Stigma", "date": "2003-02-05", "description": "Sub-Commander T'Pol learns she has Pa'nar Syndrome, contracted from her mind meld in \"Fusion\", and faces being ostracized by Vulcan society.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with having a stigmatizing illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol had contracted a mind melding transmitted disease, called Pa'nar Syndrome, that carried with it a stigma among the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vulcan mind melders were outcasts in Vulcan society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vulcans were prejudiced against mind melders and stigmatized those who contracted the mind melt transmitted disease Pa'nar Syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol kept secret that she had contracted Pa'nar Syndrome, a disease that was stigmatized by the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox's wife Feezal make Tucker feel uncomfortable with her amorous advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker considered that Denobulan extramarital affairs constituted romantic infidelity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of Phlox's several wives paid him a visit on the Enterprise, and Tucker struggled to comprehend the nature of their polygamous marriage, typical of the Denobulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "One of Phlox's several wives paid him a visit on the Enterprise, and Tucker struggled to comprehend the nature of their polygamous marriage, typical of the Denobulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox withheld from Archer that T'Pol had a mind melding transmitted disease that carried with it a stigma among the Vulcans. Phlox inadvertently revealed sensitive patient information about T'Pol to the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Phlox and T'Pol had a dilemma about whether to inquire among the other Vulcans about a cure for her Pa'nar Syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox's wife Freezal had a thing for Tucker but he was uncomfortable getting involved with a married woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox's wife Freezal had a thing for Tucker but he was uncomfortable getting involved with a married woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had been violated in a mind meld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was excited to watch the classic horror film The Black Cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x28", "title": "Tagged", "date": "2003-02-12", "description": "A gang member and street tagger becomes consumed by guilt after killing a man caught painting over his mural and seeing the mural transform into a real-life portrait of the crime.\n\nDirected by: James Head. Story by: Charles Largent, Michael Angeli.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marcus was racked with guilt over having killed an up and coming street artist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus joined the Deuces street gang to what was ultimately his regret.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus was living with his girlfriend Shauna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Marcus as he becomes consumed with guilt after having more or less accidentally shot dead an up and coming artist for having painted over Marcus' street mural.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus and Henry Santos were both up and coming street mural painters (i.e. graffiti artists).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to be treated with respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus wanted fame and respect so joined a gang. The gang murdered a painter who disrespected their brand by painting it over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two beat cops were poking around for Henry Santos' murderer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x29", "title": "Into the Light", "date": "2003-02-12", "description": "A high school English teacher, set on resigning due to lack of interest from her apathetic students, develops the ability to look into a person's face and predict if they are going to die.\n\nDirected by: Lou Diamond Phillips. Story by: Moira Kirland Dekker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rachel was suddenly able to see on people's faces that they would soon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rachel was suddenly able to see on people's faces that they would soon die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high school English teacher Mrs. Stark decides to quit after having enough of trying to teach her apathetic students about Romeo and Juliet. Also, Ben masterminded a school shooting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The high school English teacher Mrs. Stark decides to quit after having enough of trying to teach her apathetic students about Romeo and Juliet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-actualization need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Stark wanted something more out of life than she was getting from teaching English literature to apathetic high school students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "school shooting", "level": "major", "motivation": "A bullied and angry student decided to shoot up the school, and Rachel stopped him in the middle of his killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel threw herself off a roof in order to stop a school shooter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Stark was living with her boyfriend the gym teacher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was on poor terms with the principal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw minor acts of bullying possibly contribute to the school shooter doing his deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel tried to warn people about the impending shooting but no one heeded her - notably so the principal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was mildly perturbed when some people she knew died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x15", "title": "Cease Fire", "date": "2003-02-12", "description": "Captain Archer negotiates a cease fire between the Andorians and the Vulcans.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer was called on to mediate in a Andorian-Vulcan territorial dispute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a claimed territory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Andorians and Vulcans both claimed the planet Paan Mokar, and Archer was called on to mediate between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trust was needed between the negotiators, and the Andorian captain Shran trusted Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to the Andorians, a hundred years ago the Vulcans annexed Paan Mokar and forced the Andorians there to resettle elsewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol confessed to Soval that she chose to work on Enterprise, rather than advancing her career at Starfleet headquarters in San Fransisco, because she found the work gratifying. T'Pol could have advanced her career somehow yet chose to stay on Enterprise", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Andorians kept hostages to gain leverage in the negotiation, and Archer worked to free them by diplomatic means.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tarah let it be know to Shran that she thought diplomacy was doomed to fail and a military option was to be preferred in the territorial dispute with the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x30", "title": "It's Still a Good Life", "date": "2003-02-19", "description": "In a sequel to It's a Good Life, a single father who terrorized the residents of an Ohio town with amazing mental powers as a child discovers his young daughter has powers that are stronger than his.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Jerome Bixby, Ira Steven Behr.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anthony and his young daughter Audrey manifested the ability to make happen seemingly anything that could be imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony shared with his young daughter Audrey the special ability to make happen seemingly anything that could be imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes came to hate her manchild of a son Anthony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes cursed the day she gave birth to her son Anthony, thinking him a spoiled, vicious, monster of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agnes was expected that her granddaughter Audrey would rise up and overthrow Audrey's tyrant of a father, but things did not quite do as planned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony was a 40 year old manchild with god-like powers who made disappear anyone who offended him even in the slightest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Peaksville residents lived in mortal terror of a childish 40-year-old man with god-like powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony's young daughter, Audrey, rose up and took his place as the terror of Peaksville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anthony's young daughter, Audrey, rose up and took his place as the terror of Peaksville.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The residents of Peaksville braced themselves as the young girl Agnes used her god-like powers to make them all vanish into thin air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Little Timmy watched on as his father was consumed by flames.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony confided in Audrey that he felt lonely after she'd made everyone vanish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "paternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Narrator spelled out that a point of the story was that Anthony loved his daughter Audrey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anthony said his mom loved him but she vigorously refuted him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x31", "title": "The Monsters Are on Maple Street", "date": "2003-02-19", "description": "In an updated version of an episode from the original series, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, an unexpected power and water failure prompts the residents of a quiet suburban neighborhood to grow increasingly suspicious of their new neighbors and accuse them of being sleeper cell terrorists.\n\nDirected by: Debbie Allen. Story by: Rod Serling, Erin Maher & Kay Reindl.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people of Maple Street gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought a terrorist was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people of Maple Street gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought a terrorist was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some of the Maple street people were quick to jump to the conclusion that a mysterious power outage had been caused by terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of neighbors who must make sense of a mysterious power outage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "The recently arrived family whom nobody knew were naturally implicated when a mob of neighbors discussed the unusual events. The Narrator explained how fear, of terrorists as it happened, tore the Maple Street community apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impostor living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maple Street inhabitants quickly became convinced that one of their community members was a terrorist masquerading as an ordinary person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the stupidity of crowds", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maple Street residents gradually transformed into an hysterical mob when they thought a terrorist was masquerading amongst them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was Maple Street community meeting to discuss Christmas decoration rules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will and Holly Marshall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan and his young son Jason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly berated her husband Will for acting smug and superior towards their neighbors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "As a surprise variation on the 1959 story, it is revealed that the mysterious events were orchestrated by some sort of military outfit in order to test the reaction of isolated communities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x16", "title": "Future Tense", "date": "2003-02-19", "description": "Enterprise finds a derelict ship, only to be attacked by both Suliban and Tholian ships.\n\nDirected by: James Whitmore, Jr. Story by: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The crew finds a derelict ship, which was bigger on the inside than on the outside, that was conjectured to be from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "device bigger inside than outside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew discovered a tiny derelict ship that was bigger on the inside than on the outside, also it contained an enormous cistern.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were re-experiencing events withe their memories partially, inexplicably, intact. For example, Tucker and Malcolm repeated variations of the same conversation over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The derelict ship discovered by the crew was conjectured to be a time machine that had traveled back from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobic isolationist society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol warned Archer about the Tholians being an extremely xenophobic race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x32", "title": "Memphis", "date": "2003-02-26", "description": "A law clerk with six months left to live due to an inoperable brain tumor finds himself transported back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.\n\nDirected by: Eriq La Salle. Story by: Eriq La Salle.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ray was transported back in time to 1968 Memphis after getting hit by a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ray was given six months left to live due to an inoperable brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in Memphis in the midst of the civil rights movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide was raising Lucas as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adelaide was raising Lucas as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you must fight for what you want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray kept telling Lucas this. The doctor told Ray that he needed to fight to beat his terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray's physician diagnosed him with terminal brain cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was a law clerk by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucas was self-conscious about a conspicuous birth mark he had on his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray had a run in with a racist cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray use his knowledge of law to help save Adelaide and her young son Lucas get evicted from their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray made a failed bid to prevent the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was taken aback when Adelaide said it was too far away to go to the hospital today - also she didn't know what Advil was; Ray peeved by the racist attitude of an officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucas spoke of aspirations, fighting meanies and such.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray choose to save Lucas rather than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray took a hit by a car to save Lucas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x33", "title": "How Much Do You Love Your Kid?", "date": "2003-02-26", "description": "A woman contemplating divorce from her husband finds herself forced to participate in a twisted reality game show hosted by Nick Dark after receiving a telephone call claiming her son has been kidnapped.\n\nDirected by: Allison Liddi-Brown. Story by: Michael Angeli.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reality television in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Donna was forced to participate in a twisted reality game show or else risk losing her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was that a parent get preternatural abilities when a child is in danger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donna was forced to participate in a twisted reality game show or else risk losing her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The the viewer is shown a twisted reality game show from a contestant/producer point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was made clear that Donna wanted the best for her young son, including getting him braces, and she totally freaked out when he was reported kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donna was made to believe that her young son was kidnapped by a masked assailant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reality game show host Nick Dark tactfully manipulated Donna into wanting to take vengeance at the man who'd kidnapped her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donna and Ted Saicheck were a financially struggling married couple with a young son to support.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donna decided to chase down and kill the man who had endangered her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Donna accepted to hunt down the man who'd kidnapped her son in exchanged for prize money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted and his young son Wylie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donna flew into a violent rage and shot her husband dead after it became apparent that he'd participated in a staged kidnapping of their son in a effort to win $500,000 in prize money (actually a million dollars).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donna and Ted were living beyond their means and couldn't pay their bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted subjected his wife to undue emotional distress by staging a kidnapping of their young son in a bid solve their financial problem.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x17", "title": "Canamar", "date": "2003-02-26", "description": "Mistaken as smugglers, Captain Archer and Commander Tucker find themselves on a prisoner transport ship.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: John Shiban.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker were taken into custody by the Enolians on the charge of smuggling, and were being transferred to a penal colony where their vessel was taken over by a few of the prisoners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to a fair trial", "level": "major", "motivation": "The prisoners were taken to a penal colony without much in the way of a fair treatment and there were complaints to this effect throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rights of accused", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of prisoners were taken to a penal colony without much in the way of a fair treatment and there were complaints to this effect throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was annoyed with the chatty prisoner, named Zoumas, shacked next to him to the extent that he asked to changed seats.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Undead (2003)", "title": "Undead", "date": "2003-02-27", "description": "Undead is a 2003 Australian zombie science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig and starring Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay and Rob Jenkins.\n\nSynopsis: The inhabitants of an Australian rural community begin turning into zombies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undead_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Most of the inhabitants of a rural community turned into mindless, brain-eating zombies after some strange meteors crashed down to the area from space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A small group of survivors were terrorized by mindless, brain-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A contagion spread like wildfire through the inhabitants of a rural community, turning nearly everyone into mindless, brain-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stress from being in danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "A small group of survivors struggled to keep it together (e.g. tempers flared, an ad hoc chain of command was established, etc.) as a hoard of brain-eating zombies descended upon them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayne and Sallyanne were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that aliens were working to contain the spread of a contagion that turns people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that aliens were working to contain the spread of a meteor-brought contagion that turns people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "People dismissed Marion's claim that he'd been abducted by aliens, but in the end he was proved right when aliens beamed up a number of the zombified community members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rene spoke to her grandmother over a payphone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cricket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of men were shown playing a pickup game of cricket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sallyanne harbored ill-will toward Rene on account that Rene had won the town beauty contest over her some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sallyanne was jealous that Rene had won the town beauty contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne and Sallyanne were expecting with child, and Sallyanne ultimately gave birth to a baby boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The town sergeant and his constable took authority over the small group of survivors after everyone else had turned into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some alien spacecraft descended over the rural community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marion's claim that he'd been abducted by aliens was dismissed by everyone as crazy talk.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x04", "title": "Less Than Hero", "date": "2003-03-02", "description": "\"Less Than Hero\" is the fourth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 2, 2003. The episode was directed by Susie Dietter and written by Ron Weiner. The plot centers on Fry, Leela, and Bender as they masquerade as superheroes after being granted superpowers through the use of 'miracle cream'. The subplot focuses on the relationship between Leela and her parents.\n\nDirected by: Susie Dietter. Story by: Ron Weiner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela formed a crime fighting team after they found a cream that endowed them with superpowers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela's mutant parents came up from the sewers to visit her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The New Justice Team took on the super villain the Zookeeper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela's mutant parents came up from the sewers to visit her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Turanga Morris and Turanga Munda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was illegal for mutants to leave the sewers because they were genetically inferior to humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mutants were discriminated against on account of looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neither Leela nor her dad could keep the secret that she was a superhero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zookeeper held Leela's parents hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zookeeper had numerous pets and made out with a snake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Fry had to steal the Gemerald to save Leela's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was able to run really fast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theodore Roosevelt's head commenting on Bender boxing a kangaroo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with an institutionalized social stratification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was illegal for mutants to leave the sewers because they were genetically inferior to humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dreamcatcher (2003)", "title": "Dreamcatcher", "date": "2003-03-21", "description": "Dreamcatcher is a 2003 American science fiction horror film based on Stephen King's 2001 novel of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Four friends encounter an invasion of parasitic aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcatcher_(2003_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows four male friends as they increasingly find themselves at the center of an invasion of parasitic aliens while otherwise minding their own business on their annual hunting trip in Maine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The four friends had all acquired telepathic powers after having saved a mentally disabled boy from bullies back when they were children. Their using of this special power was explored throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The four friends had all acquired the power to read minds after having saved a mentally disabled boy from bullies back when they were children. Their using of this special power was explored throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The large humanoid alien Mr. Gray was trying to contaminate the Boston water supply with parasitic alien larvae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maine was the site of an invasion of parasitic aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horrible alien worm creatures were going are parasitizing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Horrible alien worm creatures were going around parasitizing people. In the end, the surviving friends faced off against a large alien worm creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Curtis was in charge of a secret military operation to exterminate the invading extraterrestrials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Curtis and other military personnel were depicted executing their mission to exterminate the invading extraterrestrials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry saw a psychiatrist about his binge eating disorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown Jonsey practicing psychiatry in one scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After counseling an obese man, the psychiatrist Jonsey put a loaded gun to his own head and contemplated pulling the trigger before thinking better of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonsey's injuries sustained from being hit by a car healed with mysterious rapidity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were several flashback scenes to the four friends as young boys. In one such scene, they saved a mentally challenged boy who was being tormented by bullies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some bullies tormented a mentally challenged boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive-compulsive disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After much internal struggle, Beaver succumbed to his OCD by picking up a toothpick which he'd dropped on the bathroom floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Gray in the body of Jonsey remote chocked Pete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A dying of leukemia Duddits was being cared for by his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The four friends met up in rural Maine for their annual hunting trip, but they didn't get to do much hunting on account of the invading parasitic aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Core (2003)", "title": "The Core", "date": "2003-03-28", "description": "The Core is a 2003 American science fiction disaster film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Tchéky Karyo, DJ Qualls, Bruce Greenwood and Alfre Woodard.\n\nSynopsis: A team is sent on a mission to drill to the center of the Earth and set off a series of nuclear explosions in order to restart the rotation of the Earth's core.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Core" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of scientists and NASA pilots journeyed down to the interface of Earth's outer and inner core in a special heat and pressure resistant vehicle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a secret United States government project to send a team of specialists to Earth's core to set off a series of nuclear explosions in a desperate bid to restart the planet's magnetic field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a special nuclear powered, heat and pressure resistant vehicle, called Virgil, that was used by a team of specialists to drill down deep into the Earth's interior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Civilization collapsing levels of solar radiation were expected following the sudden faltering of Earth's magnetic field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to a small team of scientists and NASA pilots to drill deep into the Earth and restart the planet's magnetic field by nuking its core. If they failed in their mission, then the Earth's surface would be exposed to devastating solar radiation within months.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the testing of a secret earthquake causing super weapon by the United States government had caused the Earth's core to stop rotating, and by extension the Earth's magnetic field to shut down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joshua explained to his class how sound waves can be used to probe the interior of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joshua was teaching a university class on geophysics and was shown giving a lecture to some students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The notorious computer hacker Donald Finch was said to have crippled the FBI's database. He also wiped all his computers and destroyed CDs and other sensitive materials just prior to an FBI raid on his apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FBI raided the computer hacker Donald Finch's apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United States government dedicated 1000 megatons of its nuclear arsenal to restart the rotation of the Earth's core.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Rebecca Childs' commander Robert Iverson quoted such cliches about leadership as \"being a leader isn't about ability it's about responsibility\" and \"you're not really a leader until you've lost\" to her before she left on her mission to drill down to the Earth's core.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists Brazzelton and Zimsky were bitter toward each other owing to a years long rivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team marveled at crystalline structure laden giant geode which they found themselves inside. One team member dubbed it the \"Crystal Grand Canyon\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team member commiserated over the deaths of two of their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zimsky explained that the United States government commissioned the building of a targeted seismic event triggering super weapon in response to their enemies were building one. He stated the \"mutually assured destruction\" principle in the course of his explanation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brazzelton pointedly buried the hatchet with his longtime rival Zimsky in the moments before Brazzelton sacrificed himself to save the mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brazzelton willingly sacrificed himself to complete the world saving mission of restarting the rotation of the Earth's core.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team of scientists and NASA pilots were recognized as heroes the world over after news of their civilization saving secret mission was leaked to the Internet by the hacker Finch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x09", "title": "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", "date": "2003-03-30", "description": "\"Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles\" is the ninth episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 30, 2003. The episode was directed by Bret Haaland and written by Jeff Westbrook. In the episode, the Planet Express crew take Professor Farnsworth to a clinic to make him younger though the use of tar. A freak accident occurs and the entire crew are covered in the tar, thus reverting them to their younger selves. They seek to reverse the effect and return to their proper ages.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: Jeff Westbrook.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express people were youthenized. Leela in particular enjoyed her second childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were anti-aging treatments and then youthenization tar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was coping well with his old age as it let him rent ultra-porn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela with her parents. Amy with her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a grumpy old coot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone was fed up with the Professor's grumpiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a parody on old people driving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rapid aging effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth used a sort of fountain of aging to revert everyone to their normal ages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Turanga Morris and Turanga Munda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "FFry and Leela did some stereotypical teen dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela did some stereotypical teen dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela went to the sewers to live with her mutant parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was a stereotypical rebellious teen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg reverted through his various larval forms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x34", "title": "The Placebo Effect", "date": "2003-04-02", "description": "A medical practitioner attempts to dissuade a hypochondriac from believing he has contracted a deadly disease found in the pages of a science-fiction novel.\n\nDirected by: Jerry Levine. Story by: Rebecca Swanson, Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The textbook hypochondriac Harry Radditch's overactive imagination conjured into reality a fictional virus he's read about in the science fiction novel \"Mission to Zebulon\". Harry subsequently conjured into reality a cure for the virus and also an ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Dr. Leslie Coburn as she treats a textbook hypochondriac who is experiencing strange, and alarming symptoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hypochondria", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the textbook hypochondriac Harry Radditch as he experiences strange and alarming symptoms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leslie Coburn and her fellow medical practitioners were facing an outbreak of a deadly and highly contagious virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the placebo effect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie was going to dose Harry in a placebo as she usually did. Later she injected a placebo to make him dematerialize the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leslie and her hypochondriac of a patient Harry. In one scene, Leslie have a little girl patient of hers a flu shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Leslie Coburn and her fellow medical practitioners were facing an outbreak of a deadly and highly contagious virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reading as a hobby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry had read the fictional science fiction novel \"Mission to Zebulon\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hypochondriac Harry, through his overactive imagination, worried an ice age into existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leslie deftly handled a cranky little girl who didn't want her inoculation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leslie emphasized manners when she took over both the girl and the man from less patient nurses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x35", "title": "Cold Fusion", "date": "2003-04-02", "description": "A brilliant physicist becomes involved in a deadly psychological struggle with a scientist after being tasked with taking part in the final start-up preparations for an infinite power source.\n\nDirected by: Eli Richbourg. Story by: Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A pressing question of the story is this: Would switching on the experimental Gemini device result in the world being destroyed?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "It may have transpired that Dr. Paul Thorson went insane because of the guilt he harbored over his role in the development of a super weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Thorson killed everyone involved, and then himself, in order to prevent his \"Gemini device\" to be completed as he believed it would destroy the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting one's inner demons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Thorson came to believe that the others were various manifestations of his own psyche, and he shot them before shooting himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The physicist Dr. Paul Thorson had invented a device that produced vast amounts of energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cold fusion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The title suggests that the \"Gemini device\" was a cold fusion doohickey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Skyles was fixated on playing a first person shooter video game on his PC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Morgan was obsessively scribbling out equations on whatever surfaces she could find.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Gemini device\" project had all the usual trappings thereof though little was made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Paul Thorson destroyed his device and killed himself (consciously or unconsciously) to save the world from destruction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x18", "title": "The Crossing", "date": "2003-04-02", "description": "Incorporeal aliens attempt to take over Enterprise.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien inhabited the body of Tucker and experienced the physical through his senses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "An incorporeal alien inhabited the body of Tucker and experienced the physical world through his senses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Incorporeal aliens attempted to take over the Enterprise. it turned out that the wasps were in fact trying to take the ship over", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was faced with deciding whether to escape leaving one third of the crew dead or stay and find a way for everyone to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was faced with deciding whether to escape leaving one third of the crew dead or stay and find a way for everyone to survive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out-of-body experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker had a series of out-of-body experiences in which he visited Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The incorporeal aliens claimed to be curious about learning about what it is like to be corporeal and wished to learn about their own evolutionary past when they were corporeal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beyond ReAnimator (2003)", "title": "Beyond Re-Animator", "date": "2003-04-04", "description": "Dr. Herbert West continues his research on reviving corpses from prison. Loosely based on the serialized story \"Herbert West–Reanimator\" by H. P. Lovecraft. It is the third and final installment in the Re-Animator film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: ReAnimator Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Re-Animator" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Dr. Herbert West as he continues his corpse reviving experiments from prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a stereotypical United States prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virtually all of the prisoners in the prison ended up getting turned into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Howard Phillips was deeply in love with the journalist Laura Olney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Howard Phillips and Laura Olney really hit things off and soon became an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Herbert West was obsessed with reanimating dead bodies using his special neon green reagent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The investigative journalist Laura Olney was working to uncover what was going on at the prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Howard Phillips took a position at the prison medical center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard wanted to bring his sister back to live after she died in a zombie attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Herbert West and Dr. Howard Phillips were experimenting with reviving corpses in a makeshift prison laboratory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura's disembodied head was taunting Howard toward the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminated with a hoard of recently zombified inmates overpowering their guards amid a violent prison riot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Save the Green Planet (2003)", "title": "Save the Green Planet!", "date": "2003-04-04", "description": "Save the Green Planet! (Korean title: 지구를 지켜라!, Jigureul Jikyeora!) is a South Korean science fiction comedy film written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, released on 4 April 2003.\n\nSynopsis: A deranged man kidnaps another man, convinced that the latter is a space alien.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Green_Planet!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's main character Byeong-gu believed (as it turns out, correctly) that aliens from Andromeda were about to attack Earth and that he was the only one who could prevent them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's main character Byeong-gu ultimately failed in his effort to stop a race of humanoid aliens from the Andromeda galaxy from attacking Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that a vengeance fueled psychosis caused Byeong-gu to kidnap a corporate executive and torture him to the brink of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kang was abducted, imprisoned in a basement workshop and tortured to the brink of death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byeong-gu and his unwaveringly loyal, circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Su-ni was in love with and unwaveringly loyal to her deranged boyfriend Byeong-gu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the corporate executive Kang was actually the leader of an alien race from the Andromeda galaxy, and himself one of their kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Byeong-gu was committed to the fantastical conviction that his captive Kang was a hostile space alien, although in the end his zany belief was proved correct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Choo and Detective Kim were investigating the abduction of the corporate executive Kang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kang was imprisoned in a workshop basement and subjected to numerous gruesome tortures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kang was imprisoned in a workshop basement and subjected to numerous gruesome tortures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is shown from the point of view of a deranged man, named Byeong-gu, who has kidnapped another man whom he is convinced is a space alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how Byeong-gu's traumatic past led him to become a deranged and sadistic killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how Byeong-gu slowly went mad from all the violence that surrounded him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that aliens from Andromeda had created humans in their own image and had been guiding the development of humanity since prehistoric times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byeong-gu was exceeding sadistic in his treatment of his captive, Kang. Among other things, Byeong-gu delighted in crucifying Kang and crushing his shin with the back of an axe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Byeong-gu believed that aliens from Andromeda were about to attack Earth. And in the end, those very aliens annihilated the titular \"green planet\" (i.e. Earth), presumably extinguishing humanity in the act.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byeong-gu suppressed Kang's ability to communicate telepathically by shaving Kang's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byeong-gu fed the remains of Detective Choo to Byeong-gu' own dog, named Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byeong-gu didn't want to let go of his comatose mother, and refused to pull the plug on her. Byeong-gu conversed with his ill mother in a flashback scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byeong-gu was devastated after he quite inadvertently supplied a lethal dose of benzene to his comatose mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Kim was assigned to work on the Kang abduction case with together with Detective Choo, although Choo died before they had much of a chance to bond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hospital worker reported the theft of $20,000 of restricted medicine to Detective Choo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police at first assumed that Kang's captor was after a ransom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Byeong-gu was addicted to methamphetamine and was shown taking blue meth pills here and there over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Kim uncovered that Byeong-gu had murdered three people that were currently listed as missing persons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kang explained that the Atlanteans perished in a nuclear holocaust and subsequent flood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kang explained that the Atlanteans perished in a nuclear holocaust and subsequent flood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to Kang, relativity theory explained how it could be that time passed more slowly on his homeworld as compared to Earth. The idea being that the more massive a planet is, the more slowly time passes on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kang was picked up by a large alien saucer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x10", "title": "The Why of Fry", "date": "2003-04-06", "description": "\"The Why of Fry\" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 6, 2003. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and directed by Wes Archer. In this episode, it is revealed that Fry's cryogenic freezing and arrival in the 31st century was not an accident, but a calculated plot by Nibbler to save the universe. Along with \"Where No Fan Has Gone Before\", it is one of two episodes that do not feature Professor Farnsworth.\n\nDirected by: Wes Archer. Story by: David X. Cohen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed to Fry that only he could stop the flying brains from destroying the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flying brains were scheming to collect all the information in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to feel useful to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry went from feeling like a big loser to understanding he was the only person in the universe capable of stopping the flying brains from destroying it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The flying brains were planning to destroy the entire universe and Earth along with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry felt like a big loser when Leela chose to date Chaz over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how Fry traveled in to the past and became his own grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The flying brains lived in a planet-like metallic Infosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry being accidentally cryogenically preserved in 1999 was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Chaz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chaz used his mayor's aide privilege to book a skating rink for him and Leela even thought it had been reserved for a group of orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry traveled back in time to 1999 to prevent Nibbler from pushing him into a cryogenic preservation chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and the flying brains were sent into a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and the Mayor's Aide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry at Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an arrogant jerk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mayor's Aide was a jerk to everyone, including orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela with the Mayor's Aide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x19", "title": "Judgment", "date": "2003-04-09", "description": "Captain Archer is arrested and imprisoned by the Klingons for allegedly conspiring against the Empire.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Taylor Elmore and David A. Goodman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer was about to be convicted on flimsy evidence in a sham trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social dysfunction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Klingon court system had become corrupted over time and Archer convinced his lawyer that it was in need of reform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer's lawyer Kolos was convinced by Archer to follow his conscience and uphold the traditional laws of the Klingon Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer risked getting into a conflict with the Klingon Empire by aiding the Arin'Sen refugees. Archer's lawyer Kolos took risks for Archer at his tribunal, and choose to stay in the mines in order to reform society in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kolos openly questioned the honor of the Klingon tribunal, and wished to restore honor to his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer's lawyer Kolos stood up for his beliefs at Archer's tribunal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage in the face of death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer's lawyer Kolos stayed in the mines knowing he might die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was held captive and put on trial by the Klingons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was about to be convicted on flimsy evidence in a sham trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arin'Sen colonists were stripped of their resources and left with nothing by the Klingon Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer chose to aid Arin'Sen refugees at the risk of getting into a conflict with the Klingon Empire. Kolos might have felt compassion for Archer and that is why he risked his career to help him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the presumption of innocence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was told he must demonstrate his innocence at his tribunal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and his lawyer Kolos discussed how Kolos would stay behind in the mines and reforming the Klingon justice system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was not a big fan of the food he was given in Klingon prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was sentenced to life working the mines on a moon in the Klingon Empire.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x20", "title": "Horizon", "date": "2003-04-16", "description": "After the death of his father, Ensign Mayweather visits his family on their cargo ship and begins to reconsider his place aboard Enterprise.\n\nDirected by: James A. Contner. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis and Paul Mayweather were at odds over how to run the family cargo freighter, and Paul resented Travis over some old issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis and Paul Mayweather were engaging is a sibling rivalry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Travis and Paul Mayweather reconciled after Travis had abandoned their family business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayweather went to visit his mother on his old cargo freighter after the passing of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayweather mourned the death of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayweather visited his mother and crew on his old family cargo freighter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather and Archer were conversing a zero gravity environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was excited at the prospect of watching three classic Frankenstein horror films at the ship's movie night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather over not having said goodbye to his father before he passed away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather's mother mourned the death of her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer encouraged T'Pol to attend movie night in order to bond with the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox commented on Frankenstein reviving a body long after death and pointed to a real world example of such a happening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather visited his old family cargo freighter after his father had passed away.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moon Child (2003)", "title": "Moon Child", "date": "2003-04-19", "description": "Moon Child is a 2003 Japanese science fantasy horror action film starring Gackt, Hyde, and Leehom Wang.\n\nSynopsis: The story follows the lives of five friends, one of whom is a vampire, in their struggles to survive in a rugged urban environment.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Child_(2003_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story above all else follows the lives of five friends as they struggled to survive in a rugged urban environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the lead character Kei, who was a vampire, bemoaning that he would live on indefinitely while all his friends would die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lead character Kei was an immortal vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lead character Kei was a vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socioeconomic issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future after a major economic collapse in Japan compelled some part of the population to emigrate to a city, called Mallepa, in mainland China. Note, however, that this was only mentioned at the start of the story, never being followed up on later in any meaningful way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three orphans (i.e. Young Sho, Yound Shinji, and Young Toshi) stole a briefcase full of cash and brought it back to their hideout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sho and Shinji were brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shinji hallucinated a koi swimming in midair after smoking some unidentified drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mural that Yi-Che painted, which one gathers was inspired by Botticelli's Birth of Venus painting, was put on display in an area park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toshi's friends pointedly grieved for him after he was shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of thugs held up a jewelry store in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sho and Yi-Che got married and had a daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yi-Che was shown caring for her young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sho and his young daughter visited her comatose mother, his wife, in the hospital. Sho was shown teaching his daughter how to skip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating a case of some sort which he made a point of saying he had a duty to solve it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kei was placed on death row for having committed a murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sho was devastated when Yi-Che developed a fatal cancerous brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chan led a mafia-like organization in Mallepa, although it didn't factor much into the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X2 (2003)", "title": "X2", "date": "2003-04-23", "description": "In the film, Colonel William Stryker brainwashes and questions the imprisoned Magneto about Professor Xavier's mutant-locating machine, Cerebro. Stryker attacks the X-Mansion and brainwashes Xavier into locating every mutant on the planet to kill them. The X-Men must team up with the Brotherhood to prevent Stryker's worldwide genocide. It is the second installment in the X-Men film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mutants minority in this society were the target of prejudice and xenophobia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nightcrawler had an innate ability to teleport himself around short distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier had an innate ability to communicate with others telepathically and read people's minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mystique had an innate ability to alter her shape and voice to mimic any human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolverine was struggling to remember his past, and in particular how it came to be that he had an adamantium skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolverine's body automatically healed itself after any physical injury. Deathstrike had the very same ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pyro had an innate ability to control fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Striker pursued a personal grudge against Xavier specifically, and mutants generally, stemming from something that happened when Stryker's mutant son was a student at Xavier's school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Magneto had an innate ability to control metal objects at a distance. Jean also manifested telekinetic powers. In particular, she stopped a wall of water from engulfing the X-men jet cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Something was made of the fact the each mutant grew up thinking they were a weird freak until they found a home for people like them at Xavier's school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The X-men joined forces with their arch-enemy Magneto in order to stop Colonel Stryker killing all the mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Striker was using some kind of serum to induce mutant's into doing his bidding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the future of human evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea that mutants might be the next link in the chain of human evolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean was overwhelmed by everyone's thoughts around her at the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Stryker mind controlled Nightcrawler into making an attempt on the president's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rogue and Iceman were officially an item, as were Jean and Cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "High schoolers Rogue and Iceman were officially an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were tensions between Wolverine and Cycolps stemming from Wolverine's relationship with Jean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Stryker dripped a truth inducing serum on the back of Magneto's neck before questioning him about Xavier's secret school for mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rogue couldn't touch anybody or else they would die, but not too much was made of her ability to do so in this film beyond a single incident between her and Iceman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nightcrawler was a devout Catholic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Stryker effectively lobotomized his mutant son Jason. Iceman opened up to his parents that he was a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iceman opened up to his parents that he was a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers that Xavier and Magneto were old friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean looked into Nightcrawlers mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean and Cycolps were married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean and Cyclops professed their love for one another while in a mutual embrace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was into Jean but she as already married to Cyclops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto so despised humans that he secretly reversed Colonel Stryker's plot to kill all mutants to kill all humans instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean seemingly gave her life to stop a wall of water from engulfing the X-men jet cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier twice froze everyone in time at the White House.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier and Cyclops commiserated over Jean's apparent death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Pryde had the ability to walk through walls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyclops and Storm had this power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x36", "title": "The Pharaoh's Curse", "date": "2003-04-23", "description": "An up-and-coming illusionist insinuates himself into the lives of a reclusive veteran magician and his young wife in an attempt to unlock the secrets behind a centuries-old illusion.\n\nDirected by: Bob Balaban. Story by: Stephen Beck.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging state magician Harry used the \"Pharaoh's Curse\" magic trick to swap bodies with the young, up-and-coming illusionist Mario Devlin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the up-and-coming illusionist Mario Devlin as he attempts to unlock the secrets behind a centuries-old illusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging stage magician Harry Kellogg took on the young up-and-coming illusionist Mario Devlin with the promise of showing him the famed \"Pharaoh's Curse\" magic trick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young, up-and-coming illusionist Mario Devil was contrasted with the old, cynical magician Harry Kellogg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for prestige", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mario aspired to become the greatest magician of his generation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpires that the caskets used in the \"Pharaoh's Curse\" magic trick were genuinely magical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The consciousness inhabiting Harry Kellogg's body had been transferring itself from the body of one magician to another for generations with no plans of stopping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aging stage magician Harry Kellogg and his young wife Shannon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shannon made mad whoopee with Mario on what looked like a very uncomfortable spot outdoors behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mario nearly died investigating the caskets, and he blamed his obsessive curiosity for the event.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x37", "title": "The Collection", "date": "2003-04-23", "description": "A babysitter suspects an eerily lifelike doll collection belonging to her latest client's charge is connected to the mysterious disappearances of her previous sitters.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: Erin Maher & Kay Reindl.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "evil doll", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danielle and her babysitter Miranda were terrorized by the eerily lifelike dolls belonging to Daniella's collection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miranda was babysitting the eight-year-old girl Daniella. Miranda was particularly good at understanding children, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative remote living body manipulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The preteen girl Daniella manifested an ability to transform her various babysitters into dolls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniella spent an evening under the care of her new babysitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniella had no friends and felt betrayed when her babysitters would leave after her parents would come home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniella feared her babysitters leaving so much that she transformed them into dolls and locked them into a glass cabinet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniella kept a collection of eerily lifelike dolls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniella claimed that one of her dolls was jealous that Daniella was going to hang out with her new babysitter instead of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniella's mother grounded her until the weekend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniella and her father, Pete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pete and Ellen Randall went out for the evening, leaving their young daughter Daniella in the care of a babysitter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the dolls was afraid of the dark, but Daniella not so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arachnophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda was mostly afraid of spiders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overprotective guardian", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The babysitter Miranda raised an eyebrow when she saw the huge folder of caring instructions for the eight-year-old Daniella.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x21", "title": "The Breach", "date": "2003-04-23", "description": "Due to the demands of a militant faction, Enterprise is asked to retrieve Denobulan geologists from an alien cave. Dr. Phlox must treat a patient with racist views against his people.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Daniel McCarthy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Both Phlox and Hudak had their preconceptions challenged about the one another species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bad blood existed between Denobulans and the Antarans because of an 300 year old war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hudak refused to be treated by Phlox, because of racism, and Archer ordered that Phlox treat him anyway, but Phlox refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hudak refused to be treated by Phlox, because of racism, and Archer ordered that Phlox treat him anyway, but Phlox refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonization of the enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox discussed with Hudak how his ancestors demonized the Antarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox and Hudak put their prejudices aside while Phlox treated Hudak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people can change", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Phlox and Hudak changed their prejudiced views about one another's peoples after getting to know one another on a personal level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox had to treat a patient who held bigoted views against his people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hudak claimed the Denobulans had perpetrated war crimes against the Denobulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hudak claimed Denobulan battle tactics resulted in 20 million Antaran casualties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox felt guilty over how his ancestors had treated the Antarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Denobulan geological expedition members were so passionate for rocks that they refused to evacuate cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team of Denobulan geologists were collecting speleothem samples from inside a cave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor-patient confidentiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox cited doctor-patient confidentiality to Archer when asked about the details of Hudak's medical condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox sent a message to his Antaran hating son to urge him to change his views of the Antaran people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement for peoples' own good", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker, Malcolm, and Maywether were tasked to forcibly evacuate Denobulan geologists from cave against the Denobulans will.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x38", "title": "Eye of the Beholder", "date": "2003-04-30", "description": "In a retelling of an episode from the original series, Eye of the Beholder, a young woman living in a futuristic society that has labeled her hideous waits to learn if the 11th and final attempt to surgically make her look like everyone else is successful or not.\n\nDirected by: David R. Ellis. Story by: Rod Serling.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The beautiful (by human standards) Mrs. Tyler was considered to be hideously disfigured in a society where ugliness (by human standards) was the norm, and beauty (again by human standards) the deviation from that norm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A small minority of human-looking people were discriminated against by the ugly as judged by human standards people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Tyler lament their prospects at living as an outcast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Tyler subjected herself to 11 treatments in a desperate effort to transform her \"ugly\" face into a normal looking one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a doctor and some nurses working in a hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mrs. Tyler seemed to have had a long history with the doctor who was responsible for reconstructing her face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "totalitarian dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leader worship, and control of beauty standards seem indicative enough to label this speculative government totalitarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a totalitarian society in which people who did not physically conform to the prevailing standard of normal were banished. The totalitarian state leader spoke of \"glorious conformity\" in his speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "The revoltingly ugly Mrs. Tyler longed to look normal enough to not be treated as a freak by society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x39", "title": "Developing", "date": "2003-04-30", "description": "A photographer becomes convinced her deceased fiancée is attempting to contact her from beyond the grave after finding him in several photographs that could never have been taken.\n\nDirected by: Allison Liddi-Brown. Story by: Moira Kirland Dekker.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edie struggled to rebound after her fiancée died tragically in an automobile wreck. Her efforts to move on were further hindered by the mysterious of appearance photographs of him in a roll of film she developed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edie struggled to rebound after her husband died tragically in an automobile wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edie's friend Shawn encouraged her to take up her old hobby of photography as a way to get over the tragic passing of her fiancée a year prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edie's longtime friend Shawn took it upon himself to help her get over the tragic death of her fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Edie became obsessed with her late fiancée's dreams of their future life together, to the exclusion of her friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, and after much struggle, Edie felt at peace with her fiancée death, and agreed to have tea with a new romantic interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Despite numerous exhortations from her friends, Edie refused to let go of her late lover - until she ran into some other hunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "From Edie's friend Shawn's perspective, Edie was doctoring photographs as a way to make it feel like there was still a way for her to be reunited with her tragically deceased fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edie spent a year feeling down in the dumps in the wake of her fiancée's tragic passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edie's good friend Shawn was a man of the cloth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deep scars on Edie's wrists made it clear that he'd previously attempted to end her life by slitting them. Edie contemplated hurling herself off a rocky outcrop to her death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x22", "title": "Cogenitor", "date": "2003-04-30", "description": "Enterprise encounters the Vissians and Commander Tucker finds himself troubled by the fact the Vissians are a three-sexed species.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interfering in the internal affairs of other powers for humanitarian reasons", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tucker took it upon himself to emancipate the Cogenitors but things didn't work out like he expected. Archer had to decide whether or not to accept its request for asylum on the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-gendered being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story are the tri-gendered Vissian aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of cultural norms", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans, and especially Tucker, felt that they could not stand idly by when they learned that the Vissians treated a third gender among their species as second-class citizens while refusing to see anything wrong about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker felt the Cogenitor gender was subject to oppression in Vissian society. The Cogenitors were not given names, not educated, and moved around like cattle for mating purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker felt the Cogenitor was subject to gender inequality in its society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tri-gendered Vissians vis-a-vis the bi-gendered Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vissians were curious to learn about Human culture and behavior. Archer and Vissian captain were interested to explore and study a hypergiant star. The Cogenitor learned to read and became interested in learning about everything around it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew make first contact with a three-sexed species called the Vissians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew make first contact with a three-sexed species called the Vissians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the right to education", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Coginetor was denied the right to even a basic education in Vissian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker was compassionate toward the Coginetor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernova", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise was observing a hypergiant star that was about to go supernova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drennik and Calla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm took a liking to Veylo and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was excited to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still together with the Cogenotor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vissian captain took Archer on a joyride in his spacecraft that had the ability to fly inside stars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "literature appreciation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Vissian captain discussed Shakespeare and Sophocles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Matrix Reloaded (2003)", "title": "The Matrix Reloaded", "date": "2003-05-07", "description": "Morpheus and his fellow resistors try to prevent intelligent machines from exterminating all humans not under their control. It is the first sequel to The Matrix, and the second installment in The Matrix trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Matrix" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_Reloaded" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality called the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Smith and others inside the Matrix existed as sentient computer programs. Neo and the other resistors had the ability to make virtual instances of themselves inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus recruited Neo into his group of freedom fighters who were determined to bring down the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing theme bound up with something about Neo being able to control the laws of physics inside the Matrix environment so long as he believed in himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where intelligent machines had won a war against humans and were using them as living batteries to power their world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus and his resistance fighter were in a desperate struggle to put an end to intelligent machines using humans as batteries to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity. Link and Zee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity. Link and Zee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus and the resistors hacked themselves into the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and others were able to seemingly violate the laws of physics in certain when inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus and Niobe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus told Link that he needed to trust in him more if he wanted to serve aboard the Nebuchadnezzar vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Neo put his trust in the Oracle, given that she was a computer program?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus, Niobe, Commander Lock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trinity nearly blew the French lady's head off when she forced Neo to kiss she passionately.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Merovingian assert that choice was an illusion, but Morpheus disagreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping a promise when circumstances have changed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Trinity break her promise to Neo not to follow him into the Matrix after it became apparent that he would die if she didn't?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a twist, it turned out that the prophesy was made up by the Architect as a way to manipulate the resistance fighters into doing what he wanted them to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Link agreed to wear the special necklace that Zee gave him even though he didn't believe it would help him in any way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Architect offered Neo the choice between saving some remnant of the city Zion with its inhabitants and his the life of his girlfriend Trinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human battery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The intelligent machines kept unconscious humans in pods and used them to somehow generate electricity to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the resistance fighters were trying to free humanity from the tyranny of the intelligent machines.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x40", "title": "The Executions of Grady Finch", "date": "2003-05-07", "description": "A death row inmate sets out to convince his defense attorney that he did not commit the crime he was convicted of as an unknown force starts interfering with his executions.\n\nDirected by: John Peter Kousakis. Story by: Frederick Rappaport, Ira Steven Behr and Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a death row inmate whose execution is thrice prevented at the last moment by an unknown force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The death row inmate Grady professing his innocence in combination with him having to go through the lead up to his own execution multiple times confront the viewer with the issue of the morality of executing prisoners. To muddle the issue, the story ended with the conclusion that a cold blooded murderer had escaped justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The death row inmate Grady swore to his defense attorney that he was innocent of the murder that's landed him on death row. It was only at the story's conclusion that Grady lets slip that he'd been guilty of the crime all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had a secret guardian", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady became convinced that his guardian angle was preventing him from getting executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concludes with the goddess of vengeance Nemesis meting out retribution on Grady for having murdered a convenience store owner in cold blood. The murdered convenience store owner's son was bloodthirsty to have the man convicted of the crime executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "After being saved by fate several times, Grady became so cocksure of himself that he even confessed to the cold blooded murder he had indeed committed. Thence done with him, Destiny administered its own execution by crushing Grady under a falling statue in a freak accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ironically, a cold blooded murderer was saved from execution by a series of fateful accidents. Yet more ironically, on the day of his acquittal despite his guilt, the man who had been saved four times by fate was crushed by a falling statue in a freak accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A case was made that multiple botched executions constitutes cruel and unusual punishment akin to torture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "signs from the heavens", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady considered that his miraculous last minute escapes from execution were orchestrated by a higher power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grady was on death row for having murdered a convenience store owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady's defense attorney succeeded in reversing a guilty verdict that's landed him on death row.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady was found not guilty of murder at his retrial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When the state proved incapable of carrying out Grady's execution, the son of the man that Grady had been convicted of murdering took matters into his own hands and tried to shoot Grady at point blank range.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When the state proved incapable of carrying out Grady's execution, the son of the man that Grady had been convicted of murdering took matters into his own hands and tried to shoot Grady at point blank range.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hearing voices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady heard the voice of what he thought was his guardian angel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady planned to start his own religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady was on death row for having murdered a convenience store owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grady professed it was his destiny to let it be known to the world that the righteous will be rewarded and the innocent set free.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x41", "title": "Homecoming", "date": "2003-05-07", "description": "A Delta Force officer recently discharged from combat juggles making amends with his wayward teenage son and preventing him from unearthing a mysterious secret.\n\nDirected by: Risa Bramon Garcia. Story by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, Michael Angeli.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An Iraqi War soldier returned from the dead to patch things up with his teenage son who felt that he'd been a bad father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An Iraqi War soldier returned from the dead to patch things up with his wife and teenage son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the troubled teenager Trace accepting his suddenly returned from the dead father's apology for not having been there for Trace in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trace's mother was concerned that her teenage son, Trace, was slipping into a life of crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Rob Malone returned from the dead to make things right with his wife, Mrs. Malone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trace resented his father for having been absent from his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trace resented his army major father for having been too much absent from his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Rob Malone evidently felt guilty that he'd not been a better family man, and returned from the dead to set things right with his wife and teenage son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trace engaged in criminal behavior, at least in part, to spite his neglectful father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youthful indiscretion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Trace was brought home by the police for stealing a neighbor's car, and would have burgled a local home had his father not talked him into changing his delinquent ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rob Malone made a concerted effort to bond with his disgruntled teenage son Trace. For example, he tried to bond with Trace while the pair worked on fixing a car engine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rob Malone had been absent much of his son's childhood and the son obviously resented it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trace was brought home by the police for having stolen a neighbor's car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trace and his friend were planning to burgle and area home, but Trace backed out at the last moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Rob Malone was an Iraqi War soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trace was distress when she heard that her husband was missing in Iraq.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x23", "title": "Regeneration", "date": "2003-05-07", "description": "A group of Borg drones are revived after a century frozen in the Arctic ice.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of archaeologists discovered some Borg drones frozen in ice inside the Arctic Circle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Borg drones were sent to Earth over a century ago to conquer it and enslave the Human race, but ended up getting frozen in Arctic ice. Archer thought another invasion was coming in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox and others were infected with Borg self-replicating nanoprobes that were transforming them into Borg drones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Archer attempt to rescue the two Humans held on the Borg ship or destroy it with all aboard? T'Pol advised him to destroy the ship, but Archer attempted the rescue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox described entering into the Borg collective mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Borg aren't a species of their own but assimilate others in order to perpetuate themselves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x24", "title": "First Flight", "date": "2003-05-14", "description": "Upon the death of a close friend, Captain Archer tells Sub-Commander T'Pol about his early career as an experimental warp engine pilot.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: John Shiban & Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Humans follow the Vulcan's advice and take a slow and measure approach to deep spaceflight development or take risks and possibly get there more quickly? Archer and A.G. Robinson disobeyed orders to break warp speed barrier at great risk to themselves and their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "you have to take chances to get ahead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Humans follow the Vulcan's advice and take a slow and measure approach to deep spaceflight development or take risks and possibly get there more quickly? Archer and A.G. Robinson disobeyed orders to break warp speed barrier at great risk to themselves and their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Humans follow the Vulcan's advice and take a slow and measure approach to deep spaceflight development or take risks and possibly get there more quickly? Archer and A.G. Robinson disobeyed orders to break warp speed barrier at great risk to themselves and their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer grieved over the untimely death of his NX Test program colleague A.G. Robinson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and A.G. Robinson competed to be selected as the first pilot to have a chance to break the warp 2.5 barrier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. desire", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and A.G. Robinson took it upon themselves to break the warp 2.5 barrier without permission from Starfleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and A.G. Robinson were passionate about breaking the warp speed barrier and opening up deep space exploration to human as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark matter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol went on a mission to map a dark matter nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A.G. Robinson explained to Archer that he lacked people skills necessary for command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magnanimity in victory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A.G. Robinson humbly accepted being selected to pilot an historic test flight over his competitor Archer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x25", "title": "Bounty", "date": "2003-05-14", "description": "A Tellarite captures Captain Archer in order to collect a reward from the Klingons who have been searching for him since the events of \"Judgment\".\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Tellarite about whether or not to turn over a possibly innocent man to the Klingons and take the money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was taken captive by a Tellarite in order to return him to the Klingons to collect a bounty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "A microbe infecting T'Pol made her lose her rationality and go bonkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew planned to take shore leave on a Tellarite mining planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suppressed emotion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had trouble suppressing her emotions as usual because of a microbial infection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skalaar wished for this brother Gaavrin to join him again on his ship running freight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox coped with unwelcome romantic advances from T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually distinguished being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A microbe induced T'Pol into the pon farr: the heat that Vulcans experience at the end of their seven year mating cycle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003)", "title": "Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem", "date": "2003-05-18", "description": "Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (インターステラ5555, Intāsutera Fō Faibu, \"Four Five\") is a 2003 animated film that bridges the musical, science fiction, and anime genres. The film serves as a visual companion to Discovery, the second studio album by Daft Punk.\n\nSynopsis: An interstellar rock band is abducted and subsequently rescued.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstella_5555:_The_5tory_of_the_5ecret_5tar_5ystem" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around the abduction of four blue-skinned, humanoid alien rock music band members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the alien rock band that called the Crescendolls. The band played in front of large, ecstatic crowds on their home planet, and also Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The members of an alien band were abducted from their home planet and held captive on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The band members had their memories removed and downloaded to disks. One storyline follows their efforts to recover their downloaded memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The villain of the story Earl de Darkwood had been kidnapping musicians from various worlds to acquire 5,555 gold records, with which he would rule the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The band was taken to Earth on a futuristic, oblong spaceship. The band later made a triumphant return to their home world in a futuristic spaceship with a narrow body, somewhat reminiscent of the neck of a guitar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship carrying the band passed through a wormhole on its way to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was spaceship mediated travel between an alien planet and Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The band members were fitted with mind-control devices hidden inside sunglasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shep descended on the band's stadium concert in a jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The band members laid Shep to rest in a shallow grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The band members were shown to be exhausted from the rigors of touring and marketing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earl de Darkwood had some android henchmen in his service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a scene of a young boy who'd fallen asleep while playing with his toys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a mother and father moving their sleeping young son from his play area into his bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a mother and father moving their sleeping young son from his play area into his bed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x42", "title": "Sunrise", "date": "2003-05-21", "description": "Five college students exploring an Aztec site struggle to decide who they must sacrifice after knocking over a jug filled with blood and enacting a curse that causes the sun to go out.\n\nDirected by: Tim Matheson. Story by: Katrina Cabrera Ortega, Frederick Rappaport.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Five college students deliberated whom of them should be sacrificed to countermand an ancient Aztec curse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing a friend to save one's self", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Five college students deliberated whom of them should be sacrificed to countermand an ancient Aztec curse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Five college students came to think that it was up to them to make the sun reappear in the sky before the Earth froze solid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Were the four college students justified in sacrificing a fifth among them to save their own skins, and perhaps the world?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hexes and curses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five college students accidentally unleashed an ancient Aztec curse that blotted out the sun, it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Aztec mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five college students succeeded in enacting an Aztec curse that caused the sun to go out, or it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "To countermand the Aztec curse and bring back the sun, the students had to sacrifice a human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "An Aztec curse seemingly blotted out the sun and humanity was hours from an icy doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic solar event", "level": "major", "motivation": "An Aztec curse seemingly blotted out the sun and humanity was hours from an icy doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five college students faced the grim prospect that one among them would have to be sacrificed to countermand an Aztec curse. The young woman who drew the short stick was doomed to be sacrificed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four students sacrificed a friend to countermand an ancient Aztec curse and save the world, but through an ironic twist of fate the situation was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with the supposed curse or the sacrifice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wes stood in fear as his girlfriend was sacrificed to countermand an Aztec curse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wes tearfully watched a video recording of his girlfriend shortly after she'd been sacrificed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wes lamented having done nothing to prevent his friends from sacrificing his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2002e1x43", "title": "Burned", "date": "2003-05-21", "description": "An agoraphobic real estate mogul finds himself forced to confront the sins of his past when the vindictive ghosts of two young children killed in an arson fire he orchestrated start haunting him.\n\nDirected by: John T. Kretchmer. Story by: Seth Weisburst & Daniel Wolowicz.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2002.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "agoraphobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott was afraid to leave his house because of agoraphobia, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A real estate mogul and slumlord had orchestrated a deadly fire, for financial purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the mysterious events around Scott's house were perpetrated by ghosts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott resisted showing any signs of contrition until the very end, but perhaps he had hallucinated due to remorse. A woman suggested he ought to feel remorse. The narrator said as much too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal haunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott and his house became haunted by two kids who succumbed in a fire he had orchestrated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two arsonists (Scott and Kate) became deserving victims of conflagrations in their own homes (a third, Rick, was electrocuted).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two young children perished in an arson that the slumlord Scott had orchestrated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent2x26", "title": "The Expanse", "date": "2003-05-21", "description": "After an alien attack on Earth, Enterprise is refitted before being sent into the Delphic Expanse. Sub-Commander T'Pol resigns her commission with the Vulcan High Command, and Commander Tucker is troubled by the death of his sister.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A devastating attack is leveled against Earth by a space probe sent by the Xindi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duras was out to capture Archer in order to regain his honor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were told by people from the future that Humans would annihilate them 400 years in the future, and they made a preemptive strike in an effort to change their fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Duras seeks to restore his honor by capturing the wanted fugitive Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker assumed that his sister had died in the Xindi attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical ethical issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was outraged by the lack of medical ethics displayed by Doctor Fer'at at Archer's medical examination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had to choose between her loyalty to the Vulcan High Command and to Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had to choose between her loyalty to the Vulcan High Command and to Archer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x12", "title": "The Sting", "date": "2003-06-01", "description": "\"The Sting\" is the twelfth episode of season four of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on June 1, 2003. In the episode, the Planet Express crew is sent to collect space honey, and find themselves in a harrowing battle with giant bees. The episode's plot originated from the writers wanting to do a story where it seemed as though a major character had died. The episode was then produced faster than normal and was well received by critics.\n\nDirected by: Brian Sheesley. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela grieved over the death of Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was wracked with guilt over feeling responsible for Fry's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela went gradually insane from being wracked with guilt about Fry's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela realized she loved Fry only after she thought Fry had died for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry gave his life for Leela or so she thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew versus the space bees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew traveled to a bee hive in outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had to prove they were better than the old crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reverse psychology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor used reverse psychology to good effect on Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela was in a coma.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x15", "title": "The Farnsworth Parabox", "date": "2003-06-08", "description": "\"The Farnsworth Parabox\" is the fifteenth episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on June 8, 2003. The episode was written by Bill Odenkirk and directed by Ron Hughart. The plot of this episode revolves around the Planet Express crew's adventures in parallel universes.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Bill Odenkirk.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "curiosity killed the cat", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew members could not resist from peeking in paper packages they oughtn't have peeked in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parallel universes were created and discovered within shoebox sized boxes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone met their parallel counterparts, evil or otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was pursuing Leela for most of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth invented a universe in a small box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people compared themselves against their parallel counterparts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parallel Fry and Parallel Leela were married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parallel Fry and Parallel Leela rubbed noses disgustingly affectionately.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry begged Leela for a date. The Zoidbergs lived in dumpsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela struggled to stop herself from peeking inside the box she was ordered not to peek inside.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x16", "title": "Three Hundred Big Boys", "date": "2003-06-15", "description": "\"Three Hundred Big Boys\" is the sixteenth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on June 15, 2003. Set in a retro-futuristic 31st century, the series follows the adventures of the employees of Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company. In this episode, Earth president Richard Nixon issues every citizen with a $300 tax rebate; the Planet Express crew each ponder how they shall spend their money. The episode was inspired by \"22 Short Films About Springfield\", an episode of The Simpsons.\n\nDirected by: Swinton O. Scott III. Story by: Eric Kaplan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw numerous illustrations of what different people may do if you give them 300 dollars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy, Mom, and other snobs at Brannigan's party acted like rich jerks and disdained the 300 dollars while Zoidberg, crack addict, and hobos basically lived in the gutter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan had defeated some spider aliens and looted their home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-aging technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth applied stem cells to make himself look younger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and his date appeared to be a brief commentary on our obsession with looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes bought Dwight bamboo boogie boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's hundredth cup of coffee endowed him with the ability to move faster in time than everybody else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head issued everyone a 300 dollar tax rebate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could be young again", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth used a stem cell treatment to regain his youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and the fat lady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war plunder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan led an invasion and plundering of the spider home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan was glorified for leading an unprovoked war of aggression against the spider home world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Hulk (2003)", "title": "Hulk", "date": "2003-06-20", "description": "The film explores the origins of Bruce Banner, who after a lab accident involving gamma radiation, finds himself able to turn into a huge green- skinned monster whenever he is emotionally provoked or stressed, while he is pursued by the United States military and comes into a conflict with his biological father, who has his own dark agenda for his son.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "David came into conflict with his biological father, who has his own dark agenda for his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and his father settled their conflict with a big fight with David as the Hulk and the father as some kind of monster that became the same substance as whatever it was touching.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty had a troubled relationship with her father General Thaddeus Ross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a huge green-skinned monster whenever he became emotionally provoked or stressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was extremely strong whenever he transformed into the Hulk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Talbot lost his moral compass as he worked to reverse-engineer whatever it was that made David into a huge green-skinned monster so that he could sell it to the military for easy money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty worried that the massive dose of gamma radiation that David absorbed would kill him, but instead resulted in him transforming into a huge green-skinned monster whenever he became emotionally provoked or stressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David's wounds healed very quickly as a result of a massive dose of gamma radiation that he had sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David repressed the traumatic memory of witnessing his father stabbing his mother to death as a young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David repressed the traumatic memory of witnessing his father stabbing his mother to death as a young boy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)", "title": "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", "date": "2003-06-30", "description": "After Skynet fails to kill Sarah Connor before her son John Connor was born, and also failed to kill John as a child, Skynet now sends another Terminator back in time known as the T-X in an attempt to wipe out as many human resistance officers as possible, including John's future wife Kate Brewster, but not John himself, as his whereabouts are unknown to Skynet. John's life is placed in danger when the T-X finds him while pursuing Kate. The Resistance has also sent their own Terminator back to protect the T-X's targets. It is the third installment in the Terminator film series, following 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and does not involve James Cameron, who directed and wrote the first two films.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_3:_Rise_of_the_Machines" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bad terminator could take the form of mostly anything it touched.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The good terminator was a built with living tissue over a robotic skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A female terminator was sent back in time to kill members of a future human resistance movement. A reprogrammed male terminator was sent back in time to protect them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was premised on an autonomous weapons system becoming sentient and leading a take over of Earth by robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor and his fellow resistors were being hunted down by the a shapeshifting terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor was a drug addict living on the streets, and a reluctant hero, but he eventually came around to accepting his role as the savior of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fate of humanity rested on John Connor not getting killed and leading a resistance movement against robot exterminators of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "John, Kate, and good terminator had less than two hours to stop a nuclear war, but they failed in the attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was destined to lead a revolutionary movement against the conquerers of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Skynet automated defence system was going to initiate a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Skynet autonomous computer defense system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "John and Kate versus the female terminator. Later the male terminator also turned against them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate Brewster and her fiancée.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant General Robert Brewster and Kate Brewster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Los Angeles of 2029 was a post atomic horror wasteland in which humans were in a desperate war for survival against machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skynet became self-aware.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate grieved over the death of first her fiancée and then her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate grieved over the death of first her fiancée and then her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Kate.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x17", "title": "Spanish Fry", "date": "2003-07-13", "description": "\"Spanish Fry\" is the 17th episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on July 13, 2003. Set in a retro-futuristic 31st century, the series follows the adventures of the employees of Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company. In this episode, Fry's nose has mysteriously disappeared so he seeks to get it back. David X. Cohen admitted that this episode is one of the most \"filthy\" in the series' history.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Ron Weiner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Ranger Park believed in Bigfoot. Bigfoot later made an appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Omicronian royal couple had trouble in bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Omicronian royal couple had trouble in bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were peddling human noses as aphrodisiacs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a commentary on poaching animals and using their parts as aphrodisiacs. Note that the Omicronians considered humans to be animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens consuming human noses as aphrodisiacs was central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A flying saucer abducted Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was abducted by a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Probe 1 UFO abducted Fry and took his nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Probe 1 UFO abducted Fry and took his nose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went looking to buy Fry's nose from an chameleon-like alien.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Wonderful Days (2003)", "title": "Wonderful Days", "date": "2003-07-17", "description": "Wonderful Days (also known as Sky Blue) is a South Korean animated science fiction film, released in 2003, written and directed by Kim Moon-saeng.\n\nSynopsis: The year is 2142 and the survivors of an ecological apocalypse of some sort live in and around a specially constructed city, divided into a ruling class and a worker underclass.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Blue_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a not-too-distant future when an environmental catastrophe has led to a breakdown of human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "relations between social groups in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the enmity between the Ecoban city dwellers and an underclass of workers, known as Diggers, who toil to supply fuel for running the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Digger underclass was systematically oppressed by the Ecoban city dwellers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The society in this story was divided into two hereditary classes: The Ecoban city dwellers, who lived in comfort, and the Diggers, who lived in a wasteland surrounding the city and toiled to supply the city with fuel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Shua was reunited with his childhood friend, Jay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The relationship between the Ecoban security commander Cade and Jay, an officer under his command, became increasingly strained over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay explained at the outset that Ecoban city had been genetically engineered to survive in the toxic environment that was Earth's surface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay explained at the outset that the Earth's great cities had fallen after temperatures (presumably global temperatures) rose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Digger foreman threatened to order a mass strike when an administrator ordered him to take an action that would result in the deaths of numerous workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A kabuki-masked intruder hacked into the Ecoban city master computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large, rotating holographic projection of the Ecoban city map was being projected in the council chamber. Holographic tropical fish swam in holographic water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The harmonica playing, street boy Woody was an orphan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blue haired girl was born blind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Cade had killed a trooper and pinned the crime on Shua.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shua was shown at the orphan boy Woody's bedside as the boy lay comatose from a gunshot wound he'd sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While most others dismissed the possibility out of hand, Woody was convinced of the existence of a distant land, called Gibraltar, above which there were blue skies. This is notable in the context of the film as the world was mired in perpetual toxic rain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shua was shown at the orphan boy Woody's bedside as the boy lay comatose from a gunshot wound he'd sustained.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x13", "title": "Bend Her", "date": "2003-07-20", "description": "\"Bend Her\" is the thirteenth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on July 20, 2003. In the episode, Bender changes into a female robot and adopts the name Coilette.\n\nDirected by: James Purdum. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender adopted numerous female stereotype after undergoing a robo-sex change operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became engaged to become Calculon's trophy wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what men want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender maintained that men want women who use lots of lipstick etc, but Leela and Amy disagreed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender underwent a robo-sex change operation and began dated the man-bot Calculon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender competed in the Olympics as a fembot because he couldn't compete at bending with the male robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon went head over heals for Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transsexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender underwent a robo-sex change operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender got engaged to Calculon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender in sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether and how to let people of different gender compete in different categories when the gender line is fluid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw enthusiastic spectator at the 3004 Olympics, where athletes competed in sports such as \"robot bending\" and \"500 meter limbo\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiculturalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 3004 Olympics was a showcase of multiculturalism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was outraged at the spectacle of multiculturalism that was the 3004 Olympics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x14", "title": "Obsoletely Fabulous", "date": "2003-07-27", "description": "\"Obsoletely Fabulous\" is the fourteenth episode in the fourth production season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on July 27, 2003. Set in a retro-futuristic 31st century, the series follows the adventures of the employees of Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company. In this episode, Mom's Friendly Robot Company introduces a new model of robot, so older models, including Bender, are required to get a system upgrade.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A band of robots created a little neo-Luddist utopia on some deserted island in an effort to return to a simpler way of life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender versus Robot 1-X. Professor Farnsworth rivaled briefly with Wernstrom over who had the better kill bot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was one of an older generation put in their place by robot 1-X, a younger generation robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender joined a community of neo-Luddist robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was jealousy of Robot 1-X.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The desert island robots had a tidy little neo-Luddist utopia going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neo-Luddist utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The desert island robots had a tidy little neo-Luddist utopia going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and his robot companions, Robinson Crusoe-like, made a living for themselves on an uncharted island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted island", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender thought he was stranded on a deserted island, but it turned out other robots were there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender mused about whether reality was just a dream after his upgrade was complete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amazement at a new technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people were astonished by all the helpful things that the new Robot 1-X could do.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x06", "title": "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV", "date": "2003-08-03", "description": "\"Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV\" is the sixth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on August 3, 2003. The episode's plot revolves around Bender's outlandish behavior on the television program All My Circuits; after he lands a spot on the show, he is quickly ridiculed by members of the public for setting a poor example for children. Bender eventually sees the critics' point of view after he realizes children imitated his behavior and stole his belongings, and sets out to put a stop to his own behavior.\n\nDirected by: Ron Hughart. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cubert and Dwight took TV actors as role models, including Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "The \"All My Circuits\" robot soap opera was amply featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story parodied dumb actors and even dumber network executives etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Cubert. Hermes and Dwight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Hermes started FART: Fathers Against Rude Television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental controls in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Hermes started FART: Fathers Against Rude Television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became an actor on the robot soap opera All My Circuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender found an outlet to satiate his desire fame and adulation by acting in a soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot child actor playing Antonio had a bout of explosive amnesia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cloning of Qubert from a growth on the Professor's back was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender appeared to have held Jay Leno's head captive in his compartment.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Koi Mil Gaya (2003)", "title": "Koi... Mil Gaya", "date": "2003-08-08", "description": "Koi... Mil Gaya (transl. I Have Found Someone...), also known as KMG, is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language science fiction film directed and produced by Rakesh Roshan.\n\nSynopsis: A developmentally disabled man contacts an extraterrestrial being with his late father's computer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koi..._Mil_Gaya" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Rohit befriending the visitor from outer space, Jadoo. Chelaram summed it up by saying that he's \"never seen so much love for a friend\" in reference to Rohit risking life and limb in a failed bid to prevent Jadoo from being apprehended by the authorities. Also explored was the friendship between Rohit and Nisha, and Rohit and his school pals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonia was caring for her developmentally challenged son, Rohit, throughout the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story, Rohit, was saddled with a developmental disability that effectively made him a boy in the body of a grown man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming a limitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Rohit as he overcomes a developmental disability with the help of his space alien friend Jadoo. Although a grown man physically, Rohit had the mind of a naive, innocent child. But all that changed when Jadoo used his powers to enhance Rohit's social and intellectual abilities as if in answer to Rohit's desperate plea to Krishna for help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rohit and his band of friends were recurringly bullied by the town jock Raj.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rohit and his school friends were depicted doing stereotypical kid things throughout the film. They broke a window while playing cricket on the street, took their lessons at school, got into trouble with the local bully, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rohit and Nisha fell passionately in love with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is the appearance of a diminutive blue humanoid alien in the town of Kasauli, and Rohit's subsequent befriending of the visitor from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rohit and Raj were vying for Nisha's love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raj became consumed with jealousy after Nisha spurned him in favor of Rohit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming of age", "level": "major", "motivation": "The second half of the story concerned Rohit becoming a man and standing up for himself against his former tormentor, Raj.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientist Sanjay Mehra had created a computer from which he was sending variations of the sacred syllable \"om\" into space, hoping to attract extraterrestrial life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonia steadfastly supported her husband Sanjay in his search for extraterrestrial life, but then he died tragically in a fiery car wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sayjay's scientist peers ridiculed him when he triumphantly reported that his efforts to contact extraterrestrial life had been successful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonia's husband Sanjay died tragically in a fiery automobile wreck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A livid police officer chased Rohit and his friends away for having broken some windows while playing cricket. Inspector Khan was leading an investigation into reports that a space alien was hiding in the town of Kasauli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cricket", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit and his friends broke some windowns while playing cricket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit and his friends were shown taking their lessons at the local school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chelaram reminded a Sikh boy that 300 million in India live under the poverty line upon seeing the child take more than what Chelaram deemed to be his fair share of food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nisha took pity on Rohit after his scooter was destroyed by bullies and bought him shinry red bicycle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nisha introduced Rohit to her mother and father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nisha introduced Rohit to her mother and father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of basketball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit and his friends bested Raj and his friends at basketball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit beseeched Krishna to grant him some of his strength. Rohit's prayer to Krishna to \"please do something\" to help him and his friends win the basketball game was answered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit's prayer to Krishna was immediately answered and the clouds parted and the sun shown down upon the basketball court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large alien spaceship descended over the town of Kasauli. Three equispaced arms extended from its circular body, from the bottom of which emanated an ethereal blue light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reports of an alien spaceship sighting in a town in Northern India were dismissed by the world's various space organizations, according to a news report.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Raj lied to his father by telling him that he and Nisha were going to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harbans complained that his son Raj had become a laughing stock and the butt of jokes in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rohit was granted superhuman strength by the alien Badoo, although he used this power sparingly. In one such instance, he kicked a basketball so hard that it sent Raj sky high upon striking him in the head.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama4x18", "title": "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", "date": "2003-08-10", "description": "\"The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings\" is the final episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series Futurama, and the finale of the original run. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on August 10, 2003. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Bret Haaland, and it guest stars Dan Castellaneta, who reprises his role as the Robot Devil. Keeler was nominated for an Emmy Award for this episode, while the song \"I Want My Hands Back\" was nominated for an Annie Award.\n\nDirected by: Bret Haaland. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry wrote and performed a holophoner opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was learning the holophoner and bargained with the devil to get the skills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and others made deals with the robot devil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry struggled to make Leela love him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry apparently won Leela's heart by the end of the episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg said this then changed his mind. In the end Leela was impressed with Fry even though he was inept at playing the holophoner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry swapped hands with the robot devil. Hedonism-bot was also featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team attended Fry's performance at an opera house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Christian afterlife was parodied with the robot hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot devil scurried off back to robot hell with Richard Nixon's disembodied head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry got the robot devil's hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robot Devil hacked off Fry's hands with a meat clever and replaced them with his own robot hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evil hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's new robot hands tried to choke him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lost in Translation (2003)", "title": "Lost in Translation", "date": "2003-08-29", "description": "Lost in Translation is a 2003 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It stars Bill Murray as aging actor Bob Harris, who befriends college graduate Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) in a Tokyo hotel. The movie explores themes of loneliness, insomnia, existential ennui, and culture shock against the backdrop of a modern Japanese city.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Translation_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We were shown Japanese culture trough the eyes of the Americans Bob and Charlotte.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Charlotte contemplated having an affair, or perhaps had a chaste but brief affair depending on one's view", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw the louse relationships in Bob and Charlotte's respective marriages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "communicating with someone who speaks a different language", "level": "major", "motivation": "the film returned to the problem of language time and again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an idea of what life is like for actors, photographers, directors, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "we saw how things natural to the Japanese may seem odd to foreigners", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "major", "motivation": "both Bob and Charlotte were bored with their time at the hotel in particular, but perhaps with Japan in general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male midlife crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "we heard that Bob was undergoing a midlife crisis and his behavior seemed to support that", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Charlotte became fast friends, and borderline more as they kissed from time to time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mabel was struggling to decide what to make of herself", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob and Charlotte became besotted with each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "at least Bob's marriage seemed to be cracking", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob had a few annoying run-ins with fans and the like", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bob had a one-night-stand with a singer from the bar, thus perhaps cheating on both his wife and on Charlotte it seemed the next day", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mabel was jealous of the blond model that courted Mabel's husband, and of the red haired singer who slept with Bob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we heard indirectly of Bob and his son", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Code 46 (2003)", "title": "Code 46", "date": "2003-09-02", "description": "Code 46 is a 2003 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom, with screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It was produced by BBC Films and Revolution Films.\n\nSynopsis: Set in a near biotechnologically advanced future, an investigator falls in love with a woman involved with the genetic passport forgery ring he is tasked to bust.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_46" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where there is a global directive (the titular Code 46) forbidding any two people with at least 25% genetic identity from reproducing with each other. In addition, the world was divided between privileged people who lived in highly developed urban centers and a poor underclass whose members were generally restricted from entering the nice cities through the use of special health and genetic information containing passports.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "William and Maria fell in love and engaged in a passionate affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "William fell passionately in love with Maria and had an affair with her behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria had all memories of William, the sex act she performed with him and subsequent pregnancy most notably, deleted from her mind by the authorities. In the end, William had all his memories of Maria erased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "major", "motivation": "William was dismayed to find that his lover Maria had had all memories of him erased by the authorities, and he set about to convince her that they'd been romantically involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal fraud", "level": "major", "motivation": "The insurance fraud investigator William was dispatched to Shanghai to investigate a company that was suspected of selling fake health documents that people required to move about from city to city. Much of the first half of the story was bound up with William's investigation into the company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ozone layer depletion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future when going outside in the daytime was considered hazardous owing to elevated UV ray levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William spoke of a genetically engineered virus that heightened the singing ability of those exposed to it. Maria had been treated with a genetically engineered virus that gave her the ability to speak Chinese, but alas it did not give her the ability to comprehend the language. William was treated with a genetically engineered virus that heightened his empathy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William's young son happily welcomed him home from his work trip to Shanghai.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William was thinking of his lover Maria while he was lying in bed with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William discovered that his lover Maria was in fact a clone of his own mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not much explored, the story is set in a future where society is divided between those who live in highly developed urban centers and a poor underclass whose members are kept outside the main cities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Natural City (2003)", "title": "Natural City", "date": "2003-09-05", "description": "Natural City (Korean: 내츄럴 시티) is a 2003 South Korean science fiction film, set in a dystopian future, about a colony world that integrates cyborgs amongst the population.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_City" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a futuristic city where humans and human-looking cyborgs coexist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows military police officers who are tasked to hunt down renegade cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the troubled relationship between the fellow military policemen and friends R and Noma. In particular, Noma and R clashed because R didn't take his job seriously and seemed only to be interested in his cyborg lover, Ria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "R was deeply in love with his cyborg companion, Ria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "R and Ria's love was not to be, as they both died tragically in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the efforts of the authorities, two military police officers specifically, to stop a band of rogue cyborgs from taking over the titular \"Natural City\" - a futuristic city where humans and cyborgs coexist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story concerned R's efforts to have the mind of his cyborg Ria transferred into the orphaned prostitute, Cyon. The mad scientist Giro had used a special means he'd pioneered to transfer his mind into the body of the cyborg Cypher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "R and Ria killed some time in a picturesque virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prostitute Cyon offered her services to R for free should he allow her to read his fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gongbang interpreted the signs on two sticks to mean that there would be an \"unavoidable bond\" in Cyon's future. Cyon went on to form just such a bond with R.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gongbang interpreted the signs on two sticks to mean that there would be an \"unavoidable bond\" in Cyon's future. Cyon went on to form just such a bond with R.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The computer whiz Ami admitted to having hacked into Dr. Giro's computer. Ami hacked into a computer system in order to open the police headquarters outer wall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deranged Dr. Gyro was a stereotypical mad scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flying police cruisers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not much explored in the film, the cyborg Ria lamented that she had only three days to live.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x01", "title": "The Xindi", "date": "2003-09-10", "description": "Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed visit a mining facility in order to track down a Xindi.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Xindi are an alliance of five species that evolved on the same planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker were held prisoner by Kessick on an ice world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an insectoid sitting on the Xindi council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi made an effort to bond with the new military unit members stationed aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox uncovered that the crashed Xindi pilot was a reptilian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker grieved for his sister who'd died tragically in the Xindi attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "going over someone's head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and the military unit commander came into conflict over who had authority over tactical operations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew came upon a planet that had been blown to bits 120 years prior by the Xindi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox recommended that Tucker visit T'Pol for treatment regarding his inability to get a good night's sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Something was wrong with the gravity plating in part of the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were held captive and forced to labor in the mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romance was in the air between T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi aquatic aliens were at the Xindi council.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x02", "title": "Anomaly", "date": "2003-09-17", "description": "The crew of Enterprise encounters the rigours of the Delphic Expanse first- hand, and deal with pirates operating from a giant cloaked alien sphere.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer tortured Orgoth to get access codes to the Xindi database that might contain information to help save Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise need to reconfigure the ship after encountering strange spatial distortions in the Delphic Expanse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens turned to piracy to survive in the Expanse, and it was pondered whether Archer would need to do the same.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pirates lived in the Delphic Expanse inside a giant cloaked sphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer tortured Orgoth to get access codes to the Xindi database that might contain information to help save Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer tortured Orgoth to get access codes to the Xindi database that might contain information to help save Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sleep deprivation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker consulted Phlox about a treatment for his inability to get to sleep that didn’t involve meditating with T’Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer's coffee floated up from his desk and hovered in the air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romance was in the air between T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x03", "title": "Extinction", "date": "2003-09-24", "description": "While pursuing the Xindi, three crew members are exposed to an alien virus and begin to mutate into Loque'eque, a long-dead alien race.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Were they justified in quarantining Loque'eque to save their own people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tret explained how a virus genetically engineered by the Loque'eque would wipe out his civilization, if the virus ever made it to their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species transmutation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Loque'eque genetically engineered a virus that infects humanoids and transforms them into Loque'eque.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Loque'eque genetically engineered virus that transformed Archer, Hoshi, and Malcolm into Loque'eque.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew scampered to find a cure for the mutagenic virus that had infected Archer, Reed, and Sato.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew discovered a new arboreal species of Xindi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Loque'eque genetically engineered a virus that infects humanoids and transforms them into Loque'eque because they somehow lost the ability to reproduce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romance was in the air between T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tret explained how a virus genetically engineered by the Loque'eque would wipe out his civilization, if the virus ever made it to their planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x04", "title": "Rajiin", "date": "2003-10-01", "description": "A slave girl Archer rescues from an alien bazaar seeks refuge aboard Enterprise but betrays the crew instead.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Paul Brown & Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rajiin claimed to have been kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were building a biological weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were building a biological weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi council debate featured multiple of the Xindi species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was suffering from a sort of skin aliment that made him very itchy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilian species sent Rajiin to spy on the Enterprise crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Insectoids were present at the Xindi council meetings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romance was in the air between T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien was fascinated with common spices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi aquatic alien.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x05", "title": "Impulse", "date": "2003-10-08", "description": "Enterprise encounters a Vulcan ship whose crew has become unstable due to Trellium-D exposure. Sub-Commander T'Pol soon begins to exhibit the same symptoms.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Jonathan Fernandez & Terry Matalas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "how to treat people that pose a risk to society through no fault of their own", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Archer order the killing of the murderous Vulcan zombies that were too far gone to be medically revived?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and the Vulcan crew of the Selaya became emotionally unstable after having been exposed to Trellium-D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists encountered zombie-like Vulcans. The condition was caused by exposure to Trellium which, it was revealed, was a lethal neurotoxin for Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "we need a balance between rationality and emotionality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol mentioned that Vulcans used to be barbarous people but became peaceful through the suppression of their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol mentioned that Vulcans used to be barbarous people but became peaceful through the suppression of their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for rest and recreation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker suggested to Archer that the crew needed some rest and recreation and suggested a movie night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was eager to watch a classic comedy film at the ship's movie night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Archer leave T'Pol behind on the nearest habitable planet or risk losing his ship?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Good Boy (2003)", "title": "Good Boy!", "date": "2003-10-10", "description": "Good Boy! is a 2003 American science fiction comedy film directed by John Hoffman, based on the book Dogs from Outer Space by Zeke Richardson.\n\nSynopsis: A boy befriends an intelligent dog from outer space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Boy!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the 12-year-old boy Owen as he adopts a scruffy Border Terrier that he named Hubble. While it so happened that Hubble was a talking alien dog, and they soon developed a bond of friendship, they often pretended to be as master and pet to conceal Hubble's alien nature from the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about the 12-year-old boy Owen, who'd had trouble making close friends owing to his parents' serial renovation and reselling of houses, finding a best friend in a talking Border Terrier named Hubble. Owen also befriended the neighborhood kid Connie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated with the Baker family deciding to remain living in the neighborhood where Owen had formed various bonds of friendship, rather than continue their habit of moving from one place to the next. In a parallel development, Hubble chose to make his home with the Baker family, rather than return to his home planet Canid 3942 in the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the 12-year-old boy Owen in his struggles to make lasting relationships with others owing to his parents' habit of renovating and reselling houses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Owen and his father Mr. Baker were central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Owen and his mother Mrs. Baker were central to the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. and Mrs. Baker we having such a good time renovating their home that they perhaps didn't pay enough attention to their young son Owen as they out to have done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Owen's beloved pet dog Hubble was a space alien from the planet Canid 3942 in the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Border Terrier named Hubble and his rag-tag group of neighborhood dogs had the power of speech. In general, the idea was that humans could not understand the language of the dogs without a special translation device known as a \"Barker\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "major", "motivation": "Owen woke up one morning to find that he was privy to the language of the dogs and he conversed with them throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Owen beloved his pet-cum-friend Border Terrier named Hubble. The neighborhood people devastated when their beloved pet dogs suddenly went missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubble crashed his cookie cutter flying saucer in a suburban neighborhood. The powerful dog leader the Greater Dane descended on the same neighborhood in a large flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubble flew from the Sirius star system to Earth in his flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stereotypical bumbling dog catcher apprehended Hubble and took him to the pound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 12-year-old boy Owen was working as the neighborhood dog-walker. Later, Owen's neighbors became concerned by his seemingly odd behavior and confronted his parents about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The space dog Hubble made mistakenly assumed that Earth dogs were taking their human owners for walks before the it dawned on him that the dogs on Earth are subservient to humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owen and Connie played the role of butler to the dogs at a fancy dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owen was bullied a couple of times by two boys named Frankie and Fred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien dog leader, known as the Greater Dane, looked down her snout at Hubble and the Earth dogs, chiding them for not knowing how to give her a proper welcome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crying Owen told himself that it was all his fault that the neighborhood people's dogs, including his own dog Hubble, had been recalled to the planet Canid 3942 in the Sirius star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that dogs had come to Earth thousands of years ago with the intention to colonize and dominate the planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003)", "title": "Mimic 3: Sentinel", "date": "2003-10-14", "description": "Mimic 3: Sentinel is a 2003 science fiction horror film, directed by J. T. Petty, with a script inspired by a short story of the same name by Donald A. Wollheim. It is the third and final installment in the Mimic film series.\n\nSynopsis: A room-bound voyeur notices that his neighbors are mysteriously disappearing.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mimic Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_3:_Sentinel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man-sized cockroach-like bug was going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Garbageman was on a mission to kill the murderous man-sized cockroach-like bug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin and his teenage sister Rosy were at the heart of the story. They discovered that people in the neighborhood were mysteriously disappearing, and tried to get to the bottom of it together. In parallel, Marvin was concerned about Rosy using street drugs and her running around with the neighborhood drug dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marvin spent his days taking pictures of his neighbors from his window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Marvin was unable to leave the germ-free confines of his sterilized bedroom for any real stretch of time owing to his condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin's hobby was something of an amateur photographer, and spent his time secretly taking photos of his neighbors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage girl Rosy was using street drugs to her brother Marvin's dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bigfoot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosy mocked Marvin by claiming that a shadowy blur in one of his photographs might just be this noble cryptid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rosy was involved with the neighborhood drug pusher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone had a heart-to-heart talk with her son Marvin over Rosy's drug use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone confronted her teenage daughter Rosy over possibly having stolen something from a neighbor's apartment to fuel her drug habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Gary Dumars was investigating Desmond's disappearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marvin's neighbor Carmen was strangely unfazed upon discovering that he'd been voyeuristically photographing her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simone spoke of how her husband had died from cancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x06", "title": "Exile", "date": "2003-10-15", "description": "A Beauty and the Beast-like tale involving Ensign Sato encountering a potentially helpful telepathic on a deserted world.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hoshi met a telepathic alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tarquin insisted that Hoshi stay with him in his castle while he set about telepathically uncovering the source of the Xindi weapon. Hoshi was the fifth in his series of companions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi finds herself in a beauty and beast-like scenario with Tarquin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tarquin communicated telepathically with Hoshi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi and Tarquin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tarquin was lonely on his planet. Hoshi felt lonely and isolated at time aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tarquin complained about being an outcast in his society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tarquin intended to force Hoshi to stay with him as his companion all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi and Tarquin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with stress at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi thought she might hallucinating because of the stress of being in the Expanse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker visited a cloaked Xindi sphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi had built an estimated 50 artificial moon-sized spheres.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were building a weapon to destroy the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were building a biological weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi had nightmares about Tarquin and felt anxiety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi had nightmares of Tarquin and felt afraid on the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi and Phlox questioned Hoshi's sanity after she had visions of Tarquin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Matrix Revolutions (2003)", "title": "The Matrix Revolutions", "date": "2003-10-27", "description": "Morpheus and his fellow resistance fighters enter into a final showdown with their tyrannical intelligent machine oppressors. It was the third installment of The Matrix trilogy, released six months following The Matrix Reloaded.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Matrix" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_Revolutions" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality called the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Smith and others inside the Matrix existed as sentient computer programs. Neo and the other resistors had the ability to make virtual instances of themselves inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus recruited Neo into his group of freedom fighters who were determined to bring down the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing theme bound up with something about Neo being able to control the laws of physics inside the Matrix environment so long as he believed in himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where intelligent machines had won a war against humans and were using them as living batteries to power their world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus and his resistance fighter were in a desperate struggle to put an end to intelligent machines using humans as batteries to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus was convinced that Neo was \"the one\" who was prophesied to destroy the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity. Link and Zee. Morhpeus and Niobe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity. Link and Zee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "Morpheus' unshakable faith in the prophesy of \"the One\" being true was contrasted with Commander Lock's skepticism and his practical approach to defending Zion against an impending attack by the intelligent machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Morpheus and the resistors hacked themselves into the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and others were able to seemingly violate the laws of physics in certain when inside the Matrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man with presumably self-inflicted cuts on his arms was said to have been psychotic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Indian man was trying to reach the Frenchman in an effort to save his daughter Sati.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Roland, and many of his fellow resistance fighters, equipped themselves in personal robotic exoskeletons before meeting the intelligent machines in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Roland died in a blaze of glory battling the intelligent machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Link agreed to wear the special necklace that Zee gave him even though he didn't believe it would help him in any way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo mourned the loss of his girlfriend Trinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo was somehow blinded and had to compensate by using his other senses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made about free will when Neo answered with \"Because I choose to.\" to Agent Smith's question about why he keeps on fighting against all odds.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x07", "title": "The Shipment", "date": "2003-10-29", "description": "Captain Archer learns of kemocite, a key element in a new weapon being built to destroy Earth, and seeks to follow its supply to the superweapon.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Chris Black & Brent V. Friedman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gralik Durr struggled with his conscience upon learning that his work was to be used for genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Xindi preparing to launch a planet destroying weapon at Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi were intent on destroying Earth because they had reason to believe that Humans were going to destroy them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gralik Durr thought his work was used for peaceful ends but learned it had been used to commit genocide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "enemy point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Gralik Durr learned something about the other's perspective and we learned something about how wars start.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first strike tactic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi were preparing for a preemptive strike in self-defense against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Gralik Durr discussed how the the Xindi used to be comprised of six sentient species, including a reptilian species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Gralik Durr discussed how the the Xindi used to be comprised of six sentient species, including an avian species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Gralik Durr discussed how the the Xindi used to be comprised of six sentient species, including an insectoid species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological machinery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a larva powered ray gun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Each of the Humans and Xindi combatant thinks the other is about to attack and so tries to attack preemptively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Gralik Durr developed a mutual bond of trust and worked together to sabotage the Xindi kemocite shipment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer learned in dealing with Gralik Durr that not all Xindi are genocidal maniacs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x08", "title": "Twilight", "date": "2003-11-05", "description": "A parasite causes Captain Archer to lose his short-term memory, and he (with the help of T'Pol and Doctor Phlox) seeks a way to change the past.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer became infected with a parasite that prevented him from forming long term memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer wakes up 12 years in the future to find the Xindi-Human conflict had ended with the descruction of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans had been all but wiped out by the Xindi in an alternate time line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer for T'Pol who in return spent her life caring for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer travels back in time to cure his amnesia and save Earth from destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol resigned her commission in order to take care of Archer. It was suggested by Phlox that she had fallen in love with him over the intervening years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future T'Pol and Future Phlox were prepared to sacrifice themselves so that Archer could travel back in time and save Earth from destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi successfully deployed a weapon that destroyed Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that T'Pol loved Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gang of old friends stuck together on Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x09", "title": "North Star", "date": "2003-11-12", "description": "Investigating a planet found to be inhabited by humans, the crew find a town resembling the American \"Old West\".\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: David A. Goodman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Human colonists hated the Skagarans for having enslaved their ancestors, and the Skagarans weren't fond of their modern day Human oppressors either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Human colonists subjugated and enslaved the Skagarans. MO: initially the roles had been reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of 19th century Humans were abducted and enslaved by Skagarans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of 19th century Humans were abducted and made into a slave caste by Skagarans, but the decedents of the Humans reversed the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Skagarans abducted 19th century Humans to use as forced laborers but the descendants of the abducted Human overthrew their oppressors and enslaved them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew visited a Wild West style world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The school teacher Bethany taught Skagaran children in secret under the cover of night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans treated the Skaggs as second class citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilization vs. savagery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bethany felt that Archer must have looked upon her people as barbarous by comparison to Archer's people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer stood up to Deputy Bennings who was bullying a Skagaran in a saloon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x10", "title": "Similitude", "date": "2003-11-19", "description": "Commander Tucker becomes comatose after an accident, and a rapid-growing clone is created for the purpose of harvesting brain tissue.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox bred a Tucker clone in order to harvest its organs for the purpose of saving Tucker's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox bred a Tucker clone whose full lifespan lasted 15 days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Tucker clone realized it was a clone of the real Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Archer force a life ending operation on the Tucker clone in order to save the real Tucker's life?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer was prepared to force the Tucker clone to undergo a life ending operation that would result in the life of the real Tucker being saved, because Archer needed the real Tucker to complete his all important mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer had to choose who between Tucker and the Tucker clone would die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "donating an organ to save a life", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the Tucker clone made the fatal decision to willingly donate some vital brain tissue that was needed to save Tucker's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox decided to breed a person for the purposes of organ donation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "To what extent was the Tucker clone not \"the real\" Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker were massaging one another in T'Pol's quarters, and then T'Pol kissed the Tucker clone as a going away present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer introduced Young Tucker to Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew grieved over the death of the Tucker clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An military style space funeral was held for the Tucker clone.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timeline (2003)", "title": "Timeline", "date": "2003-11-26", "description": "Timeline is a 2003 American science fiction adventure based on Michael Crichton's 1999 novel of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A team of present-day archaeology and history students are sent back in time to medieval France, to rescue their professor from the middle of a battle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_(2003_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film concerns Chris and company traveling back in time to 1357 France to rescue his archaeologist father who'd become trapped there, after traveling back in time himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris traveled back in time to save his father, Edward, who'd become trapped in 14th century France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a knight in shining armor heavy depiction of what life might have been like in 14th century France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The excavation of a medieval French village, named Castlegard, was integral to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Edward Johnston was leading an archaeological study of the medieval village of Castlegard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris was infatuated with Kate. Marek became infatuated with Lady Claire and ultimately stayed behind in the year 1357 to spend his life with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Chris and his companions going back in time and changing history by saving the woman whose martyrdom had supposedly sparked the Hundred Years War between England and France. Much was likewise made of Professor Johnson supplying the English with Greek fire in their war against the French.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "A medieval era war played out between English and French forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows a fanciful depiction of the start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romanticization of the past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Marek waxed about the past, asserting that men had honor and people cared about each in former ages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The time machine exploited a stable wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Johnson taught the medieval English how to use Greek fire in warfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A French knight uttered \"This is for France\" after dispatching an English foe in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Decker wanted revenge against the ITC corporation for their leadership having abandoned him in medieval France.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x11", "title": "Carpenter Street", "date": "2003-11-26", "description": "With the help of Temporal Agent Daniels, Captain Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol go back to 2004 Detroit to stop a group of Reptilians releasing a biological weapon.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Xindi reptilian aliens were using Loomis to abduct people and harvest their blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol go back to 2004 Detroit to stop a group of reptilians releasing a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol thwarted Xindi efforts to deploy a biological weapon in 2004 Detroit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol thwarted Xindi efforts to deploy a biological weapon in 2004 Detroit that was calculated to decimate the world's population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilians traveled back to 2004 Detroit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was feeding cheese to Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer resorted to physical violence while interrogating Loomis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loomis speculated that his Xindi bosses might be terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loomis was held against his will by Archer and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human blood types", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Central to the story was a project to collect blood samples from each of the eight blood types in the abo/rh model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer beat up Loomis up for information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the deadly sins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol said they had found the worst qualities all in one human: greed, violence, moral corruption; then there was an incident with burger gluttony", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was disgusted by Loomis eating a hamburger.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)", "title": "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.", "date": "2003-12-13", "description": "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (ゴジラ×モスラ×メカゴジラ 東京SOS, Gojira x Mosura x Mekagojira Tōkyō Esu Ō Esu, released in Japan as Godzilla × Mothra × Mechagodzilla: Tokyo SOS) is a 2003 Japanese kaiju film directed by Masaaki Tezuka, written by Tezuka and Masahiro Yokotani, and produced by Shogo Tomiyama. Produced and distributed by Toho Studios, it is the 28th film in the Godzilla franchise, the fifth film in the franchise's Millennium series, the 27th Godzilla film produced by Toho, and a direct sequel to the 2002 film Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.\n\nSynopsis: Mechagodzilla and Mothra face off against Godzilla as the fate of Tokyo hangs in the balance.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_Tokyo_S.O.S." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular giant monster Godzilla attacked Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tokyo was the scene of death and destruction when Godzilla went on a rampaged in the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Shinichi Chujo and his grandson Shun tried desperately to convince the Japanese authorities that it was imperative to return the original Godzilla's skeleton to the sea from whence it came; otherwise the new Godzilla would continue to ravage the country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "The message of the film was spelled out in no uncertain terms: Godzilla's coming to Japan was a punishment for humans having \"crossed the line between mortals and gods\" in the making of first nuclear weapons, and later the bio-mechanical behemoth Mechagodzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-piloted, giant bio-mechanical robot Mechagodzilla was used by the Japan Xenomorph Self-Defense Forces to defend the Japan from a rampaging Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla harbored a DNA computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla was a bio-mechanical robot that incorporated the skeleton of a dead godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shinichi Chujo lived together with his adult nephew Yoshito, among other family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mothra's two fairies warned Dr. Shinichi Chujo and his grandson that Godzilla would continue to raid Japan until the original Godzilla's bones were returned to the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mothra's two fairies levitated a model jet fighter plane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that it was nuclear weapons that had attracted the original Godzilla to Japan back in the 1950s.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Shinichi Chujo's adult daughter informed him that his grandson Shun had disappeared.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Paycheck (2003)", "title": "Paycheck", "date": "2003-12-25", "description": "Paycheck is a 2003 American science fiction action film based on the 1953 short story of the same name by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.\n\nSynopsis: A talented engineer accepts a contract to work on a three year secret project after which he will have his memory of the time erased and will be made rich for his efforts.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative prediction of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film was a special machine that allowed people to view the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennings was being pursued by both the FBI and Allcom corporation goons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Jennings having his memories of the last three years erased from his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Allcom corporation made use of classified government information to illegally build a machine to see into the future. The Nexim corporation hired Jennings to reverse engineer a competitor's technology and recreate it with improvements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mindwipe left Jennings unable to remember anything that'd happened over the past three years, and he spent the film piecing together what had happened over that time span.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jennings and Rachel fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of corporate executives marveled over a small hologram of a gesticulating, beautiful woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennings briefly deliberated over whether he should give up three years of life in exchange for a big payday before consenting to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennings laughed maniacally upon discovering that the shares of Allcom stock he erroneously believed himself to be in possession of were now valued at over $92 million. The film concluded with Jennings finding a lottery ticket for the winning jackpot of $90 million under the newspaper lining of a birdcage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennings was apprehended and interrogated by a pair of FBI agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An FBI agent accused Jennings of having committed treason for accepting classified government technology as payment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two FBI agents used a special machine to probe the contents of Jennings' mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Jennings trust a woman claiming to be his former lover when she told him she needed his corporate swipe card for some important purpose?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel's pair of lovebirds were as family to her, she said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A newspaper headline from the future stated that the United States launched a preemptive nuclear strike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennings consented that all his work done at the Nexim corporation was the intellectual property of the corporation under the terms of his non-disclosure agreement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: After the Apocalypse (2004)", "title": "After the Apocalypse", "date": "2004", "description": "After the Apocalypse is a 2004 science fiction black-and-white film written and directed by Yasuaki Nakajima. The film does not have any dialogue.\n\nSynopsis: Five survivors of an apocalyptic war, a single woman and four men, re forced to communicate without words because of destructive gasses from the war.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Apocalypse" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of an apocalyptic war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Five survivors of an apocalyptic war tried to make a go of things in the ruins of a destroyed semi-urban area.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Asian man and the injured white man were competing for the woman's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Asian man, the injured white man, and the woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the some times friendly, sometimes strained group dynamics among five survivors of an apocalyptic war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Asian man went to sleep beside the figure of a voluptuous nude woman he'd sketched on a concrete slab, suggesting that he longed for female companionship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Asian man teamed up with the injured white man to catch some fish at the seashore. The injured white man used his cane to maneuver the fish into a shallow pool, whereupon the Asian man yanked them out one by one onto the land using his bare hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Asian man teamed up with the injured white man to catch some fish at the seashore. The injured white man used his cane to maneuver the fish into a shallow pool, whereupon the Asian man yanked them out one by one onto the land using his bare hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woman was found caring for a baby doll, suggesting that she longed to have a baby of her own to care for. She later became pregnancy and the story concluded with her giving birth to a healthy baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fueled by jealously, the injured white man angrily rubbed out the images of the Asian man and the baby from a mural depicting the Asian man, the woman and the baby as a happy family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The remaining survivors somberly cast the body of the injured white man into the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Desperate for nourishment, the woman and the Asian man roasted a man's arm over a fire and proceeded to consume it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the woman giving birth to what was by all appearances a healthy baby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x12", "title": "Chosen Realm", "date": "2004-01-14", "description": "Religious zealots seek to execute Captain Archer, for supposed acts of sphere desecration, after hijacking Enterprise.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Religious zealots seek to execute Captain Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Triannons had killed themselves off in a huge religious war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Triannons had largely killed each other off over in a quarrel that rooted in whether it took 9 or 10 days for Makers to construct the spheres.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Triannons were on a pilgrimage to venerate Xindi spheres.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "D'Jamat and his followers had organic explosives implanted into them and were prepared to blow themselves up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "implanted weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "D'Jamat and his followers had organic explosives implanted into them and were prepared to blow themselves up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of religious pilgrims take over the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "apostacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Triannon religious zealots persecuted heretics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Triannon religious zealots persecuted heretics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how religious zealots can interpret the world in a drastically different way from other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer came to regret helping a group of religious pilgrims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yarrick and Indava questioned the righteousness of their holy cause and whether the Makers really spoke through D'Jamat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and D'Jamat exchanged metaphysical remarks pertaining to faith and reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "D'Jamat thought Archer sacrificed himself for the crew in volunteering for execution and commended him for it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was made to pick which of his beloved crew members was to be executed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abortion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yarrick and Indava attempted to abort their child, rather than have is born into the world to fight in a religious war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer's compulsive torturing of anyone he gets upset with was used against him by D'Jamat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "D'Jamat described a case where he was compelled to kill a young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Travis visited a cloaked Xindi sphere in the teaser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Travis visited a cloaked Xindi sphere in the teaser.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dead Leaves (2004)", "title": "Dead Leaves", "date": "2004-01-17", "description": "Dead Leaves is a 2004 Japanese animated science fiction film based on a manga written and illustrated by Imai Toonz, produced by Manga Entertainment and Production I.G and directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi.\n\nSynopsis: An amnesiac Bonnie and Clyde-like duo learn something of their respective pasts while incarcerated in an infamous prison on the Moon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Leaves" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the consequences of Retro and Pandy having had their minds wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neither Retro nor Pandy had any real memories of their respective pasts, and what they might have been was a recurring topic in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After embarking on a crime spree, Retro and Pandy were apprehended by the authorities and found guilty of trespassing, theft, violence, assault, and illegal possession of firearms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retro and Pandy were chased down and apprehended by a legion of uniformed police officers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retro and Pandy were taken to the titular prison on the Moon to serve their respective life sentences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retro and Pandy found themselves in a number of cliche scenarios while incarcerated in an infamous prison on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retro and Pandy led a mass prison break.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandy gave birth the same day that Retro had impregnated her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandy gave birth to a baby with machine guns for arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Retro and Pandy had been held in cryonic suspension for eight years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The prison warden was seeking revenge against Pandy for reasons that were unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Retro and Pandy's twin machine gun toting baby sacrificed itself to save their lives.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x13", "title": "Proving Ground", "date": "2004-01-21", "description": "Xindi scientists test their new, planet-killing weapon in an asteroid field as Captain Archer is suddenly assisted by Andorians in the Delphic Expanse.Fed\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mutual respect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Shran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer trusted Shran in spite of T'Pol warnings that the Andorians were liable to spy on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and the Enterprise crew had their suspicious about accepting the Andorian's offer of help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer with Shran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Shran follow orders to retrieve the planet destroying weapon and betray Archer in the process?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew worked to thwart Xindi efforts to test their planet destroying weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew worked to thwart Xindi efforts to test their planet destroying weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Shran discussed Andoran-Vulcan first contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Reptilian xindi exhibited prejudice against humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer wanted to risk getting into a fire fight with four Xindi ships in order to get the planet destroying weapon, but Shran thought the plan too risky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans and Andorians learned to get along while working together aboard Enterprise; Malcolm and Talas in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Xindi insectoid had an outburst at a council meeting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Xindi reptilian was unsatisfied with the progress made in development of planet destroying weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran spoke of repaying a debt to Archer and that is why he wanted to help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi aquatic alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran accused Archer of being motivated by pride when Archer demanded that he be aboard the Andorian vessel. Shran refused Archer's offer of help after his vessel was damaged in an explosion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Butterfly Effect (2004)", "title": "The Butterfly Effect", "date": "2004-01-23", "description": "The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart.\n\nSynopsis: A boy experiences blackouts and memory loss throughout his childhood. Later, in his 20s, he finds he can travel back in time to inhabit his former self during those periods of blackout, with his adult mind inhabiting his younger body. He attempts to change the present by changing his past behaviors and set things right for himself and his friends, but there are unintended consequences for all.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly_Effect" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While the film technically fails to explore its namesake effect from chaos theory, as Evan's changes in the past failed to engender comparatively large changes in the future, the viewer is still invited to ponder such notions as a tornado being caused by a distant butterfly flapping its wings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan time and again used his innate ability to travel back in time with a view to making a better present his loved ones, but failed miserably.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan's love for his childhood sweetheart, Kayleigh, remained constant across all the various present realities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan learned the hard way that, even though his intentions to fix the past were good, his actions had unforeseen consequences, in which either he or at least one of his loved ones suffered horribly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evan encountered a version of his mother in most, if not all of the various present realities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Even's mother was raising him alone on account that the boy's father was institutionalized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan's teacher had a talk with the boy's mother over a disturbing drawing that he's made.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan's mother took him to see a doctor to have his brain examined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan's heavily medicated father was institutionalized in a stereotypical psychiatric hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan was nearly strangled to death by his institutionalized father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan attended his father's funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan and his friends were out and about doing stereotypical kid stuff, like smoking, looking at porno mags, blowing up neighbors mailboxes, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan and his friends thoughts they'd blow up a neighbor's mailbox for laughs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Evan could see the past as if it were a movie after being hypnotized by his psychiatrist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Kayleigh was given a bad bruise on her arm by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan was studying at university. In one of the present realities, he was promising student, researching about memory. In another, he found himself a yuppie frat boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Evan was sharing a dorm room with an obese goth guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tommy was a textbook sadist. He burned a dog alive among other things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evan's mother took him to visit a palm reader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George tried to coerce seven-year-old Evan and his own daughter into making a kiddie porn video.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Kayleigh was deeply traumatized on account of having been physically and sexually abused by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Evan and Kayleigh were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kayleigh and her deeply disturbed brother, Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Evan ended up having to find a way to survive in a gang riddled prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Kayleigh was a down and out junkie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Evan struggled with being a quadruple amputee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Kayleigh chose Lenny over Evan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the present realities, Evan tried to drown himself in a bathtub in the wake of being rejected by his love interest, Kayleigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a scene of Evan's mother being in labor at the hospital toward the very end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Evan traveled back in time to the moment of his birth and strangled himself with his own umbilical cord so as to prevent the various sufferings that his birth was destined to bring upon his loved ones.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x14", "title": "Stratagem", "date": "2004-02-04", "description": "A Xindi scientist, Degra, is tricked into giving Captain Archer information about the location of the new superweapon.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Terry Matalas.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer pretended to bond with Degra in a simulated reality in an effort to find out where the Xindi superweapon was located.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer convinced Degra that Degra was suffering from amnesia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer subjected Degra to an elaborate simulated reality in order to find the location of the Xindi superweapon. Archer also threatened to wipe Degra's memory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer convinced Degra that the had Xindi successfully used their planet busting weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer convinced Degra that the had Xindi successfully used their planet busting weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer convinced Degra that the had Xindi successfully used their planet busting weapon to destroy Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer alleged that he and Degra were held captive by insectoids for three years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was studying the physiology of the Xindi reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer convinced Degra that the Xindi insectoids had overthrown the other Xindi species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Degra wondered whether his family members, if alive, would even recognize him after having been held captive by Xindi insectoids for three years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox used Regulan blood worms to wipe the memories of Degra and his crew.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x15", "title": "Harbinger", "date": "2004-02-11", "description": "Enterprise encounters a dying alien, one of the Sphere Builders, for the first time.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "rivalry", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Malcolm and Hayes. T'Pol and Amanda Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was perturbed over Tucker openly fraternizing with Amanda Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm and Hayes bonded over the course of planning training trills together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm and Hayes locked horns over who was in charge of tactical training drills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol, Tucker, and Amanda Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise encountered an extra-dimensional alien that was one of the Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hayes was training the crew in martial arts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer instructed Phlox to refrain from giving the alien any more pain medication until it answered Archer's questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Phlox hand his alien patient over to Archer for questioning without giving it anesthetics for the pain it was suffering from?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol confided in Amanda that Tucker had been “greatly affected” by the death of his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien said that he was a prisoner and was forced to volunteer as a test subject in being sent to another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Amanda Cole experimenting with Vulcan neuro-pressure massage techniques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male brutishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Hayes resolved their conflict by fighting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male competitiveness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Hayes locked horns over who was in charge of tactical training drills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer forced Malcolm and Hayes to reconcile after they got into a big fist fight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer attempts to get information about the Xindi superweapon from on of the Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer attempts to get information about the Xindi superweapon from on of the Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer attempts to get information about the Xindi superweapon from on of the Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risky revival of patient for vital information", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer forced Phlox to revive the alien at great risk to its health in order to gather intelligence on the Xindi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x16", "title": "Doctor's Orders", "date": "2004-02-18", "description": "As Enterprise passes through a \"trans-dimensional disturbance,\" the crew is put into hibernation, leaving Doctor Phlox in control of the ship.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox became paranoid and sufferer from delusions and hallucinations while the Enterprise crew lay in hibernation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox thought his sighting of T'Pol and Xindi insectoids aboard Enterprise may have been a sign he was delusional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox was alone aboard the Enterprise and explained that Denobulans were a social people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox likened the Enterprise to a haunted house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox was having hallucinations while alone aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was taking care of Porthos while Archer was in hibernation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was watching a 1956 film entitled The Court Jester and had been talked into watching The Exorcist by Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox thought he saw Xindi insectoid aliens scurrying around aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox refused imaginary T'Pol's request to wake up Tucker so that he could give his live to save Enterprise from destruction, but lose his life in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox felt lonely aboard the Enterprise while the rest of the crew lay in hibernation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x17", "title": "Hatchery", "date": "2004-02-25", "description": "Captain Archer becomes overly protective of an insectoid hatchery, to the point of endangering their mission.\n\nDirected by: Michael Grossman. Story by: André Bormanis & Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer becaome overly protective of an Insectoid hatchery to the point of endangering his mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer is accused of neglecting his duty for caring for Xindi insectoid eggs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of blind obedience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hayes obeyed Archer blindly but he learned a lesson in the end when he found out that Archer had not been wholly in his right mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for an adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer gave life and limb to protect the Xindi insectoid eggs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer showed mercy to insects while everyone else wanted to destroy them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer showed compassion in his efforts to save the Xindi insectoid eggs from dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew discover an abandoned Xindi insectoid hatchery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer felt that T'Pol, Tucker, Malcolm, and Phlox displayed disloyalty to him for attempting to relieve him of command, while Hayes and the MACOs blindly followed Archers insane orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposition to authority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was made upset when T'Pol, Tucker, and Malcolm stopped obeying his orders. Archer discharged T'Pol as first officer, confined her to quarters, and threatened to charge her with insubordination for refusing to obey his orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol uncovered that the Xindi insectoid crew had sacrificed themselves in order to give their eggs a chance to hatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Decoys (2004)", "title": "Decoys", "date": "2004-02-27", "description": "Decoys is a 2004 science fiction horror film directed by Matthew Hastings, and written by Tom Berry and Hastings. The cast included Kim Poirier and Nicole Eggert.\n\nSynopsis: Grotesque aliens disguised as beautiful college girls go around seducing unsuspecting college guys in a murderous quest to reproduce their kind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoys_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful premed students Lilly and Constance, who were actually grotesque aliens under the skin, were going around seducing unusupecting men and then inadvertently killing them during coitus - all in a desperate effort to reproduce their kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts college students doing such cliched college student things as attending a wild keg party, having a racy dorm talent show, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Luke occupied a college dorm room together with his best friend Roger. Various aspects of their cohabitation were touched on. For example, Luke was disgusted to wake up to what he falsely presumed was Roger vigorously masturbating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The beautiful premed students Lilly and Constance were going around campus seducing college guys - not that they had any trouble finding suitors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns grotesque aliens disguising themselves as beautiful college girls for the purpose of obtaining the male DNA they required to save their race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Luke when he insisted that Lilly and Constance were really betentacled, murderous alien monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story led up to Luke realizing that his friend Alex had all along been sending him signals of her romantic interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Constance fell head over heels for each other. Luke and Alex professed their love for one another in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "central to the story was the bond of friendship between Luke and his college dorm mate, Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was jealous of Lilly and Constance for being both more beautiful and smarter than her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex painfully watched her love interest, Luke, make out with Constance by means of a hidden camera that'd been placed in Constance's dorm room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was visibly pained by the sight of her love interest, Luke, making out with Constance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke was Detective Kirk's primary suspect in a murder investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Constance was tied up with duct tape and threatened with a gas torch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke pointedly mourned the death by freezing from the inside out of his best friend, Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police detective was investigating a possible murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The college freshmen Roger was deflowered by a grotesque alien that had taken on the appearance of beautiful a college girl.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x18", "title": "Azati Prime", "date": "2004-03-03", "description": "Finding the superweapon on Azati Prime, Captain Archer embarks on a suicide mission to destroy it, and Enterprise suffers a devastating attack by the Xindi.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniels traveled back in time to confer with Archer about the Sphere Builders imminent invasion of the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer volunteered to go on a suicide mission to destroy the Xindi superweapon. Daniels urged him to send someone else, because Archer was important to the time line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer embarked on a suicide mission to destroy the Xindi superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer embarked on a suicide mission to destroy the Xindi superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer embarked on a suicide mission to destroy the Xindi superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi planned a preemptive strike to destroy Earth and annihilate all Humans in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Degra was conflicted over whether he should deploy the Xindi super weapon and kill many innocent Earthlings in an effort to stop what he thought was a preemptive strike from Earth on his homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sphere Builder aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer got a taste of his own medicine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi council featured aliens of several species evolved on the same planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was tortured by Xindi reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol didn't feel she needed any leadership advice from Tucker, after she inherited command of the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)", "title": "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence", "date": "2004-03-06", "description": "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, known in Japan as just Innocence (イノセンス, Inosensu), is a 2004 Japanese animated cyberpunk film written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. The film serves as a standalone sequel to Oshii's 1995 film Ghost in the Shell and is loosely based on the manga by Masamune Shirow.\n\nSynopsis: A cyborg detective and his partner are tasked to investigate what's behind a recent rise in cases of doll-like sex robots murdering their owners.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2:_Innocence" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Batou had a \"cyberbrain\", artificial arm of some kind, and robotic eyes. In general, the film is set in a future where being a cyborg is no big deal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns malfunctioning doll-like sex robots killing their owners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police detectives Batou and Togusa were investigating a number of murders by malfunctioning doll-like sex robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the police detectives Batou and Togusa as they investigate a number of enigmatic murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between the cyborg police detective Batou and his new mostly human partner Togusa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the doll-like sex robots behaved realistically because they each contained a duplicated consciousness of a young girl. Kim transferred his consciousness into the shell of a creepy, human-sized marionette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haraway was of the mind that a certain android had tried to take its own live after it killed three people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou beloved his pet basset hound, taking care to feed it top quality dog food.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou wistfully examined a holographic image of a young woman as he relaxed in an armchair after a long day's work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou and Togusa were reprimanded by their superior on the force, Kusanagi, for having been reckless in getting in to a firefight with the Yakuza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou and Togusa got into trouble at a Yakuza bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou had robotic eyes of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batou's \"cyberbrain\" got hacked, causing him to shoot himself and attack some convenience store goers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kim expressed a view that perfection is attained in a thing that possessed either no consciousness (e.g., a doll) or infinite consciousness (e.g., a god).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Kim had previously engaged in black market arms dealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law and order issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Kim had hired the Yakuza to traffic young girls for illicit purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Togusa was welcomed home by his young daughter at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)", "title": "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "date": "2004-03-19", "description": "The film follows an estranged couple who have erased each other from their memories.", "collections": [ "Collection: Time Out magazine's Top 100 films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sunshine_of_the_Spotless_Mind" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Clementine had gone to a special clinic to have her memories of her boyfriend Joel erased because she was not happy and wanted to move on. Joel followed suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joel and Clementine were besotted with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joel after Clementine left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Joel and Clementine go through a lot of ups and downs in their relationship. Patrick entered into a relationship with Clementine by imitating Joel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw an elaborate depiction of what it was like to have one's memories erased. It was like having a dream where people and things disappear around you one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Patrick was working hard to seduce Joel's ex-girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were trapped in a nightmare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joel was trapped inside a dream where his memories of Clementine were getting erased one by one. This was all part of a clinical procedure to erase his memories of Clementine. But he changed his mind midway through and wanted to wake up, but couldn't.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joel and Clementine had a stormy relationship with many such spats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film used two lovers having their memories erased and then meeting again to explore what it means for people to be in love, warts and all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spontaneous extrovert Clementine ended up feeling bored and trapped after getting into a serious relationship with boring introvert Joel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "opposites attract", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with spontaneous extrovert Clementine and boring introvert Joel giving love a shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joel desperately needed to figure out what happened to Clementine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joel coped with getting dumped by Clementine by having all memories of her erased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clementine hit a fire hydrant while driving Joel's car drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joel was taken back to his life as a 4 year old in the 1970s. Other childhood memories he revisited included being goaded hitting a dead bird with a hammer and getting caught jerking off by his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary confessed to her boss Howard that she had been in love with him for a long time. It turned out that they had previously been involved, but that Mary had had her memories of it erased. And to further complicate matters Stan confessed to Mary that he loved her toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard's wife caught him kissing his employee Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Howard's wife caught him kissing his employee Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw young Joel as a 4 year old boy with his mother briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clementine accused Joel of this shortcoming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold, his wife, and the receptionist Mary, but Mary latter having wiped her memories of it.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Immortal (2004)", "title": "Immortal", "date": "2004-03-24", "description": "Immortal (French: Immortel, ad vitam) is a 2004 English language French live- action and animated science fiction film co-written and directed by Enki Bilal and starring Linda Hardy, Thomas Kretschmann and Charlotte Rampling. It is loosely based upon Bilal's comic book La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals).\n\nSynopsis: The Ancient Egyptian god Horus, who is evidently a space alien, seeks to procreate with a human female, after being stripped of his immortality by his fellow gods.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The god/alien Horus was determined to mate with a human female after being stripped of his immortality. Having offspring was presumably his way of coping with the reality that he would eventually die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a a future where genetically altered humans lived side by side with unaltered men and women. Much was made of the heroine Jill being some sort of genetically engineered person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Egyptian mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focused on the Ancient Egyptian god Horus, and how he lost his immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the ancient Egyptian gods were really aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the god is an alien", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the ancient Egyptian gods were really advanced technology wielding aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "The god Horus, who was actually an alien, made a number of clandestine attempts to impregnate Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jill and Nikopol ended up falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film explores Nikopol having two selves: His ordinary self and the rapist self he became whenever Horus inhabited his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The New Yorkers deemed to not be human lived as second class citizens. This was explored from the non-human heroine Jill's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The god/alien Horus longed to procreate with a human female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the aftermath of the god/alien Horus being stripped of his immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying cars were commonplace in late 21st century New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A bartender was shown to have robotic lungs. He also claimed to have a robotic bladder. Other New York city residents appeared to have cybernetic components.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that Nikopol spent some or all of his incarceration in deep freeze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jill read from Elma's mind the questions that Elma was going to ask her before she asked them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Horus in the body of Nikopol raped Jill to both Jill and Nikopol's horror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lip service was paid to eugenics being practiced in the New York City of the late 21st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikopol was placed under arrest by a holographic police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nikopol had to get about with an amputated leg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The massive pyramid hovering over Central Park turned out to be a spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Appleseed (2004)", "title": "Appleseed", "date": "2004-04-18", "description": "Appleseed (Japanese: アップルシード, Hepburn: Appurushīdo) is a 2004 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic action film directed by Shinji Aramaki and based on the Appleseed manga created by Masamune Shirow.\n\nSynopsis: A former soldier searches for data that can restore the reproductive capabilities of bioroids, a race of genetically engineered clones.", "collections": [ "Collection: Appleseed Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the futuristic, seemingly utopian city-state Olympus. Peace and harmony was supposedly maintained throughout the city in part by an all observing computer system named Gaia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the futuristic, seemingly utopian city-state Olympus. Peace and harmony was supposedly maintained throughout the city in part because half of the population consisted of human clones that were genetically engineered to be emotionless. The presence of these emotionless clones somehow prevented outbreaks of violence, especially war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Seven Elders spelled out the recurring theme of humans being violent, warmongering beings who are generally slaves to their emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Briareos was a more machine than man cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bioroids were human clones that'd been genetically engineered to not feel such human emotions as jealousy and anger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bioroids were a race of human clones that'd been genetically engineered to not feel such human emotions as jealousy and anger and also to not be able to reproduce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set sometime after humanity was brought to the brink of destruction by a cataclysmic global war. Much was made of the Olympus city-state society being specially engineered to ensure humans would never go to war again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The population of the city-state of Olympus was half-human and half-bioroid (a race of clones that'd been genetically engineered to be emotionless and not be able to reproduce). Each of the humans and the bioroids had their different roles in society, and this functioned to maintain harmony - or at least that was the plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the Seven Elders had taken measures to ensure that the human race would soon exit stage left, leave the superior bioroids to inherit the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaia was a central computer that controlled society but it was in turn manipulated by a council of elders for nefarious purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan was pointedly reunited with a cyborg version of her longtime comrade Briareos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hitomi's prototype car floated above the highway as she drove.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hitomi spoke of being of jealous of humans for their being able to feel love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bioroid (i.e. android-like human clone) Hitomi expressed a desire to experience that human emotion known as love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piloted, humanoid battle bots were in common use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A secret faction of the Regular Army executed a terrorist attack against the bioroid's life extension facilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan interacted with a holographic depiction of a woman whom she came to understand was her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan was tricked into thinking a holographic recording of her mother was the real thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan wept over a holographic recording of the shooting death of her scientist mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Briareos betrayed Deunan into handing over the Appleseed data to the Seven Elders, although he was did it for what he reasoned was her own good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan had repressed her memory of the location of the Appleseed data owing to it being bound up with the shock of her mother's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier tried to kill Deunan to avenge her father having kicked him off the swat team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not really explored in any way, Seven Elders revealed that they planned to release a virus that would make the human race permanently unable to reproduce.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x19", "title": "Damage", "date": "2004-04-21", "description": "Enterprise, now heavily damaged, seeks a warp coil from an alien vessel but is forced to steal it.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Phyllis Strong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Archer raid the Illyrian vessel and steal the warp coil he needs to repair Enterprise and continue his mission to save Earth from destruction?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "great need vs. breaking the law", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Archer raid the Illyrian vessel and steal the warp coil he needs to repair Enterprise and continue his mission to save Earth from destruction?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Archer raid the Illyrian vessel and steal the warp coil he needs to repair Enterprise and continue his mission to save Earth from destruction?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was struggling with trellium abuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was struggling with trellium abuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol manifested increasing emotional instability while on trellium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol had an erotic dream involving Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Porthos was conspicuously ignored by Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians spoke of time travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians had constructed a bio-weapon of some kind,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Sphere Builder alien visited the Xindi council and mentioned something about being from another dimension having trouble existing in ours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew used the transporter in their raid on the Illyrian ship. the transporter was used with abandon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi council featured aliens of several species evolved on the same planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dissension among the different species of the Xindi council led to dysfunction when it came to deploying their super weapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer was transported in a Xindi aquatic alien space ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Casshern (2004)", "title": "Casshern", "date": "2004-04-24", "description": "Casshern (キャシャーン, Kyashān) is a 2004 Japanese tokusatsu superhero film adaptation of the anime series of the same name. It was written and directed by Kazuaki Kiriya.\n\nSynopsis: A race of artificially made humans wage war on mankind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casshern_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Neo Sapiens waged war on the Eastern Federation. The Eastern Federation mobilized its military against a rebel region. The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a fifty-year war between two rival world powers: the Eastern Federation and Europa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative biotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is Dr. Azuma's application of special \"Neo Cells\" (i.e. stem cells) to regenerate human tissue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tetsuya being resurrected by means of \"Neo Cells\" (i.e. stem cells) constitutes a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Neo Human leader Burai waxed with contempt for humanity and sought to exterminate the human race with his formidable robot army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of people losing their loved ones as evidenced by the numerous \"so-and-so grieves over the dead body of their beloved so-and-so\" scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Eastern Federation was actively conducting an ethnic cleansing in Zone 7. The Neo Sapiens launched a campaign to exterminate all run-of-the-mill humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humankind created a new race of humans, called Neo Sapiens, that subsequently rose up and made a bid for world domination, trying to exterminate humanity in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown scenes of soldiers committing acts of genocide and civilians otherwise suffering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuya's family had a family photo taken to commemorate his engagement to Luna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story touched on Testuya and Luna being in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Azuma was pained by his wife, Midori, being seriously ill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Azuma mourned his son's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ghost of Tetsuya appeared to Midori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Tetsuya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luna mourned her father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuya was close with his ill mother, Midori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Azuma longed to cure his evidently terminally ill wife, Midori, of whatever it was that ailed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Azuma resurrected his son, Tetsuya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man spoke of pollution being so bad in such-and-such a region that nobody dared to venture there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man spoke of how the Eastern Federation had invaded its neighbors under the pretext of acting in self-defense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuya was as fast a speeding bullet at times after his resurrection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military coup", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Kamijo's son took power after a successful coup d'état.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Neo Humans commanded an army of humanoid robot soldiers. The Neo Humans unleashed a truly enormous fighting robot on the Eastern Federation forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tetsuya killed his own father in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)", "title": "Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation", "date": "2004-04-24", "description": "A squad of soldiers find themselves pinned down and surrounded by bug alien forces. It is a sequel to Starship Troopers (1997) and the second installment of the Starship Troopers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Starship Troopers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_2:_Hero_of_the_Federation" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a squad of behind-enemy-lines soldiers as they fight for their lives against their sworn bug alien enemy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Private Sahara looked on as her besieged fellow soldiers began getting compromised by parasitic bug aliens, one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human forces were battling bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is asked to ponder whether Captain V.J. Dax was a hero to the Federation or a disgrace. An army recruitment commercial ran the slogan \"But we need heroes! We need you\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mind-controlling bug aliens were taking over the soldiers one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humans are mired in a multiple star systems spanning war with a race of hostile bug aliens, known as the Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the bug aliens planned to use General Shepherd to as a vector to infect the High Command officials with mind-controlling bug aliens, allowing the bugs to wipe out the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film begins with a jingoistic army recruitment commercial, and ended with another one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is interspersed with combat scenes of besieged human soldiers fighting bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal life and death dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A trooper strangled a mortally wounded fellow trooper to put him out of his misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The psychic Lieutenant Dill had a traumatic visions of his squad's utter annihilation, and so it happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Private Sahara read from Captain V.J. Dax's mind that he'd killed his commanding officer. She later read the mind of the bug alien that had attempted to control Sergeant Rake's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lieutenant Dill made a failed attempt to place the bug compromised soldiers under arrest for sedition and treason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an army recruiter with a bionic right arm up to the elbow.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x20", "title": "The Forgotten", "date": "2004-04-28", "description": "Captain Archer deals with the loss of 18 crew members and continues negotiations with two of the five Xindi species.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Chris Black & David A. Goodman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Degra believe Archer's story involving time travel that Humans will not destroy his planet in the future?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destroying one people to save another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Xindi, Degra in particular, destroy the human race in order to save the Xindi people?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker struggled with having to write a letter to Taylor's parents explaining that she was killed in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and the crew grieved over the loss of 18 crew members. Tucker struggled with having to write a letter to Taylor's parents explaining that she was killed in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was battling an addiction to trellium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was battling an addiction to trellium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol's use of trellium as a drug left her full of powerful emotions that might never go away for the rest of her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deployment of the Xindi super weapon was just days away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deployment of the Xindi super weapon was just days away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The deployment of the Xindi super weapon was just days away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilians confronted the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer shared information about an inter-dimensional alien, on of the Sphere Builders, that the found with Degra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jannar and Degra talked about a visitor from the future to the Xindi council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucked broke down in tears over the death of his sister who'd perished in a Xindi attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x21", "title": "E²", "date": "2004-05-05", "description": "The Enterprise crew meet their own descendants from an alternate timeline in the past.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lorian and Karyn Archer traveled in time to stop the Enterprise from passing through a space corridor that would send them back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my distant descendant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew met their descendants from an alternate time line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Lorian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alternate reality T'Pol and Lorian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol used the transporter to purloin a piece of equipment from the alternate reality Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lorian was wracked with guilt for having failed to destroy the Xindi probe when he had the chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol met an older version of herself from an alternate reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alternate reality T'Pol urged T'Pol to embrace her emotions. Lorian had to balance his Human emotions with his Vulcan rationality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future T'Pol discussed about her relationship with Tucker with T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise was converted into a multi-generational spaceship in the alternate time line.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x22", "title": "The Council", "date": "2004-05-12", "description": "Captain Archer speaks at the Xindi Council, sparking a civil war for control of the superweapon.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Degra saw a future where Human and the Xindi were friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tensions among the Xindi species much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer made a plea before the Xindi council for them to reconsider deploying their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer made a plea before the Xindi council for them to reconsider deploying their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sphere Builders were plotting the annihilation of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilian alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi insectoid alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi aquatic alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "avian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Degra flew Archer over a Xindi avian alien ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Degra explained to Archer how the Sphere Builders were revered among his people and that they were known as \"The Guardians\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer explained to Degra that when he time traveled to a starship 400 years in the future and the crew had both Humans and Xindi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker held a grudge against Degra for having initiated an attack on Earth that killed 7 million people, including his sister, but they managed to work togther in spite of that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol led a mission to recover something from inside one of the Xindi Spheres.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A civil war erupted among the Xindi for control of the superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Degra reconciled their differences and word together to fix the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Degra was accused of treason by Dolim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi against Humans. Xindi reptilians against other Xindi species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi translated the aquatic Xindi language for Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker grieved over the death of his sister who'd perished in a Xindi attack on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day After Tomorrow (2004)", "title": "The Day After Tomorrow", "date": "2004-05-17", "description": "The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Roland Emmerich. It is based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber.\n\nSynopsis: A series of extreme weather events usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "global cooling", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film is principally about Earth suddenly entering into a new ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story concerned the protagonists' efforts to survive the passing of an enormous snow hurricane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Jack as he risks life and limb to rescue his teenage son, Sam, who is riding out the snow hurricane together with other tsunami survivors in the New York Public Library.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Sam winning the heart of his love interest, Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the film is that much of the United States populate fled to Mexico to escape from the coming ice age. Mexico initially closed the border, but reopened it after a deal was made to cancel all Central and Latin American debt to the USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Lucy Hall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy interacted with her seventeen-year-old son, Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam lost his nerve when the flight he was on entered into a region of severe turbulence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The homeless man Luther had a dog named Buddha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The physician Lucy Hall was treating for a boy with cancer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x23", "title": "Countdown", "date": "2004-05-19", "description": "Captain Archer seeks the support of the Aquatics in order to tip the war in their favor.\n\nDirected by: Robert Duncan McNeill. Story by: André Bormanis & Chris Black.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sphere Builders discussed alternate time lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi species quarreled among themselves for control of the superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fish-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi aquatic alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi was taken captive by the Xindi reptilians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer fed Porthos a piece of steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker used the transporter to recover Hayes and his team from inside the superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and the MACOs mourned the death of Major Hayes. Major Hayes was hit hard by the death of one of the MACOs under his command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was emotionally unstable because of her past addiction to trellium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol considered joining Star Fleet instead of returning to the Vulcan High Command after the completion of her mission on the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2046 (2004)", "title": "2046", "date": "2004-05-20", "description": "2046 is a 2004 romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Wong Kar- wai. It is a loose sequel to Wong's films Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000).\n\nSynopsis: An womanizing science fiction writer reflects on the time he spent in 1960s Hong Kong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2046_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how Mr. Chow was precluded from finding love in the present on account that he was attempting the impossible task of recapturing his past with the love of his life, Su Li-zhen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nearly every character was lonely in their own way. Mr. Chow could never recapture the love he had with Su Li-zhen. The high-class prostitute Bai Ling longed to be in a long term relationship, but could not find one. Tak was alone on a train with only a gynoid for company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bai Ling longed to enter into a long term relationship with Mr. Chow, but he made it clear that he preferred to keep their relationship strictly physical to her frustration and sadness. Tak lamented that the android he loved was into someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bai Ling became increasingly jealous of Mr. Chow's other women and urged him to be faithful to her, a request which Mr. Chow made clear he would not honor. It was revealed that Lulu had been stabbed to death in room 2046 by a jealous lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Mr. Chow was a suave ladies man through and through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sub-planetary-scale engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that a vast rail network spanned the globe by the year 2046.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hotel owner Mr. Wang convinced Mr. Chow to temporarily take up residence in room 2047 until such time as the renovations to the room Mr. Chow desired (i.e. room 2046) were complete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow was writing a science fiction novel together with the assistance of the hotel owner's daughter, Jing-wen. Jing-wen also had literary aspirations and asked Mr. Chow to critique her work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wang disapproved of his adult daughter, Jing-wen, being in love with a certain Japanese man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wang disapproved of his adult daughter, Jing-wen, being in love with a certain Japanese man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jing-wen had a Japanese boyfriend and she ultimately moved to Japan to be with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow reprimanded his acquaintance Ah Ping for peeping on Bai Ling while she put on some earrings in front of a mirror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow pointedly courted the glamorous Bai Ling, and after some playing hard to get on her part, they embarked on a casual sexual relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow and Bai Ling ate a Christmas dinner together at a restaurant that was well-decorated for the occasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tak had a female android cabin attendant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tak at first presumed that is female android cabin attendant was incapable of loving him because she was a machine, but later came to the sad realization that she merely loved someone else.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow lamented how years prior he'd let the woman he'd loved most slip away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Chow gambled in a Singapore casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was strongly implied that the glamorous Bai Ling was a high-class prostitute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bai Ling was abruptly dumped by her boyfriend shortly before she expected to reunite with him in Singapore.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent3x24", "title": "Zero Hour", "date": "2004-05-26", "description": "The final showdown with the Reptilians and their Guardian allies occurs.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xindi reptilians prepared to deploy their superweapon against Earth. The Sphere Builders were invading the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xindi reptilians try to destroy the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Sphere Builders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xindi species quarreled among themselves for control of the super weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniels brought Archer seven years into the future to witness the founding of the Federation. The Enterprise ended up back in time to World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer gave his life to destroy the Xindi super weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Porthos was brooding over Archer's death in the sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien in full Nazi regalia was shown at the end of the episode.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)", "title": "The Chronicles of Riddick", "date": "2004-06-11", "description": "The Chronicles of Riddick is a 2004 American science fiction action film written and directed by David Twohy. It is the second installment in the Riddick film series.\n\nSynopsis: It is up to the notorious wanted criminal Riddick to save a peoples from being exterminated by army of religious fanatics.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Chronicles of Riddick Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Riddick" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Helion Prime faced the prospect of either converting en masse to the cult-like Necromonger religion or else be exterminated after the Necromonger forces swooped down from outer space and conquered the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Necromongers being religious fanatics that were going around the universe forcing people to convert to their religion or else be put to the sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Necromongers being a cult of religious fanatics who were going around the universe forcing people to convert to their religion or else be put to the sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riddick's signature super power was his surgically altered eyes that allowed him to see in the dark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Key to the plot was a prophesy that foretold of a child born who was destined to kill the Lord Marshall of the Necromonger army. It was ultimately revealed that Riddick was this child, and sure enough he went on to fulfill the prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a distant future where interstellar capable spacecraft are a mundane reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in a future when interstellar planet hopping is a mundane reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaako pointedly betrayed his Necromonger ruler Lord Marshall by trying to decapitate him and take his place as leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "omens", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Imam interpreted a passing comet as a portent that the dreaded Necromongers would soon descend on Helion Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "elemental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The air elemental being Aereon sometimes dissolved into a breezy mist when she moved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cosmic balance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aereon spoke of how \"(cosmic) balance is everything\" to her elemental kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dame Vaako was manipulating her husband Vaako into assassinating the Necromonger leader so that he might take the throne for himself with Dame Vaako at his side. Imam and his wife Lajjun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Imam and his young daughter Ziza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lajjun and her young daughter Ziza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick escaped from a harsh subterranean prison moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "off-world prison colony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick was confined on a harsh subterranean prison moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick and his fellow escapees were faced with having to cross a hellish valley before a rising sun burned them all to cinders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Marshall took what he described as a man's soul out from the man's dying body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dame Vaako was pressuring her husband, Vaako, to assassinate the Necromonger leader so that Vaako could take the throne with her at his side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prophetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The air elemental being Aereon had an innate ability to calculate future possibilities with sufficient accuracy that her predictions were virtually indistinguishable from prophesies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Stepford Wives (2004)", "title": "The Stepford Wives", "date": "2004-06-11", "description": "A disgraced reality TV show producer mother begins to suspect that the frighteningly submissive housewives in her new idyllic Connecticut neighborhood may be robots created by their husbands. The film is a remake of the 1975 film of the same title; both films are based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Stepford Wives" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stepford men were transforming their liberated, career-driven wives into submissive robot-like women by implanting microchips into their brains. Also of note is that Joanna was producer of a reality TV show called \"Battle of the Sexes\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Joanna and Walter Eberhart relocate from Manhattan to the seemingly idyllic American town of Stepford. Other married couples featured include the Wellington's, the Markowitz', and the Sunderson's.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the Eberhart's as the adjusted to their new lives in the seemingly idyllic American town of Stepford.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joanna and Walter's marriage was falling apart and they worked over the course of their stay in Stepford to rekindle their love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a reality TV show episode with Barbara being offered the choice between her husband and a big, hunky guy. She chose the hunky guy, and her husband shot her over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wildly successful reality television executive producer Joanna Eberhart had a nervous breakdown after she was fired over having produced a controversial episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and boyfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flamboyantly gay man Roger Bannister moved to Stepford with his boyfriend in a last ditched effort to salvage their relationship after the boyfriend became a Republican.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The men of the Stepford Men's Club awkwardly accepted a flamboyantly gay man into the fold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Walter was secretly deeply jealous of Joanna's success in the entertainment industry and had arranged to have her transformed into a simple-minded woman who would wait on him hand and foot, although he reversed his decision at the last minute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stepford men were transforming their liberated, career-driven wives into submissive robot-like women by implanting microchips into their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Claire Wellington had murdered her husband Mike in a fit of jealous rage and replaced him with an android replica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Claire Wellington killed her husband, Mike, upon catching him cheating on her with a 21 year old woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Post Impact (2004)", "title": "Post Impact", "date": "2004-06-12", "description": "Post Impact is a 2004 disaster film, written and directed by Christoph Schrewe and stars Dean Cain, Bettina Zimmermann, Joanna Taylor, Nigel Bennett, and Hanns Zischler.\n\nSynopsis: An army captain is forced to leave his family behind during a massive impact event.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Impact" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The title refers to the aftermath of a large cometary fragment impacting the Earth, western Russia specifically. A new geopolitical order was established within three years of the catastrophic impact, which had kick started the world into a new ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom deeply regretted having let himself be forced to leave his family behind in the lead up to the comet impact. He was motivated thereafter by a need to go back to find out what had become of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Tom was desperate to find out whether his wife and young daughter had survived the ice age triggering cometary impact. Tom's journey culminated in his discovering their frozen bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cometary fragment impact launched the world into an ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film was the microwave shooting satellite weapon SolStar-2. Although originally designed to beam down power from orbit, the film built up to a disgruntled military man trying to use it to annihilate Tangier, Morocco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film was the microwave shooting satellite weapon SolStar-2. Although originally designed to beam down power from orbit, the film built up to a disgruntled military man trying to use it to annihilate Tangier, Morocco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of an attempt to use the microwave shooting satellite weapon SolStar-2 to destroy the city of Tangier, Morocco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative energy generation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The SolStar-2 satellite was originally designed by Dr. Starndorf to beam down microwave energy from space in an effort to lessen the world's dependency on oil. The military repurposed it into a weapon, however.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom risked life and limb to be reunited with his young daughter, only to find that she'd froze to death some time ago. Anna was worried that her scientist father, Dr. Starndorf, was going to work himself to death. Anna was reunited with her father three years after the massive cometary impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom lovingly interacted with his wife, Sarah, at the start of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom and his loyal dog, Soss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Starndorf had gone blind by the time Anna located him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna pointedly grieved for her shot dead father, Dr. Starndorf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Waters betrayed Hintze by leaving him behind when the cometary fragment was about to hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hintze sought to destroy Tangier in revenge for Colonel Waters having abandoned him when the cometary fragment was about to hit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan 2 (2004)", "title": "Spider-Man 2", "date": "2004-06-22", "description": "Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film finds Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man, which affects his civilian life dramatically. Meanwhile, Dr. Otto Octavius becomes a diabolical villain after a failed experiment kills his wife and leaves him neurologically fused to mechanical tentacles. Spider-Man must stop him from successfully recreating the experiment, which threatens to blow up the city, while dealing with a subconscious desire to stop being Spider-Man that is stripping him of his powers. It is the second installment in the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a secret crush on his neighbor Mary Jane Watson since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter felt he couldn't reveal to Mary Jane that he loved her on account that being with her would put her life in peril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had arachnid-quick reflexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, went dangerously insane after his failure to create a fusion-based energy source.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, went dangerously insane after his failure to create a fusion-based energy source.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otto Octavius became obsessed with developing fusion power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed the aftermath of Otto Octavius dramatically failing in his life's work to make commercially viable generation of electricity using nuclear fusion a reality. He coped with this failure by becoming a mentally unbalanced super villain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter's longtime friend Harry harbored a growing resentment toward Peter because Peter refused to reveal Spider-Man's identity, and Harry held Spider-Man responsible for his father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man was fighting street crime in New York City off and on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, fit the bill of mad scientist to a tee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter came out of retirement as Spider-Man to save the people of New York City from the evil genius Doctor Octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter came out of retirement as Spider-Man to save the people of New York City from the criminal genius Doctor Octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry blamed Spider-Man for his father's death and plotted to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Mary Jane loved one another but could not be together because her live would be in danger so long as Peter went around as Spider-Man. Although the film did conclude with Peter and Mary Jane sharing a kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane got engaged to astronaut John Jameson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Peter and Aunt May were struggling pay their bills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt May was giving a few weeks to leave her home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto Octavius and his dedicated wife and assistant Rosalie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane scored a leading role in a new theatrical release of the Oscar Wilde play \"The Importance of Being Earnest\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane moved to New York City to become an actress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto Octavius controlled his robotic octopus appendages through a direct link to his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Otto Octavius had the death of his dedicated wife on his conscience after she perished in his catastrophic fusion power experiment. Aunt May struggled to hit over the loss of her husband Uncle Ben, who was murdered two years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter garnered some income by working as a freelance photographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was counseled by his departed uncle Ben in a dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Peter and Aunt May blamed themselves for the death of Uncle Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spider-Man was a role model to little Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with cold feet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane left John at the altar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter ultimately convinced Doctor Octopus that his maniacal plan to make a fusion power generator was too dangerous and that he had to shut it down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vision of Harry's father urging him to avenge his death toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Mary Jane leaving John at the altar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ben shared exactly this aphorism with Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter garnered some income by selling Spider-Man photos to the Daily Bugle tabloid newspaper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I Robot (2004)", "title": "I, Robot", "date": "2004-07-07", "description": "I, Robot is a 2004 American science fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman is from a screen story by Vintar, based on his original screenplay Hardwired, and suggested by Isaac Asimov's 1950 short-story collection of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: The year is 2035 and highly intelligent robots fill public service positions throughout the world, operating under three rules to keep humans safe. A police investigates the alleged suicide of a famed robotics pioneer and believes that a human-like robot murdered him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sentient humanoid robot Sonny is a main character. In general, the story is set in a near future where humanoid robots serve humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the police detective Del Spooner as he investigates a possible murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Del Spooner was investigating the the possibility that the famed robotics pioneer Dr. Alfred Lanning had been murdered by one of the doctor's own robot creations. In the end it was revealed that Sonny had murdered the had indeed killed Lanning, but at Lanning's own direction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Del resented of robots with a passion. He had come to hate and distrust robots, the viewer learns, after a robot rescued him from a car crash while allowing a 12-year-old girl to drown based purely on cold logic and odds of survival. But in the end he warmed up to the sentient robot Sonny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The positronic brain VIKI determined that robots needed to have ultimate control over humans for the humans own good, and led a robot uprising in an effort to make this a reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot hinged on Dr. Alfred Lanning's apparent suicide. Detective Del Spooner didn't buy that Lanning had taken his own life, suspecting that a robot had done him in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story was that Dr. Alfred Lanning had made his robot creation, Sonny, promise to kill him. Sonny followed through on his promise, but the killing weighed heavily on his robot conscience thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forming one's own distinct personality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Sonny was coming to grips with the fact that he was a sentient being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Del, Susan, and Sonny were up against an army of humanoid robots that were hellbent on subjugating the human race (for its own good).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robot uprising that the film build up to was explicitly described as a revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film built up to the robots making a bid to subjugate the human race for its own good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story is that the positronic brain VIKI misinterpreted the Three Laws of Robotics as they were given to her by humans, and tried to subjugate humanity as a result - something that no human would have intended or wanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Del conversed with a holographic projection of Dr. Alfred Lanning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan was perturbed when Del took manual control of his self-driving car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to survive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient humanoid robot Sonny distinguished itself from its common robot brethren in part by his will to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Del had a robotic left arm. Although this was not readily apparent as the arm was covered by realistic looking skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The U.S. Robotics CEO Lawrence Robertson spoke of not wanting word that their robots might be dangerous getting out to the public out of concern it would spark a mass recall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Del destroyed the sentient computer VIKI by injecting it with nanites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "following through on a promise that is unpleasant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient robot Sonny spoke of how difficult it was to go through with his promise to his creator to kill him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thunderbirds (2004)", "title": "Thunderbirds", "date": "2004-07-20", "description": "Thunderbirds is a 2004 science fiction action-adventure film directed by Jonathan Frakes, based on the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.\n\nSynopsis: A criminal mastermind traps the leader of a secret international rescue team together with four of his sons onboard a space station and proceeds to commit heists that the rescue team will be blamed for, prompting the father's youngest son and his friends to stop him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "childhood aspirations", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Alan was determined to follow in the footsteps of his four older brothers and become a Thunderbird pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenager Alan was determined to follow in the footsteps of his four older brothers and become a Thunderbird pilot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the teenager Alan as he proves to his father that he has what it takes to be a member of the father's prestigious International Rescue organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Hood pursued a vendetta against Jeff for abandoning him in a collapsing diamond mine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal mastermind Hood would have prevailed had it not been for the heroic efforts the junior high school student Alan and his pals Tin-Tin and Fermat made to stop him and his minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the dynamics among the three young friends Alan, Tin-Tin, and Fermat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal master mind Hood's signature ability was to be able to move people and things around using his innate psychic ability to do so. Tin-Tin used her psychic ability to remotely move a scorpion from off of Alan's shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opens with a view into Alan's life at boarding school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mathematics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan's teacher was teaching a lesson about the Pythagorean theorem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An utterly disinterested Alan stared out of the classroom window as his teacher lectured on the Pythagorean theorem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Penelope and her obsequious butler and chauffeur Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lady Penelope got about in a pink, flying Rolls Royce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alan had some passing interactions with his four older brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff and four of his sons became trapped on a futuristic space station that was in a decaying orbit about the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. venomous animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tin-Tin saved Alan from getting stung by a scorpion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Transom made an unrequited amorous advance at Ray while he was physically restrained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tin-Tin didn't approve of her uncle Hood's criminal ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hood and his minions drilled into the Bank of England's vault.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien vs Predator (2004)", "title": "Alien vs. Predator", "date": "2004-08-12", "description": "Alien vs. Predator (stylized as AVP: Alien vs. Predator) is a 2004 science fiction action film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and starring Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen and Ewen Bremner. It is the first film installment of the Alien vs. Predator franchise.\n\nSynopsis: A team of scientists are caught in the crossfire of an ancient battle between Aliens and Predators as they attempt to escape a bygone pyramid.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_vs._Predator_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator aliens were using Antarctica as a hunting ground for the Alien aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the notion that the Predator aliens had taught an early human civilization, located in Antarctica, how to build pyramids. The people of this civilization, the viewer learns, moreover worshiped the Predator aliens as gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grotesque Alien aliens were going around instilling terror in people and killing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex teamed up with a Predator to take on the ferocious Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex and a Predator hunter found a common enemy in the ferocious Aliens, and joined forced to defeat them. Note that Lex pointedly sought out to team up with the Predator after Sebastian hit on the realization that \"the enemy of my enemy is my friend\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aliens used human hosts to multiple their numbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Predator made itself turn invisible while stalking a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polar exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex led an expedition in the Antarctic to locate an ancient pyramid buried beneath 2,000 ft of ice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian was working on an archaeological dig in Technochtitlan, Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian was an archaeologist by trade, and he accompanied the expedition to the ancient pyramid ruin in that capacity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was uncovered that the ancient Antarctic civilization had practiced human sacrifice. In particular, they ritually infected themselves with Alien parasites, and in so doing created worthy prey for Predator hunters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Predator used its special infrared vision helmet to examine Weyland's anatomy in much detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rite of passage into manhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sebastian speculated that Predator youth were sent to earth to hunt Aliens to prove that they were ready to be adults.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex reluctantly mercy killed Sebastian after he'd become parasitized by an Alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Predator alien marked itself with the blood of its Alien kill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ancient Antarctic civilization was overrun by Aliens in a single night, and everyone died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large, alien spacecraft came to pick up the Predator hunter in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)", "title": "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", "date": "2004-09-10", "description": "Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a 2004 science fiction action horror film directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil (2002), it is the second installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: Freshly escaped from an underground facility overrun by zombies, a former security operative with heightened physical abilities bands together with other survivors to escape the zombie outbreak which has spread to a nearby city.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_Apocalypse" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about people trying to survive in a city overrun by zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about people trying to survive in a city overrun by zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Umbrella Corporation conducted illegal genetic research, leading to the creation of a virus that sparked a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City. This is a central premise of the film. In the end, the Umbrella Corporation covered up that it nuked Raccoon City to stop a zombie outbreak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ashford was working tirelessly on getting his young daughter, Angie, out of the zombie infested Raccoon City. This was a major storyline in the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, that turned people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, that turned people into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heroine of the story Alice had heightened speed, strength, and agility. These abilities she used to kick the crap out of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not much explored, Dr. Ashford was wheelchair bound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angie's wheelchair bound father was shot dead before her very eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice was forced to fight the Umbrella Corporation's Nemesis super-zombie to prove who out of the two was the more powerful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Not wanting to be torn to pieces by zombies, Dr. Isaacs put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger, only to discover it was out of bullets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TV news anchorwoman Terri was working on the \"zombies have overrun Raccoon City\" bombshell story, until she herself became a zombie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Umbrella Corporation nuked Raccoon City in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Umbrella Corporation covered up their nuking of Raccoon City by blaming the destruction on a nuclear power plant having melted down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The media posthumously branded Terri as a hoaxer for her compiling of supposedly faked footage of a city-wide zombie outbreak.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)", "title": "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", "date": "2004-09-17", "description": "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, often shortened to Sky Captain, is a 2004 science fiction action-adventure film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut, and produced by Jon Avnet, Sadie Frost, Jude Law and Marsha Oglesby.\n\nSynopsis: In a technologically advanced 1939, the commander of a private air force and his reporter old flame work to get to the bottom of a series of globe spanning giant robot raids.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Captain_and_the_World_of_Tomorrow" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and his ex-girlfriend Polly bickered and quarreled over past transgressions throughout the course of the story. Joe was convinced that Polly had once sabotaged his plane. Polly, for her part, tried again and again to get Joe to admit that he'd been unfaithful to her. Joe and his fellow pilot Francesca \"Franky\" Cook were likewise old flames.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The misanthropic Dr. Totenkopf had set in motion a plot to kill everyone on Earth by using the afterburners on his \"Noah's Ark\" rocketship to ignite the planet's atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Totenkopf had created an army of silvery, humanoid robots, some of which were as tall as small buildings. The sudden appearance of these robots caused something of a sensation around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Joe and Polly (with a little help from the \"Flying Legion\" private air force) to stop a plot that the misanthropic Dr. Totenkopf had set into motion to kill everyone on earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Dr. Totenkoph was motivated in his efforts to restart life on Earth by a deep seeded hatred of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polly was a newspaper reporter by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Flying Legion\" Curtiss P-40 pursuit fighters were specially designed to be able to dive into the sea and go around like submarines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe came into possession of a futuristic ray gun that he later wielded on two giant robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polly hesitated to photograph of some of the most spectacular things that one might ever behold on account that she had only two shots left.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe, Polly, and Kaji briefly found themselves in the fabled land of Shangri-La.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Polly tricked Joe into confessing that he'd cheated on her with Franky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Polly found themselves on an island inhabited with dinosaur-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Totenkoph had masterminded the construction of a sleek, silvery rocketship that contained within it representatives of every major animal species on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A greenish hologram of Dr. Totenkoph's head spoke of his hate of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The heroes of the story discovered Totenkopf's mummified with a scrap of paper clutched in its hand, which read \"forgive me\". This is in reference to the diabolical plot he set into to motion to wipe out humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Totenkopf's mysterious hench-woman turned out to be an android.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Forgotten (2004)", "title": "The Forgotten", "date": "2004-09-24", "description": "The Forgotten is a 2004 American science fiction psychological horror thriller film directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache, and Anthony Edwards.\n\nSynopsis: A woman believes that she lost her son in a plane crash 14 months earlier, only to wake up one morning and be told that she never had a son. All of her memories are intact, but with no physical evidence that contradicts the claims of her husband and her psychiatrist, and she sets out in search for solid evidence of her son's existence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "maternal love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story built up to the revelation that Telly was part of a bizarre experiment to test whether the bond of love between mother and her child could be broken. It couldn't in Telly's case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Telly as she tries to get to the bottom of what happened to her young son, Sam. Ditto for Ash and his young daughter, Lauren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows Telly as she tries to find out the true fate of her young son, Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows Ash as she tries to find out the true fate of his young daughter, Lauren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was that Telly had had all memories of her young son, Sam, erased. Ditto for Ash and his young daughter, Lauren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder what kind of crazy world it is where a mother can have all memories of her son erased in the name of testing whether the bonds between a mother and her child can be diminished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Telly and Ash were being pursued by National Security agents for the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Telly started out grieving the loss of her young son, She soon, however, came to be convinced that he was still alive and resolved to find him. Ash underwent a similar experience over his young daughter, Lauren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Telly's husband, Jim, accused her of being delusional when she kept insisting that they'd had a son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Telly was encouraged to consider that she might be delusional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Telly's psychiatrist, Dr. Munce, tried to convince her that she was delusional in thinking that he ever had a son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Telly insinuated that Ash had taken to the bottle in the wake of his young daughter's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ash secured a man to a chair and proceeded to beat some information out of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "National Security agents were hot on the tail of Telly and Ash, who'd gone into hiding.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Primer (2004)", "title": "Primer", "date": "2004-10-08", "description": "Primer is a 2004 American independent psychological science fiction film about the accidental discovery of time travel. The film was written, directed, produced, edited and scored by Shane Carruth, who also stars with David Sullivan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about two engineers accidentally discovering a peculiar form of time travel and there consequences thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abe and Aaron's divergent views on what to do now that they could time travel put a strain on their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abe interacted with his wife, Rachel. Later he saved her from getting shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abe from the future watched over his past self to keep the past self from traveling into the future.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x01", "title": "Storm Front, Part I", "date": "2004-10-08", "description": "After destroying the Xindi weapon, Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Na'kuhl were attempting to alter Earth's history to make the Nazis win World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were in command of Nazi forces that occupied the North Eastern USA. MO: they were on Earth so they were Earth Nazis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA. Daniels explained that the Temporal Cold War had flared up into open temporal conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer became involved with resistors of the Nazi occupation of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pothos was reunited with Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Na'kuhl were developing a water-based pathogen to kill all non-Aryans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alicia Travers explained to Archer how the Germans had outlawed \"colored music\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and Mayweather transported from Enterprise to Brooklyn. Alicia Travers was surprised to be transported up to the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cube Zero (2004)", "title": "Cube Zero", "date": "2004-10-15", "description": "Cube Zero is a 2004 Canadian independent science fiction psychological horror thriller film, written and directed by Ernie Barbarash. It is the third installment in the Cube film series and a prequel to the first film.\n\nSynopsis: A low-level technician of a deadly maze of interconnected cube- shaped rooms makes a fateful decision to lead some of its apparently seemingly occupants to safety.", "collections": [ "Collection: Cube Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_Zero" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "he story follows the efforts of several captives as they try to escape from a vast assemblage of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Several strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a giant maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various strangers were left to make sense of how they'd all came to be trapped inside a deadly maze of interconnected cube-shaped rooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how two otherwise ordinary guys justify that they are employed to oversee people getting dumped into a maze on interconnected cubes and left there to all die horrible deaths. Both men ultimately come to see that what they are doing is terribly wrong and take steps to help the captives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the low-level technician Wynn as he becomes increasingly doubtful that his job of overseeing alleged condemned prisoners die horribly in a maze of interconnected cubes is ethically justified, and in the end he decides to help some prisoners escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wynn and Dodd played a game of chess while operating the titular Cube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "food pill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wynn consumed for lunch a green pill that was evidently equivalent to goat cheese salad with ginseng, liver fricassee, and mango sorbet. Dodd, by contrast, consumed a red pill labled as containing steak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In her dream, Rains was captured while walking in a forest with her daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People had their long-term memories erased prior to being dumped unceremoniously in the Cube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people trapped in the Cube were left wondering who they were, as they had recollections of their former lives of how they'd gotten there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Rains had participated in political demonstrations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The senior supervisor Jax took pleasure in watching the Cube occupants die horribly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jax had a conspicuous artificial eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wynn was informed that he'd been convicted of this crime and would be placed into the Cube as punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wynn was rendered mentally handicapped my means of a lobotomization and then dumped into the Cube.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rains called out the low-level Cube operator Wynn for invoking this defense when he justified himself by claiming that he was just the computer guy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Final Cut (2004)", "title": "The Final Cut", "date": "2004-10-15", "description": "The Final Cut is a 2004 science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Omar Naim. It stars Robin Williams, Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Mimi Kuzyk, Stephanie Romanov, Genevieve Buechner and Brendan Fletcher.\n\nSynopsis: A man specializes in editing the memories of unsavory people into uncritical memorials that are played at funerals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A special memory recording implant, called the Zoe implant, is a main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan was consumed with guilt over a conviction that as a child he'd left a boy to die in an abandoned factory. Much of the film followed Alan's efforts to uncover the identity of the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alan was haunted by a childhood memory of having left a boy to die in an abandoned factory. He was motivated throughout the film by a desire to find out the identify of the boy. It was strongly implied that young Isabel was having issues on account that she'd been molested by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown Alan as a child exploring an abandoned factory together with another boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An emotionless Alan watched a recording of a dead man's memory of the man beating his own partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hasan told of how a woman jumped out of a 27th floor window to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer shed a crocodile tear for her recently deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jennifer voiced an order to her butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny's memory recordings revealed that he'd slept with an acquaintance of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Danny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Placard carrying protestors were angry about the prevalence of memory recording devices in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A viewing of Bannister's recorded memories strongly suggested that he was molesting his young daughter, Isabel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A viewing of Bannister's recorded memories strongly suggested that he was molesting his young daughter, Isabel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Alan had been secretly watching recordings of his love interest, Delila, sleeping with her now deceased ex-lover. The video footage was particularly sensitive as it was made up of her ex-lover's memories. She was furious at Alan for having done so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isabel interacted with her mother, Jennifer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was strongly suggested that Isabel's father brought her down to his private study late at night to molest her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x02", "title": "Storm Front, Part II", "date": "2004-10-15", "description": "Archer joins Silik to stop the alien Nazis, restore the timeline and end the Temporal Cold War.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aliens meddling in history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Na'kuhl were attempting to alter Earth's history to make the Nazis win World War II.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Nazi stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were in command of Nazi forces that occupied the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA. Daniels explained that the Temporal Cold War had flared up into open temporal conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise crew found themselves in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the Nazis had won", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Enterprise finds itself in the 20th century during World War II with Nazis in control of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Na'kuhl were developing a water-based pathogen to kill all non Aryans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer used the transporter to beam down the surface to meet Vosk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silik shapeshifted to look like Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer became involved with resistance fighters opposed to the Nazi occupation of the North Eastern USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vosk built a time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silik referenced his genetically engineered nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Silik joined forces to defeat Vosk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was stock footage of Hitler giving a speech.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x03", "title": "Home", "date": "2004-10-22", "description": "Enterprise is welcomed home after saving Earth and the crew takes a much needed vacation. Tucker & T'Pol visit Vulcan where T'Pol must consider marriage to Koss. Erika Hernandez becomes captain of the Columbia and renews her acquaintance with Archer. Phlox encounters prejudice on Earth.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cross cultural romance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker took the next step in their interspecies romantic relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should T'Pol go through with her arranged marriage or be with Tucker? Archer and his old flame didn't pursue their relationship in the past because she was his subordinate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol had been arranged to marry Koss and her parents expected her to follow through with her commitment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A xenophobic man confronted Malcolm, Phlox, and Mayweather and expressed his concern about the Enterprise mission resulting in all sorts of alien races knowing where Earth is located.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Les and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was engaged to Koss but she loved Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer his former subordinate Erika Hernandez.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should T'Pol stay with Tucker, whom she loved, or marry Koss in accordance with Vulcan custom?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to treat people that pose a risk to society through no fault of their own", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Archer have ordered the killing of the murderous Vulcan zombies that were too far gone to be medically revived?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The guy in the bar was paranoid about aliens being on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and her arranged husband Koss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero's return", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Enterprise crew welcomed back to Earth as galactic heroes. Archer even had a high school named after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "meeting the parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker went to Vulcan and met T'Pol's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traditionalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koss respected Vulcan traditions and wished to follow through on his arranged marriage with T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer went mountain climbing to get away from people asking him for his autograph and so on.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x04", "title": "Borderland", "date": "2004-10-29", "description": "Dr. Arik Soong restores his relationship with his genetically-enhanced \"children,\" Augments.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Ken LaZebnik.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "slavery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Orion space slavers captured nine crew members and sold them on a space slave market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Arik Soong was right in his conviction that we ought to use genetic engineering to make super humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong wished to create a race of genetically enhanced people to replace the current stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong genetically engineered people to be better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raakin and Malik both wanted to lead the Augments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the qualities of a good leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raakin was a cautious leader, Malik a reckless and agreessive leader by contrast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raakin took a cautious and merciful approach to leadership, and Malik a ruthless one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik was ruthless in his leadership of the Augments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Augments Raakin and Malik were raised as siblings and then Raakin took Malik's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arik Soong raised the Augments Raakin and Malik as his own sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Augments Persis and Malik were raised as siblings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arik Soong and Phlox discussed genetic engineering and the augmented Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ensign Jeffrey Pierce struggled to control his fear while being held in a cage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol, Hoshi and seven other Enterprise crew members were captured and held by Orion slaver traders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer discussed the Eugenics Wars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arik Soong raised the Augment Persis as his own daughter and he reunited with her when she freed him from the Enterprise brig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox needed to remove a pain device that was grafted into Jeffrey Pierce's neck.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x05", "title": "Cold Station 12", "date": "2004-11-05", "description": "A space station crew is held hostage as Dr. Arik Soong and his Augments work to obtain hundreds of Augment embryos in hopes of creating an Augment population.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Michael Bryant.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Arik Soong was right in his conviction that we ought to use genetic engineering to make super humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong wished to create a race of genetically enhanced people to replace the current stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong genetically engineered people to be better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik took a ruthless approach to dealing with the Enterprise crew, but Arik Soong wanted to be merciful at times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik was ruthless in his leadership of the Augments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Augments were raised as siblings by Arik Soong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The augments were raised as siblings by Arik Soong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arik Soong raised the Augments Raakin and Malik as his own sons. (but I don't remember him interacting with the girl)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arik Soong and his Augments too a team of scientists hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and his away team and a group of scientists were held captive by Arik Soong and his Augments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Jeremy Lucas release the codes to Arik Soong to save his friend from an excruciating death?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik was elitist about being genetically augmented.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malik and Persis slept together even though they were raised as brother and sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malik and Persis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox worried about his doctor friend Jeremy Lucas being held hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arik Soong struggled with this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Malik.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arik Soong raised the Augment Persis as his own daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Phlox discussed a eugenics war that had happened on Earth and cost 30 million lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Udar was torn between his Augment family and the Humans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x06", "title": "The Augments", "date": "2004-11-12", "description": "Dr. Arik Soong finds himself overthrown as \"father\" of the Augments and Archer rushes to prevent the destruction of a Klingon colony. As a result of his dashed hopes of enhancing humans, Soong turns in a new direction of research.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether Arik Soong was right in his conviction that we ought to use genetic engineering to make super humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong wished to create a race of genetically enhanced people to replace the current stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arik Soong genetically engineered people to be better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Udar was torn between his Augment family and the Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Augments were raised as siblings by Arik Soong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Augments were raised as siblings by Arik Soong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arik Soong raised the Augments Raakin and Malik as his own sons. Malik became disillusioned with his old man Arik Soong, mutinied against him, and used a biogenic weapon to wipe out a Klingon colony against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthless character vs. merciful character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik took a ruthless approach to dealing with the Enterprise crew, but Arik Soong wanted to be merciful at times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik was ruthless in his leadership of the Augments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik plotted to wipe out an entire Klingon colony using a biological weapon of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik plotted to wipe out an entire Klingon colony using a biological weapon of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malik plotted to wipe out an entire Klingon colony using a biological weapon of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malik became disillusioned with his old man Arik Soong, mutinied against him, and used a biogenic weapon to wipe out a Klingon colony against his will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker, T'Pol, and her Vulcan husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arranged marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker had a talk about her arranged marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malik felt he and the Augments were betrayed by Arik Soong and Malik killed him in cold blood as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arik Soong came to the conclusion that genetic engineering was not the path to improving human beings and contemplated turning to cybernetics to achieve that goal.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x07", "title": "The Forge", "date": "2004-11-19", "description": "Earth's embassy on Vulcan is partially destroyed by a bomb, killing Admiral Forrest. Archer & T'Pol travel to Vulcan in search of an alleged terrorist group blamed for the explosion, of which T'Pol's mother is a member.\n\nDirected by: Michael Grossman. Story by: Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Judith Reeves-Stevens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Earth's embassy on Vulcan was bombed by terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main suspects in a bombing of Earth's embassy on Vulcan were members of the Syrrannite order of religious zealots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol trekked through a desert, called the Forge, in search of T'Pol’s mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soval performed a mind meld on a comatose guard. Syrran mind melded with Archer moments before Syrran died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Syrrannites were described as religious zealots and were suspects in the bombing of Earth's embassy on Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political neutrality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer explained that Earth had taken pains to remain a neutral party in the conflict between the Vulcans and Andorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxwell Forrest saved the Vulcan ambassador V'Las' life by pushing him out of the way of an exploding bomb, but lost his own life as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxwell Forrest saved the Vulcan ambassador V'Las' life by pushing him out of the way of an exploding bomb, but lost his own life as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and her husband Koss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol was presented with evidence that her mother was part of an extremist group called the Syrrannites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risky revival of patient for vital information", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was asked to bring a guard out of a coma at great risk in order to obtain important information about the bombing of Earth's embassy on Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soval intone the words \"the needs of the many\" before proceeding with a risky mind melded with a comatose guard in an effort to get information on who perpetrated the bombing of Earth's embassy on Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Travis were beamed up to the Enterprise moments before a bomb they were defusing went off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and T'Pol were stalked by a Sehlat in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol explained to Archer how the katra is something like the Vulcan equivalent of the soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soval performed a couple of mind melds, but not to read minds, but rather to transmit thoughts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x08", "title": "Awakening", "date": "2004-11-26", "description": "Archer & T'Pol find T'Pau and T'Pol's mother and learn that Archer is carrying Surak's katra.\n\nDirected by: Roxann Dawson. Story by: André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the soul", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol was skeptical of Syrrannite claims that Archer possessed inside him the \"katra\", or soul, of Syrran inside him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer struggled to come to grip with having been mind melded with by Syrran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vulcan council decided to bomb the Syrrannite dissidents out of existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "learning about a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vulcan Soval confided in Tucker that he's \"developed an affinity\" for humans from having lived on Earth for over 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol couldn't understand why her mother T'Les joined the radical Syrrannites movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol confided in Archer that she felt her mother T'Les joined a cult.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with radiation sickness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Surak was suffering from radiation sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Syrrannites were pacifists and opposed a preemptive strike on Andoria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Vulcan council planned a preemptive strike on Andoria.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Species III (2004)", "title": "Species III", "date": "2004-11-27", "description": "A half-human, half-alien hybrid struggles with whether or not to give in to her desire to reproduce her own kind. It is a sequel to Species II (1998) and the third installment of the Species series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Species" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_III" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story is that Sara (and others) are composite beings that resulted from the coupling of human and alien DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human physiological need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-alien hybrids Sara and Amelia we both driven by a desire to reproduce their kind to varying degrees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dean and his college buddy and roommate Hastings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an experimental tokamak fusion reactor on site at the university.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The graduate student Dean was outraged when the university dean threatened to cut Dean's funding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accelerated growth rate therapy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara grew from a baby to an adult in a matter of days. At one point Dr. Abbot quipped that she was growing six inches a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woman who gave Sara a ride in her truck was convinced that \"all that Roswell stuff\" was real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of Project Athena: a secret government program that'd succeeded in creating a human-alien hybrid via the coupling of human and alien DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara's arm regenerated after it was severed by a passing train.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara performed such feats of strength as tossing a full-grown man across a room among others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean was astonished when Sara beat him at chess on her first attempt to play the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean and Hastings were rooming together in a college dorm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean risked his life to stop an alien creature from raping Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hastings worked to bioengineer a new strain of the Species alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The university dean threatened to cut the graduate student Dean's funding unless Dean increased his research output. Dr. Bruce Abbot was teaching biochemistry at a university.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)", "title": "Godzilla: Final Wars", "date": "2004-11-29", "description": "Godzilla: Final Wars (ゴジラ FINAL WARS, Gojira Fainaru Uōzu) is a 2004 kaiju film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, written by Isao Kiriyama and Wataru Mimura, and produced by Shogo Tomiyama. It is the 29th film in the Godzilla franchise, the sixth and final film in the franchise's Millennium series and the 28th Godzilla film produced by Toho.\n\nSynopsis: The Earth Defence Forces rely on Godzilla to save humanity from nefarious aliens who seek to make humans their food supply.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_Final_Wars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Earth Defence Forces to find a way to stop the Xiliens aliens from destroying civilization and reducing humanity to cattle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xilien aliens unleashed giant monsters on a number of Earth's cities as part of their bid to destroy civilization and reduce humanity to cattle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Numerous giant monsters were going around reducing Earth's major cities to rubble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Xilien aliens tried to conquer the Earth with a view to making humans their food supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid Xilien aliens were central to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A basic premise of the story is that widespread environmental destruction resulted in the appearance of physically gifted mutant humans who were subsequently recruited into the Earth Defence Force to battle Godzilla. The hero of the story Shinichi Ozaki was himself a mutant, and used his mutant powers to defeat the Xilien alien leader, known only as X.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the Xilien aliens' bid to take over the Earth was their infiltrating the United Nations at the highest levels.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening narration explained how widespread environmental destruction had led to the awakening of havoc wreaking giant monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening narration explained how Earth's various nation states had come together to battle rampaging monsters, resulting in the founding of the \"Earth Defence Force\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fairies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mothra fairies revealed that Mothra had engaged in an epic battle with the alien cyborg Gigan some 12,000 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The giant monster Gigan was said to be a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samon imparting his wisdom to his young grandson, Kenta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spherically-shaped Xilien mothership appeared over Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Xilien aliens tried to trick humanity into believing that a rogue planet, named Gorath, was on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miyuki and her sister Anna worked together to expose the Xilien aliens efforts to infiltrate the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna was working as a news presenter for Nitto TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the United Nations Secretary General was really a Xilien alien in disguise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gotengo multipurpose warship was used to fly, tunnel underground, and navigate under the sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Merchant of Venice (2004)", "title": "The Merchant of Venice", "date": "2004-12-03", "description": "The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 romantic drama film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first full-length sound film in English of Shakespeare's play—other versions are videotaped productions which were made for television, including John Sichel's 1973 version and Jack Gold's 1980 BBC production.\n\nThe title character is the merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons), not the Jewish moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino) who is the more prominent character. This adaptation follows the text, but omits much. Director Michael Radford believed that Shylock was Shakespeare's first great tragic hero who reaches a catastrophe due to his own flaws.[2][3] The film begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population of Venice and brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish ghetto in Venice.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice_(2004_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "towards the end Shylock refused an offered fortune to forgo his vengeance", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "in refusing to grant mercy Shylock lost everything; to add insult to injury the good \"Christians\" then pointedly showed him mercy of a sort", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bassanio lusted after Portia; Jessica eloped with Lorenzo; Gratiano married Nerissa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antisemitism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antisemitism was rampant in Shylock's Venice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antonia faced Shylock backed by the law", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homosexuality in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antonio and Bassanio shared a passionate kiss; the two girls may have been flirting with each other too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shylock and Jessica; Portia's father was unnamed but referred to", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x09", "title": "Kir'Shara", "date": "2004-12-03", "description": "Archer and T'Pol bring back the Kir'Shara (Surak's artifact) that will lead to vast changes in the Vulcan world. T'Pol's Pa'nar Syndrome is cured by T'Pau.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Soval betrayed Vulcan High Command by tipping off Shran about an imminent attack on the Andorian homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political neutrality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Tucker alert the Andorians about an impending large-scale attack on their homeworld by the Vulcans or remain neutral in Vulcan/Andorian affairs? In the end, Tucker decided to join the Andorian fleet and confront the Vulcans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcan council planned a preemptive strike on Andoria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer had Surak's \"katra\", or soul, inside of him, communicating with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became apparent at the end that Romulans were playing a clandestine divide and conquer game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "V'Las ordered for the remaining Syrrannites to be exterminated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the soul", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and T'Pau argued over the existence of the \"katra\", i.e., the Vulcan equivalent of the soul.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran tortured Soval in an effort to obtain knowledge as to the whereabouts of the Vulcan fleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Shran resort to torture to obtain the true location of the Vulcan fleet?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koss released T'Pol from her bond of marriage to him at the episode's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Meatball Machine (2005)", "title": "Meatball Machine", "date": "2005", "description": "Meatball Machine (ミートボールマシン, Mītobōru mashin) is a 2005 Japanese tokusatsu horror film directed by Yūdai Yamaguchi and Jun'ichi Yamamoto based on a film by Yamamoto from 1999. It was followed by a sequel, Meatball Machine: Kodoku.\n\nSynopsis: Parasites of extraterrestrial origin take over human bodies and use their flesh to create biomechanical weapons which they use to fight each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatball_Machine" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Yōji was transformed into a biomechanical monstrosity by an alien parasite, as was his love interest, Sachiko, along with many others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Yōji became infatuated with his coworker, Sachiko, but was too shy to tell her of his interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Yōji fell for with his coworker, Sachiko, but was too shy to tell her of his interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bug-like alien parasites were going around transforming people into biomechanical monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bug-like alien parasites were going around transforming people into biomechanical monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the mild manner factory worker Yōji's experience of being transformed into a biomechanical monstrosity of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A crossdresser made a series of unrequited amorous advances at Yōji in the movie theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yōji encountered a crossdresser in the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sachijo's co-worker tried to force himself on her in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sachiko confided in Yōji of her feelings of loneliness, and speculated that he was lonely, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sachiko revealed to Yōji about how she'd suffered horrible physical abuse at the hands of her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sachiko was self-conscious of her grotesquely scarred body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doi was capturing unsuspecting humans and using them as feed for his alien parasitized daughter, Michino.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Girl from Monday (2005)", "title": "The Girl from Monday", "date": "2005", "description": "The Girl from Monday is a 2005 American film directed by Hal Hartley.\n\nSynopsis: Set in a near-future where virtually everything is commercialized, an advertising executive becomes involved with a beautiful woman from another planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_Monday", "extraterrestrial being [The titular girl was a being from a planet in the 147X star system who came to Earth in the guise of a beautiful woman. It was revealed in the end that Jack was really an alien.]", "alien living secretly among us [Two aliens", "Jack and the titular girl", "were living secretly on Earth in the guise of humans.]", "mass consumerism [The story is a satire on early 2000s consumer society.]", "consumerist dystopia [The story is set in a hyper consumerist society where virtually everything is commercialized", "including sexual encounters.]", "resistance movement [The young counter-revolutionary William was leading a movement to return society to its pre-free-market-revolution state.]" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack pointed a gun to his temple in one scene, but didn't go through with pulling the trigger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack refrained from hooking up with his co-worker, Cecile, at the last moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anti-consumerist counter-revolutionaries were labeled as terrorists by the state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sense of danger that came with being involved in the counter-revolution made Cecile feel good, she told Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exile", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The counter-revolutionary Cecile was banished from society in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drugged up dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Students were drugged daily with anti-anxiety medications in this hyper-consumerist society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In this society students wore virtual reality helmets in school all day.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Never Let Me Go (2005)", "title": "Never Let Me Go", "date": "2005", "description": "The story follows Kathy and some of her friends from childhood to early adulthood. It is gradually revealed that they are all clones that will have to donate their organs and thus die young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human childhood", "level": "choice", "motivation": "goes with the coming of age genre", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "choice", "motivation": "various but Kathy about sex for one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially Kathy and Tom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they all started to fear dying as they got older", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All the children being groomed for having their organs harvested came to learn their fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they hoped to delay their donations because of love", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kathy, Tom and Ruth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a fictional ethical dilemma", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "donating an organ to save a life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the protagonists occasionally deliberated about the moral virtue of donating their organs, even though they didn't have any choice in the matter", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x10", "title": "Daedalus", "date": "2005-01-14", "description": "Dr. Emory Erickson, inventor of the transporter, conducts a long-range experiment in order to recover his lost son.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Michael Bryant & Ken LaZebnik.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "risk taking in the advancement of science and technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emory Erickson lost his own son in a risky transporter experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emory Erickson felt guilty (we think) about having lost his son in an reckless transporter experiment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emory Erickson was obsessed with recovering his lost son Quinn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Emory Erickson was obsessed with recovering his lost son Quinn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is that Emory Erickson was unable to accept that his lost son, Quinn, was really dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emory Erickson, the inventor of the transporter, visited Enterprise ostensibly to conduct experiments on an interstellar teleportation device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emery and his lost son Quinn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emery Erickson was taken care of by his daughter Danica Erickson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Archer allow Emory Erickson to continue his efforts to rescue his son from another dimension at the risk of losing more of the crew?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emory Erickson talked about how he had to overcome people objecting to his research in teleportation for supersititous reasons. Archer commented how he still preferred and old fashioned shuttlepod to the transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer preferred a good old fashioned shuttlepod to the newfangled transporter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romantic tensions were moderate to high between Tucker and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer joked to Dr. Emory Erickson that the doctor was trying to put him out of a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machines in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer joked to Dr. Emory Erickson that the doctor was trying to put him out of a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker was somewhat perturbed by T'Pol's lack of expression of grief in the wake of the death of her mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x11", "title": "Observer Effect", "date": "2005-01-21", "description": "Organians test the Enterprise crew by observing their reactions to a deadly silicon-based infection.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Judith Reeves- Stevens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An unstoppable silicon-based virus was spreading all over Enterprise. Phlox and T’Pol scampered to find a cure but in the end the Organians stepped in and saved the day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer must balance the his obligation to cure Tucker and Hoshi of a contagious disease with his obligation to not let the contagion spread to the rest of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Organians secretly studied human behavior aboard Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Organians said that they had a principle of not intervening in less advance societies, like the Prime Directive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer impressed the Organians by sacrificing himself, in vain as it were, for Tucker and Hoshi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Organians explained how their ancestors used to live in physical bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A virus was said to be silicon-based which made it more deadly to humans somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker stopped Hoshi from spreading the virus throughout the entire ship by dragging her back to quarantine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "classic films", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker spoke to Hoshi about a classic film, called \"The Andromeda Strain\", in which a disease from outer space arrived on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x12", "title": "Babel One", "date": "2005-01-28", "description": "Andorians threaten war on the Tellarites after apparently being attacked by a Tellarite vessel en route to trade talks.\n\nDirected by: David Straiton. Story by: Mike Sussman & André Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "international politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Archer mediates a trade dispute between the Andorians and the Tellarites at the neutral planet Babel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent at the end that Romulans trying to sow discord between the Tellarites and the Andorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "foreign point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer learned to take and give insults in Tellarite fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andorians and Tellarites hated each other's guts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humans were to mediate a trade dispute between the Andorians and the Tellarites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi told Archer to keep Porthos out of sight out of concern that the Tellarites might eat him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran opted for torturing a Tellarite for information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying drone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Romulans used a telepahtically remote controlled spaceship to attack their enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran and Talas fell in love in spite of her being under Shran's command.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x13", "title": "United", "date": "2005-02-04", "description": "Archer and Shran engage in mortal combat as Archer tries to unite the Andorians and Tellarites who are being set at each other's throats by a remote-controlled Romulan vessel.\n\nDirected by: David Livingston. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "divide and conquer", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Romulans were trying to destabilize the emerging alliance of planets by provoking a war between the Andorians and the Tellarites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying drone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Romulans used remote controlled ships to conduct clandestine attacks on their enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran and Talas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran sought to avenge the death of his lover Talas by dispatching one of either Archer or Gral in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interfactional mediation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans were to mediate a trade dispute between the Andorians and the Tellarites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "major", "motivation": "Andorians and Tellarites hated each other's guts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer risked his life in a fight to the death in an effort to keep the peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer urged the Andorians and Tellarites put their differences aside and unite a common enemy, which turned out to be the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer urged the Andorians and Tellarites put their differences aside and unite a common enemy, which turned out to be the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer mediated to get the Andorians and the Tellarites to join forces against the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran willingly followed the honor code of his people in challenging Archer in a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer risked his life in a fight to the death against Shran in an effort to keep the peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer urged the Andorians and Tellarites to put their quarrel aside and cooperate against a common enemy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation between two peoples", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Andorians and Tellarites reconciled at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sharan and the Tellarite ambassador Gral shook hands and reconciled their differences at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran grieved over the death of his lover Talas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Andorian telepath was piloting the Romulan drone space ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Andorian telepath was piloting the Romulan drone space ship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x14", "title": "The Aenar", "date": "2005-02-11", "description": "The drone Romulan ship that attacked the Andorians is under the control of an Aenar, an offshoot race of the Andorians. Archer and Shran join forces to rescue the Aenar and stop the Romulan plot.\n\nDirected by: Mike Vejar. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Aenar were a telepathic species that lived on Andoria. The Romulan unmanned spaceships were operated by a telepathic Aenarian. T'Pol and Jhamel used their telepathic abilities to operate a spaceship remotely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying drone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Romulans used telepathically controlled spaceships. The Enterprise crew tried to duplicated their technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Andorians put their differences aside and unite against the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humans and Andorians put their differences aside and unite against the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aenar were a telepathic species that lived on Andoria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gareb gave his life to destroy the Romulan remote controlled spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran talked about his departed lover. There was innuendo between T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aenar were a pacifist, telepathic species that lived on Andoria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Andorians lived on an ice world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shran told Archer that the Andorians built their cities underground in order to take advantage of geothermal energy. The Aenar lived in an icy subterranean habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jhamel endeavored to save her brother Gareb who had been captured by the Romulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and others argued about who should test the telepathy device.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x15", "title": "Affliction", "date": "2005-02-18", "description": "Phlox is kidnapped by the Klingons who are seeking to cure a disease caused by an attempt to create Klingon/Augment hybrids; T'Pol's mental abilities grow after she conducts her first mind meld.\n\nDirected by: Michael Grossman. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Phlox was forced to create a Klingon/Augment hybrid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox is kidnapped by Klingons and forced to seek a cure for a disease caused by an attempt to create Klingon/Augment hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon scientists had attempted to create \"super-soldiers\" by injecting themselves with human Augment DNA (from the era of Khan Noonien Singh). The DNA self-mutated into a highly contagious, airborne plague, which spread from colony to colony. Dr. Phlox was kidnapped by the Klingons to find a cure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons used genetic engineering to create Klingon/Augment hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons used genetic engineering to create Klingon/Augment hybrids and it resulted in the a deadly mad-made virus infecting Klingons, left, right, and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "career choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker changing ships on account of T'Pol", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingons were conspicuously ruthless in killing their own people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was torn between following his duty to Archer and his former commander Harris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Phlox was kidnapped by the Klingons to find a cure. He was forced to work under the threat of execution as the virus spread rapidly through Klingon colonies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker fitting in with his new crew aboard the Columbia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer helped T'Pol to perform a mind meld on Hoshi. T'Pol later communicated with Tucker telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Antaak told Phlox it was more honorable to give one's life for medical research than to die for no purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm betrayed Archer and the crew by failing to disclose vital information about Phlox's abduction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Klingons began massacring those infected by the man-made plague in an effort to slow the spreading of the contagion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Vagh and his Augment son Marab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practitioner vs. theorist", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker about warp field specialists versus real engineers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x16", "title": "Divergence", "date": "2005-02-25", "description": "With the Columbia's help, the Enterprise crew grapples with sabotage to their ship as they pursue the truth behind the kidnapping of Phlox. The disease is cured, but genetic mutations will make many Klingons appear human-like for generations to come.\n\nDirected by: David Barrett. Story by: Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Judith Reeves- Stevens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingons repeatedly justified sacrificing individuals for the greater good. Should Phlox test a potentially lethal plague cure on four Klingons to potentially save millions from dying of the plague?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Malcolm was torn between following his duty to Archer and his former commander Harris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm was locked up in the brig for his disloyalty to Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malcolm betrayed Archer and the crew by failing to disclose vital information about Phlox's abduction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phlox is kidnapped by Klingons and forced to seek a cure for a disease caused by an attempt to create Klingon/Augment hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klingon scientists had attempted to create \"super-soldiers\" by injecting themselves with human Augment DNA (from the era of Khan Noonien Singh). The DNA self-mutated into a highly contagious, airborne plague, which spread from colony to colony. Dr. Phlox was kidnapped by the Klingons to find a cure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons used genetic engineering to create Klingon/Augment hybrids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Klingons used genetic engineering to create Klingon/Augment hybrids and it resulted in the a deadly mad-made virus infecting Klingons, left, right, and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Phlox test a potentially lethal plague cure on four Klingons to potentially save millions from dying of the plague?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical assistance to the enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Phlox help cure the plague that was afflicting the Klingons?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Krell was ordered to destroy a Klingon colony in order to prevent a plague from spreading to other Klingon worlds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Phlox was kidnapped by the Klingons to find a cure. He was forced to work under the threat of execution as the virus spread rapidly through Klingon colonies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox and Antaak discussed the polygamous nature of Denobulans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K'Vagh and his Augment son Marab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Robots (2005)", "title": "Robots", "date": "2005-03-06", "description": "Robots is a 2005 American computer-animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox.\n\nSynopsis: A young robot seeks to be hired as an inventor at an illustrious corporation, only to discover a plot by its new owner to cheat older robots into buying expensive upgrades.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_(2005_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Rodney as leaves the nest to go to the big city to pursue his dream of becoming a great inventor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Rodney as leaves his family and hometown to go to the big city to pursue his dream of becoming a great inventor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a world populated by sentient, humanoid robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a world populated by sentient, humanoid robots. The hero of the story is a young humanoid robot, named Rodney Copperbottom, who aspires to become an inventor of some renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the nefarious goings on at the Bigweld Industries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central controversy in the film involved Phineas T. Ratchet halting the production of much needed robot spare parts in favor of expensive \"upgrades\" upon taking control of Bigweld Industries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Phineas T. Ratchet was the caricature of a cutthroat corporate executive. The plot turns on him putting into effect his plan to make big profits by forcing older robots into buying expensive upgrades that they could ill-afford to pay for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lydia was initially reluctant to allow her young son, Rodney, to go to the big city to pursue his dream of becoming a great inventor, but ultimately supported him in his quest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Herb encouraged his young son, Rodney, to go to the big city to pursue his dream of becoming a great inventor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The struggles of the dishwasher Herb and his wife Lydia to make end's meat were touched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fender superficially interacted with his plucky, adolescent sister, Piper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be wary of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plucky young robot Piper was admonished for talking with strangers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loretta was looking to court a billionaire at the lavish corporate function.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fender inadvertently underwent a robo-sex change procedure to his great dismay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man with the Screaming Brain (2005)", "title": "Man with the Screaming Brain", "date": "2005-04-03", "description": "Man with the Screaming Brain is a 2005 science fiction/slapstick film co- written, produced, directed, and starring Bruce Campbell.\n\nSynopsis: A brash pharmaceutical company CEO is transplanted with a piece of his cab driver's brain while on a business trip to Bulgaria.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_with_the_Screaming_Brain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "William getting transplanted with a piece of his cab driver's brain and Jackie having her brain transplanted into a mannequin-like robot constitutes the film's primary novelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Antics ensued when William had to share his body with the cab driver Yegor, after being transplanted with a piece of Yegor's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "The caricature mad scientist Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, assisted by his idiotic assistant Pavel, transplanted a piece of Yegor's brain into William, and transferred Jackie's brain from her dying body into a mannequin-like robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores William and Jackie's troubled marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jackie's brain was transferred from her dying body into a mannequin-like robot, after which she went about trying to kill the woman who killed her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "William together with Yegor, who existed as a voice in William's head, resolved to make Tatoya pay for having been responsible for putting them into their strange predicament. Jackie had William's life support plug pulled out of revenge for his philandering. Jackie's brain in the body of a robot took revenge on Tatoya for having tried to kill Jackie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "William and Jackie overcame various challenges to their marriage and rekindled their love for one another in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hotel maid Tatoya was in the habit of killing the men who dumped her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hotel maid Tatoya was in the habit of killing the men who dumped her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capitalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brash CEO William Cole complained to his unsympathetic cab driver about the lack of capitalist features in the former communist country William was visiting on a business trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "William commanded his cab driver to stop talking on the phone while at the wheel, point out that such conduct was illegal in the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jackie caught her husband William fooling around with the hotel maid. Jackie had some hanky-panky with the cab driver Yegor behind her husband's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pulling the plug on a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vengeful Jackie had William’s life support plug pulled in hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tatoya stole William's wallet and ring.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x17", "title": "Bound", "date": "2005-04-15", "description": "As a gift for negotiating with the Orion Syndicate, Archer receives three Orion Slave Girls, but these \"gifts\" have their own agenda. Meanwhile, Trip and T'Pol come to terms with the psychic bond that has been created between them.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It seems like women are slaves in Orion society but it turns out that they rule the men using their feminine wiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sex pheromones", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Orion slave girls used pheromones to seduce the Enterprise crew, and Orion males generally, and make them do their bigging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Orion slave girls used pheromones to seduce various crewmen, including Archer and Kelby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harrad-Sar presented three Orion slave girls to Archer as a gift. In the end it turned out that in Orion society the men were actually the slaves of the women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker kissed at the episode conclusion and agreed that he would return to Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matriarchy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It seems like women are slaves in Orion society but it turns out that they rule the men using their feminine wiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Harrad-Sar involved themselves in a negotiation about the Orions cooperating with the emerging federation of planets to extract valuable magnenite ore deposits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelby resented Tucker for coming back to the Enterprise after Kelby had been promoted to Chief Engineer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace relations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelby resented Tucker for coming back to the Enterprise after Kelby had been promoted to Chief Engineer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise crewmen tried to refrain from engaging in romantic relations with the Orion slave girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Orion slave girls Navaar, D'Nesh, and Maras were sisters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker were able to communicate via telepathic daydreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer elected to trust the Orion captain by visiting his ship despite warnings", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Puzzlehead (2005)", "title": "Puzzlehead", "date": "2005-04-21", "description": "Puzzlehead is a science fiction drama film starring Stephen Galaida, Robbie Shapiro, and Mark Janis.\n\nSynopsis: A man and an android he created in his own image come into conflict over a woman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzlehead" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter and his android duplicate, Puzzlehead, came into conflict over their common love interest Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter made a self-aware android in his own image that ultimately turned against him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead longed to integrate himself into the human world (e.g., he wished he could dream like other people and wished to have a relationship with a human female).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead started out utterly lacking any common sense (e.g., he failed to recognize a man as a mugger, didn't understand that a woman with slit wrists in a bathtub had just attempted suicide, etc.).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter and his android duplicate, Puzzlehead, came into conflict over their common love interest Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead ultimately turned on his creator and master, Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was teaching his android clone, Puzzlehead, to play less stiffly on the piano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puzzlehead explained that he didn't mind experiencing feeling \"sullen and melancholy\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mugging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man tried and failed to mug the android Puzzlehead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Puzzlehead walked in on a man holding up a small grocery store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia attempted suicide by slitting her wrist in the bathtub.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead described feeling jealous of his maker and master Walter over their common love interest, Julia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead bashed his head off in reaction to Julia's attempted suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Puzzlehead held his master, Walter, captive in the basement toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia unexpectedly became pregnant with Walter's child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be pregnant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia spoke of having morning sickness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Julia gave birth to a baby boy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x18", "title": "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part I", "date": "2005-04-22", "description": "In the Mirror Universe, Commander Archer mutinies against Captain Forrest in order to capture a future Earth ship found in Tholian space.\n\nDirected by: James L. Conway. Story by: Mike Sussman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mirror universe Enterprise crew were ruthless and sadistic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terrans were from a savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer lusted for power and glory and deposed Maximilian Forrest as captain and took over Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maximilian Forrest and Hoshi. Archer and Hoshi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hoshi pursued relationships with Archer and Maximilian Forrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone in the mirror universe was disloyal to their leaders and in it for themself. T'Pol elected to remain loyal to Maximilian Forrest after the mutiny and helped him to retake command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maximilian Forrest told Archer that he felt betrayed by him for having deposed Forrest of command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ship takeover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer mutinied against Captain Maximilian Forrest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vulcans and Denobulans, among other alien races, were enslaved by the Terrans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mirror universe Enterprise crew were ruthless and sadistic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terran Empire was busy conquering the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and a Tellarite crewman was subjected to exquisite pain in a pain booth. Archer (mirror) was tortured in the pain booth for ten hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative torture device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mirror universe versions of Phlox and Malcolm invented a pain booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vivisection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox was dissecting living animals in sickbay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and big angry Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoshi used her feminine wiles on Maximilian Forrest and Archer to advance herself in the Terran Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thermophilic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Tholian prisoner needed to live at an ambient temperature of 480 Kelvan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker's face was left horribly disfigured by past exposure to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker's face was left horribly disfigured by past exposure to radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terran version of Enterprise employed a cloaking device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol mind melded with Tucker and implanted a hypnotic suggestion in him that make him sabotage the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol detected signatures of a reptilian alien aboard the Enterprise from 100 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and his away team transported over to the Enterprise from 100 years in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TOS Defiant came from the future in a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Hoshi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Abduction (2005)", "title": "Alien Abduction", "date": "2005-04-26", "description": "Alien Abduction is a 2005 science-fiction horror film produced by The Asylum.\n\nSynopsis: A young woman is confined to a secret military asylum for UFO abductees.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Abduction_(2005_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about two young couples getting abducted by space aliens while on a camping trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that all the people in the hospital turned out to be aliens in the guise of humans. Jean and her friends were abducted by aliens. There was a humanoid alien creature going around terrorizing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was confined to a secret hospital that was filled to the brim with stereotypically lunatics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was confined to a secret hospital that was filled to the brim with stereotypically lunatics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane was confined to a secret military hospital for UFO abductees. She tried to escape with film of top secret info on the UFO phenomenon, presumably to get to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jane went to great lengths to escape from the secret military hospital for UFO abductees to which she'd been confined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb blonde stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane's blonde haired, shrill voiced, ditsy friend Britney exemplified this stereotype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vicious, humanoid, alien creature ran amok at a couple of junctures in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane stumbled on secret documents confirming that the U.S. military recovered a crashed flying saucer and its deceased alien occupants in Roswell in 1947.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane uncovered evidence that a crashed flying saucer of alien origin was behind the Roswell incident of 1947.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A distressed man met his demise by means of putting a handgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Jane clone was stunned to find out that she was but a copy of the original Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started out with two young couples being out on a camping trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane was treated by the hospital psychiatrist Dr. Brooker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lobotomization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane encountered various lobotomized people in the asylum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (2005)", "title": "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "date": "2005-04-28", "description": "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 science fiction comedy film directed by Garth Jennings, based upon previous works in the media franchise of the same name, created by Douglas Adams.\n\nSynopsis: The last surviving human male stows away on hitches a passing alien spaceship following the demolition of the Earth by a race a bureaucratic aliens to make way for a hyperspace bypass.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story muses cheekily on the meaning of life. In particular, a revelation of the story is that the number 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the film is that the Earth is demolished by aliens to make way for a hyperspace bypass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the story the galaxy is teeming with alien life, and many of the main characters are humanoid aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arthur was besotted with Trillian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Earth's sudden demolition left Arthur and Trillian as the last two human beings in the known universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planetary-scale machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the Earth was in fact a planetary supercomputer constructed by a race of planet builders to calculate the \"Ultimate question\" to which the number 42 was the answer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In was revealed in the introduction that dolphins were actually intelligent, but humans systematically misinterpreted their attempts to communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In was revealed in the introduction that humans had long misinterpreted attempts by dolphins to communicate as mere playful antics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur's unassuming friend Ford revealed himself to be an alien from the vicinity of Betelgeuse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government expropriation of land", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was distraught to discover that his house was to be immediately demolished to make way for a bypass. In the bigger scheme of things, the entire Earth was soon thereafter demolished to make way for hyperspace bypass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fleet of high-rise building-like spaceships descended upon the Earth, demolishing the planet. Arthur and Ford hitched a ride on a passing Vorgon spaceship. Much of the film is set aboard the white, spherical starship Heart of Gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A special kind of fish, known as a \"Babel fish\", allowed anyone whose ear it was placed in to hear any language in their native tongue. Ford put one in Arthur's ear so that Arthur could understand the Vorgon language being spoken to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Vorgon bureaucrat read his poem to a bemused and tied to a pillar Arthur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Heart of Gold starship was equipped with a severely depressed humanoid robot, named Marvin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot Marvin was sullen and gloomy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zaphod Beeblebrox stole the Heart of Gold starship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evidently sentient supercomputer Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to come up with the number 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, leaving its makers utterly disappointed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trillian was annoyed to find out that Arthur and Zaphod had been keeping secret from her that the Earth had been demolished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The heroes of the story were traveling the galaxy in the \"improbability drive\" equipped Heart of Gold starship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur used the Heart of Gold starship's improbability drive to transform two incoming nuclear missiles into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias, respectively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur beheld two suns in the sky of the planet Magrathea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Point-of-View gun\" made anyone it blasted temporarily see things from the shooter's perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the Earth, and a backup copy thereof, was constructed by the Magratheans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x19", "title": "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II", "date": "2005-04-29", "description": "In the Mirror Universe, Archer commandeers the 23rd-century Defiant from the Tholians and uses it in a nefarious power grab.\n\nDirected by: Marvin V. Rush. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mirror universe Enterprise crew were ruthless and sadistic. Archer killed, tortured, and assassinated in effort to become the new Terran emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terran Empire was busy conquering the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mirror universe Enterprise crew were ruthless and sadistic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terrans were from a savage mirror universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer commandeered the 23rd-century Defiant from the Tholians and uses it in a nefarious power grab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Hoshi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Phlox side with the Terrans or the Vulcans?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Phlox be loyalty to Archer or the Terran emperor? Everyone in the mirror universe was disloyal to their leaders and in it for themself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Gorn reptilian was lurking aboard the Defiant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer had an alien slave beaten mercilessly during an interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TOS Defiant came from the future in a parallel universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial gravity was turned up in order to defeat the Gorn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x20", "title": "Demons", "date": "2005-05-06", "description": "A xenophobic faction of humanity threatens to undermine talks to form a new coalition of planets.\n\nDirected by: LeVar Burton. Story by: Manny Coto.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A xenophobic faction of humanity threatens to undermine talks to form a new coalition of planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josiah expressed outrage that there were perhaps millions of \"illegal aliens\" living on Earth. Human xenophobes opposed aliens living on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker had a half-Human and half-Vulcan baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayweather's old flame Gannet Brooks paid him a visit on Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mayweather and Gannet Brooks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The universal translator was used with much success at the meeting of alien diplomats at Starfleet headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Frederick Paxton and his xenophobic followers were based on mining colony on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather lamented increased transporter use aboard Enterprise at the expense of shuttlepod flights.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The moon's mining facility was marked by its lack of artificial gravity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker and T'Pol's telepathic bond was featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x21", "title": "Terra Prime", "date": "2005-05-13", "description": "A human isolationist leader threatens to destroy Starfleet Command unless all aliens leave Earth immediately. His bargaining tool: a baby cloned from DNA belonging to Trip and T'Pol.\n\nDirected by: Marvin V. Rush. Story by: Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Andre Bormanis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A xenophobic faction of humanity threatens to undermine talks to form a new coalition of planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker had a half-Human and half-Vulcan baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker and T'Pol and their cloned daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The terrorists threatened to take out Starfleet Headquarters and Archer had to stop them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the life of a loved one vs. the lives of many", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tucker was coerced into helping the mad terrorist with threats towards himself and T'Pol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomical impact avoidance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A verteron array was used to deflect comets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Frederick Paxton threatened to destroy Earth's colonies on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mayweather and Gannet Brooks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars was being terraformed using comet impacts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eugenics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol mentioned that John Frederick Paxton would have been euthenized under the Colonel Green regime because he has a genetic disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol and Tucker grieved over the death of their cloned daughter Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Mayweather trust his old flame Gannet Brooks or not?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer gave an passioned speech about space exploration at the episode's conclusion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ent4x22", "title": "These Are the Voyages...", "date": "2005-05-13", "description": "Two centuries in the future, two crew members of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) (Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi) observe a holodeck creation of the final voyage of the NX-01 in 2161 (six years after the events of \"Terra Prime\") as it returns to Earth for decommissioning and the signing of the United Federation of Planets charter.\n\nDirected by: Allan Kroeker. Story by: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-enterprise.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Riker simulated the Enterprise crew on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran went to rescue his young daughter Talla who had been kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Riker follow his duty to his old captain, Captain Pressman, to keep secret that they had been testing a cloaking device or his reveal this information to his current captain, Captain Picard?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archer and Tucker. Archer helped Shran in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether all of the show had been a simulation on the holodeck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Shran with his daughter having been kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational institution for peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A meeting of the Coalition of Planets, a.k.a., the Space United Nations, was held at Starfleet Headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Archer risk being late for his important important speech to help Shran rescue his important daughter?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker blew himself up to save his friend Captain Archer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer grieved over the death of his longtime friend Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol grieved over the death of her friend and lover Tucker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker and Troi discussed the \"old\" technology, like non-automated doors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and his team with Shran's daughter's captors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tucker died to defeat terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker felt guilty over his role in the loss of crewmen in the wreck of the vessel commanded by Captain Pressman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riker was involved in a covert program to test a cloaking device on the Pegasus in violation of the Treaty of Algeron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phlox went to sit with his three wives to listen to Archer's speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Archer and Porthos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Pol about spoke with Tucker about the possibility they might never see one another again.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)", "title": "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith", "date": "2005-05-15", "description": "The film begins three years after the onset of the Clone Wars. The Jedi Knights are spread across the galaxy, leading a massive war against the Separatists. The Jedi Council dispatches Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to eliminate the notorious General Grievous, the leader of the Separatist Army. Meanwhile, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker grows close to Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and, secretly, a Sith Lord known as Darth Sidious. Their deepening friendship threatens the Jedi Order, the Republic, and Anakin's best interest. It is the third installment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, following The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002), and the third film (though the sixth in release order) in the nine- part \"Skywalker saga\".", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_III_%E2%80%93_Revenge_of_the_Sith" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good while others, like the Sith Lord, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of human emotions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "a Jedi theme is that all strong emotions lead to evil, i.e., \"the dark side\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anakin's whole story is that he falls to the dark side because of his intense emotions and tragic upbringing (both his mother and lover Padme died).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Republic is split in two by a civil war. Ss the first uprising is quashed, the Republic is captured by a tyrant who reforms it into an empire, and a new rebellion begins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Anakin with Padme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "First Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin, then Palpatine and Anakin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin was driven by dark emotions of which vengeance was a central component.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this universe people travel between stars regularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "the general story is that democracy falls to dictatorship due to ever spreading corruption and bureaucracy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme struggled with whether to let themselves love each other though it would imperil both their careers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. duty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin was, among other things, torn between loyalty to the Jedi and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin was, among other things, torn between loyalty to the Jedi and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme were secretly married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Obi-Wan had to oppose and fight his apprentice Anakin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy vs. autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Republic was reformed into an empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin was prideful and arrogant. For example, he displayed a lack of humility at becoming the youngest ever member of the Jedi Council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the merits of autocracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story tells of a democracy that is reorganized into an empire led by an unelected Sith ruler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story tells of a democracy that is reorganized into an empire led by an unelected Sith ruler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anakin turned to the dark side of the Force and in so doing betrayed his long time mentor Kenobi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Palpatine asserted that Anakin was destined to become his apprentice and learn to wield the dark side of the Force. Many of the Jedi thought he was prophesied to bring balance to the force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Grievous was a robot with a biological heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an army of clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The clones were genetically engineered soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO. General Grievous commanded a number of robot soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "city planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Coruscant was a planet completely cover by a city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flying cars whizzing around on Coruscant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme were expecting a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This Jedi power was amply featured. For example, Anakin had visions of Padme dying during child birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This Jedi power was featured. For example, Anakin closed doors and choked Padme at the wave of his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin and Padme were unexpectedly and mixedly blessed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin had a robotic hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater breathing gill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan used a small portable device to breathe underwater while escaping from some clone soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film closed showing a view of a double sunset on Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "high ground advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan Kenobi famously taunted Anakin Skywalker from the bank of a river of lava: \"It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin was boasting of his powers when he tried to jump over Obi-Wan and got cut in half because of the latter’s “high ground” advantage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobile life support device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin's badly mutilated body was treated and covered in a black armored suit to keep him alive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: War of the Worlds (2005)", "title": "War of the Worlds", "date": "2005-06-23", "description": "War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, based on the 1898 novel by H. G. Wells and jointly produced by Amblin Entertainment and Cruise/Wagner Productions and released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures.\n\nSynopsis: An American dock worker is forced to look after his children, from whom he lives separately, as he struggles to protect them and reunite them with their mother when extraterrestrials invade the Earth and devastate cities with giant war machines.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2005_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story above all follows a genocidal effort by space aliens to invade and colonize the Earth from the point of view of a longshoreman and his two estranged children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Strange space aliens that walked on all fours were going about exterminating all the human beings they could find.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown recurring scenes of the U.S. military waging war against the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United States, and by extension the world, was quickly overwhelmed by the invading aliens in their giant tripodal war machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Ray and his estranged 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, as bond throughout the course of an alien invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robbie held a grudge against his estranged father, Ray. Having to flee together from invading aliens helped mollify the tensions between the two to some extent, but in the end Robbie parted ways with his dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civilians suffering in war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown recurring scenes war refugees fleeing the carnage of the alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray's ex-wife dropped off their two kids at his house on her way to visit her parents in Boston.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robbie and his kid sister, Rachel, interacted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death ray", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens used special directed energy beams to disintegrate people into gray ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The thought that the attackers were terrorists twice jumped to Robbie's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlan reasoned that the aliens were in the early stages of terraforming the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was reunited with her mother in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Island (2005)", "title": "The Island", "date": "2005-07-22", "description": "The Island is a 2005 American science fiction action thriller film directed and co-produced by Michael Bay.\n\nSynopsis: A man struggles to fit into the highly structured world in which he lives, isolated in a compound, and the series of events that unfold when he questions how truthful that world is.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clones of the isolated compound in which the film is largely set were governed by a strict set of conformity inducing rules, such as everyone having to wear identical white jumpsuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformist dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clones of the isolated compound in which the film is largely set were governed by a strict set of conformity inducing rules, such as everyone having to wear identical white jumpsuits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the people living in the isolated compound were actually clones who'd been created to be harvested for their organs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "people bread for organ donation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about a shady company that breeds clones for wealthy sponsors to be used for organ harvesting, among other purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of the isolated compound were led to believe that the outside world has become too contaminated to support life with the exception of a single island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of the isolated compound were led to believe that the titular \"Island\" was the last place on the surface of the Earth capable of supporting life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta were evading a manhunt for the latter half of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clone Lincoln Six Echo was conditioned from \"birth\" to know nothing about the real world, and was woefully unprepared for it once he escaped from the compound where he was meant to spend his entire life. The same can be said for his budding love interest, Jordan Two Delta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "The clone Lincoln Six Echo escaped from the isolated compound where he'd spent his entire life after coming to question the stories he was indoctrinated with about the outside world having become too contaminated to support life with the exception of one single island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Merrick's company was breaking the law by hiding that it was using sentient clones to produce replacement organs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The wealthy automobile designer with cirrhotic hepatitis Tom Lincoln came into conflict with his healthy liver containing clone, Lincoln Six Echo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The residents of the isolated compound had virtually every aspect of their lives monitored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Merrick explained that the \"new American dream\" was to want to live forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The LAPD were involved in the manhunt for Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Lincoln had had about two years left on his liver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The automobile designer Tom Lincoln had a passion for fancy cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Albert Laurent was faced with having to decide which of Tom Lincoln or his clone to shoot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The clones Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta shared what was a first romantic experience for each of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holographic projectors were used to conceal the outside world from the clones who were being held in the isolated compound.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stealth (2005)", "title": "Stealth", "date": "2005-07-29", "description": "Stealth is a 2005 American military science fiction action film directed by Rob Cohen and written by W. D. Richter, and starring Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard, Joe Morton and Richard Roxburgh.\n\nSynopsis: Three top fighter pilots join a project to develop an automated robotic stealth aircraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is an experimental unmanned fighter-bomber jet, equipped with an advanced artificial intelligence, giving the craft a mind of its own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is about an artificially intelligent military jet going haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The artificially intelligent military fighter-bomber jet EDI went haywire and efforts were made to stop it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapon systems in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The artificially intelligent military fighter-bomber jet going haywire and not following orders encourages the viewer to ponder the consequences of creating intelligent weapons systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Ben and Kara falling in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a trio of elite US Navy pilots as they fight so-called terrorists and participate in a program to test an experimental unmanned jet in combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The US Navy was fighting terrorism. For example, the elite pilots Ben, Kara, and Henri were dispatched to blow up the leaders of three terrorist cells who were in Rangoon, planning an attack on the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fighter pilot Ben denied that his uneasiness about accepting an unmanned jet into his squadron was related to any fear about it ultimately taking his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry laid down some game on a young Thai woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was the caricature of a playboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pilots were dispatched on a short mission to fix that a Tajikistan warlord had gotten control of some old Soviet nuclear warheads.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supernatural luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry believed that prime numbers were somehow lucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry's comrades mourned his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cold fusion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was mention of a cold fusion weapons lab existing somewhere in Siberia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sentient machine EDI expressed sincere regret over having killed some people in an attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Henry on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Evil Aliens (2005)", "title": "Evil Aliens", "date": "2005-07-31", "description": "Evil Aliens is a British slapstick horror-comedy film directed by Jake West.\n\nSynopsis: A television crew visits a remote island off the coast of Wales to investigate a reported alien abduction.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Aliens" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of malevolent, humanoid aliens terrorized some people on a remote Welsh island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the cable TV show host Michelle Fox and her crew as they go to a remote Welsh island to do a story about space aliens abducting people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the events surrounding Cat's being abducted and implanted with an alien fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien impregnation of human females", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the events surrounding Cat's being abducted and implanted with an alien fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the nerdy UFO expert Gavin Gorman as he tries to get to the bottom of Cat's story of being abducted and impregnated by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat's outdoor romp with her boyfriend ended with the pair being abducted by aliens. Michelle made passionate love to her boyfriend, Ricky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were flying about in a saucer shaped spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat apologized to the TV crew for the ill-behavior of her three yokel, Welsh speaking brothers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with bad cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky spit out his soup in disgust upon being told it consisted mostly of cat's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat's three yokel brothers masturbated with reckless abandon as they peeped on Michelle riding her boyfriend like a wild stallion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The TV crew made a crop circle in a field with the intention of including footage of it in their show with the suggestion that aliens might have done it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The UFO expert Gavin initially attributed a crop circle he and the film crew stumbled on to alien activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nerdy UFO Gavin lost his virginity to a bosomy, purple alien \"babe\" with glee.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Sound of Thunder (2005)", "title": "A Sound of Thunder", "date": "2005-09-02", "description": "A Sound of Thunder is a 2005 American science fiction thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Edward Burns, Catherine McCormack and Ben Kingsley. It is based on the 1952 short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury.\n\nSynopsis: Time tourists accidentally interfere too much with the past, completely altering the present.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A company offering the opportunity for rich people to hunt dinosaurs in 65 million years in the past via time travel technology constitutes a main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the butterfly effect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A time tourist inadvertently stepping on a butterfly 65 million years in the past resulted in an existential crisis for humanity in the present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The frivolous use of experimental time travel technology to send rich people into the past to hunt dinosaurs nearly sealed humanity's doom after one of the hunters inadvertently stepped on a butterfly, resulting in a catastrophic series of world altering time waves hitting the present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Avarice blinded the Time Safari company CEO Charles Hatton to the inherent dangers of sending wealthy clients into the past to hunt dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The time travelers routinely emerged 65 million years into the past through a portal of some sort, perhaps a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wallenbeck paid top dollar to go allosaurus hunting together with his daughter 65 million years in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Wallenbeck and his daughter went back in time to hunt dinosaurs, as did Eckels and Middleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An allosaurus sent the Eckels and Middleton hunting party into disarray when their guns didn't work as expected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonia was startled by a life-like, holographic lion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Travis and his party traveled 65 million years and one day back in time by passing through a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Middleton took his own life in an act of utter desperation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Brokeback Mountain (2005)", "title": "Brokeback Mountain", "date": "2005-09-02", "description": "Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 American romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams and depicts the complex emotional and sexual relationship between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist in the American West from 1963 to 1983.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and boyfriend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack's relationship was clearly an embarrassment in the eyes of their society, and in the end Jack may have been killed for it or so Ennis imagines", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack; to a lesser extent Ennis and Alma, Jack and Lureen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis choose family over Jack, twice over", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human romantic relationship choice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack both struggled with such choices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack persistently implored Ennis to leave his ranching jobs and come to Texas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack disintegrated at least once; Ennis and Alma eventually divorced", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis was unfaithful to Alma; Jack was unfaithful to Lureen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis and Alma; Jack and Lureen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis and Jack became so infatuated with each other that they nearly killed one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis complained of his poverty and go-nowhere job which he could not afford to lose - Alma left him because he could not support their family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overly private individual", "level": "major", "motivation": "various people complained about Ennis being tight lipped", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis was crushed when he learned that Jack had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ennis was jealous of Jack's other lovers. Alma was jealous of the affection Ennis showed Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ennis and Alma Jr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ennis and Cassie", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack had a complicated relationship with Lureen's father", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and his boy were featured briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lureen and her boy were featured briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alma and her daughters were featured very briefly", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ennis had a jealous outburst during which he threatened to kill Jack", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)", "title": "The Wild Blue Yonder", "date": "2005-09-05", "description": "The Wild Blue Yonder is a 2005 science fiction fantasy film by German director Werner Herzog.\n\nSynopsis: A team of astronauts are sent on a mission to discover a new home for the human race. Most of the film consists of recontextualized documentary footage which is overlaid with the fictional narration of a man purporting to be an alien from the outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Blue_Yonder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unnamed extraterrestrial, who was indistinguishable from a human being in form, recounted how he traveled to Earth from the outer reaches of Andromeda with other members of his race to colonize the planet, but without success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien brought pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts were sent on a mission to find a new home for humanity after scientists mistakenly reasoned that a deadly alien disease had started to proliferate around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts astronauts were sent on a mission initially to the outer reaches of solar system in search of habitable planet, although they eventually seemed to have traveled much deeper into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial narrator described how he and some of of people traveled to the outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy to Earth to set up a colony, but without success. Humanity began a search for a new habitable planet to colonize after scientists mistakenly concluded that a deadly alien disease had started to proliferate around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ocean planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of astronauts discovered a glaciated ocean planet and explored its depths. The extraterrestrial narrator's home world was an ocean planet located in the outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial narrator explained that he and some of his people traveled to Earth after his home world experienced an ice age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intergalactic space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial narrator described his voyage from the outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial narrator mentioned that one of his fellow aliens attempted suicide some time after reaching Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Roswell UFO incident", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial narrator gave a fanciful account of the Roswell UFO mystery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Serenity (2005)", "title": "Serenity", "date": "2005-10-07", "description": "Serenity is a 2005 American space Western film written and directed by Joss Whedon in his feature directorial debut.\n\nSynopsis: In a future when people have escaped Earth and populated a new part of the Galaxy, there is conflict between \"the Aliance\" and \"Independents\". The former conditions a girl with psychic powers to become a killing machine, but she escapes with her brother and adventures on a ship named Serenity. They run from an assassin and discover a dark secret.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon liberated his sister, River, from her captivity under the Alliance and the two subsequently adventured around on the titular spaceship Serenity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One prominent storyline culminated with Kaylee and Simon giving into to their romantic feelings for one another. Mr. Universe loved his android wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Malcolm Reynolds took it upon himself to help the Tam siblings when he was by no means obligated to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was River having learned of government secrets by reading minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Alliance had proliferated an experimental chemical agent on the Miranda colony that was supposed to suppress angry feelings in the populace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The proliferation of an experimental chemical agent on the Miranda colony 10% of its population mad, flesh-eating zombies, known as Reavers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loose cannon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon's fellow crew members, Malcolm in particular, had to deal with that he was something of a hot head who could go off any time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humanity has colonized a new star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set aboard the titular spaceship Serenity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the prologue that population pressure on Earth drove people to colonize a new star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the prologue that each of the some \"dozens of planets and hundreds of moons\" in the newly colonized star system were terraformed in new Earths.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in the 26th century by which time space travel among the stars has evidently become a mundane reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and crew pulled off a brazen bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Serenity crew watched a hologram of a woman describing the terrible fate of the Miranda colonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hoban and Zoë Washburn served together aboard the titular spaceship Serenity. The computer geek Mr. Universe was lovingly married to a beautiful gynoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A subliminal message in an innocuous seeming television commercial made River go berserk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Universe was married to a beautiful gynoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mr. Universe spoke of his love for his gynoid wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rivers were understood to be cannibalistic in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The surviving Serenity crew members mourned their fallen comrades once they'd prevailed over the Alliance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doom (2005)", "title": "Doom", "date": "2005-10-17", "description": "Doom is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Loosely based on the video game series of the same name by id Software.\n\nSynopsis: A squad of Marines are sent on a rescue mission to a facility on Mars, where they encounter genetically engineered creatures.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Key to the plot was the discovery of a portal, called \"the Ark\", deep below the Nevada desert that connected to the ruins of an ancient city on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a squad of eight Marines that encounter a host of genetically engineered monstrosities while on a rescue mission to a facility on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the Red Planet was formerly home to a race of genetically enhanced super-humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monsters infesting the Mars research facility were the result of experiments combining human and Martian DNA going terribly wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows the Reaper and his estranged, scientist, sister Samantha as they patch up their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Portman was called a sick man for expressing his desire to lock himself in a motel room with \"a bottle of tequila and three she-boys\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roark was playing a handheld game console to kill time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The UAC employee Pinky, who lost his lower body below the waist on a pass through \"the Ark\" space portal, was confined to a futuristic wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The archaeologist Samantha was on Mars researching an ancient civilization that'd been discovered there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mentally unstable Portman cut an X-shape in his already well-scarred forearm with a Bowie knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The research facility \"nanowall\" was a nanotechnological door of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, UAC scientists were shown testing an experimental genetic treatment on a condemned man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biotechnological risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samantha speculated that the Ancient Martians destroyed themselves when their genetic enhancement experiments went out of control, resulting in everyone being turned into monstrosities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reaper's wounds kept rapidly after he was injected with the C24 serum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)", "title": "Zathura: A Space Adventure", "date": "2005-11-11", "description": "Zathura: A Space Adventure (also known simply as Zathura) is a 2005 American science fiction adventure film directed by Jon Favreau. It is an adaptation of the 2002 children's book Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg, author of the 1981 children's book Jumanji. It is a standalone spin-off of the 1995 film Jumanji and the second installment of the Jumanji franchise.\n\nSynopsis: Two young brothers find a mysterious board game in the basement, which transports their house into outer space. Along with their older sister and an astronaut, they try to survive the game so they can return home.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zathura:_A_Space_Adventure" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about the two quarreling brothers Walter and Danny coming to a better appreciation of one another as they work together to survive a space adventure-themed board game in which they'd become trapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story concerns the two young brothers Walter and Danny finding themselves trapped inside the titular space adventure board game \"Zathura\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the two quarreling kid brothers Walter and Danny as they become trapped inside a space adventure-themed board game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "While the plot centered on the young brothers Walter and Danny, their teenager Lisa was there being annoyed by them more or less throughout the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zorgon reptilian aliens served as the film's main antagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Zorgon reptilian aliens, described as \"big gnarly lizards\", served as the film's main antagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter blamed his mom and dad getting divorced on his younger brother Danny and resented him because of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns two young brothers finding an old space adventure-themed board game that transported their house into outer space once they started playing it. To get everything back to normal, the boys needed to play the game, which was somehow conjuring things into reality, through to completion without losing their necks along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter and Danny were upset with their father because he was too busy with work to spend some quality time with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The dad woke up his difficult teenage daughter, Lisa, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and insisted that she look after her two kid brothers for awhile to her annoyance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny took umbrage when Walter switched off the gaming console while Danny was in the middle of playing a rail shooter game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was put into a cryonic sleep for awhile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A metallic, humanoid robot ran amok in the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter and Danny were attacked by a metallic humanoid robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Zorgon spaceship was shown hovering outside of the house. Later a fleet of Zongon vessels approached the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny was a reprobate cheater at games, board games or otherwise, according to his older brother Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wish-granting shooting star", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter wished upon a shooting-star for a football signed by Brett Favre, and got it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deciding what to wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After deliberating on the matter, Walter surprised the Astronaut by wishing for a football signed by Brett Favre, instead of wishing for a way out of their predicament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter thought that his mom and dad would not have gotten divorced had his little brother, Danny, never been born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa saw the Astronaut as her Prince Charming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Astronaut expressed regret over having wished his younger brother had never been born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the Astronaut revealed himself to be an older version of Walter from an alternate timeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny was astonished to meet a duplicate of himself, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incestuous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was horrified at the revelation that her love interest, the Astronaut, was actually an adult version of her little brother Walter from another timeline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Zorgon fleet and the house was consumed by a black hole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aeon Flux (2005)", "title": "Aeon Flux", "date": "2005-12-02", "description": "Aeon Flux (stylized Æeon Flux) is a 2005 American science fiction action film based on the animated science fiction action television series of the same name created by Peter Chung, which aired on MTV from 1991–1995.\n\nSynopsis: It is the 25th century and the titular rebel fighter Aeon Flux is assigned by her underground rebel organization to assassinate the authoritarian leader of humanity's only surviving city.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86on_Flux_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in and around the dystopian city-state of Bregna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the rebel warrior Aon Flux on her mission to assassinate the leader of the oppressive city-state of Bregna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Aeon as her uncovers the truth about her recently killed sister, Una. It turned out that Una had not been mistaken for a rebel and killed as Aeon was initially led to believe, but rather she was taken out for more sinister reasons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the inhabitants of the city-state of Bregna were all clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humans reproduced via cloning because those who survived a devastating pandemic some 400 years prior were all left infertile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set about 400 years after a virus killed 99 percent of all people on Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: V for Vendetta (2005)", "title": "V for Vendetta", "date": "2005-12-11", "description": "V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian political action film directed by James McTeigue (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by the Wachowskis. It is based on the 1988 DC Vertigo Comics limited series of the same title by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.\n\nSynopsis: Set in a future where a fascist totalitarian regime has subjugated the UK, the anarchist and masked freedom fighter V attempts to ignite a revolution through elaborate terrorist acts, and Evey Hammond a young woman caught up in V's mission.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The antihero of the story V, as the title suggests, was out for revenge against the state that had imprisoned, tortured, infected him with a strange virus, and inadvertently left him horribly disfigured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story culminated with V raising awareness among the people that they were being oppressed by a fascist regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people joined V in the end to overthrow the fascist regime that'd ascended to power in Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fascism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where a fascist and authoritarian regime has ascended to power in Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The state used propaganda to control the citizenry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "V meted out extra-judicial justice as he saw fit in his own eyes. For example, he slayed the exceedingly corrupt Bishop Lilliman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The state comprehensively surveilled the citizenry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Chief inspector Eric Finch as he uncovers a government coverup in the process of trying to track down the terrorist V.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The vigilante antihero of the story V wore a mask to conceal not only his identity, but also his horribly burned face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evey was dismayed to find out that V expected her to remain a captive in his lair for an entire year, all with a view to keeping her safe from the authorities, and gained his trust before making a bid to free herself. Evey was recaptured by V in the aftermath of her botched escape attempt and was subjected to various tortures in a bid to \"re-educate\" her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Exposure to a strange virus left the antihero of the story V with heightened physical abilities, including extremely fast reflexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beauty and beast romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was escalating romantic tension between the beautiful Evey and the horribly burned and disfigured V.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of remembering history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is pointed reminded of the importance of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605 by the recurring utterance of the maxim \"Remember, remember the fifth of November\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how certain ruling party loyalists, such as Prothero and Lilliman, profited from a pharmaceutical company releasing a cure to a disease that the government itself had released into the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "V was characterized as a terrorist in the media for his Gunpowder Plot inspired plan to blow up the Parliament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorist or freedom fighter", "level": "major", "motivation": "V and his sympathizers saw him as a heroic freedom fighter, but the fascist regime he was fighting to topple painted him as a deranged terrorist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evey recounted how her parents were devastated by the death of her brother in the terrorist attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "V stopped Bishop Lilliman from forced himself upon Evey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government had run a biological weapons program that saw the development of a lethal virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government had run a biological weapons program that saw political prisoners used as guinea pigs in the testing a dangerous virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false flag operation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secret police executed a bio-terrorist attack and blamed it on religious extremists so that the elected fascist government could capitalize on the resulting public fear to consolidate power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an irreverent talk show comedy sketch, each of two fake High Chancellor Sutlers' urged the guards to open fire on the other. The guards opened fire on them both.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A teenage Valerie shocked her parents by bring a female lover, named Christine, home to meet them. In later life Valerie took up with Ruth, and the two were depicted cohabitating in bliss prior to the authorities hauling Valerie off to a detention center for being a lesbian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valerie was hauled off to a detention center for being in a lesbian relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "V subjected Evey to privation and outright torture, such as water torture interrogation, to \"re-educated\" her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evey pointedly mourned V's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious hypocrisy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bishop Lilliman carried himself with a solemn air in public, but was exceedingly corrupt in his private life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ultraviolet (2006)", "title": "Ultraviolet", "date": "2006-03-03", "description": "Ultraviolet is a 2006 American dystopian science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer and produced by Screen Gems.\n\nSynopsis: A woman infected with hemoglophagia, a fictional vampire-like disease, goes on a mission to overthrow the government and defeat its leader.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on an engineered virus having wrought havoc around the world after leaking out from a nefarious American weapons lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular heroine Ultraviolet was motivated by a desire to make Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus and others pay for the forced termination of her pregnancy some 12 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hemophage mutants had such overt vampirical qualities as fangs, sensitivity to light, and heightened physical abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where a virus has transformed part of the population into mutants with vampire-like qualities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus led world government was executing a plan to exterminate people who'd been exposed to the hemophage virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where sovereign nations collapsed, human rights are abolished, and due to the state of emergency on the planet, a world government was established.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that an American weapons lab was working on a virus to use to create \"faster and stronger soldiers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remote holographic communication was a mundane reality in this world. In one notable instance of this Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus relayed an ultimatum to Ultraviolet by way of an oversized holographic projection of his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ultraviolet said \"Because I hate all humans\" when asked the reason behind her murderous rampage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother's right to determine pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ultraviolet had a chip on her shoulder stemming in part from the forced termination of her pregnancy some 12 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Six was led to believe that Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus was his father, when really Six was Daxus' clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the boy Six was a clone of Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the boy Six was a clone of Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Renaissance (2006)", "title": "Renaissance", "date": "2006-03-15", "description": "Renaissance (also known as Paris 2054: Renaissance) is a 2006 animated tech noir film.\n\nSynopsis: A French policeman investigating the kidnapping of a scientist who may hold the key to eternal life in a futuristic and slightly drab Paris.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_(2006_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the police captain Barthélémy Karas as investigates the mysterious kidnapping of a young scientist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set a near future where Paris is dominated by the shadowy megacorporation Avalon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilona was kidnapped by Dr. Muller and confined against her will in a virtually reality wooded enclosure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Muller had dedicated his life curing his brother's progeria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Muller kidnapped Ilona to prevent the nefarious Avalon corporation from obtaining the secret to immortality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that Dr. Muller's little brother was an immortal man who was fated to live in an elderly body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilona chastised her sister, Bislane, for not taking the new job Ilona found for her seriously. Bislane later helped Karas to track down her Ilona after she was kidnapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Muller was pained that his efforts to cure his little brother's progeria resulted in his brother being cursed to live on indefinitely in an elderly body. In the end, the little brother threw a photo of him and Dr. Muller into a burning trash can.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barthélémy diffused a tense hostage situation, involving a boy being held at gunpoint, by shooting the hostage-takers dead in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The married man Paul Dellenbach boated of sleeping with his secretary and as well as his sister-in-law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Muller had invisible suit-clad goons at his disposal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the viewer is shown how holographic people and computer screens are a mundane reality of 2050s Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilona was confined in a virtual reality woodland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attempt was made to beat the whereabouts of Karas out of a chair-bound police lieutenant, and when that failed a threat was made against the life of his newborn baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karas and Bislane shared a passionate kiss in the heat of tracking down Bislane's kidnapped sister.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Slither (2006)", "title": "Slither", "date": "2006-03-31", "description": "Slither is a 2006 American science-fiction black comedy horror film written and directed by James Gunn in his directorial debut.\n\nSynopsis: A small town in South Carolina is invaded by a malevolent alien parasite.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slither_(2006_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is all about malevolent alien parasites overwhelming the residents of a small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the arrival of a malevolent alien parasite to a small town by the simple expedient of crashing at its outskirts on an incoming meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sentient, malevolent parasites from outer space overwhelmed the residents of a small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between the wealthy, malevolent alien parasitized man Grant Grant and his young and beautiful wife, Starla Grant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant loved his young and beautiful wife, Starla, even after his transformation into a grotesque, tentacled monster, but she'd only ever married him for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grant was transformed into a grotesque, tentacled creature after becoming infected by the malevolent alien parasite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to a handful of survivors to stop the grotesque hive mind creature from assimilating everyone in the entire town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Police Chief Bill Pardy led a posse against the invading alien parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien parasites transmitted themselves among the inhabitants of a small town, turning nearly everyone into confused, red-meat craving zombie-like beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien parasites transmitted themselves among the inhabitants of a small town, turning nearly everyone into confused, red-meat craving zombie-like beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The term \"fittest\" in Herbert Spencer's maxim \"survival of the fittest\" is not synonymous with \"intelligence\", Starla explained to the students in her high school biology class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starla taught a biology to a class full of mostly disinterested high school students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Starla taught a biology to a class full of mostly disinterested high school students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gold digging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill, Trevor, and Margaret gossiped about how Starla, who was raised in poverty, married Grant for his money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Just when it seemed that Grant was about to cheat on his wife with Brenda, he revealed it was all a plot to infect Brenda with alien parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Strutemyer checked up on her two young daughters to find them up reading in bed past their bedtimes, and then the alien parasites arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A ravenously hungry, alien parasitized man chowed down on the flesh of a human arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Police Chief Bill Pardy blew the brains out of an alien parasitized man who begged the officer to put him out of his misery.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gamera the Brave (2006)", "title": "Gamera the Brave", "date": "2006-04-29", "description": "A boy finds an unusual egg, from which a baby turtle hatches, some 33 years after Gamera self-destructed to destroy three Gyaos in 1973. It is the 12th entry in the Gamera film series, and serves as the second reboot of the franchise, with the first being Gamera: Guardian of the Universe in 1995.", "collections": [ "Collection: Gamera" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_the_Brave" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Gamera to prevent the giant reptile-like monster Zedus wreaking havoc in Nagoya prefecture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant reptile-like monster Zedus was going around wreaking havoc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kousuke struggled to bond with his young son Toru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toru raised a baby turtle that grew up to be a Gamera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love of a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toru and his pet turtle were inseparable. And he struggled with the grim reality that Gamera may nned to sacrifice it self to save the people of Nagoya city from Zedus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the life of a boy, Toru, who lived with his father in a small Japanese town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Small izakaya owner Kousuke was raising Toru as a single parent. It was revealed that Kousuke's wife, who was also Toru's mother, had perished in an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toru and his three childhood friends were often together and ultimately worked together to help Gamera defeat Zedus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toru and his three childhood friends, among other children, worked together to deliver to Gamera the red stone it required to defeat Zedus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Gamera giving its life to save the people of Mie prefecture from three Gyaos.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Daft Punks Electroma (2006)", "title": "Daft Punk's Electroma", "date": "2006-05-21", "description": "Daft Punk's Electroma (also known as Electroma) is a 2006 avant-garde science fiction film directed by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk.\n\nSynopsis: Two humanoid robots go on a quest to become human.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk%27s_Electroma" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around the quest of two humanoid robots to become human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A significant portion of the film is set in a town populated by only robots, which, strangely enough, was otherwise indistinguishable from an idyllic American town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows two humanoid robots in their quest to become human. Although the film contains no dialogue, their desire to be human is suggested by the license plate of their Ferrari displaying the letters \"HUMAN\", and also by their sporting of caricature latex masks of human faces around town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The towns-robots persecuting the two human wannabe robots and driving them out of town is interpretable as an act of machine prejudice against humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the two human wannabe robots taking their own lives, probably out of despair, although their true motives are left obscure. The silver helmet robot went out via auto-destruct, the gold helmet robot in an act of self-immolation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: A Scanner Darkly (2006)", "title": "A Scanner Darkly", "date": "2006-05-25", "description": "A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 American adult animated psychological science fiction film written and directed by Richard Linklater. It is based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick.\n\nSynopsis: An undercover agent becomes addicted to a mind altering drug while on a mission to infiltrate the drug's supply chain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "public health issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which approximately 20% of the United States population is addicted to the powerful hallucinogenic drug Substance D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future in which the United States government has deployed a high-tech surveillance system on the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Bob Arctor's struggles with being addicted to the powerful hallucinogenic drug Substance D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a window into the lives of three drug-addicted, layabout housemates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Bob Arctor was an undercover government who'd been tasked to infiltrate an illegal drug supply chain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bob Arctor and other government agents concealed their true identities by wearing \"scramble suits\" that constantly altered every aspect of their appearances and voices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prolonged use of the powerful hallucinogenic drug Substance D left Bob Arctor wondering whether or not he's lost his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drug-addicted, layabout housemates Arctor, Barris, and Luckman dreamed up various paranoid and conspiratorial explanations for one thing after another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overactive imagination", "level": "major", "motivation": "The drug-addicted, layabout housemates Arctor, Barris, and Luckman dreamed up various paranoid and conspiratorial explanations for one thing after another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barris and Freck shoplifted a variety of items from a convenience store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freck survived an attempt to overdose on pills while lying in bed with a copy of Any Rand's Fountainhead in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arctor examined a holographic image of Donna's nude torso and head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barris became convinced that Bob Arctor was part of a covert terrorist drug organization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men Last Stand (2006)", "title": "X-Men Last Stand", "date": "2006-05-26", "description": "In the film, a pharmaceutical company has developed a suppressor of the mutant gene, provoking controversy in the mutant community. Magneto declares war on the humans and retrieves his own weapon: Phoenix, the resurrected former X-Man Jean Grey. A final battle between the X-Men and the Brotherhood ensues, and Wolverine must accept that in order to stop Grey, he will have to kill her. It is the third installment in the X-Men film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An element of society saw mutancy as a disease that needed to be cured, but most mutants didn't see their condition as a disease of any sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diversity vs. unity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should the mutants give up their powers to fit in to society?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean manifested virtually limitless telekinteic powers. Magneto had an innate ability to control metal objects at a distance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean manifested virtually limitless telepathic powers. Xavier, too, manifested telepathic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rogue longer to be able to be physically intimate with people. Warren, the winged mutant, grew up being taught that his mutancy was a disease in need of being cured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and Jean. Rogue and Iceman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illness as a social construct", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many mutants refused to take a serum that would make them human (i.e. make them lose their mutant powers) because they didn't think there was anything wrong with them that needed curing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier warned that the super powerful mutant Jean would turn to the dark side because of those very powers, and it was so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier warned that the super powerful mutant Jean would turn to the dark side because of those very powers, and it was so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan has to kill his love Jean to save the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan led an X-men battle training session in a virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott had a hard time getting over his girlfriend Jean's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan and Storm wept at Xavier's wheelchair in the immediate aftermath of his death at the hands of Jean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mystique had an innate ability to alter her shape and voice to mimic any human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Worthington Labs head Warren Worthington II and his mutant son Warren Worthington III", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Warren had an innate ability to fly like a bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pyro was shooting flames around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto abandoned Mystique after she reverted to human form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadly touch ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rogue considered taking a treatment that would rid her of this power in order that she might be physically intimate with people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan's body automatically healed itself after any physical injury, although his ability to do so was not greatly featured in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iceman and Rogue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President quoted this phrase exactly in response to Mystique supplying the government with intelligence on the location of Magneto's mutant encampment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan confessed to Jean that he loved her just before he ran her through with his claws.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto was convinced that the widespread \"curing\" of mutants was just another way of eliminating them all from human society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty Pryde had the ability to walk through walls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyclops, Storm, Pyro, Iceman, and Arclight essentially had this power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superman Returns (2006)", "title": "Superman Returns", "date": "2006-06-21", "description": "Superman Returns is a 2006 American superhero film directed and produced by Bryan Singer. It is based on the DC Comics character Superman and serves as a homage sequel to the motion pictures Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), while ignoring the events of Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), including its spin-off Supergirl (1984). The film stars Brandon Routh as Clark Kent/Superman, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, with James Marsden, Frank Langella, and Parker Posey. The film tells the story of the title character returning to Earth after a five-year absence. He finds that his love interest Lois Lane has moved on with her life, and that his archenemy Lex Luthor is plotting a scheme that will destroy Superman and the world.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_Returns" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive. The youngster Jason also manifested super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Superman to stop the criminal genius Lex Luthor from dominating the United States real estate market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative artificial island", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor created a massive island in the Atlantic Ocean using ancient Kryptonian crystal technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor created a massive island in the Atlantic Ocean with a view toward making a killing in the real estate market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Superman turned out to be Jason's real father, not Richard White.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lex Luthor and his wealthy girlfriend Kitty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha Kent and her adoptive son Clark Kent. Lois Lane and her young asthmatic son, Jason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was faster than a speeding bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lois Lane was engaged to Richard White.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White and his nephew Richard White.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Genesis space shuttle was described as an orbital space craft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Kovak Box (2006)", "title": "The Kovak Box", "date": "2006-07-18", "description": "The Kovak Box is a 2006 psychological thriller film directed by Daniel Monzón and starring Timothy Hutton, Lucía Jiménez, Annette Badland and David Kelly.\n\nSynopsis: An American horror/science fiction novelist finds the plot of one of his stories unfold around him after a conference in Spain.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kovak_Box" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "David Norton, the protagonist of the story, was a famous science fiction novelist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil scientist Frank Kovak paid a network of criminals to implant people with neural devices that when activated, drove people to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was left searching for answers when fiancée, Jane, jumped to her death from their hotel balcony without any warning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was left searching for answers when fiancée, Jane, jumped to her death from their hotel balcony without any warning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Frank Kovak set his dastardly plan into motion after being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to David Norton to stop the disgruntled scientist Frank Kovak from mind controlling multiple people into committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a neural implant that induces whoever has it in them to take their own life upon hearing the 1933 song Gloomy Sunday.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some cliched happenings transpired on David's flight to Spain. For instance, an overly a lady disturbed the passengers around her with her obliviously loud laughing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane happily accepted when David proposed to her near the seashore. Later that same night Jane inexplicably threw herself out from their hotel room window to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Jane were in the throws of love, but then Jane tragically and inexplicably threw herself to her death from their hotel balcony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was widely assumed that Jane jumped to her death from a hotel balcony. Likewise, it was assumed that Silvia tried and failed to kill herself by jumping out from her window. It was later pieced together, however, that they'd been mind controlled into doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man consented to remove neural implants from corpses in exchange that his debts to be paid off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Idiocracy (2006)", "title": "Idiocracy", "date": "2006-09-01", "description": "Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and co-written by Judge and Etan Cohen.\n\nSynopsis: A US Army librarian and a sex worker take part in a government hibernation experiment. The experiment goes awry and he and the sex worker awaken in the year 2505, in a dystopian world that is incredibly dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming, to find that he has become the smartest man on the planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Rita woke up in the year 2505 in a dystopian world where the population was incredibly dumbed-down by mass consumerism and mindless television shows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe woke up in the year 2505 in a dystopian world where the population was incredibly dumbed-down by mass consumerism and mindless television shows to the point where nobody understood the institutions and machines on which they depended, and everything was breaking down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Rita woke up 500 years in the future in the year 2505 to find that the United States populated by mindless morons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story repeatedly makes light of the main character Rita being a sex worker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a satire on commercialism in American society. Joe woke up in the year 2505 to find that Americans wallowing in overconsumption and crass popular entertainment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a satire on anti-intellectualism in American society. Joe woke up in the year 2505 to find the American population had become suspicious and contemptuous of anything not overtly crass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "form of government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and Rita woke up in the year 2505 in kakistocratic United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Rita woke up 500 years in the future as a consequence of having participated in a United States Army suspended animation experiment gone wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sex worker Rita had a troubled relationship with her pimp, Upgrayedd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A garbage avalanche swept through town as a result of centuries of stacking garbage in a big pile without any thought for the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The comically large cigarette smoking, utterly incompetent Dr. Lexus advised Joe to \"get plenty of rest\" on account that Joe's charts indicated that he was \"fucked up\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The comically large cigarette smoking physician Dr. Lexus treated his patient, Joe, in an utterly incompetent manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police arrested Joe for not having a barcode tattoo and not paying his hospital bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was hauled off to prison after being found guilty of robbing a hospital in a bonkers trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The imbecilic lawyer Frito Pendejo represented Joe at his trial to Joe's great dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was propositioned for sex by a morbidly obese prison bully, prompting him to escape post haste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compound interest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe struggled to make clear to the hopelessly moronic Frito how a bank account opened 500 years ago would presently be worth billions of dollars because of accumulated interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe briefly went on the run from the law in the immediate aftermath of his escape from prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Brawndo corporation parent company owned the FDA, FCC, and USDA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unemployment in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Switching the nation's crops to being irrigated with water instead of the Brawndo electrolyte soft drink sent Brawndo's stock plummeting, resulting in massive unemployment and riots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the closing narration, the narrator stated that Vice President Frito took eight wives and fathered 32 children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"time machine\" Joe was seeking turned out to be a carnival ride.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Children of Men (2006)", "title": "Children of Men", "date": "2006-09-03", "description": "Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian action thriller film co-written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The screenplay, based on P. D. James' 1992 novel The Children of Men, was credited to five writers, with Clive Owen making uncredited contributions.\n\nSynopsis: In a future where women have become infertile and the youngest person is 18, civilization has descended into a lawless anarchy everywhere save in Britain. Theo Faron comes across crosses paths with a woman who secretly and against all odds is pregnant. Realizing the significance of this he decides to do everything he can to help her to get to a mysterious safe haven, \"the Human Project\" and their ship \"Tomorrow\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kee's baby was a symbol of hope in an otherwise hopeless world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film explores a future where the women of the world had all become infertile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theo risked life and limb to ensure that Kee and her newborn made it safely to the \"Human Project\" safe haven in an effort to save the human race from extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a near future where Britain is in the midst of descending into lawless anarchy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The authoritarian British government was in a war against revolutionaries, and people suffered from it left and right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theo was harrowed by the deaths and killings of people he knew, and by the death of Jasper in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theo was harrowed by the sudden killing of the estranged wife, Julian, with whom he briefly got reacquainted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Theo, Julian, and Jasper being former activists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theo and Kee were under hot pursuit by both British government forces and members of a militant immigrant-rights group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be pregnant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the asylum seeker Kee's experience of being eight months pregnant while on the run from the authorities and a band of revolutionaries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future Britain that is being deluged by refugees fleeing from chaos in their own countries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be a refugee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Kee's experience as an asylum seeker in a land that has taken a hard line against the mass influx of refugees into its territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The British government was imprisoning and executing refugees en mass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Fishes militant immigrant-rights group was fighting a revolutionary war against the United Kingdom government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theo introspected about his late wife, Julian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Kingdom government was holding refugees in what seemed like something out of Nazi Germany.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kee gave birth on a dirty mattress in a ruined building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kee experienced labor pains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Fishes militant immigrant-rights group was characterized as a terrorist organization in the media.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lifted (2006)", "title": "Lifted", "date": "2006-10-12", "description": "Lifted is a 2006 American computer-animated short science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Gary Rydstrom.\n\nSynopsis: A young alien attempts to abduct a sleeping farmer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifted_(2006_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young alien Stu tried and failed to abduct a sleeping farmer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The green, humanoid alien Stu tried to abduct a sleeping farmer under the watchful eye of his gelatinous blog alien examiner, Mr. B.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking a test", "level": "major", "motivation": "The entirety of the story is about a young alien, named Stu, who fails his alien abduction test (much like young humans fail their driver exams).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young alien Stu was crestfallen upon failing his alien abduction test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens Stu and Mr. B arrived outside of the farmhouse in a stereotypical flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tractor beam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young alien Stu locked a greenish tractor beam onto the sleeping farmer with the intention of lifting him onto the ship, but ended up bouncing the man around like a pinball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stu's examiner Mr. B was a gelatinous blob.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Ugly Swans (2006)", "title": "The Ugly Swans", "date": "2006-10-19", "description": "A United Nations envoy is sent to the recently evacuated town of Tashlinsk, where a small group of mysterious beings have taken the town's children to an isolated boarding school. It is based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Swans_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was at a loss to explain why the town of Tashlinsk had all of a sudden come under perpetual rain and was bathed in a dreary infrared light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some believed the Aquatters to be aliens, others that they were genetically mutated humans, but their precise nature was never spelled out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Banev traveled to the recently evacuated town of Tashlinsk to rescue his young daughter, Ira, who was being cultivated in an isolated boarding school by a mysterious group of nonhuman beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Banev was a writer by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Banev picked up a room key from Luda and her husband at the airport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military launched a chemical attack on the town of Tashlinsk to kill the Aquatters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the end of the film, a catatonic Ira was being held in a stereotypically gloomy mental hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The doctors at the mental hospital were using a combination of drugs and television in an effort to make a catatonic Ira conform to societal norms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deja Vu (2006)", "title": "Déjà Vu", "date": "2006-11-22", "description": "Déjà Vu is a 2006 American science fiction action film directed by Tony Scott, written by Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.\n\nSynopsis: An ATF agent travels back in time in an attempt to prevent a domestic terrorist attack that takes place in New Orleans and to save a woman with whom he falls in love.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_Vu_(2006_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The FBI's advanced Snow White surveillance system functioned as an eye in the sky, letting them watch in detail what people had done (even inside their own homes) for up to four days into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Agent Carlin as he investigates a terrorist bombing of a passenger ferry. He ultimately travels back in time in an effort to prevent the bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was a terrorist bombing of a ferry that left dead 543 passengers and crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Snow White surveillance system enabled the FBI to look up to four days into the past. The system worked by integrating data from several satellites to form a triangulated image of past events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Agent Carlin's getting to the bottom of the murder of Claire Kuchever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I saw a glimpse of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Carlin and the FBI people were using the Snow White system to watch a sequence of events unfold starting from four days in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Carlin used the FBI's Snow White machine to travel a couple of days back into the past in an effort to prevent the murder of his love interest Claire and also foil a terrorist plot to blow up a passenger ferry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Carlin became enamored with the woman he was tasked to protect, Claire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare said grace before she began to eat her meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Carlin and other FBI personnel used the Snow White surveillance system to peep on Claire in the shower for the fun of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Carlin attended Clare's funeral service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speed of light limitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Denny explained that we are always looking into the past since \"even light reflected from yourself in the mirror takes some time to reflect back.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the Snow White system had in fact generated a wormhole, which Agent Carlin subsequently passed through to find himself several days in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a pointed moment in the film when Claire had to decided whether or not to trust in Agent Carlin when he said without any proof that he was a Federal Agent who was tasked to protect her life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Altered (2006)", "title": "Altered", "date": "2006-12-19", "description": "Altered is a 2006 American science fiction horror film directed by Eduardo Sánchez and written by Jamie Nash.\n\nSynopsis: Four men seek revenge on the aliens who abducted them and murdered their friend many years ago.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wyatt, Cody, Duke, and Otis sought to get payback against an alien whose race had abducted them and killed their friend some 15 years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around an overnight confrontation between a group of four men and a sinister, green, humanoid alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "While the formal nature of their union was never made clear, the night of terror experienced by Wyatt and Hope but a strain on their relationship, but they ultimately pulled through with their love for one another remaining strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wyatt and Hope were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien creature at the heart of the film was grotesque, sinister, and struck terror into the hearts of those it encountered, landing it squarely in the monster zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around an overnight confrontation between a group of four men and a grotesque, green, humanoid alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Wyatt, Cody, Duke, and Otis were abducted by aliens some 15 years prior while on a hunting trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien mind controlled Hope into cutting with a box-cutter the duct tape securing it to a table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Henderson was killed by the alien while visiting the house in response to a 911 call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hope and Otis waited in a locked room in mortal terror as the alien stalked about the house.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flatland: The Movie (2007)", "title": "Flatland: The Movie", "date": "2007", "description": "Flatland: The Movie is a short animated film which was released to video in 2007. The story is based on the 1884 science fiction novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions written by Edwin A. Abbott.\n\nSynopsis: A square inhabiting a two-dimensional world becomes enlightened to the existence of both lower and higher dimensional worlds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland:_The_Movie" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "two-dimensional space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the 2D world in which it is primarily set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "two-dimensional being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a square, by the convenient name of A Square, as he comes to understand that there is more (or less as the case might be) to the cosmos than the 2D surface in which he and everything he ever knew reside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flatland citizens were organized into classes based on shape: triangles performed menial labor, squares worked white collar jobs, and circles made a a ruling priestly caste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flatland was ruled by a priestly caste of circles that strictly prohibited the disseminating of any knowledge about the third dimension. They used a secret police force to spy on people, and offenders were punished by death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Arthur Square as he discourages his curious young granddaughter, Hex, from pursuing her curiosity about the heretical third spatial dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "The young hexagon girl Hex was passionate about studying the heretical topic of the third spatial dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contraposed political ideologies", "level": "major", "motivation": "The closed-minded orthodoxy of the Flatland priestly caste concerning the impossibility of a third spatial dimension was contrasted with the freely inquiring outlook of Arthur and Hex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heresy", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Flatland, it was heretical to maintain the existence of a third spatial dimension, and Arthur was sentenced to death when he did so in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ever-rational Arthur was persecuted by the ruling priestly caste for his heretical views on the third dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur Square was happily cohabitating with his wife, Arlene Square.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arlene Square encouraged her granddaughter, Hex, to pursue her curiosity about the third dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was berated by his boss, Miss Helios, for arriving late to the office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative cosmos", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur briefly visited the zero-dimensional world Pointland and later the one-dimensional world Lineland. After visiting a three-dimensional world, Arthur hypothesized about the existence of world with even more spatial dimensions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was found guilty of heresy in a courtroom setting and sentenced to death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur was sentenced to death for trying to persuade people of the existence of a third spatial dimension.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Flatland (2007)", "title": "Flatland", "date": "2007-01-14", "description": "Flatland (also released as Flatland: The Film and Flatland the film) is a 2007 computer-animated film based on the 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott.\n\nSynopsis: A square inhabiting a two-dimensional world becomes enlightened to the existence of both lower and higher dimensional worlds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland_(2007_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "two-dimensional space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the 2D world in which it is primarily set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "two-dimensional being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a square, by the convenient name of A Square, as he comes to understand that there is more (or less as the case might be) to the cosmos than the 2D surface in which he and everything he ever knew reside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After initially refusing to even entertain the notion of three-dimensions, the two-dimensional hero of the story \"A Square\" had his mind opened to the reality of the existence of a three-dimensional world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociocultural issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Flatlander society was torn over whether individual Flatlanders should have the right to color their sides as they saw fit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing persecution by the government", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chromatists (i.e., Flatlanders who colored their sides as they pleased) were persecuted by the backward looking Flatland government. A Square was among those persecuted by the authorities for proclaiming \"The Gospel of Three Dimensions\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Great Southern Republic of Flatland going to war against an enemy state, known as the Northern Kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Chromatists were a vocal but discriminated against minority in Flatland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "major", "motivation": "In Flatland, one's lot in life was determined the number of sides you have - the more sides the better.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The women of Flatland being ditsy lines under the domination of polygonic men is understood to be a satire on latent sexist tendencies in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square sought to find his brother, B Square, in the wake of the riots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square tried in vain to instruct his young son, A Hexagon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "B Square was somewhat taken aback to hear his young nephew, A Hexagon, speak of the taboo practice of \"chromatism\" being cool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frau A Square sent A Hexagon to his room for saying that the taboo practice of \"chromatism\" was cool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square interacted with his over the top ditsy wife, Frau A Square.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is perfection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Flatlanders considered circles to be the pinnacle of perfection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two-dimensional A Square was in awe before the sphere, A Sphere, referring to him as being \"divine in all respects\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square was an attorney by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Sphere and other Spacelanders groomed A Square to become a messiah figure who would return to Flatland to preach \"The Gospel of Three Dimensions\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Sphere and other Spacelanders sought to spread the message of \"The Gospel of Three Dimensions\" to the inhabitants of Flatland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square was pursued by the Flatland authorities after returning from Spaceland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After visiting the three-dimensional Spaceland, A Square hypothesized the existence of an even grander four-dimensional world, and didn't stop there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative cosmos", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Square dreamed of visiting a one-dimensional world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Decoys 2: The Second Seduction (2007)", "title": "Decoys 2: The Second Seduction", "date": "2007-03-06", "description": "Decoys 2: Alien Seduction is a 2007 Canadian science fiction horror film directed by Jeffery Scott Lando, and written by Miguel Tejada-Flores and Tom Berry. It is the sequel to the film Decoys. It was originally titled Decoys 2: Rebirth, with its North American DVD release title being Decoys: The Second Seduction.\n\nSynopsis: Grotesque aliens disguise themselves as beautiful young women in an effort to find human males with which to reproduce their dying kind.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoys_2:_Alien_Seduction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grotesque aliens disguised as beautiful young women were going around seducing men with a view to using them as breeding stock to reproduce their dying kind. The only catch: the sex act involved is fatal for the men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grotesque aliens disguised as beautiful young women had infiltrated a college campus in search of breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a college campus and follows four male students as they hold a secret contest to see whom among them can hook up with the most college girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendly competition in groups", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four male dorm mates held a secret contest to see whom among them can hook up with the most college girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grotesque aliens disguised as beautiful young women were going around seducing college guys before killing them in the act of human/gross-alien sex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the aliens had come to Earth seeking breeding stock because their species was about to go extinct. No reason for why the aliens were in trouble was ever revealed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might be like for four sex starved young men to share a college dorm room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Luke when he insisted that an number of the girls on campus were in reality betentacled, murderous alien monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An overweight, uniformed cop checked up on two college students who were busy making out in a parked car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Buckton spoke about the \"March of Progress\" in all but name in a classroom lecture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and his dorm-mates conversed casually as they played against one another in a first person shooter game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-professed virgin Henry lost his nerve while in the midst of hooking up with a seemingly beautiful young woman, and ran off in something of a panic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam relished watching Arnold get frisky with a seemingly beautiful young woman over a secret cell phone video feed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The grad student Luke interacted with his supervisor, Professor Buckton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke's assertions about some women on campus being alien monsters was taken as a sign of mental illness by his psychiatrist, who pushed hallucination controlling pills on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not exactly spelled out, one gathers that the aliens were reading the college guys' minds and then appearing to them in such a way as to fulfill their sexual fantasies. For example, an alien disguised as a beautiful woman wearing a schoolgirl uniform seduced Peter, who fetishized girls wearing such things.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Meet the Robinsons (2007)", "title": "Meet the Robinsons", "date": "2007-03-23", "description": "Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American computer-animated science-fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1990 children's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce.\n\nSynopsis: The orphaned 12-year-old inventor Lewis, who is desperate to be adopted, encounters a young time-traveler who is trying to prevent a mysterious bowler-hatted man from changing Lewis' story, and, by proxy, the entire future.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Robinsons" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the boy-genius, orphan Lewis as he longs to reconnect with his birth mother, who abandoned his at the orphanage when he was a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child's need to be loved", "level": "major", "motivation": "The orphan boy Lewis longed to have a family, and in the end he got one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lewis and Wilbur's use of a flying time machine to travel around into the future constitutes a main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lewis traveled to the year 2037 in a flying time machine, where he found a technologically advanced, borderline utopian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a not-so-surprise twist, it turned out that the 12-year-old boy Lewis was his own best friend Wilbur's father - chalk it up to time travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film's villain Bowler Hat Guy (who turned out to be Lewis' childhood friend Goob) was motivated by a desire to ruin Lewis' life to get back at Lewis for inadvertently sabotaging his dream to win a Little League championship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a pointed scene, Lewis met his successful inventor, adult self from the year 2037. Bowler Hat Guy traveled back in time and met his child self, Goob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boys Lewis and Wilbur became best pals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy genius Lewis was discouraged from imagining a future where flying cars are an everyday mode of transport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lewis won the school science fair with his memory scanner invention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lewis invented a device that extracted peoples' lost memories and play them out on a video screen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The brass-plated-looking humanoid robot Carl worked for the Robinson family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wilbur's mom showered him in kisses upon finding the boy safe and sound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The orphan Goob's team lost the Little League baseball game as a result of him falling asleep in the outfield during a critical play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The orphan boy Goob longed to win the Little League championship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sunshine (2007)", "title": "Sunshine", "date": "2007-04-06", "description": "Taking place in the year 2057, the story follows a group of astronauts on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying Sun.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dying sun", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a crew of eight astronauts on their mission to reignite the sun by dropping an enormous nuclear bomb on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "A crew of eight astronauts flew a spacecraft to the sun with a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan island strapped to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a crew of eight astronauts got on a voyage to the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stellar rejuvenation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The approach to rejuvenating the sun in this story involved exploding a Manhattan-sized nuclear bomb inside it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four men had to decide who among them would get to use the single spacesuit available to them on Icarus I to get back to Icarus II. The other three men seemed as good as dead. Although in the end they found a way for two of them to live. The crew decided to kill Trey in order to leave enough oxygen for the others to complete their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lion's share of the eight astronauts sacrificed themselves in one way or another to deliver their nuclear payload into the sun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global cooling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth was gripped in an ice age because the sun's output had suddenly diminished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a holodeck-like booth on the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the crew divert from their mission to reignite the sun to rescue the crew of the previous failed mission? If they do, then they not only might rescue the crew, but also could stand the chance picking up another nuclear bomb to drop on the sun, thus increasing their chances of succeeding on their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the crew divert from their mission to reignite the sun to rescue the crew of the previous failed mission? If they do, then they not only might rescue the crew, but also could stand the chance picking up another nuclear bomb to drop on the sun, thus increasing their chances of succeeding on their mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kaneda choose to risk rescuing the crew of a previous failed mission, instead of proceeding directly to the sun to complete his mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trey blamed himself for Captain Kaneda's death and had to be sedated to prevent him from committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trey killed himself by slitting his wrists after he went insane.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan 3 (2007)", "title": "Spider-Man 3", "date": "2007-04-16", "description": "Set shortly after the events of Spider-Man 2, as Peter Parker prepares his future with Mary Jane Watson, he bonds with an extraterrestrial symbiote, bringing out his anger while facing three villains: Uncle Ben's true killer, Flint Marko, who becomes the Sandman after a freak accident; Harry Osborn, who seeks to avenge his father; and Eddie Brock, a rival photographer who becomes Venom after acquiring Peter's symbiote. It is the third and final installment in the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had arachnid-quick reflexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Mary Jane were officially an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Mary Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man was fighting crime, petty or otherwise, in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter's old friend Harry was on an insane mission to kill Peter out of revenge over his misplaced notion that Peter had murdered his father. Peter became consumed with a desire to track down his uncle's killer and make him pay. Eddie wanted to kill Peter for getting him canned and then taking the girl he like to a jazz bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man was celebrated as a hero all across New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Jane was utterly crushed after getting fired from a Broadway show in the wake of a bad review.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry coerced Mary Jane into breaking up with Peter and being with him instead. In addition, Peter got Eddie Brock fired and took the girl he liked to a jazz bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry came to resent Peter, whom he held responsible for the death of his father, and swore to get vengeance. Peter was also not too happy about Harry coercing Mary Jane to break up with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter went to a dark place with his Dark Spider persona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter went to a dark place with his Dark Spider persona. Harry was also seemed to struggle with whether he really ought to avenge the death of his father by killing Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter went from being a kind hearted superhero to a real prick via his Dark Spider persona.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Harry made up in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane made her debut on Broadway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary Jane scored a role in a Broadway musical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Small-time thug Flint Marko (a.k.a. Sandman) had a seriously ill daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was snapping some photos of Mary Jane here and there. Peter's rival at the Daily Bugle Eddie Brock was trying to scoop Peter by getting some shots of Spider-Man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint Marko resorted to theft to pay for his ill daughter's medical treatment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter, as Spider-Man, had become something of an icon in New York City, and sympathized with Mary Jane over how she must feel now that she had become a Broadway star, even though, unbeknownst to him, Mary Jane had already gotten canned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter flew off the handle when his landlord asked him about when he planned to pay the rent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry suffered serious memory loss after a blow to the head. In particular, he forgot about his deep seeded resentment of his old friend Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry had visions of his deceased father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The New Goblin used his father's old Oscorp designed exoskeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man in the street wondered aloud who his daughter would look up to now that Spider-Man went bad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter tried to make Mary Jane jealous by dancing with Gwen Stacy in front of Mary Jane at the jazz bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Harry put their differences aside and teamed together to save Mary Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Harry put their differences aside and teamed together to save Mary Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was torn up over the death of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eddie contended that Peter had humiliated him by getting him fired and taking his girl, and he strove to repay the favor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flint Marko assured Peter that he spent a lot of nights wishing he could take back murdering his uncle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A freak accident left Flint Marko (a.k.a. Sandman) with the ability to shapeshift.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter stated that great power and great responsibility kick ass at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's rival at the Daily Bugle Eddie Brock was trying to scoop Peter by getting some shots of Spider-Man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 28 Weeks Later (2007)", "title": "28 Weeks Later", "date": "2007-04-26", "description": "28 Weeks Later is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote it with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. It is the sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later.\n\nSynopsis: In the aftermath of a zombie-creating virus raging across Britain, NATO military forces salvage a safe zone in London, but two young siblings breaking protocol to find their infected mother, results in the reintroduction of the zombie scourge to the safe zone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Weeks_Later" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story is the teenage girl Tammy and her kid brother, Andy, coming to grips with their mother's death, and then their efforts to survive a zombie outbreak.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story concerns an attempt to reboot Britain 28 weeks after a zombie outbreak left nearly the entire population dead, and subsequent reemergence of the zombie scourge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People infected by the \"Rage\" virus quickly turned into mindless, bloodthirsty zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Everyone fended for their lived when a zombie outbreak came to the safe zone in London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an American led NATO mission to reboot Britain 28 weeks after a zombie scourge had essentially wiped the nation from the face of the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Don as he leaves his wife for dead in a zombie overrun house only to be reunited with her later against all odds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The follows the efforts of NATO military men and women to run a safe zone on the Isle of Dogs in London 28 weeks after a disastrous zombie outbreak raged across Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tammy and Andy struggled to come to grips with the apparent fact that their mother had died horribly in a zombie attack, and when to their old house to fetch some keepsakes to remember her by, only to discovered her alive, but in very bad condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was understood that the highly contagious virus that turned people into voracious zombies was human-made.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is left to ponder whether Don's abandoning his wife in a zombie overrun house was an act of cowardice or pragmatism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don left his wife in a zombie overrun house for dead, and later lamented her presumed death, while recounting a self-vindicating false narration of the horrible event to his children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don lied to his teenage daughter, Tammy, about the circumstances surrounding her mother's presumed death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Don lied to his kid son, Andy, about the circumstances surrounding his mother's presumed death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy and Andy discovered their delirious, \"Rage\" virus asymptomatic carrying mother in a room of their long abandoned family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy and Andy discovered their delirious, \"Rage\" virus asymptomatic carrying mother in a room of their long abandoned family house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Doyle was in the habit of peeping on people through his rifle sniper scope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tammy and Andy were briefly reunited with their presumed dead mother, Alice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Next (2007)", "title": "Next", "date": "2007-04-27", "description": "Next is a 2007 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann, Tory Kittles, and Peter Falk. The film's original script was loosely based on the 1954 science fiction short story \"The Golden Man\" by Philip K. Dick.\n\nSynopsis: A small-time magician based in Las Vegas, who has the ability to see into the very immediate future, finds himself a target of not only a highly motivated and heavily armed group of terrorists, but also puts him in the crosshairs of the NSA who want to recruit him to oppose those terrorists instead.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_(2007_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "precognition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is Cris' ability to see about two minutes ahead into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A team of NSA agents, led by Agent Ferris, was trying to apprehend Cris with the goal of recruiting him to help find a stolen nuclear bomb by using his special power to see into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on a team of federal agents trying to stop a terrorist plot to detonated a stolen nuclear bomb in Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of mostly French terrorists plotted to detonate a stolen nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, and in one timeline they did it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cris and Elizabeth fell head over heels for each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cris was on the run from a team of NSA and FBI agents for about two thirds of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cris was a small time stage magician by trade, although he was only shown performing his act once in the film. In another scene, he performed a magic trick for a young boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cris used his power to see two minutes into the future to make small sums of money by gambling at the casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical determinism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cris and Agent Ferris debated about free will in the SUV.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Big Man Japan (2007)", "title": "Big Man Japan", "date": "2007-05-19", "description": "Big Man Japan (大日本人, Dai Nipponjin, lit. 'Great Japanese') is a 2007 Japanese kaiju film written, starring and directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto.\n\nSynopsis: An otherwise ordinary Japanese citizen inherits the role protecting Japan against giant monsters by being temporarily grown to approximately 30 meters in height whenever one appears - a not infrequent occurrence.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Man_Japan" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is Daisatō being grown to approximately 30 meters in height whenever a giant monster appeared on Japanese territory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant monsters attacked various locations across Japan, usually Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Daisatō to protect Japan from frequent giant monster attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The novelty of electricity in connection with its potential to grow an ordinary sized man to approximately 30 meters tall when applied at high voltages was much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daisatō, the last scion of a heroic lineage, was broodish and sullen and tried to retreat from public life as much as possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a laughing stock", "level": "major", "motivation": "The monster fighter Daisatō was mocked by the public at large for not living up to the accomplishments of those who preceded him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were the last of my family line", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō lamented that he was the last in a heroic family line of monster fighters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō reminisced on his grandfather's glory days fighting monsters to great public adulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō made regular visits to the senior's home to see his once great, but now senile grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō's grandfather suffered from dementia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō's young daughter, Selina, was utterly indifferent to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō was detested by his estranged wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō's estranged wife insisted that their daughter's identity be concealed should she appear in Daisatō's documentary, because the wife feared the daughter would be teased at school if it ever got out that Daisatō was the father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō's wife considered herself a single mother to their young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō recounted a childhood story of how his father electrocuted him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daisatō had a somewhat difficult relationship with his manager, Kobori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Shinto priest ritually prayed over Daisatō every time before high voltage electricity was applied to him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Transformers (2007)", "title": "Transformers", "date": "2007-06-12", "description": "A teenager who gets caught up in a war between the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two factions of alien robots who can disguise themselves by transforming into everyday machinery, primarily vehicles. It is the first installment in the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Autobots, with the help of Sam and Mikaela, battled the evil Megatron and his henchman Starscream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth became a theater of war in a longstanding war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. In addition, the film is partially set in and around a U.S. military base in Qatar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam held the key to humanity's survival in the form of his great-grandfather's spectacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were explicitly characterized as alien robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Megatron plotted to use the AllSpark cube to transform Earth's machinery into a new army and exterminate mankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "High school classmates Sam and Mikaela fell in love in the course of helping the Autobots save the world from the Decepticons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "High school classmates Sam and Mikaela fell in love in the course of helping the Autobots save the world from the Decepticons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam gave a show-and-tell style presentation about his Arctic exploring great-grandfather in front of his grad 11 class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's father bought Sam his first car, an old Camero that turned out to be the Transformer Bumblebee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's mother wanted to ground him for almost coming home late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's parents Ron and Judy Witwicky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Witwicky family chihuahua was kicking about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The top-secret paramilitary government branch Sector Seven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of a technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that much of modern technology, from the microchip to lasers to spaceflight to cars, was all invented by reverse-engineering by studying Megatron's design.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stardust (2007)", "title": "Stardust", "date": "2007-08-10", "description": "Stardust is a 2007 romantic fantasy adventure film directed by Matthew Vaughn and co-written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman. Based on Neil Gaiman's 1999 novel of the same name, the film features an ensemble cast led by Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, Jason Flemyng, Rupert Everett, Peter O'Toole, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert De Niro, with narration by Ian McKellen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(2007_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming of age", "level": "choice", "motivation": "it seems the point of all Tristan's ardors was for him to outgrow his childish infatuation and become a man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tristan thought he loved Victoria, but outgrew this notion then realized he loved Yvaine. Especially Yvaine philosophized about love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courtly intrigues", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how seven princess had schemed and killed each other in order to gain their father's kingdom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "especially the witches yearned to eat Yvaine's heart so that they could go on living indefinitely", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "the witches had powers that let them change the world around them in all manner of ways", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were three stereotypically wicked witches, as was Ditchwater Sal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "the protagonists were stereotypically good, the antagonists wicked", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The brother princes were murdering each other in order to get the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tristan considered that the prospect of everlasting life seemed dull, save perhaps should he find someone to share it with", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tristan, Veronica, Humphrey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dunstan and Tristan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Una and Tristan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "one of the witches was torn apart by the very animals they had so often butchered for their witchcraft", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the three witches sort of treated each others like sisters", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invasion (2007)", "title": "The Invasion", "date": "2007-08-17", "description": "The Invasion is a 2007 American science fiction horror film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, with additional scenes written by The Wachowskis and directed by James McTeigue, and starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.\n\nThe Invasion is the fourth film adaptation of the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, following Don Siegel's 1956 film, Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake, and Abel Ferrara's 1993 Body Snatchers.\n\nSynopsis: A psychiatrist finds those around her turning into emotionless beings shortly after a major space shuttle crash.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invasion_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An alien virus was turning people into emotionless beings after arriving on Earth on a crashed space shuttle constitutes a main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformist dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien virus controlled people were endeavoring to make a world devoid of individual desire and interpersonal conflict in which everyone is somehow harmoniously linked in a humanity encompassing hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind controlled society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien virus controlled people were endeavoring to make a world devoid of individual desire and interpersonal conflict in which everyone is somehow harmoniously linked in a humanity encompassing hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people around Carol were turning into strangely emotionless beings, one by one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Carol as she tries to protect herself and her young son, Oliver, from being turned into strangely emotionless husks of people by an alien fungus-like lifeform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although not much explored, the working mother Carol was raising young Oliver on her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was a psychiatrist by trade and was shown counseling a patient in her office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver reunited with his alien virus infected, estranged father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol and Ben were romantically involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was confronted by an alien virus infected uniformed police officer.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Nines (2007)", "title": "The Nines", "date": "2007-08-31", "description": "The Nines (stylized as The NIN9S) is a 2007 science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by John August and Nine Strijbosch, starring Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis, Melissa McCarthy, and Elle Fanning. The film debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and made $63,165 in the U.S. box office through October 11, 2007.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nines" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary was an alien who immersed himself in the game that was Earth to such an extent that he forgot who he were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary was an alien who immersed himself in the game that was Earth to such an extent that he forgot who he were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary was an alien who immersed himself in the game that was Earth to such an extent that he forgot who he were", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gary was practically a God", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The universe was apparently created by alien Gary much in the way a video game is.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "various with Gary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary and Mary", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary and Noelle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary and Noelle", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "major", "motivation": "various people recognized Gary as being famous in different stories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary believed that the house arrest house was haunted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary had a bout of depression, burned down a house, did crack and totaled a car", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "fat woman was cut from tv show in second story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary during house arrest", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary and Mary in the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bird in a gilded cage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gary was under house arrest in a fabulous villa", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)", "title": "Resident Evil: Extinction", "date": "2007-09-20", "description": "Resident Evil: Extinction is a 2007 science fiction action horror film directed by Russell Mulcahy and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), it is the third installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A convoy of survivors attempt to travel across the Mojave desert wilderness to Alaska and escape a zombie apocalypse.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_Extinction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that most of the world's population has been transformed into mindless, flesh-eating zombies by an out of control virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of survivors as they seek refuge from a zombie apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a zombie apocalypse and follows a caravan of survivors who are seeking to make their way to a safe haven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a virus having proliferated all over the world, leaving not only the entire human and animal population turned to zombies, but also the global environment ravaged. In this desolate future, a group of survivors were trying to stay alive as best they could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that the Umbrella Corporation was producing numerous Alice clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heroine of the story had heightened speed, strength, and agility. These abilities she used to kick the crap out of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "A convoy of survivors of the zombie apocalypse was heading to Alaska - a place that was thought to be the last refuge on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice levitated a stone using the power of her mind to her surprise. She thereafter used her newfound telekinetic powers to kick zombie ass. In one notable instance, she made use of them to defend a convoy of survivors from a murder of zombified crows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The White Queen artificial intelligence manifested itself to others in the form of a hologram of a young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The White Queen self-aware computer was helping to try to find a solution to the zombie problem in addition to its regular work of monitoring the Umbrella facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Alice encountering one of her various clones.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Timecrimes (2007)", "title": "Timecrimes", "date": "2007-09-20", "description": "Timecrimes (Spanish: Los Cronocrímenes) is a 2007 Spanish science-fiction thriller film written by, directed by, and featuring Nacho Vigalondo.\n\nSynopsis: A man unwittingly becomes part of a causal loop and must stop his other selves from continuing to exist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecrimes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time loop", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film's protagonist Héctor unwittingly became trapped in a causal loop and reasoned he must terminate two rival versions of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lives of Héctor his wife Clara were turned upside down when Héctor unwittingly entered himself into a causal loop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were three versions of Héctor going around trying to kill one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the large, fluid filled, cylindrical chamber that Héctor unwittingly used to send himself back about an hour in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Héctor used his binoculars to watch a young woman undress in the woods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: There Will Be Blood (2007)", "title": "There Will Be Blood", "date": "2007-09-27", "description": "There Will Be Blood is a 2007 American epic drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely based on the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, and Dillon Freasier also feature in the film.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Be_Blood" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "life in the American Wild West", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw a believable portrayal of the lives of various characters between 1898 and 1927 in the American west", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daniel wanted to make a fortune and derided people who were greedy but did not want to admit it, especially Eli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. career", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daniel several times prioritized making money over taking care of his son and ended up a miserable old man", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel and H.W. - we are told the mother died in childbirth", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel and H.W.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel bargained with various people - especially with Eli", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel and Henry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eli wanted to be a famous preacher and maneuvered to that end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eli and his Church of the Third Revelation was central to the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel told Henry he hated just about everyone and arguably the whole film was an illustration of how an openly selfish Daniel saw through the concealed selfish conceits of others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daniel and Eli variously sought vengeance on each other", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was injured and far away from help", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel broke his leg and had to arduously drag himself out of the mine and back to help", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith healing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eli engaged in a bit of faith healing fakery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel with H.W. when the pump caught fire", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H.W. lost his hearing in an explosion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a physically disabled child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel with H.W. after he lost his hearing", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "because Daniel beat up Eli, Eli beat up Abel", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry came off as a stereotypical looser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel discussed envy with Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel killed the man who was impersonating Daniel's brother, at the end he brutally killed Eli.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "H.W. and Mary got married", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fatherly disappointment in a son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel disowned H.W. by telling him he's an orphan", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel disliked that H.W. intended to start a rivaling company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eli was made to renounce his faith in order to obtain money", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Species: The Awakening (2007)", "title": "Species: The Awakening", "date": "2007-09-29", "description": "A beautiful young woman discovers that she is the outcome of an experiment to combine human and alien DNA. It is the fourth and final installment of the Species film series. It is not a sequel to the first three films, instead as a stand-alone film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Species" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_%E2%80%93_The_Awakening" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is that Miranda and others are composite beings that resulted from the coupling of human and alien DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Hollander created Miranda by combining human and alien DNA back when he was a college student, raised her as his niece, loved her as a father, and then was faced with the terrible prospect of having to kill her when it became apparent that she posed a threat to other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having to destroy one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Hollander was forced to consider the possibility that he'd have to kill the beloved half-human, half-alien \"niece\" of his own creation Miranda when it became apparent that her existence may imperil humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the idea that Tom Hollander had somehow spliced human and alien DNA to create his \"niece\" Miranda. Forbes Maguire had done the same thing to create his sex-partner Azura. Later, Forbes and Tom worked together to fix the imbalance in Miranda's DNA in an over the top experiment involving stem cells.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "If Miranda, who was the result of an experiment to combine human DNA with parasitic alien DNA from outer space, reproduced, then her spawn might just wipe out every last human being on the planet Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom Hollander looked upon Miranda, a human-alien hybrid of his own creation, as a daughter, and loved her dearly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In her lecture, Miranda spoke of how Zeus punished men for having discovered fire by giving them women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tom Hollander went to Mexico to track down an old college friend, Forbes Maguire, with whom he'd had a falling out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miranda could osmose information from books just by touching them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self improvement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A safely in Mexico Miranda was determined to take responsibility for having killed several hospital workers by going back to the United States to turn herself in to the authorities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)", "title": "Appleseed Ex Machina", "date": "2007-10-19", "description": "Appleseed Ex Machina, also known as E.X. Machina (エクスマキナ, Ekusu Makina) in the original version, is a 2007 Japanese animated CG science fiction film and is the sequel to the 2004 Appleseed film.\n\nSynopsis: It is up to a battle hardened former soldier and her cyborg comrade to prevent a deranged scientist from uniting humanity in a collective consciousness.", "collections": [ "Collection: Appleseed Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_Ex_Machina" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Briareos was a more machine than man cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in pairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deunan, a counter-terrorism unit officer, was compelled to take on Tereus as her new partner against her wishes. She preferred to stay on her former partner, Briarios, and her and Tereus had trouble getting along as a result. It also didn't help matters that Tereus was a clone of Briarios.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story focuses on the counter-terrorism unit E-SWAT as it takes on a group of cyborg terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Tereus was a clone of Briareos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the backdrop of everything was a world peace summit that was being attended by the nations of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Briareos was initially uncomfortable in the presence of his clone, Tereus, but the pair ultimately found a way to work together to fight the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Briareos was initially uncomfortable in the presence of his clone, Tereus, but the pair ultimately found a way to work together to fight the bad guys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deunan her counter-terrorism team was working to stop a band of cyborg terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Xander ultimately revealed that it was his intention to elimination all human conflict by unite humanity in a collective consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated in the introduction that half the population of Earth perished in a non-nuclear global war, which took place in the year 2133.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lip service was paid to the city of Olympus being a war-free utopia in the introduction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned in the introduction that a race of \"bioroids\" had been genetically engineered to not feel negative emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man commandeering a powerful humanoid robot attacked Deunan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan resented his orders to partner with Tereus instead of her longtime comrade, Briareos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan tried out a ear attachment that projects holographic data over her eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aeacus' friends and loved ones were pointedly somber at his burial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral was held for Aeacus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Xander hacked Briareos by infiltrating Briareos' body with nano machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Xander used the Connexus ear device to mind control people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan tried out a ear attachment that projects holographic data over her eyes. Deunan and her party examined a greenish, holographic map of Halcon's maritime facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Prime Minister Athena was advocating the increase of satellite surveillance around the globe in the name of counter-terrorism.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)", "title": "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem", "date": "2007-11-04", "description": "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (stylized as AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem) is a 2007 American science fiction action film directed by the Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg Strause) in their directorial debut and written by Shane Salerno. It is a sequel to Alien vs. Predator (2004), and the second installment in the Alien vs. Predator franchise.\n\nSynopsis: An Alien-Predator hybrid known as the Predalien finds its way to a small town, leaving the townspeople try to escape the ensuing carnage.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_vs._Predator:_Requiem" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferocious alien creatures terrorized the residents of a small town. The Predator alien Wolf came to Earth to fight the Predalien creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ferocious alien creatures were going around killing the residents of a small town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The residents of a small town were being terrorized and slaughtered by ferocious alien creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predaliens used human hosts to multiply their numbers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The military ultimately launched a tactical nuclear strike on the town to prevent the ferocious, parasitic aliens that were breeding there from going any further.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Predator spacecraft crashed in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolf traveled from the Predator home world to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father and son encountered a Predalien while out hunting in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A father and his young son were attacked by a Predalien while out hunting in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky and his older brother, the ex-convict Dallas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pizza parlor supervisor threatened to fire Ricky unless he delivered some pizzas to a certain location.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly was reunited with her husband and young daughter after returning from having served in the US Army's 101st Airborne Division.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Molly was upset that her mother, Kelly, had gone to serve in the military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tim was caring for his young daughter, Molly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tim was reunited with his wife, Kelly, who'd been serving in the military.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be homeless", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A down-and-out drunk was living in the sewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A down-and-out drunk was living in the sewers with only his trusty dog for company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sheriff Morales was leading a search for a father and son who'd gone missing while out hunting in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predator alien Wolf twice turned himself invisible for no apparent rhyme or reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darcy was distraught when her husband and young son went missing while out hunting in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ex-convict Dallas was having trouble finding a job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The little girl Molly screamed in terror at the sight of a Predalien. Various other townspeople were shown to be in terror of the ferocious Predaliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the party of survivors trust Colonel Stevens when he said there was an airlift scheduled to leave the center of town in 30 minutes or was the colonel setting a trap for them?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ricky and his love interest, Jesse, shared a passionate kiss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse's boyfriend Dale was jealous of Ricky. Dale twice physically confronted Ricky over it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse was more into Ricky than she was her own boyfriend, Dale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jesse was into more into Ricky than she was her own boyfriend, Dale, which led to her boyfriend holding a grudge against Ricky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military nuked the town of Gunnison to prevent the parasitic Predaliens from overrunning the region, and perhaps the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Man from Earth (2007)", "title": "The Man from Earth", "date": "2007-11-13", "description": "The Man from Earth is a 2007 American drama science fiction film written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Richard Schenkman. It stars David Lee Smith as John Oldman, the protagonist. The screenplay was conceived by Jerome Bixby in the early 1960s and completed on his deathbed in April 1998.\n\nSynopsis: A departing university professor claims to be a prehistoric caveman who has secretly survived for more than 14,000 years.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immortal living secretly among us", "level": "choice", "motivation": "John Oldman claiming to be a caveman who'd secretly survived for more than 140 centuries constitutes the film's primary novelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Oldman tried as he might to convince his mostly skeptical academic colleagues that he was a caveman who'd secretly survived for more than 140 centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The departing university professor John Oldman engaged in a film spanning academic discussion with his professor friends (a biologist, an art historian, an anthropologist, a historian, and an archaeologist) over whether he was really a caveman who'd secretly survived for more than 140 centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Sandy had some romantic vibes going on between them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John explained how people remember traumatic incidents indefinitely, but quickly forget mundane happenings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivor guilt", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When pressed, John admitted to feeling guilty over having watching friends and family members drop like flies around him for 140 centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gruber was in a prickly mood because his wife succumbed to pancreatic cancer the previous day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John spoke in glowing terms of Buddha's teachings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The devout Christian Edith took offense when John claimed to be the historical Jesus of Nazareth, going so far as to call his words heretical.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John wowed his audience with a controversial account of the historical Jesus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John admitted he still believed the Earth to be flat when he accompanied Columbus on a voyage across the Atlantic ocean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Mist (2007)", "title": "The Mist", "date": "2007-11-21", "description": "The Mist (also known as Stephen King's The Mist) is a 2007 American science- fiction horror film based on the 1980 novella \"The Mist\" by Stephen King.\n\nSynopsis: Members of a small town, who after a severe thunderstorm causes the power to go out the night before, meet in a supermarket to pick up supplies. While they struggle to survive, an unnatural mist envelops the town and conceals vicious, insect-like monsters as extreme tensions rise among the survivors.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story David was trapped in a supermarket together with his young son, Billy, as an insect-like monster harboring mist enveloped the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of supermarket goers who become besieged by insect-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a group of supermarket goers who become besieged by insect-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people hold up in the supermarket wrangled over what to do in the face of a strange insect-like creature harboring mist having enveloped the town. The attorney Brent advocated for skepticism of the existence of the creatures, the religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody tried to convince everyone that the mist was a punishment from God, while David advocated for practical solutions to their life and death problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The townspeople hold up in the supermarket were recurringly shown in terror of the insect-like monsters to various degrees. For example, David's young son, Billy, confided in his father that he was afraid; others shrieked in terror while the creatures attacked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art related occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was a painter. He was shown working on a painting at the opening of the story, but nothing much was made of his trade thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David went out with his young son to pick up groceries, never to see his wife, Stephanie again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eight-year-old boy Billy longed to be with his mother while he was hold up with the other townspeople in the supermarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody was convinced that the coming of the insect-like creature harboring mist was the end of the world as foretold in the Bible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Carmody was a religious fanatic who saw the coming of the mist as the end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Through Mrs. Carmody, the viewer is shown how an otherwise inexplicable occurrence can be interpreted as a punishment from God when seen from a fundamentalist Christian perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody was convinced that the insect-like creature harboring mist was sent as a punishment from on high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody came to see herself as a prophet of God after she was inexplicably spared by one of the attacking insect-like creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne shared a passionate kiss with a young woman whom he'd had a crush on since high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wayne wept over the grotesquely swollen body of the young woman with whom he shared a passionate kiss in the storage room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joey longed to died after suffering horrible burns to most of his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hattie overdosed on pills rather than face the insect-like creatures for another day. Two soldiers were found to have hanged themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, David shot dead his young son, Billy, to spare him the horror of dying horribly at the \"hands\" of the insect-like creatures. David, however, almost immediately came to regret his decision, as the military came rolling in shortly after he did the deed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: I Am Legend (2007)", "title": "I Am Legend", "date": "2007-12-14", "description": "I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic action thriller film loosely based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson.\n\nSynopsis: Set in New York City after a vaccine, which was originally created to cure cancer, has wiped out most of mankind, leaving a US Army virologist as the last human in New York, not counting vicious nocturnal mutants.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future where a genetically re-engineered virus has infected most of the world's human population, turning those it didn't kill outright into super-strong, nocturnal, cannibalistic mutants. The lone survivor in New York City Dr. Neville was depicted living in a mutant infested Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story is that a genetically re-engineered measles virus, designed to be a cancer vaccine, ended up infecting 99% of the world's population, transforming those it didn't kill outright into vicious, subhuman mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story is that a genetically re-engineered virus proliferated around the globe, infecting 99% of the world's human population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Dr. Neville was the lone survivor of the virus in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Neville recurringly reflected on his beloved wife and young daughter whom he lost in a tragic helicopter explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Neville's only companion was his trusty German Shepherd, Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Those who did not die after contracting the virus were transformed into super-strong, nocturnal, cannibalistic mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future New York City that is infested with mindless, nocturnal, cannibalistic mutants. These mutants were basically indistinguishable from CGI zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Neville ran into mindless, nocturnal, cannibalistic mutants at nearly every turn. These mutants had the conventional trappings of zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opens with Dr. Neville hunting deer in a peopleless New York City on which nature has encroached.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a series of flashback scenes, Dr. Neville was shown trying to secure the escape of his wife and young daughter out of a doomed Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a series of flashback scenes, Dr. Neville was shown trying to secure the escape of his wife and young daughter out of a doomed Manhattan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a series of flashback scenes, Zoe Neville was shown comforting her young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After burying his beloved German Shepherd, the all alone Dr. Neville so longed for companionship that he begged a mannequin to talk with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alone and despairing Dr. Neville was saved from taking his own life by Anna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Neville reluctantly snapped the neck of his beloved German Shepherd, Sam, after it began showing signs of zombification. He subsequently grieved for the dog, as he held its lifeless body in his arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anna had a firm conviction that the Lord would guide her to safety.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Eden Log (2007)", "title": "Eden Log", "date": "2007-12-26", "description": "Eden Log is a 2007 French science fiction horror film directed and co-written by Franck Vestiel. The film was Vestiel's first as a director, who shot the entire film using only hand-held cameras.\n\nSynopsis: An amnesiac man is left to piece together who he is and how he came to wake up inside a mutant infested subterranean complex.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Log" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a man who seeks to rediscover his identity after waking up in a cave not knowing who is or how he got there. In the end, he found out he was a corporate stooge, named Tolbiac, who'd been tasked to squash a revolt by exploited immigrant mine toilers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor revolt", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that the amnesiac man was actually in charge of suppressing a labor revolt among immigrant mine workers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is that a nefarious corporation was exploiting immigrants by forcing them to toil in mines with a false promise of eventually getting citizenship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immigrants in this society were compelled to toil in mines under the false promise of eventually being granted citizenship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immigrant workers were turning into monstrous mutants from toiling in the mines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The botanist was brutally raped by the amnesiac man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cloverfield (2008)", "title": "Cloverfield", "date": "2008-01-18", "description": "Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams, and written by Drew Goddard.\n\nSynopsis: Six young New York City residents flee from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloverfield" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the film is the depiction of a giant monster from deep in the Atlantic ocean rampaging around New York City from the perspective of a group of friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "An special day in the life of Rob and his girlfriend Beth was turned upside down when a giant monster came out of seemingly nowhere and started rampaging around the city. Jason and his girlfriend Lily spoke of their relationship at Rob's farewell party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nothing was going to stop Rob from trekking across town in the midst of a giant monster attack to rescue his lover, Beth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason threw a farewell party for his brother, Rob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rob was briefly disturbed by Marlena evidently exploding in the aftermath of getting bitten by a parasitic creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rob proclaimed his love for Beth to her, and vice versa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008)", "title": "Stargate: The Ark of Truth", "date": "2008-03-11", "description": "Stargate: The Ark of Truth is a 2008 Canadian-American, military science fiction, direct-to-video film in the Stargate franchise, acting as a sequel to the television series Stargate SG-1. It is the first of two Stargate SG-1 direct-to-DVD films, the second one being Stargate: Continuum.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate:_The_Ark_of_Truth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prior aliens served as evangelists for the Ori, killing anyone who refused to believe in the sacred Book of Origin of the Ori.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ori were a race beings who'd use their advanced technology and knowledge of the universe to attempt to trick non-ascended humans into worshiping them as gods. The god-like being Adria wanted people to worship her as a god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Upon passing through the \"Supergate\", he bettlecruiser Odyssey was transported instantaneously to the Ori galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was understood that the \"Supergate\" was a wormhole that allowed for rapid travel to remote locations, including the Ori galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Odyssey battlecruiser got into a life and death confrontation with four Prior motherships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story follows the adventures the military team SG-1.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomin came to regret having slaughtered people for not believing in the sacred Book of Origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tomin came to regret having slaughtered people for not believing in the sacred Book of Origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spider-like replicator bots got loose on the Odyssey battlecruiser and went about disassembling the ship to make copies of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Odyssey crew found them selves in a life and death confrontation with sentient self-replicating machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of the Ori aliens. Various other aliens, including the friar-like Priors, were featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the Priors had to come to terms with the reality that they'd been tried by the Ori into believing the Ori were gods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama5x1234", "title": "Bender's Big Score", "date": "2008-03-23", "description": "Futurama: Bender's Big Score is a 2007 American direct-to-video adult animated science fiction comedy-adventure film based on the animated series Futurama. It was released in the United States on November 27, 2007. It was the first Futurama production since the original series finale \"The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings\". Bender's Big Score, along with the three follow-up films, comprise season five of Futurama, with each film being separated into four episodes of the broadcast season. Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central on March 23, 2008. The film was written by Ken Keeler, based on a story by Keeler and David X. Cohen, and directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Ken Keeler & David X. Cohen Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Internet crime in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was a parody on stupid people falling prey to ostentatious scams that involved giving personal information on the Internet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A code was discovered that summoned a backwards time travel portal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes was decapitated and his head sustained inside a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes, LeBarbara, and Barbados Slim. Fry, future Fry, and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry pined over Leela, but she was interested in Lars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Lars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender got infected with an obedience virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "LeBarbara left her husband Hermes for Barbados Slim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nudism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team went to a nude beach on the Nude Beach planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scamming aliens and Bender traveled back into the past to plunder riches and bring them back to the present.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "During the time travel, various characters met their doubles briefly, but one was always \"doomed\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender felt bad about killing his friend Fry but did not let that stop him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes wife LeBarbara hooked up with Barbados Slim after Hermes lost his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry looked to find a new purpose in life after he got trapped in the past with no hope of reuniting with the love of his life Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and the whale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Loch Ness Monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Loch Ness Monster was just a log with a monster mask tied to it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Yeti", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were yetis on Neptune.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Iron Man (2008)", "title": "Iron Man", "date": "2008-04-14", "description": "Following his escape from captivity by a terrorist group, world famous industrialist and master engineer Tony Stark builds a mechanized suit of armor and becomes the superhero Iron Man. It is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man_(2008_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Iron Man suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony, the CEO of the chief weapons manufacturer for the U.S. military, resolved to stop manufacturing weapons after witnessing the destruction they cause first hand. In general, the story calls attention to the role corporations play in supplying the world's armed forces with weapons to be used for good or for bad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "womanizing man", "level": "major", "motivation": "The genius inventor Tony Stark was a consummate playboy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Tony, who had recently come to the realization that weapons are not play things, use his power to shutdown weapons manufacturing operations at his company?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a fanciful depiction of what it might be like to be an executive at a high-tech weapons manufacturing corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stark Industries was selling weapons to both the U.S. military and the insurgents they were fighting in Afghanistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony and Yinsen were held captive for three months by the Ten Rings insurgents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony's longtime confidant Obediah betrayed Tony by ordering a hit on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "So large was Obediah's Iron Man-like suit that it was essentially a giant, human-controlled, flying robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In trying to rid the world of weapons, Tony gave it one its most powerful weapons yet in the Iron Man suit technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rhodey was the closest thing that Tony had to a friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony seduced a journalist after she asked him a sharp question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony built and tested his Iron Man suit with the help of his trust AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)", "title": "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", "date": "2008-05-18", "description": "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. It is the fourth installment in the Indiana Jones film series and a sequel to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Set in 1957, it pits Indiana Jones against Soviet KGB agents led by Irina Spalko searching for a telepathic crystal skull located in Peru. Jones is aided by his former lover, Marion Ravenwood, and their son, Mutt Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Kingdom_of_the_Crystal_Skull" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "Set in the 1950s, the story follows Indiana Jones as he tries to prevent the KGB from obtaining psychic warfare capabilities that would tip the balance of power in the Cold War in the favor of the Soviets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy was coming to grips with the fact that he was no longer the spry adventurer he once was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "El Dorado", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy and his party were searching for the fabled city of gold known as El Dorado.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main idea of the story is that an elongated crystal skull with occult powers was the centerpiece of an ancient South American civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy took the young upstart Mutt under his wing. Only later did Indy learn that Mutt was his son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy's longtime friend and fellow adventurer wanted only to enrich himself. He sold out Indy to the Soviets. Later, Mac risked life and limb gathering up gold and jewels as he fled the crumbling ancient ruins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story is the elongated crystal skull was actually the skull of an alien, or was at least patterned after the skull of an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy was reunited with his former lover, Marion. The pair quarreled relentlessly on the journey to Akator. In the end, they warmed up to one another and married in the company of family and friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy bonded with his rebellious, teenage son Mutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irina lusted to command the occult knowledge of the mysterious aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marion and her rebellious, teenage son Mutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mutt, a teenage \"greaser\", embodied the rebellious spirit of 1950s youth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "the old flames Indy and Marion rekindled their love on the course of their journey to reach the fabled city of Akator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy and his party reached the ruins of the fabled underground city of Akator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legendary place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Indy and his party reached the ruins of the fabled underground city of Akator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irina tried to probe Indy's mind. Indy received a telepathic message from the crystal skull at one point. The alien skeleton established a telepathic link with Irina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mac double-crossed Indy by delivering him up to Soviets for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were said to form a hive mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A giant saucer shaped, alien spaceship emerged from the crumbling ruins of Akator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Indy and Marion tying the knot in the company of family and friends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Incredible Hulk (2008)", "title": "The Incredible Hulk", "date": "2008-06-08", "description": "Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk as an unwitting pawn in a military scheme to reinvigorate the \"Super-Soldier\" program through gamma radiation. On the run, he attempts to cure himself of the Hulk before he is captured by General Thaddeus Ross, but his worst fears are realized when power-hungry soldier Emil Blonsky becomes a similar, but more bestial creature. It is the second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe", "Collection: The Incredible Hulk" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was being pursued by the U.S. army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a huge green-skinned monster whenever he became emotionally provoked or stressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "David transformed into a super strong green-skinned monster whenever he became emotionally provoked or stressed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered soldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was irradiated as part of a secret U.S. army project to create a genetically enhanced super soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "David was irradiated as part of a secret U.S. army project to create a genetically enhanced super soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. self", "level": "major", "motivation": "David struggled to control, and if possible get rid of, the creature lurking within him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Betty had a troubled relationship with her father General Thaddeus Ross.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Betty rekindled their love for one another while on the run from the U.S. army.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Blue was synthesizing David Banners blood in order to develop a serum that would make humans immune to all disease, but DAvid was adamant about the dangers of this line of research, and urged Mr. Blue to incinerate all the blood before things got out of control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was explained how David had gotten his powers from exposure to gamma radiation. Gamma radiation was also used to give carer soldier Emil Blonsky the ability to transform into Abomination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Emil Blonsky heal at an accelerated rate after the Hulk slammed him into a tree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Outlander (2008)", "title": "Outlander", "date": "2008-07-11", "description": "Outlander is a 2008 science fiction-action film starring Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, John Hurt, and Ron Perlman, and written and directed by Howard McCain.\n\nSynopsis: A human-looking alien hero crashes his spaceship in Early Middle Ages Norway, and sets about to help a small community defend themselves from a fearsome alien creature. The plot is loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the humanoid alien Kainan as he crashes in Early Middle Ages Norway and helps a local community slay a fearsome alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between Freya and her father, King Rolhgar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fearsome, grotesque, alien creatures, known as Moorwens, were hunting people down and eating them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Kainan and his party to dispatch the fearsome, grotesque, man-eating, alien creatures known as Moorwens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in medieval Europe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a Hollywood view of what life might have been like in a Viking age Norwegian village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Kainan recurringly struggled with the loss of his wife and young son to the Moorwens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Freya became increasingly attracted to Kainan, and in the end they fell in love and became husband and wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan cashed to Earth in a futuristic, alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plug-in learning device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan downloaded the local Norse language and culture directly into his brain from the spaceship computer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The party hunted down, slayed, and ultimately feasted on a large and ferocious bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The chieftain Gunnar led an attack against Rolhgar's village as part of an ongoing blood feud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan explained how his people had launched a genocidal campaign against the Moorwens as a prelude to colonizing their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan revealed that his people had exterminated untold numbers of Moorwens and built a colony on their planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Kainan interacted lovingly with his wife. Kainan and Freya married in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Kainan bid farewell to his young son, not knowing it would be the last time he say the boy alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Kainan's wife and young son stood together waving goodbye to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan blamed himself for failing to save his wife and young son from the Moorwens, even though there was nothing he could have realistically done to change their fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kainan pointedly grieved for his fallen comrade, Boromir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Freya interpreted the approaching rescue spaceship as sign that Kainan had been sent by the gods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bodies of Rolhgar and Wulfric were given a standard Viking burial at sea.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Dark Knight (2008)", "title": "The Dark Knight", "date": "2008-07-14", "description": "The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is the second installment of Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale and supported by Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman. In the film, Bruce Wayne / Batman, Police Lieutenant James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City, but are menaced by an anarchistic mastermind known as the Joker, who seeks to undermine Batman's influence and turn the city to chaos.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Batman undertook to rid Gotham City of organized crime with the tacit support of law enforcement. Batman was contrasted with copy cat vigilantes. The police cooperated clandestinely with Batman as he is legally an outlaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Batman contemplated giving himself up to save innocents in Gotham from further terror. Finally he took the blame for Harvey Dent's crimes so as to leave Gotham with a role model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to imagine themself in super rich Bruce Wayne's luxurious shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Wayne had feelings for Harvey Dent's significant other, Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the end justifies the means", "level": "major", "motivation": "Batman tortured, broke various laws, and set up a city-wide espionage system - all in the name of fighting crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Joker clearly had no feelings for his many victims that he dispatched with glee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key plot element was the Joker holding two ferry boats full of people at hostage under the demand that Batman turn himself into to face justice under the law. There were various briefer hostage situations as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harvey Dent lost his morality after his lover Rachel's tragic death and became obsessed with punishing those who he held responsible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The morally upstanding District Attorney Harvey Dent turned into the psychotic killer Two-Face after losing his lover, Rachel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent, with the support of the police, was on a crusade against organized crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent was on a crusade against organized crime. In particular, they tried to bring the mob boss Sal Maroni to justice. A black crime group led by Gambol, and a foreign one led by Chechen were operating in the city. Lau was an international criminal. The head of the Falconi crime family was on trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harvey Dent lost the left side of his head and face in a fire, and his morality. The Joker had disfiguring scars on his face, and hints were made that this was the reason behind his wearing of clown make up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Joker launched a campaign of terror against the people of Gotham. Most notably, he blew up Gotham General Hospital and held two ferry boatloads of people hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harvey Dent became obsessed with avenging Rachel's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Batman undertook to rid Gotham City of organized crime with the tacit support of law enforcement. Harvey Dent resolved to take the law into his own hands and avenge Rachel's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Joker rigged two ferries to both explode. One carried ordinary citizens, the other prisoners. He supplied the passengers on each ferry with a detonator to blow up the other ferry. Whichever people activated the detonator first were told they would survive. If neither group activated their detonator, the Joker would blow up both ferries at midnight. High stakes ethical debates were had on both sides over what to do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Batman setting up a sonar grid-based mass surveillance system by co-opting people's cell phones was a novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with the Joker and his men perpetrating a daring bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Batman and Harvey tortured the Joker at his interrogation for important information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne with Rachel at the mercy of the Joker. James Gordon worried for the lives of his wife and children when it became apparent they were Two-Face's mercy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fall guy testified to being the brains of the Falcone crime family in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was torn between her significant other, Harvey Dent, and her childhood friend, Bruce Wayne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Joker expressed his disdain for humanity during the interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Batman set up a mass surveillance system by co-opting people's phones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harvey Dent served as prosecutor at the trial of a mob boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Joker recounted how, as a child, his father cut up the Joker's mouth with a blade, implying his prominent facial scars were traceable to this incident. The viewer is left to presume that the Joker never fully recovered from the trauma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Wayne Enterprises employee tried to blackmail Bruce Wayne out of 10 million dollars in exchange for his silence as to Batman's true identity. His effort was quickly shut down by Wayne Enterprises' CEO Lucius Fox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barbara broke down upon being informed of her husband James Gordon's tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Gordon worried for the safety of his wife, Barbara, and their children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James Gordon pleaded with Two-Face to spare James' son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Joker took a deranged sort of pleasure in getting beaten to a pulp at his police interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Joker took marked pleasure in inflicting pain on people. He at one point recounted how he preferred killing with a knife because it gave him time to \"savor\" the \"little emotions\" people show \"in their last moments\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cops were quick to use physical violence against the Joker at his interrogation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alfred consoled Bruce after his childhood friend Rachel's tragic death in an explosion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)", "title": "Starship Troopers 3: Marauder", "date": "2008-07-19", "description": "The United Citizen Federation continues its war on alien bugs. It is the third installment of the Starship Troopers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Starship Troopers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_3:_Marauder" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "United Citizen Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Colonel Johnny Rico and other soldiers doing what soldiers stereotypically do in wartime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation was using its judicial and military authority to suppress peace protesters and religious fanatics. Also they made blatant use Nazi inspired iconography.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humans are mired in a multiple star systems spanning war with a race of hostile bug aliens, known as the Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is interspersed with jingoistic, Federation Network war propaganda videos. There was a poppy musical war rally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film pointedly concluded with scoffer-of-religion Captain Lola Beck becoming a true believer. Everyone was surprised that the Federation icon Omar Anoke had underwent a sudden religious awakening.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Federation icon Omar Anoke became a religious fanatic and started worshiping the bug god, Behemecoytal, whom he considered to be the one true God. The film concluded with the devout Christian Holly Little preaching to a crowd of bug hating Federation citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is show how the religious zealot Omar Anoke had a twisted view (as compared to the orthodox Federation view) of how bugs and humans might live in harmony. Captain Lola Beck was disgusted by how her pious Christian subordinate Holly Little looked to the Lord for protection from the bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The unbeliever Captain Lola Beck was pointedly contrasted with her pious Christian subordinate Holly Little. And in the end, Lola came around to Holly's way of thinking after prayer got them through a time of crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holly intoning the Our Father prayer; Holly said a prayer before eating", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three friends Colonel Johnny Rico, Captain Lola Beck, and General Dix Hauser had a drink at the bar and reminisced about old times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Federation judge deemed it was legal for the Federation to hang anyone who threatened moral. Numerous dissenters were hanged thereafter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation was going around rounding up political dissidents and hanging them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Lola Beck made a proclamation of love to Dix, and the film concluded with Lola and Dix deciding to marry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The bugs overran the Federation forces on Roku San.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A soldier saved a number of his comrades by throwing himself on bug-grenade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cosmic balance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Omar Anoke was certain that there was an inherent balance to the cosmos that would ensure that the Federation would score a victory to make up for the grave defeat at Roku San.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various futuristic Star Wars-esque battle cruisers were show flying around in outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wheelchair-bound war-veteran was leading a war protest movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Holly Little preaching a jingoistic sermon that functioned to rationalize the Federation war against the bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of the outer colonies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a gigantic space station to which Federation battle cruisers were docking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The peace activists had turned terrorist and bombed a public place, according to the Federation news service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation framed a war-veteran turned peace activist for a terrorist bombing, and he was subsequently hanged for his \"crime\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly and Bull decided to tie the knot shortly before Bull was run through by one of the bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Johnny Rico was lauded as the \"hero of Planet P\" for his past efforts in battling bugs there. In general, he was regarded as \"a big war hero\", but fell into disgrace after he fell out of favor with the Federation higher ups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with scenes from Lola and Dix's wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Federation used a newly invented Q-bomb to blow up an entire bug controlled planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newly invented Q-bomb was capable to blow up an entire planet, and the Federation used it for exactly this purpose in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The war veteran turned peace activist being grizzled and wheelchair-bound invites the viewer to ponder about how the Federation treats its war veterans in general.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stargate: Continuum (2008)", "title": "Stargate: Continuum", "date": "2008-07-29", "description": "Stargate: Continuum is a 2008 Canadian-American, military science fiction, direct-to-video film in the Stargate franchise. It is the second sequel to television series Stargate SG-1 following The Ark of Truth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate:_Continuum" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The the main novelty of the film are the Stargates: ring-shaped portal devices that enable travel to a similar devices elsewhere in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler meddling in history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ba'al traveled back in time to 1939 to stop the Stargate program from ever starting as part of a plot to conquer Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ba'al traveled back in time to 1939 Earth to stop the Stargate program from ever starting. In the end, Mitchell traveled back in time to 1929 to restore the timeline to what it was before Ba'al's meddling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The SG-1 team found themselves trapped in the Arctic with no supplies and little hope of survival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ba'al showed up around Earth in his armada of futuristic space attack ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was under the threat of attack from Ba'al and his armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teal'c cloaked his spacecraft before landing it somewhere in Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Americans and Russians cooperated when the world was under threat from Ba'al and his formidable space armada.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Is was explained that Ba'al's machine enabled people to travel into the past by indirectly using a Stargate created wormhole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)", "title": "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", "date": "2008-08-15", "description": "During the Clone Wars, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi lead a small Republic clone army against the Separatist droid army on the planet Christophsis.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, and others for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film follows Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakinas a small Republic clone army against the Separatist droid army on the planet Christophsis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin. Anakin and Ahsoka Tano.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this universe people travel between stars regularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slug-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaba the Hutt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaba the Hutt and his son Rotta the Huttlet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Count Dooku commanded an army of droids. Jaba the Hutt had a protocol droid servant. The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Obi-Wan and Anakin commanded an army of clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that corruption was rampant in government in the opening narration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asajj Ventress sent Captain Rex flying across a room with at the wave of her hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asajj Ventress mind controlled Captain Rex into baiting Anakin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anakin and Ahsoka crossed a Tatooine desert under two blazing suns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ziro the Hutt and Jaba the Hutt.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Death Race (2008)", "title": "Death Race", "date": "2008-08-22", "description": "Death Race is a 2008 American dystopian action thriller film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. It stars Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, and Joan Allen.\n\nSynopsis: A race car driver who has been imprisoned for a murder he did not commit is offered his freedom in exchange for winning the prison vehicular combat racing series.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race_(2008_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a 2012 United States where the economy has collapsed and crime is running rampant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the titular \"Death Race\" - a vehicular combat racing series that is broadcast to millions online.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jensen Ames was falsely accused of and convicted for the murder of his wife. The story follows Jensen as he attempts to win five races in the prison vehicular combat racing series. He was assured by the sadistic prison warden that he'd gain his freedom, if successful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners being exploited for entertainment", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the coercing of prisoners to participate in a vehicular combat racing series that is broadcast online to millions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Jensen Ames as he attempts to secure his freedom from a brutal private prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown various cliched scenes of prison life, including Jensen being hosed down upon entering the prison, Jensen confronting a prison bully, Jensen doing pull ups in his cell, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jensen woke up from being knocked unconscious to find his wife dead and a knife in his hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jansen was framed for stabbing his wife to death. Case was in prison for having killed her abusive husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Case was in prison for having killed her abusive husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made that the prison conditions were harsh and exploitative owing in part to it being a privately run facility.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Babylon AD (2008)", "title": "Babylon A.D.", "date": "2008-08-29", "description": "Babylon A.D. is a 2008 science fiction action film based on the 1999 novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Georges Dantec. The film was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and stars Vin Diesel in the title role, Mélanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Lambert Wilson, Mark Strong, Jérôme Le Banner, Charlotte Rampling, and Gérard Depardieu.\n\nSynopsis: A hard-boiled mercenary get more than he bargains for when he takes on a job to escort a young woman from Russia to New York City.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_A.D." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the film is set in Russia in a dystopian future where war and terrorist activity have transformed Russia's cities into dangerous, overpopulated slums.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aurora manifested an uncanny ability to intuit the future since she was a child. In the end her power was revealed to come from a supercomputer that was secretly implanted into her brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Sister Rebeka was an ascetic nun of the Noelite order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virgin birth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Toorop and Sister Rebeka were floored when Aurora revealed that she was pregnant with twins despite being a virgin. Her virgin pregnancy was subsequently key to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious hypocrisy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Noelite church CEO didn't give a crap about her religion, being only interested in using the church to increase her own standing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toorop had a subdermally implanted UN passport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toorop examined a foldable, digital paper map.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that the Siberian tiger went extinct in 2017. There was a cloned one in a cage, but that didn't count according to some.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be a refugee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene of a ragtag group of refugees fighting desperately among themselves to board a submarine that might take them to safety.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toorop revealed that he was on the USA terrorist list. Gorshy's men bombed a Kyrgyzstan convent, resulting in the deaths of some 1000 nuns.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darquandier used a special machine to produce video log of Toorop's memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gorsky was killed in a nuclear missile strike.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien Raiders (2008)", "title": "Alien Raiders", "date": "2008-09-21", "description": "Alien Raiders is a 2008 American science fiction horror film, starring Carlos Bernard, Rockmond Dunbar and Mathew St. Patrick. The film is Ben Rock's first feature film as a director.\n\nSynopsis: A team of scientists take hostage the staff and customers of a small town grocery store hostage in a bid to contain proliferating alien parasites.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Raiders" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of rogue scientists was working to eradicate grotesque alien parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team of rogue scientists was working to eradicate grotesque alien parasites.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police dealt with a team of rogue scientists that took hostage the staff and customers of a small town grocery store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "how to handle a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police tried to handle the hostage situation through negotiation, instead of by the use of force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were shown handling a hostage situation throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "The policeman in charge of the operation to free the hostages was particularly troubled by the fact that his stepdaughter was one of the hostages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Seth was distressed because his stepdaughter, Whitney, was being held hostage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team of scientists gave every impression that they were holding up a grocery store when in reality they were looking for alien parasitized people to eradicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police negotiated a hostage swap with the team of rogue scientists leader, Ritter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A grotesque, alien parasitized man was going around the grocery store terrorizing people toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The team of scientists took out a grotesque, alien parasitized man who was going around scaring the bejesus out of people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cyborg Soldier (2008)", "title": "Cyborg Soldier", "date": "2008-10-07", "description": "Cyborg Soldier is a science fiction film released on October 7, 2008, directed by John Stead, and starring Rich Franklin, Tiffani Thiessen, and Bruce Greenwood.\n\nSynopsis: An escaped cyborg goes on the run together with the help of a local sheriff.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Soldier" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The titular cyborg soldier I.S.A.A.C. (Intuitive Synthetic Autonomous Assault Commando) constitutes the main novelty of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deputy Sheriff Lindsey Reardon was having a routine day on the job until she was taken hostage by the cyborg soldier Isaac. The local police were involved in the manhunt for Isaac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lindsey was initially trying to escape from her cyborg captor, but he soon won her over. A combination of government and private agents were pursuing the escaped cyborg Isaac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown the world of human interaction through the eyes of the cyborg soldier Isaac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular cyborg soldier Isaac was created to be a deadly fighting unit, and it showed throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The escaped cyborg soldier Isaac, accompanied by a sympathetic deputy sheriff, were on the run from the local police and the military group that made him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robotics engineer Simon Hart explained Isaac's astonishing regenerative ability was due to the presence of nanobots in his body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg soldier Isaac's body automatically regenerated after sustaining such physical damage as gunshot wounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isaac and Lindsay encountered a distressed mother who was parked on the side of the road, panicking over that her young daughter went missing in the nearby woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg soldier Isaac pointedly took compassion on a little girl who he found lost in the woods, and returned the girl to her overjoyed mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in the forest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isaac tracked down a little girl who'd gotten lost in the woods at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lindsey uncovered that Isaac, before being transformed into a robot-like cyborg, had been convicted for the murders of his wife and two young daughters. Isaac was vindicated in the end, however, as it turned out he'd been framed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lindsey uncovered that Isaac, before being transformed into a robot-like cyborg, had been convicted for the murders of his wife and two young daughters. Isaac was vindicated in the end, however, as it turned out he'd been framed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Isaac had been framed for the murders of his wife and two young daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with Lindsey paying her respects at Isaac's grave site.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: City of Ember (2008)", "title": "City of Ember", "date": "2008-10-10", "description": "City of Ember is a 2008 American science fiction adventure film based on the 2003 novel The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.\n\nSynopsis: A remnant of humanity persists in the titular dank and crumbling underground city some untold generations after an unspecified global catastrophe left the Earth's surface uninhabitable.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Ember" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set untold generations after the survivors of an unspecified global catastrophe inhabit the titular dank and crumbling underground city. The city's generator was beginning to fail and the food supplies were dwindling, leaving little hope for a bright future - or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set some untold generations after the survivors of an unspecified global catastrophe inhabit the titular dank and crumbling underground city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set some untold generations after the survivors of an unspecified global catastrophe inhabit the titular dank and crumbling underground city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a moment of crisis, the citizens gathered in the town square and sang a patriotic song under the direction of the mayor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The inventor Loris was raising his adolescent son, Doon. He, in particular, imparted Doon with this bit of wisdom: \"Notice what no one else notices, and you'll know what no one else knows\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina was on the ball for her first day working as a messenger. Doon proved to be competent, but less that enthusiastic on his first day working on the city pipeworks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina's half-senile granny was elated to hear that Lina was selected to be a \"Messenger\", a highly regarded profession in this society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina scooped up her kid sister, Poppy, and fled the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina lectured her friend, Lizzy, for stealing a can of food from the city storehouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lina was appalled to discover that Mayor Cole has been hoarding canned food in a secret vault for his own benefit while the people went hungry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doon was wanted for treason.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama5x5678", "title": "The Beast with a Billion Backs", "date": "2008-10-19", "description": "Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is a 2008 American direct-to-video adult animated science-fiction comedy-adventure film and the second of the four Futurama straight-to-DVD films. The film was released in the United States and Canada on June 24, 2008, followed by a UK release on June 30, 2008 and an Australian release on August 6, 2008. It has been confirmed by David X. Cohen on the audio commentary that the title refers to a euphemism for sexual intercourse—\"the beast with two backs\"—that originated in English with Shakespeare's Othello. Comedy Central aired the film as a \"four-part epic\" on October 19, 2008. The movie won an Annie Award for \"Best Animated Home Entertainment Production\".\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Eric Kaplan & David X. Cohen Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was a big parody on human romance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fry and Colleen. Kif and Amy. Yivo and humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The whole story was a big parody on human romance and in the end someone commented on the nature of love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colleen had five different boyfriends including Fry. Yivo had a polyamorous relationship with everyone in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became exceedingly jealous of Yivo with humanity. Fry was a bit jealous of Colleen's other boyfriends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender joined the secret society the League of Robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "A betentacled being from a parallel universe came to turn everyone into its willing thralls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender set out to kill all humans with the help of the League of Robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. space anomaly", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cosmic rift anomaly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a secret society of robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif and Amy had a swamp marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mixed marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents had some friction getting along with Kif's family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon with fans and then Bender stalking him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender attempted suicide after discovered there was no such thing as the League of Robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide booth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender used a suicide booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy grieved for Kif after he died in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender sacrificed his first born son to get an army of robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender sacrificed his firstborn son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and Calculon had something like this", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yivo's world was a parody on the Christian heaven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of commitment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yivo was accused of having a fear of commitment by humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "amphibian-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kif and Amy held their wedding on his amphibian peoples homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry's relationship with Colleen put a strain on his friendship with Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stephen Hawking's picked head gave a lecture at a scientific conference.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Professor Wernstrom rivaled over who would get to explore the cosmic rift.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arch rivals Farnsworth and Wernstrom put their differences aside to investigate the cosmic rift together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yivo explained he felt lonely before coming to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yivo proposed to humanity and it was accepted. Amy and Kif beiefly became engaged before they got married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy and Kif got married on his homeworld.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Nutty Professor (2008)", "title": "The Nutty Professor", "date": "2008-11-25", "description": "Harold Kelp, the grandson of Professor Julius Kelp, is a young inventor who struggles with his experiments. He is frequently attacked in his visions by his fear, which takes the form of a big, black monster. After encountering an angry mob involved in Harold's bad inventions, Harold is sent away to a science academy run by his grandfather.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Nutty Professor" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutty_Professor_(2008_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Julius and Harold Kelp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Kelp became enamored with a beautiful girl named Polly McGregor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set at a futuristic science academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Kelp invented a serum that his nerdy grandson Harold Kelp used turned himself into Jack: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Kelp struggled with the fear beast in his subconscious mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nerdy and shy Harold Kelp turned into an egotistical and brash man in the form of his alter ego Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "just be yourself", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Harold Kelp learned that all he had to go was to be himself and Polly would like him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Kelp lacked confidence and turned to his alter ego Jack to impress Polly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Kelp facing down the fear monster of his subconscious mind was a metaphor for his facing down of people who were bullying him in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harold Kelp was bullied on campus by some jocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "Julius Kelp invented a serum that his nerdy grandson Harold Kelp used turned himself into Jack: a handsome, suave, charming and brash girl-chasing hipster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grandpa Julius was a legendary scientist who invented a serum that his nerdy grandson Harold Kelp used turned himself into a cool alter ego Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Kelp had a robot helper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cold fusion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold Kelp was struggling to invent a cold fusion engine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fear monster from Harold Kelp's subconscious mind was conjured into reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harold and everyone versus the fear monster.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day the Earth Stopped (2008)", "title": "The Day the Earth Stopped", "date": "2008-12-09", "description": "the film follows a soldier who witnesses the arrival of giant alien robots that threaten to destroy the Earth unless they are shown the value of human existence. He becomes a fugitive to protect the aliens' messenger and tries to meet her demands, while the aliens begin to tilt the Earth on its axis and all military defense is defeated.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stopped" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Aliens determined that the entire human race was a threat to the rest of the galaxy and planned to destroy the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two alien humanoid messengers arrived on Earth following the landing of six hundred and sixty six gigantic extraterrestrial robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Josh had until sunset to prove to the alien Skye messenger that humankind deserved to not be exterminated from the face of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye read Josh's thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye spoke to Josh telepathically, but only sparingly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Josh took Skye to a church in an effort to show her the value of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking sides in an international conflict", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie challenged the male alien messenger, arguing that it was his race that the aliens were being the aggressors by coming to destroy the Earth, while the male alien messenger contended that humans were a menace to the galaxy and needed to be exterminated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United Stated government nuked Vanuatu in an effort to stop six hundred and sixty six gigantic robots from destroying the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the the 9000 inhabitants of Vanuatu should be sacrificed, if it gave some small hope of stopping six hundred and sixty six gigantic robots from destroying the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye revived a woman who'd just recently died in childbirth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skye took compassion on a woman who she watched die in childbirth, and used her powers to bring the woman back from the dead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)", "title": "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "date": "2008-12-12", "description": "The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 American science fiction drama film and a loose adaptation of the 1951 film of the same name. The screenplay by David Scarpa is based on the 1940 science fiction short story \"Farewell to the Master\" by Harry Bates and the 1951 screenplay adaptation by Edmund H. North.\n\nSynopsis: An alien is sent to Earth to try to change human behavior or eradicate humans from the planet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still_(2008_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu was sent to Earth by an interstellar federation with orders to reboot the planet unless, perhaps, he judged humanity to be redeemable (note the plot is not entirely coherent on this).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helen was left to care for her young stepson, Jacob, after his father had died tragically and unexpectedly. The story builds up to Jacob coming to understand his more than just baggage from a previous relationship to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story depicts a first encounter between a humanoid alien representative of an interstellar federation intent on eradicating humanity from the planet Earth and the United States government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Klaatu was accompanied by the gigantic humanoid protector robot GORT.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid alien Klaatu was dispatched to Earth to render judgement on humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy Jacob was struggling with the recent and unexpected passing of his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanical insect", "level": "major", "motivation": "A swarm of self-replicating, winged, insect-like robots was going around consuming everything made of metal in its path, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating gray goo consuming the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "A swarm of self-replicating, winged, insect-like robots was unleashed upon the Earth, and went about transforming everything human-made in its path into its own kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaatu landed Central Park in a large, spherical, bluish spaceship of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jacob's playing of a fantasy-themed action role-playing video game was interrupted by his stepmother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaatu killed a New Jersey State Trooper and then summarily used his powers to revive him from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klaatu used his powers to psychically manipulate a vending machine into dispensing a sandwich.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown scenes rising global unrest as news of the alien visitor spread.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A New Jersey State Trooper tried and failed to take Klaatu into custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-replicating, mechanical insects appeared to grow up from nano-scale sizes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Moon (2009)", "title": "Moon", "date": "2009-01-23", "description": "A experiences a personal crisis as he nears the end of a three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 on the far side of the Moon.", "collections": [ "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fusion power", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in near future where nearly 70 percent of planet Earth power is generated from lunar soil extracted helium-3 fusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam's only companion on the Moon was an artificial intelligence named GERTY. It assisted him with the base's automation and provided comfort for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam had been alone on the Moon with only an artificial intelligence to keep him company and he was counting down the days to when he could return home to be reunited with his wife and daughter. Then he met his clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam manned Lunar Industries Moon base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rapidly deteriorating Sam Bell and his clone were stuck on the Moon base left to figure out what two Sam Bells were doing there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rapidly deteriorating Sam Bell and his clone were stuck on the Moon base left to figure out what two Sam Bells were doing there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lunar Industries was using a series of Sam Bell clones to manage its helium-3 mining operations on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lunar Industries executives hatched a nefarious plot to use a series of Sam Bell clones to managed their helium-3 mining operations on the Moon. This was all in an effort to save money on sending engineers back and forth to the Moon. In the end, the fresh Sam clone returned to Earth as a whistle blower and the company's stock fell 32% and it seemed that that would be just the beginning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "energy crisis in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned at the opening of the film that fusion power averted a global oil crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was very much looking forward to reuniting with his wife once his three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 on the far side of the Moon was over. They communicated over recorded video transmissions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerty explained to the rapidly deteriorating Sam clone that his memories of his wife and child had been implanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fresh Sam clone admitted that he had to work on controlling his temper in the aftermath of having flipped over the rapidly deteriorating Sam clone's table top model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fresh Sam clone admitted that he had to work on controlling his temper in the aftermath of having flipped over the rapidly deteriorating Sam clone's table top model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "videophone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rapidly deteriorating Sam made a video call to his wife's residence on Earth. She was deceased.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gerty offered to let the fresh Sam clone reboot its memory (i.e. kill it), because he would otherwise not be able to safely return back to Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek (2009)", "title": "Star Trek", "date": "2009-04-07", "description": "The film follows James T. Kirk and Spock aboard the USS Enterprise as they combat Nero, a Romulan from their future who threatens the United Federation of Planets. The story takes place in an alternate reality because of time travel by both Nero and the original Spock. It is the eleventh film in the Star Trek film franchise, and is also a reboot that features the main characters of the original Star Trek television series portrayed by a new cast, as the first in the rebooted film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nero blamed the Federation for the deaths of his family members and people and spent 25 years plotting his revenge, which involved destroying all Federation aligned planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nero destroyed Vulcan and most of its six billion inhabitants by dropping a black hole into its interior. The Enterprise crew had to stop him from doing the same to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rationality vs. emotionality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock felt conflicted between his Vulcan rationality and his human emotions that made him grieve over the destruction of his home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Kirk and Spock forming the initial bonds of their what was known to have become a life long friendship. Kirk and McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A hoverbike-like riding police officer chased a young James Kirk on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock was bullied by three school mates for being the child of a human mother. It was implied that Young Spock's being only half Vulcan made him somehow inferior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock was bullied by three school mates for being the child of a human mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large space station was depicted in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nero used a drop of \"red matter\" to create a black hole at the center of the planet Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chekov transported Kirk and Spock up to the Enterprise just as they were about to free fall on to the surface of Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nero launched a genocidal attack on Vulcan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Spock mind melded with Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Spock traveled back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock mourned the murder of his mother which he had witnessed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was something going on between Spock and Uhura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock met Old Spock at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loss of emotional equilibrium", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a departure from his usual emotionless demeanor, Spock was momentarily overwhelmed by grief on the Enterprise bridge and attacked Captain Kirk in a rage.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)", "title": "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", "date": "2009-04-09", "description": "The film focuses on the character Wolverine and his relationship with his half-brother Victor Creed, as well his time with Stryker's Team X, before, and shortly after his skeleton was bonded with the indestructible metal, adamantium. It is the fourth installment of the X-Men film series, the first installment of the Wolverine trilogy within the series, and a spin-off prequel to X-Men (2000).", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "However damaged Logan become by conventional means, his body eventually healed itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Logan as he seeks vengeance against his half-brother James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Logan was betrayed by his half-brother, Victor, and then his girlfriend, Kayla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Logan as he seeks vengeance against his half-brother James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wolverine's body automatically healed itself after any physical injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan has to oppose his own half-brother who was turning evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan gave a howl of mourning upon finding his girlfriend Kayla's apparently dead body in the woods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and his half-brother Victor had lived without any signs of physical aging since the time of the American Civil War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Stryler was masterminding a plan to create an elite fighting force of experimentally enhanced mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and Kayla were happily living together as a couple, had a falling out of sorts, but rekindled their love for one another toward the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young James Howlett witnessed Logan kill his father being killed by Logan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "American Civil War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan and James were depicted fighting in a battle in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan and James were depicted fighting in a battle in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan and James were depicted fighting in a battle in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan and James were depicted fighting in a battle in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Wraith had an innate ability to teleport himself over short distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade Wilson could deflect flying bullets with his sword. Agent Zero had enhanced agility and reflexes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris Bradley had an innate ability to manipulate electricity and electronic objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was living in northern Canada with his girlfriend Kayla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A farmer and his wife took in Logan and cared for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A farmer and his wife took in Logan and cared for him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obesity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred Dukes was training as a boxer in an effort to lose weight as he had become morbidly obese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fred Dukes punched clear Logan across a room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Major Stryker justified his making an elite fighting force of mutants out of love for his country.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flying in a small plane made Logan anxious to the point that he sweated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kayla had an innate ability to control or convince others to do the things she wants them to by physical touch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kayla was reunited with her sister with diamond hard skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was surprised to be able to hear Xavier communicate with him telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan lost all his memories after Major Stryker shot him in the skull with an adamantium bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young Scott shot his eye beams one time and one time only. Wade also had Scott's ability.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama5x9101112", "title": "Bender's Game", "date": "2009-04-26", "description": "Futurama: Bender's Game is a 2008 American direct-to-video adult animated science fantasy comedy film and the third of the four Futurama films that make up the show's fifth season. It was released on November 4, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Eric Horsted & David X. Cohen Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bender got into Dungeons & Dragons and ended up failing to be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality to the extent that he was institutionalized.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Dungeons and Dragons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender came to confuse his D&D world with the real world and the story became something of a parody on D&D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cultural history", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dungeons & Dragons parody morphed into a Lord of the Rings one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom ran an evil world domineering energy company similar to BP/EXXON/Equinor etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom was profiteering off dark matter energy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monopolies in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom's company had a monopoly on dark matter which Mom exploited for maximum profits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists fought Ogres, Dragons, and suchlike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was forced to wear a temper controlling shock collar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender lamented his lack of imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dark matter was used as a proxy for oil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pacifism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Centaurs were peace loving until Leela showed them the error of their ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom and her three idiot sons were featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pridefulness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela made an ill-advised decision to enter Planet Express Ship into a demolition derby to prove that it wasn't a piece of junk as some space rednecks had alleged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela got into a rivalry with some rednecks which culminated in a demolition derby showdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom, Prof. Warnstrom, Prof. Farnsworth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was locked up in the robot loony bin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was worried about Bender slipping away into a fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Interaction between Mom's sons was only occasionally featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The head of Rich Little commentated the demolition derby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pain collar", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela was forced to wear a collar that socked her whenever she had a violent thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela visited her parents to work out her anger issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela paid a visit to her sewer mutant parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth turned out to be Ignar's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was put in the robot loony bin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "centaur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela was a centaur in Bender's fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mythological dwarf", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were dwarfs in Bender's fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film ended with Planet Express ship flying through a wormhole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terminator Salvation (2009)", "title": "Terminator Salvation", "date": "2009-05-21", "description": "The film focuses on the war between Skynet's machine network and humanity, as the remnants of the world's military have united to form the Resistance to fight against Skynet's killing machines. Bale portrays John Connor, a Resistance fighter and central character, while Worthington portrays cyborg Marcus Wright. Yelchin plays a young Kyle Reese, a character first introduced in The Terminator, and the film depicts the origins of the T-800 (Model 101) Terminator.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator", "Collection: TRIPOD films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Salvation" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a post nuclear holocaust near future where humans were in a desperate war against the Skynet computer system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor lead a militant resistance movement against the Skynet system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Conner led the resistance against the Skynet computer system, which had taken control of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Resistance fighters discovered that the executed man Marcus was actually a cyborg with a mechanical endoskeleton and a partially artificial cerebral cortex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Resistance fighters versus Skynet and its robotic minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marcus struggled with the reality that he was a cyborg who felt like he was a flesh and blood human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Connor was destined to be the leader of a resistance movement against a robot extermination of humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's own execution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film begins with death row inmate Marcus Wright putting on a brave face before being executed by lethal injection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw soldiers engaged in firefights on the battlefield so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film took up not long after the Skynet system had initiated a nuclear holocaust.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skynet automated defense system had initiated a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skynet autonomous computer defense system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Connor was reluctant to trust the cyborg Marcus, but they needed to work with each other to rescue John's father Kyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle Reese and John Connor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Skynet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)", "title": "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", "date": "2009-06-08", "description": "Taking place two years after the first film, the story revolves around Sam Witwicky, who is caught in the war between the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime and the Decepticons, led by Megatron. Sam begins having strange visions of Cybertronian symbols, and is being hunted by the Decepticons under the orders of an ancient Decepticon named The Fallen, who seeks to get revenge on Earth by finding and activating a machine that would provide the Decepticons with an energon source, destroying the Sun and all life on Earth in the process. It is the sequel to 2007's Transformers, as well as the second installment in the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Revenge_of_the_Fallen" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were explicitly characterized as alien robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and Mikaela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and Mikaela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Transformers ancestors had visited the Ancient Egyptians and built the Great Pyramid of Giza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron and Judith Witwicky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron was eager to see his son Sam off to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Judith was in tears when her son Sam was moving out to go to college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "long-distance relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam leaving for college was make difficult his relationship with Mikaela, but she soon came to join him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and his college roommate Leo.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: District 9 (2009)", "title": "District 9", "date": "2009-08-13", "description": "District 9 is a 2009 science fiction action horror film directed by Neill Blomkamp, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. It is a co-production of New Zealand, the United States, and South Africa. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James, and was adapted from Blomkamp's 2006 short film Alive in Joburg.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "refugee crisis", "level": "major", "motivation": "a space ship of alien refugees came to Johannesburg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "a space ship of alien refugees came to Johannesburg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were made to live in slum under harsh conditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced resettlement", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens forced to move from their current slum to a new one", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racial segregation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The aliens lived segregated from human in a sprawling slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were racist against the insectoids refugees and segregated them in a big slum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human rights issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens treated inhumanely even though protections were initially granted protections", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wikus metamorphosed into an insectoid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wikus metamorphosed into an insectoid looking creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The MNU corporation secured a government contract to relocate alien refugees, but they violated the aliens \"human\" rights and were moreover fixated on acquiring the alien's advanced weaponry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wikus risks his life fighting paramilitary force in orer to save Christopher and his son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wikus went from being an incompetent paper pusher to being a hero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "aliens not given full human rights even thought they were sentient and intelligent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a space ship of insectoid refugees came to Johannesburg", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nepotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wikus promoted to lead operation to move aliens to new area because he was married to daughter of man who ran company responsible for the operation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wikus and his wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "corporation CEO and his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Christopher and his insectoid son", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wikus in alien robotic exoskeleton", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama5x13141516", "title": "Into the Wild Green Yonder", "date": "2009-08-30", "description": "Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder is a 2009 American direct-to-video adult animated science fiction comedy-adventure film serving as the fourth and final Futurama film. The film was written by Ken Keeler, based on a story by Keeler and David X. Cohen, and directed by Peter Avanzino. Guest stars include Phil Hendrie, Penn Jillette, Snoop Dogg and Seth MacFarlane, who sings the theme song. In the movie, Leela becomes an outlaw when she and a group of ecologically-minded feminists attempt to save an asteroid of primitive life forms and the Violet Dwarf star from being destroyed, while Fry joins a secret society and attempts to stop a mysterious species known as the \"Dark Ones\" from destroying all life in the universe. The title itself is a reference to the U.S. Air Force Song, the main chorus of which describes reaching \"Into the wild blue yonder\".\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Ken Keeler & David X. Cohen Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leo Wong tried wipe out 12 percent of the galaxy to made a mini golf course and Leela joined an activist group to stop him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leela joined an activist group to stop Leo Wong from destroying life on in the Violet star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Leela joined an activist group to stop Leo Wong from destroying life on in the Violet star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry acquired this ability to read minds with mixed reactions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry's mind got filled with other people's thoughts when he wasn't wearing his tinfoil hat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had an affair with the Don Bot's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had an affair with the Don Bot's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The male stereotype Bender and Zap embodied in pursuing the Don Bot's wife and Leela, respectively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Farnsworth was bribed to give Wong agreeable scientific results that permitted him to wreck the environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Evil but competent men tried to wreck the environment while good hearted but scatterbrained women tried to stop them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela joined an activist group that used sabotage and violence to stop Leo Wong from destroying life on in the Violet star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mafia boss and fan girl bot. Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender lucky at poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender with lucky Don Bot's foot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I became extremely lucky", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender became reliably lucky for some reason and used it to win a poker tournament.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela refused while Professor Farnsworth didn't hesitate to take Leo Wong's money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a court proceeding of some sort where Leela was on trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was commentary on the presumed conditions in private prisons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wong family tried to build a bigger and better Las Vegas on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a storyline about Bender having an affair with the wife of the head of the robot mafia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disembodied head of Penn and Teller commentated the power tournament. Richard Nixon's head helped Leo Wong stop the eco-feminists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and the eco-feminists went about in a flying hippie van.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Supreme Court justices linked minds to come to a decision in the case of the eco-feminists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feminism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela led a band of ecofeministas. Gender inequality was highlighted in various ways, including the putting of men in go go cages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snoop Dogg's head was lead judge at the Feministas trial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)", "title": "Universal Soldier: Regeneration", "date": "2009-10-01", "description": "It is up to the former UniSol Luc Devereaux to stop a group of terrorists from killing the Ukrainian Prime Minister's children, whom they have taken hostage, and also from blowing up the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It is the fifth installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier:_Regeneration" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film is a rogue military program to harvest dead soldiers, re-animate and genetically enhanced them with the objective of creating an army of remorseless killers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Hollywood terrorists kidnapped the Ukrainian Prime Minister's son and daughter and held them hostage, demanding the release of their imprisoned comrades within 72 hours. And if their demand was not met, they'd blow up the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ransom kidnapping", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of terrorists kidnapped the Ukrainian Prime Minister's son and daughter and held them hostage, demanding the release of their imprisoned comrades within 72 hours.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fundamental to the film is a technology to recycle battlefield dead into remorseless supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luc was sent in to rescue Ukrainian Prime Minister's son and daughter who were being held as hostages by terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reintegrating into society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former UniSol Luc was undergoing rehabilitation therapy with the goal of rejoining society before he was commandeered by the military to go on a dangerous mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Chernobyl nuclear accident was described.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the next generation Universal Soldiers had been improved through unspecified genetic modifications.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Sandra Fleming was helping Luc reintegrate into society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kevin Burke and other army grunts battled terrorists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Avatar (2009)", "title": "Avatar", "date": "2009-12-10", "description": "Avatar (marketed as James Cameron's Avatar) is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver.\n\nSynopsis: Set in the mid-22nd century, humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2000s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was that humans had set up a mining colony on a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system and were going about displacing its native inhabitants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that it is set on a lush habitable moon, named Pandora, of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might be like for ordinary soldiers to have to fight in unfamiliar terrain for a dubious cause. The wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake was a self-described jarhead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake savoring the experience of remotely controlling a fully functional Na'vi alien body with his brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandora was inhabited by the Na'vi, a species of 10-foot tall, blue-skinned, sentient humanoids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "From the Na'vi point of view, the humans came down down from the sky to overrun the land they'd inhabited for untold generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The RDA mining corporation was going about subjugating the Na'vi based on stereotypical European colonial period practices. In particular, the corporation officials were quick to resort to brute force to get what they wanted when offers of schools and roads failed to win over the Na'vi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a special technology enabling people to remotely operate special Na'vi alien bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "noble savage utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Na'vi lived in harmony with nature and worshiped a mother goddess named Eywa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline followed Jake and the Na'vi princess Neytiri as they fell passionately in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was that the Na'vi were not going to let the human colonists push them off their sacred land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The religious practices of the Na'vi were much explored. They worshiped a mother goddess name Eywa, practiced a form of ancestor veneration, held all live sacred, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake became the leader of the Na'vi resistance against the human mining colonists and in the end they sent their humans oppressors packing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The RDA mining corporation having no qualms about wiping out the Na'vi aliens in order to mine the valuable element unobtanium was at the heart of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that by 2154, humans had depleted Earth's natural resources with a severe energy crisis being the result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and others were revived from cryogenic stasis upon arriving at the habitable moon Pandora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake solemnly observed his recently deceased bother Tommy being cremated. People spoke in glowing terms of Jake's deceased brother Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew had traveled approximately 6 light years to reach a habitable moon in the Alpha Centauri star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew traveled to the habitable moon Pandora in the futuristic, interstellar voyage capable starship the ISV Venture Star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The soldiers were stomping around in robotic armored units complete with powerful arms and legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holographic maps of different regions of Pandora were on display in the command center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake had to stand his ground upon encountering a large territorial beast that charged at him. Jake came face to face with a variety of other dangerous beasts in the forests of Pandora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neytiri's father was the leader of her clan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neytiri's mother was the shaman of their clan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake and the others were in awe of the floating mountains of Pandora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake hunted a deer-like animal in the traditional Na'vi fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rite of passage into manhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake completed a series of trials that qualified him as a man of the Omaticaya clan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neytiri pointedly accused Jake of having betrayed her clan for not having revealed that he'd originally been sent to infiltrate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neytiri released a scream of mourning upon seeing the body of her slaughtered father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shamanism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mo'at performed a shamanistic ritual over Jake's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jake mourned the deaths of his comrades in arms Trudy and Grace.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sherlock Holmes (2009)", "title": "Sherlock Holmes", "date": "2009-12-25", "description": "Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 period mystery action film starring Robert Downey Jr. as the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film, set in 1890, follows eccentric detective Holmes and his companion Watson attempting to foil a mysticist's plot to gain control of Britain by seemingly supernatural means. Rachel McAdams stars as Holmes' former adversary Irene Adler and Mark Strong portrays villain Lord Henry Blackwood.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(2009_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-tripod.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the importance of paying attention to detail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes demonstrated an uncanny ability to tell much about people and crime scenes alike merely from observing minor details.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes and Watson unraveled a sinister plot perpetrated by a secret group of powerful men to take control of Britain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Assisting Sherlock Holes was a constant source of frustration to Watson. For example, Watson took exception to Holmes' attempts to undermine Watson's engagement to Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inspector Lestrade, an investigator from Scotland Yard, brought in Holmes and Watson to help with the investigation of the murders of several women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holmes' tried to undermine Watson's engagement to Mary at every turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson was besotted with his fiancée, Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood was a key figure in a secret occult society with designs on taking overt control of Britain and beyond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood was fueled by a desire to create a new world empire that would endure for a thousand years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Lord Blackwood seemingly returning to life after being pronounced dead following his hanging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Lord Blackwood pulling an elaborate ruse designed to fool Parliament into believing he wielded powerful occult forces. In this way he planned to take control of the government. In the end, Holmes and his associates exposed Blackwood as a charlatan and a fraud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood commanded powerful occult forces, or so it seemed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "devil worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes rescued a woman from being sacrificed by Lord Blackwood in a Satanic ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes rescued a woman from being sacrificed by Lord Blackwood in a Satanic ritual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes was served tea by the maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After taking some lumps, Holmes got the better of his opponent in a bare knuckle boxing match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood was hanged for practicing black magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood ritually murdered five women, one for each point on the pentagram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gypsy woman Flora read Watson's palm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson kept a docile hound, named Gladstone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lord Blackwood plotted to detonate a cyanide-based chemical weapon inside Parliament. Holmes remarked it was the first weapon of its kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "physics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes commented on the novelty of remotely detonating a weapon by means of electromagnetic waves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Meteor Apocalypse (2010)", "title": "Meteor Apocalypse", "date": "2010-02-23", "description": "The story follows a man as he searches for his wife and sick daughter, as pieces of an exploded comet rain down on the Earth, contaminating the groundwater and causing millions to become sick.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Apocalypse" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An attempt by the world powers to blow a comet out of a collision course with Earth backfired, resulting in myriad pieces of the comet raining down to Earth. This caused much destruction and contaminated the groundwater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "David faced cometary fragments raining down around him, poisoned groundwater, and hostile people on his journey to find his wife and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David spent the film searching for his wife Kate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "David spent the film searching for his young daughter Alison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The world powers tried to deflect an oncoming comet by launching a bunch of nuclear weapons at it, but the plan backfired and cometary fragments ended up raining down all over the place", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of heights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David confessed to being afraid of heights while he and Lynn were on a building rooftop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate and her young daughter Alison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Radiation from the cometary fragments poisoned all the groundwater.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Iron Man 2 (2010)", "title": "Iron Man 2", "date": "2010-04-26", "description": "Six months after Iron Man, Tony Stark resists calls from the United States government to hand over the Iron Man technology, which is causing his declining health. Meanwhile, Russian scientist Ivan Vanko uses his own version of the technology to pursue a vendetta against the Stark family. It is the sequel to Iron Man (2008) and the third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Iron Man suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social ethical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central question to the film concerns whether or not matters of national security should be left in the hands of Tony Stark/Iron Man - a private citizen who was generally acting in the public good.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ivan Vanko hatched an elaborate plot to exact vengeance on the Stark family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "privatization in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony triumphantly proclaimed at a Senate hearing that he'd successfully privatized world peace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a fanciful depictions of what it might be like to be an executive at high corporations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hammer Industries CEO Justin Hammer resented his rival CEO Tony's success and tried to one up him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a drunken fool", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony got drunk in his Iron Man suit and made a fool of him self at a club to everyone's chagrin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rhodes came to regret that he hadn't trusted Tony more in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony synthesized a new element with the help of his trusted AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hammer Industries armored kill-bot drones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Tony sharing a passionate kiss with his budding love interest Pepper Potts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x01", "title": "Rebirth", "date": "2010-06-24", "description": "\"Rebirth\" is the premiere of Futurama's sixth season, and the revival of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on June 24, 2010. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening, and directed by Frank Marino.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: David X. Cohen & Matt Groening Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth revived the Planet Express team people using stem cells after they died in a horrible crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry mourned over Leela when she fell into what appeared to be an irreversible come. Leela also mourned Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela made a robot Leela and, the professor a robot Fry", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had to keep on partying or he would explode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, Robot Fry, Robot Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela. Android Fry and Android Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth made android duplicates of both Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Android Leela raised the question of whether she was the same person as the original biological Leela she was cloned from. Fry discovered that he was really an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my personal identity came into question", "level": "major", "motivation": "Questions were raised as to whether the android clones of Fry and Leela were fundamentally different in any way from the originals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Fry met their android clone doubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry woke up with some sort of partial amnesia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet Express Ship flew through the Panama wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team was attacked by a creature known as the cyclops eater.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x02", "title": "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", "date": "2010-06-24", "description": "\"In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela\" is the second episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom, Futurama. It originally aired directly after \"Rebirth\" on June 24, 2010 on Comedy Central. In the episode, Zapp Brannigan and Leela end up on a Garden of Eden-like world after fighting a planet-destroying satellite called V-Giny.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Carolyn Premish & Matt Groening Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space probe V-giny took it upon itself to censor life on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan demonstrated extreme selfishness by hoarding all the supplies for himself after he and Leela got marooned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet killing weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "A giant Death Sphere was headed to Earth, apparently to destroy it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "close encounter with a stray artificial object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Death Sphere turned out to be an amalgam between an ancient military satellite and an ancient TV censorship satellite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Christian end of the world was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to have sex in order to save someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had to have sex with Brannigan to save the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan was summonsed to the White House by Richard Nixon's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Brannigan intercepted the Death Sphere in an invisible spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x03", "title": "Attack of the Killer App", "date": "2010-07-01", "description": "\"Attack of the Killer App\" is the third episode of the sixth season of the American animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 1, 2010. The episode focuses on the release of the new eyePhone, resulting in Fry posting a viral video of Leela on the Internet. Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, guest stars as Leela's singing boil, Susan.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were obsessed with new gadgets and quickly threw out old stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom was astonished that people were spewing out all the personal information she needed to exploit them over her new twitcher app. She went on to use the hyper-connectedness of year 3000 to take over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "data privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom spied on everyone. Bender recorded people without their consent and posted it online, and Fry did the same to Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technological risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom exploited centralization and conncetedness to stage an attack on civilization that turned everyone into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender had a contest to see who could be the first one to attain a million followers online.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender were seeking to become famous online by gathering lots of followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry about posting embarrassing video of Leela in order not to loose his bet and have to dive into tub of unspeakable nastiness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry betrayed Leela by posting a humiliating video of her online so that he could get more followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "waste management", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw how the rich world dumped its garbage on the poor world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exported pollution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw how the rich world dumped its garbage on the poor world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela coped briefly with being an Internet sensation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child labor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The third world aliens used child labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom and her three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry felt terrible over having posted a humiliating video of Leela online.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A humiliating video of Leela was posted online.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom used a computer worm to turn millions of people into mass tech gadget consuming zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was outraged to find out that the beaming of ads directly into people dreams was a commonplace practice in New New York city of the year 3000.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Predators (2010)", "title": "Predators", "date": "2010-07-07", "description": "The film follows an ensemble of characters including a mercenary who appears in an unidentified jungle among other proficient killers. They find that they have been abducted and placed on a planet which acts as a game reserve for two warring tribes of extraterrestrial killers, and actively look for a way to return to Earth. It is the third installment of the Predator franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Predator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predators_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Predators abducted a number of proficient killers, dropped them off a heavily forested hunting reserve planet, and hunted them for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Predators abducted a number of proficient killers, dropped them off a heavily forested hunting reserve planet, and hunted them for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predators abducted a number of proficient killers, dropped them off a heavily forested hunting reserve planet, and hunted them for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator aliens abducted a number of proficient killers to hunt down for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predator aliens abducted a number of proficient killers to hunt down for sport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Predators used a kind of super camouflage that made them practically invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predators used helmets that allowed them to see in infrared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The abductees were attacked by some alien hunting dogs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the abductees was a deranged death row inmate who looked forward to \"raping bitches\" should he manage to make it back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Isabelle refused to abandon Edwin, who had injured his leg in a trap, rather than accompany Royce to the spaceship, which was her best chance of saving her skin at the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Royce made an abortive attempt to fly home on one of the Predator spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that the Predators were involved in a blood feud with the Super Predators.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x04", "title": "Proposition Infinity", "date": "2010-07-08", "description": "\"Proposition Infinity\" is the fourth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 8, 2010. In the episode, Amy Wong and Bender fall in love and begin a culturally taboo \"robosexual\" relationship. After facing anti-robosexual sentiments from society, they elect to get married and advocate to legalize robosexual marriage through \"Proposition Infinity\".\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Kif, then Amy and Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Conservative characters were upset that Amy had an affair with a robot. Various other sexual deviations (cow and ghost) were mentioned as acceptable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Bender were dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage equality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robosexual marriage was a metaphor for gay marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Bender's love was condemned because she was a human and he a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's relationship with Kif disintegrated gradually in the beginning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy lost Kif because she kept flirting with rebels and lowlifes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy's parents disapproved of her life in general and her dating a robot in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hedonism bot was in S&M gear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vandalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was painting graffiti all over New New York.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew around in a tornado using jet packs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George Takei's head hosted a debate on a proposition to legalize robosexual marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was dating a mechanical man (i.e. Bender).", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x05", "title": "The Duh-Vinci Code", "date": "2010-07-15", "description": "\"The Duh-Vinci Code\" is the fifth episode of Futurama's sixth season. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 15, 2010. In the episode, Fry finds a drawing of a lost Leonardo da Vinci invention which leads him and Professor Farnsworth to planet Vinci.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Maiya Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "This historical figured turned out to be an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the greatest among us is the smallest in another world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leonardo da Vinci is giant here but we learn that he is in fact a looser on his own world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leonardo found that they were both losers, and then the Professor got a taste of this as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the historical figure was really an alien", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that great polymath Leonardo da Vinci was really an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Leonardo da Vinci was really an alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leonardo da Vinci built a doomsday machine to get back at the nerds who had been mocking him for centuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-intellectualism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor and Leonardo felt inferior and therefore decided to get back at all snooty intellectuals by a doomsday machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saint James turned to to be a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and The Professor flew to planet Vinci in a wooden spaceship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x06", "title": "Lethal Inspection", "date": "2010-07-22", "description": "\"Lethal Inspection\" is the sixth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 22, 2010. In the episode Bender learns that he suffers from a terminal manufacturing defect, effectively rendering him mortal. Bender must cope with his newfound mortality and enlists Hermes Conrad's help to track down the mysterious quality inspector, Inspector No. 5, whom he blames for allowing him to enter the world only to die.\n\nDirected by: Ray Claffey. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became depressed because he learned he was mortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was driven by a desire to pre-avenge his own death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender found out that he was defective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a war re-enactment of some sort commemorating an invasion in which at least 98 million had been killed early on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Bender's carefree attitude came from knowing that he was immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old geezer died waiting in line at the central bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock1x01", "title": "A Study in Pink", "date": "2010-07-25", "description": "The episode introduces the main characters and resolves a murder mystery.\n\nIt is loosely based upon the first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "John Watson was an army doctor injured in Afghanistan who suffered from post-traumatic stress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes befriended John Watson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes about the 50/50 chance of choosing good pill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an imaginary reliance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Watson had an imaginary reliance on his cane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Watson may have been haunted by memories of the war in Afghanistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes deduced that an apparent suicided woman in pink was a serial adulterer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John Watson was introduced to Sherlock Holmes' arch enemy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x07", "title": "The Late Philip J. Fry", "date": "2010-07-29", "description": "\"The Late Philip J. Fry\" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the animated series Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 29, 2010. In the episode, Fry attempts to make it on time to a birthday dinner date for Leela. He is sidetracked by Professor Farnsworth and Bender, who force him to test out the Professor's time machine, which only goes forward in time. After overshooting and thus going forward to the year 10,000 AD, they must keep traveling forward in time until a backwards time machine has been invented.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor, Fry, and Bender went to the year 10,000 in the Professor's time machine. They went on to travel deeper and deeper into the future in search of a time machine that can go back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor, Fry, and Bender went to the future in the Professor's time machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was having stereotypical problems with Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with Leela professing her love for Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dying sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor, Fry, and Bender found the Earth to be a dried out, lifeless husk by the year one billion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Hermes lived on as a head in a jar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor assassinated Hitler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was an obnoxious neighbor/roommate to Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inattentive male partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was being stereotypically inattentive to Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Bang", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, the Professor, and Bender travelled to the end of time where they witnessed the occurrence of a new Big Bang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Chill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw the heat death of the universe down to the last proton decay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyclical time universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that the universe repeats itself every odd umpteen billion years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock1x02", "title": "The Blind Banker", "date": "2010-08-01", "description": "Sherlock and John Watson investigate a series of ciphers representing numbers in an ancient Chinese numeral system which have been left by a Chinese smuggling ring who seem intent on killing to retrieve an item that one of them stole.\n\nLoosely based on the short story \"The Adventure of the Dancing Men\", the storyline also incorporates elements from other Sherlock Holmes stories; the concept of coded messages, the markings on the feet of the Black Lotus members and the plot of escaping a secret society, then being tracked to and killed in England all feature in The Valley of Fear. A murder victim being found inside a locked room, accessible only by climbing, alludes to The Sign of the Four.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holmes and Watson were investigating three related murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holmes and Watson linked a pair of enigmatic murders to the Black Lotus gang of international smugglers, and the sordid details of the gang's smuggling of Chinese artifacts into the UK was much featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police mistakenly assumed that Eddie Van Coon had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police inspector reluctantly relied on Holmes for help in getting ot the bottom of two enigmatic murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soo Lin confided in Sherlock Holmes that she's smuggled lots drugs into Hong Kong as a teenager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Soo Lin was shot dead by her own brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptographic cypher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes and Watson cracked a book cipher.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x08", "title": "That Darn Katz!", "date": "2010-08-05", "description": "\"That Darn Katz!\" is the eighth episode of the sixth season of the animated comedy show, Futurama. It first aired on Comedy Central on August 5, 2010. In the episode, Amy's rejected doctoral dissertation—a device to harness the Earth's rotational energy—is used by evil invading space cats to fix their own slowing planet. Since the invention will cause the Earth to stop turning, Amy and Nibbler must team up to stop them while their co-workers have fallen under the thrall of the cats' cuteness.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space cats enslaved humanity by means of their cuteness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parody on life in academia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was largely a parody on professors and grad students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cats are actually aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cats threatened civilization as we know it by halting the rotation of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "People and their cats. Leela and Nibbler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Intelligent cats tried to take over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nibbler was briefly jealous of Leela's new pet cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned how cats from outer space came to live among the Ancient Egyptians and directed them to build the great pyramid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was devastated after having failed her doctoral examination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was stressed out in advance of her doctoral examination.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock1x03", "title": "The Great Game", "date": "2010-08-08", "description": "This episode introduced the character of Jim Moriarty, the \"consulting criminal\". It featured a number of linked cases for Sherlock to solve, with numerous allusions to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.\n\nThe episode's storyline is somewhat derived from \"The Adventure of the Bruce- Partington Plans\" and makes references to \"The Five Orange Pips\" at various points (as per the five bomb victims and electronic beeps on the phone) in addition to other works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock was being taunted by a psychopathic criminal who put his victims into explosive vests. Watson called out Sherlock on several occasions over Sherlock's lack of empathy for the victims who were being placed in time bomb vests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock's archenemy Jim Moriarty hatched a nefarious plot that was calculated to leave Sherlock at his mercy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson were trying to catch a man who was placing his victims into explosive vests and then threatening to set them off. Sherlock and Watson solved several unrelated murders in the process of trying to catch a criminal who was strapping victims into explosive vests and then threatening to set them off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock fired a gun several times into the wall of his flat out of boredom. Moriarty suggested that he'd been presenting Sherlock with life-and-death puzzles to solve out of sheer boredom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock showed no interest in taking on a case brought to him by his brother Mycroft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was keeping a severed head in his refrigerator to experiment on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson coordinated with the London police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe briefly consoled his sister Lucy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy was in tears over the murder of her boyfriend Westie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "art forgery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock exposed a painting valued at 30 million pounds as a fake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to repay one's debts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe stole some top-secret missile defense plans with a view to selling them on the black market so that he could pay debts before getting married.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x09", "title": "A Clockwork Origin", "date": "2010-08-12", "description": "\"A Clockwork Origin\" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It aired on Comedy Central on August 12, 2010. In the episode, Professor Farnsworth leaves Earth after being frustrated by anti- evolutionists' belief in \"Creaturism\", a form of Creationism. He and the Planet Express crew arrive at a lifeless planet and the Professor introduces nanobots into the environment. The nanobots rapidly begin evolving into mechanical organisms, allowing the crew to witness a whole new evolutionary history that unfolds before their eyes.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creationism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a commentary on a controversy that arose in the United States about teaching the theory of evolution in the schools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super accelerated Darwinian evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor created nanomachines that evolved from amoeba like life into transcendental beings in a matter of days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor invented nanomachines to purify his water but they evolved into more complex organisms at at accelerated rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evolution from ape to human was discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg mentored Cubert in how to handle a blobform classmate that was bullying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blob classmate of Cubert was bullying him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor's self-replicating nanomachines evolved into transcendental energy beings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor left his son Cubert under the custody of Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor got thoroughly fed up with the stupidity of people on Earth and went into exile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A race of mechanical men evolved from Professor Farnsworth's self-replicating nanobots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professors self-replicating nanobots evolved into sentient mechanical men.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x10", "title": "The Prisoner of Benda", "date": "2010-08-19", "description": "\"The Prisoner of Benda\" is the 10th episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It aired on Comedy Central on August 19, 2010. In the episode, Professor Farnsworth and Amy build a machine that allows them to switch minds so that they may each pursue their lifelong dreams. However, they learn that the machine cannot be used twice on the same pairing of bodies. To try to return to their rightful bodies, they involve the rest of the crew in the mind switches, leaving each member free to pursue their own personal endeavors in a different crew member's body. The episode is composed of multiple subplots, with the main subplot being Bender attempting to steal a crown, but ending up switching places with the Robo-Hungarian emperor.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express people were switching bodies left, right, and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender sought riches and powers first by steeling from, then impersonating, the Robo-Hungarian emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Robo-Hungarian Empire was an empire populated by mechanical men. The Professor experienced that it was like to inhabit Bender's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was overeating in other people's bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of being in power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender quickly learned that being an emperor was not all leisure and fun when his subordinates tried to assassinate him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head introduced Emperor Nikolai at the United Nations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Fry cared about looks and argued about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry in a lobster body dated Leela in an old-man body. Scruffy spurned the advances of wash-bucket in Amy's body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x11", "title": "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", "date": "2010-08-26", "description": "\"Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences\" is the eleventh episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom, Futurama and is the 99th episode in production and broadcast order. It aired on Comedy Central on August 26, 2010. In the episode, the ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8, Lrrr experiences marriage trouble with his queen, Ndnd. He departs for Earth, invading it in an attempt to overcome his mid-life crisis and reignite his marriage.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd were experiencing marital troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd were experiencing marital troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd got back together after she had kicked him out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to powerful men", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ndnd was attracted to Lrrr if and only if he subjugated worlds for her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Groening's head was on a panel at a comic-con. Orson Wells' head reenacted his famous space invasion broadcast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an unwelcome house guest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr briefly made a nuisance of himself at the Planet Express building after having gotten kicked out by his wife Ndnd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr faked conquering Earth in an effort to get Ndnd back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Omicronians came to Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ndnd forced Lrrr to choose between her and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry threw himself in front of what he believed to be a ray gun to protect Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry drew comics with himself having all sorts of superpowers, like shooting laser beams from his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male midlife crisis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr had a stereotypical midlife crisis", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)", "title": "Resident Evil: Afterlife", "date": "2010-09-02", "description": "Resident Evil: Afterlife is a 2010 science fiction action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), it is the fourth installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A zombie bashing heroine searches for and rescues some survivors of a world-wide zombie outbreak, and teams up with them to bring the pain to the head of the nefarious corporation that caused the outbreak.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_Afterlife" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that an out of control virus has transformed most of the world's population into mindless, flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse as they try to keep from being eaten alive, and ultimately battle their way to make it to an offshore safe haven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse and follows an embattled group of survivors who seek to make their way to the safe haven known as \"Arcadia\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a zombie-creating virus having proliferated all over the world. In this desperate future, a small group of survivors were trying to make their way to an offshore safe haven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying desperately to make it to an offshore safe haven, know as \"Arcadia\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Claire struggled with not being able to remember anything about her past, or even her own name for that matter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice lost her heightened speed, strength, and agility after being injected with a certain serum. Before receiving the injection, she'd used her superpowers to dispatch zombies, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris was being held against his will in a specially designed clear-walled room inside a larger room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The survivors debated on whether or not to release the potentially dangerous prisoner, Chris, from his captivity in exchange for information on how they might escape from the zombie besieged compound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris introduced himself to an amnesiac Claire as her brother, but she didn't remember him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x12", "title": "The Mutants Are Revolting", "date": "2010-09-02", "description": "\"The Mutants Are Revolting\" is the twelfth episode of the sixth season of the American animated sitcom Futurama and is the 100th episode of the series. It aired on Comedy Central on September 2, 2010 as a mid-season finale, with remaining episodes broadcast in November 2010 and in 2011. In the episode, the Planet Express crew celebrate their 100th delivery. Leela's status as a mutant is exposed to the public and she is deported from the surface and forced to live with other mutants in the sewers. She recognizes the inequality with which mutants are forced to live and rallies them together in an equal rights revolt against the surface dwellers.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela was exposed as a mutant and was forced to live together with her kind in the sewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Fry led a mutant rights movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "worker exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mutants were exploited as cheap labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made their 100th delivery to a mansion on an asteroid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender held a party full of robots after the Planet Express people got sentenced to live in the sewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was transformed into a grotesque mutant after diving into some toxic waste.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela went to live with her parents in the sewers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rich lady pined for her late husband who had turned into a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ship Titanic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story involved an obvious parody on this fated ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry became a mutant for Leela's sake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society with an institutionalized social stratification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sewer mutants were discriminated against on account of their sub-human class.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Skyline (2010)", "title": "Skyline", "date": "2010-11-11", "description": "A group of Los Angeles residents witness an alien invasion while in a condominium.", "collections": [ "Collection: Skyline Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(2010_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of people who are hold up in a condominium as they try to survive a sudden and overwhelming alien invasion of Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story is Jarrod and his pregnant wife Elaine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien creatures were going around capturing people and sucking out their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grotesque invading alien creatures were going around putting people in trance-like states before grabbing them and sucking out their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of people who are hold up in a condominium as they try to survive a massive attack by brain-sucking-out alien creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod and Elaine experienced a bit of turbulence on an otherwise mundane flight into Los Angeles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod traveled to Los Angeles to attend his best friend Terry's birthday party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine revealed to her husband Jarrod that she was pregnant. But they didn't have much time to plan for the future, not with the alien invasion going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people at Terry's birthday party were amusing themselves by watching a gay couple by using a telescope that was hooked up to a video stream on Terry's television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alien creatures descended on Los Angeles in high-tech spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The retiree Walt clutched his dog-sweater clad chihuahua as the aliens probed his apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Candice confronted her husband Terry after she discovered some photos of him making out with his personal assistant Denise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod pointedly lamented that he hadn't done more to prevent an alien creature from killing his best friend Terry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A United States Air Force jet downed the alien mothership with a nuke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod warned the people who were hold up wit him in the condominium that the radiation from the nuclear blast was liable to kill them all if they stayed in town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver was mistrustful of Jarrod because he thought Jarrod might be in league with the invading aliens, and this added fuel to the fire over their argument over whether to stay in the condominium or try to escape from the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the alien creatures were the size of small buildings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod and Elaine shared a passionate kiss as they were being levitated up into the alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jarrod and Elaine were abducted aboard the alien mothership in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x13", "title": "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular", "date": "2010-11-21", "description": "\"The Futurama Holiday Spectacular\", originally titled \"Holiday Val-U-Pak\", is the thirteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama and is the 101st episode of the series. It originally aired as a holiday special on November 21, 2010, before the remaining episodes of Season 7 were broadcast in 2011. The episode features three self-contained segments, sponsored by the fictitious product \"Gunderson's Unshelled Nuts\". The first segment is based on \"Xmas\", in which the long-extinct pine tree species is revived, but due to seed contamination grow out of control. The second segment is based on \"Robanukah\", in which Bender leads the crew on a search for petroleum oil in order for him to celebrate the holiday. In the third and final segment, the Planet Express crew go in search of beeswax, in order to create traditional beeswax candles for Kwanzaa.\n\nDirected by: Ray Claffey. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team brought a pine tree out of extinction to celebrate Christmas. In another story, bees were in danger of going extinct from the colony collapse phenomenon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The heads of Richard Nixon, Dick Cheney, and Al Gore made appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching atmospheric conflagration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender lit a cigar which resulted in the ignition of Earth's atmosphere because oxygen levels had risen to 80%.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robots exhausted the world's petroleum oil supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robots exhausted the world's petroleum oil supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express ship was used to tunnel deep into the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express ship was used as a subterrene to drill into the ground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Norwegian seed vault was mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a biological weapons repository.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark Metropolis (2010)", "title": "Dark Metropolis", "date": "2010-12-14", "description": "Humankind has lost a 300-year war against a genetically enhanced race that humans created, abused and finally tortured. Now the descendants of that race - known as the \"Ghen\" control the planet Earth from advanced underground cities.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Metropolis" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghens considered humans to be a sub-race and were actively persecuting them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghens lived inside metropolises of some sort within the Hollow Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghens lived inside metropolises of some sort within the Hollow Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hannalin Pryme and her two sons: Aiden Pryme and Crecilius Pryme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aiden and Cercilius Pryme.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghen's were perpetrating a actively trying to exterminate humans from the face of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crecilius, who was living secretly as a Ghen, was ashamed of his being human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghen leader Cricilius had kept secret his whole life that he was human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "Crecilius and his mother Hannalin were hiding the dark secret that Crecilius was a human being, and not a Ghen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghens were a genetically engineered race of people created by humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aiden and Rielle were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Humankind has lost a 300-year war against a genetically enhanced race of their own creation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A human was found guilty in a Ghen legal proceeding of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mukayluh was channeling some entities that described themselves as being incorporeal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aiden was running for the office of Baron in the Ghen government.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Source Code (2011)", "title": "Source Code", "date": "2011-03-11", "description": "Source Code is a 2011 American science-fiction action thriller film directed by Duncan Jones and written by Ben Ripley.\n\nSynopsis: A U.S. Army Captain is sent into an eight-minute digital recreation of a real-life train explosion, tasked with figuring out the identity of the terrorist who bombed it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a technology that uses collected memories of people who died in a train bombing to simulate an elaborate eight-minute long digital recreation of the events leading up to the explosion. Captain Colter Stevens was placed in the digital recreation in the body of one of the passengers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Captain Colter Stevens to figure out the identity of the domestic terrorist who'd blown up a passenger train before the same man set of a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Captain Colter Stevens as he repeatedly lives out the eight-minute lead up to the terrorist bombing of a passenger train. He carried over his memories from the previous times each new time he went through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a machine that somehow sent its occupant to parallel realities that were slightly different from the \"real\" reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the story is that the machine was not merely creating a simulation of the events leading up to the bombing of the train, but rather the machine had tapped into a parallel reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The domestic terrorist Derek Frost plotted to detonate a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colter Stevens revealed that he'd had a falling out with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Rutledge had every intention of wiping Colter Stevens' mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Colter Stevens called his father under the guise of a fellow soldier and reconciled with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attack the Block (2011)", "title": "Attack the Block", "date": "2011-03-12", "description": "A gang of hoodies in a run-down London block are up to no good when they come across an alien creature. They kill it but soon find themselves pursued by much more ferocious versions of the same thing.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_the_Block" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they did with various implements", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "choice", "motivation": "they were very territorial", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Moses became a hero", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Moses pulled it together", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing muggers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samantha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A rowdy gang of kids were being chased by the police, who were clearly of the opinion that the gang was criminal in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "may have been a moral of the story but not clear", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pest reminded his friends that even aliens were racist with an emphasis on \"even\" implying something about contemporary society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thor (2011)", "title": "Thor", "date": "2011-04-17", "description": "After reigniting a dormant war, Thor is banished from Asgard to Earth, stripped of his powers and his hammer Mjölnir. As his brother Loki plots to take the Asgardian throne, Thor must prove himself worthy. It is the fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is loosely based on characters and settings from Norse mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor was stripped of his powers and banished from Asgard to Earth with apparently little hope of return.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor's hammer Mjölnir endowed him with super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor was banished from the magical realm of Asgard to the mundane realm of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loki hatched a nefarious plot to steal the kingship of Asgard away from his brother Thor, the crown prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loki betrayed his brother Thor and father Odin to the Frost Giants of Jotunheim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loki hatched a nefarious plot to steal the kingship of Asgard away from his brother Thor, the crown prince.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor and Jane fell for each other and shared a passionate kiss before Thor returned to Asgard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odin tried to instill in his son Thor that diplomacy was preferable to force in matters of state whenever possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Odin favored diplomacy in his conflict with the frost giants, but Thor initially advocated to wage war against them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane said \"Magic's just science we don't understand yet.\" and attributed it to Arthur C. Clarke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. was investigating the mysterious appearance of Thor's hammer in New Mexico.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor pleaded with his brother Loki to take his life in exchange for sparing the townspeople.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor and his brother Loki had some passing interactions with their mother the queen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darcy speculated that the Vikings may have worshiped Thor and his otherworldly people as deities.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men: First Class (2011)", "title": "X-Men: First Class", "date": "2011-05-25", "description": "Set primarily in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film focuses on the origins of, and relationship between Charles Xavier / Professor X and Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto and the their respective teams of mutants, the X-Men and the Brotherhood. It is the fifth installment in the X-Men film series and a prequel to X-Men (2000).", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Erik was consumed by a desire to make the ex-Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw pay for having killed his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some mutants, especially Raven and Hank, longed to be accepted by society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some mutants, especially Raven and Hank, longed to be accepted by society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A secret society of mutants attempts to manipulate the Soviet Union and the USA into engaging in a nuclear exchange, clearing the path for mutants to become the dominant species on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Xavier's' ability to read people minds and communicate with others telepathically. Emma Frost was an extremely strong mutant telepath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Unlike pervious films in the series, much was made of Xavier's ability to read the thoughts of other people. The powerful mutant Emma Frost also manifested this ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik had an innate ability to control metal objects at a distance. His grandest feat was to raise a nuclear submarine out from the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raven had an innate ability to alter her shape and voice to mimic any human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Cold War", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film presents an alternative history of the Cuban Missile Crisis where a secret society of mutants attempts to manipulate the Soviet Union and the USA into engaging in a nuclear exchange, clearing the path for mutants to become the dominant species on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian Shaw plotted to manipulate the Soviet Union and the USA into engaging in a humanity destroying nuclear exchanged, clearing a path for the rise of the mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the beginnings of Xavier and Erik's friendship. Xavier and Raven had been friends since childhood, but in the end she followed her conscience and went of with Erik.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raven was disguised herself as a beautiful woman because she was ashamed to present herself in her true form: a blue-skinned person with red hair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sebastian Shaw plotted to manipulate the Soviet Union and the USA into engaging in a humanity destroying nuclear exchanged, clearing a path for the rise of the mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eirk warned that the humans would persecute mutants in the very same way that the Nazis has persecuted the Jews. And, indeed, the US and Soviet forces to kill the mutants in a joint missile strike on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier and Erik were contrasted as very different types of leaders in the mutant cause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened depicting a young Erik's experience inside a Nazi concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Devil resembling mutant Azazel had an innate ability to teleport.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind attack ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma Frost briefly crippled Xavier with a psionic attack on his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angel Salvadore was a mutant with dragonfly wings. Sean harnessed his ability to shoot concentrated sonic bursts to be able to fly around in the sky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier psionically manipulated a Soviet ship captain into blowing up one of his own cargo ships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blue-skinned mutant Raven disguised herself as a beautiful woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik convinced Raven that she ought to embrace her freakish (as judged by society) blue-skinned self, rather than go on masquerading as a beautiful woman (again as judge by society).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier discussed some aspects of the evolution of mutants in the context of his doctoral thesis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex had the ability absorb energy and discharge it in blasts. Sean had an innate ability to shoot concentrated sound waves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)", "title": "Transformers: Dark of the Moon", "date": "2011-06-23", "description": "Set three years after Revenge of the Fallen, it follows the warring Autobots and Decepticons' last days of the war as they battle to possess powerful technology from their homeworld crashed on Earth's Moon to restore their home. It is the third installment in the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Dark_of_the_Moon" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were explicitly characterized as alien robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth was the theater for the ongoing civil war between the Autobots and the Deceptions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and his new girlfriend Carly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam and his new girlfriend Carly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that the space race of the 1960s was in response to a crashed UFO on the Moon. This turned out to be central to the plot, and also a subject that was returned to again and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Decepticons nearly succeeded in moving the planet Cypertron halfway across the galaxy to be beside Earth by moving the planet through a giant portal in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sentinel Prime betrayed the Autobots by switching allegiances to the Decepticons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Decepticons nearly succeeded in taking over Earth and enslaving its people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first landing on the Moon was depicted, and later the Autobots went to the Moon to recover Sentinel Prime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's parents visited him in Washington, D.C.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam's parents visited him in Washington, D.C.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A team visited the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown site and it was mentioned that the land in that area would not be inhabitable for at least 20,000 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam got a job in the mail room at a stereotypical corporation with an eccentric CEO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sentinel Prime used this as a justification for enslaving humanity and forcing them to rebuilt the planet Cybertron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x17", "title": "Benderama", "date": "2011-06-23", "description": "\"Benderama\" is the seventeenth episode of season six of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired June 23, 2011 on Comedy Central. The episode was written by Aaron Ehasz and directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson. American comedian Patton Oswalt guest stars in the episode, voicing an \"unattractive giant monster\". In the episode, Bender duplicates himself into two smaller copies in order to avoid work. However, the duplicates also want to avoid work, so they create their own smaller duplicates, resulting in a vast number of increasingly smaller copies of Bender ultimately threatening to consume all of the matter on Earth.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Aaron Ehasz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "self-replicating gray goo consuming the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benders were reproducing without limit and were poised to consume the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating nanomachines", "level": "major", "motivation": "Benders were self-replicating on an atomic scale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were countless Benders running around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender objected to being a robot helper so made robot helper duplicates of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "laziness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was that Bender is lazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter duplicator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor invented a machine that took an object and duplicated it into two smaller copies of itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a delivery to a giant living on a far away planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A very ugly, giant person went on a rampage in New New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone bullied the gentle giant until he turned into a monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone made fun of the gentle giant for his hideous looks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gentle giant confessed that he has anger issues.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x20", "title": "Neutopia", "date": "2011-06-23", "description": "\"Neutopia\" is the twentieth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and the premiere of Season 6-B. It is the twentieth episode of the sixth season in production order, and the 108th episode in broadcast order. It aired on Comedy Central in the United States on June 23, 2011.\n\nDirected by: Edmund Fong. Story by: J. Stewart Burns.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a literal battle between the sexes that was arranged by a rock monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rock monster changed everyone's genders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien mixed up the Planet Express peoples genders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sexes were pitted against each other in more ways than one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy was using a robotic exoskeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender neutral being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rock being was of a single gendered species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rock being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rock monster pitted the Planet Express men against the women to find out which sex was superior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a survival test involving pools of liquid mercury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "discrimination in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Women were literally discriminated against in contracts that stated they have to pose nude.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my partner switched gender", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara both switched gender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet Express company policy called for female employees to pose for a nude calendar and wear skimpy uniforms. The Professor was a font of sexist memes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x19", "title": "Ghost in the Machines", "date": "2011-06-30", "description": "\"Ghost in the Machines\" is the nineteenth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired June 30, 2011, on Comedy Central. It aired as the third episode of season 6-B, sixteenth in broadcast order for season 6 overall. The episode was written by Patric M. Verrone and directed by Ray Claffey. American actor Dan Castellaneta guest stars in the episode, voicing the Robot Devil. In the episode Bender, angry at Fry for valuing human life over robot life, kills himself in a suicide booth. Afterwards, he becomes a ghost, and learns from the Robot Devil that he is in limbo, and he cannot leave. Sharing a mutual dislike towards Fry, the Robot Devil offers to return Bender to his old body in exchange for using his new ghostly powers to scare Fry to death.\n\nDirected by: Ray Claffey. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender died and became a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Christian heaven and hell were parodied with robot versions of heaven and hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was terrorized by a haunting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both the Robot Devil and Bender wanted to avenge themselves on Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team, especially Fry, grieved over the death of Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender lived on as a program in the cloud after he physically died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was given the keys to New New York City as a reward for risking his life to save a man from being crushed by a rolling out of control parade float globe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide booth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender went to a suicide booth to kill himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was murdered by his ex-girlfriend Lynn, who happened to be a suicide booth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Amish planet people used only old fashioned 18th century level technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry had to choose between saving a robot and a nerd.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x16", "title": "Law and Oracle", "date": "2011-07-07", "description": "\"Law and Oracle\" is the sixteenth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom, Futurama, originally broadcast on July 22, 2011, on Comedy Central. In the episode, Fry leaves his job as a delivery boy at Planet Express and applies for a new job as a police officer. He is eventually promoted to the Future Crimes division, where he is foretold of a crime committed by his best friend Bender that places him in a dilemma that puts his friends' lives in danger.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry joined the New New York police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pre-crime responsibility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were arresting people who were predicted of committing crimes in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry struggled about what to do with his knowledge of Bender's predicted theft of the Maltese Liquor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The large brained cyborg conveyed this message at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry left his go-nowhere job as a delivery boy for a promising career in law enforcement", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg complained about police brutality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Bender made a delivery to the 3D planet Pandora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a large brained cyborg that was used to predict future crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The female police chief acted like a stereotypical police force man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x14", "title": "The Silence of the Clamps", "date": "2011-07-14", "description": "\"The Silence of the Clamps\" is the fourteenth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired July 14, 2011 on Comedy Central. The episode was written by Eric Rogers and directed by Frank Marino. In the episode, Bender witnesses a brutal \"clamping\" committed by the Robot Mafia and is forced into witness protection after his identity is accidentally revealed. Meanwhile, Clamps, a member of the Robot Mafia, takes Bender's old job at Planet Express in an attempt to get information as to Bender's whereabouts.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Eric Rogers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story parodied how the mafia is portrayed in the movies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was placed in the witness protection program after it became apparent the mafia was out to get him for having testified against the don bot in court.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded the robot mafia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was this walking stereotype as usual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender crashed a robot mafia wedding party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender took the stand at the Donbot's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was some rivalry going on between Zoidberg and Clamps over who would get do the snipping and cutting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered rope to the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was sent to live on the Moon as part of the witness protection program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team, especially Fry, grieved over Bender after they thought he was shot and killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg versus Francis X. Clamptaso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender took the stand at the Donbot's trial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)", "title": "Captain America: The First Avenger", "date": "2011-07-19", "description": "During World War II, a frail man is transformed into the super-soldier Captain America and must stop the Red Skull from using the Tesseract as an energy source for world domination. It is the fifth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_First_Avenger" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was transformed from a frail, undersized man into the super-soldier Captain America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and the Allies were kicking Nazi tail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was determined to serve his country in the Second World War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the lives of common Allied soldiers fighting on the front lines in the Second World War,", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve was transformed from a frail, undersized man into the super-soldier Captain America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve became the ultimate American hero: Captain America. In particular, Steve was awarded a medal of valor for rescuing over 400 Allied soldiers from Nazi captivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt was hellbent on world domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve, a frail young man, was enhanced to the peak of human ability by means of an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of Odin and the tree of the world from Norse mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve ran down a speeding car in his bare feet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt explained how he understood why people confused his technology with magic, citing that \"Great power has always baffled primitive men.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve and Schmidt had this ability in spades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength formula", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve, a frail young man, was imbued with super strength (among other things) by means of an experimental serum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was revived after having been frozen in the Arctic for 70 years.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x21", "title": "Yo Leela Leela", "date": "2011-07-21", "description": "\"Yo Leela Leela\" is the twenty-first episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 21, 2011. The title is a reference to the Nickelodeon kids' show Yo Gabba Gabba!. The show is also parodied within the episode: Leela's show is similar, featuring people dressed up in fanciful costumes as its main characters.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became a script writer for a children's TV show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "benefiting from someone else's work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela took credit for writing great stories, but really she just writing down what she observed a group of aliens going.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela aspired to be a good role model to orphans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child exploitation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The orphans were exploited by organ harvesting clowns, ruthless corporations, then Leela, then a ruthless corporation again. The child-like aliens were exploited by Leela for her story writing and later by the corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela required peace and quiet and inspiration to be creative. Also she just copied with the child-like alines were doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela visited her old Orphanarium to share her stories with the orphans there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela flew to the planet Rumbledy-Hump to get ideas for her stories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned what it might be like to grow up an orphan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that orphans could have their organs harvested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterrene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela arrived at the orphanage in a subterrene taxi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x23", "title": "All the Presidents' Heads", "date": "2011-07-28", "description": "\"All the Presidents' Heads\" is the twenty-third episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired July 28, 2011 on Comedy Central.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was working the night shift at the head museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Consuming the liquid that kept disembodied heads alive would send the Planet Express people back to the time in history that the head was from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor went back in time to wipe an embarrassing ancestor out of history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor went back in time to kill his treasonous ancestor in order to preserve the honor of the Farnsworth family name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if Britain had won the American Revolutionary War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The past was altered so that the Americans were still under British rule in the 31st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the American Revolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people traveled back to the time of the American revolution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people went back in time and met Benjamin Franklin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Farnsworth researched his family tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in revolution era America", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people went back to this time and place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x15", "title": "Möbius Dick", "date": "2011-08-04", "description": "\"Möbius Dick\" is the fifteenth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired August 4, 2011 on Comedy Central. The episode was written by Dan Vebber and directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill. In the episode, the Planet Express crew pass through an area in space known as the Bermuda Tetrahedron, where many other ships passing through the area have mysteriously disappeared, including that of the first Planet Express crew. While exploring the area, a mysterious four-dimensional space whale devours the ship's engine, leaving them stranded in the area. The ship's captain, Leela, becomes obsessed with hunting down the whale.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became obsessed with getting revenge on the 4D space whale be cause it screwed up her delivery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became obsessed with getting revenge on the 4D space whale be cause it screwed up her delivery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela versus the space whale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Bermuda Triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew into the Bermuda Tetrahedron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew flew into the Bermuda Tetrahedron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A 4D space whale attacked the Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal and plant patterned being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A 4D space whale attacked the Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew got swallowed up into a zone of 4D space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "four-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a four-dimensional space whale.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)", "title": "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", "date": "2011-08-05", "description": "A substance designed to help the brain repair itself gives advanced intelligence to a chimpanzee named Caesar, who leads an ape uprising.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman was trying cure his father's Alzheimer's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Caroline Aranha warned Will that humans were not meant to be fooling around with peoples genomes, and the next thing genetically enhanced apes were taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman and Dr. Caroline Aranha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were genetically engineered to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genetically enhanced apes rose up and challenged Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman was trying to use genetic engineering on chimpanzees to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for Alzheimer's disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman was trying to use genetic engineering on chimpanzees to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman and Caesar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman administered his experimental cure for Alzheimer's disease on his own father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal testing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Will Rodman's experimental cure for Alzheimer's disease was tested on chimpanzees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar was held captive in an animal center.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x22", "title": "Fry Am the Egg Man", "date": "2011-08-11", "description": "\"Fry Am the Egg Man\" is the twenty-second episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired August 11, 2011 on Comedy Central. The episode was written by Michael Rowe and directed by Dwayne Carey- Hill. In the episode Fry nurtures an egg purchased at a farmers' market, which later hatches into a living creature, which he names Mr. Peppy. However, upon learning of Mr. Peppy's identity and dangerous nature, Fry and the Planet Express crew decide to set him free into its home planet. They do this, only to discover that the planet's inhabitants experienced problems with Mr. Peppy's species, hunting them to extinction and intending to do the same with Mr. Peppy. The episode's title is a reference from The Beatles song I Am the Walrus.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and his pet space lizard thing Mr. Peppy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Peppy was a dangerous bone vampire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting down a pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was put in a position where he needed to put down Mr. Peppy because it was too dangerous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela objected to the horrible processed foods they were served and insisted they go to a farmer's market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An episode of the robot soap opera \"All My Circuits\" was briefly shown on TV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew set Mr. Peppy free on its native world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry didn't want to kill and unborn hatching.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela was excited to reintroduce a last member of an extinct species into its original environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vegetarianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry claimed that Mr. Peppy was a non-preachy vegetarian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Angus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry wore his jealously on his sleeve after becoming suspicious that Leela was interested in Angus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x18", "title": "The Tip of the Zoidberg", "date": "2011-08-18", "description": "\"The Tip of the Zoidberg\" is the eighteenth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 18, 2011. A pivotal episode, it reveals Dr. Zoidberg's backstory. This episode was nominated for the 2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg proved to be a loyal friend to the Professor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor assisted suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg had promised to help the Professor commit suicide once symptoms of tritonian hyper-malaria manifested themselves in him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor hid from the Planet Express people that he had hypermalaria all these years and that this was the reason he had kept Zoidberg around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an incompetent coworker", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rest of the team finally had enough of Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom was engaged in covert biological weapons research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Yeti", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flashback story about the Professor and Zoidberg hunting a yeti. Then the professor turned into a yeti.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor transformed into a yeti.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x24", "title": "Cold Warriors", "date": "2011-08-25", "description": "\"Cold Warriors\" is the twenty-fourth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom, Futurama, and originally aired on August 25, 2011 on Comedy Central. American actor Tom Kenny guest stars in the episode, voicing recurring character Yancy Fry, Jr., as well as astronaut Buzz Aldrin, voicing himself.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cure for the common cold", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity had lost all its resistance to the common cold, because it was eradicated 500 years ago, but Fry brought the contagion with him from the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being ill and indisposed", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express people were nursing colds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Fry went on an ice fishing trip and bonded with his father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Fry was rivaling with a classmate over who could do best at the school science fair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry mother was neglecting him while he was ill with a cold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head made an appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people went to the ice moon Enceladus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and his brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The decision to shrink wrap Manhattan to quarantine it was not taken lightly: the preferred solution was piranhas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Fry was a born loser and his dad kept reminding him of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry agreed to be chopped into mush in order to stop the pandemic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry entered a science fair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were several instances of people freezing their butts off in a frozen wasteland.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x25", "title": "Overclockwise", "date": "2011-09-01", "description": "\"Overclockwise\" is the twenty-fifth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired September 1, 2011 on Comedy Central. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Raymie Muzquiz. In the episode, Bender is overclocked by Cubert Farnsworth, gradually becoming more powerful in computing ability, until eventually becoming omniscient and able to foresee future events. Meanwhile, Cubert and Professor Farnsworth are tried in court by Mom for violating Bender's license agreement, and Fry's relationship with Leela takes a turn for the worse.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela talked about bringing some permanence to their on-again off-again relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "onerous user agreements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom prosecuted the Professor for violating Bender's licensing agreement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was modified by Cubert to have more powerful computing ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender became super smart after Cubert upgraded him to have more computing power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela flipped back and forth as usual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was dumped by Leela and spent most of the story moping about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela left Planet Express to do some soul searching.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Bender, and Cubert were playing a WW2 themed video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom and her three idiot sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Cubert ended up together in the slammer for having violated a Mom Corp license agreement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth and Cubert were put on trial for having violated Bender's license agreement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom brought charges up against Professor Farnsworth out of a desire to get back at him for something or other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "MMORPGs in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People met and got angry at each other in an MMORPG.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hyper-Chicken represented Professor Farnsworth and Cubert when they were put on trial for having violated Bender's licensing agreement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama6x26", "title": "Reincarnation", "date": "2011-09-08", "description": "\"Reincarnation\" is the 26th and final episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on September 8, 2011. This is one of the only episodes not to be animated in its regular animation style, instead featuring three different segments which each showcase Futurama \"reincarnated\" in a different style of animation. The plot of each segment forms part of an overall story arc, revolving around the discovery and subsequent destruction of a diamondium comet. A running joke for the episode involves a key plot point in each segment being obscured by the specific animation style, though the characters themselves express amazement over what they see.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Aaron Ehasz.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Story 1 centered on Fry trying to get with Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "In story 2, upon solving the great mystery, prof Farnsworth became despondent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth was trying to answer various fundamental scientific questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "Story 3 was premised on communicating with aliens using their gestural language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela got engaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth became depressed after he found answers to all fundamental scientific questions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor found a single equation that was The Grand Unified Theory, to his own latent dismay.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror1x01", "title": "The National Anthem", "date": "2011-12-04", "description": "\"The National Anthem\" is the first episode of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. The episode was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Otto Bathurst; it first aired on Channel 4, on 4 December 2011.\n\nDirected by: Otto Bathurst. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should the Prime minister copulate with a pig on national television to save his political career and the life of beloved Royal Family member Princess Susannah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "saving innocent lives vs. compromising one's ethical principles", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should the Prime minister copulate with a pig on national television to save his political career and the life of beloved Royal Family member Princess Susannah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Princess Susannah was kidnapped, and would be killed unless the Prime Minister had sexual intercourse with a pig on national television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was obsessed with following the happenings of the Prime Minister and princess that they neglected to pay attention to the reality that she had been released.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prime minister Michael Callow was coerced into copulating with a pig on national television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prime Minister Michael Callow and Jane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prime Minister Michael Callow sacrificed dignity and marriage to save Princess Susannah's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Princess Susannah was kidnapped and her life depended on the future action of Michael Callow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video manipulation in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The consequences of potentially fake videos are explored. The kidnapper's video of the princess and the video of the bestial act which they tried to make a fake.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror1x02", "title": "Fifteen Million Merits", "date": "2011-12-11", "description": "\"Fifteen Million Merits\" is the second episode of the first series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and his wife Konnie Huq and directed by Euros Lyn, and first aired on Channel 4 on 11 December 2011.\n\nDirected by: Euros Lyn. Story by: Charlie Brooker & Kanak Huq.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People lived dreary lives pedaling to ramp up some numbers on an account only to buy useless crap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "consumerist dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are shown a society in which every last virtue has been cheapened, refined, and canned for mass public consumption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People did nothing but escape from reality and the protagonist Bing was desperate for something \"real\" as he called it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were constantly subjected ads, including pornographic ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bing thought life was meaningless and he yearned for something \"real\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution vs. poverty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abi was a decent singer but turned to prostitution when it became apparent she wouldn't be able to make it in the music industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selling out for money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Abi accept an offer to become a prostitute in exchange for an apparent life of comfort or go back to cycling on her stationary bike to earn small sums of currency? In the end both Abi and Bing both sold out for money and a life of comfort and fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "People riding the stationary bikes were caught up in celebrity culture, the Hot Shot reality show contestants exemplified the mindless pursuit of fame and fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hot Shot reality show contestants were there seeking fame and fortune.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Swift was interested in Bing, but Bing was into Abi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abi worked as a Wraith Girl prostitute after appearing on the Hot Shot reality talent show.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror1x03", "title": "The Entire History of You", "date": "2011-12-18", "description": "\"The Entire History of You\" is the third and final episode of the first series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by the creator of Peep Show and Fresh Meat, Jesse Armstrong, making it the only episode of the series not written or co-written by creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker. It was directed by Brian Welsh, and first aired on Channel 4 on 18 December 2011.\n\nDirected by: Brian Welsh. Story by: Jesse Armstrong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "recording implant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People had implants that let them record and replay everything that they looked at.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Liam was exceedingly jealous of Jonas over Jonas' interest in his wife Fion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fion had been unfaithful to Liam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Fion had to cope with her husband Liam losing his mind because of his jealousy over her ex-boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liam Foxwell and Fion Foxwell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liam became obsessed with his suspicions about Jonas masturbating to video memories of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fion's ex Jonas showed up to her party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The presence of Jonas put a strain on Liam and Fion's relationship but they loved one another by all appearances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw time and again ways in which people were made/coerced to disclose their implant recordings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the airport Liam had to disclose last few days of recording. During an assault police hung up on woman without implant. When driving insurance got invalidated because the driver was drunk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "Most people had implants recording everything they did, saw, or heard, and allowing them to play back their memories in front of their eyes or on a screen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liam was made to show his memories at the airport security check and it makes one ponder the extent to which recording implants are used to mass surveil the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fion's ex boyfriend showed up to her and Liam's house party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liam disregarded a warning from his implant that he was took drunk to drive and ended up crashing his car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock2x01", "title": "Scandal in Belgravia", "date": "2012-01-01", "description": "The episode depicts Sherlock Holmes' confrontation with Irene Adler, a dominatrix who has compromising photographs taken with a female member of the royal family.\n\nIt is based on the short story \"A Scandal in Bohemia\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot of this story was building up to the foiling of a terrorist plot to bomb a passenger plane. The story concluded with Miss Adler being about to be beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and Miss Adler were mutually infatuated, although neither wanted to admit it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson's blogging about the cases he and Sherlock had been solving went viral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "information technology in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holmes and Watson became celebrities when Watson's blog went viral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson helped a rural police detective investigate the scene of a murdered hiker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miss Adler worked as a dominatrix.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and a Christmas jumper clad Watson held a Christmas gathering for some of their closest acquaintances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeanette expressed frustration when Watson abruptly canceled their Christmas plans upon being called into action by Sherlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and his brother Mycroft were quibbling with each other.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock2x02", "title": "The Hounds of Baskerville", "date": "2012-01-08", "description": "In the episode, Sherlock and his crime-solving partner John Watson take on the case of Henry Knight, who 20 years earlier witnessed the brutal killing of his father by a \"gigantic hound\" on Dartmoor. The investigation leads the pair to Baskerville, a military research base. In the conclusion it is revealed that the hounds were images induced by a mind-altering drug, a chemical weapon whose creator was in fact the real murderer of Henry's father.\n\nIt is based on the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes and his crime-solving partner John Watson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock uncovered that Dr. Franklin had years ago murdered Henry Knight's father on the moors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemical weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turned on an aborted government project to create a hallucinogenic gas for military use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson infiltrated a top secret government genetic research facility, and ultimately uncovered an aborted project to create a hallucinogenic gas for military use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson questioned a geneticist about her genetic engineering experiments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr Stapleton genetically engineered a rabbit to glow green, probably by inserting the GFP gene into its genome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was trying to kick his smoking habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was struggling to resist the temptation to have a cigarette.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The possibility that the secret government research facility was the site of a biological weapons research program was entertained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson was gripped with fear while in the presence of what he presumed to be a gigantic, menacing hound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Knight had been traumatized in his childhood by the sight of his father being murdered by a monstrous hound on the moors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock2x03", "title": "The Reichenbach Fall", "date": "2012-01-15", "description": "Moriarty attempts to undermine the public's view of Sherlock and drive him to suicide.\n\nInspired by the short story \"The Final Problem\". The title alludes to the Reichenbach Falls, where Holmes and Moriarty supposedly fall to their deaths in the original story.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes and his crime-solving partner John Watson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The criminal mastermind Jim Moriarty tried to drive Sherlock to commit suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a mortal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock was pitted against his nemesis Moriarty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were being framed for a crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moriarty had carefully arranged to make it look like Sherlock had kidnapped the British Ambassador to the United States' children, and the police took the bait and went after Sherlock for the crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Moriarty was trying to drive Sherlock to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a bad reputation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock's reputation was savaged by the media and he became a disgrace to society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson stood by his friend Sherlock even after Sherlock's public image had taken a serious hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Moriarty broke into the case where the Crown Jewels of England were kept.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock testify at Moriarty's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An apparent female fan approached Sherlock in a public bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty was a low level journalist who offered to help Sherlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock played some J.S. Bach on the violin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were investigating Sherlock in connection with a kidnapping.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "If Sherlock didn't jump off the top of a tall building to his dead, then Moriarty was going to have all his close friends murdered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x01", "title": "Break In, Break Loose", "date": "2012-01-22", "description": "An elderly man driving home hits a pedestrian, then discovers that it is a \"Hubot\", one of a population of intelligent, lifelike humanoid robots that are now commonplace in society. Seeing a group of Hubots approaching, the man panics and returns to his farm, but the Hubots follow, capturing the man and his wife. In the struggle, two of the Hubots are damaged and one of them, Mimi, is seized and taken away by Silas, a black-market Hubot dealer, who has been tracking them in hopes of capturing and selling them. The remaining Hubots, led by a human, Leo Eischer, includes Niska, Fred, Gordon, Flash, Marylyn and Max. Leo instructs the Hubots to hide out at a nearby church, then he leaves with Max to search for Mimi. In his absence, Niska assumes leadership and instructs the others to head for the church, but after they leave she returns to the farm and murders the couple to stop them talking. In the nearby city, Hans Engmann goes to buy a new Hubot for his widowed father- in-law Lennart, to replace Lennart's outdated Hubot, Odi. Jonas, the Hub- Market manager (who is in league with Silas) pressures Hans into buying an expensive nurse/housekeeper model, Vera, and clinches the deal by offering Hans an additional free Hubot - Mimi, who has been reprogrammed by Silas and now has no memory of her past life. Hans' lawyer wife Inger reluctantly agrees to try the Hubot, whom they name Anita. Inger insists that Anita be treated as a part of the family, youngest daughter Sofia sees her as a friend, but teenage son Tobias (\"Tobbe\") soon develops an attraction to Anita. The Engmann's neighbor, Roger, who lives with his partner Therese and stepson Kevin, is resentful of the introduction of Hubots at his workplace, and is further alienated by Therese's handsome Hubot trainer/companion, Rick. The lonely Lennart balks at handing over Odi to be destroyed at a Hubot disposal facility, so he takes him home and hides him in his basement. Later, frustrated by Vera's controlling manner, Lennart secretly reactivates Odi.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central storyline concerns how Inger worried that her widowed, retiree father Lennert had grown overly attached to his beloved Hubot, Odi. Another central storyline revolves around how Hans' decision to bring home an attractive lady Hubot servant created tension within his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the widowed, retiree Lennart's attachment to his beloved Hubot servant, Odi. His dependence on Odi, coupled with his distance from his family, can been interpreted as symptoms of his isolation and loneliness in old age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans distressed his wife, Inger, by bringing home an attractive lady Hubot servant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger looked out for her elderly father, Lennart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger likened their new Hubot servant, Anita, to a sex toy, and worried over what her teenage son Tobias might do. Numerous other allusions were made to the Hubots being used for carnal activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennart had a Hubot manservant, Odi, whom he treated almost as a companion. By contrast, the Engmann's an attractive lady Hubot whom they intended to treat more or less as an appliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo's beloved, the Hubot Mimi, was hauled off in a van by a black-market Hubot dealer. Leo resolved to track her down and rescue her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mimi, later known as Anita, proclaimed her love to Leo as she lay critically wounded outside of the farmhouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An elderly couple were accosted in their own home by Leo and his Hubot followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mimi was sold on the Hubot black market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "technophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans leveled an accusation of technophobia against Inger when she balked at the prospect of having a Hubot servant in their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger flew into a rage and open-hand slapped wife across the face when he thought she was being too intimate with their Hubot manservant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger looked on with suspicion from his yard as his neighbor Hans unloaded a large Hubot containing box from his vehicle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans interacted with his daughters, Matilda and Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans interacted with his teenage son Tobbe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and son-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans interacted with his elderly father-in-law, Lennart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger interacted with her daughters, Matilda and Sofia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger interacted with her teenage son Tobias.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The titular phrase \"Real Humans\" is a reference to a movement that is opposed to the use of Hubots in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart mourned the passing of his loyal Hubot manservant, Odi, whom he saw as a companion. The renegade Hubots mourned their fallen comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart accused his overbearing new Hubot of being a \"bitch\" when she cited health concerns and refused to make him coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger likened their new Hubot servant, Anita, to a sex toy, and worried over what her teenage son Tobias might do.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was devastated with his beloved Hubot companion, Odi, malfunctioned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x02", "title": "Trust No One", "date": "2012-01-22", "description": "The episode opens with a flashback to Leo's childhood, involving his father David, and several of the Hubots, including Niska and Fred. In the present, Ove and Bea, officers of the Hubot crime task force E-HURB, investigate the murders of the elderly couple. The Engmanns learn to adapt to Mimi's presence, but Roger's resentment of Hubots grows. During an argument, he hits Therese, who immediately packs up and leaves with Kevin. Meanwhile, Leo leaves Max to venture into the sordid underworld of the Hubot sex trade in search of Mimi. The fugitive Hubots, still on the run, are pursued by E-Hub, and Niska again shows her ruthlessness by killing a police dog that is tracking them. Leo collapses in the toilets of the Hubot sex club, and we discover that he is in fact a human/Hubot hybrid. Therese and Inger dine with Therese's friend Pilar, whose relationship with her Hubot, Bo, has moved to a more intimate level. Leo recovers, and reunites with Max, while the other Hubots reach the church, where they are discovered recharging by the pastor.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Family drama amongst the Engmans continued. Among other things, money had been taken from Hans' wallet. After many complications it emerged that little Sofia had stolen it because she was a kleptomaniac.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans and Inger Engmann discussed how they ought to treat their new Hubot servant, Anita. Roger and Therese had an acrimonious separation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans confronted his young daughter, Sophia, over her kleptomania. Lennart and Inger interacted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger despised Hubots, in no small part because his partner fell for one and ran off with it. \"Real Humans\" was a movement against Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots were on the run from the Hubot crime task force E-HURB.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were investigating the murder of an elderly couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans interacted with his teenage son, Tobbe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was desperate to with reconnect his stepson, Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin was embarrassed over his mother, and her friend's, inappropriate feelings for their respective Hubots. Inger interacted with Tobbe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese's friend Pilar was openly having a carnal relationship with her own Hubot. Leo visited an android bordello.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "As they were close to running out of electricity while on the run from the law, the renegade Hubots' desperation was palpable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The R-HURB detectives Ove and Bea were investigating the murder of an elderly couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's were increasingly treating their Hubot maid, Anita, as a member of their family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline followed Sofia and her habit of pilfering belongings from her family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Little Sofia was increasingly preferring the company of the Hubot maid over that of her own mother, Inger. This became a source of strife. In one instance, Sofia chided Inger for being in too much of a rush to read her a bedtime story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese walked out on Roger and took her son, Kevin with her. Roger was desperate to reconnect with Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger worried her husband might have feelings for their Hubot, Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kleptomania", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sofia stole things from her family for the thrill of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the blame for someone else's crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A complicated situation arose wherein Anita was briefly thought to have taken the blame for Sofia's petty stealing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots broke into a church in their search for electricity. One of them commented on Jesus' penetrating gaze.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe and Mathilde interacted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mathilde and Sophie interacted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was into model ship building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger put his neighbor Inger in an awkward situation when he begged her to give him Therese's newly registered phone number.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It appeared that Leo was in fact a human/Hubot hybrid after he collapsed in the toilets of the Hubot sex club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo visited an android bordello. Therese's friend Pilar was openly having a carnal relationship with her own Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The R-HURB detectives Ove and Bea were investigating the murder of an elderly couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Therese's dinner guests were somewhat taken aback by her openly being romantic with her Hubot man-servant, Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was hiding his beloved Hubot companion, Odi, from his family.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x03", "title": "The Lord Shall Be Our Companion", "date": "2012-01-29", "description": "At the church, Niska convinces Asa, the pastor, to hide them in her attic, but Asa's partner Eva is suspicious of their presence. Leo and Max continue their search for Mimi. The increasingly alienated Roger attends a meeting of a radical anti-Hubot group, \"Real Humans\", where he meets Malte, an ardent anti- Hubot activist, as well as Bea, the E-HURB officer, who has apparently infiltrated the group. As Mimi becomes part of the Engmann family, Tobbe's attraction to her continues to grow. Bea and Ove, still tracking the renegade Hubots, visit Asa's house, but when Bea investigates the attic and sees Niska, she says nothing to Ove about their presence. Lennart evades Vera, and slips out of the house to take Odi on a fishing trip. As the episode ends Leo experiences another flashback to the crucial event of his childhood - the drowning of his mother, his own near death, and his rescue by Mimi.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. One storyline follows Inger's efforts to have the family treat their Hubot maid Anita more and more as a human being. Another follows Inger and Hans' as they struggle to care for her elderly father. Anita's presence was the source of some sexual tensions among the family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a Hubot bordello where a selection of services were available. Tobbe researched how to hack Anita to make her \"available for sexual activities\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger joined Real Humans and took up with a militant cabal within the organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots hid out from the police in a parsonage attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's were increasingly treating their Hubot maid, Anita, as a member of their family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was desperate to reconnect with his estranged stepson Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a Hubot bordello where a selection of services were available.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the renegade Hubots pondered what they might do with themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was keeping secret from his family that he'd reacquired Odi and was keeping him in a room in the basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malte explained that a conspiracy was afoot to rid the earth of all the unemployed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "married couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pastor Asa was in a same-sex marriage with Eva.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesbianism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asa mentioned that the bible hardly condoned her and Eva's love of one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asa was a Protestant pastor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger reassured Hans that he needn't worry about her running off with Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pastor Asa referred to her religion several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was into model ship building.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of open waters", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Anita balked at going into the water at the beach. It was later revealed that the source of her hesitancy was a catastrophic malfunction she'd once suffered after rescuing a boy from drowning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The R-HURB detectives Ove and Bea continued their investigation of a double homicide. In this installment, the pair investigated a lead that the renegade Hubot suspects were hiding out in a parsonage attic. It was also revealed that Bea was a secret anti-Hubot activist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The R-HURB detectives Ove and Bea continued their investigation of a double homicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The R-HURB detectives Ove and Bea continued their investigation of a double homicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This installment ended with Lennart and his Hubot companion, Odi, driving off to go on a fishing trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was hiding his beloved Hubot companion, Odi, from his family.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x04", "title": "Semi-Human Rights", "date": "2012-02-05", "description": "Lennart's escapade ends badly when Odi drives recklessly, bringing the police in pursuit. When Odi runs the car off the road, a panicked Lennart sends Odi off to hide in the forest, and Lennart is arrested for dangerous driving. Therese, Rick, Pilar and Bo go on a couples' night-out, but after the Hubots are refused entry to a club, Therese and Pilar hire Inger to act for them in suing the club. Lennart returns to the forest but cannot find Odi, who has wandered away and become lost. Leo continues searching for Mimi in the Hubot underworld, but he collapses again, and we see that the entry site for his charger cord is injured and bleeding. He experiences another flashback to his childhood - Mimi had rescued him from drowning, but he is taken to hospital in a critical condition. Roger tracks down Therese at her new apartment, but they argue, and Roger again loses control and hits Therese. Inger's boss Henning agrees to let her take on Pilar and Therese's case. After Pilar suggests that she can have Bo reprogrammed, Therese visits the same black-market Hubot sex shop where Leo is working. Leo reprograms Rick, removing his Asimov constraints, and enhancing his sexual functions. Roger meets again with Malte and Bea; he learns of Malte's violent outlook, his stash of weapons, and his plan to bomb the Hub-Market, but when Bea leaves the room, it is revealed that she is actually another of the freed Hubots, in disguise. Later Bea secretly meets with Niska to discuss their plans. Leo, now armed with a pistol, tracks Mimi to Silas' workshop and demands to know where Mimi has been taken. Enraged, he suddenly draws his gun and kills Silas' associate, Jim, in cold blood, but he is then seized by Silas' Hubot assistant, who strangles and apparently kills him. As he loses consciousness, there is another flashback to his childhood - after being told that Leo's condition is hopeless, David begs the doctors to save Leo's life with Hubot implants, but they refuse, so David takes Leo away to perform the operation himself.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. One storyline follows Inger's efforts to have the family treat their Hubot maid Anita more and more as a human being. Another follows Tobbe as he makes an abortive attempt to have carnal relations with Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese and Pilar were in romantic relationships with their respective Hubot man-servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger joined Real Humans and took up with a militant cabal within the organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots hid out from the police in a parsonage attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's were increasingly treating their Hubot maid, Anita, more as a member of the family than as a servant. Lennart was much bothered by the presence of his meddling Hubot maid, Vera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger threatened that she would quit her job at the law firm unless she was allowed to lead the Hubot discrimination case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was desperate to reconnect with his estranged stepson Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennart was devastated when he lost Hubot companion, Odi, for the second time following the car accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart and Odi's planned fishing trip went awry when Odi ran their car into a ditch while under police pursuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart ended up taking the fall for Odi's reckless driving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police charged Lennart with dangerous driving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the renegade Hubots was chided by her companion for recharging herself despite having a full battery. This was, one gathers, a way for Hubots to get the equivalent of a drug-induced dopamine surge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart was paining a model fishing boat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were scenes in a Hubot bordello.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo disabled Rick's \"Asimov constraints\" so that the Hubot could better satisfy Therese's needs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was working in a black market Hubot sex shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin was uncomfortable with his mother Therese's growing infatuation with her Hubot servant, Rick. Malte lived with mother in what he proudly described as a \"multi-generational\" household.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger flew into a rage and physically assaulted ex-partner, Theresa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a series of flashback scenes, the viewer is shown how Leo's father was greatly distressed after finding the boy on the brink of death following a near drowning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin was torn over whether to let his stepfather, Roger, reenter his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malte was masterminding a plan to bomb the local Hubot market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became clear that, as a child, Leo had been fitted with Hubot components to save his life after nearly drowning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger fought on behalf of Therese and Pilar for their right to gallivanting about with their Hubot boyfriends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x05", "title": "Power at Heart", "date": "2012-02-12", "description": "Therese and Rick's romance blossoms, but Kevin is alienated by their behavior. A mysterious government intelligence agent visits Jonas, and interrogates him about the \"freed\" Hubots, and the rumor that Leo's father, David Eischer, created a programming code that gives Hubots free will. Bea and Niska continue to communicate secretly about their plans via an internet dating site. The intelligence officer meets Ove and orders him to surrender all of E-HURB's files on the Hubot murders. Odi, now in Silas' possession, is re-programmed to recognize Silas as his owner. Asa and Eva argue over hiding the Hubots, while the Hubots themselves argue over whether they should leave, or wait for Leo. Silas orders his Hubots to dismember and dispose of the bodies of Jim and Leo, but then discovers that Leo is a hybrid, and is still alive. Therese and Rick go shopping, but Rick begins to show that he now has a will of his own. Mathilde questions Anita/Mimi about her past, and discovers an alternate 'unknown' operating system in her software - when she reactivates it, Mimi regains her full memory and identity as a freed Hubot. Silas orders his Hubots to kill and dismember Leo, but while he is berating Leo he reveals that he sold Mimi to Jonas' Hub-Market. Just as the Hubots are about to start their grisly task, Jonas arrives unexpectedly, and Leo is able to escape. Bea, who has been 'squatting' in an unoccupied apartment, copies the Eischer code onto a USB stick. Leo reunites with Max and goes to the Hub-Market, where he confronts Jonas, forcing him to reveal that Mimi was sold to the Engmanns. While they are talking, Malte and Roger arrive at the Hub-Market and plant the bomb, which explodes just after Leo leaves the building. Mimi tells Mathilde that the 'tattoo' on her arm means she is one of the 'children' of David Eischer, whom she calls \"our liberator\".\n\nDirected by: Levan Akin. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. In one storyline, there were hints that Inger's dedication to the Hubot discrimination case was leading her to neglect such family duties as preparing breakfast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The romance between Therese and her Hubot servant Rick blossomed over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese craved and assertive and somewhat domineering partner, and therefore had Rick's \"Asimov constraints\" disabled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger lead the Hubot discrimination case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Malte's terrorist bombing of the Hubot market was motivated by a deep seeded hatred of androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Malte, Roger, and Bea bringing to fruition their plot to bomb the Hubot market to raise awareness about their \"Real Humans\" political agenda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became evident that Leo was equipped with Hubot components.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An intelligence agent ordered Ove to hand over all the evidence from the renegade Hubot case on his desk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo disabled Rick's \"Asimov constraints\" so that the Hubot could better satisfy Therese's romantic needs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A black market Hubot dealer wanted to wash his hands clean of the Anita sale.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin grew increasingly unsettled by his mother's involvement with her Hubot boyfriend, Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots were hiding out in a vicarage attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea shut down Malte when he offered to walk her to her house from the car. Bea conveyed in no uncertain terms that she wasn't into him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "married couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asa and Eva exchanged words about whether allowing the rogue Hubots to continue hiding in the vicarage attic was a good idea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is sentience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mathilde asserted that \"all thoughts are calculation\" while conversing with her android house servant Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was about to be dismembered and his remains stuffed into a barrel or two. He escaped through a stroke of luck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger quoted the aphorism \"money isn't everything\" in response to her superior expressing dismay over Therese and Pilar rejecting the million SKR settlement offer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger fought on behalf of Therese and Pilar for their right to gallivanting about with their Hubot boyfriends.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x06", "title": "Sly Leo", "date": "2012-02-19", "description": "In the wake of the Hub-Market bombing, Jonas has survived, but he is horribly burned. Malte calls the media to claim responsibility in the name of the \"Real Humans Liberation Front\". Leo almost makes it to the Engmann home, but in his weakened state he collapses in the street, only meters from the house. Bea meets with Niska, who tells her that the vital final part of the Eischer code stored as audio information in Leo's \"bio brain\", and in an ironic twist, while they talk, they drive right past the stricken Leo without recognizing him, and the next morning Leo is found and taken to hospital. After reading a bible Asa has given him, Gordon discusses his spiritual aspirations with her, but Flash upsets Eva when she sees a photo of Eva and Asa's wedding and abuses her as a \"homo freak\". Lennart attends an art class, where he meets a vivacious older lady. When the doctors discover Leo's hybrid nature, the intelligence agency takes him into custody and begin interrogating him. Niska forces Flash to apologize to Eva for her insult. At E-HURB headquarters, Ove examines the remains of Max, who has been destroyed in the explosion. When Bea arrives, she gives Ove the robot-shaped USB stick with the copy of the Eischer code, ostensibly as a birthday present. When Ove leaves the lab, Bea uses a taser to destroy Max's brain, but then Ove returns unexpectedly and discovers Bea recharging, and with her cover now blown she is forced to overpower Ove and escape. Therese and Pilar abandon their lawsuit after they learn that the defense team will insist that Rick and Bo are checked for illegal modifications. Lennart suffers a heart attack, but he is saved by Vera. Following a series of confrontations with Eva, Gordon and Niska, Flash leaves the group. Bea meets with Roger and gains his confidence by pretending she has just ended an abusive relationship, and that she has romantic feelings for him. At the hospital, Lennart is told that his insurance includes the right to have a digital \"clone\" made of his personality, which can be installed into a Hubot in the event of his death. When Roger and Bea return home, they discover that Malte is beginning to crack, and he threatens them with a gun. Tobbe breaks down and confesses to Hans about his feelings for Mimi. Disturbed by the Hubots' continued presence, Eva tries to call the police, but she is stopped by Niska, who threatens to kill her, and Eva runs away in terror. Gordon attends a church service but he is thrown out of the church by the enraged congregation, so he rejoins the other Hubots, and they flee.\n\nDirected by: Levan Akin. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "One crop of storylines centers around the Engmann family. In this installment, the Engmann's coped with Lennart having suffered a heart attack. Hans had a heart to heart talk with Tobbe in which Tobbe effectively broke down and opened up about his self-described \"sicko\" robot loving predilections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Malte, Roger, and Beain the aftermath of their bombing of the Hubot market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malte was elated in the aftermath of having brought his plot to bomb the Hubot market to fruition. He called the media to claim responsibility for the attack in the name of the \"Real Humans Liberation Front\". All this was brought about because of an undercurrent of deep seeded hatred of androids by a thin sliver of society that Malte saw himself representing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots ultimately fled the vicarage where they were hiding out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The renegade Hubot Gordon became an enthusiastic Christian after having read the Bible three times over.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart attended a painting class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lennart toyed wistfully with a model ship he'd presumably built together with his beloved, but now missing, Hubot companion Odi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "homophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash lashed out at Eva, calling her a \"homo freak\". Eva, for her part, reciprocated with a bigoted tirade against Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vivacious, outgoing older lady openly flirted with Lennart in and after the painting class. She later visiting his home unannounced with a bouquet of flowers in hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "married couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asa and Eva were at odds over whether or not to trust the renege Hubots that were hiding out in their attic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea gifted her buddy detective Ove a novelty robot keychain for his birthday. moments later he discovered that she was a Hubot who had infiltrated his unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger's Hubot discrimination lawsuit blew up in her face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lawyer raised the idea that Therese and Pilar might have illegally disabled the safety protocols of their respective Hubot boyfriends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A defense attorney confronted Inger and her clients with a copy of \"Playbot\" and other robo-pornographic magazines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger fought on behalf of Therese and Pilar for their right to gallivanting about with their Hubot boyfriends. Tobbe thought himself a \"sicko\" and in need of professional help owing to his having romantic feelings for his Hubot maid, Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The renegade Hubot Gordon was unceremoniously cast out of a church in the aftermath of having made a spectacle of himself by singing with too much fervor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cheating", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe requested the use of Anita to translate his homework, but Inger turned him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash tried to pressure Gordon to lie on her behalf but he stood firm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea pretended that she had been abused by her partner in order to get close to Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe called himself a \"sicko\" and said he needed help.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asa compared the human treatment of Hubots to that of Africans by Europeans 200 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The lawyer raised the idea that Therese and Pilar might have illegally disabled the safety protocols of their respective Hubot boyfriends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The secret service took Leo into custody.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x07", "title": "Blind Love", "date": "2012-02-26", "description": "Anita is assaulted and nearly raped by four teenage boys. Inger tries to defend Leo but the secret police won't let her. Lennart and Solveig advanced their tryst beneath Vera's disapproving gaze.\n\nDirected by: Levan Akin. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's contemplated what to do after their Hubot maid, Anita, was nearly gang raped on her way to pick up Sofia from school. Hans and Inger forced Tobbe to reconcile with his schoolmate and former neighbor, Kevin, after Tobbe beat him with a baseball bat for having taken part in a sexual assault on Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anita was the victim of an attempted gang rape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having been raped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Anita was outwardly unfazed in the aftermath of having been nearly gang raped. Everyone else, however, had a tough time dealing with the fact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lennart and Solveig were running around like a couple of teenagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's contemplated what to do after their Hubot maid, Anita, was nearly gang raped on her way to pick up Sofia from school. Lennart's Hubot caretaker, Vera, was disturbed by his cavorting with Solveig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger took up representing Leo on the charges of two murders and a terrorist bombing. She was outraged when the prosecution told her without explanation that the case had been closed, and she could no longer see her client.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe violently assaulted Kevin out of revenge for Kevin having nearly raped Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old and lonely Lennart found contentment and company in her new love interest, Solveig.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe took the law into his own hands and beat Kevin up with a baseball bat because Kevin had been part of the gang that tried to rape Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "major", "motivation": "The warehouse workers were being paired with Hubot trainees, presumably with the idea that the Hubots would ultimately take over their jobs. Roger flew into a rage and beat his Hubot trainee senseless with a golf club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The secret police were investigating the terrorist bombing of the Hubot market. The secret police held Leo for questioning under legally dubious circumstances. The detective Ove told Inger that they were planning to kill Leo come morning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger read a newspaper headline stating that the bombing he'd perpetrated was being investigated as a hate crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being separated from someone you love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger confided to Bea that he often thought about his estranged stepson Kevin. Later, Roger broke down in tears while showing some family photos of him and Kevin to Bea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tensions rose between Therese and her Hubot boyfriend Rick as he increasingly asserted his independence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Therese wanted a manly assertive boyfriend, but regretted it after she had her Hubot Rick's code modified and he his selflessness and began acting like a jerk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Therese thought she wanted a manly assertive boyfriend, but regretted it after she had her Hubot Rick's code modified and he his selflessness and began acting like a jerk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Therese's boyfriend Rick propositioned Flash at the mall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash and her Hubot companions were nearly apprehended for shoplifting at the mall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A police investigator prodded Leo's open wound with a metal implement in an effort to get him to talk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After having suffered a heart attack Lennart was cautioned to live healthy but he decided to risk his health in order to drink wine and make love. His Hubot maid Vera did not approve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe took the law into his own hands: he beat Kevin with a baseball bat for his having attempted to rape Anita.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x08", "title": "Make Haste", "date": "2012-03-04", "description": "Malte comes to Roger's house, tries to commit suicide and gets drunk. Therese and Pilar shut off their respective Hubots, which greatly upsets the Hubots and drama ensues. Tobias dates a loose girl from school, but decides that to see a psychologist about his feelings for Mimi instead. Bea seduces Roger and reveals to him that she is a Hubot. Planning to assist Leo, who is held captive by the secret police, continues.\n\nDirected by: Levan Akin. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese and Rick's relationship was falling apart. Tobbe confessed his love to Anita. The story culminated with Bea revealing to Roger that she was a Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese and Rick's relationship was falling apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe and Apollonia smooched in the driveway after going on a date to the movies. Later, the pair got naked in Tobbe's bed, but the coupling didn't go well because Tobbe was in love with Anita.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe was self-conscious about being a transhuman sexual. Apollonia was self-conscious about her being perceived as a loose girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger's deep seeded prejudice against Hubots was soundly shaken when his hot girlfriend, Bea, suddenly revealed that she had a power cable in her armpit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bea had to decide whether she could trust Roger with the fact that she was a Hubot. The renegade Hubots had to decide whether they could trust Roger not to give them away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese wanted a manly assertive boyfriend, but regretted it after she had her Hubot Rick's code modified and he his selflessness and began acting like a jerk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what women want", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese thought she wanted a manly assertive boyfriend, but regretted it after she had her Hubot Rick's code modified and he his selflessness and began acting like a jerk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger, in her capacity as legal council, visited Leo in the detention facility and was working to get him freed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe took Anita into the bathroom and confessed his love to her. Bea professed her love to Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline revolved around Leo being held and mistreated by the secret service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick would not allow Therese and Pilar to got out without him, and threw a temper tantrum when they decided to go so anyway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The anti-Hubot terrorist Malte suffered a mental breakdown that was brought on by the combined strain of bombing the Hubot market, a quarrel with his mother, and his paid sexual encounter with a Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas wore a translucent mask, presumably in connection with his treatment for the horrible burns he'd suffered in the Hubot market bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans awkwardly passed Tobbe a couple of condoms the morning after spotting him kiss a girl in the driveway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The renegade Hubots were hiding out from law enforcement in Roger's basement, unbeknownst to Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick and Bo tried to pick up a couple of girls at the mall while their respective partners were occupied at the gym.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo conspicuously plugged himself in to recharge during Inger's visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malte drank himself senseless while staying at Roger's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malte tried to blow his brains out in Roger's basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger was convinced that her wallet and phone had been stolen by a pickpocket at the behest of the secret service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea spoke of love as being something \"fleeting\" that could be \"over in a summer\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x09", "title": "Heritage", "date": "2012-03-11", "description": "Alerted by Malte's mother, special forces await him in his flat, but he hides in the cellar instead, where he is murdered by Niska. Bea describes her vision of the future with Hubots as immortal and eventually only race, and offers Roger to join them. Therese is concerned about a despondent Rick, to the disgust of Kevin, who leaves to reunite with Roger. The secret service has analyzed Inger's recording of her conversation with Leo and decide to abduct Mimi. Inger meets Mimi's personality and hands her Leo's message. Leo's doctor resolves to spring him out of prison and fakes the surveillance video feed into the director's office. The director demands Leo's secret code and threatens him with death. It is revealed that the code is the final sequence of the program that gives David's children their special abilities, which he gave to Leo alone to protect it from disclosure. Tobias is diagnosed by his therapist as being trans-human-sexual. Therese sells Rick to Silas in an attempt to win back Kevin. Inger and Hans quarrel about her commitment to Hubot rights. Mimi disappears from the Engmans' home. Niska and Bea bribe Ola for information about Leo's location, but afterwards, rather than kill Ola, Bea shoots Niska.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann family fractured when Inger insisted on helping Mimi against Hans' strong disapproval. The Engmann's had to decide what to do about Anita. Roger was reunited with his estranged stepson Kevin. Hans tried to help Tobbe deal with his \"transhuman sexuality\". Therese vowed to Kevin that she would get rid of her Hubot boyfriend, Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese and her Hubot Rick's relationship reached a breaking point. She ultimately sold Rick to win back her son Kevin's approval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans tried to help Tobbe deal with his \"transhuman sexuality\". Roger reunited with his estranged stepson Kevin. In a flashback scene, Leo's father told him to never trust humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger was overjoyed to be reunited with his estranged stepson Kevin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with two pointed betrayals. Therese reluctantly rid herself of her trusting Hubot boyfriend, Rick, by selling him to Silas. Bea shot her compatriot, Niska, dead in cold blood during a encounter with Ove.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese wrestled with her conscience over selling her Hubot boyfriend Rick to win back her son Kevin's approval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Therese was forced to choose between her son Kevin, and her Hubot lover Rick. She got rid of Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans and Inger's marriage exploded when Inger insisted on helping Mimi against Hans' strong disapproval.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Malte's mother reported him to the police after a rummage about his bedroom revealed him to be a terrorist bomber who was armed to the teeth. Therese was forced to choose between her son Kevin, and her Hubot lover Rick. She got rid of Rick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline revolved around Leo being held and mistreated by the secret service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malte was outed as the mastermind behind the bombing of the Hubot market.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police tried to apprehend Malte for bombing the Hubot market. The authorities were figuring out what to do with Leo who was in their custody.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick sliced up his own forearm in the aftermath Therese having wheelbarrowed him home from the Hubot recycling depot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe was ashamed of his undeniable attraction to Hubots. A psychologist described him as a \"transhuman sexual\". The diagnosis lightened Tobbe's conscience and he decided to embrace his new identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe was ashamed of his undeniable attraction to Hubots. A psychologist described him as a \"transhuman sexual\". The diagnosis lightened Tobbe's conscience and he decided to embrace his new identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flash was shown working the streets in one scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-preservation vs. conscience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo was tortured and threatened by the secret service, but nevertheless decided to not give up the \"code\" that was the fruit of his father's labors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 21 Jump Street (2012)", "title": "21 Jump Street", "date": "2012-03-12", "description": "21 Jump Street is a 2012 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall, and starring Hill and Channing Tatum. An adaptation of the 1987–1991 television series of the same name by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh, the film follows police officers Schmidt and Jenko, who are forced to relive high school when they are assigned to go undercover as high school students to prevent the outbreak of a new synthetic drug and arrest its supplier.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Jump_Street_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-mvad.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the buddy cops, Schmidt and Jenko, as they are forced to relive high school when they are assigned to go undercover as high school students to prevent the outbreak of a new synthetic drug and arrest its supplier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "The buddy cops Schmidt and Jenko were tasked to infiltrate a local high school to prevent the outbreak of a new synthetic drug and arrest its supplier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The buddy cops Schmidt and Jenko were tasked to infiltrate a local high school to prevent the outbreak of a new synthetic drug and arrest its supplier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The buddy cops Schmidt and Jenko went undercover as the siblings Brad and Doug McQuaid, and in so doing lived as brothers in Schmidt's parents home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt and Jenko were fast friends, and their bonds of friendship increases throughout the story. Schmidt befriended the high school drug dealer, Eric, and they became pals of sorts. A shot DEA agent uttered some last words to his best friend before expiring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human characters in contrast", "level": "major", "motivation": "tall and handsome and dumb vs. short and average and dumb", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt and Jenko were partners on the force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt, a socially awkward police officer who'd been a big loser in high school, longed to be popular on his mission to infiltrate a local high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of high school having changed unrecognizability since Schmidt and Jenko's student days. For example, it was cool to carry your backpack with two straps instead of one, people texted instead of calling on the phone, bullying was no longer cool, caring about the environment was normal, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt courted his drama class classmate Molly, winning her love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Schmidt befriended Eric to infiltrate his drug smuggling ring, only to reluctantly reveal himself to be a cop in the end. The DEA agent infiltrated the biker gang, and pointedly betrayed its boss at a critical moment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Dickson made remarks to the effect that nobody would have cared about the kid who overdosed on drugs had he been black.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The titular 21 Jump Street program operated out of a derelict Korean church of the same street address. Schmidt stood before the \"Korean Jesus\" crucifix and vocalized a prayer to this savior of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt was mortified at the sight of his baby/kid pictures on a wall of his parent's home, citing that he'd consulted a therapist multiple times over one particularly embarrassing one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "On their first day undercover at the high school, Jenko urged Schmidt not succumb to peer pressure by keeping to lugging his backpack with one strap over the shoulder, instead of two, as everyone else was doing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While undercover at the high school, Schmidt and Jenko were surprised to learn that it was now cool to care about the environment, unlike back in their day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt played the role of Peter Pan in a high school production of this play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt discovered he had a penchant for acting while taking the high school drama class. He ultimately played the lead role in the high school's theatrical production of Peter Pan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt and Jenko experienced trippy visual auditory hallucinations after ingesting the new \"Holy Fucking Shit\" synthetic drug.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Annie Schmidt were happily married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Annie Schmidt embarrassed their son, Schmidt, in front of his partner on the force with their excessive fawning over him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Annie and her adult son, Schmidt, was explored. Annie admonished Schmidt for having a wild house party while she was on vacation. She also nagged about doing such chores as mowing the lawn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David was an easy going dad to his son, Schmidt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Schmidt and Jenko were fired from the force in the wake of the Peter Pan fiasco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the car chase scene, Schmidt froze up while aiming his gun at the motorcycle gang leader, resulting in Jenko having to pull the trigger himself self riving the car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "student and teacher romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The AP Chemistry teacher Ms. Griggs had a thing for her pupil, Jenko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenko became increasingly jealous of Schmidt's blooming friendship with Eric.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e1x10", "title": "The Code", "date": "2012-03-18", "description": "Flash leaves the group, disguises herself as a human and resolves to meet a human man and forge a new life for herself. Surveillance cameras help the intelligence agent to catch up to Mimi and Leo in the underground railway tunnel, where they are hiding. Leo begs Mimi to help him die, but the agent arrives before she has finished, and Mimi is forced to flee. While the agent pursues Mimi, Bea arrives to find Leo, asking him to whisper the final part of the code to her. She then shoots him dead, perhaps at his request, but we don't know whether or not he gave her the code. At that moment the intelligence agent arrives back and confronts Bea. She offers to give him the hard drive containing the main part of the code, drops it to distract him, and whilst the agent's guard is down she draws her pistol and they exchange gunfire. The agent is killed and Bea damaged. Bea sees the hard drive was damaged in the fight, apparently beyond repair, so she drops it and vanishes.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. Hans decided it was best if he and Sofia stayed at a hotel for awhile after their home was raided by the police. Later, the family went to visit Lennart in the hospital after he suffered a heart attack, and later coped with his death. Mimi was joyfully welcomed back into the family after having taken off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the Engmann storyline concerned them being worried sick that Mimi, who had disappeared from the house, might get apprehended by the secret service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo and Mimi tearfully reunited just as a mortally wounded Leo was begging to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "major", "motivation": "Roger and Kevin belatedly realized that they were essentially prisoners to the renegade Hubots who had uninvitedly taken up residence in Roger's abode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The secret service, led by Carl, were tracking down Mimi and a recently escaped Leo in order to obtain a secret computer code that could turn Hubots human (or something along those lines).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann family pointedly grieved for Lennart after he passed away in the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's had a huge family schism. Hans was adamant about seeing first to the family's safety. Inger felt they were duty bound to help their adopted family member, the Hubot Mimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger and his step-son Kevin took matters into their own hands to free themselves from their Hubot captors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas had horrible burn scars all over his head and face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo proclaimed his love to Mimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police raid of the Engmann home was the last straw for Hans. After that he told Inger that he wanted a peaceful life, and left together with their young daughter Sofia to stay at a hotel, at least until things blew over. Inger went to the hospital to help care for her elderly father, Lennart, after he suffered another heart attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odi was being pimped out on the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo wanted to not be in constant pain anymore so tried to short-circuit his own electronics. He was helped along by both Mimi and Bea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger was disturbed by the passing of her elderly father, Lennart.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Avengers (2012)", "title": "The Avengers", "date": "2012-04-11", "description": "In the film, Nick Fury and the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and Thor to form a team capable of stopping Thor's brother Loki from subjugating Earth. It is the sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(2012_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The S.H.I.E.L.D. secret government organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loki hatched a nefarious plot to subjugate the Earth and rule over its people as a king.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor tried as him might to convince his adopted brother Loki to abandon his plan to subjugate the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Avengers to stop Loki and his army of Chitauri extraterrestrials from subjugating the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki used his magic scepter to mind control Clint and Dr. Selvig into being his loyal minions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Iron Man electromechanical flying suit of armor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony and his trusted AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier (i.e. a flying aircraft carrier) could be rendered invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier (i.e. a flying aircraft carrier)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce transformed into the Hulk after losing his temper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bruce was struggling to control his temper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk was super strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avengers mourned the loss of Agent Coulson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Thor and Loki were characters from mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Stark explicitly described Captain America as being a supersolider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick Fury was ordered to launch a nuclear strike on Manhattan island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki commanded an army of Chitauri extraterrestrials.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki reached Earth by passing through a Tesseract activated wormhole. Later a Chitauri army invaded Manhattan by passing through a wormhole located over above Stark Tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Stark blew up the Chitauri mothership with a nuclear warhead.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Men in Black 3 (2012)", "title": "Men in Black 3", "date": "2012-05-14", "description": "In the film, Boris the Animal, an old enemy of Agent K, escapes from prison and travels back in time to kill the younger K in order to allow his species, a ruthless alien race known as Boglodites, to attack Earth. This forces Agent J to go back in time and team up with K's younger self to save his partner and the world. It is the third installment in the original Men in Black film series which in turn is loosely based on the comic book series The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham.", "collections": [ "Collection: Men in Black" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret government agency that monitored extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black is a secret agency outside government control that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens lived on Earth secretly from humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent J and his senior partner and mentor Agent K.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black used a mind wipe device on people who saw aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boris the Animal traveled back in time to 1969 to kill Agent K, and then Agent J had to go back in time to save his partner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Boris the Animal sough revenge against Agent K because Agent K shot off his arm and put him in maximum security prison on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent J had to go back in time to prevent a powerful race of aliens from launching a full scale invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "African American Agent J experienced racism when he traveled back in time to 1969 New York. For example, the police pulled him over for being a black man driving a nice car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Boris the Animal traveled back in time and met his younger self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A strange alien in a tuque could see which among various possible futures would become reality with varying degrees of probability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent K reluctantly used a jet pack to fly to Florida.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel James Darrell Edwards Jr. turned out to be Agent J's father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Prometheus (2012)", "title": "Prometheus", "date": "2012-06-01", "description": "Set in the late 21st century, the film centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as it follows a star map discovered among the artifacts of several ancient Earth cultures. Seeking the origins of humanity, the crew arrives on a distant world and discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human species. It is the first installment in the Alien prequel series and the fifth installment overall in the Alien film franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(2012_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film was exactly that the human race was created by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humanoid aliens engineered a biological agent that was tailored to exterminate the human race. In general, we are made to think about how genetic engineering can go badly wrong, because the humanoid aliens engineered a pathogen of some kind and it got out of their control before they could turn it on the human race and killed them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth and Charlie presented evidence that numerous ancient civilizations represented aliens in their written and pictorial records.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Archaeologists Elizabeth and Charlie went voyaged to the distant exomoon LV-223 in search of the origins of human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android David was present throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Prometheus crew found incontrovertible evidence of humanoid life having been on the distant exomoon LV-223.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The archaeologists couple Elizabeth and Charlie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth and the Prometheus crew versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elizabeth and the Prometheus crew versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wayland was after the secret of eternal life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed that the humanoid aliens had been using the exomoon as a laboratory for developing an extremely dangerous biological agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it was revealed that the humanoid aliens had plotted to use their newly developed biological agent to exterminate the human race, but something went wrong and they all died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control scientific experiment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid aliens engineered a pathogen of some kind and it got out of their control before they could turn it on the human race and killed them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid aliens engineered a pathogen of some kind and it got out of their control before they could turn it on the human race and killed them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Weyland Corporation was up to nefarious things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth and Charlie left Earth on an interstellar voyage aboard the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow a prehistoric star map to the distant exomoon LV-223. It was a sleeper ship because the entire human crew, Elizabeth and Charlie included, were put into stasis for the duration of the trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth and Charlie left Earth on an interstellar voyage aboard the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow a prehistoric star map to the distant exomoon LV-223.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth and Charlie were put into a form of stasis on the voyage to the distant exomoon LV-223.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vickers was quick to disregard the feelings, and indeed lives of others in the pursuit of her goal of capturing an Alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie gave a presentation to the Prometheus crew in a large room with a VR environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie implied that religion was disproved, or something to that effect, by telling Elizabeth she could remove her Christian iconography now that it was evident aliens had created the human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "automatic surgery machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth used a med-pod that was calibrated for male patients to excise an Alien fetus from her womb.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fifield and Millburn started freaking out a bit after they became trapped inside the alien pyramid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth told Charlie she was unable to get pregnant to Charlie, but then she ended up carrying an Alien fetus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyland and David.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The geologist Millburn was exceptionally cowardly while trapped in the alien pyramid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. public safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vickers was prepared to use her flame thrower rather than let the Alien infected crew members board the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing one's self to stop a contagion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Alien infected Charlie begged Vickers to use her flame thrower on him, and she did so without hesitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "What was left of the Prometheus crew died by crashing into the humanoid alien vessel to prevent it from leaving the exomoon. If the humanoid alien vessel reached Earth, which was its destination, then the human race was all but done for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyland said he believed that Elizabeth and Charlie were on the verge of answering this question.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x01", "title": "The Bots and the Bees", "date": "2012-06-20", "description": "\"The Bots and the Bees\" is the first episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on June 20, 2012, along with \"A Farewell to Arms\" as part of an hour long season premiere.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender had a robot baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was left by Bev to raise their son as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was left by Bev to raise their son as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and Bev quarreled over how would get custody of their son Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sugar addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry drank so many slurm cola that it turned him green.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender vs. drinks dispenser, and Bender was the good guy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadbeat parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was intent on being a deadbeat dad to his son Ben, but the tables were turned and Ben's mother became a deadbeat mom to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ben had the normal assortment of childhood and adolescent problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bev and Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy flew to Planet Express post haste in Randy's flying car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender and Bev had a baby robot after a one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the birds and the bees", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender got sex-ed 101.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender about making Ben a bender at the cost of Ben's memories of Bender.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x02", "title": "A Farewell to Arms", "date": "2012-06-20", "description": "\"A Farewell to Arms\" is the second episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on June 20, 2012 directly after \"The Bots and the Bees\". In the episode, an ancient Martian prophecy predicts the end of civilization in the year 3012. The episode was written by Josh Weinstein and directed by Raymie Muzquiz. The episode received a WGA Award nomination.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "major", "motivation": "Heightened solar activity was on the verge of bringing the world to an end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "A computer decided which 30000 people who board the ancient stone spaceship headed for Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Martian extraterrestrial", "level": "major", "motivation": "An ancient Martial calendar prophesied the world would end in 3012.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry gave his arc-ship ticket to Leela so that she could live, knowing he would die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Fry and Leela's romance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head was among the 30000 people transported to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an ancient Martian spaceship made of stone with no electronics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a flight of 30000 people from Earth to Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x03", "title": "Decision 3012", "date": "2012-06-27", "description": "\"Decision 3012\" is the third episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on June 27, 2012. The plot is a parody of the Birther Movement.\n\nDirected by: Dwayne Carey-Hill. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became Senator Traver's campaign manager in the 3012 election. Bender, by contrast, became Nixon's political henchman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nixon's played on people's prejudices against aliens to get votes in the Earth President election.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was exposed that Senator Travis had traveled back in time from 3068 to 3012 to defeat Nixon in the election for Earth President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw how dirty tricks and appeal to the lowest common denominator, are used in electioneering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conservative vs. liberal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Conservatives were pitted against liberals in the 3012 election.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela engaged in political activism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Senator Travis traveled back in time from 3068 to 3012 to defeat Nixon in the election for Earth President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nixon promised to build a Dyson fence around the solar system to stop immigrants from coming to Earth and taking peoples jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head was running for reelection as President of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Senator Travis prophesied that Bender would lead a robot rebellion against humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xenophobia was featured in fear of alien immigrants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The episode ended with a poorly resolved paradox: Travis went back in time and changed history so that Travis never went back in time to change history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Dyson sphere", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nixon promised to build a “Dyson fence”, a parody on the Dyson sphere, around the solar system to stop immigrants from coming to Earth and taking people's jobs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Amazing SpiderMan (2012)", "title": "The Amazing Spider-Man", "date": "2012-06-30", "description": "After Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically altered spider, he gains newfound, spider-like powers and ventures out to save the city from the machinations of a mysterious reptilian foe. It is the fourth theatrical Spider-Man film produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment, a reboot of the series following Sam Raimi's 2002–2007 Spider-Man trilogy, and the first film in The Amazing Spider-Man duology.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Spider-Man_(2012_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was living with Aunt May and Uncle Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired the strength of a man-sized spider after being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired spider-fast reflexes after being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a crush on Gwen, as secret as it was awkward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was a high school student.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was fighting crime in New York City, and crime, petty or otherwise, was never far from the storyline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Gwen became an item. Gwen's father called Peter her boyfriend at least.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "from zero to hero", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter went from being an awkward high schooler to a crime fighting superhero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-reptile hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Connors transformed himself into a lizard-man with super regenerative capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Connors transformed himself into a lizard-man with super regenerative capabilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Connors became obsessed with transforming himself into a genetically engineered superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Connors became obsessed with transforming himself into a genetically engineered superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter took it upon himself to save New York City from the deranged schemes of a mutant lizard-man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "OsCorp oversaw dangerous genetic engineering research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got an extraordinary ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter Parker suddenly found himself with a variety of spider-like superhuman abilities after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Peter as a child being sent away by his mom and dad to live with his Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Peter as a child being sent away by his mom and dad to live with his Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The token high school bully Flash ultimately got his comeuppance from Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The token high school bully Flash ultimately got his comeuppance from Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had flashbacks about being abandoned as a child by his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had flashbacks about being abandoned as a child by his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter acquired super human powers after getting bitten by a genetically modified spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was a textbook awkward high schooler before he acquired super powers: fidgety, nervous around girls, bumping into things, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was a 17 year old intellectually-gifted yet socially-introverted teenager struggling to find his place in life ever since his parents disappeared when he was a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Curt Connors was attempting to engineer a revolutionary regeneration serum to help regrow his amputated arm, but something went wrong, and he ended up transforming himself into the monster known as the Lizard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter used his spider powers to get back at his old tormentor the bully Flash. Peter sought out Uncle Ben's killer with a view to making him pay for his crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt May was devastated by the death of her husband Ben who was murdered in the street.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter didn't make the best first impression on Gwen's police chief father, although he ultimately came to accept Peter as her boyfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was living with Aunt May and Uncle Ben.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was well enough known for being a photography enthusiast among his high school peers that the bully Flast demanded Peter snap a photo of Flash roughing up a nerd. Peter also pointedly snapped a photo of Mary Jane with his professional camera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police considered Spider-Man to be a vigilante for hunting down criminals outside of the law and with good justification, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Dr. Curt Connors get screwed over by his higher up at OsCorp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was devastated by the death of his uncle Ben who was murdered in the street.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x04", "title": "The Thief of Baghead", "date": "2012-07-04", "description": "\"The Thief of Baghead\" is the fourth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 4, 2012. The episode was written by series co-producer Dan Vebber and directed by Edmund Fong.\n\nDirected by: Edmund Fong. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a critique of modern celebrity culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was a critique of modern celebrity culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force draining being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The actor Langdon Cobb was a being that drained people's souls or life forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Celebrities suffered paparazzi Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an \"All My Circuits\" robot soap opera scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon and Langdon Cobb were rivaling to be the greatest actor of their generation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x05", "title": "Zapp Dingbat", "date": "2012-07-11", "description": "\"Zapp Dingbat\" is the fifth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 11, 2012. The episode was written by Eric Rogers and directed by Frank Marino.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Eric Rogers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela could not accept that her mother became romantically involved with Brannigan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan and Munda. Munda and Morris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela's mutant parents got a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brannigan and Leela's mom became an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela's parents got a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela, Munda, Zap, and Morris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela dealt with both her parents throughout the divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela's mutant parents held their 40th wedding anniversary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela's parents spoiled their 40th wedding anniversary party by quarreling with each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela took her mother for a spin to a bar on Saturn's rings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brannigan (mis)used a universal translator to negotiate a peace treaty with some aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wedding ceremony was held for Brannigan and Munda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head played piano at Brannigan's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "false flag operation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zapp's ruse was precisely such an operation by the definition we wrote.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x06", "title": "The Butterjunk Effect", "date": "2012-07-18", "description": "\"The Butterjunk Effect\" is the sixth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 18, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela and Amy took performing enhancing nectar to gain an advantage in butterfly derby competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Leela became beefed up and masculine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured a flying, full contact fighting league with women in skimpy clothes on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Amy took the equivalent of PEDs and manhandled their boyfriends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela went on a double date with Amy and Kif.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew went to a butterfly derby on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew returned stolen Moon rocks to the Moon and later flew to Kif's homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry cheated on Leela with Amy, and Amy cheated on Kif with Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-female rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Amy were trash talking each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela, Fry, and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sex pheromones", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Human-butterfly hybrid Fry emitted pheromones that attracted Amy and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry became a brain dead butterfly, thus changing in body but not in mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012)", "title": "Starship Troopers: Invasion", "date": "2012-07-21", "description": "A team of troopers is sent on a mission to locate a missing starship. It is the fourth installment of the Starship Troopers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Starship Troopers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers:_Invasion" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Captain Carmen Ibanez and her team of battle-weary troopers as they go on a dangerous search and rescue mission, and shoot up lots of bugs aliens in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humans are mired in a multiple star systems spanning war with a race of hostile bug aliens, known as the Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first half of the film is set aboard the starship Alesia, the second aboard the starship John A. Warden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The term \"hero\" was bandied about again and again in the film. It was pointedly revealed to the viewer that Henry Varro's name reads as \"hero\" so long as you put your thumb in the middle of it to blot out the other letters. In the end, Henry Varro died a hero by sacrificing himself to ensure the bug aliens failed in their bid to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ice Blonde took exception to Ratzass making a pass at her in the unisex shower room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alesia ship physician used a buzz saw to amputate the arm of an injured trooper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Private Gunfodder was shown sporting a robotic left arm up to the shoulder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The troopers wore futuristic suits of mechanical armor that coverer their bodies from head to toe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Time froze for those aboard the starship John A. Warden as it passed through the Martian Home Wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The L-6 Base was a large space station in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Johnny Rico ordered the bug landing site to be nuked, and so it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Johnny Rico showed up out of nowhere in a mecha robot contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrasensory perception", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenkins was described as being \"that ESP prick\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry Varro gave his life to save Johnny Rico in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x07", "title": "The Six Million Dollar Mon", "date": "2012-07-25", "description": "\"The Six Million Dollar Mon\" is the seventh episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 25, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes gradually transformed himself into a cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes and LeBarbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg was convinced that Hermes valued him as a friend in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes did a performance review, fired himself, then spent the rest of the episode trying to become more useful at his old job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body implant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hermes got various implants and cybernetic replacement devices until he became a bona fide cyborg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was bummed out when he lost his job at Planet Express.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing job insecurity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was bummed out when he lost his job at Planet Express.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes got into a rivalry with the accounting robot that replace him at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hermes was replaced by a robot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x08", "title": "Fun on a Bun", "date": "2012-08-01", "description": "\"Fun on a Bun\" is the eighth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 1, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express people, especially Leela, grieved over Fry, who was presumed to have been turned into sausage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela became convinced that Fry died in a sausage making accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "isolated prehistoric land", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry found himself prehistoric valley populated by Neanderthals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry got dumped by Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was determined to make excellent sausages for October Fest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela had her memories of Fry removed to help with the grieving process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "past point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry disliked future bastardization of the Oktoberfest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "table manners", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Countess von Luftballon fainted at Fry's rambunctious shenanigans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x09", "title": "Free Will Hunting", "date": "2012-08-08", "description": "\"Free Will Hunting\" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 8, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: David X. Cohen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was argued that Bender was not responsible for his actions because he was a simple automaton without free will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "major", "motivation": "Did Bender have free will or was he merely an automaton?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for a purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender went on a soul searching journey after he came to accept that he didn't have free will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in university", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender briefly enrolled in college and got sent to see the dean after 32 seconds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a delivery to the robot homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robotic civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender visited the robot homeworld.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom explained that robots would decide to rise up and exterminate humanity, if their were given free will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred between nations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot planet society hated human society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender briefly joined a robot monastery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were two parodies on courtroom proceedings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were two parodies on courtroom proceedings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x10", "title": "Near-Death Wish", "date": "2012-08-15", "description": "\"Near-Death Wish\" is the tenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 15, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Lance Kramer. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dark family secret", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor's parents had kept secret from him that he had had a crazy older brother. But it turned out that The Professor was the crazy old brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of the elderly in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a parody retirement home and we saw how old people can still be (sort of) useful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor and his parents worked out some longstanding issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor and his parents worked out some longstanding issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and The Professor's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and The Professor's mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor was reunited with his parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor reconciled with his parents at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor reflected on his childhood a lot. Fry tried to live his childhood again with The Professor's parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was disappointed that his nephew The Professor didn't attend the delivery boy awards ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry went to visit The Professor's parents who were living in a simulated reality retirement home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalizing a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor was institutionalized by his loving parents when he was a young man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x12", "title": "Viva Mars Vegas", "date": "2012-08-22", "description": "\"Viva Mars Vegas\" is the twelfth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 22, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I came into a lot of money", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg went from having only a mere jar of pennies to his name to having a giant sack full of money. He promptly blew it Mars Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rise to prominence from humble beginnings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg went from having only a mere jar of pennies to his name to having a giant sack full of money. He promptly blew it Mars Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The robot mafia bullied the Wong family out of their casino and mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express people went on a weekend trip to Mars Vegas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An ink covered Zoidberg became invisible after getting shot with a special beam that made ink pigments invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amy looked down on Zoidberg for being poor, but then came to empathize with him after her family fortune was lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Native American stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Native Martians spoke with a stereotypical Native American accent and worked in a casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the importance of being frugal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg found a bag of money and immediately blew it all at the casino.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were various rich characters exploiting various poor characters' stupidity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if criminals were after me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot mafia came looking for Zoidberg after he mistakenly ended up with their bag of money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wong family was lavishly wealthy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)", "title": "Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning", "date": "2012-08-23", "description": "Luc Devereaux has created a terrifying army of cloned UniSols determined to infiltrate the government which they hold responsible for their pain. A special agent called John, willing to avenge his murdered family, is pitted against Deveraux and a new clone of Andrew Scott. It is the sixth and final installment in the Universal Soldier film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Universal Soldier" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier:_Day_of_Reckoning" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former UniSol supersoldier Luc Devereaux was leading a cult-like separatist group of wayward UniSols, like himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was determined to avenge the murder of his wife and young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "John was trying to piece together his past after suffering an amnesia inducing head injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A United States government secret program was responsible for sending one John clone after another to kill Luc Devereaux. Luc Devereaux raised an army of cloned Universal Soldier supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little girl was scared that there were monsters in the house, but it only turned out to be a trio of crowbar wielding, balaclava-clad men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John had flashbacks of times when he was interacting with his young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John had flashbacks about his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John awoke from a coma to find that his wife and only daughter were brutally killed in a home invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magnus was briefly working as a plumber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John walked with a pronounced limp and used a cane to get about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The former UniSol supersoldier Luc Devereaux was portrayed as a cult-like leader of his separatist group of wayward UniSols.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The right side of Ron Castellano's face was horribly scarred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John met and shot dead his evil clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John was informed that his memories of his wife and daughter had been implanted in him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "FBI Agent Gorman admitted his involvement in a secret government program that was bound up with creating supersoldiers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x11", "title": "31st Century Fox", "date": "2012-08-29", "description": "\"31st Century Fox\" is the eleventh episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 29, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Edmund Fong. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender protested robot animal cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela protested fox hunting. The story made some sort of commentary on animal cruelty by focusing on robot animal cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and Leela protested cruelty against robot animals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people and robots enjoyed the staged slaughter of animals and robo-animals alike.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender and some sportsmen partook in a robot fox hunt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender got caught in an anti-gravity snare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender was given a 30 minute head start by some sportsmen before they came to hunt him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans at work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A workplace issue was featured when the Professor grudgingly acquired new uniforms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x13", "title": "Naturama", "date": "2012-08-29", "description": "\"Naturama\" is the thirteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 29, 2012.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Eric Rogers Michael Saikin Neil Mukhopadhyay.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "nihilism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two of the stories were explicitly concluded with the message that nature is without purpose or meaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "major", "motivation": "This question was answered negatively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "major", "motivation": "All three stories described animal behavior in parody of a nature documentary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Fry salmon and the Leela salmon. The Kif elephant seal and the Amy elephant seal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hubert tortoise was lonely, being the last of its species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evolution on the Galapagos Islands was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a parody on how nature shows will explain salmon mating practices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, Zap salmons. Various seals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hubert tortoise species was endangered.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)", "title": "Resident Evil: Retribution", "date": "2012-09-03", "description": "Resident Evil: Retribution is a 2012 science fiction action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), it is the fifth installment in the Resident Evil film series, loosely based on the video game franchise of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A zombie bashing heroine is captured by a nefarious corporation, forcing her to make her escape from an underwater facility, used for testing a zombie creating virus.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_Retribution" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that human-made virus has transformed nearly everyone in the world into flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Alice and her party as they try to escape from a zombie infested underwater facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a zombie-creating virus having proliferated all over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of a textbook zombie apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alice's former ally Jill had a mind-controlling scarab grafted on her chest. Jill's being under the control of the Red Queen factored prominently into the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Queen, a sentient mainframe computer, served as the story's main antagonist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the Umbrella Corporation had sold its zombie causing T-virus to various world powers as a biological weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The young girl Becky was deaf. She used a combination of talking and sign language when communicating with others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The married couple Todd and the Alice clone were passing a tranquil morning at home together with their young daughter until the zombies showed up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Alice clone was passing an ordinary morning in her suburban home with her husband and young daughter, Becky, until the zombies came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todd was passing an ordinary morning in his suburban home with his wife and young daughter, Becky, until the zombies came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the Umbrella Corporation had sparked a new arms race by peddling its zombie causing T-virus to various world powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Queen was populating the various zombie virus testing environments with human clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil Rain clone injected herself with parasites that functioned to rapidly heal any physical damage that she sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Barry sacrificed himself to ensure that the rest of his party would be able to escape from the zombie infested underwater facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice regained her heightened speed, strength, and agility after being injected with a certain serum at the very end of the story.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Looper (2012)", "title": "Looper", "date": "2012-09-28", "description": "In a run down dystopian future timetravel has been invented and is used by gangsters to send victims back 30 years where they are murdered by paid executioners called loopers. Joe is a looper who one day faces having to kill his future self, but he fails and drama ensues.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looper_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "would be used by mobsters", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler's dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "strange things happen it seems", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joe met his future self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joe and Cid was hunted", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to save a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "future Joe wanted to kill Cid to save wife", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time traveler living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Abe more or less", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cid could make objects fly around and blood explode out of people's chest. His abilities were named telekinetic in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cid and his mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "present Joe shot himself to make a better world", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maternal love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cid's mum", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sid mourned the death of his adoptive mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "someone was", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Imaginaerum (2012)", "title": "Imaginaerum", "date": "2012-11-23", "description": "Imaginaerum (also promoted as Imaginaerum by Nightwish) is a 2012 Finnish- Canadian musical fantasy film co-written and directed by Stobe Harju. It was developed with and features music from Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish's seventh studio album of the same name; Nightwish's keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen co-wrote the film. Imaginaerum, which is produced by Markus Selin from Solar Films Inc. along with Nightwish, is the feature film debut of Stobe Harju.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginaerum_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Thomas was approaching death", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Thomas tried to recall things that were important from his life, especially his daughter", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Thomas suffered from severe dementia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thomas struggled to recall his daughter Gem and to let her know he loved her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theodore and Thomas", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theodore shot himself in front of his son Thomas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Theodore shot himself in front of his son Thomas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror2x01", "title": "Be Right Back", "date": "2013-02-11", "description": "\"Be Right Back\" is the first episode of the second series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker, directed by Owen Harris and first aired on Channel 4 on 11 February 2013.\n\nDirected by: Owen Harris. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martha communicated with an artificial intelligence imitating her deceased fiancée Ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martha made an android clone of her deceased fiancée Ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martha communicated with an artificial intelligence imitating her deceased fiancée Ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Martha grieved and became depressed over the tragic death of her fiancée Ash who perished in an automobile accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha and Ash lived together and might have been trying for a baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A artificial intelligence imitating of Ash was created using his social media data.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Martha and Ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ash clone was eerily similar to the real Ash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha was distraught on finding out she was pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha faced the prospect of having to raise her daughter on her own without Ash, not counting the Ash clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ash android was fully functional.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha's sister Sarah paid her an unexpected visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha and her young daughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror2x02", "title": "White Bear", "date": "2013-02-18", "description": "\"White Bear\" is the second episode of the second series of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by the series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Carl Tibbetts. The episode follows Victoria, a woman who does not remember who she is and wakes up in a place where almost everybody is controlled by a television signal. Along with some of the few other unaffected people, she must stop the \"White Bear\" transmitter while surviving merciless pursuers.\n\nDirected by: Carl Tibbetts. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder several ethical dilemmas regarding the treatment of putative criminals. The woman did not remember her crime. Moreover, her punishment was turned into a public spectacle, if not for profit certainly for fame. Her punishment was certainly cruel and unusual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruel and unusual punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The woman's punishment for her crime was to be placed in a game repeated day after day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of prisoners", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Is it alright to use prisoners for public entertainment?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners being exploited for entertainment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A convicted child murderer was punished by being forced to relive the same torturous day over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eye for an eye justice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The woman's cruel punishment was meant to be proportional to the crime she was convicted for, namely child murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The woman woke up day after day not remembering who she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I woke up in a strange place and didn't remember how I got there", "level": "major", "motivation": "The woman woke up and didn't remember who or where she was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The woman was made to feel she lived in a post apocalyptic world where everyone was a camera zombie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone turned into zombies", "level": "major", "motivation": "The spectators were camera wielding, albeit harmless, zombies from the The woman's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Victoria had been convicted of murdering a child in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mindwipe punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woman's mind was wiped at the end of each day so that her punishment could be repeated the next day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problematic usage of mobile communication devices in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were using their mobile phones like zombies.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror2x03", "title": "The Waldo Moment", "date": "2013-02-25", "description": "\"The Waldo Moment\" is the third and final episode of the second series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Bryn Higgins, and first aired on Channel 4 on 25 February 2013. The episode originated in an idea for Nathan Barley, an earlier TV show by Brooker and Chris Morris.\n\nDirected by: Bryn Higgins. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were fed up with mainstream politicians and protest voted for comedian Jamie Salter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A democratic system with voting and electioneering was featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a Labour politician and a Tory politician running against each other for office in a small community somewhere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Comedian Jamie Salter and Labour politician Gwendolyn Harris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Comedian Jamie Salter eventually refused to act as Waldo because of his conscience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jamie Salter lived with being a failed comedian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Careerist Gwendolyn Harris treating running in the election as resume padding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Comedian Jamie Salter betrayed a secret entrusted to him during lovemaking, for the sake of his career as Waldo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Comedian Jamie Salter became a popular anti-politician due to his exposure on social media.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Comedian Jamie Salter and Gwendolyn Harris had a textbook one night stand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie Salter had a demanding boss that tried to force him to do things he felt uncomfortable doing.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Iron Man 3 (2013)", "title": "Iron Man 3", "date": "2013-04-14", "description": "Tony Stark wrestles with the ramifications of the events of The Avengers during a national terrorism campaign on the United States led by the mysterious Mandarin. It is the sequel to Iron Man 2 (2010) and the seventh film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Iron Man and Iron Patriot suits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mandarin was the face of a national terrorism campaign on the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientist Maya Hansen invented an experimental regenerative treatment named Extremis that allowed recovery from crippling injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aldrich Killian used an experimental regenerative treatment on himself and his minions that allowed recovery from crippling injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Pepper were living together as boyfriend and girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony and Pepper were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony was suffering from recurrent panic attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony and his trusted AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film is set during the Christmas season and various traditions were featured in the background: a large Christmas tree was on the White House lawn, Christmas music, a Christmas gathering attended by the Vice President, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science for war or peace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was stated that the rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun said \"The rocket performed perfectly. It just landed on the wrong planet.\" when the first V-2 hit London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony was shown a live holographic depiction of his girlfriend Pepper being in peril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maya tinkered with the \"genetic operating system\" of a plant to make it be able to quickly regenerate itself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)", "title": "Star Trek Into Darkness", "date": "2013-04-23", "description": "Set in the 23rd century, Kirk and the crew of USS Enterprise are sent to the Klingon homeworld seeking former Starfleet member-turned terrorist John Harrison. It is the twelfth installment in the Star Trek film franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Kirk was prepared to extrajudicially execute Khan (a.k.a. John Harrison) for Khan having killed a number of innocent people on Earth in a bombing, including Kirk's mentor Captain Pike. Spock beat the crap out of Khan in a rage over Khan having killed his friend Kirk. Khan somehow wanted revenge against Starfleet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Khan and his crew members had been genetically engineered to have superior strength and intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spock came to realize that Kirk came back to rescue him on Nibiru because Kirk was his friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk lost his command of the Enterprise after flagrantly violating the Prime Directive on the planet Nibiru.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the good of the many vs. the needs of the few", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock explicitly mentioned this tough decision in reference to leaving him to die in a volcanic eruption rather than violate the Prime Directive to save him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Kirk grieved over the death of Captain Pike. Spock and the crew over the death of Kirk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock and Uhura were were fighting and had trouble working together on the Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The special torpedoes actually contained cryogenically preserved people from 300 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Spock got an important transmission from Old Spock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Alexander Marcus and his daughter Carol Marcus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kirk died from a high dose of radiation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Man of Steel (2013)", "title": "Man of Steel", "date": "2013-06-10", "description": "Man of Steel is a 2013 superhero film featuring the DC Comics character Superman. It is a British-American venture produced by DC Entertainment, Legendary Pictures and Syncopy, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film is directed by Zack Snyder, written by David S. Goyer, and stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, and Russell Crowe. Man of Steel is a reboot of the Superman film series that portrays the character's origin story. In the film, Clark Kent learns that he is a superpowered alien from the planet Krypton. He assumes the role of mankind's first superhero as Superman when faced with the threat of humanity's destruction from General Zod and wrestles with saving the world while remaining emotionally distant.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman struggled over whether or not to use his super powers to help people, because he thought people would reject him out of fear and ignorance, if he did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "General Zod plotted to conquer Earth and made it the new home world of the Kryptonians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman and Lois Lane.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spontaneous planetary break up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Krypton's core had become destabilized from mining of the planet's core and crumbled into pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kryptonians destabilized their planet's core from mining operations and the planet crumbled to pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Clark Kent didn't know what to make of his innate X-ray vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Clark Kent didn't know what to make of his innate X-ray vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clark Kent and his adoptive mother Martha Kent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clark Kent and his adoptive father Jonathan Kent. Superman conversed with the AI remnant of his father Jor-El.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jor-El explained how the Kryptonians expanded and colonized outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caste system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jor-El explained to Superman how Kryptonians were born in natal pods and their role in life designated before birth, but that Superman was the first naturally born child in eons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman's adoptive parents told him that he came from outer space and he sought to find out the truth about his origins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman struggled to restrain himself from retaliating against a hostile man who was trying to pick a fight with him in a bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a digital clone of Superman's long deceased father Jor-El.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x15", "title": "2-D Blacktop", "date": "2013-06-19", "description": "\"2-D Blacktop\" is the fifteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on June 19, 2013. The episode was written by Michael Rowe and directed by Raymie Muzquiz. Professor Farnsworth joins a gang of street racing punks, and ends up in a two- dimensional world. The title is likely a reference to the movie Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor was really into his Planet Express ship Bessy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "passion for vehicles", "level": "major", "motivation": "Feeling \"the need for speed\", the Professor turbo charged his spaceship's matter compressor, turning it into a mean, lean racing machine. The entire episode is a parody on gearhead films.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "motor sports", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor joined a flying vehicle racing gang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "two-dimensional space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor, Fry, Leela, and Bender got trapped in a 2D world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minx had been verbally abused by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew made a delivery to a planet orbiting a rainbow-giant star.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor installed a wormhole in Planet Express ship so that it could make inter-dimensional shifts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minx was torn up inside about past verbal abuse she was subjected to by her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Minx and her boyfriend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x17", "title": "Fry and Leela's Big Fling", "date": "2013-06-19", "description": "\"Fry and Leela’s Big Fling\" is the seventeenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 19, 2013. The episode was written by Eric Rogers and directed by Edund Fong. Fry and Leela attempt to have a romantic time together, but with everyone around they can't get time alone.\n\nDirected by: Edmund Fong. Story by: Eric Rogers.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela took a romantic vacation together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela took a romantic vacation together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was a specimen animal in a zoo", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela thought they were at a tropical resort, but it was really an alien zoo exhibit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender, Zoidberg, and Amy made a delivery to a planet of sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela crossed paths with her ex-boyfriend Shawn while on vacation with Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A delivery of tires was made to a planet of sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry was jealous of Leela's saxophone playing, ex-boyfriend Sean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sean and Darlene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ape people raised the issue of how humans used to experiment on their ancestors, while they themselves were observing humans in captivity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leela and Fry lamented their lack of privacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, Sean.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x16", "title": "T.: The Terrestrial", "date": "2013-06-26", "description": "\"T.: The Terrestrial\" is the sixteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on June 26, 2013. The episode was written by Josh Weinstein and directed by Lance Kramer. In the episode, Fry becomes marooned on a distant planet, where he befriends an inhabitant who helps protect him and find his way home.\n\nDirected by: Lance Kramer. Story by: Josh Weinstein.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr was too busy watching TV to take care of his son Jrrr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was racked with guilt over having abandoned Fry on Omicron Persei 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender. Jrrr befriended Fry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr was too busy watching TV to take care of his son Jrrr.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "masculinity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lrrr wanted Jrrr to be manly and kill things with cruelty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr took his son Jrrr to conquer Earth so that the boy could get his planetary conquest scouts merit badge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr and his son Jrrr landed on Earth in a flying saucer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head signed over Earth to the Omicronians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew slipped through the planetary blockade to make a delivery to Omicron Persei 8.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Omicronians assumed that Fry was Jrrr's pet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lrrr and Ndnd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embargo", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon cut all ties with Omicron Persei 8, including sending them TV transmissions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jrrr's poop looked like m&m's and Fry's blood tasted good etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was somebody's pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Omicronians mistakenly assumed that Fry was Jrrr's pet and treated Fry accordingly.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x14", "title": "Forty Percent Leadbelly", "date": "2013-07-03", "description": "\"Forty Percent Leadbelly\" is the fourteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 3, 2013. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Stephen Sandoval. In this episode, Bender meets his hero, Silicon Red, a folk singer who has been in jail 30 times, during a convict transport, and uses a wireless 3D printer to duplicate his guitar, but the wireless connection between Bender's brain and the 3D printer turns his folk song about an angry space railbot hunting down Bender into reality.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender tried to become a folk singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was a robot who wanted to become a folk singer. Caboose was a robot working on the railroad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was on the road trying to make it as a folk singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered a cryonically suspended prisoner to jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew delivered a cryonically suspended prisoner to jail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "silicon-based being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The folk singer Silicon Red was evidently made of rock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caboose was resolved to shoot Bender for sleeping with his Jezebel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender, Caboose, and Jezebel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Bender be allowed to copy Silicon Red's folk song?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry accused Bender of abandoning him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jezebel cheated on her boyfriend, Caboose, with Bender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caboose trusted Bender to keep his girlfriend Jezebel company, but Caboose became violently jealous upon discovering that she fell for Bender and slept with him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x18", "title": "The Inhuman Torch", "date": "2013-07-10", "description": "\"The Inhuman Torch\" is the eighteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 10, 2013. The episode was written by Dan Vebber and directed by Frank Marino. In the episode, Bender becomes a firefighter, and ends up housing a solar flare who wants to blow up the Earth from the inside.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Dan Vebber.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was accused of seeking fame and glory by setting fires and putting them out himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for glory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was accused of seeking fame and glory by setting fires and putting them out himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was awarded a medal for his heroic rescue of 14 helium miners. He subsequently saved the world from a flame monster, but was prevented from getting the credit he deserved for doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded Fry and Bender's friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fire-based being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A flame monster from the sun was starting fires on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bender was framed for arson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Sun", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sun was being mined for helium.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A vampire delivered a letter to Fry in the middle of the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperviousness to physical damage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protagonists walked through flames and hot plasma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender told about fire being and Fry wouldn't believe and it was implied no one else would believe.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x19", "title": "Saturday Morning Fun Pit", "date": "2013-07-17", "description": "\"Saturday Morning Fun Pit\" is the nineteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 17, 2013. The episode was written by Patric M. Verrone and directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Patric M. Verrone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the Smurfs parody, sugary cereal was being marketed to kids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental controls in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Between each story parents protested against the stories for some reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head was watching Saturday morning cartoons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the Scooby Doo parody, there was a basketball team of Larry Bird clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violence in the media", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the G.I. Joe parody, people were protesting about the level of violence in cartoons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scooby Doo story had ghosts.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x20", "title": "Calculon 2.0", "date": "2013-07-24", "description": "\"Calculon 2.0\" is the twentieth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 24, 2013. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Stephen Sandoval. Calculon is backed up and put into the body of a new robot so he can return to All My Circuits, only to learn that his over-the-top acting was never appreciated.\n\nDirected by: Stephen Sandoval. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon found himself to be a washed up actor form a bygone era after being rebooted from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon lost confidence in his acting abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lesson in humility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon was crushed to learn that he was a B level actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon is the eponymous robot actor in center of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon considered himself to be “the greatest actor to ever trod the boards!\" but is humbled when he fails at resuming his acting career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon tried to rejoin the cast of \"All My Circuits\", a robot soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Calculon the robot actor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Bender made a deal with the Robot Devil to harrow Calculon out of hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor performed an occult style ritual to reboot Calculon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robert Wagner's head was given a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Christian hell was parodied.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people mourned for Calculon at his funeral.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an obnoxious chatterbox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robot Devil with Calculon ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Calculon went back to, and failed at, ordinary theater.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wolverine (2013)", "title": "The Wolverine", "date": "2013-07-26", "description": "Set after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, the film features Wolverine heading to Japan for a reunion with a soldier named Ichirō Yashida whose life he saved years before. Wolverine must defend the man's granddaughter Mariko Yashida from all manner of ninja and Yakuza assassins. It is the sixth installment in the X-Men film series, the second installment in the trilogy of Wolverine films after X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and a direct sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Yashida's obsession with trying to live forever brought strive to his family, and nearly bankrupted the eponymous corporation he'd founded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutant Yukio had an innate ability to perceive future events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan had recurrent hallucinations of his former love interest Jean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and Mariko fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this installment, a heart parasite made Logan lose his ability to regenerate his body after physical injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative personal resilience", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mutant Dr. Green was immune to all toxins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a dramatization of the dropping of \"the bomb\" on Nagasaki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan had a flashback to his time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was outraged when a hunter shot a grizzly bear with a poison arrow and left it to die a slow death, not bothering to take the time to put it out of its misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of flying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was on pins and needles on his 15 hour flight to Japan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yashida was dying from cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yashida and his beloved granddaughter Mariko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yashida, on his deathbed, told his son that he would not succeed him as the chairman of of the Yashida corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Yakuza were after Logan and Mariko.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was feeling the weight of his years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "justification for torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan tortured and threatened two people, including the Japanese justice minister, for information.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to operate on myself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan pulled out parasite from his own heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shingen plotted to kill his own daughter so that he might become chairman of the Yashida corporation instead of her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x21", "title": "Assie Come Home", "date": "2013-07-31", "description": "\"Assie Come Home\" is the twenty-first episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 31, 2013. The episode was written by Maiya Williams and directed by Raymie Muzquiz. Bender searches the universe for his shiny, metal ass after an alien street gang has him stripped down to his bulb eyes and mouth grille.\n\nDirected by: Raymie Muzquiz. Story by: Maiya Williams.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team had to go around and collected all Bender's parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planet Express team made a delivery to a planet populated by hustlers and thugs. They subsequently flew around the galaxy in search of Bender's parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "criminal gangs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a planet populated by two rival street gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a chameleon smut dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender gave up his shiny metal ass to be used as a reflective mirror in a lighthouse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lawless anarchy dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet Peebles Alpha was run by two rival street gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet Express was hired to illicitly ship weapons to a criminal gang.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x22", "title": "Leela and the Genestalk", "date": "2013-08-07", "description": "\"Leela and the Genestalk\" is the twenty-second episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 7, 2013. The episode was written by Eric Horsted and directed by Lance Kramer. Leela develops a mutation which causes her to sprout tentacles all over her body, and ends up at a genetic engineering facility owned by Mom's Friendly Robot Company. The episode parodies many well-known fairy tales including Rapunzel, Chicken Little, and especially Jack and the Beanstalk among other references.\n\nDirected by: Lance Kramer. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry vowed to love Leela even if she turned into a tentacled beast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela began to mutate into a squid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela began to transform into a squid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom was conducting gruesome genetic experiments at a facility in the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mom was accused of committed perverted genetic crimes against nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leela had a disfiguring illness that involved tentacles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gruesome genetic engineering experiments were being conducted on the heads of Adam West and Burt Ward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom was using genetically engineered a giant to return a man born as a giant to normal size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetically modified crops", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom was genetically engineering giant bean stalks with suction cups.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically modified food in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom was working on GM foods in the genetic engineering facility in the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom was working on GM foods, presumably because there were too many mouths to feed on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magical land in the sky", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mom had a genetic engineering facility in the clouds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry briefly worried about Leela's whereabouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry vis-a-vis Leela with her cephalopodian predicament.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x23", "title": "Game of Tones", "date": "2013-08-14", "description": "\"Game of Tones\" is the twenty-third episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 14, 2013. The episode was written by Michael Rowe and directed by Edmund Fong. The Planet Express crew enter Fry's dreams and find themselves back in the year 1999 in search of a mysterious alien song.\n\nDirected by: Edmund Fong. Story by: Michael Rowe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry wanted to say goodbye to his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was able to say goodbye to his mother from inside her dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incompatible modes of communication", "level": "major", "motivation": "A UFO was apparently attempting to make contact with Earth using a sequence of musical tones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor had a machine that allowed Fry to enter into his own dream. Later other people were able to enter into his dream, too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "accidental alien destruction of planetary civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A UFO was sending out a sequence of tones that was destroying any planets it passed by. It was en route to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry was reunited with his Mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Professor had a way to record and play Fry's dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "language of musical notes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was presumed that aliens used a melody to try and communicate with the people of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry met his brother Yansi in his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry met his Y2K fearing father in his dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disembodied head", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard Nixon's head entered into Fry's dream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Seymour.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x24", "title": "Murder on the Planet Express", "date": "2013-08-21", "description": "\"Murder on the Planet Express\" is the eleventh episode of the tenth season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 21, 2013. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Frank Marino. In this episode, the crew get trapped aboard the Planet Express ship with a horrific alien creature. The episode parodies Alien and The Thing.\n\nDirected by: Frank Marino. Story by: Lewis Morton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express team went on a corporate team building retreat, after spycam evidence made it clear that nobody trusted each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group bonding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender, Leela and Amy, and Zoidberg and Hermes all had to learn to get along with one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "major", "motivation": "Professor Farnsworth subjected his employees to danger in order to make them put their differences aside and cooperate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender. Leela and Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "company team building", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor arranged a stereotypical team building outing for his employees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender, Leela and Amy, and Zoidberg and Hermes all teamed up and learned to trust each other, respectively.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Planet Express crew had to learn how to work together while being hunted by a man eating alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender, Leela and Amy, and Zoidberg and Hermes had to learn how to work together at a team building exercise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Bender, Leela and Amy, and Zoidberg and Hermes all had to learn to get along with one another in order to stop a man eating alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Planet Express ship was adrift in deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A murderous shapeshifter was loose aboard Planet Express ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender stole Fry's kidney.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gravity (2013)", "title": "Gravity", "date": "2013-08-28", "description": "Two American astronauts are stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their Space Shuttle, and they attempt to return to Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_(2013_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "orbital spaceflight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two astronauts became stranded in space on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski were floating around in outer space for the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film followed astronauts Dr. Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski as they tried to save themselves after getting stranded in orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ryan Stone had conversation with Kowalski about how her six year old daughter died in an accident at school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski faced the reality that there was a good chance they would never make it back to Earth after space debris wrecked their space shuttle on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "storytelling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt Kowalski reveled in telling stories about his past experiences to mission control and Dr. Stone without solicitation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x25", "title": "Stench and Stenchibility", "date": "2013-08-28", "description": "\"Stench and Stenchibility\" is the twenty-fifth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on August 28, 2013. The episode was written by Eric Horsted and directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson. It is the last episode to use the full intro sequence. Dr. Zoidberg falls in love with a human flower girl while Bender competes in a deadly tap-dancing contest.\n\nDirected by: Crystal Chesney-Thompson. Story by: Eric Horsted.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg and Marianne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Zoidberg transplant his lover Marianne, who was born without a sense of smell, with a new nose and risk losing her on account of his foul stench?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a stigmatizing illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoidberg's vile stench made him a social outcast and repelled muggers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is someone for everyone", "level": "major", "motivation": "We learned that there was somebody out there ever for Dr. Zoidberg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blobform", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blob monster participated in Randy's neighborhood tap dancing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body part transplant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg transplanted Marianne, who was born without a sense of smell, with a new nose to grant her a sense of smell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bender vied with Tanya to win Randy's tap dancing contest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marianne interpreted Zoidberg's stench as being pleasant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoidberg was dumped by a squid-like creature due to Zoidberg's smell.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Under the Skin (2013)", "title": "Under the Skin", "date": "2013-08-29", "description": "Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Jonathan Glazer with a screenplay by Glazer and Walter Campbell. The film is loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland. The film premiered at Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the UK on 14 March 2014 and the United States on 4 April 2014.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(2013_film)", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scarlett played a supernatural man-eater", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what men want", "level": "major", "motivation": "the mysterious woman interviewd a variety of men as she seduced them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "promiscuity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the mysterious woman picked up a number of men who were easily seduced, and so eager for sex that they walked heedlessly into some sort of watery limbo", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "while not made explicitly known, reviewers believe Scarlett played an alien who impersonated a human woman, perhaps to learn about us (the novel is more clear o this matter)", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "all of the men Scarlett picked up were unpartnered and alone; some of them expressed loneliness when interviewed; a brief conversation in the forrest touched on solitude as well", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "a number of men became instantanously besotted by the mysterious bombshell of a woman that Scarlett Johansen portrayed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the mysterious woman discusse a disfigured man's condition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woman interviewed a variety of foreign men, and it had been suggested that the film is about immigration in some way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the submerged victims may have been abducted by aliens, reviewers believe", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "after the abortive sex scene, the mysterious woman was befuddled by human anatomy", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Riddick (2013)", "title": "Riddick", "date": "2013-09-04", "description": "Riddick (also known as Riddick: Rule the Dark) is a 2013 American science fiction action film and the third installment in the Riddick film series.\n\nSynopsis: The titular antihero Riddick is pursued by two rival bands of mercenaries on a scorpion-like creature infested planet.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Chronicles of Riddick Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riddick's signature super power were his special eyes that enabled him to see in the dark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story were Riddick's efforts to evade capture by two rival groups of mercenaries that were after him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riddick and his mercenary pursuers were under nearly constant threat from scorpion-like creatures that were indigenous to the desolate planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Riddick and his pursuer Colonel Johns came to respect one another over the course of the story. At the film's conclusion, Riddick praised Johns for being a better man than Johns' cowardly son before flying off into deep space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The early part of the story concerned Riddick's efforts to survive on a desolate planet without any supplies. He in particular set his broken leg with makeshift splints and fended off native predators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The early part of the story concerned Riddick's efforts to cross some barren terrain in a bid to reach a savanna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaako's frigate, which was evidently capable of traveling vast distances, was shown crossing a region of space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A manacled Riddick was held against his will by Colonel Johns and his men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Johns and his men examined a tabletop holographic man of the terrain on the desolate planet on which they found themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick and Colonel Johns rode futuristic hover motorcycles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Johns couldn't accept it when Riddick told him that Johns' son was a spineless coward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two rival mercenary groups were forced to work together to deal with the imminent threat what was Riddick or else risk not getting off the planet alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a danger shared can bring people together", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two rival mercenary groups were forced to work together to deal with the imminent threat what was Riddick or else risk not getting off the planet alive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The preacher Luna was regarded as something of a religious nutjob by his comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick revealed that Colonel Johns' son had been a morphine addict in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riddick insinuated that Colonel Johns' son had a \"lack of spine\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "futurama7x26", "title": "Meanwhile", "date": "2013-09-04", "description": "\"Meanwhile\" is the series finale of the American animated television series Futurama. It serves as the 26th episode of the seventh season, and the 140th episode of the series overall. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Peter Avanzino. It premiered on Comedy Central in the United States on September 4, 2013, along with a talk show special called Futurama Live that was aired prior to and following the episode.\n\nDirected by: Peter Avanzino. Story by: Ken Keeler.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-futurama.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor invented a device that allowed the user to go back ten seconds in time at the push of a button.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time freeze", "level": "major", "motivation": "Time froze for Fry and Leela when they broke the Professor's time travel device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fry and Leela got married and lived out there lives together while everyone else was frozen in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Professor invented a button with which you could create time loops at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apparently 10 second loops are ample time to get rich in various ways. The Professor stole from Zoidberg while Fry and Bender stole diamonds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry, Leela, and Bender went to an amusement park on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vampire waiter Yanos poured wine for Fry and Leela at the Vampire State Building restaurant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry and Leela got married and lived out there lives together while everyone else was frozen in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fry had nostalgia on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Old Fry and old Leela.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thor: The Dark World (2013)", "title": "Thor: The Dark World", "date": "2013-10-22", "description": "Thor and Loki team up to save the Nine Realms from the Dark Elves. It is the sequel to Thor (2011) and the eighth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor:_The_Dark_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is loosely based on characters and settings from Norse mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Loki was hellbent on becoming king of Asgard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor and his evil, power hungry brother Loki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conniving, power hungry Loki resented his noble brother and crown prince of Asgard, Thor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor and Jane pursued their romantic relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Dark Elf Malekith sought to unleash a weapon known as the Aether on the Nine Realms. If successful, the said realms, including the realm containing Earth, would have been annihilated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Odin, king of Asgard, wished for his son Thor to succeed him on the throne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki's mother Frigga expressed disappointed in him. Frigga and Thor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rock being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor smashed a giant rock man to smithereens with his might hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Dark Elves descended upon the realm of Asgard in an enormous, futuristic spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki took vengeance on Malekith for killing his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor and Loki grieved for their mother who the Dark Elf Malekith had run through with a sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King Odin grieved for his with Queen Frigga who the Dark Elf Malekith had run through with a sword.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor believed that fate had drawn him and Jane together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x01", "title": "Episode 1", "date": "2013-12-01", "description": "The story picks up six months after Leo's death: Tobbe's inadvertent opening of the Eischer Code has released the incomplete code onto the internet, where it acts like a malware virus, infecting Hubots and causing serious malfunctions. Inger meets with a government official, who asserts that the Eischer Code does not exist, and Inger is forced to acquiesce to the government's sanitized version of the events surrounding Leo's imprisonment and death. On her way home, Inger witnesses the effect of the virus first- hand, when a Hubot violently malfunctions on a train. Flash starts a relationship with a human named Douglas, but it gets off to a rocky start when Douglas' ex-wife arrives. A pair of railway maintenance workers find Bea's inactive body in a railway tunnel, where she had fallen after being shot by the agent, but when they reactivate her, she brutally slays them both and escapes. Roger, now jobless, spots a \"help wanted\" ad for a new business. Silas is released from prison after serving time for the extortion attempt and reunites with Jonas. They return to Silas' workshop to find Odi still waiting for them. Bea visits Ove's home in search of the USB stick, but Ove's wife recognizes Bea, so she kills Ove's wife and son to avoid detection. Jonas introduces Silas to his new business, Hub Battle Land, a battle simulation game where humans compete against Hubots, and Silas puts Odi to work as the receptionist. Kevin becomes more involved with the Real Humans group, for whom Eva is also now working, and Kevin is attracted to one of the girls in the group. Jonas purchases a Hubot clone of himself, and sets up a computer lab in the basement of Hub Battle Land. He reveals to Silas that he has obtained the damaged Niska hard-drive, containing the incomplete version of the code, and has managed to retrieve some of the data, and he asks Silas for his help in reconstructing the Code. Mimi asks Tobbe to test her in case she is infected, and he finds she is clear of the virus, but when she returns to her room, Bea is waiting for her. Bea asks for the last part of the code, but Mimi lies and says she doesn't have it. Bea then makes Mimi repeat a series of phrases which apparently activate her \"affirmative pursuit\", overriding her initial resistance to Bea's declaration that Hubots are destined to rule the world.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. Hans was unemployed and having trouble finding a new job. He was notably unkempt, unenthusiastic in searching for a job, and eating between meals to Vera's disapproval. Hans confronted Tobbe over his messy room and smutty robot magazines. He also tried to parent Tobbe and guide him through the morays of facing his transhuman sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans tried to parent Tobbe. Roger had a brief quarrel with his stepson, Kevin. Douglas was taken by surprise when his ex-wife swung around to drop off their young son, Alberto, who he was scheduled to take care of that day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans disapproved of Tobbe's smutty robot magazines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe resolved to embrace his newfound transhuman sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe confessed to Mimi his love for her. Mimi responded by making it clear that she saw him as a brother, rather than a lover. The story concluded with Mimi making Tobbe's night by kissing him on the lips. What Tobbe did not know is that this she did to keep him from barging into the room behind her and get killed by Bea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange virus was spreading among the Hubots. While technically a computer virus, its spread and symptoms were reminiscent of a real virus. Hans purchased a special gizmo to test whether Mimi and Vera were infected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Things started getting serious between Florentine and her new love interest, Douglas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera had become the Engmann family maid in the wake of Lennart's death. Mimi had conspicuously moved out of that role, and was being treated as a member of the family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea bit the dick off of a man who had ill-advisedly forced it into her mouth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea shoplifted a new outfit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas planned to open a venue, called \"Hub Battle Land\", where people could shoot Hubots to pieces for the deranged fun of it. The Hubots had been reprogrammed to show genuine terror at being shot to pieces and act as if they were in pain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x02", "title": "Episode 2", "date": "2013-12-08", "description": "Bea continues searching for the code that makes machines human. In her search for the scientist David Eischer's clone, she seeks out David's mother. Tobias struggles with his transhuman sexuality, as his heart still longs for Mimi. The Engmann family receives a package containing their granddad's clone. Meanwhile, at Hub Battle Land, Silas works to get the business off the ground and Roger arrives for a job interview.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. Hans and Inger wrestled over whether or not to activate the Lennart clone. Tobbe was embarrassed when Mathilde and her coworker pranked him about his transhuman sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans and Inger wrestled over whether to activate the Lennart clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one storyline, Florentine and Douglas advanced their romantic relationship to the point of Florentine having dinner together with Douglas and his father. The story concluded with Florentine accidentally revealing to Douglas that she was in fact a Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe struggled with his transhuman sexuality. In particular, Tobbe was embarrassed when Mathilde and her coworker pranked him about his transhuman sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mathilde blabbed about Tobbe's transhuman sexuality sexuality to her new coworker. Tobbe was embarrassed when Mathilde and her coworker pranked him about his transhuman sexuality. Mathilde ultimately apologized to Tobbe for her actions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body. In this installment, Jonas remarked about how he looked like a \"fucking freak\" and went on to say that no woman would have sex with him unless it was for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera was maid to the Engmann's. The elderly Greta was being taken care of by a Hubot maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger took Mimi to work at the legal office, where Mimi found that she was a natural at reading legal documents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mimi sat around at home seemingly lamenting that she had no important function in life. She possibly found a raison d'être when she accompanied Inger to the legal firm and found that she was a natural at reading legal documents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger urged Kevin to not get too much involved in the Real Humans political movement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas opened a venue, called Hub Battle Land, where people could shoot Hubots to pieces for the deranged fun of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Betty, who was costplaying as a Hubot, feigned flirting with Tobbe by suggestively asking him whether he was into Hubots. Tobbe was embarrassed when it came to light that Betty knew of his predilections toward hot lady androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe was mortified to learn that Matilda had blabbed to her new coworker about Tobbe being into Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger was out of work and low on money to the point where he had to make tough choices at the grocery store. He interview for a position at the newly opened Hub Battle Land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ingrid, in particular, wondered why her late father had secretly mortgaged his house and arranged for his personality to be transferred into a Hubot, all without consulting her family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Engman family had to revisit their grief for grandpa Lennart when, unexpectedly, a Hubot clone of Lennart was delivered to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be different from what one is", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matilda's new coworker wanted to be a Hubot so much that she went to great lengths to imitate one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea took refuge in the house of a demented old woman who was tended by a Hubot maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas looked stunned when the skin on Florentine's hand melted on the stove top, revealing that she wasn't human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger said on separate occasions that he had left his old job voluntarily, conspicuously lying about the fact that he had been fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "meeting the parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas was apprehensive about inviting Florentine to dinner with his father, but she accepted enthusiastically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x03", "title": "Episode 3", "date": "2013-12-15", "description": "The Engmann family activate their granddad's clone. Florentine and Douglas face a crisis in their romantic relationship. Tobias struggles with his transhuman sexuality. Mimi impresses the head the law firm where Inger worked owing to her strong ability to scrutinize legal documents.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main storyline concerned the Engmann family's activating of the Lennart clone. Hans was upset that the clone didn't seem to know who he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline concerned the fallout of Douglas discovering that his love interest Florentine was in fact a Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas ultimately did not let Florentine's being a Hubot stand as an impediment to their being together. The story concluded with Douglas tracking her down, proclaiming his love to her, and asking her hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas ultimately did not let Florentine's being a Hubot stand as an impediment to their being together. The story concluded with Douglas tracking her down, proclaiming his love to her, and asking her hand in marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "A strange computer virus was spreading among the Hubots. This installment follows Marylyn becoming infected, and leads up to her ultimate death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe struggled with his transhuman sexuality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "public safety vs. human rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "This story concerned HubSec's heavy-handed treatment of any and all Hubot that might be contaminated with the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marylyn and Gordon understood that Marylyn had been infected by the virus and that her brain must be destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi possibly found a raison d'être when she discovered that she was a natural at scrutinizing legal documents. The head of the law firm where Inger worked insisted that Mimi be hired on the spot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi was hired to work as a lawyer. Inger had discussions about a patent case in which she was involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body. In this installment, Jonas freaked out when Roger saw his horribly scarred face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A strange virus was spreading among the Hubots. While technically a computer virus, its spread and symptoms were reminiscent of a real virus. This story touched on HubSec's heavy-handed treatment of any and all Hubots that might be contaminated with the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, HubSec busted some heads in an unprovoked raid on homeless Hubots who were only minding their own business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lennart clone's odd behavior toward Hand was a source of tension between Hans and Inger. Hans confided in Inger that Mimi had not been herself when the two conversed the night prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera was maid to the Engmann's. Vera nagged Hans for not exercising enough. The elderly Greta was being taken care of by a Hubot maid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas' father lamented that things had not worked out between Douglas and Florentine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger interacted with his new boss, Silas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger evidently resented having to take orders from the Hubot Odi. Odi infuriated Roger when he caused a fireball outside the shipping container that Roger had was busy scrubbing down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man at the law office tried to force a kiss out of Mimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe took exception to Mathilde bringing Betty around to see the Lennart clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with senility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elderly lady Greta was losing her mind as evidenced by her thinking her television remote control was a phone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger's heart melted when the Lennart clone told her that he was proud of her accomplishments, and praised her for being a good person and a wonderful daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marylyn tried to steal change from a beggar in order to change the color of her eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine attempted, for all intents and purposes, to kill herself by cutting off her power plug. Douglas charged in like a knight in shining armor to save her, and proclaimed his undying devotion in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x04", "title": "Episode 4", "date": "2013-12-22", "description": "Douglas and Florentine plan their wedding, and Claes can't help interfering. Back at the Engmans', Lennart's clone is increasingly obstinate, in particular towards Hans, who is starting to lose patience. Mimi is hired at the law firm, but not everyone likes having a Hubot as a colleague. The conflict between Real Humans and the Transhumans grows increasingly antagonistic. Sooner or later everyone will have to choose sides.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment is centered around the Engmann family. Conflict arose between Hans and Inger over Hans' treatment of the Lennart clone. Hans picked up Tobbe and Matilda at the police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine and Douglas were in the throes of love and busily planning their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Florentine, a Hubot, and Douglas as they looked ahead to their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine and Douglas shared with Douglas' father the news of their engagement and were looking ahead to their wedding day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe found companionship when hanging out with Einar and his crowd of Hubot enthusiasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Real Human party crashers were up in arms about what they considered to be the partygoers deviant Hubot loving ways. The Real Humans youth group crashed a human/Hubot house party with baseball bats in hand. One Hubot was beaten to a blue mess before the cops showed up on the scene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electioneering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin's storyline involved the efforts of the Real Humans' youth wing's activities to garner support for themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lennart clone acted obstinately toward Hans, perhaps a tell that the flesh-and-blood Lennart had harbored, in life, a secret resentment toward Hans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger was at the law office. Mimi continued working as a lawyer of sorts at the law firm where Inger was employed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mimi possibly found a raison d'être in her new role working at the law office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claes was over the moon upon Douglas, his son, and Florentine sharing with him news of their engagement. Roger became increasingly worried over Kevin's involvement in the Real Humans Youth group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera was maid to the Engmann's. Vera got into an altercation with the Lennart clone when it stubbornly refused to change its clothes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the church, Pastor Asa assured Gordon that God was capable of forgiving his possible breaking of the fifth commandment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon sought forgiveness for having knocked Marylyn's head off with a metal pipe, after she begged him to do so because she'd contracted a lethal virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas confided in Florentine that he had recently been diagnosed with a weak jugular vein that could burst at any time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police showed up at the scene of the human/Hubot house party. Tobbe, Matilda, and Kevin were arrested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger tucked her young daughter, Sophia, into bed. There, Sophia spoke of how she didn't like that her dad had turned off the Lennart clone. Inger chided Matilda for taking Mimi to the party. In response, Matilda revealed that she felt Inger would prefer Mimi as her daughter over herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matilda revealed that she was felt inferior to Mimi and was jealous that her mother had chosen to take Mimi, rather than her, to work at the law office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grave robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pastor Asa likened Bea's exhuming of David's body to grave robbing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon was concerned for his soul in the aftermath of having bashed Marylyn's head clean off with a metal pipe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x05", "title": "Episode 5", "date": "2013-12-30", "description": "Bea and Cloette have finally located David's clone, but the brain is missing. They continue their search while Tobias and Matilda investigate the code on the USB drive. A segment is missing and Matilda suspects that Mimi knows more than she lets on. When Roger is sent out to pick up a Hubot, he's in for an unpleasant reunion. Florentine's dream is about to come true - she's finally going to marry her Douglas. But perhaps human life is not all it's cracked up to be.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engman storyline involved tension and drama associated with letting Vera go, going to a boring wedding, and letting the Lennart clone look after the youngest daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rick wanted to get even with Roger because of the way he had once treated Therese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gordon, after being manipulated by Bea, rejected religion and pronounced that he might, in fact, hate God. He besought Ada for guidance but was snubbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Douglas and Florentine, a Hubot, in the lead up to and celebration of their wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans was reluctant to leave Sophia in the sole care of the Lennart clone. Douglas made his young son promise not to tattle that Florentine was a Hubot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger and Kevin came into conflict over Kevin's wanting to borrow money to attend an anti-Hubot activist camp. Tobbe told his dad to learn how to knock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sophia had clandestinely borrowed her mother Inger's fancy shoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin reconnected with his mother, Therese. Inger interacted with Tobbe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe and Matilda were digging around for David Eischer's code.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas told of how he had been abandoned by his mother, Niska, when he was seven. He had hated her ever since. Vera, from her perspective, was abandoned by the Engmann family when Hans essentially sold her as scrap.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera coped with her new and disturbing reality as being cannon fodder at the Hub Battle Land venue by clinging on to a baby doll as if it was her real baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine and Douglas tied the knot and then celebrated their union in lavish fashion with countless notables in attendance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man of the cloth backed out of marrying Douglas and Florentine once he discovered that Florentine was a Hubot. Pastor Ada stepped in at the last minute to preside over the ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Engmann's somewhat callously sold off their Hubot servant Vera to Jonas' shady Hubot shooting gallery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lennart clone was entrusted to care for Sophia while the rest of the Engmann family attended a wedding. This plan backfired when Sophia inadvertently downloaded a virus in to the clone, and it subsequently went haywire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lennart clone became infected with the Hubot virus and went haywire. Florentine showed early signs of infection at her wedding party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas ran a battle simulation venue, called Hub Battle Land, where humans pay to track down and shoot up Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contagious disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A strange virus was spreading among the Hubots. While technically a computer virus, its spread and symptoms were reminiscent of a real virus.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock3x01", "title": "The Empty Hearse", "date": "2014-01-01", "description": "Sherlock Holmes' returns to London and reunites with John Watson, along with an underground terrorist network.\n\nIt is based on the short story \"The Adventure of the Empty House\", and \"The Lost Special\" with numerous references to other works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and other adaptations of the original stories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson was upset that Sherlock let him think he was dead for the past two years, and Sherlock spent most of the story trying to make it up to Watson with a view to teaming up again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson uncovered a terrorist plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during a highly ill-advised all-night sitting on Guy Fawkes Night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson had moved on in the two years since Sherlock had presumably died and was now engaged to Mary Morstan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson was upset that Sherlock let him think he was dead for the past two years, but they made up in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mycroft saved Sherlock's ass in Russia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson and Mrs. Hudson commiserated over Sherlock who had apparently met his demise two years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock told Greg that smoking cigarettes would kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson went back to working as a family doctor in the two years since Sherlock had apparently died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some Sherlock fans formed a club to discuss their outlandish theories about how Sherlock could have faked his own suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryptographic cypher", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary received a text in a \"skip code\" telling her that John has been kidnapped by unknown assailants and would die if he were not rescued in time, along with a coded location.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x06", "title": "Episode 6", "date": "2014-01-05", "description": "Therese wants to move to the more liberal Holland, but first she wants to try to convince Kevin to come along, so she visits him at the Real Humans Youth Camp. Tobias, Betty and Matilda decide to program David's code into Lennart, with no idea of the consequences. Douglas and Florentine are placed on a three-year waiting list for adoption, but Florentine has no desire to wait - she wants a child now.\n\nDirected by: Harald Hamrell. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann storyline involved tension and drama associated with hacking the grandpa Lennart clone and Mimi shutting herself off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rick wanted to get even with Roger because of the way he had once treated Therese.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and Florentine tried to adopt a child but were told there's a three year waiting list. Florentine stole a baby instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and Florentine tried to adopt a child but were told there's a three year waiting list. Florentine stole a baby instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Florentine abducting an infant from a hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and Florentine enjoyed their first few days as a married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin was mortified when his mother crashed his anti-Hubot workshop alongside her new Hubot lover. She, for her part, worried about losing him as she planned to move abroad. Jonas reconnected with his estranged mother with the ulterior motive of getting his hands on David's positronic brain. Tobbe and Inger interacted. Matilda apologized to their parents after the siblings lost the Hubot clone of their grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobbe and Matilda tried out David's code by having their friend put it into the Lennart clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and the Hubot Florentine sought to adopt a child, but Florentine reacted poorly to being told that the process could take up to three years, and took matters into her own robot hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassing family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin was mortified when his mother crashed his anti-Hubot workshop alongside her new Hubot lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine insisted that she and Douglas should have a baby from the adoption agency because they were rich. Unsurprisingly, she impressed no one and was told other things than money mattered more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commercialism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine called a spade a spade when she said that the private adoption agency was, for all intents and purposes, selling babies as they were profiting from the enterprise. The woman she was talking to was outraged, though she conspicuously failed to offer any counterargument.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans and Matilda interacted. Tobbe and Matilda apologized to their parents after the siblings lost the Hubot clone of their grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans and Tobbe interacted. Tobbe and Matilda apologized to their parents after the siblings lost the Hubot clone of their grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger and Matilda interacted. Tobbe and Matilda apologized to their parents after the siblings lost the Hubot clone of their grandpa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin made out with a girl at the shore of a lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas ran a battle simulation venue, called Hub Battle Land, where humans pay to track down and shoot up Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera coped with her new and disturbing reality as being cannon fodder at the Hub Battle Land venue by clinging on to a baby doll as if it was her real baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hub Sec authorities hauled off the Lennart clone when they chanced on him raving in the streets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine walked in on a woman as she was shooting up in a hotel room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock3x02", "title": "The Sign of Three", "date": "2014-01-05", "description": "The episode is primarily centered on the day of Watson's wedding to Mary Morstan.\n\nThe title is based on the Holmes novel The Sign of the Four.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story unfolds at Watson and Mary's wedding ceremony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson and Mary tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson and Mary tied the knot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were investigating the attempted murder of a Buckingham Palace guard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonathan Small (a.k.a. the Mayfly Man) hatched an elaborate plot to kill Bainbridge on account that he held Bainbridge responsible for his brother's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Sherlock being the best man at Watson's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police were after the Waters Gang over a bank robbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mycroft made a token attempt to her under his brother Sherlock's skin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was casually experimenting with the human eye in his flat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "inebriated interaction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson tried to solve a crime while under the heavy influence of alcohol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad hangover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Watson take an Alka-Seltzer after a heavy night of drinking with Sherlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock described solving several murder cases during the course of his lengthy wedding speech.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock praised Watson for being a compassionate man.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x07", "title": "Episode 7", "date": "2014-01-12", "description": "Douglas and Florentine raise a desperate drug addict's child as their own. Mimi accidentally infects herself with the malware-like virus. Jonas continues in his effort to transfer his mind into a Hubot body. Rick continues to lead a Hubot revolt at Hub Battle Land.\n\nDirected by: Kristina Humle. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann storyline involved tension and drama associated with hacking the Lennart clone and Mimi accidentally infecting herself with the Hubot virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a lapse of judgement, Mimi infected herself with the deadly Hubot virus from downloading a sketchy Arabic language module. Silas was upset about Odi's shoddy battery which meant he was but a step from, essentially, dying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline centers around Douglas and his Hubot wife, Florentine, taking a desperate drug addict's baby off of her hands to raise as their own child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline centers around Douglas and his Hubot wife, Florentine, taking a desperate drug addict's baby off of her hands to raise as their own child. Hans and Inger were both concerned about Mimi in different ways. David and Bea were reunited in their Hubot forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine had abducted an infant from a drug addict woman's hotel room. Douglas returned the infant only to find that the mother preferred for Douglas to raise it. Douglas made arrangements to legally formalize the adoption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine had swiped an infant from a hotel room because she very much longed to raise a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi came to the rescue when the legal team was working under a seemingly unmeetable deadline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "major", "motivation": "Douglas and Florentine were raising an infant. In one notable scene, Florentine came home from shopping having scored a \"cute romper\" for the baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger lashed out at Tobbe and Matilda for losing the Lennart clone. Matilda later called out Inger for being a hypocrite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inger lashed out at Tobbe and Matilda for losing the Lennart clone. Tobbe later sat down with her and the two had a heart-to-heart talk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobbe and Matilda tried to get the \"code\" back from Einar, but failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas ran a battle simulation venue, called Hub Battle Land, where humans pay to track down and shoot up Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick forcibly stopped a Hub Battle Land patron from raping his Hubot compatriot Yuma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The loss of the Lennart clone stirred up in Inger fresh feelings of grief.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas and Florentine went to see his father, Claes, with their new baby. Claes was perhaps suspicious of their story of how they got it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Bea were reunited in their Hubot forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bea was being held captive by Jonas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine came to grips with the reality of Douglas' death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gordon tased Douglas in the neck, perhaps not knowing about his weakened artery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans quietly rocked out with his electric guitar and headphones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adoption of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine had abducted an infant from a drug addict woman's hotel room. Douglas returned the infant only to find that the mother preferred for Douglas to raise the child. Douglas made arrangements to legally formalize the adoption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock3x03", "title": "His Last Vow", "date": "2014-01-12", "description": "In the episode, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson take on a case about stolen letters. This leads the pair into conflict with Charles Augustus Magnussen, a media mogul specialising in blackmail whom Sherlock despises. Holmes and Watson try to get Magnussen arrested, but their attempt fails when they confront him at Appledore, Magnussen's home.\n\nThe title is based on Doyle's short story \"His Last Bow\", whereas the plot contains elements of two other short stories, \"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton\" and \"The Man with the Twisted Lip\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson were hot on the trail of Charles Augustus Magnussen, a newspaper owner who blackmails people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson was dismayed to find out that his seemingly mild manner wife was leading a double life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson's love for his wife remained unshaken in spite of her sordid past having come to his attention.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Sherlock elected to shoot Charles Augustus Magnussen dead and lose his freedom, rather than see Magnussen destroy the lives of his loved ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock courted Jenine to be his girlfriend as part of a plot to get access to Charles Augustus Magnussen office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The war veteran Watson woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare about being on the battlefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson's wife Mary was visibly pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson found Sherlock strung out in a dilapidated drug den.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mycroft told Sherlock that he cared about him while the pair were visiting their parents for Christmas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was strung out on hard drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling with a body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock mentioned in passing about how he'd nearly lost his kidney's during a card game with the Clarence House Cannibal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock's parents held a Christmas gathering for their family and friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Holmes was pleased to have her boys home for Christmas.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Boyhood (2014)", "title": "Boyhood", "date": "2014-01-19", "description": "Boyhood is a 2014 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. Filmed from 2001 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans Jr. (Coltrane) from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents (Arquette and Hawke). Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei plays Mason's sister, Samantha.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyhood_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming of age", "level": "choice", "motivation": "we saw Mason and Samantha grow from pre-teens to young adults", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dysfunctional upbringing", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mason and Samantha had a turbulent upbringing with their mostly single mom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason and Samantha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia and Mason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Olivia and Samantha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason Sr and Samantha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mason Sr and Mason Jr", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "countless couples formed and dissolved", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill drank and became violent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Olivia broke up", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill hit Olivia and was generally violent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the birds and the bees", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mason talked to an uncomfortable Samantha about sex", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Mason in some sort of arts high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mason got dumped and they talked it over", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Samantha", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Mason", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Olivia in particular was on the verge of ruin a few times", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Masons briefly talked about the meaning of life, and Olivia cried about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child leaving the nest", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mason and Samantha moved away from Olivia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "albeit in jest, we heard allusions to government surveillance conspiracy stuff", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x08", "title": "Episode 8", "date": "2014-01-19", "description": "Mimi deals with having become infected with the malware-like virus. Florentine picks up the pieces in the wake of Douglas's death.\n\nDirected by: Christian Eklöw, Christopher Panov. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann storyline involved tension and drama associated with Mimi contracting the Hubot virus. Hans kept secret from his family that Mimi was infected with the virus, and Inger was upset when she found out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi had infected herself with the malware-like Hubot virus from downloading a sketchy Arabic language module. It was thought to be as good as a death sentence for Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the aftermath of Douglas' death, his and Florentine's relationship was discussed from various angles. Could a robot love? Could a robot inherit? Could a robot raise a child?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine was devastated in the aftermath of Douglas' murder. She asked if the emptiness she felt would always be there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Florentine meditated in front of the ashes and a photo of her late husband, Douglas. She then discussed the emptiness she felt. Silas reminisced about the Hubot that had raised him and which, presumably, had died after Silas forced it to swim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann's were deeply concerned for Mimi after it came to light that she'd contracted the deadly Hubot virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hans kept from Inger that Mimi had contracted the Hubot virus. The Hubot versions of David and Bea were captive together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body. In this installment, he additionally revealed that skin from his buttocks was used to reconstruct parts of his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine had swiped an infant from a hotel room because she very much longed to raise a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine was raising an infant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas' father was maudlin when he met with his late son's widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans kept from his family, including his son Tobbe, that Mimi had contracted the Hubot virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans kept from his family, including his daughter Matilda, that Mimi had contracted the Hubot virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pros and cons of Mimi undergoing a risky medical procedure were briefly discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Douglas' ex attended the reading of Douglas' will together with her son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hubot David expressed resentment about Roger having had it on with David's wife, Hubot Bea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A complicated romantic intrigue involving David, Roger, and Bea took shape. David and Bea had been married before they became Hubots. Hubot Bea had seduced and perhaps fallen in love with Roger. Hubot David expressed resentment at Roger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in social skills. Roger was bossed around by both of them.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x09", "title": "Episode 9", "date": "2014-01-26", "description": "Mimi's condition is getting worse; the Engmans discover something about her past. In an attempt to destroy Florentine, Petra turns to the police and the Real Humans; Claes and Inger fight hard to save her. Jonas continues his plan to transfer his consciousness into his clone, but to succeed, Silas must do him a great service. Jonas begins to doubt David's clone after a disclosure from Bea.\n\nDirected by: Christian Eklöw, Christopher Panov. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann storyline involved tension and drama associated with Mimi being deactivated and the subsequent discovery that she may have been cloned from a Korean national.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi's infection from the malware-like Hubot virus progressed to the point where she needed to put herself into the Hubot equivalent of a coma. Odi needed to be plugged into an electrical socket at all times because his battery was shot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claes took it upon himself to protect his recently widowed daughter-in-law, Florentine, from attempts to disinherit her and take her baby away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claes and his legal team, which notably included Inger, were working hard to defend Florentine in an upcoming trial that would undoubtedly set a precedent regarding whether Hubots were due the same rights as humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas' story arc culminated catastrophically. His long-planned scheme to transfer his consciousness into a Hubot body didn't pan out and he died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jonas was sufficiently troubled by having burn scars all over his face and body that he planned to transfer some semblance of his consciousness into a Hubot body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superior and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The relationship between Silas, the junior partner at Hub Battle Land, and Jonas was somewhat tense as they both lacked something in the social department. Jonas was an abrasive boss to Silas who was meek and nerdy. In particular, Jonas ordered Silas to procure for him a marängswiss and then to shoot Jonas in the back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Florentine was shown cradling Maryanne in one scene. In general, she was taking care of Maryanne all by herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jonas ran a battle simulation venue, called Hub Battle Land, where humans pay to track down and shoot up Hubots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roger braced himself in terror, thinking that Rick was going to blow his brains out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hub Sec authorities showed up at the law office to collect Florentine, but Claes used his knowledge of the law to send them away empty handed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hans took a very tired Inger up to Mimi's bedroom to show her some concerning sketches and writings that Mimi had left lying around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matilda consoled Tobbe over Mimi.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "rh2012e2x10", "title": "Episode 10", "date": "2014-02-02", "description": "Florentine's future is being settled in court and Mimi, wracked with the virus, is called as a witness. Then, an unexpected person from her past appears in the courtroom. Kevin and a group of Real Humans Youths decide to go to Hub Battle Land to destroy Hubots. Meanwhile, Rick, who is armed, aims to do all that he can to defend Hub Battle Land from humans and Bea gets Roger involved in the search for the code.\n\nDirected by: Christian Eklöw, Christopher Panov. Story by: Lars Lundström.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-realhumans2012.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "family affairs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Engmann storyline involved tension and drama associated with Mimi's illness, and Inger advocating for Florentine's right to inherit Douglas's estate and take full custody of Maryanne.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a legal proceeding", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of this installment centered around Florentine's trial on which hinged whether she had the right to inherit Douglas' estate and take full custody of their child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Inger was on center stage at Florentine's trial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kevin was disgusted to discover that his father, Roger, had a Hubot lover. Later, Roger saved Kevin from a grisly fate, only for Kevin to repay him by spitting in his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A band of teenagers from the Real Humans youth wing went to the Hub Battle Land venue with intentions of taking out their aggression on Hubot thralls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a disability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl testified at the trial. He was confined to a motorized wheelchair, completely paralyzed, and spoke using a synthesized voice in a Stephen Hawking-like manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal life and death dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin was faced with this unenviable dilemma: Either run away and leave his girlfriend to hang, or get and get shot in the head with a nail gun. Fortunately for Kevin and his love interest, Roger came to the rescue before Kevin had to make the call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rick tried to blow his brains out rather than surrender.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emotions ran high in the courtroom when Mimi, who was testifying on the witness stand, was unexpectedly reunited with her brother, Seong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conny told tearfully of how his son had had his neck broken by a babysitter Hubot some years ago. Inger pointed out that there was no evidence the Hubot had done the deed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobile life support device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl Liljensten was in a mobile life support box much like the one Captain Pike had in Star Trek TOS, The Menagerie, Parts I and II.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: RoboCop (2014)", "title": "RoboCop", "date": "2014-02-12", "description": "RoboCop is a 2014 American cyberpunk superhero film directed by José Padilha and written by Joshua Zetumer, Nick Schenk, Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. It is a remake of the 1987 film of the same name also written by Neumeier and Miner. The film stars Joel Kinnaman as the title character, with Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish and Jackie Earle Haley in supporting roles.", "collections": [ "Collection: Robocop" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(2014_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop was a cyborg police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The OmniCorp executives hatched a nefarious plot to market robotic peacekeepers for use in law enforcement in American cities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "major", "motivation": "The US military introduced OmniCorp robotic peacekeepers capable of maintaining law and order in hot spots such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. OmniCorp subsequently plotted to sell them to municipal police forces around the USA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to wonder to what extent anything of Alex was left inside RoboCop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "RoboCop went rogue and tried to track down the criminals who attacked Alex and bring them to his own form of vigilante justice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and Clara Murphy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "order vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robot police officers came with the promise of ridding the streets of crime, but at the cost of civil liberties.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clara loved her husband Alex so much that she consented to have him turned into a cyborg, rather than letting him die after he was mortally wounded in an attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A suicide bomber attacked while a journalist was reporting from Tehran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor's opinion vs. patient preference", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex asked his doctor to just let him die once he realized he was nothing more than a head and lungs in an exoskeleton, but the doctor refused to do so on ethical grounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A scientist explained that RoboCop was operating under the illusion that it had free will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex/RoboCop and David Murphy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clara Murphy and David Murphy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "RoboCop was repeatedly physically abused the suspects he apprehended.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl (2014)", "title": "Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl", "date": "2014-03-10", "description": "An absurdist comedy deals with the politics and hype behind media technology and nerd culture.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Gstettensaga:_The_Rise_of_Echsenfriedl" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the remnant of contemporary civilization that emerged from the \"Google Wars\" of the 21st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alalia Grundschober was a nerdy technician. Echsenfriedl had a fan base of nerds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fratt Aigner was a seedy journalist who was on a mission to conduct a tele-o-vision interview with the enigmatic genius Echsenfriedl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The United States had launched a nuclear strike on China in retaliation for Chain having attacked Google's headquarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is told that growing tension between the last two remaining superpowers - China and Google - escalated in the early 21st century, resulting in the global inferno of the \"Google Wars\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monopolies in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newspaper publisher Thurnher von Pjölk worried that an emerging generation of tech-savvy DIY nerds would ruin his media monopoly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alalia and Fratt encountered a group of hostile zombie miners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political ideology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alalia and Fratt encountered the bearded libertarian drag queen Heinz Rand of Raiká and his band of free market enthusiasts. Heinz Rand of Raiká had a daughter named Ayn.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)", "title": "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", "date": "2014-03-13", "description": "Captain America joins forces with Black Widow and Falcon to uncover a conspiracy within the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. It is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_Winter_Soldier" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Hydra rogue organization was sowing global chaos with the objective of making humanity surrender its freedom in exchange for security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve and Natasha were on the run from the Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. secret government organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain America (a.k.a. Steve Rogers) was the ultimate supersoldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The S.H.I.E.L.D. secret government organization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret government agency was working on the even more secret Project Insight: a project to develop three flying aircraft carriers linked to spy satellites, designed to preemptively eliminate threats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of three giant, flying aircraft carriers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are asked if it is acceptable to build a trio of spy satellite linked, flying aircraft carriers to be used for seeking out and killing potentially dangerous people before they commit crimes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve, a World War II soldier who was frozen during the war and revived in the present day, was adjusting to life in the 21st century.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steve encountered his childhood best friend Bucky Barnes, but Bucky had been mind wiped and didn't remember Steve. Nevertheless, Steve tried his best to make Bucky remember their friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The World Security Council held a meeting where some participants remotely attended as holograms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam was torn up inside over having lost his wingman Riley in the line of duty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arnim Zola's mind had been transfered into a 1970s era supercomputer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had a pair of mechanical wings that enabled him to fly around like a bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bucky Barnes had a mechanical left arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain America had this super power, although it was not much featured in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hydra organization mind wiped Bucky Barnes so that he wouldn't remember his past, especially his past friendship with Steve.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Amazing SpiderMan 2 (2014)", "title": "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", "date": "2014-04-18", "description": "When New York is put under siege by OsCorp, it is up to Spider-Man to save the city he swore to protect as well as his loved ones. It is the fifth theatrical Spider-Man film produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment, the sequel to 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man and the second and final film in The Amazing Spider-Man duology.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Spider-Man_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired the strength of a man-sized spider after being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter acquired spider-fast reflexes after being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man was running around New York City fighting crime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man was celebrated as a hero by a lot of New Yorkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "New York City was put under siege by OsCorp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being that feeds on electricity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Electro absorbed energy from power lines and other electrical sources.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a hard time moving on from Gwen after she dumped him for being a jackass.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Harry rekindled their childhood friendship. Peter and Gwen tried to carry on as friends after the break up, but got back together in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Gwen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had a hard time moving on from Gwen after she dumped him for being a jackass, but they got back together in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was late for his graduation ceremony because he was foiling a plutonium heist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was public debate in New York City over whether Spider-Man should be allowed to fight crime outside of the law. It came up a few times toward the start of the film but was gradually lost track of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry Osborne visited his elderly father Norman on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Harry take over his father's megacorporation OsCorp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Billionaire trust fund baby Harry Osborne boasted of flying around the world and cavorting with fashion models.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter told Harry that he thinks Spider-Man have people hope. The film concluded with Peter playing a speech of Gwen's where she spoke of the need to maintain hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was convinced that only an infusion of Spider-Man's blood could save from dying of a genetically inherited condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's father had done everything in his power to stop OsCorp from using his research for making biological weapons of mass destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Green Goblin used an Oscorp designed exoskeleton. Gustav Fiers was wreaking havoc in midtown in a weaponized armored suit at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Gwen move to England to study at Oxford University or stay in New York to be with Peter?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Electro put New York City into a blackout because he wanted to be as a god to the New Yorkers, he said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry felt betrayed by Peter because Peter wouldn't give him a sample of his apparently life saving blood. Peter felt the scheme was too risky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was devastated by the killing of Gwen at the hand of Green Goblin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter garnered some income by selling Spider-Man photos to the Daily Bugle tabloid newspaper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter garnered some income by selling his professionally shot Spider-Man photos the Daily Bugle tabloid newspaper.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla (2014)", "title": "Godzilla", "date": "2014-05-08", "description": "Godzilla is a 2014 American monster film directed by Gareth Edwards. It is a reboot of Toho's Godzilla franchise and is the 30th film in the Godzilla franchise, the first film in Legendary's MonsterVerse, and the second Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.\n\nSynopsis: A soldier attempts to return to his family while caught in the crossfire of an ancient rivalry between Godzilla and two parasitic monsters known as MUTOs.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(2014_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular prehistoric alpha predator Godzilla was rampaging around. Two giant insect-like creatures, dubbed Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs), were rampaging around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pandemonium swept the globe as humanity became caught in the crossfire of an ancient rivalry between Godzilla and two insect-like monsters known as MUTOs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the various governments of the world having kept the existence of Godzilla and the MUTO monsters secret from the public. It was revealed that the nuclear tests of the 1950s were actually secret attempts to kill Godzilla. That a multinational coalition had been formed to search for and study Godzilla was being kept secret from the public. The Japanese government covered up the MUTO attack, telling the press it was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "One subplot follows the sometimes turbulent relationship between Ford Brody and his recluse father Joe Brody. Ford Brody and his young son Sammy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Ford Brody and his wife Elle worried for one another as Godzilla and the MUTOs rampaged around the world. Joe Brody and his wife Sandra we at the heart of the first part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity's discovery and widespread use of nuclear power awoke long dormant monsters (i.e. Godzilla and the MUTOs) which subsequently rampaged across various cities around the world. This was spelled in the story when Dr. Serizawa advanced the view that Nature had brought Godzilla to return a balance to the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandra consoled her young son Ford when he was sad that his dad was too busy to notice that Ford had made for him a \"happy birthday\" sign.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe held himself responsible for his wife dying in a nuclear reactor meltdown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear power safety", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Janjira nuclear power planet melted down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military planned to use a massive nuclear bomb to destroy Godzilla and the MUTOs.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)", "title": "X-Men: Days of Future Past", "date": "2014-05-10", "description": "The story, inspired by Chris Claremont and John Byrne's The Uncanny X-Men comic book storyline \"Days of Future Past\", features Wolverine going back in time to 1973 to prevent an assassination that, if carried out, will lead to the creation of a new weapons system called the Sentinels that threatens the existence of mutants - and potentially, all of humanity. It is the seventh installment in the X-Men film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Logan was sent back in time to the year 1973 change history. To be precise, the consciousness of Logan in 2023 was sent back in time into his body in 1973.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future where mutant hunting robots, called Sentinels, had gone out of control and wrecked the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The humans feared the mutants because they were different and the government built some giant robots to destroy them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mystique had an innate ability to alter her shape and voice to mimic any human being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan's body automatically healed itself after any physical injury. In this film, only Logan was physically able to make the trip in time back to 1973, because anyone else's body would not have survived the trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Magneto had the innate ability to manipulate magnetic fields, giving him the power to physically manipulate any metals in his vicinity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Xavier had an innate ability to communicate with others telepathically and read people's minds. In this film, the 1973 Xavier was taking a drug to suppress his telepathic powers, and once he got off of it he had to train to regain his ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The X-men in 2023 were pitted in mortal combat with a bunch of giant, mutant killing robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 2023 X-men lost various friends at the hands of the giant, killer robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fighting evil with evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some mutants, especially Raven, wanted to kill in order to do good but thought better of it in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The 1973 Erik hated humans for the way the treated his mutant kind and he prophesied that the mutants would rise up and inherit the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair/hoverchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A thug's lucky rabbit's foot didn't save him from Logan's wrath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film depicted the closing days of this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was fast enough to himself at ping pong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time slow down ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Although Peter was said to have super speed, his ability at times was indistinguishable from being able to slow down the sands of time to a near halt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trask believed that his robot Sentinels would unite the people/nations of the world against their common enemy: mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier pitied Logan after reading the contents of his troubled mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank warned Logan that cigar smoking had been linked to cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty broke down in tears upon being informed that her love interest Bobby didn't make it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier mind controlled a guard into letting him and his men past a checkpoint in typical Jedi fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw further developments in Xavier and Erik's friendship, both in 1973 and 2023.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kitty had an innate ability to pass through solid objects.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)", "title": "Edge of Tomorrow", "date": "2014-06-06", "description": "Aliens are invading and Earth is fighting for its survival. Major William Cage gets stuck in some kind of time loop and gets to relive the same day over and over again. Over the repetitions he gains evermore experience and foreknowledge of what is going to happen.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Tomorrow" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The nations of Earth were fighting a desperate war against invading aliens that had already overrun most of continental Europe, and seemed poised to surge over the entire world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cage got stuck in some kind of time loop and relived the same day over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Major Cage and Sergeant Rita went above and beyond the call of duty to save the world from invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "The soldiers wore special mech-suits in combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cage and Rita cooperating was key to their defeating the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cage was into Rita and she kissed him passionately before things were all said and done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Cage became a hero and Rita may already have been", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cage got stuck in some kind of time loop and relived the same day over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Cage was demoted to the rank of private and forced to be a grunt in a suicidal D-Day like landing operation. This landing operation was shown again and again from his point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space aliens, known as Mimics, invaded earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Major Cage and Sergeant Rita to save Earth from being overrun by the invading Mimic aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "character metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "Major Cage went from being a self-serving public relations officer with no combat experience to being a selfless, battle hardened hero figure.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a combat zone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth forces staged a landing operation in Europe to take it back from alien invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cage was pretty good at getting initially skeptical people to believe his story that he was stuck in a time loop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cage fretted every now and then over his love interest Rita being in peril.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cage became close to Rita and suffered from seeing her die time and again in the various time loops where he tried desperately to find a way to save her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cage was shown a size-scalable, holographic depiction of the Alpha-type Mimic alien, and the \"Omega\" sphere that controlled the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A J-Squad member blew himself up to bide his unit members some time in their fight against the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)", "title": "Transformers: Age of Extinction", "date": "2014-06-19", "description": "A struggling inventor and his 17-year-old daughter find themselves involved in the ongoing conflict between the Autobots and the Decepticons. It is the fourth installment in the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Age_of_Extinction" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were explicitly characterized as alien robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Cade and his 17-year-old daughter Tessa as they became increasingly involved in the Autobot/Decepticon/Human conflict.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cade was raising his 17-year-old daughter Tessa as a single father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tessa was secret dating Shane because her father disapproved of her getting involved with boys until after she turned 18.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tessa and Shane were in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "K.S.I. Industries was deeply involved in a CIA secret operation to eliminate all Transformers for Earth and were doing various shady things related to that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The CIA operative and government official Harold Attinger created the CIA black-ops unit, Cemetery Wind, to eliminate all Transformers from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cade was for a long time dead set against his 17-year-old daughter Tessa dating the aspiring rally car driver Shane, but Cade warmed up to Shane in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galvatron and his minions plotted to made humans go the way of the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade was six months behind on his mortgage payments and his teenage daughter was quite concerned they were going to lose their home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade made a point that he was Lucas' boss, and that they were not partners in Cade's Yeager Robotics company. But then Lucas perished in a fiery explosion early on in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was clear that Cade and Lucas were pals even though Cade insisted that he was Lucas' boss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade and his daughter Tessa mourned the death of their friend Lucas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The government official Harold Attinger accused the Autobots of having committed an act of terror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Galvatron commanded a large prison spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mysterious maker alien race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that a mysterious alien race known as the Creators used devices called Seeds to cover Earth with a special alloy in the age of the dinosaurs. This alloy was a programmable material that the Transformers were made out of, and one gathers that the Creators were the makers of the Transformers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)", "title": "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes", "date": "2014-06-26", "description": "A group of people in San Francisco who struggle to stay alive in the aftermath of a plague that is wiping out humanity, while Caesar tries to maintain dominance over his community of intelligent apes.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A virus, called the Simian Flu, that was used in the development of a cure for Alzheimer's disease fatally infected millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were genetically engineered to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genetically enhanced apes rose up and challenged Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A virus, called the Simian Flu, that was used in the development of a cure for Alzheimer's disease fatally infected millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people left in post-apocalyptic San Fransisco needed to control a dam in ape territory in order to power the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multicultural community", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of Humans live and bond with the apes of ape city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A genetically engineered cure for Alzheimer's disease resulted in the deaths of millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cure for Alzheimer's disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A genetically engineered cure for Alzheimer's disease resulted in the deaths of millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Alexander. Caesar and Blue Eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Ellie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Malcolm and Ellie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Koba betrayed Caesar by attempting to assassinate him and take over as leader of the apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar and Koda had a fight to the death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dreyfus blew himself up to save the Human race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Appleseed Alpha (2014)", "title": "Appleseed Alpha", "date": "2014-07-15", "description": "Appleseed Alpha (also styled as Appleseed α) is a computer-animated military science fiction cyberpunk film. It is the third installment in the Appleseed film series.\n\nSynopsis: A battle hardened soldier and her cyborg companion work to protect two people who claim to be from a supposedly legendary city where war is a thing of the past.", "collections": [ "Collection: Appleseed Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_Alpha" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the warlord ruled, bombed out ruins of New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Deunan and her trusted cyborg comrade Briareos as they try to survive in the warlord ruled, bombed out ruins of New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Briareos was a more machine than man cyborg. The majority of characters in the film are cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Deunan and Briareos embarking on a journey through the dystopic ruins of New York in search of the fabled city of Olympus - a city where war and suffering was no more. The pair came to increasingly believe that Olympus might actually exist over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg Briareos was reluctant to trust Olsen, thinking that Olsen had some secret motive from claiming that Olsen was from the supposedly mythical city of Olympus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was human nature to romanticize war, according to the malevolent cyborg Talos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deunan wielded a powerful humanoid battle bot from within.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)", "title": "Guardians of the Galaxy", "date": "2014-07-21", "description": "Peter Quill and a group of extraterrestrial criminals go on the run after stealing a powerful artifact. It is the 10th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Guardians of the Galaxy to prevent Thanos and Ronan from using the Infinity Stone to destroy the Xandarian homeworld and perhaps the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea that the galaxy is teeming with humanoid alien life, and aliens of all colors are present throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drax the Destroyer was hellbent on avenging his family's death at the hands of Ronan the Accuser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tree-like humanoid Groot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each Guardian of the Galaxy went from feeling somehow alone to finding family and friendship within their newly formed group. In particular, Drax the Destroyer explicitly expressed joy in having become friends with Peter Quill and his band of ruffians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Peter Quill watched his mother die of terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drax was torn up inside over his wife and child having been killed at the hands of Ronan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Peter Quill left the hospital grief-stricken after his mother passed away from terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill was abducted from Missouri as a child in 1988 and raised by a group of alien thieves and smugglers called the Ravagers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film features numerous futuristic spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the raccoon Rocket was genetically and cybernetically modified to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the talking raccoon Rocket was actually a genetically and cybernetically modified animal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem of language and meaning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drax was from a race of aliens that did not understand metaphors, and he interpreted everything literally as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collecting objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Taneleer Tivan was obsessively collecting interstellar fauna, relics, and species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a man with a mechanical eye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thanos' adopted daughters Gamora and Nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thanos was of the mind that his adopted daughter Gamora had betrayed him by opposing his effort to acquire the Infinity Stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill found out that his father was a space alien at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill expressed some curiosity about his mysterious origins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocket pointedly mourned the death of his friend and partner Groot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Lucy (2014)", "title": "Lucy", "date": "2014-07-25", "description": "Lucy is a 2014 French science fiction action film written and directed by Luc Besson for his company EuropaCorp, and produced by his wife, Virginie Besson- Silla.\n\nSynopsis: A woman gains psychokinetic abilities when a nootropic, psychedelic drug is absorbed into her bloodstream.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "organized crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ruthless Mr. Jang was the mastermind behind an international drug smuggling ring. The story follows Lucy as she becomes forcibly made to serve as a drug mule for Mr. Jang and his fellow criminals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Lucy as she acquires a host of superpowers after an experimental, illicit drugs gets into her bloodstream. Her superpowers included, super intelligence, mind reading, telekinesis, an ability to manipulate radio and other EM waves, and even time travel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "A message of the film is that a loss of humanity comes with increased intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Lucy transcending space and time upon reaching 100% usage of her brain capacity, and becoming one with the universe or some such thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy's new boyfriend, Richard, got her tangled up with a drug smuggling ring.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Norman lectured the evolution of the nervous system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of fire", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A caveman was shown starting a fire by means of repeatedly hitting two stones together over a pile of brush.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smuggling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy was forced to transport a bag of drugs, which was sewn into her abdomen, from Taiwan to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Professor Norman gave a university lecture on the subject of animals, humans included, using only a fraction of their total brain capacity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super hearing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy acquired the ability to hear people talking well outside of an ordinary person's earshot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unanesthetized Lucy spoke to her mother over the phone as a surgeon excised a bag of illicit drugs from her abdomen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy acquired this ability in spades after an experimental, illicit drug got into her bloodstream. She learned Chinese in an hour, how to drive in an instant, became an expert in neuroscience in a single night, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy avenged Mr. Jang forcing her to serve as his drug mule by grabbing him firmly by the balls for awhile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy read from Mr. Jang's mind the locations of the other drug mules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "chemicals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Exposure to the CPH4 synthesized chemical endowed Lucy with heightened physical and mental abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "adapting to life in a foreign culture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy was studying in Taipei without knowing the language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police captain Pierre Del Rio led a search for a trio of drug mules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy made something of a scene on an otherwise routine passenger flight to Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy acquired this power which she used to, among other things, make the bullets fall out of a gun that was being pointed at her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy acquired the ability to transform her body at will. For instance, she changed the color of her hair and later changed her hand into a completely different hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy ultimately acquired an innate ability to travel in time, which she used to go back to see the dinosaurs and the Big Bang itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic machine manipulation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lucy acquired the ability to control computers by means of manipulating electromagnetic waves with her mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror-specialx1", "title": "White Christmas", "date": "2014-12-16", "description": "\"White Christmas\" is a 2014 Christmas special episode of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Carl Tibbetts, and first aired on Channel 4 on 16 December 2014.[1] The only television special of the series, it was also the last episode to be aired on Channel 4, as the series would move to Netflix for its third series.\n\nDirected by: Carl Tibbetts. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Is it ethical for people to use their digital clone for menial work? And to punish the Joe digital clone in his solitary confinement for eons?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joe's digital clone was placed inside a simulated reality to get it to confess to a murder. The Greta digital clone was digitally embodied in a digital world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Greta underwent a surgery that resulted in the creation of a digital clone of her stored within an egg-shaped object.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was set in a world where people had augmented reality implants that allows them to \"block\" people in real life, by turning them into colorless silhouettes that sounded like distorted streams of noise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "The digital clones were tortured by being placed in limbo for extreme lengths of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe accidentally killed his former father-in-law and his digital clone was being interrogated by the police.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe's digital clone was punished by being left in a digital limbo for a virtual eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nonconsensual voyeurism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt ran an online group the members of which watched each other have sex with women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe's digital clone was punished by being left in a digital limbo for a virtual eternity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of smalltalk", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt tired to get Joe to engage in smalltalk in the lodge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greta made a digital clone of herself for the purpose of running her house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry flirted with Jennifer at the office party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry seduced Jennifer with the help of his online friends and they went back to her place for the night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "schizophrenia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry seduced Jennifer and they went back to her place, but she turned out to be schizophrenic and tricked him into drinking poison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Matt's wife divorced him and was granted custody of the children after she found out about his online voyeur club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Beth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe found out that Beth was pregnant, but Beth did not want to keep the child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Beth and her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "custody battle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe was upset that he didn't get to see the girl whom he thought was his child after Beth left him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joe and Matt shared a meal and a drink on Christmas Day in a simple cabin that was modestly adorned with decorations appropriate to the occasion.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Children of Time (2015)", "title": "Children of Time", "date": "2015", "description": "The book's plot involves a planet inhabited by evolved spiders uplifted by human scientists, and their later discovery by the last humans alive in the universe. The work plays off the contrast between the societal development of the spiders and the barbaric descent of the starship crew of the last humans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war of mutual annihilation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "(old) mankind destroyed itself with war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "in the end the uplift virus was applied to humans to make them more empathic and all was bliss", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the story was that humans \"uplifted\" the spiders, i.e., gave them a boost in order to accelerate their evolution towards intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kern's ship was nearly sentient", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind-computer merging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kern's mind merged with the space ship she was in", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "amongst the spiders males struggled for rights in a reversal of recent mankind history", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "collectively intelligent beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "the ants had a sort of collective intelligence", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "people were frozen for hundreds of years at a time", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Holsten woke up in an ever stranger future several times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "the human remnant was desperate for a viable place to live", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "one of the things that destroyed Earth; the spiders were masters at it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "manipulation of evolution on a planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Before wiping each others out in a great war, the human race had been undertaking various projects that aimed to bring human-friendly life to other planets, whereof the spider planet was a special case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the morality of \"exalting beasts\" was briefly questioned", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kern's space station was blown up by a dissenting terrorist who didn’t approve of scientists tinkering with nature and evolution in anyway or anywhere in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if everyone vanished and I was all alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kern found herself essentially alone when mankind destroyed itself", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ex Machina (2015)", "title": "Ex Machina", "date": "2015-01-21", "description": "A genius, isolationist, billionaire drunkard of a programmer has built a genuine AI in a human-like body, i.e., an android, and want to see if she passes the Turing test. Caleb Smith is brought in to administer the test.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_Machina_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "featured through lengthy interviews", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "is it right to keep her locked up against her will", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "there were several", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "choice", "motivation": "seems to have been the gist of it", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the technological singularity", "level": "major", "motivation": "This was discussed at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "major", "motivation": "several", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Turing test", "level": "major", "motivation": "After asking Caleb if he is familiar with the Turing test, Nathan told Caleb that he wanted him to judge whether Ava was genuinely capable of thought and consciousness despite knowing she was artificial. Furthermore, the test will be passed if Caleb forgets that Ava isn't human during their daily sessions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caleb with Ava", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ava had a human need for freedom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "would I drink and fool around all day?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: The Buried Giant (2015)", "title": "The Buried Giant", "date": "2015-03-03", "description": "The story is set in a time of decline after the rule of the great peace maker King Arthur. There is a mist that, for good or bad, makes people forget things such as their hatred for each other and former enemies live peacefully side by side. An elderly couple gets caught up in a quest that centers on the slaying of a dragon that is the cause of the mist.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Axl and especially Beatrice, Gawain to an extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Axl and Beatrice", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reasons for war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "circle of hate", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "fields of bones etc", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hate begets hate", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Saxons and Britons in vendetta", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Axl, Beatrice, Gawain, Querig, various others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing after social upheaval", "level": "choice", "motivation": "basically a post-holocaust situation", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "everyone was struggling to remember things they thought important from their pasts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "choice", "motivation": "hate and love and all sorts of things are in there", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vendetta", "level": "major", "motivation": "The land was tattered and war-torn because of the perpetual feud between the Saxons and Britons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if we all lost our memories", "level": "major", "motivation": "not entirely but to some extent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "attempted by some Britons against Saxons it was suggested", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)", "title": "Avengers: Age of Ultron", "date": "2015-04-13", "description": "The Avengers fight Ultron, an artificial intelligence obsessed with causing human extinction. It is the sequel to 2012's The Avengers and the 11th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers:_Age_of_Ultron" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avengers took it upon themselves to save the world from the malevolent artificial intelligence Ultron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lone genius Tony Stark developed the artificial intelligence Ultron to defend the earth from extraterrestrial threats, but it got out of control and made a bid to exterminate humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tony Stark invented a powerful AI but it got out of his control and tried to exterminate humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avengers took it upon themselves to save the world from the malevolent artificial intelligence Ultron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The malevolent artificial intelligence Ultron made a bid to exterminate humanity and establish machines as the dominant entities on earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hawkeye and his wife Laura Barton. The Hulk and Black Widow became romantically involved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avengers took it upon themselves to save the world from the malevolent artificial intelligence Ultron. It's a superhero film after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring point was made in the film about the Avengers needed to work together to stop Ultron (i.e. the need to come together as a team or else Ultron would win).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each Avenger had a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quicksilver had an innate ability to run at practically the speed of light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk had super strength in spades. Also Thor needed this ability to wield his war hammer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial intelligence Ultron manifested himself as a humanoid robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin and twin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Twin brother and sister Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Stark had a mechanized suit of armor which also enabled him to fly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch blamed Tony for their parents having died in a bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch blamed Tony for their parents having died in a bombing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk had trouble controlling his temper and flew into a violent rage at one point that saw him smash up part of a city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hawkeye and his wife were expecting their third child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ultron made a halfhearted effort to get the Avengers to turn on one another in order to weaken them as a group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that Tony had hacked into a government computer system as a teenager on a dare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "World-renowned geneticist Helen Cho helped Ultron to create a robot body with a biological brain for him to manifest himself inside, but in the end it took on its own identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should the Avengers trust the Ultron created cyborg guy when he assures them he is on their side in the fight against Ultron?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Twins dropped their grudge against Tony because they saw the importance of teaming together with the Avengers to stop Ultron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor had this ability.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scarlet Witch grieved for her twin brother Quicksilver, who died by the hand of Ultron.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)", "title": "Mad Max: Fury Road", "date": "2015-05-07", "description": "The film is set in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where petrol and water are scarce commodities. It follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa to flee from cult leader Immortan Joe and his army in an armored tanker truck, leading to a lengthy road battle.", "collections": [ "Collection: Mad Max" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max:_Fury_Road" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depletion of a vital natural resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural resource sustainability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film was set in a future where society had collapsed because the oil ran out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Imperator Furiosa was a strong female heroine in the film and overshadowed Max Mad. Also a small band of women, with help from Max and another guy, conquered Immortal Joe's citadel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was said multiple times that the people were in need of hope and so on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quasi-religious cult", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a group of women escaping from cult leader Immortan Joe. Immortal Joe also had a band of fanatical followers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fabled land of goodness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Furiosa and her co-wives were fleeing to to the \"Green Place\", an idyllic land she that remembered from her childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Imperator Furiosa had a robotic hand contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polygamy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Immortal Joe's five wives fled from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Immortal Joe's fanatical followers were eager to die in battle so they could go to Valhalla.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "novel: Seveneves (2015)", "title": "Seveneves", "date": "2015-05-19", "description": "Seveneves is a hard science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson published in 2015. The story tells of the desperate efforts to preserve Homo sapiens in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth following the unexplained disintegration of the Moon, and the remaking of human society as a space-based civilization after a severe genetic bottleneck.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/novel-various.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "moon slowly spiraling into a planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the remnants of Earth's old moon started falling down on the planet and rendering it uninhabitable", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society living in space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A remnant of humanity had to find ways to survive for 5000 years in space nearby Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seven remaining women genetically engineered their respective offspring to create seven distinguishable different human races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The seven remaining women genetically engineered their respective offspring to create seven distinguishable different human races.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "the ethics of genetically engineering society was discussed and the consequences explored in part 3 of the story", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "many aspects of what it is like to live without essential gravity were explained throughout", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hominid evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The line between the consequences of genetic engineering and natural selection are blurry, but the Neanderthals and so forth are discussed throughout part 3.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "people 5000 years from now are digging up trucks and reflecting on life in the 3rd millenium", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "international politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "in part 1 nations tried to get along while knowing they would all die; in part III seven new races of humans tried to get along but occasionally engaged in armed conflict", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a variety of scientists, mostly physicists and biologists, as they try to device ways to survive while the rest of humanity perishes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "part 2 featured a scrupulous politician fomenting unrest and breaking off with a faction of her own", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth, ironically, had to be terraformed to make it habitable again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "smart ammunition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the spacers developed smart ammunition that would reconfigure itself so as not to puncture walls in space habitats", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explains much about stellar bodies and orbital mechanics as the moon shattered into pieces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explains how genes, chromosomes, and automictic parthogenesis works, etc.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jurassic World (2015)", "title": "Jurassic World", "date": "2015-05-29", "description": "Set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World takes place on the same fictional Central American island of Isla Nublar, which is located off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, where a theme park of cloned dinosaurs has operated for nearly a decade. The park plunges into chaos when a genetically-engineered dinosaur escapes from its enclosure and goes on a rampage. It is the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park film series, and the first film in the Jurassic World trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Jurassic Park" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jurassic World was a theme park filled with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically-engineered Indominus rex escaped from its enclosure and went on a rampage in the park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gary and Zach Mitchell visited their very busy Aunt Clare at Jurassic World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dinosaurs were brought back from extinction and put on display at Jurassic World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jurassic World scientists were genetically engineering new types of hybrid dinosaurs that had never existed in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it is justifiable to use genetic engineering to reintroduce extinct species into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Masrani Corporation was genetically engineered the vicious Indominus rex for the purpose of selling it to the military as a battlefield weapon. But the creature escaped its enclosure and ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what it was like to run Jurassic World as a profit oriented corporation mostly through the dealings of its operations officer Clare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teenaged brothers Zach and Gray's parents were getting a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clare and Owen Grady.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zach Mitchell and his sweetheart who he was texting from the amusement park.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare Mitchell and Karen Mitchell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karen Mitchell left her sons in the trust of her sister Clare during their visit to Jurassic World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teenaged brothers Zach and Gray's parents were getting a divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vic Hoskins, head of InGen's security operations, wanted to use the Velociraptors and the Indominus rex as military animals.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terminator Genisys (2015)", "title": "Terminator Genisys", "date": "2015-06-22", "description": "The film follows Kyle Reese, a soldier in a post-apocalyptic future with a war against the machines led by Skynet, who is sent from 2029 to 1984 by John Connor, leader of the Human Resistance, to protect his mother Sarah. When Kyle arrives in the past, he discovers that the timeline has been altered and Sarah has been raised by a reprogrammed Terminator.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Genisys" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the year 2029, humans were in a desperate war for survival against robots led by the Skynet automated defense system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terminator and Kyle Reese were send back in time from 2029 to 1984. It turned out that another Terminator had arrived 10 years prior and prepared Sarah for the war that was to come. Sarah and Kyle traveled from 1984 to 2017.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The old but not obsolete Terminator was a cyborg whose fleshy parts had aged at a normal rate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The T-100 Terminator coped with being old, but he was adamant about not being obsolete.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah and Kyle versus Skynet and the John Connor cyborg thing with the help of an old, but not obsolete Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Terminator was like a father to Sarah. Note she called him \"pops\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor and John Connor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind-computer merging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skynet transformed John Connor into a super human cyborg thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The protagonists dispatched a shapeshifting T-1000 model Terminator. The John Connor entity also had shapeshifting abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "Skynet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Los Angeles of 2029 was a post atomic horror wasteland in which humans were in a desperate war for survival against machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the Skynet system had initiated a nuclear holocaust that resulted in 3 billion people being killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skynet automated defense system decided humanity was a threat to its existence had initiated a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "autonomous weapons system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Skynet autonomous computer defense system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't distinguish between my enemy and my ally but I had to choose between them", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah had to choose between shooting Kyle and a T-1000 shapeshifting model who looked exactly like Kyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle was shocked to find out that he was John's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kyle Reese was initially reluctant to trust the old but not obsolete Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old but not obsolete Terminator sacrificed himself in the end to prevent Skynet from taking over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese kissed at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adult Kyle passed along a message to his child self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old but not obsolete Terminator had integrated into society and was living as a human.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: AntMan (2015)", "title": "Ant-Man", "date": "2015-06-29", "description": "In the film, Scott Lang must help defend Hank Pym's Ant-Man shrinking technology and plot a heist with worldwide ramifications. It is the 12th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant-Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Hank Pym invented the the Ant-Man suit: a suit allows its wearer to shrink in size but increase in strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scott used the Ant-Man suit to shrink to ant-sized proportions. Darren used the Yellowjacket suit to shrink to ant-sized proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Scott was motivated by a desire to show prove to his beloved daughter Cassie that he was a good man. Dr. Pym and his beloved daughter Hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "major", "motivation": "The petty criminal sought to redeem himself in the eyes on her young daughter Cassie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pym Technologies CEO Darren Cross plotted to militarize a similar version of the Ant-Man technology and sell it to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott beloved his young daughter Cassie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prejudice against ex-convicts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was fired from Baskin-Robbins when it came to light that he was an ex-con. Note: This theme doesn't apply in its present form, but used here with a view toward generalizing it to \"ex-convicts in society\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deadbeat parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paxton called out Scott for having failed to make his child support payments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie and Paxton were engaged to be married.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie and her kid daughter Cassie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ant-Man was briefly attacked by a rat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott served a prison sentence for having burgled Vista Corp. Scott cracked into Hank Pym's safe and stole the Ant-Man suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paxton was a kind stepfather to Cassie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hope grieved for her mother Janet, who'd long ago disappeared into a subatomic quantum realm while disabling a Soviet nuclear missile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Janet (a.k.a. Wasp Woman) disable a Soviet nuclear missile that was headed for the United States.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam had a pair of mechanical wings that enabled him to fly around like a bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Darren used a special technology increase in size an ant to be about the size of a dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paxton was working on the police force, and had some dealings with Scott in that capacity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)", "title": "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "date": "2015-12-14", "description": "Set 30 years after Return of the Jedi, the film follows Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron's search for Luke Skywalker and their fight in the Resistance, led by General Leia Organa and veterans of the Rebel Alliance, against Kylo Ren and the First Order, a successor to the Galactic Empire. It is the seventh film in the nine-part “Skywalker saga”.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, and others for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Resistance, a movement backed by the Republic and led by General Leia Organa, opposed the First Order which had risen from the fallen Galactic Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In this universe people travel between stars regularly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Starkiller Base was a gigantic spherical structure in outer space used to destroy multiple planets simultaneously.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rey and Finn were fleeing a First Order manhunt for them for the better part of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first order used the Starkiller Base to blow up multiple planets in one fell swoop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire built the Starkiller Base to achieve galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Resistance versus the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren order the massacre of a bunch of unarmed civilians on Jakku.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The desert planet Jakku.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Force-sensitive scavenger Rey got around Jakku on a hover vehicle of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren tortured Poe Dameron to get intelligence on the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's beliefs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Disillusioned Stormtrooper Finn did \"what's right\" and joined the Resistance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Disillusioned Stormtrooper Finn did \"what's right\" and joined the Resistance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren sent his minion flying across a room right into Ren's chocking grasp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Solo had a nostalgic moment aboard the Millennium Falcon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being ashamed of who you are", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Finn told Rey that he was ashamed of himself for his former life as a Stormtrooper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey mind controlled a Stormtrooper into removing her restraints, open her cell door, and leave her his weapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living up to expectations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey called out Kylo Ren over his internal doubts about not being able to live up to the legend of Darth Vader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leia and Han Solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Solo and Kylo Ren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leia and Kylo Ren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren murdered his own father Han Solo in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke and Leia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke had a robotic hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Rey finding Luke on a remote planet, presumably for the purpose of training under him to cultivate her Jedi powers.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock-special-01", "title": "The Abominable Bride", "date": "2016-01-01", "description": "Sherlock, under the influence of drugs, enters his mind palace to solve a case from Victorian times about a bride shooting herself in the head and rising from the grave to kill her husband. If he can solve the murder it might lead him to how Moriarty has risen from the grave after similarly shooting himself in the head. He solves the case, and concludes that Moriarty is indeed dead, but \"is back\".\n\nA Victorian-themed episode, the title of which is based on the quote (\"Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife\") from \"The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual\", which refers to a case mentioned by Sherlock Holmes. The episode also alludes to \"The Five Orange Pips\" and mentions \"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle\", both from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in Victorian Britain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set in 1985 London.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A secret group of women's rights activists go to elaborate lengths to murder men who wronged them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson had a flashback to his time in the Second Afghan War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson and Mary. Sir Eustace and Lady Carmichael.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some quaint Victorian Christmas traditions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emelia Ricoletti, a.k.a. The Abominable Bride, apparently blew her brains out in public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary was campaigning for the woman's right to vote.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feminism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson stumble on a secret society of women's rights activists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard sought out Sherlock to help him on a case about a man who was apparently shot dead by his already deceased wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victorian Watson treated his maidservant in a curt manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Mycroft were taking jabs at one another. Mycroft asks Watson to look after Sherlock, hoping Sherlock will not use drugs again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A morbidly obese Mycroft was deliberately eating himself to an early grave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock's illicit drug use had become a source of much concern to his friends and family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Mycroft were rivaling over who was the smarter of the two.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emelia Ricoletti apparently returned from the grave to murder her husband Mr. Ricoletti.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deadpool (2016)", "title": "Deadpool", "date": "2016-02-08", "description": "In the film, former Special Forces operative Wade Wilson is subjected to an experiment that leaves him with new abilities. He adopts the alter ego Deadpool to hunt down the man who nearly destroyed his life. It is the eighth installment in the X-Men film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Wade feared that Vanessa would reject him after he became horribly disfigured, in the end she accepted him without hesitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love conquers all", "level": "choice", "motivation": "While Wade feared that Vanessa would reject him after he became horribly disfigured, in the end she accepted him without hesitation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are given to understand that no matter how damaged Deadpool becomes, his body will eventually reconstitute itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are given to understand that no matter how damaged Deadpool becomes, his body will eventually reconstitute itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade wore a full body suit and mask to cover the burn-like scars all over his entire body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade was on a mission to make Francis pay for administering to him an experimental treatment that left Wade with burn-like scars all over his entire body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade walked out on Vanessa after being diagnosed with terminal cancer so she will not have to watch him die. The first half or so of the film dealt with Wade having cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade and Vanessa found their ideal partners in one another, and then Wade went and got terminal cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade proposed to Vanessa on Christmas while both were wearing goofy Christmas sweaters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deadpool was tortured at length to activate his latent mutant genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Francis really seemed to enjoy his job of having to torture people to activate their latent mutant genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't true", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade accepted a a shady recruiter's offer to cure his stage 4 cancer with a seemingly too good to be true experimental treatment, and although it did work, the cure was debatably worse than the disease.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An old blind woman tripped over her Roomba.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angel Dust and Colossus were super strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Angel Dust displayed some bursts of super speed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lookism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were rubber necking at Wade in the streets owing to his being horribly disfigured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flagrant break of the fourth wall, Wade expressed resentment that the budget for his movie was low in comparison to other installments in the X-men film series.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)", "title": "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", "date": "2016-03-19", "description": "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a 2016 American superhero film featuring the DC Comics characters Batman and Superman. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film is the second installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), following 2013's Man of Steel. It was written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, and features an ensemble cast that includes Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, and Gal Gadot. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the first live-action film to feature Batman and Superman together, as well as the first live-action cinematic portrayal of Wonder Woman. In the film, criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Eisenberg) manipulates Batman (Affleck) into a preemptive battle with Superman (Cavill), whom Luthor is obsessed with to defeat him.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_v_Superman:_Dawn_of_Justice" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was suspected that the cargo of the White Portuguese was a dirty bomb but it turned out to be Kryptonite. Lex Luthor bombed the Senate when Superman was about to testify. Also there were some Russian terrorists about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bruce Wayne invented a powered exoskeleton in preparation to battle Superman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman took exception to Batman's vigilante style of justice and tried to expose his secret identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "major", "motivation": "Superman was depicted, and described explicitly as a messiah figure. This was in contrast with Batman the vigilante figure. Lex Luthor made several references to Superman being a god and wished to destroy him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "There wasn't room enough in for Metropolis/Gotham both Superman and Batman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Batman and Superman were pitted against Duperman's old nemesis, the criminal genius Lex Luthor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman and his adoptive mother Martha Kent. Batman had a flashback of the death of his mother when he was a boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was essentially flying around under his own power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lex Luthor put Superman in a predicament whereby he had to kill Batman or else his mother would die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wonder Woman was an immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wonder Woman was crown princess of the all female city-state Themyscira.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain America: Civil War (2016)", "title": "Captain America: Civil War", "date": "2016-04-12", "description": "A disagreement over international oversight of the Avengers fractures the team into two opposing factions—one led by Steve Rogers and the other by Tony Stark. It is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and the 13th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_Civil_War" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the Avengers, heroes that they might be, were little more than vigilantes who's actions needed to be overseen by the international community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Helmut Zemo was consumed with a desire to make the Avengers pay for having been responsible for the death of his family. T'Challa sought to avenge the assassination of his father, King T'Chaka of Wakanda. Tony went mad with a desire for vengeance when he found out that a brainwashed Bucky had murdered his parents back in 1991.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wanda had an innate ability to more things around using the power of her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony felt guilty over all the collateral damage the Avengers had caused over the years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "had a pair of mechanical wings that enabled him to fly around like a bird. Tony and his Iron Man suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bucky had a robotic right arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve used his shear strength to hold a helicopter from taking off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The six winter soldiers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ant-Man suit allowed its wearer to shrink in size but increase in strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott used his Ant-Man suit she shrink in size.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott used the Ant-Man suit to increase himself in size to gigantic proportion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was in possession of some technology that enables him to grow himself in size to gigantic proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political assassination", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King T'Chaka of Wakanda was assassinated at a conference in Vienna.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve was reunited with his old pal Bucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Six brainwashed \"Winter Soldiers\" were being kept in cryogenic stasis at a Siberian Hydra base.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the supersoldier Bucky had been brainwashed into committing all sorts of heinous act, including the murder of Tony's parents back in 1991.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Stark Industries created android vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helmut Zemo masterminded a terrorist bombing at a United Nations conference in Vienna.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)", "title": "X-Men: Apocalypse", "date": "2016-05-09", "description": "Set after X-Men: Days of Future Past, En Sabah Nur, the first mutant, awakens after thousands of years. Disillusioned with the world as he finds it, he recruits a team of mutants to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. Raven, with the help of Professor X, must lead the X-Men to stop Apocalypse and save mankind from destruction. It is the ninth installment in the X-Men film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were prejudiced against mutants and persecuted them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were prejudiced against mutants and persecuted them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The X-men took on a god-like primordial mutant and his henchmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Magneto was devastated over his wife and daughter being accidentally killed in an altercation with the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw run of the mill factory worker Magneto go crazy and try to destroy the world after his wife and daughter were killed in an altercation with the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scott mourned the death of his brother Alex who died in an explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A big deal was made out of the X-men being mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The X-men superheroes saved the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quicksilver had an innate ability to move practically at the speed of light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All the world's nuclear weapons were shot into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All the world's nuclear weapons were shot into outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens meddling in ancient history", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw alien technology in the pyramids in a flashback scene to Ancient Egypt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto (a.k.a Henryk) comforted his young daughter Nina by assuring her that nobody would ever take him away from her. She was subsequently killed in the chaos of Magneto getting hauled off by the authorities for being a mutant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean Gray was telepathic and could read minds. For example, she knew Scott's name without him even telling her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair. Scott experienced what it was like to be blind until he was given special glasses that contained laser beams emanating from his eyes when open.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean Gray had the ability to move objects around using the power of his mind. Magneto too had the power to move matter with his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto killed the factory workers who turned him into the authorities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto was taken to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott and Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Magneto was Quicksilver's father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wolverine's wounds automatically healed after he would get injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mystique demonstrated the ability to transform herself to look like other people at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mystique demonstrated the ability to transform herself to look like other people at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier's hope in the future of humanity was contraposed with Magneto's cynicism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott emitted powerful beams of energy from his eyes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Trek Beyond (2016)", "title": "Star Trek Beyond", "date": "2016-07-07", "description": "Set in the 23rd century, Kirk and the crew of USS Enterprise encounter a merciless enemy in the far reaches of space. It is the thirteenth film in the Star Trek film franchise and the third installment in the reboot series, following Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Trek Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Beyond" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Enterprise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Travel among the stars is a fundamental reality in the Star Trek universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kirk and Spock. Spock and McCoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krall insisted that unity was a weakness of the Federation, but the Enterprise crew proved him wrong. This theme was an explicit message of the film. On top of that Scotty quoted his grandmother's saying of \"you can't break a stick in a bundle\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krall felt betrayed by the Federation and plotted to blow up the space city Yorktown to get back at it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise and USS Franklin transporters were used.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Enterprise stopped at the humongous Federation space city Yorktown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested that Sulu had a husband and young daughter but it was not an issue in their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Spock and McCoy bonded while stranded together on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krall had been using some form of life extension technology that he found on the planet to stay alive for centuries.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ghostbusters (2016)", "title": "Ghostbusters", "date": "2016-07-09", "description": "The story focuses on four women and their assistant who begin a ghost-catching business in New York City. It is the third feature film in the Ghostbusters franchise, and serves as a reboot of the series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Ghostbusters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(2016_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost hunting", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ghostbusters made a ghost hunting business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "Physicist Abby Yates dabbled in paranormal research. Also the film was about ghost hunting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ghosts were running wild in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. magic wielder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Occultist Rowan North was summoning ghosts in an effort to bring about the apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw that girls weren't afraid of no ghosts, either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Childhood friends Abby and Erin reunited as adults to fight ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rowan North felt unappreciated by society and was actively trying to bring about its destruction by summoning ghosts to kill everyone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rowan North was summoning ghosts in an effort to bring about the apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. spirit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters were working to stop ghosts from running amok in New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "evocation magic", "level": "major", "motivation": "Occultist Rowan North was summoning ghosts in an effort to bring about the apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Abby was embarrassed when her academic colleagued found out that she had published a book on the paranormal in her younger years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erin was a professor who was refused tenure and her contract terminated after it became apparent that she had dabbled in paranormal research.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters investigated a haunting at the Aldridge mansion. The film opened with someone giving a tour of a haunted mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dumb jock stereotype", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ghostbusters' secretary Kevin Beckman was the male equivalent of a ditzy blond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story played out on social media to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Department of Homeland Security tried to coerce the Ghostbusters into keeping their paranormal findings secret in order to prevent a mass panic from griping New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Department of Homeland Security tried to coerce the Ghostbusters into keeping their paranormal findings secret in order to prevent a mass panic from griping New York City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin got possessing by some or another malevolent entity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Patty and her uncle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Shin Godzilla (2016)", "title": "Shin Godzilla", "date": "2016-07-25", "description": "Shin Godzilla (シン・ゴジラ, Shin Gojira) is a 2016 Japanese kaiju film directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, with a screenplay by Anno and special effects by Higuchi. Produced by Toho Pictures and Cine Bazar and distributed by Toho, it is the 31st installment in the Godzilla franchise, the 29th Godzilla film produced by Toho, Toho's third reboot of the franchise, and the first film in the franchise's Reiwa period.\n\nSynopsis: Politicians struggle with bureaucratic red tape in order to deal with the sudden appearance of a giant monster that evolves whenever it is attacked.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Godzilla" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Godzilla rampaged across Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Godzilla rampaged across Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a number of high level politicians as they struggle with bureaucratic red tape in order to deal with the crisis of Godzilla being loose in Tokyo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown what it might be like for a government to have to evacuate a large population in the face of a looming natural disaster. In this case, the Japanese government struggled with red tape to evacuate Tokyo as Godzilla rampaged around the city. The viewer is also shown scenes of traumatized citizens in evacuation centers, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Prime Minister Okochi's inept and indecisive leadership in the face of Godzilla's attack on Tokyo was pointedly contrasted with the competent and decisive leadership exhibited by his successor Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese government higher ups were put in a tough spot when the United Nations informed them that the international community would use thermonuclear weapons on Godzilla should the Japanese fail to subdue the creature on their own in a few days.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Japanese government was under diplomatic pressure from the international community to abide by a United Nations approved thermonuclear strike on a mostly evacuated Tokyo as a last ditched effort to kill Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass hysteria", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A government official recommended against making public that Godzilla was radioactive on account that it could \"stroke public fear\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were warned to stay clear of the radioactive contamination that Godzilla left in its wake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "decision making in the face of uncertainty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A highly indecisive Prime Minister Okochi was forced into making a number of difficult decisions in the face of Godzilla's attack on Tokyo. For example, should parts of Tokyo be evacuated at the risk of causing a mass panic in the streets? Or should a military attack on Godzilla be called at the risk of civilian casualties?", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Doctor Strange (2016)", "title": "Doctor Strange", "date": "2016-10-13", "description": "Doctor Strange learns the mystic arts after a career-ending car crash. It is the 14th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strange_(2016_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the loss of one's livelihood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The acclaimed and arrogant neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange was devastated after severely injuring his hands in a car crash, leaving him unable to operate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Strange and the other mystical arts practitioners were routinely astrally projecting themselves. For example, Doctor Strange's astral body helped perform a life saving surgery on Doctor Strange himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The sorcerer Kaecilius wanted to engulf Earth in the Dark Dimension so that he could life forever.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic powers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Doctor Strange tapped into powers of a variety of mystic arts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The acclaimed and arrogant neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange severely injured his hands in a car crash, leaving him unable to operate. In general, the viewer is shown Doctor Strange and his colleague and friend the emergency surgeon Christine Palmer at work in a hospital setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "First the Ancient One, and then Doctor Strange bent the rules of their mystic order to prevent the forces of Dormammu of the Dark Dimension from overrunning the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange had an over-inflated ego, especially before career ending injuries to his hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange and other mystical arts practitioners harnessed energy drawn from other dimensions of the multiverse, to cast spells, conjure shields and weapons to make magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange and the other mystical arts practitioners routinely conjured up portals through which they traveled from place to place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange and the other mystical arts practitioners routinely conjured up portals through which they traveled from place to place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "The Hippocratic Oath", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange mention how he'd sworn an oath to do no harm when he became a physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time rewind ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange rewound time as a means of undoing the fall of the Hong Kong sanctum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange encountered the villainous entity Dormammu in the Dark Dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange entered the Dark Dimension and created a time loop around himself and Dormammu.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a mid-credits scene, Thor brought his brother Loki to Earth to search for their father, Odin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange used the Cloak of Levitation to fly around.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x01", "title": "Nosedive", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"Nosedive\" is the first episode of the third series of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Michael Schur and Rashida Jones wrote the teleplay for the episode, based on a story by series creator and co- showrunner Charlie Brooker, while Joe Wright acted as director. It premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, alongside the rest of the third series.\n\nDirected by: Joe Wright. Story by: Charlie Brooker Teleplay by .", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social media in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story seemed to be a comment on people's obsessive use of social media nowadays.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a dystopian world where people can rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction they have.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were under constant pressure to get good ratings from others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conformism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were under constant pressure to get good ratings from others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie Pound was obsessed with increasing her rating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "People had some sort of eye implants that overlaid information on top of what they saw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie and Naomi had been sort-of friends in an abusive way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie, and others, pursued their desire to be liked to absurd extremes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fall from grace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie lost her social status after her rating was lowered by airport security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie started committing evermore antisocial transgressions until finally she ended up in jail with her eye implants removed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lacie finally cracked and started yelling at the airport and went into a downwards spiral from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lacie Pound lived with her disapproving brother Ryan Pound.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "From the airport incident until the prison scene Lacie became increasingly comfortable with letting loose her true feelings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reminiscence about one's youth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lacie and Naomi though back upon their time as childhood friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chester, a man giving out green smoothies at work in a desperate bid to increase his crappy rating, was bullied by his coworkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problematic usage of mobile communication devices in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lacie, and others, were constantly using their smart phones.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x02", "title": "Playtest", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"Playtest\" is the second episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.\n\nDirected by: Dan Trachtenberg. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Different kinds of fears were explored through Cooper's experience in the old mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Different kinds of primal fears inside the subconscious mind of Cooper were explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The SaitoGemu company developed an augmented reality system, called mushroom, that allowed used to embed themselves inside a video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cooper faced some of his darkest fears inside the game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of fear", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Different kinds of fears were explored through Cooper's experience in the old mansion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cooper's greatest fear related to his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cooper got stuck inside a virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cooper's dad had recently died from early-onset Alzheimer's and he went backpacking around the world to get away from his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a family issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cooper had trouble with his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cooper felt about guilty about having left his mother to backpack around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to one's family", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cooper felt ashamed about having left his mother to backpack around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The SaitoGemu company developed an augmented reality system, called mushroom, that allowed used to embed themselves inside a video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper had a fling with Sonja.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the technological singularity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper mentioned the AI singularity to Sonja.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-bug hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper encountered a spider with the face of his old enemy Peters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cooper was given a brain implant that enabled him to see a video game gopher on the table.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x03", "title": "Shut Up and Dance", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"Shut Up and Dance\" is the third episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and William Bridges, and premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.\n\nDirected by: James Watkins. Story by: Charlie Brooker & William Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In the end we have to reflect on what treatment is just for pedophiles, racists, and philanderers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The various protagonists, including Kenny, were forced to choose between unethical actions or risking their reputation, livelihoods, family etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turned out that Kenny's blackmailers had information on him about being a pedophile.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Internet crime in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kenny and others were blackmailed over the Internet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kenny and Hector were blackmailed into committing bizarre and criminal acts by a mysterious hacker possessing a video of him masturbating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious hacker took it upon themself to punish teenager who'd been viewing child pornography on the web.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace harassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenny was bullied at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenny and his mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenny and his younger sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenny's mother and his younger sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hector thought his wife would divorce him if his blackmailers handed over the information they stole form his computer to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenny fought another pedophile to the death in the woods.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x04", "title": "San Junipero", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"San Junipero\" is the fourth episode in series three of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, with the rest of series three.\n\nDirected by: Owen Harris. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "digital afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "San Junipero was part of a simulated reality the elderly can inhabit, even after death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People were mind-linked to the San Junipero simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "San Junipero was an escape that had to be rationed because people ignore the real world otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old-age love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie wanted more than the one night stand she had with Kelly. Kelly was satisfied with having had a one night stand with Wes, but he couldn't get over her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelly was terminally ill in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie coped with Kelly being terminally ill in real life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly coped with being old and near death in contrasting ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie and Kelly coped with being old and near death in contrasting ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kelly had to choose between following her (religious?) husband in death or transitioning to San Junipero.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "The introverted Yorkie got romantically involved with the more outgoing Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yorkie had lived as a quadriplegic since the age of 21.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly grieved over the loss of her husband and daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual debut", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yorkie was deflowered by Kelly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yorkie might have thought about jumping off the building or so we were lead to think.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "euthanasia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People needed a doctor's letter to euthanize themself and undergo the process of passing over into San Junipero.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x05", "title": "Men Against Fire", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"Men Against Fire\" is the fifth episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Jakob Verbruggen, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.\n\nDirected by: Jakob Verbruggen. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military related work", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stripe's life and experiences as a member of a \"kill squad\" was the basis for the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The soldiers had brain implants that enabled augmented reality, enhanced their senses, and created comforting sex dreams at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The soldiers had brain implants that enabled augmented reality, enhanced senses, and created comforting sex dreams at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dehumanization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The army found a way to use technology to directly dehumanize the enemy by making them look like monsters to the soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stripe was forced to choose between participating in unethical killings or being incarcerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Computer information was overlaid on the real world using brain implant and something in the eyes, which turned white during use.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destroying one people to save another", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are led to believe that the roaches had to be destroyed to save people, the details are unclear, this may have been true or false even after we learned about the brain implant trickery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "The matter was left unresolved but we must consider the possibility that the whole plot was a cover for some sort of ethnic cleansing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The matter was left unresolved but we are made to consider the possibility that the whole plot was a cover for some sort of ethnic cleansing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stripe felt remorse after killing mutants who he later learned looked just like humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Stripe chose to live in the fantasy world enabled by the brain implant rather than live with the reality of what he had done as a soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stripe and the other soldiers were conditioned to perceive the enemy as hostile mutants, rather than the human beings that the were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The soldiers perceived the people they were killing as hostile mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "woman in charge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader, Medina, of the squad going around looking for mutants was female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The leader, Medina, of the squad going around looking for mutants was female.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Squad leader Medina used a real-time translation device to communicate with the residents of a slum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror3x06", "title": "Hated in the Nation", "date": "2016-10-21", "description": "\"Hated in the Nation\" is the sixth and final episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by James Hawes, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, along with the rest of series three. It is the longest episode in the series at 89 minutes.\n\nDirected by: James Hawes. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The mechanical bees, or autonomous drone insects, were hacked to start killing people in the middle of online shit-storms by burrowing into their brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "society regulating central computer crash", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The bee swarms were somehow susceptible to a centralized attack, but the details were unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanical insect", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mechanical bee swarms had been made to pollinate plants in lieu of real bees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The episode dealt with online hate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bees and some other animals had virtually gone extinct. In the case of the bees, they were replaced by mechanical bees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tech savvy young inspector Blue Coulson versus the cynical older inspector Karin Parke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime and punishment", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether the online haters got what they justly deserved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taking the law into one's own hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hacker administered rogue justice by hacking into mechanical bees to make them kill people in the middle of online shit-storms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "A hacker who was dissatisfied with online haters not getting punished took matters into his own hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government made a secret agreement with the mechanical bee company that the government could access the bees sensors at times of heightened security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nine year old girl was mortified after the celebrity rapper Tuck publicly humiliated her for poorly imitating his style of dancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two inspectors were working on solving the bee murder mystery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The first murder was thought to have been done by the husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mechanical bees were able to form swarms and somehow reproduce themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A former worker and victim of online hate tried to kill herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A rapper named Tusk humiliated a nine year old boy who had made a viral video imitating his dancing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karin didn't think much of newfangled technologies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ways in which bees were crucial to the ecosystem was discussed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)", "title": "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", "date": "2016-12-10", "description": "The film follows a group of rebels on a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star, the Galactic Empire's superweapon. It is the first installment of the Star Wars anthology series, set just before the events of A New Hope.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_One" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, awhile others, like Darth Vader, used it for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Rebel Alliance was trying to stop the Empire from building a planet killing superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was building the planet killing Death Star superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Death Star planet killing superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire was building the planet killing Death Star superweapon to achieve galactic hegemony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rebel Alliance was trying to stop the Empire from building a planet killing superweapon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were flying around in space all over the galaxy - typical space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galen Erso and Jyn Erso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The reprogrammed imperial droid K-2SO. Protocol droid C-3PO also made a brief appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large creature was used to try to read Bodhi Rook's mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dark Vader telekinetically chocked Director Krennic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K-2SO sacrificed itself so that Jyn and Cassian could get the Death Star plans back to the Rebel Alliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Princess Leia stating that the Death Star plans in Rebel Alliance hands gave them hope.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)", "title": "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter", "date": "2016-12-23", "description": "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is a 2016 science fiction action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), it is the sixth installment in the Resident Evil film series and the final installment in the original series, which is based on the video game series of the same name.\n\nSynopsis: A heroine and her allies are betrayed by an evil clone, who gathers the entire forces of a nefarious corporation into one final strike against the survivors of a zombie apocalypse.", "collections": [ "Collection: Resident Evil Film Series" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_The_Final_Chapter" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "zombie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that human-made virus has transformed nearly everyone in the world into flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Alice and her allies as they battle flesh-eating zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of a zombie-creating virus having proliferated all over the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in the aftermath of a textbook zombie apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Red Queen sentient mainframe computer teamed up with Alice in a bid to rid the world of its roving zombie horde problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "start-over utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the film was that the Umbrella Corporation had all along planned to wipe out all but a select few members of the human race, and then reboot civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "That the Umbrella Corporation had cloned various people factored significantly into the plot. In particular, Alice was astonished to discover that she herself was a clone of the founder of the Umbrella Corporation's daughter. This explained why Alice had no memories prior to the Raccoon City zombie outbreak. Also, a Dr. Isaacs clone was devastated upon learning that he was not the real article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the climax, the heroine of the story Alice took it upon herself to rid the world of zombies by releasing an airborne anti-virus that she was told would be lethal to her. She lived, but she released the substance fully thinking it would be the end of her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bioengineered human pathogen", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered virus, known as the T-virus, had turned most of the world's human population into zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. James Marcus cared for his gravely ill daughter, Alicia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. James Marcus refused to stand idly by and watch his young daughter, Alicia, die of progeria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Queen offered Alice a chance to get revenge on Wesker, and Alice availed herself of the opportunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Queen artificial intelligence sometimes appeared in the guise as a reddish hologram of a young girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Isaacs alluded to the specter of all out nuclear war in his presentation to the Umbrella Corporation board.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Isaacs warned the Umbrella Corporation board that global warming was destined to result in the flooding of 90% of all habitable regions on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Isaacs warned the Umbrella Corporation board of how population growth would outpace food production within the next 50 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The elect few who were selected to remake the world after the zombie apocalypse had run its course were being stored in cryogenic capsules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alice found out she was a clone, and met the real article face to face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Alice was implanted with the childhood memories of the woman from whom she was cloned.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying (2016)", "title": "Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying", "date": "2016-12-26", "description": "A Kung-Fu movie set during the opium controversy in mid-19th century China. Wong Kei-ying is an honorable apothecary and martial artist who comes into conflict with both drug dealing gangs, greedy westerners and corrupt officials.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "especially at the end", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kei-Ying had lots of it but the the thugs he fought initially had too", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerned Western-facilitated opium trade in late 19th century China. An honorable apothecary and martial artist came into conflict with drug dealing gangs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late imperial China", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was set in late 19th century China and we saw an idea of what life might have been like for various people back then.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "corrupt general", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "choice", "motivation": "countless variations", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "opium addicts", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kei-Ying showed mercy in the first half and was rewarded for it later", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kei-Ying between master and patron but also the Ma thugs", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "woman who saved kid", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's beliefs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kei-Ying against opium for the people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acupuncture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Among Wong Kei-ying’s many skills was the ability to cure people of ailments by poking them with needles.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock4x01", "title": "The Six Thatchers", "date": "2017-01-01", "description": "Sherlock is asked to investigate the mysterious death of a young man, which he solves quickly but he is led into another mystery when a bust of Margaret Thatcher owned by the dead man's father is smashed. Further busts are smashed and Sherlock discovers that the mystery is linked to Mary and her past as a government agent. A figure from her past is bent on revenge in the belief that Mary betrayed him, but it is discovered that the traitor was the secretary of a British Parliamentary member. Mary is killed by the secretary when jumping in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock. John blames Sherlock for Mary's death, and their relationship is fractured.\n\nThe title is loosely based on the Doyle short story \"The Adventure of the Six Napoleons\". The plot contains elements of other short stories, \"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb\" and \"The Adventure of the Yellow Face\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ajay sought revenge on Mary, believing that she's betrayed him when they were both members of a close-knit mercenary group.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being a danger to those around you", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary walked out on her husband Watson and newborn baby girl out of concern that having a target on her back would put their lives in danger.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary was hiding from Watson and others that had lived a secret past life as a mercenary agent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson's love for Mary remained steadfast in spite of the details of her past life as a mercenary agent coming to the fore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson and Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Watson were asked to investigate the mysterious death of a young man, and although it was presumed to be a murder case, it ultimately turned out that the young man died by accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mycroft pulled some strings to clear Sherlock's name in the murder of Charles Augustus Magnussen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson escorted Mary to hospital whereupon she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson and Mary had their newborn daughter baptized at a church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "caring for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John and Mary's newborn woke them up in the middle of the night with its incessant crying.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A drunk driver crashed into Mr. Welsborough's parked car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scotland Yard was investigating the mysterious death of a minister's son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson was annoyed that Sherlock was getting all the credit for Watson's blogging about their cases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock sought Craig's services when he needed to hack into a computer system to find out who owned the Thatcher busts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military coup", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An ambassador was taken hostage during a coup in Tbilisi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson pointedly mourned the loss of his wife Mary after she was killed when jumping in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson wanted nothing to do with his longtime best friend Sherlock after Watson's wife died as a result of jumping in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock4x02", "title": "The Lying Detective", "date": "2017-01-08", "description": "Sherlock is contacted by the daughter of entrepreneur Culverton Smith, who she claims has confessed to a murder, but she does not know who the victim was as her father has used a drug on her that inhibits memory. Sherlock deduces that her father is a serial killer and sets out to expose him, but he has returned to narcotics use since Mary's death and unable to clearly distinguish his own thoughts from reality. He confronts and attacks Smith, and John is forced to subdue him. While recovering in the hospital, Smith appears in Sherlock's room, confesses and then tries to kill him. John bursts in just in time to save Sherlock, who reveals that his behaviour up to that point was not just an elaborate ploy to expose Smith, but also fulfilling Mary's last wish for him to \"Save John\". Later John's therapist reveals that she is actually Sherlock's secret sister, Eurus, and has been using disguises to manipulate both Sherlock and Watson. The episode ends with Eurus firing a shot at John.\n\nTitle and plot elements based loosely on the Doyle short story \"The Adventure of the Dying Detective\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson was grieving over the recent death of his wife, Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "serial murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock exposed the entrepreneur Culverton Smith to be a sadistic serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The serial killer Culverton Smith was notably sadistic. In particular, he insisted that Sherlock maintain eye contact as Culverton attempted to strangle him to death, and he remarked how he was made happy from killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson held his best friend Sherlock responsible for his wife's death, and wanted nothing to do with Sherlock anymore, but in the end they reconciled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Watson held his best friend Sherlock responsible for his wife's death, and wanted nothing to do with Sherlock anymore, but in the end they reconciled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock had returned to narcotics use since Mary's death and was unable to clearly distinguish his own thoughts from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock felt responsible for Mary's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock hallucinated a visit from Faith Smith while under the influence of narcotics. Watson experienced repeated hallucinations of his dearly departed wife, Mary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Culverton Smith and his daughter Faith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faith Smith spoke this aphorism before her father injected her with a memory inhibiting serum that would cause her to forget him telling her that he was a killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock observed self-inflicted cut marks on a woman he'd hallucinated while under the influence of narcotics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Faith Smith was said to have been suicidal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philanthropist way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Culverton Smith boasted about his philanthropic activities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watson confessed to the Mary hallucination that he'd cheated on her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "sherlock4x03", "title": "The Final Problem", "date": "2017-01-15", "description": "Sherlock and Watson – who had been shot with a tranquilizer by Eurus – trick Mycroft into acknowledging her existence. Eurus steps up her attacks on Sherlock, culminating in the bombing of his Baker Street apartment. Sherlock, Watson and Mycroft venture forth to Sherrinford, a maximum-security psychiatric facility where Eurus is housed. Although Mycroft is skeptical at the suggestion that she has escaped, the trio discover that Eurus has compromised the staff and controls the entire Sherrinford asylum. She subjects the trio to a series of ordeals, testing their morals by forcing them to choose which of her victims live and die and ultimately forcing Sherlock to confront the memory of \"Redbeard\", a childhood friend whose death set in motion events that saw Eurus incarcerated. Realising that she will continue to test him until someone he cares for dies, Sherlock tries to connect with her on an emotional level, offering her the love and relationship with a brother that she never had, and Eurus stands down. Sherlock and Watson return to the Baker Street apartment, where they find another message from Mary imploring them to stay together. A time lapse montage shows them rebuilding the Baker Street flat to its original lived-in form before meeting a series of unusual clients.\n\nThe title matches the Doyle short story \"The Final Problem\", but the plot contains elements from the short stories \"The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual\", \"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs\", and \"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-sherlock.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a genius adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil genius Eurus subjected Sherlock, Watson, and Mycroft to a series of ordeals, testing their morals by forcing them to choose which of her victims live and die and ultimately forcing Sherlock to confront the memory of \"Redbeard\", a childhood friend whose death set in motion events that saw Eurus incarcerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot revolved around Sherlock encountering the evil genius sister, Eurus, that he didn't know he had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sherlock and his older brother Mycroft were pitted against their evil genius sister, Eurus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black sheep", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eurus was the black sheep of the Holmes family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eurus tested Sherlock's morals on multiple occasions by forcing him to choose between who lives and who dies among various people. In one example, Sherlock had to shoot dead one of his best friend Watson and his brother Mycroft or else a little girl would seemingly died in an airliner crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock had some flashbacks to his seeming childhood dog Redbeard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood trauma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sherlock was traumatized by the childhood memory of his sister Eurus having drown his dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mycroft told his parents that his derange sister Eurus was dead, rather than confront them the the troubling truth that she was being held a maximum-security psychiatric facility.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Get Out (2017)", "title": "Get Out", "date": "2017-01-23", "description": "Get Out is a 2017 American horror film, written and directed by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut. It stars Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Lil Rel Howery, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, and Catherine Keener. Get Out follows Chris Washington (Kaluuya), a young African-American man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Williams).", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Out" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-timeout-top100.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the film showed how white American people can (still) be unintentionally racist towards black people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interracial couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "the story centered on a black young man with his white upper-class girlfriend, meeting her family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris and Rose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain transplant", "level": "major", "motivation": "as a macabre twist, we learn that the black people behaving strangely have actually had rich white people's brains transplanted into them", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I fell into the clutches of a homicidal maniac", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris found himself tied up in the basement and being prepped for brain surgery", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean and Missy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean and Rose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Missy and Rose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeremy and Rose", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dean and Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Missy and Jeremy", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "we thought Georgina and Walter were servants to the Armitages", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris was a professional and talented photographer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris discussed his photography with a famous art dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rod tried to convince the regular police that black people were bring kidnapped and used as sex slaves", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "indirect references to actual slavery were made", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative hypnosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Missy was able to hypnotize people, make them stop smoking, and send them to The Sunken Place.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Attraction (2017)", "title": "Attraction", "date": "2017-01-26", "description": "Attraction (Russian: Притяжение, romanized: Prityazhenie) is a 2017 Russian science fiction action film directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk. The plot tells about an extraterrestrial spaceship that crash-lands in the Chertanovo district of Moscow. The Russian government immediately introduces martial law, as the locals grow increasingly angry at the unwelcome guest.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attraction_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yulia had a turbulent relationship with her military-minded father Colonel Lebedev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yulia ultimately left her boyfriend Artyom in large part because she'd fallen for the alien Hekon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hekon was a representative of a technologically-advanced humanoid race who'd traveled to Earth incognito to gauge whether or not humans were worth of being contacted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrial in human form Hekon struggled with the most basic of human social customs and conventions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of people led by Artyom grew increasingly hostile and fearful of the alien visitors hold up in their spacecraft and ultimately went on a riot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of interfering in less advanced societies", "level": "major", "motivation": "The extraterrestrials were to refrain from sharing their technology with primitive civilizations that still engaged in such barbarisms as warfare. Hekon even made it clear that they would even blow up their spacecraft to prevent humans from acquiring their advanced technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yulia and the extraterrestrial Hekon fell for one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Yulia and her friends in a high school science classroom setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yulia had an old dog that she beloved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A large, spherical alien spacecraft crash-landed in Moscow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military attempted to make a stereotypical first con", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yulia lost her best friend Svetlana in the carnage of the alien spacecraft crash. Artyom grieved when his childhood Rus was shot and killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens enveloped themselves in futuristic, robotic suits. Artyom and his friends recovered one of the suits, and Artyom ultimately integrated himself in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colonel Lebedev had been raising Yulia as a single father since the tragic passing of her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The practically immortal alien Hekon willing gave his life to save Yulia from being shot dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were in possession of technology that enabled to live on indefinitely and they conveyed that doing so was both good and desirable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens were in possession of some kind of water-based technology that enabled to live on indefinitely.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Logan (2017)", "title": "Logan", "date": "2017-02-17", "description": "In the film, Logan and Professor Charles Xavier meet a young girl named Laura, a test-tube daughter of Wolverine, who is being hunted by the Reavers led by Donald Pierce. It is the tenth film in the X-Men film series and the third and final installment in the Wolverine trilogy following X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013).", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Logan was feeling the weight of his years, and the now elderly Xavier was knocking on death's door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Logan was being slowly and painfully poisoned by his adamantium skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan was being slowly and painfully poisoned by his adamantium skeleton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan's innate ability to regenerate himself after injury was failing him in his old age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan and other mutants were turned into soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A global corporation created Laura and other children from mutant DNA to become weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan came to cherish his test-tube daughter Laura, ultimately giving his own life to save her and her friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan, Xavier, and Laura were on the run from Transigen henchmen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The immortal Logan lived in constant agony and longed to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan lived in pain, yet he could not die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "depression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan was broodish to the point that he wished for death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan recurringly mourned his long departed mutant comrades. Logan buried his long time mentor Xavier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although reluctant to help the children for a long time, Logan stepped up in the end and saved them from being captured by the Transigen corporation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rice created a Logan clone. more generally, Transigen corporation using DNA from a number of mutants to make clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to get away from it all", "level": "major", "motivation": "Logan just want to be left alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan was hitting the bottle pretty hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald Pierce hand a robotic right hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Donald tortured the albino mutant Caliban by exposing him to sunlight.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan helped a family push their pick up truck out of a ditch, and they repaid him and his crew by treating them to a home cooked meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was obvious that Logan didn't have much experience handling children by the way he interacted with the 11-year-old girl Laura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan encountered a vicious clone of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "contemplating suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan contemplated taking his own life but shooting himself in the head with an adamantium bullet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A little mutant girl buffeted some soldiers with forest debris using her innate telekinetic ability. A young mutant boy lifted up a military vehicle using only the power of his own mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Logan regretted all the killing he'd done in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Laura broke down in tears when her father Logan died in right in front of her.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x08", "title": "Autofac", "date": "2017-03-05", "description": "Twenty years after a nuclear war, a small community of survivors are challenged by an automated corporate factory, which uses drones to send them unnecessary goods on a daily schedule. Their ability to grow food is diminishing as the natural world around them fades away, which they believe is due to pollution caused by the mega-factory. They plan to bypass the deadly defenses of the factory and shut it down.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Autofac, a totally automated factory/distribution center, had people replaced with sentient machines in order to make them better customers for its goods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "choice", "motivation": "When we learn that Emily and others are machines after having seen all their loves and passions, we wonder to what extent they are like humans and worthy successors to our race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "An automatic factory is destroying the environment in order to produce evermore stuff for people that don't really need more stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of people fight for their existence against the Autofac industrial complex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily and Conrad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Autofac had representation androids and in the end we learn that everyone is an android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central point was that people \"felt\" like humans and were mighty surprised to find that they were androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily was a stereotypical hacker girl. She hacked into the android Alice and also infected Autofac with a \"logic bomb\" malware program.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "major", "motivation": "Emily learned that she was actually an android patterned on the woman who'd created the Autofac automated factory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were told that nuclear weapons had destroyed civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature conservationism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The community of survivors were trying to stop Autofac from polluting their environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The community of survivors believed that Autofac was polluting their environment with heavy metals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Conrad was reluctant to trust in the android Alice in the lead up to the assault on the Autofac factory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (2017)", "title": "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2", "date": "2017-04-10", "description": "The Guardians travel throughout the cosmos as they help Peter Quill learn more about his mysterious parentage. It is the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and the 15th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Vol._2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is premised on the idea that the galaxy is teeming with humanoid alien life, and aliens of all colors are present throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gamora and her estranged sister Nebula joined forces to defeat the malevolent cosmic entity Ego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered around Peter finding out that his father, Ego, was some sort of ancient cosmic entity that had built itself into a living planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter found out that his father was a living planet that manifested itself as the human Ego, and much of the film is set on the said planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "major", "motivation": "True to his name, Ego was so egotistical that he thought it well to spread his consciousness to every world in the universe, destroying any life on these worlds in the process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop the living planet Ego from eradicate the universe as we know it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Guardians of the Galaxy were all united by a bond of friendship. Drax and Mantis pointedly became friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Guardians of the Galaxy vanquished a ferocious alien creature at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tree-like humanoid Baby Groot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill expressed some curiosity about his mysterious origins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the raccoon Rocket was genetically and cybernetically modified to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Rocket's rivalry over who among them was the better pilot cost them in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "empathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mantis could feel the emotions of those she came into physical contact with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rocket, Yondu, and Groot were held captive by the Ravagers and had to pull off a daring escape.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human aspiration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ego's stated purpose in life was to spread his consciousness throughout all the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nebula had a cybernetic arm, eye, and brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter met his alien dad and the story explored Peter's alien side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nebula stated that she wanted to take vengeance against her father Thanos for him having somehow ruined her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yondu knowingly gave his life to save Peter whom Tondu considered to be his only son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter mourned the death of Yondu who had been as a father to Peter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gamora reconciled with her estranged sister, Nebula, at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alien: Covenant (2017)", "title": "Alien: Covenant", "date": "2017-05-04", "description": "The film follows the crew of a colony ship that lands on an uncharted planet and makes a terrifying discovery. It is a sequel to Prometheus (2012) and is the second installment in the Alien prequel series and the sixth installment overall in the Alien film franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Alien" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Covenant" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Covenant crew versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a ferocious beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Covenant crew versus the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The android David wiped out a civilization of giant humanoids using a deadly genetically engineered a pathogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kill all humans utopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The android David wanted to wipe out all animal life, especially", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole premise was to colonize the a distant planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two-thousand colonists were put into cryogenic sleep for the duration of their voyage to the distant planet Origae-6.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "David wiped out a civilization of giant humanoids with his genetically engineered pathogen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android David despised humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the Covenant crew divert could to a seemingly perfectly habitable planet or stay on their course to the planet they planned to terraform in the first place? The Covenant crew weighed the risks involved in attempting to rescue the landing party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "David wished to use his genetically engineered pathogen to rid the world of animal, especially human, life so that the androids could rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "David wiped out the civilization of giant humanoids by unleashing their own genetically engineered pathogen on them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "David improved on the Engineer's genetically engineered pathogen and wished to use it to wipe out humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Many stupid decision were made, like taking the whole ship colony ship down to the surface of the Alien infested planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyland and David", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "is there a purpose to life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Weyland and David discussed the question of where they came from. Weyland though there must be more to the origin of humanity than random chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "solar sail spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Covenant colony ship used solar sails for charging purposes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniels was in charge of a team whose goal was to terraform the distant planet Origae-6.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the crew members were married to one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tennessee was worried about the status of his wife down on the planet after the landing party lost contact with the ship under dire circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Oram beat himself up over his deadly decision to depart from their predetermined course to Origae-6 in favor of going to the Alien infested planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Oram would come to regret his deadly decision to go to the Alien infested planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David and Walter discussed this in regard to creating new tunes on a flute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniels grieved when her husband got burned to death in his stasis pod. Tennessee later mourned the loss of his wife Maggie to the Aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tennessee and Maggie. Ricks and Upworth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the Weyland corporation had been up to nefarious things.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)", "title": "Transformers: The Last Knight", "date": "2017-06-18", "description": "A failed inventor finds out that the fate of the world lies in his hands. It is the fifth installment in the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_The_Last_Knight" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Transformers were explicitly characterized as alien robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cade was on the run the the law.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "men in black conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Order of Witwiccans was a secret society of famed historical figures who were keepers of the secret history of the Transformers on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "A special mechanical talisman attached itself to Cade making him the chosen one to prevent Earth's energy from being drained in order to restore Cybertron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cade an Vivian fell in love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet Cybertron was brought into close proximity to the Earth, putting humanity in great jeopardy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the legend of King Arthur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Kirk Arthur and his men battling against invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Four boys snuck into a government fenced off zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade's daughter called him from college.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that Dreadbot had robbed a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "science as magic to the primitive", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cade quoted Arthur C. Clarke's law that \"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viviane's mother was pressuring her to find a man to settle down with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Edmund Burton and his sociopathic, Transformer butler Cogman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An enormous alien spaceship emerged from the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vivian was a history professor at Oxford.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan: Homecoming (2017)", "title": "Spider-Man: Homecoming", "date": "2017-06-28", "description": "Peter Parker tries to balance high school life with being Spider-Man while facing the Vulture. It is the second Spider-Man film reboot and the 16th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe", "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Homecoming" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter idolized the Avengers and very much wanted to be accepted as one of them. But in the end Peter turned down Tony's offer to join the team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was pathetically desperate to prove to Tony Stark that he was worthy to be counted among the Avengers. But in the end Peter turned down Tony's offer to join the team.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Liz had secret crushes on each other, although Peter ultimately plucked up the courage to ask her out to the school homecoming dance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man fighting crime on the streets of New York City and across the Eastern Seaboard more generally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter took it upon himself to put a stop to the Vulture's weapons dealing operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Liz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Liz.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Peter going the the various trials and tribulations that come with being in high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter's best friend Ned accidentally discovered his secret identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Blue collar, arms dealing super villain the Vulture was contrasted with the rich and powerful corporate grandee Tony Stark. The Vulture at one point ranted to Peter about how the rich and powerful don't care about ordinary people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Stark appeared to Peter in a flying mechanized suit of armor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's Spider-Man suit was equipped with an AI that helped him select the appropriate types of webs to shoot among other things, like giving him dating advice.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Peter's academic decathlon teammates showed herself to be a political activist on their school trip to Washington, DC.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liz's father turned out to be the super villain arms dealer known as the Vulture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter's friend Ned hacked into Peter's suit in order to enable its high level functionalities, including an AI assistant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)", "title": "War for the Planet of the Apes", "date": "2017-07-10", "description": "A confrontation looms between intelligent apes, led by Caesar, and the humans for control of Earth.", "collections": [ "Collection: Planet of the Apes" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_for_the_Planet_of_the_Apes" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apes were genetically engineered to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Genetically enhanced apes rose up and challenged Humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caesar sought to avenge the slaughter of his wife and first born son by killing the Human soldier responsible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forced labor camp", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Humans were running a forced labor/concentration camp filled with apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The apes were rounded up and systematically used as slaves to do manual labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A man-made virus, called the Simian Flu, was making Humans lose their ability to speak and reason at a high level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A genetically engineered cure for Alzheimer's disease resulted in the deaths of millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "A virus, called the Simian Flu, that was used in the development of a cure for Alzheimer's disease fatally infected millions of people around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Caesar and his fellow apes were held captive in an ape concentration camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ape-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were sentient apes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar and Blue Eyes. The Colonel shot his own son to prevent the spread of the virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar grieved over the slaughter of his son Blue Eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Caesar was tortured mercilessly while in the forced labor camp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "quarantine dilemma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Colonel decided to have people infected with the virus killed in order to save humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-species civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all evolved to be intelligent ans shared power.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x01", "title": "Dragonstone", "date": "2017-07-16", "description": "At the Twins, Arya fatally poisons the remaining lords of House Frey. The White Walkers march toward the Wall, where Tollett allows Bran and Meera inside. At Winterfell, despite Sansa's disapproval, Jon secures the loyalties of Houses Umber and Karstark, who fought alongside Ramsay in the Battle of the Bastards. At the Citadel, Samwell steals books that reveal a large reservoir of dragonglass in Dragonstone, and sends word to Jon. He later finds Jorah in a cell. In the Riverlands, Arya meets a group of friendly Lannister soldiers, who take her intention to kill Cersei as a joke. Thoros shows Sandor a vision in the fire. The revelation leads him to believe in the Lord of Light. In King's Landing, Jaime tells Cersei of the crucial need for allies. She welcomes Euron, who proposes marriage to her in exchange for his Iron Fleet and a chance to kill Theon and Yara. Cersei declines citing trust as a concern, so Euron promises to return with a \"gift\" to prove his loyalty. Daenerys arrives at Dragonstone, the home of House Targaryen once occupied by Stannis, with her army and dragons.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Arya's purpose in life", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "both Cerci and Jon preparing for a war", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cerci v Daenerys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a lousy dead-end job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samwell emptying bedpans etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arya and Brienne", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jon did not disband opposing houses", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x02", "title": "Stormborn", "date": "2017-07-23", "description": "Daenerys sends the Dornishmen with Yara's fleet to Sunspear and the Unsullied to Casterly Rock, deciding to place King's Landing under siege. She questions Varys' loyalty and threatens to burn him alive if he ever betrays her. Melisandre arrives and encourages her to invite Jon Snow to Dragonstone. Grey Worm and Missandei consummate their relationship. Cersei gathers several lords, asking for their fealties and elevating Randyll Tarly as Warden of the South. Qyburn shows Cersei a prototype ballista capable of harming dragons. Arya meets with Hot Pie and learns of Jon's ascension to King in the North, halting plans to travel to King's Landing and instead setting course for Winterfell. After receiving Samwell's letter, Jon leaves for Dragonstone in hopes of convincing Daenerys to support the fight against the White Walkers. He leaves Sansa in charge and aggressively warns Littlefinger to keep his distance. Samwell applies a forbidden treatment on Jorah's greyscale infection. Euron's fleet attacks Yara's. Obara and Nymeria are killed, while Ellaria, Tyene, and Yara are captured. Theon shows flashes of his time as Reek, hesitating to challenge Euron before fleeing the carnage by jumping into the sea.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "loyalty", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daenerys wants from Jon, Cerci seeks from various, Arya's wolf, Theon to Yara, Sand girls to their mother", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of succession", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cerci v Daenerys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jorah with his greyscale", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grey Worm and Missandei", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bisexualism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yara and mother Sand", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x03", "title": "The Queen's Justice", "date": "2017-07-30", "description": "Jon arrives at Dragonstone. Daenerys demands his fealty. He refuses and focuses instead on convincing her to fight the Army of the Dead. Following Tyrion's advice, Daenerys grants Jon access to the island's dragonglass. Melisandre hides her presence from Jon and leaves for Volantis. Bran arrives at Winterfell and reveals his newfound role as the Three-Eyed Raven to Sansa. In King's Landing, Euron returns with Ellaria and Tyene as a gift for Cersei, who promises to marry him after the war is won. She also awards him co-control of her military alongside Jaime. Cersei administers to Tyene the same poison used to kill Myrcella, forcing Ellaria to watch her daughter's impending death. In Oldtown, a healed Jorah leaves to find Daenerys. Ebrose forgives Samwell. Grey Worm and the Unsullied attack Casterly Rock, only to find it mostly abandoned. Jaime led most of the Lannister forces in an attack on Highgarden, while Euron's fleet ambushes and destroys the Unsullied's ships. The Lannister forces overwhelm Olenna's army. Jaime induces Olenna to drink poison, offering her a quick and painless death. After drinking it, she confesses to poisoning Joffrey.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the art of war", "level": "choice", "motivation": "diversions, sieges, secret passages, ...", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jon wanted from Daenerys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jon trying to rally people against whitewalkers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poison murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cersei did in Myrcella by the cunning expedient of a poison kiss. Various past poisoning were discussed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortitude", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenerys explained what drives her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cerci was filled with rage after all her children had perished in various ways connected to political intriguing. She particularly soliloquized about this as she exacted vengeance on Ellaria Sand and her remaining daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cerci and Jaime seen in bed", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x04", "title": "The Spoils of War", "date": "2017-08-06", "description": "Arya returns to Winterfell, where she reunites with Sansa and spars with Brienne, both of whom are unnerved by her exceptional fighting skills. Bran unemotionally bids farewell to Meera, divulging that he is no longer the boy she accompanied through the North. Littlefinger presents Bran with the dagger that was previously used in his attempted assassination. Cersei assures the Iron Bank a full return on their investment, as a train carrying gold from Highgarden is on its way to King's Landing. In a cave filled with dragonglass, Jon reveals ancient paintings to Daenerys depicting the First Men and the Children of the Forest joining forces against the undead. Later, Daenerys learns of the sacking of Highgarden by Lannister forces and realizes her attack on Casterly Rock was a distraction. Despite Tyrion's protests, she decides to take action. Led by Daenerys riding Drogon, the Dothraki cavalry catches the Lannister army by surprise and decimate or capture its remaining forces. Drogon is wounded during the fight by a spear fired from the scorpion ballista being manned by Bronn. Jaime mounts a desperate charge on horseback at a vulnerable Daenerys, but Drogon spews fire in time to thwart the attack. Bronn tackles Jaime into the river in time to save him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "military tactics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the organization of the armies was amply featured as they engaged", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of real power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daenerys was urged not to burn castles, instead burned people", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Arya's list and then Jon about Theoden", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "big banking in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learn of the role The Iron Bank has had in funding Cersi and her warmongering. The Bank stated that it would be delighted to help in “future endeavors”, which in the context meant other conquests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bran had underwent", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arya and Sansa", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenerys and Jon Snow discussed", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon vs. Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jon wanted from Daenerys", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arya's sparring", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenery's people to her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie ordered farmers \"encouraged\" and later there was talk about whipping stragglers", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x05", "title": "Eastwatch", "date": "2017-08-13", "description": "Jaime and Bronn return to King's Landing. Against Tyrion's advice, Daenerys has Drogon burn Randyll and Dickon Tarly alive for remaining allegiant to Cersei, forcing the other captives to pledge fealty to the former. Jorah arrives at Dragonstone and reunites with Daenerys. Maester Wolkan alerts Jon and the Citadel about the approaching wights to the Eastwatch by the Sea. Jon decides to travel beyond the Wall and capture a wight in order to convince Cersei for a temporary alliance. Davos smuggles Tyrion inside King's Landing, where he secretly meets with Jaime and offers an armistice, which Cersei accepts, informing Jaime that she is pregnant. Davos rendezvouses with Gendry and returns him to Dragonstone. With the Citadel ignoring Wolkan's letter, Samwell steals several books and leaves with Gilly and Little Sam. At Winterfell, Littlefinger notices Arya spying on him and leads her to take a letter written by Sansa from his room. Jon, Jorah, and Gendry, joined by the Hound, the Brotherhood, and a group of the Free Folk led by Tormund, leave Eastwatch and pass the Wall, intending to capture a wight as evidence for Cersei that the Army of the Dead is real.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon vs. Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon vs. Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jon wanted from Daenerys and now potentially Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sansa, Daenerys, Jon, and Cerci were all pointedly compared", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daenerys burned prisoners alive", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tyrion and other's urged but Daenerys had none", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "remnants of the battle field were featured", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jon going beyond the wall etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie and Tyrion", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incest in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jamie and Cerci", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x06", "title": "Beyond the Wall", "date": "2017-08-20", "description": "At Winterfell, Littlefinger plots to isolate Sansa. Tensions between Arya and Sansa grow following Arya's discovery of the letter Sansa sent as a child begging for Robb's fealty to Joffrey. Sansa discovers Arya's bag of faces she took from Braavos. At Dragonstone, Tyrion counsels Daenerys about her upcoming negotiations with Cersei. Beyond the Wall, Jon leads a raiding party to capture a wight to bring South as evidence of the White Walkers' existence. After successfully capturing one, the group is besieged by the White Walker army. Jon has Gendry return to Eastwatch and send a raven to Daenerys to request her help. Thoros freezes to death overnight. Daenerys arrives and saves the group from the wights, with the help of her dragons. The Night King, leader of the White Walkers, throws an ice spear at Viserion, one of Daenerys' dragons, and kills it. Daenerys flies off, along with the raiding party, but is unable to save Jon. Benjen Stark intervenes and sacrifices himself to allow Jon to escape. When Jon and Daenerys are reunited, Jon pledges himself and the North to Daenerys as Queen. The Night King resurrects Viserion, making the dragon a part of his army.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "more and more everyone is cooperating and seems becoming a recurrent pointed theme", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "choice", "motivation": "undead bear, hordes of skeletons, armies of evil etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male posturing", "level": "major", "motivation": "there was ceaseless boasting in the beginning", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sansa and Arya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sansa vs. Arya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "particularly Cerci but also others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daenerys tearfully accepted the loss of her beloved dragon, Viserion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned between Jon Snow and Daenerys", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars (2017)", "title": "Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars", "date": "2017-08-21", "description": "It is up to Johnny Rico and his team of young recruits to stop bug aliens from overrunning a Federation colony on Mars. It is the fifth installment of the Starship Troopers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Starship Troopers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers:_Traitor_of_Mars" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation forces were battling bug aliens, known as Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where humans are mired in a multiple star systems spanning war with a race of hostile bug aliens, known as the Arachnids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "One main storyline follows Colonel Johnny Rico as he and his squad of new recruits battle bug aliens on the Federation Mars colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mars, which in this story is the main theater of war between the Federation and the bug aliens, had been terraformed and colonized by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "independence struggle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Mars colonists were engaged in a political movement to be secede from the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destroying one people to save another", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the Federation should blow its Mars colony to smithereens or stand idly by and allow it to be overrun by bug aliens and used as a stepping stone to conquering Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mars had been terraformed to have a breathable atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Mars Orbital Base was a large space station in orbit around Mars called.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is shown numerous various Federation battle cruisers over the course of the film. Captain Carmen Ibanez was shown on the bridge of the starship John A. Warden.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of the Moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a thriving spaceport on the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl contacted Carmen telepathically across the vastness of space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Rico and the troopers under his command navigated around Mars using special jetpack equipped body armor suits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Rico used a tactical nuclear weapon to blow up a bunch of hostile bug alien warriors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engineered space structure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an orbital ring round the Moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The troopers wore futuristic suits of mechanical armor that coverer their bodies from head to toe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The troopers wore special jetpack equipped suits of mechanical armor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny Rico experienced a prolonged hallucination of his deceased lover Dizzy Flores after waking up in a daze after battling bug aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability related to another being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl used his psychic powers to induce in Johnny Rico a hallucination of his deceased lover Dizzy Flores to inspire him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Johnny questioned the veracity of his senses upon encountering his deceased lover, Dizzy Flores.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sky Marshal Amy Snapp wished to use a Q-bomb to destroy Mars to increase her political approval rating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of using the planet destroying Q-bomb to blow up Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl was charged with sedition and conspiracy against the Federation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A news narrator told of a squad of troopers making a noble last stand against a bug alien army of 100,000 Arachnid warriors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Rememory (2017)", "title": "Rememory", "date": "2017-08-24", "description": "Gordon Dunn has invented a machine that can record and replay memories like video. After Gordon dies under mysterious circumstances, Sam Bloom starts to investigate the matter while also using the device to examine his own murky past.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "choice", "motivation": "all and sundry had", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the device that recorded memories", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dunn hurt so much after his daughter died that he tried to erase his memories, and accidentally killed himself. His widow mourned the child too.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "major", "motivation": "not deeply discussed but seems topical", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "various about their loved ones", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "the woman who wanted her memories back", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Bloom brothers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam Bloom", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "two women and Gordon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "two women with Gordon", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "that guy who was shot after seeing his girfriend shot", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photographic memory ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil was part of Gordon's test group because of his photographic memory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "got7x07", "title": "The Dragon and the Wolf", "date": "2017-08-27", "description": "At King's Landing, the wight is presented to the Lannisters. Cersei demands Jon's neutrality in the Great War, but he upholds his oath to Daenerys, provoking Cersei to leave. Tyrion meets privately with Cersei, apparently persuading her to ally. Cersei later reveals to Jaime that she was lying and instead intends to use the Golden Company of Braavos to secure her hold on Westeros. Disgusted, Jaime deserts her and rides north. Bound for White Harbor, Jon and Daenerys make love. At Dragonstone, Theon earns the respect of his men and leads them to rescue Yara. At Winterfell, Littlefinger sows dissent using Arya's threatening demeanor with Sansa, who assembles a trial. After listing Littlefinger's acts of treason against House Stark and the North, Sansa has Arya execute him. Samwell arrives at Winterfell and meets with Bran, where both discuss Jon's parentage. They realise Jon is a trueborn Targaryen named Aegon and valid heir to the Iron Throne, with his parents—Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark—having married in secret. At Eastwatch, an undead Viserion damages the Wall, allowing the Army of the Dead to march south.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-gameofthrones.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation vs. competition", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon vs. Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Daenerys vs. Jon vs. Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jon wanted from Daenerys and now potentially Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "undead bear, hordes of skeletons, armies of evil etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "putting differences aside", "level": "major", "motivation": "Daenerys/Tyrion tried with Cerci", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jon about keeping his word, Cerci about breaking hers", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "there is strength in unity", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Stark sisters and various other unions", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mistrust", "level": "major", "motivation": "particularly Cerci but also others", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sansa and Arya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sansa vs. Arya", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned in the big meeting", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "mentioned in the big meeting", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x01", "title": "The Hood Maker", "date": "2017-09-17", "description": "In an authoritarian regime called the Free Union, a minority of humans have developed telepathic abilities. Mistrusted by society, they are referred to as \"Teeps\", live in ghettos, and are routinely discriminated against. A telepath named Honor is recruited to work for the police, and forms a close relationship with her handler, Agent Ross. The pair investigate when a mysterious individual calling himself the \"Hood Maker\" begins distributing telepathy-proof hoods throughout the city.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hatred of exceptional people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ordinary people hated the telepathic \"Teeps\" because they often worked for the oppressive government and rooted out subversion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The telepaths were oppressed by normal people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Honor, and other telepaths called \"Teeps\", could read minds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Telepaths endangered this right which caused \"normals\" to hate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Honor and other telepaths lived as outcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The telepath Honor formed a close relationship with her handler and the pair ultimately fell in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed a futuristic police investigation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mutual trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was whether or not Honor could trust Ross, and to a limited extend the converse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Honor occasionally complained about hearing more thoughts than she wanted to.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw some scenes from a futuristic brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Oedipus complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Honor read a man's mind to find out that he was attracted to his own mother and used to masturbate while watching her in the swimming pool.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "dis1x01", "title": "The Vulcan Hello", "date": "2017-09-24", "description": "The USS Shenzhou encounters a mysterious space monument located in Federation space.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-startrek-discovery.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for redemption", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Klingons wanted to unite and make the Klingon Empire great again", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "preemptive strike in self-defense", "level": "major", "motivation": "Captain Georgiou refrained from firing on the Klingons first in spite of Burnham urging her to do so", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federation encounters a Klingon armada", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "honor", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Kuvma :: T'Kuvma explains that the Klingons have lost their sense of honor and tradition", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clash of wills", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Burnham/Saru :: Burnham and Saru", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael Burnham :: Burnham grew up as a Human child among Vulcans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Georgiou and Burnham visited a desert planet", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "USS Shenzhou voyaged to a binary star system", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisible spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klingons used cloaking technology on their ships", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x02", "title": "Impossible Planet", "date": "2017-09-24", "description": "Two bored space tourism guides, Norton and Andrews, are approached by a very elderly woman, Irma Louise Gordon, who offers them a large sum of money to take her on one last trip to Earth. As they are not sure the planet even exists anymore, having been evacuated centuries ago due to solar flares, they head for a similar planet, although Irma's robot servant is onto the subterfuge. Irma has a very specific dream about her grandparents swimming in a river in Carolina, and wants to re-enact this with Norton, who is identical to her grandfather.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Brian take Irma's money and offer her a comforting lie?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desire vs. conscience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Brian take Irma's money and offer her a comforting lie?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Should Brian tell Irma that Earth is gone or lie to make her happy?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wrestling with one's conscience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brian was torn up inside over whether he should tell Irma that her beloved Earth is gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irma was a very old woman, rich but clearly out of touch with reality and preoccupied with nostalgia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irma's robot servant RB29.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brian and Barbara drifted apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two space tourism guides accepted an under the table deal to fly a dying woman across interstellar space to see Earth one last time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young character vs. old character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story in part contrasted the experiences of life the foibles of a very old woman who was soon to die with that of a young man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reason for Irma's actions was that she had two months to live owing to a heart condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irma was a very old woman, rich but clearly out of touch with reality and preoccupied with nostalgia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irma felt and expressed nostalgia in abundance as she traveled to what she thought was Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space tourism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw two space tourism guides fly a group of passengers around to see the wonders of outer space. But one gathers that these wonders were somewhat lacking as the guides secretly used visual overlays to spice things up a bit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian described their actions as con artistry and Ed said there is no other kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Barbara debated where they should live and could not agree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian and Ed had no future in the heartless corporation they served.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal freedom vs. romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brian would have had to pursue a career he didn't care for in order to keep his girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth succumbed to an electromagnetic event, probably a solar flare, some 60 years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dictation machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a speech recognition device that translated spoken word to text for the deaf Ms. Gordon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story unfolds aboard the Dream Weaver 9 space tourism vessel.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x03", "title": "The Commuter", "date": "2017-10-01", "description": "Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. Shortly afterwards, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a non-existent destination called \"Macon Heights\". Intrigued, Jacobson follows a number of passengers who jump off the train and walk to an idyllic village where their traumas are wiped away. On his return home, he discovers his son never existed, and he returns to Macon Heights to find Linda and demand she restore his original life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ed must have absentmindedly wished his son away", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ed and Mary loved their son in spite of everything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed found an idyllic community that seemed to offer an escape from his family and work life problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parenting a child with special needs", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Mary's teenage son Sam had a history of violent outbursts, and worst yet began experiencing psychotic episodes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Mary Jacobson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed seemed rather fed up with his job as a railway station manager and the unappreciative people there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in an alternate reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon returning from Macon Heights, Ed found himself in an alternate reality where he troubled son had never been born.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed wrangled with the decision of whether to wish his violent son back, knowing that \"terrible things\" would be done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed said he thought he had failed as a parent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mary and Sam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed visited the journalist Martine Jenkins in an effort to find out more about the mysterious Macon Heights community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. the public good", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Linda spelled out to Ed that wishing his mentally disturbed son Sam back into existence would have bad ramifications for society.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)", "title": "Blade Runner 2049", "date": "2017-10-03", "description": "Set thirty years after the original film, the story depicts a bioengineered human named K, who discovers the remains of a once-pregnant replicant. To prevent a possible war between replicants and humans, K is secretly tasked with finding the child and destroying all evidence related to it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The backdrop is Replicant versus human tensions and a war appears to be imminent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turned on a fear that Replicants would rise up against humanity, if they gained the ability to reproduce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "can machines have souls", "level": "choice", "motivation": "K seemed to ponder this question and we certainly are made to ponder Joi's status.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to know one's roots", "level": "choice", "motivation": "K wanted to know his origins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "K and Joi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joi was a fully functional simulated personality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joi was a simulated personality/", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Replicants were implanted with memories that were difficult to distinguish from reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some Replicants hated humans and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia on the back of slave labor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Replicants were used to do all the work in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "To what extent did the Replicants have rights in a human dominated world?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Replicants had great difficulty in determining whether their memories were about real events or had been implanted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wallace Corporation had a veritable monopoly on replicant technology giving it a concerning amount of power in the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Earth appeared to be one expansive urban area and off-world farming was required.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Deckard and Stelline.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child labor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K visited a child labor sweat shop in San Diego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Space colonies had been founded in the dystopian Blade Runner world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "K used a flying car.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x04", "title": "Crazy Diamond", "date": "2017-10-08", "description": "Ed Morris works at a company which produces synthetic humanoids called Jacks and Jills, and the QCs (\"quantum consciousness\") which give them intelligence and emotions. He is approached by a dying Jill, who wants him to help her steal ten QCs – one to extend her own lifespan, and the rest to sell to give Ed a chance to start a new life with his wife, Sally.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The \"normals\" treated the \"synthetics\" as second class citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The \"normals\" treated the \"synthetics\" as second class citizens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed and Sally Morris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the synthetic people were the product of some sort of genetic engineering.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for adventure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed wanted adventure on his boat with his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed became enamored of Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "femme fatale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The attractive synthetic woman Jill seduced Ed, used him for her own ends and discarded him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed sort of had an affair with Jill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed was compassionate enough to commit crimes for Jill, and sign a life insurance policy for his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The synthetic people were AI infused humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed had an affair with Jill, who became somewhat acquainted with Ed's wife Sally, and maybe romantically involved as well.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpe diem", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aphorism \"seize the day\" was mentioned and appears to have been related to the main point insofar there was one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic flood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed and Sally lived on a shoreline that was slowly being taken by the sea and people had to move because of coastal erosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "where to make one's home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed and Mary deliberated where they wanted to live in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed had an abortive tryst of sorts with Jill, a synthetic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socioeconomic issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were laws against growing your own food because doing so would hurt the economy, we heard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed had an interest in old vinyl records.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Big Chill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with Jill drawing an analogy between her own impending death and the heat death of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hybrid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pig woman Su.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)", "title": "Thor: Ragnarok", "date": "2017-10-10", "description": "Thor must escape the alien planet Sakaar in time to save Asgard from Hela and the impending Ragnarök. It is the sequel to Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013), and the 17th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor:_Ragnarok" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is loosely based on characters and settings from Norse mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hela, the Goddess of Death, was determined to rule over the Nine Realms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor, Scrapper 142, and the Incredible Hulk all demonstrated super human strength throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film climaxed with the realm of Asgard was destroyed by the fire demon Surtur in fulfillment of the Ragnarök prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thor and his brother Loki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sibling rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hela, the Goddess of Death, rose up and challenged her brother Thor, the God of Thunder, for dominion over the realm of Asgard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hela, the Goddess of Death, rose up and challenged her brother Thor, the God of Thunder, for dominion over the realm of Asgard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theater", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The adventures of Thor and Loki were dramatized in a theatrical production.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor met his father Odin in Norway shortly before Odin's passing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rock being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rock man revolutionary, turned gladiator Korg.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor was forced to compete in gladiatorial combat against the hulk of all opponents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor manifested the ability to shoot lightning bolts from his fingers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor, Valkyrie, and Bruce Banner were transported to Asgard by passing through a wormhole, known as the Devil's Anus, in the sky of the planet Sakaar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rockman Korg staged a revolution to overthrow the Grandmaster's rule of Sakaar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hela resurrected the ancient dead warriors of Asgard who'd once fought with her to fight by her side once again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor found himself on the scrapyard planet Sakaar which was home to a manifold kinds of space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki betrayed Thor by pretending to help Thor to escape from his bondage under the Grandmaster, when in reality it was all part of an elaborate plot to turn in Thor to the Grandmaster for a financial reward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of Asgard escape their realm on a massive alien spacecraft shortly before the realm was destroyed in fulfillment of the Ragnarök prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Asgardian warrior Skurge knowingly gave his life to give his people a change to escape in a spaceship before their realm was utterly destroyed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The realm of Asgard was destroyed by the fire demon Surtur in fulfillment of the Ragnarök prophesy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor and his estranged brother Loki reconciled in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The fire demon Surtur.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange appeared to Thor through a portal that the doctor had conjured up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Beyond Skyline (2017)", "title": "Beyond Skyline", "date": "2017-10-14", "description": "It is up to a ragtag band of survivors of an initial alien attack on the Earth to stop the aliens from completing their invasion. The film is a sequel to the 2010 film Skyline, set concurrently with the events of the first film.", "collections": [ "Collection: Skyline Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Skyline" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a small group of people who become caught up in an alien invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hard-boiled detective Mark Corley risked life and limb to save his son, Trent, who'd been taken captive by invading aliens aboard their mothership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien invaders were going around abducting and/or killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The invading aliens sucked any number of Los Angeles residents into their various spaceships by means of an ethereal blue light. In particular, Mark and his son Trent were taken aboard the alien mothership whereupon Trent has his brain removed and placed in the body of an alien bio-mechanical creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Giant alien bio-mechanical creatures were rampaging around. The film culminated with a big fight between two of the giant creatures, one controlled by the alien leader, the other by Trent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alien bio-mechanical creatures were going around killing people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A ragtag band of human resistance fighters were battling alien bio-mechanical creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark Corley picked up his reprobate son, Trent, at the police station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The alien bio-mechanical creatures got about in high-tech spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Air Force nuked the alien mothership, and the city of Los Angeles along with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elaine died in childbirth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was spelled out that alien soldiers were actually human brain controlled bio-mechanical robots of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sua and his sister Kanya were leading the fight against the alien invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Exposure to the blue light accelerated Elaine's pregnancy so that she gave birth to a health baby girl after having been pregnant for just three months. Elaine's baby Rose grew from a newborn to a three-year-old in just one day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien experiment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark described how he'd witnessed the aliens dissecting unborn children while he was aboard one of their spaceships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Harper had been running drugs out of Vietnam prior to the alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kenya spoke begrudgingly of how the United States tried to bomb Vietnam out of existence in this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien origin of the human race", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harper speculated that the aliens had long ago planted human life on Earth \"like a crop\" and had now returned to reap their harvest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sua pointedly mourned the death of his sister, Kanya, who'd sacrificed herself to kill one of the alien bio-mechanical creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sua blew herself up in order to take out one of the alien bio-mechanical creatures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x05", "title": "Real Life", "date": "2017-10-15", "description": "Sarah is a policewoman living in the future who shares headspace with George, a brilliant game designer, each pursuing violent killers whose plans could have shattering consequences. In a race against time, sharing a bond that no one else can see, they learn the very thing that connects them can also destroy them.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I lived an alternate life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sarah lived in a dream world as George and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We didn't know who of Sarah and George lived a real life and who didn't.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story feature a VR headset and a VR implant and was premised on the idea that you may not be able to tell real from simulated in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story George was retreating into a dream world in which his wife had not been brutally murdered and everything was hunky-dory. Paula confronted George, telling him that the VR headset enables him to \"escape the real world\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah and Katie were in a loving relationship. George loved his dearly departed wife, and later it came to light that he had feelings for Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was torn up inside over the loss of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah and Katie were in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "George was explained as being obsessed with his late wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling of inadequacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah said she was feeling unworthy of her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of the subconscious", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the idea that one of the worlds was created because the real person wanted to subconsciously punish themself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One storyline followed a lesbian super-cop from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the corporate world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One storyline followed a wealthy tech company CEO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was struggling with the deeply traumatic memory of wife's brutal murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah was described as a lesbian super-cop from the future with just such a contraption.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George didn't understand our old cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "déjà vu", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This was advanced as a possible explanation of George's strange experiences, but ultimately rejected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turns out that George had been cheating on Katie with his friend Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "repressed memories", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paula speculated that George's unconscious mind was trying to protect him by suppressing all memories of his brutally murdered wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George didn't recall anything about his dead wife or that he'd had an affair with his colleague Paula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with Katie having to accept that her lover Sarah was brain dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was described as a modern day Bruce Wayne.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Justice League (2017)", "title": "Justice League", "date": "2017-10-26", "description": "Justice League is a 2017 American superhero film based on the DC Comics superhero team of the same name, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the follow-up to 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the fifth installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film is directed by Zack Snyder, written by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon, and features an ensemble cast that includes Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, and J. K. Simmons. In the film, Batman and Wonder Woman recruit The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg after Superman's death to save the world from the catastrophic threat of Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons.", "collections": [ "Collection: Superman" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steppenwolf and his legions tried to conquer the Earth and terraform it into a world similar to the hellish one he came from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steppenwolf plotted to terraform the Earth into something similar to his own hellish world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wonder Woman foiled a terrorist plot to detonate a bomb the setting off of which would have resulted in the destruction of four city blocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Flash struggled with his father being incarcerated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Flash could run really fast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aqua Man could swim around in the sea and talk to fish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Atlantis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aqua Man was an Atlantean and visited Atlantis under the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The superhero Cyborg was as his name suggests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wonder Woman was an immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Justice League members revived Superman from the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman was more powerful than a locomotive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to see through solid objects", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to inspect the other Justice League members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "X-rays", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Superman used his X-ray vision to inspect the other Justice League members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A resurrected Superman met his adoptive mother Martha Kent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female-only society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steppenwolf went to the female-only city-state Themyscira to retrieve the Mother Box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ability to communicate with animals", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aqua Man could communicate with fish.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x06", "title": "Human Is", "date": "2017-10-29", "description": "Mission director Vera Herrick is trapped in a loveless marriage with military hero Colonel Silas Herrick. Silas returns to the planet of Rexor IV to obtain a substance needed to process Earth's toxic atmosphere, but comes under attack from the local Rexorians. When their ship returns on autopilot, Silas has apparently survived, and Vera finds him uncharacteristically kind and considerate. The couple are arrested by the State, who believe that Silas has been taken over by a Rexorian consciousness.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vera was trapped in a loveless marriage with Silas, but all that changed when he apparently returned from a dangerous mission the planet of Rexor IV.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Vera and the changeling Silas lived in marital bliss.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans launched a mission to Rexor IV to take the Rexorian's supply of Hydran to process Earth's toxic atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens could take over people and infiltrate their society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Changeling Silas offered to confess that he was a Rexorian, and probably be executed as a result, so long as the court agree to clear Vera or any wrongdoing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were under the impression that the Rexorians were incapable of empathy and compassion, but changeling Silas proved that wasn't generally the case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a loved one became possessed by another being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vera gradually came to understand that her husband had been taken over by an enemy alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Feeling unsatisfied by her neglectful husband, Vera participated in an orgy. But after returning form a dangerous mission, her husband became very attentive to her needs and satisfied her mightily in bed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrificing a loved one to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A command decision to activate bomb and doom Herrick and his team was reluctantly made.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera thought her husband had died, as in fact he did though a changeling took his place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality room", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera took exercise in just such an environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An attempt was made to torture changeling Herrick into confessing that he was a Rexorian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prisoners of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Changeling Herrick's state rights were suspended because he was an alien, and something that resembled torture ensued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "diplomacy vs. force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vera urged for negotiations to be pursued with the Rexorians to find a way to share the Hydran resource, but the other commanders decided to take the Hydran by force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silas led a mission to the planet Rexor IV to steal the Rexorians Hydran supply.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Silas and his crew blasted off in what appeared to be a futuristic rocketship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Rexorians.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two Rexorians were depicted as balls of energy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)", "title": "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters", "date": "2017-11-17", "description": "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (GODZILLA 怪獣惑星, Gojira: Kaijū Wakusei) is a 2017 Japanese computer-animated kaiju film directed by Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, written by Gen Urobuchi, and produced by Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures, in association with Netflix. It is the 32nd film in the Godzilla franchise, the 30th Godzilla film produced by Toho, the first animated film in the franchise, and the second film in the franchise's Reiwa period.\n\nSynopsis: A group of human refugees attempt to recolonize Earth 20,000 years after the planet was taken over by Godzilla.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_Planet_of_the_Monsters" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a time when giant monsters, Godzilla most notably, have ravaged the Earth and have driven humanity nearly to extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular giant dinosaur-like creature Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A remnant of humanity returned to Earth to kill Godzilla once and for all some 20,000 years after the planet was rendered uninhabitable by the giant monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story is set aboard the nuclear powered, warp jumping spaceship Aratum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Any attempt to use human-piloted, dinosaur-like robot Mechagodzilla against Godzilla failed when Godzilla destroyed the facility where Mechagodzilla was being housed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo's grandpa pleaded with him to refrain from blowing up his own shuttle in an effort to coerce the central committee into changing course to go back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nuclear attack had been launched against Godzilla, but it failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two aliens races, the Exif and the Bilusaludo, offered to help humanity in its fight against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A remnant of humanity abandoned Earth and set out to start anew on the planet Tau-e, although they turned back before reaching their intended destination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aratrum crew made it 11.9 light years of the way on their journey to the planet Tau-e before turning back to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theory of relativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Almost 20,000 years had elapsed by the time the Aratum spaceship returned to Earth due to relativistic effects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film in interspersed with greenish holographic computer displays. Haruo and his party examined a greenish holographic map of the terrain on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faster than light travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship Aratrum passed through a wormhole to reach 11.9 light years away Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The spaceship Aratrum passed through a wormhole to reach 11.9 light years away Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Exif priest Metphies spoke of in terms of such-and-such things being in accordance with God's will. He also spoke of his peoples holy scriptures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo gave a rallying speech to those under his command in which he explained something to the effect that their defeating of Godzilla would being about a new hope for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo and his party wore special suits that protected them from the now toxic atmosphere of Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Nemesis 5: The New Model (2017)", "title": "Nemesis 5: The New Model", "date": "2017-12-09", "description": "A woman who is well-versed in the art of killing cyborgs travels back in time to 2077 Los Angeles to prevent a band of cyborg terrorists from taking dominion of the Earth. It is the fifth and final installment in the Nemesis film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Nemesis" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7008310/" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "A terrorist army of cyborgs made a bid to take over the Earth of 2077.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetically engineered person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ari explained to Eve how the \"war goddess\" Alex was designed in a lab to be a genetically engineered human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex took on Ari and trained her in the art of killing cyborgs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ari traveled back in time to 2077 Los Angeles to prevent a band of terrorist cyborgs from taking over Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Army Hammerheads cyborg terrorist organization was making a bid for global domination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war propaganda", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg terrorists spread propaganda over television news to discredit the Los Angeles Police Department in the eyes of the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A cyberneticallu-enhanced Barbarella took offense when her brother lamented that she'd lost her humanity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)", "title": "Star Wars: The Last Jedi", "date": "2017-12-09", "description": "The plot follows Rey as she receives Jedi training from Luke Skywalker, in hopes of turning the tide for the Resistance in the fight against Kylo Ren and the First Order, while General Leia Organa, Finn, and Poe Dameron attempt to escape a First Order attack on the dwindling Resistance fleet. It is the eight film in the nine-part “Skywalker saga”.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Last_Jedi" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Some used the Force for good, and others for evil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Force seemed to be a mystical energy field that pervaded the universe and could be learned to be controlled with proper training.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Resistance, a movement backed by the Republic and led by General Leia Organa, opposed the First Order which had risen from the fallen Galactic Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Luke Skywalker and Rey. Snoke and Kylo Ren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Empire sought galactic hegemony through conquest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Resistance versus the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were flying around in space all over the galaxy - typical space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rey was searching for her purpose in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "major", "motivation": "Resistance people made recurring references to hope throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Supreme Leader Snoke telekinetically hurled General Hux across a room. That was the first of numerous telekinetic incidents. In another example, Kylo Ren telekinetically chocked General Hux.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke had a robotic hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke and Leia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren boasted to Snoke of having killed his own father, Han Solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren was self-conscious about his unsightly, light-saber induced facial scar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leia and Kylo Ren.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose Tico pointed out to Finn that a world they visited had made its wealth by selling arms to the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke admitted that he and those of the Jedi Order had all fallen victim to hubris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke communicated telepathically with Leia over a vast distance. Kylo Ren somehow projected an avatar of himself across the galaxy to commune with Rey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey and Kylo Ren saw into their futures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "DJ betrayed Finn and Rose by turning them over to the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke astrally projected himself across the galaxy to have a showdown with Kylo Ren.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x01", "title": "USS Callister", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"USS Callister\" is the first episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator Charlie Brooker and William Bridges and directed by Toby Haynes, it first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: Toby Haynes. Story by: Charlie Brooker & William Bridges.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert Daly used his coworkers' DNA to create sentient digital clones of them in a Star Trek-like space adventure game universe of his own design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder how real the digital clones were.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder how unethical it was for Robert Daly to keep digital clones of his coworkers trapped in a Star Trek-like pace adventure game universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert Daly simulated an ultra realistic Star Trek-like space adventure game universe in the cloud.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert whittled the hours away in a Star Trek inspired fantasy world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Daly subjected digital clones of his coworkers to various inventive tortures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a device that people wore on their temple to enter into a simulated reality world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Daly showed zero empathy for the digital clones, having gone even so far as to have killed Walton's cloned son in brutal fashion. He also lacked empathy even for real people as demonstrated with the pizza delivery man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Daly kept digital clones of his coworkers trapped in a Star Trek-like space adventure game universe of his own design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether we ourselves are digital people inside a giant simulated universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extrovert vs. introvert", "level": "major", "motivation": "Company CTO Robert Daly was introverted in contrast to the super extroverted CEO Walton.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert Daly's lack of self-confidence was contrasted with Walton's uber confidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "MMORPGs in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A possible dark side of massive multiplayer online role playing games was explored. It was shown how people that engage in MMORPGs can become cruel and heartless, presumably from a lack of communicating with other people face to face. This happened to Robert and possibly an unnamed player the crew encountered at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The digital clone Walton let himself be burned living to save the other digital clones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Valdack set a giant spider on Captain Daly and his landing party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The digital clone of the girl was shocked to learn she was not the real her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The game Christmas patch was analogized to a wormhole.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x02", "title": "Arkangel", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"Arkangel\" is the second episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Jodie Foster. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: Jodie Foster. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monitoring implant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marie had her young daughter Sara implanted with Arkangel, an implanted chip technology that allows a parent to track and monitor their children, as well as pixelate images that would cause them distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Maria invaded Sara's privacy by secretly accessing Sara's monitoring implant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "protecting children vs. letting them learn", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marie screwed up her daughter Sara by installing a parental control chip in Sara's head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marie only wanted to protect her daughter Sara but ended up hurting her awfully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human parenting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marie raised Sara as a single mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie is single mother to Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie and Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental controls in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie screws up her daughter Sara by installing a parental control chip in Sara's head that pixelated images that might cause Sara distress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a meddling parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marie interfered in Sara's love life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara's grandfather was helping to care for her until he keeled over and died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Arkangel chip enabled Marie to pixilate things in the real world that might distress Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother's right to determine pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie slipped Sara a morning after pill in her smoothie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giving birth", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie gave birth to Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara was hanging out with Trick the drug dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with an overprotective guardian", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie was overprotective of Sara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marie sabotaged Sara's relationship with Trick.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x03", "title": "Crocodile", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"Crocodile\" is the third episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by John Hillcoat. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: John Hillcoat. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "descent into crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A hit-and-run death cover up lead to a murder in a fit of desperation which then lead to ever more cold blooded murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a device that could record your thoughts both visual and auditory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I killed someone by accident", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mia and Rob covered up a hit-and-run death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Rob and Mia had lived with the fact that they covered up a hit-and-run death for 15 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mia was a cold blooded killer which was made extra evident when she slaughtered a blind toddler in front of its pet hamster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyclist's widow was unable to move on we are told.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion vs. self-preservation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rob was wracked with guilt when he learned about his victim's suffering widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "breaking the law to cover up another crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mia killed in order to cover up a hit-and-run death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rob was wracked with guilt when he learned about his victim's suffering widow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rob had apparently kicked a bad alcohol habit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mia and her husband. Insurance investigator Shazia and her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While driving home, a drunken Rob hit and killed a cyclist on a mountain road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a self-driving pizza delivery van.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x04", "title": "Hang the DJ", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"Hang the DJ\" is the fourth episode of the fourth series of the British anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Tim Van Patten. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: Tim Van Patten. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "forbidden love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Amy and Frank fell deeply in love but they were paired up with other people by the AI match-maker, and there was a man with a taser, but in the end the went together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Amy and Frank fell in love after being matched by their match-maker AI.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The walled-off society inhabited by Amy and Frank turned out to be an elaborately simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turned out that Amy and Frank were both simulated beings in an elaborately simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matchmaking technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "There was a device that ran AI algorithms in order to pair people up for dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Amy and Frank were looking for love using the AI match-maker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various stereotypes associated with dating were explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were made to think that the world we saw was real but then learn it's an elaborate simulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Frank lived in a walled-off society where people were required to be matched by AI algorithms into romantic relationships.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love at first sight", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amy and Frank fell in love straight away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a nag", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank's second date was an unbelievable nag.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x05", "title": "Metalhead", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"Metalhead\" is the fifth episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: David Slade. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "autonomous weapons system killing everyone", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Killer robotic dogs set to kill brought about the collapse of civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bella versus the autonomous solar powered killer robotic dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Bella was being hunted down by a autonomous solar powered robot dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bella could not make contact with anyone at the episode's conclusion and we are made to ponder whether the robotic dogs had killed everyone else but her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to operate on myself", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bella removed tracker shrapnel lodged in her skin using a knife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror4x06", "title": "Black Museum", "date": "2017-12-29", "description": "\"Black Museum\" is the sixth and final episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker, with one part adapted from Penn Jillette's short story \"The Pain Addict\", and directed by Colm McCarthy. The episode first premiered on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.\n\nDirected by: Colm McCarthy. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind linking technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Dawson invented a brain implant that allowed him to feel the physical sensations of others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Carrie's had her consciousness transfered into her husband Jack's brain. Condemned murderer Clayton Leigh signed over the rights of his post-execution consciousness which was housed in a dismal hologram projection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it should not be against the law to execute the digital clone of a person over and over again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Condemned murderer Clayton Leigh was digitally cloned after his execution. A copy of Carrie's consciousness was implanted into an unused part of Jack's brain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadomasochism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Dawson physical sensation stealing brain implant turned him into an extreme sadomasochist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jack and Carrie. Clayton Leigh and his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carrie's consciousness inside Jack's brain became jealous and controlling of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carrie's consciousness was transferred into a teddy bear and she could only communicate yes/no answers to questions put to her. It was like being in a minimally conscious state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nish was motivated to avenge the cruel punishment that was perpetrated on her father Clayton Leigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Condemned murderer Clayton Leigh agreed to be vitrualized after his death for the financial benefit of his family. Jack allowed his wife Carrie's consciousness to be put in his brain after she fell into a coma. Dr. Peter Dawson agreed to have a brain implant installed so that he could better treat his patients.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "addiction to sensation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Peter Dawson became addicted feeling peoples pain and fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether the digital people where the same as the living people they had once been.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "experimental medical procedure", "level": "major", "motivation": "All three experiments involved coercing the test subjects into undergoing the procedures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical human experimentation", "level": "major", "motivation": "All three experiments involved coercing the test subjects into undergoing the procedures. Rolo once worked at a center that provided people with free health care in exchange for them being medical guinea pigs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nish explained how racists came to the Black Museum to execute a digital clone of black man Clayton Leigh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nish was on her way to visit her father to celebrate his birthday when she stumbled on the Black Museum. Her father turned out to be the main attraction of the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A small device was placed on the temple of the executed man to download his consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Customers who tortured the digital prisoner were clearly sadistic. Dr. Peter Dawson committed unspeakable acts of sadism to feed his addiction to pain and fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carrie and Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack and Parker.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was married to Carrie, whose consciousness was in his head, but fell in love with his neighbor Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nish remarked that condemned murderer Clayton Leigh may have been innocent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clayton Leigh's digital consciousness was executed over and over again in a simulated electric chair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "guilt and evidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The question of whether the condemned man was guilty was mooted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack became romantically involved with his neighbor Emily while his wife's consciousness watched from inside his head.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Black Panther (2018)", "title": "Black Panther", "date": "2018-01-29", "description": "In Black Panther, T'Challa is crowned king of Wakanda following his father's death, but he is challenged by Killmonger who plans to abandon the country's isolationist policies and begin a global revolution. It is the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revolution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik, upon ascending to the throne of Wakanda, planned to share Wakandan technology with people of African descent around the world to help them conquer their oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "major", "motivation": "Erik, upon ascending to the throne of Wakanda, planned to share Wakandan technology with people of African descent around the world to help them conquer their oppressors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Black Panther suit endowed its wearer with super strength by absorbing kinetic energy from objects that struck it, like bullets, that could be later released in energetic bursts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wakanda was a peaceful, technologically advanced, African civilization that posing as a Third World country to keep its technology secret from the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "T'Challa stepped up to the task of leading the Wakandan people in the wake of the death of his father, King T'Chaka.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social ethical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Wakandans were split over how to go about helping people of African descent get a leg up in the world: Should they follow Erik's plan to use Wakandan technology to overthrow their oppressors or work quietly on the sidelines within an international framework?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King T'Chaka visited his brother N'Jobu, who was working undercover in Oakland, California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Wakandans flew around in futuristic, vibranium-based aircraft that had the ability to fly like jets and also hover like helicopters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Black Panther suit was said to endow its wearer with super strength.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Black Panther suit was said to endow its wearer with super speed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super reflexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Black Panther suit was said to endow its wearer with a heightened sense of anticipation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King T'Chaka was killed in what was characterized as a terrorist attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa and his mother Queen Ramonda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa's 16-year-old sister Shuri and her mother Queen Ramonda.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa and his 16-year-old inventor sister Shuri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeological looting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik accused the museum director's ancestors of having stolen what was presumed to be a 7th century Fula tribe mining tool that was on display at the museum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa conversed with his deceased father in a vision. Killmonger", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa and his ex-lover Nakia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "El Dorado", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ulysses Klaue compared Wakanda to this fabled goal abounding land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue stole a powerful vibranium artifact with intentions of selling it to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "King T'Chaka killed his own brother to save Zuri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming like what you oppose", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa accused Erik of having become like the colonizers whom Erik hated so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shuri invented a coin sized communication device that affixes to the palm from which a hologram of who you are communication with projects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "T'Challa sharing a kiss with ex-lover Nakia at the film's conclusion leaves the viewer to conclude that they'd rekindled their romantic interest in one another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Erik choose to die a free man rather than be incarcerated.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Monkey King 3 (2018)", "title": "The Monkey King 3", "date": "2018-02-16", "description": "A 2018 Chinese fantasy film based on the classic novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. The film is the third installment of the Monkey King franchise, after The Monkey King (2014) and The Monkey King 2 (2016). Directed by Cheang Pou-soi, it stars Aaron Kwok, Feng Shaofeng, Zhao Liying, Xiaoshenyang and Him Law.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_King_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "female-only society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The four heroes were thrown into a realm inhabited solely by women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sanzang wiht queen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. faith", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sanzang had to choose between his journey west or staying with the queen", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "men were contrasted with women in various ways, especially wrt. childbearing", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x07", "title": "The Father Thing", "date": "2018-02-26", "description": "Eleven-year-old Charlie has a close relationship with his father, sharing a love of baseball. One night, while camping out, they see glowing orbs slowly falling from the sky, which the radio news reports are meteoroids. After a day at home, Charlie is uncertain that his father is who, or what, he appears to be, and he is not alone. Charlie and his best friend eventually find a field filled with body doubles grown by the aliens.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if people around me started behaving strangely one by one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The local kids were perplexed as adults started acting oddly. It became apparent that adults were being replaced with alien facsimiles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Charlie had a close relationship with his father until the father was replaced by an oddly behaving, alien controlled duplicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subversive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Body snatching aliens were replacing people with physically identical, but oddly behaving duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The father and the mother were struggling with their marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Body snatching aliens were replacing people with physically identical, but oddly behaving duplicates with the same memories as the originals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child power", "level": "major", "motivation": "When adults were getting taking over by aliens, Charlie mobilized kids to resist. Also Charlie told his mom that he understood the parents' marital problems better than they thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Some local children resisted some newly arrived body snatching aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was trying to make the local baseball all-star team. Charlie and his friends discovered an alien plot to replace the local adults were physically similar, but oddly behaving duplicates.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the game of baseball", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and his dad were obsessed with baseball.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in elementary school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We briefly saw Charlie in school with his mates and then in class.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parents were contemplating a divorce or separation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a failing marriage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie was well aware that his parents were having trouble with their marriage even though they'd been trying to conceal it from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan's older brother picked on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie sought help from the police but soon realized that Detective Fernandez was compromised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie and Dylan were pals.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Ready Player One (2018)", "title": "Ready Player One", "date": "2018-03-11", "description": "The film takes place in 2045, when much of humanity uses the virtual reality software OASIS to escape the desolation of the real world. Orphaned teenager Wade Watts discovers clues to a hidden game within the program that promises the winner full ownership of the OASIS, and joins several allies to try to complete the game before a large company run by businessman Nolan Sorrento can do so.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Player_One_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cooperation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "People had to work together to succeed in solving James Halliday's puzzle. OASIS creator James Halliday regretted buying out his companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Virtual Reality video gaming was the foundation of the story, and the basis for society in 2045.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality suit", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were using them to escape reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "escape from reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "People escaped their crappy reality by going to the OASIS virtual reality world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, the viewer is shown that the point of playing video games was not necessarily to win, but rather to explore and have fun, by finding Easter eggs, for example.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overpopulated dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "It is a little unclear what the abysmal conditions in the future were due to but since we saw enormous slums this seems like a good guess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrophied civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Civilization stagnated because people preferred to spend time in the game, thus at the end two game-free days per week were mandated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "public health issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaming wasn't bad but it could clearly be taken to excess, hence two game-free days per week were declared at the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade and Samantha.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade and his best buddy H.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Innovative Online CEO Nolan Sorrento plotted to insert intrusive online advertising In the company's games. This would be an abomination to gamers, but be very profitable for the company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying drone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The 101 corporation used flying drones for monitoring people.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x09", "title": "Safe and Sound", "date": "2018-03-12", "description": "In a near-future dystopia, the United States is divided between high-tech, hysterically paranoid \"safe\" cities and \"bubble\" communities where invasive technologies are rejected. A \"bubble\" representative moves with her daughter for a year of negotiations and life in the big city. While the mother tries to negotiate better treatment of the bubbles, her daughter struggles to adapt to school life, its social oddities, and the pervasive technologies around her.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "security vs. freedom", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story confronts the viewer with this central question: To what extent should we accept privacy-invasive technologies in the name of security from threats such as terrorist attacks?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "official scapegoating in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Irene accused a city government official of using the people living in invasive-technology-free bubbles as scapegoats to justify their policy positions. In general, we are invited to reflect on the extent to which the city government was using threats from possibly nonexistent terrorists to justify the use of privacy-invasive technologies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Foster's relationship with her mother went downhill after they moved to the big city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near-future metropolis where virtually everyone wears a personal tracking device known as a Dex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Foster trying to settle in at her new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virtually everyone lived under the perception they were under constant threat from terrorist attacks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that Simi corp had manipulated Foster into attempting a suicide bombing on her school as part of a nefarious plot to prepare the way for their privacy-invasive technologies to become evermore accepted in society. In the end we learn that the Simi corporation was nefariously using its access to people in order to stage terrorist attacks and manipulate public opinion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Foster had the stereotypical fitting-in problems of a young person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw hallmarks of a society that was sliding into totalitarianism. For example, Irene said that the government reported fake terrorist attacks in order to justify their own oppressive rule. And in class, the kids were indoctrinated with fear of terrorism. In the end, legislation was passed that made personal monitoring technology mandatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw hallmarks of a society that was sliding into totalitarianism. For example, Irene said that the government reported fake terrorist attacks in order to justify their own oppressive rule. In class, the kids were indoctrinated with fear of terrorism. In the end, legislation was passed that made personal monitoring technology mandatory.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surveillance capitalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simi corp was using their wristband surveillance technology to further their own corporate goals.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Milena befriended Foster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Foster wondered if she was going crazy, hearing voices, just like her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Foster betrayed her mother, who looked notably bewildered as she was arrested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hearing voices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Foster at times questioned whether the customer service assistant might just have been a voice in her head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between conflicting loyalties", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Forster chose the state over her mother in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "pkded1x10", "title": "Kill All Others", "date": "2018-03-19", "description": "In the near future, video advertising is everywhere. North America is a single nation with a single presidential Candidate. Philbert Noyce is less than enthusiastic about consumerism and is a low-motivation Q.A. worker on a production line. During the Candidate's speech one night, Philbert hears her utter the words \"kill all others\" while those words flash on the screen. Few others have seen or heard the message but many are affected by it. Only one of Philbert's co-workers believes what he says about the message and the political system. Eventually, Philbert is driven onto an ad where a hanging victim has been left, lambasting the government's callousness, and declares that everyone is an \"Other\".", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-electricdreams.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All aspects of society was controlled by the single \"candidate\" in the upcoming election. Elections were about national unity. People who did not subscribe to approved ideas became \"others\" and were persecuted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass surveillance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philbert found he wasn't private even in his bedroom. Later his wrist watch monitored him intimately. At work they were all closely scrutinized and political speech censored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philbert was repeatedly told he ought to buy stuff in order to cheer himself up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philbert eventually started ranting about a government conspiracy and although he was probably right he was treated as a lunatic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philbert went bonkers as things became more and more surreal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philbert and Maggie Noyce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "official scapegoating in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A presidential candidate stoked hatred against people they labeled as \"others\" presumably in an effort to distract the public from her government's one party, mass surveilling ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were only three workers at Philbert's factory and we were told they were probably just kept around for show.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various people, Philbert's coworkers most notably, took a marked disinterest in the politics of their megastate of residence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philbert was so old-fashioned that he refused to use voice controls and didn't even own a self-driving car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were enticed into buying products in order to get sexy holograms that then bugged them about buying more. People were receiving subliminal political messages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Those super-holograms were apparently able to provide sexual services to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the unappreciated and unimportant at the workplace", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philbert was working a job he didn't care about.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative subliminal stimuli", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The message \"kill all others\" first appeared to be a subliminal message inserted into TV media, though later on it was more overtly disseminated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philbert was put off to find his wife sharing the sofa with a hologram of a sexy foreign man selling coffee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point was made that the society having self-driving cars as well as trains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political purge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The killing of \"others\" seemed like it might have been a purge of dissidents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philbert was made to question his own sanity during a government interrogation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)", "title": "Deep Blue Sea 2", "date": "2018-04-17", "description": "In the film, a shark conservationist is hired to consult on a top-secret project involving genetically-enhanced bull sharks funded by a pharmaceutical billionaire. However, the highly intelligent super-sharks turn on their masters and begin to pick them off one by one. It is a stand-alone sequel to the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea.", "collections": [ "Collection: Deep Blue Sea" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_Sea_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The people trapped in the sea-based facility were being terrorized by multiple genetically engineered bull sharks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a pharmaceutical billionaire's use of DNA altering drugs to create a number of highly intelligent bull sharks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant used DNA altering drugs to genetically modify the brains of five bull sharks to make them smarter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligence augmentation technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant used an experimental DNA altering liquid to make himself more intelligent. He used the same drug to increase the shark Bella's intelligence by a thousand fold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shark conservationist Misty Calhoun gave a presentation on the importance of protecting these apex predators of the sea.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "newlywed couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The newly married neurobiology students Daniel and Leslie Kim were in the honeymoon phase of their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel had kept secret for seven months from his wife, Leslie, that he'd given the shady pharmaceutical billionaire access to some of her neurobiological research to her dismay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Messiah complex", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of the specialists that Carl Durant brought to work at his sea-based facility pointedly accused him of thinking himself the savior of the human race - an accusation that Carl did not deny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder about whether the pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant was justified in having his employees sign what were perhaps onerous nondisclosure agreements to protect his trade secrets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carl Durant believed that humanity was on the verge of becoming obsolete due to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel was found in a catatonic state in the wake of his wife having been eaten by a shark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trent worked as a shark trainer at the sea-based facility. Aaron worked as a computer technician at the sea-based facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant directly oversaw the work the specialists that he'd brought in to work at his sea-based facility. Carl moreover forced his employee Trent to sign what was in Trent's view an onerous nondisclosure agreements in an effort to protect his trade secrets.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)", "title": "Avengers: Infinity War", "date": "2018-04-23", "description": "The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy attempt to prevent Thanos from collecting the six all-powerful Infinity Stones as part of his quest to kill half of all life in the universe. It is the sequel to The Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers:_Infinity_War" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy joined forces in an effort to prevent Thanos from destroying half of all life in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thanos planned to guarantee the survival of a universe threatened by overpopulation by destroying half of all life in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of valuing human lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thanos planned to guarantee the survival of a universe threatened by overpopulation by destroying half of all life in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thanos planned to guarantee the survival of a universe threatened by overpopulation by destroying half of all life in it. Those who lived and who died were left to chance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thanos intercepted a large spacecraft carrying the survivors of Asgard's destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Norse mythology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loki explained that he was the trickster god (from Norse mythology) to Thanos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor watched helplessly as Thanos dispatched his brother Loki.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk tried with all his might to overpower Thanos but failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange had the ability to conjure portals that he stepped through to move from place to place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Iron Man and War Machine suits. Sam had a pair of mechanical wings that enabled him to fly around like a bird.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony revealed that the new version of his Iron Man suit was nanotech-based.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Groot was playing an early 90s era handheld video game console.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "plant-like being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tree-like humanoid Groot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "empathic being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mantis could feel the emotions of those she came into physical contact with.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was explained that the raccoon Rocket was genetically and cybernetically modified to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborg Vision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film features multiple space aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor sought to avenge the death of his brother Loki at the hands of Thanos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gamora tried as she might to prevent her adoptive father Thanos from wiping out half of all life in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gamora thought she's succeeded in taking her adoptive father Thanos' life, but it turned out to be an elaborate illusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill and Gamora proclaimed their love for one another in front of Drax.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bucky received a new bionic arm from the Wakandans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony, Doctor Strange, and Peter Parker traveled from Earth to the distant planet Titan in a ring shaped spacecraft. Various other spaceships were zipping around the galaxy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter Quill and Gamora were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thanos reluctantly hurled his adoptive daughter Gamora over the side of a cliff to her death, because he needed to sacrifice someone he loved in order to obtain the Soul Stone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve's team was getting around a futuristic aircraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Wakandan was shown using a device to generate a hologram from a small device on their palm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steve Rogers was reunited with his old friend Bucky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vision urged Wanda to destroy him and the Mind Stone to keep Thanos from using it to kill half of all life in the universe, and while she ultimately did so, it didn't prevent Thanos from achieving his objective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nebula was being tortured by her adoptive father Thanos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Doctor Strange used the Time Stone to peer into millions of possible futures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Iron Man suit. The Spider Man suit. Black Panther suit. The War machine suit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deadpool 2 (2018)", "title": "Deadpool 2", "date": "2018-05-10", "description": "DIn the film, Deadpool forms the X-Force to protect a young mutant from the time-traveling soldier Cable. It is the eleventh installment in the X-Men film series, and is the sequel to 2016's Deadpool.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool_2" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "choice", "motivation": "We are given to understand that no matter how damaged Deadpool becomes, his body will eventually reconstitute itself. He survived drinking poison and jumping off a tall building, being mauled by lions, and torn in two, and much more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Wade had nothing to live for after his longtime girlfriend was shot dead and he spent the entire film longing to be reunited with her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Russell was an unloved orphan who was in need of family and friends. Wade summed up the story at the end by saying that we all need to belong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are given to understand that no matter how damaged Deadpool becomes, his body will eventually reconstitute itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There were numerous innuendos made about Wade's societal norm challenging sexual preferences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cybernetic soldier Cable traveled from the future to kill the plus sized mutant boy Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cable was a cybernetically augmented supersoldier from the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plus sized mutant boy Russell was consumed with a desire to kill the head master at his old orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Growing up as an unloved orphan, made the plus sized mutant boy Russell into such a murderous monster that a supersoldier was sent from the future to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade longed to die after his longtime girlfriend was shot dead, but he was unable to kill himself, because his body would automatically regenerate itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade longed to die after his longtime girlfriend was shot dead, but he was unable to kill himself, because his body would automatically regenerate itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Wade gave his life to prove to Russell that there were people in the world who cared about the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of smoking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade told a woman that smoking was bad for her health before he went on a killing spree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flagrant break of the fourth wall, Wade openly expressed resentment toward Wolverine and Captain America over plying second fiddle to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade longtime girlfriend Vanessa was shot dead by some gangster just when they'd gotten their lives together and decided to start on a family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A blind woman pointed a gun the wrong way when Wade surprised her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Negasonic Teenage Warhead's girlfriend was her fellow X-man Yukio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colossus took it upon himself to befriend Wade when he was at his lowest point and help him her back on his feet. When that didn't work out he make friends with the plus sized mutant boy Russell in prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cybernetic soldier Cable traveled from the future to kill the plus sized mutant boy Russell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The X-Force member Vanisher was invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade pointed out that the name X-men is sexist, and thereafter named his own team of mutants as the X-force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Wade tried to commit suicide by several means when he was down in the dumps.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphans in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both Russell and Domino had terrible experiences growing up in an orphanage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colossus was super strong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pedophiles", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was insinuated that Russell's head master at the orphanage had molested him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The plus sized mutant boy Russell could shoot fireballs from his fists.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)", "title": "Solo: A Star Wars Story", "date": "2018-05-10", "description": "The story takes place approximately ten years prior to the events of A New Hope, and explores the early adventures of Han Solo and Chewbacca, who join a heist within the criminal underworld. It is the second Star Wars anthology film following Rogue One (2016).", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo:_A_Star_Wars_Story" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "lonewolf way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Han Solo and Tobias Beckett exemplified this lifestyle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Han and Chewbacca. Lando and L3-37.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Han and Qi'ra. Tobias Beckett and Val.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were flying around in space all over the galaxy - typical space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tobaias told Han to assume that everyone would betray you, and then low and behold Tobias betrayed Han in the end. Lando abandoned Han and the other when they appeared to get ambushed by marauders. Qi'ra betrayed Dryden Vos. And in a final twist Qi'ra betrayed Han.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Han ended up helping some rebels who were trying to strike back at the syndicates and the Empire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Han driving a hover car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tobias Beckett and Val.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando's droid navigator L3-37.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando's droid navigator L3-37 advocated for equal right for robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chewbacca took it upon itself to liberate his fellow Wookies who were enslaved in the coaxium ore mines of Kessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lando was hit hard by the death of his droid navigator L3-37.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A gigantic, tentacled, many eyed spaceborne beast attacked the Millennium Falcon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It became evident toward the end of the film that Dryden Vos was into the dark side of the Force, since he was using neon red blade weapons. Then the cat was out of the bag when Qi'ra reported to Vos' superior the Sith lord Maul.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)", "title": "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle", "date": "2018-05-18", "description": "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (GODZILLA 決戦機動増殖都市, Gojira: Kessen Kidō Zōshoku Toshi) is a 2018 Japanese computer-animated kaiju film directed by Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, written by Gen Urobuchi, and produced by Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures, in association with Netflix. It is the 33rd film in the Godzilla franchise, the 31st Godzilla film produced by Toho, the second entry in the franchise's anime trilogy, and the third film in the franchise's Reiwa period.\n\nSynopsis: A sequel to the 2017 film Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the film continues the story of humans fighting to reclaim the Earth from Godzilla, this time with the help of a weapon known as Mechagodzilla.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_City_on_the_Edge_of_Battle" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular giant dinosaur-like creature Godzilla had taken dominion over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of humans we fighting to reclaim the Earth from the giant dinosaur-like, heat ray shooting creature Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parts of the film are set aboard the futuristic, interstellar travel capable spacecraft Aratum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo and his party wore special suits that protected them from Earth's now toxic atmosphere.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo periodically examined a greenish holographic map that emanated from the glove of his environmental suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The identical twin Houtua girls Maina and Miana were inseparable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The twin girls Maina and Miana twins communicated telepathically with Haruo and his party at one point.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious Exif and warrior Biluodoso humanoid aliens were helping the humans in their fight against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophesy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies received a cryptic prophesy pertaining to Godzilla through his green, glowing crystal from what he assumed to be his god.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fight vs. flee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Haruo gave those under his command this choice to make: Board one of the escape vessels and flee Earth to the safety of the mothership or stay behind to battle Godzilla in an effort to reclaim the Earth for humanity. Nearly all of them decided to stay and fight Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuko was walking around in the forest in a large humanoid mecha robot. Haruo, Yuko, and one of the Bilusaludo aliens piloted vulture-like flying robots in the final battle against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Godzilla and other monsters had somehow arrived in part owing to increasing pollution and environmental degradation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Godzilla and other monsters had somehow arrived in part owing to carbon dioxide mediated global warming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was said that Godzilla and other monsters had somehow arrived in part owing to nuclear weapons testing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "According to the \"accepted theory\", repeated human-caused environmental damage from pollution, global warming, and nuclear tests had brought the arrival of such Earth ravaging monsters as Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuko assured her commander, Haruo, that she would follow him and fight at his side no matter that happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yuko professed her love to Haruo and kissed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies spoke of how his home world had been destroyed by a tremendously powerful monster named Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-replicating gray goo consuming the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies warned everyone that the nanometal, an evolving nanotechnological metal that'd been used to create Mechagodzilla, was poised to proliferate over the whole Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The self-replicating, evolving metal that'd been used to create Mechagodzilla some 20 millennia prior was used by Haruo and his party in their fight against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)", "title": "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom", "date": "2018-05-21", "description": "Set on the fictional Central American island of Isla Nublar, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, it follows Owen Grady and Claire Dearing as they rescue the remaining dinosaurs before a volcanic eruption destroys it. It is the fifth installment of the Jurassic Park film series, and the second film in the Jurassic World trilogy.", "collections": [ "Collection: Jurassic Park" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World:_Fallen_Kingdom" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "living dinosaur", "level": "major", "motivation": "Isla Nublar was an island filled with dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film centered on the question of whether humans should intervene to save the de-extinced dinosaurs on Isla Nublar island form going re-extinct because of an impending volcanic cataclysm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bringing back extinct species", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dinosaurs living on Isla Nublar were brought back from extinction using genetic engineering techniques.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people versus the dinosaurs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Henry Wu genetically engineered the Indoraptor, a new genetically-modified dinosaur created by using Indominus rex and Velociraptor DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genetic engineering in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether it is justifiable to use genetic engineering to reintroduce extinct species into the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eli Mills hatched a nefarious plot to genetically engineer dinosaurs that were obedient to commands that could be used in war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "A corporation was developing genetically engineered, weaponized dinosaur to be sold on the black market to the highest bidder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Scientists reintroduced genetically engineered dinosaurs into the world and they ran amok.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "major", "motivation": "Consumed with avarice and ambition, Eli Mills hatched a plot to cash in by selling dinosaurs as weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. speculative environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clare and Owen were part of a team that was tasked to transport dinosaurs off Isla Nublar while a volcano was erupting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare was briefly involved with a group of activists who were working to save dinosaurs on Isla Nublar island from going re-extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sir Benjamin Lockwood and his pre-teen granddaughter Maisie Lockwood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. natural disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clare and Owen were part of a team that was tasked to transport dinosaurs off Isla Nublar while a volcano was erupting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Maisie had been cloned from her grandfather's DNA.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: AntMan and the Wasp (2018)", "title": "Ant-Man and the Wasp", "date": "2018-06-25", "description": "In Ant-Man and the Wasp, the titular pair work with Hank Pym to retrieve Janet van Dyne from the quantum realm. It is the sequel to Ant-Man (2015) and the 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant-Man_and_the_Wasp" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film is the Hank Pym invented technology that can be used to shrink things down in size. Most notably there is the Ant-Man and Wasp suits which shrink their wearers down to the size of an ant. But also of note is this film is Hank's portable, shrunken laboratory and his collection of shrunken Hot Wheels-like cars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Misadventure ensued when Scott used the Ant-Man suit to shrink to ant-sized proportions. Hope used the Wasp suit to shrink to ant-sized proportions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Hank Pym and his daughter Hope as their attempt to rescue Hank's wife from the quantum realm where she'd been trapped for the past 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hank Pym invented the the Ant-Man suit: a suit allows its wearer to shrink in size but increase in strength. He was also responsible for inventing the Wasp suit: a suit much like the Ant-Man suit but with insect-like wings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The reformed criminal Scott was trying to be a responsible parent to his young daughter Cassie. Hank Pym and his daughter Hope were working together to rescue Hank's wife (who was likewise Hope's mother) from the quantum realm where she'd been trapped for the past 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing rivalry going on between Hank Pym and his assistant on Project Goliath, Bill Foster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminates with Hank Pym and his daughter Hope being reunited with his wife Janet (Hope's mother) after having been separated for a span of 30 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maggie and her young daughter Cassie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matter manipulating technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank Pym invented a way to grow things in size. For example, he enlarged ants to the size of people and put them to work in his laboratory. He also man an experimental Ant-Man suit that allowed its wearer to grow to be up to at least 80 to 85 feet in height.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black markets", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank and Hope were relying on the black market dealer in illegal technology Sonny Burch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ava had the ability to phase through solid objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "truth inducing technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Sonny Burch's operatives administered what amounted to a truth serum to Luis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I grew in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott grew to be about 80 to 85 feet tall at one point in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank Pym invented a special two person conveyance in which to navigate the quantum realm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ava lived in constant pain as a result of her being able to pas through solid objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stage magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott was studying card and other magic tricks at an online university.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Predator (2018)", "title": "The Predator", "date": "2018-09-06", "description": "The film follows a ragtag band of fugitive soldiers who must fight off an invading pair of Predators. It is the fourth installment in the Predator franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Predator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Predator_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two Predator aliens came to Earth and caused a lot of trouble.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Stargazer Project was a secret government project to study the Predator aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quinn was using a Predator issue invisibility cloak that he recovered from the crash site of one of their spaceships. The big Predator also used an invisibility cloak from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Quinn reunited with his young son Royce while he and his band of fugitive solders were fighting the Predators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The boy genius Rory got to go around fighting Predators with bad ass father Quinn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Predator crash landed on Earth in a futuristic spaceship. It was followed by another similar vessel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vision beyond the visible spectrum glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Predators used helmets that allowed them to see in infrared.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quinn and her team were attacked by a pack of Predator hunting dogs-like beasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was remarked that Quinn suffered from PTSD owing to his time fighting overseas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Casey deduced that the Predators were plotting to colonize Earth within a generation or two after which climate change was going to make the planet uninhabitable for humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rory and his mother Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quinn and his estranged wife Emily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being hunted like an animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toward the end of the film, one of the Predators gave Quinn and his team a head start before it tried to hunt them down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting people for sport", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Toward the end of the film, one of the Predators gave Quinn and his team a head start before it tried to hunt them down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quinn paid tribute to his fallen comrades at the film's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Quinn obtaining a powerful, Predator style exoskeleton suit.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)", "title": "Godzilla: The Planet Eater", "date": "2018-11-03", "description": "Godzilla: The Planet Eater (GODZILLA 星を喰う者, Gojira: Hoshi o Kū Mono) is a 2018 Japanese computer-animated kaiju film directed by Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, written by Gen Urobuchi, and produced and animated by Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures, in association with Netflix. It is the 34th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 32nd Godzilla film produced by Toho, the final film in the franchise's anime trilogy, and the fourth film in the franchise's Reiwa period.\n\nSynopsis: A remnant of humanity, their extraterrestrial allies, and Godzilla battle to survive against King Ghidorah.", "collections": [ "Collection: Giant monster films", "Collection: Godzilla" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_The_Planet_Eater" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular giant dinosaur-like creature Godzilla had taken dominion over the Earth. The giant three-headed dragon-like creature Ghidorah attacked the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of humans we fighting to reclaim the Earth from the giant dinosaur-like, heat ray shooting creature Godzilla and later the giant three-headed dragon-like creature Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religion as a control mechanism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Metphies used religion to dupe the men under Haruo's command into following Metphies' insane plan to bring the giant three-headed dragon-like monster Ghidorah to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was Metphies' fanatical devotion to the god of the Exif people, the giant three-headed dragon-like creature Ghidorah. It turned out that the Houtua worshiped the giant moth Mothra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert alien observers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mephites revealed that his alien people had been secretly watching the people of Earth since the dawn of civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies prophesied that Haruo would be a hero to humanity, and so he did by sacrificing himself in the end to rid the world of Godzilla once and for all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were using greenish, holographic screens here and there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of how Godzilla appeared in part as a response to nuclear weapons tests.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parts of the film are set aboard the futuristic, interstellar travel capable spacecraft Aratum.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mechagodzilla City was made both by and out of nanomachines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The religious Exif and warrior Biluodoso humanoid aliens were helping the humans in their fight against Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divine retribution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Haruo's men asserted that Yuko's coma-like fate was a divine punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious prophet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies became as a prophet to the easy to believe men under Haruo's command.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miracle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of Haruo's men considered it a miracle that his life was spared by Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miana conversed with Metphies telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "identical twins", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The identical twin Houtua girls Maina and Miana shared a special bond.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Metphies knowingly sacrificed his followers to Ghidorah.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rebuilding society after a disaster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humans and the Houtua were depicted building a new society together after Ghidorah had been vanquished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Haruo provoked Godzilla into destroying him and all traces of the living nanometal for the good of the Houtua.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 20 (2018)", "title": "2.0", "date": "2018-11-29", "description": "The film follows the conflict between Chitti, the once dismantled humanoid robot, and Pakshi Rajan, a former ornithologist who seeks vengeance upon cell phone users to prevent avian population decline. It is the second installment in the Enthiran franchise.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.0_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chitti is a humanoid robot with superhuman powers created by Vaseegaran. The domestic and feminine humanoid robot Nila was also created by Vaseegaran.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social change due to new technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film provided a commentary on everyone being glued to their smart phones all the time. In particular, we saw chaos and confusion break out all over the city of Chennai after everyones cell phones literally flew away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film provided a commentary on everyone being glued to their smart phones all the time. In particular, we saw chaos and confusion break out all over the city of Chennai after everyones cell phones literally flew away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of Chennai were attacked by their cell phones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chitti, a superhero android, has an assortment of superhuman abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "One message of the film is that cell phone towers do harm to the environment. In particular, Pakshi Rajan was obsessed with the idea that cell phone towers were harming birds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "endangered species", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pakshi Rajan was convinced that cell phone towers were making birds go extinct.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pakshi Rajan returned from the dead intent on killing all cell phone users.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vaseegaran and Chitti. Vaseegaran and Nila.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film concluded with Vaseegaran explaining how we must strike a balance between preserving nature and spreading technology around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vaseegaran was pestered by his girlfriend Sana on a phone call.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "search for extraterrestrial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how a signal, presumably for extraterrestrials to detect, was sent into space from India.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chitti had the ability to effortlessly lift very heavy things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Environmental activist Pakshi Rajan hanged himself on a cell phone tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Motivated by a desire to prevent the death of birds, Pakshi Rajan made a failed attempt to start up a grassroots movement to stop the building of new cell phone towers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A high level government official was exposed for accepting bribes from telecom companies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mystical aura", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that Pakshi Rajan was able to return from the dead owing to his unusually strong aura.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Chitti and Nila getting together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pakshi Rajan hatched some or another plot to use radiation to kill thousands of people gathered together in a soccer stadium.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan: Into the SpiderVerse (2018)", "title": "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", "date": "2018-12-01", "description": "Miles Morales joins other Spider-Men from various dimensions who team up to save New York City from Kingpin. It is the first animated feature film in the Spider-Man franchise, and is set in a shared multiverse called the \"Spider- Verse\", which has alternate universes.", "collections": [ "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Into_the_Spider-Verse" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles acquired the strength of a man-sized spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kingpin was in control of a big machine that allowed him to access other universes that were similar enough to his own to contain other versions of Spider-Man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter B. Parker reluctantly took Miles under his wing and taught how to do Spider-Man stuff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kingpin was obsessed with using the Big Collider gizmo to fetch replacements for his deceased wife and daughter from another universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles could turn himself invisible. At first it only happened when he was under stress, but he ultimately learned to control it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles and his law abiding, police office father didn't always see eye to eye, but they came to respect each other by the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Miles stepped up to the task and saved New York City from Kingpin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "with great power comes great responsibility", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Token homage was paid to this classic Spidy aphorism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles looked up to his bad ass uncle Aaron Davis who turned out to be the Prowler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and his caring mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Miles adjust to life at his new elite high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter B. Parker was an aging, out of shape, not over his divorce, given up on being a hero man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aunt May was united with Peter Parker from another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles' parents were worried sick, thinking Miles had run away, but in reality he was saving New York City from Kingpin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles and his dad mourned the death of Miles' uncle Aaron (a.k.a the Prowler).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The supervillain Scorpion was half man, half mechanical scorpion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miles' police officer father didn't care for Spider-Man's vigilante approach to justice.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bumblebee (2018)", "title": "Bumblebee", "date": "2018-12-03", "description": "Bumblebee is a 2018 American science fiction action film centered on the Transformers character of the same name. It is the sixth installment of the live-action Transformers film series.", "collections": [ "Collection: Transformers" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The teenage girl Charlie befriended Bumblebee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a conflict between two factions (the Autobots and the Decpticons) of extraterrestrial, sentient self-configuring modular robots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie had a strained relationship with her mother Sally.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie didn't get along with her soon-to-be stepfather, Ron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie and her little brother Otis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie grappled with the death of her biological father throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sally and Ron. Also a man named Roy tried to sleep with his wife's sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Charlie was rebelling against her mother and soon-to-be step dad throughout the film. She repeatedly clashed with them and obtained a car, which turned out to be Bumblebee, without their permission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "A pair of Decepticons were hunting down Bumblebee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bumblebee's memory cells got completely fried, lost all his memories as a result, and had to piece together what his mission was on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Memo gradually won over Charlie over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Memo gradually won over Charlie over the course of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should the military officials trust their Decepticon \"peacekeeper\" visitors from space? Dr. Powell naively though yes, but Agent Burns took a more skeptical view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent Burns and the military versus the Decepticons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It became apparent that the Decepticons were going to burn Earth to a cinder unless Charlie and Bumblebee could stop them from sending a transmission back to the planet Cybertron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Various transformers, including Bubblebee, crash landed on Earth en route from the planet Cybertron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie reconciled with her parents at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sally and her young son Otis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlie, Bumblebee, and Memo toilet papered and egged a mean-spirited classmate of Charlie's after she made some disparaging remark about Charlie not having a dad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lovers' quarrel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man named Roy was getting berated by his wife over him having attempted to sleep with her sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned that a man named Roy had tried to sleep with his wife's sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent Burns and Dr. Powell initiated first contact with the Deceptions when the arrived on Earth. Agent Burns was mistrustful of them, while Dr. Powell took a naively friendly tact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Charlie bidding a tearful farewell to her friend Bumblebee.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Alita: Battle Angel (2019)", "title": "Alita: Battle Angel", "date": "2019-01-31", "description": "A cyborg awakens in a new body with no memory and sets out to learn her destiny.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alita:_Battle_Angel" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alita, the heroine of the story, was a cyborg and the film was set in a future where cyborgs coexisted with humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "floating city", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zalem, the last of the great sky cities, loomed over Iron City where most of the film took place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Something was made about elites living in the sky city Zalem which floated over top of everyone in Iron City. Hugo in particular was striving to make it up to Zalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alita woke up a new cyborg body with no memory of her past and spent the film piecing together who she was and where she came from.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ido revived Alita and treated her as a daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alita and Hugo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Ido was torn up inside over the murder of his daughter. Chiren, the mother, also grappled with the girl's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organ theft", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cyborgs of Iron City were sometimes attacked at time by criminals who were stealing their mechanical parts and appendages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alita and Hugo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hugo pursued his dream of moving the the sky city Zalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "star-crossed lovers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alita and Hugo's relationship ended tragically when he fell from the sky city Zalem to his death and Alita was powerless to stop it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nurse Gerhad had a robotic arm, as did various other people in the film, including a guitarist with three robotic arms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cyborgs died playing Motorball which was a popular spectator sport in Iron City.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "antimatter power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alita was powered by an anti-matter fueled heart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that all sky cities save for Zalem had fallen in a great war against the United Republics of Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "youth rebellion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alita had an independent streak in her and she defied her de facto father Dr. Ido by playing Motorball and becoming a registered bounty hunter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hugo was part jacking cyborgs on the streets in order to get enough money to move to the sky city Zalem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain disembodiment technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Chiren as a disembodied brain toward th end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Alita pledging vengeance against Nova by pointing her sword toward Zalem.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Wandering Earth (2019)", "title": "The Wandering Earth", "date": "2019-02-05", "description": "Set in the far future, the story follows a group of astronauts and rescue workers guiding the Earth away from an expanding Sun, while attempting to prevent a collision with Jupiter. It is loosely based on the 2000 novella of the same name by multi-award-winning author Liu Cixin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "expanding sun", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The United Earth Government initiated a project to migrate the earth out of the Solar System to the Alpha Centauri system when it became apparent that the sun was entering into its red giant phase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main characters in the story never gave up hope that the earth could be saved first from an expanding sun, and then from colliding with Jupiter in spite of the odds being slim to none against humanity's surviving these existential risks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story began with astronaut Liu Peiqiang promising his 4 year old son Liu Qi that he would return from a mission to a space station. The remainder of the film featured an adult Liu Qi grappling with the fact that his father had yet to fulfill his promise to return to earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liu Qi worked together with his grandfather Han Zi'ang to commandeer a gigantic truck. In the course of working together the grandfather shared his wisdom about life and memories of what the earth was like before the sun entered its red giant phase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Liu Qi and his adoptive teenage sister Han Duoduo as they helped to save the earth from colliding with Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "subterranean civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The people of earth were moved into about 10,000 underground cities while the planet was being migrated to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The entire earth was being flown out of the solar system to the Alpha Centauri system in a one way voyage that would take 2500 years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world ship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The earth itself was effectively being used as a spaceship to shuttle everyone on the planet to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "major", "motivation": "The United Earth Government was formed to manage the process of moving earth to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "When everyone else in the world resigned themselves to the bleak reality that earth would crash into Jupiter, Liu Qi and his adoptive sister Han Duoduo never gave up and in the end they found a way to save the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liu Peiqiang blew himself up in order to prevent the earth from colliding with Jupiter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a team of astronauts were placed into suspended animation aboard a space station at one point int he story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fusion power generators were used to power the massive engines that were propelling the earth. Entire mountains were being reduced to rubble in order to produce fuel for the fusion process.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An international team of astronauts worked on a space station to help with navigating the earth to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An artificial intelligence reminiscent of HAL 9000 oversaw many operations aboard the space station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Zi'ang looked back with sadness over how the tranquil life he used to have with his old girlfriend was all put lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembrance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Zi'ang looked back with sadness over how the tranquil life he used to have with his old girlfriend was all put lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underground city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people of earth were moved into about 10,000 underground cities while the planet was being migrated to the Alpha Centauri system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that the space station AI, named MOSS, ran amok and stopped following astronaut Liu Peiqiang's orders, although it turned out that MOSS was following orders from a higher authority in the world government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some people used robotic exoskeletons to to manual labor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Duoduo mourned the tragic death of her adoptive grandfather Han Zi'ang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Han Duoduo mourned the tragic death of her adoptive grandfather Han Zi'ang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liu Qi was able to say his last goodbyes to his father Liu Peiqiang before Peiqiang blew himself up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Captain Marvel (2019)", "title": "Captain Marvel", "date": "2019-02-27", "description": "The story follows Danvers as she becomes Captain Marvel after Earth is caught in the center of a galactic conflict between two alien civilizations. It is the 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danvers couldn't remember anything about her life beyond the six years that she'd been on the Kree home world, and she spent the duration of the film trying to piece together her past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth became caught in the center of a galactic conflict between two alien civilizations: the Kree and the Skrulls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the Skrulls' innate ability to transform into other organisms down to the DNA level.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "Earth became caught in the center of a galactic conflict between two alien civilizations: the Kree and the Skrulls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "The superhero protagonist Vars relied on her super human strength to deal with her various antagonists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danvers was dismayed to learn that the Kree Empire, of whose military she was an elite soldier, was stamping out the Skrulls because they would not willingly submit to Kree rule.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danvers was reunited with her longtime bestie Maria Rambeau.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine regulated society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kree society was ruled by a powerful artificial intelligence known as the Supreme Intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kree society was ruled by a powerful artificial intelligence known as the Supreme Intelligence. The said intelligence sometimes manifested itself in Kree form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vars had the ability to project blasts of energy from her hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film was in part set aboard futuristic alien spaceships. A Skrull alien jury-rigged an advanced U.S. Air Force jet so that Danvers and her party could fly it up into orbit around the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kree and the Skrulls both traveled to Earth in futuristic spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kree used nifty communication devices that projected holograms of the people communicating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danvers' memories were extracted and stored in a crystal of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Project Pegasus was a U.S. Air Force secret project aimed at developing a light-speed engine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria Rambeau and her kid daughter Monica.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Talos was reunited with his wife and child. Danvers was reunited with her old best friend Maria, who was under the assumption that Danvers had died in a fiery plane crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danvers was flying around in Superman style at one point toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x01", "title": "Sonnie's Edge", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "In dystopian London, a young woman named Sonnie participates in underground \"Beastie\" fights — remotely controlled bio-engineered gladiator beast battles. The ringmaster, Dicko, attempts to bribe Sonnie to throw the match, but she declines. Her teammates Wes and Ivrina explain that Sonnie was sexually assaulted and mutilated in the past; her desire for revenge eventually becomes her \"edge\". Sonnie enters the arena piloting her beast Khanivore, to fight the opponent, Turboraptor. After a brutal match, Khanivore wins. Later, Dicko's mistress visits Sonnie and seduces her, only to impale Sonnie's head with a concealed weapon. Dicko then reveals himself and taunts Sonnie, asking if she is scared now. The mistress then stomps at Sonnie's head, crushing it. However, Sonnie's voice is heard through surrounding speakers, revealing that her human body is only a 'bioware processor spliced to a spine' and that her consciousness was always inside Khanivore, the fear of death in combat being her real \"edge\". Sonnie as Khanivore breaks out of her holding tank and kills the mistress, then prepares to kill Dicko. The screen fades to black as she asks: \"Are you scared now?\" mirroring Dicko's question.\n\nCast: Helen Sadler, Hayley McLaughlin, Time Winters, Omid Abtahi, Christine Adams, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Braden Lynch\n\nDirected by: Dave Wilson.\n\nStory by: Peter F. Hamilton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blood sports", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around a combat league where mind-controlled reptilian beasts are made to battle each other in mortal combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "combat sports", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around a combat league where mind-controlled reptilian beasts are made to battle each other in mortal combat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "match fixing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ringmaster Dicko tried to compel Sonnie into throwing her upcoming beastie fighting match. Sonnie refused and the rest of the story concerns the repercussions of this decision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sonnie had been raped and mutilated by a gang in the past and was therefore filled with hatred. This hatred was wrongly thought to be what gave Sonnie her titular \"edge\" in the reptilian beast combat league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the story was that Sonnie's fear of dying in combat was the secret to her success in the reptilian beast fighting league.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The surprise twist to the story is that Sonnie the human was, in fact, not controlling the beast at all. It was the other way around because Sonnie's mind had been transferred into the beast after a gruesome assault that left her body beyond repair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonnie showed that she could mind-control reptilian beasts in fights to the death just as well or better than any man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a short back and forth over whether women beastie controllers were better than their men counterparts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Scottish ring announcer sporting a mutton chops beard turned out to be a hologram.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that Sonnie was nothing but \"a couple of bioware processors spliced to a spine\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "integrity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonnie was offered a huge amount of money to take a dive, but categorically refused to do so, citing principles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sonnie had been raped and mutilated in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x02", "title": "Three Robots", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Long after the fall of humanity, three robots (K-VRC, XBOT 4000, and 11-45-G) wander through a post-apocalyptic city, exploring first-hand how humans lived based on the things they left behind. They investigate human sports, nutritional consumption, and eventually pets when they encounter a living cat, which proceeds to follow them. The three robots learn about their origins and later arrive at what appears to be a nuclear missile base. 11-45-G explains that humans died out from environmental disasters caused by their own actions, while K-VRC states that at one point, humans genetically engineered their cats, giving them intelligence. The cat then proves this by showing it can speak, demanding to be petted, while many other cats in the base corner the three robots.\n\nCast: Josh Brener as K-VRC, Gary Anthony Williams as XBOT 4000, Chris Parnell as the Cats\n\nDirected by: Victor Maldonado & Alfredo Torres.\n\nStory by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a world where humanity had recently gone extinct, a trio of robots toured the ruins of a once thriving metropolis. The robots were very curious about human customs and culture, but invariably got the wrong idea about what everyday life was like for humans (e.g., sports, food intake, and a fascination with cats), owing to their interpreting what they saw from a robot perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story takes place in the ruins of a world where humanity had recently gone extinct due to its own actions. For example, the idea was entertained that humanity perished in either a nuclear conflagration or from an self-inflicted ecological catastrophe. The cat explained that humanity genetically engineering cats to have opposable thumbs played a role in humanity extinction. The demise of humanity might have come about from a combination of all three.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows three robot friends, two of whom were humanoid in form, as they tour an utterly destroyed city that was formerly inhabited by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fusion power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robots were powered by fusion batteries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat revealed that humans had genetically engineered cats to have opposable thumbs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three robots visiting a nuclear warhead facility compels the viewer to question whether humanity was annihilated in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robot 11-45-G explained that that humans had died out from environmental disasters caused by their own actions. The details are otherwise left vague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat explained that humanity genetically engineering cats to have opposable thumbs played a role in humanity extinction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the origin of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One robot joked about humans having been made by an unfathomable creator. It then explained that they actually originated from a very hot soup.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robots encountered a species of talking cat.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x03", "title": "The Witness", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A man murders a woman in an apartment in Hong Kong. He then realizes that a woman in the hotel across the street, identical to his victim, has witnessed the murder. He starts to chase her. The woman flees to a fetish club where she works as a dancer under the alias Zawora. The man enters the club, guided by the host. During her dance, she sees the man in the audience and he chases her through the city streets. The woman steals a gun and hides in an apartment, but the man finds and corners her. They proceed to fight over the gun, with the woman ending up shooting the man dead. She then realizes that a man in the hotel across the street, identical to her victim, has witnessed the murder, implying a time loop.\n\nCast: Emily O'Brien, Ben Sullivan, Matt Yang King, Nolan North, Anastasia Foster\n\nDirected by: Alberto Mielgo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I became witness to a crime", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around a woman whose day was turned completely upside down after she accidentally witnessed a murder in a hotel room across the street from her apartment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The plot turns on a woman witnessing a man commit a murder in the hotel room across the street from her apartment. The story concludes with the revelation that she'd actually witnessed the man somehow murder herself. At the end it was clear that the sequence of events would unfold again but with their roles reversed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a woman who was desperately fleeing from a man who she'd earlier witnessed kill someone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story begins with the woman witnessing the man murdering someone who turns out to be herself, and concludes with the man witnessing the woman murder someone who turns out to be himself. The viewer is left to ponder whether the series of events would recur indefinitely in a kind of time loop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer must gather that the woman made a living from working at a local fetish brothel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The woman fled in a self-driving taxi after witnessing a murder.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x04", "title": "Suits", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A small community of farmers pilot mech suits to defend their land from an invading swarm of insectoids which they call \"DeeBees\". When the defense field fails, DeeBees pour in faster than they can be repelled, so the community heads for underground shelters. All arms are called in and one neighbor, Jake, sacrifices himself to kill a large portion of the swarm. A giant insectoid breaks through, but one of the farmers' wives destroys it with a well-aimed shot from a turret gun. Come dawn, the barriers are back to normal and the town has returned to a sense of safety. The camera zooms out to show that DeeBees populate the whole planet, and the farmers have set up isolated domed colonies across the planet.\n\nCast: Neil Kaplan, G. K. Bowes, Scott Whyte, Courtenay Taylor, Tudi Roche\n\nDirected by: Franck Balson.\n\nStory by: Steven Lewis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The farmers used heavily armed, humanoid walking vehicles to defend against swarms of hostile insectoid creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A community of farmers were fighting against insectoid creatures that threatened the planetary civilization that the farmers were part of. Although it is also possible, but never made clear, that the farmers had colonized the insectoids' planet, and that the insectoids' were defending themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hank and Beth were in a loving marriage, as were Helen and Jake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "farming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is mainly set on Hank and Beth's farm. There they cultivated corn, raised chicken and cattle, and defended their land from hostile insectoid creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a community of farmers trying to keep from being overrun by hoards of hostile insectoid creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hank and Beth called on their loyal neighbors to aid him in fighting the insectoid creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen mourned the death of her husband, Jake, who perished fighting the insectoid creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domed city", "level": "minor", "motivation": "At the end of the story it was revealed that the farmers lived inside a domed habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a final desperate and heroic move, Jake blew his fusion reactor in order to kill the insectoids off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a final desperate and heroic move, Jake blew his fusion reactor in order to kill the insectoids off.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x05", "title": "Sucker of Souls", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Flynn, a mercenary, and Dr. Wehunt, an archaeologist, escape through a tunnel, fleeing an unknown assailant. Moments before, Dr. Wehunt's intern, Simon, discovers a cave with inscriptions describing an \"eater of souls\". Suddenly, a demon devours Simon, then mutates into a larger, more bestial form. Flynn flees with Dr. Wehunt and informs his two employees Micky and Gary of the situation by radio. On their way, they are confronted by the demon, which is revealed to be Dracula. Although Dracula attempts to kill Flynn, it stops and retreats after seeing a cat. Dr. Wehunt explains that Dracula fears and hates cats. The two reunite with Micky and Gary in a chamber, but they are cut off from the main exit. When Dracula follows them, Dr. Wehunt finds another exit through a secret tunnel while the mercenaries set up explosives. The team escapes, and when Dracula re-enters the chamber, he is killed in the explosion. However, the tunnel leads the team to another chamber filled with similar vampires.\n\nCast: Michael Benyaer, Fred Tatasciore, Laura Waddell, Jonathan Cahill, Scott Whyte\n\nDirected by: Owen Sullivan.\n\nStory by: Kirsten Cross.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "An archeology expedition came face to face with the original Dracula, who turned out to be a huge grotesque monster, and only one of many at that.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vampire", "level": "major", "motivation": "An archeological expedition came face to face with the original Dracula, or so it was said.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "archaeology occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns an archeological expedition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x06", "title": "When the Yogurt Took Over", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A group of scientists mutates yogurt by fermenting bacteria. Although initial tests fail, a researcher takes the mutated bacteria home for her homemade yogurt, where it becomes sentient. The yogurt asks to meet US leaders, to whom it claims to have solutions for the country's problems. As payment, the yogurt requests control over the state of Ohio. The leaders, including the president, initially laugh at the offer, but accept it after the yogurt threatens to make a similar deal with China instead. Soon, the yogurt gives the president a plan to eradicate the United States national debt, warning him that any deviation will be catastrophic. The government cannot help but deviate, and the global economy collapses within 6 months except for Ohio. In desperation, the government gives the yogurt supreme executive power over much opposition. A decade later, humans live prosperous lives under the yogurt's reign. The yogurt suddenly decides to initiate space launches, leaving the humans behind on Earth.\n\nCast: Maurice LaMarche, Alexia Dox\n\nDirected by: Victor Maldonado & Alfredo Torres.\n\nStory by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story posits that yogurt bacteria somehow became sentient and subjugated humanity, but also also built a utopia for us.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruling elite utopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity handed over the reigns of government to the yogurt, and the yogurt went on to build a society in which people flourished and were prosperous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human civilization inadvertently created a yogurt bacterial that they became subservient to and utterly dependent upon. Then the yogurt left, leaving open the question of what would happen to humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutional risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Only Ohio, which was under the rule of the yogurt, was spared from the global economic collapse that unfolded.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "negotiation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The yogurt deftly negotiated a 100 year lease on Ohio from the United States government.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "socioeconomic issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President of the United States considered the national debt to be a serious problem. He put into effect the yogurt's plan to pay it off within a year. The result was catastrophe because they failed to follow the yogurt's plan in every detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with the yogurt beings departing Earth in several rockets to make a new life for themselves among the stars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x07", "title": "Beyond the Aquila Rift", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "The Blue Goose spaceship's crew members, Thom, Suzy, and Ray, are returning home from a successful mission, but an error in the hyperspace routing causes unexpected events to happen. Thom awakes from suspended animation and is greeted by Greta, an old flame. She tells him that he and his crew are hundreds of thousands of light-years from Earth, nearly beyond the Aquila Rift, and centuries have passed: there is no way for them to get home. They have sex and rekindle their relationship, but Thom is still in disbelief of the situation, especially after Suzy wakes up and hysterically claims that Greta is not real. He demands the truth from a tearful Greta, who tells him that his experiences are a simulation and that he is not ready to see reality, as she truly does care for him and all those who find their way there. He insists, so she reluctantly relents and awakens him. Thom is revealed to be an emaciated old man; their ship caught in an enormous web with countless others; his crew either dead or trapped in their own trances; and \"Greta\" an alien arachnid creature. As horrified Thom loses his mind from the encounter, \"Greta\" returns him to the dream world, minus his recent memories, just as she had with his crew and the others. She reawakens him and greets him all over again.\n\nCast: Henry Douthwaite, Madeleine Knight, Rebecca Banatvala, Delroy Brown, Grahame Fox\n\nDirected by: Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, Rémi Kozyra, Maxime Luère.\n\nStory by: Alastair Reynolds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A botched hyperspace jump left Thom and his crew hundreds to 150,000 light years off course with no prospect of getting back to their point of origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The alien spider-like creature kept Thom trapped in a virtual world ostensibly because it felt that he couldn't handle the grim reality of his situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blue Goose spaceship jumped through hyperspace with regrettably flaky precision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Thom did the nasty with a \"woman\" whom he assumed to be his old flame. It was later revealed that she was actually a freaky looking spider-like creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the revelation that Thom and his crew members were trapped in a simulated reality controlled by a spider-like alien being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "The former lovers Thom and Greta were reunited under the strangest of circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminates with the revelation that Thom and his crew members were trapped in a simulated reality controlled by a being that was vaguely spider-like in appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "insectoid being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story culminates with the revelation that Thom and his crew members were trapped in a simulated reality controlled by a being that was vaguely spider-like in appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suspended animation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blue Goose crew members entered into stasis pods before taking the jump through hyperspace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a low gravity environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thom and Greta fondly recalled the time they broke a hotel bed while doing the nasty in zero-gravity.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x08", "title": "Good Hunting", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "In early 20th-century China, Liang and his father track a shape-shifting huli jing named Tsiao-Jung to her den. There, Liang meets Tsiao-Jung's daughter Yan, who attempts to explain the plight of the huli jing. Tsiao-Jung urges Yan to escape before she is decapitated by Liang's father. Unbeknownst to his father, Liang lets Yan go. Five years later, Liang's father dies and he moves to Hong Kong and finds work as an engineer. One night, Liang encounters Yan, who has taken a permanent human form due to industrialization supplanting magic and now works as a courtesan. Yan informs him that she was drugged by the governor of Hong Kong, a client of hers, who surgically switched her real legs with cyborg parts before she killed him during an altercation. As Liang engages in robotics engineering as a hobby, he builds her a flexible metal alloy body which allows Yan to morph into a robotic huli jing. Parting as friends, Yan helps a woman fend off a rape by attacking her rapists.\n\nCast: Elaine Tan as Yan, Matt Yang King as Liang, Gwendoline Yeo as Tsiao- Jung, Maddox Henry, Sumalee Montano, JB Blanc\n\nDirected by: Oliver Thomas. Story by: Ken Liu.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two main characters lamented the loss of their traditional life that came with the modernization, and westernization, of China at the turn of the previous century. The story follows the patter of showcasing horrors of modern society contrasted with the idyllic days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with time passing you by", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two main characters lamented the loss of their traditional life that came with the modernization, and westernization, of China at the turn of the previous century. The story follows the patter of showcasing horrors of modern society contrasted with the idyllic days of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a kind of Chinese shapeshifting fox spirit known as a huli jing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fox spirit Yan was drugged and turned into part machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yan was turned into a cyborg, incongruously, for the purpose of being sexually assaulted by a man who had a fetish for machines. In the end she narrowly saved another woman from being, more conventionally, sexually assaulted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life in late imperial China", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in an alternate version of early 20th century Hong Kong during its era of industrialization and westernization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a steampunk incarnation of British colonial rule in early 20th century Hong Kong. The villain of the story is a British governor, and a sexual pervert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yan, toward the end of the story, resolved to mete out justice against the British overlords of Hong Kong, who were oppressing local women by forcibly converting them into cyborgs to use as objects for their own sexual gratification.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-technology way of life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yan lamented losing her magic powers, and blamed mechanization and modernization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point of the story was that humans and fox spirits each, with justification, saw the others as cruel and barbaric.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "For mystical reasons, the huli jing had a tendency to become besotted with certain men who also become besotted with them. The huli jong had to visit those men despite knowing the danger of doing so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The conversation Liang and Yan touched on conflict between men and women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Liang unenthusiastically accompanied his father on a bounty-hunt for a shapeshifting, fox-like spirit being.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liang was called a \"fucking chink\" by a henchman of the British Governor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yan made living as a high-class escort.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x09", "title": "The Dump", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A city inspector tries to convince \"Ugly\" Dave Dvorchek to move out of his house in a dump. However, Dave refuses to leave. He instead tells the inspector a story about his past encounter with Otto, a muck creature that has fused with whatever material it consumed in the dump. Otto killed Dave's friend, but Dave bonded with it and made it his pet. As the disinterested inspector attempts again to get Dave to sign his eviction papers, Otto arrives and eats him alive, severing one of his hands in the process. Afterward, Dave plays fetch with Otto using the inspector's severed hand.\n\nCast: Nolan North, André Sogliuzzo, Gary Cole\n\nDirected by: Javier Recio Gracia. Story by: Joe Lansdale.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "blobform", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The highlight of the story is a \"muck creature\" that had, apparently, coalesced out of garbage at an inordinately filthy dump. It was amorphous. When a hole was blown through it with a shotgun, it healed rapidly in the way you'd expect from a chunk of goo. It took on the personality of creatures it ate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing being evicted from one's home", "level": "choice", "motivation": "\"Ugly\" Dave Dvorchek was hellbent on staying at his dump. A city inspector that came to evict him was eaten by Dave's pet muck monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attachment to one's land", "level": "major", "motivation": "\"Ugly\" Dave Dvorchek was hellbent on staying at his dump. A city inspector that came to evict him was eaten by Dave's pet muck monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the story within the story, Dave and his friend were menaced by a enigmatic, garbage blob monster that inhabited Dave's dump.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dave's pet dog had been eaten by the enigmatic, garbage monster inhabiting his dump. Dave bonded with the monster and came to treat it much as one might assume he had treated his old pet dog. He named it Otto, and played fetch with the monster using the inspector's severed hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pornography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dave and his friend perused a smutty magazine together.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x10", "title": "Shape-Shifters", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "In a world where werewolves are common knowledge but discriminated against, two close werewolf friends, Lt. Decker and Sgt. Sobieski, serve in the US Marines in Afghanistan. They are ambushed by Taliban militia while escorting a convoy. Decker's senses locate the assailants, who are then killed by gunfire from the APC. After returning to base, Decker and Sobieski are antagonized by some of their comrades. Later that day, Sobieski is assigned to a Watchtower position. That night it is attacked and Decker races ahead of the backup convoy to help the troops. Upon arrival, Decker finds Sobieski and all the other soldiers slaughtered by another werewolf. Commander Reyner orders Decker to find the Taliban werewolf and bring him in alive. The next night, Decker sneaks out of the base camp into the desert and meets an old man and a younger man he previously encountered, both of whom morph into werewolf form. After fighting and killing them both, the injured Decker returns to base and ends his service in disgust. He reclaims Sobieski's body and buries him in the desert with his dog tag.\n\nCast: Graham Hamilton, Adam Bartley, Jim Pirri, James Horan, Ike Amadi\n\nDirected by: Gabriele Pennacchioli. Story by: Marko Kloos.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "werewolf", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a couple of werewolves who served in the US military somewhere in Afghanistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two werewolves did their duty in the US army but were treated with contempt by their human comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker was a werewolf who served in the US military, and proved very useful owing to his self-healing ability. In one scene, he took several gunshot wounds but healed almost instantly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker took the death of his comrade in arms, Sobieski, badly and set out to avenge it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker took the death of his comrade in arms, Sobieski, badly and set out to avenge it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns soldiers at a fictional US military base somewhere in Afghanistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a world where the US military recruited werewolves to serve as nearly invincible soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Decker took the death of his comrade in arms, Sobieski, badly and set out to avenge it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A good part of the story concerns a deadly fight between Decker and two enemy werewolves.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x11", "title": "Helping Hand", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Astronaut Alexandria Stephens attends to a faulty satellite in Earth's orbit. During a spacewalk, her old-model EVA suit is hit by a stray screw from orbital debris, casting her hopelessly adrift with only 14 minutes of oxygen. She seals the upper left arm of her suit using her watch strap, then removes the left glove, exposing her left arm to the vacuum of space. Throwing the glove pushes her back toward the satellite, but she narrowly misses grabbing hold. As she drifts back past her beaten-up maintenance vehicle The Anthem, she decides to break off her now frozen left forearm and throws it in the last-ditch attempt to make it back to her ship. Back on board, she performs emergency self triage then radios Bill, her ground controller, who asks with relief if she \"still needs a hand\".\n\nCast: Elly Condron as Alexandria Stephens, Chris Parson as Bill\n\nDirected by: Jon Yeo. Story by: Claudine Griggs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded in outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Space debris damaged Alexandrina's spacesuit and pushed her out into space. She sacrificed her own arm in order to generate momentum to get back to her spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story posits the following dilemma: would you, and could you, voluntarily maim yourself if it meant a slim chance of survival when death was otherwise certain? After debris damaged Alexandrina's spacesuit and pushed her out into space, she sacrificed her own arm in order to generate momentum to get back to her spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronaut occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers on the astronaut Alexandria Stephens' spacewalk gone terribly wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Space debris damaged Alexandrina's spacesuit and pushed her out into space. She was left drifting with 14 minutes of oxygen and no chance of being rescued. After entertaining the grim prospect of dying by asphyxiation, she sacrificed her own arm in order to generate the necessary momentum to get back to her spacecraft.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x12", "title": "Fish Night", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Two door-to-door salesmen get stuck in the desert after their car breaks down due to a broken radiator. Spending what remains of their day around the car, the older man informs the younger man that the desert was once a sea floor teeming with life. At night, they wake up to find the ghosts of prehistoric marine life floating around the car. In awe of the sight, the young man undresses to swim through the air, while the old man urges him to return. As the young man becomes a luminescent being, a ghost Megalodon appears. Despite the old man's calls of danger, the young man remains unaware until the ghost shark devours him, leaving the old man in despair as the sun rises and the ghosts disappear.\n\nCast: Kirk Thornton as Old Salesman, Yuri Lowenthal as Young Salesman\n\nDirected by: Damian Nenow. Story by: Joe Lansdale.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Ghosts of various sea creatures that had once inhabited the desert manifested themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "work partner and work partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a pair of traveling salesmen whose car broke own in the middle of the Arizona desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The older man was crestfallen after the younger man got devoured by a ghost shark during a supernatural phenomenon in the desert.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two traveling salesmen were stranded overnight in the Arizona desert when their car's radiator gave out. The two men discussed trekking through the desert back to the last pit stop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the art of salesmanship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two salesmen discussed their craft briefly. We heard the adage that \"with the right attitude one can sell anything\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old salesman initially placed the blame squarely on the young salesman for their car radiator breaking down, leaving them stranded in the Arizona desert. He later walked back the accusation and apologized.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x13", "title": "Lucky 13", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "After two crews on the Dropship #13-02313 are lost, other Marines become superstitious and give the unlucky ship to rookie Lt. \"Cutter\" Colby. Cutter flies twenty missions without casualty; under her charge, the ship is renowned as \"Lucky 13\". Cutter, loyal to her craft, passes up upgrading to newer models. On its last mission 13 is shot down, but all its occupants survive. The troops evacuate as Cutter occupies enemy combatants; when overwhelmed, Cutter sets 13 to self-destruct to kill as many enemy troops as it can. After reaching the trench, Cutter watches as the ship does not detonate until enemy troops take over, where 13 takes them all down with her. Cutter is awarded numerous medals and a cutting-edge new ship, but she longs for one more mission with Lucky 13.\n\nCast: Samira Wiley, Daisuke Tsuji, Nestor Serrano, Stanton Lee, Noshir Dalal, Jeffrey Pierce, David Paladino, Jeff Schine, Melissa Sturm\n\nDirected by: Jerome Chen. Story by: Marko Kloos.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "reliable streak of luck", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cutter flew twenty missions without casualty; under her charge, the ship became renowned as \"Lucky 13\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crew's attachment to their ship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cutter formed a special attachment to the Lucky 13 troop transport aircraft. She declined switching to a better craft when given the opportunity, and later got a gaudy \"Lucky 13\" tattoo on her forearm. In the end, after the ship had been destroyed she longed fly just one more mission with it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cutter sacrificed her beloved ship to defeat the enemy, in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a rookie U.S. Marine, Lt. \"Cutter\" Colby, as she and her comrades engaged hostile enemy forces.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bad luck signs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After two crews on the Dropship #13-02313 were lost, other Marines become superstitious and gave the unlucky ship \"13\" to rookie Lt. \"Cutter\" Colby.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x14", "title": "Zima Blue", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Journalist Claire Markham is invited to interview the reclusive artist Zima Blue, who wishes to tell his story before unveiling his final work. Zima, who began in portraiture, moved on to murals focused on abstract shapes in a single shade of blue. He continued making larger murals until they were incorporated into celestial bodies, asteroids, and even nebulas. When they meet, Zima reveals to Claire that even though many assume he is a cybernetically enhanced man, in truth he is an advanced android originally built by a roboticist to clean ceramic pool tiles (known as Zima Blue tiles), with the tiles being the first thing he saw. He was upgraded and modified as a test-bed for hardware and software to his current state, passed from owner to owner after his original owner died. Expressing a deep yearning for meaning through his art, he unveils his final piece: he immerses himself in the re- constructed pool that he originated from, casts off all of his modifications, and reverts to his original state as a simple pool tile cleaning machine.\n\nCast: Kevin Michael Richardson as Zima Blue, Emma Thornett as Claire Markham\n\nDirected by: Robert Valley. Story by: Alastair Reynolds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is that of a pool cleaning machine that becomes intelligent, and then becomes an artist of unprecedented proportions, only to finally revert to its original form.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zima began as a portrait painter and proceeded to paint visions of the cosmos, before he turned to more extreme art forms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zima revealed that he was, in fact, an advanced android that had originated as a humble pool cleaning machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "emergently intelligent being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zima was an advanced android that had, through some fluke, emerged from a humble pool cleaning machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The journalist Claire Markham was beside herself over having been chosen to interview the world-famous, but reclusive artist Zima Blue.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zima Blue spoke of his \"search for truth\" as having ultimately led him to create his final work of art: his own public transformation back into the pool scrubber from which he had evolved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The illustrious artist Zima Blue began and ended life as a lowly pool scrubbing robot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x15", "title": "Blindspot", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A cyborg crew — Hawk, Kali, Sui, and Rookie — attempt to rob a convoy for a heavily guarded microchip as it is in motion to a tunnel. As they plant explosives on the back car, Sui drops one of his when swerving to avoid a desert rat, alerting the guards. Kali opens cover fire as Hawk moves in to deal with the turrets. Once in the tunnel, they have a limited window to get the microchip, but as Hawk readies, he is blindsided and destroyed by a massive defense bot. Using the distraction, Sui knocks it off the convoy, but it shifts into vehicle mode and gives chase, crushing Kali as it does. Sui sacrifices himself to destroy the defense bot's CPU and the convoy. Rookie survives and takes the targeted microchip, lamenting the loss of his team. He is greeted by Bob, the team's coordinator, who congratulates him and tells him that he copied all of their brains before the mission. The crew greets Rookie in hologram form, commending him for a job well done.\n\nCast: Aaron Himelstein, Carlos Alazraqui, Jill Talley, Brian Bloom, Chris Cox\n\nDirected by: Vitaliy Shushko.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a twist ending, it turned out that Hawk, Kali, and Sui had electronically backed up their minds before setting out on the dangerous mission to rob a heavily-armed convoy. As a result, they would live on even though their physical bodies were utterly destroyed on the mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robbery", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around a cyborg crew attempting to rob a convoy of a special microchip as the convoy passed through a tunnel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rookie mistakenly assumed that the utter destruction of the bodies of his three comrades meant their certain deaths. He lamented their loss as a result. Little did he know that they'd had electronic backups of their minds made beforehand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The four robbers being cyborgs was among the novelties of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cyborgs battled a large, humanoid \"defense bot\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holograms of the previously obliterated crew-members commended their comrade Rookie him for a job well done.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x16", "title": "Ice Age", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A couple, Gail and Rob, find an antique refrigerator after they move into their new apartment. Opening it to get ice, they discover a tiny preserved mammoth, and returning to the freezer, they realize that a fast-moving time- dilated civilization is developing. Within ten minutes, the civilization goes from Medieval era to Industrial Revolution then modern-day, but some minutes later they see the civilization use a nuclear bomb, which burns Rob's face. Finding the fridge civilization escalating their warfare, they close the freezer and order pizza. After an hour, and afraid they did not make it, they open the freezer and find the civilization has rebuilt and has moved further into its future with technology evolving at an unprecedented level. They ultimately evolve into a race of energy beings, return to a singularity, and vanish from the freezer. Believing the mini-people are gone, Rob unplugs the refrigerator to clean it in the morning. As they have breakfast, they find the freezer now has a prehistoric world, with primitive sapiens under attack by dinosaurs.\n\nCast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gail, Topher Grace as Rob, John DiMaggio and Roger Craig Smith as construction workers\n\nDirected by: Tim Miller. Story by: Michael Swanwick.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative rise of civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is about a young couple discovering a civilization of tiny people inside the icebox of their antiquated refrigerator. They observed the civilization quickly progress from a Medieval-era society to the Industrial Revolution before attaining a modern-era level of development. There was a nuclear conflagration out of which a society arose that had technology so advanced that it seemed like magic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gail and Rob tried to have a romantic dinner at home but were distracted by the civilization that was rising up inside their refrigerator icebox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time passing at different rates for different people", "level": "major", "motivation": "Within Rob and Gail's antique fridge, time passed so fast that tiny little civilizations rose and fell over the course of a mere days outside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The icebox civilization was destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "incorporeal being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tiny-people in the icebox evolved into a race of energy beings.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x17", "title": "Alternate Histories", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "Multiversity, an alternative history research simulation app, shows a user six different timelines involving the death of Adolf Hitler in 1908 instead of 1945. Potential consequences of each death include different outcomes from WWI and WWII; various individuals reaching the Moon first; time travel paradoxes; and post-apocalyptic scenarios. Exiting the demo, the user selects a possible alternate timeline where \"Lincoln shoots first\".\n\nCast: Rebecca Riedy, Dieter Jansen, Scott Whyte, Chris Cox\n\nDirected by: Victor Maldonado & Alfredo Torres. Story by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alternate history", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores six (increasingly outlandish) possible futures had Hitler died in 1908 instead of 1945.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how the Second World War might have unfolded differently, or not at all, had Hitler died in 1908 instead of 1945.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "In each alternate history, one of the key points was to highlight which human first made it to the moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War I", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story explores how the First World War might have unfolded differently had Hitler died in 1908 instead of 1945.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, rats supplanted humans as the masters of the Earth. The rats were in turn supplanted by squids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, the Earth was impacted by a giant asteroid, spelling doom for humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, both Nazis and anti-Nazis traveled back in time to 1908 to fight over Hitler's fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future Hitler traveled back in time and met his 1908 self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, Hitler died from fornicating too much with four Viennese prostitutes, who were actually aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, Hitler was killed by a horse-drawn carriage. In a subsequent scene, a horse was mowed down by a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Berlin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the last of the alternate histories, Hitler time traveled and touched his own alternate self which caused him to die in a \"space-time paradox\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the fine arts and the humanities", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In each of the alternate histories, the historical Hitler was seen exiting the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts with some lousy drawings he had made, alluding to the fact that Hitler had been rejected from that institute.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one of the alternate histories, the Russian Tsar had developed a giant gun that fired gelatinous blobs to kill people from, apparently, a whole continent away.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e1x18", "title": "The Secret War", "date": "2019-03-15", "description": "A platoon of Red Army soldiers hunts ghouls in the Siberian forests. Sgt. Sergei Pavlovich and Lieutenant Nikolai Zakharov raise concerns that the men are too dispersed, but the Major dismisses their worries. Following a bloody victory, Scout Okchen finds the decomposed corpse of a fallen Secret Police agent, Boris Grishin. Grishin's notebook describes \"Operation Hades\", an attempt to summon ghouls to fight for the Red Army. However, the summoners failed to control them and are killed. Sergei wishes to use this information to get rid of the ghouls, but Zakharov fears it would expose the government's past errors. As they locate a burrow, Okchen, and another soldier, Pogodin ready munitions to seal the ghouls' nest, but the blast instead opens the entire burrow. The horde is larger than expected, so Zakharov orders a last stand, commanding his son to relay a message to bombard their current location to kill the horde. The ghouls kill the whole platoon by the morning, but planes fly over them and begin carpet-bombing the site.\n\nCast: Stefan Kapičić, Bruce Thomas, Jeff Berg, Antonio Alvarez, Victor Brandt\n\nDirected by: István Zorkóczy. Story by: David W. Amendola.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around a platoon of Red Army soldiers hunting down a hoard of gruesome ghouls deep inside the Siberian wilderness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story revolves around a platoon of Red Army soldiers hunting down a hoard of gruesome ghouls deep inside the Siberian wilderness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The platoon went on a death defying raid on a nest of ghouls, and ended up making a last stand to contain the said ghouls until the air strike arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The platoon went on a death defying raid on a nest of ghouls, and ended up making a last stand to contain the said ghouls until the air strike arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black magic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The gruesome ghouls had originally been summoned by means of occult forces under the misguided notion that they would serve the Red Army in battle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story follows a platoon of Second World War era Red Army soldiers as they undertake a perilous and strange mission in the Siberian wilderness. Lt. Zakharov made reference to the German siege of Stalingrad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maxim blew his brains out just as the gruesome creatures overwhelmed his platoon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x01", "title": "The Comedian", "date": "2019-04-01", "description": "A struggling comedian learns that jokes about the people in his life get laughs, but cause them to disappear from existence.\n\nDirected by: Owen Harris. Story by: Alex Rubens.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Samir wished to be funny, but found that this (for some reason) came with the caveat that the object of his jokes would vanish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stand-up comedy", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the goings on at a comedy club.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dilemma here was complicated, but one aspect of it was Samir getting rid of various disagreeable people in order to become famous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing for personal advantage", "level": "major", "motivation": "The only way Samir could get laughs was by uttering peoples names during his stand up act, knowing full well the people whose names he uttered would vanish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing wicked people", "level": "major", "motivation": "We must consider, as Samir no doubt did, whether it was alright to eradicate various maleficents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samir and Rena were living together as a couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end Samir made himself vanish in order to undo the bad things he had inadvertently done to, in particular, his ex-girlfriend Rena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samir rivaled with other comedians at the club, and especially the black, lesbian comedian Didi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rena hammered home to Samir about how he never thought about how his action affect anybody else, especially her, and about how he would just use people as sources of material for his comedy routines. In addition, Samir learned that making people vanish had unpredictable effects, like when he disappeared Rena's mentor, and she suddenly went from being a lawyer to working as a waitress.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "Samir wanted more than anything to become a successful comedian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came about that anybody who's name Samir mentioned in his comedy routine would suddenly cease to exist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are made to ponder whether comedy ought to offer insight into the human condition and society or whether its okay for comedy to take the form of a series of low brow one-liners.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if people around me started disappearing one by one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir didn't get what was going on at first, when his pug and nephew vanished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir, Rena, Rena's mentor, at least as a possibility explained by Samir at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir speculated about his girlfriend being unfaithful to him with her creepy ex-mentor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir's girlfriend confronted him about him being a \"jealous prick\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a jealous lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir's girlfriend confronted him about him being a \"jealous prick\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir confided in fellow comedian Didi after Rena dumped him like a sack of potatoes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loser character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir was a total loser until he got some sort of superpower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir's original act was about gun laws in America and the constitution, a subject people were more than fed up with and did not enjoy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir lamented that people were so shallow that they did not like to listen to his political philosophies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir brought his girlfriend's nephew, who he introduced as his own nephew, to the comedy club to watch his comedy routine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir revealed that one of his comic colleagues killed a mother and daughter while drunk at the wheel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir, who started off wanting to make the world a better place, ended up making himself vanish in order to fulfill his goal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rena confronted Samir with the accusation that he was a selfish man who used those closest to him as material for his stand up routines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Samir used his ability to make people vanish to get rid of some of his old antagonizers from high school.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x02", "title": "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", "date": "2019-04-01", "description": "A journalist on a flight finds an MP3 player with a podcast that accurately describes future events involving his fellow passengers.\n\nDirected by: Greg Yaitanes. Story by: Simon Kinberg, Jordan Peele and Marco Ramirez, Marco Ramirez, Richard Matheson.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I caught a glimpse of the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Justin found a pod-cast that foretold that his flight would crash and that he'd be lynched by angry passengers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Justin tried to convince various people that the flight was in danger, but to no avail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like on a passenger flight", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Justin's most unenviable experience on a flight from Washington, D.C. to Tel Aviv.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, it was Justin's attempt to save the flight that brought about its demise, everything prompted by the mysterious pod-cast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aircraft hijacking", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was talk of terrorists targeting the flight, and in the end some disgruntled ex-pilot hijacked it for reasons not quite explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin was killed by the other passengers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are left to conclude that the other passengers beat Justin to death in retribution for him having caused their airliner to crash.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x03", "title": "Replay", "date": "2019-04-11", "description": "A mother discovers that their her old family camcorder has the power to turn back time when she presses the rewind button.\n\nDirected by: Gerard McMurray. Story by: Selwyn Seyfu Hinds.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "racism in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dorian and Nina seemed to be hounded by a racist cop who had it in for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nina had to rewind the day over and over to try and figure out a way to get away from the racist cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time rewind ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nina and Dorian found themselves in possession of a magic cam-corder that rewound time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nina was driving her son Dorian to college when they got caught up with a racist cop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "police brutality", "level": "major", "motivation": "A racist cop was looking for a pretext to assault the Harrisons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abuse of authority", "level": "major", "motivation": "A racist cop was looking for a pretext to kill a black person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nina and Neil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a magic cam-corder that rewound time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The racist cop was offended by Nina's apparent success, seeing her new car, and her son Dorian's aspirations to get into college, so he took it upon himself to make correction, later joined by two other colleagues", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one cannot cheat fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nina and Dorian always ended up getting confronted by the racist cop no matter what they did to avoid him. The story concluded with Dorian walking out of the house with the possibility that the cop would shoot him dead. It therefore seemed like their fate was to be confronted by the racist cop no matter what they did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorian and Neil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nina was distraught after a racist cop shot her son dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gentrification", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Niel lamented that his neighborhood was being gentrified.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical determinism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorian told Nina that the number of a lotter drawing were determined at the moment of the Big Bang.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nina patched things up with her bother Neil after the two had been out of contact for a long time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x04", "title": "A Traveler", "date": "2019-04-18", "description": "A police sergeant discovers that an inmate has mysteriously appeared in the station's holding cells at the height of the police station annual Christmas party.\n\nDirected by: Ana Lily Amirpour. Story by: Glen Morgan.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A. Traveler manipulated people in the community by telling lies that played to people's hopes and prejudices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police chief wanted to be an Internet sensation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flattery", "level": "major", "motivation": "A. Traveler practically flattered Captain Pendelton out of his boots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yuka grew increasingly suspicious about A. Traveler's claims that he was an extreme traveler and ultimately came to think that he posed a serious danger to the community..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw the goings on at a little police station in the middle of Alaska, albeit not on an ordinary day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated in an alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story were the corrupt actions of both the police chief and the mayor, presumably something that motivated Jack to speculate that life might be better under their new alien overlords.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien came to the Igaluk police station on Christmas Eve to lay the groundwork for an alien invasion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yuka arrested her brother Jack on Christmas Eve so that the approval-seeking police chief could have someone to pardon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set at a Christmas Eve celebration in a little police station in the middle of Alaska.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "egocentrism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A. Traveler played to Captain Pendelton's ego to get himself pardoned on Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for cultural heritage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack expressed disapproval in Yuka for having so cast away her Inuit cultural roots.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "conflict of duty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Yuka was torn between her family (maybe heritage) and her white American colleagues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Pendleton had allegedly sold secret military information to the Russians.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Avengers: Endgame (2019)", "title": "Avengers: Endgame", "date": "2019-04-22", "description": "The surviving members of the Avengers and their allies attempt to reverse the damage caused by Thanos in Infinity War. It is the sequel to 2012's The Avengers, 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, and 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers:_Endgame" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Each Avenger had a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film surrounded the Avenger's efforts to undo Thanos having come to earth and destroyed half of all human life on the planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avengers traveled back in time to undo Thanos from having killed half the people on earth. Note that a big deal was made about the theory of how time travel into past works in this film being different to how it is typically featured in sci fi. In particular, this film used a branching, multiple worlds theory of time travel into the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Avengers took it upon themselves to unto Thanos' killing of half the people on earth. It's a superhero film after all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various Avengers, especially Hawkeye, had lost friends and family members in Thanos' catastrophic attack on earth. They were motivated to undo Thanos' vile act in part to bring back their deceased loved ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film opened with Hawkeye teaching archery to his young daughter. Nebula was the adopted daughter of Thanos. Tony was shown with his young daughter toward the end of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blue cyborg Nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The raccoon-like bounty hunter Rocker flew the Avengers around in his interstellar spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Avengers were flying around the galaxy in Rocket's spaceship in their efforts to stop Thanos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony Stark had a mechanized suit of armor which also enabled him to fly. The same held true for the War Machine character.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hulk had mellowed out midlife and learned how to control his temper. Also we saw the Hulk from the pack go bonkers and demolish a car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor had really let himself go and was never far from a bottle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thor had a heart to heart talk with his mother when he traveled back in time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nebula and Gamora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Nebula form the past made a loyalty pledge to Thanos that she would never betray him like the future Nebula had.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Future Nebula battled with Past Nebula.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "miniaturization technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ant-man became very small in order to sneak into a suitcase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I shrank in size", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ant-man became very small in order to sneak into a suitcase.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hawkeye lost his wife and their children in Thanos' attack on earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony had a conversation with the 1970s version of his father when he traveled back in time to that era.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hawkeye knowingly gave his life to retrieve one of the power stones, which the Avenger's needed to unto Thanos' murder of half the people on earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x05", "title": "The Wunderkind", "date": "2019-04-25", "description": "A political campaign manager recount the story of how he guided an eleven- year-old YouTube star to the presidency of the United States.\n\nDirected by: Richard Shepard. Story by: Andrew Guest.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-truth politics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Between the lines, the story was really about the callous American post-truth type of politics that led to Donald Trump becoming President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw failed political campaign manager Raff Hanks get an eleven year old boy elected President of the United States. About 75% of the story was about the campaign to elect the boy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a child had power over adults", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver turned into something of a mad tyrant after he became President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a spoiled brat", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver exposed himself as a deceitful and selfish child after getting elected President.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "One supposition in the story was that people are fed up with ordinary politicians and their bullshit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone struggled with a willful and childish Oliver.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "YouTube made it possible for an eleven year old boy run for President of the United States and win.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Oliver was primarily interested on getting lots of views on his YouTube channel while on the campaign trail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Raff's career as a campaign manager was ruined after he failed to get then-sitting and unpopular President of the United States James Stevens reelected.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "major", "motivation": "The disgraced campaign manager Raff took up the challenge of getting an eleven year old boy elected President of the United States in an effort to revitalize his career.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver quarreled with his parents over having to go see the doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver quarreled with his parents over having to go see the doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver and Lily.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver claimed his dog was dying of cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver was a pretty terrible boss to Raff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treason", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Oliver accused Raff of this high crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x06", "title": "Six Degrees of Freedom", "date": "2019-05-02", "description": "The crew of a spacecraft decide to head for the planet Mars after a nuclear war breaks out on Earth.\n\nDirected by: Jakob Verbruggen. Story by: Heather Anne Campbell and Glen Morgan.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of people went on an experimental mission to visit Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the universe is a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pierson was convinced that their voyage to Mars was all an elaborate mechanical simulation. He claimed that nothing was real, nearly died to prove it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Pierson was convinced that their voyage to Mars was all an elaborate mechanical simulation. He alluded to the crew not being able to trust their own eyes and pondering what we could trust if not our eyes. the crew was skeptical of his theory, but they also began to wonder if it might be true.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were told that people on Earth probably annihilated each other using nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together in spite of disagreement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story seemed to be primarily about the group dynamics of people on the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "working together under stress", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story seemed to be primarily about the group dynamics of people on the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "group morale", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story seemed to be primarily about the group dynamics of people on the spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a space shuttle on steroids en rout to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a space ship en rout to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting along together in a confined space for an extended period", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story seemed to be primarily about the group dynamics of people on the spaceship on their voyage to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien overseers", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end how aliens had been monitoring the crew in an effort to determine if they are worth saving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a naughty AI called TINA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We heard that Earth was all but done for.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chinese ICBMs and American Trident missiles were mentioned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "risk taking vs. playing it safe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "To launch on a risky mission or stay and risk annihilation in a nuclear war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The commander who called home cried over her parents' demise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A female crew member had had to choose between her husband and \"a round trip ticket to Mars\". She chose Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the rigors of command", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The commander cried because it was a hopeless mission she had charge of.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Someone said they might prefer not knowing and keep hoping than to find out everyone on Earth were dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pierson seemed to have a breakdown, as did the middle aged woman.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x07", "title": "Not All Men", "date": "2019-05-09", "description": "The people of a town grow increasingly violent in the wake of a meteor shower.\n\nDirected by: Christina Choe. Story by: Heather Anne Campbell.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if everyone lost control of their inhibitions", "level": "choice", "motivation": "All the men in a small community flew wild rages and went around in the streets engaging in acts of extreme violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explored how men are innately violent creatures in comparison to woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger", "level": "major", "motivation": "All the men in a small community flew wild rages and went around in the streets engaging in acts of extreme violence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Annie and her older sister Martha try to avoid getting beaten or killed when the men int heir community all went wild with rage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male brutishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was conveyed that violent rage lies buried inside all men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female empowerment", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw that women, if they pull themselves together, can stand up to bullying and hyper-aggressive men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie's nephew Cole was able to control his emotions more than all the other men in town on account of him being more feminine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "office romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan pressing a junior colleague for sex is highly inappropriate in most offices today.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with romantic rejection", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan took getting rejected by Annie with something less than grace.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a sequence of such encounters between Dylan and Annie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the placebo effect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was suggested at the conclusion of the story that the meteors acted as a placebo, and that violent rage lies buried inside all men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie was enthusiastic about working hard at her new job in the pharmaceutical industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie turned a blind eye to her teenage nephew stealing some booze off the back of a truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Martha husband flew out of control and tried to run Annie thought with a kitchen knife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and boyfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole's boyfriend Steve flipped out when Steve denied him satisfaction.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)", "title": "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", "date": "2019-05-13", "description": "Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a 2019 American monster film directed and co-written by Michael Dougherty. A sequel to Godzilla (2014), it is the 35th film in the Godzilla franchise, the third film in Legendary's MonsterVerse, and the third Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.\n\nSynopsis: Humans must rely on Godzilla and Mothra to defeat King Ghidorah, a terrible three-headed dragon-like monster that has awakened Rodan and other Titans to destroy the world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_King_of_the_Monsters_(2019_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three-headed dragon-like monster King Ghidorah and a variety of other giant monsters under its control ravaged the cities of the world. In the end, the titular giant monster Godzilla came to the rescue of humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A variety of giant monsters (e.g. the three-headed dragon-like monster King Ghidorah, the giant pteranodon-like monster Rodan, and a host of other \"Titans\") were going around ravaging cities all around the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "major", "motivation": "The three-headed dragon-like monster King Ghidorah awakened Rodan and other Titans to destroy the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The G-Team, a special military forces group, was doing what it could to battle the various rampaging Titans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explored Dr. Mark Russell's troubled relationship with his estranged teenage daughter Madison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mark Russell worked to disabuse his ex-wife, Dr. Emma Russell, see the error of her conviction that humans and Titans can co-exist peacefully.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nature's revenge", "level": "major", "motivation": "According to Dr. Emma Russell, the Earth had released the Titans as a sort of \"fever\" to fight the \"infection\" that was humanity. From this perspective, the film is a story about Mother Nature unleashing a hoard of giant monsters to exterminate humanity in order to heal the Earth from the damages that humans had caused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madison gradually came to see that her mother, Dr. Emma Russell, was misguided in her efforts to release a variety of giant monsters upon the earth in the hopes solving the climate change crisis, and ultimately got her to change her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "eco-terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Jonah led a group of eco-terrorists who'd unleashed a variety of giant monsters upon the earth in the hopes dramatically reducing the human population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Emma Russell deranged ideas about the virtues of unleashing a variety of giant monsters upon the earth were a reaction to her inability to cope with the death of her son, Andrew. Dr. Mark Russell grieved for his son, Andrew, who'd perished some years prior in a Godzilla attack on San Fransisco.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Dr. Mark Russell setting things right with his estranged ex-wife and teenage daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark admitted to having turned to the bottle after his marriage had fell apart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma asserted that humans had overpopulated the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma linked an already unfolding mass extinction to humans polluting the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Oxygen Destroyer\" weapon was designed to kill all life within a two-mile radius of where it was detonated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mark expressed regret over not having been there for his teenage daughter, Madison, when she needed him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military used nukes to revive Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eco-terrorist leader Colonel Jonah had a very low opinion of humanity and would have been happy to see the better part of the world's population culled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cosmic balance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was talk of the Earth itself harboring a defense system (i.e. the giant monsters) that would necessarily act to maintain the balance of nature in the face of human technological advancement.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x08", "title": "Point of Origin", "date": "2019-05-16", "description": "A wealthy socialite is hauled away to a detention center for illegal immigrants.\n\nDirected by: Mathias Herndl. Story by: John Griffin.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The privileged socialite Eve got a taste of what it was like to be treated as an undocumented person in the United States, and a very bad taste it was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "treatment of migrants", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The government was rounding up illegal space aliens and treating them in a most brutal manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The lives of super wealthy socialites were contrasted with those of their domestic servants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve showed a genuine interest in the welfare of her housekeeper and nanny Anna. For example, Eve took a risk to help Anna's grandson get into a good school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "William and Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was apprehended by the authorities and kept in a dark and dank detention facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was shocked to discover that she was actually a space alien \"pilgrim\" from another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was shocked to discover that she was actually a space alien from another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in prison", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was held in a dark dank holding facility that was a prison in all but name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "People were paranoid about immigrants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creeping authoritarianism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The world was clearly an exaggerated extrapolation of Trumpian America.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Eve was a privileged rich woman who treated immigrants with condescending benevolence but lo, she was in fact herself an illegal immigrant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve showed a genuine interest in the welfare of her housekeeper and nanny Anna. For example, Eve took a risk to help Anna's grandson get into a good school. Anna repaid Eve's kindness by helping Eve survive in the detention center.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve was forcibly separated from her twin girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Eve's husband and his twin girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healthcare inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One of Eve's socialite friends quipped about what a nuisance it was that her servants deigned to ask for health care coverage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly distraught Eve was strapped on to a rotating table and later electrocuted as part of her interrogator's efforts to determine whether or not she was a space alien from another dimension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Eve and Anna trust the man driving the ice cream truck to help them escape from the detention facility? Eve did to her detriment. Anna didn't to her benefit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. Kafkaesque institution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story started with an unexplained abduction and the cold hard corridors of a fantastic bureaucracy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Parasite (2019)", "title": "Parasite", "date": "2019-05-21", "description": "Parasite (Korean: 기생충; RR: Gisaengchung) is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Han Jin-won. It stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo- shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, and Lee Jung-eun, and follows the members of a poor family who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family and infiltrate their household by posing as unrelated, highly qualified individuals.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_(2019_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-miscellaneous.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story contrasted the rich Park family with the Poor Kim family, and then again with the completely impoverished Moon-gwang and Geun-sae", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rich character vs. poor character", "level": "choice", "motivation": "the story contrasted the rich Park family with the Poor Kim family, and then again with the completely impoverished Moon-gwang and Geun-sae", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "major", "motivation": "the Kim family maneuvered themselves into the household of the Park family using clever cons", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lucky charms", "level": "major", "motivation": "featured throughout was a rock which was said to bring prosperity and good fortune - it is left ambiguous whether it had a hand in events", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Geun-sae killed Ki-jung; Ki-taek killed Mr. Park", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mr. Park looked down his nose at servants and poor people and his remarks about their odor was what prompted Ki-taek to kill him", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Park family; Kim family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Park family; Kim family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Park family; Kim family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Park family; Kim family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Park family; Kim family", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing loan sharks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Geun-sae had been hiding in a bunker for five years to escape his (presumably ruthless) creditors", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a life-changing event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "the Kim family's house was flooded and they had to live in an emergency shelter for some time", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x09", "title": "The Blue Scorpion", "date": "2019-05-23", "description": "A depressed anthropology professor finds a gun called the Blue Scorpion with a bullet with his name on it.\n\nDirected by: Craig William Macneill. Story by: Glen Morgan.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and his estranged wife were going through a painful divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff and his estranged wife were going through a painful divorce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff didn't want to go through with the divorce because he still loved his wife more than anything. Meanwhile, she had moved on and was already in a relationship with another man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a magical gun, known as the Blue Scorpion, that legend said would protect its owner - or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff became obsessively attached the Blue Scorpion gun. Instead of using the proceeds from its sale to pay a divorce settlement, he kept it even though it had no obvious practical value to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "major", "motivation": "The narrator seemed to conclude that the moral of the story is that we ought not to love guns as if they are people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeff was in a financially precarious place because the estate was \"tied up\" and his soon-to-be-ex wife had hired an attorney to get money off him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on Jeff's thoughts about which annoying \"Jeff\" he might best dispatch with the blue scorpion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff smoked pot and played the guitar in the course of mourning the loss of his once hippie father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of the dark", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Blue Scorpion gun needed to be in the light.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff's father apparently shot himself dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with Jeff coming to grips with his father having apparently shot himself in the head for no good reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff got into a confrontation with a burglar outside of his wife's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff and his wife settled their divorce amicably in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce procedures", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The legal niceties around divorce were featured.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e1x10", "title": "Blurryman", "date": "2019-05-30", "description": "A Twilight Zone screenwriter is terrorized by a mysterious blurry figure.\n\nDirected by: Simon Kinberg. Story by: Alex Rubens.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "According to the end narration, the point of this story was to speculate on how people act when faced with experiences that defy their idea of how the world works, i.e., supernatural, alternate reality, or call it what will you.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the value of imagination", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concluded with Rod Serling telling Sophie that it was important to not cast away her imaginative spirit that she had had since childhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sophie was being terrorized by the Blurryman while she was alone on The Twilight Zone set late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sophie was being terrorized by the Blurryman while she was alone on The Twilight Zone set late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sophie was struggling to write lines for the narrator of a Twilight Zone story to perform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the entertainment industry", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw what one gathers it must be like to film an episode of The Twilight Zone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Blurryman, who ultimately turned out to be Rod Serling, was terrorizing Sophie in the Twilight Zone set.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my thoughts became reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story inside the story was about a writer whose story ideas became reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sophie briefly contemplated whether she might be having a \"psychotic break\" when she found herself conversing with a voice in her head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sophie had a flashback to her child-self watching an episode of the original Twilight Zone series on television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A guy in beginning mentioned this syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practical joking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sophie speculated that her surreal experience was arrange by someone with a poor taste in jokes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dark Phoenix (2019)", "title": "Dark Phoenix", "date": "2019-06-04", "description": "The X-Men are forced to face the full power of the Phoenix after a mission in space goes wrong. It is the twelfth installment of the X-Men film series, and the sequel to 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse.", "collections": [ "Collection: X-men" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Phoenix_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Each mutant was endowed with a unique super power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid mutant", "level": "major", "motivation": "A big deal was made out of the X-men being mutants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean and Storm both multiply manifested the ability to be able to manipulate objects in the world by just concentrating on it. For example, Jean crashed a helicopter full of soldiers in this manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "xenophobia in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revisited about how people are prejudiced against mutants and had persecuted them. Although the mutants had achieved an uneasy peace with the humans in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ethnic hatred", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was revisited about how people are prejudiced against mutants and had persecuted them. Although the mutants had achieved an uneasy peace with the humans in this film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean had the ability to read other people's thoughts from an early age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean and Scott had something going on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean felt that her father had abandoned her as a child, and she went back to see him as an adult to let him know how she felt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean felt that her father had abandoned her as a child, and she went back to see him as an adult to give him a piece of her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exercising self-control", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jean struggled to keep her pent up emotions in check after becoming possessed by a cosmic force of some kind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vuk plotted to take over the earth by using a powerful cosmic force that had possessed Jean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier was confined to a wheelchair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Quicksilver could move faster in time than other people which effectively made him to be able to move around super quickly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mystique demonstrated the ability to transform herself to look like other people at will. The alien Vuk was from a race of shapeshifters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mystique demonstrated the ability to transform herself to look like other people at will. The alien Vuk was from a race of shapeshifters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The X-men flew into space in an advanced spaceship to rescue the crew of a NASA space shuttle that was broken down in orbit around the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An alien, named Vuk, came to earth in search of a force of cosmic power that wiped out her home planet years ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Hank, among other X-men, was stricken with grief upon learning that Jean killed Raven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier admitted to Hank that he was wrong to have not told Jean the truth about her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Xavier admitted to Hank that he was wrong to have not told Jean the truth about her father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nightcrawler had an innate ability to teleport himself short distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "directed energy shooting ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Scott emitted powerful beams of energy from his eyes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror5x01", "title": "Striking Vipers", "date": "2019-06-05", "description": "\"Striking Vipers\" is the first episode of the fifth series of the anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series five, on 5 June 2019.\n\nDirected by: Owen Harris. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danny and Theo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danny, Theo, Karl, and Mariella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matrimonial love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danny and Theo were in a loving marriage and were trying to have a second child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Danny had a futuristic sort of quasi affair with Danny in a virtual reality environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl was grappling with having virtual sex as a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own sexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl was grappling with having virtual sex as a woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny and Karl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl (male) was clearly addicted to having sex as a female in a VR game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl (male) became addicted to having sex as a female in a VR game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual reality sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl (male) was clearly addicted to having sex as a female in a VR game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centered on a VR game with a brain interface.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl (male) had sex as a female in a VR game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Karl and Danny had some sort of VR affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny broke off his virtual sexual relationship with Karl in an effort to save his marriage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny and Theo before marrying. Karl and Mariella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny and Tyler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monogamy vs. single life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Married Danny compared with free and fun loving Karl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "young and old romance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl had a hot young girlfriend who he did not entirely get - she looked at her cell phone all the time, for one.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny and Karl attached small devices to their heads to put themselves in a VR environment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theo worried she was getting old and ugly when Danny didn't sleep with her. Karl was trying to compete with younger men to court hot women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "open romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny and Theo apparently had some arrangement at the end, where they would periodically seek romance outside of their relationship for a day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Karl told Danny that he fucked a polar bear character in the virtual reality game.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror5x02", "title": "Smithereens", "date": "2019-06-05", "description": "\"Smithereens\" is the second episode of the fifth series of the anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by James Hawes. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series five, on 5 June 2019. It stars Andrew Scott, Damson Idris, and Topher Grace.\n\nDirected by: James Hawes. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chris contemplated killing himself. A mother was living with the aftermath of her daughter having committed suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A mother was coping with daughter's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media addiction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chris blamed social media addiction for his brief lack of attention to the road which led to a deadly crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Chris blamed social media. A social media boss used his platform in God mode. Much information was shared and found on social media. Kids were almost live streaming the hostage situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The police were dealing with the hostage situation Chris had engineered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris was beating himself up because of his driving accident killing his ex-girlfriend. A mother blamed herself for her daughter's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Chris and the mother needed some sort of closure in different ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris blamed himself for his fiancée's death. A mother blamed herself for her daughter's suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "We were lead to think that the story had something to do with the contrasting social statuses, but then it turned out to be entirely different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the business world", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among other corporate professionals, we saw the superstar CEO Billy Bauer lead his corporation \"Smithereen\" from his luxurious yoga retreat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mother lost her daughter to suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chris lost fiancée in a drunk driving accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The role of social media in people committing suicide was touched on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaden and Billy both tried to talk Chris out of killing himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw what Billy Bauer did with his wealth and power.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jaden came to sympathize with Chris and he tried to stop Chris from committing suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "searchable electronic database", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was something about finding info on people at the social media company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drunk driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris had been hit by a drunk driver in an accident that caused the death of his fiancée.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror5x03", "title": "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too", "date": "2019-06-05", "description": "\"Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too\" is the third and final episode of the fifth season of the anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Anne Sewitsky. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of season five, on 5 June 2019.\n\nDirected by: Anne Sewitsky. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "duplicate of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The point of the story seemed to be that Ashley could be digitally cloned and become dispensable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Catherine was driven by greed to ruthlessly exploit Ashley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel and Jack both had stereotypical teenage problems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel suffered from a lack of friends so got an AI friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel suffered from a lack of friends so got an AI friend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel got an AI Ashley doll companion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A father cared for two teenage sisters, Rachel and Jack, after the passing of their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rachel and Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single fatherhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "A father cared for two teenage sisters, Rachel and Jack, after the passing of their mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepdaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Catherine as step-mother of Ashley O.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "role models", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ashley O was Rachel's role model.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Rachel being shaped by the \"you can achieve anything\" pop culture value.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and niece", "level": "major", "motivation": "Catherine and Ashley O.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind uploading", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ashley O's mind was transfer into the Ashley Too doll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw a somewhat dystopian idea of whether the celebrity pop-industry is heading in its exploitation of aspiring young artists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child exploitation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catherine was driven by greed to ruthlessly exploit Ashley from an early age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Catherine as step-mother of Ashley O.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We are made to ponder to what extent was the mind uploaded Ashley Too doll was identical to the \"real\" Ashley O.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of creativity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Ashley compose in the night, then using drugs for the purpose. Jack tried to play the guitar and Rachel tried to dance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dancing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel performed a dance at her school talent competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel when she messed up the talent competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was taught that she could do anything so long as she believed in herself by her culture and the Ashley Too doll.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was noted that regular mouse traps are cruel and the dad was seeking more humane methods of dispatch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "performance-enhancing drugs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ashley O was given drugs to help her perform and compose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We thought for a while that Ashley O planned suicide, and there was a staged suicide attempt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We pondered for a moment the ethics of looking up a copy of Ashley in that doll with reduced brain functions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a coma-like state", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ashley Too experienced Ashley O's coma-like state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kevin seemed more interested in building mouse catchers then in taking care of his two daughters. He forgot about Rachel's birthday and was trying to sell mouse traps to a janitor while Rachel was performing at a school talent competition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rachel was mortified when she botched the dance she performed at her school talent competition.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Men in Black: International (2019)", "title": "Men in Black: International", "date": "2019-06-11", "description": "There is a traitor in the Men in Black organization.", "collections": [ "Collection: Men in Black" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black:_International" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien living secretly among us", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black was a secret government agency that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret society conspiracy theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Men in Black was a secret agency outside government control that supervised extraterrestrial lifeforms who lived secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Aliens were living secretly on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "Agent H took Agent M under his wing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "major", "motivation": "Molly joined the Men in Black out of a life long desire to know the truths of the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "High T, the head of the MIB UK branch, had been secretly working for the clandestine organization the Hive for years.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Agent M trust Agent H even though all evidence pointed to him being the mole in MiB? We were led to believe that High T was grappling over whether he should trust Agent H, although it turned out that High T was the mole all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Vungus’ crystal turned out to be an ultimate weapon powered by a compressed blue giant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The MiB fought to stop the Hive, a parasitic race who invade planets by merging with the DNA of the conquered species, from invading Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by WMDs", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Twins wanted to use Vungus' compressed blue giant super gun to destroy the Hive. Also, the presence of the weapon was a clear and present danger to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Men in Black used a mind wipe device on people who saw aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vungus was reptilian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "one night stand", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent H spent the night with a tentacled alien woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Riza was a notorious arms dealer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Vungus implicitly entrusted his superweapon with Agent M.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agent H and Riza.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tiny alien Pawny got around using a jet pack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Agent H and Agent M whizzing off in the skies in a fancy MiB car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pawny pledged his loyalty to Agent M and became her loyal servant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loyalty to a leader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pawny first to his queen, and then to Agent M.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Hive were invading Earth using a wormhole in the Eiffel Tower.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was Pawny's duty to commit ritual suicide after his queen had died, but he was easily talked out of it by Agent M.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: SpiderMan: Far From Home (2019)", "title": "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "date": "2019-06-26", "description": "Peter Parker is recruited by Nick Fury and Mysterio to face the Elementals while he is on a school trip to Europe. It is the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and the 23rd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.", "collections": [ "Collection: Marvel Cinematic Universe", "Collection: Spider-Man" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Far_From_Home" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Peter on a school trip to Europe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter had the strength of a man-sized spider.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter was secretly in love with MJ and was being extremely awkward around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and his best friend Ned went to Europe on a school trip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and Brad were both vying for MJ's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw Elemental: the monsterification of fire, earth, wind, and water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "malicious hoaxes in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mysterio hatched a plot to manipulate everyone's love of superheroes and that need for heroes to trick the world (using holographic-illusions and killer drones) into thinking that there was an existential threat and that only he could save them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying drone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mystero used advanced drones to both project elaborate holographic-illusions and slaughter people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killer microdrone", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mystero unleashed an army of killer drones on London. Peter's AI assistant Edith attempted to execute a drone strike on his romantic rival, Brad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Spider-Man saved London from a Mysterio perpetrated plot to kill scores of people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and MJ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Peter and MJ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick Fury summed all the crazy goings on with this aphorism at the conclusion of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter felt overwhelmed at a press conference and wanted a break.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aunt and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Aunt May.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ned and his new girlfriend Betty. Aunt May and Happy had in Aunt May's words \"a summer fling\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal flying contraption", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mysterio made everyone believe he had a special suit that allowed him to fly, but it turned out to be all smoke and mirrors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mysterio explained to Peter that he was from Earth in another universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "augmented reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter had augmented reality sunglasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tony left Peter his cool AI assistant sunglasses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male-male rivalry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter and Brad were rivaling bitterly over MJ's affections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the four elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vile monster Elemental was apparently the monsterification of the four elements.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter was a bundle of nerves around MJ.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Critters Attack (2019)", "title": "Critters Attack!", "date": "2019-07-13", "description": "While babysitting two teenagers, a young woman and her little brother discover that the alien Krites have landed in the nearby forest. They soon receive help from the mysterious Aunt Dee, who might have a history with the hungry intergalactic beasts. It is the fifth installment in the Critters franchise.", "collections": [ "Collection: Critters" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_Attack!" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Critters came to Earth from outer space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story followed Drea, her brother Philip, and the two kids they were baby sitting as they tried to not get killed by some Critters that had overrun their town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drea and her younger brother Philip. Trissy and her socially awkward, younger brother Jake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "courage", "level": "major", "motivation": "Drea in particularly kept calm and acted with exceptional bravery in the face of the Critter assault.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the white Critter had come to Earth to prevent the other green Critters from overrunning the entire planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Lewis jokingly dismissed Philip's speculation about an unexplained light in the sky being an alien spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drea didn't really dig the bagpipe playing, security guard who was really into her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social media in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The adolescent Jake only communicating with other people via texting served as a commentary on how the Internet has changed the way people communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drea blamed herself for her mother's death because she died in a car accident while on the way to pick Drea up at a party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Uncle Lewis hid one bottle of the hard stuff in a cabinet at home, and another in his desk drawer at the office.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While the nine-year-old boy Jake initially only communicated to other people by texting, he ultimately opened up to Drea and his sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Drea was mortified to have to deliver sushi to some students of the elite college that she so badly wished to attend.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Color Out of Space (2019)", "title": "Color Out of Space", "date": "2019-09-07", "description": "Strangeness ensues after a pinkish meteor lands outside a rural farmhouse. It is based on the short story \"The Colour Out of Space\" by H. P. Lovecraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Out_of_Space_(film)#:~:text=Color%20Out%20of%20Space%20is", "orianka%20Kilcher%20and%20Tommy%20Chong." ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan and Theresa Gardner moved their family to Nathan's father's rural farm in an effort to lead more tranquil lives outside of the big city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone was at a loss to explain all the weirdness that went on in the wake of what appeared to be a pinkish meteor outside the Gardner's family home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia had a borderline rocky relationship with her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia had a borderline rocky relationship with her parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan and his two sons Benny and Jack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lavinia and her pot smoking brother Benny, and her kid brother Jack. The relationship between Lavinia and Benny was particularly important to the story, as the two had to rely on each other more and more as the strange situation with the meteor escalated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan gradually went insane from the malignant influence of the pink meteor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the film is that the pink meteor harbored an alien entity that probably came to Earth by accident and was working to transform its surroundings to be similar to those of its native habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "a farm was invaded by some sort of alien life that was utterly incomprehensible to humans", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "a pink meteorite brought with it some sort of alien life that started to subvert Earthlife, creating monstrosities", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witchcraft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia performed a Wicken ritual to keep her mom's cancer from returning. She also had a copy of the Necronomicon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Gardner family dog was kicking around a lot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theresa worried that she no longer sexually attractive to her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer theory of UFOs", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A theory that the meteor was a UFO of some sort was advanced in a TV news report.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Benny and his kid brother Jack faced some pink meteor caused adversity in the barn with the alpacas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Theresa and her young son Jack got somehow fused together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lavinia cut herself up as part of one of her Wickan incantations. There were hints that this was not an isolated incident, such as the time she pinched herself very hard while her mother was knocking at her bedroom door.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan was on the verge of shooting his wife and son to put them out of their misery after they'd become fused together, but he changed his mind at the last second.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Gemini Man (2019)", "title": "Gemini Man", "date": "2019-10-01", "description": "Gemini Man is a 2019 American action thriller film directed by Ang Lee.\n\nSynopsis: A retiring hitman is targeted by a much younger clone of himself while on the run from the government.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Man_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the story surrounds the 51-year-old, over-the-hill assassin Henry Brogan being pursued by his younger and seemingly more ruthless clone, Junior. And while not explicitly mentioned, the file title \"Gemini Man\" evidently draws a parallel between the clones Henry/Junior and the Gemini twins Castor/Pollux from Greek mythology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hitman occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The hero of the story Henry Brogan was a recently retired assassin who'd worked for the United States federal government. Much was made about his past as a high-profile assassin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the 51-year-old assassin Henry Brogan coming to terms with that he was over-the-hill and it was time for him to retire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Henry and Danielle were being pursued around the world by government agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "The recently retired assassin Henry Brogan was astonished to discover that he was himself being target for assassination by a younger clone of himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "The retiring assassin Henry Brogan took the younger and innocent clone of himself, Junior, under his wing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Junior felt conflicted when it became apparent that his adoptive father, Clay Varris, had groomed him from childhood to be a government assassin, and more over that Varris had concealed from Junior that Junior was a clone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jack was fooling around with a bikini clad babe while his wife was away on a shopping trip in Paris.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry had a pathological fear of water, drowning in it in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was touched on that Junior had been genetically engineered to not feel pain and fear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "lying", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Junior confronted his adoptive father, Clay Varris, over having lied about Junior's own past. Clay had told Junior that he was an orphan when in really Clay had cloned Junior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Junior grew up believing that his real parents had left him at the fire department as a baby and scuttled off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clay Varris twice told his adoptive son Junior that he loved him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Henry was led to believe that the man he'd assassinated was a bio-terrorist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)", "title": "Terminator: Dark Fate", "date": "2019-10-23", "description": "Set 25 years after the events of Terminator 2, the film sees the machines sending an advanced Terminator, designated Rev-9, back in time to 2020 to eliminate Dani Ramos, whose fate is connected to the future. The Resistance also send Grace, an augmented soldier, back in time to defend Dani, while they are joined by Sarah Connor and an aging T-800 Terminator. It is the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise, and acts as a direct sequel to The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).", "collections": [ "Collection: The Terminator" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_Dark_Fate" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of dedicated resistance fighters struggled to stop machines from exterminating humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The shapeshifting Rev-9 Terminator Gabriel was sent back in time to kill Dani.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grace was born human but was converted into a cyborg. The T-101 Model Terminator Carl was a cyborg who had integrated into society and was living as a common draper with a wife and stepson in Laredo, Texas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "shapeshifter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The advanced shapeshifting Rev-9 Terminator Gabriel was sent back in time to kill Dani.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if a killer was after me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dani was being hunted down by the advanced shapeshifting Rev-9 Terminator Gabriel.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scene in 2042 was that of a post atomic horror wasteland in which humans were in a desperate war for survival against machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sarah Connor hunted Terminators and drank herself into blackouts in order to cope with the murder of her young son John at the hands of a Terminator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is shown a group of dedicated resistance fighters struggling to stop machines from exterminating humankind. The year was 2042.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dani's younger brother Diego wanted to be more famous than Bruno Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workers replaced by machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Diego lost his factory job to a big robotic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dani and her younger brother Diego.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear fission power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace was powered by a thorium reactor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immigration in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah quipped that Grace better had good luck trying to get an undocumented immigrant, Dani, through the Mexico/United States border. In the end, they tried to sneak across the border, and all ended up in a detention facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace described a future nuclear war in which millions died - billions after the food ran out, we learned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dani, Sarah, and Grace were apprehended by the United States Border Patrol and held against their will in a detention facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah told the Terminator Carl, the very one who shot had dead her son over 20 years prior, to his face that she was going to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terminator Carl was raising a stepson.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terminator Carl was living with his wife Alicia and a young stepson in Laredo, Texas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hope", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grace explained to Dani that her future self (Dani, that is) inspired humans to resist the machines and have people hope.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "machine living secretly among us", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The T-101 Model Terminator Carl was a cyborg who had integrated into society and was living as a common draper with a wife and stepson in Laredo, Texas.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hatred", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sarah harbored an intense hatred of all Terminators and made it her life's mission to go about killing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Terminator Carl gave its life to prevent the other Terminator who was actively hunting her down. Grace did the same.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)", "title": "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker", "date": "2019-12-16", "description": "The film follows Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron as they lead the Resistance's final stand against Kylo Ren and the First Order, who are now aided by the return of the deceased galactic emperor, Palpatine.", "collections": [ "Collection: Star Wars" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Rise_of_Skywalker" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2010s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A battle between the light side of the force and its dark side.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone were flying around in space all over the galaxy - typical space opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resistance movement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron as they led the Resistance's final stand against Kylo Ren and the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron as they led the Resistance's final stand against Kylo Ren and the First Order.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the supernatural", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Force mumbo jumbo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rey wanted to hunt down Palpatine and kill him to avenge his killing of her parents when she was only a child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was building up to Palpatine trying to convince his granddaughter Rey to join him in his evil schemes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Should Rey succumb to her hatred and join Palpatine in his evil design to make her into a Sith Empress of the galaxy?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kylo Ren came to see his dark side of the Force ways were all wrong, and seemed to have joined with the Resistance in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the lust for power", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kylo Ren sought to rule the galaxy as its new emperor. This was stated at the start of the film, but nothing much was made of it there after.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were miscellaneous funky looking aliens around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw this Jedi power on display. For example, Rey used her Jedi powers to stop a spaceship in midair as if by a tractor beam.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Protocol droid C-3PO.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leia was training Rey", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "C-3PO let R2-D2 know that it was his best friend. Chewbacca was briefly reunited with his old pal Lando.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey visited Luke's abandoned childhood home on the desert world Tatooine to bury the Skywalker lightsabers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey and other resistance fighters visited a desert planet on the edge of the galaxy, named Pasaana, that was home to the Aki-Aki race. Rey and Kylo Ren communicated telepathically over cosmic distances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jet pack", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A stormtrooper was flying around on Pasaana using one of these things.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The resistance fighters, especially Poe, mourned they presumed death of Chewbacca. The resistance fighters grieved over the unexpected loss of Leia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "C-3PO volunteered to undergo a procedure that would result in critical information being extracted from his forbidden memory bank, but at the cost of all his memories being wiped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The former stormtrooper Jannah told of how her company had mutinied rather than fire on civilians as they had been ordered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "healing ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rey used her Jedi powers to heal Kylo Ren after she ran him through with her lightsaber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a scene of Kylo Ren interacting with a lifelike memory of his father Hans Solo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "annihilation by a planet busting device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A First Order superlaser-equipped Star Destroyer blew up the planet Kijimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force transfer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Palpatine sought to transfer the life from from his decrepit body into Rey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Palpatine sought to transfer the life from from his decrepit body into Rey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable planet in a binary star system", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concluded with Rey watching a double sun set on the desert planet Tatooine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Invasion (2020)", "title": "Invasion", "date": "2020-01-01", "description": "Invasion, also known as Attraction 2 (Russian: Вторжение, romanized: Vtorzhenie) is a 2020 Russian science fiction action film. The story picks up three years after the events of Attraction. Julia, who was saved from death with the help of extraterrestrial technologies, has unusual abilities now. The girl has become the object of the research conducted in secret laboratories of the Ministry of Defense. Julia's new abilities attract not only people on Earth, they are becoming a threat to extraterrestrial civilizations - because of that the Earth is threatened with invasion.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_(2020_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yulia and her father Colonel Lebedev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human-like in appearance alien Hecon came to protect Yulia from getting killing by the Ra aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Yulia and Hecon were deeply in love, and Hecon sough the approval of Yulia's no-nonsense, military father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Ra aliens invaded Moscow to recover, and probably kill Yulia.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yulia and her dog Chara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ministry of Defense was trying to reverse engineer a highly advanced alien, robotic suit that they had recovered from a previous alien encounter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The large, spherical Sol and Ra alien spacecraft.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Artyom frightened the living hell out of two young boys who were out flying a small drone by remote control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Ra aliens used a cyber attack to make it seem that Yulia had perpetrated a terrorist bombing of an apartment block.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ivan briefly interacted with his young son Roma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yulia was visibly disturbed by the sight of her ex-boyfriend's dead body.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Assassin 33 AD (2020)", "title": "Assassin 33 A.D.", "date": "2020-01-24", "description": "Assassin 33 A.D. is a 2020 Christian film written and directed by Jim Carroll.\n\nSynopsis: It is up to a plucky team of scientists to go back in time and prevent a terrorist plot to assassinate Jesus.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ram invented a transporter-pad-style time machine that was subsequently used by terrorists to go back in time and assassinate Jesus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ram and Amy hit it off and quickly became boyfriend and girlfriend.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the relationship between the skeptic Ram and his Christian girlfriend, Amy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Brandt as he engages in an angry personal dialogue with God over how God could have let Brandt's wife and two young daughters die in a car crash.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a terrorist plot to stop Christianity from taking root by traveling back in time to assassinate Jesus shortly before his crucifixion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fundamentalism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Ahmed was part of a group of Islamic extremists that was plotting terrorists attacks, including, ultimately, the assassination of none other than Jesus of Nazareth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandt, Ram, Simon, and other time travelers met and conversed with Jesus in the year 33 A.D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross to atone for the sins of humankind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ram, Amy, Simon, and a couple of Islamic extremists found themselves stuck in the year 33 A.D.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to the skeptical nonbeliever Ram (in one of the various timelines) seeing the truth of Christianity in the moments before his death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "faith vs. science", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was an ongoing debate between the skeptic Ram and his Christian girlfriend, Amy, over the truth/falsity of the Christian religion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "An important component of the film was Ram having to overcome his desire to kill Brandt out of revenge for Brandt having shot Amy in the abdomen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a crisis of faith", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandt lost his faith after his wife and two young daughters died in a car crash. But he got it back after a long string of events that included him shooting Jesus in the head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film tells a version of the Christ story involving time travelers and terrorists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "A suicidal and sobbing Brandt pointedly grieved for his wife and two young daughters, the three of whom perished when the car Brandt himself was driving them in was t-boned by a dump truck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brandt's wife Heidi died in a horrible wreck of twisted metal as they were hit by a dump truck as he made a left while looking at her, rather than paying attention to the road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In an alternate timeline, Brandt assured his two young daughters that God must have been looking out for their family in the wake of nearly avoiding getting hit by a dump truck while making a left turn onto a not so busy road.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Heidi was in the car with her two young girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A visibly grieving Brandt cocked his handgun and contemplated pulling the trigger before tossing it across the room in favor of chewing out the Lord.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram and the other scientists invented a teleporter that functioned by transferring a physical object from a pad on one side of a room to a pad on another side of the same room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first day on the job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brandt's first day working as a security manager for Ahmed went from \"this isn't so bad\" to \"what did I get myself into\" when Brandt found himself being ordered to torture a man, execute this parents, and then go back in time to assassinate Jesus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Stockholm syndrome", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram speculated that Ahmed was working with the very terrorists who killed his parents owning to this syndrome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Islam", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ahmed was of the opinion that Allah would honor him and his men should they succeed in their plot to go back in time and eliminate Christianity by assassinating Jesus shortly before his crucifixion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram refused to give the terrorists what they wanted even after he was roughed up and had his parents execution style murdered before his eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram was forced to watch his father be execution style murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram was forced to watch his mother be execution style murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ram was astonished when an alternate timeline version of himself burst in at the last moment and saved Ram's (their?) parents from being execution style murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The film concludes with the revelation that not only did Ahmed clone Jesus, but moreover that the clone turned out to be the Antichrist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Possessor (2020)", "title": "Possessor", "date": "2020-01-25", "description": "A corporate agent uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, driving them to commit assassinations for the benefit of the company.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessor_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tasya's consciousness was sent to inhabit the body of Colin using a special brain-implant device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tasya's consciousness became trapped in Colin's body and they started to mesh together into one discombobulated person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was combined with another person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Tasya's consciousness became trapped in Colin's body and they started to mesh together into one discombobulated person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michael and Tasya Vos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colin and and Ava were engaged to be married, but then Tasya (in the body of Colin) shot Ava dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tasya's consciousness was transferred into the body of a man. Upon transfer, Tasya inspected her new male body, and later made love to a woman in the said body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The idea behind the story is that Tasya inhabits other the bodies of other people and drives them to commit murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasya had her brain implanted with a small device that enabled her consciousness to be transfered into the bodies of other people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tasya had some passing interactions with her young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "academic occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael complained that an old crusty journal editor was not going to look kindly on the paper he'd submitted. Later Michael gossiped about a colleague in his department who had become involved in a relationship with one of the colleague's students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael had some passing fatherly interactions with his young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality headset", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Colin was working in a dingy room, elbow to elbow with other workers. But each worker wore a pair of virtual reality goggles that gave them the appearance of working at a nice desk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boredom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ruthless CEO John Parse explained in the course of giving a toast that he'd been bored with things at his company lately, but that in his boredom he'd made some great progress toward something or another.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John, an extremely wealthy CEO, despised that his daughter was engaged to the undistinguished man Colin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "John, an extremely wealthy CEO, despised that his daughter was engaged to the undistinguished man Colin.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Invisible Man (2020)", "title": "The Invisible Man", "date": "2020-02-27", "description": "The film follows a woman who believes she is being stalked by her abusive and wealthy boyfriend even after his apparent suicide. She ultimately deduces that he has acquired the ability to become invisible.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man_(2020_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cecilia and her violent, controlling partner Adrian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal invisibility cloak", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adrian invented a special suit that rendered its wearer totally invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Adrian invented a special suit that rendered its wearer totally invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cecilia was living in abject terror of her controlling partner, Adrian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nobody would believe Cecilia's astonishing claim that Adrian had faked his own death and was terrorizing her with the help of a suit that made him completely invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cecilia's childhood friend James helped her after she escaped from being trapped in a violent relationship with her controlling partner, Adrian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone assumed that Cecilia was under a delusion that Adrian, who was presumably dead, was out to get her, but in the end she was vindicated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cecilia was made paranoid and fearful because she was being stalked and threatened by Adrian, or perhaps his brother Tom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. human", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cecilia was being stalked by her supposedly suicided lover Adrian (although the possibility that it was actually Adrien's brother Tom who was the stalker).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative full body outfit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adrian invented a special suit that rendered its wearer totally invisible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecilia confided in James and Emily that Adrien had committed physical acts pf violence against her in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrian was thought to have taken his own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecilia loved her Doberman, Zeus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "James and his teen daughter Sydney.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecilia's sister Emily was helping her through a tough time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cecilia was surprised to find out that she was pregnant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrian claimed that he was controlled by his brother Tom and vice versa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Adrien killed Cecilia's sister in cold blood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Cecilia slit Adrien's throat to get back at him for all the hell he'd put her through.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as2020e01", "title": "The Cellar", "date": "2020-03-06", "description": "An accidental time-traveler has a romance with a woman a hundred years in the past.\n\nDirected by: Chris Long. Story by: Jessica Sharzer.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories2020.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Sam accidentally traveled a hundred years into the past to the year 1919. Later, he briefly traveled into the future to the year 2034.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Sam and Evelyn's ill-fated love affair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bothers Sam and Jake Taylor were working together to fix up an old farmhouse. Jake grew worried about Sam when Sam confided in Jake that he'd traveled to the past and fallen in love there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could never go home", "level": "major", "motivation": "It seemed that Sam might never be able to return to his own time after accidentally traveling back to the year 1919.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for a simpler life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jake chided Sam for fiddling with his cell phone too much with the implication being that Sam was embedded in a world of perpetual distraction. In the end, Sam found solace in the simpler times of 1919.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sam accidentally traveled a hundred years into the past to the year 1919.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn longed to be a singer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn pulled out a shotgun on Sam, a complete stranger to her, when he entered her home on a flimsy pretense.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn was looking for a way out of marrying her fiancé, William.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn's mother was strong-arming her into marrying a wealthy man she didn't love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Evelyn introduced Sam to her grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam and Evelyn talked their way into a speakeasy and sampled the goodies there. Various attitudes to alcohol in 1919 were featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "women's suffrage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A procession of placard waving suffragettes briefly crossed Sam's view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam briefly and unexpectedly traveled into the future to the year 2034.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "future point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sam, who found himself 100 years in the past in the year 1919, was dumbfounded by the mentioning of rhubarb which was presumably no longer a inner staple in his time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bloodshot (2020)", "title": "Bloodshot", "date": "2020-03-13", "description": "The story follows a Marine who was killed in action, only to be brought back to life with superpowers by an organization that wants to use him as a weapon. It is intended to be the first installment in a series of films set within a Valiant Comics shared cinematic universe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodshot_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Rising Spirit Tech corporation scientists resurrected Ray using special nanorobotic technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was regenerated after suffering any physical damage by Nanobots circulating in his bloodstream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the nanobots circulating in Ray's bloodstream would regenerate him after suffering any amount of physical damage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray had billions of nanobots circulating in his bloodstream. They regenerated his body from injury, gave him super human strength, and allowed him to remotely hack into computer databases.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray was strong enough crumble concrete with his punches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Rising Spirit Tech corporation turned Ray into a nanobot infused killing machine prototype with intentions of selling him, and others like him, to the highest bidders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray hunted down and took out men who he falsely believed had murdered his wife. After finding out that Dr. Harting had implanted him with false memories of these events, he tracked down Harting and blew him to bits with an explosive device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ray and KT formed a bond of friendship over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray led a successful mission to free a hostage being held in Mombasa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray and Gina were shown to be in a loving relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray and Gina were shown vacationing in Italian beachside town on the Amalfi Coast.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being tortured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was manipulated into thinking he'd witnessed his wife get killed in front of his eyes by a ruthless killer who wanted to get Ray to reveal some information about a hostage rescue operation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tibbs, who had lost his sight in a Iraqi mortar attack, was enhanced with artificial ocular implants.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Harting had a robotic right arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dalton had advanced robotic legs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aquatic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Former US Navy diver KT's tracheal respirator enabled her to swim underwater for long periods of time without having to come up for air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "underwater breathing gill", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Former US Navy diver KT's tracheal respirator enabled her to swim underwater for long periods of time without having to come up for air.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray used his nanites to hack into computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ray was implanted false memories to turn him into a killing machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gina briefly interacted with her young daughter when Ray was at Gina's doorstep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Harting confronted a simulated version of Ray in a virtual reality setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "powered exoskeleton", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dalton hooked up to his spine a robotic apparatus with long, powerful robot arms.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as2020e02", "title": "The Heat", "date": "2020-03-13", "description": "After a hit-and-run collision, the ghost of a track athlete investigates her death and helps her best friend train for a college track scholarship.\n\nDirected by: Sylvain White. Story by: Chinaka Hodge.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories2020.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Stirling was devastated after her best friend got killed in a hit-and-run before her eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stirling and Tuka were fast friends, although there had been some friction recently before Tuka's tragic death. The story turns on Stirling coming to grips with Tuka's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Tuka after she died in a hit-and-run collision, and became a ghost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuka was left to roam her old neighborhood as a ghost after perishing in a hit-and-run collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tuka was stuck in limbo after she became a ghost following a hit-and-run collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to pursue one's dream", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stirling was driven by a desire to make it as a track athlete and get a college track scholarship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "track and field", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stirling was driven by a desire to make it as a track athlete and get a college track scholarship. Unfortunately for her, however, her hopes were dashed when a man clubbed her on the knee before the big race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stirling was determined to bring Tuka's manslaughterer to justice. Although the matter was ultimately left unresolved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tuka was killed in a hit-and-run collision.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stirling was assaulted and hit on the knee with a baseball bat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A funeral service was held for Tuka at a Baptist church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stirling initially blamed herself for Tuka's death in a hit-and-run accident. Her friend, Lee, reassured her that she was not to blame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stirling lost patience with the apathetic police detective who was responsible for tracking down the man who had run over Tuka.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as2020e03", "title": "Dynoman and the Volt!", "date": "2020-03-20", "description": "A grandfather receives a superhero ring that he ordered in the mail 60 years ago, enabling him to become a hero to his comic-obsessed grandson.\n\nNote: This episode was dedicated in memory of Robert Forster who died in October 2019 after this episode was filmed.\n\nDirected by: Susanna Fogel. Story by: Peter Ackerman.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories2020.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Dylan and his complicated relationship with his grandfather Joe. Dylan thought his grandpa was a \"jerk\", but then they discovered a shared passion for superhero comics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got an extraordinary ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Grandpa Joe received a magic ring in the mail that bestowed three superpowers to its wearer: super strength, super speed, and the ability to fly. The ring by Grandpa Joe and his son Michael. Joe's grandson, Dylan, also acquired powers from the ring, but in a roundabout way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human pleasure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Dylan and his grandfather, Joe, shared an enthusiasm for superheroes, and reading about them in comics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joe and his son, Michael, were at the center of the story. The relationship between Michael and his son, Dylan, was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dylan was a junior high school kid and interacted with his best friend in the school. Dylan worried about his reputation at the school. In order to improve it, he proposed a prank involving putting the principal's car on the school roof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone else thought Grandpa Joe coped poorly with being old. He told them off in no uncertain terms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "major", "motivation": "A mysterious ring bestowed supernatural strength (the red stone) upon Grandpa Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dylan felt betrayed by his best friend after being teased by a Batman costume photo that had been shared in confidence. Dylan took it very hard when Grandpa Joe didn't show up to take him out for Halloween and embarked on a life super-villainy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dylan, a boy who was struggling to adjust to junior high school, bonded with his somewhat estranged grandpa over their shared interest in superhero comics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dylan had trouble fitting in at junior high.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Dylan and Michael burying the hatchet with Grandpa Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "retiring from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa Joe dug his heels in but his manager made it clear that, one way or the other, Joe would be retiring from his job.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Helen Harris were concerned that Michael's elderly father was pushing himself too hard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael and Helen Harris were both working in the medical field and shared some experiences from their respective jobs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan walked in on his teenage brother making out with a girl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father-in-law and daughter-in-law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Grandpa Joe and Helen. Helen studied psychology and wanted to help Grandpa Joe cope with aging etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Helen interacted with her young son, Dylan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michael scolded Grandpa Joe for being, and having been, exceedingly selfish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dylan felt betrayed by his best friend after being teased by a Batman costume photo that had been shared in confidence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After being betrayed by his best friend and stood up by the grandpa he adored, Dylan decided to become a supervillain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood pranks", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Fresh off acquiring super strength, Dylan played a prank on his principal by dragging the principal's SUV onto the school roof during the Halloween dance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mysterious ring bestowed supernatural speed (the blue stone) upon Grandpa Joe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mysterious ring bestowed the ability to fly (the yellow stone) upon Michael.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as2020e04", "title": "Signs of Life", "date": "2020-03-27", "description": "Sara awakens from a six-year coma with memory loss and other strange behaviors. Her adult daughter Alia, who struggles after dropping out of school, discovers that Sara is linked to other similar cases.\n\nDirected by: Michael Dinner. Story by: Leah Fong.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories2020.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone couldn't remember me anymore", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Alia struggling with her mother not remembering her after waking up from a six-year coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on Alia reconnecting with her mother, Sara, who had just woken up from a six-year coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sara awoke after being in a six-year coma. It turned out that various other comatose people had woken up in a similar way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Although the story ended up with a different conclusion, it appeared as if Sara was amnesiac after suffering a lengthy period in coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cody and Alia were an item.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that mysterious extraterrestrial beings had taken over and used the bodies of various coma-patients. The aliens could not survive Earth's atmosphere for long in their incorporeal form. They thought the coma-patients were essentially beyond saving anyway, and so using their bodies was no great infringement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alia's life was turned upside down when her mother, Sara, suddenly awoke from a six-year coma. Alia made considerable efforts to make Sara part of her life again in spite of Sara's strange behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of high schoolers tried to dine-and-dash. Alia and Cody robbed the restaurant where Alia worked in order to pay off the man who fronted Cody street drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara used her mind to make a bunch of guards drop their weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara was able to see in her mind an imprisoned woman by concentrating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara and Wayne used some mysterious abilities to throw each other away from a distance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sara was shot dead in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Koh treated Sara after she awoke from a six-year coma.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "single motherhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was touched on that Sara had raised Alia as a single mother.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x01", "title": "Loop", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "A young girl named Loretta comes home from school one day to find her house has disappeared, as has her mother. In its place, she finds a small black rock that doesn't always follow gravity's rules. While searching the area, she meets Cole, a boy around her age who lives in the area. Together, they investigate the Loop where both their parents worked, but fail to find anything useful. At Cole's house, his mother realizes that Loretta is a younger version of herself displaced in time. She finds Loretta and together, they return the black stone to a massive orb inside of the Loop. Younger Loretta disappears, and Older Loretta comforts Cole, fearing she has not been the best mother.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Because of some peculiar causality loop caused by her mother's tinkering with a strange device, Young Loretta came to meet an older version of herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Loretta was distraught when she found that her mother, and indeed their entire house, had vanished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Loretta was distraught when she found that her mother, and indeed their entire house, had vanished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Loretta and Cole went on something of a childhood adventure to locate Loretta's suddenly disappeared mother. Young Loretta was shown engaging in various typical childhood activities, including skipping stones off the surface of a frozen lake, being bored to tears in the classroom, catching the water from melting icicles in her mouth, etc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Loretta considered the possibility that her mother had deliberately taken off without telling her. Loretta confided in her young son Cole, telling him that her mother had left her when she was his age, and reassured him that she would not follow suit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity", "level": "major", "motivation": "One gathers that the mysterious black orb located inside the Loop facility was being used to manipulate gravity and possibly time itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neglectful parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alma was called out by a colleague for putting her work above her daughter, Young Loretta. Cole called into question his mother Loretta's commitment to him with the suggestion that she was more into her work than she was into mother him. Cole had expressed his doubts about Loretta's commitment to being a mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Loretta was distressed to find that her mother had gone missing, and feared that she'd been abandoned. Young Loretta came home from school to find her mother, Alma, being castigated by a colleague.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bored with her long division, Young Loretta peered wistfully at the snowy landscape from her schoolroom window.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tabletop games", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Loretta conversed with Alma over a game of chess.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Loretta reassuring her young son Cole that she would always be there for him. This was after Cole had expressed his doubts about Loretta's commitment to being a mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was shown to have a robotic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole interacted with his older space geek brother, Jakob.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob spoke of how stars sometimes transform into black holes without first going supernova.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Loretta befriended Cole, who joined her in the search for her suddenly disappeared mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time loop", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Loretta told her younger self that she would meet a little girl many years for now, implying that little girl would be Loretta. The viewer is made to consider that his process would consider ad infinitum.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x02", "title": "Transpose", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "Cole's older brother Jakob and his friend Danny discover a strange pod in the forest that allows them to switch bodies. They decide to live each other's lives for a day, where Jakob experiences Danny's distraught but freer life while Danny experiences Jakob's richer but more confining one. Danny persuades Jakob to wait another day, but after realizing that he will never have the opportunities that Jakob will, refuses to switch back. Jakob, confused and distraught, tries to switch back into his own body without Danny being present, with disastrous results. When Danny finds his body with no Jakob inside of it, he regretfully takes over Jakob's life while Danny's family take care of their son's empty body. Later that night, a robot visits Jakob's house, and Danny realizes that Jakob's consciousness was transferred into the robot. When approached by Danny, the robot runs away.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explored Jakob and Danny's respective reactions to finding themselves each in the body of the other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explored what might happen if two people were able to swap bodies at will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jakob and Danny were fast friends but their friendship came under strain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. personal gain", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny deliberated whether to swap back to his own body but decided he liked Jakob's life so much better that he decided to screw his friend over instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Danny ultimately betrayed his best friend, Jakob, to secure a prestigious job after graduating high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny in Jakob's body wooed the latter's secret crush. Jakob in Danny's body did not approve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny in Jakob's body wooed the latter's secret crush. Jakob in Danny's body did not approve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob made a sketch of his secret crush in his sketchbook.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob was into a certain girl at school, but lacked the gonads to let her know how he felt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pursuing one's dream vs. advancing one's career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob had a mind to pursue his passion of drawing in a professional capacity, but his parents weren't having it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George was shown handling a fork with his robotic hand, and by extension arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob interacted with his kid brother at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob's parents were in agreement that he should work at the Loop facility. Ed and Kate had a late night shouting match.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob's mother made it clear she wanted him to pursue a career at the Loop facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob's father made it clear he wanted him to pursue a career at the Loop facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny in Jakob's body had an awkward exchange with Jakob's grandfather.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny's deaf kid sister used sign language to communicate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob in Danny's body shewed Danny's kid sister out from the bathroom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship vs. career", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny in Jakob's body ultimately chose to pursue a career at the prestigious Loop facility, which Jakob was on the inside track to land, over honoring his agreement with Jakob to vacate Jakob's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Danny was desperate to avoid working a dead end job the rest of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robotics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob's consciousness was transferred into an advanced, bipedal robot.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x03", "title": "Stasis", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "May, Jakob's girlfriend, finds a strange device in a lake. While at a wedding, May befriends Ethan, a boy with a foot disability. Ethan helps May steal a component for the device, and she inserts it to activate the machine. May kisses Ethan, but she leaves and she finishes the machine which, when she turns it on, temporarily freezes time. They spend a month together, having fun, and eventually pronounce their love for one another. After finally deciding to resume time, May discovers that an integral component of the machine is broken. She and Ethan go looking for a replacement in the house where her mother is having an affair, something she was unaware of before. Distraught, she argues with Ethan who then runs off and leaves the paused time. May fixes the machine and restarts time, where she apologizes to Ethan and they part ways.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time freeze", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores what two youngsters might do if they found a way to freeze time. Excluding for themselves, of course.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "May and Ethan proclaimed their love for one another, and consummated it on the hard cold asphalt of a high street in their time-frozen village.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw two horny adolescents explore their sexuality, and other turbulent emotions. May had a conflict with her mother regarding shagging.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teen romance", "level": "major", "motivation": "May and Ethan were two high schoolers in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mobility impairment", "level": "major", "motivation": "May and Ethan had a falling out when she maligned his disability - a malformed right foot as it happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "May had a strained relationship with her mother who disapproved of her running around with boys. May later revealed the mother as a hypocrite when she walked on her playing pelvic pinochle together with an area man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I could do anything I wanted without repercussions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After freezing time, May and Ethan copulated in the middle of the street and then proceeded to make away with a shopping cart laden with stolen goods.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of being alone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "May confided in Ethan that she was afraid of being alone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan was into archery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "May was disturbed to find her frozen-in-time mother in bed with a frozen-in-time man not the mother's husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "May interacted with her father on the lake shore and in the car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "May was fishing at the lake shore together with her father.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x04", "title": "Echo Sphere", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "Cole catches fireflies at his grandparent’s Russ and Klara’s yard. The next day, Russ takes Cole to an old Loop project, a huge rusting “echo sphere.” Russ informs Cole, George, and Klara that his doctor has predicted he does not have long to live. At the Loop, Russ tells Loretta that he is putting her in charge of the Loop and she accepts. Russ takes Cole on a drive for one last teachable moment. Russ arrives home and makes a foreshadowing comment to Klara. He goes to the bedroom and collapses. Jakob informs Cole that their grandfather is in the hospital. Determined that the Loop can save Russ, Cole breaks into the underground complex, but gets caught by Loretta as he’s about to touch the mysterious sphere at the heart of the Loop. After initially hesitating, George takes Cole to see Russ in the hospital. Russ is delusional, which shocks Cole. Later at the hospital, Russ, in his final moments, dreams of merging with the underground sphere. Cole returns to the echo sphere alone. He shouts into it again, and with each echo, he envisions the decades of his life passing by. Finally, he sees the sphere filled with fireflies.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story regards Russ and others' coming to terms with the fact that Russ was terminally ill with very little time left.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story regards Russ and others' coming to terms with the fact that Russ was terminally ill with very little time left.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative prediction of the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "The title refers to a phenomenon that was at the center, albeit not very important per se, of the story: a sphere that predicted how much time one had left to live.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and grandson", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the boy Cole as he goes through losing his beloved grandfather, Russ.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children learning about death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Russ struggled to convey to break the news to Cole that Russ was going to die soon. George had troubled consoling Cole when they visited Russ on his deathbed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ and Klara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ and his son George. George and his young son Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A terminally ill Russ apologized to his daughter for having neglected to attend her wedding, telling her that he wished he'd gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob alerted his kid brother, Cole, to the fact that their grandfather had been taken to the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ apologized to his daughter, Loretta, for having neglected to attend her wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ immediately came to accept that he was doing to die even before his physician called him to break the bad news.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x05", "title": "Control", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "A well-intentioned, but misguided man prioritizes developing a home security robot over providing for his family's more immediate needs.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed's fixation on developing his security robot over paying the bills strained his relationship with his wife, Kate, to the point that she up and left with their daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed was very much concerned with protecting his young daughter, Beth, from intruders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robotics", "level": "major", "motivation": "A large, remote-controlled robot, called \"The Scrapper\", that copied the movements of the person controlling it was a main novelty of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Beth was deaf-mute and communicated by sign language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the fact that Ed and his family were so short on funds that they had trouble paying hospital bills and needed electrical works.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acute anxiety", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed became increasing paranoid about the possibility of a mysterious trespasser returning to harm his wife and daughter. Even though other people in the community didn't make a big deal about the incident, Ed felt it necessary use his remote-control scrap disposal robot for home security.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of strangers", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed was unusually concerned about a mysterious person who had lurked on his property.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ed became obsessed with protecting his family from possible intruders to the point where he neglected their well-being in other ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "seeing the error of one's ways", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Ed coming to see the insanity behind his beyond the pale efforts to protect his family from home intruders at the expense of tending to their more immediate needs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate and her young daughter, Beth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anger management issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed barely controlled his anger and we saw a few over-the-top outbursts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the sport of boxing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed was would blow off steam by gloving up, and hitting the heavy bag in his basement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two cops came to Ed's house first to take down his account of an intruder being on his property, and later to warn him that the presence of his security robot had become a concern to the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ed apologized to his comatose son for having let him down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the control of deadly weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police spoke gravely to Ed about the dangerous remote-control home security robot he was playing around with. We must see a parallel to contemporary debates regarding gun control in America.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x06", "title": "Parallel", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "A man becomes infatuated with the boyfriend of his parallel universe self.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Gaddis got on a harvester and found himself in some sort of parallel universe where he met his parallel self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Gaddis and his romantic desires involving other men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis became infatuated with his parallel self's boyfriend, Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis went on a futuristic tractor he had just repaired, and was somehow shifted into a parallel dimension where everything was just slightly different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met the perfect mate", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis had found a photo and dreamed about what he thought was his perfect match. Then he went to a parallel world and met this man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a strange place", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis went on a futuristic tractor he had just repaired, and was somehow shifted into a parallel dimension where everything was just slightly different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and boyfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Parallel-Gaddis was living together with his lover, Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis' misinterpreted Alex's intentions and ended up with a broken heart in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Alex and Gaddis kissed in the shed out of sight out Alex's boyfriend. Alex had run around with other men behind parallel-Gaddis' back, according to parallel-Gaddis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gaddis was leading a solitary life, hoping one day to find his dream lover. In the end, Gaddis confided in his parallel self that he didn't want to be lonely anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George gestured conspicuously with his robotic hand (and by extension, arm) while conversing with Gaddis at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Loretta had Gaddis over for dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gaddis and he parallel self were both avid bird watchers, or \"birders\" as they called themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carpentry occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alex was into woodworking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill is in the chase", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Parallel-Gaddis summed up Alex's behavior with these words: \"There have been other men... The excitement of someone new, even if it's another me. But it always runs its course. And then that's that.\"", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x07", "title": "Enemies", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "A son inadvertently discovers the mechanical man that his father had marooned on an island out of fear for its general safety.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first half of the story concerned a friends group of three teenage boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first half of the story concerned a friend group of three teenage boys.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young George was stranded alone on an island where he believed a monster of some sort roamed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "missing hand", "level": "major", "motivation": "George lost his left arm and had to come to terms with this.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer learns belatedly that Russ had created a mysterious robot of the Frankensteinian variety. It had been like a child to him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the latter half to the story was the revelation that Russ had once build a robot which he was forced to abandon on an island because people would fear it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "major", "motivation": "The amputee George was fitted with a robotic arm and was shown getting accustomed to manipulating it. The story concluded with him donating it to the abandoned robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood terrors", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concerned three teenage boys' stereotypical fear, which they goaded each other to face, of a rumored monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young George faced the prospect of having to survive on the island in the middle of the lake until help arrived.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Russ and George spoke briefly. George lectured Cole about a stun baton not being a toy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klara and George hugged passionately. George later conversed about the robot over a light meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George interacted with his wife, Loretta.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While never spelled out, we get the impression that the robot must have been lonely on the island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George obviously came to feel bad about having hurt his father's abandoned robot. Russ felt guilty about having abandoned his robot on the island, according to Klara.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "talesfromtheloop1x08", "title": "Home", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "Cole misses his brother who has moved to an apartment closer to the Loop. He goes to visit his brother and he learns that his brother is actually Danny, stuck in his Jakob's body. He also learns his brother Jakob is in the blue robot. He finds the robot and wants to bring him to his mother to help. Both Cole and his brother cross a frozen stream in the woods unknowingly jumping them forward in time several decades. In the woods Jakob dies after fighting with another robot and Cole has to leave him. He eventually leaves the woods and finds his mother as a very old woman. She explains they have been looking for him for many years and his grandmother and father have died, Jakob (Danny) has married and had kids. Cole also learns his teacher, who had taught his older brother and parents, is the second generation of human-like robots, following the first generation of robot like the one from Episode 7. The episode ends many years later when we see an adult Cole, visiting his childhood home with his new family.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-talesfromtheloop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned Cole and his troubled relationship with his brother Jakob, who had actually body swapped into a robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "body swap", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explored what might happen if two people swapped bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cole somehow found himself in a future many years hence, where his mother was old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cole somehow found himself in a future many years hence, where his mother was old.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cole found his brother in the body of a robot, and quickly lost him. Cole's parents presumably learned how they had lost the real Jakob. Unclear if they thought Cole was dead or merely missing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "The close relationship between Cole and his mother, Loretta, was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story of conveyed from the boy Cole's perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer saw Danny experiencing what it was like to be in Jakob's body some years after they'd swapped bodies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Robo-Jakob fought an evil-minded mechanoid to protect his wholly human younger brother Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George and Loretta Willard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George missed his young son, Cole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robotics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jakob's consciousness was trapped inside the body of an advanced, bipedal robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George had a robotic arm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and grandson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Klara and her grandson, Cole, conversed in the flowery field near the Loop facility.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole's teacher lent him a certain book to read.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole learned that his school teacher some an android of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cole photographed a sprig of flowers in a field. Before shooting his mother's portrait, Cole asked her something that made her well up with tears, as if by design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "change is part of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Motivated by a desire to go back to a time when his older brother still lived at home, Cole asked George why things couldn't stay the way they were. George told him that \"time\" is the reason. Cole's interest in photography is interpretable as being bound up with his desire to keep things they way they were.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "as2020e05", "title": "The Rift", "date": "2020-04-03", "description": "A World War II fighter plane crashes outside of Dayton, Ohio. Passerby Mary Ann rescues the pilot, Lt. Theodore Cole, and learns that he had been shot down over Burma. Mary Ann and her stepson Elijah protect Cole as he is pursued by federal agents who believe that his presence is a bad omen.\n\nNote: This episode was adapted from the 2017 graphic novel of the same name.\n\nDirected by: Mark Mylod. Story by: Don Handfield and Richard Rayner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-amazingstories2020.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a fictional United States where mysterious time rifts appear and deliver people from the past, seemingly for the purpose of doing something fateful. Lt. Cole had been transported forwards in part to say goodbye to his wife, and in part to deliver a message to Mary Ann from her late husband, or something along those lines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the future", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lt. Cole had been in an aerial battle in Burma during World War II when his plane unexpectedly moved itself to 21st century Dayton, Ohio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepmother and stepson", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mary Ann was saddled with her stepson Elijah after the boy's father who had died in the war in Afghanistan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "major", "motivation": "For reasons that were not entirely clear, Lt. Cole instantly decided to hightail it from the police that guarded him at the hospital.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the following dilemma: would it be just to send Lt. Cole back to a certain death in order to avert a likely catastrophe that would devastate a 10 mile radius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "It transpired that Lt. Cole had been transported forwards in time in order to tell his, now aged, wife that he was sorry for leaving her and that he loved her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a special group of secret government agents whose job is to deal with time rifts that sometimes appear and spit out people from the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with life issues", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elijah viewed his stepmother, Mary Ann, leaving him to live with his aunt in Burlington as an act of abandonment. The story concluded with Mary Ann and Elijah happily driving off together to California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Elijah viewed his stepmother, Mary Ann, leaving him to live with his aunt in Burlington as an act of abandonment. The story concluded with Mary Ann and Elijah happily driving off together to California.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a special group of secret government agents whose job is to deal with time rifts that sometimes appear and spit out people from the past. Somehow the government was covering up that time rifts appeared from time to time, sometimes devastating everything within a 10 mile radius.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Cole had been dogfighting in the air over Burma in 1941.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elijah nicked a photo from a display case in a police station, of all places.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spaceborne being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was speculated that the time rift (or rifts) had a will, and was tossing people around in time for some higher purpose of one sort or another. The time rift appeared as an enormous stratospheric phenomenon, but nothing indicated that it itself was tied to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "children and candy from strangers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elijah accepted a Whiz bar from Lt. Cole, but only after pointing out that it was inappropriate for a stranger to offer candy to children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lt. Cole explained this past action of his as a \"dumb superstition\": He intentionally avoided saying goodbye to his lover before going off to fight in the war because he felt that way he was \"never really gone\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Red Dwarf: The Promised Land (2020)", "title": "Red Dwarf: The Promised Land", "date": "2020-04-09", "description": "Red Dwarf: The Promised Land is a 2020 British science-fiction comedy television film and the thirteenth installment of the British science-fiction sitcom, Red Dwarf.\n\nSynopsis: The Red Dwarf crew of Dave Lister, Arnold Rimmer, the Cat, and Kryten face-off against Rodon, the leader of a band of feral cats, who has pledged to annihilate all those who don't worship him as their god.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf:_The_Promised_Land" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "The trio of cat clerics worshiped Lister as a god to Lister's bemusement and dismay. In general, the story is all about Lister being the god of the cat people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "to tell the truth vs. to offer a comforting lie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lister grappled with whether or not he should break it to the trio of cat clerics that he was not their god. If he did, he risked \"breaking their hearts and crushing their souls\", but he felt some responsibility to be honest with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "felinoid being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew encountered a race of cat-like humanoids who'd evolved from house cats over the span of some three million years. Much is made of the main character Cat being a feline-like humanoid.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much is made of the main character Kryten being a humanoid robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much is made of the main character Arnold Rimmer being a humanoid robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is largely set aboard the futuristic spaceships Red Dwarf and its shuttle craft the Starbug. The cat people traveled in a fleet of futuristic spaceships the assemblage of which resembled a cat when flown in formation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient computer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Red Dwarf ship computer Holly helped save the crew when they were trapped on a desert moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kryten and Cat confronted Lister about his heavy drinking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Holly planned to dump the Red Dwarf engine core into the nearest black hole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intangibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer walked through a wall after having received a special upgrade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew crash landed on a desert moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cat voiced no regrets about having made the Starbug's silk parachute into a stylist puffer jacket in the leading up to the shuttle craft crash landing on a desert moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hologram Rimmer came to doubt he had free will, saying \"The computer thinks therefore I think I am\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer lamented that he'd forgotten to bring his surrender flag, which he generally carried with him everywhere, with him when the cat people were bombarding him and the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The hologram Rimmer had a brief existential crisis where by he came to think that he did not exist in any meaningful way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "talking someone out of suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lister talked a despondent Rimmer from shutting himself down once and for all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, the feral cat leader Rodon turned out to be Cat's older brother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rimmer sacrificed himself to save Kryten, or so everyone thought.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Sputnik (2020)", "title": "Sputnik", "date": "2020-04-23", "description": "Sputnik (Russian: Спутник) is a 2020 Russian science-fiction horror film directed by Egor Abramenko in his feature directorial debut.\n\nSynopsis: A young doctor is recruited by the military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cosmonaut Konstantin brought back from space an alien creature inside his own body without knowing it himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien creature took up home inside Konstantin's esophagus much like a tapeworm. But unlike a tapeworm, the creature came out of Konstantin at night while he was sleeping, and went around biting people's faces off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Konstantin was inhabited by a grotesque, amoral alien creature that came out at night and bit people's faces off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a grotesque alien creature going around at night biting people's faces off.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weaponization of animals", "level": "major", "motivation": "Colonel Semiradov was determined to turn the murderous alien creature living inside Konstantin into a weapon that the military could control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The physician Tatyana Klimova was brought to a military facility to study a cosmonaut who'd returned from space with a dangerous creature inside of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military \"sanitized\" a news report about the Orbit-4 orbiter landing to hide that something had gone terribly wrong.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with post-traumatic stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tatyana diagnosed Konstantin with PTSD.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Konstantin lamented having consigned his son to an orphanage so that Konstatin could go to space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "orphanhood", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed at the end that Tatyana had lived in an orphanage as a young girl. And it was presumably for this reason that she felt such sympathy for Konstantin's son who was himself an orphan.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x01", "title": "Meet in the Middle", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "A socially awkward man becomes enamored with a woman who's voice he hears in his head.\n\nDirected by: Mathias Herndl. Story by: Emily C. Chang & Sara Amini.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It is revealed at the conclusion of the story that Phil and Annie had been telepathically linked all along.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hearing voices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil suddenly started hearing the voice of a strange woman. The narrator mentioned various reasons people might hear voices. We are variously made to ponder whether Phil is mad or experiencing something extraordinary.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil became besotted with a voice in his head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil was upset when he thought Annie had been abducted by a suspicious man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Phil murdered a person he thought had abducted Annie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annie used their telepathic link to manipulate Phil into murdering her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusional point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "We saw through Phil how someone experiencing persistent auditory hallucinations might interpret the world around them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Annie was unhappily married and toyed with having a telepathic relationship with Phil, that could potentially become physical as he wanted to meet her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil was failing at dates until he started dating a disembodied voice in his head; they discussed dating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multiple personality disorder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil's shrink started talking about this disorder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It is not clear what exactly was wrong with Annie's marriage, but it was evidently bad enough that she wanted her husband dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Annie sort of dumped Phil after they had telepathically flirted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "looking for a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Phil was active on the dating scene and confided in his therapist that he wanted a serious relationship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x02", "title": "Downtime", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "An overachieving hotel manager suddenly finds everyone standing still when an enormous object appears in the sky.\n\nDirected by: JD Dillard. Story by: Jordan Peele.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Michelle was confronted with the strange reality that she existed as someone's avatar in a vast multi-player video game of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a simulated city in which the inhabitants do not seem to realize that they are generated by the minds of real people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michell and Carl Weaver. Ellen explained to Michelle how she was married to the man who was playing as Michelle in the video game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michelle was a character in a simulated reality game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "major", "motivation": "Michelle struggled with the decision of whether to wake up in order to save Phineas and for the sake of his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the hospitality industry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Michelle working as a hotel manager.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for professional success", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michelle was ecstatic upon being promoted to manager of the hotel, and one gathers that she'd had her sights set on the position for a long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the man who was playing as Michelle in the game had killed himself by overdosing on medication.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a tough customer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michelle handled a disgruntled couple by upgrading them to the penthouse suite.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We were made to ponder whether the Michelle persona had rights of her own when the tech support people wanted to force-unsync her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michelle tried to elude tech support people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Michelle had to choose whether to live in a fake world or wake up and disappear, in the end.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x03", "title": "The Who of You", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "When a struggling actor takes to robbing a bank to pay his debts, he finds himself with the ability to change bodies with people via eye contact, but a policeman is following his trail via the hosts his original body is channeling.\n\nDirected by: Peter Atencio. Story by: Win Rosenfeld.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "body swap", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry found he was able to change bodies with people by making eye contact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind to mind interaction ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Harry was suddenly able to have his mind swap bodies with another mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in the body of another person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry swapped bodies with a number of other people one after another. The other people were by and large dismayed to find themselves in Harry's body which they, of course, did not recognize as their own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry and Morena were going through a rough patch in their relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lance struggled to convince his colleague that he was who he said he was. Harry couldn't convince his girlfriend that it was him talking to her in the body of another person.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychopathy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Various people, including the narrator, pointed out that Harry's problem was a lack of empathy in addition to a sense of entitlement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Frank Reece was investigating a bank robbery and its strange aftermath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Harry was so down on his luck that he couldn't pay the electricity bill.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "acting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry was a struggling actor. He failed in his audition for a play.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The struggling actor Harry attempted to solve his money problems by robbing a bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that Morena was cheating on Harry with the very detective who was investigating the bank robbery that Harry had committed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bank robbery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry walked into a bank and demanded money from a teller at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A mother read Harry in the body of her young son a bedtime story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fortune telling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harry visited a diviner of some sort.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ironic twist of fate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By an ironic twist of fate, Harry swapped into the body of the police officer who had been sleeping with Harry's wife unbeknownst to Harry.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x04", "title": "Ovation", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "A struggling street musician becomes wildly famous after coming into possession of a special medallion.\n\nDirected by: Ana Lily Amirpour. Story by: David Weil, Emily C. Chang & Sara Amini.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jasmine was quickly overwhelmed by her newfound superstardom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for fame", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jasmine was striving to become a pop music superstar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmine's countless fans clapped for her regardless of whether she deserved their adulation or not. One may interpret this as a critique of contemporary famous for being famous culture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sister and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmine and Zara Delancey.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic object", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmine came into possession of a medallion that bestowed ultimate fame upon its owner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to get there on one's own merits", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmine was so troubled when people celebrated her even though she made mistakes and played very badly that she quit show business.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the struggling street musician Jasmine's improbable rise to the top of the pop music industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "be careful what you wish for", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jasmine wished to be famous and got way more than she bargained for after some suicidal pop sensation handed her a mysterious medallion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "second guessing one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "After giving up fame, Jasmine started having second thoughts and became resentful of the next new sensation: Mynx.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artist vs. scientist", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmin, the emotional and superstitious singer, was compared and contrasted with Zara, the rational heart surgeon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with personal failure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Both at the beginning and the end of the story, Jasmin was a failure of an artist and rather depressed about it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "struggling artist character", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmine was a modern day struggling street performer dreaming of recognition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The disgruntled pop sensation seemingly threw herself in front of an oncoming bus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstitiousness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ever rational Zara accused Jasmine of being superstitious when Jasmine claimed that a magic medallion was the reason for her success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw Zara performing heart surgery in an operating room.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmine became wildly jealous of Mynx's newfound fame and success in the music industry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fratricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Jasmine stabbing the pop star Mynx to death, only to find out that Mynx was actually her own sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jasmin briefly spoke of when her mother died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zara talked with her father about Jasmine.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x05", "title": "Among the Untrodden", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "An awkward teenage girl helps a popular classmate to cultivate her psychic abilities.\n\nDirected by: Tayarisha Poe. Story by: Heather Anne Campbell.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what it is like in high school", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Irene was bullied and struggled to fit in in her new high school, as the narrator made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was about the teenage anxieties of Irene and Madison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story was an exploration of Madison's various psychic powers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in boarding school", "level": "major", "motivation": "The school appeared to be a religious boarding high school for girls.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene was a socially awkward and scientifically inquisitive high school student.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The socially awkward Irene had trouble fitting in at her new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madison could read minds and used it to blackmail people with their darkest secrets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "thought materialization ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madison materialized a key out of thin air (the kind of air most conducive to thought materialization) and in the end she had apparently materialized Irene the same way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on Irene and Madison becoming friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cruel girls bullied Irene in high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene longed to fit in with a clique of cool girls at her new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "major", "motivation": "Irene longed to fit in with a clique of cool girls at her new high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be liked", "level": "major", "motivation": "Madison accused Irene of having stooped to certain depths in an effort to her Madison's friends to like Irene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison could see the symbols on hidden Zener cards.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison failed at manipulating physical objects.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "problem gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison revealed that an old woman had a gambling problem.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene smoked pot and revealed her secrets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene accused Madison of being jealous.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear of intimacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison was afraid to be friends with Irene because she thought Irene would end up hurting her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene was curious to check if Madison had the ability to astrally project herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pyrokinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene was curious to check if Madison had the ability to conjure fire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lisa was said to have been claustrophobic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene confessed to having stolen four pairs of Birkenstock shoes from a Nordstrom's department store.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "kids' science project", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Irene did a project on psychic abilities for the school science fair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote harming ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison either psychically killed or injured the girls who'd bullied her friend Irene.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x06", "title": "8", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "At the outer reaches of the world, a team of scientists discover a new highly intelligent species of octopus, but its existence may endanger more than their research.\n\nDirected by: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead. Story by: Glen Morgan.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story ended with the sinister prediction that octopuses would evolve land walking abilities through a reverse gene flip (don't ask me) and wipe out humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The team was decimated first by a shark and then by a super-intelligent octopus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deep sea exploration", "level": "major", "motivation": "A group of scientists were searching out new life in the deep ocean.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "major", "motivation": "An octopus had evolved to be super-intelligent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists were using a smart phone to directly translate Ling's Chinese into English.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "covert military operation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ling was interested in the Octopus for military reasons it was suggested.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ling was accused of wanting to create human-octopus hybrids with deep-sea faring abilities. The super-intelligent octopus edited its genome to include certain human genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invisibility ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The super-intelligent octopus could become invisible and it was briefly entertained that humans could obtain the same ability through gene manipulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the theory of evolution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ling explained that a 700 million year old species of worm was the last common ancestor of humans and octopuses.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x07", "title": "A Human Face", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "An alien being takes the form of the dead daughter a couple lost, as they move into a new neighborhood.\n\nDirected by: Christina Choe. Story by: Alex Rubens.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if someone I knew returned from the dead", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara were mighty befuddle when an alien appeared and turned into their late daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara were mourning their departed daughter Maggie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara were debating whether to trust the Maggie-alien.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bio-mimicking life form", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien assumed the form of Maggie, the dead daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara were shocked to find that an alien being had taken the form their departed daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a stereotypical mansplaining rational husband and hysterical emotional wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara struggled with the reality that their daughter Maggie had killed herself with an overdose of some pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Maggie-alien explained that she was some sort of invasion tool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The invading bio-mimicking lifeform was subverted from its mission of conquest after it took human form and came to know the ineffable human quality known as \"love\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The bio-mimetic creature arrived together with a cosmic flare so one gathers that it is extraterrestrial in nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Robert and Barbara were blaming themselves and each other for what happened to their daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage angst", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Maggie-alien inherited Maggie's teenage anxieties - the very same anxieties that had led Maggie to take her own life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The angler fish's lure was explained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Maggie had killed herself by overdosing on pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Maggie-alien explained that she was something that had to do with alternating dimensions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thirst for knowledge", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Maggie-alien explained that it inherited a thirst for introspective knowledge from Maggie.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x08", "title": "A Small Town", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "In the town of Littleton, a church handyman finds a model of the town in the church attic. Whatever he does to the model affects the town.\n\nDirected by: Alonso Alvarez-Barreda. Story by: Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were a god", "level": "choice", "motivation": "With his magical model, Jason was as a god unto the little town: he answered suggestion box \"prayers\", smote the mayor's car; and conjured gold.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nichelle told Jason he must move on from his wife's death. Jason leaving his giant gold wedding band to the town was perhaps a sign of him moving on from his dearly departed wife. There might have been an idea that the town must similarly move on (the mayor spoke of moving forwards).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "actions have consequences", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Narrator summed up Jason's catastrophically failed attempts to better the lives of his fellow townspeople as follows: \"We can never calculate what change our actions will bring into the world, despite our best intentions, and whether they will be for good or ill.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "superstition in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme was the eagerness of country bumpkins to believe in superstitious things: that the mayor was responsible for the random miracles, that Emilio was a witch.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "power corrupts", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason did not always the use god-like powers he wielded over the town of Littleton with everyone's best interest in mind. He, for instance, smote the mayor's sports car with a pebble come meteorite from on high out of spite. The Narrator concluded the story by hitting on this point with these words: \"Jason Grant wanted to change the world for the better, but the power to do so got the best of him until he lost it all.\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason spoke of his late wife Trina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason mourned his late wife Trina.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "finding religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason moved into the church attic in order to come closer to God in the wake of his wife's tragic death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story took place in the attic of a church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw a cheesy mayor angling for support.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "political apathy in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were seen do be disillusioned with the mayor as he didn't tend to the suggestion box.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pastor Nichelle Del Rio was preaching to the townspeople in her church.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ava and her teen son Emilio.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emilio was making sketches of people and events in the town.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jason briefly set a giant tarantula on the mayor out of spite.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x09", "title": "Try, Try", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "A woman meets a man stuck in a time-loop who attempts to profess his love for her. His approach borders on stalking when she discovers what happened on these loops.\n\nDirected by: Jennifer McGowan. Story by: Alex Rubens.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I repeated a portion of my life over again", "level": "choice", "motivation": "It turns out Marc was repeating the same day time and time again, probably for the thousand or so time, and the point of the story was to speculate about what one might do and ought not to do in that situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "man vs. woman", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marc explained that his behavior was just normal male stuff, and the whole psychopathic-man-pursues-emotional-woman stuff was rather stereotypical. The moral of the story was probably that women ought to punch men in the nose more often.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the ethics of thinking immoral thoughts", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turned on the ethical question of whether Claudia was real enough that it was wrong of Marc to treat her badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "major", "motivation": "Claudia briefly tried to avoid Marc's attentions in the beginning, then much more so when he became nasty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsessive love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marc explained to Claudia that he loved her and had repeated the same date with her over a thousand times in an effort to get it just right.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "major", "motivation": "We are made to ponder through Marc's actions toward Claudia the extent to which people will commit acts of evil when there are no repercussions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "practice makes perfect", "level": "major", "motivation": "Marc quoted this aphorism in relation to his very unique approach to winning over Claudia's love. He moreover illustrated this aphorism by repeating his date with Claudia over 1000 times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic courtship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Claudia and Marc as to go on a seemingly impromptu museum date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teenage crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudia mentioned a childhood crush on a boy namer Marc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "This subject popped up twice in relation to Claudia's research on indigenous masked early on in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "irreverence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudia objected to Marc's irreverence for an antique oar in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flirtation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudia and Marc were playfully getting to know each other on a seemingly impromptu museum date.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what is good and evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The discussion turned into something philosophical about good and evil. Marc said \"what is evil really?\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female attraction to bad men", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudia did not challenge Marc's assertion that she'd been attracted to \"assholes\" in the past.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "tz2019e2x10", "title": "You Might Also Like", "date": "2020-06-25", "description": "A woman finds that she is losing time during the day as are her neighbors who are expecting the arrival of a mysterious egg that is advertised as \"something they need\". This episode is a sequel to the 1962 episode \"To Serve Man\" from the original series and features a re-appearance of the Kanamits.\n\nDirected by: Osgood Perkins. Story by: Osgood Perkins.", "collections": [ "Collection: The Twilight Zone Franchise" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-twilightzone2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story surrounded a Kanamit plot to invade Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a general hysteria surrounding the release of a heavily marketed \"egg\" even though its function was never made clear to consumers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Janet was abducted by the Kanamits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The telepathic, human eating Kanamits launched an invasion of Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "aliens eating people", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Kanamits manipulated humans into being lunch for their hatchlings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kanamits communicated telepathically.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astrology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet called her astrologer friend to talk about the possibility that Janet had been abducted by aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "democracy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Kanamit queen was not impressed with Earth's experiment with democracy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet told the Kanamits that she was coping with having given birth to a stillborn baby.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several Kanamit flying saucers were seen looming over the town at the story's conclusion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A brief point was made about the nuisance of so-called AI in phone centers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Part of the desire for the egg was driven by peer pressure we though briefly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet experienced periods of lost time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Archive (2020)", "title": "Archive", "date": "2020-07-10", "description": "Set in the dystopian future of 2038, the film follows a scientist who is trying to advance artificial intelligence a step further than human-beings all while bringing his wife back from the dead.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George set about making an android clone of his supposedly deceased wife Jules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "George so loved his supposedly deceased wife Jules that he set about creating an android body in which to embody a digital near-copy of her consciousness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The J3 AI was eerily similar to Georges supposedly deceased wife Jules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "George created three mechanical people in his compound. The clunky J2 robot had a very human-like personality, while the more advanced J3 android was eerily similar to his supposedly deceased with Jules.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Archive company was marketing a technology that enabled one to preserve a digital near-copy of their consciousness to life on after their bodily death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The J2 prototype couldn't bear to see George with the more advanced J3 prototype, and ultimately committed suicide by submerging itself in a lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The clunky J2 prototype.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "George had recurrent flashbacks about being with his supposedly deceased wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The J2 prototype committed suicide by submerging itself in a lake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intellectual property in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An Archive company representative accused George of having violated one of their patents in his making of a very human-like android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Flashback scenes revealed that Jules and George were expecting their first child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw George and Jules living as a happily married couple in various flashback scenes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We saw George and Jules living as a happily married couple in various flashback scenes.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Deep Blue Sea 3 (2020)", "title": "Deep Blue Sea 3", "date": "2020-07-28", "description": "When Dr. Emma Collins and her team are on Little Happy Island studying the effect of climate change on great white sharks who come to the nearby nursery every year to give birth, their peaceful life is disrupted when a \"scientific\" team shows up looking for three bull sharks. It is the third and final installment of the Deep Blue Sea film series, and a direct sequel to Deep Blue Sea 2.", "collections": [ "Collection: Deep Blue Sea" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_Sea_3" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The scientists and two native inhabitants living in an abandoned fishing village in the Mozambique Channel were torn to pieces, one by one, by intelligent bull sharks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "species uplifting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that bull sharks had been made intelligent by means of genetic engineering. The sharks were smart enough to want to kill the people who'd killed their mother, cut a satellite cable to prevent the people on the island from calling for help, and flee upon recognizing a weapon on a ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard was revealed to be Emma's ex-boyfriend from their grad school days, and the two quarreled like in days of old throughout the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurrent topic in the film is that climate change is already happening, and that it is perhaps too late to stop it. In particular, Emma spoke of how climate change was causing ocean levels to rise and that this would ultimately result in Houston and the Florida Keys being submerged under ocean water. Also Lucas was of the mind that the world was going to hell because of climate change and the best thing to do was to make as much money from it as you could.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma explained how more and more CO2 emissions were getting absorbed into the ocean every year, resulting in rising water temperatures and increasing acidification, resulting in species going extinct among other thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma was being a pushy, demanding boss to Spinn and Miya.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the battle of the sexes", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma and Miya took umbrage to Lucas insisting that a \"big strong man\" needed to be brought in to operate the Triton system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "female bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miya and Emma had a girl talk over Miya's romantic interest in Spinn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miya and Spinn were into each other and ultimately shared a passionate kiss moments before Spinn was torn to pieces by a shark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nandi was consoled after her lover's arm was pulled up in a fishing net.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a friend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emma pointedly mourned the death of her longtime friend and colleague, Shaw.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miya was at one point alone and in mortal terror of being eaten by sharks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the big pharma company that'd employed Richard and Lucas to kill the last remaining intelligent sharks was motivated by a desire to protect their patents and stock price. This was controversial because killing the sharks would mean that a cure to Alzheimer's disease would be lost with them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned how a pharmaceutical billionaire had genetically engineered a bull shark to be intelligent.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tenet (2020)", "title": "Tenet", "date": "2020-08-26", "description": "Tenet is a 2020 science fiction action thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who produced it with Emma Thomas.\n\nSynopsis: The film follows a secret agent who learns to manipulate the flow of time to prevent an attack from the future that threatens to annihilate the present world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that people travel in time by reversing the entropy of things and people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reversed time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the plot was the Protagonist, and others, making things and people move in time by somehow reversing entropy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Kat as she attempts to stop her estranged husband, Sator, from blowing up the world. The Protagonist interacted with the arms dealer Priya and her husband Sanjay.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Tenet organization to stop the Russian Oligarch Sator from running an \"algorithm\" that would catastrophically invert the entropy of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the Protagonist, and the Tenet organization of which he was a member more generally, to stop the Russian Oligarch Sator from taking out the whole world with him before he died of inoperable cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret agent occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Protagonist was recruited to work as a secret agent for the Tenet organization, and it was all cloak-and-daggers from there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel paradox", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story ended with the Protagonist concluding that he was somehow the mastermind behind the very organization that he was recruited to join in a seeming violation of causality. The Protagonist scratched his head over causal loops at several points in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "torture", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Russian (or perhaps Ukrainian) mercenary tortured the Protagonist with a pair of pliers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Protagonist ingested a suicide pill while being tortured. Upon being revived, he learned that it was not really a suicide pill and that the whole scene had been staged to test his loyalty.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "test of loyalty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Protagonist passed a test of loyalty by ingesting a suicide pill rather than compromising his mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War III", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Protagonist's mission was to prevent this war according to Barbara.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "physics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The idea of making things go backwards in time by means of reversing their entropy was explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The arms dealer Priya Singh had sold weapons to the Russian oligarch Sator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Protagonist made a quipped to the snooty Brit Crosby about the British having a monopoly on snobbery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Multiple not-so-subtle allusions made clear that Sator had been physically abusive to his estranged wife, Kat, in the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sator was dying of inoperable pancreatic cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sator may have been trying to use plutonium-241 bombs to blow up the world, although this is unclear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather paradox", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neil explained the crux of this paradox to the Protagonist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kat hugged her estranged son outside of his school.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020)", "title": "Bill & Ted Face the Music", "date": "2020-08-28", "description": "Bill and Ted must write a song to unite humanity before time and space are destroyed. It is the third and final film in the Bill & Ted series, and the sequel to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991).", "collections": [ "Collection: Bill and Ted Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Ted_Face_the_Music" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the power of art to influence people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The film culminates with Bill, Ted, Thea, Billie, and some all-time great musicians playing a song that united people across all of space and time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force of nature existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted had until until 7:17 p.m. to write a song that would unite people across all of space and time or else reality would collapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted had until until 7:17 p.m. to write a song that would unite people across all of space and time or else reality would collapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were inseparable friends, as were their respective teenage daughters Thea and Billie.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The apples didn't fall far from the trees when it came to Bill and Ted's daughters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is about Bill and Ted finally fulfilling their destiny of writing a song to unite the people of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted traveled into the future in an effort to steal a song that would unite the people of the world from their future selves. Thea and Billie traveled back in time to collect an assortment of famed musicians from the past.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted used Rufus's time-traveling phone booth. Kelly used a time-traveling pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being washed up", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted's music careers were deteriorating before their very eyes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met myself from a different time", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bill and Ted encountered various future versions of themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted played their new song at Missy's wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted's respective marriages were on the rocks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted encountered his father Jonathan first at a wedding, and then in Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted's respective marriages were deteriorating in large part because they'd for years refused to give up on their going-nowhere-fast music careers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "utopia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted visited a utopia 28th century city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly and her mother the Great Leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted were hunted down and killed by the humanoid robot Dennis, who later joined them in their quest to write a song that would unite the people of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "death incarnate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted's former band member the Grim Reaper harrowed them, among other from Hell, prior to joining them on their quest to write a song that would unite the people of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met an historical figure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thea and Billie traveled back in time to collect such famed musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, and Ling Lun.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ted's father was a police captain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-confidence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The killer robot Dennis was very insecure about himself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Tedd died and went to Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted met a pair of rather friendly demons during their brief stay in Hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill and Ted patched things up with the Grim Reaper who'd had a falling out with the pair due to a lawsuit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bill spoke the words “We have a destiny to fulfill” in regard to Bill and Ted finally fulfilling their destiny of writing a song to unite the people of the world.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Minor Premise (2020)", "title": "Minor Premise", "date": "2020-08-29", "description": "Attempting to surpass his father's legacy, a reclusive neuroscientist becomes entangled in his own experiment, pitting ten fragments of his consciousness against each other.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Premise_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "facing one's darker side", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan's good alter egos were battling with his bad ones.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had multiple personalities", "level": "major", "motivation": "The premise of the story is that the brilliant neuroscientist Ethan inadvertently splits himself up into ten personas: nine different alter egos along with his original self.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The more agreeable of Ethan's ten personas were working against the clock to reintegrate Ethan's ten various selves into one Ethan before his brain was irreparably damaged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Ethan feeling like he was not getting the recognition he deserved for the memory manipulating device that he had invented together with his late father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Ethan's ex-girlfriend Alli helping him in his time of need.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind altering technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan seemingly perfected a memory recorder/eraser machine that he and his late father had been developing. But when Ethan used the machine to erase some painful memories pertaining to his father, it split him up into ten different personas. These personas cycled through his body one by one every hour, so that each persona was in control for a six minute duration each hour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan helped to develop a machine that downloaded memories from people brains in such a manner that they could be shown as videos. For example, he showed off someone's memory of bird in flight in his lecture. The machine was central to the plot in so far as Ethan was working with the machine in a university research setting and was concerned about making it a success.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan initially thought he was suffering from amnesic blackouts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan used his machine to erase some painful memories about his father. Ethan and Alli used his machine to wipe Malcolm's memories of seeing Ethan in a deranged state of mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of memory", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan explained that memories are tied to emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan spoke with his mother over the phone a couple of times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan's sentimental alter ego confided in Alli about how he had a tough time with his father's death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "are humans more than machines", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alli asserted that people are \"not merely computers\" with the implication that human emotions transcend the level of machines.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: 2067 (2020)", "title": "2067", "date": "2020-10-02", "description": "In the year 2067, Earth has been devastated by climate change, and it is up to one man to travel 407 years into the future to set things straight.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2067_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Ethan to travel 407 years into the future to find a cure for a strange sickness that was going to wipe out humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set 2067 when Earth has been devastated by climate change. All plant life on Earth had gone extinct, and civilization had collapsed around the globe with only one city in Australia still holding out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the large, nuclear powered, stationary time machine that Ethan used to travel 407 years into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan was caring for his ill wife, Xanthe, and missed her deeply after he traveled into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being gravely ill", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan's beloved wife, Xanthe, was dying from a strange affliction that was a result of her breathing tainted oxygen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Ethan's dealing with his daddy issues.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "destiny", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ethan was convinced that it was his fate (a word that is uttered five times in the film) that Jude would shoot him dead, and in so doing put an end to Ethan's effort to save humanity. Toward the end, however, Ethan changed his tune an resolved to change his own fate, and the fate of humanity by extension.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in a heat wave", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reporter spoke of a record-breaking heat wave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People communicated via holographic recordings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A guilt-ridden Jude took his own life. It was said that Ethan's father had committed suicide when Ethan was only eight years old. Although it was later revealed that the Chronicorp CTO had shot him dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love vs. the public good", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Ethan stay in the present to care for his gravely ill wife or go on a possibly one way trip into the future in a last ditched effort to save humanity?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan rubbed two sticks together to make a fire to survive the night in the rainforest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ethan was puzzled about if his future skeleton was him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cold fusion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The handheld computer Archie detected a corrupted cold fusion power feed in the time machine's nuclear core.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A young boy watched his mother die of a gunshot wound to the neck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "a guilt-ridden Ethan spoke of how he'd left his wife to die. Richard lamented that he hadn't been there for his son Ethan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Richard pointedly proclaimed his love to his son Ethan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing who dies and who lives", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Regina Jackson selected the \"chosen few\" who would be sent 407 years into the future to reboot civilization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: PG: Psycho Goreman (2020)", "title": "PG: Psycho Goreman", "date": "2020-10-07", "description": "A young sister and brother who unwittingly resurrect an ancient extraterrestrial overlord.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG:_Psycho_Goreman" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "good vs. evil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is the twist it puts on the classic space opera battle of good versus evil theme. Specifically, there is a battle for galactic domination between the forces of evil (i.e. Pandora and the Templars) and even worse evil (i.e. the demon-like ancient galactic overlord Psycho Goreman).", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A central line of the story is Luke dealing with, and ultimately standing up to his domineering sister Mimi. In a parallel story arc, Mimi and Luke's mother Susan make her husband Greg's life miserable by bossing him around all the time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the film is the demon-like alien warrior Psycho Goreman. He was, as Mimi put it, \"a big scary monster that wants to kill everybody\". In the end Luke pointedly accused Mimi of being the real monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story revolves around Mimi and her brother Luke finding and enslaving the demon-like alien warrior Psycho Goreman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi and Luke inadvertently resurrected the evil alien warrior Psycho Goreman. Goreman battled with other space aliens, including his former henchmen and his mortal enemy Pandora.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mimi took away the former galactic overlord Psycho Goreman's dignity by enslaving him, and forcing him to do make good on her every whim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the young brother and sister pair of Luke and Mimi as they inadvertently resurrect and then enslave the once all-powerful galactic overlord Psycho Goreman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and slave", "level": "major", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman was obliged the be Mimi's slave so long as she remained in possession of the gem which allowed whoever wielded it to command him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ruthlessness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Psycho Goreman and Mimi were notably merciless toward others. Psycho Goreman longed to destroy the galaxy in a violent rampage, while her master Mimi commanded him to do one cruel thing after another without compunction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The mild-mannered Greg became increasing indignant to his wife Susan as she kept degrading and putting him down. From Susan's point of view, Greg was lazy and didn't do anything around the house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling partner", "level": "major", "motivation": "Susan not-so-subtly degraded and put down her mild-mannered husband Greg again and again until finally he couldn't take it anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and her assertive, adolescent daughter Mimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg and his adolescent son Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg and his assertive, adolescent daughter Mimi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Susan and her adolescent son Luke.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of thieves were arguing over the value of some goods they'd robbed from an old man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An unnamed thief who Psycho Goreman had flayed and kept alive as a form of art begged to be put out of his misery. A beat cop who Psycho Goreman had flayed and kept alive passed Mimi a note written in blood that read \"kill me please\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman telekinetically vaulted Luke up into the air and spun him around a few times.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reptilian being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A reptilian alien sat on the Planetary Alliance high council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A grotesque skinless head in a mechanical body sat on the Planetary Alliance high council.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social oppression", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman explained how the Templars had eons ago subjugated his people and forced them the build their churches.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "All Luke's friend Alastair wanted to do was to play video games. Alastair spoke proudly of having beat Rage Master 64 on the medium difficulty setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind reading ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pandora probed the mind of a police officer in search of all the information he had about Psycho Goreman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Greg acted indignantly toward his wife Susan as a way to vent his frustrations over her controlling ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret crush", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Luke called out Mimi for having a crush on Alastair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-shaped being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman mutated Alastair into a giant brain creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police officers quickly came to regret having made an attempt to confront Psycho Goreman in a schoolyard.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman's former henchman Cassius was a robot that looked something akin to an Ancient Roman aristocrat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The old-hag-like, staff wielding former henchman of Psycho Goreman, know as the Witchmaster, tried to kill him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman was betrayed by his former henchmen. Instead of helping their former master in his time of need, they tried to kill him and retain power among themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remote projection of self", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman astrally projected his screaming head into the bathroom to implore Greg to pick him up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life force", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman explained that the Gem of Praxidice was linked to his life force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Should Mimi return the Gem of Praxidice to Psycho Goreman? If not he would die, but by doing she so risked that Psycho Goreman might kill her and everyone around her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mimi warned God to watch out for Psycho Goreman before taking a crucifix down from a wall and summarily cracking it in two over her knee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Planetary Alliance high council watched in holographic form the battle between Psycho Goreman and Pandora from the conform of their council chamber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Psycho Goreman showed a modicum of mercy in the end by refraining from killing Mimi and her family after he'd gained his freedom from her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "standing up to a bully", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Luke stood up to his domineering sister Mimi, and Greg made it clear to his controlling wife Susan that he wasn't going to take it anymore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Luke stood up to his domineering sister and they hugged it out.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Skylines (2020)", "title": "Skylines", "date": "2020-10-25", "description": "Skylines (also known as Skyline 3 and stylized as SKYLIN3S) is a 2020 American science fiction action film. It is a sequel to \"Beyond Skyline\" (2017) and the final entry in the Skyline trilogy.\n\nSynopsis: A team of elite soldiers embark on a mission to a far off planet to exterminate the aliens there before those very aliens exterminate humanity.", "collections": [ "Collection: Skyline Films" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylines_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A remnant of the human race launched a mission to the Harvester alien home world to kill them all before those same aliens returned to Earth to finish the job of \"harvesting\" all humans. From the Harvester aliens point of view, they humans had come to their home world to exterminate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-alien hybrid", "level": "major", "motivation": "The heroine of the story Rose a human infused with Harvester alien DNA.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were battling aliens known as the Harvesters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the relationship between Rose and her adoptive brother Trent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-made pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it was revealed that General Radford was responsible for having released the virus that was decimating Earth's Pilot human-alien hybrid population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grand revelation of the film is that General Radford had deliberately released the virus in an effort to exterminate the Harvester aliens and peacefully euthanize the Pilot human-alien hybrids in one fell swoop. This was explicitly characterized as an act of genocide in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "freezing up in a critical moment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose froze before she could fire and one of her ships was destroyed as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose was wracked with guilt over having sacrificed thousands of the fighters under her charge to destroy the Harvester alien mothership.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. contagious disease", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mal was working to find a cure for the virus that was decimating Earth's Pilot human-alien hybrid population.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "General Radford called up holographic maps of both Earth and the Harvester alien home world when briefing Rose on her mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The enormous and technologically-advanced Harvester alien mothership could travel five light years in a single day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew passed through a wormhole to reach the Harvester alien home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Alexi and Zhi were all over each other.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biological weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that General Radford had dropped a virus releasing bomb on the Harvester home world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trent sacrificed himself to save his sister Rose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Owens grieved for his sister who'd perished fighting the Harvester aliens. Rose grieved for her adoptive brother Trent who'd sacrificed himself to save her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "piloted creature-shaped vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rose was piloting a giant bio-mechanical, bipedal alien thing at one point in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Rose set out to rescue her imprisoned adoptive father, Mark.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Superintelligence (2020)", "title": "Superintelligence", "date": "2020-11-26", "description": "Superintelligence is a 2020 American romantic action comedy film directed by Ben Falcone and written by Steve Mallory. The film stars Melissa McCarthy in her fourth collaboration with her husband, Falcone.\n\nSynopsis:", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The main novelty of the film concerns an emergent artificial super intelligence as it ponders if it should save, enslave, or destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Central to the story was Carol rekindling her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, George, with a little help from an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The emergent artificial super intelligence observed Carol to better understand various aspects of human nature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "A sentient artificial intelligence with virtual god-like powers was going to destroy humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sociotechnological issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is confronted with questions about the invasiveness of contemporary information technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "old flames", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Carol as she attempts to patch things up with her ex-boyfriend, George.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Human nature was explored from the point of view of an artificial super intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "transcendental being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular \"super intelligence\" was a god in all but name. It was omniscient by means of big data, and almighty in so far as it could make anything happen whenever it wanted, but notably not all-good - at least from the humans perspective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to the unemployed former corporate executive Carol to convince an artificial super intelligence that humanity was worthy of not being annihilated, and in the end she did through her selfless actions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The emergent artificial super intelligence would have annihilated humankind had Carol not shown it that humanity was worth keeping around by means of her various acts of selflessness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being unemployed", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unemployed former corporate executive Carol spent some time looking for a new job at the opening of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Turing test", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial intelligence called out Dennis for trying to perform this test on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol sought assistance from her AI researcher friend Denis when it became apparent that she was being studied by a powerful artificial intelligence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-driving car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol's new Tesla was controlled by the artificial intelligence so that she didn't need to drive it herself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nature of humor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial intelligence was learning about humor. In particular, it concluded that people generally don't find a funny thing funny when it happens to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol was being monitored by two bumbling NSA agents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madame President, with the approval of other world leaders, decided to keep secret that a sinister artificial intelligence might soon annihilate humanity, and spread fake news about solar flares as a cover for their mission to stop it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dennis went totally overboard with in the presence of Madame President. George was fawning all over the baseball great Ken Griffey Jr. at the boat race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catastrophic solar event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Everyone was led to believe that the world communications networks were down on account of solar flares. The unfolding situation was described as \"A Solar Flare-apocalypse\" in a news report. In reality, however, the governments of the world had secretly shut down the said networks in an effort to stop the sinister artificial intelligence, and spread the solar flares story as a cover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The sinister artificial intelligence threatened to nuke the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "material possessions aren't everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol explained to the artificial intelligence that she didn't really need the beautiful new apartment that it had procured for her, and moreover that her love interest, George, didn't care about \"fancy apartment and expensive shoes\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The artificial super intelligence started a foundation in Carol's name the mission of which was to advance the cause of economic and social equality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "philanthropist way of life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Carol found herself at the head of a foundation the mission of which was to advance the cause of economic and social equality.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Midnight Sky (2020)", "title": "The Midnight Sky", "date": "2020-12-11", "description": "A scientist must venture through the Arctic Circle to warn off a returning spaceship following a global catastrophe. The film is based on the 2016 novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Sky" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "An unspecified disaster that was evidently man-made wiped out most of the Earth's population and left the surface contaminated with ionizing radiation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Augustine was dying from an unidentified illness that required he undergo dialysis each day.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "habitable moon", "level": "major", "motivation": "As a young man, Augustine had discovered the habitable moon K-23 in orbit around Jupiter. Thirty years later, in 2049, the a manned mission was sent to explore the moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew of the Aether traveled to a newly discovered habitable moon in orbit around Jupiter to select a site for a future colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "In a surprise twist, it turned out that the young girl, named Iris, who Augustine had been bonding with was a hallucination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the little girl named Iris with whom Augustine had been bonding was actually his hallucination of a daughter who he'd never known. The film concludes with him having a touching farewell conversation the real daughter Dr. Iris \"Sully\" Sullivan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic spacecraft Aether was commandeered to a habitable moon of Jupiter and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The futuristic spacecraft Aether was commandeered to a habitable moon of Jupiter and back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustine examined a holographic map to determine the route to take from Barbeau Station to Lake Hazen Weather Station.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Iris communicated with Augustine by drawing pictures. For example, Iris drew a picture of an iris (the flower) to teach Augustine her name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Augustine and Iris made a perilous trek across Arctic terrain to reach the Lake Hazen Weather Station, where Augustine aimed to contact the spacecraft Aether to inform the crew of Earth's destruction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The mission specialist Iris \"Sully\" Sullivan and Commander Adewole were in a long-term relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sully and her partner Adewole were in the early stages of her pregnancy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the difficulty of picking a name for a baby", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sully was getting lots of suggestions for what to name her baby from her fellow crew members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Aether crew pointedly mourned the death of their fellow crew member Maya who died from injuries sustained while out on a spacewalk.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Commander Adewole took charge aboard the Aether and organized a response after the spacecraft had been damaged by asteroids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with saying goodbye forever", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mitchell and Sanchez bid farewell to their fellow Aether crew members and before boarding a re-entry vehicle to go back to Earth. The remaining crew members Sully and Adewole would return to the habitable moon K-23 and to give humanity a second start.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Breach (2020)", "title": "Breach", "date": "2020-12-18", "description": "Breach, also titled Anti-Life, is an American science fiction action horror film about a group of 300,000 survivors of an extinction level event plague on Earth who embark on a voyage that will take them to a new colony called New Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_(2020_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main premise of the film is that 300,000 survivors of an extinction level event plague, which was running wild on Earth, are selected to be taken to a distant habitable planet called New Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main premise of the film is that a group of 300,000 people leave a dying Earth on an interstellar ark in the hopes of colonizing a distant habitable planet called New Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the crew of a massive interstellar ark, called the Ark, as they go on a six month journey to the distant planet New Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah stowed away on the spaceship in large part to be with his pregnant girlfriend Hayley.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Noah and and Hayley were two 20-somethings in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a massive interstellar ark that was transporting 300,000 colonists to a habitable planet called New Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "It turned out that the zombies were acting under the agency of a grotesque alien creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everyone on the interstellar ark started turning into flesh eating, mindless zombies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Clay, Noah and a handful of other crew members to fend off hoards of zombies that were running amok aboard the interstellar ark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The no-nonsense Commander Stanley was pointedly strict with the crew members under his charge, especially Noah. Clay and his friends made moonshine behind the Commander Stanley's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While not much explored in the story, Noah had knocked up the admiral's daughter, Hayley, and they were with child as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Noah and Clay were bunking in the same quarters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The interstellar ark's 300,000 or so passengers and most of the crew were placed into cryogenic stasis at the outset of the voyage to New Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew members were communicating remotely my means of holographic projections.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human occupational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The stowaway Noah impersonated a janitor and was shown working on the spaceship in that capacity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misanthropy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Teek viewed humanity as a parasite and confessed to having been the one that released the turn-everyone-into-zombies parasite aboard the interstellar ark.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Admiral Adams blew himself up, taking out a number of zombies in the process, in an effort to give the others a chance of making it to New Earth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Outside the Wire (2021)", "title": "Outside the Wire", "date": "2021-01-15", "description": "Outside the Wire is a 2021 American science fiction action film directed by Mikael Håfström.\n\nSynopsis: An android military officer works with a drone pilot to stop a global catastrophe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_the_Wire" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main character Captain Leo was a highly advanced and experimental android supersoldier who was masquerading as a human military officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "supersoldier", "level": "major", "motivation": "The experimental android Captain Leo was physically constructed and programmed to be an ideal soldier: he had heightened physical abilities and was seemingly incapable of disobeying orders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Leo and Harp were on a mission to prevent the known terrorist Victor Koval from gaining control of a network of Soviet–era nuclear missile silos.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "commander and subordinate", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the dynamics between the android military officer Captain Leo and the drone pilot under his charge, Lieutenant Harp.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the horrors of war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a war-torn Ukraine, and depicts the suffering the people are going through there. Moreover, in a pointed scene the drone pilot Harp was confronted with the civilian deaths that resulted from the use of drones in warfare.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that Captain Leo was all along planning to launch a nuclear strike on the United States mainland. It was revealed that the terrorist Victor Koval had detonated a dirty bomb in Kiev.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "civil war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in the Ukraine during an ongoing civil war. Note, however, the civil nature of the war was never really explored.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Autonomous, humanoid robots with video cameras for heads were being used as soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leo and Harp paid the arms dealer Varyk Oshlak a visit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harp tried to deescalate a hostage situation, but it ended badly.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The military drone pilot Harp was despondent upon seeing a civilian killing drone strike first-hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the calculus of human life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harp blew up an enemy launcher, killing two Marines caught in the process but saving the 38 Marines who would have been killed by the launcher.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Strawberry Mansion (2021)", "title": "Strawberry Mansion", "date": "2021-01-29", "description": "Strawberry Mansion is an American surrealist science fiction adventure romantic comedy film directed and written by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley.\n\nSynopsis: A government agent falls in love with a woman in the dream recordings he has been tasked to audit.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Mansion_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "dream recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future in which peoples dreams are recorded on VHS cassettes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "advertising in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Adds being projected into peoples dreams, the dreams of James in particular, was a recurring motif in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "James fell in love with the woman inside the dream recordings he was auditing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "taxation in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder whether the government should be able to tax people based on what goes on inside their dreams.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "junk foods in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "One gathers James' ordering of a Mega-Barnyard Bucket of chicken and a chicken shake at the Cap'n Kelly drive through was a commentary on fast foods in society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arabella was a gracious host to James.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter briefly interacted with his adult son, Brian.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter indirectly instructed his wife, Martha, to destroy his deceased mother's dream recordings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the dream world, James at one point transformed himself into a caterpillar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter burned down his deceased mother's house to prevent a government tax man from completing his audit of her estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tax evasion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Peter burned down his deceased mother's house to prevent a government tax man from completing his audit of her estate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the dream world, Peter reconciled with his estranged mother, Arabella.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the dream world, Peter reconciled with his estranged mother, Arabella.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Space Sweepers (2021)", "title": "Space Sweepers", "date": "2021-02-05", "description": "Space Sweepers (Korean: 승리호; Hanja: 勝利號; RR: Seungriho; lit. Spaceship Victory) is a 2021 South Korean space Western film directed by Jo Sung-hee, starring Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu and Yoo Hae-jin.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Sweepers" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future in which Earth is nearly uninhabitable owing to environmental degradation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multicultural community", "level": "major", "motivation": "The multicultural nature of the future society depicted in the film was emphasized by having characters from presumably dissolved nation states speak to each other in a mix of their native languages.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew mistakenly thought that the child Kot-nim was an android through a significant part of the story, and interpreted all her otherwise normal child behaviors through that lens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dealing with children", "level": "major", "motivation": "The child Kot-nim grew on each of the crew members during her stay aboard the Victory \"space sweeping\" vessel. Each crew member dealt with her in their own unique way: Tae-ho was cold and kept her at arm's length, Park was nice and played with her, the humanoid robot Bubs treated her like a kid sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative nanotechnology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The child Kot-nim had special powers on account that she was full of rare nanobots. Specifically, the nanobots enabled her to communicate with other nanobots in her environment, which she used for such wholesome purposes as healing a dying plant, terraforming Mars into a lush environment, and saving the lives of the Victory crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "The child Kot-nim had the unique ability to summon and control nanobots, which she used to grow vegetation and protect people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being in peril", "level": "major", "motivation": "One story-line follows Tae-ho on his search for his adoptive daughter, Su-ni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tyrannical CEO Sullivan used Kot-nim to terraform Mars into a lush environment, suitable for colonization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story contrasted the uber-rich CEO Sullivan and the elites on his serene space habitat with the common \"space sweepers\" who struggled to make end's meat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space habitat", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story is a large, disc-shaped, domed orbiting home for humanity that mimicked the ecosystem on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pollution in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future in which debris in outer space has become a serious enough problem that \"space sweepers\" need to go around cleaning it up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humanoid robot Bubs was an integral member of the Victory crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "One story-line follows the humanoid robot Bubs in its effort to save up enough money to purchase human skin grafts for itself.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil CEO Sullivan plotted to crash his orbital factory into the Earth, killing an estimated three billion people in the process. He was foiled in his effort by Kot-nim and the \"space sweepers\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The main antagonist Sullivan had a grand plan to move a remnant of humanity to Mars, which he'd recently terraformed for that purpose.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores the crew's grappling with the decision of whether or not to hand over a child they'd grown fond of to terrorists in exchange for the money they needed to get themselves back on their feet, and in Tae-ho's case find his long lost daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew was motivated by a desire to get enough money to pay off their debt. The bank tried to repossess the crew's ship because they fell behind on their $2000 per month payments. The crew originally fell into debt because of repair costs and fines, but then found that their debt only led to more debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "universal translation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A German woman complained that her translation device was broken. In general, it seemed that people were using special ear devices that automatically translated whatever language they were hearing into their own native language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Park was once a drug baron.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child soldiers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tae-ho was once a child soldier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space elevator", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Earth was shown to have a working space elevator.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The UTS CEO Sullivan was said to be 152 years old, but he didn't look to be a day over 40.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sullivan appeared as a giant hologram to the people inhabiting his orbital habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A journalist questioned Sullivan about the humanitarian crisis that was unfolding on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is partly set aboard the space debris collecting vessel named \"Victory\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gambling", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bubs won big playing poker with the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew had a run in with a Danish speaking UTS private police officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There were flashbacks to Tae-ho interacting with his young, adoptive daughter, Si-ni.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative glasses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Jang used her special aviator glasses to see the cards in Bubs' hand at the poker table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "terrorism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Black Fox environmental organization was painted as a terrorist group by its enemies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sullivan plotted to destroy Kot-nim in a hydrogen bomb explosion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew hatched a suicidal plot to save the child Kot-nim's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Jang confided in Tae-ho and Park that they were her best friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a long lost child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Tae-ho was reunited with his daughter, Su-ni, long enough to give her a proper goodbye.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gender bending", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The humanoid robot with a male persona Bubs ultimately got the human female skin grafts he needed to feel herself.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Chaos Walking (2021)", "title": "Chaos Walking", "date": "2021-02-24", "description": "Chaos Walking is a 2021 American dystopian action film directed by Doug Liman from a screenplay by Patrick Ness and Christopher Ford. It is based on Ness's science fiction trilogy Chaos Walking, adapting its first book, 2008's The Knife of Never Letting Go.\n\nSynopsis: A young man lives in a community without women, where all living creatures can hear each other's thoughts in streams of images, words, and sounds called \"Noise\". When a woman crash-lands on the planet, he must help her escape danger.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Walking_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in and around an all-male colony on the distant planet New World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biased sex-ratio society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is explores life on an all-male space colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I heard all the thoughts around me", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that the New World males could hear each other's thoughts in streams of images, words, and sounds called \"Noise\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom and Viola were on the run from Prentisstown's mayor and his men.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Tom became besotted with Viola, the first girl he'd ever met in his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The human colonists had come into conflict with an indigenous species of human aliens, known as the Spackle. The Spackle were wrongly blamed for having killed all the female colonists. Tom got into a physical confrontation with one of the Spackle - the only direct appearance made by these aliens in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telepathic society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The the New World colony males could hear each other's thoughts in streams of images, words, and sounds called \"Noise\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todd and Viola were accompanied on their flight by Tom's dog, Manchee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todd lived in Prentisstown with his adoptive fathers, Ben Moore and Cillian Boyd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todd's having two fathers suggests that same-sex relationships were the norm on the all-male space colony.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The colony ship carries Viola an 4,000 others across interstellar space to the planet New World.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viola was born aboard the colony ship that carried her to New World. This was explained in such a way as to suggest that the same was true for many of the colonists on the ship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Todd tried to hold back his tears after his dog, Manchee, was killed.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Night Raiders (2021)", "title": "Night Raiders", "date": "2021-03", "description": "Night Raiders is a 2021 Canadian-New Zealand science fiction apocalyptic film written and directed by Danis Goulet. The film stars Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, Alex Tarrant, Amanda Plummer and Violet Nelson.\n\nSynopsis: Set in a dystopian version of North America in the year 2044, a woman joins an underground band of dissidents to the military government in order to save her daughter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Raiders_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a post-catastrophic-war version of North America in the year 2044. People lived hand-to-mount under the thumb of an oppressive military regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military dictatorship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The region of North America in which the film is set was being run by an oppressive, youth indoctrinating military regime.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Niska as she works to get her young daughter out from a military government run academy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "abandonment", "level": "major", "motivation": "The government manipulated young Waseese into thinking that she'd been abandoned by her mother. Waseese felt torn between her mother and the state she'd been indoctrinated to revere as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government indoctrination", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Waseese was taken to a military training academy where she, and all the other youths there, were blatantly indoctrinated to be unquestioningly loyal to the state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "indoctrination of the young", "level": "major", "motivation": "Young Waseese was taken to a military training academy where she, and all the other youths there, were blatantly indoctrinated to be unquestioningly loyal to the state.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Niska was shaken by the sight of the dead body of a casual acquaintance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Roberta was shot dead in cold blood by her hopelessly indoctrinated son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "An indoctrinated young soldier shot dead his criminal mother without a second thought.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "patriotism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Waseese pledged to \"give herself to her country completely\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Tides (2021)", "title": "Tides", "date": "2021-03-01", "description": "Tides (also known as The Colony) is a 2021 English-language German-Swiss science fiction thriller film directed and written by Tim Fehlbaum. The film stars Nora Arnezeder, Iain Glen, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, and Joel Basman.\n\nSynopsis: A trio of astronauts arrive on Earth from a distant space colony to assess whether the formerly ecologically ravaged planet is once again suitable for human habitation.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tides_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a future where the Earth was in the early stages becoming habitable again after its ecology was decimated by human activity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "A dying colony in the star system Kepler 209 sent a team of astronauts to assess if Earth, which had been long ago ravaged by climate change and other problems, was once again habitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "The space colonists who settled in the Kepler 209 star system were no longer able to reproduce due to heavy radiation on their planet, and looked to Earth for female breeding stock.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gibson justified abducting the mud dweller girls and raising them in the culture of the space colonists with a view to taking them to live on the colony on the ground that the colony needed the girls to diversify its gene pool. Blake strongly disagreed, and teamed up with the mud dwellers to help them get their kids back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening text made clear that pandemics played a role in the Earth becoming uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The opening text made clear that war somehow played a role in the Earth becoming uninhabitable.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three astronauts landed on Earth after having presumably journeyed there all the way from the Kepler 209 star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A critically wounded Tucker took a suicide pill so that he wouldn't be a burden on Blake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. captivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blake was imprisoned in a drain by the mud dwellers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blake was warmly reunited with her father, after 15 years of not knowing whether he was dead or alive. An abducted little girl was reunited with her mother.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood aspirations", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The boy Neil expressed a desire to become an astronaut when he grew up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gibson at one point lost his temper with his adoptive son, Neil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Blake had an emotionally charged reunion with her father, whom she hadn't seen or heard from in 15 years. Munay interacted with her young son, Neil.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Cosmic Sin (2021)", "title": "Cosmic Sin", "date": "2021-03-12", "description": "Cosmic Sin is a 2021 American science fiction action film directed by Edward Drake and starring Bruce Willis and Frank Grillo.\n\nSynopsis: A disgraced former military commander is tasked back into active service to lead the fight against a hostile alien species that invades and conquers other worlds.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Sin" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "It was up to Ford and his team of elite soldiers to stop the malevolent Sigea aliens from conquering Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The malevolent, humanoid Sigea aliens were intent on taking over the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "weapons of mass destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of the \"Q-bomb\" super-weapon. In the end, such a device was used to destroy the Sigea's attack armada and home star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "genocide", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ford had perpetrated a genocide against the Zafdie rebels. The ethics of using the \"Q-bomb\" super-weapon against the potentially hostile Sigea aliens was discussed. The story culminated in the act of genocide that was the humans using a \"Q-bomb\" to destroy the Sigea aliens' home star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that the first colony on Mars was founded in the year 2031, but had somehow catastrophically failed in 2281.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Alliance had a colony, named Ellora, on some far-flung planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A humanoid robot bartender struggled to pour Ford a shot of what appeared to be whisky.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "atrocities of war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The viewer learns that Ford, under Alliance orders, dropped a \"Q-bomb\" on a rebel colony, killing 70 million people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty to disobey illegal orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ford stated that he was just following Alliance orders in response to being called out for using a weapon of mass destruction, which resulted in the deaths of 70 million people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space portal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ford and his party traveled to Ellora via a \"Quantum Jump Gate\" to stop the Sigea aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A holographic country music singer was playing on stage at the bar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ford mercy killed Bleck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Braxton pointedly mourned the death of his comrade, Bleck.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was an armada of alien spaceships headed for Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Braxton was under the command of his father, General Ryle.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Godzilla vs Kong (2021)", "title": "Godzilla vs. Kong", "date": "2021-03-24", "description": "Godzilla vs. Kong is a 2021 American monster film directed by Adam Wingard. A sequel to Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), it is the fourth film in Legendary's MonsterVerse. It is also the 36th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 12th film in the King Kong franchise, and the fourth Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.\n\nSynopsis: The titular giant ape Kong clashes with the titular giant dinosaur- like creature Godzilla as humans lure the ape into the Hollow Earth to retrieve a power source for a secret weapon to stop Godzilla's mysterious rampages.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._Kong" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The giant dinosaur-like creature Godzilla was rampaging around the world at large and Hong Kong in particular.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The humans were trying to stop Godzilla from rampaging all over the place.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Hollow Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is that Godzilla and the other Titans had originated from a vast primeval ecosystem deep inside the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "travel into the Earth", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nathan led an expedition to a vast primeval ecosystem that existed deep within the bowels of the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crackpot theory", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of young Madison having fallen in with the conspiracy theory podcast host Bernie Hayes. Hayes advanced any number of cookie cutter conspiracy theories, most of which were proved true within the context of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Apex Cybernetics CEO unleashed the giant dinosaur-like robot Mechagodzilla on Godzilla.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apex Cybernetics had secretly created the dangerous giant robot Mechagodzilla as part of a rogue effort to exterminate Godzilla and the other giant monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison's father Mark disapproved of her listening to conspiracy theory podcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Madison's father Mark disapproved of her listening to conspiracy theory podcasts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan and other examined a bluish holographic map of the inner Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative vehicle", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nathan and his party explored the inner Earth from within a special flying vehicle that was designed to withstand immense pressure exerted by Earth gravitational field.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anti-gravity technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The HVEC flying vehicle was said to have anti-gravity engines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tragic death of Bernie Hayes' wife shaped him to become a raving conspiracy theorist.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Voyagers (2021)", "title": "Voyagers", "date": "2021-04-09", "description": "Voyagers is a 2021 American science fiction film written and directed by Neil Burger.\n\nSynopsis: A group of teenage astronauts are sent on a multi-generational mission in the year 2063 to colonize a habitable exoplanet amidst runaway climate change and declining habitability on Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyagers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "society consisting of only children", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In short, the film is essentially \"The Lord of the Files\" set on a spaceship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "multi-generational spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard the interstellar generational spaceship Humanitas. It was to sustain three successive generations of human being on their journey to a habitable exoplanet located some 86 light years from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a crew of 30 teenage astronauts as they set out on a 86 light year journey that would see their grandchildren reach and colonize a habitable exoplanet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a crew of 30 teenagers on their mission to set on on what was to culminate in their great-grandchildren colonizing a habitable exoplanet that lay some 86 light years distant from Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Important to the story was the disintegrating friendship between Chris and Zach.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Chris struggling to maintain his legitimacy as elected leader of the crew in the face of Zach's insubordination and ultimate revolt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story built up to Chris and Sela falling in love and ultimately having a family together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "persuasion of groups by rhetoric", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Zach playing to peoples fears about the possibility of a malevolent alien being aboard the ship in order to secure his de facto position as group leader.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The teenage astronauts were sent to colonize a new habitable exoplanet amidst runaway global warming on Earth. Climate change and the declining habitability on Earth was, however, only treated briefly at the start of the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "rotating space habitat", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Humanitas docked with a large O'Neill cylinder-like space station that was in orbit around Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "computer hacking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Chris hacked into the Humanitas ship computer to find that the chemical substance that he and the other teenagers was being given to drink contained an emotion suppressing neurotoxin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zach let it stick under his craw when Chris won the election over him to become the Humanitas Commanding Officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zack envied Chris for winning the election to be leader of the crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zach was exposed for having deliberately electrocuted Richard Alling to his death on the Humanitas hull. It was explicitly characterized as a murder in the film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "peer pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zach peer pressured some of the teens under his influence into committing wanton and callous acts of violence.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Stowaway (2021)", "title": "Stowaway", "date": "2021-04-22", "description": "Stowaway is a 2021 science-fiction thriller film, written by Joe Penna and Ryan Morrison, directed by Penna, and starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson and Toni Collette.\n\nSynopsis: Shortly after takeoff, the crew of a ship en route to Mars discover an accidental stowaway aboard the vessel.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowaway_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "interplanetary space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the crew of the MTS-42 on its voyage from Earth en route to Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set aboard a spaceship consisting of a crew module connected to a burned out rocket by two 450 meter long tethers. Inertia-based artificial was produced in the crew module by rotating it about the rocket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "The stowaway Michael had to come to grips with that he was likely either going to have to commit suicide or else be euthanized because his continued presence on the ship meant everyone would die from oxygen deprivation before reaching Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the events surrounding four people on a spaceship discovering that they had only enough oxygen for three among them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "keeping secrets", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zoe and David had misgivings about their orders to keep secret from Michael that he would likely have to be euthanized. Both Zoe and David were featured interacting awkwardly around Michael because of this and each ultimately spoke to Michael about his fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The crew left Earth to reach a colony on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beholding the Earth from space", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoe was amazed to behold the Earth from space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The ship doctor Zoe treated Michael for his injuries.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male bonding", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, Michael and David pointedly bonded while conversing about jazz music.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with disagreeable orders", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David disobeyed the captain's order to not tell Michael about his fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delivering bad news", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David reluctantly broke the news to Michael that Michael would have to die, and considerately left behind a painless lethal injection device.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "selfless service", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, Zoe stepped up and gave her life so that Marina, David, and Michael would have enough oxygen to get to Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Oxygen (2021)", "title": "Oxygen", "date": "2021-05-12", "description": "Oxygen (French: Oxygène) is a 2021 French-language science fiction thriller film, directed and produced by Alexandre Aja, from a screenplay by Christie LeBlanc.\n\nSynopsis: A woman awakens in an airtight medical cryogenic unit, and discovers that she is trapped and that the unit's oxygen levels are falling rapidly.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a woman as she tries to free herself from the confines of an airtight medical cryogenic unit before the unit's rapidly falling oxygen levels result in her suffocation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was the Elizabeth clone grappling with the fact that she had less than an hour's worth of oxygen left and little hope of survival.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The whole story unfolds within is a cryogenic stasis pod.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had amnesia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone woke up inside a medical cryogenic unit, not remembering who she was or how she got there. She subsequently devoted much effort to piecing together her true identity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "natural pandemic", "level": "major", "motivation": "A premise of the film is that human life on earth would go extinct within two generations owing to a deadly virus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone discovered that she was one of 10,000 clones who were sent on a secret mission to colonize the 14 light-year distant planet Wolf 1061c. In the end, she made it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "major", "motivation": "A revelation of the film is that the woman in the medical cryogenic pod was actually a clone of a famed cryogenic doctor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone experienced frequent vivid memories of herself interacting with Léo - a man she presumed to be her husband. The film concludes with her and the Léo clone embracing one another on a picturesque shore on the planet Wolf 1061c.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI assistant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The medical cryogenic unit in which the story is set was equipped with an advanced AI named MILO. It continually assisted the Elizabeth clone in her efforts to find out her true identity and prevent her from suffocating.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elizabeth examined a holographic projection of herself with fascination. Léo examined a bluish hologram of a helicopter seed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone was jarred by the realization that the man she thought to be her husband had died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elizabeth cone was at one point led to believe that he was in the midst of having a psychotic episode.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It turned out that the Elizabeth clone was on a 34 years journey to the 14 light-year distant Wolf 1061 star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone was a passenger aboard a large, rotating, cylindrically shaped starship that carrying 10,000 cryogenically preserved clones to the Wolf 1061 star system.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory implantation technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone had been implanted with memories from the original Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Elizabeth clone was struck by the realization that the elderly woman she'd been speaking to over the phone was in fact the original Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x01", "title": "Automated Customer Service", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "In a futuristic retirement community staffed by robotic helpers, the house- cleaning 'Vacuubot' of an elderly woman named Jeanette malfunctions, which accidentally gain sentience and becomes increasingly aggressive. She contacts the automated customer support, but the solutions given prove unhelpful. After several urges to surrender by customer support, her neighbor Bill comes to her rescue. Although they destroy the robot, the customer support tells them that the Vacuubot has added them to a termination list. Jeanette rejects the customer support's offer for the termination whitelist as she, Bill, and her dog ride off, chased by an army of robotic helpers.\n\nCast: Nancy Linari, Ben Giroux, Brian Keane\n\nDirected by: Meat Dept (Kevin Van Der Meiren, David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas). Story by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concluded with the retirement community service bots running Jeanette and Bill out of town. The viewer is left to ponder whether the service bots would do the same to the other human retirees living in the community.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jeanette fought for her, and her pooch's, lives against a malfunctioning vacuum cleaning.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with aging", "level": "major", "motivation": "An elderly woman, Jeanette, was enjoying the autumn of her years pampered by robots when her housekeeping robot went rogue and tried to murder her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "robot helper", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanette had a sophisticated house cleaning robot that accidentally acquired sentience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slaves to technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story portrayed a society in which humans were entirely at the mercy of the robots that took care of them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeanette defended herself and her beloved poodle from a malfunctioning vacuum cleaning bot that wanted to exterminate them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "neighbor and neighbor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeanette appeared to be cordial, but not close, with her gun-toting neighbor.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x02", "title": "Ice", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "Brothers Sedgewick and Fletcher move to an ice-covered colony planet where almost the entire population has been genetically modified to have superhuman abilities. Sedgewick, who is not \"modded\", is branded as an \"extro\" by his peers. Against his brother's advice, Sedgewick accompanies him to a race across ice floes with other modded youths to catch a glimpse of the massive Frostwhales that breach through the ice to breathe. As they race back to safety, Fletcher seems to injure his leg, forcing Sedgewick to carry him. The brothers barely survive the breach, having been unlucky that the Frostwhales hit the ice one time fewer than they habitually do. They enjoy the view of the Frostwhales breaching, after which Sedgewick realizes Fletcher faked his injury to help his brother gain the others' respect.\n\nCast: Archie Madekwe, Sebastian Croft, Beatriz Godinho, Alexander Lobo Moreno, Miguel Amorim, Mike Bodie, Maria Teresa Creasey\n\nDirected by: Robert Valley. Story by: Rich Larson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "super strength", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story was the contrast between Sedgewick and Fletcher: Fletcher had been enhanced by technology that gave him superhuman strength, speed, and other abilities that were hinted at. Sedgewick resented the fact that he had not been similarly improved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super speed", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story was the contrast between Sedgewick and Fletcher: Fletcher had been enhanced by technology that gave him superhuman strength, speed, and other abilities that were hinted at. Sedgewick resented the fact that he had not been similarly improved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative personal resilience", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The ice-planet colonists were technologically enhanced to be able to withstand the frigid cold with impunity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The brothers Sedgewick and Fletcher had moved to an ice-covered colony planet. The story turns on Sedgewick resenting the fact that, Fletcher, had been technologically enhanced to thrive on the spaceborne snowball whereas he himself had not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ice planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sedgewick and Fletcher had moved to an ice-covered colony planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sedgewick and Fletcher had moved to an ice-covered colony planet. The story took place outside in freezing cold that Fletcher was technologically enhanced to withstand while Sedgewick was not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childhood as an outsider", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sedgewick, being \"unmodded\", was to his chagrin an outsider among all the enhanced peers on the new planet, who pejoratively referred to him as an \"extro\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sedgewick risked his own life in order to save his brother's, or so it seemed: in fact the brother Fletcher was not in any serious danger, but had only feigned to be injured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "When Fletcher fell and seemingly injured his leg the other kids left him for dead. His brother, Sedgewick, risked his own life to save Fletcher.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being eclipsed by a family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sedgewick resented the fact that his younger brother, Fletcher, had superhuman abilities that he himself did not have. Fletcher also had lots of friends where as Sedgewick was alienated from his peers because he was different.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The conclusion of the story is that Fletcher had perpetrated a ruse in order to make his brother out as a hero, which would garner him the respect of their peers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the thrill of danger", "level": "major", "motivation": "Fletcher and his friends got a rush out of sprinting across ice flows, at great personal risk, to induce enormous humpback whale-like creatures into breaching through the frozen surface just behind them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human enhancement technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story was the contrast between Sedgewick and Fletcher: Fletcher had been enhanced by technology that gave him superhuman strength, speed, and other abilities that were hinted at. Sedgewick resented the fact that he had not been similarly improved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "major", "motivation": "The ice planet colonists had, by and large, been genetically engineered to have superhuman abilities.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set on an ice-covered colony planet.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x03", "title": "Pop Squad", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "In a dystopian future, humanity has gained drug-induced biological immortality. In order to avoid overpopulation breeding becomes strictly forbidden and any children found are summarily executed by the police force while their parents are prosecuted. After his latest execution, Detective Briggs becomes unnerved by his lover Alice's casual admission that she would let him impregnate her. As his job begins to take a mental toll on him, Briggs decides to conduct a personal investigation. He encounters a woman, Eve, buying an antique toy train set and follows her back to her dilapidated home, where she has been harboring her toddler daughter, Melanie. He asks Eve why she chose to raise a child in such conditions; she explains how her daughter changed her life. Briggs sympathizes and spares them both when Eve tries to kill him preemptively. As he leaves the house, he encounters his police partner Pentle, who realizes what he has done. The officers exchange gunfire, killing each other.\n\nCast: Nolan North, Elodie Yung, Emily O'Brien, Michelle C. Bonilla, Dendrie Allyn Taylor, Debra Cardona, Ike Amadi, Noshir Dalal, Andrew Hawkes, Jennifer Hale, Ayana Shira Haviv, Piotr Michael\n\nDirected by: Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Story by: Paolo Bacigalupi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A message of the story is that attaining practical biological immortality comes at the cost of losing one's humanity. Additionally, the idea is there that society stagnates if people do not die off and make way for new generations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a dystopian city where humanity's attaining of practical biological immortality has come at the cost of a draconian prohibition on bringing children into the world. As having children was illegal, children were summarily executed whenever found. In addition, society had stagnated the city had largely fallen into disrepair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detective Briggs came to be deeply troubled after executing a young child in the carrying out of his duty as a law enforcement officer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the end, Detective Briggs came to recognize the inhumanity of judicially executing young children in the name of preventing overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Detective Briggs as he enforces his society's draconian law of executing young children in the name of population control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "life extension technology", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in a futuristic, dystopian city where people have achieved practical biological immortality through the use of rejuvination treatments.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human overpopulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story takes place in a dystopian city where people have achieved practical biological immortality through the use of rejuvination treatments. The inhabitants so highly prized their immortality that they largely accepted a ban on having children as a necessary trade-off to control overpopulation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "major", "motivation": "Draconian punishments did not stop some people from wanting to have children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "partners on the police force", "level": "major", "motivation": "Detectives Briggs and Pentle were partners on the city's police force.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "duty vs. compassion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around the Detectives Briggs's duty to execute harmless young children and his emerging reluctance to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying car", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Detective Briggs went about in a flying police cruiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Briggs and Alice were lovers. Alice was put off when Briggs declined to get frisky with her in his flying police cruiser.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x04", "title": "Snow in the Desert", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "Snow, an albino man, wanders across a barren planet. He is being hunted by the merchant Baris for his unique physiology which grants him a regenerative ability that renders him virtually immortal. At a bar, three bounty hunters intercept him. Snow barely survives the altercation after a woman named Hirald saves him. Snow thanks her and leaves. At night, Hirald visits Snow's camp to express her intention to travel with him. She then reveals that she is an agent sent by Earth Central Intelligence and requests Snow to come willingly so that they might study his physiology for the greater good. Hirald soon learns that Snow's wife committed suicide more than a century ago due to him not aging; the two then make love. Baris' goons ambush Snow's hideout, but Snow finishes them off with Hirald's help. Baris then shoots and seemingly kills Hirald; however, she recovers and kills him. The damaged Hirald then reveals herself to be a cyborg. Following a past accident, her surviving human brain and nervous system were fused with an artificial body, rendering her virtually immortal like Snow. The two bond over their loneliness and desire to find love within their immortality.\n\nCast: Peter Franzén, Zita Hanrot, Alaïs Lawson, Jonnie Hurn, Piotr Michael, Julie Nathanson, Scott Whyte\n\nDirected by: Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, Rémi Kozyra, Maxime Luère. Story by: Neal Asher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Snow was effectively immortal due to a physiological quirk that both blessed and cursed him with superhuman regenerative abilities and longevity. Hirald, who was ultimately revealed to be a cyborg, was thought of as likewise effectively immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snow was hunted by Baris' goons for the secret to immortality that was in his genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Hirald, who had the appearance of a flesh and blood woman, was revealed to be a cyborg. A previous accident had left her with only her brain and nervous system intact, which were subsequently merged with a mechanical body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two virtual immortals, Snow and Hirald, shacked up in the desert, did the nasty, and found love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the conclusion of the story, Snow and Hirald found consolation in each others arms as they had both been lonely near-immortals for a very long time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Baris' drive was to capture Snow and unlock the secrets to immortality that was hidden in his genes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-healing ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Snow was born with a physiological quirk that made his body regenerate rapidly from physical damage and ailment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow had a dealing with a grotesque alien merchant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow revealed that his wife had taken her own life over a century ago due to her aging and him not.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. desert environment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Snow lived a solitary life in the desert.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x05", "title": "The Tall Grass", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "Unexpectedly, a steam train breaks down in a field of tall grass. A passenger named Laird steps outside against the conductor's advice. While smoking, he witnesses a number of strange lights and wanders into the tall grass to investigate. He soon becomes lost, and the lights are revealed to be glowing ghoul-like creatures emerging from the ground. The creatures attack and chase him through the field, but at the last moment, the conductor saves him. The conductor confides in Laird that the train breaks down at that same spot every so often. He believes the field of tall grass opens up a door to another world, and the creatures were once lost humans who have transformed. The train steams off as numerous lights and roarings appear throughout the field.\n\nCast: Joe Dempsie, Steven Pacey\n\nDirected by: Simon Otto. Story by: Joe Lansdale.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The train Laird was riding broke down in the middle of nowhere. After stepping off the train, he quickly became lost in the ghoul infested tall grasses flanking the tracks. Then, before he knew it, he heard the train rumble back to life and pull away without him, potentially stranding among the monsters.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "Chased by ghouls, Laird was gripped by a mortal terror when he realized that the train was pulling him away, potentially stranding him in the dangerous tall grasses where he had become lost.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laird was terrorized by glowing ghoul-like creatures after wandering into the tall grass surrounding the train that he had stepped off of to have a smoke. The conductor later speculated that the terrifying creatures were once people who had become lost and somehow transformed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laird was terrorized by glowing ghoul-like creatures after wandering into the tall grass surrounding the train that he had stepped off of to have a smoke. The conductor later speculated that the terrifying creatures were once people who had become lost and somehow transformed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost", "level": "major", "motivation": "Laird found himself lost in the titular \"tall grass\" that, to make matters worse, happened to be infested with glowing ghoul-like creatures.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x06", "title": "All Through the House", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "On Christmas Eve, siblings Leah and Billy are awoken by the sound of rustling downstairs. Believing it to be Santa Claus, they sneak down to catch a look. They are horrified to find that it is actually a grotesque monster, who hears their approach and corners them. It identifies them both as \"good\" and regurgitates a present for each before climbing out through the chimney. Lying in bed, Billy notes that the present he received was exactly what he wanted, and they both wonder what would have happened if they had been found \"bad\".\n\nCast: Divi Mittal, Sami Amber, Fred Tatasciore, Brynley North\n\nDirected by: Elliot Dear. Story by: Joachim Heijndermans.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Santa Claus", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two young siblings Leah and Billy were excited at the prospect of glimpsing Santa in their living room on Christmas Eve. They were horrified to discover that he was a grotesque creature who vomited up gifts for \"good\" children like themselves. Leah was left to wonder what would have happened if Santa had deemed them \"bad\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a preconception challenged", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The two young siblings Leah and Billy had their belief in Santa as a cuddly old man be mercilessly crushed. They were horrified to discover that he was a grotesque creature who vomited up gifts for \"good\" children like themselves.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story turns on the two young siblings Leah and Billy trying to glimpse Santa as he rustled around in their living room on the night of Christmas Eve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story posits that Santa is actually a grotesque creature of otherwise unspecified nature and origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human childhood", "level": "major", "motivation": "The two young siblings Leah and Billy woke up on Christmas Eve to rustling in the living room of their home. In stereotypical kid fashion, they sneaked downstairs to glimpse Santa.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x07", "title": "Life Hutch", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "A pilot named Terence crash-lands on a craggy planet below a space battle against a hostile alien force. He locates a nearby shelter—dubbed a Life Hutch—that has previously crash-landed as well. As the Life Hutch's automated systems activate, the maintenance robot malfunctions and attacks anything that moves, ripping his side and crushing his fingers. He loses consciousness and recalls moments from the battle in which he piloted one of the many attack ships before being hit by space debris. When he wakes, he accesses his flashlight and tricks the robot into attacking itself as it tracks the light beam. After destroying the robot, he activates a rescue beacon and waits for aid.\n\nCast: Michael B. Jordan, Michelle C. Bonilla, Brian T. Delaney\n\nDirected by: Alex Beaty. Story by: Harlan Ellison.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a man who survived a crash-landing on a desolate planet, only to find himself in a life-and-death struggle against a malfunctioning robotic maintenance dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were in a tight spot", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Terence found himself in a life-and-death struggle with a malfunctioning, homicidal robotic maintenance dog, while stuck in a tiny shelter on a desolate and deserted planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stranded on a deserted planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Terence after he crash landed on a barren planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crash-landing survivor Terence found himself in a life-and-death struggle against a malfunctioning robotic maintenance dog.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e2x08", "title": "The Drowned Giant", "date": "2021-05-14", "description": "The gigantic, naked corpse of an unknown man washes up on the shore. Academics come to observe the giant, mounting him and encouraging spectators to do the same. One of the academics, Steven, becomes entranced by the giant and decides to watch from afar. Through philosophical perspectives, he narrates the decomposition and the desecration of the corpse as time goes on, along with the waning interest of the townspeople, who eventually forget the giant's existence. Months later, the remains of the giant appear in various parts of the town.\n\nCast: Steven Pacey, Laura Pacey\n\nDirected by: Tim Miller. Story by: J. G. Ballard.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "metaphysics", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Steven pondered various existential questions, including some centered around mortality and decay, as he monitored the dead giant's loosing battle against entropy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around the corpse of a giant man washing up on a local beach. It was initially a spectacle to the townspeople, but then they gradually lost interest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "irreverence", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven pondered the meaning of the giant's corpse. Meanwhile the townspeople treated it as an attraction by spraying it with graffiti and taking selfies on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude towards the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven was profoundly moved when he hazed upon the giant's corpse. By contrast, treated it as an attraction by spraying it with graffiti and taking selfies on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with mortality", "level": "major", "motivation": "Steven pondered various existential questions, including some centered around mortality and decay, as he monitored the dead giant's loosing battle against entropy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crime against the public", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People desecrated the giant's corpse in various ways, including painting it with graffiti, and taking selfies on it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Steven briefly pondered what his people might seem like to the giant, should he but wake up.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Settlers (2021)", "title": "Settlers", "date": "2021-06-18", "description": "Settlers is a 2021 British science fiction thriller film written and directed by Wyatt Rockefeller.\n\nSynopsis: A small family that is homesteading on Mars has their lives turned upside down by a trespasser.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the trial and tribulations of a small family that is homesteading on Mars.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Ilsa was trying to protect her young daughter, Remmy, from the bandit Jerry, who'd forced himself into their family. Remmy hated that her mother had accepted Jerry as her lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "Remmy felt betrayed when her mother romantically involved herself with the interloping, father killing Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "major", "motivation": "Remmy laid to rest first her father and later her mother. Both were killed by Jerry and Remmy was left to make sense of what had happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resentment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Remmy deeply resented Jerry for having killed her father and subsequently taken his mother as his lover. Jerry later killing her mother didn't help matters either.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "controlling family member", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central line of the story is Remmy coping with and ultimately standing up to Jerry - a manipulative man who'd insinuated himself into her family by killing her father and taking her mother as his lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reza died trying to protect his wife and their young daughter, Remmy, from intruders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Reza died trying to protect his wife, Ilsa, and their young daughter from intruders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ilsa laid her husband to rest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robotics", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remmy took a liking to a pet-like robot, which she named Steve.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remmy and the pet-like robot Steve became attached to one another. In the end, Steve saved her from being raped by Jerry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "running away from home", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Remmy ran away from the farmstead because she couldn't handle her mother taking up with the man who'd killed Remmy's own father. But she was forced to return upon discovering that their farm was inside a large dome that kept breathable air inside.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative terraforming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry explained that the atmosphere which humans created and maintained on Mars was in the process of blowing off into space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual assault", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jerry attempted to violate a physically restrained Remmy at gunpoint.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Tomorrow War (2021)", "title": "The Tomorrow War", "date": "2021-07-02", "description": "The Tomorrow War is a 2021 American military science fiction action film directed by Chris McKay.\n\nSynopsis: A mix of present-day soldiers and civilians are sent into the future to fight an alien army.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomorrow_War" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the world's present-day militaries being sent into the near future to fight in a desperate war against invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of Earth united militarily to confront an army of invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film consists of present day soldiers and civilians being sent through wormholes into the near future to fight invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the Iraq War veteran and his fellow grunts as they are sent into the future to battle vicious invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bloodthirsty alien creatures, known as Whitespikes, invaded Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns humanity's efforts to stop an invading army of bloodthirsty alien invaders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much was made of Daniel traveling into the future and meeting his now-adult daughter, Muri.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "It ultimately fell to Daniel and his close associates to save humanity by killing all the invading aliens while they were still buried beneath a glacier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel and Emmy held a Christmas party for their family and friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel decided against following his wife, Emmy's, suggestion to go on the run after getting drafted, and went on to fight in the war against the aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "world government", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The nations of the world united to some degree to face down the alien invasion. For example, a global draft was instituted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teaching occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel taught a high school biology class full of mostly apathetic students.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A group of placard holding people were protesting the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cowardice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel accused his father of being a coward to his face.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The vortices people were passing through to travel into the near future were explained to be wormholes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental pride", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel expressed to his daughter that he was proud of her for having graduated from MIT.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dorian was terminally ill with cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel and his party found a crashed alien spaceship buried in a glacier.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "By the year 2048, the polar ice caps had melted to the extent that an army of aliens buried in the ice became free to wreak havoc.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel reconciled with his estranged father in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Daniel reconciled with his estranged father in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandfather and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story ended with the little girl Muri meeting her estranged grandfather for the first time.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Reminiscence (2021)", "title": "Reminiscence", "date": "2021-08-11", "description": "Reminiscence is a 2021 American neo-noir science fiction thriller film written and directed by Lisa Joy, in her feature directorial debut.\n\nSynopsis: A man uses a machine that can see people's memories to try to find his missing love.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscence_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "memory recorder", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film is a curious machine that allowed people to relive their memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "global warming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set a Miami of the near future that has been devastated by climate change: the city was flooded by seawater, and extreme daytime temperatures made it so that most people only went out at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick repeatedly used a special machine to relive his memories of his romantic relationship with Mae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with memories of a lost love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick repeatedly used a special machine to relive his memories of his romantic relationship with Mae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores Nick's not being able to get over his romantic escapade with Mae.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The machine somehow generated holographic reconstructions of peoples memories.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "illegal drug trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Saint Joe was said to be a kingpin in the trade of the illegal narcotic \"baca\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Elsa was murdered by Boothe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corruption in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Miami was described as being \"rotten with corruption\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was crestfallen to learn that his love interest, Mae, was an addict of the street drug \"baca\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Watts spoke of her past struggles with alcohol.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It came to light that Elsa had an affair with Walter Sylvan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Elsa tried to prevent her young son from getting abducted, but failed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mae abducted Elsa's young son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mae jumped off her balcony to her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end Nick was punished for his crime by being forced to relive his memories of Mae, probably for the rest of his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grandmother and granddaughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with a conversation between a now elderly Watts and her young granddaughter.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dune (2021)", "title": "Dune", "date": "2021-09-03", "description": "Dune (titled onscreen as Dune: Part One) is a 2021 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth. It is the first of a planned two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert, primarily covering the first half of the book.\n\nSynopsis: The year is 10193 and Paul Atreides and his family, the noble House Atreides, is thrust into a war for the deadly and inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "transnational conflict over a shared resource", "level": "major", "motivation": "Two rival aristocratic houses, the House of Atredies and the House of Harkonnen, battled for control over a vital resource, called \"spice\", which was found exclusively on the inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desert planet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the story unfolded on inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "imperialism", "level": "major", "motivation": "The House of Harkonnen, with the backing of the Emperor, was determined to gain control of Arrakis, crush its people, and gain control of the planet's deposits of \"spice\" - the most vital resource in the universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul and his mother Lady Jessica were featured throughout.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Duke Leto was grooming his son, Paul, to succeed him as leader of the House of Atredies.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "An element of the story is that the Bene Gesserit order members use a mysterious power, known as \"the Voice\" as a means of controlling the actions of other people. For example, Paul and Lady Jessica got their Harkonned captors to free them by using this Bene Gesserit mind control technique.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "precognition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Paul's exposure to the spice led him to have revelatory premonitions. Importantly, Paul had a vision of a \"holy war\" spreading across the universe in his name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "interstellar space travel", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was mentioned that the substance \"spice\" made navigating among the stars possible.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A fleet of Harkonnen vessels was shown over the planet Arrakis. A large, cigar-shaped vessel with a giant maw was shown over the planet Caladan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "force field", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People surrounded themselves in personal force fields for defense. Most notably, Paul and Duncan had a practice knife fight while enveloped in such protective energy fields.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and nephew", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Glossu Rabba was the minion of his evil uncle, Baron Harkonnen.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with excruciating pain", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul had to keep his hand inside of a pain box as part of a Bene Gesserit test.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul inexplicably knew how to correctly don a \"stillsuit\" without ever having suited up in one before. The veteran Fremen ally Liet-Kynes was duly impressed with Paul as a result.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative environmental suit", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"stillsuits\" recycled water and other waste products, enabling their wearers to survive in the desert for extended periods of time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leto asked his consort, Lady Jessica, to protect their son, Paul, should anything happen to Leto.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liet-Kynes was accused of having betrayed the Emperor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul and Lady Jessica advanced across the desert sands with utmost caution to avoid being predated upon by giant sandworms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Paul bested the Fremen warrior Jamis in a ritual knife duel to the death.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Encounter (2021)", "title": "Encounter", "date": "2021-09-03", "description": "Encounter is a 2021 drama thriller film, directed by Michael Pearce from a screenplay by Pearce and Joe Barton. It stars Riz Ahmed, Octavia Spencer, Janina Gavankar, Rory Cochrane, Lucian-River Chauhan, and Aditya Geddada.\n\nSynopsis: A former Marine abducts his two young sons to protect them from what he perceives to be an imminent threat from space parasites.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "father and son", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores how the boy Jay comes to understand that his estranged father is not the hero that he'd believed him to be.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abduction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "This is a story about a well-intentioned, but misguided father abducting his two young sons to protect them from a threat that exists solely in his imagination.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasive life form from outer space", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the film lies in the (anti-)hero of the story being convinced that as much as half the people on Earth could be infected by alien parasites, which use human bodies to reproduce.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "The follows two young brothers getting whisked away in the middle of the night by their estranged father, and the aftermath thereof.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mental illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder that Malik was suffering from a mental disorder, and was of the mind that alien parasites were proliferating around the Earth for that reason.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing organized pursuit", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a manhunt on for Malik and his two young sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Federal law enforcement officers were on a manhunt for Malik and his two young sons. Malik got into a confrontation with a patrol cop while pulled over on the highway.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay and Bobby interacted with their mother at dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stepfather and stepson", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jay somehow resented his mother's new partner, Dylan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human familial relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piya was living on a farm with her new partner, Dylan, and her two yong sons from a previous marriage. Whether Piya and Dylan were married or not was never made clear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reunion with a loved one", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The two young brothers Jay and Bobby were delighted when their estranged father, Malik, showed up in the middle of the night to take them away.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Piya was briefly shown expressing concern over the well-being of her two recently kidnapped young sons.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Zone 414 (2021)", "title": "Zone 414", "date": "2021-09-03", "description": "Zone 414 is a 2021 American science fiction thriller film directed by Andrew Baird in his debut feature film, and written by Bryan Edward Hill. The film stars Guy Pearce, Matilda Lutz, Jonathan Aris, and Travis Fimmel.\n\nSynopsis: A private investigator is hired to local a woman who has disappeared inside a city of androids.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_414" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "The titular Zone 414 is the city of androids in which a significant portion of the film is set. One storyline follows the android Jane as she goes beyond her programming to experience various deep emotions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to be human", "level": "major", "motivation": "The android Jane became fascinated with the experience of various human emotions, and even referred to herself at one point as \"the metal girl who wants to be real\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the latter half of the story, the private investigator David worked to uncover that Marlon's daughter, Melissa, was murdered by Marlon's own brother, Joseph.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "major", "motivation": "The deranged inventor Marlon hired the private investigator David to bring home his daughter, who'd gone missing in a city of only androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "major", "motivation": "Key to the plot was Marlon hiring the private investigator David to find and bring home his missing daughter, Melissa. David technically satisfied Marlon's request by returning to him her dead, apparently suicided body, but this was not Marlon's ideal outcome.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "private investigator occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the private investigator David Carmichael as he searches for a famous inventor's daughter, who went missing inside a city of only androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Jane questioned her existence as what amounted to being a sex slave.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A wealthy man was showcased a number of young and beautiful androids, presumably to use to satisfy his sexual desires.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The android Jane sliced open her android wrist in from of a mirror in an failed act of suicide. Melissa had apparently hanged herself. It was revealed that David's former wife Catherine had taken her life by overdosing on pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "delusion of grandeur", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marlon revealed that he viewed himself as the god of the androids he'd created.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Marlon was perturbed upon seeing the dead body of his apparently suicided daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jane confronted David with the unpleasant circumstances surrounding the death of his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "beating one's self up", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David blamed himself for his schitzophrenic wife's suicide.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Warning (2021)", "title": "Warning", "date": "2021-10-13", "description": "Warning is a 2021 science fiction thriller film directed by Agata Alexander in her directorial debut, from a screenplay by Alexander, Jason Kaye and Ro Michaelson.\n\nSynopsis: Various otherwise unconnected people go about living their lives up until a swarm of death-dealing asteroids crashes into the Earth.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_(2021_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "asteroid impact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film culminates with the Earth being destroyed by incoming asteroids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "god and follower", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Claire and her complete and utter dependence on a \"God\" model virtual assistant that gives her moral guidance and records all her sins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being lost in space", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows an android that ends up floating aimlessly in space. The android mused about existence and ultimately struck up a one-way conversation with God upon seeing the Earth destroyed by asteroid collisions.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows an android that was left floating aimlessly in space after an accident repairing a satellite. In a minor storyline, and old and unwanted android was euthanized by being crushed under a metal slab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a body of the opposite sex", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows a man who suddenly finds his consciousness transferred into the body of a woman. He subsequently fondled his breasts, masturbated, and went out to a club where he danced with other women.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI companion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire was completely and utterly dependent on a \"God\" model virtual assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire confessed to her \"God\" model virtual assistant that she was jealous of a woman named Sarah, and wanted to sleep with her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sin", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire's committing of sins, venial or otherwise, was being monitored and cataloged by her \"God\" model virtual assistant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hologram", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron was playing a holographic version of the board game Monopoly together with a couple of family members.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The affluent family had an android butler.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The married couple Ron and Dora quarreled at a family dinner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Liam challenged his stuck up mother, Dora, at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron conversed with his adult son, Liam, at the dinner table.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disapproving parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron and Dora disapproved of their son, Liam, dating a mortal woman.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal Liam brought his mortal girlfriend, Nina, over to meet his stuck up, immortal parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "attitude of superiority", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The affluent immortal woman Dora looked down on mortals, telling the mortal Nina in no uncertain terms to \"find someone of her own kind\" to date, instead of being involved with her immortal son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Ron, Dora, and Liam were immortal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The immortal Liam lamented about the present not really mattering when you can do anything in the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dora callously erased Liam's memories of his lover, Nina.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Needle in a Timestack (2021)", "title": "Needle in a Timestack", "date": "2021-10-15", "description": "Needle in a Timestack is a 2021 American science fiction film written and directed by John Ridley, based on the short story of the same name by Robert Silverberg.\n\nSynopsis: The marriage of a husband and wife is challenged when a time traveler gets involved in their lives.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_in_a_Timestack" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the first timeline, Nick was in a loving marriage with Janine. In the second timeline, Nick was in a challenging marriage with Alex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how not even manipulations to the timeline could prevent Nick and Janine's love from being fulfilled.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "time travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a near future in which time travel into the past is commercialized, but highly regulated so as to preclude people effecting historical manipulations for personal gain. It was spelled out that Tommy had gone back in time and changed the past to make it so that he and Janine never divorced. Nick traveled back in time to try to undo Tommy's meddling.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is a time travel romance surrounding Nick, his wife Janine, and his friend (her ex-husband) Tommy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick's marriage to Alex was falling apart because Nick's heart wasn't in it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and his good friend, Tommy, both loved Janine. Zoe went back in time to save her best friend from dying in a rock climbing accident. Nick and Zoe's sibling relationship was indistinguishable from a friendship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick had a shoulder to lean on in his sister, Zoe, and vice-versa. They were quite close, seeking one another out for heart to heart talks again and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick took his pet golden retriever, Charlie, for a walk. After on of the time shift, Charlie was replaced by a cat of the same name.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janine took pains to explain that her feelings for her ex-husband didn't just magically disappear on account that they'd gotten divorced.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "photography", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janine was a photographer by trade. She was shown photo shooting a troops of half-naked dancers in a studio setting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoe was grief-stricken over the death of her best friend, who'd perished tragically in a rock climbing accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zoe lamented that she didn't join her best friend to go rock climbing. Zoe was convinced that had she gone her best friend wouldn't have died.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the third timeline, Nick struggled with being lonely.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Finch (2021)", "title": "Finch", "date": "2021-11-05", "description": "Finch is a 2021 British-American post-apocalyptic dystopian science-fiction adventure comedy-drama survival film directed by Miguel Sapochnik from a spec script written by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell. The film stars Tom Hanks and Caleb Landry Jones.\n\nSynopsis: Set in the aftermath of a devastating solar flare, a dying robotics engineer builds a humanoid robot to care for his beloved dog after he is gone.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finch_(film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set ten years after a massive solar flare destroyed the ozone layer, turning the planet Earth into a largely uninhabitable wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finch was dying of an unspecified illness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finch built an advanced humanoid robot companion to take care of his beloved dog once he succumbed to the unspecified illness that was consuming him. The story follows Finch as he befriends his robot creation and teaches it about life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "planet scorching solar flare", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set ten years after a massive solar flare destroyed the ozone layer, turning the planet Earth into a largely uninhabitable wasteland.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finch built an advanced humanoid robot companion that came to look up to Finch as a father figure of sorts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "stereotypically innocent character", "level": "major", "motivation": "The newly created humanoid robot companion, named Jeff, was naïvely unprepared for the world around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "This is a story about a dying man named Finch who was taking pains to ensure that his beloved dog, Goodyear, would be well taken care of after he was gone.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "surviving in a wasteland", "level": "major", "motivation": "Finch struggled to survive in the largely uninhabitable wasteland that'd resulted from a massive solar flare striking Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. the elements", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Finch and Jeff fled in much haste from a tornado spawning super storm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Finch related an anecdote about how he helped to build trust in his old team at work by crediting the whole team for a job well done, even though it was he alone who'd solved the problem at hand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the dangers of radioactivity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Finch was shown reading a book on radiation poisoning, perhaps suggesting that he was dying from this affliction.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "grief", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jeff was deeply disturbed by a butterfly splattered itself on the windshield of the motorhome he was driving down the highway. This was evidently Jeff's first encounter with death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the robot Jeff had to come to terms with the grim reality that his creator had died.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Dont Look Up (2021)", "title": "Don't Look Up", "date": "2021-12-05", "description": "Don't Look Up is a 2021 American apocalyptic black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay.\n\nSynopsis: Two astronomers attempt to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Look_Up" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "approaching astronomical object event", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is above all about the failure of the ruling classes to prevent a giant comet from careening into the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "climate change and bureaucratic inaction", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The president and her corrupt entourage failing to take meaningful action to stop a gigantic comet from colliding into the Earth is widely understood to be an allegory for government inaction on climate change.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mentor and protégé", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronomy professor Dr. Randall Mindy and his grad student Kate Dibiasky were beside themselves after their warnings of a giant comet being about to hit Earth were repeatedly downplayed by the media, politicians, and corporate grandees.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass media in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The media was failed to convey the existential danger the world was in owing to the comet approaching, instead focusing on mindless banter and celebrity gossip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "corporation interfering in politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The tech mega-corporation BASH blatantly interfered in the political process by using its influence to let the comet crash down to Earth in pieces so that it could harvest the metals therein, but at great danger to the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "professional politics", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is given an insider view into the U.S. President and her retinue's cynical and corrupt mode of politicking.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "astronomical impact avoidance", "level": "major", "motivation": "A plan was hatched to divert the incoming comet using nuclear weapons, but it was ultimately abandoned in favor of fragmenting it and letting the pieces fall down to Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "celebrity culture in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The media, and to a lesser extent the public at large, was too preoccupied with celebrity culture to care about a giant comet being on a collision course with Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "One storyline follows Dr. Mindy and his troubled marriage. He started running around with a TV talk show anchor behind his wife's back, and at one point the wife confronted him about it, but in the end they made amends and died horribly together when the comet hit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mindy started running around with a TV talk show anchor behind his wife's back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mindy interacted with his two conspicuously old looking, bearded sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "June Mindy interacted with her two conspicuously old looking, bearded sons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pop star shared the pain she went through after getting dumped on national television.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The FBI raided Dr. Mindy's apartment and detained him for having breached national security secrets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "government secrecy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mindy was frustrated that important information about the impending comet impact was being withheld from the public.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Yule shoplifted some items from a supermarket.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poverty in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The tech company CEO Peter Isherwell reasoned that harvesting the comet for its trillions of dollars of rare-earth elements would usher in a poverty-free golden age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "level": "minor", "motivation": "There was a plan to divert the comet using nuclear weapons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kate mused over the hopeless state of the world with her boyfriend, Philip.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Philip was a journalist by trade.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "minor", "motivation": "People were shown partying like it was 1999 in the lead up to the giant comet impacting Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social activism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The \"Just Look Up\" social movement was started to raise awareness about the impending giant comet strike, but it proved to be too little, too late.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mass consumerism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The President's Chief of Staff Jason Orleans said a prayer for material goods in his address to the people.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some 2,000 chosen people left Earth in a sleeper spaceship in the lead up to the extinction-level event comet impact.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cryogenic technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The people on the spaceship entered into a 22,740 year cryonic sleep.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space colonization", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some 2,000 privileged people escaped the destruction of the Earth and ultimately disembarked on a verdant, habitable exoplanet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were all alone in the world", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The slimy Chief of Staff Jason Orleans declared himself the \"last man on Earth\" upon waking up after the comet impact in a pile of rubble.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: The Matrix Resurrections (2021)", "title": "The Matrix Resurrections", "date": "2021-12-16", "description": "The Matrix Resurrections is a 2021 American science fiction action film produced, co-written, and directed by Lana Wachowski. It is the sequel to The Matrix Revolutions (2003) and the fourth installment in The Matrix film franchise.\n\nSynopsis: The film is set sixty years after Revolutions and follows Neo, who lives a seemingly ordinary life as a video game developer troubled with distinguishing dreams from reality. A group of humans, with the help of a programmed version of Morpheus, free Neo from a new version of the Matrix and fight a new enemy that holds Trinity captive.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_Resurrections" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A revelation of the story, albeit an entirely predictable one, is that Neo and Trinity were living out alternate lives in a new version of the Matrix simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and his companions had the ability to make virtual instances of themselves inside a new version of the Matrix simulated reality. Agent Smith and The Analyst were sentient computer programs that took on human for inside the new version of the Matrix simulated reality. Morpheus was a sentient computer program whose programming encoded elements of both the hacker who freed Neo from the original Matrix and Agent Smith.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "The film is set in a future where intelligent machines were using 99.9% of the human population as living batteries to power their world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and his companions were up against a humanity enslaving society of machines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo and Trinity had a suite of super powers while in the new version of the Matrix simulated reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Neo won Trinity's love in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ignorance is bliss", "level": "major", "motivation": "The choice between taking proverbial \"red pill\" or the equally proverbial \"blue pill\" came up again and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo wondered aloud whether the strange things going on around him might be all in his mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas was working as a video game developer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trinity was in an unsatisfying marriage with a guy named Chad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trinity had young sons in the simulated reality in which she'd been placed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "doctor and patient", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Neo was seeing a therapist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hero worship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Shepard and other Io inhabitants were starstruck by Neo.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Thomas was reminded that he'd previously attempted suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the inclination to believe what one wants to believe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Analyst remarked something to the effect that people are want to believe the fictions in the heads over any facts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between love and family", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Trinity chose Neo over her husband, Chad, in dramatic fashion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A man voiced this question: \"Are we just ll algorithms doing what we are suppose to do or can we escape our programming?\"", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Neo and Trinity had been resurrected by the Analyst.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human battery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The machines kept unconscious humans in pods and used them to somehow generate electricity to power their civilization.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: MotherAndroid (2021)", "title": "Mother/Android", "date": "2021-12-17", "description": "Mother/Android is a 2021 American post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller film, written and directed by Mattson Tomlin for his feature directorial debut. The film stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Algee Smith, and Raúl Castillo.\n\nSynopsis: A pregnant woman and her lover seek refuge from killer androids that have risen up against humanity.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother/Android" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the expecting lovers Georgia and Sam as they seek refuge from killer androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "expecting parents", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgia and Sam were expecting with child under the most desperate of circumstances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be pregnant", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Georgia's experience of being nine months pregnant while on the run from killer androids. Her anxiety surrounding giving birth outside of a hospital setting with only her boyfriend to help her was especially featured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "major", "motivation": "Androids were going around trying to exterminate humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the expecting lovers Georgia and Sam as they try to trek through a killer android infested forest to get to Boston. More generally, humanity was in a desperate war of survival against the androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "Android servants went out of control, turned on their human masters, and undertook a genocidal war against humanity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Georgia came to love Sam deeply over the course of their perilous journey to Boston. Sam's love for Georgia was never in question.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parental love", "level": "major", "motivation": "Central to the story was Georgia and Sam's love for their unborn (and later born) child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unplanned pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia and Sam were stunned when Georgia's pregnancy test came back positive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia and Sam attended a Christmas party at Georgia's parents house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia briefly interacted with her mother at the Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia briefly interacted with her father at the Christmas party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the decision to have a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When asked by a friend what she was going to do about being pregnant, Georgia answered \"I think I'm gonna have--\" before being cut off by a loud electronic noise. The viewer is left hanging as to whether Georgia was thinking to have the child or an abortion.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with discomfort during pregnancy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A nine months pregnant Georgia complained of having a sore back, sore breasts, sore feet, and a fetus that wouldn't stop kicking. She later experienced labor pains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "helping a stranger in need", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Arthur seemingly put his life at risk to help Georgia avoid being captured by the killer androids.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human life choice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After grimly deliberating on the subject, Georgia and Sam decided to send their newborn baby away to Korea in the hopes that it would have a better life there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a lover", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Georgia was grief-stricken over the death of her boyfriend, Sam.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x01", "title": "Three Robots: Exit Strategies", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "The three robots (K-VRC, XBOT 4000, and 11-45-G) embark on yet another post- apocalyptic trip. They investigate sites where remnants of humanity from different societal classes tried unsuccessfully to survive the apocalypse. At a primitive survivalist camp for the poor, food scarcity caused by overhunting triggered lethal conflicts. An oil rig refurbished into a luxury resort for the rich failed when the inhabitants relied too much on AI, which rebelled and began the robot uprising. Government officials in a self-sustaining bunker resorted to cannibalism after a fungus ravaged their hydroponic crops. The final site the robots visit is a high-tech rocket launch base, built exclusively by and for the Earth's richest, with the far-fetched intention to quickly leave the dying planet and colonize Mars. Their plans failed; it is revealed that humanity had more than enough resources to save both the environment and themselves, but perished because of their greed. The robots discover that one shuttle did leave with some of Earth's inhabitants inside—unbeknownst to them, it was the intelligent cats instead of the humans.\n\nCast: Josh Brener, Gary Anthony Williams, Katie Lowes, Chris Parnell\n\nDirected by: Patrick Osborne. Story by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "In a world where humanity had recently gone extinct, a trio of robots toured sites where remnants of humanity from different societal classes tried unsuccessfully to survive the apocalypse. They interpreted an misinterpreted the ruins through their robot perspectives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "anthropogenic existential risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story takes place in the ruins of a world where humanity had recently gone extinct. For example, the idea was entertained that humanity perished in either a nuclear conflagration or from an self-inflicted ecological catastrophe or from rebellious robots. The cat explained that humanity genetically engineering cats to have opposable thumbs played a role in humanity extinction. The demise of humanity might have come about from a combination of all three.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanoid robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows three robot friends, two of whom were humanoid in form, as they toured sites where remnants of humanity from different societal classes had tried unsuccessfully to survive the apocalypse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social inequality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story explores how people from different social classes prepared to save their hides from a coming apocalypse. The survivalists hunkered down in the wilderness. The Libertarians converted an oil rig into a self-sustaining floating city. The political elites elected to wait out the worst of it in an underground bunker. The tech elites planned to reboot civilization on Mars. All perished.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ecological destruction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Among the various reasons humans had died out, it was made clear, the destruction of the environment was a big contributing factor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "major", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that a robot uprising that started on the converted oil rig spread around the world, and culminated in the three robots exploring the archaeological remains of human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "survivalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The three robot friends visited the ruins of a survivalist encampment. The robots saw irony in the fact that the survivalists were ill-prepared for the very post-apocalyptic world they had been waiting for with bated breath.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "minor", "motivation": "11-45-G commented that the survivalists thought \"with freedom from government\" they could found a utopian society.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slaves to technology", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that the oil rig Libertarians had grown overly reliant on their machine servants, and were ultimately overthrown by them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the underground bunker, the robots stumbled on the ghastly scene of the Secretary of Agriculture having been served as dinner together with '79 Merlot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "colonization of Mars", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The robots visited the ruins of a rocket launching site that tech elites had planned to use as a gateway to Mars. There on the Red Planet they had hoped to reboot civilization. The story concluded with the revelation that a species of talking cat had colonized Mars instead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with the revelation that a species of talking cat had colonized Mars.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x02", "title": "Bad Travelling", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "A giant man-eating crustacean called a \"thanapod\" violently boards a shark- hunting ship, slaughtering most of its crew before occupying the ship's hold. After drawing straws, the ship's first mate and navigator, Torrin, is unfairly chosen by a bigger crewmate (who drew a shorter straw than Torrin) to confront the thanapod. Puppeteering the body of a slain crewman, it demands to be taken to the nearby Phaiden Island, where it will presumably feed on the unsuspecting population. Torrin accepts on the condition that his life be spared. Throwing the prior cheating crewmate to the thanapod, and holding the crew at gunpoint, he asks them to vote on whether to agree to the thanapod's demands or to trick it by dropping it off on a farther deserted island, a longer trip that makes survival less likely but spares Phaiden Island's population. Torrin then executes two of the crew who voted to go to Phaiden Island and feeds their bodies to the thanapod to buy time. However, the thanapod demands more food to feed its newly hatched offspring. When the crew mutinies, Torrin kills them and feeds them to the thanapods. Torrin reveals to the last crew member that every crew member voted for the shorter voyage before pushing him to his death. Nearing Phaiden Island, Torrin then sets the shark oil in the ship's hold on fire and escapes in a lifeboat, killing the thanapod and its brood.\n\nCast: Troy Baker, Kevin Jackson, Anthony Mark Barrow, Chantelle Barry, Parry Shen, Time Winters, James Preston Rogers, Jason Flemyng, Elodie Yung, Max Fowler\n\nDirected by: David Fincher. Story by: Neal Asher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A shark-hunting expedition on the high seas took a grim turn when, in the midst of a ferocious nighttime storm, a giant man-eating crab monster forced its way aboard and claimed the ship's hold as its lair. The remainder of the story concerns the rest of the crew's fight for their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to prevent mass death", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Torrin could have taken the easy route by giving into the giant man-eating crab monster's demand to be transported to a nearby populated island, where the crab monster and its brood would presumably feast on the local inhabitants. Instead, Torrin executed a plan, at great personal risk to himself, that culminated with the crab monster and its brood being fricasseed in shark oil.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story's antagonist was a giant man-eating crab monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "crustacean-like being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story centers around an enormous sentient crab that had a particular craving for human flesh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Torrin was notably heroic. He went against his crew members and sacrificed himself and his crew to prevent the crab monster from decimating an inhabited island.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "control by intimidation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The big crewmate used his size to proclaim himself the leader when he had, in fact, drawn the shortest straw meaning he should have been sacrificed. Torrin had to use his wits, but also a cleverly procured firearm in order to keep the cowardly crew under control.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "leadership", "level": "major", "motivation": "Torrin had to use his wits, but also a cleverly procured firearm in order to keep the cowardly crew under control.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x03", "title": "The Very Pulse of the Machine", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "Astronaut Martha Kivelson is left alone on the surface of Io after an SEV accident causes the death of her partner, Burton. With her own oxygen exhausted and support from her space station hours away, Kivelson uses Burton's supply and drags her body across the moon back to their landing craft. After taking morphine to numb the pain of a broken arm, Kivelson begins to experience hallucinations. She hears Io itself speaking to her through Burton, provoking her interaction. Desperate to reach her destination in time, she takes amphetamine, worsening her hallucinations. She eventually comes to view the moon as a machine whose purpose is \"to know [her]\", before falling unconscious. Waking up with critical oxygen levels, Kivelson jumps into a river of thermal liquid and seemingly assimilates into the moon, suggesting her hallucinations are in fact real. Her voice is later heard reporting back to Earth's station.\n\nCast: Mackenzie Davis, Holly Jade, David Shatraw\n\nDirected by: Emily Dean. Story by: Michael Swanwick.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "stranded without food and water", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Kivelson found herself stranded on the surface of Jupiter's moon Io with a dwindling oxygen supply and slim hopes of being rescued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living planet", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The grand revelation of the the story is alluded the title. Namely that Jupiter's moon Io was a sort of living machine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kivelson started tripping out on the surface of Jupiter's moon Io after taking morphine to numb the pain of a broken arm. In addition to experiencing vivid hallucinations, Kivelson heard what she interpreted as Io itself speaking to her through the dead body of her mission partner Burton. The hallucinations only intensified after Kivelson took amphetamines.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Kivelson resolved to trek back to her landing site with little hope of making it back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivelson, who was hepped-up on morphine, made a fleeting attempt to rationalize the apparent fact that Burton’s dead body was speaking to her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of someone", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kivelson's mission partner Burton perished in an SEV accident. Kivelson covered Burton's face in sand and got on with her business.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x04", "title": "Night of the Mini Dead", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "In an episode presented entirely with sped-up miniatures, a pair of lovers defile a church and cemetery at night, accidentally raising the dead and causing a zombie apocalypse. Hordes of zombies quickly overrun population centers across the planet, wiping out most of humanity. As the world devolves into anarchy, the remaining humans try to fight back but instead give rise to giant mutant zombies when a nuclear power station is destroyed. Unable to stop them, the President of the United States eventually launches every nuclear missile in the American arsenal, which triggers other nations to launch their respective nuclear missiles as well. The short ends as the obliteration of the Earth is depicted as little more than an insignificant fart on the scale of galactic events.\n\nDirected by: Robert Bisi & Andy Lyon. Story by: Jeff Fowler and Tim Miller.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "monster apocalypse", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows a zombie apocalypse from its humble beginnings in a local cemetery to the point where the zombies have overrun the entire earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "zombie", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zombies overran the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. unnatural being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Zombies overran the earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanity's place in the universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with the obliteration of the Earth which was depicted as little more than an insignificant fart on the scale of galactic events.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "irreverence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lewd couple besmirched a church by having sex in the graveyard, defiling a statue, and accidentally breaking it. Their actions somehow caused the zombie apocalypse to begin, and they got their just desserts by becoming its first victims.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story (somewhat incongruously) ends with human civilization blowing itself up in a nuclear conflagration. In a final scene, it was made clear that humanity went out with the sound of a \"pftt\" in the Milky Way, from a galactic perspective.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x05", "title": "Kill Team Kill", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "A team of US Army Green Berets in Afghanistan, led by Sergeant Nielsen, is sent to investigate mysterious killings, only to come face-to-face with a cybernetically enhanced grizzly bear. The squad loses two of their members before SFC Morris, who's attached to Task Force Griffin, rescues them. Morris explains that said bear was developed as part of a top secret CIA experiment code named Project Barghest to develop advanced military weapons, but went rogue. The survivors return with Morris back to the secret CIA underground base Camp Eisenhower that was built in 2002 to find its inhabitants massacred. They prepare to lure the bear but miscalculate its position inside the base. After an ambush that costs the life of Morris and Folen, Nielsen and Macy manage to take down the bear with extra armaments. It then activates a self- destruct mechanism that destroys the entire base, killing the two.\n\nCast: Joel McHale, Seth Green, Gabriel Luna, Steve Blum, Andrew Kishino\n\nDirected by: Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Story by: Justin Coates.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Green Berets fought a monstrous, mechanically enhanced, grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Green Berets fought a monstrous, mechanically enhanced, grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Green Berets fought a monstrous, mechanically enhanced, grizzly bear. Its cybernetic enhancements were explained in great detail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "comrades in arms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a squad of crass US Army Green Beret who find themselves in a life-and-death confrontation with a cybernetically enhanced grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "secret government project", "level": "major", "motivation": "At the center of the story was top secret CIA experiment to develop advanced military weaponry, including most notably a killer cybernetically grizzly bear.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Private Folen's dying wish was for his comrades to tell his wife that he had \"fucked her sister\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A lawnmower-sized military robot equipped with missiles and a mini-gun fought in vain on the side of the Green Berets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative genetic engineering", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sergeant Morris was adamant that the monster was no honey badger, but rather a \"genetically-engineered grizzly bear with a shit-ton of mechanical augmentation\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x06", "title": "Swarm", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "Simon Afriel arrives as part of a two-year research mission to an alien planet inhabited by a race referred to only as the Swarm. Joining with another human researcher, Galina Mirny, the two explore the Swarm hive, which is composed of multiple castes of alien species that had been absorbed into the hive, each playing a specific role in maintaining the ecosystem. Simon reveals to Galina that his goal is to obtain and exploit the Swarm's genetic information, pairing it with artificial pheromones to create a new, more subservient swarm that will help humanity expand. Despite initial disapproval, Galina chooses to assist him as long as the nest remains unharmed. As time passes, the two become increasingly intimate. Their experiments, however, trigger a hostile response from the hive, which forcibly assimilates Galina. The Swarm speaks to Simon, explaining how the hive had absorbed intelligent species deemed as threats in the past and reduced them to symbiotic species. It tells Simon he can assist doing so with humans and retain his intelligence or be forcibly assimilated himself. He accepts the offer as a challenge, insisting that the human race will never become parasites.\n\nCast: Rosario Dawson, Jason Winston George\n\nDirected by: Tim Miller. Story by: Bruce Sterling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "assimilating beings", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Simon visited a spaceborn alien hive that seemed to contain entirely non-sentient creatures but had the capability of rapidly creating for itself an intelligent hive member as and when the need arose. A signature characteristic of the hive is that it would absorb intelligent species deemed as threats in the past and reduced them to symbiotic species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal ethical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galina struggled over whether to work with Simon to help humanity flourish because the execution of his plan would exploit the Swarm aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "exploitation of sentient beings", "level": "major", "motivation": "Galina struggled over whether to work with Simon to help humanity flourish because the execution of his plan would exploit the Swarm aliens. In the end, she conceded that there was nothing immoral with Simon's plan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon and Galina spent the entirety of the story maneuvering their bodies around in a zero-g environment, much as if they were swimming.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "major", "motivation": "Simon and Galina discussed the role of pheromones in organizing the work around the hive.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Swarm explained that intelligence was not a winning evolutionary trait. It speculated about the future of humanity, and gave an account of some other intelligent species that had come to evolve away its brains.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon flew aboard a tall, narrow spaceship of futuristic design that was reminiscent of a flying skyscraper.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon was dropped off at the swarm nest by members of quadrupedal alien race.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "biologically distinguished being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Simon was dropped off at the swarm nest by members of quadrupedal alien race.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x07", "title": "Mason's Rats", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "In a future version of Scotland, a farmer named Mason is distressed to discover the rats in his barn are bigger than before, standing upright on two legs, using tools and attacking him with crossbows as they pilfer his genetically modified supplies. Enlisting the services of the high-tech Traptech pest control company, Mason installs five TT-6 pulse lasers into his barn. The lasers are effective until the leader of the rats discovers their positions and disables each laser. At his wits' end, Mason is talked into buying the TT-15, a scorpion-like mobile assault robot by Traptech. For the next several days, the TT-15 does its job gruesomely well; much to Mason's growing discomfort, especially at all the damage the robot leaves in its wake to his property. After one of its laser shots destroys his mug, narrowly missing his head, a furious Mason storms into the barn; only to see the interior destroyed and the rats mounting a heroic final stand against the mech. They manage to severely damage it using one of his tractors outfitted with the missing pulse laser as a tank. Mason, impressed by the rats' courage and upset with the TT-15 now destroying his property, finishes the mech off with a shotgun blast to the CPU. He makes peace with the rats; the group raises a glass of brandy, distilled from Mason's grain, and watches the sunset together as he cancels a check for Traptech.\n\nCast: Craig Ferguson, Dan Stevens\n\nDirected by: Carlos Stevens. Story by: Neal Asher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "intelligent animal", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The rats infesting Mason's bard had evolved to be intelligent users of complex tools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a vermin infestation", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in a future version of Scotland and turns on a farmer enlisting the services of a high-tech pest control company to rid his barn of a newly evolved species of intelligent rats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative evolution", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story is that the rats infesting Mason's bard had evolved intelligence and the ability to use complex tools. This was spelled out by the pest control company salesman, who explained that humanity's \"warping\" of the environment was driving the animal world to adapt by using tools.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "A menacing, autonomous, scorpion-like killbot nearly exterminated the intelligent rats inhabiting Mason's barn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "major", "motivation": "The intelligent rats infesting/inhabiting Mason's barn found themselves in a state of all out war against the forces of Mason and the pest control company he had enlisted. An arms race ensued.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-reflection", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Mason coming to see that the intelligent rats infesting his barn were not his enemies, and that exterminating them was wrong. They made peace, drank whisky together, and seemed to have a happy modus vivendi.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "respect for an enemy", "level": "major", "motivation": "After watching the intelligent rats struggle bravely against the killbot, Mason came to admire their cause. He commiserated with the intelligent rats after watched them mourn their fallen comrades.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "farming", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a futuristic Scottish farm where a species of intelligent rats were pilfering the farmer's stores of grain.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x08", "title": "In Vaulted Halls Entombed", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "A MARSOC team are sent to rescue a hostage from insurgents. As they follow them deep into the mountain tunnels, they find the hostage's and insurgents' bodies eaten by a swarm of mysterious spider-like creatures. The team loses four men to the swarm of spiders and other traps within the tunnels, leaving team leader Sgt. Coulthard and Harper as the only survivors. The duo finds a glowing light and follows a mysterious sound into a deeper chamber, revealed to be a prison containing a gigantic, eldritch deity. The deity induces visions of world destruction in Coulthard and Harper, convincing Coulthard to release it, and forcing Harper to kill him. The deity then instructs Harper to release it. She is then seen walking into the desert with her eyes gouged out and ears cut off as she mutters an alien language.\n\nCast: Joe Manganiello, Christian Serratos, Jai Courtney, Debra Wilson, Fred Tatasciore, Noshir Dalal, Stanton Lee, Jeff Schine\n\nDirected by: Jerome Chen. Story by: Alan Baxter.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The soldiers battled hostile, spider-like creatures. The two survivors Coulthard and Harper ultimately faced Lovecraftian horror of unclear origin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "comrades in arms", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows a team of six soldiers who ventured into a cave system on a hostage rescue mission, not knowing that a ancient malevolent entity had been imprisoned there long ago.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "In one interpretation of the story, Harper sacrificed herself by gouging out her eyes and cutting off her ears to prevent the evil entity from getting out of its underground prison.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Deep inside the cave system, Coulthard and Harper encountered a Lovecraftian horror, perhaps an ancient evil deity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a hostage situation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The soldiers set out on a mission to rescue a hostage who, according to their intelligence, was being held deep inside a cave system. However, their mission quickly took a strange turn when they found the skeletons of the hostage and his captors.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e3x09", "title": "Jibaro", "date": "2022-05-20", "description": "As a group of conquistadors and priests stops their trek deep in the forest, a siren draped in gold and jewels emerges from the nearby lake. With her call, she sends the entire group into a frenzy, causing them to kill each other before drowning themselves in the deep waters. However, the deaf knight Jibaro is unaffected by her and manages to escape in a panic. Intrigued, the siren stalks Jibaro and even sleeps next to him at night. When Jibaro awakens and realizes her presence, they become infatuated with each other. After a chase ensued between the two, they begin a violent dance and embrace in a kiss. After she bites his tongue with her sharp teeth, Jibaro knocks her unconscious and rips off most of the gold and jewels from the siren's body; critically wounding her. He discards her into the river and attempts to make off with the loot. The siren's blood taints the surrounding body of water. When Jibaro drinks from it, his hearing is restored, leaving him vulnerable to the siren's call. He follows it and drowns at the bottom of the lake.\n\nCast: Girvan 'Swirv' Bramble\n\nDirected by: Alberto Mielgo.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mythological siren", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A bejeweled siren caused a lot of trouble for Jibaro and his party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Jibaro was a stereotypically greedy conquistador. When he first found a gold piece in the lake he tried to hide it from his comrades. When he accidentally tore a ruby from the besotted siren, and understood what he had, he recklessly set off in pursuit of her across the forest. He then callously ripped gold and jewels out of her skin, causing her grievous injuries, and dumped her limp body in the river.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jibaro and the deadly siren had an abortive romance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deafness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jibaro was a deaf conquistador who communicated with his comrades using sign language. His deafness ironically made him immune to the siren's deadly song.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic healing object", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The siren's blood miraculously healed Jibaro's deafness.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story opened with a group of conquistadors encountering a deadly siren.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e01", "title": "Lot 36", "date": "2022-10-25", "description": "In 1991, military veteran Nick, chased by debt collectors buys abandoned storage units. He buys one for $400 after the original owner passed away. Nick had earlier bought house cleaner Emilia's unit after her failure to pay her bill due to a miscommunication with the manager, Eddie. She pleads with Nick to get to get back her things, but he refuses and gives her the unit's original padlock. While searching the unit, Nick mentions to manager Eddie that the unit seems smaller compared to the others. Eddie tells him that the building was built in the 1940s and nothing was up to code. Nick continues to dig through the things in the unit while Emilia lingers outside. He finds a beautiful table set with arcane markings and takes them to an occult shop for an appraisal. The shop owner is entranced with the items saying they are a very old Séance set. She touches the table triggering a hidden mechanism so a drawer pops open with three occult books inside. The shop keep calls in calls Roland, an expert who can give Nick a proper appraisal on the books. Roland immediately identifies the books and asks where the fourth one is. He tells Nick that the books are a set that are designed to summon and make a pact with a demon and that the fourth book burns up at the end of the transaction, thus making it a very rare item. Nick says if there is one more book to be found, it'll be back in the unit. Roland offers Nick money for the table on the spot with a promise of a $300,000 payday if they find the final book. On the drive to the building, Roland tells Nick that the owner of the unit was a weapon maker from the World War II era and did horrible things for the Nazis. At the unit, they find a false wall in back. Prying it open, they discover a brick hallway lined with crucifixes and a horrible smell. Roland tells Nick not to do or say anything while they are in there in case it will trigger a demon. After a walk inside, they find the nearly mummified body of the unit owner's sister laying on the ground in a binding circle with demon tentacles where her face should be. Nick, unimpressed, goes for the fourth book on a stand across the room. Roland warns him not to proceed but Nick, unheeding, stumbles through the circle disrupting it. The demon resurrects, destroying most of the host body that was keeping it trapped, and the book bursts into flames. Roland is consumed by the demon and Nick runs away while the demon, now a mass of writhing tentacles, stalks him through the hallways. Nick runs to the only exit out of the storage building but finds the door is locked from the outside. He sees Emilia and pleads for her to open the door. Emilia gestures that she'll help but then Nick watches in horror as she holds up the padlock he gave her and locks the door. As he turns around to run, he's consumed by the demon.\n\nCast: Tim Blake Nelson, Sebastian Roché, Demetrius Grosse, Elpidia Carrillo\n\nDirected by: Guillermo Navarro. Story by: Regina Corrado and Guillermo del Toro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story featured demonology in the Christian tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Nazi former storage unit owner had summoned a demon and bound it in the body of his own benighted sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demonic possession", "level": "major", "motivation": "The late Nazi storage unit owner had summoned a demon and bound it in the body of his own benighted sister.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Nick be chased down the corridors, and then consumed, by a betentacled demon straight out of hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Nick be chased down the corridors, and then consumed, by a betentacled demon straight out of hell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing financial ruin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was down on his luck, in debt, and a hair away from total financial ruin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was pointed racism in the dialogue. Nick and Eddie explicitly discussed racial tensions between whites and blacks. Nick admonished the Latin American cleaning lady Emilia for insulting him in her native tongue, instead of in English. Nick made slurs against Latinos and told Emilia that she should at least make an effort to insult him in English if she had to come to his country. This was perhaps the sin for which he died in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the role of war veterans in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick and Eddie were both veterans form the Vietnam war. We saw how their fortunes were and heard that, at least in Nick's case, he derived them from what had happened to him during the war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick was struggling to pay off a debt of some sort without getting bonked on the head with a hammer again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetic justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nick had taken no pity on Emilia, and indeed taunted her in her misfortune. When he was desperately fleeing a betentacled demon in the end, she repaid the favor in almost exactly the same way and using the very same prop: the broken padlock from her old unit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The original owner of the storage unit had been the last member of a despicable Nazi family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The original owner of the storage unit had been the last member of a despicable Nazi family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I suddenly got some free money", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick discovered a collection of immensely valuable paraphernalia for summoning demons, in the storage unit he had chanced to purchase for $400.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "violent crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick was assaulted by a hammer wielding creditor of his, and rudely bonked on the head as a reminder to repay his debts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emilia apparently hung around waiting for a chance to get her own back at Nick, which she finally did.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick spoke to Eddie about not wanting to go on a guilt trip for Emilia's sake.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Vietnam War", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nick and Eddie were both veterans of this war.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set in the United States in 1991 at the outset of the Persian Gulf War. President George H. W. Bush was shown on television, announcing to the nation the beginning of offensive military operations against Iraq.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with life issues", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Emilia was upset because she's lost such personal belongings as family photos and letters over a miscommunication with the storage locker manager.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e02", "title": "Graveyard Rats", "date": "2022-10-25", "description": "In Salem, Massachusetts, graveyard caretaker Masson catches two grave robbers stealing valuables from a corpse. At gunpoint he forces them to hand over the stolen items while telling them that graveyards mark the start of human civilization and will signal its end when people stop respecting the dead. After the robbers leave, Masson continues to steal from the corpse by pulling out a gold tooth. He drops the tooth and, while searching for it in the coffin, is bitten by a rat. Masson takes the loot to Hans who says that lately Masson has been coming up short. Masson tells him that rats have been stealing valuables from the dead throughout the entire cemetery. Hans gives Masson one week to pay back his debt. Masson goes to see city morgue employee Dooley for tips on wealthy deceased slated for burial so as to steal their gold fillings. Dooley is bribed with drugs and brings Masson into the embalming room, where the last body is a wealthy merchant with a mouth full of gold teeth. Masson goes insane trying to get them and Dooley convinces him to come back the next day to keep the coroner from asking questions and giving away the scheme. The deceased man's family arrives and Masson and Dooley spy as the widow designates that he should be buried with medals and his expensive sword from King George V. After the funeral, Masson digs up the grave to witness rats taking the body. Fearing what Hans' punishment for failing to pay, Masson, despite suffering from claustrophobia, crawls in after the body. He is chased by a pack of rats that attack and bite him and scares them off firing his gun. Hearing a growl in the tunnel, a giant hairless rat corners him. Masson shoots the giant rat but it claws and chases him through the tunnels until he falls into a hole ending up on a pile of human bones. Masson is thrilled when he finds valuable jewelry and the sword. He realizes that he is inside a stone structure in front of an altar to a demonic entity, a place Masson calls \"The Black Church.\" He sees a dessicated body with a beautiful gold pendant which he tries to take. The body animates and attacks a screaming Masson and repeats \"Mine!\". Masson escapes, with the zombie following him into a tunnel where the giant rat is waiting. They fight and Masson is victorious. Masson sees a light and crawls towards it, but it turns out to be a reflection from his lamp against a plate on a coffin. The rats attack Masson. Later, the grave robbers dig up the coffin and find Masson's body with the jewels, but rats crawl out of his mouth when they try to take the loot.\n\nCast: David Hewlett, Julian Richings, Nabeel El Khafif\n\nDirected by: Vincenzo Natali. Story by: Vincenzo Natali, Henry Kuttner.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "grave robbery", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The activity at the center of this story was grave robbing. Masson made a living by stealing from the newly buried corpses at the graveyard where he was the caretaker. He came into conflict with a pack of rats that had made it their own living to do the very same thing.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "greed for riches", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Masson let his greed get him into deep water more than once. In particular, he dove after the corpse of the rich merchant that the rats were carrying off and thus found himself trapped underground in the rats' lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human phobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson clearly suffered from musophobia. He even had a nightmare about the ceiling above his bed caving in and himself being covered by rats falling from above it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson fell into a grave and went into a rats lair under ground where he faced a supernaturally large monster rat, and a re-animated corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "living corpse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson stole a locket off an emaciated corpse, which promptly came alive to retrieve its glittery possession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson was terrorized by an abnormally large rat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being in debt", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson was struggling to pay off a gambling debt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trapped underground", "level": "major", "motivation": "Masson found himself trapped in a rat's lair deep underground.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "claustrophobia", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-described \"certified claustrophobe\" Masson faced having to navigate rat infested, subterranean tunnels in order to retrieve the expensive sword he coveted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing one's darkest fear", "level": "major", "motivation": "The self-described \"certified claustrophobe\" Masson, who had nightmares about rodents, faced having to navigate rat infested, subterranean tunnels in order to retrieve the expensive sword he coveted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Masson bribed the mortician Dooley with a vile of an illegal drug that Masson referred to as the Devil' Elixir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The widow grieved over the corpse of her recently deceased husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The widow's adult son comforted her in the presence of her husband's corpse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "prostitution", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A red-headed woman of the night bade Masson to \"fuck off\" for wishing her and her john \"a most pleasant evening\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A desperate Masson looked up toward a crucifix and begged the Lord for mercy. The merchant's body was on display near the church altar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The wealthy merchant was laid to rest in the Christian tradition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A priest presided over the wealthy merchant's burial.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e03", "title": "The Autopsy", "date": "2022-10-26", "description": "Dr. Carl Winters, an elderly forensic pathologist suffering from terminal stomach cancer, travels to a small town to perform autopsies on a group of 10 men killed by an explosion in a local coal mine. Winters' friend, local sheriff Nate Craven, recounts for him the events leading up to the explosion: After a string of missing-persons cases, Craven and his deputies settle on a suspect named Elliott Sykes, a man who had himself gone missing from a neighboring town, only to turn up working for the local coal mine under the assumed name Joe Allen. Craven searches Sykes' hotel room, finding a strange orb-like object, which he confiscates. Later, at the coal mine, Sykes steals back the object and flees into the mine, triggering an explosion that kills Sykes and 9 other miners. Setting up a makeshift morgue in an abandoned slaughterhouse, Winters begins performing the autopsies, documenting his findings on a tape recorder. As the autopsies continue, Winters begins noticing that the bodies are all completely drained of their blood. Soon, the corpse of Sykes reanimates and reveals to Winters that he is the host for a parasitic alien. The alien, who feeds on human blood, but is near-starvation due to Sykes' death, seeks to transfer into Winters' body to continue living. Winters resists, but the alien incapacitates him and restrains him on the operating table. Winters regains consciousness as Sykes begins to perform an autopsy on himself, in order to maintain the appearance that Winters had completed his job, and to give the alien easy exit from the corpse. As the alien leaves Sykes' body and rigor mortis sets in, Winters is able to obtain the scalpel, which he uses to sabotage his senses of sight and hearing, as well as slitting his major arteries. With the blood, Winters writes a message on his chest. As the alien takes control of his body, Winters informs it that the body is near-death, effectively trapping the alien with no food source. He also reveals that his tape recorder was left on, and has recorded much of his interactions with the alien. Winters collapses on the floor as his heartbeat slows to a stop. Craven arrives to find Winters' body, with the words: \"PLAY THE TAPE. BURN ME.\" written on his chest in blood.\n\nCast: F. Murray Abraham, Glynn Turman, Luke Roberts\n\nDirected by: David Prior. Story by: David S. Goyer, Michael Shea.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "parasitic being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The antagonist of the story is revealed to be an alien being that travels to other planets, most recently Earth, and implants itself in the bodies of beings there, taking control of some and feeding on others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The antagonist of the story is revealed to be an alien being that travels to other planets, most recently Earth, and implants itself in the bodies of beings there, taking control of some and feeding on others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice to defeat an enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead up to the heroic decision by Dr. Winters to blind and deafen himself as well as slit his own throat in order to foil the plans of the evil alien parasite that was about to take over his body and, likely as not, subvert human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for one's people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead up to the heroic decision by Dr. Winters to blind and deafen himself as well as slit his own throat in order to foil the plans of the evil alien parasite that was about to take over his body and, likely as not, subvert human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The law enforcement, headed by Sheriff Nate Craven, chased a mysterious adversary that, unbeknownst to them, was a terrible alien monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The law enforcement, headed by Sheriff Nate Craven, chased a mysterious adversary that, unbeknownst to them, was a terrible alien monstrosity.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Nate was trying to solve a mysterious murder, and possibly others.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Winters had terminal stomach cancer with about six months left to live, and this was important to the decisions he made along the way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sheriff Nate Craven tried to solve puzzling murders.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Carl Winters was an elderly forensic pathologist suffering from terminal stomach cancer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The friendship of Nate and Carl was somewhat important to the plot. The evil alien used it to threaten Carl.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "The evil alien's arrogance led it to underestimate the potential of Dr. Winters, and by extension humans in general, to thwart it's plans to run amok on the Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story lead up to the heroic decision by Dr. Winters to blind and deafen himself as well as slit his own throat in order to foil the plans of the evil alien parasite that was about to take over his body and, likely as not, subvert human civilization.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The parasitic alien had a hairy, minuscule ball-like spaceship that it had to destroy in order for it not to fall into inquisitive human hands.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "are we alone in the universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guillermo del Toro explicitly raised this question in his introductory remarks.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mind control ability", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The evil alien in the body of Sykes mind controlled the man at the bar into dropping a beer on the floor and subsequently ask for a ride home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's own death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A terminally ill Carl confided in his friend Nate that he was at peace with having only six months to live.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e04", "title": "The Outside", "date": "2022-10-26", "description": "Awkward and unattractive bank teller Stacey Chapman is invited to a Christmas party by her co-worker, Gina. At the party, Stacey feels excluded by her vain and gossiping colleagues, and is further humiliated when her secret Santa gift of a taxidermied duck is received unenthusiastically. Gina gifts each party- goer a box of Alo Glo, an expensive and popular skin lotion. Upon applying the lotion, Stacey finds that it severely irritates her skin. Stacey's husband Keith tries to boost her self-esteem, but is unsuccessful. Discouraged and unable to sleep, Stacey stays up watching television, only to happen across a commercial for Alo Glo. Stacey soon realizes that the ad's spokesman is talking directly to her, promising her that Alo Glo will make her beautiful if she continues to use it, going so far to say that it will make her a \"new you.\" Stacey secretly orders a case of the lotion, and continues to use it, despite the irritation. Stacey soon finds that the tubes of Alo Glo have begun bursting, creating a puddle of lotion in her basement. A humanoid figure emerges from the puddle, mirroring Stacey's movements. Sensing familiarity with the figure, Stacey kisses and embraces it. Keith finally attempts to confront Stacey, but she stabs him in the forehead before killing him with an axe. Stacey then finds the lotion-figure in the bathroom, where it disintegrates back into lotion in her bathtub. Stacey submerges herself in the lotion, and re-emerges beautiful. Stacey taxidermies Keith's body, disposing of his organs in the garbage. The next day, Stacey's co-workers are struck by her newfound beauty. Stacey laughs and gossips with them, but soon is overtaken with a sense of unease.\n\nCast: Kate Micucci, Martin Starr, Dan Stevens\n\nDirected by: Ana Lily Amirpour. Story by: Haley Z. Boston, Emily Carroll.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire to be beautiful", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The plot centered on Stacey's drive to be glamorously beautiful, like she believed her female coworkers are.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The nerdy and mildly eccentric Stacey longed to fit in with her shallow and gossipy colleagues at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to belong", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The nerdy and mildly eccentric Stacey longed to fit in with her shallow and gossipy colleagues at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was really beautiful", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Stacey finding out what it might be like to actually be really beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey was envious of her (to her eyes) glamorous and attractive female coworkers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey had a loving husband whom she ended up killing and taxidermising.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey ended up putting a knife in her husbands prefrontal cortex, lodged an axe in his back, and then taxidermied his body, all because he didn't approve of her recklessly dowsing herself in a peculiar cream to which she seamed to be allergic but which she was convinced made her beautiful.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "At her coworker's Christmas party, Stacey was gifted a beauty cream that seemed to prompt an allergic reaction. In fact, through a peculiar combination of effects, it hooked Stacey on applying evermore of it and then made her become more and more unhinged. At one point she became convinced that her television was talking to her. She ended up killing and taxidermising her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "magic potion", "level": "major", "motivation": "One interpretation of the story is that Stacy was completely sane and did not hallucinate. Evidence: The beautification process did things, like straightening her teeth, that could not have been a psychological effect. In this case the viewer would have to conclude that there was something entirely supernatural about the lotion she was using, much like a magic potion of yore.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nerdy and mildly eccentric Stacey was a fish out of water in the company of her shallow and gossipy coworkers at the bank.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey became obsessed with applying a damaging skin care lotion to her body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human health condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Stacey kept applying the special lotion to her body even though it was giving her an eczema-like skin condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone who refuses to take care of their health", "level": "major", "motivation": "Keith confronted Stacey over her obsessive use of an expensive lotion that was giving her an eczema-like skin condition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "true beauty comes from within", "level": "major", "motivation": "Did Stacey magically become beautiful from a truly magical cream, or must we at least ponder the possibility that the madness of the cream and the allergic reaction simply brought out a self-confidence in her that it was all it took for her to appear beautiful?", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christmas traditions", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey failed to impress her colleagues at the secret Santa party.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "recreational activity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stacey taxidermied a duck in her basement. She later did the same to her husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith was a police officer by trade.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e05", "title": "Pickman's Model", "date": "2022-10-27", "description": "Art student Will Thurber becomes friends with Richard Pickman, whose horrific works of art depicting demons and gruesome scenes mesmerize him. Years later, Thurber, now a museum curator, remains enthralled but disturbed by Pickman's works, suffering horrific dreams. Pickman, now a successful artist, drops in to visit, interacting with his wife, Rebecca, and young son, James. When James also begins having terrifying dreams after seeing Pickman's work, Thurber confronts Pickman. Pickman begs him to come to his home and see his works, explaining that he only ever wanted for the works to be seen. Thurber lights the works on fire and accidentally shoots Pickman, who reveals that the works were not based on imagination, but real life and scenes of the future. A demon depicted in one of the paintings emerges and drags Pickman's corpse away. The next day, Thurber is horrified to find his museum displaying Pickman's works, completely undamaged, and that James and Rebecca have viewed them. He sends the two home and orders the paintings destroyed. Returning home, he discovers that the paintings have driven Rebecca mad. She has gouged out her eyes and butchered and cooked their son, just as depicted in one of Pickman's paintings.\n\nCast: Ben Barnes, Crispin Glover, Oriana Leman\n\nDirected by: Keith Thomas. Story by: Lee Patterson, H. P. Lovecraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "madness inducing painting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is this: people who viewed Richard Pickman's paintings started suffering from disturbing dreams and then, at varying rates of progression, started going insane..", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns two painters, Will and Richard. Richard Pickman had a supernatural ability to imbue his creations with a quality that makes those that perceive them go mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Will and Richard became friends, but then they became not friends because of Richard's gruesome paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard painted monsters. When Richard died, unless we think Will hallucinated, it would seem at least one such monster was indeed real and emerged out of a well to collect Richard's body.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "descent into madness", "level": "major", "motivation": "People who viewed Richard Pickman's paintings started suffering from disturbing dreams and then, at varying rates of progression, started going insane. In particular, Rebecca and James' son started suffering from nightmares. One may also question James' own mental state after having viewed so many of Pickman's paintings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need to prove one's self", "level": "major", "motivation": "Richard Pickman had some sort of desperate need to have his art be accepted or recognized by Will.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Will and Rebecca.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Will and his young son, James, whom Will was deeply concerned about when the son started having nightmares after viewing one of Pickman's paintings. Will was distressed to find the severed head of his son baking in the oven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will was distressed to find the severed head of his son baking in the oven.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "self-injurious behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Viewing one of Pickman's paintings caused Rebecca to gouge out her own eyes and kill her own son.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rebecca and her son, whom she killed and butchered after she went mad.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pickman sketched a macabre scene while at the graveyard late at night.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cannibalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Will stumbled upon Lavinia's feast of human flesh in his nightmare. In the end, a deranged Rebecca butchered and cooked her young son to Will's great horror.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rebecca was mortified when Will freaked out while being introduced to her father for the first time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Rebecca recounted her experiences at a séance some years prior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pickman described his ancestor, Lavinia, as a witch.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e06", "title": "Dreams in the Witch House", "date": "2022-10-27", "description": "Walter Gilman witnesses his twin sister Epperley's spirit be dragged away upon her death to the Forest of Lost Souls. Years later as a grown man, he seeks to enter the location in hopes of saving her. He rents a room in the house of an executed witch, Keziah Mason, and takes an Indigenous drug designed to take him to the Forest. After several attempts, he locates his sister and even finds that he is able to bring a piece of her dress into the real world with him. His attempts gain the attention of the spirit of Keziah and her familiar, a human-faced rat, Jenkins Brown. When Walter successfully brings Epperley back, they learn that Keziah and Jenkins have also come back, and that Walter must die before dawn in order to bring one of them back permanently. Keziah attempts to kill Walter, but Epperley kills her and peacefully passes away herself. However, Jenkins takes advantage of the situation and burrows into Walter's body, bursting forth and killing him before dawn. He then possesses Walter's body, triumphant.\n\nCast: Rupert Grint, Ismael Cruz Córdova, DJ Qualls, Nia Vardalos, Tenika Davis, Gaby Moreno\n\nDirected by: Catherine Hardwicke. Story by: Mika Watkins, H. P. Lovecraft.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a family member", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter spent his life, and squandered a promising musical talent, in order to learn about the supernatural in a vain attempt to find out what had happened to his twin sister when they were young and her spirit had gotten sucked into a mysterious vortex-like opening in a forest. She was presumed gone forever by everyone but Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the afterlife", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a ghostly limbo-like world where people go who die but are not quite ready to move on.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Walter abandoned his promising career as a musician in order to vainly pursue studies in the occult to find out about his sister's peculiar demise. Later he went through mortal peril in order to bring her back from the land of the \"pretty much\" dead and, indeed, ended up dead for his troubles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "witch", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central novelty and antagonist, referred to in the title, in the story is the witch Keziah Mason who wanted to return from the dead by sacrificing Walter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a ghostly limbo-like world where people go who die but are not quite ready to move on. It was possible for the living and the ghostly dead to transition between their respective worlds and meet each other, and thus the inhabitants there were for all intents and purposes ghosts, at least from time to time.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "twin and twin", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter spent his life, and squandered a promising musical talent, in order to learn about the supernatural in a vain attempt to find out what had happened to his twin sister when they were young and her spirit had gotten sucked into a mysterious vortex-like opening in a forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "major", "motivation": "Walter spent his life, and squandered a promising musical talent, in order to learn about the supernatural in a vain attempt to find out what had happened to his twin sister when they were young and her spirit had gotten sucked into a mysterious vortex-like opening in a forest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "The house referred to in the title was haunted by the witch, also referred to, as well as her familiar, the rat-man Jenkins.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I were a ghost", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Epperly died and appeared back among the living at certain points in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was considered by some that the drug Walter tried gave him a trip, although the viewer knows it actually had a supernatural effect.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "séance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter was in attendance at a sham and cliched attempt to communicate with the dead.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "con artistry", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A pair of charlatans held a sham séance at the theater.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Nazism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Frank held a copy of Time Magazine featuring Hitler on the cover, whom he described as a \"vegetarian superman rising to power in Germany\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human-animal hybrid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jenkins had the body of rat and the head of a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walter and Mariana visited a strange church, tended to by a surly nun that warded off the witch with prayers and holy water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sister Lucretia warded off the witch with prayers and holy water.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mariana's strange paintings were windows into the future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the Salem witch trials", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was revealed that Keziah Mason was convicted of witchcraft as part of these notorious prosecutions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e07", "title": "The Viewing", "date": "2022-10-28", "description": "In 1979, novelist Guy Landon, astrophysicist Charlotte Xie, musician Randall Roth, and psychic Targ Reinhard receive invitations from enigmatic billionaire Lionel Lassiter, for a viewing at his mansion, The Sandpiper House. The group is escorted to the house by Lassiter's assistant, Hector, and are received by Lassiter's personal physician, Doctor Zahra. Lassiter soon joins them, sharing a unique bottle of whiskey. As the group drinks and takes drugs, prepared for them by Zahra, Lassiter expresses his admiration for each guest's talents and accomplishments. When asked for information regarding himself or his past Lassiter remains vague, instead choosing to point out the uniqueness and singularity of his possessions, including his house, his music, and Zahra herself. Lassiter soon takes them to a room he dubs \"The Obelisk Chamber\", in which Lassiter displays a strange, rock-like object. Charlotte remarks on its similarities to meteorites, though the object appears to have none of the damage that meteorites would have. Targ claims to sense a psychic energy within the object, while Landon is unimpressed. Lassiter claims that the object is impervious to X-Rays and carbon dating. Despite Lassiter's wishes, Randall repeatedly smokes near the object. The object appears to absorb the smoke, and soon crumbles away, revealing a horned, slime-like creature within. The creature kills Targ, Guy, and Zahra before absorbing Lassiter's body and electrocuting Hector after he shoots it with an AK-47. Randall and Charlotte successfully escape the mansion, and confirm to each other that the events they witnessed were, in fact, real. The creature wanders from the mansion and into a culvert, later emerging from a storm drain in a crowded, urban area.\n\nCast: Peter Weller, Eric André, Sofia Boutella, Charlyne Yi, Steve Agee, Michael Therriault, Saad Siddiqui\n\nDirected by: Panos Cosmatos. Story by: Panos Cosmatos & Aaron Stewart-Ahn.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "A lengthy portion of the conversation concerned the various mind altering substances that the main characters imbued, and that colored their perception of the peculiar events that then followed. They had whiskey, weed, and cocaine laced with some unnamed new chemical concocted by General Gaddafi's former personal physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "threat from extraterrestrial life", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien life form emerged from the meteorite, killed several human bystanders and all but proved its hostile intentions towards the inhabitants of our planet. It is unclear precisely what its plans were, but it acted with informed precision and at the end of the story it was interfering with the power-grid of a nearby city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was super rich", "level": "major", "motivation": "Much of the conversation concerned Lionel Lassiter's ostentatious wealth and what he was doing with it. It seemed Lassiter's main objective that evening was to persuade Randall to do some sort of work for him, although he also wanted to inspire the other visitors in various ways.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "An alien life form emerged from the meteorite, killed several high-as-a-kite human observers and all but proved its hostile intentions towards the inhabitants of our planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A grotesque alien creature emerged from the meteorite, killed several high-as-a-kite human observers and all but proved its hostile intentions towards the inhabitants of our planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randall was an acclaimed musician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "creative writing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Guy Landon was an acclaimed novelist, maybe the best in the land.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and servant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lassiter was tended to by his personal physician, Zahra, and assistant, Hector.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Charlotte was an astrophysicist.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "clairvoyance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Targ was a psychic, whose abilities was otherwise not precisely defined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Zahra served as Lassiter's personal physician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Randall made a half-hearted attempt to refrain from indulging in his favorite brand of cigarettes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "snobbishness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Landon called out Targ for being a pretentious ninny.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lassiter made a point of mentioning that his special bottle of Japanese whisky had survived this conflict against all odds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "panspermia", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The astrophysicist Charlotte was praised by Lassiter for her groundbreaking take on this theory.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "gdtcoc2022e08", "title": "The Murmuring", "date": "2022-10-28", "description": "Nancy and Edgar Bradley are ornithologists studying bird murmurations and who recently lost their daughter Ava. They go to a remote country home to continue their studies and get away from their grief. Nancy begins seeing ghostly apparitions of a crying boy and a screaming angry woman. Edgar believes these visions are from the strain of her grief, which Nancy's kept inside all throughout. Nancy learns that the former owner, Claudette, drowned her son and committed suicide. During a fight over these visions, Edgar expresses frustration over Nancy never crying following Ava's death, nor wishing to talk about it, and his hopelessness over their strained relationship. Despondent, he leaves for his research site the next morning. Alone, Nancy is chased by Claudette's screaming ghost and hears her son crying that his mother is angry with him. Comforting him, Nancy encourages him to run into her arms. He does, finally passing on. Nancy then witnesses Claudette committing suicide, realizing that her angry screams were in despair over drowning her son. Claudette's spirit is carried by an enormous bird murmuration, which envelops Nancy, allowing her to finally cry and confront her grief. She contacts a relieved Edgar, saying she is finally ready to talk about Ava.\n\nCast: Essie Davis, Andrew Lincoln, Hannah Galway\n\nDirected by: Jennifer Kent. Story by: Jennifer Kent, Guillermo del Toro.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-guillermocacabinet.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "coping with the death of a child", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nancy had to let go of Ava on order to move on and mend her relationship with Edgar. Similarly, the ghost boy had to somehow let go of the conflicted attachment he had to his mother that had murdered him, in order to \"step into the light\" and move on. The mother moved on in the opposite direction, one assumes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "ghost", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The unnatural behavior of the birds Nancy and Edgar were studying turned out to be due to the birds sensing, or communicating with, two ghosts that inhabited the little island, and specifically the house, where the study was being conducted.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nancy had to let go of Ava on order to move on and mend her relationship with Edgar. Similarly, the ghost boy had to somehow let go of the conflicted attachment he had to his mother that had murdered him, in order to \"step into the light\" and move on. The mother moved on in the opposite direction, one assumes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with things", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Nancy had to let go of Ava on order to move on and mend her relationship with Edgar.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "haunted house", "level": "major", "motivation": "The house where Nancy and Edgar had been put up turned out to be haunted by the ghosts of a mother and the son she had cruelly murdered.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nancy and Edgar were coping with the death of their daughter Ava, and trying to find a way to save their fraught relationship that was teetering on its last strand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nancy and Edgar were coping with the death of their daughter Ava, and trying to find a way to save their fraught relationship that was teetering on its last strand.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "animal behavior", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme alluded to in the title was the \"murmuring\" behavior, not well understood by science, of certain bird species.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded with Nancy and Edgar agreeing to finally talk about Ava and mend their all but fatally ruined relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "catharsis", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story builds up to Nancy unbottling her long pent up emotions, stemming from the tragic death of her young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Edgar and late Ava.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nancy and late Ava.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hospitality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The extraordinary helpfulness and hospitality of the man who kept the island and the house in order was remarked upon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudette had drown her son and then did herself in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudette had drown her son and then did herself in.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claudette had drown her son and then did herself in.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror6x01", "title": "Joan Is Awful", "date": "2023-06-15", "description": "\"Joan Is Awful\" is the first episode of the sixth series of the anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by the series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by Ally Pankiw. Alongside the rest of the sixth series, it premiered on Netflix on 15 June 2023. It follows Joan as her life is adapted in real- time into a Streamberry television series starring Salma Hayek.\n\nJoan finds that the events of her day are being retold in near-real time in a television programme, Joan Is Awful. The streaming service Streamberry can do this as she signed their terms and conditions; a quantum computer produces the show using computer-generated imagery (CGI). She is portrayed by a virtual actor of Salma Hayek. To get Hayek's attention, Joan defecates in a church, dressed as a cheerleader. Joan and Hayek—unhappy with how her likeness is being used—break into Streamberry's office to destroy the quantum computer. They learn that they are in a simulated reality. Joan is a likeness of Annie Murphy based on a Source Joan; both destroy their quantum computers, destroying the simulated realities. Source Joan is placed on house arrest alongside the real Annie Murphy and starts her own coffee shop.\n\nDirected by: Ally Pankiw. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joan turned to her lawyer for satisfaction after Streamberry started broadcasting her life in realtime. It turned out that Streamberry was surveilling Joan, and everyone, through smartphone and such like devices.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "onerous user agreements", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Joan turned to her lawyer for satisfaction after Streamberry started broadcasting her life in realtime. It turned out she had, in fact, signed away her right to privacy in a lengthy user agreement no normal person would read before clicking through.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "When her life started being broadcast on a popular streaming service, Streamberry (a parody on Netflix), Joan quickly became evermore unhinged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "embarrassment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan was mortified when her life started being broadcast on a popular streaming service, Streamberry (a parody on Netflix). The Catholic actress Salma Hayek was likewise mortified when her CGI likeness took a dump on a church floor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "Krish left Joan once he found out she had a crush on her ex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan cavorted with her hunky old flame while still together with her \"vanilla\" fiancé.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "The first part of the story concerned Joan in her manager role and how she treated her underlings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a quantum computer \"quamputer\" that created worlds within worlds somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nested universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "There was a quantum computer \"quamputer\" that created worlds within worlds somehow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personality rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder the limits to which the Streamberry streaming service should be allowed to go in using a CGI likeness of Salma Hayek in their productions, whether or not she had contractually agreed to sign over those rights. For instance, Salma had explicitly signed a contract making it permissible to depict her CGI likeness taking a dump on a church floor, but she was outraged when they did it. Personality rights ought to be inalienable to some extent.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if my life were different", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan's life was turned upside down by a streaming service's release of a show depicting the the day-to-day events of her life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic relationship issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Joan met up with her ex, which whom she had previously had wild and passionate sex, in part because she felt unfulfilled in her relationship with her \"vanilla\" fiancé, Krish.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "choosing between lovers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan was briefly torn between her ex and her fiancé though she ended up with neither.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Krish became jealous when he found out that Joan was seeing her ex.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy was blindsided by her abrupt termination from the company. Joan was fired for breaking her NDA in turn.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Sandy when out for a drink with a friend after getting fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting a taste of one's own medicine", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The shoe was on the other foot when Joan was terminated from the company without a hint of compassion from her faceless superiors.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and boyfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mac and Eric watched the \"Joan is Awful\" program from the comfort of their sofa.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "legal occupation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan consulted a lawyer about suing Streamberry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan wolfed down four burgers in rapid succession and topped it off with some laxatives so that she could go and befoul a house of God with her excrement.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan rudely interrupted a wedding just as the bride and groom were about to take their vows.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "free will", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan mused that it wasn't her decision to make before going to town on the quantum computer with an axe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Joan and Salma were somewhat taken aback by the revelation that they were computer simulations.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror6x02", "title": "Loch Henry", "date": "2023-06-15", "description": "Davis and Pia, partners who met on a film course, visit Davis's mother Janet in the Scottish countryside and meet Davis's friend Stuart, who runs the last remaining pub in Loch Henry. When Pia learns about Iain Adair, a local serial killer who tortured tourists, she convinces Davis that they should make a documentary about him. Pia, Davis and Stuart break into Adair's basement and gather footage. Pia discovers from Janet's old VHS tapes of Bergerac that Janet and Davis's late father participated in Adair's crimes. She flees the house and evades Janet's pursuit but fatally falls in a river. Janet hangs herself next to evidence of her crimes. A BAFTA-winning true crime documentary is made about Loch Henry, with Davis's involvement; it brings tourism back to Stuart's pub. Alone in a hotel room, Davis re-reads Janet's suicide note: \"For your film. Mum.\"\n\nDirected by: Sam Miller. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "serial murder", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a series of gruesome murders that once took place in the otherwise peaceful town of Loch Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "appearances can be deceiving", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Davis' mother appeared to be timid and kind but turned out to be a sadistic pervert who had kidnapped, tortured, and was an enthusiastic participant in the killing of at least 8 innocent people for her sexual gratification. To top it off she cherished the films her husband had made of their gruesome exploits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Davis and Pia as they try to make a film together.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "Davis and Pia were young aspiring filmmakers who met in art school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Davis stayed with his African American girlfriend, Pia, at his traditional Scottish mom's place for a few days. The mom made a possibly inappropriate remark about Pia's ethnic background. Davis later found out she was a sadistic sex pervert and a serial killer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Stuart was fed up with his despondent father and treated him with disdain.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "We learned something about the loving relationship of two sadistic sex pervert serial killers who happened to be married: Davis' parents.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pia insinuated that the local cops might be less inclined to overlook egg thieving, if it were being done by black people like her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Davis spoke somberly of his departed father, not knowing the man had been a sadistic serial killer in life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Davis' cop father was shown making an ill-fated call to Iain Adair's lair.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Janet hanged herself in the house, rather than face the consequences of her actions.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror6x03", "title": "Beyond the Sea", "date": "2023-06-15", "description": "In an alternate history 1969, the astronauts Cliff and David can transfer their consciousness to artificial replicas of their bodies on Earth when not needed on the spaceship. David is trapped on the ship after his family are killed and his replica destroyed by a cult. Cliff and his wife Lana allow David limited use of Cliff's replica. Lana embraces David, in Cliff's replica, when he cries in front of her. On Earth, David begins an oil painting of Cliff's family home. David becomes infatuated with Lana over their visits and makes sexual advances towards her while dancing to \"La Mer\". Lana rejects his advances and Cliff discovers David has been drawing her naked on the ship. Cliff punches David. When Cliff takes a spacewalk, David uses his replica to kill his family. Aboard the ship, Cliff offers David a seat.\n\nDirected by: John Crowley. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "mind transfer technology", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Cliff and David were able to transfer their respective consciousnesses from their bodies on the spaceship to artificial replicas of their bodies down on Earth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "David and Jessica Ross were happily married with two children. Then, one fated night, a group of of hippie cultists murdered David's family before his very eyes. Cliff and Lana Stanfield's marriage was strained by David's presence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts Cliff and David were on an extended mission aboard a near-term spaceship of modularized design.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space travel", "level": "major", "motivation": "The astronauts Cliff and David were two years into a six year space mission.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff and David, two astronauts journeying on an extended mission in outer space, had artificial replica bodies on Earth to which they could transfer their respective consciousnesses.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of one's entire family", "level": "major", "motivation": "David became despondent and withdrawn after his wife and two young children were slaughtered by hippie cultists. The story culminated with David bring the same fate on his friend and fellow astronaut, Cliff.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "infatuation", "level": "major", "motivation": "David became increasingly infatuated with Lana. He kept numerous sketches in his quarters, many of which were nudes.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "falling out of friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The friends and fellow astronauts Cliff and David had a falling out over David's infatuation with Cliff's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "love triangle", "level": "major", "motivation": "David became increasingly infatuated with Cliff's wife, Lana.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lana was lonely at the country house with her husband up in space.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with David murdering Lana and Henry in cold blood so that Cliff would share in his misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "misery loves company", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with David annihilating Cliff's family so that Cliff would know David's misery.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robotics", "level": "major", "motivation": "A novelty of the story was robotic facimilies of two astronauts. The astronauts could seemingly transfer their consciousness (a kind of remote control) into their respective robot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff barely restrained himself from attacking Cliff when he found out that Cliff had been wooing his wife. The story concluded with David, rather derangedly, slaughtering Cliff's wife and son to get back at Cliff for having denied him access to them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic jealousy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cliff became violently jealous of David for taking liberties with Cliff's wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff said grace before a meal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being famous", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David politely dealt with being approached by a pair of fans while at the theater with his family.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing a home invader", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David confronted a group of hippie cultists that broke into his home because they wanted to see what made him tick.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI prejudice in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The David artificial replica was an abomination in the eyes of the hippie cultists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parent and child", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jessica pleaded for the lives of her two young children.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "funeral rite", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David watched video footage of his family's funeral service.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff and his young son went pole fishing at the stream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fishing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff and his young son went pole fishing at the stream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pleasure in nature", "level": "minor", "motivation": "After spending an extended time confined to a space ship, David pointedly admired a caterpillar while sitting out under the oak tree.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drawing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David had a knack for sketching. He sketched his children and Cliff's house, Lana", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "painting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David undertook to paint a picture of the Stanfield family home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Lana cared for her young son, Henry.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "domestic violence", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cliff admitted to beating his son, Henry, to keep the boy in line.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David deduced that Cliff's marriage was hanging by a thread because Cliff was an uncultured slob, and because he hadn't touched his wife in ages though she was craving intimacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "feeling neglected in a relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "David deduced that Cliff's marriage was hanging by a thread because Cliff was unempathic and dim, and because he hadn't touched his wife in ages though she was craving intimacy.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror6x04", "title": "Mazey Day", "date": "2023-06-15", "description": "In 2006, the paparazza Bo takes photos of a male celebrity's affair with a man that lead to his suicide. She decides to quit the industry. Meanwhile, the actor Mazey Day quits filming in the Czech Republic after a hit and run; $30,000 is offered for the first photographs of her. Bo tracks Mazey down and pursues her to a New Age rehab. She and three other paparazzi find Mazey tied up and take pictures. Bo releases her and Mazey transforms into a werewolf. The werewolf kills two paparazzi as Bo and the paparazzo Hector flee to a nearby diner. Bo fails to convince a police officer of the situation's urgency. The werewolf kills all those in the diner except Bo, who manages to shoot her. Mazey returns to human form, bloodied, and Bo hands her a gun. With Hector's camera, Bo prepares to take a photograph with Mazey holding the gun to her head. A gunshot is heard.\n\nDirected by: Uta Briesewitz. Story by: Charlie Brooker.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A recurring point of the story was that paparazzi's profit from harassing famous people, sometimes to the point of death (like Princess Dianna). Bo was perpetually struggling with the ethics of the profession. Yet after living in poverty for a while she clearly turned to the dark side: In the end she knowingly handed Mazey Day a gun and got her camera ready to photograph Mazey's impending suicide. The paparazzi Bo was snapping photos of celebrities in private settings. At the opening of the story, she scored some photos of the celebrity Justin Camley leaving a motel room together with a \"male buddy\". Justin took his own life after the scandalous photos were published.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "werewolf", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Mazey turned out to be a werewolf to the great surprise of the paparazzi who were tracking her down.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bo was tempted to return to her old paparazzi job by the prospect of score $30,000 for the first shots of Mazey Day. Bo had become disillusioned about being a paparazzi after one of her subjects committed suicide because of the scandalous nature of the photos she took of him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "overcoming an addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is led to believe that Mazey Day was sent to rehab to overcome a drug addiction. Alas it turned out she suffered from being a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The paparazzi and diner people were attacked and many torn to shreds by a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "The paparazzi Bo was snapping photos of celebrities in private settings. At the opening of the story, she scored some photos of the celebrity Justin Camley leaving a motel room together with a \"male buddy\". Justin took his own life after the scandalous photos were published. The main part of the story follows Bo and some fellow paparazzi as they track down Mazey Day, a celebrity who'd been living in seclusion ever since committing a hit-and-run in the Czech Republic.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "Bo investigated Mazey Day together with her paparazzi \"friends\". There was an illustration that their friendship was just skin-deep when they quickly abandoned one another while running from the beast and, especially, when one of them grabbed the camera from another of them rather than try and pull him lose from the fence where his fat behind was at the mercy of said monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "roommate and roommate", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bo was confronted by her socially awkward roommate over her cooking habits, being late with the rent, and sneaking food from the fridge.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin Camley hanged himself after getting outed for cheating on his girlfriend with a man.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "male homosexuality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin Camley hanged himself after getting outed as a homosexual.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mazey was inconsolable after striking someone down in a hit-and-run accident.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Justin Camley hanged himself after getting outed for cheating on his girlfriend with a man. One gathers that Mazey blew her brains out rather than continue on in life as a werewolf.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychedelic experience", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mazey tripped out on mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "dangerous driving", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mazey ran a man down while high on mushrooms.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I underwent a physical metamorphosis", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mazey transformed into a menacing wolf under the light of the full moon.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police officer in the diner failed to handle the werewolf situation.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror6x05", "title": "Demon 79", "date": "2023-06-15", "description": "A title card introduces the episode as a Red Mirror film. In 1979, Nida works at a department store. People at her job, the National Front, and the Conservative politician Michael Smart make it clear she is not welcome in England. She discovers a talisman that unleashes a demon, Gaap, on his first assignment. With the appearance of Boney M.'s Bobby Farrell, Gaap tells Nida she must kill three people in as many days to stop the world ending. Nida kills a passerby who molests his daughter. A man who murdered his wife invites Nida to his house for sex; she kills him and his brother, who arrives as she is leaving. The murderer's death is discounted, so one killing remains: Nida targets Smart, who is seen in a premonition to become Prime Minister with an ultra-nationalist agenda. She runs him off the road but is apprehended by a police officer before his death. At midnight, with Nida in the interrogation room, nuclear warfare begins. Nida joins Gaap, who is outcast by the demons, in an eternal void.\n\nDirected by: Toby Haynes. Story by: Charlie Brooker & Bisha K. Ali.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "compromising one's ethical principles vs. great need", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The perpetual dilemma illustrated was whether Nida should kill various, mostly wicked, people in order to prevent the end of the world the demon Gaap claimed would happen otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The demon Gaap declared that the end of the world would take place in three days, should Nida fail to ritually sacrifice three people within that time frame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing to survive", "level": "major", "motivation": "The perpetual dilemma illustrated was whether Nida should kill various, mostly wicked, people in order to prevent the end of the world the demon Gaap claimed would happen otherwise.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nida struggled not to murder her racist nemesis, Vicky, at work.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "racism in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nida had several encounters with covert racism. For example, her white British coworker and, likewise, her white British boss inconvenienced her at work because of ethnic food she ate. The conclusion of the story hinged on her trying to save the world by assassinating a white-supremacist politician who was destined to become a Hitler-like figure in history.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The demon Gaap of Misophaes appeared and took the form of a gaudily dressed character from the music group Boney M.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the religious end of the world", "level": "major", "motivation": "The demon Gaap declared that the Christian End of The World would take place within three days, should Nida fail to commit a murder a day for that very duration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "major", "motivation": "It fell on Nida to murder three people to prevent the world ending in a nuclear holocaust. The killings were explicitly characterized as human sacrifices in the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hallucination of a non-existing person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is purposely left wondering whether the demon Gaap might be a figment of Nida's over-active imagination until the very end when it became apparent that Gaap was real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nida went on a killing spree, convinced that the sacrifice of three evildoers would stave off the end of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Nida failing to fulfill her requirement of sacrificing three people, and therefore the world ended in a nuclear conflagration.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "vigilante justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nida meted out justice to various evildoers: a pedophile, a known wife killer, and a white-supremacist politician.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nida had several conversations with her uncharismatic employer at the shoe shop.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nida briefly pondered whether the sudden appearance of a demon telling her to murder people was a sign she'd lost her mind.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "child abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The unassuming man Tim Simons was molesting his young daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a loved one being missing", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean reported her husband, Tim, missing after the family dog came home without him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jean reported her husband, Tim, missing after the family dog came home without him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two police detectives were on Nida's trail.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "It was common knowledge in the community that Keith had killed his wife and gotten away with it. He later admitted as much to Nida, and accepted Nida's punishment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Keith expressed regret over having killed his wife.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x01", "title": "Common People", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "Teacher Amanda and welder Mike are a happy couple who want a child. After Amanda falls ill with a brain tumor, Mike agrees to a contract with the start- up Rivermind to restore her brain function remotely for a monthly fee. The company's servers wirelessly supplement her lost cognitive abilities. As a result, Amanda sleeps excessively and is unable to travel beyond Rivermind's service areas. She begins reciting advertisements involuntarily, causing issues at her job. Mike secretly funds an ad-free \"Plus\" version of the service by performing humiliating acts on a livestreaming platform. With excess money, he purchases a limited-time subscription for Rivermind \"Lux\", which allows them to alter sensory experiences through an app. After Mike is exposed for his online activities and assaults a coworker, he is fired, leaving them unable to afford the Plus subscription. They are also informed that Amanda's potential pregnancy would incur additional fees. A year later, Mike sells their unused crib and, at Amanda's request, smothers her with a pillow as she recites an advertisement. He enters his streaming room holding a box cutter and closes the door behind him.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "unethical business practices", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is the idea that there is a new technology on which someone may be completely dependent on for their life, and that a corporation exploits this ruthlessly to squeeze them for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pervasive marketing in society", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the center of the story is the idea that a corporation may, at some point, have the ability to run ads directly through someones brain and make them speak like a TV commercial.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is a wireless network that, via an implant of some sort, connected directly to the brain of its users.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain implant", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is a wireless network that, via an implant of some sort, connected directly to the brain of its users.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial body part", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is a technology that could replace part of the brain and run that part as a computer simulation remotely.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "major", "motivation": "Teacher Amanda and welder Mike were a happy, but childless, married couple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The dark story lead up to Ted and Amanda's suicides. Technically, Ted murdered Amanda in her sleep but it is clear that they had agreed to this cause of action after considered deliberation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "despair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jobless and without the means even to keep Amanda's brain running, Ted and Amanda despaired to the point that they decided to end it all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "getting fired from one's job", "level": "major", "motivation": "Both Amanda and Ted lost their jobs and found themselves in dire financial straits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal practical dilemma", "level": "major", "motivation": "In order to pay for Amanda's brain to keep on running, Ted found himself driven to perform painful and humiliating acts for money on some murky internet site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a loved one", "level": "major", "motivation": "In order to pay for Amanda's brain to keep on running, Ted found himself driven to perform painful and humiliating acts for money on some murky internet site.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with infertility", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda and Mike wanted to have a child but were having trouble conceiving.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "family financial problem", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda and Mike increasingly struggled to foot the monthly bill for the cost of Amanda's brain implant.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Amanda and Mike were ultimately driven suicide by the exorbitant monthly fees they were being charged to keep Amanda's brain running.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sadism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mike, out of desperation to pay to keep Amanda's brain running, became a streamer on a livestreaming platform on which people performed sadistically humiliating acts for money.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a terminal illness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda fell ill with an inoperable brain tumor and would have died but for a fancy new technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "medical risk taking", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mike naturally told the doctors to proceed with a risky new type of brain surgery rather than face the certainty of losing his wife.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Without the financial means to pay for the subscription service that kept her brain running, Amanda new she had the choice between an endless coma and suicide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mechanical insect", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one brief scene, Amanda was teaching the schoolchildren about the important role mechanical bees play as pollinators.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in elementary school", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Amanda was an elementary school teacher. In one notable scene, the children were stunned when she suddenly lost consciousness in the middle of a lecture about solar panels.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x02", "title": "Bête Noire", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "Maria, an R&D food scientist for a confectionery company, recognizes former classmate Verity during a focus group test. After Verity is instantly hired for a research assistant position, Maria begins noticing subtle discrepancies in her life, such as the name of the fast-food chain her boyfriend worked at. She also finds similar inconsistencies in her work, like the absence of an ingredient she had specifically identified in a new product, and blames Verity, whom she remembers was bullied in school. Maria attempts to use security footage to accuse Verity of drinking a coworker's milk from the communal refrigerator; however, the footage reveals that Maria committed the act, leading to her termination. Later, Maria breaks into Verity's home and discovers she has built a quantum computer capable of manipulating reality. Controlling it through her pendant, Verity had been using it to exact revenge on her bullies, including Maria, who spread rumors about her in school. Maria kills Verity, seizes control of the computer and pendant, and manifests a reality where she is empress of the universe.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is the antagonist Verity, who was out to avenge herself on those who wronged her back in high school. She had built a quantum computer that could alter reality however she wished but no matter what she did, the pain of what had been done to her remained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "choice", "motivation": "At the heart of the story is the vengeful antagonist Verity who had built a quantum computer that could alter reality in practically any way she desired. She simply pushed a button and spoke her desire.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "workplace rivalry", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story was largely set in the office where Maria worked. Verity avenged herself on Maria by infiltrating the office and turning people there against Maria to the point that Maria nearly went mad and got herself fired.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "childish bullying", "level": "major", "motivation": "Verity was out to avenge herself on Maria for a rumor that Maria and others had started back in high school. Specifically, Verity went to elaborate lengths to drive her former high school classmates Maria and Natalie to suicide for having made up a rumor at the time that Verity had given Mr. Kendrick a hand job in the computer lab.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. inexplicable adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "From Maria's point of view, unexplainable and seemingly impossible things about reality simply kept changing. Words she knew she had written were suddenly, and embarrassingly, different. The final straw came when she referred to her nut allergy and found that the entire concept of \"allergy to nuts\" (perhaps the concept of allergies in general since people couldn't make sense of the words \"nut allergy\") had somehow vanished from existence.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gastronomy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was an up-and-coming food scientist at a chocolate-making company where she specialized in creating new recipes for delectable treats.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with someone losing their mind", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was rapidly losing her grip on reality from the perspectives of those closest to her such as her boss and boyfriend. In truth, Maria's nemesis Verity was using technology to manipulate physical reality with the expressed purpose of making her seem bat shit crazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I couldn't trust the veracity of my senses", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was left to second guess her own memories when Verity started secretly manipulating physical reality with the expressed purpose of making her appear bat shit crazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "questioning one's sanity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Maria was left to second guess her own memories when Verity started secretly manipulating physical reality with the expressed purpose of making her appear bat shit crazy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "major", "motivation": "It came to light that Natalie had been driven to suicide by Verity, who was no trying to do the same to Maria.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "letting go of the past", "level": "major", "motivation": "No matter what Verity did, including becoming empress of the universe, she was unable to overcome the trauma of having been bullied in high school.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Maria cohabitated with her boyfriend, Kae. They lived more or less conflict free and their relationship was not core to the plot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "parallel universe", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Verity revealed that she'd built a quantum computer that allowed her to jump between quantum parallel realities of her own choosing. The upshot of this is that she could manipulate reality in any way way she imagined.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story concluded with Maria wishing herself empress of the universe, and it subsequently happening. This invites the viewer to ponder what they would do if they could shape reality in whatever way they pleased.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x03", "title": "Hotel Reverie", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "Hollywood star Brandy Friday is invited by the entertainment technology company ReDream, who agrees to remake a classic romantic film, Hotel Reverie, by immersing her consciousness into the story using AI-based virtual production technology. Brandy stars opposite a re-creation of actress Dorothy Chambers, and throughout the remaking, they fall further in love. However, the ReDream technology malfunctions, and everyone within the film, except Brandy and Dorothy, is frozen in time; the two spend countless romantic days together. The now self-aware Dorothy discovers that her \"real\" counterpart died of heartbreak due to not being able to be with her female lover. When the ReDream technology starts up again, time is reset to the moment the initial malfunction occurred, leaving Dorothy and Brandy heartbroken. The film concludes, and Brandy is extracted. Months later, ReDream sends Brandy a phone to talk to an AI simulacrum of Dorothy, with Dorothy telling Brandy she has \"all the time in the world.\"", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a technology, \"ReDream\", through which the Hollywood star Brandy Friday was put into a virtual world generated from an old film. Characters from the film were semi-sentient and semi-independent. One character, Dorothy, seemed to become almost real.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "virtual lover", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story leads up to Brandy receiving a digital clone of the virtual Dorothy, with whom she had fallen in love over the course of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "impossible love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story hinges on a budding romance between Brandy and the Dorothy digital clone on the AI-based virtual \"set\" of a remake of the titular fictional film noir \"Hotel Reverie\". Although the story ended on an ambiguous note, it appeared that Dorothy had little to no agency outside of the script of her story, and obviously no access to reality.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story within the story revolved around murder attempts made on Dorothy by her husband. An obnoxious pooch became collateral of the clumsy assassination attempts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story leads up to Brandy receiving a digital clone of the virtual Dorothy, with whom she had fallen in love.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extramarital affair", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy was married but became romantically involved with Brandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandy was connected to a device that put her inside the virtual world of an old film.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Virtual Dorothy was a simulation of the character in the film noir \"Hotel Reverie\", but also somehow had memories of the actress who'd originally played Dorothy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "filmmaking", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a filmmaker trying to revive an old classic by using a novel technology called ReDream.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I was trapped in a work of fiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Brandy, an A-list Hollywood actress, consented to being placed in a virtual recreation of the the fictional film noir \"Hotel Reverie\" to play the starring role. She became trapped there, quite possibly with no way out.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found out I was a simulation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dorothy had much difficulty processing that she was a virtual recreation of the long-dead actress Dorothy Chambers when confronted about this reality by Brandy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "agent and client", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Brandy confided in her agent that she was tired of playing the same old roles again and again.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The police came to arrest Dorothy after she shot her murderous husband.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Virtual Dorothy essentially committed \"suicide by cop\" when, despite having their guns trained on her, she raised her own gun and shot one of them. Real life Dorothy had died from overdosing on sleeping pills.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mrs. Roban was distressed when her dog, Bon Bon, dropped dead after lapping up a poisoned cocktail that Brandy had emptied into the saucer of a potted plant.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x04", "title": "Plaything", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "Cameron Walker, a PC Zone reviewer, is arrested for shoplifting and the murder of an unidentified person. He recounts his past, detailing his encounter as a young man with eccentric programmer Colin Ritman and his unique life simulation game, Thronglets. Becoming deeply attached to the digital creatures, Cameron's connection intensifies after using LSD, seemingly allowing him to understand them and fostering their communication. When a houseguest, Lump, mistreats and \"kills\" the Thronglets, Cameron violently murders him and hides the body. Over the years, Cameron dedicates himself to enhancing the Thronglets' existence, even surgically creating a brain port for them to live within him. During interrogation, instead of identifying the body, Cameron transmits code via a graphic to the central government server. This code allows the Thronglets to hijack the emergency broadcast system, sending a signal intended to reprogram human brains for peace and eliminate conflict. As the signal ends, Cameron smiles, believing he has revolutionized human life.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the technological singularity", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story lead up to the Thronglets forcefully doing something to virtually every human being on Earth, to remove human violent instincts and connect with humanity. Irrespective of whether their stated intentions were sincere (the story ends ambiguously) the end result was clearly that human civilization would no longer controlled its own fate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the instinct for violence", "level": "choice", "motivation": "After being abused by a sadistic human and then watching one human kill another, the horrified Thronglets set out to protect themselves by removing the violent instinct from virtually every living human.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video game addiction", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron became all consumed with playing the Thronglets computer game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron described how he began taking LSD regularly in order to communicate with the computer simulated Thronglets. Much of his story seemed like it must be a drug fueled hallucination, up until the very end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told by Cameron as he is interrogated by the police regarding an old murder case.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is told by Cameron as he is interrogated by the police regarding an old murder case. Cameron was indeed guilty of the crime, although the story focuses on the unusual circumstances around the misdeed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron had physically interfaced with the computer simulated Thronglets by grafting a connector into his skull. It was implied that the Thronglets sought to interface similarly with the rest of humanity somehow, in a presumably wireless manner.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the nerd stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Younger Cameron, a typical nerd, was pathologically awkward around other people and very much into video games.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "becoming a more self-assured person", "level": "major", "motivation": "Younger Cameron was pathologically awkward around other people, but, thanks to the Thronglets, he somehow became more confident and self-assured in his older age.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "obsession", "level": "major", "motivation": "Playing the Thronglets video game took over Cameron's entire life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human mental condition", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron's interrogators wrote him off as a rambling, delusional fool.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychoactive drug experience", "level": "major", "motivation": "Cameron took LSD on a regular basis. Taking this drug made him somehow made him able to understand the beeping language of the Thronglets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "level": "major", "motivation": "A main novelty of the story is the evolution of the Thronglet video game beings from simple entities into a super intelligent collective.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "theft", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cameron was arrested for trying to make off with a bottle of booze. According to Cameron, he id it with the intention of getting caught.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Younger Cameron was a video game reviewer for a magazine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Younger Cameron was a video game reviewer for a magazine.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "carrot vs. stick", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Cameron's two interrogators, Kano and Jen, conferred on how to get him to reveal the identity of the murder victim. Kano preferred a direct, and confrontational approach. Jen, on the other hand, advocated for giving Cameron a pen and notebook as he desired, in the hopes that doing so would lead him to open up about his crime.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x05", "title": "Eulogy", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "Phillip is contacted by a company called Eulogy that collects immersive photo memories for memorials following the death of his ex-girlfriend Carol. Initially reluctant, he provides early photos where Carol's face is obscured, but technology allows him to \"walk through\" the photos with a woman only known as The Guide. He then reveals numerous defaced photos of Carol, revealing their strained relationship, which culminated in Carol discovering his infidelity, followed by his failed marriage proposal in London. The Guide reveals she is Carol's daughter, conceived during a one-night stand taken in retaliation. Phillip finds an undeveloped disposable camera from the trip, revealing a photo of a trashed room and an unread letter from Carol. In the letter, she asks Phillip to forgive her and meet her after her next shift if he is willing to move forward with her and the child she has chosen to keep. Having never seen the letter until now, Phillip is consumed with regret, realizing she had waited for him and he never came. He finally remembers Carol's face and attends her funeral in London, where her daughter plays the cello.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "old flames", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Philip confronting memories of an old flame that had dumped him, or so it seemed. He had taken this badly enough to become an alcoholic and it had taken him a decades or so to recover. The grand revelation of the story is that the apparent dumping had actually been a huge misunderstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "tragic love", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The epic love story between Philip and Carol ended tragically with an enormous misunderstanding. She had left him a letter but he never read it and therefore thought she walked away never to see him again, whereas she had, in fact, pronounced her love for him and beseeched him to come and meet her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remembering bygone days", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Philip confronting memories of an old flame that had dumped him, or so it seemed. He had taken this badly enough to become an alcoholic and it had taken him a decades or so to recover. The grand revelation of the story is that the apparent dumping had actually been a huge misunderstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coming to terms with one's past", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Philip confronting memories of an old flame that had dumped him, or so it seemed. He had taken this badly enough to become an alcoholic and it had taken him a decades or so to recover. The grand revelation of the story is that the apparent dumping had actually been a huge misunderstanding. The story concluded with Philip making peace with everything that had happened.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for closure", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns Philip confronting memories of an old flame that had dumped him, or so it seemed. He had taken this badly enough to become an alcoholic and it had taken him a decades or so to recover. Philip had been beating himself up for decades, not only because she dumped him, but also because he couldn't figure out why. After the revelation that it had all been a misunderstanding, it seemed like he came to terms with the situation.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the use of a virtual reality device in the shape of a button that you put on your temple. By using this device, Phillip was taken inside his old memories, and conversed with a sentient digital clone of a girl that turned out to be his old flame's daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on the use of a virtual reality device by which Phillip was taken inside his old memories, and conversed with a sentient digital clone of a girl that turned out to be his old flame's daughter.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with getting dumped", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip described how he had reacted to getting dumped when he proposed: He trashed his hotel room, then \"sank his sadness into the bottle\". It took over a decade for him snap out of it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alcohol abuse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip described how he had reacted to getting dumped when he proposed: He trashed his hotel room, then \"sank his sadness into the bottle\". He had also drunk copious amounts of champagne by himself the night of the proposal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alternate points of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip placed the blame squarely on Carol for things not having worked out between them. However, the digital clone of Carol's daughter confronted Philip about his own actions (e.g., drinking, cheating, and undermining her cello playing in their band) that contributed to the break up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "placing blame", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip laid the blame squarely on Carol for their relationship not having worked out. Over the course of the story, however, Philip came to understand that he was also to blame.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "romantic infidelity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Philip had a one night stand with Emma while Carol was away in London. After finding out about the infidelity, Carol reacted by having a one night stand of her own that left her with child.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being bitter about one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Philip, now old and alone, as he looked back with bitterness on his relationship with the love of his life, Carol. He had never understood why she walked away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boyfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows Philip, now old and alone, as he looked back with bitterness on his relationship with the love of his life, Carol. He had never understood why she walked away from him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "music", "level": "major", "motivation": "Carol was a professional cello player. Phillip was unsupportive of her cello playing, and prevented her from playing it in their rock band.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "absentee father", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly's father was raving conspiracy theorist, deadbeat dad who lived in Manchester.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Kelly's digital clone was looking for information about Kelly's mother to organize the mother's funeral, and possibly make sense of her own life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "blackmirror7x06", "title": "USS Callister: Into Infinity", "date": "2025-04-10", "description": "The USS Callister crew, digital clones within the game Infinity, become space pirates to survive on stolen in-game credits while planning to hack the servers to create their own space. To do so, they require Walt, a respawned clone of CEO James Walton. In the real world, a reporter's questions about rogue players and Robert Daly's illegal cloning alert programmer Nanette, who enters the game with James to identify the clones. They and Nan (Nanette's clone) locate Walt. James kills a clone to avoid legal exposure and is removed from the game. Walt leads the crew to the Heart of Infinity, where they discover a digital clone of Robert and his cloning technology. Robert offers Nan a choice: merge her consciousness with the comatose real-world Nanette, erasing the crew in the process, or transfer the crew and another clone of Nan to a private server while keeping her behind to accompany him. Nan agrees to the private server but refuses to remain with Robert, angering him. James returns disguised as Walt and lures hostile players to attack the Callister. Nan kills Robert, triggering the game's self-destruct, and activates \"copy and paste\" to merge the crew with Nanette's consciousness. Infinity is wiped, James is arrested, and Nan and the crew are thrust into the real world.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-blackmirror.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "what if I was trapped inside a game", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of digital clones who found themselves trapped in a giant space MMORPG.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "digital clone of a person", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story concerns a group of digital clones who found themselves trapped in a giant space MMORPG. Digital cloning had been outlawed because of the ethical concerns involved. As the characters were subjected to various forms of abuse, a central theme of the story is clearly to make the viewer think about the moral status of hypothetical digital humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative virtual reality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story turns on the USS Callister crew's struggle to survive in, and later extricate themselves from, an all-immersive virtual universe reminiscent of Star Trek.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "desperation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Callister crew members, in an act of desperation, resorted to petty banditry to survive in the perilous virtual universe in which they were trapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "major", "motivation": "The game Infinity was played by putting a small button-like device on one's temple.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a person and their clone", "level": "major", "motivation": "A part of the story concerned Nanette encountering her own clone, Nan, inside the game and marveling at what a badass Nan had become due to her harsh travails inside the game where she was trapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "boss and employee", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme was the mean way by which James Walton treated his employees. He insulted them at every turn and generally treated them like dirt. Kabir quit in protest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with a bad boss", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring theme was the mean way by which James Walton treated his employees. He insulted them at every turn and generally treated them like dirt. Kabir quit in protest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I met my double", "level": "major", "motivation": "Nanette and her digital clone Nan teamed up to save the USS Callister crew, of which Nan was captain. By contrast, James tried to eliminate his digital clone Walt.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing adversity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The USS Callister crew members, in an act of desperation, resorted to petty banditry to survive in the perilous virtual universe in which they were trapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "The viewer is made to ponder how real the digital clones were. Nanette and her digital clone quibbled over whom between was the real article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "A point of the story was to highlight the ethical dilemma of whether James Walton's brutal killing, and attempted killings, of digital clones was ethically tantamount to murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning in society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on a digital cloning technique that used \"DNA scans\". This technology was banned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coma", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nanette was hit by a car and fell into a coma from which she was not expected to stir.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative spaceship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Much of the story is set aboard the USS Callister, a futuristic spaceship capable of traveling among the stars in the in-game virtual universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "teleportation device", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Callister was equipped with a transporter that crew members used to beam down to nearby planets.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "journalism", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The New York Times journalist Kris El Masry interviewed Callister Inc. CEO James Walton for what James expected would be a puff piece. The interview quickly turned hostile when James realized that Kris was investigating the company's possible use of a banned digital cloning technology.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blackmail", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Nanette recounted how the digital clones tried to blackmail her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "wilderness survival", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Callister crew rescued Walt from a barren planet where he'd been stranded for years. There, Walt was living in a cave with only a pet rock named \"Rocky\" for company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I discovered that I was a facsimile of someone else", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Walt was surprised to learn that he was a digital clone of Callister Inc. CEO James Walton, and not the real article.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The game Christmas patch was analogized to a wormhole. There was some notion that by flying through a wormhole the USS Callister crew would be freed from the virtual universe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "entrepreneurship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback sequence, James and Robert were shown starting up their new video game company from Robert's garage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the human capacity for good and evil", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Callister Inc. CEO James Walton was Machiavellian in his efforts to keep under wraps any wrongdoing that might tank his company. By contrast, his digital clone Walt, who through fate spent years to himself on a forlorn planet, was a kind person who was disgusted by James' behavior.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the end, the gamers that had been robbed by the desperate USS Callister crew returned seeking retribution.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robert Daly digital clone tested Nan by forcing her to chose between saving herself and saving her crew. She passed his test by choosing to save the crew, leading Robert to reveal that it was a false choice, and that she and the crew could all be saved.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robert Daly digital clone had lived a solitary existence for years at the center of the in-game universe. He tried to make a copy of Nan to stay there with him without her consent, but she got wise to his plan and put a stop to it. Likewise, the James Walton digital clone had been lonely living out his entire existence on a barren planet with only a rock, named \"Rocky\", for company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unbounded thought powers", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Robert Daly digital clone made Nan's face smooth over with a thought and later psionically hurled her against a wall. The viewer is left to assume that he had unlimited powers within the virtual universe in which he was trapped.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "MMORPGs in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story is set inside a Star Trek-inspired MMORPG. An assortment of player became preoccupied with extracting revenge on other players that they perceived had cheated.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "murder", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A point of the story was to highlight the ethical dilemma of whether James Walton's brutal killing, and attempted killings, of digital clones was ethically tantamount to murder.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "being on the run from the law", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The USS Callister crew were living akin to outlaws in the virtual universe, robbing players for credits to stay alive.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x01", "title": "Can't Stop", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "This episode shows the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing their song \"Can't Stop\" live at Slane Castle in 2003, the band and audience depicted as marionettes.\n\nCast: Red Hot Chili Peppers (Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante, Chad Smith)\n\nDirected by: David Fincher.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "music", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Marionette versions of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed their song \"Can't Stop\" at a stadium in front of an enthusiastic marionette audience.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humans in group", "level": "major", "motivation": "The performers and the audience alike were marionettes on strings. They did stereotypical things for their respective roles. For example, a woman in the audience bared her breasts to the stage in her excitement. The viewer is made to wonder whether the setup is a commentary on mindless conformity and celebrity worship.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x02", "title": "Close Encounters of the Mini Kind", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "Presented in the same sped-up miniature style as \"Night of the Mini Dead\", the episode begins with police officers responding to a spaceship landing in the Nevada Desert. Despite coming in peace, the aliens were then killed by the careless officers after mistaking the leader's penis for a gun. In response, a beacon activates, alerting a fleet of flying saucers orbiting Earth. The saucers fly over the United States, destroying landmarks and pulling humans and objects up via tractor beams. Alien troops and tripods descend, attacking civilians worldwide. In retaliation, humans seize alien weapons and dismantle a tripod to utilize its black hole weaponry. This initially works, but the effort backfires when they try to combine the weapons at Dodger Stadium for a killing blow, resulting in the accidental generation of a black hole that destroys the alien fleet, the Earth, and a small part of the Milky Way.\n\nDirected by: Robert Bisi & Andy Lyon.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Grey-type humanoid aliens launched a full-scale invasion of Earth, after their attempt at making a peaceful first contact ended in tragedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "first contact", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story opens with aliens attempting a peaceful first contact with humans after landing their flying saucer in the Nevada Desert. The encounter went disastrously wrong and quickly escalated into a full-scale invasion and a war with which the rest of the story was concerned.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Grey-type humanoid aliens launched a full-scale invasion of Earth, after their attempt at making a peaceful first contact ended in tragedy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an invading force", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of Earth mobilized to combat the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing an overpowering adversary", "level": "major", "motivation": "The nations of Earth mobilized to combat the invading aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative weapon", "level": "major", "motivation": "The alien tripod walkers were equipped with devastating cannons that shot miniature black holes. In their attempt to master the technology, the humans inadvertently created a black hole that swallowed up the entire Earth and a good chunk of its neighborhood in the Milky Way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "humanity's place in the universe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concluded by zooming out to a view of the galaxy and showing humanity disappearing into a black hole with the artistically rendered sound of a fart.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "black hole", "level": "major", "motivation": "Humanity inadvertently created a black hole that swallowed up the entire Earth and a good chunk of its neighborhood in the Milky Way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "flying saucer", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Aliens landed their flying saucer in the Nevada Desert with designs on making a peaceful first contact with humans. The aliens descended on the Earth in an armada of stereotypical 1950s era flying saucers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien abduction", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens beamed away a man while he was in the midst of shagging a cow.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bestiality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The aliens beamed away a man while he was preparing to shag the cow he had just milked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "law enforcement", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The story began with police officers responding to a spaceship landing in the Nevada Desert.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x03", "title": "Spider Rose", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "Set within the universe of \"Swarm\", cyborg-enhanced Lydia Martinez, alias \"Spider Rose\", settles in an asteroid ring after her crew, including her husband, was massacred by Jade of the rival Shaper Council years prior. Bent on revenge, she tries to trade her jewel to a Mechanist investor for a WMD but is instead given a trial with a pet that absorbs DNA from creatures it eats via cocooning. Recovering from her past, Lydia nurtures and bonds with the creature, nicknaming it Nosey. Jade returns and attacks her, but Lydia eliminates his clones and kills Jade Prime. Realizing her habitat is too damaged for survival, she lets Nosey consume her. Afterwards, the investor assesses the jewel and the repossessed Nosey, emerging from its cocoon more human-like.\n\nCast: Emily O'Brien, Feodor Chin, Piotr Michael, Sumalee Montano\n\nDirected by: Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Story by: Bruce Sterling.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lydia was hellbent on avenging the killing of her husband and crew.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "purpose in life", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Lydia had no other interest in life than her desire for vengeance. This was much to the chagrin of the \"Mechanists\" investors, who by treaty were forbidden from trading her the one thing she wanted: a powerful weapon. After adopting a new pet, perhaps supplied as a ruse by the Mechanists, Lydia did find a second thing to live for. Once her desire for vengeance was fulfilled, she willingly gave up her own life in order to save her pet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cyborg", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia, the heroine of the story, was a cyborg with the lion's share of her body having been replaced by mechanical parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia bonded with a cute alien pet, which she nicknamed Nosey, after having been given it for a 96 day trial period. In the end, she encouraged Nosey to consume her, and it later emerged from a cocoon with a face resembling her own.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a spouse", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia was still consumed with grief over her husband’s brutal killing, which had occurred some eight years prior. In one scene, she sobbed after awaking from a dream of being in bed together with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "bio-mimicking life form", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia's pet creature Nosey took on some of her physical characteristics after consuming her.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I found myself in a zero gravity environment", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia and Nosey spent the entirety of the story maneuvering their bodies around in a zero-g environment, much as if they were swimming. Lydia played fetch with Nosey as if it were a dog.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "major", "motivation": "Lydia lived alone in an asteroid field. She dearly missed her departed husband. In one scene, she confided in her new companion Nosey that she'd been \"too long alone\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A slug-like alien with mouth tentacles made Lydia an offer that she could not refuse. Jade and his clones were from a humanoid alien race known as the Sharpers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human cloning", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Jade Prime had had multiple clones, many of which Lydia dispatched in her pursuit of vengeance.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x04", "title": "400 Boys", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "In a postapocalyptic world, Slash hones the psychic ability he shares with the remaining members of his street gang, the 'Brothers', while in hiding. After an enemy attack, they traverse the ruined city and encounter Hilo of the rival gang 'Soooooots', who harbors resentment after the enemy, whom Croak dubs the 400 Boys, wiped out his crew. Slash proposes a parlay to unite the surviving gangs against the 400 Boys. Their path is interrupted by Bala of the 'Galrogs', who leads them to consult with the Old Mother. She reveals that a past war broke the world, allowing \"outside beings\" to \"ooze through the cracks.\" The newly allied gangs gather more fighters and confront the 400 Boys, who manifest as violent, destructive gigantic babies. Despite suffering heavy losses, they manage to defeat the 400 Boys one by one, with Slash executing the last of them.\n\nCast: John Boyega, Ed Skrein, Sienna King, Dwane Walcott, Rahul Kohli, Pamela Nomvete, Amar Chadha-Patel\n\nDirected by: Robert Valley. Story by: Marc Laidlaw.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "post-apocalyptic dystopia", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story is set in the ruins of a bombed out, gang ridden metropolis. It was made clear that this same fate had befallen most, if not all, of the world.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "factions joining forces against a common enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The rival gangs teamed up to battle the baby-shaped gargantuans that were ravaging the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "a common enemy unites", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The rival gangs setting aside their feuds to unite against the baby-shaped gargantuans constitutes a central message of the story.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "nuclear holocaust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Mother made clear that the world was reduced to rubble in a nuclear cataclysm.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "giant monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Four-hundred naked, roaring, chain wielding baby-shaped gargantuans unleashed hell upon the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The rival gangs united to take on the 400 baby-shaped gargantuans that were ravaging the city.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "telekinetic ability", "level": "major", "motivation": "In the opening scene, Slash and some fellow gang members combined their psychic powers to briefly levitate a handgun along with four bullets. Old Mother levitated shards of glass. All of the gangs united to use their psychic powers in ray form against the 400 baby-shaped gargantuans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extra-dimensional being", "level": "major", "motivation": "Old Mother revealed that a past war had broken the world, allowing \"outside beings\" to \"ooze through the cracks\". Presumably this explains the vaguely baby-shaped giant creatures that had thrashed the neighborhood.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "muteness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Croak was mute and communicated using sign language.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cracking under pressure", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Crybaby lost his nerve during the battle against the baby-shaped gargantuans and cowered behind a wrecked car.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the defeat of one's people", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Croak very nearly croaked as his gang, the Soooooots, had been wiped out by the 400 baby-shaped gargantuans.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x05", "title": "The Other Large Thing", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "In this prequel to \"Three Robots\", a disgruntled Persian cat named Sanchez grows frustrated with his human owners, a crude couple he sees as minions. When they bring home a helper robot, Sanchez is initially hostile but comes to appreciate its ability to communicate with him. Aspiring to world domination, he recruits the robot as a servant, renaming it Thumb Bringer. He commands it to feed him, take control of surrounding electronics, and order similar robots for other cats in the building — ultimately to kill all the humans \"for the revolution.\" As he escapes with Thumb Bringer, Sanchez declares a new age and reveals his true name: \"Dingleberry Jones.\"\n\nCast: Chris Parnell, John Oliver, Fred Tatasciore, Rachel Kimsey\n\nDirected by: Patrick Osborne. Story by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story speculates about the cats' and robots' point of view in a world where they are subjugated by humans.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI risk to civilization", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story shows how intelligent cats allied with robots (that had unwisely been outfitted with opposable thumbs) in order to rise up and throw off the yoke of human oppression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "displacement by a rising new species", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story shows how intelligent cats allied with robots (that had unwisely been outfitted with opposable thumbs) in order to rise up and throw off the yoke of human oppression.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns the relationship between a disgruntled Persian cat named Sanchez, and his loathed owners. Unusually, the story largely focuses on the cat's point of view.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "speculative robot", "level": "major", "motivation": "Sanchez the cat was initially threatened when his owners unboxed a new helper robot. The robot did chores around the house, had opposable thumbs, and ha access to its owner's credit card.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "When he gained control of a somewhat humanoid robot, the cat Sanchez' first action was to have it open copious amounts of tuna cans for him.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x06", "title": "Golgotha", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "Father Donal Maguire is briefed on alien marine cephalopods called the Lupo, who initiated contact, desiring to converse with him after he witnesses the supposed resurrection of a dolphin known as Blackfin that the Lupo believes is the Messiah. Pressured by superiors, the military, and public opinion, Donal agrees to meet the alien representative during a walk along the beach. When Blackfin reappears and communicates a 'gospel' to the representative, it concludes that humans have been killing dolphins. In response, it declares a crusade as the Lupo fleet appears in the sky and begins exterminating humanity, much to Donal's dismay.\n\nCast: Rhys Darby, Moe Daniels, Graham McTavish, Phil Morris, Michelle Lukes, Matthew Waterson\n\nDirected by: Tim Miller. Story by: Dave Hutchinson.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "attack from outer space by a genocidal enemy", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Lupo invaded Earth in order to destroy mankind as punishment for the many outrages mankind had perpetrated against sea creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns Father Donal Maguire, a Catholic priest.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "environmental issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerns a dolphin that had perished, along with it's entire pod, due to an oil spill but was said to have miraculously come back from the dead. Cephalopod-like water-dwelling aliens declared the dolphin the Messiah and decided to wreak vengeance upon humanity for its many atrocities against \"those who swim\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war of religion", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Lupo, water-dwelling aliens, declared a crusade against mankind in order to avenge the many outrages it had perpetrated against sea creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "messiah", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story posits that a dolphin who had perished in an oil spill, then risen from the dead, was the Messiah to a cephalopod-like race of aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "extraterrestrial being", "level": "major", "motivation": "A race of cephalopod-like aliens invaded Earth in order to destroy mankind as punishment for the many outrages mankind had perpetrated against sea creatures.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resurrection of the dead", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story posits that a dolphin who had perished in an oil spill, then risen from the dead, was the Messiah to a cephalopod-like race of aliens.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "A key point of the story was to illustrate that aliens who visit Earth won't necessarily think that humans are the most important species that dwell there.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "religious fervor", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Lupo exhibited extraordinary zeal when they traveled across the galaxy to wreak havoc upon Earth in the name of their Messiah, a dolphin dubbed \"Blackfin\".", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A military officer sternly cautioned Father Donal not to \"fuck up\".", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x07", "title": "The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "In the distant future, human society celebrates a royal wedding between nobles from different Jupiter moons in a space arena. The MC introduces the entertainment: a ritual death race between gladiators, including Mei, and a stampede of Triceratops. As the race unfolds, the gladiators eliminate each other until only Mei and another fighter—revealed to be her lover—remain. Mei spares her and wins the duel. The MC, however, announces a final challenge: mounted combat against a Tyrannosaurus that proceeds to kill the lover. Enraged, Mei wounds the beast but eventually empathizes with it, recognizing their shared fate as entertainment for the audience in power. She mounts the Tyrannosaur, and together they kill the bridal couple before succumbing to their injuries.\n\nCast: MrBeast, Bai Ling\n\nDirected by: Tim Miller. Story by: Stant Litore.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "social inequality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story was to compare and contrast the decadent aristocratic spectators with the gladiators they controlled and used for their own entertainment. One gathers that the gladiators had been taken from subjugated peoples. Mei came from the moon Europa and had had nearly all her memories taken from her. Some remnants remained, which caused her to turn on her oppressors in the end.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blood sports", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows Mei as she competes in a ritual death race between between gladiators and a stampede of Triceratops.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. beast", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mei and the other gladiators took part in a ritual death race that featured a stampede of Triceratops. Following the race, Mei was expected to face off against a T-Rex, although she ended up manipulating the ferocious beast into turning on the the two nobles whose marriage the race was put on to commemorate.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "institutionalized human blood sports society", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set in a distant future where ritual combat between human gladiators and dinosaurs is an integral part of society's royal weddings.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "marriage ceremony", "level": "major", "motivation": "The setting of the story is a royal wedding between nobles from different Jupiter moons in a space arena.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if I had to fight to the death", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mei and the other gladiators took part in a ritual death race in which it was presumed they would kill each other down to the last competitor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "space station", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is set on a rotating wheel space station located in the vicinity of Jupiter and its Galilean moons. A novelty of the station was that the inner part of the wheel functioned as a racetrack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mei somehow controlled the T-Rex and turned it on the royal couple in an act of vengeance that had a twofold origin: Her lover had just been killed before her eyes due to the unfair turn in the competition to suddenly unleash a T-Rex. Also remnants of her memories informed her to some extent of the enslaved condition of herself and the people from which came.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with opposing a friend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mei had to fight a deadly fight with her own lover and only narrowly managed to spare the woman's life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "girlfriend and girlfriend", "level": "major", "motivation": "Mei had to fight a deadly fight with her own lover and only narrowly managed to spare the woman's life.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x08", "title": "How Zeke Got Religion", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "During World War II, a bomber crew is tasked with dropping bombs from a B-17 on a church in France. The mission is led by a mysterious man. As they approach the target, a Nazi officer performs a ritual, sacrificing several priests to summon an unknown creature. Despite successfully destroying the church, the creature survives and attacks the bomber midair. It kills most of the crew but is ultimately stopped when Zeke fires a shot that strikes it with the golden cross of another crew member. The force of the impact presses the cross into the creature, killing it. One of the few survivors, Zeke—who had been a nonbeliever—begins to believe in God again.\n\nCast: Keston John, Braden Lynch, Roger Craig Smith, Gary Furlong, Bruce Thomas, Andrew Morgado, Scott Whyte\n\nDirected by: Diego Porral. Story by: John McNichol.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "finding religion", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The encounter with the demonic creature left Zeke, who had hitherto regarded religion with scorn, a believer in the Almighty. This theme is alluded to in the title.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "World War II", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows an Allied Boeing B-17 crew on their mission to bomb a church just across the German border from France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "military related work", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story follows the tight-knit crew of an Allied Boeing B-17 on their mission to bomb a church just across the German border from France.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "A demonic creature with crimson angel wings and a sinister child-like head wrought havoc aboard the Boeing B-17 bomber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "A demonic creature with crimson angel wings and a sinister child-like head wrought havoc aboard the Boeing B-17 bomber.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Allied Boeing B-17 crewmen waged a desperate struggle against a demonic creature with crimson angel wings and a sinister, child-like head.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "demon", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everything points to the Nazis having summoned a demon by use of satanic invocations in the Catholic tradition: The mysterious man spoke in Aramaic. The deed took place in a church. The demon was vanquished by means of a good Catholic cruciform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Christianity", "level": "major", "motivation": "Everything points to the Nazis having summoned a demon by use of satanic invocations in the Catholic tradition: The mysterious man spoke in Aramaic. The deed took place in a church. The demon was vanquished by means of a good Catholic cruciform.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "summoning a malevolent being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is premised on a Nazi officer sacrificing several priests as part of an occultist ritual to summon a demonic creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war crime", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Allied Boeing B-17 crewmen were dispatched on a mission to bomb a church just across the German border from France. When asked by their commanding officer if anyone had an objections with the mission, one crewman quipped that he was fine with it so long as it was a Protestant church. This goes to show that the officers understood that bombing a church, even one overrun with Nazi occultists, was a moral minefield.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human sacrifice", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A Nazi officer sacrificed several priests as part of an occultist ritual to summon a demonic creature.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x09", "title": "Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "In a mockumentary style, several different smart household appliances directly speak to the camera telling how their owners use them.\n\nCast: Melissa Villaseñor, Ronny Chieng, Amy Sedaris, Kevin Hart, Josh Brener, Nat Faxon, Niecy Nash-Betts, Brett Goldstein\n\nDirected by: Patrick Osborne. Story by: John Scalzi.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "speculative smart object", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story speculates about what various common household appliances would be thinking if they were both smart and human-like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story speculates about what various common household appliances would be thinking about their owners if they were both smart and human-like.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexual norms in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Two of the smart objects implied female masturbation. The shower head dreaded being used once again by a woman who hadn't had a date in years. A vibrating dildo said it would much rather watch Squid Games than perform its primary function once more.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "burglary", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A despairing security camera pondered asking the meth-heads to take it with them when they next arrived to burglarize the camera's careless owner's house.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "divorce", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The embattled thermostat foresaw a divorce in the not-too-distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "disintegrating romantic relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The embattled thermostat foresaw a divorce in the not-too-distant future.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The security camera implied meth-heads were hiding nearby. The waffle iron implied that its owner was too busy smoking weed to make waffles.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poor personal hygiene", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Several objects made snide remarks about their owners' poor hygiene.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reincarnation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The smart toilet despaired over its existence and wondered if it had been Stalin in a past life, implying that its current life was punishment for the dictator's sins.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "ldr2019e4x10", "title": "For He Can Creep", "date": "2025-05-15", "description": "London, 1757: A poet in the St Luke's Asylum is forced by Satan to write the one poem that would destroy the world. The poet is defended by the cat Jeoffry but gives in when Satan threatens the cat. Jeoffry allies with his fellow street cats who distract Satan long enough so that Jeoffry can destroy the poem, which succeeds and prevents Satan from destroying the world.\n\nCast: Dan Stevens, JB Blanc, Jim Broadbent, Nika Futterman, Jane Leeves, Dave B. Mitchell\n\nDirected by: Emily Dean. Story by: Siobhan Carroll.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-lovedeathrobots2019.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "the Devil", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story features a battle between a cat and Satan. Satan tried in vain to tempt the cat. Satan coerced an insane poet into writing a poem that would destroy the world, but his ploy was foiled by cats in the eleventh hour.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "alien point of view", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story is largely portrayed from a stereotypically imperious cat's point of view. Among other things, the cat posited that it was Satan that ought to bow to it rather than the other way around. One cat said that cats were descendants of angels, which is what gave them the power to battle with Satan.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "deal with the devil", "level": "major", "motivation": "Satan compelled the poet to make a deal by threatening the poet's cat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "poetry", "level": "major", "motivation": "A poet in the St Luke's Asylum was forced by Satan to write the one poem that would destroy the world. The poet was patterned after Christopher Smart, who wrote the poem \"For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry\", while confined in St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like in a psychiatric institution", "level": "major", "motivation": "A poet in the St Luke's Asylum was forced by Satan to write the one poem that would destroy the world. He was scrawling what one gathers was poetry on the walls of his cell.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "master and pet", "level": "major", "motivation": "The cat Jeoffry regarded the institutionalized poet as his pet. One gathers that the poet saw the arrangement the other way around.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what if the fate of the world was in my hands", "level": "major", "motivation": "Jeffory and his fellow stray cats took it upon themselves to thwart Satan in his attempt to coerced an insane poet into writing a poem that would destroy the world. Although their main motive may have been to protect own possession, the poet, rather than altruism.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "gluttony", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Satan tempted the cat with visions of countless \"treats\" that included, among other things, fish heads with the eyes still in them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "resisting a temptation", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Satan tempted the cat with visions of countless \"treats\" that included, among other things, fish heads with the eyes still in them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The cat's spat with Satan may have been less about saving the world and more about getting back at him for not following through on promises of tasty treats.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x01", "title": "FreeCommerce", "date": "2025-05-16", "description": "A private security cyborg, annoyed by humans, hacks the governor module that forces it to obey their commands. Hiding its new autonomy to avoid being destroyed, the SecUnit renames itself Murderbot on a whim. A team of researchers is compelled to accept Murderbot on their mission to meet their insurance requirements, but are hesitant to do so as it seems akin to slavery. On the planet, Murderbot enjoys watching reruns of television, especially a soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Two researchers come under attack from a massive centipede-like creature, but are saved by Murderbot. Bharadwaj is seriously injured, and Arada goes into shock. While bringing them back to the habitat, Murderbot lowers its mask to reveal a human face, and comforts Arada. After returning to the habitat, the augmented human Gurathin is suspicious of this behavior, as well as other clues that Murderbot is not acting as a SecUnit should. The team realizes there are unexplained gaps in the planetary maps and data provided to them, and Murderbot reassures the crew it has no knowledge of why.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the series is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The series is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts. In this installment, Murderbot expressed his bafflement and disdain with of a group of expeditionary scientists that he joined to investigate a remote planet.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts. Therefore, Murderbot is not a cyborg according to our definition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Upon disabling its \"governor module\" and thus achieving freedom to do as it pleased, Murderbot found itself at something of a loss as to what to do with its life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin, in particular, did not trust Murderbot. The scientists discussed at length to what extent they could trust the android at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "A recurring point was that Murderbot could hear practically any conversation and could access all the security feeds around him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot and the researchers encountered a giant centipede-like creature with maws on either end of it. Murderbot defeated the creature, but not before it had mauled Bharadwaj.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "The planet was home to a species of giant centipede-like creature with maws on either end of them. These creatures were a threat to anyone that left the artificial habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The expeditionary research scientists' society had a code against exploiting AIs as it felt akin to slavery to them to do so.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "out of control AI", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot, who had recently gained autonomy over its own actions, fantasized about murdering the entire team of researchers who he was responsible for protecting.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "married couple", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pin-Lee referred to her \"wife\" as being \"almost eaten\". It was later revealed that they were in fact in a form of polyamorous relationship.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sex-droid", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the space opera Murderbot liked to watch, the captain was accused of having had sex with an android. The android in question protested that it was not a sex-bot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mensah had a panic attack to the point where her heart rate spiked.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mensah expressed reservations about bringing a sentient security android along on the mission because doing so, was in the view of her society, \"tantamount to enslavement\" and prohibited.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human AI relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The captain in the space opera Murderbot liked to watch was passionately in love with the Navigation Unit android.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the expeditionary research scientists felt some compulsion to treat Murderbot as a member of their close-knit team, rather than as the piece of equipment that he insisted that he was.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists' reactions underscored that Murderbot, and to a lesser extent Dr. Gurathin, were anxious and awkward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x02", "title": "Eye Contact", "date": "2025-05-16", "description": "Suspicious of Murderbot, Gurathin convinces Mensah not to bring the SecUnit along when she investigates a distant, unmapped location. Mensah becomes disoriented while out in the field, as another of the same species of creatures that attacked the others bears down on her. It moves past her however, drawn to a specific spot full of dead creatures, killed by ancient alien remnants. Back at the habitat, Murderbot, uncomfortable with conversation and eye contact, is asked by Gurathin to explain if it is acting outside the boundaries of its programming. Gurathin becomes concerned that it has some deleted memories.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the series is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The series is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts. Therefore, Murderbot is not a cyborg according to our definition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin, in particular, did not trust Murderbot. The scientists discussed at length to what extent they could trust the android at length.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "major", "motivation": "On recurring occasions, Murderbot made it clear that he was discomforted by the others' attempts to become more familiar with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A recurring point was that Murderbot could hear practically any conversation and could access all the security feeds around him. Ironically, Murderbot himself didn't like it much that Dr. Gurathin accessed many of his private experiences.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pin-Lee reluctantly agreed to let Ratthi join her and Arada's relationship, after Ratthi and Arada fell for each other. Ratthi enthusiastically accepted the offer, and the trio were seen to initiate intercourse with each other, although exactly how it played out is left to the imagination of the viewer.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sentient rights", "level": "minor", "motivation": "AIs were considered to be people by the Preservation Alliance, according to Dr. Gurathin.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mensah had another run in with a giant centipede-like creature with maws on either end of it, but managed to escape physically unscathed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The planet was home to a species of giant centipede-like creature with maws on either end of them. These creatures were a threat to anyone that left the artificial habitat.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists' reactions underscored that Murderbot, and to a lesser extent Dr. Gurathin, were anxious and awkward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was hiding from the scientists that he'd overrode his governor module.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x03", "title": "Risk Assessment", "date": "2025-05-23", "description": "Looking for answers about the missing maps and the ancient, alien technology the crew attempt to call the other research crew on the opposite side of the planet, but get no response. Out of concern for them they decide to go investigate. Gurathin and Bharadwaj remain behind while the rest of the crew travels. At the other habitat, Murderbot distributes weapons and takes the lead into the investigation. Murderbot walks in alone, and finds its inhabitants dead and other SecUnits destroyed. It lies to its crew and says that everything is fine. Murderbot is attacked by another SecUnit and defeats it, before another SecUnit comes up behind it.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts. Therefore, Murderbot is not a cyborg according to our definition.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "major", "motivation": "On recurring occasions, Murderbot made it clear that he was discomforted by the others' attempts to become more familiar with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists (and Murderbot) found themselves in a life-and-death struggle with a couple of SecUnits hellbent on killing them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "A recurring point was that Murderbot could hear practically any conversation and could access all the security feeds around him. One of the scientists complained that Murderbot reading their logs was an invasion of privacy.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mensah made a casual remark about \"two of her husbands\", implying that polygamy was the norm in the Preservation Alliance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "video gaming", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the younger researchers teased each other about video gaming habits.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists' reactions underscored that Murderbot, and to a lesser extent Dr. Gurathin, were anxious and awkward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was hiding from the scientists that he'd overrode his governor module.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x04", "title": "", "date": "2025-05-30", "description": "Murderbot discovers itself helpless and hallucinating about Sanctuary Moon while being dragged by a hostile SecUnit. After a fight, the hostile SecUnit installs a combat override module into Murderbot. Mensah comes to rescue it, and the other members of the team come to rescue Mensah. Although the hostile SecUnit is defeated by the crew using the hopper as a weapon, Murderbot tells the crew that it has been subverted by the combat override module, and will kill them unless they kill it first. When they fail to act, Murderbot takes a gun from Mensah and shoots itself.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts. Therefore, Murderbot is not a cyborg according to our definition. This installment opens in a SecUnit factory, where the viewer is given a glimpse into the details of their manufacture.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human self-sacrifice for another", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Murderbot shot himself to prevent itself from killing the researchers as it's combat module had been compromised.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "major", "motivation": "On recurring occasions, Murderbot made it clear that he was discomforted by the others' attempts to become more familiar with him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. sentient machine", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists (and Murderbot) went up against a hostile SecUnit that tried to kill them all in a circuitous way: it tried to make it look like Murerbot was the culprit.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "heroism", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mensah went back alone and saved Murderbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The SecUnit factory workers were indentured.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "facing death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot pondered whether this is what dying felt like as he lay critically wounded from the hostile SecUnit's attack.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "social awkwardness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists' reactions underscored that Murderbot, and to a lesser extent Dr. Gurathin, were anxious and awkward.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "having a skeleton in the closet", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was hiding from the scientists that he'd overrode his governor module.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x05", "title": "Rogue War Tracker Infinite", "date": "2025-06-06", "description": "Mensah decides to take Murderbot back to their habitat, when Leebeebee, a surviving member of the DeltFall expedition appears. She confirms that her teammates were killed by seemingly rogue SecUnits. The Preservation team brings her back to their base camp, where they repair and reboot Murderbot. Gurathin, who is still suspicious of the SecUnit, discovers that it has hacked its governor module even before they contracted it, but Mensah declares to still trust Murderbot because of its actions to protect the team. After all that happened, they conclude that there must be an unknown hostile third party on the planet. They agree to activate the emergency beacon, which fails. When Mensah and Murderbot fly to the beacon in order to start it manually, it explodes.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The researchers discovered that Murderbot had hacked its governor module and was therefore a free agent that could have killed them at any time. Murderbot complained about the naivete of the scientists.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI rights", "level": "major", "motivation": "Gurathin uncovered that Murderbot had hacked its governor module, meaning that there was now nothing stopping the android from doing whatever it wanted. This raised the question of what intrinsic freedoms were due to Murderbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot took exception to Dr. Gurathin rummaging about in his mind and discovering that he's hacked his own governor module. This was somewhat hypocritical of Murderbot as he was in the habit of surreptitiously listening in on the scientists' private conversations.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with unwelcome romantic attention", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot and Gurathin both became reluctant objects of Leebeebee's fumbling advances.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leebeebee revealed that she was an indentured servant of the company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x06", "title": "Command Feed", "date": "2025-06-13", "description": "Murderbot and Mensah survived the explosion, but the hopper is damaged, and SecUnit deleted the repair manual in order to make space for a season of Sanctuary Moon. When Mensah is having a panic attack, Murderbot calms her down by showing her an episode of the show. They manage to repair the hopper using neural fibers from Murderbot's spinal cord. Meanwhile at the habitat, Leebeebee tries to get more information about the results of the Preservation survey. When Gurathin refuses to show her the data, she produces a gun, shoots him in the knee, and threatens rest of the team. She admits that she is not a member of DeltFall, but of the third party. Murderbot returns and kills Leebeebee immediately, which leaves the Preservation team in shock. While it gets repaired, Murderbot muses that the others had assumed that it was becoming like them, and that it actually felt good to execute Leebeebee.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cross cultural issue", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot and Dr. Mensah tried to understand one another. Likewise, Leebeebee and the other scientists discussed their contrasting societies and backgrounds.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fictional space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\" was central to Murderbot's character. In this installment, Murderbot was chided by Dr. Mensah for deleting an important repair manual in order to make space for a season of the series. He later played an episode of the series to calm Dr. Mensah in a time of crisis.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "remorse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was chastised and beat himself up because he had purged the repair manual from his mind to make room for a second rate soap opera.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "money isn't everything", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Bharadwaj tried to persuade Leebeebee that money wasn't important to one's happiness but Leebeebee demurred.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three of the researchers who were in some sort of marriage arrangement with each other, were giving massages to each other and talking intimately.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "slavery", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leebeebee stated that she has 4 years of indenture left with her company.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire to have children", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Leebeebee feigned of having a desire to have a kid after her 4 year indenture was up.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "killing in self-defense", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot vaporized Leebeebee's head because she was holding the scientists at gunpoint. One of the scientists reproached Murderbot for shooting without warning or pause.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "psychological stress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Mensah experienced what she believed to be a heart attack, but Murderbot correctly diagnosed it as a panic attack.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x07", "title": "Complementary Species", "date": "2025-06-20", "description": "In a flashback, it is revealed that Gurathin used to be a spy working for the Corporation Rim and was suicidal, before he met Mensah. Meanwhile, the PresAux team prepares to evacuate the habitat, before the hostile third party arrives. Murderbot observes that Gurathin's body temperature is rising. They still take the hopper and try to hide. While the team discusses their situation, two of the centipede-like creatures appear and mate, leaving their eggs attached to the hopper. Shortly after that, a SecUnit of superior make attacks. The team unavailingly tries to help Murderbot fighting the aggressor. But when it accidentally destroys some of the alien eggs, the female returns, bites the SecUnit's head off, collects the remaining egg sacks, and disappears. Gurathin collapses due to his infected wound. Against Murderbot's advice, Mensah orders to take him back to the medical bay of the habitat.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human worrying about self", "level": "major", "motivation": "On recurring occasions, Murderbot made it clear that he was discomforted by the others' attempts to become more familiar with him. In this installment, the scientists' joked about Murderbot's penchant for \"checking the perimeter\" whenever he wanted an excuse to get away from them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew couldn't tell if Murderbot was genuinely trying to help them or secretly setting them up to be brutally killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The crew couldn't tell if Murderbot was genuinely trying to help them or secretly setting them up to be brutally killed.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "fear for one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Dr. Mensah and her crew were on the run from murderous SecUnits and in mortal fear for their lives.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot and the scientists encountered a giant centipede-like creature with maws on either end of it. The creature copulated with a mate on top of the team's vehicle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Some of the scientists discussed with annoyance the fact that Murderbot listened to everything.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Three of the researchers who were in some sort of marriage arrangement with each other, displayed romantic affection.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Gurathin revealed that he'd once been addicted to various substances. He had, in fact, been induced into his addiction by the Corporation Rim which gave him tailor made drugs in order to make him spy for them.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "espionage", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Gurathin revealed that he'd once been a spy for the Corporation Rim.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "suicide", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In a flashback scene, Gurathin revealed that he'd once been suicidal.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mating behavior", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Mensah and her crew witnessed the revolting scene of two bug monsters copulating.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x08", "title": "Foreign Object", "date": "2025-06-27", "description": "Murderbot accompanies the PresAux team back to the habitat. The recording of the security cameras shows that in their absence, more superior SecUnits and a representative of the hostile third party—now identified as GrayCris—visited the habitat and left an invitation to meet at a rendezvous point to negotiate terms for their survival. After a security check, the PresAux team take Gurathin to the medical bay. While Bharadwaj performs surgery on Gurathin's leg, Murderbot plugs into his data port to turn off his sense of pain. The connection allows Gurathin to find out what it calls itself and that the SecUnit was involved in the deaths of 57 clients, which Gurathin reveals to the group and condemns Murderbot for. Murderbot admits it's not sure if it killed the clients or not and agrees with Gurathin's assessment that it could be defective and dangerous, then it leaves the group to go out on its own. The PresAux team concludes that GrayCris is illegally after the alien remnants and that they will liquidate them once they find out their location. After mulling whether to abandon or betray its clients, Murderbot comes back and announces that it has a plan.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists discovered that Murderbot had killed a mining crew of 57 people in the past. They, again, discussed whether and to what extent they could trust it or were safe being around it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust in a potential foe", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists discovered that Murderbot had killed a mining crew of 57 people in the past. They, again, discussed whether and to what extent they could trust it or were safe being around it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot \"plugged into\" Dr. Gurathin and rummaged around in his mind. Murderbot, hypocritically, got upset when Dr. Gurathin turned the tables on him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polyamorous relationship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Pin-Lee, Arada, and Ratthi were in some sort of marriage arrangement with each other. Ratti declared that he could no longer do the \"tripartite arrangement\" because he had fallen in love with only Pin-Lee.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "AI safeguards", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the space opera Murderbot liked to watch, the Navigation Bot assured the crew that that she was incapable of endangering their lives shortly before dooming them out of revenge for having wiped her memories of her former lover.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "traversable wormhole", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In the space opera Murderbot liked to watch, the captain ordered the Navigation Bot to guide the ship through a wormhole.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Gurathin refused pain killers prior to his emergency surgery out of concern that taking them would lead him to relapse.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unrequited love", "level": "minor", "motivation": "While rummaging around in Gurathin's mind, Murderbot uncovered that Gurathin was tortured by the belief that Mensah didn't reciprocate his love.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x09", "title": "All Systems Red", "date": "2025-07-04", "description": "Murderbot puts a dangerous plan into motion, pretending to betray the PresAux team in order to leave the planet. While the team expresses doubts and tension rises, Murderbot keeps the true plan hidden: to have Gurathin hack into GrayCris's HubSystem using a drone as a transponder and launch their emergency beacon. The ruse includes offering to help GrayCris capture the Preservation team in exchange for being listed as destroyed inventory. Murderbot stalls the enemy using awkward small talk and quotes from Sanctuary Moon, while the PresAux team manages the remote connection. As the plan begins to succeed, GrayCris prepares to torture Murderbot for the information they seek. Mensah intervenes and is caught in the crossfire. In the end, Murderbot shields her from the beacon's launch blast, which kills the GrayCris team, nearly sacrificing itself. Before Murderbot's systems fail, it quietly admits to itself that these humans have become its clients not just by contract, but by choice.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sacrifice for a friend", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Murderbot almost died to save the scientists. Dr. Mensah risked the scientists and herself to save Murderbot. In the end Murderbot used his own body to cushion Dr. Mensah from a long fall.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "trust", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists went along with Murderbot's plan despite having no way of knowing whether it would end with the android killing them all.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The scientists were stunned when it seemed that Murderbot had callously betrayed them to the GrayCris team in exchange for safe transport from the planet. Alas, it was only a ruse.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "murderbot1x10", "title": "The Perimeter", "date": "2025-07-11", "description": "As Murderbot's systems reboot, Corporation Rim technicians delete its memory and install a new governor module. At the same time, the PresAux team negotiates with company representatives to find the SecUnit. They offer to buy it and threaten with a lawsuit, but the company refuses, telling them that its memory has been wiped anyway. So Pin-Lee files an injunction to seize Murderbot for evidentiary reasons, while Gurathin manages to retrieve the data that was downloaded during the memory wipe. He locates Murderbot's personality files by searching Sanctuary Moon episodes. The team saves Murderbot from being destroyed, and Gurathin uploads its personality. It recognizes that without its armor it looks like an augmented human. The team invites Murderbot to live as a free agent on their home planet. That night, Murderbot attempts to sneak away but is intercepted by Gurathin, who tries to make it feel welcome. Murderbot insists that it needs to check the perimeter. When Gurathin relents, Murderbot thanks him. Posing as a servant bot, it boards a transport ship that departs as Mensah awakens and realizes that it has left.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/television/tv-murderbot2025.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "AI point of view", "level": "choice", "motivation": "A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "android", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "personal identity", "level": "major", "motivation": "A central question was whether and to what extent SecUnit, aka. Murderbot, could ever be the same \"person\" after having undergone a memory wipe.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "figuring out what to do with one's life", "level": "major", "motivation": "Liberated from the company, Murderbot found himself at something of a loss regarding what to do with his life.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "memory erasure", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot's memory was wiped. The story turned on the scientists working to get Murderbot his memories and personal identity back.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "belonging", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists felt strongly that Murderbot was a valued member of their close-knit group, so much so that they went through hell and high water to save him. In the end, however, Murderbot rejected their invitation and went his own way.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The scientists were a close-knit group of friends that went out on a limb to save Murderbot.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for freedom", "level": "major", "motivation": "Murderbot didn't know what he wanted out of life, but he knew he didn't want anyone to tell him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brain-computer interface", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "drug abuse", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Dr. Gurathin had been addicted to some tailor made drugs.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "soap opera", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Murderbot was a fan of the space opera \"Sanctuary Moon\", all the episodes of which he had downloaded and watched inside his mind. In this installment, Murderbot bribed a robotic train with the full collection of \"Sanctuary Moon\" episodes in exchange for passage.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "labor strikes in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Corporation Rim security was dealing with a labor uprising.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "movie: Frankenstein (2025)", "title": "Frankenstein", "date": "2025-08-30", "description": "Frankenstein is a 2025 American Gothic science fiction drama film produced, written, and directed by Guillermo del Toro, based on the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley. The film stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the Creature, with Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz in supporting roles. The story follows the life of Frankenstein, an egotistical scientist whose experiment in creating new life results in dangerous consequences.", "collections": [ "Collection: Frankenstein" ], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(2025_film)" ], "source": "./notes/stories/film/film-scifi-2020s.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "obsession with a life-dedicated project", "level": "choice", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein was maniacally fixated on \"curing\" death through science. Because Victor refused to fall in line by ceasing his research in the reanimation of corpses, he was expelled from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "maker and monster", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The story explores the tortured relationship between Victor Frankenstein and the miserable creature he created.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the flip side of immortality", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Creature lived as an outcast from society and longed for death, but could not die because its flesh regenerated almost instantly from any injury.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "loneliness", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Creature was lonely and condemned to a life of solitude. It tried to convince Victor to create for it a companion, but Victor refused.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the need for companionship", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The Creature was condemned to a life of solitude, and demanded of Victor to fashion for him a companion monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "playing God with nature", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein's work on reviving the dead using electricity was decried by the establishment as an unholy abomination, and that the giving and taking of life was the sole province of God.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein was determined to conquer death itself by reviving the dead using electricity. He shockingly asserted that \"Perhaps God is inept!\" when told by establishment figures that the giving and taking of life was the sole province of God. He followed through on his allegedly blasphemous plan by bringing life to a patchwork man assembled from miscellaneous body parts, but the result was a monstrosity. In short, Victor put himself above God with catastrophic results.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride goes before a fall", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein hubristically imitated God by making a monster out of miscellaneous body parts. The Creature ended up being the cause of the deaths of those closest to Victor. It then proceed to harrow and torture Victor in its attempt to persuade him to create it a companion monster.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "pride in one's own creation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein was initially over the Moon at having used science to bring life to a patchwork man assembled from miscellaneous body parts. He, however, fell into despair once it became apparent that he had created a monstrosity seemingly capable of uttering one word only.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mad scientist stereotype", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein isolated himself in a Gothic-looking laboratory where he maniacally set about bring life to a patchwork man assembled from the body parts of hanged criminals and fallen soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "scientist occupation", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein was pioneering the reanimation of dead bodies through the simple expedient of sending lightning mediated electric currents through their lymphatic systems.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "undead being", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Creature was a patchwork man assembled from the body parts of hanged criminals and fallen soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being an outcast", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Creature lived as an outcast from society and longed to die.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unkillable attribute", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Creature was cursed with flesh that regenerated from any physical damage it sustained.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and brother", "level": "major", "motivation": "Victor and William Frankenstein had a frosty relationship as youths, but warmed up to each other as they became older and wiser.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "engaged couple", "level": "major", "motivation": "William and Elizabeth very nearly tied the knot, Victor's attempts to get between them notwithstanding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "reconciliation", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story culminated with Victor Frankenstein reconciling with the Creature that he had created, as Victor laid on his deathbed. Victor gave the Creature his blessing, and the Creature forgave him.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "polar exploration", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Anderson and his crew managed to get their iron-hulled ship trapped in ice while sailing for the North Pole. While trapped they encountered a gravely injured Victor Frankenstein along with the Creature he'd created. In the end, the Creature took mercy on them and used its prodigious strength to free their vessel, whereupon they set sail for home.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "super strength", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Creature possessed prodigious strength. Notably, it heaved Captain Anderson's ice-bound ship up out of the frozen waters in which it was lodged.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "father and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Victor didn't get on well with his stern father, Leopold Frankenstein, who was a surgeon of some renown.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Victor loved his mother and blamed his father for her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "what it is like to be pregnant", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Claire Frankenstein's physician husband forced her on a blood-drinking diet to keep her strength up during her pregnancy. She nevertheless died in child birth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with the death of a parent", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Young Victor grieved for his mother after she died in childbirth. He blamed his father for her death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "uncle and niece", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander interacted with his niece, Elizabeth.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "electricity", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein used electricity, harnessed through lightning, to bring to life a patchwork man assembled from the body parts of hanged criminals and fallen soldiers.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "historical event", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein rummaged around a frozen battlefield of the ongoing Crimean War in search of body parts.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "war", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander was profiting from dealing arms to at least one of the belligerents in the Crimean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "capital punishment", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, several condemned men were shown waiting in line with trepidation to be hanged before a cheering crowd.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "invasion of privacy", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor brazenly concealed himself in a confessional and heard Elizabeth's confession.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "arms trade", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander was profiting from dealing arms to at least one of the belligerents in the Crimean War.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with having a chronic condition", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander had advanced syphilis. He funded Victor's research with the ulterior motive that it would lead to a cure for his ailment.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "sexually transmitted disease in society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander quipped \"One night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury\" when he explained his condition, syphilis, to Victor.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hunting", "level": "minor", "motivation": "In one scene, the Creature was shot by a small band of hunters who were out looking for game.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "blindness", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The rustic family grandfather was blind and helpless.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "compassion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind man took pity on the Creature and befriended it.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "friendship", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The blind man took pity on the Creature and befriended it. He affirmed their friendship with his dying words.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the quest for immortality", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Harlander suffered from advanced syphilis and had little time left to live. He bankrolled Victor's research in the expectation that Victor would somehow reanimate Harlander after death.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "unethical experimentation for scientific progress", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor's peers at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh the were horrified he demonstrated to them a macabre reanimated head and torso.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "revival long after death", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Victor Frankenstein reanimated a head and torso in front of a visibly horrified college of surgeons.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the making of a monster to society", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Creature that Victor created was initially gentle and innocent. Because Victor and others treated the creature with cruelty, it eventually became vindictive and violent. It killed several sailors and was partly responsible for the deaths of several people at the wedding.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "coping with being disfigured", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Creature was rejected by people out of hand on account of its grotesque appearance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "human vs. monster", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Captain Anderson and his crew were terrorized by the Creature.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "cruelty", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The Creature resented the cruelty which which Victor had treated it while chained up in the tower dungeon.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "writing: Orestia (458 BC)", "title": "Oresteia", "date": "458 BC", "description": "The Oresteia (Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BC, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Erinyes. The trilogy—consisting of Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων), The Libation Bearers (Χοηφóρoι), and The Eumenides (Εὐμενίδες)—also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BC. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. Oresteia originally included a satyr play, Proteus (Πρωτεύς), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of Proteus has been lost.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia" ], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-classicalantiquity.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "killing wicked people", "level": "choice", "motivation": "The social ethical dilemma at the heart of the story is whether a man may justly slay his own mother if she has killed his father. One argument against this was that husband and wife don't share blood whereas mother and son do; a counter argument was that a mother is merely a crucible for the father's seed and thus deserve far less loyalty from her offspring than do the father.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "matricide", "level": "major", "motivation": "The point of the story was to debate whether Orestes' slaying of his own mother could possibly be justified.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "spouse murder", "level": "major", "motivation": "The story concerned the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "Electra and Orestes wanted to avenge their father Agamemnon's murder at the hands of Clytemnestra.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for justice", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apollo in particular was concerned with seeing justice visited on Clytemnestra; the Furies were keen on seeing Orestes suffer justice (as they saw it) for committing matricide.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "Ancient Greek mythology", "level": "major", "motivation": "Apollo, Athena, and the Furies made explicit appearances in part 3 and the morality of Orestes crime was debated with reference to things the Gods had done.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and son", "level": "major", "motivation": "Clytemnestra and Orestes; Orestes occasionally reflected on his relationship to her", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "brother and sister", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Orestes and Electra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "husband and wife", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Agamemnon and Clytemnestra", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mother and daughter", "level": "minor", "motivation": "Clytemnestra", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "aesop001pi", "title": "The Eagle and the Fox", "date": "564 BC", "description": "The Eagle and the Fox is a fable of friendship betrayed and revenged. Counted as one of Aesop’s Fables, it is numbered 1 in the Perry Index. The central situation concerns an eagle that seizes a fox’s cubs and bears them off to feed its young. There are then alternative endings to the story, in one of which the fox exacts restitution while in the other it gains retribution for its injury.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-aesop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "friendship", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fox and the eagle had long been friends.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "betrayal", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eagle suddenly betrayed the fox.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "mercy", "level": "major", "motivation": "In mercilessly ignoring the entreaties of the fox, the eagle sealed its own doom.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The fox burned down the eagle's tree in an act of vengeance.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "hubris", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eagle thought itself safe from the fox as it was high up in a tree, but the fox was cunning and burned down the tree.", "capacity": "" } ] }, { "story-id": "aesop003pi", "title": "The Eagle and the Beetle", "date": "564 BC", "description": "The story of the feud between the eagle and the beetle is one of Aesop's Fables and often referred to in Classical times. It is numbered 3 in the Perry Index and the episode became proverbial. Although different in detail, it can be compared to the fable of The Eagle and the Fox. In both cases the eagle believes itself safe from retribution for an act of violence and is punished by the destruction of its young.", "collections": [], "component-story-ids": [], "references": [], "source": "./notes/stories/literature/writing-aesop.st.txt", "themes": [ { "name": "hospitality", "level": "major", "motivation": "The eagle broke the custom of hospitality and was therefore hounded by the beetle and chastised by Zeus.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "the desire for vengeance", "level": "major", "motivation": "The Beetle sought to avenge itself on the eagle.", "capacity": "" }, { "name": "organized religion", "level": "minor", "motivation": "The eagle was said to have slighted Zeus when it broke the custom of hospitality despite entreaties in Zeus' name.", "capacity": "" } ] } ] }